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TenaciousJ posted:What are all these issues with 5th edition people are vaguely mention that I need to be aware of? Caster Supremacy, boring/mechanically bad Fighters (and in some ways, Rogues), odd short rest mechanic (too long to depend on getting often so you can recover powers/hp, and some classes really need to get these to do anything remotely useful in successive encounters). Those're the things that've bothered me most in this ed on the player's end; on other dm side, the challenge rating of monsters is kinda all over the place, so encounter building is sometimes reliant on the dm being able to figure out what's easy, challenging, or a TPK rather than being able to use the CR/XP budget system to determine that. I mean, it seems to work okay but then you get things like the Intellect Devourer or Rust Monster that just make you wonder what they were thinking. TenaciousJ posted:Eldritch Knight Don't. Bard does the same thing but better. EKnight spellcasting only goes to 4 and even then that only happens at high levels. It's pbad. All that said, you'll probably be fine with 5e for the most part.
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Oct 9, 2014 19:55
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TenaciousJ posted:I've been a 3.5 DM for years but my friends want to try out 5th edition and I'm not opposed. The list of things 5e does that 3.5 doesn't:
-sometimes you roll twice
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Oct 9, 2014 19:58
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Next wasn't for me, but I like the concentration mechanic (limiting spellcasters to a single buff-type spell at a time, usually) and the way spells don't scale with caster level, they scale with spell level. Casting seventeen buff spells before combat had to die, and removing level 2 spells that did stuff like 10D6 damage because you were a high level caster brought spellcasters down a fair bit. It's not a good game and you should just play the free stuff before deciding it's not worth bothering with, but it does improve on 3e in those areas.
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Oct 9, 2014 20:03
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PeterWeller posted:The bit about 2E fighters is wrong. They were really powerful and could swing around a lot of narrative weight with their followers. 2E fighters at high level hit pretty much everything on a 2+, and were incredibly resilient with a relatively huge pile of HP and some fantastic saving throws. And while their narrative weight still depended on "mother may I" gameplay, it was of the "mother may I use my army to" variety. The army yes, I did forget that (though clerics and Paladins also had them, our DM's never gave us the opportunity to gain or use that feature. Something about how you would have to quit adventuring to be a lord). Though they did hit things far more often than other classes, this really hasn't changed. Doing 1d10+5 (or +8-10, if you had fantastically rolled stats) with a truly amazing magic two handed sword a few times a round still doesn't compare to today's damage potentials. PC health was also relatively fragile, especially after level 9 where you're only adding +2. I think the biggest advantage that Fighters got over most others, was their saving throw tables at the highest levels (and only there). Today, one of the most awesome abilities I've seen is that we have Action Surges, allowing a Fighter to become a chainsaw of death to something with a torrent of attacks, or any number of other useful things. Did you use your action to rush, attack and then grapple (with one of those extra feats you got, using it on Tavern Brawler) to twist that wizard's hands behind his back so he can't get to his spell components or focus, or even use somatics? Good, use your action surge to stuff your Barbarian friend's soiled underwear into his mouth. With his puny strength, he won't be getting away from your mighty rear end any time soon. Might as well hit him in the kidneys a few times every round until he passes out. Or just hold him up to get geeked by your own mage's dex save attacks. Or your Thief's sneak attacks, etc. Action surges are awesome.
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Oct 9, 2014 20:20
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Really Pants posted:The list of things 5e does that 3.5 doesn't: You forgot: -don't need 20 splatbooks to be effective.
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Oct 9, 2014 20:21
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Generic Octopus posted:Caster Supremacy, boring/mechanically bad Fighters (and in some ways, Rogues), odd short rest mechanic (too long to depend on getting often so you can recover powers/hp, and some classes really need to get these to do anything remotely useful in successive encounters). So that's mostly stuff I already deal with since I'm DMing 3.5. I'll just have to learn a new monster manual. The player is so hyped up about the Eldritch Knight that I'd rather just let him see for himself whether it works or not. I tell everyone they're always allowed to change things between sessions if they talk to me about it.
