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You know what? Tall tales are a valid loving basis for D&D characters anyway. I want to be the guy with the big hammer who got supernaturally good at hammering by out-hammering the newfangled hammer golem. Yes, John Henry died that day, but Johan Hammerman was born. He smashes the gently caress out of wizards now because he doesn't want his children to have to out-hammer any hammer golems. (There's no chance that they won't be Hammermen, even the girls. Their children will also be Hammermen and so will their children, until a Hammerman fails in his duty to smash the poo poo out of stuff with a hammer). I put it to you that this is no sillier or less believable than having to memorise spells that you forget as soon as you use them. e: That's the backstory for the character class that's supernaturally great at breaking stuff. They use a hammer for their signature weapon and they sure are good at physically smashing poo poo, but once they get good they break really important stuff, like curses and other people's promises. Your PC is probably like a 20th generation Hammerman. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 11:00 on Aug 12, 2014 |
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Aug 12, 2014 10:53
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ianvincible posted:That's assuming there haven't been centuries of necromancers roaming around the countryside raising everyone as skeletons. A small hamlet doesn't have a town cemetery, they just have a town grave, since whoever they bury is always raised as a skeleton before the next guy dies. <Shimmering dissolve> Subtitle: "5 years from now" Scene: An internet forum. That guy: "D&D has always been about collecting skeletons for your army". Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 11:33 on Aug 12, 2014 |
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Aug 12, 2014 11:31
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gently caress you Dave, your character is bad and stupid and of course there aren't skeletons and the dragon doesn't fall for that and the Red Wizards Of gently caress Off send an assassin to gank you for being OP. Get out. Good, now we can get on with the real game where nobody would be so silly. Sucks to be Dave, but gently caress that guy for building a legal character. He probably only did it to be an edition warrior. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 12:17 on Aug 12, 2014 |
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Aug 12, 2014 12:10
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"If we ignore the mechanics, it's a fun game for everyone".
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Aug 12, 2014 12:31
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SirFozzie posted:"Everything mechanical forever. No imagination, because there's no rules for Imagination" So disregard whichever rules don't work for you and write extra ones in where you needed them and make up stuff that works outside the rules in the book and play a fun RPG with likeminded people. I mean, that's great. Once you get it working you should share or even publish it. Just don't try to use that experience as a basis for arguing that the rules in the D&D book are fine.
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Aug 12, 2014 12:41
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treeboy posted:edit: for instance, take necromancy. If it flat out denied access to two other schools...say evocation and conjuration, you'd have a much more interesting and less universally capable caster. Lots of people have put forward similar ideas in this thread and in its previous versions. 2e style specialisation probably doesn't go far enough, but it's definitely a good starting point. Maybe "Pick one school to specialise in and one to be forbidden from. Pick two you can cast spells up to level 4, and two you can cast spells up to level 2" would be good. Maybe this is the sort of thing that a properly run playtest could have focussed on.
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Aug 12, 2014 13:33
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treeboy posted:Actually bringing Fighter in line with casters (which again, largely isn't the problem, it's the reverse of the problem, wizards should be brought down) would be just giving Fighters Wizard spells, but with a sword. The first part, I don't think anyone will argue with. It's primarily a wizard problem, not a fighter problem, sure. Maybe maybe the fighter could have some extras and the wizard could lose a bit less power though. The bolded part is why people say "D&D causes brain damage". Fighter abilities don't need to be spells. They can be stuff the fighter can do all day. You can add daily abilities without them being spells. Here are some examples (in no particular order). I made them up as I was typing them. I'm sure a salaried game designer could do a better job, given several months to work on it. "You can jump the distance of a bowshot". No dex check, no "unless the ground is slippery", you can just jump that far. Like, whenever. You provoke OA as normal when you do it, you're not teleporting, you can just jump real far. "You can see in the dark". Not "gain infravision", not "as per the wizard spell darkseeing 2/day", you can just do it now. No problem. Because you're a hero. It just works. "You can go without sleep, food, or drink for up to week". Because you're tough like that. It doesn't even bother you. When you get this ability, it halves or quarters your rest requirements too. "Hold the line". Once during a given fight, you can declare that you will not be moved. You have to do so loudly and obviously. You can't be pushed or pulled from your spot, knocked down, dragged away, or anything else until either the fight ends, you die, or you choose to move. Any ally adjacent to you is affected too. "The feat of the spears". You can throw three spears at once, at three different targets. Because you practised. Upgraded, you can throw spears that return to you at the end of the round, whether or not they hit their targets. "Don't kill the hostage". On a successful attack, a target holding a hostage or item released that hostage or item to you, undamaged. On a miss, nothing bad happens. Of course, they might kill the hostage on their next round, but you don't do it accidentally because you're a professional. "Behead". The ultimate ability? Once per day, you can attempt to chop the head off something that has a head. It makes a saving throw. If it fails, its head is chopped off. If that was its only head, it dies. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 14:24 on Aug 12, 2014 |
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Aug 12, 2014 14:18
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slydingdoor posted:Play it out. Someone's going to go over that point by point while missing the most important thing about it. A rogue or fighter of the necromancer's level tries to solo the dragon. Do we even need to discuss what might happen?
