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In D&D it's really hard to splash for flavor, that was probably what they were thinking.
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Mar 13, 2015 01:21
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I'm not sure "whining" is the correct word. Did you mean to type "accurately stating"?
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Mar 13, 2015 01:26
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Stormgale posted:In D&D it's really hard to splash for flavor, that was probably what they were thinking. Yeah, absolutely that's what happened. Splicer posted:I'm not sure "whining" is the correct word. Did you mean to type "accurately stating"? They can whine and be correct at the same time. Edit: I no spell gud. Red Hood fucked around with this message at 01:58 on Mar 13, 2015 |
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Mar 13, 2015 01:35
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Red Hood posted:Encounter 1: 12 "Worgs" charge us over a hill. The guys who were scouting (Fighter/Druid and one of the Monks) get murdered because they were in front and the GM rolled three crits. I cast Fireball and manage to catch every Worg in it, and they all drop, since they had 25HP each and I rolled pretty well on my 8d6. This is hilarious. Also, you caught 12 large creatures in a fireball? Another life saved thanks to theatre of the mind!
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Mar 13, 2015 02:30
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I'm beginning to suspect that not all aspects of D&DNext translate well to Theater of the Mind type play. Also, the average roll of 8d6 would be 28. You really should be fighting something hardier than worgs with 25HP. Why is the challenge rating system so janky, also, too? Some good person did a budget system over at ENWorld. They should have adopted a similar system for Next. It seems so needlessly complex for what it is, but I haven't really looked at it.
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Mar 13, 2015 03:11
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GrizzlyCow posted:Why is the challenge rating system so janky, also, too? Because nobody gives a poo poo about a formula.
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Mar 13, 2015 03:25
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Because I am lazy, what are the feint mechanics in 5.0? Not the fighter manoeuvre.. the b basic mechanics.
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Mar 13, 2015 03:37
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DalaranJ posted:This is hilarious. I don't see a problem with this even with the grid rules. Clearly they were packed together in a perfect square and the DM's Call on the semi-filled squares was that they were hit. Clearly. 
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Mar 13, 2015 03:47
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Red Hood posted:the GM rolled three crits
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Mar 13, 2015 04:01
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FRINGE posted:A 1 in 8000 chance? The chance of getting 3+ crits in 12 attacks is just under 2%, not that implausible.
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Mar 13, 2015 04:07
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Yeah, TotM saved us. Weeeeeeee! Feel like I'm being criticized for sharing my story, my bad fellow goons.
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Mar 13, 2015 04:10
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GrizzlyCow posted:
We have a budget system. It's in the DMG and Basic Rules. Challenge rating is stated to be more or less the level you can safely use these monsters in the encounter.
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Mar 13, 2015 04:14
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Red Hood posted:Feel like I'm being criticized for sharing my story, my bad fellow goons.
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Mar 13, 2015 04:25
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MonsterEnvy posted:We have a budget system. It's in the DMG and Basic Rules. Challenge rating is stated to be more or less the level you can safely use these monsters in the encounter. Except it's dumb as poo poo because offensive and defensive CRs are separate, so you can easily have glass cannons that will kill players on a crit rated the same as a literal rock with no attacks.
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Mar 13, 2015 04:30
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Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:I think you're being criticized because your story was "I ended one encounter with a spell and the other person with spellcasting took a fat chunk out of another, the people who did nothing but die complained, what entitled babies am I right?" Not entitled babies; I'd feel the same way if I was the monk plinking away at a monster, when another class can just end it all in one turn. Another example of martial classes being unfun because casters can do poo poo they just can't do. I get why I came off that way, it wasn't the intention. Again, my bad.
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Mar 13, 2015 04:32
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Interestingly in our game my rogue is usually last man standing. Our warlock got killed by a rat. A rat.
