D&D NEXT: Infinite Posts of the Abyss

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > D&D NEXT: Infinite Posts of the Abyss

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

Iny posted:

Okay, I'll concede that you guys have a point and also that the argument is incredibly stupid in any case and very definitely shouldn't be any sort of balancing factor, but hold on a second:

Nearly every wizard is wearing splint mail or full plate? Are you talking about 5e specifically, and if so, hey guys, is this even remotely true in 5e? Because I've never heard anyone else claim anything like this for any other edition, and I can tell you that it's certainly not true in 4e or 3.x.

in 4E Wizard AC is not bad; it scales with INT and wizards have really good utility defensive interrupts that are encounter based. you don't wear plate, but you can have AC that is comparable to plate wearers. In general, wearing plate doesn't mean high AC in 4E.

In 5E, a single level of cleric makes you lose almost nothing and gives you full plate and a shield.

# ¿ Dec 30, 2014 23:04

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 16, 2024 00:04

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

gradenko_2000 posted:

Crossbow Expert Feat:
1. You ignore the loading quality of crossbows with which you are proficient.
2. Being within 5 feet of a hostile creature doesn’t impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls.
3. When you use the Attack action and attack with a one-handed weapon, you can use a bonus action to attack with a loaded hand crossbow you are holding.

Archery Fighting Style:
You gain a +2 bonus to attack rolls you make with ranged weapons.

The way this works is, you take the Archery Fighting Style so that your to-hit is 10% better than any Fighter using a melee weapon, but you can still use hand crossbow in melee because the #2 clause of Crossbow Expert removes the drawbacks of trying to use a ranged weapon while someone is in your face.

The #1 clause of Crossbow Expert means you still get full use of your multiple attacks

Why a shield? The #3 clause of Crossbow Expert never specifies that the "one-handed weapon" and "a loaded hand crossbow you are holding" have to be two different weapons. So you can take full advantage of the #3 clause with a single hand crossbow, and then have a shield in your off-hand so that you have equal or better AC than any Fighter using a melee weapon.

A sword-and-board Fighter isn't going to have the bonus attack
A two-handed Fighter isn't going to have the bonus attack and will have worse AC because they don't have a shield
A dual-wielding Fighter is going to have worse AC because they don't have a shield. Even if they take the Dual-Wielder Feat, they're still 1 AC behind.

And all three of them will have 2 less attack bonus because they can't utilize the Archery Fighting Style; a dual-wielder has the bonus attack, but literally has to take the Two Weapon Fighting Fighting Style in order to add their STR/DEX modifier to the bonus attack's damage, but the bonus attack from Crossbow Expert has no such limitation.

You forgot the feat to take a -5 to hit for +10 damage. The +2 to hit helps alleviate the penalty a lot, as does ignoring the penalty for being in melee. All in all its probably the strongest thing you can do as a martial. The bonus attack is just super good since its +dex modifier AND +10 damage. At the levels you can start this combo off at (level 4 for a Human), it is absolutely devastating. Starts to lose some steam as HP begins to scale up past level 10 of course, but everyone has that problem.

Plus a shield and hand-crossbow lets you look like World War 2 captain america.

# ¿ Jan 2, 2015 17:57

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

Jimbozig posted:

It seems we need more data on combat length. Lots of people say it's shorter, but they have mostly (all?) been playing at very low levels. The few reports from high levels that I have seen all report long combat times. But, in fairness, that might be partly due to inexperience with the complexities of high level characters.

What complexity of high level characters? Do you mean longer spell lists? Because its not like Martial characters ever get more complex.

# ¿ Jan 3, 2015 04:20

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

mango sentinel posted:

Rifts is the best setting even if the system is trash

No its a bunch of garbage thrown together with a few novel, interesting elements and a whole lot of trash. I think calling it "pearls in mud" would be too generous. But everyone knows RIFTS was crazy and stupid, it never pretended to be anything but RIFTS. D&D Next was advertised differently, and promised different things as a game. The setting has always been D&D, which has now become "generic fantasy", which is funny because it isn't. It is very uniquely D&D.

# ¿ Jan 8, 2015 15:59

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

CobiWann posted:

So here's my pre-gen...Half-Elf Sorcerer, level 6, Draconic Lineage (Brass), Empowered Spell, Twinned Spell, Defining Event (stood alone against a Banshee), Rustic Hospitality, War Caster. I'm not used to "spell points" and the like, but otherwise I'm definitely psyched for this Sunday.

Yeah that is solid enough, you are not wearing full plate and a shield but not everyone can be an awesome Wizardman

# ¿ Jan 8, 2015 16:32

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

homullus posted:

There's this character generator at least.

Oh man it rolled me up a rad necromancer immediately, I can recommend this for the true powergamers of 5E:

FRANK HUMAN WIZARD FROM A SMALL TOWN TAVERN WHO WAS RAISED BY GHOSTS

# ¿ Jan 8, 2015 17:29

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

Allstone posted:

Yeah, it's a well known factor that 3.5's in-combat healing was a wasted action unless it was Heal.

