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On stuff to give Fighters, I was looking through the Rules Cyclopedia and some of the weapon specialization abilities were pretty cool. Delay would make the target go last in initiative on the next round (and potentially getting hit by Delay again). Deflect let the Fighter make a saving throw to completely avoid a melee or ranged attack 1/2/3/4 times per round. Hook would knock down the target, but the game elaborated on it enough to say that it meant +4 to-hit when attacking the knocked-down target, and the target would have -4 AC and -2 to saving throws, until it got up Skewer would immobilize a (large-sized) target for 1d4+4 rounds and deal 1d6 damage per round Stun would take effect on a failed save and prevent a target from moving, attacking or casting spells and give it -2 AC and saving throws for every round that it fails to be make a saving throw, but it could get stunned again by another attack the next round anyway Of the rest, Double Damage (but with a threat range of 17,18,19,20) and Second Attack were not as mechanically interesting, Set Spear and Charge are one-shot abilities, Entangle looks like a wash because the Fighter needs to maintain it, and Disarm is already a Battlemaster thing.
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Oct 17, 2014 15:44
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Gort posted:Can you not just declare him unconscious when you reduce him to 0 HP? I couldn't find anything in the PHB about subdual damage, and knocking him unconscious at 0 HP can still cause death if he fails his 3 saving throws
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Oct 17, 2014 16:50
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LightWarden posted:"Knocking a creature out" says that the creature falls unconscious and is stable. Stable creatures don't make death saving throws. A stable creature regains 1 HP after 1d4 hours. Thanks. I figured I was just missing something.
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Oct 17, 2014 16:58
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ascendance posted:The creators of 5e might have read this blog post. I really hate how MMO-like 4E Fighters are, what with their ability to present a monster with a perfectly rational choice between attacking the Fighter or the Wizard. Good thing 5E brings us back to reality with the Battlemaster's Goading Strike
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Oct 17, 2014 18:54
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mastershakeman posted:Maybe the solution to fighters being underwhelming is to give them all grenades? I could get behind this. No matter how complex or unintuitive a class is, give them some grenades and the players will always know what to do with them.
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Oct 19, 2014 03:05
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Agent Boogeyman posted:Is there anything that requires a shield in hand to do (As in powers that can only be used with a shield in hand or a magic shield's activated ability)? The Shield Master feat: quote:You use shields not just for protection but also for offense. You gain the following benefits while you are wielding a shield: So under one possible interpretation of Unarmored Defense, the Barbarian can equip a shield, gain no AC from the shield, but retain the effect of Unarmored Defense while also still being able to use the Shield Master abilities above.
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Oct 21, 2014 02:56
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The Basic DM rules, pages 3-6, have some ... words on creating your own monsters.
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Oct 21, 2014 18:54
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I looked through the 20 different CR4 monsters because I was thinking you could just re-skin one of them as a Greater Gargoyle and the stats are honestly all over the place. For AC, the Black Pudding is the lowest at 7, then the Helmed Horror has 20, and then the rest are scattered about between 11 to 17 with an average of 13.85 For HP, the Flameskull has 40, then the Weretiger has 120, and the average is about 75 The damage is going to be off because I didn't bother with looking up spells and abilities, but the Succubus/Incubus does the least at 6, while the Ettin tops out at 28 (two strikes of 2d8+5) I also found the rolled HP to be really weird: one creature uses d4s, most of them use d8s, but there's a few d10s and a single d12, and almost all of them have +x amounts that are worth multiple hit dice, but even those range from +12 to +44
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Oct 21, 2014 20:05
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moths posted:Or maybe even abandon the outdated PHB/MM/DMG model entirely! It's not like D&D would even be the first RPG to do this if they did.
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Oct 22, 2014 13:57
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Babylon Astronaut posted:To be fair, it is better than 3.5 if only because the fiddly bullshit isn't out yet. Right, it's better than 3.PF, but if Azran's group already does like 4E then Next is probably going to be a step backwards for them. Next has a particular appeal.
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Oct 23, 2014 06:08
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Dahbadu posted:Seriously, I can't believe this -- do you have a link? Although by all accounts the guy sounds incompetent, this is just so unprofessional. With a lead designer/manager making comments like that, I'm 100% assured it's going to turn into vaporware. http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2ouvs&page=4?Goblinworks-Blog-I-Heard-It-through-the#196 quote:Yeah, I took that non-denial as admission to being a Goon as well. Unsurprising given the m.o.
