dwarf74 posted:

* The Big 4 classes, one "archetypal" build of each - Simple Fighter, Simple Rogue, Healer Cleric, and Blasty Wizard, going up to Level 20

Quadratic_Wizard posted:

Someone posted some higher level monster statblocks and it looks like solo enemies can just flat out NOPE and automatically pass a save X number of times.

Quadratic_Wizard posted:

Apparently rogues now have a faster sneak attack progression, with 2d6 at level 3 and 3d6 at level 5. With Cunning Action letting them hide constantly, it's not unreasonable to assume that they're not only sneak attacking each turn, but getting Advantage on most of those, and with how much of a godstat Dex is in 5e, they're pretty effective.

...except, they nerfed its out of combat abilities with fewer skills, smaller bonuses, and their ability to jump 10 feet longer and 5 feet higher is now "jump dex mod futher IF you get a running jump" while at the same time making a common magic item that triples the distance you can jump. Legendary thief with near superhuman agility? +4 feet. Put on some magic boots in the bargain bin? +20-40 feet. Oh, and rogues can't use medium armor anymore because reasons.

Woden posted:

Doesn't rogue evasion halve damage from everything now? Maybe it was defensive roll or something, but I'm sure I read they had an ability like that at level 6 or so in the Dead in Thay play test.

whydirt posted:

Rogues are proficient with all Simple Weapons and can even start with a shortbow as a default piece of equipment.

MonsterEnvy posted:

Their background gives them Proficiency in two categories already so they get another 2 skills to uses well. That sounds pretty good.

MonsterEnvy posted:

You start with 4. 2 from background 2 from being a rouge then at level 6 you get another 2.

Agent Boogeyman posted:

Okay, so looking at the ability score generation, is it just me or are they basically throwing a huge "gently caress you!" to anyone who doesn't want to leave their fate up to the dice and just do the sensible thing and generate through point buy? With 4d6, drop lowest, you can have a chance for some pretty swingy stats, but you also have a chance to start with ability scores of 16 or higher BEFORE racial mods. Point buy nets you with a baseline of 8's and nothing can be lower, but the highest you can pay up to is... 15? Really? So I could start with a 17 after racial mods OR probably start with much higher than that? Why are we STILL rolling randomly to generate ability scores when the entire reason it was there in the first place was to generate what class your character could qualify for way back in FIRST EDITION? WHY?

Gort posted:

Trouble is, those spells do like 6 HP healing, which is fine at low level. Then later on you've got Heal which is 70 HP healing, and there's no "bonus action" equivalent version you could use to heal without an action, so the problem's just delayed until later on.

It's like they recognised a problem but didn't realise there were more than five levels in the game.

Crain posted:

Has there been any word on when the minis are being released?

Rigged Death Trap posted:

At least that's a positive.
Throgue builds. Fluff it up with literally having daggers/throwing knives wherever there is space on your body. On holsters on torso and belt, around thigh, around calf, in boot, in cloak, in hood, hidden in cuffs and on wrist, on elbows, on upper back, on lower back.

The possibilities for a Throgue are endless. And the roleplay when being checked for weapons hilarious.

Amethyst posted:

lol at it's total immunity to fighters

ProfessorCirno posted:

We don't balance the game for magic items and assume you'll never need them!

*prints monsters that require magic items to kill*

ritorix posted:

kingcom posted:

Um.....are you making a troll post or are you serious, I can't tell anymore. He was not describing fighting a player. This was the game, the cleric comfortably sat there and ate the liches spells, and carried every encountered. I literally have no idea what you mean by glanced and never did any research. This is the game he played in.

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.

dwarf74 posted:

I know, but there's a whole loving "bitch about elf games but mostly 5e" thread in DDRD/Imp Zone. I think it's cool that people are legit interested in 5e, even if I'm not one of them, and holy poo poo a constructive thread like 4e and Pathfinder have (and keep in mind, Pathfinder is even more terrible than 5e) might not be too crazy.

DalaranJ posted:

Hold on, what? This was a part of the game that I thought Next would surely improve over 3rd/4th. What took so long?

cbirdsong posted:

Well, what they need is to decide whether feats should be about combat or about non-combat. Otherwise, you're still going to be able to gimp yourself in combat by taking all non-combat feats while the other guy focuses solely on increasing his DPR. Conversely, that guy isn't going to have much to do during story-heavy sessions while you negotiate peace between goblins who speak three different languages. It sucks just as much for him.