This is still true past a certain level in D&D Next; once you can cast Heal, pumping a lower level spell up with a higher slot is a waste when you can cast Heal instead.

# ¿ Jan 12, 2015 19:45

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

I honestly feel like all of the interesting 5E builds have been found, at least until the put out some splatbook with crazy crap it in a'la 3X. Who knows, maybe they'll put out an actual OGL (lol) and we'll have d20 D&D products flying around like crazy again.

I can't imagine how bad they would be, given the loose design already on display - I suppose they can't be any worse.

# ¿ Jan 12, 2015 23:50

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

Kai Tave posted:

It is a system problem when the system itself doesn't give clear guidelines and the designers tout "rulings not rules" as a universal cure-all. This is a perfect example of rulings-not-rules in action, you don't get to just cherry pick all the examples of GMs making non-lovely rulings and decide that all the examples like this guy don't count.

Also you have very clear rules for certain things (damage, spells, etc) but not for "What you can reasonably expect to accomplish with skills". Its all a big mess anyway because skills still don't provide any narrative control to the player.

quote:

Players clearly succeeded and rolled high on a skill check. DM says they fail anyway. How is this a system specific problem? Why couldn't this happen in any other game system? You are so enamored with blaming everything on 5e. Pull that head out of your rear end.

Calm down, bucko. There are no specific rules for what the player was attempting (getting a discount via persuasion). Hell, there is not even a "say yes, but" generic rules guideline for skills.

The player rolled a high skill check. There are no rules for what that actually means with a lot of skills; the DM can set the DC ahead of time for a specific task, but "I talk to the guard. I rolled a 25 persuasion. Does he let me in to the castle?" - the rules say "The DM decides". There are certain suggestions, but its not explicitly "If you succeed, the NPC believes your bluff" or "The NPC is favorably disposed to you" or "You can narrate the NPC's reaction to your argument" etc.

It just moves the response entirely to the DM's hands, who, in the rules, can just say "Nothing happens." - and be completely justified in the rules, because they tell the DM to decide.

That is a 5E problem, because the game keeps telling the DM to decide and says to rule how you like it for your D&D, as opposed to providing clearer guidelines.

This is across the board, from making monsters to adjudicating unexpected actions etc. In a perfect world the DM is cool and clever and just does it well. It doesn't always happen, and because the guidelines are explicitly written - designed - to be "its your ruling" - you are going to get lovely rulings. Its not like the DMG does a great job training a DM how to be cool and clever and amazing.

Edit: Note that I think that "Its your ruling" can work fine - if there was clear and explicit guidance as to what TYPE and STYLE of rulings you should make. D&D 5E explicitly avoids this! D&D 4E had much clearer guidance on "saying yes" for example in the rules, and page 42 of the PHB (Actions the Rules Do Not Cover) was a great example of clear guidance on "what to do". Shame no one ever read it.

Laphroaig fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Jan 20, 2015

# ¿ Jan 20, 2015 19:04

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

ascendance posted:

This is a huge gap in a lot of games that is not at all unique to D&D.

And ideally, people should be running games so that skills provide some measure of narrative control. But this is rarely explicitly laid out. And DMs should be responding to skill use by saying yes, and possibly providing some kind of complication.

Like the cited example... wouldn't it be more fun if the players get a cheap room, but someone tries to burgle them in the middle of the night?

I 100% agree with you. I just wish more games had that measure of narrative control written in and assumed on both sides. Its not a failing unique to 5E, but I personally wanted 5E to be better than any D&D before it.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2015 19:18

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

instead of just bashing 5E why don't we have a serious talk about fetuses as a material component, god this thread is just so anti for no reason

# ¿ Jan 20, 2015 21:42

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

i like how they never solved the problem of the value of flanking and positioning granting advantage and just threw it into the DMG as an optional rule, or told the DM to adjudicate it.

good game design

# ¿ Jan 22, 2015 18:21

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

I think inspiration for Ideals, Flaws, and Bonds is a Good Idea and that if you don't include it as a reward for good roleplaying you are just shortchanging your games.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2015 16:48

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

My hope is that D&D Next isn't D&D Last. Until we see sales numbers we can't say for sure; WotC lays off people every December, regularly, so it doesn't surprise me that they trimmed staff (again). 4E's decline, as it were, is interesting as a quick google of "Why did 4E fail?" gets you articles from 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 - so I am wary of doing the same for Next.

