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DalaranJ posted:Give some enemy groups a single spell to unleash to make them slightly more interesting. Do you mean "this group of monsters casts this one spell once in the fight", eg 5 kobolds collectively getting to cast one Web? Because that's an excellent idea that I don't think I've seen elsewhere. -- I'll ask a question, too. What's everyone's opinion on jack-of-all-trades type characters? Or to put it another way, how do I best make a character who can do a bit of everything? Obviously "casts spells" provides heaps of options, but can I get decent spellcasting, melee combat, ranged combat, sneakiness, and healing (even just self healing) into the one character? Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 00:05 on Feb 8, 2015 |
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Feb 7, 2015 23:58
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thespaceinvader posted:You should be aware, though, that D&D rules systems in general reward specialising and punish generalising. A single generalist in two areas will tend to be less than the sum of the two halves of specialists that make it up, IYSWIM. It's a function of how feats, class features, items etc are assigned, as well as at least partly an intended part of the design - one person isn't supposed to be good at all the things, because it's a team game. I'm actually asking because these days my main group generally runs to 3 players (or maybe even just 2 on occasion) instead of the 4-5 we used to have. I should have included that in my question, I guess. My idea was that you'd run 3 generalists and have all your bases covered, but if someone can point out a good/interesting party composition with 3 specialists, that would be neat too (I'm thinking bear druid, wizard, and... maybe valor bard?) Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 00:38 on Feb 8, 2015 |
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Feb 8, 2015 00:36
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Thanks guys. Next time I get to play I'm gonna go Lore Bard and see how it ends up.
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Feb 8, 2015 10:47
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P.d0t posted:...basically you have to pump STR if you want to go melee/thrown or pump DEX for finesse/ranged... and AC I'm not sure this one is easily solvable. There was talk of merging STR and CON into one stat, but that sounds like it will massively boost classes that want a casting stat and then melee stats (bear druids and valor bards, off the top of my head) instead of just fighters. I heard an idea about removing the CON score and incorporating the bonuses it gives into class bonuses, but I can't remember details. I guess the simple way to start working it out would be to have a list of "X class = Y con score". If I run a game, players will get feats and ability score increases. I can't see it hurting if everyone gets it. P.d0t posted:It also bugs me that Druids and (ostensibly Rangers) want WIS but they moved Nature back to being an INT skill. It bugs me too. Let Nature be either INT or WIS, problem solved. P.d0t posted:Actually, it also seems like it'd be pretty easy to get rid of ability scores altogether; the math is pretty transparent (whether it works right is another matter entirely, but) I dunno man, you could remove the scores themselves while leaving in all the bonus/penalty stuff, but that seems a bit pointless. If you're talking full DTAS, that's a complete re-write of the rules, isn't it? Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 15:27 on Feb 8, 2015 |
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Feb 8, 2015 15:25
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And CON because really everyone needs it. At that point you're tapped out on ability scores, and you're missing out on the big skill groupings (INT/WIS/CHA). Feats/ASI being an either-or is also problematic, IME.
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Semper Fudge posted:I am entirely new to D&D, and table top games in general, as is the entirety of my group. I ended up getting stuck with DMing because I beat Baldur's Gate 2 a couple of times and that somehow made me the most qualified person for the job. So far the learning curve hasn't been quite as harsh as I expected it to be, but the thing I'm struggling with right now is loot. I really have no idea what I should be handing out and what I should be withholding and the whole randomly generated loot hoards aspect doesn't seem to be helping. It sounds like you're already playing the game, right? So what I'd do is to think about (and observe in-game) what kinds of things the characters need and put in some stuff like that. If they're having trouble staying alive or if they're running out of healing before running out of adventure, put in more healing potions and stuff. If one character is having trouble hitting the enemy, then put in a a magic version of that character's signature weapon. If one character is getting hit very often, put in some magic armor that's the armor they wear. Players will generally be pretty good about picking up on "there's magic black leather armor, the rogue wears black leather armor, the magic black leather armor should go to the rogue", but you should expect them to do something unexpected from time to time. If they do, just roll with it. Use magic items as Chekov's Guns. Is there a river-travel scene coming up in the next adventure? They find a magic boat, or stuff for breathing underwater. Is the real threat not the goblins, but the Necromancer? They find stuff that hurts undead creatures. Use magic items as adventure hooks. Here's a wand that shits fire into your opponent's throat (like, three times then it's empty). The box it came in is marked with a strange sigil. You suspect that there's more where this came from. Alternatively, you can just roll randomly and let the dice fall where they may. It'll probably be a clusterfuck, but it should also be entertaining, especially if you and the players are good with just kinda rolling with weird stuff. This next part is more about making your own stuff up, and I'm gonna quote myself from way way back in the other thread: AlphaDog posted:I've always been a fan of weird non-combat magic items. So have my group. I'm not sure Next supports that sort of thing, but the existing rules don't do anything to prevent it either. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 01:53 on Feb 9, 2015 |
