D&D NEXT: Infinite Posts of the Abyss

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treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

MadScientistWorking posted:

I have a feeling that if your fighters were keeping them penned in then the encounter design just sucked. Something I learned from playing Dead in Thay is that if your in close quarters combat you're kind of screwed.
EDIT:
Actually now that I think of it that is applicable to all editions of D&D but its arguably worst in Next.

So either 1) Fighters suck or 2) Encounter sucks. Right.

For what its worth the fighters bottlenecked them in a cave opening and proceeded to hack their way through them in pretty short order. The wizard got one spell off, almost died, slept a chunk of the group which took a couple rounds for the boss goblin to wake up while the fighters and bow rogue dealt with the rest. The cleric generally stood there rolling like crap, he eventually killed one goblin on his third Sacred Flame attempt.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2014 17:02

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 03:06

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

branar posted:

I'm not really sure about the distinction you're making here.

I fully appreciate that your fighters actually got to roll some dice, which is great. But really, the wizard took 50-60% of the enemies out of the fight and the remaining monsters spent their turns trying to bring the other half back into the fight. Whether it "ended the encounter" or just "made things manageable" both sound like different ways of saying that the wizard trivialized things - maybe the fighters actually got to roll some dice and maybe a few goblins were still alive in round 2 to make attack rolls, but c'mon.

Personally I don't actually think that's the end of the world. 5 goblins probably shouldn't be the highlight of your party's adventuring day, and if the wizard burns a spell slot (I'm assuming this is pretty low level play) to trivialize that one fight, well, that seems reasonable as long as you're pacing things appropriately. But it sounds like the encounter was basically over when every monster spent an entire round scrambling to deal with the wizard's sleep spell.

He didn't trivialize the fight. The Fighters were grateful for the assist (the goblins he slept had bows) and the rogue felt like a badass since she was one shotting goblins left and right (she almost killed the boss in a single round). The boss simply spent an action each turn to wake up one of the goblins which replaced their fallen comrades and kept wearing away at the party. All said it was about 3-4 more rounds after sleep was cast that the encounter ended.

Sounds like a decent, but engaging fight and my players seemed to be having a blast and were very engaged even in each others turns.

edit: also there was a question about group stealthing, the rules deal with stealth/surprise rounds. The rogue had been able to recon the room and report back, so the others tried stealthing up. The players who rolled equal to or greater than the goblin's passive perception got the surprise round when combat began. That's how it's stated in the rules.

treeboy fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Aug 19, 2014

# ¿ Aug 19, 2014 17:38

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

Payndz posted:

So use True Polymorph to create your skeletons instead. It takes longer, as you only get one casting per day (unless there's some way to recharge high-level spells faster that I can't look up because I don't have the PDF on my iPad), but anything you create is A: automatically friendly to you and your party, so you don't have to keep reasserting control, and B: you control their moves and actions without any range limits RAW, so none of that "within 60'" crap.

Or alternatively, keep using True Polymorph to create an army of adult red dragons. Or Balors. Or Tarrasques. Or skeleton Tarrasques. Just go somewhere with a lot of large boulders to use for raw materials, and the world will be yours!

i'm not sure this logic follows. For one you're turning a mindless undead creature into a living intelligent creature, so there's no guarantee your mental domination would extend to the new dragon form.

Also do higher level skeletons gain CR? Because otherwise it's impossible since skeletons are much lower CR than even a Young Dragon

edit: also where are you getting this "automatically friendly" thing? True Polymorph says the creature retains its personality, so even if it doesnt become a Red Dragon in personality, your mental domination will end (its no longer undead...i guess?) and it would then go berserk.

edit2: also as a DM, should the polymorphed Skeleton Red Dragon escape somehow I'd probably use it as an excuse to start randomly dropping dragons on the party as they'd likely see it as an affront to their proud Draconic heritage that some upstart wizard would seek to create a facsimile using the remains of some lesser species. Thats actually a pretty awesome situation.

treeboy fucked around with this message at 19:53 on Aug 20, 2014

# ¿ Aug 20, 2014 19:47

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

Is there distinction between Thrown and Ranged? (i.e. dagger vs. bow) If not I'd simply argue that it depends on what kind of attack you're making with it. Otherwise you could argue that making an improvised weapon attack with a bow by smashing it over someones head should benefit from +2 to-hit because it's using a "ranged weapon"

Ruckby posted:

LOL nice one XD.

is this something we're doing now? XD @_@ ^.^
:suicide:

# ¿ Aug 21, 2014 14:52

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

AlphaDog posted:

If there is a distinction, I can't find it. Thrown and Ammunition are both properties, but that doesn't seem to have any bearing on whether something is a Ranged weapon. The two relevant lines that I can see are the ones I quoted on the last page

I guess it could be argued that the intent behind the first part is to judge a weapon by how it's currently being used, but that's not what's actually written there - and the second part clearly states that any weapon with a listed range is a ranged weapon.

