5e Rant [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

nonsi

2014-10-14, 05:54 AM

OldTrees1

2014-10-14, 06:17 AM

Proficiency Bonuses are class features in the same way a Fighter's Good Fort save(Proficiency in Con saves) or a Rogue's Skill Points(Proficiency in 4 skills) were features of those classes. They do not replace actual class features nor were they meant to.

2 classes get more Feats/Ability Increases. Otherwise your point there stands.

So far there is only 1 book out for 5E so I have not made up my mind. However there is 2 features of 5E that I found as improvements to the skeleton of the game.
1) Movement is independent of actions. Warriors can move without harming their ability to attack multiple times.
2) Casters are limited in the number of active spells because they are forced to Concentrate and can only Concentrate on one spell at a time. It is also harder to Concentrate in 5E than in 3.5.

Eslin

2014-10-14, 06:24 AM

He's actually broadly correct, in that the chassis of 5e is basically a simpler 3.5. What you're missing though nonsi is that while the chassis may be similar, the implementation is far improved. Compared to the 3.5 handbook everything is simpler and better balanced with little loss of depth.

Strill

2014-10-14, 06:25 AM

- Ability increase as features – 5 of them
- Proficiency bonuses
Both of the above are the same for all classes and are just sand in the D&D Next consumers' eyes, serving as would-be class features. They're not features at all.
You seem to think it's deceptive, but I don't think so at all. I think that table is just there so you always know what new perks have unlocked at any given level. I find it convenient.

- #Attacks as class features instead of general mechanic.
This is bad, because when someone wishes to introduce a new class concept, instead of having a formula to work with, they have to draw from existing examples.
WotC went this route with the pricing of magical items in 3e, when they already had a solid template for item pricing in the BECMI Rule Cyclopedia.
They shouldn't have changed the basic concept of BAB and iterative attacks. They could've used it and tweak the numbers to reach their desired sweat spot (same goes for item pricing).So you think the pattern is too complex? I think it's pretty clear. Martial classes get Extra Attack at level 5. At level 11, they get either another extra attack, a damage boost on-hit, or some other way to attack more often. I guess this makes it more difficult to come up with new class mechanics, but the DPR calculations aren't too complex. I don't think it's that difficult to figure out if your class proposition is balanced or not.

Besides, they said they're not gonna be releasing tons of new splatbooks anyway.

Also, with regards to item pricing, you can no longer purchase magic items with gold. Magic items in this edition are considered priceless, and anything beyond a scroll or a potion is too expensive to find anyone to sell it to.

- Class variants as substitution for PtCs.
While character balance is surely less of an issue than 3e PrCs, class variants are the wrong way to go, because you have to invent new stuff for character concepts that don't already exist.
They should've put more effort in making those variants into character-build options and to mix & match concepts via general rules (and it is doable).
If they did, this could have served as a powerful means of building hundreds of character concepts without the need to create new classes (or class variants - sameo sameo).I've gotten the impression that 5e is going for quality over quantity, compared to 3e. Sure they could create subclasses that are intercompatible with any class, but one point of 5e is to make sure the classes are more balanced than in previous editions, without sacrificing their uniqueness. Adding all those combinations would make the devs work all that much harder. Besides, they already have character-build options that you can mix and match via feats.

- Races. They didn't make them more iconic or more distinct.
What they did is more to make them different on the numeric modifiers aspect.
I can't disagree more strongly. I think racial features like Mask of the Wild, Sunlight Sensitivity, Lucky, Brave, Stonecunning, Tinker, Speak With Small Beasts, and Draconic Ancestry are all extremely distinct and iconic. I'm honestly having a hard time believing you actually read the racial writeups.

In the creation of 3e, their heart was in the right place on most aspects (PrCs were a new concept, so I wouldn't hold it against them on that one).
(4e is not D&D in any way in my view, so I'm not even addressing it)
In the creation of 5e, the impression I'm getting is that, what they aimed for more than anything else, is to make sure they have potential of selling more game supplements than even in 3e.

Maybe it's just me, but as far as the skeleton of the game mechanics goes, I see no advantage of 5e over 3e.

Correct me if I'm wrong.
.Well if you're worried about them releasing tons of splatbooks, you don't have to. They've said their plan is to wait and have large, infrequent books rather than many smaller books.

The biggest advantage of 5e over 3e is that things are balanced far, far, far, far better, and without sacrificing each class's distinctness.

Ghost Nappa

2014-10-14, 06:38 AM

.

I hope this doesn't tick people off, but I really want to get this out of my system and into the open.

I had a chance of taking a peek into D&D Next PHB and was greatly disappointed.

I'll explain.

- Ability increase as features – 5 of them
- Proficiency bonuses
Both of the above are the same for all classes and are just sand in the D&D Next consumers' eyes, serving as would-be class features. They're not features at all.

- #Attacks as class features instead of general mechanic.
This is bad, because when someone wishes to introduce a new class concept, instead of having a formula to work with, they have to draw from existing examples.
WotC went this route with the pricing of magical items in 3e, when they already had a solid template for item pricing in the BECMI Rule Cyclopedia.
They shouldn't have changed the basic concept of BAB and iterative attacks. They could've used it and tweak the numbers to reach their desired sweat spot (same goes for item pricing).

- Class variants as substitution for PtCs.
While character balance is surely less of an issue than 3e PrCs, class variants are the wrong way to go, because you have to invent new stuff for character concepts that don't already exist.
They should've put more effort in making those variants into character-build options and to mix & match concepts via general rules (and it is doable).
If they did, this could have served as a powerful means of building hundreds of character concepts without the need to create new classes (or class variants - sameo sameo).

- Races. They didn't make them more iconic or more distinct.
What they did is more to make them different on the numeric modifiers aspect.

In the creation of 3e, their heart was in the right place on most aspects (PrCs were a new concept, so I wouldn't hold it against them on that one).
(4e is not D&D in any way in my view, so I'm not even addressing it)
In the creation of 5e, the impression I'm getting is that, what they aimed for more than anything else, is to make sure they have potential of selling more game supplements than even in 3e.

Maybe it's just me, but as far as the skeleton of the game mechanics goes, I see no advantage of 5e over 3e.

Correct me if I'm wrong.
.

Keep in mind that you're comparing the 5E PHB to a lot of varied material from 3.5, which is a bit unfair to 5E.

One of the advantages of 5E is that it puts a hard cap the main six stats at 20: people cannot go over it regardless of race or class. This means that characters aren't fighting to keep putting their ability increases into their main stat (because a certain point it's capped) and can instead either buff less stats of their choosing or pick up a feat.

The feats themselves are a LOT stronger comparatively to 3.5 with a number functioning also acting as half-ability increases in addition to features.

Casting has been changed a lot in this addition: martials will generally outshine casters in combat due to the reconstruction of "Concentration" only allowing casters a certain amount of things at once. Wizards can still cast Fly, Stoneskin, Mind Blank and all of their other buffs on themselves, but only one of them will be up at a time. Evocation is a lot stronger and a lot of the Save-or-Die stuff has been changed to either Save-or-Full-Damage or Save-or-Suck.

The individuals responsible for the 5E PHB have repeatedly said that they don't intend to make nearly as many books and over-saturate the market with unnecessary books. They're very much trying to make each one a big deal.

I much prefer the Proficiency bonus model over the "Full BAB" and such. It's a lot easier to explain to new players that they have a +2 they add to everything they're good at then having a bunch of different numbers to explain. The system is a lot easier to introduce and I much prefer the simpler quicker-to-solve math than the dealing with +20/15/10/5 non-sense.

On Extra Attack: every martial class gets Extra Attack at Level 5, with Fighters picking up a Third and Fourth attack later on. Casters notably do NOT get this.

You don't really seem to have any comments about the races except "they're the same" to which I will respond, yes. They're all rather well-understood and familiar to both the designers and the players. They will be rather easy to use populate 99% of the game world with likely a couple more unusual races (Warforged, Changeling, Aasimar).

You also have to understand that just because you didn't like 4E doesn't mean there aren't people who did. 5E is a nice sort of neutral ground between 3.5 and 4 in terms of a number of mechanics and features (There aren't 12 bazillion skills you'll never use like in 3.5, spells matter more than in 4E, etc.)

On Class Variants: I don't think I understand you're criticism here. You don't like how each class basically has a choice of 2 or 3 PrCs built-in to it and gets to choose one? Most people have rather appreciated the system as it allows them to earn both general class features along with more flavor-specific ones as well as giving a further level of difference from just the "Human Paladin" or "Half-Elf Bard." It also means that they don't need to create a whole new class for books: they can just release sub-classes. It only ADDS to the material from the PHB in this case, and they're fairly simple to construct (relatively: it only needs four or five features at certain levels that are on-par but necessarily better than the existing ones).

This edition also has an explicit focus on Rule 0 and has constant reminders in the book to "Just ask your DM," which I think it important for players to have.

Lonely Tylenol

2014-10-14, 07:07 AM

.s features – 5 of them
- Proficiency bonuses
Both of the above are the same for all classes and are just sand in the D&D Next consumers' eyes, serving as would-be class features. They're not features at all.

Neither were, in that vein, skill ranks, saving throw bonuses, or Base Attack Bonus. Nor, I feel, were they meant to be; these were always meant to be part of the chassis of a class, not defining features. It's basically a reminder of the core, underlying mechanic which all classes operate under.

- #Attacks as class features instead of general mechanic.
This is bad, because when someone wishes to introduce a new class concept, instead of having a formula to work with, they have to draw from existing examples.
WotC went this route with the pricing of magical items in 3e, when they already had a solid template for item pricing in the BECMI Rule Cyclopedia.
They shouldn't have changed the basic concept of BAB and iterative attacks. They could've used it and tweak the numbers to reach their desired sweat spot (same goes for item pricing).

Base Attack Bonus would have been impossible with the great emphasis on bounded accuracy that they are clearly focusing on.

- Class variants as substitution for PtCs.
While character balance is surely less of an issue than 3e PrCs, class variants are the wrong way to go, because you have to invent new stuff for character concepts that don't already exist.
They should've put more effort in making those variants into character-build options and to mix & match concepts via general rules (and it is doable).
If they did, this could have served as a powerful means of building hundreds of character concepts without the need to create new classes (or class variants - sameo sameo).

Wouldn't you know it, I did the darnedest thing and looked in my Player's Handbook 3.5 for Prestige Classes, and much to my amazement--I couldn't find any!

That would be because, in the Player's Handbook for 3.5... There weren't.

They were in the Dungeon Master's Guide... Which hasn't yet been released for 5e.

We literally cannot make a judgment call about whether or not PrCs will exist at all in D&D, because it hasn't even hit the point in the production cycle where PrCs were first introduced in past editions.

- Races. They didn't make them more iconic or more distinct.
What they did is more to make them different on the numeric modifiers aspect.

Aside from the removal of size as a class identity, I couldn't disagree more - each of the core races either has some new component (such as the Rock Gnome's Tinker or the Half-Orc's Relentless Endurance and Savage Attacks) or iteration of an old component (such as the Dwarves' Stonecunning and the Elves' Keen Senses) that contributes to their sense of racial identity. The only race which feels genuinely bland and uninteresting, to me, is generic Human--although playing with the feat variant certainly adds some diversity to the "diversity" race.

Maybe it's just me, but as far as the skeleton of the game mechanics goes, I see no advantage of 5e over 3e.

Bounded accuracy and the reining in of the magic system makes balancing new content significantly easier, creating both a survivable floor and a visible ceiling as regards power levels. The system feels more "approachable", with the systems of proficiency and advantage being simple enough to explain to a four-year-old (source: access to a four-year-old with gamer parents) while also being general enough in their application that you don't need to know much else about the game in order to sit at a table and play with them makes this the system I will use to introduce friends to the system, or just more of a "pick-up-and-play" style of game for people more concerned with the collaborative role playing elements than anything else--whereas 3.5 is going to be the system I continue to return to when I (or others in the group) want to revel in the exploits, or just the sheer number of possibilities that ten years of support for the game (counting 3.0 and Pathfinder) have built up.

ProphetSword

2014-10-14, 07:17 AM

.
I had a chance of taking a peek into D&D Next PHB and was greatly disappointed.

I have found that, most of the time, when people post rants like this, it's because they only "looked" at the material and haven't actually experienced it in play. 5E is definitely a system that plays better than it reads.

People treat it unfairly when the look for what isn't there. You can do this with any version of D&D and find it wanting.