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Feb 9, 2015 01:51
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Bazanga posted:After DMing a ton of 4e games and having to deal with all the maps/minis hassle, I've been running my 5E game without and minis or maps whatsoever. It seems to be going alright, but I was wondering if people other than myself have had any success in doing it? I started up with a new group this time and while nobody seemed to have an issue with it, one guy brought a ton of minis with him and sorta assumed I'd be using maps. I like running sandbox-style games it is a real pain to have to quickly come up with maps and layouts during a session. I'm not sure what you're asking for here. I could list a crapload of reasons that Next will work better with a grid, but if your group is fine with gridless and nobody's being a dickhead or complaining and everyone's on the same page, there's no reason to not keep doing what you're doing. If you or someone in your group is having a specific problem with gridless combat I might be able to help if you tell me what it is. None of my post-playtest Next games have used a grid and they've run smoothly (partly because it's been with people with years and years of experience playing gridless 2nd ed, but still). Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 06:19 on Feb 11, 2015 |
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Feb 11, 2015 06:15
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Casting light (or continual light) or stones or coins is something I remember from the 80s. I remember iron spikes being a favorite thing to use, because you can hammer them deep into things. Using your wizard's downtime to mass produce continual light arrows used to be a really, really smart thing to do in AD&D/2e - using your resources to give every martial class the ability to shoot several unquenchable bright-rear end lights way out into the distance had a lot of applications, including trivialising certain types of monster encounters, "marking" targets for siege engines or fireballs, making enemies into lanterns, seeing how far down the chasm goes (or more importantly, how far across), etc. Are creatures with light penalties still a big thing? Or did they sort of survive vestigially? Or not at all?
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Feb 15, 2015 00:59
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Kitchner posted:Also out of interest for people just starting DnD how many of you own a copy of the Dungeon Masters Guide and how many of you own the Monster Manual? I didn't think you could get the full books as PDFs yet. That said, the free DM's starter PDF probably contains everything you need as long as you're not... starting. Last time I looked that and the player's starter PDF were missing stuff like "what XP is and when and how to gain it", which is obvious if you already play D&D but could easily confuse the poo poo out of an actual new player.
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Feb 15, 2015 23:11
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DalaranJ posted:How do the monster stat blocks from the basic pdf compare to those in the MM? Statblocks are the same, you lose the flavor text and art. In other words, if you've already played D&D, you just need the free PDF since you already know what (eg) an orc acts like. The art is super nice though. DalaranJ posted:Is there a significant difference between the stat blocks in the MM and the results of creature creation using the DMG rules? There's no rules there that would prevent you from making Exactly An Orc Again*, but depending on the monster you might end up with a different CR from what's in the book. The CR system is arguably useless, so you might not care that it doesn't line up. *Or whatever else. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 02:03 on Feb 16, 2015 |
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Feb 16, 2015 02:00
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MonsterEnvy posted:My advice would be to just use the encounter building guidelines as is. CR has next to nothing to do with building encounters. The rule of it is just supposed to be If your party's level is equal to or greater then the CR of this monster it is ok to use them in normal everyday encounters. XP value is what actually matters for building encounters. A monster's CR is the thing (the only thing) that defines what its XP value is (Page 275 of the DMG "Experience points by challenge rating"). Telling someone who wants a fixed encounter building system that they don't need one because CR isn't the number you use for encounter building is disingenuous and misleading, since fixing the CR system would necessarily involve recalculating the xp values, which in turn would mean rewriting the encounter building system. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 11:30 on Feb 17, 2015 |
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Feb 17, 2015 11:26
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Yes, by all means just have everyone level up when it feels about right / when it suits the story / after every major quest / whenever they make it back to civilisation / after every boss fight / however you want to do it that's not fiddly totals. There's been no real point to xp for monster kills since the whole thing of classes needing different xp totals for levels and getting different rewards for different actions was kinda quietly phased out.