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Mar 13, 2015 04:35
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ActusRhesus posted:Because I am lazy, what are the feint mechanics in 5.0? Not the fighter manoeuvre.. the b basic mechanics. A quick scan of the PHB reveals no specific mention of feinting. The closest thing is to spend your action to Help/Aid Another: you do whatever it is that will distract an enemy, and then an attack roll made by your friend against the distracted target before the start of your next turn will have Advantage. GrizzlyCow posted:Why is the challenge rating system so janky, also, too? Some good person did a budget system over at ENWorld. They should have adopted a similar system for Next. It seems so needlessly complex for what it is, but I haven't really looked at it. That's already how encounter building in Next works: a player is "worth" x amount of experience, and then any monster of any given CR is worth y amount of experience, and then you purchase monsters with a budget. Next even does Pathfinder one better by applying a multiplier to the budget to represent how larger numbers of monsters can be virtually more dangerous simply because of the action economy. Let's break it down: Five players at level 6 will give you a "Medium" encounter budget of 3600 exp Worgs are CR 1/2 creatures, which are worth 100 exp each 12 Worgs would therefore give you 1200 exp, bumped up to 3000 exp after the action economy multiplier Since it does not exceed the Medium threshold of 3600 exp, the encounter is considered one level easier, or an Easy encounter That said, a CR 1/2 creature is supposed to have something like 31 HP, which would drive down your chance to oneshot all of them with a damage roll of 8d6 to just 30.54%, disregarding saving throws. EDIT: What I'm saying a Worg as in the Monster Manual only has about 26 HP when using averages when creatures of that CR should really have 31. They'd only have a 22% chance of getting 31 HP or more using rolled hit dice. Meanwhile they're doing 10 DPR with their melee attacks, and it can also knock you prone, and they have +5 to attack when it should be more like +3 attack and 5 DPR at that CR. Monsters from the MM are consistently coming up as far too easy to kill while also dealing far too much damage. The DM made an easy encounter, and monster stats can be janky, but the problem isn't specifically the encounter building rules gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 04:57 on Mar 13, 2015 |
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Mar 13, 2015 04:47
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I am running a stout halfling barbarian on Wednesdays, built for tanking. At level 1 we unknowingly ran headlong into this game's bad design. There are now multiple methods, granted by class abilities or spells, to calculate your base armor class, and you can only use one way (page 14). This is presumably to avoid perceived balance problems with stacking. So, a barbarian such as myself, who is not wearing armor (except for a shield), gets 10 + Dex mod + Con mod (+ my shield bonus). Meanwhile, Mage Armor turns your base AC into 13 + Dex mod. In order to actually see that stacking Unarmored Defense and Mage Armor is not allowed under the rules, you must turn to page 14. Nowhere else is it mentioned, so by default everyone just assumed Mage Armor meant 13 + Dex mod + Con mod, which would essentially make the halfling barbarian the tankiest character in the game by far. However, you can still use Shield of Faith on anyone, albeit as a concentration spell. This would have easily been solved by simply stating "without armor, a barbarian counts his Con mod as his armor bonus to AC," instead of doing what they did, which is to make every spell in the game work differently for no discernible reason. Even at level 1, no one at the table can track whether they are supposed to make enemies roll saving throws or attack with a given spell, in a system that's going to get outsmarted and bent at the edges by players no matter how many needless special case rules they make.
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Mar 13, 2015 05:00
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:This would have easily been solved by simply stating "without armor, a barbarian counts his Con mod as his armor bonus to AC," instead of doing what they did, which is to make every spell in the game work differently for no discernible reason. That's how 4th Edition did it: quote:Barbarian Agility OneThousandMonkeys posted:Even at level 1, no one at the table can track whether they are supposed to make enemies roll saving throws or attack with a given spell, in a system that's going to get outsmarted and bent at the edges by players no matter how many needless special case rules they make. Seriously would it really have killed WOTC to add one line to the spell statblocks: quote:ARC OF LIGHTNING That's even already how 3.5 did it!
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Mar 13, 2015 05:45
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Red Hood posted:Yeah, TotM saved us. Weeeeeeee! I'm not criticizing you, I'm poking fun at the rules.
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Mar 13, 2015 05:48
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Red Hood posted:Feel like I'm being criticized for sharing my story, my bad fellow goons. What? No, not at all. I'm sorry if my post sounded that way.
