D.T. Pints
Instigator
JACKERCON 2018: WITH GREAT POWER COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY June 22-July 1st
Posts: 2,857
Currently Playing: D&D 5e, Pathfinder, DUNGEONWORLD, Star Wars Edge of the Empire
Currently Running: DUNGEONWORLD, PATHFINDER
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Post by D.T. Pints on Apr 21, 2017 15:57:18 GMT -8
I'm playing a (reformed) witch hunter in our 5e game which is basically a cleric that was of the sun pantheon but has come to favor Our Lady of Dark Waters (the Goddess of Storms and Tempests). With all the tweaks you can make with 5e I've become the big damage dealer in the party with attacks doing max damage using divine wrath. I love playing clerics and this by far is the most bad ass washed up 58 year old bitter, jaded haunted by his past cleric character I've ever played. Sure it's D&D and it's liberally stolen from many of the more "evolved" games out there. But we are having a hell of a good time!
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Post by Probie Tim on Apr 22, 2017 6:21:18 GMT -8
Seriously, he came to me and told me to change my intended path because it was going to ruin the game (which sucked, because I really liked the little pacifist, oh well). That sounds like a bad GM more than anything else. *shrug* There's always been "niche protection", else there would never have been the trope that the last person to choose a character would be "stuck playing a cleric", and I was aware of that trope as a 10yr old playing 1st ed with my dad. That's not niche protection, though. Niche protection is "only clerics heal because that's their thing and if you have no cleric you have no healer; no one else can be a healer". What you're talking about is... "early clerics sucked and no one wanted to play them."
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HazelnutMudslide
Supporter
Posts: 129
Preferred Game Systems: L5R, 7th Sea, TriStat, WoD, D&D5e
Currently Playing: Nothing (LFG)
Currently Running: Nothing (LFG)
Favorite Species of Monkey: grease, never know when you'll need one to fix things.
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Post by HazelnutMudslide on Apr 22, 2017 6:27:33 GMT -8
I stand corrected. Early clerics didn't suck though, only early groups interpretations of them.
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Post by ilina on Apr 22, 2017 23:03:54 GMT -8
Niche protection and Roles have been around since the beginning. if you look at the whitebox cleric, a mace dealt the same damage as a sword. and bonuses to vital combat numbers were hard to come by, and well, the only thing that made a fighter better in combat than a cleric was that d8 hit die and having more functionally identical weapon options. sure, the tank might not have publically been called a tank back then, but there likely were people who compared heavy armored warriors to heavily armored military death vehicles, and other popular terms were meat shield, distraction or body guard.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 23, 2017 3:46:36 GMT -8
Mechanically, the thing I hate about D&D the most is the randomness and lack of meaning. Being super strong didn't really mean you'd be able to break down the door. In fact, even a 20 strength only boosted your chances by about 25%. 20 strength is supposed to be the strongest man in the world! The fact that an 8 strength bookworm might make the roll while the 20 strength guy might fail is just stupid. Stats become meaningless when the random factor is so much more important.
A ring of deflection that gives a deflection bonus could have been an ultra cool item. We're talking DUNE style forcefields! But instead they are a +X, ultimately next to useless because the d20 is more important than the fiction. The only way to get anything is just to stack all the modifiers you can, until each thing which should have been awesome is lost in a pile of +1's. Welcome to a magical world, were everything is lame as fuck.
Then came fifth edition. Instead of trying to fix the lame factor, they instead focused on fixing the long list of bonuses. Woo, the game is easier to play, but still lame! Who here wants to play in a high fantasy game where they removed most of the cool magic junk? It's like there was a Harry Potter roleplaying game and the invisibility cloak was built badly, so in the new edition they just threw the baby out with the bath water instead of fixing anything!
But they listened to the players! Oh did they? That's why magic item creation is gone? People have only been asking for a good magic item creation system since as long as I can remember (at least since 3x). Simple is great and all, but it's only good so long as it does everything you need it to do. The main thing that I think D&D must do is be customizable. Unlike a game like Dungeon World, D&D gets its replay value from your ability to customize and build a million different combinations. 5th edition really screwed the pooch there.