Littlefinger posted:

Speaking of which: http://failforward.co.uk/post/93348768153/how-dungeons-and-dragons-is-endorsing-the-darkest-parts

quote:

Why had Mearls consulted with Zak before replying to them? Why was it more important to re-assure Zak he was in the clear than respond to allegations of harassment? Mearls again replied, saying that he was not taking the accusations seriously because some of the people stating them where members of the Something Awful forums, which he claimed has a history of harassing Zak:

Poison Mastery posted:

By 6th level, you’ve learned to use a poisoner’s kit to create three special poisons. You must spend 1 hour to create a single dose of poison, which is a tasteless, odorless, colorless liquid. If another creature ingests a full dose of the poison, it must succeed on a Constitution saving throw (DC 10 + your Intelligence modifier) or suffer one of the following effects, based on the kind of poison you created.

• The creature falls unconscious for 2d6 + 4 hours. The creature regains consciousness if it takes damage.

• The creature is intoxicated for 24 hours. While the creature is intoxicated, its hit point maximum is also halved.

• The creature is affected as if by a confusion spell for 1 hour, but the effect is not magical.

Infiltration Expertise posted:

Starting at 9th level, you can create false identities for yourself. You must spend one week and 25 gp to establish the history, profession, and affiliations for an identity. However, you cannot establish an identity that already belongs to an existing person. Thereafter, if you adopt a new identity as a disguise, other creatures believe you to be that person until given a good reason not to.

treeboy posted:

I'll try giving it another shot, but first time I sat to read through it the overall "gently caress it whatever" tone kinda grated.

Jack the Lad posted:

Monk stuff. How about that level 20 feature?

Perfect Self posted:

At 20th level, when you roll for initiative and have no ki points remaining, you regain 4 ki points.

Jack the Lad posted:

Here are a bunch more pages including the Rogue, Gnome, Half-Orc, Sailor, Charlatan and Gods.

Stormgale posted:

I love the level 17 of the assassin, they make a save or take double damage from your attack?

Does this include sneak attack? IS this at all comparable to a level 17 wizard? (no)

Edit: Also can a fighter multiattack with charger? (as it's a bonus action single attack)

quote:

A band of adventurers sneaks up on a bandit camp, springing from the trees to attack them. A gelatinous cube glides down a dungeon passage, unnoticed by an orc patrol until the cube absorbs one of the group

In these situations, one side of the battle gained surprise over the other. One side acts while the other is caught off guard and unable to act for a critical moment.

Determining Surprise
The DM determines who might be surprised. Creatures that were unaware of their opponents' approach or presence are surprised. A creature can be surprised even if its allies aren't.

Effect of Surprise
A creature that is surprised cannot move or take actions until after it's first turn in battle.

dwarf74 posted:

Hey guys, great news!!

I bet you missed 36d20 rats, didn't you? I bet you were kinda relieved and kinda disappointed it wasn't a thing to mock 5e for anymore. I know my feelings were mixed.

Well, it's back. For kobolds. Now, it's 36d20 kobolds.

http://dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop-games/rpg-products/hoard-dragon-queen

ritorix posted:

The best thing in that Hoard pdf is the 'swarm of rats' monster. Holy poo poo. I never thought it would happen.

slydingdoor posted:

The point is double sneak attack is going to be a rare occurance without Commander's Strike because the enemy'd need to provoke an opp attack and fulfill the criteria for sneak attack, aka it'd have to provoke two opp attacks at once like a Bulette trying to spam its butt slam.

Jimmeeee posted:

I have a rules question about leveling up: do you add your CON modifier to your hit points every time you level? Or do you just roll the hit die and add that on top of your previous pool of hit points (which already includes your CON modifier)?

dwarf74 posted:

He claimed it was, later. I don't buy it, though.

ascendance posted:

Healing surges are one of the great innovations of D&D 4E that they really should have kept. It kind of makes sense to make healing spells heal a percentage of your health, so they always stay relevant.

Verklemptomaniac posted:

This does not apply if the damage type is one that the monster has resistance or immunity to. Edited to add that last sentence

Thoughts?

ascendance posted:

I think most people default to playing some other flavor of rogue, and saying they are an Assassin. Or possibly a shadow monk.

Nihilarian posted:

Are paragon paths in DnDNext?

Strength of Many posted:

non-level one starting wealth??