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Oct 9, 2014 20:23
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Talmonis posted:You forgot: -don't need 20 splatbooks to be effective. Yet.
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Oct 9, 2014 20:23
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Talmonis posted:You forgot: -don't need 20 splatbooks to be effective. Spellcasters never did.
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Oct 9, 2014 20:24
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Tactical Bonnet posted:I should've specified that my build is "shield wearing healer/tank" and that "Bless" and "Cure Wounds" are on the list. Gotcha. That's definitely on my list of characters to try out. Out of curiosity, are you planning on going with the Protection fighting style? I've been curious how that feels in practice, since nobody at any of my tables has taken it. quote:Math: Divine favor is an average of +2.5 (1-4) damage per hit for up to 10 rounds (for an average of +25 (10-40)) where divine smite is one hit with an average of +9 (2-16). So which one is the best source of bonus damage is depends on how many attacks you plan on making. If it's less than 4, smite... It's actually slightly more complex than that, and all the complexity lands in Divine Smite's favor. You declare Divine Smite when you hit with a melee attack. It only requires hitting with a single melee attack to deliver its payload, and equally important from a resource-expenditure standpoint, you only spend your spell slot when you actually hit. It's effectively "guaranteed" damage - if you miss the attack, you don't spend the spell slot. Compare to Divine Favor. It doesn't require 4 attacks to beat Divine Smite, it requires 4 hits to beat Divine Smite. It's also a Concentration spell, meaning there's both an opportunity cost and a pretty real risk of not getting full value from it. I'm not going to say Divine Favor is an outright trap, but at lower levels when you aren't getting tons of attacks per round and monster HP totals are fairly modest, I suspect Divine Smite will be superior. At higher levels, once you do have multiple attacks per round and more spell slots to burn on Divine Smites, I suspect using a first-level slot on Bless (or saving your Concentration slot for a defensive/party buff) will be a better choice. It's really a very edge case spell - if you know you can score a whole bunch of hits in the next few rounds, it's worth considering, but otherwise I'd just save the prepared spell slot and go with Divine Smites. Given the healer/tank focus, I'd go with Bless/Cure Wounds as you suggest, and add Protection from Evil/Good (which is situational, but insanely good when applicable) and either Heroism, Command, Shield of Faith, or Wrathful Smite for the last slot.
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Oct 9, 2014 20:26
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Talmonis posted:You forgot: -don't have any splatbooks to be effective.
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Oct 9, 2014 20:26
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Generic Octopus posted:Don't. Bard does the same thing but better. EKnight spellcasting only goes to 4 and even then that only happens at high levels. It's pbad. I'm still not quite sold on the idea that the EK is completely terrible. The Bard is definitely better in terms of spellcasting because they may as well be considered a full caster, but every time I look at the Fighter, their action economy keeps luring me back in. Despite the caster supremacy, they STILL look fun to play because they STILL get to DO things (Sans Champion. Champion is just an absolute insult to anyone with any sense for good game design). The Fighter's biggest problem though is that they peak at Level 5 and then start really falling behind the casters more than they already did. They don't seem worth staying true to the class past that point, and you're better off multiclassing into something else. That's 15 dead Levels and that's just unacceptable. But this does keep bringing to my mind one of the things I think 5E does well: Multiclassing. It's rewarding to multiclass in 5E because there's absolutely no downside to doing so, and some classes just seem like they could make some fun combinations when used together. A Fighter/Wizard has never been more viable because there's no longer any punishment for wearing armor while casting spells. I've said it before, but I would definitely consider playing an E.Knight/Bard or E.Knight/Wizard combination because I would love to be the badass in full plate electrocuting people to death like Emperor Palpatine. If you're going to multiclass, Fighters with their extra actions that they get at relatively low levels definitely seem like the class to step into. It's bad game design to have 15 levels of dead weight on a single class, but this is one of the few instances where I can make it work and still have fun with it. Basically, in short, you'll probably have more fun dabbling between various classes than just sticking to one class your entire career. Doesn't necessarily excuse the bad game design, but at least there's a silver lining this time.