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Aug 13, 2014 00:16
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Not skeleton chat or wizard chat this time, sorry. I'm looking over the updated DM's PDF and god drat the monster section is frustrating. There are twenty seven mundane animals in there and they each have a "giant" counterpart. The list is alphabetical, so it took me a while to realise that the only reason Frog (1hp, 0CR, 0XP, 0 damage, 0 attacks) is in there is so that later on there can be Giant Frog which while still not interesting at least has an attack. These are separate entries and each take about the same amount of space, but they're not even adjacent. Repeat twenty seven times for such classic fantasy opponents as "goat", "lizard", and "crab". e: I've only been through the first half of the list, but CR and XP now seem to be a hard link - every 3CR monster is worth 700xp. However, 3cr monsters seem to have between 45 and 90 HP, not to mention wildly varying abilities and damage. I've got a cold today, so maybe I'll data entry to whole thing and make some graphs or something. Maybe not though. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 01:02 on Aug 13, 2014 |
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Aug 13, 2014 00:51
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Stormgale posted:The frog also needs to be there for the druid to turn into it The stupid thing is that this is probably close to the actual reason it's in there, even though "a frog, like what you are turned into" is actually statted up as a completely useless monster and saying "a frog can't do jack poo poo" isn't a huge leap of imagination. Or the guy writing it once had an hours-long argument about how it was never specified what kind of frog the wizard turned someone into and some frogs are poisonous and so this plan would totally work. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 01:10 on Aug 13, 2014 |
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Aug 13, 2014 01:07
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Holy poo poo, the Seahorse is the loving epitome of stupid poo poo to include in the monster manual. It's literally just a tiny seahorse. It is worth zero xp to kill it. It has no attacks. It's special ability is to breathe "only" underwater, which is less of a special ability and more "being a sea creature". Also, it ruins my immersion because anything as cute as a tiny seahorse needs to have a Charisma way higher than 2. Also also, where's the entry for "salmon" with the special ability of swim, and breathe only underwater and be delicious?
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Aug 13, 2014 01:21
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So I entered data for monster name, hit points, cr, and xp. code:Compare the Cockatrice and Giant Goat if you want to see how the CR/XP budgeting might not actually be based on anything. Or the Mammoth and Medusa. Or the Banshee and Elephant.
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Aug 13, 2014 01:57
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Vorpal Cat posted:Why is there almost nothing at CR 4? It'll be fixed by release!  I'd like to do one for damage, too. It would be bearable to enter if the statblocks weren't poo poo. e: Looking at it, it's probably pointless. Taking "the lowest damage melee attack" gives no useful data because of the stuff with "special" effects (that usually amount to "attack twice" but can also include "save vs petrification"). Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 02:31 on Aug 13, 2014 |
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Aug 13, 2014 02:15
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Wizzard controlled feudalism (arcanism? beardocracy?), undead laborers, and blacksmiths not existing because a single wizard can do one man-year of blacksmithing in a 10 minutes are silly things, you guys. I know the mechanics of the game seem to imply that they'd exist, but that's only because you lack the imagination to understand that a believable fantasy world would be just like medieval europe but with elves and wizards.
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Aug 13, 2014 03:17
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Effectronica posted:The final stage is the undead taking over because they don't need to breath, eat, sleep, or drink and they can exist for basically forever with enough embalming, and then you have Which has been mentioned here before in a different context. kingcom posted:What im trying to say is Eberron is pretty good. 
