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mango sentinel posted:Hey, this got glazed over several pages ago, so here's the condensed version: Its really bad, Bard of Valor does it better. Eldritch Knight is a lesser option if you want to avoid playing a full caster for whatever reason. Jack the Lad posted:Yes, it's bad. What is your mainhand weapon? Its really kind of sad that a Fighter does the whole ranged combat thing better than a Ranger, and with edit: I just realized you can use Maneuvers on ranged weapons. That makes things like Goading Attack even funnier. Strength of Many fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Sep 12, 2014 |
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Sep 12, 2014 21:22
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moths posted:Because in better games fighters are neither of these things. Fighters (just in concept, regardless of how it's realized in 5E)... fight? Apparently they don't use magic to fight, and they don't use their wits to fight, and they don't help other people fight better, they just strap on heavy armor and pick up weapons and kill people good? The concept of "best at fighting" is completely bankrupt in a game where the most important activity is fighting. Either you're the best, and the rest of the party are just cheerleaders, or you're not the best, and your character is unsatisfying.
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Sep 12, 2014 21:56
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Strength of Many posted:What is your mainhand weapon? It uses a Hand Crossbow and Shield. Feinting Attack (usually the best maneuver for damage) is a no-go because it uses a bonus action and so does Crossbow Expert's extra attack. However, you can use Trip Attack to knock something down at range, optionally foregoing the penalty from Sharpshooter to make sure you stick it. Once the enemy is down, you can move in next to it (you only get advantage against prone enemies within 5 feet) and unload your Action Surge with Sharpshooter, finishing up with a Menacing Attack to keep it from being able to approach you on its turn, then move away again if you want - eating an OA made with Disadvantage because the bad guy is Prone and maybe Frightened.
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Sep 12, 2014 22:03
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Jack the Lad posted:Yes, most definitely. In fact, it gets much worse. What's this pay-to-win MMO bullshit doing in my D&D? Why's the free archetype gotta be so bad? It's T$R all over again. 
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Sep 12, 2014 22:16
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Infinite Karma posted:Fighters (just in concept, regardless of how it's realized in 5E)... fight? Fighters control the enemies, direct the battle, and guard vulnerable party members or key environmental elements. Fighters tank. It's been this way since the first Fighting Man stood in front of the first Magic User, with incremental improvements and refined abilities. Finally they got mechanics to stay sticky and fulfill that role. This freed up the DM to guide monsters straight at the weakest links, replacing the unspoken gentleman's agreement that monsters play along with the illusion that they wouldn't. It's disappointing that decades of progress and development got scrapped and that this is somehow acceptable because of nostalgia. Plus fighters never did anything anyway (you hallucinated 4e.)
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Sep 12, 2014 22:23
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Jack the Lad posted:It uses a Hand Crossbow and Shield. 
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Sep 12, 2014 22:30
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moths posted:Fighters control the enemies, direct the battle, and guard vulnerable party members or key environmental elements. Fighters tank. Not true! They have Goading Attack, its totally the same but not like an MMO at all!  Ignoring that 'tanking' in 4e never explicitly stopped enemies from doing anything it just penalized them, while Goading Attack and the Compelled Duel spell FORCE them to attack you like a Taunt in WoW or other MMos. So if anything 5e is more like an MMO.. edit: gently caress, I didn't mean to double post
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Sep 12, 2014 22:33
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MonsterEnvy posted:Iuz seemed like a god that actually got poo poo done by ruling his kingdom in person, rather then Sauron. They're both demigods who personally run countries and want to conquer the world. Tharizdun is manifest entropy. Also, you missed the point of my mindflayer dog comment earlier. It shouldn't be CR2 if it's supposed to show up alongside high CR illithids. Christ.
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Sep 12, 2014 22:36
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moths posted:Fighters control the enemies, direct the battle, and guard vulnerable party members or key environmental elements. Fighters tank. How does Kyle, the hypothetical tanky character accomplish these things narratively? Brute strength? Weapon mastery (aka martial arts)? Intimidation? Magic? Tactical genius? Self-sacrifice (aka jumping in front of attacks)? Most of those concepts are already another class's niche. Not all of those classes have mechanics to make them especially good as a tank, but again, I'm talking about concept, not mechanics. I'm NOT saying that martial characters shouldn't be able to do crazy stunts that rival Meteor Swarm because only the sacred Wizard can do magic. I'm saying that Fighters are uniquely flavorless, and as soon as you give Kyle the tanky character any kind of flavor, he's probably going to sound more like a Rogue, or Barbarian, or Paladin, or Bard, or 4E Warlord, rather than a milquetoast Fighter.
