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Goddamn the number of bad design decisions in this game seems staggering. Do they at least learn as the series goes on?
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Nov 26, 2019 16:50
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Night10194 posted:Pretending lovely holes and bugs in the system are intentional challenges that improve it is the core gameplay of Dungeons and Dragons in most editions, this is a faithful recreation. To be fair that only became part of the official design policy during 3rd edition.  Meanwhile during 1st edition they just didn't know what they were doing. Now, 2nd edition.................................... is good.
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Nov 26, 2019 21:52
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Commander Keene posted:I maintain that D&D has been moving in a generally forwards direction through the editions, at least up to 4e, the last one I have any experience with. 1e was a confusing mess that 2e built on top of. 3e might not be the best balanced, but imo they did the right thing by tossing out all the old cruft and starting from scratch. 4e got the balancing issue almost right. 4E made the big mistake of not tossing out 3E, and basically everything bad about 4E is 3E leftovers, like the fundamentally lovely system and the hideous splat bloat they inherited. 5E insists that 4E was a mistake and just rehashes 3E with minor rebalancing, and is thus the least inspiring and interesting of all the editions.
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Nov 26, 2019 22:07
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:4e had it's own problems, many of which stem from the devs inability to do math (skill challenges, expertise feats), extremely high HP inflation combined with MMO style piddling status effects everywhere, a bloated system designed to minimize the amount of character customization while maximizing shovelware playbooks, and racial determinism by design, none of which stem directly from 3e. I'd disagree there. Because the basic math and resolution mechanic they inherited was from 3E, which meant you had, at game start, very small modifiers(+1 to +5 or so) combined with an extremely swingy random factor(1 to 20). Now, you combine this with everything interesting you can do(dailies, per-encounters, etc.) being limited-use and still needing to land a hit for the most part, and you get a lot of "I use my big epic ability!" "well you roll a miss, and there's not even any sort of piddling on-miss effect, next player." which made encounters of any kind regularly very unfun, swiftly degenerating into whiff-fests of just everyone spamming basic attacks or their limited selection of at-wills. I'm also gonna argue that the minimized character customization is directly a result of the splat bloat inherited from 3E. Both systems would have been much better if they had, at most, one more base class than 2E and the remainder were customization options. Hell. Boil it down to four base classes: Swordman, Spellman, Sneakman, Holyman. Then let people customize their way into the remainder of the class options from there.
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Nov 27, 2019 12:28
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Narsham posted:Splat bloat started with the 2E handbook series, which they couldn't even manage to present consistently in terms of how character kits worked, and where after covering classes they started releasing race-based handbooks. 2E only ever introduced one new class past the PHB, though, which was the Psionicist(not counting rare, setting-specific stuff like Birthright Magicians, Athas Gladiators, etc.). That's specifically what I'm referencing with splat bloat.
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Nov 27, 2019 18:00
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Randalor posted:Not to mention that exp was more easily gained depending on your class (if I remember correctly, a thief would basically hit the level cap as soon as the party killed a dragon, because they got bonus exp based on the value of loot you find, and they had one of the lowest amount needed to hit the cap). Also don't forget that non-humans would never reach level 20 and need to recapture those lofty peaks if they got level drained, because they were capped at, like, level 10 or something! Not that many games starting at level 1 ever got close to those levels, but I've never met a GM who didn't somehow ignore or edit that rule.
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Nov 28, 2019 01:49
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Tylana posted:The original trick of Dragonlances (in Dragonlance) was they did the wielder's HP in damage to dragons as a turn around. (Mounted ones did dragon+rider HP in damage to opponents I thiink? ) That's what they do, yeah, thus trivializing most dragon beatdowns if your Fighter still has over 50% of his HP left when he lands a good blow. There are also TRUE DRAGON LANCES which can only be mounted on dragons and are basically a normal mounted Dragonlance PLUS a raygun based on the dragon's breath weapon.
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Nov 28, 2019 14:18
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Zeroisanumber posted:Death to Kender If anyone cares, I'm two posts into a review of Dragonlance over in the FATAL & Friends thread.
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Nov 28, 2019 18:00
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Thieves were such absolute garbage at their jobs until 2E rolled around, you might as well not have them along until they hit the double digit levels.
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Dec 4, 2019 15:28
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Is the graveyard really gonna be left as the very last thing? All those skeletons are gonna voltron together into one huge one.