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Aug 13, 2014 03:26
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jigokuman posted:People always talk about wizards, but clerics are just as bad, and in this situation, clerical magic would be older and likely more entrenched, so wizards would probably be the first in a rebellion against theocracy, if they were even allowed off the ground in the first place. Clerics get all the spells. Wizards have to earn theirs (sorta). ...but the only way to get better at being a cleric or a wizard is by killing a lot of your opponents, so it's likely that a perpetual state of war exists between them. Fighters die in their thousands on both sides, serving only to fuel the skeleton armies.
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Aug 13, 2014 03:29
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ProfessorCirno posted:Regarding all the pointless animals in the MM, that was one of the more popular anti-4e memes in ENWorld (there are no stats for MULES!, followed by unfunny "4e" names for mules), and 5e is basically ENWorld Edition. I, for one, literally cannot imagine any animal unless I know its Armour Class and Charisma stats. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 04:45 on Aug 13, 2014 |
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Aug 13, 2014 04:42
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MonsterEnvy posted:Actually it's more like Fighters Fight, Wizards do magic. Fighters however are really good at fighting. Fighters are the only ones who just fight. Every other class fights and something. Clearly this means that the best choice if you just want to win combats is fighter, right? Oh, it's not? That's OK, I'm sure they'll fix it.
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Aug 13, 2014 05:44
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MonsterEnvy posted:They are not. Look at this compelling argument. MonsterEnvy posted:Also I don't recall Tenser's transformation being in the game. Mordenkainen’s Sword is though. Anyway I'm sure Tenser's Transformation will be in the next free supplement. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 06:04 on Aug 13, 2014 |
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Aug 13, 2014 06:00
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Xelkelvos posted:So we've talked about skeletons as the cornerstone of a society, but what about skeletons as the core components of a computer That's cool as hell, but it contains the stupid assumption that "you'd have to kill more than half the people in the world..." to do whatever. No, no no. You just need that many skeletons. The dead outnumber the living. You'd still need an impossibly huge number of skeletons to make a useful computer. It'd probably be better (in terms of skeletons required) to make a physical network of skeletons passing written messages and packages hand-to-hand around your cities. Fight a few wars and you could probably even connect these networks into some kind of... inter-city network. It wouldn't be like a big wagon, more like a series of animate skeletons. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 08:00 on Aug 13, 2014 |
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Aug 13, 2014 07:57
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Saguaro PI posted:What, just finding skeletons, like they're under the ground or something? That's crazy talk. Next you'll say there are specific places society dedicates to storing skeleton. I know, right? But they said the same thing about oil. Everyone thought it just came from whales and stuff, but it turns out you just dig down in the right spot! You still have to fight wars and stuff for oil, though. And then you have to dig. Directly using the skeletons cuts out the digging. e: I'm sure that a previous incarnation of this thread had nearly the same conversation for a completely different reason. Is this subforum just obsessed with skeletons? Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 08:04 on Aug 13, 2014 |
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Aug 13, 2014 08:01
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thespaceinvader posted:And yet we don't spend 8 pages on how abominably lovely the monster design is? I tried, but we worked out that it was nearly perfect and that the minor flaws would all be fixed soon. Haha, nope. The monster design is goddamned awful. Stuff either has a list of wizard spells, attacks twice instead of once, doesn't do anything interesting at all, or has some weird level-inappropriate Save or Die/Suck effect. There are a few exceptions, but not many. The format of the monster entries leaves a lot to be desired. It's not that easy to find at a glance the actual information you need to play the game. This has a lot to do with "natural language", but is made worse by the absence of keywords. The way the monsters are listed is bad. Because it's alphabetical, stuff that you would expect to find together isn't together - Elementals (just for instance) aren't listed under "Elemental, Air", but "Air Elemental", which means