Lonely Tylenol

2014-10-14, 07:27 AM

I have found that, most of the time, when people post rants like this, it's because they only "looked" at the material and haven't actually experienced it in play. 5E is definitely a system that plays better than it reads.

People treat it unfairly when the look for what isn't there. You can do this with any version of D&D and find it wanting.

I find that the specific terms "skimmed" and "flipped through" feature heavily in these criticisms, as well. It's as if people are taking pride in having not experienced or even truly read the system's contents before deciding they don't like it.

(...Don't look at me--I played two 4E campaigns before deciding it wasn't for me.)

Occasional Sage

2014-10-14, 07:36 AM

Warskull

2014-10-14, 08:30 AM

I have found that, most of the time, when people post rants like this, it's because they only "looked" at the material and haven't actually experienced it in play. 5E is definitely a system that plays better than it reads.

People treat it unfairly when the look for what isn't there. You can do this with any version of D&D and find it wanting.

As long as you look at it from a mechanical perspective, it reads really well. The rules are, for the most part, very well designed.

It only reads poorly when people look at it from a "It doesn't have feature X from edition Y, it must suck" perspective.

Ramshack

2014-10-14, 08:38 AM

I kind of echoed many of the same concerns you brought up before actually playing the game. I was a HUGE fan of 3.5 and have dozens (plural) of splat books for 3.5. However after playing 5.0 one time, just one time I immediately enjoyed the game mechanics much more, everything was stream lined, the gameplay was fun, the character creation was robust with interesting choices. My advice give it a try and judge it for it's own game instead of trying to compare it to others.

Also anyone want to buy some 3.5 books ^_^

edge2054

2014-10-14, 09:22 AM

Everyone uses attack rolls now. Basing # of attacks of BAB no longer works.

squashmaster

2014-10-14, 03:29 PM

- Ability increase as features – 5 of them
- Proficiency bonuses
Both of the above are the same for all classes and are just sand in the D&D Next consumers' eyes, serving as would-be class features. They're not features at all.

Hmmm...well, proficiency bonus is meant to be a basic bonus on all checks relevant to your class and background that scales with level...so the higher level you are, the better you will be at any of your main checks, and at lower levels you're just inherently better at your main checks...not sure what the problem is with it.

Ability score increases are more powerful relatively due to much fewer hard mods overall. And, of course, there is the optional feat system that you can do instead of an ability score increase.

- #Attacks as class features instead of general mechanic.
This is bad, because when someone wishes to introduce a new class concept, instead of having a formula to work with, they have to draw from existing examples.

What if I told you formulas are existing examples? I mean, BAB has been replaced with proficiency bonus, it's just standard across the board now, and it's not like when you make a class it's some difficult thing to include an extra attack feature...

- Class variants as substitution for PtCs.
While character balance is surely less of an issue than 3e PrCs, class variants are the wrong way to go, because you have to invent new stuff for character concepts that don't already exist.

Woe to invention, the difficult task of being creative? Also, the more modular system of before isn't really THAT different from the archetype system in 5e. It really isn't that different. It's just a little less modular. And it requires reading paragraphs instead of maybe tables or subsections.

- Races. They didn't make them more iconic or more distinct.
What they did is more to make them different on the numeric modifiers aspect.

Huh? Is this very different from the past? I think the intent, though, was to open up the roleplaying aspect and give people more freedom in race/class combinations. Everything else can be done through roleplaying.

In the creation of 3e, their heart was in the right place on most aspects (PrCs were a new concept, so I wouldn't hold it against them on that one).
(4e is not D&D in any way in my view, so I'm not even addressing it)

Hello, bias. In the creation of 3e, their intent was to make the most modular and extensible system they possibly could for fantasy roleplay, while retaining a reasonable about of verisimilitude. And they succeeded. In 5e, their intent seems like doing things a little less modular and extensible, but still well enough to fit with most any previous D&D setting or adventure, and fix the stupid powergaming potential of 3e/PF and put the focus back on roleplay. I feel like they succeeded.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

Corrected.

Geoff

2014-10-14, 06:07 PM

.
In the creation of 5e, the impression I'm getting is that, what they aimed for more than anything else, is to make sure they have potential of selling more game supplements than even in 3e.

Correct me if I'm wrong.
. Mearls has come out and said that they expect to produce far fewer D&D books going forward than under 4e or 3.x, and focus more on adventures than supplements.

So you're probably wrong about that.

Maybe it's just me, but as far as the skeleton of the game mechanics goes, I see no advantage of 5e over 3e. No net advantage, maybe. 5e does a few things less badly than 3.5, a few things more badly, some things differently but not noticeably better or worse, and other things about the same. Total it all up and, 'meh.'

Mostly, I think, 5e is just trying to be recognizably D&D to all past D&Ders, and I think it's succeeded. Even you, who obviously are 100% biased against any D&D that isn't exactly your ALL FIXED version of 3.5 from your sig, didn't go so far as to claim that 5e "wasn't D&D."

Pex

2014-10-14, 06:44 PM

Hello, bias. In the creation of 3e, their intent was to make the most modular and extensible system they possibly could for fantasy roleplay, while retaining a reasonable about of verisimilitude. And they succeeded. In 5e, their intent seems like doing things a little less modular and extensible, but still well enough to fit with most any previous D&D setting or adventure, and fix the stupid powergaming potential of 3e/PF and put the focus back on roleplay. I feel like they succeeded.

Hello, bias. The desire of "powergaming" or otherwise enjoying the mechanics of things that can be done has no relation let alone hindrance to the desire of roleplay in 3E/Pathfinder.

Corrected.

Yes

Scirocco

2014-10-14, 07:16 PM

Hello, bias. The desire of "powergaming" or otherwise enjoying the mechanics of things that can be done has no relation let alone hindrance to the desire of roleplay in 3E/Pathfinder.

No, it's just an example of correlation not being equal to causation. It just happens that a lot of the munchkins stick out as poor roleplayers, not that munchkinism leads to poor roleplay.

Galen

2014-10-14, 07:22 PM

Is it weird that I actually like most of the things the OP points as negatives?

Also, this makes me wonder if we were reading the same PHB:

.
- Races. They didn't make them more iconic or more distinct.
What they did is more to make them different on the numeric modifiers aspect.
Let's see, off the top of my head....

Half-Orcs: 1/day when would be knocked unconscious (ie. 0 hp) may instead go to 1 hp. The ultimate feat of resilience. Very unique, no other PC race or class feature can do this.

Halfling: Lucky. Whenever rolls a 1 on an attack, save or check, can reroll. No, not 3/day or anything lame like that. Always. The ultimate lucky little bugger.

Gnome: hello, contraptions?

Wood Elf: can hide in plain sight when lightly obscured by natural terrain ...

I dunno, those all sound pretty uniquie and iconic to me.

Valraukar

2014-10-14, 07:28 PM

Is it weird that I actually like most of the things the OP points as negatives?

Also, this makes me wonder if we were reading the same PHB...

Completely agree. I'm guessing he either skimmed it or if he has read it, has yet to play/DM a 5e game. I had my doubts when I read through the PHB for the first time, but they were quickly erased after playing a few sessions.

Geoff

2014-10-14, 08:16 PM

Completely agree. I'm guessing he either skimmed it or if he has read it, has yet to play/DM a 5e game. I had my doubts when I read through the PHB for the first time, but they were quickly erased after playing a few sessions. Funny, my reaction is sort of the opposite. I was pleased with it at a glance, it looked very familiar, and some of the stuff seemed cool. The more I play it, the more doubts I accumulate - though nothing like the OP, who obviously won't be satisfied unless WotC were to publish his 3.5 house rules as an official edition of D&D - so far, though, only low level, while some of the cool looking stuff will kick in around 6th...

Valraukar

2014-10-14, 08:19 PM

Just out of curiosity Geoff, what type of character are you playing?

Geoff

2014-10-14, 09:04 PM

Just out of curiosity Geoff, what type of character are you playing? So far I've tried champion and battlemaster Fighters, a Life Cleric and a Druid. Some of that (the Champion and Cleric, obviously) with just the basic pdf, the Druid was something I was handed. The Battlemaster really needs 2 levels of Rogue for cunning action (one of the disappointments: at a glance, it looked like Spring Attack was 'free,' actually you need to disengage somehow, if you're trying it while next to someone, like if there's an enemy already inside your reach). For races, I've played human (only way to get a feat at 1st, but long my preference, anyway) and dwarf. Backgrounds Soldier, Soldier, Soldier (even the Cleric, and it was a pregen), and whatever the Druid was. ;) I've also tried my hand at running 5e - and Next during the Playtest (5e seems much easier to run than 3.5, which I almost never ran for that reason, but not nearly as easy as 4e).

My impressions were:

Champion: looked boring. Was.

Cleric: looked like a healbot. Was, and not a good enough one, as I still ended up leaving PCs sitting out whole fights because i was out of spells and Spare the Dying doesn't even bring you up to 1 anymore.

Druid: looked pretty cool and awesome. Wasn't. Could have been with more short rests or some way to cast while shapechanged.

Battlemaster: Looked promising. Turned out to be aggravating, and I've re-built it almost every session (you can do that in AL, though technically there are no retraining rules). Trying out different feats via human, looking forward to 4th or 6th level to really come up to speed. Really need that second attack. Also really need Cunning Action.... so maybe 8th, except feat progression....

... OK, it is a bit like a 3.5 fighter, you can go crazy trying to make a build that isn't too late-blooming.

Also seen at the table were multiple dedicated Rogues (really, a lot of them, and none doing so well, I fail to see the appeal of making that many death saves, one reason I hesitate to make that two-level dip), Wizards, Clerics, and Bards (surprisingly), some more Champions (no other battlemasters) some of them the pregen Robin Hood type, and a Warlock and Monk - oh and a Barbarian/Druid that was way more impressive than the Druid I tried, and his vanilla Barbarian sidekick... oh, and a wildmage which I think is a Sorcerer, yes? No paladin yet, only ranger was also a Rogue. I'm pretty sure I've seen all the basic races in play, plus a Tiefling, and a number of the backgrounds, though they can be easy to miss - Local Hero, I recall from the Robin Hood Champion-Archer, was cute.

Sartharina

2014-10-14, 09:35 PM

So far I've tried champion and battlemaster Fighters, a Life Cleric and a Druid. Some of that (the Champion and Cleric, obviously) with just the basic pdf, the Druid was something I was handed. The Battlemaster really needs 2 levels of Rogue for cunning action (one of the disappointments: at a glance, it looked like Spring Attack was 'free,' actually you need to disengage somehow, if you're trying it while next to someone, like if there's an enemy already inside your reach).That's what the Mobility feat is for. No, you don't get "Spring attack" for free - at least not the AoO-negating aspect. Disengaging+Attacking (OR vice versa) is incredibly potent.

In one way, characters are even more sticky in 5e than they were in 4 or 3e, because the ONLY ways to get out of reach of someone without triggering an Opportunity Attack is to either get them to blow it on something else, or sacrifice your action.

tcrudisi

2014-10-14, 09:57 PM

Funny, my reaction is sort of the opposite. I was pleased with it at a glance, it looked very familiar, and some of the stuff seemed cool. The more I play it, the more doubts I accumulate - though nothing like the OP, who obviously won't be satisfied unless WotC were to publish his 3.5 house rules as an official edition of D&D - so far, though, only low level, while some of the cool looking stuff will kick in around 6th...

This is me, too. Though we've only had 1 session, so beware of my small sample size.

I've kind of been funny about it, though. I started off in the alpha and stopped immediately; it was that bad. Then it was released and I heard a lot of people talking about how imbalanced the classes were. Woo boy - that's a big sticking point for me. But, I also heard how bad 4e was before I began playing it and that turned into my favorite edition of D&D by far. So I wasn't just going to avoid 5e. So I picked up a copy of the PHB and read through it and ... excitement! It made some really cool changes and I couldn't wait to try them out. Advantage/Disadvantage and Proficiency both were made of win.

And then we tried them out and I'm finding myself having to force the optimism to continue. It wasn't the greatest session. I'm hoping it'll get better. We do have the first module, so we'll be playing it for a couple of months if we find this edition to be at least mediocre ... but only one player seemed excited after the first session. The rest of us were "meh".

I plan on re-reading the rules and making sure we weren't making any mistakes and going from there.

(And just so everyone is aware, we do form a lot of our opinions on the book read-through and first session. We recently did a playtest for a friend's homemade system and fell in love with it during the first session. 5e just hasn't captured our attention.)

nonsi

2014-10-15, 08:32 AM

.
@Geoff: Your assumption regarding me hoping WotC takes something from me is wrong for two reasons:
1) My view of things never went with the general public on any aspect of existence, so it would be bad for business for the publishers (this doesn't bother me one bit).
2) Suppose they did – I'd gain nothing from it. Since I don't have neither the time nor the opportunity to play anywhere in the visible future, the only thing I could gain from a new edition is a collection of ideas.

