D&D NEXT Advice Thread: Newbies Click This

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Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

I was thinking of DalaranJ's idea of giving monsters abilities that a group of monsters could use. It's a pretty neat idea and could be used to alter the flow of combat so it doesn't become a slog. Here's a couple I came up with:

Blood in the Water (Sahuagin)
The first time a sahuagin deals a critical hit in combat, the scent of blood drives all the sahuagin in the combat to a blood frenzy. All sahuagin currently involved in the battle get +2 to attack and damage for the rest of the combat.

Retreat! (Goblin)
The first time a goblin is dropped to zero in battle all the goblins involved can immediately use the retreat action (that's an action, right?) as a reaction. (You could also have it trigger on something else, like the goblins having been reduced to half their numbers, to represent their old-school D&D tendency to run away after half of them were down due to their poor morale.)

Basically, give each mob of enemies a flavorful ability that triggers under certain conditions to alter the flow of combat a bit. Anything to make combat a bit more exciting than two groups exchanging blows until the other side dies.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2015 10:20

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 08:40

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

e: Whoops, nevermind.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2015 10:17

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

So, I'm in a place right now where I'd be happy to give 5e a shot if I were to find a group to play it with, just to see how it plays. Still not going to dump any money on it just for the sake of trying it out.

Thinking of race for my character, I obviously want to play a dwarf, because dwarves rock. Mountain dwarf seems right for playing the tanky kind of dwarf I want to play.

However, the weird thing about mountain dwarves is that even though they have the stat spread (+2 Str, +2 Con) that a Fighter might want, a lot of their racial abilities include stuff that is useless on a Fighter (like weapon and armor proficiencies that the Fighter already has). So, the natural consequence seems to be to play a mountain dwarf wizard.

The funny thing is, if I choose spells that have no saves or attack rolls, buffs and reaction spells, I don't even need to worry about Intelligence. I can just mix it up in combat with the most protective medium armor I can find, wielding a battleaxe or warhammer two-handed but leaving my other hand free for me to cast spells with somatic components. If I do hit I can throw a shield to gain an instant +5 to AC, which is not bad.

The arcane tradition given in the basic set (evocation) doesn't really mix with this concept, but thankfully the new article about adapting Eberron to 5e has Artificer as an arcane tradition, which actually has a lot of synergies with this idea: I can blow my extra spell slots on preparing various buff potions, and at higher levels even make my weapons and armor temporarily magical. This I think seems pretty fun, and the benefit of turning my weapon magical through the Artificer class feature is that unlike the magic weapon spell it doesn't require concentration.

So, assuming I have only the basic set and the Eberron article to go with, what would you recommend as far as stat-spread, spells, background and everything for this type of character?

# ¿ Feb 16, 2015 13:23

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

Kitchner posted:

This isn't really that weird. The way you need to read this is "No matter what class the dwarf is, he is always proficient in...".

So if you look at the Bard class, usually you wouldn't see a Bard armed with a huge battleaxe. This is a Dwarven Bard though so even though his bardic training doesn't cover how to split an orc in tow using an axe bigger than you, he's a Dwarf for God's sake so of course he can do it! Same with elves, all of them can use bows etc because that's just what elves do.

So yeah, don't be put off playing a dwarf fighter because of overlapping proficencies, especially as you can become ridiculously tanky with heavy armour and then instead of a skill boost at level 4 you pick the heavy armour mastery feat and the defensive fighting style.

For example a level 1 dwarf fighter with heavy armour, sword and shield with the defensive fighting style is like AC 19 with 13 hitpoints which is miles ahead of everyone else at level 1.

I understand your point, but I'm already kind of sold on the idea of a dwarven warwizard, with all the spells reflavored as the character activating war runes and such (for an example, all the crafting related stuff from the artificer will be about the character infusing magical victory runes on their weapons and armor. All the divination type spells will be refluffed as rune-casting.