It does say to treat an improvised weapon such as a table leg as a club. I guess that's what your bow would be treated as? A club has no range (ie, can't be thrown*) and is therefore a melee weapon.

I would argue the wording of that block, though awful, is actually talking about what kind of attacks are being made. "whereas a ranged weapon is used to attack a target at a distance." (emphasis mine) suggests that a weapon not used to attack at range isn't ranged, whereas one that does is. A weapon that can be used to either make ranged or melee attacks like a dagger or handaxe depend on the method of their use.

Yes they could've/should've just phrased it as ranged/melee attacks but :effort:

# ¿ Aug 21, 2014 15:17

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

Littlefinger posted:

I know, right?

Being curious about what the charop friend meant by giving +2 to-hit to one fighter speciality not being unbalanced, when it modifies the binary resolution of did damage/didn't do anything?

Is it because the to-hit math somehow does not differentiate between Fighter1 with Longsword +1 and Fighter2 with Longsword +3?

Is it because interclass balance is already off when some classes can just declare what happens on the battlefield, so giving at least some fighters a +2 to play their silly to-hit roll games would, if anything, only help the balance?

Or is it because other specialities are so much stronger that archers wasting less turns on failed attacks does not matter, i.e. fighters are balanced with each other?

A question truly equivalent to some "LOLXD grog something something" shitposting.

Basically the Martial classes are all pretty close to each other all things considered, there's still some sore losers but nowhere close to some classes in 3.5.

The major issue continues to be difference in power scope of martials vs. casters. However anyone suggesting that it's as bad as 3.x is overstating things in the extreme. They've done some things to reign in casters (limit 1 concentration) that could go a little further (make concentration checks more difficult) while ignoring other potential issues (spells that *should* be concentration, like Animate Dead) and common sense things that could've generally pulled caster scope back towards earth (add drawbacks to wizard school selection, lock out certain types of spells while enhancing others)

5e is 90% casters are too powerful, and 10% martials need (a little) love. People suggesting that Fighters should be just as reality defyingly powerful aren't suggesting actual mechanical solutions within the context of the game as it exists. They're suggesting a completely different game.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2014 16:52

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

Generic Octopus posted:

Thanks for this. Kinda surprised the caster supremacy was evident at level 1.

I think this was less of a caster supremacy issue and more of a min-maxed wizard sitting at a table with a bunch of people who'd never (or barely) played before. I'm guessing they were less than perfectly optimized.

Also he was level 3, which does start to open things up a bit more.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2014 18:32

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

TheAnomaly posted:

Actually, they're suggesting a rework of martial classes to give them the same game shaping abilities as caster classes. It only doesn't exist because WotC decided that caster supremacy was a thing they wanted in 5e, not because it had to be that way or there was no other way to make the game.

And yes, they are suggesting radical changes to martial classes like was seen in 4e or The Book of Nine Swords. It's not something that hasn't been done or that couldn't be done in the system, it's just something that the 5e design team specifically chose not to do. Caster Supremacy, like it or not, is a hard coded feature of 5e.

Which are completely different games. 4e didn't equalize classes by letting Fighters cleave mountains 'twain and jump over the moon, it put logical and mechanical restrictions on the scope of casters and making sure each role was effective no matter which class filled the role.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2014 18:50

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

ritorix posted:

Official splatbook spotted. Continuing the trend of outsourcing from wotc.

...

Adventure design and development by Sasquatch Game Studio LLC.

Given the general opinion on WotC design here, how can this be a bad (or at least worse) thing?

# ¿ Aug 22, 2014 16:38

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

Ruckby posted:

You would have to be literally retarded to think it's remotely possible to have fun playing a loving Fighter in Dungeons and Grog-ons 5th Edi-poo poo.

For fucks sake, go back to rpg.net.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2014 18:51

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

^^^ that's what I've been saying for awhile now, the primary issue is the (re)expansion of caster abilities, not the nerfing of martials

Jack the Lad posted:

No number of stat sticks will suffice.

If you mean winged sandals and helms of invisibility it's probably possible, but I don't know that I'd feel good about it if I were that player.

e: Two thoughts I just had.

1. Given that high level Wizards can reasonably come up with multiple viable plans to deal with monsters like Dragons and Tarrasques, I think Fighters should be at least as powerful as them. Leveling up into basically a Tarrasque in a 6 foot tall package would be pretty rad.

2. Fate's Six Viziers subsystem has some pretty cool ideas:

I was thinking about this as well. I'm not sure flavor wise that i'd be okay with just giving boots of flying or whatever. However giving magic items (somewhat like your edited suggestions) which simply let fighters make statements i.e. "I jump across the chasm" or "I lift the boulder" is a pretty rad idea.

Basically give fighters Zelda magic items.

Also crib off the caster magic items, where an object has X charges and Z abilites which each have given costs. So maybe bracers of mighty lift (or whatever) let you burn a set number of charges to simply move something. This could be a boulder, or perhaps punching a hole through a castle wall.

edit: like thinking off the top of my head

Gloves of Strength - Rare
You can lift your body weight without need for ability checks, in addition you can use a bonus action expend charges to perform feats of mighty strength.