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Oct 9, 2014 20:29
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Talmonis posted:You forgot: -you need 20
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Oct 9, 2014 20:31
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PeterWeller posted:This is kinda how it originally was. Then Gygax and friends made up the Thief. Technically he stole it from the fan press, but yeah
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Oct 9, 2014 20:51
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Agent Boogeyman posted:I'm still not quite sold on the idea that the EK is completely terrible. I understand liking the Battlemaster, but really, compare the EKnight to either Bard or a fighter with 15-18 wizard levels. The Bard is the most direct comparison, since Valor has only 1 less attack at 11 (down by 2 at 20, but really, if we're comparing level 20s the Bard is going to come out ahead just due to spells) and has a nearly identical "cast a spell and swing sword at once" feature (and actually gets it 4 levels before the EKnight; you could argue that EK gets the cantrip + attack thing sooner but eh). As you said, just dip into fighter for Action Surge if you want the action economy and maybe Battlemaster stuff, then carry on with something better. I see no reason to dip into EKnight though.
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Oct 9, 2014 20:51
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If your GM's cool with it, you could convince them that your Lute doubles as a weapon (Like maybe a club or something) and use the Eldritch Knight's Weapon Bond to make sure that your multiclassed Bard/E.Knight is never without their instrument. They can just kind of... will it to their hands. At all times. It IS kind of bogus that the Bard gets nearly all of the Eldritch Knight's "Cast+Action" abilities a level earlier than the E.Knight though so you'd never want to invest in any E.Knight levels past 5th if you go that route.
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Oct 9, 2014 21:06
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Protection seems much more for tactical map players. Otherwise it's too difficult to be sure it will be useful. It seems too gamey to always be sure to mention being within 5 feet of the paladin all the time, but otherwise there's too much room for the GM to just say you're more than 5 feet away all the time. And really, how often are you within 5 feet of each other when you do use a tactical map? I'm actually planning on taking either the Dueling style or Defense style. I'm thinking probably Defense, but it's also tempting to just go Dueling and keep Shield of Faith prepared for when things seems to be hitting to often. My DM and I couldn't find anything about shield bash/slam in the book so the conclusion my DM and I reached was that a shield isn't a weapon, and therefore wielding a 1-handed weapon and a shield counts as wielding a melee weapon in one hand and no other weapons. (If this is incorrect please provide a source link) Right now my standard prepared spells are probably going to be Bless, Command, Cure Wounds and Detect Magic (or Shield of Faith). There's an argument for an extra +2 to all weapon damage being better than an AC of 19 (instead of 18), especially when I can "just" use a spell slot to boost it to 20 if something is just hitting me all the time, but I'm not familiar enough with the system (or motivated enough) to try and do any math about it. re: eldrich bard: 
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Oct 9, 2014 21:19
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Tactical Bonnet posted:Protection seems much more for tactical map players. Otherwise it's too difficult to be sure it will be useful. It seems too gamey to always be sure to mention being within 5 feet of the paladin all the time, but otherwise there's too much room for the GM to just say you're more than 5 feet away all the time. And really, how often are you within 5 feet of each other when you do use a tactical map? Makes sense. I tend to err on the side of "let players use all their cool poo poo most of the time, if it becomes an issue just figure out a way to amp up the encounter" when using TotM, but I appreciate that a lot of GMs aren't that flexible. quote:I'm actually planning on taking either the Dueling style or Defense style. I'm thinking probably Defense, but it's also tempting to just go Dueling and keep Shield of Faith prepared for when things seems to be hitting to often. My DM and I couldn't find anything about shield bash/slam in the book so the conclusion my DM and I reached was that a shield isn't a weapon, and therefore wielding a 1-handed weapon and a shield counts as wielding a melee weapon in one hand and no other weapons. (If this is incorrect please provide a source link) I think your interpretation is correct yet again, Dueling Style with 1H+Shield is a-ok. No clue which is mathematically superior though.