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Oct 23, 2014 20:39
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The way he tried to describe it (a decade after the fact, so whatever) is that it was supposed to be a Warcraft 3/DOTA sort of thing: just as people ended up buying Warcraft 3 just to play DOTA, people would also buy D&D products either as a way to play the other 3rd-party 'mod' that needs it, or that they'd keep playing the D&D product knowing that they'd have 3rd-party publishers continuing to produce content for it. The other analogy he used is that it's like Valve not taking a cut from Gamersgate or Amazon or Humble Bundle selling Steam keys: it's enough for Valve to simply get the person into the Steam environment, or in this case the 3.x/d20 environment, where they can be marketed to directly. Of course this doesn't quite capture the differences between the computer gaming and TTRPG industries, and he was saying this long after he'd left WOTC and profited from his own shenanigans.
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Oct 24, 2014 12:40
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Sage Genesis posted:5e DMG previews: Eye of Vecna posted:Each time you cast a spell from the eye, there is a 5 percent chance that Vecna tears your soul from your body, devours it, and then takes control of the body like a puppet. If that happens, you become an NPC under the DM's control. Obsidian Steed posted:If you have a good alignment, the figurine has a 10 percent chance each time you use it to ignore your orders, including a command to revert to figurine form. If you mount the nightmare while it is ignoring your orders, you and the nightmare are instantly transported to a random lcocation on the plane of Hades, where the nightmare reverts to figurine form. I don't know which one I like less, the completely lolrandom effects that can permanently gently caress over a character, or the insistence on using "percent" instead of "%"
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Oct 24, 2014 12:59
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Right - the way the penalty is structured right now, you can't manage it or predict it in any way, and that just shifts it from "can I risk using this thing just one more time?" to "never use it unless the alternative is literally death because if I blow it and roll the 1 on the d20 for Vecna's Takeover I'm dead anyway, even if it's only the first time I've ever used it"
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Oct 24, 2014 16:14
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Can either of you elaborate more on what you thought caused the 2 hour fights? Was it ability selection/use? Rules adjudication? Simply hitting the monster and eating through all its HP?
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Oct 26, 2014 06:35
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Rannos22 posted:It's really disappointing that nobody has made a really professional virtual tabletop that will track all the little fiddly bits ttrpgs are rife with. Doesn't Fantasy Grounds do exactly this? The price and need to learn how to program in xml for houserules and niche systems notwithstanding.
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Oct 26, 2014 13:43
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MonsterEnvy posted:Ours was do to the area were fighting in. A temple being warped by the chaotic power of Limbo. Cassa posted:There were a fair few distractions, and less than optimal play on me and my friends part, this being our first time at high-ish level Thanks for the insight. It's interesting to hear from higher level play since that would seem to really be the test of "this is the fastest playing DND ever" is going to hold up.
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Oct 26, 2014 18:39
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Jake Solomon and whatever engine powers XCOM Enemy Unknown/Within is so perfect for a 4E (or Strike!) video game adaptation that it hurts.
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Oct 27, 2014 19:41
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There is no math - monster stat assignment is arbitrary, with the sole exception of "this size monster has this size hit dice" Stealth is worded ambiguously enough that it both works and doesn't work, depending on how you choose to interpret the RAW. The DMG isn't out yet because that's always how D&D did things (except when they didn't in 4E)
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Oct 28, 2014 04:23
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crime fighting hog posted:I was in a similar boat, I had played maybe once before and was then picked to be DM (and stayed there all these years) so my only advice is read the rules till you have a good grasp of them. Seconding this. I don't know if this is common but I basically study the rules until I can run all of it myself and just ask the players what they want to do and roll the dice and the rest is me doing the processing, although I will grant that this might not work for more complex games.
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Oct 28, 2014 18:39
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MonsterEnvy posted:According to the rules of expeditions you can you can rebuild your character however you like up to level 4. Meaning if you got the Headband before level 5 you could just drop your Int down to 8 buff your other stats and use it to give yourself 19 int. I'm rather surprised that D&D has a rule as 'progressive' as respeccing and that this hasn't caused more uproar. Rannos22 posted:Don't be ridiculous, any TRUE DM will be rolling what's in an encounter from the random encounter table in the appendix. This is a joke, right? There aren't any random encounter tables in the DM Basic Rules nor the MM, and the monster statblocks don't have the "number appearing" stat anymore
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Oct 29, 2014 04:02
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How is damage-per-round calculated to factor in chance-to-hit? Do you just multiply the average damage-per-hit by the chance-to-hit? That is, 1d20+2 has a 55% chance to roll 12 or better, so does that mean 1d10+2 damage would come out to [7.5 average damage * 55% chance-to-hit] = 4.125 DPR? I ask because I'm trying to establish my own guidelines to building monsters and setting their HP and AC to last x many rounds because of z DPR by y number of players seems to be a starting point, or am I missing something? Sanglorian posted:Alright folks, I decided to do something about finding 5E character creation such a slog: I like it. I'm a huge fan of Robin Stacey's Microlites and of broad, non-specific skills in general. I usually end up rewriting whole sections of rules for my own reference just so they'd get to the point sooner, and minus all the fluff, so the straightforwardness of this approach appeals to me. If I were to make a suggestion, I'd suggest a section where you show how to fill out the character following those same steps, one at a time.