Ok people, seems like I got the wrong message through.

I'm not in the least saying anything about how the game plays. After over a year of public play testing, I'm sure they got balance and gameflow figured out ok (but I'm guessing things will start getting interesting when people gain experience with 5e and learn how to exploit the rules and high level options for minmaxing and abuse).
It's not that. It's that with all the countless 3e materials, there's almost no limit to the character concepts one could conjure to existence (even without XPH/ToM/MoI).
I was expecting 5e to offer game mechanics to make all those concepts possible with but a handful of classes and properly built general rules.

I'm also quite aware that the 3.0e/3.5e PHBs don't present PrCs. However, 90% of the 3e supplemental materials come with new PrCs, to the point where there are way more than 500 officially published PrCs and they're practically part of the core rules. Technically, they are part of the core rules, because in a time where every average 7 year old can search the internet, no DM can keep things hidden from the players (as they could do in the days of AD&D).
And yes, I'm also well aware that this doesn't even hint that there will ever be 5e PrCs, but I'm sure 5e's DMG will come with a few surprises.

The thing is this…

Thinking of 5e PHB, the first questions that come to mind for me are:

Could I build something that would constitute a reasonably balanced Mystic Theurge ?
Could I play a Divine Trickster ? (don't remember 3e ever offering something similar that could stand up to the Arcane Trickster)
Could I play a Duskblade rather than just someone that can fight well and cast spells ?
And what about entirely new concepts that no official 3e supplement has ever suggested (e.g. a Sauron-wannaby, or a blaster Monk with Flurry of Blasting feature) ?

My expectation from a system that comes to encapsulate all previous editions and more, was that the answer to all the above would be "Yes".

Also . . .

Ability score increase tied to specific class levels is a means to discourage multiclassing from a crunch point of view, as opposed to a encouraging sticking to your class from a stand point of your vision of your character, or because it is awesome.
The difference between 3e BAB and saves vs. 5e Proficiency Bonuses is that in the former having different values in different classes merits noting them, whereas Proficiency Bonuses are exactly the same for all classes.
Also, unless I'm missing something, the exact same feature called "Ability Score Improvement" is described over and over again for each class (a classic copy&paste), even though there's no class that doesn't get it or gets it any other way.
And worst of all, it's a filler, not an actual feature. It robs classes of actual features. Yes, you could take feats instead, but for that you have to come to terms with low level stats.

I'm also disappointed that the Barbarian and Paladin remain separate classes from the Fighter rather than class variants or build-feasible options.
I'm equally disappointed that they kept the Sorcerer, when thematically speaking the Warlock embodies the role of "born with innate magical abilities" much better. They should've meshed them together under the title "Sorcerer" and make pact magic a class variant called "Warlock"

And I stand corrected on the races issue. Guess I did skim that part too fast. Something still bothers me about the races that I can't put my finger on ATM. Maybe it's the +1 ability adjustments, maybe something else.

Daishain

2014-10-15, 08:43 AM

The thing is this…

Thinking of 5e PHB, the first questions that come to mind for me are:

Could I build something that would constitute a reasonably balanced Mystic Theurge ?
Could I play a Divine Trickster ? (don't remember 3e ever offering something similar that could stand up to the Arcane Trickster)
Could I play a Duskblade rather than just someone that can fight well and cast spells ?
And what about entirely new concepts that no official 3e supplement has ever suggested (e.g. a Sauron-wannaby, or a blaster Monk with Flurry of Blasting feature) ?

My expectation from a system that comes to encapsulate all previous editions and more, was that the answer to all the above would be "Yes".

Wait a moment, your expectation was that 5E would be able to accomplish with a single book what 3.5E could not with close to a hundred splatbooks, and several hundred magazines?

I don't think that is quite reasonable.

This system is flexible enough that doing everything you mention is reasonably possible, but you're going to have to wait for additional content and/or make your own.

Sartharina

2014-10-15, 09:14 AM

.
Thinking of 5e PHB, the first questions that come to mind for me are:

Could I build something that would constitute a reasonably balanced Mystic Theurge ?
Could I play a Divine Trickster ? (don't remember 3e ever offering something similar that could stand up to the Arcane Trickster)
Could I play a Duskblade rather than just someone that can fight well and cast spells ?
And what about entirely new concepts that no official 3e supplement has ever suggested (e.g. a Sauron-wannaby, or a blaster Monk with Flurry of Blasting feature) ?
1. Possibly not, but that's never been possible.
2. Yes - Cleric with the right Domain and background. Multiclass with rogue if you get too many spell slots.
3. What the heck IS a Duskblade other than someone who can fight well and cast spells? If you're looking for someone who burns magic for extra damage, then Paladin.
4. Yes?
The difference between 3e BAB and saves vs. 5e Proficiency Bonuses is that in the former having different values in different classes merits noting them, whereas Proficiency Bonuses are exactly the same for all classes.And this is a not-bad-thing... why?

I'm also disappointed that the Barbarian and Paladin remain separate classes from the Fighter rather than class variants or build-feasible options.
I'm equally disappointed that they kept the Sorcerer, when thematically speaking the Warlock embodies the role of "born with innate magical abilities" much better. They should've meshed them together under the title "Sorcerer" and make pact magic a class variant called "Warlock"... no, no, no, no, no, and HELL NO! And how the **** do you get "Born with innate magical abilities" out of "Makes pacts with great and powerful creatures to get magical power"? That's like saying the Barbarian embodies the role of "Studies magic from tomes to cast spells".

Furthermore - all your options would reduce versatility and variety of character concepts by trying to bolt way too many diverse concepts to the same chassis.

obryn

2014-10-15, 09:26 AM

I've kind of been funny about it, though. I started off in the alpha and stopped immediately; it was that bad. Then it was released and I heard a lot of people talking about how imbalanced the classes were. Woo boy - that's a big sticking point for me. But, I also heard how bad 4e was before I began playing it and that turned into my favorite edition of D&D by far. So I wasn't just going to avoid 5e. So I picked up a copy of the PHB and read through it and ... excitement! It made some really cool changes and I couldn't wait to try them out. Advantage/Disadvantage and Proficiency both were made of win.

And then we tried them out and I'm finding myself having to force the optimism to continue. It wasn't the greatest session. I'm hoping it'll get better. We do have the first module, so we'll be playing it for a couple of months if we find this edition to be at least mediocre ... but only one player seemed excited after the first session. The rest of us were "meh".
Fellow 4e fan here who was trying to keep an open mind. Ran a few of the playtests. Got the PHB. Ran the Starter Kit. Just ... eh. I'm going to keep running my awesome Zeitgeist campaign, and then look at Feng Shui 2 when it comes out. (The Feng Shui 2 kickstarter (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/atlasgames/feng-shui-2-action-movie-roleplaying-game-by-robin) - which ends in 2 days! - stole all my D&D 5e money.)

.
Thinking of 5e PHB, the first questions that come to mind for me are:

Could I build something that would constitute a reasonably balanced Mystic Theurge ?
Could I play a Divine Trickster ? (don't remember 3e ever offering something similar that could stand up to the Arcane Trickster)
Could I play a Duskblade rather than just someone that can fight well and cast spells ?
And what about entirely new concepts that no official 3e supplement has ever suggested (e.g. a Sauron-wannaby, or a blaster Monk with Flurry of Blasting feature) ?
nonsi, this may surprise you, so you might want to sit down.

Okay. Are you comfortable?

Good. Because there's something I think we should talk about.

There's more to D&D than 3.x. I am sorry you had to find out this way. When you list off a bunch of stuff that's not so much "fantasy archetype" as "stuff that was invented specifically for 3.x, frequently because 3.x was broken in a lot of weird ways," such as the Mystic Theurge and Arcane Trickster, you won't find them.

Now, with all that said, 5e is basically a big 3.x hack, so you can probably expect most or all of it in the future. Even prestige classes, since 5e took the questionable step of adopting 3.x-style multiclassing, again.

Eslin

2014-10-15, 09:38 AM

I'm not in the least saying anything about how the game plays. After over a year of public play testing, I'm sure they got balance and gameflow figured out ok (but I'm guessing things will start getting interesting when people gain experience with 5e and learn how to exploit the rules and high level options for minmaxing and abuse).
There are a few exploits and minmaxing wise the floor is a fair distance from the ceiling, but overall anyone can make a character and have it be viable.

It's not that. It's that with all the countless 3e materials, there's almost no limit to the character concepts one could conjure to existence (even without XPH/ToM/MoI).
I was expecting 5e to offer game mechanics to make all those concepts possible with but a handful of classes and properly built general rules.
Speaking as 3.5's biggest fan, this is stupid. Many concepts in 3.5 were best made with a caster decided to be the best at something, and many more were unviable. Still, I did love the variety of things that could be created, but so far you can make just as many if not more concepts with the 5e PHB as you could with the 3.5 PHB.

I'm also quite aware that the 3.0e/3.5e PHBs don't present PrCs. However, 90% of the 3e supplemental materials come with new PrCs, to the point where there are way more than 500 officially published PrCs and they're practically part of the core rules. Technically, they are part of the core rules, because in a time where every average 7 year old can search the internet, no DM can keep things hidden from the players (as they could do in the days of AD&D).
Ok? So you're aware it has one book, and that book lays down a good base system and a great deal of initial variety?

The thing is this…

Thinking of 5e PHB, the first questions that come to mind for me are:

Could I build something that would constitute a reasonably balanced Mystic Theurge ?
Nope, it wouldn't be very strong. It'd be better than a wizard 10/cleric 10 would be in 3.5, but then you couldn't make a MT with the PHB either in 3.5.
Could I play a Divine Trickster ? (don't remember 3e ever offering something similar that could stand up to the Arcane Trickster)
Yes. Cleric with the trickery domain works, and many rogue/divine multiclass options are viable.
Could I play a Duskblade rather than just someone that can fight well and cast spells ?
Somewhat. I would like a better integrated system for this, but at present EK and VB both do sword and sorcery well - though attacks with bonus actions while casting is not as integrated a system as I would like, a true duskblade type is yet to come.
And what about entirely new concepts that no official 3e supplement has ever suggested (e.g. a Sauron-wannaby, or a blaster Monk with Flurry of Blasting feature) ?
You can make a monk with flurry of blows and blasting (hello elements monk!), and I have no idea what the hell a Sauron-wannabe is.

My expectation from a system that comes to encapsulate all previous editions and more, was that the answer to all the above would be "Yes".
The answer so far IS yes, and we only have one book.

Ability score increase tied to specific class levels is a means to discourage multiclassing from a crunch point of view, as opposed to a encouraging sticking to your class from a stand point of your vision of your character, or because it is awesome.
No, they don't. In order to be useful at early levels, each class comes front loaded, with their defining features usually kicking in at level 3. Ability score bonuses at level 4 force you to either lose some stats or go slightly further into the class. This is good design, otherwise fighter 3/paladin 3/monk 3/warlock 3 would be far better than a straight up monk 12. Now they're about equal, though in that instance I'd probably go fighter 3/paladin 6/warlock 3 and then take another fighter and warlock level ASAP for the ability boosts.
Again: By having ability boosts part of the class, they were able to give every class good features early without having to worry about dipping being the best solution for every occasion.
The difference between 3e BAB and saves vs. 5e Proficiency Bonuses is that in the former having different values in different classes merits noting them, whereas Proficiency Bonuses are exactly the same for all classes.
3.5 saves were the same for all classes, 2+1/2 level for high and 1/3 level for low. 5e saves are the same for all classes, +2-6 for high and 0 for low.
Also, unless I'm missing something, the exact same feature called "Ability Score Improvement" is described over and over again for each class (a classic copy&paste), even though there's no class that doesn't get it or gets it any other way.
Same reason as above.
And worst of all, it's a filler, not an actual feature. It robs classes of actual features. Yes, you could take feats instead, but for that you have to come to terms with low level stats.
Feats vs stats are a fine trade, now that there is a limit on stats and the feats are actually useful. It doesn't rob the class of actual features, every single class has more features in it than it did in 3.5. The features just don't come at levels 4, 8, 12, 16 or 19 as otherwise they would be the clear best jumping out points for multiclassing, as opposed to it being a character by character choice.