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Oct 9, 2014 21:34
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Talmonis posted:The army yes, I did forget that (though clerics and Paladins also had them, our DM's never gave us the opportunity to gain or use that feature. Something about how you would have to quit adventuring to be a lord). Though they did hit things far more often than other classes, this really hasn't changed. Doing 1d10+5 (or +8-10, if you had fantastically rolled stats) with a truly amazing magic two handed sword a few times a round still doesn't compare to today's damage potentials. PC health was also relatively fragile, especially after level 9 where you're only adding +2. I think the biggest advantage that Fighters got over most others, was their saving throw tables at the highest levels (and only there). Paladins didn't get any followers, actually, and clerics didn't get armies. 1D10+5 two or three times a round was pretty great when the biggest dragon has ~150 HP and also that 1D10 turns into a 2D6 against the dragon because of wonky different damage against large targets. And fighters got 3 HP after 9 and got to use add their full Con bonus from 1-9, which combined to give them a significant boost over other classes. I don't really disagree with you about 5E fighters. I just think you're underselling 2E fighters. gtrmp posted:Technically he stole it from the fan press, but yeah Yeah, I didn't know who was really responsible for it, just that it was an invention from those zany early days.
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Oct 9, 2014 21:41
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gtrmp posted:Technically he stole it from the fan press, but yeah What was even the reason for it? People wanted to use a character in light armor?
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Oct 9, 2014 23:03
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mastershakeman posted:What was even the reason for it? People wanted to use a character in light armor? The same reason people invented a Jedi Knight class in midsummer 1977 for D&D, or why the Ranger, Cleric, Paladin, etc. classes exist. People wanted to play Bilbo or the Gray Mouser or Aladdin/The Thief of Baghdad, other people thought it was a cool idea, and this was the beginning of roleplaying games so nobody knew better.
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Oct 9, 2014 23:06
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Talmonis posted:The army yes, I did forget that (though clerics and Paladins also had them, our DM's never gave us the opportunity to gain or use that feature. Something about how you would have to quit adventuring to be a lord). Second ed paladins get no followers at all. Clerics get 20-200 0-level soldiers with nothing special about them. Fighters get a sidekick who's a leader, an elite bodyguard, as many soldiers as the cleric but they have special gear in some way, and they'll get more soldiers over time which the cleric doesn't. You do not have to quit adventuring to be a Lord. That was a common way for a 2e DM to say "I can't be bothered dealing with this and I also can't be bothered working out what you should get instead". Talmonis posted:Though they did hit things far more often than other classes, this really hasn't changed. Doing 1d10+5 (or +8-10, if you had fantastically rolled stats) with a truly amazing magic two handed sword a few times a round still doesn't compare to today's damage potentials. Multiple attacks per round meant a lot more back then, and only Fighters, Paladins, and Rangers got them. Monster hit points were lower than they are now. Your sword/board defensive fighter (assume 17 STR and a +3 sword), at high level, is unlikely to miss (especially compared to other classes), and will be doing 1d8+5 against medium opponents or 1d12+5 against large opponents. Because he's undoubtedly specialised (as only a fighter can be), he does this 5 times every 2 rounds - so his first-two-rounds damage potential against a Large or larger opponent is 30-85, (average 57). If he's using a 2-handed sword instead, that becomes 3d6+5 per hit, or 40-115 (average 77). An Adult Red Dragon has 17HD, or 17-136hp (average 76). Edit: 17 STR is only +1 