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Dec 19, 2019 10:59
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Hobologist posted:Is there any abbreviated combat rules for large groups in the 1st edition? I would think a battle with about 250 participants would wear the edges off your dice. Well, in 1E AD&D generally there were two options. If large enough you could use the somewhat groggy and detailed BATTLESYSTEM(tm) which was published alongside 1E and 2E AD&D. Otherwise some modules, like the execrable Dragonlance series of dogshit productions, occasionally had some light rules that were basically opposed morale checks the PC's could affect with heroic actions and the like. But outside of that, no general large-scale combat rules in general.
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Dec 21, 2019 01:34
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Personally I'd just stat large groups of similar troops as single creatures, it seems like the simple and abstracted way of dealing with it. (or completely ignore all the large mobs of dudes smashing into each other and choo-choo the players into an epic battle with the enemy general and his cronies/evil summoned whatevers at the center of the battlefield and then the entire battle hinges on whether they slap him down or leg it from the battlefield, with the rest of the battle essentially just as cool background scene setting)
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Dec 21, 2019 01:57
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Commander Keene posted:Kobolds may be weak, but a DM who really plays up their racial trapmaking and ambush tactics can make fighting an army of kobolds a daunting task. "Tucker's Kobolds" is the prime example of a jackass GM, though, not actually a good example of how to run anything, ever. "ah yes no matter what you do these little guys have planned for it and you can't roll to avoid it or do anything to counter it.  clearly they're too genius-level for you to handle."
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Dec 21, 2019 10:00
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Has there ever been a game with a non-poo poo spinner/teleporter maze?
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Dec 28, 2019 23:37
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Slaan posted:Oh fireball. More than one wipe in BG1 caused by a badly aimed fireball or potion of fire God, gently caress those games for having nothing that would indicate the blast radius of spells you were about to cast. Such pain.
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Dec 29, 2019 01:21
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Does the Lizardman Keep turn out any different if you didn't handle Yarash beforehand?
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Jan 20, 2020 11:44
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For the more varied dragons, Steel Dragons also tend to assume humanoid form and promptly become prominent capitalists and bankers most of the time.
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Feb 1, 2020 00:39
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Exponential growth? I'd be curious to see a few examples from the original module, just to see how mild it starts and how insane it gets.
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Feb 1, 2020 23:27
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I feel like the wighting for this update's comments got a bit silly, it's like wight-out conditions but with puns instead of snow.
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Feb 9, 2020 05:58
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JustJeff88 posted:I'm a proponent of a set HP value per level, ŕ la 4e, but I've been a fan of adding Con to starting HP since the 2e days. It makes level 1s much more durable. Personally I always give my players max HP per level-up when I play, because it's more or less the only non-fixed progression thing that can leave someone really wallowing in the dirt, especially considering that being a BEEF WALL is essentially a fighter/paladin/ranger class feature, denying them that just because of a bad roll feels like an rear end in a top hat move.
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Feb 11, 2020 17:44
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Level-draining monsters are a war crime. Even with easy access to restoration, in pen and paper all the loving associated book-keeping with rolling levels back and forth is just something I'd never countenance. Even though I regularly run 2E AD&D games my house rule is that level drainers are instead (temporary) stat drainers. Because I'm not a sociopath.
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Feb 23, 2020 10:53
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C It seems to be the most in-character option. Maybe Hannover accidentally smashes through the hex code rather than a wall.
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Mar 1, 2020 11:04
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Ah, I'm assuming one of the enemy bosses has a dust allergy and this dust will be used to trigger it, granting you a free win.
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Mar 6, 2020 21:17
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So what happens if you just choose to go to sleep? Everyone dies?Xenocides posted:One way to break the game later is to make a bunch of rangers and once they get to the point that they get magic user spells (level 9) dual class to Magic User. Once they get over the dual class threshold you have a wizard that can cast wearing any armor. Hahah, wait, 1E Rangers got mage spells rather than druid spells?
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Mar 18, 2020 21:29
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Chokes McGee posted:Another reason is something I didn't show off because it's completely irrelevant: if you poke around to the extreme Northwest of the wilderness map, you'll find a metallic dragon (silver? I think?) who you can mistake for Tyranthraxus' host and get into a whole heap of trouble with. If you keep your powder dry, he tells you the vague location of the bottle and to bring it back. If you do so, he then unloads the staggering secret on you to use it while you're facing a vampire, which the efreet flat out tells you. Does the mistake involve getting into a fight with the dragon? Because c'mon, a dragon must have decent loot if you ice it.
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Mar 19, 2020 10:26
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If a game sets out to break you, set out to break the game.