16 charges
Move Object (4) - Move any object twice your strength mod feet (minimum 1)
Break Object (2) - Shatter any non-magical object. Magical objects take StrMod*d6 damage (or whatever seems appropriate for badly damaging but not necessarily destroying a magic object)

treeboy fucked around with this message at 19:20 on Aug 22, 2014

# ¿ Aug 22, 2014 19:06

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

Bongo Bill posted:

There's an important difference between a character who's cool and a character whose stuff is cool, though of course they can overlap and there's room enough for both in any given elfgame.

i think thats why its important to design the items so that there's something inherent to the character which says "i can use this, nobody else will be as cool as i can be with this item"

edit: that way it becomes about enhancing the character's inherent abilities, rather than fiat granting new abilities (which is basically what spells do)

treeboy fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Aug 22, 2014

# ¿ Aug 22, 2014 19:19

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

Jack the Lad posted:

Actually I'm gonna disagree on this, because a huge part of why e.g. the Knight functioned was the overarching rules framework within which it existed. The assumption of a grid, OAs 1/turn instead of 1/round and so on.

I seriously can't emphasise enough how awful OAs being 1/round in 5e is. Once you've used one, a whole conga line of monsters can dance right past you and you can't do anything about it.

I agree mostly. I don't think one character should be inherently able to stop an entire horde, but there should certainly be ways to scale OA's or otherwise enhance a character's stopping ability. To the point that I'm shocked that OA's are tied to your reaction instead of simply operating off a different resource (like OA's per round = proficiency)

# ¿ Aug 22, 2014 19:27

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

Jack the Lad posted:

I dunno, I think stopping an entire horde is totally within the Fighter's remit. One of the examples cited in the Fighter Design Goals was Roland fighting 400 Saracens, and I always thought this scene from Hero was pretty cool:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLxSRdnGucA

i should rephrase, i think its something to grow into as you level. D&D hasn't ever really designed around 400 saracens in a single encounter, but proficiency +6 would let you stop basically anyone entering your melee range in a normal combat encounter. Especially as there's no sharing spaces, one fighter could easily hold a choke point with 6 OA/round like in that (great) clip.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2014 19:44

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

So, and i just love this, the PHB mentions that you can damage items, but then says that it's DM's perogative to makeup whatever the HP of the item is. I don't know if there'll be more explicit rules in the DMG, but barring that (and based solely off a random magic item i created out of nowhere) I came up with a quick self-guide to item durability.

Item HP
Common (non-magical) - 10
Uncommon - 30
Rare - 40
Very Rare - 50
Legendary - 60, DR - 5
Special Material (Adamantine, Iron Wood, etc) - DR +5

I don't know if Legendary actually exists, but i figure it fills the space between Very Rare and plot armored 'One Ring' type items for special things which aren't necessary for your game.

It bugs me that they're explicitly citing a situation but then giving no framework for it.

treeboy fucked around with this message at 21:23 on Aug 22, 2014

# ¿ Aug 22, 2014 21:21

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

Kai Tave posted:

So the GM could, say, have monsters target your armor to destroy it before moving on to you? That seems like a totally great idea that won't cause huge amounts of table drama at all, no sir.

Not an issue, spells and abilities can't target items held/worn by other creatures iirc. At least there are a couple spells (shatter specifically) that state that they don't. I would extend that ruling to all items.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2014 21:30

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

VacuumJockey posted:

Out of curiosity, is there anyone here who plays the new D&D and honestly and unironically enjoys it? Full disclosure: I do.

I'm unironically enjoying DMing it so far. Next week we'll be starting a custom campaign at lvl 1, we'll see how it goes!

On another note, I could've sworn there was a table somewhere that listed quick DC difficulties for general tasks (in terms of easy/average/hard/impossible) but can't seem to find it now. Am I imagining things?

# ¿ Aug 23, 2014 16:24

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

siggy2021 posted:

Page 174 of the PHB under ability checks. It's also in the basic PDF's somewhere too.

sorry last page, but thanks, it was driving me crazy and my PHB was at home so I was trying to search via texts with friends. Really appreciate it.

# ¿ Aug 24, 2014 04:56

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

double post

# ¿ Aug 24, 2014 04:57

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

Also there was some question earlier about group stealth rolls and how they affect surprise rounds. Rules suggest (and how our group ran it) that if players have the surprise advantage on unaware enemies, players whose stealth rolls beat the enemy passive perception get to act during the surprise round.

That way if your rogue scouts ahead, spots enemies, comes back and they decide to rush in and ambush them, the fact that your whole party rolled terribly (minus the rogue) doesn't mean your rogue is screwed.

Also for making stealth checks, how often do people tend to require it? Like the rogue enters the cave and rolls a 24 stealth check. Awesome they're invisible to most everything. So how long before they need to make another? I'm still pretty new to DM'ing and i've been winging it a little bit, usually having players make new stealth checks whenever they 'pause' to converse about how to proceed.