I'm also disappointed that the Barbarian and Paladin remain separate classes from the Fighter rather than class variants or build-feasible options.
Why? There is a limit to how much info you can add to each class before it gets too bloated for newbies to embrace. What is the point of combining the classes?

I'm equally disappointed that they kept the Sorcerer, when thematically speaking the Warlock embodies the role of "born with innate magical abilities" much better. They should've meshed them together under the title "Sorcerer" and make pact magic a class variant called "Warlock"
Warlocks aren't born with them, they're people who had no abilities so they bargained for them. And again, combining classes reduces your options. Warlocks are odds and ends class, without massive powers but with lots of little abilities from different sources (pact, spell, invocation, patron) that can be used together to be more than the sum of their parts. Sorcerer is the direct opposite, a font of pure power that has powerful spells, metamagic to alter those spells and nothing else.

Eslin

2014-10-15, 09:40 AM

There's more to D&D than 3.x. I am sorry you had to find out this way. When you list off a bunch of stuff that's not so much "fantasy archetype" as "stuff that was invented specifically for 3.x, frequently because 3.x was broken in a lot of weird ways," such as the Mystic Theurge and Arcane Trickster, you won't find them.

Now, with all that said, 5e is basically a big 3.x hack, so you can probably expect most or all of it in the future. Even prestige classes, since 5e took the questionable step of adopting 3.x-style multiclassing, again.

Arcane trickster exists already, mystic theurge is almost certainly coming soon. 3.5 style multiclassing was hands down far more useful and fun than 4e's, very glad that came back. And while 3.5 was broken in a lot of ways, that had nothing to do with why stuff was invented for it.

Sartharina

2014-10-15, 10:30 AM

Arcane trickster exists already, mystic theurge is almost certainly coming soon. 3.5 style multiclassing was hands down far more useful and fun than 4e's, very glad that came back. And while 3.5 was broken in a lot of ways, that had nothing to do with why stuff was invented for it.

Eh... I actually prefered 4e's Multiclassing - or would have if it allowed free power selection between the multiple classes (or if the power selection feats allowed someone to ALWAYS be able to choose from the other class's encounter and daily powers, and retrain all three on level-up)

Of course, I'm glad D&D 5e sort of brought this back with certain archetypes and feats.

Segev

2014-10-15, 10:39 AM

Gurka

2014-10-15, 10:50 AM

Regarding what I think I saw between the lines in some of these posts, I don't really think the sub-class system is going to hamstring homebrew class creation. If you can't think of more than one sub-class, all you do is create the class you want. You can define, if you want it to be extensible, a number of the abilities you give the class as being actually sub-class abilities, and only bother to define the one sub-class. After all, you're probably making it for your personal use, and you're building one character with it. You only need the sub-class he'll be taking, unless and until you or somebody else wants to use the same class to build a different kind of character (in which case you can define new subclasses to cover it).

That's exactly right. Take the general abilities that could apply to characters with a different focus as the base class features, and the things that specialize the character can be the archetype features.

This format I personally feel make it EASIER to homebrew, especially where existing core classes are concerned. It gives you a nicely packaged set of abilities to exchange.

obryn

2014-10-15, 10:54 AM

Arcane trickster exists already, mystic theurge is almost certainly coming soon. 3.5 style multiclassing was hands down far more useful and fun than 4e's, very glad that came back. And while 3.5 was broken in a lot of ways, that had nothing to do with why stuff was invented for it.
The Mystic Theurge, Eldritch Knight, and Arcane Trickster all existed because 3.5 multiclassing broke down when you tried to mix those classes together, otherwise. 5e approaches buffet-style multiclassing with a bit more consicousness about game design, so you probably won't see them because the flaws those prestige classes were patching have already been decently patched.

Starsinger

2014-10-15, 11:01 AM

Mystic Theurge is really easy in 5e. Cleric 10/Wizard 10. You have 9th level spell slots, but, atleast by RAI you can't prepare spells above 5th level for either class.

Eslin

2014-10-15, 11:14 AM

The Mystic Theurge, Eldritch Knight, and Arcane Trickster all existed because 3.5 multiclassing broke down when you tried to mix those classes together, otherwise. 5e approaches buffet-style multiclassing with a bit more consicousness about game design, so you probably won't see them because the flaws those prestige classes were patching have already been decently patched.

They weren't really flaws. Wizard and fighter have no real synergy or overlap, logically multiclassing gives you half of each, which doesn't really work that well. Multiclassing wasn't and isn't 'I should be able to add anything to anything and have it be viable' in the same way that you can't just randomly pick feats to make a viable character. What those prestige classes did was add some synergy for those who wanted it.

Gnomes2169

2014-10-15, 11:18 AM

Mystic Theurge is really easy in 5e. Cleric 10/Wizard 10. You have 9th level spell slots, but, atleast by RAI you can't prepare spells above 5th level for either class.

Not RAI, RAW. Multi-classing rules are more than explicit about that. (And something like Cleric 11/ Wizard 9 or vice versa would work better, giving you a side with level 6 spells and keeping the other at level 5)

Objulen

2014-10-15, 11:19 AM

No, it's just an example of correlation not being equal to causation. It just happens that a lot of the munchkins stick out as poor roleplayers, not that munchkinism leads to poor roleplay.

It really depends on how far you take your optimization. By the time you get to the territory covered by what is usually meant by "munchkin", roleplaying has generally been left in a different city, if not state, with the best case scenario offering a convulated, contrived backstory to justify having a ludicrious number of PrCs and other conflicting or inappropriate combinations of story elements and/or plot.

For multi-class characters, I'm curious how it'll play out for mixed casters. Given the change to BAB vs. Proficiency bonus, the main hurdle to making a gish Fighter/Wizard with base classes doesn't exist any longer. That's not the case with casters, who get higher level spell slots, but will only be able to use them effectively with scaling spells from lower levels.

As long as enough of those exist, it should be interesting to see how a divine/arcane caster works out in 5e compared to single-class characters.

Starsinger

2014-10-15, 11:21 AM

Not RAI, RAW. Multi-classing rules are more than explicit about that. (And something like Cleric 11/ Wizard 9 or vice versa would work better, giving you a side with level 6 spells and keeping the other at level 5)

I couldn't find anything prohibiting Wizards from scribing spells of any level they have slots of into their spellbook, which is why I went with RAI.

Objulen

2014-10-15, 11:25 AM

I couldn't find anything prohibiting Wizards from scribing spells of any level they have slots of into their spellbook, which is why I went with RAI.

Several classes have a listed spell level limit in their description, but I don't remember off the top of my head if that applies to wizards or clerics. If there's no limit listed, then they would make the best multi-classing choice. Otherwise, spell scaling is needed to get the most out of the higher level slots.

Gurka

2014-10-15, 11:27 AM

It really depends on how far you take your optimization. By the time you get to the territory covered by what is usually meant by "munchkin", roleplaying has generally been left in a different city, if not state, with the best case scenario offering a convulated, contrived backstory to justify having a ludicrious number of PrCs and other conflicting or inappropriate combinations of story elements and/or plot.

A skillful storyteller can still weave it all together. Besides, the fluff and background surrounding a PrC is ultimately mutable, especially in non standard settings. If the player can come up with a decent story to frame the abilities offered, then as a DM, I'm perfectly satisfied. "cuz it'll make me hit harder" is not a decent story.

I'll be the first to agree that most people who are that interested in optimization aren't gonna RP it well, but the two are NOT mutually exclusive. It just plays out that way a lot.

Gnomes2169

2014-10-15, 11:29 AM

I couldn't find anything prohibiting Wizards from scribing spells of any level they have slots of into their spellbook, which is why I went with RAI.

They can inscribe them all they want. Heck, a level 1 wizard who just started adventuring with a good chunk of change in his pocket can scribe Wish into his book. But he will not have enough levels of Wizard to prepare it, and if he takes more than 3 levels in a different class (even a full casting class) his levels in wizard will never be high enough to prepare wish. And the golden rule of vancian spellcasting is: You cannot cast it unless you can prepare it.

So, it is RAW that a cleric 19/ wizard 1 cannot prepare and cast wish. Nothing breaks down as far as that goes.

Galen

2014-10-15, 11:30 AM

I couldn't find anything prohibiting Wizards from scribing spells of any level they have slots of into their spellbook, which is why I went with RAI.
If you can convince a DM to allow your Cleric 10/Wizard 10 scribe and cast 9th level spells, please get that DM in touch with me. I have a bridge in urgent need of selling.

Objulen

2014-10-15, 11:40 AM

I'll be the first to agree that most people who are that interested in optimization aren't gonna RP it well, but the two are NOT mutually exclusive. It just plays out that way a lot.

There's a big difference, IMHO, between optimization and munchkining. Unless the player has this specific concept in mind, no one wants to play a weak or useless character. Everyone wants their time to shine, and their time to show that their charcter is awesome, and there's nothing wrong with that. A properly optimized character will offer a player something that is strong without being overpowering and will fit nicely in the story and game world as presented.

Munchkins, on the other hand, place story and setting (and usually everyone else at the table) as a distant second to getting more abilities and cheese to buff out their characters. If you're going through three or four alignment changes to gain abilities and joining four or five secret orders with conflicting agendas, dipping into a large number of PrCs, etc., then it generally indicates that munchkining is afoot. There's generally just no good way to justify a character that schizophrenic, especially when they have to act like a super-spy with amazing social skills (that won't be anywhere on the character's sheet) to justify that many memberships in secret orders.

Eslin

2014-10-15, 11:41 AM

There's a big difference, IMHO, between optimization and munchkining. Unless the player has this specific concept in mind, no one wants to play a weak or useless character. Everyone wants their time to shine, and their time to show that their charcter is awesome, and there's nothing wrong with that. A properly optimized character will offer a player something that is strong without being overpowering and will fit nicely in the story and game world as presented.

Munchkins, on the other hand, place story and setting (and usually everyone else at the table) as a distant second to getting more abilities and cheese to buff out their characters. If you're going through three or four alignment changes to gain abilities and joining four or five secret orders with conflicting agendas, dipping into a large number of PrCs, etc., then it generally indicates that munchkining is afoot. There's generally just no good way to justify a character that schizophrenic, especially when they have to act like a super-spy with amazing social skills (that won't be anywhere on the character's sheet) to justify that many memberships in secret orders.

Actually, you can justify it as the character having the same attitude as the player - wanting power, and living their life in the way that accumulates the most of it.

Gnomes2169

2014-10-15, 11:58 AM

Actually, you can justify it as the character having the same attitude as the player - wanting power, and living their life in the way that accumulates the most of it. And then admire the rocks falling on his head because he's not liked by the DM or other players.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand fixed.

Tzi

2014-10-15, 11:58 AM

.
Maybe it's just me, but as far as the skeleton of the game mechanics goes, I see no advantage of 5e over 3e.

I will counter rant,

5e, vs 3.5e ect,

5e FOR ME is simply a better game which for a DM has empowered me to run the sort of quests and campaigns I love to run without having to bend over backwards around a byzantine labyrinth of splat books, mechanics and needless complexity.

I am a fan of horror (Be it cosmic, body, gothic, murder what have you) and as a DM I felt in older editions and Pathfinder the mechanical rules of the game did not support me in my aims. It proved very difficult to carry on a horror campaign beyond certain levels in older editions because of the power curve.

The mechanical support 5e gives is a god send FOR ME simply by opening up avenues for different playstyles and games that in previous editions required a significant amount of homebrew work and houseruling to work around the lack of mechanical support.

Geoff

2014-10-15, 12:24 PM

Multiclassing wasn't and isn't 'I should be able to add anything to anything and have it be viable' in the same way that you can't just randomly pick feats to make a viable character. In 3.5 and 5e multiclassing, the 'cost' of gaining level 1 in any class is exactly the same as the 'cost' of gaining your next level in your current class. That strongly implies that each class/level is an equivalent bundle of goodies. Not that there can't/shouldn't be a little synergy here or there, just that you should get what you pay for.

5e does a better job with proficiency, for instance, than 3.5 did with BAB & Saves. Same goes for combining full-caster classes. A Wizard/Cleric still can't' do a lot of things that a single class Wizard can do, but he can do appropriately powerful things by casting low-level spells in high level slots, and has comparable numbers of such slots. That's an improvement.