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Mar 25, 2020 12:51
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I honestly never got why anyone decided that lightning bolts would bounce.
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Mar 25, 2020 19:34
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If there are any trolls left, the Flametongue would at least be a way to put them down permanently without needing to resort to magic.
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Mar 30, 2020 19:07
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Thanks for the thread, Chokes. I genuinely enjoyed it. Will the other games continue in this threaD?
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Apr 1, 2020 20:52
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You're also missing that pre-3rd edition, any time a caster got hit before they got their spell off... spell lost, wasted, and many of the bigger, badder spells required a full turn to cast or had really nasty speed penalties. So if a Fighter had a bow, or just got up close to a mage, there was a good chance they'd never be casting anything at all. Also keep in mind that high-level casters had no bonuses to making their spells stick at all, while saving throws for high-level characters and high-HD monsters kept getting better all the time, so against tougher enemies your save-or-suck/die spells were very unlikely to stick, and you were much better off relying on raw damage... which fighters, gee, were pretty good at dealing with, too! And don't forget that mages didn't get bonus spells for high Int either, and need to pre-memorize all their spells for the day. If they get caught in a situation they're not prepared for... well gee whiz, they can't just quickly respec their spells, they gotta hide behind the beef wall.
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Apr 5, 2020 19:52
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Narsham posted:Fighters get pretty much all the main tools they had in a regular 1e game in this Gold Box series, while the spellcasters get a pretty restricted subset of their usual stuff. Try playing PoD with a party with no wizards and then try again with a party of three wizards and no fighters/rangers/paladins, and then tell me that wizards are underpowered compared to fighters in 1e. The real answer, of course, is that Fighters and Mages aren't meant to fight each other, but to fight together. Wizards are kind of hosed without a meat wall to keep their spells from getting interrupted, Fighters have trouble dealing with swarms of baddies without the Wizard Artillery to blow up big hordes.
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Apr 11, 2020 20:35
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Oh man this is certainly one hell of a start. Though letting you import your characters and ALSO stripping their gear seems like a seriously rear end in a top hat move.
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Apr 12, 2020 20:38
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Seyser Koze posted:Just don't read the Baldur's Gate books. hahahahahHAHAHAHAHAH. I never read the second, because I was smart enough to recognize the beginnings of a pattern, even as a kid, after reading the first but wow. The first one really tried to grimdark it up. Otherwise-pleasant NPC's were suddenly wifebeaters(thus justifying the protagonist not caring when they died and later loving their wives), literally every single recruitable party member featured somehow dies, usually to sudden one-hit-kill stuff like getting jumped by a giant spider or killed by a literal random encounter from ochre jellies(or was it mustard? I forget) or sometimes they're just killed off-screen like Xvar and Montaron. It was practically unrecognizable as being based on BG1 except for the names. Supposedly the BG2 book got real weird and greasy once it reached the Drow-related parts of the game.
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Apr 14, 2020 23:18
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Fire Shield and Dimension Door could be useful to dual/multi-classed mages, though. Say Sterrn, once he recovers his thiefy skills, could cast Fire Shield, then Dimension Door behind some enemies to flank them and get his stab on, while also roasting them if they should get so lucky as to land a hit on him. Would probably be better if the base class was Fighter rather than Thief, of course. Seyzer: I think you're thinking of Otiluke's Resilient Sphere. Also gently caress, I was just gonna say: "How refreshing! An FR game without Elminster's useless mary sue rear end hanging around!"
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Apr 21, 2020 12:32
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Every time you get those various Parlay options, it never really feels like there's any kind of hint as to what would actually work. It feels like you're left to either stick to a consistent roleplaying schema or just pick randomly.
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May 25, 2020 00:58
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Wait, Chokes wrote a book? I require a link.
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Jun 1, 2020 00:34
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Grabbing the heck out of that book, can't wait to read it.
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Jun 3, 2020 20:46
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Man I hope for Chokes' sake the giant slugs are edited out. In more or less all editions giant slugs have a wreck-your-poo poo acid spit attack that's incredibly destructive to any non-epic tier of PC. They're almost as scary as dragons in that regard.
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Jun 8, 2020 10:21
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And here I was worrying that the game wouldn't give you a chance to at least partially fight a god. Awesome.
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Jun 17, 2020 11:20
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| # ¿ May 8, 2024 06:25 |
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Kacie posted:Does Bread & Roses have a Let's Play sub-forum? I hate to spread drama, but watch out with B&R. The mods over there are the sort of folks who publicly out trans people.
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Jun 25, 2020 20:26
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