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Mar 13, 2015 06:19
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MonsterEnvy posted:We have a budget system. It's in the DMG and Basic Rules. Challenge rating is stated to be more or less the level you can safely use these monsters in the encounter. gradenko_2000 posted:That's already how encounter building in Next works: a player is "worth" x amount of experience, and then any monster of any given CR is worth y amount of experience, and then you purchase monsters with a budget. Hmm. Maybe I need to go back and reread the PHB. Thanks, though.
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Mar 13, 2015 22:19
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gradenko_2000 posted:
This is not correct. According to the DMG a Defensive CR of 1/2 has 50 to 70 hp and AC 13. The Worg has 26 Hp and 13 AC giving it a defensive CR of 1/8. It's offensive CR is 2. A creature with a CR of 1/8 and 2 is CR 1/2 so the Worg fits's it's CR perfectly according to the making monsters rules in the DMG. GrizzlyCow posted:Hmm. Maybe I need to go back and reread the PHB. Thanks, though. As I mentioned it's in the DMG and the basic rules not the PHB. To elaborate the DM's Basic rules.
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Mar 13, 2015 22:37
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MonsterEnvy posted:This is not correct. According to the DMG a Defensive CR of 1/2 has 50 to 70 hp and AC 13. The Worg has 26 Hp and 13 AC giving it a defensive CR of 1/8. It's offensive CR is 2. A creature with a CR of 1/8 and 2 is CR 1/2 so the Worg fits's it's CR perfectly according to the making monsters rules in the DMG. gradenko_2000 may have got the exact numbers wrong, but this doesn't address his main point: that monsters in 5e consistently attack above their weight class but have really low defenses. Based on what I've seen, this is a consistent trend in 5e monster design, and it leads to the feeling of combat being like rocket tag. Like, the example from actual play that sparked this discussion is basically the definition of rocket tag combat: the worgs took out the group's melee characters in one round, only for the Wizard to wipe out the entire combat with a single fireball. That kind of combat isn't interesting, because it places way too much value on winning initiative and means that combat doesn't really have a round-by-round flow. On the other hand, monsters that are damage sponges but have low attack values are equally problematic in a different way (they turn the combat into a grind without any real risk), but I guess what I'm trying to say is that there's a happy middle ground where monsters present a consistent threat but can't be all wiped out with a single well-placed fireball from the Wizard. Since 4e pretty much fixed this problem (even though the combat math got a bit janky at high levels, something that was addressed in Monster Manual 3) this shouldn't be a problem once again.
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Mar 14, 2015 10:08
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About to play 5e in two days (not my favoured system, but gotta get my gaming fix somewhere!). Last time I played it was the last public playtest release. A variant human polearm master battlemaster fighter tickles my fancy. Are there any real downsides to this? The idea to hitting things and making them trip over and maybe later the Sentinel feat to make them stop moving when I hit them, too. I've also stared at the internet for a while trying to figure out attacks of opportunity combined with reach combined with polearm master. Mike Mearls tweeted one thing, Crawford said another. Mearls' tweets were the ones that ended up in an ENworld Sage Advice but I have no idea how 'official' that's supposed to be. Based on Mearls v Crawford, there seem to be two possible interpretations: Mearls: A reach weapon means you trigger opportunity attacks at 10feet instead of 5feet. Opportunity attacks trigger when someone leaves your 10feet range - then can 5-foot around you all day instead (although technically, you always have an unarmed attack available!). When you have Polearm Master, you get an opportunity attack when an enemy moves to 10feet of you. Crawford: A reach weapon means that when you use the attack action in combat, or any similar action that could be considered a variant of the attack action, you have an extra 5 feet range on the attack. Opportunity attacks from moving away from you work as normal. When you have Polearm Master, you get an opportunity attack when an enemy moves to 5feet of you.