The idea for this character came from my love of dwarves, the Artificer (even though I think the 5e interpretation is a bit bland but entirely serviceable for this concept) and the fact that I've been on a huge Norse mythology kick recently.

Oh, and thanks to gradenko_2000 for that list of spells, I'll take a look and see which best fit my concept!

# ¿ Feb 16, 2015 14:17

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

Apollodorus posted:

Thanks! I realize it is a more general question, indeed.

What are some advantages of D&D Next compared to Pathfinder? What are some specific features of D&D Next that I can take advantage of in order to streamline some stage of the process? (the advantage/disadvantage mechanic has been really nice so far, for example) What are some potential pitfalls? Is there anything cool from Pathfinder or previous D&D editions I could incorporate to make the game more interesting?

The house rules outlined earlier in the thread look really neat, I will need to take some time and figure out how to use those suggestions going forward.

Just looking at the basic rules as compared to Pathfinder:

1) Character creation is a much simpler process. You don't have to juggle single skill points, skill choice is a matter of "Do I have this skill by virtue of my race, class or background?"
2) Related to point 1, actual character advancement is easier as well, as you won't have to make quite as many choices during level up.
3) The rules in general are much more streamlined than Pathfinder's. Full-round actions are gone, meaning that the action economy in general is more simple.

However, the main pitfall as compared to Pathfinder also relate to points 1 and 2: part of the reason character creation and character advancement are such simple processes is that there simply aren't that many choices to make. If you enjoy having a lot of options, Pathfinder is currently the game you want.

Also, point 1 and 2 are subject to change as more supplements are released. Yeah, the character creation process is a simple, stream-lined process, but once you start adding more feats, archetypes and backgrounds there are going to be more options to choose from and thus it runs the risk of becoming a slower process.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2015 19:11

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

Hey, based on the numbers in the Basic rules and some thinking, I decided to cook up a simple XP system that tries to strike the balance between bean-counting and characters leveling up when it's narratively appropriate. The math checks out at level 1 for groups of 3 to 5 (i.e. the system assumes the same amount of encounters for the group to level up) and is self-adjusting for groups of that size. It also comes with the added benefit of allowing for pacing the game on a per-adventure level. It's not a good fit for dungeon crawls (where characters are constantly under threat of random encounters) but if you want to run the game using more narrative time while trying to maintain some of the game's balance assumptions (i.e. the fact that spellcasters are only balanced if long and short rests are few and far between) this system should also help you with that.

Part of this system owes itself to the neat little game Old School Hack, which has a really neat XP economy, but the actual system only resembles Old School Hack superficially.

This system assumes a group of 4 PCs as the baseline, but as noted above the system is self-adjusting to parties of 3 or 5 as well. First you'll need to calculate the difficulties of encounters for a group of four of the appropriate level. An Easy encounter is worth 1 XP, a Medium encounter worth 2, Hard is worth 3 and Deadly is worth 4.

After each encounter, the DM puts a number of XP tokens equal as appropriate to the difficulty of the encounter in a bowl in the middle of the table. So, if the group had just beaten an encounter that would've been Easy for a group of 4, the DM would put just one token in the bowl. Once the number of tokens in the bowl equals to the size of the group, each player gets one token and the PCs reach a minor milestone. During a minor milestone the group is free to take a short rest uninterrupted and there's nothing the DM can do about it. The characters have just survived a bunch of encounters, give them a freaking breather.

Once a PC gains their third XP, they've finished the adventuring day and reach a major milestone. This is when they get to take a long rest and prepare for the next adventuring day. Also, by my maths this should be enough for a group of 1st and 2nd level PCs to level up, so congrats! Give those tokens back to the DM and start counting tokens from scratch.

So, as I said this system assumes a group of 4 for the sake of calculating how much XP an encounter is worth for a party of that level, but it's also self-adjusting: a group of three will have a harder time beating those encounters, but they'll also get to milestones more often (for an example, if the DM was just throwing Easy encounters at the group, a group of 3 would get a minor milestone every 3 encounters and a major milestone every 9 encounters, whereas a group of 4 would only get a minor milestone every 4 encounters and a major one every 12 encounters).