Edit: obviously if the rogue walks into an open pool of bright light or something similar in the cave their concealment is gone, but generally let's assume that it's dark most everywhere in the cave

# ¿ Aug 25, 2014 13:07

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

edit: ^^^ what the gently caress

Rosalind posted:

Here's how not to do it: my character was trying to sneak through the outskirts of a crowd unseen. Not necessarily totally hidden, but without drawing any unnecessary attention to herself. The DM decided that every single member of the crowd gets a perception check.

The crowd had a couple hundred people in it.

who would ever think this is a good idea? at least with the current rules you'd simply compare your stealth check to the passive perception of 200 commoners (10)

# ¿ Aug 25, 2014 14:52

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

A Catastrophe posted:

Nope, I think you'll find that finally the DM has the power they should and the powergamers have been defeated and it's up to your DM.

Srsly, go ask Mike Mearls about that ruling, I will give you an each way bet he sides with DM Call.

intentionally misreading one of the few rather clearly written 5e rules isn't helping

# ¿ Aug 26, 2014 00:17

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

Jack the Lad posted:

Does anyone understand how hiding is supposed to work?

This seems like a pretty straight forward kind of ruling. Let's say my player wants to generate advantage so they roll stealth and hide behind a tree with some level of concealment during combat. The next round they want to use that concealment for advantage on their attack, which would reveal their position. Then hiding again would be more difficult (disadvantage). Nothing super crazy there.

If your question is "how does stealth work" generally...I dunno what to say really, like in every other edition? Kinda weirdly and not as useful as you'd think it'd be?

# ¿ Aug 26, 2014 13:17

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

Has anything been said about treasure? The DMBasic has magic items but nothing I can find about how to award anything beyond XP

# ¿ Aug 26, 2014 15:53

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

LongDarkNight posted:

It's up to your DM.

But...I'm the DM...I...I can do anything...anything

# ¿ Aug 26, 2014 16:01

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

Generic Octopus posted:

4e's stealth & hiding rules are pretty detailed, and provide a solid base for a few hiding-focused rogue & assassin builds.

But still revolves entirely around some type of concealment in order to even activate, which at higher levels isn't too hard (between powers and wondrous items), but at lower levels requires DM permission (yes that bush is big enough, no that tree is too thin, yes it's dark but not dark dark.)

It's (concealment) also something you can lose at the drop of a hat. I actually much prefer stealth in 5e since it doesn't pretend to be much more than what it's always been. Also the surprise rules are actually really good and make ambushing worthwhile even if you have the unstealthiest person in the world in your party.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2014 16:41

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

OtspIII posted:

Does the PHB have a section anywhere that lays down a 'Rule Zero' type thing that makes it clear that the rules written in the book are how poo poo works 'by default' but that whenever a situation is a little abnormal the DM should feel free to bend them? I really do think there's a defensible style of "DM's call" game design, but I'm still not clear on if D&D actually takes advantage of it or not.

Also, there do seem to be a pretty decent number of situations that really should be spelled out. Attacking from a hiding spot, then hiding again so you can do the same thing next round is going to be a pretty universal action for anyone with a sneak attack, and how it gets ruled is going to have a huge impact on class balance. That's the type of thing that, even if you leave the ruling up to the DM to some degree, you need to explain the significance of different types of rulings.

in this example (sneak attack) rogues almost always have it available anyway since it activates if there's an ally within 5' of the target. Stealth would be more about trying to gain advantage for the reroll

# ¿ Aug 26, 2014 17:40

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

why are people trying to overcomplicate one of the few totally positive aspects of 5e design. Advantage/Disadvantage is fantastic for a lot of reasons.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2014 17:41

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

Melee I'd argue you're obviously open and visible. Ranged maybe you can hide again next round but with disadvantage. Like suggested

# ¿ Aug 26, 2014 18:58

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

Jack the Lad posted:

You can get better bonuses than last stand gives by being turned into a dragon. And as an added bonus you're not guaranteed to die.

This is the thing. Caster supremacy is so insidious and pervasive that it influences the thinking even of people who are completely opposed to it.

Even when you do your best to come up with something mythic and awesome for a Fighter to do, a lot of the time there is a spell - one of like 50 spells a Wizard will have at their disposal - that does the same thing better.

this is why the biggest part of fixing caster supremacy isn't buffing the Fighting Man, it's putting actual restrictions on a wizards phenomenal cosmic power.

Which isn't to say there shouldn't be a wizard that can summon 108 skeletons (for exampe), but that should be what the Necromancer is all about, period. No Wishing, no Planar Traveling, if you want to do that kind of stuff you need to pick a different archetype. The fact you could (admittedly very cheesily) summon those skeletons and have full access to the entire repertoire of wizard spells for an entire day is the ridiculous part.