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Feb 17, 2015 12:12
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MonsterEnvy posted:It still does not matter. If you are building an encounter and say you are going to make a 5000 xp encounter. It does not matter what CR of monsters you use in that and generally as long as their CR does exceed the Level of the party they are fine to use in building that 5000 XP encounter. Yes it does, because the xp numbers you use to get to that 5000xp limit are entirely based on the CR of the monster. The CR of the monster defines the XP it's worth. You can't fit certain monsters into that xp budget because their xp number is too high because their cr number is too high. What about that is hard for you to understand? The intention of the original question was extremely clear: "How would I go about fixing monster CRs to put together more appropriate encounters?" - like, the dude wants a better system for putting encounters together. Your answer was "that isn't even broken because technically you could quibble that the number you use is called xp and not cr", which I pointed out is unhelpful and misleading because that's what it is. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 01:04 on Feb 18, 2015 |
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Feb 18, 2015 00:57
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Generic Octopus posted:Don't worry so much about loving up or whatever, it's just a dice game. This is the most important thing. But yeah, if you want the encounter-building system to be better than it is, look at Gradenko's stuff. I can't find anything glaringly wrong with it - it's similar to the way I tried to re-do it months ago, but I couldn't get the math to work out like he has. The encounter building system in the Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 02:19 on Feb 18, 2015 |
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Feb 18, 2015 02:01
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MonsterEnvy posted:Make medium to difficult fights using the guidelines. Unless your players are unlucky the guidlines do work well. The rules don't produce well balanced encounters all the time, which is the whole point. MonsterEnvy posted:There is no encounter building system in the monster manual. It's in the Basic rules and DMG. Well spotted, thanks for pointing it out. I've edited my original post to reflect that I accidentally typed the wrong thing. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Feb 18, 2015 |
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Feb 18, 2015 02:17
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That's what I said, yes. The rules don't produce well balanced encounters all the time, which is the whole point. Thanks for finally agreeing.
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Feb 18, 2015 02:24
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"The system always produces well balanced results if you ignore the times when it doesn't" is a statement that I could agree with, sure.
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Feb 18, 2015 02:44
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MonsterEnvy posted:Your trying to make an Anthill into a Mountain here. Thats why I asked for an example no including the Intellect Devourer. I have never said the System always produces well balanced results ether. I just said that generally the system works. I and many others that understand it have not had any trouble using it. It's not perfect but it does not need to be fixed. So let me get this clear: You know that it's an imperfect system that doesn't always produce well balanced results [i]and[/i] you feel that there's no need to fix or improve it. Right? I guess we agree on the first part then? The second part is your opinion, which I'm not going to argue with. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 03:03 on Feb 18, 2015 |
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Feb 18, 2015 02:59
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MonsterEnvy posted:Your making it sound worse then it is, but yes this is correct. "How bad it is" is the opinion part, yes. You don't think the imperfections or poorly balanced results are bad enough or frequent enough that the system needs to be fixed. That's fine, and I'm not arguing with you because to you it's true. You don't think the system needs to be fixed. You're not going to fix the system. That's OK. Since you've acknowledged that it is an imperfect system that doesn't always produce well balanced results, can you please stop interjecting with variations of "but it's not even broken" when people who do think it's bad enough to warrant a fix are discussing how to fix it?
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Feb 18, 2015 05:31
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MonsterEnvy posted:I just dislike all that talk you did. An OK would suffice. I don't give a single gently caress whether you like it or not as long as you stop giving useless advice. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 08:42 on Feb 18, 2015 |
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Feb 18, 2015 08:39
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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." 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". Next has a few interesting things in the treasure tables, but when you actually look at the rarity of them... yeah, it doesn't look great. 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. It seems that currently if you want this stuff, you'd have to make it up. No big deal, I guess. Ratpick posted: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). I really like the token idea, but I was wary about tying it to treasure. That actually makes pretty good sense though - I'm assuming by "limited use" you mean stuff like healing potions? Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 12:57 on Feb 18, 2015 |
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Feb 18, 2015 12:49
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I can't see any reason not to ditch +x stuff entirely in this game, as long as you also ignore anything that says "you need a magic weapon to..." or similar.