Beyond third level, the XP rates need to be rejiggered though. The Basic rules assume that a third level party would gain 1,200 XP each adventuring day, but they need 1,800 XP (from 900 to 2,700) to reach 4th level, meaning that they'd level up in one-and-a-half adventuring day. Because my system assumes an adventuring day in three parts, I'd err on the side of the players and give the players their first level up at the first milestone of their second adventuring day at 3rd level, meaning that to get from level 3 to level 4 you'd need 4 XP instead of 3. Beyond level 3, I don't know, I've yet to do the math.

To refine on this idea, I'd also like to somehow tie the idea of milestones into the treasure economy. Basically, for every encounter completed the PCs would gain treasure as appropriate to the difficulty of the encounter, but at every minor milestone the DM would also throw in a limited-use magic item (either a potion, a scroll or any other magic item that has a limited number of uses before it's gone, like a wand) and at major milestones the PCs would gain a magic item that's either "always on" (like a +1 sword, or something less boring I guess) or that's got a limited number of uses per day but doesn't run out of charges, but I'll have to think about that some more.

EDIT: One more thing: while the XP values as well as how often the group gets a milestone line up with group size, the GM should bear in mind that the difficulties as calculated for this system are adjusted for a group of 4 characters. An encounter that's Hard for a group of 4 is probably going to be Deadly for a group of 3, and the GM should keep that in mind when constructing encounters. Conversely, a Deadly encounter for a group of 4 might just be Hard for a group of 5.

Ratpick fucked around with this message at 11:50 on Feb 18, 2015

# ¿ Feb 18, 2015 11:42

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

gradenko_2000 posted:

I love your idea of explicitly and mechanically defining rest opportunities and treasure handouts. I want to try this, it's a very cool idea.

Thanks! If I try out this system I'll most likely also use your house rules, including your encounter-building guidelines and better survivability at lower levels. At the moment this is just so much theorycrafting on my part, I don't even have a group to run this game for at the moment.

At the very least, I'll adapt this system to my own heartbreaker if I ever get around to dedicating my "D&D but better!" ideas to paper.

PurpleXVI posted:

Giving the PC's "tokens" to help define when they want rests is actually kind of a cool idea, though it might take some serious effort to fluff in some cases(perhaps an adrenaline surge after the first fight in a chain restores some HP and limited-use powers?), and I don't think it'd be unfair to say the DM is allowed to go: "Hey, PC's, explain to me how you manage to rest/recover here." rather than just making it an entirely free thing to use. Though the GM shouldn't be too aggressive about analyzing their rest-justification, he should just push them to come up with something cool rather than taking it as an instant heal effect.unless you're intentionally doing something dungeon crawly.

I think you misunderstood a part of my post: the idea of these tokens is not to give the PCs free rein to decide when they rest, it's a mechanic for the DM to pace their adventure in such a way that the PCs get a breather every once in a while. They're every bit a resource for the DM to pace the adventure as they are for the PCs to be able to predictably get a rest after a string of encounters.

And again, I stated in my post that this system is explicitly not a good fit for dungeon crawls: the way I see the traditional dungeon crawl it's a hostile encounter where you simply don't take hour-long rests because of the dangers of random encounters. This system is more for free-flowing adventure design where things flow in narrative time. The "adventuring day" might actually be more than a day, this system basically just divides that period into smaller chunks.

I should probably type up an example of using this system to make my ideas more clear.

PurpleXVI posted:

Tying it into the treasure economy, though, I think that may be a bad idea. Because if PC's just get to trade tokens or milestones for whatever they want out of the game's selection of magical items(assuming they have enough tokens to "afford" it), then you recapture one of the things I hated the most about 3.x, the way that everything magical and non-standard might as well just have been in a loving shopping catalogue. Magical and special items are no longer unique or interesting, or a defining thing about a character(that he's wielding a long-lost relic of a dead empire he recovered from a tomb or something), it's just another +X item he bought, in 3.x for gold, via this system for "tokens" or "milestones."