Admittedly, not everything about multiclassing has improved.

obryn

2014-10-15, 12:40 PM

They weren't really flaws. Wizard and fighter have no real synergy or overlap, logically multiclassing gives you half of each, which doesn't really work that well. Multiclassing wasn't and isn't 'I should be able to add anything to anything and have it be viable' in the same way that you can't just randomly pick feats to make a viable character. What those prestige classes did was add some synergy for those who wanted it.
Uh, what? You said they weren't flaws, then proceeded to list the flaws. :smallconfused:

The theory behind 3.0 multiclassing was that it would work out just dandy. It didn't, which was obvious once people started playing the game as it was written. So you have these new prestige/multiclass guys popping up in 3.5 to patch the fact that trying to multiclass like this was dumb and broken without them.

Geoff

2014-10-15, 12:50 PM

.
@Geoff: Your assumption regarding me hoping WotC takes something from me is wrong for two reasons:
1) My view of things never went with the general public on any aspect of existence, so it would be bad for business for the publishers (this doesn't bother me one bit).
2) Suppose they did – I'd gain nothing from it. Since I don't have neither the time nor the opportunity to play anywhere in the visible future, the only thing I could gain from a new edition is a collection of ideas. Yet you have that giant, bold, link in your sig, like you want the whole world to marvel at your genius.

It's not that. It's that with all the countless 3e materials, there's almost no limit to the character concepts one could conjure to existence (even without XPH/ToM/MoI).
I was expecting 5e to offer game mechanics to make all those concepts possible with but a handful of classes and properly built general rules. That's a very, very high expectation. They came out and said that they were only aiming for classes in at least one PH1 in past editions. They delivered most of those, and a little more.

Thinking of 5e PHB, the first questions that come to mind for me are:

Could I build something that would constitute a reasonably balanced Mystic Theurge ? Multiclassing works better, so, yes, a Wizard/Cleric is a darn good Mystic Theurge, since the Mystic Theurge was never anything more than a less abysmal Wizard/Cleric...

Could I play a Divine Trickster ? (don't remember 3e ever offering something similar that could stand up to the Arcane Trickster) You could play a Cleric with the Charlatan or Criminal Backgrounds, depending on what exactly you meant by that.

Ability score increase tied to specific class levels is a means to discourage multiclassing from a crunch point of view, as opposed to a encouraging sticking to your class from a stand point of your vision of your character, or because it is awesome. Considering it's inexplicably class rather than character levels, yes. BAB and saves and caster level had the same problem in 3.5, all of which were fixed in 5e, yet they broke stat bumps & feats, which, in 3.5 were based on character level, while in 5e they were moved to class level. Weird.

Also, unless I'm missing something, the exact same feature called "Ability Score Improvement" is described over and over again for each class (a classic copy&paste), even though there's no class that doesn't get it or gets it any other way.
And worst of all, it's a filler, not an actual feature. It robs classes of actual features. Yes, you could take feats instead, but for that you have to come to terms with low level stats. There is a fair bit of repetition in 5e. I'm guessing it's to avoid too many universal rules. If you go "all characters get 1 feat/4 levels" it precludes a class that gets 1 feat/5 levels. That sort of thing.

I'm also disappointed that the Barbarian and Paladin remain separate classes from the Fighter rather than class variants or build-feasible options. The Fighter seems like it's already taken on a lot more than it can handle, being the only option for emulating 3.5 Fighters, Knights, Warblades & Marshals , and 4e Fighters (Weaponmaster, Slayer, Knight), Warlords, and Rangers. Adding Paladin and Barbarian to that would be a lot of sub-classes - and how is the Champion supposed to compete with Smiting/Casting and Raging sub-classes, when it already can barely compete with the Battlemasters handful of CS dice?

obryn

2014-10-15, 12:52 PM

That's a very, very high expectation. They came out and said that they were only aiming for classes in at least one PH1 in past editions. They delivered most of those, and a little more.
No they didn't. :smallfrown:

The Fighter seems like it's already taken on a lot more than it can handle, being the only option for emulating 3.5 Fighters, Knights, Warblades & Marshals , and 4e Fighters (Weaponmaster, Slayer, Knight), Warlords, and Rangers. Adding Paladin and Barbarian to that would be a lot of sub-classes - and how is the Champion supposed to compete with Smiting/Casting and Raging sub-classes, when it already can barely compete with the Battlemasters handful of CS dice?
The Fighter is by far my biggest disappointment, class-design-wise, this edition.

Segev

2014-10-15, 12:55 PM

Powergaming/Munchkin Build with Interesting Backstory
He was a human wizard who was with a party, and together they gained some decent renown for their heroic deeds. Increasing in power up through the mid-teens in levels, they became embroiled in a few plots involving Beholders, and developed a reputation as being the guys to call for beholder-related problems. He became obsessed with the beholder mages they came across, envious of their power and capabilities which, no matter his efforts, he could not match.

He hatched a plan, and sought out the enclave of Elan who select the next generation of their kind. He underwent the procedure, and emerged a level 1 Elan Psion. Pursuing his driving goal, he mastered psionics and its control over his Aberrant body, until finally he was ready to hire a mage to Polymorph him (with PAO) into a Beholder. Being an Elan, he could hold that form indefinitely. Using his psionic capabilities, he adopted the eye rays and the anti-magic eye, and then blinded that central eye as he re-taught himself magic in the fashion of the thaumic channels provided by his new form.

Psion 5/Beholder Mage 2/Cerebremancer 8 by level 15.

Argument FOR multiclass Wizards and Clerics being able to cast 9th level Wizard AND Cleric spells

The rules for preparing spells run explicitly off of what spell slots you have available, not off of your level in your class(es). The multiclass spellcaster chart gives level 20 spellcasters 9th level spells. Nothing prevents a wizard or cleric from having 9th level spells available to prepare, and since they have the slot for it, they can.

Argument AGAINST multiclass Wizards and Clerics being able to cast 9th level Wizard AND Cleric spells

The multiclassing rules, where they discuss preparing spells, talk about preparing them as if you ONLY had levels in the class for which you're preparing the spells. Since that would mean you're using the level of the class plus the spell slot chart for that class at that level, you'd look for the highest level spell slot available to that class at that level; that's the highest-level spell you can prepare. It doesn't let you look at your multiclassing spell slots until you're done preparing all of your spells.

Scirocco

2014-10-15, 12:57 PM

I'm curious as to how Wiz10/Clr10 isn't a Mystic theurge in this edition; doesn't it more or less do the same thing? You don't get 8th level spells, but you do get 9th level slots, plus all those lovely class goodies on top of it.

Forum Explorer

2014-10-15, 12:58 PM

This is me, too. Though we've only had 1 session, so beware of my small sample size.

I've kind of been funny about it, though. I started off in the alpha and stopped immediately; it was that bad. Then it was released and I heard a lot of people talking about how imbalanced the classes were. Woo boy - that's a big sticking point for me. But, I also heard how bad 4e was before I began playing it and that turned into my favorite edition of D&D by far. So I wasn't just going to avoid 5e. So I picked up a copy of the PHB and read through it and ... excitement! It made some really cool changes and I couldn't wait to try them out. Advantage/Disadvantage and Proficiency both were made of win.

And then we tried them out and I'm finding myself having to force the optimism to continue. It wasn't the greatest session. I'm hoping it'll get better. We do have the first module, so we'll be playing it for a couple of months if we find this edition to be at least mediocre ... but only one player seemed excited after the first session. The rest of us were "meh".

I plan on re-reading the rules and making sure we weren't making any mistakes and going from there.

(And just so everyone is aware, we do form a lot of our opinions on the book read-through and first session. We recently did a playtest for a friend's homemade system and fell in love with it during the first session. 5e just hasn't captured our attention.)

Is that Mines of Philtdover? (or whatever it's called) I've heard that one wasn't that great. Stuff like it being kinda boring and simplistic.

Galen

2014-10-15, 12:59 PM

The Fighter is by far my biggest disappointment, class-design-wise, this edition.
I'm actually very happy with what they did with the fighter. Yes, the fighter is not exciting. He doesn't fly, he doesn't bend reality to his will. He fights. And what he does, he does very well.

- Action Surge breaks action economy in a way no other class can.
- Self-healing to tank in a way few other classes can.
- Multiple attacks, exceeding that of any other class.
- Choice of different fighting styles supported.

The Battlemaster class features and EK spellcasting are just the icing. Even the very bland Champion is nonetheless completely playable.

Eslin

2014-10-15, 01:01 PM

Uh, what? You said they weren't flaws, then proceeded to list the flaws. :smallconfused:

The theory behind 3.0 multiclassing was that it would work out just dandy. It didn't, which was obvious once people started playing the game as it was written. So you have these new prestige/multiclass guys popping up in 3.5 to patch the fact that trying to multiclass like this was dumb and broken without them.

Those aren't flaws. Barbarian and fighter complement each other well, as do binder and cleric, as do improved trip and combat reflexes. What I said was you couldn't just pick options out of a hat and have that work as you are suggesting because that makes no sense. When you multiclass you add x to y to get z, you have to have an actual idea in mind. You can't just add anything to anything and have it work because you need to actually think about your character and have a reason for what you're doing. How is this a complicated concept?

And multiclassing was not pointless without prestige classes. Multiclassing worked fine (as much as anything did in the edition of crappy balance in which the designers honestly though 11 feats were equal to 9 levels of spells). Name any class that isn't a full caster (as spellcasting was absurdly powerful so diluting it with multiclassing was never a good idea) and I'll name several classes that had good synergy with them.

Geoff

2014-10-15, 01:01 PM

No they didn't. :smallfrown: Didn't make the promise, or didn't deliver on most of it, and a bit more?

I'd say that the 5e PH classes cover most of the classes that appeared in prior PH1s. Even if you require they be full classes, that just leaves out the Warlord, Illusionist and Assassin. And, arguably, psionics, which were in a PH1 appendix. That's still a minority of classes getting short shrift. And the Totem Barbarian, Arcane Trickster, Elemental Monk, and a few other sub-classes are bonuses not previously seen in a PH1.

The Fighter is by far my biggest disappointment, class-design-wise, this edition. While I agree on a personal level, because I had the highest expectations for it, I suppose in retrospect they weren't reasonable expectations. Breaking out the Warlord would have helped. Something more like playtest MDDs+maneuvers might have helped... The EK was a waste of space - multiclassing should've handled that. Etc...

Eslin

2014-10-15, 01:03 PM

Segev

2014-10-15, 01:08 PM

First off you don't need to be an elan to PAO into a beholder, anyone can do it you just have to cast it twice. I'm not sure where you're going with this one - you don't need mystic theurge anywhere here, beholder mage is incredibly broken by itself.

Not trying to get into the 3.5e mechanics debate; the point is that being an Elan WORKS for it (and I have a counter-argument against the twice-cast PAO working; we can discuss it elsewhere if you like). There is no mystic theurge in there; cerebremancer is more because it's already got 5 levels of psion so may as well advance them TOO. (Plus, it's something to do with one's standard action on top of all the spells cast as free actions.)

The point of it, though, was to illustrate that sometimes a munchkin build can still have an interesting backstory to it. There's a person there, driven with an obsession with beholders and with a past that could come to haunt him as his prior adventuring days' foes may come looking for him or otherwise rear their heads while he's much lower level than when he was a serious threat to them.

It's an illustration that no, even high-cheese builds don't necessarily entail nothing but pointless convolution in backstory, nor do they indicate a lack of role-play potential.

Eslin

2014-10-15, 01:19 PM

Not trying to get into the 3.5e mechanics debate; the point is that being an Elan WORKS for it (and I have a counter-argument against the twice-cast PAO working; we can discuss it elsewhere if you like). There is no mystic theurge in there; cerebremancer is more because it's already got 5 levels of psion so may as well advance them TOO. (Plus, it's something to do with one's standard action on top of all the spells cast as free actions.)

The point of it, though, was to illustrate that sometimes a munchkin build can still have an interesting backstory to it. There's a person there, driven with an obsession with beholders and with a past that could come to haunt him as his prior adventuring days' foes may come looking for him or otherwise rear their heads while he's much lower level than when he was a serious threat to them.

It's an illustration that no, even high-cheese builds don't necessarily entail nothing but pointless convolution in backstory, nor do they indicate a lack of role-play potential.

Oh, ok. Well, not much to say considering I agree completely, it's how I usually build my characters - build the skeleton, then use that to construct the flesh around it. Make a build, and then use it as inspiration for the character's story.

obryn

2014-10-15, 01:22 PM

Those aren't flaws. Barbarian and fighter complement each other well, as do binder and cleric, as do improved trip and combat reflexes. What I said was you couldn't just pick options out of a hat and have that work as you are suggesting because that makes no sense. When you multiclass you add x to y to get z, you have to have an actual idea in mind. You can't just add anything to anything and have it work because you need to actually think about your character and have a reason for what you're doing. How is this a complicated concept?