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Feb 18, 2015 13:01
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Partly because of the Centaur thing... What ranges and terrains are people mostly fighting at/in? Have you noticed combat becoming easier/harder on the PCs in different distance/terrain scenarios? Is it consistent? Do PCs generally have much effectiveness at range like the ones I've played with seem to have? I've found that in general wide open spaces seem to favor the PC side rather than the monster side, but it sounds like that's not what's happening with everyone.
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Feb 18, 2015 13:18
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With regard to distinctions between spell slots while multiclassing, it's probably important that that the Warlock's class ability that lets it cast spells is called "Pact Magic" and not "Spellcasting" (like every other spell casting class), and that the multiclassing rules specifically mention Spellcasting in some places and Pact Magic in others.
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Feb 21, 2015 01:51
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e: There was text here but it was confusing and I gotta go before I'll get a chance to edit it. The gist was that I'm pretty sure those two don't stack since they both set your AC to something. I'm pretty sure they would stack if they were bonuses, but they aren't. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 09:16 on Feb 23, 2015 |
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Feb 23, 2015 09:05
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Generic Octopus posted:But then there's stuff like Magic Initiate...a single level 1 spell and a pair of cantrips, kinda pathetic. In one of the playtests Magic Initiate was worth taking because "you can cast at least one first level spell" was a prereq for something broken which I can't remember the specifics of. I guess that kind of prereq looks like "you have Spellcasting" now, if it still exists?
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Feb 28, 2015 09:15
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Are you really saying that when you run an official module as-written using the rules as-written and it doesn't work out very well, that's somehow not the fault of the people writing the module and the rules?
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Mar 1, 2015 03:56
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odinson posted:Last night my party and I were in Leo's Tiny hut. One party member exited the hut, failed is Wis Sv. versus a suggestion spell and re-entered the hut. I asked the DM for a ruling whether or not the suggestion would wear off or be dispelled upon moving back into the hut. He ruled no, which I am perfectly fine with. I hadn't planned on using it that way. It just came up while I was perusing the spell description while we were trying to figure out what to do. I was curious as how you guys would interpret/rule that scenario. Leo's is on pg. 255 of the PHB stating: ..."Spells and other magical effects can't extend through the dome or be cast through it." That's... pretty poor wording. To me it sounds like the intent is to stop AoEs entering the Hut or spells being cast in/out of it. It also sounds like it'd be a dick move to cancel a PCs buffs because they went into the Hut. Given those two things, and the way that it's not funnier or more awesome to interpret the rule differently, I'd probably do the same thing your DM did.
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Apr 17, 2015 01:47
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slydingdoor posted:Polymorph doesn't break concentration, but they'll have a new Con save that might suck and can't use feats anymore. I would also interpret polymorph as not breaking concentration. I don't think it's a stupid question though, since I don't see anything in the spell description that mentions concentration. Is there a rule elsewhere that mentions it, or was it clarified or erratad at some point?
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Sep 16, 2015 05:50
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gradenko_2000 posted:especially if the resulting form is a creature that cannot cast spells in the first place. That's the part that makes me really unsure what the actual intention of the rules is. Also saying that Polymorph doesn't end concentration spells kind of clashes thematically with "The creature can’t activate, use, wield, or otherwise benefit from any of its equipment", which I'm assuming causes rings of protection and similar items to stop functioning for hte duration of the polymorph.
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Sep 16, 2015 06:21
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Frush posted:I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet and go through every character class they're playing, and start giving advice on how to upgrade the damage. I guess 5e wouldn't be quite as lethal if they were tripling their damage output. jng2058 posted:The point isn't to make them better at game math, it's to have a good time. If your players are enjoying themselves playing sub-optimally, so what? This. It might still be a good idea to unpack what's going on and see if you can make things more fun for them. Specifically: Frush posted:Heck, the beast master took the dual wielding stuff, but is so concerned about keeping her beast alive she just started using a bow and plinking away with no bonuses. This sounds like the player is invested in having an animal buddy and worried that they could lose that aspect of their character. Let them know that it's very unlikely that the animal companion will get killed, and stick to that. It's not going to ruin the game if a beastmaster has an effectively immortal pet. Frush posted:No healers I know it never really says so, but the game assumes you're going to have one or more healer casters and that they're going to cast a lot of healing spells. You might want to think about scaling back damage and giving the players more healing options.
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Nov 3, 2015 23:07
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