Again, the idea isn't that the players get to choose the items they find from a shopping list: the onus is still on the DM to place the items into the adventure. My system just proposes a rate at which PCs can expect to get new toys to play with, but it's still on the DM to choose or generate said items for the group.

e: Gotcha, I found the place where I was being unclear. When I say that after an encounter the PCs get treasure as appropriate to the difficulty of the encounter, I meant mundane treasure like gold, gems, amulets and possibly mundane weapons and armor. At minor milestones PCs can expect to get one limited use magic item (as chosen by the DM) and at major milestones they can expect to gain a permanent magic item (again, as chosen by the DM).

Ratpick fucked around with this message at 12:47 on Feb 18, 2015

# ¿ Feb 18, 2015 12:30

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

AlphaDog posted:

I agree with this sentiment, but would say that the biggest problem with nobody having interesting and unique items is that there's been a general lack of them in the lists since at least as far back as 3.x. I remember the guys I played BECMI and AD&D with always being more excited by stuff like "it's a spoon that makes nourishing gruel once a day" or "it's a portable boat that folds up into a tiny piece of cloth" than "it's a sword +3" or "it's a wand of curing".

Trying to capture stuff like "it's a long-lost relic of a dead empire recovered from a tomb" is a great goal, but I think it really needs to be more than a sword +1 you found there and have some mechanical stuff associated with it that makes it play like a long-lost etc. That's been a problem with D&D since forever though, maybe to the point where it's more D&D to have a sword +1 than it is to have a sword that's also the last key to the tomb of King Nebbitzazz and his spirit guides you to there so you can fulfill the prophecy.

I agree with this sentiment 100%. What I'm thinking of doing is ditching +X weapons and armor altogether, baking the assumed bonuses for magical gear into the math, and giving special weapons and armor more story-related abilities. For an example, instead of finding a +1 sword in a dungeon it would be a magic sword (that thus obviously counts as a magical weapon for the purposes of overcoming monster resistances [another thing I might get rid of altogether]) that, I don't know, shines with light whenever anyone in hearing range of the sword's wielder tells a lie (little white lies glow as bright as a candle, big lies make it shine bright enough to illuminate a dark room).

Also, yeah, there's plenty enough cool and weird magic items to choose from that you shouldn't always feel the need to give the players a new and better +X weapon, and this is part and parcel of why I want to get rid of plain +X weapons and armor: to give the magical weapons and armor the players find equal narrative weight to the really fun magic items the game already has in troves.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2015 12:57

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

Kitchner posted:

Maybe give them a token for a special 5 minute short rest as a reward for hitting the milestone or something.

That's basically what I had in mind: the reward for reaching a minor milestone is basically getting to take a short rest that doesn't take much "real time," but is more akin to taking a breather before going on with the task at hand.

Kitchner posted:

I think if the party wants to rest and can rest then they should be able to. It just requires the DM to find way to essentially incentives the players to take risks by not short resting every 5 minutes. I'm assuming under that system though you're not suggesting the players can ONLY long rest after major plot points?

That's a really good point. I would agree that the party should be able to take a rest whenever they want, but it should come at a price. I'll probably adapt something like 13th Age's campaign losses for this: taking a short rest before a minor milestone equates to an adventure complication (the dark cult that the PCs are after are now aware of the fact that there's meddling heroes on their tail and thus they strengthen their defenses, just to give an example), whereas taking a long rest before a major milestone equates to, well, basically losing (but losing in this case shouldn't mean that the campaign is over, just that there's a new threat in town that must be addressed now). To use the example of the dark cult again, if the PCs find themselves stretched for resources before the big punchout with the cult and decide to take a long rest, the cult goes ahead with their ritual to open a dark portal into the Dimension of Doom. The campaign isn't over, the stakes have just changed: now the campaign isn't about stopping the cult from opening the dark portal, now it's about finding a way to close the dark portal.