Wizards have no defined role, they have no "purpose" beyond "do all the magic" and it's the worst part of their design. As someone once pointed out, Wizards represent every wizard in every book and movie ever created. They're Gandalf and Dumbledore and Ged and Dresden, but with none of those characters individual flaws or weaknesses. I know some people here dislike the 2e styled school restrictions but it's the simplest example of how to actually curb casting and present real ups and downs to the class.

edit: hell even sorcerers suffer far less from this issue because they're stuck with whatever spells they choose until they have a chance to level. It doesn't fix the problem but it sure mitigates it a whole hell of a lot more than Wizards.

treeboy fucked around with this message at 14:39 on Aug 27, 2014

# ¿ Aug 27, 2014 14:34

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

Actually of all my examples Harry Dresden is probably the one that should be paid the most attention to. He's a really powerful character with lots of neat tricks who still can't just do everything. He sucks at, or flat out can't do, a ton of stuff seen in the series (healing, shapeshifting, invisibility, pretty much anything not fire or frost) and generally just burns things down really well, he's a stereotypical Evoker.

# ¿ Aug 27, 2014 14:42

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

Ferrinus posted:

But this works fine for 4e wizards.

The number of different colors of sparks a wizard can make when waving their hand isn't the problem. It's a basic issue of narrative assumptions and resolution mechanics.

That's because 4e gave wizards an actual role (controller, generally) to perform within the group other than general "problem solver extraordinaire!"

I'm not talking about the variety of colors or sparks or whether they can deal fire *and* cold *and* acid damage. I'm suggesting the base conceit that "here is the width and breadth of narrative control given to players of which some classes have part, but the wizard has all" is flawed.

If, for instance, planar travel is a thing, then have a wizard build centered around portals/teleporting. But at the same time don't allow the same caster to do everything else just as well. Allow his narrative to be constrained, much as the Fighter, Rogue, Ranger have their scopes constrained. This doesn't mean the Portal Wizard gets no offensive ability, but it shouldn't be the same kind of ability that a blaster Evoker can wield, and neither should be able to control the undead like a Necromancer (who likewise sucks at illusions and blowing things up)

edit: Caster supremacy is not just a problem for fighters, it's a problem for wizards too. And that is where the majority of solutions arise which aren't silly reproductions of the same kind of ridiculous abilities to make the Fighter a little more like Daddy Wizard.

4e brought the wizard down far more than it raised the Fighter up.

treeboy fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Aug 27, 2014

# ¿ Aug 27, 2014 16:05

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

Rigged Death Trap posted:

A Planeshifter shouldnt be able to disintigrate becaue they shouldnt be great at both planes magic and evocation. What they should be is a controller, dealing chaos or arcane damage while shifting and debuffing (get it) monsters and teleporting allies around.

And when narrative wants for planes magic theyre raring to go.

Id advocate Major and minor schools, you gain spells from both at same rate and minor school is capped at 4th/5th level spells.

this is exactly what i'm talking about and actually something i'd considered delving into. When choosing your school, you select two other schools that cap out at 4th or 5th level spells, and you cannot use any other spells from other schools (exceptions for scrolls since anyone can apparently use scrolls, but you'd be required to make the same int DC)

# ¿ Aug 27, 2014 18:03

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

Ferrinus posted:

A wizard who could only cast odd-numbered spells from a single school of magic would still leave the fighter looking stupid because the problem! Isn't! The wizard's! Versatility!!!

you're right, Wizard scope is not 100% of the problem, it is about 80-90% of the problem however. Fighters need more ability to affect the narrative, you are correct. They do not need (nor does any class really) the ability to literally dictate the events that will unfold for everyone else. 4e did not magically grant fighters narrative control powers to reshape the cosmos or obviate whatever they felt. It increased their bag of tricks, within the confines of the combat/skill system, and brought casters down to be on par with them.

Ideally i would be rid of stupid spells like wish (outside of DM narrative objects like a literal D'jinn in a bottle that anyone could use which frankly does not need mechanical support), restrict the scope of wizard narrative control through scaling back of certain spells and limiting versatility. While buffing fighters to be more interesting within their sphere of influence (interesting daily/encounter-esque design/combat control while avoiding phenomenal cosmic power)

edit: here i made a chart

pre:

               Fighters      Wizards
   |---------------o---|---------o---------|
too lame             ideal            too awesome

values of course are relative and may not be to scale, but you get the idea.

edit2: furthermore the assumption that 4e works simply because Wizards and Fighters work off the same basic mechanical concept of at-will/encounter/daily is the dumbest poo poo i've ever heard. It's perfectly possible for two classes within a game to have completely identical mechanical construction and yet be completely imbalanced within the game.

Likewise it is not impossible to make mechanically divergent classes perform similarly to one another, which while more difficult, is also infinitely more interesting. I really enjoyed 4e, and the classes played very differently, but the similarity in class mechanics/progression was boring as gently caress.

treeboy fucked around with this message at 22:03 on Aug 27, 2014

# ¿ Aug 27, 2014 21:52

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

Ferrinus posted:

Wizard scope is 0% of the problem. This is easily demonstrated: limit a 5e wizard exclusively to spells which deal hitpoint damage on a failed save (fireball, cone of cold, etc). It's still stronger and cooler than a 5e fighter, possessed of greater importance and narrative agency.