My general thoughts that no one asked for on D&D:

As an RPG, D&D is basically dead or niche. I think 4E was the last real attempt that WotC will make at modernizing D&D, and the Pathfinder / 4E split effectively killed the brand and market again. Next was probably fairly cheap to make; it feels cheap, at least, in terms of the work (and lack thereof) that went into it.
The existence of Pathfinder means that D&D-as-3rd, combined with Next, will be dominant "branch" of D&D. That is an old product, and in the D20 boom I think we have seen every possible iteration of that system and design philosophy. Those games have all been made. I honestly feel that the 3.X base system's intellectual space has been fully discovered at this point.
The D&D game will continue to stumble onwards in some manner, but Next was so risk-adverse a release that we are not going to see anything truly different or interesting or modern come out of the D&D game unless Next fails terribly (unlikely) and they just say "gently caress it" and make a new game (also unlikely, why would you if the previous product failed?). Again, going back to a 3.X core design to fight against Pathfinder's market share strikes me as losing that fight before it starts. No one playing Pathfinder is renouncing it for D&D Next.
The D&D IP has nostalgia factor, and has the Neverwinter and Eberron based MMOs. But I don't think the D&D IP has any value past that; its basically a trashy joke. Examples: Terrible D&D movies. Terrible D&D books. Some of those particular IPs in books have value; Drizzt for example. But D&D as a whole? The part that Hasbro and WotC owns? That is not a valuable brand to build off of. Everyone "knows" what D&D is, but its heyday was the original red box. Its just hard to build value there with a legacy of so much derivative crap. There are much better things to turn into video games that don't involve you having to pay a fee for a property that no one wants outside of nostalgia value.

I've played Next from levels 1 to 7 with a range of characters. The game is basically just boring by itself, the encounter and monster design is a massive step backwards, and Spell Descriptions take up half the core book. The DMG is uninspired. The base philosophy of the game, Rulings not Rules, would be great if the actual Rules parts didn't feel so goddamn LAZY.

Thats my nerd analysis.

# ¿ Jan 29, 2015 16:14

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

They were missing a rocking soundtrack

# ¿ Jan 29, 2015 20:28

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

CaptainPsyko posted:

In fairness, this is also exactly what they did 7 years ago when they released 4E, aside from needing the "why are our sales so lovely?" Followup.

It worked once.

Gonna chime in here and say drat was pathfinder's marketing campaign about this good. Considering its in the nerd hivemind now, well done Paizo.

Like people have said, everything in 4E is an evolution of late 3.5, expanding and building upon ideas from the last books while fixing serious core mechanical problems with the system. Things like fixing action economy, fixing spellcaster supremacy, fixing monster design, fixing encounter design - 4E is basically 3.5E with a lot of major complaints of the system addressed.

# ¿ Jan 30, 2015 01:25

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

I also backed it, I hope this is as successful as many other goon projects ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

# ¿ Jan 30, 2015 23:15

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

I don't see why you couldn't tie in place or mount your skeleton crossbowmen directly onto the Skelephants, creating a terrible monstrosity of fused bone. This would give the skeleton crossbow users clearer fire lanes, and directly improve their mobility. Plus I am pretty sure you could fuse 10 or so human skeletons to a Skelephant like some kind of horrific crown-roast, and/or just tie them to stakes that are then fixed in place into the Skelephant; they wouldn't need legs, just torsos, heads, and arms, so they could pivot 360 and have a full range of firing.

This significantly helps on bringing multiple skeletons into a dungeon environment.

# ¿ Feb 2, 2015 17:54

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

There is no build advice to give. There are no builds. Rogue, normal non-magic guy, is basically kind of crap compared to the other options that do the same things.

Make a rogue. Pick a race you like. Put your stats in DEX and CHA. Pick a weapon you like. Pick a background you like (criminal? con artist?). Pick skills you like.

Done. At level 3 choose Assassin path. You are not going to be any better or worse than any other rogue. Bard and Warlock are off the table because they use magic so there really is no advice to give. Both of those classes are better at being a con-man btw.

# ¿ Feb 2, 2015 23:09

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

moths posted:

It really is 3.pf Essentials.

I have to say the huge and complete lack of options and choices, compared to previous D&Ds, certainly makes building a character faster. How come no one is vigorously complaining that 5E is dumbed down D&D for WoW babbies though? Again, but gently caress me if Paizo's marketing campaign wasn't the slickest poo poo since butter on bread.

# ¿ Feb 2, 2015 23:14

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

Sage Genesis posted:

Wait, so... Changeling can polymorph into people.

So what's "polymorph"? I would assume that it works as per the spell with the same name, yes? No other definition I could fine. Now, that spell has some limitations on the form but the specific beats the general, and so the Changeling can become a humanoid (only) and its gear doesn't change with it. Great.

Now. The new shape can't speak or perform any action which requires hands. Because that's what the spell says. But it also says they gain all stats of the new shape, which would presumably include the ability to speak. Specific beats general, again. If they polymorph into a spellcaster, can they now cast their spells as well? The wording of the spell implies that they can, since the only reason why the Polymorph spell says they can't is due to physiological limitations which a copied humanoid shape wouldn't have.

DM's call.

# ¿ Feb 2, 2015 23:17

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

goatface posted:

Polymorph (the spell) is explicitly into a beast (i.e. an animal), you can't use your hands or speak because you are now a dog.