damage, not +2. You can reduce all the damage numbers by 5. Or increase them by 5, because if the fighter's specialised (he is, why wouldn't he be?) he's also doing +2 damage per attack, which I forgot to add in up there and would net a +1 damage/attack after adjusting it for the proper STR bonus. Talmonis posted:PC health was also relatively fragile, especially after level 9 where you're only adding +2. I think the biggest advantage that Fighters got over most others, was their saving throw tables at the highest levels (and only there). You're adding +3 after 9th level. You also got to roll d10s for HD, which was nice and you couldn't get more than +2 Con modifier for HP unless you were a fighter, paladin, or ranger. In your fullplate with your shield, you were nigh-unhittable, too - nonmagical fullplate and shield gives you 0 AC. A high level fighter is likely to have magic versions of those things. Still fragile, but not really that bad compared to monster health (a 9th level fighter who somehow has no con bonus will average 45 HP. A 17th level fighter (same "HD" as that dragon) with no con mod will average 69hp. If he has just +1, that's 78hp and he's averaging better than the dragon. If you do the common "get your max HP at level 1" house-rule, that's just looking even better. Compare a wizard with no con mod, who's rocking an average 18hp at 9th level and 27hp at 17th. You're right about the saving throws. Talmonis posted:Today, one of the most awesome abilities I've seen is that we have Action Surges, allowing a Fighter to become a chainsaw of death to something with a torrent of attacks, or any number of other useful things. Did you use your action to rush, attack and then grapple (with one of those extra feats you got, using it on Tavern Brawler) to twist that wizard's hands behind his back so he can't get to his spell components or focus, or even use somatics? Good, use your action surge to stuff your Barbarian friend's soiled underwear into his mouth. With his puny strength, he won't be getting away from your mighty rear end any time soon. Might as well hit him in the kidneys a few times every round until he passes out. Or just hold him up to get geeked by your own mage's dex save attacks. Or your Thief's sneak attacks, etc. I'm not disagreeing that the fighter has more mechanics even in 5e, but it's not as good as the second ed fighter was at being the best fighting guy. The first edition fighter was (comparatively) even better. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 01:21 on Oct 10, 2014 |
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Oct 10, 2014 00:32
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I appreciate this thread a lot more then I used to while searching. For High Quality Monster Manual Art (Which I am still having trouble finding.) I came to the fourm known as the Gaming Den. Man it made the people who hate 5e here look tame. Plus it was just generally horrible.
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Oct 10, 2014 01:07
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PeterWeller posted:Paladins didn't get any followers, actually, and clerics didn't get armies. 1D10+5 two or three times a round was pretty great when the biggest dragon has ~150 HP and also that 1D10 turns into a 2D6 against the dragon because of wonky different damage against large targets. And fighters got 3 HP after 9 and got to use add their full Con bonus from 1-9, which combined to give them a significant boost over other classes. *Average assuming weapon mastery. If you're only with the 2nd edition PHB then they'd be doing 'only' 6d6+4 damage -- still capable of dealing 1/2 the dragon's hit points on a good round.
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Oct 10, 2014 01:10
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Although in 2nd Edition Dragons did have a "Your weapon must be this tall to hurt me" quota, but I guess that's just par for the course in older DND games, and not really worth discussion because you really weren't going to fight the dragon if you couldn't even hurt it. I'm still pretty sad they brought that back in 5th. At least it's only magic/nonmagic and not like, requires sword to be at least + 4 and silver and it be Tuesday or whatever.