4e didn't actually bring the wizard down, except in haggling-over-minor-details terms where like it now takes 1 hour to teleport directly to heaven rather than 1 standard action. The variety of actions available to the wizard was, if anything, greater in 4e because of the flexibility that multiclassing and paragon paths allowed - you could much more easily make an undead slaying wizard or a healing wizard in 4e than in 3e or 5e, for instance.

It's stupid to blame 5e's problems on Wish or Plane Shift or Invisibility or any combination of potential spell effects castable by the same character in the same day. It betrays a cargo cult understanding of game balance, an ignorance of the way that fundamental resolution systems affect the experience. It would be no harder to write an important and empowered 5e martial hero than it was to write the importand and empowered 5e arcane hero. It's just that no one's done the work on the former, and massive amounts of effort have been spent on the latter.

What the gently caress are you smoking. You're complaining about narrative control then saying power scope and versatility has nothing to do with the issue? People are specifically attempting to demonstrate broken mechanics through complex series of spells like teleport invisibility and polymorph.

I'm not talking about resolution mechanics, I'm talking sheer ability to affect the game world in diverse ways which is all about spells like invisibility and polymorph. Whether the wizard hits with fireballs or the fighter attacks eight times a round doesn't matter if the wizard can fly around the encounter. That's what scope and versatility bring and it's the root issue of the wizard problem.

Bring that down a notch (like 4e did through well written spells and rules with explicit language) and you're left with simply balancing dpr

# ¿ Aug 28, 2014 00:02

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

Ferrinus posted:

I'd call that a sorcerer. A fighter would probably need, say, a sword cooled in the blood of a creature from the target plane that they then swing in a precise pattern through the air at an already-unstable location. Or, maybe they go to a crossroads at midnight, draw their weapon, and issue a formal challenge to duel to some guard or monster from wherever they want to go.

I mean, I'd probably make the spell list a little more generic and offload things like spell components to specific classes, but it's certainly not unworkable as-written. If wizards, pit fiends, and elementals all use "Fireball" for 8d6 damage in a 20' area, well, fine - that's just how explosions of magical fire work in this universe. What we need is an equivalently detailed list of staff techniques, ponzi schemes, breathing exercises, etc.

1) there's literally nothing stopping you from creating such a sword and giving it to your fighter
2) or crossroads demon-guard challenging either

Nothing you've mentioned, by and large, could be done by any martial character in 4e who couldn't also cast spells/rituals, despite their inherent 'powers' Making Fighters "wizards-in-armor-with-swords" is not what 4e did, and every time you insist its the secret to 'fixing' caster supremacy you demonstrate you don't know what you're talking about.

I'm fine with introducing more variety to the Fighter and martial classes and have said so. But the sheer variety of abilities that *every wizard and caster* has access to is what blows away the martial guys as far as narrative ability. There are few spells I would remove from the game outright (wish is the easy example since even casting it largely depends on DM fiat), the rest (especially high level spells) should be restricted to the chosen school specialization.

Everything you describe would be homogenizing the system, not balancing it. You would simply reskin the wizard as Fighter Dude who uses a sword instead of a staff, and sounds like a really boring game where everyone can do anything.

Ferrinus posted:

Yeah, but the skill system is bad. I'd rather see it replaced with a bunch of concrete powers you can learn more and more of as you level up than see adventure magic melted down into "roll Arcana". I wasn't kidding when I mentioned Exalted before.

This is your answer, if you want a game where anime super heroes are blowing up moons then play exalted. This has never been D&D and likely never will be, even 4e.

# ¿ Aug 28, 2014 03:12

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

QuantumNinja posted:

I found another cumbersome example of caster supremacy, which is even more bizarre, to me, than "invisibility" vs "roll sneaking". Check out this really cool Ranger class feature:

When I first read this, I thought it was neat and flavorful, though at 8th level it may not be incredibly great. Then I got to thinking, and looked up some spells. Let's look at a Level 4 spell that Bards, Clerics, and Druids get at level 7:

This isn't even a situation of "well casters get a ton of flexibility and martial classes don't". This is a situation where a martial class got a significantly lesser version of a spell, a level later than casters get it. Would it really have been so game-breaking to just give rangers daily casts of Freedom of Movement? (It's worth mentioning that Rangers also get this spell six levels later at level 13!)

it is worth noting that the ranger ability appears to be passive and permanent from what you've quoted

# ¿ Aug 28, 2014 04:17

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

Ferrinus posted:

Okay, but there is something stopping my fighter from using such a sword to open a planar gateway, even though in anyone else's hands it'd just be a +2 sword/+4 vs. devils or some poo poo. There is something stopping my fighter from being such a great warrior that an elemental archon would respond to my fighter's call for a fencing match, while it wouldn't respond to any common brigand and has magically girded itself against normal summoning magic. That thing is the fact that fighters don't get any loving powers.