Polymorphing into a person (and gaining their mental stats) would presumably allow you to be a caster.

That's up to your DM.

# ¿ Feb 2, 2015 23:28

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

Die Laughing posted:

You loving spergs. He doesn't care about what you think is better than a rogue.

got anything to contribute about rogues in D&D or D&D next or did you just come in here to take a poo poo and tell us that you were a big boy? just because its got the name 'rogue' doesn't mean it lets you mechanically do the kinds of things that we associate with rogues; the label on the box is a misleading. If you just want to roleplay the class label doesn't matter, so I focus on mechanics in a system first and then just roleplay the thing I want to be second.

30.5 Days posted:

Hiding in combat has always been basically DM fiat (except in 4th), but because they weirded flanking, people are just now starting to notice that in 5th.

and 4E's rules of hidden club were strange and arcane. still the best stealth-in-combat rules of any D&D so far

Laphroaig fucked around with this message at 00:42 on Feb 3, 2015

# ¿ Feb 3, 2015 00:38

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

Generic Octopus posted:

You don't have to be, but they're better at everything.

Pretty much. Also everything the rogue can do, like disguises or hiding, is duplicated with spells, except your average DM will nod their head approvingly at a spell but come down hard on use of skills.

In this thread, multiple players have complained about, or DM-goons have asked advice on how to handle, the following:

Hiding in combat
Using persuade to get past guards
How perception, investigation, and trap detection works
How to use disguise kits/disguises

Each interaction with these rules elements has been along the lines of "The rules are unclear so I rolled a die and then my DM told me no."

Hiding - invisibility spells
Persuade - Charm spells
Traps/Detection - Owl familiar is a tiny radar array with its 18 passive perception. Find Traps the spell exists.
Disguise Kits/Disguises - Alter Self / Polymorph line of spells

Spells are explicitly written as to what they do. Skills are a constant game of DM-may-I.

I think you can play the skill dude or dudette; but before you sit down for the campaign go over what your skills do and do not let you do, and the kind of DCs the DM wants. Get the DM to commit to this in writing so they understand that you expect to be able to contribute as much as a magic user would.

quote:

"Lol I remember when I though you should do A, A is so terrible, you should only do B. Anyone who disagrees with me is wrong and bad".

which was said by literally no one. D&D Next has serious issues with character agency because spells let you do X but skills require "DM's Call." I've seen 4 different DMs, in play, handle skills 6 different ways (two changed how they did it after a few sessions). If your concept is skilldude you have to really explicitly get buy in on what skilldude can and cannot do. The scope of what skills let you do is going to vary dramatically from one DM to another. Spells do not have this problem.

Laphroaig fucked around with this message at 03:38 on Feb 3, 2015

# ¿ Feb 3, 2015 03:33

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

Kitchner posted:

Yeah I will agree with this though, but I think that's a mixture of DM problems and lovely written rules. If you have a DM who says "right, here is how stealth is going to work, as long as you follow these rules we're talking about now you can use it however you like" then that's cool, if you have a DM who is fussy about some stuff it's easier to go "Well I cast the invisibility spell, I rolled X which means it works, I am now invisible. It says so in the rules".

I agree about the DM fussyness; if not for the fact that there was literally a dude in this thread complaining about how his DM was loving his class feature over on the disguise thing, I'd even agree that the disguise feature is clearly written as to how it works. Some people just can't get over non-magical poo poo being convincing and/or possible. See: the entirety of the Pathfinder design team.

I go out of my way to make poo poo clear when I run as to what I let skills do (a whole lot) so that players use them in cool ways.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2015 03:44

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

AlphaDog posted:

You don't have to be a caster.

NameHurtBrain posted:

I like the base of the game really, and because I got a game design bug, I already have like 10 pages of a word document focused on balancing the game, trying to make it fair for mundane characters. I know there's been a thought of 'just play something else', but I started drat it, and there's some sunk cost fallacy going on here.

how about if the non-casters got, like, explicit powers that had clearly defined mechanical effects on-par with spells. and maybe there could be a Tome that contains these techniques. a tome that describe how to fight, a tome that describes how to battle. A tome of battle if you will.

seriously these problems existed and were fixed nearly a decade ago. Tome of Battle was published in 2006. D&D Next is a literal 14 year step backwards in major areas of game design. Conversationally, that means that the average 30 year old D&D player would be stepping back to the D&D they played when they were 16. which is why, as lazy as next feels, i also feel that it is entirely deliberately lazy.