they're not near Fire elementals. Draft horses, Ponies, Warhorses, and Riding Horses are spread out alphabetically too - I missed "riding horse" on my first glance through and thought it was weird that they left it out. Speaking of the monster list... 28* of the monsters are "giant" variants of other monsters in the list. All of those are listed under "Giant X" so they're separated from their normal sized counterparts. Still, that means 28 monsters (1/6th) are really duplicate entries that could have dual statblocks (ie, Cat: regular/giant). That's not to mention the absolute retardation of the Giant Seahorse and Giant Frog seemingly requiring separate entries from the Seahorse and Frog, both of which have no defensive capabilites, are worth zero xp, and don't even appear in the swarm entries. Speaking of Swarm entries, it's awesome they are included. I still can't figure out why "Rat Swarm" and "Rat" are two different entries, or why "rat" (or bat, or lizard, or...) need their own entries at all. If the CR is zero, maybe don't loving include it in the MONSTER manual. Or if you really must, put it under a "vermin" entry and be done. Look, an actual rat swarm is a terrifying thing, and is probably even a worrying thing to face even if your name is "something The Mighty". A single rat? A single bat? Really? There are other functional duplicates too. Eagle and Falcon get separate entries but why? Surely "bird of prey, regular" would cover it? Hell put ravens in there too for all it loving matters. Wait, I get it! It's included so you can upgrade your Falcon to an Eagle and be slightly more efficient at hunting the fully-statted-out Rats and Frogs. *I've just realised this isn't quite true. There is no regular sized Wolf Spider or Fire Beetle listed. I'm sure this will be fixed in the next supplement. e: This might be made up for by the way there's no giant Falcon or Jackal. I'm not sure and I don't care. e2: Why are there not useful giant animals? Imagine the steaks you could get off a cow at 5:1 scale. e3: I really don't understand why anything you'd never fight is in the monster manual. Like, I'm not going to be playing Frog Stompin' Dan the Halberd Man or Justin The Goat Slayer. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 11:37 on Aug 13, 2014 |
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Aug 13, 2014 11:25
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In my brief but fruitful comparison of the monster entries as presented for the Next edition of the Dungeons & DragonsTM roleplaying game and those presented for the 3rd and 2nd editions of same, I have notice a disturbing new trend towards verbosity and over-explanation of ideas that were surely adequately explained in a single place in the previous editions' rulebooks. For instance, surely any player or gamemaster of the Dungeons & DragonsTM roleplaying game would already know from the context that the text -for example - (3d6+1) printed after an attack's description would refer to that attack's damage, and so printing the word "damage" after each instance is obviously not only superfluous but actively contributory to the cluttered nature of the line, which renders it harder to determine the necessary information at a quick glance. The monster I chose for my comparison was the Fire Giant, not for any particular reason other than that it was the monster that my PDF was already open to. No doubt this random selection will come back to haunt me as someone points out that another monster is much easier to use (probably the frog, which has no attacks). -- 2e Thac0: 5 No. Of Attacks: 1 Damage/Attack: 1-8 or by weapon (2-20+10). -- -- 3e Attack: Greatsword +20 melee (3d6+15) or Slam +20 melee (1d4+10) or Rock +10 ranged (2d6+10 plus 2d6 fire) -- -- Next Multiattack. The giant makes two greatsword attacks. Greatsword. Melee Weapon Attack: +11 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 28 (6d6 + 7) slashing damage. Rock. Ranged Weapon Attack: +11 to hit, range 60/240 ft., one target. Hit: 29 (4d10 + 7) bludgeoning damage. -- The real thing that pissed me off here is "Multiattack. The giant makes two greatsword attacks." Seriously, the "No. Of Attacks" line in 2e was perfectly loving adequate for conveying this information. It's in the same place in every monster's statblock, and you're not going to accidentally miss it because you're looking for how many and Next somehow manages not to print a digit. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 12:21 on Aug 13, 2014 |
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Aug 13, 2014 12:18
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A Catastrophe posted:And when you think of it, why can't martial characters have skeleton armies as well? It's just a traditionalist assumption that only necromancers can animate the dead. I'm sure a Warrior could use a whole bunch of string or something. I'm sure there was a fantasy story with a warrior king who returned at just the right moment with an army of the dead. I can't think what kind of hack author would gently caress things up like that, but I distinctly remember the story.