Did you see the post in which I said that 4e's out-of-combat rules still heavily favored magic users? In 4e, martial characters are the equals of magical characters in combat, but not really in terms of travel, stronghold construction, trap removal, or other adventure action that isn't subordinated to the initiative counter.

Again, this is lazy cargo cult bullshit. Oh, the "Wish" spell! That game ruiner! Oh no, not "Knock"!

Perhaps you'd like to think that if you just cut the spell list down a bit and promised to only ever use magic that called for Wisdom saves, not Dexterity or Constitution saves, it'd somehow be okay for you to play your full spellcaster in the same game as a fighter or rogue. But it isn't. It's not any specific power your wizard has, and it's not the breadth of powers your wizard can in theory or even have at once - it's the fact that non-casters get no powers.

See, the problem here is that you don't know what you're talking about. In Exalted, you aren't actually an anime super hero who blows up moons unless you actually break out the (equivalent of) epic level rules that showed up in some supplement years down the line.

However, what you are, straight out of the Exalted corebook, is someone whose abilities - whether they're swordfighting abilities, sweet-talking abilities, sneaking abilities, blacksmithing abilities, navigating abilities, whatever - all show up as discrete, mechanically-supported special powers. With Charm A, you can put on your armor in seconds and wear it all day without getting tired. With Charm B, you attack everyone within reach as a single action. With Charm C, you can deconstruct any mundane object in a matter of minutes so long as you've got some tools at hand. There is a list of magic spells - you could summon a demon, ride around on a tornado, turn your skin to living bronze, etc - but the list of magic spells is actually shorter than the list of amazing but human-condition-rooted exploits.

Now, because of the game's setting, you eventually start unlocking powers that let you shoot energy blasts by swinging your sword, stick your arm out and fly around like Superman, etc. But that's Exalted. D&D doesn't need fighters who glow with holy light or phase directly through solid walls - it just needs fighters who have concrete, mechanically-supported special abilities. It's entirely possible, and has been done, to take a completely mundane character and represent their abilities as a bunch of discrete, deployable powers.

What? Literally what? We have examples of magic weapons that need to be attuned to specific races, why not specific classes? Providing all the special wonderful ~~magical~~ martial powers you desire. There's nothing stopping you beyond the limitations of your own imagination.

Good lord you're obtuse, have you considered for a moment that wish is simply a good example of poor spell design? I agree, Knock is terrible too, however not because it exists but because it is so readily available to every caster in the entire game. There's little issue with having overlap between the spells and abilities of some classes, the problem with wizards is they overlap with every class in the game with no investment beyond "I'm a wizard" and with zero drawback.

Also you keep using the term "Cargo Cult" and I'm starting to wonder if you even know what you're talking about beyond some internet catchphrase you heard on tumblr. I don't know what you do for a living but it's obviously not game design, though you're right, I don't know Exalted, I've never played it and have little wish to, everything I know is from the forums here, i.e. horrendous anime titty art and people talking about blowing up planets, so that's on ya'll i guess.

Every single recommendation you and others have made for buffing martial classes has been to either 1) make them jump further whenever they want, or 2) make them wizards with swords. Neither is interesting for a whole host of reasons and is lazy design.

If you want to create a unique, useful, and flavorful set of martial classes you inherently have to pull back the variety and utility of wizards who can do everything already anyway and are poorly thought out with no concept beyond MAGIC. This means either 1) removing large portions of spells from the game, or 2) Keeping the spells more or less as they exist but segregating them into different builds/archetypes. Then after creating some semblance of a scoped and defined caster class (beyond 'do all the magic'), adding in a handful of useful martial abilities that perhaps a particular build of Wizard can emulate, but not every wizard in the game.

What kind of abilities? Well that depends on the kind of game. If D&D is truly just a dungeon crawler, then the majority will probably be combat oriented. If you're attempting to actually round out the franchise with RP abilities then perhaps this could be providing benefits through something like "commands" to your allies which produce a variety of results from advantage on skill/combat rolls or causing enemies to flee in terror (or cowing NPCs into submission). Now one might say "that's Charm Person or Some Other Spell, wizards do that already." and I would say "Yes, the Enchanter Wizard can Charm Person, and the Conjurer can grant Advantage, but no wizard can do both unlike the Leader Fighter Man who can also rally entire villages to a cause and command their loyalt" or whatever. The point is he's not just a wizard in armor who can do all the things that a wizard already can do and brings nothing different to the table.