Laphroaig fucked around with this message at 04:45 on Feb 3, 2015

# ¿ Feb 3, 2015 04:43

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

P.d0t posted:

Play something else or make your own game.
Seriously, it's a lot easier than fixing 5e.

even if you never get a working document, you will dare to dream of a game that you actually like. you'll identify what game elements you and your group of friends you play with care about. once you know those elements, you can emphasis them in any game you play. its a worthwhile exercise to just draft up a wishlist of what your perfect game would be like. Hell, you might even find impossible contradictions and then have to make compromises. in any case it will be closer to "The D&D thats right for you" than Next will ever be.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2015 04:59

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

Why exactly would I ever need to roll a skill check when I can solve any problem in game with over a hundred skeletons mounted on skelephants?

quote:

You're describing a lot of limitations on disguise self. "It doesn't work in the rain because you don't look like you're getting wet" isn't mentioned anywhere in the spell description unless the spell description is really different than what I remember.

I like this approach because gently caress it, who cares. Disguise self and Knock shouldn't even be loving spells.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2015 16:19

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

ProfessorCirno posted:

This has been the most solidly 3.x I've seen the discussions around here get.

Oh man that reminds me of some excellent Adventure Advice this guy had for running a D&D Next campaign:

September 2014
http://projectmultiplexer.com/2014/09/07/on-the-unloading-a-pair-of-magic-boots-and-troubles-therein/

3.X As gently caress posted:

While killing an ogre for the local Baron for a quick pickup of 100gp, the party offs the ogre�s buddy, a nasty little goblin. This guy was a real jerk. Once he was good and dead � the fighter stabbed the goblin extra for good measure � the party did what adventuring parties do. They rolled the bodies. Among the handfuls of copper pieces, a few unusable weapons and a convenient cache of crossbow bolts, the party discovers the goblin was wearing a pair of Boots of Striding and Springing.

For whatever reason, the party decides it doesn�t want to keep the boots. Perhaps it is a matter of taste. The style is out of fashion. The size is too small. Also, as magic items go, boots of striding and springing are on the low-end of the interesting scale. Regardless, the party takes the boots to the nearby peaceful peasant market town to unload them as one does with unused magic items.

The local cordwainer won�t accept the boots of striding and springing. The cordwainer, a member of the local shoemaker�s guild in good standing, doesn�t recognize the boots as magic but he does recognize them as a different make than other boots made in the region. Good quality, good make, but they�re not his nor one of his fellow guildmates so he cannot resell them. He is not authorized to buy and sell foreign goods and if they�re left in his shop, he�ll get found out by the guild for hoarding strange makes of highly unauthorized footwear. There�s a price list. He likes being part of the guild, see. They help him and his family out when he�s down. His father was part of this guild. His grandfather was a grandmaster of the cordwainers of the peaceful peasant village. And he doesn�t want any trouble. Besides, he only pays in script and not in coinage. The party needs to move along.

The local merchant doesn�t recognize the boots, either, but he recognizes them as magic immediately on inspecting them on the counter in his small shop. The wizard�s craft mark is on the inner sole. See that right there? These are wizarding shoes. Great magic in wizarding shoes. The merchant�s guild in this region isn�t permitted in its charter to resell strange, foreign wizarding shoes. They banged this charter out so the merchant can sell commodity goods here and the Baron stays over there where the town would like them and the Baron, well, he takes interest in these sorts of things. Maybe the party took them off a wizard? That�s a problem right there, too. The merchant can�t pay for strange foreign wizarding things in his shop. Brings nothing but trouble. Besides, the town mostly works on script, ledgers, loaning and mutual debt. The merchant can only pay in Bob the Baker�s bread. Do you like bread? Bob�s bread? Fantastic.

Forcing the merchant to accept the boots unearths the hard reality that the Merchant�s Guild of the town is also the Judge�s Guild, the local Mafioso Guild, and the Government Guild. This merchant? He�s also the Mayor. And the Head Judge. The merchant will call in his friends and his friends will make sure the party doesn�t sell no weird, foreign, and possibly evil wizarding shoes in this town. We won�t kill you right here and now because of the ogre business but maybe it�s time to go. The locals are not much when it comes to fighting but leaving an entire town murdered over a pair of boots � there�s a slippery slope to neutral evilhood. The party�s cleric might be irked.

Getting the local Baron involved brings up all kinds of ugly questions like: �Why are the lower folk walking around with a pair of magic boots?� And then the magic boots will belong to the Baron because he needs to go on campaign and he doesn�t have magic boots. Now he does. Yours. Not a great plan. Great guy until someone shows up with some magic items and then not such a nice guy any more.

Barding up the merchant or pulling out some merchant background can get a bit of �I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy.� Maybe there�s something the merchant needs for a bit of favor. Besides, the guy trades in favors all day. The local merchant is not of any help but there might be an upstream reseller. Here�s a bit of a written introduction and a rough schedule for a Faire that moves around a number of cities. Nomenally that faire sells cloth but an entrepreneaur can unload a pair of boots if the buyer is right and the place is right and the money is right.

Calling down on God or Gods is a thing that works because if there is anything a merchant needs, it�s a blessing to help him move those more mundane items in his shop. But he still doesn�t handle foreign magic goods and he can only pay in what he owes to other townspeople.