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Sep 12, 2014 23:12
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Infinite Karma posted:You completely missed my point. I don't care what fighters were like in 4E, or that you think their mechanics should be "sticky" like a tank. How they worked in 4e was that they weren't the hardest hitters, but they were dangerous and fast enough that they could exploit lapses in the opponent's attention better than anyone else. If the enemy took their eyes off the fighter even if only to disengage or attack someone else the fighter got a free swing. Which is absolutely in the fighter archetype and not any of the others.
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Sep 12, 2014 23:23
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You can't say you don't care what 4E fighters were and then include 4E warlord as one of the martial classes that crowd out fighters. They also shouldn't be reduced to a singular thing even if they are an archetype class in addition to being a class. If we said clerics only heal, for instance, we could crowd them out too with other classes that "can heal AND do other things". For a start, even in 5e (I'm talking concept, not their poor execution) they are very versatile in combat, round over round, compared to others. They are very adaptable be it controlling foes, bursting damage, self healing, or protecting allies. I think they goofed up by putting maneuvers into a subclass bucket when it makes sense (to me) for it to be a class-wide toolkit and battle masters just have more of it. But aside from nitpicking the role of fighter is still "versatile and highly capable combatant" Infinite Karma posted:I'm saying that Fighters are uniquely flavorless Bhaal fucked around with this message at 23:39 on Sep 12, 2014 |
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Sep 12, 2014 23:35
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PeterWeller posted:They're both demigods who personally run countries and want to conquer the world. Tharizdun is manifest entropy. Well Iuz at least actually does stuff in person. Unlike Saruon who is content to stay in his lairs.
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Sep 12, 2014 23:38
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NachtSieger posted:a) not anime enough Well, why indeed?
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Sep 12, 2014 23:41
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Here's what I was saying about psionics earlier:
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Sep 12, 2014 23:57
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Infinite Karma posted:You completely missed my point. I don't care what fighters were like in 4E, or that you think their mechanics should be "sticky" like a tank. Does the paladin both outdamage and outtank the fighter?
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Sep 13, 2014 00:00
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Infinite Karma posted:How does Kyle, the hypothetical tanky character accomplish these things narratively? Brute strength? Weapon mastery? Intimidation? Tactical genius? Self-sacrifice (aka jumping in front of attacks)? Most of those concepts are already another class's niche. 
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Sep 13, 2014 01:16
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Jack the Lad posted:Okay, Half-Orc Barbarian 9/Fighter 3. 16/17 starting Strength and 2 feats which we'll spend on Great Weapon Master and Polearm Master. We'll fight with a Glaive. Not that it changes the numbers much, but the third attack could be 1d10 as well if the DM was kind enough to leave lots of Potions of Vitality around. Thanks for the analysis! *edit* Actually, if we assume that there ARE lots of Pots of Vitality around, we could save our Polearm Master feat and use it on something else.. even just +2 str. How does this impact? More change to hit + more reliable damage + more crit damage on third strike? *edit two* Ooh, also we could use a Maul instead of a Glaive! 2d6 damage instead... on which you would get to re-roll 1s and 2s.. this is getting complicated *edit three* Also, even if you weren't frenzying you'd have a 19% chance per hit of getting an extra attack via Great Weapon Master from crits, and a ?% chance based on killing your enemy in the swing... and you'd get action surge once a day! Jack, would you mind to re-run the numbers? I know we're working with averages but these variables might be significant? Serdain fucked around with this message at 02:43 on Sep 13, 2014 |
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Sep 13, 2014 01:42
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After an initial sift through this rulebook, I can't help but wonder: does grappling not block spell-casting anymore? The condition summary in the back just says it reduces your speed to zero. There's also a remark under a feat about Large targets no longer auto-succeeding on their escape rolls, but I can't find confirmation of that being a thing anywhere either. Are these things actually up in the air or did I just miss them?Jack the Lad posted:Yes, it's bad. Does that data use Sharpshooter's damage toggle or is that just raw shooting?
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Sep 13, 2014 02:25
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So on another forum the topic of the Intellect Devourer came up, with some thinking its perfectly fine and not somehow a save or die. Others of course thought differently. But the biggest thing that came up is that they could not find any rules for what happens when a stat reaches 0, just what modifier is used or if checks using that stat auto fail or what. So not only is the Intellect Devourer a terrible save or die at CR 2, with a number of ways to get its attack off before anyone is aware of it, but it also tries to impose a condition that the rules don't account for.