Generic Octopus posted:

And then when they're dead, the Wizard can recycle their skeletons.

FRINGE posted:

Crossbow chat:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/peo...a-Warriors.html

ritorix posted:

Most of the heals in my group happen out of combat to top everyone off before the next fight. Combat heals tend to be either healing word, or prayer of healing if everyone gets AoE'd. Healing the barbarian also tends to be twice as efficient, since he takes half damage from everything.

Damage also drops relative to your total hit points at higher levels. At level 1 you will just go from full to 0 from a single hit, but that doesn't happen at level 5/6 where my group is. Monsters might hit for 10-20 damage, but you have 40ish hit points when full. Our barb has 50ish which is basically 100hp when raging.

alg posted:

Can't 5E Rogues deal sneak attack just when they have an ally within 5' of the enemy?

mastershakeman posted:

What was the design philosophy behind 3e? It seems like that was really where things broke. I don't know a lot about the shift from 2->3. What seems even weirder is the popular books/settings primarily featured martial classes as the main characters, so I'd think that WOTC would've wanted to keep those at the forefront.

Monte Cooke posted:

When we designed 3rd Edition D&D, people around Wizards of the Coast joked about the "lessons" we could learn from Magic: The Gathering, like making the rulebooks -- or the rules themselves -- collectible. ("Darn, I got another Cleave, I'm still looking for the ultra-rare Great Cleave.")

But, in fact, we did take some cues from Magic. For example, Magic uses templating to great effect, and now D&D does too. (To be clear, in this instance, I don't mean templates like "half-dragon," so much as I mean the templating categories such as "fire spells" and "cold-using creatures," then setting up rules for how they interact, so that ever contradictory rules for those things don't arise again, as they did in previous editions.)

Magic also has a concept of "Timmy cards." These are cards that look cool, but aren't actually that great in the game. The purpose of such cards is to reward people for really mastering the game, and making players feel smart when they've figured out that one card is better than the other. While D&D doesn't exactly do that, it is true that certain game choices are deliberately better than others.

Toughness, for example, has its uses, but in most cases it's not the best choice of feat. If you can use martial weapons, a longsword is better than many other one-handed weapons. And so on -- there are many other, far more intricate examples. (Arguably, this kind of thing has always existed in D&D. Mostly, we just made sure that we didn't design it away -- we wanted to reward mastery of the game.)

There's a third concept that we took from Magic-style rules design, though. Only with six years of hindsight do I call the concept "Ivory Tower Game Design." (Perhaps a bit of misnomer, but it's got a ring to it.) This is the approach we took in 3rd Edition: basically just laying out the rules without a lot of advice or help. This strategy relates tangentially to the second point above. The idea here is that the game just gives the rules, and players figure out the ins and outs for themselves -- players are rewarded for achieving mastery of the rules and making good choices rather than poor ones.

Perhaps as is obvious from the name I've coined for this rules writing style, I no longer think this is entirely a good idea. I was just reading a passage from a recent book, and I found it rather obtuse. But it wasn't the writer's fault. He was just following the lead the core books offered him. Nevertheless, the whole thing would have been much better if the writer had just broken through the barrier this kind of design sets up between designer and player and just told the reader what the heck he was talking about.

To continue to use the simplistic example above, the Toughness feat could have been written to make it clear that it was for 1st-level elf wizards (where it is likely to give them a 100 percent increase in hit points). It's also handy when you know you're playing a one-shot session with 1st-level characters, like at a convention (you sure don't want to take item creation feats in such an instance, for example).
Ivory Tower Game Design requires a two-step process on the part of the reader. You read the rule, and then you think about how it fits in with the rest of the game. There's a moment of understanding, and then a moment of comprehension. That's not a terrible thing, but neither is just providing the reader with both steps, at least some of the time.

While there's something to be said for just giving gamers the rules to do with as they please, there's just as much to be said for simply giving it to the reader straight in a more honest, conversational approach. Perhaps that's what the upcoming D&D for Dummies book will be. I hope so.

Kurieg posted:

I thought it was that they need to have advantage or have an ally that's also adjacent to the enemy. Which is why that swashbuckler archetype was basically "Permanent sneak attack damage"

Solid Jake posted:

Quoting the PHB,:

"You don’t need advantage on the attack roll if another enemy of the target is within 5 feet o f it, that enemy isn’t incapacitated, and you don’t have disadvantage on the attack roll."