Cutting the inner soles out of the boots to remove the wizard�s mark and leaving them with the local non-guild affiliated peddler with his jingle jangle wagon of assorted goods for a few copper will get rid of them quick but these boots are worth some serious scratch. Always an option but no adventuring party is going to get rich off filing the serial numbers off magic items and unloading them on movable consignment stores.

No one in the town is going to buy the boots the local head cleric explains to the party on their way (hopefully) out of town. And no one wants them. These are good people. Godly people. People who tithe regularly to their local Temple. What the local head cleric, who is one of those nice guys affiliated with one of the local Gods of home and hearth, wants is the party to take the boots and leave. They will bring nothing but instability to this nice little community. If there�s anything the Gods want, its stability.

A group of towns who want to become cities situated on ancient trade roads hold a rotating open market. What it is, who hosts, and where it is held depends on the time of year. The external appearance of the Faire is selling well-known commodity goods: one week is cloth, another is spices, another leather and other durable goods. Merchants travel over incredible distances marked with the occasional Random Encounter to make it here to unload from all over the known world and over it all a rich and powerful Lord who makes it happen with the guarantees of security and law. It�s his Law but his Law is he gets his tax. As long as no one sets the entire town on fire and brings the Lord into it, he�s fine with whatever nonsense happens.

No one sells magic items in the open here, either, but the party can lay hands on some seriously upgraded pieces of mundane equipment if necessary. At night, behind the tents and in the bars, people settle their accounts and the interesting goods exchange hands.

By knowing a guy, having a letter of introduction, getting the right people drunk, surviving a few fist fights, and generally running around depraved, it�s possible to find the magic items broker. The party will bump into a bunch of other guys, too. Nothing is ever simple on the quest to unload a pair of slightly magical boots:

Someone from one of the Wizard Craft Guilds is attending the Faire looking for the same sets of background deal brokers to unload their magic items into circulation. (How else do they make their way into dungeons and random treasure tables?) The Wizard Craft Guilds aren�t like a small peaceful peasant village Shoemaker�s Guild. These are guys with money, muscle, and agents to move their merchandise. And these aren�t the Wizards themselves, of course � no self-respecting Wizard is going to come out of his tower to sell at some Faire. That would mean getting dirty. This is a broker�s broker with his own set of thugs. And they want to know why this party is selling strange, foreign magic boots with a different wizard�s mark than their Guild into circulation.

Is the party now magic boot-making competition?
Is there a collect and resell effort from foreign points going on to dilute the list prices of magic items?
Are the local wizards of the Wizard Craft Guild being scammed?
Maybe what the party needs is a visit from the broker�s local group of armed friends, in the cover of darkness, behind the bar. Because while the party may not have to go, the boots certainly do.

The black market gets whiff there�s some action in the magic items area and, unlike the rubes back home, these are guys who know how to move magic items and get them into the hands of discerning dealers. Sure the party might be running from the thugs behind the Wizards Craft Guild but here�s a friend � really! a friend! � who only wants to get the best price for the boots for his quiet, discerning client. This is safe. This is clean. No Guilds involved at all except for Ours but you don�t need to know about that. This will move the boots and sell them to a discrete buyer. The Necromatic Arch Lich and his Legions of Terrifying Evil who simply need high quality footwear as they trample on the necks of the local populance. You know how it is.

Running amok away from the thieves�s guild and the wizard craft guild, the party draws the attention of the local Merchant�s Guild who both try to turn a blind eye to all sorts of shenanigans but if inns start getting burnt to the ground, they�re both going to get wary. Luckily for the party, the local Merchant�s Guild is on a whole different playing field than the local Merchant�s Guild of the small town. These guys finance entire armies for rich patrons. They have their own set of mercantile laws that have nothing whatsoever to do with local Law, or the Lord�s Law, or laws from the local Temple. These guys are judge, jury, executioner, and the entire local government. We leave that for now, because the Merchant�s Guild wants to see if the party lives. If they do, there might be something in it for them.

And after lighting some bar on fire while running out, the party hooks up with their guy. They have wizard guild thugs after them. Black market mafia thugs after them after breaking their deal to sell the boots. They got beer all over their new leathers. Letters of introduction are exchanged. In a room in quite another inn across town, the magic item broker looks at the boots, looks at the wizards mark in the sole, and he tells you his fee for moving the boots is 37%. At a list price of 5500gp, he�s going to take a little over 2000gp from the party for the price of taking those boots off the party�s hands. Good magic item laundering service is expensive.

In a time of craft guilds, merchant guilds, organizational guilds, nobility, and wizards in towers protected by armies of thugs, it�s hard to move foreign merchandise. No one wants to accept the risk of explaining where the item came from. And all the rich guilds have their form of muscle and protection. This is all to say, one can get mileage out of a pair of boots rolled off a dead goblin. And maybe in the end it is easiest just to pull the soles and unload them on the peddler. It�s cheaper that way.

