D&D NEXT: Infinite Posts of the Abyss

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Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

The cleric is the one who knocks.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2014 11:05

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 05:18

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

So the other thread discovered this:

LongDarkNight posted:

Here's the full list [of rituals ]from secret PHB:

Alarm, Animal Messenger, Augury, Beast Sense, Chariot of Sustarre, Commune, Commune with Nature, Comprehend Languages, Contact Other Plane, Detect Good and Evil, Detect Magic, Detect Poison and Disease, Divination, Drawmiji's Instant Summons, Feign Death, Find Familiar, Find Steed, Forbiddance, Gentle Repose, Identify, Illusory Script, Knock, Leomund's Secret Chest, Leomund's Tiny Hut, Locate Animals or Plants, Locate Creature, Locat Object, Magic Mouth, Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound, Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion, Phantom Steed, Plant Growth, Purify Food and Drink, Rary's Telepathic Bond, Sending, Silence, Speak with Animals, Speak with Plants, Spiritual Weapon, Tenser's Floating Disk, Unseen Servant

So wizards can use any of these spells at any time without spending a spell slot or even memorizing them.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2014 13:51

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Yeah, I mean it's not like rogues can fail or that Knock works 100% of the time, that would be crazy!

# ¿ Jul 6, 2014 00:34

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

There are a lot more things that target Wis than Int or Cha though, so I'd expect to see pretty much every caster go Wis-based.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2014 14:38

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Pathfinder is incredibly complex, no one should ever learn it. D&D Next is a bit simpler than 4E. Both Pathfinder and Next have exactly the same roleplaying support as 4th edition does. But honestly if you want something simple and roleplay focused I'd do something like Dungeon World or Fate Freeport, both of which are emulations of D&D's style in simpler and more roleplay focused systems.

Piell fucked around with this message at 09:53 on Jul 15, 2014

# ¿ Jul 15, 2014 09:46

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Drone posted:

Thank you for this post. I popped into #badwrongfun last night and was asking similar questions, and really came across pretty much nobody who recommended I buy the 5e rulebook when it comes out next week. Most people directed me to Pathfinder for a game that's both 1.) got the support of an entire company behind it, 2.) decent for beginners, 3.) not inherently roleplay-intensive and 4.) has a large playerbase. Some others piped in with DW and 13th Age, as expected, or some older forks of D&D.

Anyone who recommends Pathfinder for beginners is an idiot.

Anyway the reason 5E is looked down on is that the developer's goals were "Make the next D&D game". Not "Make the next D&D game good" or "Make the next D&D game balanced", just make the thing. Does it feel like D&D? Great, we did good! Is it balanced or does it do anything interesting? No, but they weren't aiming for that anyway.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2014 09:48

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Next has none of these things.

wallawallawingwang posted:

I sometimes wonder if a different group of designers could have accomplished the stated goals of Next. Which as I understand, were to create a sort of best hits of D&D, or with the early talk of modules a sort of D&D GURPS where you could use rules modules to create a specific kind of game play experience. I think that's a tall order, but I think it is possible.

It seems like you'd want to start by hammering out a really solid spine, where it was explicitly clear what a PC or NPC of level y, expending a resource of type z, could and could not do. Ideally there'd be a basic mathematical formula that could tell you what sort of damage, defenses, and HP to expect at any given point. I guess optimistically, that's all still possible. Maybe there really are modules that will let players play a tactically deep balanced game, or a swashbuckler-y (actual) Theater of the Mind style game. But it seems like you'd need to develop those concurrently, at the very least for promotional purposes. Is there a reason WoTC would have a well designed module system for Next, but then not tell us?

The math of D&D Next was specifically NOT worked out until near the end of the process. There are no 4E-style accurate and easy to use guidelines for making enemies by level, and there never will be, because 5E has gone back to 3.x style monster creation which makes that impossible. Modules were never worked on during most of the design process and were created and tacked on afterwards.

quote:

I like the tactical combat of 4th edition, but I also like planning expeditions and exploration simulation sorts of things. Is Next the game for me?

D&D Next has none of these things.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2014 18:05

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

FMguru posted:

One of the big issues with 3e was that it didn't really get broken until the supplement treadmill roared to life and filled shelves with tons of (official!) prestige classes and feats and spells and magic items. 5e may be slightly less burdensome and unbalanced that 3e now, but we'll see how it looks after a dozen or big meaty crunch books hit the shelves. It's nice that they made concentration a check against spellcasters going nuts with buffs; how long until you can bypass all that with an "Improved Concentration" feat?