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Oct 30, 2014 06:07
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I think even the original D&D said that an "attack" in the context of a 6-10 second round wasn't representative of a single swing/stab/thrust, but rather an abstraction of all the positioning, parrying, jockeying and multiple attack attempts during that time frame, and a "hit" wasn't so much a single successful attack attempt so much as however more tired and bruised your opponent, hand-in-hand with the concept that Hit Points didn't represent "meat" but rather the physical stature and mental energy required to avoid being dealt a killing blow. A Fighter gained bonus attacks not because he attacked "faster" in the literal sense, but that he simply found more opportunities to beat and batter his opponent within the same 6-10 second time frame, and since an attack has nothing to do with individual arm motions, the bonus attacks would always happen regardless of what weapon would be used.
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Oct 30, 2014 13:35
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So I found a/the formula for computing DPR - my next question would be if monster HP is/should be based on an expected fight length or if it should be more towards just escalating hit dice as the level increases. My thinking was more towards the former since basing a monster's HP/AC level as a percentage of an expected average DPR means you can design them such that you're never completely outpacing a character's output, but then I don't know how long a combat should last.
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Oct 30, 2014 15:54
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Laphroaig posted:What, exactly, are you trying to do, and why are you trying to do it? Is the goal to create a monster in 5E? Exactly right. I can't see any rhyme or reason to the MM monster design, but I figure it should be possible to have at least some rough guidelines on creating a monster using the capabilities of the characters as a starting point: Given the attack bonus (attribute modifier+proficiency bonus) and the basic attack damage of a player of any given level, set the AC to have about a 60% chance to hit and then adjust the HP until it'd take approximately x rounds (I'm thinking 4?) to kill. Spells and abilities and the action economy/focus fire will undoubtedly throw this off, but I figure if you start from a baseline of something like "4 goblins would be this strong against 4 Fighters", then you would at least have a better idea of how much more or less strong the individual monsters or the whole group should be as you throw in more.
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Oct 30, 2014 17:06
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wallawallawingwang posted:gradenko_2000, I think you've got the basic idea of how to do it correct. But the length combat should last is really subjective. If your group really loves combat then clearly your "should" is going to be longer than a group that doesn't care for it, and vice versa. However, there are a couple of other things to keep in mind that I don't think have been brought up yet. You'll want to gauge the length of fights based on the amount of interesting player, monster, terrain, and situational options available. It sucks when fights devolve into the DM and players trading "I hit for 16, I miss, I miss, I hit for 7" ad nauseum, even if its wrapped up in a lot of prose. You also want to look at roughly how much damage the monsters can expect to do (once again based on expected PC values) and try to find the sweet spot of fights that cost resources but don't statistically lead to TPKs. Finally, you want to look at how many of that type of monster you expect to throw at the PCs in a fight. My personal preference across a few different genres and in both table top and video game settings seems to be more weaker enemies over fewer stronger enemies and boss/solo enemies that get ways to subvert the action economy and have resistances and immunities to the nastier status effects. Thanks for the insight - and yeah, I was sort of expecting there's going to be an element of "DM fiat" in this no matter what. Monster damage towards players is the next thing I was thinking about. Wasn't it supposed to be something like an average fight being able to use up a quarter of the party's resources leading up to about 4 per "adventuring day"?
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Oct 31, 2014 06:37
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Huh. Okay. Subdividing it that finely when a Fighter's got ~13 HP at level 1 and a caster has 4 spells is going to be a thing.
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Oct 31, 2014 06:49
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AlphaDog posted:If you're reworking monsters, you're going to have to rework the encounter building stuff anyway. You're probably right, thanks for the advice.
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Oct 31, 2014 09:30
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In the back of my mind I know that HP/damage (and, for that matter, "hits" and "attacks") are supposed to be an abstraction, but when I'm narrating I still fall back to statements like "Yeah! That was a solid hit", "Ouch, that hurt" and "oh he's hurting now!" Bloodied as the 4E adjective is also such a handy descriptor that I find myself using it all the time. AlphaDog posted:If I could be bothered doing what you're doing (which I can't, trying to make sense out of the existing monsters was bad enough), I would go about it like this: Right, I was thinking about the same lines. To be honest I don't really game enough that this will probably come into play anytime soon, but it's an interesting mental/design exercise. As far as average party, I was thinking to just tailor it to the actual party I was playing with, or perhaps to average out DPR potential of martial classes and work from there. I'm really not familiar enough with caster classes yet - probably something I should look at too.