The Faire is based on the Champagne Faires, a thing that happened before the rise of the Hanseatic League and a tribute to the absolute determination, in the face of Kings and Guilds, to turn a buck.

Also:

ActusRhesus posted:

Also, I was looking for a little more than "write rogue on character sheet. Pick assassin." Skill expertise? Feat Selection? Benefits to one race vs. another? I get it, this game isn't as micro-managey as 3.5 was. But I was looking for some practical advice from people who have actually played the class, not "hey the rule book says assassin gets to use disguises so pick that." I can read.

OK here is the second result I got on google, it looks like its got exactly what you want: http://www.dungeonsampdragons.com/bounded-advantage/2014/07/13/how-to-build-a-rogue/

I have read all of this post and verified the math the dude-man is using. the explanation of tactics, equipment, skills and races is on point.

The practical advice we were trying to give you is that rogue, in play, doesn't feel right.

You find yourself being overshadowed with skills by a Bard; you find yourself being overshadowed in combat by any class that gets multiple attacks. Its just not that great. I liked the Playtest rogue more. Simply put I just don't find the current rogue that compelling and everything it does, some other class can do better. If you want to write "Rogue" on your character sheet, and want advice on how to do that while playing the concept of the rogue, its a class based game. You made the largest and most important choice, class, already. The rest is window dressing. Take DEX CHA. Take skills you like. Make sure to put Expertise in stuff you want to have a higher roll with. Keep in mind that rolling high has little meaning because skills don't do more stuff with higher rolls.

Laphroaig fucked around with this message at 23:30 on Feb 3, 2015

# ¿ Feb 3, 2015 23:17

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

AlphaDog posted:

I really do want to play a warlord, or even a fighter that gets followers.

Just start doing Warlord things in game. Sounds like persuasion rolls mostly. I'd go STR/CHA Fighter obv, you want a background that lets you take Persuasion, then just make one of thems rolls and let the DM figure it out from there.

I mean why else have a DM

# ¿ Feb 4, 2015 07:36

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

AlphaDog posted:

If you can find me a DM/group that will let me roll Persuasion during combat to give an ally advantage to attack rolls for a round or two, I'm in.

Also Persuasion to let your ally spend hit dice in combat, also Persuasion to grant an ally an attack

im sure the vast majority of players, groups and DMs coming from 3.X to -> D&D Next will be ready to embrace this

seriously why do you even need rules? what you really need is rulings. and not rulings by the lead designer or rulings written in a book, but rulings made up on the spot by the whim of your DM

nothing else is really D&D when you get right down to it

# ¿ Feb 4, 2015 08:42

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

Kitchner posted:

I joked about this not being mechanically supported but it is.

this is a pretty good example of what we discussed earlier; the absolute best way you can build a martial warlord in 5E is just total crap compared to what the warlord of 4E or White Raven Style crusader/warblade of 3.X were like and capable of

its also pretty bad compared to what a cleric can do

but its the best you can build within the constraints.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2015 18:12

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

OneThousandMonkeys posted:

I am pretty sure if you just swept everything under the table and went "you can use all your dailies 1/encounter and get unlimited superiority dice" 5E is suddenly a much more fun game to play.

Cool, I would enjoy using my daily spells 1/encounter. That is a lot of skeletons/fireballs/meteor swarms.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2015 20:10

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

Failboattootoot posted:

The heal that takes a bonus action is utter trash. So is cure wounds for that matter. Just like 3rd ed, the only worthwhile heal is... heal.

yeah I am playing at level 6 and the value of healing spells in combat is to bring someone up from unconscious. But it takes up the bonus action I could be using to have my skeletons shoot at things.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2015 22:30

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

Trast posted:

I'm not saying that the complaints are invalid. It's just that some of you guys come off as really cranky about it.

So far our group has had a lot of fun with the game and the DM is keeping things lively.

Why we are cranky:

We are heavily invested in roleplaying games and D&D. Its one of our favorite modes of gaming, and we play it a lot. In short we care too much about our dumb elf nerdgames. But we care. So when its not as good as it can be, or when its worse than it used to be, we care.

A good group makes pretty much any game better; the same goes for a good DM. Even the best system won't work if the group is dysfunctional.

However, you are not having as much fun as you could be having. The game has flaws which mean that behind the scenes, either the players or the DM have to do extra work to make things fun and lively. Generally, its the DM who has to.

The reason the game has flaws is because conscious design decisions were taken to re-introduce systemic problems into a game that had been moving away from those problems. Here are three major examples:

How encounters are built.
How monsters/traps/challenges are built.
How skills work, specifically, binary pass/fail and no concrete skill mechanisms.

All three things above are hard to design. Instead of working on designing them, the D&D Next team led by lead designer Mike Mearls choose to move the hardest parts of the design into the hands of the DM.

What does that mean? It means the DM has to do more work. It means things are harder. Further, instructions on how to DM, how to make the calls, what implications different calls would have, was handwaved to "Just make your call to make it your D&D." Lazy. Lazy lazy lazy.