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Sep 13, 2014 03:01
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When did "ability damage" first come up in Dungeons and Dragons? The idea of doing damage directly to numbers abstractly representing your capabilities seems like such a DnD-ism. I can't think of a single case where ability score damage is more appropriate than applying penalties to an ability modifier.
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Sep 13, 2014 03:06
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No idea, but level drain was around in OD&D.
Babylon Astronaut fucked around with this message at 03:27 on Sep 13, 2014 |
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Sep 13, 2014 03:24
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pospysyl posted:When did "ability damage" first come up in Dungeons and Dragons? The idea of doing damage directly to numbers abstractly representing your capabilities seems like such a DnD-ism. I can't think of a single case where ability score damage is more appropriate than applying penalties to an ability modifier. It was around as early as 1E -- it wasn't a common occurrence at least IME, but you still had spells like feeblemind and monsters like shadows, which drained 1 point of Strength per hit (with lost Strength points naturally returning in 2-8 turns). However, there were no overarching rules for ability damage; those didn't come along until 3E. Of course, ability damage was less important back when ability scores weren't as vital to your character.
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Sep 13, 2014 03:38
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Selachian posted:It was around as early as 1E -- it wasn't a common occurrence at least IME, but you still had spells like feeblemind and monsters like shadows, which drained 1 point of Strength per hit (with lost Strength points naturally returning in 2-8 turns). However, there were no overarching rules for ability damage; those didn't come along until 3E. It was silly but I kind of miss that aspect of them? Then again rolling stats and having them be irrelevant unless you get lucky enough blows hard.
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Sep 13, 2014 03:45
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Jack the Lad posted:I really, really wish we had cool PC races like Intellect Devourers and Skeletons instead of just Human, Halfling, Dwarf and Elf again. So go play Strike! I've got a Bodyswapper in the preview that basically works like an Intellect Devourer. That's a core Origin* in Strike! The Bodyswap power they get could be tweaked just slightly to make it fit the ID's fluff. Skeletons, too - I've got an Undead Origin as one of the goofier examples. You could pick the complication of "Flesh deficiency" to make it a skeleton in particular. Or go with my favourite complication for the undead: "The world is full of prejudice." That Origin is not in the preview, but I'm happy to show it (or anything else that is finished but got left out) to anyone who asks nicely. Complaining about 5e is fun, I'll admit. But eventually you may want to actually play a game that addresses those complaints. There is already a game doing what you want. It's my game. Play my game. It's better than 4e, better than 5e, better than Numenara, and better than 13A for what I want out of gaming. If you want to play my game but want to get all the material instead of just the preview, just PM me and ask. All I ask in return is that you'll play it and post about it. *calling it that because the term Race doesn't match what I want to get across with that part of the game. Also fixes longstanding issue of problematic language. Having a character with an evil or savage origin is not offensive. Having a character belong to an evil or savage race is... let's say problematic. Fixing longstanding issues with D&D: It's what Strike! is all about
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Sep 13, 2014 04:13
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Infinite Karma posted:You completely missed my point. I don't care what fighters were like in 4E, or that you think their mechanics should be "sticky" like a tank. Fighter has always been the front-row guy who protects the back-row guys. 4e just gave the fighter's player a direct set of tools to make this happen. In previous editions, tanking was indirect: Fighter stood at the front of marching order, or idiot monsters stupidly "go for the biggest obvious threat!" and "underestimate the old man in a dress." In my experience, it mostly came down to the classic wizard "balancing" mechanic of being glass cannons. If an ogre punches Frank's wizard's head off, Frank is going to be a giant insufferable crybaby about it, so it just didn't happen. But if you give the Fighter real tools to influence combat (like in some game that never existed) then you can try to punch big-brain wizard heads off - but you've got to get through the Fighter first. Infinite Karma posted:How does Kyle, the hypothetical tanky character accomplish these things narratively? Brute strength? Weapon mastery (aka martial arts)? Intimidation? Magic? Tactical genius? Self-sacrifice (aka jumping in front of attacks)? How about any of them? Why not all of them? Fighters at their best should be the party's bullies. They brutalize monsters, outmatch their clumsy attacks with trained superiority, and keep them cowed in the corner. Look at riot cops, bouncers, bodyguards, and football linemen. Use some imagination and extend that to rodeo clowns, lion tamers, alligator wrestlers, and bullfighters. Real world professionals push and shove other people and animals around. How could that not emerge in a world with monsters?
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Sep 13, 2014 04:24
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How is hoard of the dragon queen? The only review I could find was some lovely grognard that wrote a 1000+ word rant on it.