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Post by ilina on Apr 23, 2017 17:40:58 GMT -8
in D&D, that 25% chance is pretty damned massive. if you look at that, that is one Extra attack you land out of every four. D&D plays with small numbers because it helps mitigate the benefit of bonus stacking. it is meant to be a game of luck, where on occasion, Hercules will lose to a librarian. by limiting the benefits of a high attribute, monsters aren't perpetually one shotting player characters. if you want your 20 strength to make you godlike, expect to die to a 30 strength dragon by means of one tail slap.
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Post by Kainguru on Apr 24, 2017 1:40:13 GMT -8
Just a quick observation - 5e was a design driven by a public play test. The players got what they requested and there is more to come - the Unearthed Arcana section of the WoTC website is, basically, the beta test for to system modules to follow. The system modules will let a group dial up or down the flavour of game they want. Currently, in its default form, it is intentionally bland - like a McDonalds hamburger, acceptable to most but nothing to rave about. More importantly it is system that reflects the 1e and 2e days as well, a lot of stuff changed from 3e was removed because they were changes that 3e made that were seen to drive many of the problems seen in PF and 4e. I like the 2e flavour it has, but then again I like 2e and 1e. Magic items are supposed to be rare in 5e - the nonsense that was 'a magic shop in every town' has been removed : unless you want to put it back in, which you can. The scaling of encounters doesn't mean you MUST scale every encounter to the PC's, those goblins should be less of threat by 8th level (unless it's a hoard) and dragon should be practically unassailable at 1st to 4th level. You create Smoog the Ancient Dragon under the Isolated Hill on the Plains of Dispair as the end of a story arc (or several story arcs) - the PC's go there at first level Smoog stays as designed and the PC's either run, fight and most likely die or screw with DM and find a creative and unexpected solution that works (which should please the DM, not frustrate) and the story carries on. 5e, if I have a complaint, is a bit scant on explaining the change of ethos - which is breaking the heads of people who started with 3.x or 4th. For the grognards it's like a new bike, the basics are the same but the gear shifters are better and the frame is lighter and these are all good things. Plus DragonBorn - I still fucking hate DragonBorn. BTW why relegate gnomes and half elves to optional?? This was an odd choice? Aaron
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2017 2:11:51 GMT -8
Just a quick observation - 5e was a design driven by a public play test. The players got what they requested and there is more to come - the Unearthed Arcana section of the WoTC website is, basically, the beta test for to system modules to follow. The system modules will let a group dial up or down the flavour of game they want. Currently, in its default form, it is intentionally bland - like a McDonalds hamburger, acceptable to most but nothing to rave about. More importantly it is system that reflects the 1e and 2e days as well, a lot of stuff changed from 3e was removed because they were changes that 3e made that were seen to drive many of the problems seen in PF and 4e. I like the 2e flavour it has, but then again I like 2e and 1e. Magic items are supposed to be rare in 5e - the nonsense that was 'a magic shop in every town' has been removed : unless you want to put it back in, which you can. The scaling of encounters doesn't mean you MUST scale every encounter to the PC's, those goblins should be less of threat by 8th level (unless it's a hoard) and dragon should be practically unassailable at 1st to 4th level. You create Smoog the Ancient Dragon under the Isolated Hill on the Plains of Dispair as the end of a story arc (or several story arcs) - the PC's go there at first level Smoog stays as designed and the PC's either run, fight and most likely die or screw with DM and find a creative and unexpected solution that works (which should please the DM, not frustrate) and the story carries on. 5e, if I have a complaint, is a bit scant on explaining the change of ethos - which is breaking the heads of people who started with 3.x or 4th. For the grognards it's like a new bike, the basics are the same but the gear shifters are better and the frame is lighter and these are all good things. Plus DragonBorn - I still fucking hate DragonBorn. BTW why relegate gnomes and half elves to optional?? This was an odd choice? Aaron What ethos? The one where they bend over for grognards on the forum and create a worse game for it? Also, what about 5E is at all reminiscent of 1 or 2E? Other than bad organization and a d20, what else there matches up? 4th edition, it is not, but I don't see thac0 or any of the other 'old school' stuff I've heard of in 5E. You might as well call it 3X, simple edition. I mean, Elf isn't a class or anything.