Haha no 3.x was broke as gently caress from day 1. Later 3.5 supplements had the most balanced stuff and most of the actually good (i.e. Tier 3) classes.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2014 18:23

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:

He's right, and you sound like you're projecting maybe a touch? Just because the 3e/d20 system debacle was a hilarious explosion of bad ideas and poorly-formatted shovelware doesn't mean you have to go digging through drivethru to find a game to play the genre you want, and if you have a decent enough framework you can service a Lot of concepts in pretty much any given system if the playstyle it encourages works for the playstyle you seek to emulate. "We get together in a group that goes and adventures at a place where there is combat! [sci fi|fantasy|action]" can be handled pretty well by 4e (or any other edition or game where you can reskin/rename/limit spells/powers, like Mutants and Masterminds), the *world system lends itself fairly well to a huge variety of genres (post-apocalyptic adventure | fantasy | detective pulp | high school monster drama) so long as your playstyle is narrative-back-and-forth-heavy. poo poo, you could probably even run a lethal-as-hell Fantasy loving Vietnam campaign of dungeon crawling with Dread.

Do not let the scribbly binders of a misspent youth color your opinion of the wide wide world of much better ideas other people have had.

D&D is not a good generic system for two reasons.
1) It is not generic. It is heavily steeped in its own assumptions. D&D-specific things are like, 70% of the game.
2) It is not a good system.

# ¿ Aug 7, 2014 06:18

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Bongo Bill posted:

If you're fighting that many monsters, they shouldn't all be the same, I think.

They would be in D&D Next! Next doesn't do the "varied enemy types" thing that D&D 4E does - all kobolds are the same, by default.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2014 08:46

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Daetrin posted:

And then D&D was Fate.

(Actually that's a good question for another thread - can you use Fate to mimic the 'feel' of D&D without the fiddly bits).

Fate Freeport does it pretty well.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2014 13:58

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

seebs posted:

I think the problem I'm running into is that if I can conceive of an "impossible" thing, I tend to think of it as being somehow-magical. I mean, monks can do things that are Clearly Impossible, but that's described as a kind-of-magic.

Could you give an example of what you're thinking of?

Everything Beowulf or C�chulainn does.

Piell fucked around with this message at 08:04 on Aug 12, 2014

# ¿ Aug 12, 2014 08:02

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

seebs posted:

Hmm. Wizard has infinite castings of 4d10. 4d10+something for evoker. 120' range.

Fighter has to use ammunition, but that's four attacks per attack action, 1d6+dex each, probably +1 because I bet you've got a magic bow by that level. Range is 80/320, and the fighter had better have stuff by 20th level to give him advantage so he's not at disadvantage at long range. And the fighter can also just swing a sword, forever, 4 attacks every round or more. It's not totally one-sided.

If I were trying to do undead armies, as long as I had the option of going and finding bones, that would be a fun thing. But I would totally not expect to just automatically always have access to 50+ piles of bones. That'd be silly.

On top of graveyards existing, adventurers generate skeletons by being adventures through the process of killing things.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2014 08:52

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Keep in mind D&D is a world where SENTIENT FIRE exists, maybe that fire just likes you.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2014 09:03

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

If you really must have everything be "magic" just think of it this way:
Everything in D&D is already flooded with magic. Wizards do their incredible things by forcing the magic to do what they want. Fighters do their incredible things by not being jerks to the ambient magic and it lets them be awesome.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2014 09:44

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

It's Thief of Legend

Thief of Legend posted:

Steal Back the Soul (24th level): You can steal anything; even death holds no end to your thievery. You can steal sighs from lovestruck maidens and ambition from warlords, and you have stolen your soul from the forces that claim it when you die�for safekeeping, of course. As you begin to slip beyond the mortal realm, you return what you have stolen so few notice it was ever gone.
When you die, after 1 hour your body and possessions vanish. After 24 hours, you reappear alive and at full hit points at a safe place of your choosing, that is familiar to you, and that is on the same plane where you died.
In addition, when you reduce a creature to 0 hit points or fewer, you can steal something intangible from that creature, such as the color of the creature�s eyes or its memories of its kingdom. The mechanical effects of this theft, if any, are left to the Dungeon Master.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2014 11:40

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Thanks Deviantart, I knew I could count on you for a sexy bulette

# ¿ Aug 14, 2014 18:41

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Froghammer posted:

I've never quite been able to wrap my head around why being able to cast Burning Hands means you must also be able to cast Identify. I'd be much more in favor of simply limiting the schools you get: pick, say, two, and that's it.

This is why Dread Necromancers, Beguilers, and Warmages from 3.5 where actually good and pretty balanced. They were thematic and good at what they did, but they weren't able to do everything.

# ¿ Aug 27, 2014 16:59

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

It's not good.

# ¿ Sep 13, 2014 06:20

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

And it's especially still bad because of how most monsters have at least one bad save that they are quite likely to fail even with advantage on the roll - the Tarrasque, for example, has advantage on saves but has a -4 Int save so any int-save spell is still probably going to hit it (well, ignoring legendary resistance).

