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Quadratic_Wizard posted:the Fighter's maneuver that sends it sprawling Ok you had me up until here.
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Jul 3, 2014 05:13
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LFK posted:I'm fine with it. Beowulf ripped Grendel's arm off. Samson killed hundreds with the jawbone of a mule. Why can't a fighter deke out, or even push back, a dragon? I guess we'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out! I've been following the development process rather closely, and nothing I've seen has given me confidence that we'll see non-casters doing anything remarkable. Even Quadratic_Wizard's hypothetical example of what a Fighter could do is hinged on the DM's evaluation that it's minor enough to ignore. If Next isn't going to be dominated at every level by skinny dudes in robes, they haven't done much to indicate so.
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Jul 3, 2014 06:28
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So Rogues get to Roll With It? I wonder just how much of the starter will have (*as seen in 13th Age) citations. e: Power: Roll With It. Spend momentum when an enemy hits your AC to take half damage. moths fucked around with this message at 11:28 on Jul 3, 2014 |
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Jul 3, 2014 11:10
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It's not really a "point," it's a binary condition that you either have or don't. The rogue is either killing or being killed, and it's a mechanic that encourages killing. But while I don't think it was a good idea to dumb it down for a D&D martial class, it was entirely consistent with the design philosophy. Any word on when it's coming out? Mearls tweeted yesterday that the file was finished sometime in the afternoon.
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Jul 3, 2014 12:37
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Isn't that basically what DMs have historically done "behind the screen" forever anyway? Oh no the Wizard is going to kill the arch vampire pope in one shot unless- oh he made his save! Are you calling me a liar, Tim? Maybe you'd rather DM.
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Jul 3, 2014 17:45
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Reminder that Next cannot be judged until it's finished. It will be finished when they start talking about 6e.
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Jul 3, 2014 18:52
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ZypherIM posted:While I'm not a fan of wizard supremacy, one big balancing factor that I see almost everyone ignore is to actually put in the material costs and hold the players to them. Spells have always been balanced with factors that render casters utterly useless, encouraging players to ignore them. Who isn't going to let a player access his abilities because he didn't write how many bat eyelashes were in his pouch? Anal no fun DMs who hate the story, lack imagination, and nobody wants to play with. The social component really can't be ignored either. Ted put SO MUCH work into his spell list and now you're making him play a regular dude because a gnoll wanted into camp last night? You're a lovely DM. What do you have against Ted, anyway? Unless you want to deal with Ted's passive aggressively barbs over his laptop all night, he's going to get his stupid spells.
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Jul 4, 2014 15:50
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Oh definitely, the expectation that you should get to play is totally reasonable. My point is that Ted's stuff is all "balanced" against the chance he won't get it, and that's not realistic in the least. The balance is that one set of classes is just better because of built-in kill switches, but you can never use those regulatory mechanics to keep things fun for everybody - it's either ruin Ted's night or let him show everybody else up constantly.
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Jul 4, 2014 16:24
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MonsterEnvy posted:It's not like the Rogue can try again Can he? Because there are no rules in this finally crafted manual describing what happens when you fail a skill check.
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Jul 6, 2014 01:01
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MonsterEnvy posted:Luckily in 5e they do. You're still rolling 4x 2D20 whenever you have (dis)advantage, unless you're using four different paired colors of dice or whatever. It's not much of an improvement over different modifiers, and in some ways is probably worse.
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Jul 7, 2014 05:49
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Attribute damage is back?
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Jul 7, 2014 23:47
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Motherfuckers. This is People's Exhibit A that bad ideas were implemented. I cannot wait for the Barbarian so we can go back to having three character sheets for regular, raging, and recovering.
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Jul 8, 2014 03:03
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Or have a library card to wizard library, in which that spell is contained in a communally owned spellbook.