Personally I'm not a fan of removing large numbers of spells, I don't think that's an elegant solution. However creating a situation where a Wizard has to make a loving choice of what kind of wizard he or she wants to be at character creation (rather than at any given moment during the game) is actually a pretty neat idea and ultimately far more interesting design for everyone in the game. On top of that it opens the loving gates for other classes to then do things. You had a pretty good idea about Rangers being able to find natural rifts to other planes. That's a perfect example. If only Conjurors (or whatever) can open portals anywhere, then a Ranger becomes super useful, even though there's a bit of overlap in class design. Should this be their only neat ability? Of course not, maybe they can track anything anywhere, even across the planes. Kinda overlaps with Divination a bit. Good thing since you don't have a Diviner. If you don't have a Rogue then maybe the wizard seriously considers becoming a Transmuter instead of an Evoker to pickup Knock. Otherwise they're stuck buying expensive scrolls or searching for the Key to every locked door they find.

Currently giving a neat ability or two (or three or four) to other classes is pointless. A single wizard makes it unnecessary. Turning the Fighter/Rogue/Ranger/Monk/Paladin into Wizards with all of their abilities is just an example of "Me too!" design where everyone has to be everything all the time in order to 'balance' the game.

edit

A Catastrophe posted:

Fom lasts an hour, and that's assuming it even needs to be memorized.
Overland movement isn't grid movement, grid movement only occurs in combat.

Yes, Freedom of Movement lasts an hour, it also requires a 4th level spell slot to cast and isn't a ritual, so it would have to be memorized unless provided by a domain or similar feature. As above, I don't think this particular instance is imbalanced, two classes have similar though somewhat different abilities. One is passive and permanent, the other more powerful but ultimately limited by time, resources (spell slots), and preparation requirements. However I do agree the fact that any wizard could potentially at any time replicate a class feature of another class (while doing a lot of other stuff as well/better) is a bit lame.

This is actually a pretty good example of giving martial characters what would generally be considered a 'spell like ability' but differentiating it from the actual spell and creating utility/diversity. The weakest examples are simply giving characters literal "spell like abilities" that tell you to look up the spell to figure out what your Ranger can do.

treeboy fucked around with this message at 14:28 on Aug 28, 2014

# ¿ Aug 28, 2014 14:09

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

Ferrinus posted:

I wouldn't remove powers from any class (and, obviously, add them to the classes that get none) and tier them like:

1. You've mastered these and practice them regularly; at any time, you can spend one of your power points or spell slots or whatever to deploy one

2. You've studied these and are familiar with them but you need at least a little time and/or cash and the right set of circumstances to use one, or to swap it with one of the powers you've got in tier 1

3. These are available to your class and so technically within your powers, but you haven't really studied or practiced them at all; if they're really far below your level you can improvise them easily, but otherwise you'd need to retrain them at least up to tier 2, or else spend lots of time and money setting one of them up for a single use in a specific way

In familiar terms, a wizard wouldn't have to commit to a single school or whatever, but the number of spells they can keep in their spellbook would be limited by class level just like the number of spells they can prepare at once is. Wanna cast Knock? Sure - you've learned how to open a lock with magic, which is at least as hard as opening it with your hands (but certainly useful, even if you've also got a rogue around - it can work at a distance, or affect a ghostlock that solid hands pass through, or whatever). That took up time you could've used studying something else, though.

This still doesn't solve the overall issue of casters simply being good at everything. Especially as the wizard levels and more and more spells become available to keep in their spellbook. Or they simply carry two spellbooks and get around this issue.

Wizards (and Clerics as well to a slightly lesser extent) are a kitchen sink class. They will always be stronger and more versatile as long as they can do everything everyone else can just as well, if not better. Let the rogue be permanently invisible and unlock any door. The wizard can still fly and shoot fireballs while polymorphing demons and himself into dragons, open doors where there was not door to even unlock, and force NPCs to do what he wants.

People keep saying 4e didn't limit the scope and versatility of the wizard, but it explicitly did by putting hard limits on the number of spells you could obtain, requiring you to actually choose between specific spells at given levels (3 spells, choose 2), as well as shifting many utility spells to rituals, which anyone could cast (much like scrolls in 5e).

Wizard isn't a class like the martials and even the other casters as much as it is a vague abstract concept with no limits.

edit:

sometimes class and game design isn't about adding more buttons to push, it's making sure that what buttons you do have do something interesting and unique which allows you to act within the system in ways others cannot (or cannot as effectively/efficiently). At the moment the Fighter's buttons are a little underpowered and at times dull. He could also use a little more variety especially the base class progression.

Meanwhile caster classes have 200 buttons, some of them break the game, others are inconsequential, and there's no real limit to how those buttons can be arranged. Talent Trees are a thing in most games these days for a reason. Games like Skyrim and UO limit the progression or total amount of skills for a reason.

Fighters are generally playing by the system, someone gave Wizards debug commands.

treeboy fucked around with this message at 15:20 on Aug 29, 2014

# ¿ Aug 29, 2014 15:10

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 03:06

treeboy: Nov 13, 2004; James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

early on i'd say that's probably its best use. Later as you get a bigger Lay on Hands HP pool to draw from (and Cure spells) i'd guess the functionality will shift a bit.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2014 15:45

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