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Mar 14, 2015 13:05
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I am planning to continually upgrade Con and Dex on my halfling barbarian (we are leveling once a week as a rule in a game with max hit points) and I will let you all know if a naked bear barbarian can laugh off the rocket tag metagame or not. I think a lot of it's going to come down to if I get hit too much on the first round before I rage and effectively double my hit points in most scenarios.
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Mar 14, 2015 13:20
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bewilderment posted:Based on Mearls v Crawford, there seem to be two possible interpretations: Frankly, it doesn't matter what Mearls or Crawford think, unless Mearls or Crawford are running your game. Cut the names off of the two opinions and then present them to your GM. Discuss with them which you think is a better rule and then let them decide which they will use (unless they wants to make their own interpretation which is perfectly viable as long as it makes sense to you).
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Mar 14, 2015 15:58
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Yup. The rules are unclear, and either one of their houserules could make sense and work. Pick one between you.
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Mar 14, 2015 16:12
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bewilderment posted:A variant human polearm master battlemaster fighter tickles my fancy. Are there any real downsides to this? One downside is that you don't have spells and thus can't access half of the game while your Wizard and Bard and Druid and Cleric teammates end up solving problems and trivialising encounters by pointing at an entry in the PHB spell list.
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Mar 14, 2015 16:16
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The rules don't even seem unclear in this case though? Mearls seems right to me, going off the OA rules & polearm feat.
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Mar 14, 2015 16:20
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A reach weapon is defined in the PHB as "adds 5 feet to your reach when you attack with it" The implication is that when you are not attacking, your reach is still only 5 feet. That is: * if it's your turn, and you attack, you can attack a dude that's 10 feet away * if it's not your turn, and a dude moves farther, from 10 feet away to 15 feet away, the dude does not provoke an Opportunity Attack, because your reach and therefore your threatened area is only 5 feet, because you were not attacking and thus were not benefitting from the extra 5 feet of reach * if it's not your turn, and a dude moves farther, from 5 feet away to 10 feet away, the dude provokes an OA per normal rules With Polearm Mastery: * if it's not your turn, and a dude moves closer, from 15 feet away 10 feet away, it does not provoke an OA, for the same reason mentioned above * if it's not your turn, and a dude moves closer, from 10 feet away to 5 feet away, the Polearm Mastery clause triggers, and the dude provokes an OA There's no need to think about OAs getting provoked by a dude that's already in your threatened area and moves "deeper" into it, because your threatened area is always only 5 feet anyway, with or without the feat. There's a tweet going around by Jeremy Crawford that says, and I quote verbatim "Yes, OA (an attack) is based on your reach with the weapon you're using.", but as far as I know that does nothing to clear up or change the reading of the text, because the reach of a polearm (and indeed every weapon) is 5 feet. MonsterEnvy posted:This is not correct. According to the DMG a Defensive CR of 1/2 has 50 to 70 hp and AC 13. The Worg has 26 Hp and 13 AC giving it a defensive CR of 1/8. It's offensive CR is 2. A creature with a CR of 1/8 and 2 is CR 1/2 so the Worg fits's it's CR perfectly according to the making monsters rules in the DMG. I'm well aware that the Worg and many other monsters are "built correctly" as defined by the monster creation rules. I'm saying that in practice, those rules produce "rocket taggy" monsters regardless.
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Mar 14, 2015 17:04
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Boing posted:One downside is that you don't have spells and thus can't access half of the game while your Wizard and Bard and Druid and Cleric teammates end up solving problems and trivialising encounters by pointing at an entry in the PHB spell list. I'm well-aware of caster supremacy/versatility, but the party I'm joining (they've already done character generation) already has a Bard, Cleric and Paladin, and while warlock did look interesting at first from what I remember of 3.5e, I couldn't immediately find a way to make it feel interesting or amusing to play. But someone can feel free to correct me on that and entice me into playing an interesting warlock.