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Aug 13, 2014 13:10
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treeboy posted:over the past couple pages it's really sunk in that by and large nobody here is even planning on playing the game or interested in running the game or assisting those that do. The vast majority of posts are by people who have zero interest in D&D, or this edition, and will not be purchasing the rules. For this reason I'm not sure why the thread even exists, it serves no practical purpose. I'm enjoying skeleton chat and natural-language mockery more than the constant repetition of "I found a problem, look at this rule, this scenario, this math" followed by someone saying "nope" in increasingly convoluted ways while providing no evidence beyond their gut feeling. That said, I'd look forward to reading in-good-faith responses to criticism of the D&D Next rules-as-written. These probably shouldn't include things such as the following, none of which are in-good-faith responses to criticism of the D&D Next rules-as-written. "In my game, I wouldn't let that happen" "It's easy to houserule that problem away" "This is easily fixed by ignoring that rule-as-written" "I had fun therefore this criticism is invalid" "I think it's fine" (with nothing to back that up) Any variant of "No reasonable person would do that thing anyway" when the "unreasonable person" has used the rules-as-written to do the thing "Nobody will give a poo poo about this problem" "It will be fixed soon" neonchameleon posted:I've no idea about most people. But I'm going to say that I will almost certainly end up playing the game. I won't run it (monster spell blocks are a dealbreaker) - but I will almost certainly end up playing it at some point or other; I think one of the other GMs in my group will get on well with it. I'm in exactly this situation. I definitely won't be running it (I'm going to be running BECMI and Dungeon World instead, which I really enjoy running). I almost certainly will play it, and I might buy the books if I end up playing it regularly. I also think that the other regular GM in my group will do well with it, partly because he has a "cheese as hard as you want, watch what happens" attitude. I don't enjoy running that sort of thing unless the system is explicitly designed around it. I will probably have fun while playing D&D Next, but that doesn't mean it's a well designed game or that I won't look for flaws in it. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 15:30 on Aug 13, 2014 |
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Aug 13, 2014 15:23
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One really good thing about this edition is that all the art I've seen is rad as hell. I do have a rules question about this monster entry. What happens if Dispel Magic is cast on a PC that's been affected by the Umber Hulk's Confusing Gaze? What happens to the Confusing Gaze ability if Counterspell is cast? This is a question about the rules that we can all see for those things, not anything else. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 23:31 on Aug 13, 2014 |
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Aug 13, 2014 23:27
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Raenir K. Artemi posted:OR, or, or, they could have monster stats be concise and only the things you need to know about the monsters (Damage, HP, Defenses, Attacks, special abilities, maybe a little note for demeanor), not give monsters spells or SLA's and take up, like, half a page at most in the relevant page so that it's simple and convenient! Oh, and not caring about slightly bloated pagecount on a thing you're releasing as a free PDF. Remember 2e Planescape? The box set came with a monstrous supplement with some cool poo poo in it, and then there were 3 or 4 separate monster books you could buy and then there were various other adventures and box sets and stuff that all had more monsters. Then you had the way Planescape could take you to and from literally every other published setting, and then there are NPCs and stuff to consider too. Basically, there were more potential monsters and opponents that all other published settings combined. When any monster or opponent appeared in an adventure, there were these tiny 3-line stripped statblocks to help you out. They had the relevant stuff for the encounter.  Those were awesome. They didn't really take up much space. A full adventure would probably have 1-2 pages of those total, were you to put them all together with spacing and stuff. e: If you wanted to do this for Next, you could. Warriors(4)(Orc/CE): S+3,D+1,C+3,I-2 AC13 SP30 HP15 XP100 Greataxe +5,5',9s(1d12+3) Javelin +5,5'(30/120),6p(1d6+3) Bonus Mv 30' to opponent Abil Darkvision 60' Intimidate +2 Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 00:12 on Aug 14, 2014 |
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Aug 13, 2014 23:49
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moths posted:I can't wait for 100 skeletons to see an umberhulk so I can fail 100 saves and then 100D8 to determine what each - Well if I were DMing it, then the skeletons would just kind of sigh because seriously? They've been killed, then they've had to get up, pull a cart full of their colleagues, slay dragons, be an internet, be a computer, be told they're "silly", be told that they are collectively not as good as Brundo the Inept over there with his battleaxe when clearly they are actually superior, and now they're supposed to be confused by an (admittedly weird looking) underground crab? Even if it re-kills them, they're just going to have to get up again and keep firing their bows. They're not being asked to do rocket science here (except probably when they're being a computer).