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Oct 31, 2014 10:38
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Fluffwise, I can't say I agree with "Oathbreaker" as the Evil Paladin name. It sort of implies that every Evil Paladin used to be a Good Paladin, but then Fell, as opposed to "A Paladin that was always Evil to begin with", or "A Paladin for an Evil deity". They could have gone with a more origin-neutral name, such as Avenger or Reaver if Anti-Paladin sounded too plainly contrarian.
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Nov 1, 2014 02:14
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Mike Mearls is running an AMA right now, if anyone's interested.
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Nov 3, 2014 18:39
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ocrumsprug posted:Will there be a Next edition video game even? Trying to codify Next's RAW into a form that can be crunched by a computer may well be the next Millenium Prize Problem after P versus NP
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Nov 3, 2014 21:08
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Grimpond posted:Where is the system clear though? Everyone who's tried running the numbers in this thread to figure it out have come up mostly empty handed. If the DMG ends up having clear, precise rules on creature creation for any given CR, I'll eat my hat.
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Nov 4, 2014 06:42
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As a little side-project, I've been trying to convert class+subclass into single page forms to gain more familiarity with the classes. I do the Fighter first, and then the Cleric, and then I get to the Tempest domain Cleric. At level 6, Thunderbolt Strike can push a target away 10 feet whenever the Cleric hits a target with lightning damage. That's just 5 feet less than the Battle Master's Pushing Attack, and in exchange the Cleric can do it all day with Divine Strike at level 8 to deal lightning damage on any successful weapon attack and the target can't save against it. At level 17, the Cleric just loving flies.
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Nov 4, 2014 13:20
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TheDeadlyShoe posted:i linked someone reverse engineering the system a long time ago, but as per Mike Mearls: That's just some guy saying "ok, monsters of this CR all have HP that ranges from x to y, with an average of z", and repeat for damage and AC. It's still very much "it's up to your DM", and while I understand that some of it is always going to be up to your DM regardless, the range is just really really wide.
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Nov 5, 2014 06:59
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They've never told us how to get "offensive CR" and "defensive CR" either, have they? Intuitively it seems like a good idea: defensive CR is how hard the monster is to hit with weapon attacks (AC), how hard the monster is to hit with spell attacks (saves, resistance, etc) and how much damage it can absorb (HP). Offensive CR is how hard the monster hits back, which translates to how much of the party's resources it drains in terms of heals and buffs and healing dice. I went through the same mental process trying to come up with my own method of forming monsters. But if we still don't know how any CR is arrived at, offensive, defensive or combined, then they're not really telling us much of anything.
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Nov 5, 2014 18:30
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Another DMG preview dropped, this time of the magic item tables From dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/excerpt-magic-items-table
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Nov 6, 2014 13:33
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AlphaDog posted:I still can't understand why you'd bother writing up all these fun-sounding things that have a 1 percent chance of appearing on one of the many loot tables. I'm using random loot tables in my campaign, and what happened when I was rolling up loot for the last boss fight that party did was that the d100 hit on 100, which was a Potion of Youth. I ended up crafting a whole new plotline around it: the adventurers are too young to use it themselves, but they could give it to the King and earn a huge boon/favor from him, or give it one of the Kingdom's factions (to then give to the King or their own aged leader) and earn a favor from them, or just sell it to the market for a shitload of money. It's also such a valuable item that to get back to the Kingdom on the home continent they either have to accompany the ship, or arrange for someone to guard the ship for them if they want to stay where they are and work on the current plotlines. Not to mention the fact that it was stolen from a Dragon's hoard, who'll be looking for it for sure. So, it has its uses, I guess? I'm a fairly lazy, low-prep DM so I like systems that have a lot of random generation tables so I can make poo poo up on the fly.
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Nov 6, 2014 13:58
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I don't do it on the spot - I do it before the actual play session so that I can think about what comes up, try to make it fit if I can, throw it out if I can't. That Potion of Youth was the fourth potion to come up in a series of random loot rolls, and the party was assaulting a Goblin mine, so I decided that the Goblin boss they had to kill was an alchemist type of dude that was messing around with the smelted metal they were mining. Another encounter came up with a Cloak of Elvenkind (allows wearer to move silently) as a drop, so I thought of a situation where the party was being stalked by a dude and had to smoke him out or entrap him. Since they were heading for a dragon's lair, then their stalker was a Dragonborn and the Cloak was refluffed appropriately. Just rolling for things to pop out of the random tables is boring, yes; I consider it part of using the table to make them interesting as they yield results.
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Nov 6, 2014 14:50
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Chris Perkins has reportedly said that they're planning to have electronic versions of the Next books, and also that "It is our intention to bring back the OGL", but no timelines yet on either.
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Nov 10, 2014 04:36
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