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Jul 9, 2014 03:06
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The Hit Points entry specifically cites how to handle when "some effect" lowers your CON. Ability damage is already in Basic, we just don't know how frequently. And if play testers became confused and alarmed at damage on a miss, I don't know how they're expected to backsolve and recalculate each ability score-dependant number on their sheet every time it's inflicted, multiple times in a single combat. Better, faster, and simpler systems than ability damage exist. For instance 4e's Weakened condition affects only damage without cascading ripple effects to screw up your encumberance, feat prerequisites, movement rate (while encumbered), etc etc. 5e's own disadvantage system could be applied to swinging a sword while weakened, or even expanded to include damage rolls. It's a terrible mechanic.
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Jul 9, 2014 19:55
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I think the reluctance to actually look at a spreadsheet comes from misplaced reverence for the free-spirited seat-of-pants Wild West days of early RPG development. A creature had X Y and Z traits, because that's what it would have for real. Adjusting its hitpoints, capabilities, or damage to make it balanced is some kind of unmakable compromise. Medusas need to petrify to "feel" like a Medusa. Scary undead need to drain STR (or levels!) regardless of how much joy it sucks out of a session. We're at some kind of meta-level of nostalgia here, where people legitimately pine for bad game mechanics and quirky math. I suspect some of these people are game designers.
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Jul 9, 2014 20:33
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Underwhelmed posted:
By giving away a stripped down, basic version of their rules and pandering harder, apparently. It's going to be interesting to see if the combination of community integration and brand loyalty are enough to pull people away from Pathfinder. I think the first year sales are going to be driven entirely by curiosity, specifically people waiting for the PHB, then waiting for the DMG when it doesn't include magic items, and then the MM for completion. But I don't see PF players bailing out. If anything Next is hoping to become the Wii 2nd system that collects dust between visits from your nephew.
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Jul 10, 2014 16:47
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IT BEGINS posted:'People stop leveling at 10, so we sped up the levels that they don't play'. Fantastic. I saw that too, it's amazing how they can consistently look at a problem and then decide to "fix" something not the problem. And what players is he talking about? Pathfinder? 4e? 3x? 2e? 5e?
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Jul 10, 2014 19:34
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I'm sure someone at Necromancer games is busy homebrewing poo poo at his real job.
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Jul 13, 2014 18:05
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So now it's the same MSRP and page count as the 2e premium Monstrous Manual reprint. Except without the thicker pages, nice binding, and gilt pages.
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Jul 14, 2014 11:35
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dwarf74 posted:This may sound weird coming from a dude who's not that into 5e, but this is seriously the most negative +thread I've ever seen on SA and I can't tell if I'm in TG or DDRD when I read it. I think most of it comes from just how lacking Next is shaking out to be. A lot of us have been following from the beginning, and this edition has no concrete direction beyond "All of your wildest dreams, ENWorld!" Originally D&D was new ground, but essentially a game about Dungeons and the Dragons therein. AD&D was that, but more, and then 2e was about framing that in a (slightly) more user-friendly way. 3e, for all its faults, was groundbreaking at the time and extremely ambitious - It delineated between a core system and periphery ones in a way that promoted expansion. (Ultimately this was it's undoing, but it's still a fundamental improvement over "Here's the rules, deal with it.") 4e's most harshest critics acknowledged that it had a central design vision - even if they framed it as "Dumbing it down for WoW baby MMOs". 4e unified a lot of mechanics, presented the rules clearly, and made play fun for players who preferred to imagine martial heroes doing heroic things. But then what is Next? Is it supposed to be a simplified rules-lite like BECMI? Not in three $50 books, it isn't. Is it a well-constructed machination of keywords and interacting mechanics like 4e? A slightly-less integrated stab at unified mechanics like 3.x? Or even a clunky ruleset like AD&Ds, but forgiven for its fantastic new settings and groundbreaking concepts? Next is a reaction to levied criticism. Its key selling point has been that it's not 4e - and while that's enough for some people, it's not a foundation you can build a game on. "Natural language" has replaced concise spell descriptors, fighters have less agency, 1/3 of the rulebook is Pro Player Casters Only, etc. One broke-rear end system after another has been brought to light, and then hand-waived away because it's a beta, early build, not in a module, fixed in the PHB, fixed in the DMG, etc, excuse, etc. Even something ostensibly great - adding 32 pages to the MM for "free" - breaks down when you look at the math and realize it's not even the same value as the 2e premium reprint.