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Sep 13, 2014 06:18
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It's not good.
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Sep 13, 2014 06:20
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Can't say for sure yet, also no idea if Ritorix is changing things. But so far we dealt with a bunch of cultists, first by disguising ourselves as cultists, then by taking some out in the smoke of their own attempt to burn a stone building. Then we sent out a champion to fight the Half-Dragon leading the cultist attack, who at least had a good portrait. But completely and totally stomped the Paladin we sent out in a single round. Haven't gotten much further than that so no idea how good or bad it really is.
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Sep 13, 2014 06:27
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I've heard that's it's amazing compared to previous edition's modules, but I haven't played it.
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Sep 13, 2014 06:33
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I personally like it. But it has a share of flaws. The 1st episode is also pretty hard and basic with not much more then Kobold and cultists being fought. Still the gameplay style of the episodes tends to change quite a bit between episodes. It's a bit weird and hard to explain. It also tends to lack details about characters. The Half dragon Champion Cyanwrath is the first NPC that interested me. If only because I feel personally that he has a lot of potential as a reoccurring villain and rival. MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 06:57 on Sep 13, 2014 |
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Sep 13, 2014 06:54
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The milestone level/xp caps they put in place are loving retarded and need to die. The rest is pretty decent though, yes, the first episode is a gruesome gauntlet of tedious kobold fights. It picks up a Lot after episode one.
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Sep 13, 2014 07:27
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moths posted:Fighter has always been the front-row guy who protects the back-row guys. 4e just gave the fighter's player a direct set of tools to make this happen. In previous editions, tanking was indirect: Fighter stood at the front of marching order, or idiot monsters stupidly "go for the biggest obvious threat!" and "underestimate the old man in a dress." In my experience, it mostly came down to the classic wizard "balancing" mechanic of being glass cannons. If an ogre punches Frank's wizard's head off, Frank is going to be a giant insufferable crybaby about it, so it just didn't happen. But if you give the Fighter real tools to influence combat (like in some game that never existed) then you can try to punch big-brain wizard heads off - but you've got to get through the Fighter first. It was perfectly possible to DM AD&D and have monsters go for an unprotected caster without being super unfair. You'd just have to have a group of players that knew the trick (or inform new players of the trick). See, in AD&D, in combat you couldn't move through a monster (or another player while they were fighting) and they couldn't move through you, and there weren't any real good ways to make someone move if they didn't want to. The reach and positioning rules strongly implied a square or hex grid (or a tape measure), and since you "occupied" a 5' grid square (or hex, or radius around you), the standard 10x10 dungeon corridor could be held by 2 PCs unless one of them died*. Which meant that a couple of armored dudes could effectively tank for people behind them, as long as they were filling a corridor, or in a corner or alcove or something. It only really worked indoors, but that's the default AD&D scenario. So yeah, the fighter didn't exactly have "tools" to tank like 4e, but the game was more or less set up so that this tactic would work a lot of the time. It was also probably a lot more obvious from the rules back then, given that many players came from a wargaming background. e: I think the assumptions about what the game was were completely different back then too, as well as the default way the game was played. *Even if you go 100% ToTM, it's a 10' wide passage and you occupy a 5' radius and there are two of you - it's crystal clear that nothing gets past until you let it or you die. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 07:46 on Sep 13, 2014 |
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Sep 13, 2014 07:42
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moths posted:Fighter has always been the front-row guy who protects the back-row guys. 4e just gave the fighter's player a direct set of tools to make this happen. In previous editions, tanking was indirect: Fighter stood at the front of marching order, or idiot monsters stupidly "go for the biggest obvious threat!" and "underestimate the old man in a dress." In my experience, it mostly came down to the classic wizard "balancing" mechanic of being glass cannons. If an ogre punches Frank's wizard's head off, Frank is going to be a giant insufferable crybaby about it, so it just didn't happen. But if you give the Fighter real tools to influence combat (like in some game that never existed) then you can try to punch big-brain wizard heads off - but you've got to get through the Fighter first. There was a secret third way, which was a bit more direct. The player playing the fighter would IRL taunt the DM. Of course reminding Bob of his inability to pleasure his wife did carry some in, and out of game risk.