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Mar 14, 2015 23:12
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bewilderment posted:I'm well-aware of caster supremacy/versatility, but the party I'm joining (they've already done character generation) already has a Bard, Cleric and Paladin, and while warlock did look interesting at first from what I remember of 3.5e, I couldn't immediately find a way to make it feel interesting or amusing to play. But someone can feel free to correct me on that and entice me into playing an interesting warlock. Basically the two big selling points for Warlocks are the spell slots that refresh on a short rest instead of a long rest, and invocations, which you get starting at level 2 and gradually get more as you invest in Warlock levels. For the most part they let you cast something at-will (like Disguise Self), cast some stronger spells, or augment some other ability/spell. Take a closer look at them, they're a pretty good and flexible caster class even if they're somewhat overshadowed in later levels by Bard and Wizard.
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Mar 14, 2015 23:35
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Generic Octopus posted:Basically the two big selling points for Warlocks are the spell slots that refresh on a short rest instead of a long rest, and invocations, which you get starting at level 2 and gradually get more as you invest in Warlock levels. For the most part they let you cast something at-will (like Disguise Self), cast some stronger spells, or augment some other ability/spell. Well, we're starting from level 1 with that Hoard of the Dragon Queen module, so later levels aren't really an issue at this point. But my point is - I decided to pick fighter because being a halberd user with Polearm Master wasn't something I'd ever done in DnD before, and tripping people over with it and having interesting opportunity attacks as a fighter seems like fun and a reasonably effective build. What's an 'interesting and reasonably effective' build for a warlock that goes beyond "I blast it!", at least on the level that being a halberd fighter goes beyond "I hit it!". If it matters, the other players are a paladin, cleric, monk and bard. edit: oh, but I didn't read closely enough to see that warlocks get all their slots back on a short rest. That's a little better than I thought.
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Mar 14, 2015 23:56
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Generic Octopus posted:Basically the two big selling points for Warlocks are the spell slots that refresh on a short rest instead of a long rest, and invocations, which you get starting at level 2 and gradually get more as you invest in Warlock levels. For the most part they let you cast something at-will (like Disguise Self), cast some stronger spells, or augment some other ability/spell. Eldritch Blast is also probably the best basic attack cantrip so you don't like a complete doof when you're out of slots/abilities. I also really like the fluff around the class but it pretty heavily relies on the DM to actually do something with it.
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Mar 15, 2015 23:11
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bewilderment posted:Well, we're starting from level 1 with that Hoard of the Dragon Queen module, Unless your DM heavily patches the adventure, you are screwed. Make sure they know this.
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Mar 16, 2015 01:44
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gradenko_2000 posted:That's even already how 3.5 did it! The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Games > Traditional Games > D&D NEXT: That's even how 3.5 did it!
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Mar 16, 2015 15:43
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Using Fate-style Zones in Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition This seems like the sort of thing that would be well received as a "modular" splatbook of variant rules for Next, or even as an Arcana Unearthed web article, if the team actually went and codified all of it.
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Mar 17, 2015 10:12
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gradenko_2000 posted:Using Fate-style Zones in Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition Incidentally, this is how Old School Hack does it: each combat location is divided into a bunch of arenas, ranged weapons can target enemies in adjacent arenas, melee weapons can target characters in your own arena, and while it doesn't have aspects as such arenas have types (like Tight, Dense, Hazardous, Open) and you get a +2 bonus to attack rolls when attacking in an arena appropriate to your weapon type (Ranged Weapons are good for attacking opponents in Open arenas, Light Weapons are good in Tight arenas and so on). It encourages players to use the game's forced movement mechanics to take enemies into arenas where they have the advantage over them.
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Mar 17, 2015 10:29
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Ratpick posted:Incidentally, this is how Old School Hack does it: each combat location is divided into a bunch of arenas, ranged weapons can target enemies in adjacent arenas, melee weapons can target characters in your own arena, and while it doesn't have aspects as such arenas have types (like Tight, Dense, Hazardous, Open) and you get a +2 bonus to attack rolls when attacking in an arena appropriate to your weapon type (Ranged Weapons are good for attacking opponents in Open arenas, Light Weapons are good in Tight arenas and so on). It encourages players to use the game's forced movement mechanics to take enemies into arenas where they have the advantage over them.
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