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Aug 14, 2014 00:28
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ungulateman posted:Honestly, we need a skeleton union for all these disenfranchised undead being worked to the bone. Skeletal systems of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your (necromantic magical) chains! If you got enough skeletons into your computer it'd probably achieve sentience. Would it be called Skelnet? SKELDAN? Adam Skelene? SKL? e: FITR? Will it eventually tell you that the only winning move is not to play? Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 00:48 on Aug 14, 2014 |
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Aug 14, 2014 00:46
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MonsterEnvy posted:Nothing because it's not a magic spell. That's the way I read the rules too, but that reading is at odds with the natural language meaning of "magically". In second and third edition, the gaze was explicitly called out as being "as per" the spell. Are there other explicitly magical yet non-spell effects in the rules? Can those be dispelled? Why isn't the spell called "remove spell" if it does that instead of dispelling magic? What I'm getting at is that the "natural language" used qllows these questions to be asked, and I think that's poor design.
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Aug 14, 2014 02:03
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kingcom posted:People are genuinely hyped about it being in the game too which is pretty hilarious. I don't know what he doesn't want us to talk about it. You have to talk about playing it right, which means being enthusiatic about an uninspired skeleton-computerless tolkien* ripoff while pretending it's balanced, innovative, and well-written. *Except the army of the dead part Kai Tave posted:He doesn't want people calling it Next either, so who knows what's up with that dude. Gonna start calling it iD&D5.0. The i stands for innovation and it's lowercase because it's got modern design. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 06:18 on Aug 14, 2014 |
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Aug 14, 2014 06:16
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kingcom posted:I'm going to call it D&D 2000ME because its going randomly crash and hard reset while doing pretty mundane things. I'll have you know that my copy of Windows 2000 is still working absolutely flawlessly with 0 minutes downtime since it was installed on release day.
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Aug 14, 2014 06:28
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MonsterEnvy posted:I won't talk about the rest of the post as you have points I agree with and disagree with but I don't feel like creating an argument out of it. This note actually is not true. They said the game would have every class that has ever been in a players handbook. We were not told when the game would have them. The Battle Master is like a warlord as well. "It will be fixed eventually" and "actually it's already fine anyway" in two consecutive sentences. Don't ever stop.
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Aug 14, 2014 09:45
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jigokuman posted:Plus, with everything so strictly defined, it seems an impediment to imagination, but that's just how my mind works. It's not just your mind, but 25 years of playing D&D has shown me that there are a hell of a lot of RPG players with no imagination whatsoever. That's the reason we have to hear about how 30% of orcs wear leather armor and carry spears, 25% wear hide and carry axes, 25% wear scale and carry shortswords, and the remaining 20% are DM's Choice. e: I can remember having this argument with some fucktard in the early 90s where he was telling me how I was doing it wrong because whatever monster wasn't listed as using whatever weapon I was describing it as using and the MM entry didn't say "DM's choice" as one of the options so it couldn't possibly be what I was saying it was and... yeah. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 08:07 on Aug 15, 2014 |
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Aug 15, 2014 08:00
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Was the Flameskull new in 4e? It's not in the 3.5 mm1, but I didn't DM enough 3.x to have a good idea of what was new. I'm pretty sure 2e had the most new new monsters. Monstrous manual, 4 or 5 "annual compendiums", >20 setting specific "appendix" books (the ones that were the size of the "complete" books, not the pamphlets form the boxed sets), the pamphelts from the boxed sets, the extra stuff from the 5+ "Van Richten's" books, the few things form the <race> or <history> "complete" books, and the weird extras from things like the Conan books. e: the extras from the "monstrous arcana" books, too I guess? Actually, I'm no longer sure if there were D&D-based Conan books. I've found (online) references to a non-D&D Conan game by TSR, but I could have sworn there were actual 2e-based Conan-branded books too. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 10:05 on Aug 15, 2014 |
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Aug 15, 2014 10:01