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Oct 10, 2014 01:37
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NorgLyle posted:The hit point differences are a huge thing that people tend to forget about. Monsters didn't have constitution modifiers or class levels... This also meant that your standard orc (1 HD) had 1-8hp, average 4. Or to put it another way, was usually a one-shot-kill for a 1st level fighter with >16 STR and specialisation. Because of the 3/2 attacks/round thing specialisation granted, there was a good chance that 1st level fighter could kill an 8hp orc on the first round. Other character without STR mods or specialisation still stand a chance of being able to one-shot an average orc. The 5e orc has 2d8+6 hp, or 8-22hp, 15 average by the book. e: Before, I said that the 2e Adult Red Dragon has 17HD (17d8), or 17-136hp (average 76). The 5e Adult Red Dragon has 19d12 + 133, or 152-361, average 256 - nearly twice the maximum of the 2e version. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 02:07 on Oct 10, 2014 |
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Oct 10, 2014 01:49
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TenaciousJ posted:To put it another way:
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Oct 10, 2014 02:56
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I never quite understood the HP bloat over the years. Damage output doesn't seem all that hiked, so basically what would have really let the martial types shine, by quickly ending fights by how good they are with well, FIGHTing, is less in 5E. I can only assume that's a large part of the problem with the viability of martials vs. casters though.
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Oct 10, 2014 02:57
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HP bloat combined with how damage really only increased with particular feat combos and how spell damage really didn't increase much either was one of several problems with 3e. I would've hoped they'd at least figured that out in 5e with the "flat math" stuff they were touting.
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Oct 10, 2014 03:06
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Agent Boogeyman posted:I never quite understood the HP bloat over the years. Damage output doesn't seem all that hiked, so basically what would have really let the martial types shine, by quickly ending fights by how good they are with well, FIGHTing, is less in 5E. I can only assume that's a large part of the problem with the viability of martials vs. casters though. Character hit points increasing was a generally good thing, especially at low levels*. I think the monster HP increased because of some kind of misguided "fairness" mindset combined with the obvious "Hit points represent only physical damage" garbage you get from the rules-as-physics/my-verisimilitude people. *Really. I like oldschool games, but starting as a melee guy with few enough hit points that a standard 1st-level enemy can one-shot you without even critting is lame any time it takes more than a couple of minutes to make a new character. I reckon that "start as if you'd rolled max hp" or "+10hp at first level" or whatever is probably the single most common houserule in B/x through 2e. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 03:12 on Oct 10, 2014 |
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Oct 10, 2014 03:07
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AlphaDog posted:Character hit points increasing was a generally good thing, especially at low levels*. I think the monster HP increased because of some kind of misguided "fairness" mindset combined with the obvious "Hit points represent only physical damage" garbage you get from the rules-as-physics/my-verisimilitude people. There was also the whole "monsters have to use the same rules as PCs" nonsense, which admittedly sounds good on paper until you actually sit down and think about it.
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Oct 10, 2014 03:55
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AlphaDog posted:*Really. I like oldschool games, but starting as a melee guy with few enough hit points that a standard 1st-level enemy can one-shot you without even critting is lame any time it takes more than a couple of minutes to make a new character. I reckon that "start as if you'd rolled max hp" or "+10hp at first level" or whatever is probably the single most common houserule in B/x through 2e. Hit point bloat is, as near as I've ever been able to tell, the primary genesis of the 3rd edition style spellcasters who load themselves with save or die and save or suck spells. In 4th edition, at least, the problem of a Hobgoblin having forty something hit points and a long sword still doing 1d8 was mitigated by the fact that the whole game was built around the idea that combats were going to last a certain number of rounds and the monster's hit points, in theory, were the simplest way of measuring that out. It still led to things like fighting a Monster Manual White Dragon at level two and spending the vast majority of the fight just whittling it away with at will attacks for minimal damage. But in third monsters and players just had hundreds of hit points for no really explainable reason and, if anything, the damage dealing capacity of most characters was actually reduced.
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Oct 10, 2014 04:00
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NorgLyle posted:In all of my 2nd edition games we went automatic max hp for first level characters and roll twice and keep the better roll for each level up. This is pretty much true. In 2e because saving throw DCs were set (and fairly easy), while monster HP was moderate, spells like Fireball were pretty hot poo poo because landing a save or suck on a high-level monster was going to be nigh impossible. In 3e monster HP skyrocketed and the ability to boost save DCs meant that going for a nuker wizard was a waste of time, while debuffing them into the floor was fairly easy. I know someone's posted  math about it here before and other places, but I don't have that saved.