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Post by Kainguru on Apr 24, 2017 3:06:03 GMT -8
Just saying what the lead designer has said - Mike Mearls. 1e and 2e aren't about mechanics like thac0, though the Kit is back via-a-vis various class options at 3rd level. Magic is rarer, which is a throw back and the skills were simplified - being very similar to the non-weapon proficencies. BTW elf was only a class in basic and 0e. Sounds like you're pissy because a 'bunch of grognards' actually sent in feedback on the open play test - it was an open playtest, just saying. Besides so what if bunch of grognards get the game they want? Are they any less entitled to be catered for or is their money somehow not worth as much because .... age? There are plenty of dials to tweak and options to come - there's a new optional rule set for play testing on the main website at least every month. Rangers have been given a make over, paladins have more oaths etc etc there's even a variant approach to magic. You want something different from the game then get involved and give feedback to the design team - but you don't play it so why get involved? Come to that why should your opinion carry more weight than that of the people who do play the game? Heaven forbid they get the game they want to play rather than the one you won't play anyway. I think DragonBorn suck, my opinion - over ruled by the majority of other players. Solution? I'll never play a DragonBorn and I'll never include them in any game I might run (because my prejudice would ruin it for any player who was dragonborn - rather than pretend it's not a problem for me I'd rather be honest to a player and say 'dude I just fucking hate them and I can't get past that'). What I don't demand is that WoTC was wrong or that they should remove DragonBorn from the game core rules Aaron
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HazelnutMudslide
Supporter
Posts: 129
Preferred Game Systems: L5R, 7th Sea, TriStat, WoD, D&D5e
Currently Playing: Nothing (LFG)
Currently Running: Nothing (LFG)
Favorite Species of Monkey: grease, never know when you'll need one to fix things.
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Post by HazelnutMudslide on Apr 24, 2017 3:13:33 GMT -8
You're not alone, dragonborn DO suck.
Thank you for saying so.
As a grognard, at least I think that's the title I should accept after 32 years of rp, correct me if I'm wrong, I'd rather not sound like dwarf slang for turd, 5e is the warm bath for those of us who couldn't accept 3.X or (gag) Pathfinder.
And yes, that was a massive run-on sentence, I'm still caffeinating!
Edit: after some googling and metaphorical horrified shrieking, oh gods no, definitely NOT a grognard! They sound positively ghastly!
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Post by Kainguru on Apr 24, 2017 3:47:10 GMT -8
You're not alone, dragonborn DO suck. Thank you for saying so. As a grognard, at least I think that's the title I should accept after 32 years of rp, correct me if I'm wrong, I'd rather not sound like dwarf slang for turd, 5e is the warm bath for those of us who couldn't accept 3.X or (gag) Pathfinder. And yes, that was a massive run-on sentence, I'm still caffeinating! Edit: after some googling and metaphorical horrified shrieking, oh gods no, definitely NOT a grognard! They sound positively ghastly! Don't panic - it's actually French for 'Old Solider' (veteran). IIRC specifically Napolionic Veterans. Aaron
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HazelnutMudslide
Supporter
Posts: 129
Preferred Game Systems: L5R, 7th Sea, TriStat, WoD, D&D5e
Currently Playing: Nothing (LFG)
Currently Running: Nothing (LFG)
Favorite Species of Monkey: grease, never know when you'll need one to fix things.
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Post by HazelnutMudslide on Apr 24, 2017 5:26:43 GMT -8
Yeah, I found the Napoleonic reference, which is fine, but the modern definition appears to be some combination of unhygienic, anti-social, basement-dwelling neckbeard. Iiiiiiiiiiiiiick~!
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Post by Probie Tim on Apr 24, 2017 7:25:23 GMT -8
I mean, Elf isn't a class or anything. Not to be pedantic, but I'm going to be pedantic: Elf wasn't a class in 1E or 2E. Elf - and the other demi-humans - were only classes unto themselves in the various editions of Basic D&D: B/X, BECMI, etc.
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Post by Kainguru on Apr 24, 2017 8:33:16 GMT -8
I mean, Elf isn't a class or anything. Not to be pedantic, but I'm going to be pedantic: Elf wasn't a class in 1E or 2E. Elf - and the other demi-humans - were only classes unto themselves in the various editions of Basic D&D: B/X, BECMI, etc. Hooray for pendantry - sometimes it just feels 'good' ... now if you can just edit it so it starts "well actually ..." Aaron
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2017 14:02:44 GMT -8
I mean, Elf isn't a class or anything. Not to be pedantic, but I'm going to be pedantic: Elf wasn't a class in 1E or 2E. Elf - and the other demi-humans - were only classes unto themselves in the various editions of Basic D&D: B/X, BECMI, etc. Yay for facts!
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