# ¿ Sep 16, 2014 10:38

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Playing an economic/social based game using D&D is like using a wrench as a hammer. You can do it, and it sort of works, but it's totally not what it's designed for and there are actual hammers out there you could use instead. D&D is and always has been based on a combat-focused dungeon crawler, and the further you get away from that the less well it works.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2014 07:36

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

That short rest bit and healing surges are in fact not at all similar. It doesn't allow in combat healing, it doesn't limit healing, and it's fiddly as gently caress for no reason.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2014 00:18

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Also Guardians of the Galaxy and Iron Man were pretty great movies.

# ¿ Oct 13, 2014 00:02

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Next doesn't even have guidelines for determining what CR the creatures they made should have, why would they have guidelines for people to make their own?

# ¿ Oct 21, 2014 18:24

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Ryoshi posted:

Are any of the adventures any good?

Of course not.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2014 14:19

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

The 3.5 Book of Exalted Deeds had ravages, which were poisons that only hurt evil people so they were perfectly fine to use. I mean, using Terinav root to drain 1d6/2d6 dexterity from an evil creature is evil, but using Golden Ice to drain 1d6/2d6 dexterity from an evil creature is perfectly good.

# ¿ Nov 22, 2014 04:52

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

mastershakeman posted:

My solution to that is figuring out the answer to things then telling that to someone playing a high int or wis character. You can't just say "my int is high so I solve the puzzle" so might as well use out of character advice.

Why not, "my str is high so I lift the rock" works just fine.

# ¿ Dec 15, 2014 17:33

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

You buy an RPG for the rules. D&D Next has aggressively mediocre rules bolted on to a handwave of "Ask your DM!"

# ¿ Feb 5, 2015 15:53

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

I'm pretty sure that list of elements is just a setup for Let's Make a Deal. Elf Noble Monty Hall, behind the curtains are either manticore, skeletons, or orcs. The real solution is the secret door, but watch out for the hidden spiked pit on your way out of the ruined temple set!

# ¿ Feb 21, 2015 14:22

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Taear posted:

So beyond dying easily at level 1 (which is definitely true) what's wrong with 5th? I feel like reading this thread is stumbling into a parallel dimension since everywhere else I go and everyone else I know found 4th too tedious and combat focused and is really enjoying 5th.
What's so bad about it?

I think my biggest issue so far design choice wise has been the ridiculous arrangement of spells alphabetically in the rulebook, it makes them hard to look up when you're doing it relatively often.

There's nothing too terrible about 5th, but there's not much good about it. It's the tepid leftovers of older editions with nothing interesting or unique added.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2015 13:32

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

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.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2015 04:30

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

5E is just reheated 3.5 mush.

# ¿ May 5, 2015 18:07

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

3.x, 4E, and 5E all require a grid the exact same amount - 4E is just the only one that does anything interesting with it.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2015 16:13

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Ryuujin posted:

Well Magic Missile does say:

I can try and go looking for the ruling but I know it was said at some point that Magic Missile and Hex work together.

Another success for natural language!

# ¿ Oct 10, 2015 04:43

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

The best thing is that about 2/3 of the way through 5E's design cycle they deliberately made level 1-2 lovely, like on purpose.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2015 17:39

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

3.5 actually invented the name Swift and Immediate actions partially through. The original PHB/DMG didn't have them, and they were added later to reduce confusion once more than just Quicken Spell used those rules.

# ¿ Dec 28, 2015 14:53

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Hitlers Gay Secret posted:

"90% of you used prestige classes"

Who the gently caress actually got to a point in a campaign where they could prestige? All my campaigns always seem to end right before (or after, in one case) my PC could prestige.

1st level 3.5 is for idiots and morons, 4-6th is the best starting level IMO.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2016 20:09

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Man even 3.5 had Extraordinary, Supernatural, and Spell-like abilities, with a nice little table listing what was effected by what. 5E is such a step downwards.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2016 11:16

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

KORD! I FIGURED THAT MAGIC IS LAME! HEAR MY PRAYER AND MAKE ME SWOLE AS gently caress INSTEAD OF HAVING THIS DUMB MAGIC POWER!

# ¿ Mar 3, 2016 09:34

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 05:18

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

gradenko_2000 posted:

Yeah, I winced at that too, but it's a drat sight better than some of the dreck I've tried, so I'm willing to tolerate some grogginess.

Like, this article is something I wish I had read when I was just starting out as a DM, especially:

The thing about "fifth edition" is that there isn't a direct line of iteration and improvement of design like there was in every other transition. They deliberately threw out most of the lessons from 4th Edition, so the problems were seeing here are still largely the same ones from 3rd Edition, except where they've invented new ones like the borked monster math and the relative uselessness of a character's bonuses (unless the DM is really well-aware of the underlying math).

They still haven't "fixed" D&D by this, the so-called fifth attempt, because it was a conscious decision to step back from the honest attempts they tried with all the other ones.

The important thing to remember about 5E is that they didn't try to make a good game, or a well balanced game, and a fun and easy to play game. They set out to make a game that feels like (3.x) D&D, and by god they did that. Shame they didn't shoot for any of those other things, though, so it's just a mediocre game that feels like 3.x D&D.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2016 13:59

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