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Jul 15, 2014 00:14
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ritorix posted:That anecdote about a villain's close call and hostage shenanigans is both cool and could have come from literally any edition, with or without a grid. Actually... no. Without a grid, plot-armored villains frequently find themselves whisked out of danger much more readily by their DM patrons.
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Jul 20, 2014 04:10
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Jul 21, 2014 03:59
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Did Tiamat not already have a cult? I'm pretty sure that was Venger's whole deal.
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Jul 21, 2014 04:34
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It's a device that lets him "officially" make Calvinball D&D rules. The detective turning to the camera, asking "Who do YOU think the killer was?" Make up your own ending!
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Jul 21, 2014 17:27
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N/m, redacted
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Jul 21, 2014 17:58
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Were those monsters seen before 13A started using natural even/odd attack, Nastier Specials, and fixed damage? That looks conspicuously familiar.
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Jul 22, 2014 14:15
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Oh my bad, I thought those were from preview material.
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Jul 22, 2014 14:37
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There are some vestigial 4e elements present, but they're obfuscated in natural writing and pulled from their intended context. The biggest contributions 4e made, martial parity and concise rules, have absolutely been removed to appease the True Spirit of D&D.
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Jul 22, 2014 14:59
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It's more "like 4e but without a decade of ginned up hostility." It's nice being able to run a game at the LGS without drive-by shitheads making the same "tabletop WoW" cracks. And it's nice having players excited about fun mechanics, able to do interesting things, and participate as non-wizards.
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Jul 22, 2014 19:59
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DalaranJ posted:Are you insulting my design skills? I worked really hard to make those more interesting than Next monsters. No you did good, the influence shows and I figured it was another page they "borrowed" from more competent designers. It's not like you collected four years of paychecks to copy Heinsoo's homework on the bus.
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Jul 23, 2014 00:18
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I think the disconnect comes primarily from use of the word "hit" when an attack succeeds. All the DoaM freakouts would certainly support this.
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Jul 23, 2014 13:57
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They went from smoke break to lunch hour. Verisimilitude!
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Jul 23, 2014 14:40
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Jack the Lad posted:Interview with Mearls here where he talks about rests: This pretty much confirm that Mearls never actually played 4e. (Unless I'm misreading his gross misunderstanding of Encounter powers.)
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Jul 24, 2014 11:48
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Wait, are 5e sympathetic websites getting exclusive previews?
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Jul 30, 2014 18:00
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I suppose I should have expected that, it's a pretty neat PR trick.
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Jul 30, 2014 18:23
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SirFozzie posted:Or by hating the hell out of a miniatures game with teleporting fighters and other such shenanigans. They realized they did lose a batch of 3E-3.5E fans, and want to try to make a game that's popular amongst all edition fans? Interestingly enough, many of 4e's hating points are either manufactured whole-cloth, or come from a deliberate bad-faith misinterpretation of rules and mechanics. Your quote here is especially exemplary of the mindset that produced Next - a game intended to be popular amongst all* edition fans.
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Jul 31, 2014 19:00
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Tight rules, focus.
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Jul 31, 2014 19:36
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Attorney at Funk posted:I think part of it is presentation. This is spot on. There was also a fleeting moment where it appeared that Next was going to be a repackaging of 4e the same way WHFRP3 went to hardcover books from cards. That moment was exactly when Monte Cook "invented" passive perception and people ate it up. Because it was the same drat mechanic, but now it came from community favorite Uncle Monte.
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Jul 31, 2014 21:24
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neonchameleon posted:... I thought they claimed Feats in next would be good. To be fair, Durable is technically half-price.
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Jul 31, 2014 23:59
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If they'd released Essentials before the PHBs, 4e as a whole would have been much better received.
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Aug 1, 2014 18:28
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