EDIT: poo poo, now that I think about it, I could easily marry Dungeon World's fronts and dangers into this system. Taking a short rest before a minor milestone means that one of the dangers on the adventure front progresses one step towards its conclusion, while taking a long rest before a major milestone means that the adventure front goes on to its conclusion and thus changes one of the dangers on the campaign front.

Ratpick fucked around with this message at 13:17 on Feb 18, 2015

# ¿ Feb 18, 2015 13:14

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

PurpleXVI posted:

Looks like I did! It didn't occur to me that it would also help the GM with pacing issues, though that's a good idea, too. And I legitimately liked a lot of the idea with my own interpretation, too, like, giving the PC's a bit of narrative control, like...

"After defeating the ogres, covered in their blood and our own, every member of our party is galvanized by a surge of adrenaline. We'll surely pay for it at the end of the day, but for now we feel ready for another encounter at any moment!" [mechanically a short rest or something]

And, after thinking about it, I could also kind of see some cooperation with the PC's on treasure options. If the GM doesn't have some hard-set railroad that he expects the adventure to trundle on down, perhaps after hitting a milestone that gives his character access to a new magical item, the party's Fighter pulls the GM aside and goes: "I was thinking, maybe at the end of the tomb I could find..." and they talk it over, and come up with the Blade-Key of Emperor Nebbitzazz, which smites enemies of his ancient empire(lizardmen or something, perhaps) and grants the wielder the ability to open any of the Empire's old tombs or facilities simply by presenting the blade and demanding entry, suddenly providing a shitload of hooks as, after the final encounter, the PC's find both that and, as the GM rapidly improvises, also a large mosaic mural on the wall, a map, indicating where other of the Empire's old forts, tombs and facilities can be found...

Obviously it wouldn't be a fit for every game, some GM's have very clear ideas about what they want to do with their game, and their players often trust them with near-total narrative control if it's proven not to lead to bags of severed lizardman genitals in the past.

Absolutely: the system I've devised assumes that the DM is making most of the choices as to what sort of magical equipment the PCs find, but the way you interpreted it is actually how I'd actually run things. Like, when I run any game where punching goblins and looting treasure is the order of the day, I like to consult my PCs as to what kind of magical equipment would be cool for them to find, provided they don't just pick stuff out of a shopping list and we can somehow come up with a cool story for that magic item.

And yeah, I totally think that the players and DM should totally work together in creating a good in-world justification for short rests at milestones, whether it's "WE'RE SO loving PUMPED AFTER PUNCHING THOSE OGRES IN THE DICK" or "Man, this forest where we slew those centaurs is really picturesque, let's sit and contemplate the beauty of blood-drenched foliage for a moment."

Also, I don't like running railroads. In fact, I like to think on my feet when running games. This system is just me trying to give my own games a bit more structure in terms of narrative pacing and such.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2015 13:27

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

Kitchner posted:

That sounds much more like what I was thinking. He only problem I've got is that if you plan an adventure over multiple days, every day will include a long rest. So you can't really say with that system "Travel to the far off city of Whateverville and find the shapeshifter disguised as a duke" and then have the city be a week or two worth of travel.

Personally I don't like really prescriptive systems outside of combat anyway, as I feel ultimately the DM should be deciding what makes the game better for the group and act accordingly. If I was going to make it more transparent to the players though I think you need some sort of system that says:

- Normally a short rest is an hour and a long rest is 8 hours. The group can decide to rest at any time assuming they are safe (if not they risk being attacked etc).
- If the group is racing against time (or a phrase that doesn't suck I can't think of one though), which they will be informed of by the DM, then short rests will progress the actions of their enemies while a long rest will greatly progress them.
- While racing against time the group will be awarded a short or long rest for reaching minor milestones in the quest. These rests are 5 minutes and 1 hour long respectively, but provide the benefits of a full rest.