And multiclassing was not pointless without prestige classes. Multiclassing worked fine (as much as anything did in the edition of crappy balance in which the designers honestly though 11 feats were equal to 9 levels of spells). Name any class that isn't a full caster (as spellcasting was absurdly powerful so diluting it with multiclassing was never a good idea) and I'll name several classes that had good synergy with them.
I'm not saying buffet-style multiclassing is pointless without prestige classes. I'm saying the 3.0 design failed to meet its design goals with its implementation of buffet-style multiclassing, so there was a response in 3.5.

Fighter/Magic-Users, Fighter/Clerics, Magic-User/Thief, Fighter/Magic-User/Thief, and etc. were all prominent multiclass combinations in 1e and 2e. Under 3.0's rules, they were terrible. This led to people making them, and ... well, them being terrible.

That's the design flaw, which was later spackled over. It was a problem. They fixed it in 3.5, to an extent.

Didn't make the promise, or didn't deliver on most of it, and a bit more?
Didn't deliver on all of it, basically. I was hoping for standalone Warlords, Illusionists, and Assassins. :smallbiggrin: But at least Warlords.

archaeo

2014-10-15, 01:27 PM

Didn't deliver on all of it, basically. I was hoping for standalone Warlords, Illusionists, and Assassins. :smallbiggrin: But at least Warlords.

Man, you have to imagine that Warlords will be one of the first classes to get put in a PHB 2 or whatever, given how often people ask for it. The Battle Master is clearly an attempt to replicate it, a goal I think it broadly succeeds at, but I know it's not your cup of tea obryn.

Personally, I'd love to see a revamped Warlord in a D&D Tactics book that provides all the tools to convert 5e to 4e and vice versa.

Eslin

2014-10-15, 01:29 PM

Man, you have to imagine that Warlords will be one of the first classes to get put in a PHB 2 or whatever, given how often people ask for it. The Battle Master is clearly an attempt to replicate it, a goal I think it broadly succeeds at, but I know it's not your cup of tea obryn.

Personally, I'd love to see a revamped Warlord in a D&D Tactics book that provides all the tools to convert 5e to 4e and vice versa.

It doesn't really succeed at all, it has two not that great abilities kind of reminiscent of what a warlord can do. And that's fine, a few minor command-ish abilities fit well with the grab bag of tricks the battlemaster gets, but it's no warlord.

Starsinger

2014-10-15, 01:33 PM

I feel like Warlord would be a Fighter Archetype comparable to Battle Master, and not its own class.

Geoff

2014-10-15, 01:53 PM

Didn't deliver on all of it, basically. I was hoping for standalone Warlords, Illusionists, and Assassins. :smallbiggrin: But at least Warlords. Hokay, glass half full thing, then. I say they delivered on most, you say they didn't deliver on all, we're both right. :shrug:

I can see not bothering with the standalone Illusionist because it has been present as a specialist Wizard since 2e. So it's a class in a PH1 in 1e (though labeled a sub-class, like the Paladin, Ranger, Druid & Assassin), but a de-facto sub-class in the PH1 in 2e, 3e, and stretching a point, Essentials (which technically had no PH1). Present as a specialty seems to cut it.

The Assassin has had less PH1 representation since 1e, it's been cut, made a PrC or even a Shadow caster, but always in supplements. But, for it's one appearance in a PH1, it was written up more like a full class, even though it was labeled in the jargon of the day as a sub-class.

So those are excusable as a school specialty or sub-class, IMHO.

I agree with you about the Warlord. Stuffing it into one corner of the Battlemaster sub-class was short shrift for it being indisputably a full class in its one PH1 appearance. Doing so (along with the 'bonus' EK) overburdened the fighter class, IMHO, which was the point (I think) I was trying to make...

Objulen

2014-10-15, 01:58 PM

Actually, you can justify it as the character having the same attitude as the player - wanting power, and living their life in the way that accumulates the most of it.

That generally doesn't add up with the mechanical combination, such as a lack of social skills or other means of accomplishing the end goal, because it wouldn't add to direct combat power.

Objulen

2014-10-15, 02:07 PM

Powergaming/Munchkin Build with Interesting Backstory

Psion 5/Beholder Mage 2/Cerebremancer 8 by level 15.

You need at least 9th level spells/powers to get access to the actual eye-rays and anti-magic eye of a Beholder. Unless you're side-stepping it with something else that actually gives you the native abilities, you don't meet the requirements of the Beholder PrC.

Also, this is entirely broken powergaming. Giving it a half-backed story that will only natively work in Eberron doesn't change how the OOC conversation probably went:

"I want to play a Beholder!"

"Those are broken, as they have multiple actions in a round and would have an Epic Level ECL due to the high level spell-like abiliities they have access to at-will."

"What about a Beholder Mage?"

"We're not playing an Epic level game, so I'm afraid not."

"You can't not let me do this! I have this awesome backstory for a character who became fascinated with Beholders after killing so many!"

"Sure. You can make the character. However, bending the rules that badly causes Yog-Sothoth to step ouf the giant hole you made in time and space and obliterate you for giving it a rash."

Argument FOR multiclass Wizards and Clerics being able to cast 9th level Wizard AND Cleric spells

Argument AGAINST multiclass Wizards and Clerics being able to cast 9th level Wizard AND Cleric spells

TBH, that should have been listed in the multiclass rules. However, as it wasn't, it's probably OK to have a multi-class caster who can cast off of both lists at a higher level than 6/5 at level 20. 9/9 is overboard, but 7/6 or 8/7 isn't unreasonable.

archaeo

2014-10-15, 02:10 PM

It doesn't really succeed at all, it has two not that great abilities kind of reminiscent of what a warlord can do. And that's fine, a few minor command-ish abilities fit well with the grab bag of tricks the battlemaster gets, but it's no warlord.

Really? It seems like the Warlord gets kind of split between Paladins and Battle Masters in this edition; indeed, a Paladin 14 / Battle Master 6 (or Paladin 16 / Fighter 4) would probably be able to affect the battlefield and lead allies about as well as a good Warlord.

But, like I said, even though I feel like you can easily get a Warlord-ish feel from 5e, it's really abundantly clear that Battle Master doesn't scratch the itch for some people, and rectifying that would be a good thing.

tcrudisi

2014-10-15, 02:15 PM

Is that Mines of Philtdover? (or whatever it's called) I've heard that one wasn't that great. Stuff like it being kinda boring and simplistic.

Hoard of the Dragon Queen.

Galen

2014-10-15, 02:25 PM

It's an illustration that no, even high-cheese builds don't necessarily entail nothing but pointless convolution in backstory, nor do they indicate a lack of role-play potential.If you honestly think that beholder mage stuff was *not* pointless convolution in backstory for the sake of powergaming, I feel bad for you, son.

Eslin

2014-10-15, 02:26 PM

Really? It seems like the Warlord gets kind of split between Paladins and Battle Masters in this edition; indeed, a Paladin 14 / Battle Master 6 (or Paladin 16 / Fighter 4) would probably be able to affect the battlefield and lead allies about as well as a good Warlord.

But, like I said, even though I feel like you can easily get a Warlord-ish feel from 5e, it's really abundantly clear that Battle Master doesn't scratch the itch for some people, and rectifying that would be a good thing.

Yup. Warlord lead from the front, but spent most of their time boosting and commanding allies. Fighter or fighter paladin both hit things and have some boosting ability, it's not the same. It's like the difference between eldritch knight and wizard.

Segev

2014-10-15, 02:30 PM

You need at least 9th level spells/powers to get access to the actual eye-rays and anti-magic eye of a Beholder. Unless you're side-stepping it with something else that actually gives you the native abilities, you don't meet the requirements of the Beholder PrC.Again, not really the forum for 3.5e discussion, so here's briefly how it works. If you disagree that it does, fine, but that's a discussion for the 3.5e board. The feat Metamorphic Transfer provides the eye rays and the anti-magic eye up to 3 times...so I make sure to not use them until I get rid of or trade them away.

Also, this is entirely broken powergaming.Absolutely.

Giving it a half-backed storyI resent that; it's a perfectly viable backstory more involved than many. I came up with it because I was trying to determine how one could even believably come to the position of being able to enter the PrC as a PCable race. I am actually quite pleased with how it shaped up, conceptually. It builds motivation and characterization into the character, and is playable from level 1.

that will only natively work in EberronEr? What's Eberron got to do with it?

TBH, that should have been listed in the multiclass rules. However, as it wasn't, it's probably OK to have a multi-class caster who can cast off of both lists at a higher level than 6/5 at level 20. 9/9 is overboard, but 7/6 or 8/7 isn't unreasonable.Yes, some greater clarity there would have been nice. I am not arguing one way or 'tother here; I am spelling out the positions as I see them if one wishes to argue for either from the RAW. (Personally, I'd go with the one "against," because I think it's more in line with RAI.)

archaeo

2014-10-15, 02:46 PM

Yup. Warlord lead from the front, but spent most of their time boosting and commanding allies. Fighter or fighter paladin both hit things and have some boosting ability, it's not the same. It's like the difference between eldritch knight and wizard.

I guess I'm not seeing the distinction. A Battle Master with Maneuvering Attack, Commander's Strike, Goading Attack, and Rally seems like it fills a lot of the same uses. Admittedly, I'm not perfectly familiar with the Warlord's mechanics; did they have all these abilities at-will? Could they pair these abilities with their own attacks like the Battle Master does? If, as I suspect, a lot of this stuff is actually encounter powers, the short-rest recharge seems to emulate even that.

But we're really off-topic, I guess, and as I've already conceded, there's obviously enough desire for a "real" Warlord that WotC is bound to deliver one eventually. It's up there with Psions as a desired class.

Geoff

2014-10-15, 02:47 PM

Man, you have to imagine that Warlords will be one of the first classes to get put in a PHB 2 or whatever, given how often people ask for it. It's not like they weren't asking for it all through the playtest.

The Battle Master is clearly an attempt to replicate it, a goal I think it broadly succeeds at.. the battlemaster broadly replicates the Warlord in the same sense that adding Sleep, Magic Missile, and Fireball to the Cleric's spell list would allow it to broadly replicate the Wizard.

Really? It seems like the Warlord gets kind of split between Paladins and Battle Masters in this edition; indeed, a Paladin 14 / Battle Master 6 (or Paladin 16 / Fighter 4) would probably be able to affect the battlefield and lead allies about as well as a good Warlord. A Fighter/Cleric would do a pretty fair job of being a faux Paladin, but the Paladin is a full class, in the PH1.

But, yes, the battlemaster got two or three maneuvers that were plucked from the hundreds the Warlord had. The Paladin got some of the Warlord's basic functionality. And, some of the Warlord's schtick was also given to the Bard, and diluted with the 'inspiration' system and inspiring leader feat.

It's like they killed Warlord, burned his body, and scattered the ashes, but some of them stuck to other things.

Yup. Warlord lead from the front, but spent most of their time boosting and commanding allies. Fighter or fighter paladin both hit things and have some boosting ability, it's not the same. It's like the difference between eldritch knight and wizard.

Forum Explorer

2014-10-15, 02:49 PM

Hoard of the Dragon Queen.

Well I'm pretty interested in that module from what I've heard, so I don't think it's the module's quality that's bothering you. Ah well.

Sartharina

2014-10-15, 02:53 PM

It's like they killed Warlord, burned his body, and scattered the ashes, but some of them stuck to other things.
I think they did that deliberately. Do you have any idea how much bile and hatred the Warlord got for "Shouting Wounds Closed" and making people attack more than they should physically be able to (After all - turns are supposed to be simultaneous - how are you hitting the guy the Warlord told you to hit when you're too busy hitting the guy you want to hit instead?)

Not that I agree with the criticisms of the Warlord - but I think it got trampled under the weight of sacred cows.

Oscredwin

2014-10-15, 03:00 PM

Eh... I actually prefered 4e's Multiclassing - or would have if it allowed free power selection between the multiple classes (or if the power selection feats allowed someone to ALWAYS be able to choose from the other class's encounter and daily powers, and retrain all three on level-up)

Of course, I'm glad D&D 5e sort of brought this back with certain archetypes and feats.