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Sep 13, 2014 07:51
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AlphaDog posted:It was perfectly possible to DM AD&D and have monsters go for an unprotected caster without being super unfair. You'd just have to have a group of players that knew the trick (or inform new players of the trick). It's interesting how many oldschool things work a lot better when done in full as they actually WERE DONE oldschool - fighters without class abilities can tank when the assumption is everything taking place underground where ten-foot corridors abound, or fighters who gain armies of loyal followers giving them lots of story impact to match the wizard's spells. E: and how that tends to contribute meaninglessly to arguments ('In MY day fighters could tank and get in the way of monsters' is kind of irrelevant when that was only true because of the limited map design which is no longer used!) thespaceinvader fucked around with this message at 09:03 on Sep 13, 2014 |
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Sep 13, 2014 09:01
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Serdain posted:Not that it changes the numbers much, but the third attack could be 1d10 as well if the DM was kind enough to leave lots of Potions of Vitality around. Okay. With a maul, frenzy and +Strength instead of Polearm Master, ignoring action surge and GWM's extra attack on crit (because it costs a bonus action like the one from frenzy) the numbers look like this:  If you have unlimited potions of vitality, you can be pretty strong. GenericServices posted:After an initial sift through this rulebook, I can't help but wonder: does grappling not block spell-casting anymore? The condition summary in the back just says it reduces your speed to zero. There's also a remark under a feat about Large targets no longer auto-succeeding on their escape rolls, but I can't find confirmation of that being a thing anywhere either. Are these things actually up in the air or did I just miss them? Crossbow Expert at level 1, Sharpshooter at level 4, +Dex at levels 6 and 8. Other than Sharpshooter, though, it is just shooting - the Champion would actually look better if I ran the equivalent numbers. By using Trip Attack on your first shot you can get advantage on the others and boost the damage an awful lot. Jack the Lad fucked around with this message at 09:35 on Sep 13, 2014 |
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Sep 13, 2014 09:26
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Jack the Lad posted:Okay. With a maul, frenzy and +Strength instead of Polearm Master, ignoring action surge and GWM's extra attack on crit (because it costs a bonus action like the one from frenzy) the numbers look like this: Cool! Thanks! I suppose the question is if you're not going to frenzy every fight - is a 20% chance of a bonus attack enough to not take polearm master? Have we seen the full list of magic items from the DMG yet (is it even leaked)? If Potion of Vitality exists I wonder if there's a more common version that JUST removes exhaustion..
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Sep 13, 2014 09:53
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Your formula might be off, the DPR goes up after 8 AC? I made a bad spreadsheet to work out the same and I got similar numbers(85.5 DPR on 8 AC, dropping to 32 for 20 ac). This was assuming advantage on every attack, and including the horc and barb critical damage bonus, as well as average damage increase for great weapon fighting style.
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Sep 13, 2014 09:54
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Yakse posted:Your formula might be off, the DPR goes up after 8 AC? Oops! I didn't copy my updated formula across to the rest of the row. Here it is:  Serdain posted:Cool! Thanks! I suppose the question is if you're not going to frenzy every fight - is a 20% chance of a bonus attack enough to not take polearm master? No way. It's 100% chance of attacking with a d4 weapon (for 19.5) against a 19% chance of attacking with a 2d6 weapon (for 25.33). Ignoring everything else, that's 19.5 damage value from Polearm Master and 4.8 from Great Weapon Master's bonus attack on crits. That said, it's not an either/or. My calculations assume that when using Polearm Master you use a Glaive or Halberd and also benefit from GWM's -5/+10. e: You'd need a 77% chance to trigger GWM's extra attack (crit or kill) for it to match Polearm Master's. Jack the Lad fucked around with this message at 10:26 on Sep 13, 2014 |
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Sep 13, 2014 10:08
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Jack the Lad posted:No way. It's 100% chance of attacking with a d4 weapon (for 19.5) against a 19% chance of attacking with a 2d6 weapon (for 25.33). There's the feat/ability score to take into account(you could take something like savage attacker for higher average damage) and there's also 25% difference in the base weapon damage, which closes the gap more and more each time you get to roll the damage dice. So polearm mastery is probably better for everyone but champions/horcs. Extra damage on hits would swing it further towards the polearm as well, but that will depend on magic weapons.
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Sep 13, 2014 10:45
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Yakse posted:There's the feat/ability score to take into account(you could take something like savage attacker for higher average damage) and there's also 25% difference in the base weapon damage, which closes the gap more and more each time you get to roll the damage dice. Right, and also the Great Weapon fighting style is significantly better on Mauls than Polearms because the 'low' values of 1 and 2 will give you a second chance at 3-6 per die. For a Glaive, roll a 3 and you're out of luck. *edit* Though Jack probably already factored this in. Serdain fucked around with this message at 11:05 on Sep 13, 2014 |
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Sep 13, 2014 10:59
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