I don't think you need to "give" a long rest as part of the quest because in theory after they have killed the boss or finished the dungeon or whatever they should be able to get a night's sleep, but I guess you could stretch it out over 48 hours or something. On the other hand though it shows that not every quest is about rushing everywhere and may be stretched out over a longer time.

It still has the problem though that you can't say it takes a week to get there, let them rest every night, but also punish them for taking a 4 day detour to another town.

Also if I was going to be that transparent I'd probably have like a doom meter for the players or something to make it super clear that wasting time resting will be making the final fight harder but without knowing exactly how.

Truth be told, I hadn't even given thought to how this system would interact with travel. Basically, when it comes to travel I have two approaches: either the travel is unimportant and doesn't merit anything beyond narrating "So, after one week you arrive in Hobotown" and then that's where the adventure proper starts, or then the travel is actually super-important and deserves to be made an adventure in and of itself. Think of the Lord of the Rings films and the Hobbit: in the wilderness the characters were constantly pressed for time and low on rest and resources. Like, they may have made camp for the night at certain points in the story, but even then they were constantly under threat of getting attacked by goblins in the night and thus had to keep on moving. Fatigue, hunger and danger were what characterized travel in those stories.

So, basically, if travel from point A to point B is dangerous enough to merit it, run it as a self-contained adventure! What's at stake in that adventure is "Will the PCs make it to Hobotown before the evil forces working there go ahead with their plan?" or something, the minor milestones come to represent those few moments when the PCs have time to catch a few zees before forcing themselves back on the trail again, and the major milestone is the PCs' triumphant arrival in Hobotown to save the day!

What I'm basically doing here is stretching the definition of adventuring day to fit the needs of the narrative: sometimes you're in a dungeon and an adventuring day might be just a couple of hours when you punch some goblins and return with loot, sometimes you're on the trail with loving Nazguls and goblins and worgs on your trail and you don't have a moment to lose, and the adventuring day comes to represent something like a week of travel.

Of course there's a happy medium between these two extremes: travel from one place to another might not be super important, but you still want to throw in a random encounter or two. Go ahead and run those encounters as self-contained encounters where the PCs are long-rested, but they shouldn't get the benefits of milestones beyond getting XP and treasure for those encounters because they are not important parts of the adventure. This system should kick in when you've got a clear beginning for an adventure, and you need to start pacing the threats and rewards you throw at the PCs.

Ratpick fucked around with this message at 15:02 on Feb 18, 2015

# ¿ Feb 18, 2015 15:00

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

Squifferific posted:

I'm going through character creation right now for a new campaign, and I'm toying with the idea of a Dwarven Bard. While my group isn't that much into power gaming, I still don't want to be crippled at later levels just because I took a weird class/race combo. Are there any pitfalls or obvious things I should avoid? Is having Wisdom be the dump stat a terrible, terrible idea?

Well, I've heard that Valor Bards are pretty much one of the best class options in the game, and dwarves are obviously the best race. Valor Bard also seems like a good fit for a dwarf. If you go Mountain Dwarf, you can enjoy the benefits of a high Strength and Constitution, medium armor proficiency as well as having access to the coolest, dwarfiest weapons. (Although I'm not sure of the Bard's proficiencies and whether there's some overlap between the Mountain Dwarf's weapon and armor proficiencies and those.)

I'd caution against dumping Wisdom entirely: someone posted a synopsis of the amount of save-dependent effects in the game in the other thread a while back, and Wisdom saves are very prolific in 5e.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2015 21:48

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 08:40

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

Generic Octopus posted:

Dwarf doesn't really get you much mechanically, Valor Bards get the armor proficiencies at level 3 anyway. That said Bards are basically the best class in the game so it shouldn't matter much what your race is; it'd be nice to get a bonus to Cha but you can cap it out later. Don't dump Wis if you can avoid it, it's an important save.

The upside of going Mountain Dwarf however is that you won't have to wait for those proficiencies until 3rd level. 1st and 2nd level are when I'd imagine you'd need the heaviest possible armor the most as a Bard.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2015 21:59

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