I'm hoping the rumored Gestalt option in the DMG works like 2nd Ed multiclassing (and is compatible with single class characters so a trickery domain Cleric//rogue can be in a party with a Paladin) and they can have a bunch of 4th ed style multiclassing feats to be in place as a substitute to the Multiclassing rules in the PhB.

obryn

2014-10-15, 03:11 PM

I guess I'm not seeing the distinction. A Battle Master with Maneuvering Attack, Commander's Strike, Goading Attack, and Rally seems like it fills a lot of the same uses. Admittedly, I'm not perfectly familiar with the Warlord's mechanics; did they have all these abilities at-will? Could they pair these abilities with their own attacks like the Battle Master does? If, as I suspect, a lot of this stuff is actually encounter powers, the short-rest recharge seems to emulate even that.
The Battlemaster (or "War Lord" :smallsmile:) has like three little leadership abilities. There's a Commander's Strike thing, which costs them an encounter resource. Rally, which gives a buddy a small amount of temp HP and costs them an encounter resource. And Maneuvering Strike, which gives an ally Advantage and (you guessed it) costs an encounter resource.

The problem is that they're pale shadows of the Warlord's former capabilities. Commander's Strike was an at-will with a damage bonus. Rally is tepid; in addition to multiple Encounter & Daily abilities that restored real HP, Warlords had Inspiring Word, which likewise restores real HP (often with a temp HP kicker or some other benefit). And giving your buddies bonuses to-hit is basically every single round. And that's even ignoring all of the encounter-changing cool stuff besides those three basic effects.

One of the biggest markers for sufficiency is if a Battlemaster could work as a Cleric replacement for a party. I really don't think so.

---

I have other gripes about the Battlemaster, which could potentially be fixed later. The biggest is that, as you gain levels, you're picking from a pool of abilities you've already seen and rejected. At later levels, at least three or four times before. At 17th level, a Wizard might be picking up Meteor Swarm or Wish, which would be crazy unbalanced in the hands of a Level 1 Wizard. But at Level 17, your Battlemaster is picking their ... what, 8th favorite? ... ability from a list which was balanced for a Level 1 Fighter.

And then there's the number of abilities per short rest, which is kind of weird. A Fighter resting after every encounter is keeping par. A Monk resting after every encounter is craaazy. :smallsmile:

I think they did that deliberately. Do you have any idea how much bile and hatred the Warlord got for "Shouting Wounds Closed" and making people attack more than they should physically be able to (After all - turns are supposed to be simultaneous - how are you hitting the guy the Warlord told you to hit when you're too busy hitting the guy you want to hit instead?)

Not that I agree with the criticisms of the Warlord - but I think it got trampled under the weight of sacred cows.
Yelling hands back on = not kosher.
Resting overnight and getting your hand back on = total verisimilitude. :smallbiggrin:

Geoff

2014-10-15, 03:19 PM

I think they did that deliberately. Do you have any idea how much bile and hatred the Warlord got for "Shouting Wounds Closed" and making people attack more than they should physically be able to (After all - turns are supposed to be simultaneous - how are you hitting the guy the Warlord told you to hit when you're too busy hitting the guy you want to hit instead?)

Not that I agree with the criticisms of the Warlord - but I think it got trampled under the weight of sacred cows. I do have a vague idea of the kind of storm of hatred and lies that surrounded 4e, and got revived during the playtest. 5e was supposed to rise above that kind of thing, though, and provide options for everyone. A Warlord class needn't have been played by anyone who disliked what it did, and could be banned by DMs who felt that way.

I guess I'm not seeing the distinction. A Battle Master with Maneuvering Attack, Commander's Strike, Goading Attack, and Rally seems like it fills a lot of the same uses. Admittedly, I'm not perfectly familiar with the Warlord's mechanics; did they have all these abilities at-will? Commander's Strike was a Warlord at-will, and Maneuvering Attack similar to the Wolf Pack Tactics (or fighter's Tide of Iron - I can't recall if it moves an ally or an enemy) at will. Rally is strictly inferior to Inspiring Word (healing vs temps), which was twice/encounter, over and above maneuvers. Goading Attack, I can't remember the details of ATM, but it sounds like the Brash Assault (warlord) at-will (or maybe like the Fighter's at-will mark).

The Warlord and Fighter had about as many at-wills to choose from as the Battlemaster has maneuvers, plus hundreds more encounters, dailies, and utilities.

The 5e fighter replaces virtually all that with the very powerful multi-attack mechanic. Multiple attacks are simply too powerful, and too breakable, to allow a fighter sub-class to have anything approaching what the 4e martial classes got.

One reason a separate class would have made a lot more sense.

Could they pair these abilities with their own attacks like the Battle Master does? Inspiring Word, yes, it was a minor action. The others generally included some sort of basic attack level thing of their own, so also 'yes,' sorta. Commander's Strike was the exception, but it was much more powerful, relative to what it is now (because of how profligate multi-attacks are in 5e, granting one attack just doesn't mean that much), and relative to the damage of the Warlord's other at-will attack options (because the Warlord wasn't a striker, while the Battlemaster has very competitive DPS thanks to full fighter muliattack), so replaced the Warlord's attack, rather than rode alone with it.

If, as I suspect, a lot of this stuff is actually encounter powers, the short-rest recharge seems to emulate even that. What actually did work like Battlemaster Maneuvers - tacked onto a hit, repeatable encounter resource, extra damage and a rider - was the Power Attack of the Knight and Slayer fighter sub-classes in Essentials. Which, like the battlemaster and unlike the Warlord, also lacked dailies, and were DPS oriented.

Depending on combat style and feats (if allowed), the Battlemaster gets pretty close to the Knight or Slayer - which makes some sense, since both were Fighter sub-classes.

archaeo

2014-10-15, 03:28 PM

snip

Thanks, I do see what you mean. It does sure seem like a Paladin fulfills most of the "Leader" qualities, while the Battle Master offers most of the "Battlefield Control" qualities, but I can appreciate that a Warlord could do both of those at once without sacrificing much DPR.

I'm just repeating myself now, but I'll eat my hat if WotC doesn't bring out a proper Warlord in the next two years.

Sartharina

2014-10-15, 03:30 PM

Thanks, I do see what you mean. It does sure seem like a Paladin fulfills most of the "Leader" qualities, while the Battle Master offers most of the "Battlefield Control" qualities, but I can appreciate that a Warlord could do both of those at once without sacrificing much DPR.

I'm just repeating myself now, but I'll eat my hat if WotC doesn't bring out a proper Warlord in the next two years.

What sauces do hats taste good with? Because I think the Warlord was one of the things 5e buckled under the haters on. (Along with short rests and Hit Dice)

archaeo

2014-10-15, 04:10 PM

What sauces do hats taste good with? Because I think the Warlord was one of the things 5e buckled under the haters on. (Along with short rests and Hit Dice)

My hat will be crocheted with those little pull-apart Twizzler strands, Sarth.

I don't think Warlords really qualify for "buckled under the haters"; if anything, the Warlord was probably one of the most successful and beloved bits of 4e. Maybe I just didn't read the edition wars over Warlord, though. It sure does seem like an oft-requested class, and whatever WotC says about the lack of splat content, it seems pretty reasonable to expect that the designers are going to try and meet player demands in future rules releases.

At the very least, a very effective and popular homebrew is only a matter of time.

...

2014-10-15, 08:31 PM

I cry every time I see their removal of the outsider type.

Sartharina

2014-10-15, 08:45 PM

I cry every time I see their removal of the outsider type.I love the removal of the Outsider type. I always considered it way too broad. Now, you can have spelljamming/planehopping campaigns with broader type diversity than just 'outsider'.

It's not the removal of a type - it's the addition of three more types(Fiend, Celestial, and Elemental), and clarification of two others (Construct and Aberration).

VeliciaL

2014-10-15, 10:07 PM

...but I can appreciate that a Warlord could do both of those at once without sacrificing much DPR.

Just a quick clarification, but the Warlord's job was never DPR, more healing & buffing. That's what made the Warlord's attack granting so good, they could forgo their lower-damage attack options and hand them over to a class that did better damage.

They're still pretty good in combat though, definitely front-line leaders.

Eslin

2014-10-15, 11:48 PM

T.G. Oskar

2014-10-16, 01:32 AM

What sauces do hats taste good with? Because I think the Warlord was one of the things 5e buckled under the haters on. (Along with short rests and Hit Dice)

Buckled, or reimagined?

That said, it'll be hard, but possible, to create a Warlord/Marshal class. I use both names because I believe there may be some fans of the 3.5 Marshal (at least, I like the concept, if not the execution), and a class like such might provide an interesting non-casting buffer. The reason why it's possible is because it is mechanically viable: the "pool" mechanic was embraced (in 3.5, it was Ninja and Factotum; in 4e it was most if not all of the Psionic classes, and 5e has the Bard, Monk and Sorcerer using a pool mechanic), and a Warlord/Marshal could use this while combining the Paladin's Auras (evoking the aura concept of the Marshal) with pool-based "orders" (similar to the Warlord's powers). Mechanically, there is a fair chance of making a "Warlord/Marshal" chassis.

The difficulty is in justifying it as a concept itself. To make it a proper class, you should have two or three distinct approaches to leadership, and both the "Warlord" and "Marshal" terms evoke military leadership. Thinking in simplistic terms, you have to think of two ways in which a military commander may differ, in the same way as a Barbarian, which is a concept rooted on "savage warrior", got two Primal Paths that differ (Berserker represents the feral rager, Totem Warrior represents the individual who taps into the totemic aspect of a beast). If you can develop multiple subclasses for it, combined with a solid chassis and interesting fluff, you could potentially make a class out of it.

If anything, I can admire that approach to design: this is a fair hurdle to determine what's class-worthy and what isn't. A Psion easily leaps this hurdle: between the Disciplines and the Wilder as a...well, "wild card", you have a full class that covers a broad concept. A proper gish class, despite the existence of the Eldritch Knight, is also viable because there are multiple ways to work a gish (the Abjurant Champion/Shielding Swordmage is one example, the Hexblade is another), but since it can be dealt easily with Eldritch Knight, it has no troubles in remaining behind the hurdle. The Warlord/Marshal concept isn't that broad to make the hurdle; if you can draw enough concepts to make it a proper class, then it might exist; for the moment, though, it'll have to exist as a Fighter archetype, of which I don't consider the Battlemaster one. IMO, the Battlemaster is akin to a Warblade (from 3.5), focusing on special maneuvers rather than on haranging and ordering allies.

obryn

2014-10-16, 08:22 AM

The difficulty is in justifying it as a concept itself. To make it a proper class, you should have two or three distinct approaches to leadership, and both the "Warlord" and "Marshal" terms evoke military leadership. Thinking in simplistic terms, you have to think of two ways in which a military commander may differ, in the same way as a Barbarian, which is a concept rooted on "savage warrior", got two Primal Paths that differ (Berserker represents the feral rager, Totem Warrior represents the individual who taps into the totemic aspect of a beast). If you can develop multiple subclasses for it, combined with a solid chassis and interesting fluff, you could potentially make a class out of it.
There were a solid ... what, five? ... varieties of Warlord over time in 4e. But not all of them were substantial enough for a subclass.

For starters, in the PHB, you had Inspiring Warlords, who exhort their allies to greater effort, motivate them, and focus on healing/buffing. They used Charisma. Then you had Tactical Warlords, who analyzed the field of battle, understood its flow, and helped their allies find the best ways to contribute, focusing on movement/enabling. They used Intelligence. These are pretty different approaches, and easily worked into distinct subclasses for 5e.

I'm not as big a fan of the other ones, but you really only need two. For the record, they were Insightful (ranged, Wisdom-based, mostly existed to have a "bow warlord") and Bravura (a brash dude who charges in and leads with last-minute plans; think Adric Fell from the Fell's Five comics) were okay. Balanced was mushy and flavorless and suffered from terrible MAD.

Sartharina

2014-10-16, 09:17 AM

I could see Insightful and Tactical warlords rolled into a single subclass, and Bravura and Inspiring (LEEROY JENKINS!) wrapped into another.

I found Bravura to be the most fun type of warlord, at least/especially with the fluff they came packed with ("Oh god she's gonna get us all killed! BUT WE FOLLOW ANYWAY FOR GLORY!"

MadGrady

2014-10-16, 12:07 PM

obryn

2014-10-16, 12:21 PM

I could see Insightful and Tactical warlords rolled into a single subclass, and Bravura and Inspiring (LEEROY JENKINS!) wrapped into another.
Yeah, I could see that, too. I think the first two were really good and distinctive archetypes, but everything after that was some variation of those.

(I do like the Bravura flavor, though.)

Geoff

2014-10-16, 12:29 PM

Buckled, or reimagined? If 5e had re-imagined the Warlord, it would have a Warlord. So, yes, of the two, clearly WotC must have buckled under to the h4ters and cut the Warlord in deference to their spite.