This game has a significant problem with reaching out to new players. Huge numbers of nerds have gotten into board games and RPGs. Yet D&D has steadily increased; it has not grown by the influx of new players. Why? Because Wizards relies on the previous generation of DMs to teach new DMs. Because the D&D Next products just don't do a good job of teaching DMs how to run the game. Because the D&D Next rules are really lazy, and instead of providing guidance or rules, instead entirely relies upon "an experienced DM making rulings."

So as players, we look at the game and say "How does X work?" and the answer is "Ask your DM."
So as DMs, we look at the game and say "How do I make X work?" and the answer is "Make it up yourself." Barely any guidance on how to make rulings is provided.

These are not good answers given that this is supposed to be the biggest and most professional RPG on the market.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2015 05:24

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

ActusRhesus posted:

Also chuckling at a discussion that went from "magic users are gods" to "rest periods are unfair" sorry you don't get to spam fire ball or whatever.

You are not reading the thread. No one is complaining about rest periods being unfair to magic users - they are pointing out that the idea of balancing casters out with rest periods is not a good mechanic for a lot of different reasons, and the idea that fighters/rogues should ALSO have to rest just doesn't make any sense if the purpose of rest is to balance out caster power.

Then people started a general talk about the philosophical merits of downtime, and it was pointed out that D&D (and D&D Next) don't have good mechanics for it.

Kitchner posted:

Why would you even bother with a horse that wasn't a skeleton?

Sadly there are no rules for turning everything with a skeletal structure you encounter into a skeleton. Your DM would have to make a ruling on whether, and how, the Necromancer can turn the horse skeleton into a skeletal steed.

Laphroaig fucked around with this message at 16:49 on Feb 5, 2015

# ¿ Feb 5, 2015 16:19

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

Kitchner posted:

There's a 3rd level necromancer spell that can reanimate a skeleton and it is bound to your will for 24 hours. So you need to buy a horse, kill it, skin it and remove all the meat, wash the skeleton so it looks cool and not bloody. Maybe bleach and polish the bones too.

Then cast the spell on it.

yeah except the spell Animate Dead that you are referring to doesn't do that.

code:

This spell creates an undead servant. Choose a pile
of bones or a corpse of a Medium or Small humanoid
within range. Your spell imbues the target with a foul
mimicry of life, raising it as an undead creature. The
target becomes a skeleton if you chose bones or a
zombie if you chose a corpse (the DM has the creature�s
game statistics).

It makes a skeleton as per the Monster Manual and it works on a pile of medium humanoid bones. It doesn't do anything more than that. You'd need to get the DM to agree to let you make a new spell. And then you get to go down the rabbit hole of turning <X> into a skeleton, and what level spell is that, etc, considering that Create Undead exists as a 6th level spell and lets you make ghouls/ghasts/wights/mummies.

Laphroaig fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Feb 5, 2015

# ¿ Feb 5, 2015 16:52

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

Tunicate posted:

Just put two human skeletons in a horse costume.

Payndz posted:

Can you make a horse-mummy?

Depends on if the illusion clips through the floor or not

or since its a horse, if the illusion CLOPS through the floor :classiclol:

# ¿ Feb 5, 2015 17:05

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

Kitchner posted:

Well if DnD isn't going to mechanically support my skeletal steed that lives inside the rib cage of my skeleton elephant with my character without slightly altering the rules then I don't see a reason why I should play the game

so the design space already has two spell elements in it: animate dead and create undead
the monster design space has: skeletons, zombies, mummies, ghasts, wights, ghouls

so the easy way to do it is, take what you can make with Create Undead and figure out the value of a Skelephant based on the how good 4 ghouls would be. then set the skelephants stat block to be equal to that. Or something similar.

now you just have to consider the relative strength of the action economy of 4 lesser undead vs. 1 larger undead, and see if the higher level slots of the spell to make wights/mummies etc respect that, or if the spell Create Undead is itself fundamentally flawed.

of course the rulebook does not describe how to do this, or make suggestions on how to do this, and I only have the vaguest idea on how to do it because its not my first skeletal steed rodeo. a good game whose stated goal is that you can tinker with it, slightly altering the rules to make changes you want, would have guidelines for that tinkering. D&D Next really does not have these guidelines and that is a major flaw.

but don't worry i am sure there will be a module.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2015 17:45

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 16, 2024 00:04

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

ActusRhesus posted:

I read that the same way...because grammar...you would just need enough bones to make an approximation of a horse...even it it was a horse made out of human femurs. Whatever. it's horse enough.

OOOH! It could have little skulls for hooves.

Yes. Patchwork skeleton horse it is.

Hehe, hoof-skulls.

And yes, welcome to the Triumph of Natural Language in D&D Next. Please enjoy the hours of endless pointless arguments

# ¿ Feb 5, 2015 19:00

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > D&D NEXT: Infinite Posts of the Abyss

«‹›3 »