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Oct 10, 2014 04:03
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AlphaDog posted:*Really. I like oldschool games, but starting as a melee guy with few enough hit points that a standard 1st-level enemy can one-shot you without even critting is lame any time it takes more than a couple of minutes to make a new character. I reckon that "start as if you'd rolled max hp" or "+10hp at first level" or whatever is probably the single most common houserule in B/x through 2e.
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Oct 10, 2014 04:03
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jigokuman posted:Hackmaster was all about being a vicious, gritty, old-school, adversarial DM game, and I think it gave characters +20 HP at the start. Yeah, but it also gave that to monsters. Or 10hp if the monster had less than 1 HD.
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Oct 10, 2014 04:20
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Rocket tag at level 1, which is always the least fun level anyways, is always pretty dumb, not sure why people are so obsessed with it.
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Oct 10, 2014 04:25
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IMO, the HP bloat in 3.x is a bit over-stated. It has a serious problem with 1-shot kills at low levels, especially with low-op groups - if you ever send a somewhat iconic 'orcs with greataxes' group against even relatively seasoned players, you could easily expect a death or two. A level 1 Barbarian with 18 con still only has 16 hp, which an orc dealing 1d12+4 will disable more often than is cool. Hitting that 1d4+2/3 squishy is even worse. Never mind that crits will basically insta-kill.
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Oct 10, 2014 04:48
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I was referring to monster HP bloat in later editions because I remember Fighters being really hardy in 2E even at level 1 mostly because things just couldn't hit you. Their strength seemed to be that they were necessary to even be able to end a fight because they could down an enemy in 1-2 hits no problem whereas anyone else couldn't really hit the broad side of a barn. I also vaguely remember something about caster spells having time delay so that you would start casting something but it wouldn't go off until 2-3 rounds into the fight. Though it's been a long time since I played 2E so I may be completely misremembering that. Also I remember if you were a Dwarf Fighter specifically you were basically this unhittable death machine that shrugged off magic and poisons because of their fantastic saves.
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Oct 10, 2014 04:55
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IT BEGINS posted:IMO, the HP bloat in 3.x is a bit over-stated. It has a serious problem with 1-shot kills at low levels, especially with low-op groups - if you ever send a somewhat iconic 'orcs with greataxes' group against even relatively seasoned players, you could easily expect a death or two. A level 1 Barbarian with 18 con still only has 16 hp, which an orc dealing 1d12+4 will disable more often than is cool. Hitting that 1d4+2/3 squishy is even worse. Never mind that crits will basically insta-kill. The HP bloat is something that comes in at higher levels, and primarily on the monster's side. Level 1s and 2s still have a very good chance of getting one-shot in 3.5 melee (because it's still very badly designed). Take the humble Tarrasque, for example; it's a big, tough monster, so it's got lots and lots of HD and should have a high CON modifier too because it's big and it's tough. In 2e it has 300 HP (70 HD); because of the way monster math works in 3.5, it has 48d10 (avg: 264, so similar to 2e) + 594 which comes from its massive Con modifier applied to all that HD. You end up with ~2.5x the HP of the 2e monster in a system that copied the rules text from Fireball pretty much word for word from the previous edition, including the damage expression.
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Oct 10, 2014 04:58
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I just want to say that I'm genuinely amazed to see someone unironically holding up RIFTS of all loving games as some sort of example of "balance doesn't really matter, you can make any game work if you want." Like, at what point do you just admit that you're playing a game solely in spite of it rather than because of it?
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Oct 10, 2014 05:28
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goldjas posted:Rocket tag at level 1, which is always the least fun level anyways, is always pretty dumb, not sure why people are so obsessed with it. Yea you really need some form of base HP that HP per level is added to because having second level to characters be literally twice as durable as first is just idiotic.
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Oct 10, 2014 05:41
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