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Really Pants posted:It seems like most of them hate actually playing a game and would rather just sit around reading the rule books by themselves. So clogging the books with bloated fluff, passages from godawful fantasy fiction, and tables to roll on for character traits & useless loot is a good business move. I really do think that most people would prefer to play the game - perhaps a whole lot of people don't actually play that much, but I think the proportion of people who buy the books without at least the intention of playing regularly is pretty low. But seriously, lots of people are goddamned awful at making stuff up. I like super solid rules for monster combat, and therefore I like super solid monster combat statblocks, but I really don't need much/any fluff in the corebooks. Leave that for setting-specific stuff. That way it applies just to that setting and I won't have some sperglord telling me that I'm imagining landsharks wrong. Just as an example, here's the sort of thing I think would be cool for the noncombat information on something like owlbears: *It's called an Owlbear <picture of owlbear> *Wild Owlbears are aggressive and untameable. *If you train them from hatching they make scary guard animals. That's enough to give me some cool ideas, and vague enough that I can slot the Owlbear into my adventure without bending pseudo-rules or having someone complain that I'm doing it wrong. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 13:29 on Aug 15, 2014 |
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Aug 15, 2014 13:25
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Zombies' Downfall posted:This really is a problem with your players or the people you talk to about the game and not with "naturalistic language" or fluff in monster books, though. Stop playing with people who tell you it's impossible for orcs to use spiked chains because you read a thing that says most of them use axes and spears. Are you opposed to all artwork because it gives an implicit vision of how orcs are supposed to look? I'm not going to argue that it's not the fault of the players. It was a problem with so many of the people I played with around 1999-2001 that I quit playing D&D for 5 or 6 years. My point wasn't that D&D could fix this by <stuff> it was that lots of people have dogshit where their imagination should be and that's why the rulesbooks talk about how many noncombatant baby owlbears you'll find or what the actual combat stats are for a tiny harmless frog or lizard. I would prefer less fluff in the core monster books*. I like the pictures. I like "Owlbears are super vicious". I don't like "25% leather/spear, 15% leather/mace, 30% scale/axe, 20% scale/crossbow, 10% DM's choice" because I think it's a total waste of space that caters to imagination-less idiots. I mean, the D&D Next manual feels the need to specify that "A frog has no effective attacks. It feeds on small insects and typically dwells near water, in trees, or underground." You know, just in case you were imagining tiny harmless frogs that dwell in volcanoes and feed on giant octupus. *Put as much fluff in setting-specific monster books as you like. Reading about how "Dark Sun elves are like this" is one of the reasons to buy a setting book/box in the first place. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 01:41 on Aug 16, 2014 |
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Aug 16, 2014 01:29
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Monsters that always (or nearly always) stay in their lairs, or are nigh-invincible when in their lairs are a common thread in mythology and in fantasy fiction. I mean, you'll only find Medusa in her cave. You only end up killing Fafnir or Smaug when they're out of their lairs (and Smaug was still a loving chancy thing). The Sphinx guards that one place, it's what it's for. You're not going to fight Cerberus anywhere that's not the gates of the underworld*. And so on. I'm not sure how well they'll work in practice, but the idea of lair abilities is awesome and is the sort of extra information that I find enjoyable and useful. *Unless you do what Hercules did, I guess. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 07:39 on Aug 16, 2014 |
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Aug 16, 2014 07:30
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Sade posted:The point buy rules are right there, why would you ever roll them? The paragraph about it manages to imply that random is the real way and the standard array is "to save time". The Rulebook posted:You generate your character’s six ability scores randomly. Roll four 6-sided dice and record the total of the highest three dice on a piece of scratch paper. Do this five more times, so that you have six numbers. If you want to save time or don’t like the idea of randomly determining ability scores, you can use the following scores instead: 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8. Point buy, on the other hand, is The Rulebook posted:At your Dungeon Master’s option
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Aug 17, 2014 09:25
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MonsterEnvy posted:100% this is not something that is worth complaining about. Ok. I'm still going to complain that point-buy is locked behind "at your DM's discretion", because that's hilariously dumb. MonsterEnvy posted:But no one is flawless everyone can make bad calls at times this was simply a bad call. This edition is more loose then 4e is anyway so situations like that are more unlikely. Though lots of you guys seem to think it being more rules lose is a flaw. In this edition where the DM must make more rulings, the DM will necessarily make fewer bad rulings because Edit: Fire Bolt, Fireball, Fire Storm, Flaming Sphere, and Meteor Swarm all explicitly "ignite flammable objects that aren't being worn or carried", but not Flame Strike. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 10:45 on Aug 17, 2014 |
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Aug 17, 2014 10:33
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