Of the two.

The difficulty is in justifying it as a concept itself. To make it a proper class, you should have two or three distinct approaches to leadership The Warlord had SIX distinct, official builds: Tactical, Inspiring, Bravura, Resourceful, Insightful & Skirmishing. In addition, it had the fan-contrued 'lazy' Warlord who did not actually fight much if it could avoid it, and an alternate-feature Archer-Warlord.

I know eight is a lot more than two or three, but that shouldn't be a major problem.

and both the "Warlord" and "Marshal" terms evoke military leadership. Only the 'Marshal' has that problem (it is an actual military rank). Warlord is much broader.

But, really, the /name/ of a class shouldn't matter. The Sorcerer is in no way a sorcerer (someone who deals with spirits to gain supernatural power - the Warlock is closer to the definition of sorcerer), for instance. 'Druid' is quite specific to one religion, time & culture.

for the moment, though, it'll have to exist as a Fighter archetype, of which I don't consider the Battlemaster one. IMO, the Battlemaster is akin to a Warblade (from 3.5), focusing on special maneuvers rather than on haranging and ordering allies. For the moment, it doesn't exist, for that reason.

obryn

2014-10-16, 12:50 PM

Skirmishing! I forgot Skirmishing! :smallredface:

silveralen

2014-10-16, 12:57 PM

If 5e had re-imagined the Warlord, it would have a Warlord. So, yes, of the two, clearly WotC must have buckled under to the h4ters and cut the Warlord in deference to their spite.

Could you tell me specifically what you feel warlord brought that is missing from the game? Consider battle master fighter, paladin, and valor bard for possible comparisons.

Looking through, the issues I see would mostly be of concept, or of wanting to be able to do all those things under the aegis of one class (something that would in turn overshadow the other options). Warlord was likely cut because he didn't bring a whole lot to this new version that didn't fit in better elsewhere. Holdovers (the feat inspiring leader) can help fill out your character concept, but honestly I feel like it'd be bloat to have the class.

The fact inspiring leader exists is actually a decent indication that they didn't cut Warlord based on your reasoning. That or it simply never occurred to them to have warlord give temporary HP rather than actively healing.

obryn

2014-10-16, 01:11 PM

Could you tell me specifically what you feel warlord brought that is missing from the game?
(1) Alternative primary healer/buffer/enabler that's not a cleric spellcaster.
(2) Character role emphasized empowering party as a whole; a great team player
(3) Enjoyable class for tactically-minded players
(4) Archetype of a militaristic leader that the Fighter class no longer fills capably
(5) Fun character concepts that aren't fully realized with the tepid stuff in the Battlemaster abilities
(6) Showcases potent non-magical abilities
(7) One of the more beloved aspects of 4e that would have encouraged greater camaraderie

It's as much its own archetype as a Paladin is to a Fighter, or a Sorcerer is to a Wizard.

e:
vvvv good point vvvvv

Starsinger

2014-10-16, 01:12 PM

(1) Alternative primary healer/buffer/enabler that's not a cleric.

I would go further and say that point #1 should read "that's not a spellcaster".

Geoff

2014-10-16, 01:22 PM

Could you tell me specifically what you feel warlord brought that is missing from the game? The warlord was a non-caster who filled the 'leader' or traditional 'healer'/buffer role, enabling all-martial parties and low or no magic campaigns that in prior and subsequent editions are significantly less viable. Conceptually, it cashes the check that the fighter wrote all those years ago when it had 'Lord' as it's level title. An heroic leader that actually has abilities to back that up.

The litmus test for the former is fairly easy. You can swap a Bard or a Druid or maybe even a Paladin for a Cleric in your party, and you're not at a serious disadvantage. You've still got the healing/buffing (particularly healing) you need to get through D&D combats without too many PCs sitting it out at 0, doing nothing but making death saves, and you've got some ability to open up options or develop synergy among your party in combat. Swap a Battlemaster with Rally and Inspiring Leader in and you get no such thing.

The latter, thanks to backgrounds, you can get a little closer to, outside of combat (which, for a concept grounded in battle, is pretty weak). A fighter can take a background like Noble and a decent CHA, and deliver more on being a 'Lord' than he could in the olden days with just the CHA. To the tune of a proficiency bonus to a skill or two. It's like pointing to a hypothetical Rogue with the Sage background who's skill-mastered Arcana and saying there's no need for the Wizard, because you've got that concept covered.

(Fans took the Warlord further than that, too, with much less-heroic builds that still contributed and worked with the mechanics, like the notorious 'Lazy' Warlord who didn't fight much, himself, but impacted the action economy and effectiveness of everyone else with his mad tactical skillz.)

Consider battle master fighter, paladin, and valor bard for possible comparisons. Well, the valor bard and paladin are casters, so they're out. I think the failure of the battlemaster to more than hint vaguely at the Warlord has been gone over enough (though maybe not in this thread?).

The fact inspiring leader exists is actually a decent indication that they didn't cut Warlord based on your reasoning. That or it simply never occurred to them to have warlord give temporary HP rather than actively healing. That's what Rally does, temp hps.

But, aside from that, it's not my reasoning. Presented with only two possibilities: 1) the warlord was 're-imagined' vs 2) the warlord was cut maliciously to please h4ters. The fact that 1 can't be true - if it were re-imagined, there's be a Warlord, it'd just be different - leaves only 2.

As I broadly hinted, there should be additional possibilities to consider.

silveralen

2014-10-16, 01:47 PM

(1) Alternative primary healer/buffer/enabler that's not a cleric spellcaster.
(2) Character role emphasized empowering party as a whole; a great team player
(3) Enjoyable class for tactically-minded players
(4) Archetype of a militaristic leader that the Fighter class no longer fills capably
(5) Fun character concepts that aren't fully realized with the tepid stuff in the Battlemaster abilities
(6) Showcases potent non-magical abilities
(7) One of the more beloved aspects of 4e that would have encouraged greater camaraderie

It's as much its own archetype as a Paladin is to a Fighter, or a Sorcerer is to a Wizard.

e:
vvvv good point vvvvv

1. First off, does cleric even do this job better than bard in 5e? Second, non casters mimicking magic without using magic isn't really suitable for any sort of classic DnD. If you wanna grab a healer kit and two feats on a battle master fighter, go for it, but this is clearly outside what they considered "standard" DnD, and thus probably won't be addressed until DM guide. It really isn't suitable for most campaign worlds.
2. Again, bard doesn't live up to this how?
3. Literally any class could fit this definition. Warlord wouldn't even beat most of them.
4. First off, this is an opinion. Why wouldn't fighter fit? Warlord had nothing in his actual class features to indicate he would be good at leading entire armies.
5. This is an opinion, and you don't even bother saying why it is the case.
6. So do rogue, fighter, and barbarian, within the limitations of every campaign world.
7. Very debatable. You can also make this argument for literally anything included in the last 4 editions. Not enough room in PHB for everything.

Sartharina

2014-10-16, 02:33 PM

I always saw the Warlord in 4e as a different kind of fighter. I think you can't have "Fighter" and "Warlord" in the same game very well. Different names could help... but really, I think the fighter does almost well enough on his own.

I don't like the name "Warlord", because it implies a level of mastery of battle that may not actually exist. (Why be a man who fights when you can be a Lord of War?)

obryn

2014-10-16, 02:34 PM

1. First off, does cleric even do this job better than bard in 5e? Second, non casters mimicking magic without using magic isn't really suitable for any sort of classic DnD. If you wanna grab a healer kit and two feats on a battle master fighter, go for it, but this is clearly outside what they considered "standard" DnD, and thus probably won't be addressed until DM guide. It really isn't suitable for most campaign worlds.
2. Again, bard doesn't live up to this how?
3. Literally any class could fit this definition. Warlord wouldn't even beat most of them.
4. First off, this is an opinion. Why wouldn't fighter fit? Warlord had nothing in his actual class features to indicate he would be good at leading entire armies.
5. This is an opinion, and you don't even bother saying why it is the case.
6. So do rogue, fighter, and barbarian, within the limitations of every campaign world.
7. Very debatable. You can also make this argument for literally anything included in the last 4 editions. Not enough room in PHB for everything.
First, I think asking for opinions, then complaining when you get opinions is pretty funny.

Second, I am going to take a guess that you've neither played a Warlord nor seen one in play, because it doesn't seem like you're understanding how they work differently in either theme or abilities, compared to bards, fighters, or paladins. :smallsmile:

Third, I have no idea where you're going with this "classic D&D" and "not fitting campaign worlds" thing. Well, I guess I do have an idea, tbh, which is kind of what Eslin and Sartharina were talking about, so....

T.G. Oskar

2014-10-16, 02:54 PM

There were a solid ... what, five? ... varieties of Warlord over time in 4e. But not all of them were substantial enough for a subclass.

For starters, in the PHB, you had Inspiring Warlords, who exhort their allies to greater effort, motivate them, and focus on healing/buffing. They used Charisma. Then you had Tactical Warlords, who analyzed the field of battle, understood its flow, and helped their allies find the best ways to contribute, focusing on movement/enabling. They used Intelligence. These are pretty different approaches, and easily worked into distinct subclasses for 5e.

I'm not as big a fan of the other ones, but you really only need two. For the record, they were Insightful (ranged, Wisdom-based, mostly existed to have a "bow warlord") and Bravura (a brash dude who charges in and leads with last-minute plans; think Adric Fell from the Fell's Five comics) were okay. Balanced was mushy and flavorless and suffered from terrible MAD.

I feel those are more "builds" than concepts. The "base" concept would be something along the lines of the Marshal: a tactician, dealing with buffing allies at close range.

The reason why I say it's difficult (and don't take me wrong; I honestly wouldn't mind, and actually support, WotC to develop a Warlord/Marshal class) is because, aside from "military commander", you don't have other defined concepts you could group into a unified set of subclasses that fit the theme of the class. As an example: the way they handled the Paladin was honestly surprising. There are very few ways to make a Paladin something other than "holy knight", and yet they hit the jackpot by using Oaths as a subclass, taking from Domains and adapting them to the specific "orders" they follow. A Warlord would have to leap that hurdle the Paladin did to become a full-fledged class.

Now, I could see some unified concept enough to make a Warlord. You could have a Tactician, or Sergeant, who leads a squad (which could be your team), and have that be the "default" aspect. You could have an Officer subclass who deals with logistics, and thus has class features fit for mass-scale battles and/or other important aspects of warfare such as requisition of troops, supplies, armament and whatnot (as a military quote says; "amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics"). The Warmage could be made into a subclass of the Warlord, applying military knowledge to magical support. A non-military application could be a Justiciar or equivalent, who leads a law enforcement squad and has weight upon law rather than war. It IS viable, but it all depends on whether the developers think in similar terms and find the concept of a non-spellcasting leader just as viable.

If 5e had re-imagined the Warlord, it would have a Warlord. So, yes, of the two, clearly WotC must have buckled under to the h4ters and cut the Warlord in deference to their spite.

Of the two.

There's the Marshal in 3.x and the Cavalier in PF, so the idea of a non-spellcaster buffer is certainly something people would appreciate. If the problem is the baggage of 4e (of which 5e shares various aspects, after all; Hit Dice/Healing Surges and Short Rests are still there, albeit re-imagined), then they could look towards earlier concepts.

Also: mass-scale battles are a thing of D&D ever since its inception...in fact, D&D exists from the point of view of people who catered to mass-scale battle aficionados, after all. Trying to make a fantastic system on a far, far shorter scale is what ended up being Original D&D in the first place. It was only after it reached AD&D that it was defined as a "roleplaying" game.

Only the 'Marshal' has that problem (it is an actual military rank). Warlord is much broader.

But, really, the /name/ of a class shouldn't matter. The Sorcerer is in no way a sorcerer (someone who deals with spirits to gain supernatural power - the Warlock is closer to the definition of sorcerer), for instance. 'Druid' is quite specific to one religion, time & culture.

For the moment, it doesn't exist, for that reason.

"Commander" would be fitting, as well. "Marshal" also has a law-enforcement application (the U.S. Marshalls, for example), and in other languages, sports applications (i.e. the term for "quarterback" in Spanish is mariscal de campo, which literally translates to "field marshal"). The name matters as long as it evokes the feel of the class, even if it doesn't exactly fit it.

SiuiS

2014-10-16, 03:02 PM

Maybe it's just me, but as far as the skeleton of the game mechanics goes, I see no advantage of 5e over 3e.

Correct me if I'm wrong.
.

Advantage is a meaningless buzzword in this context. So in that regard, you're wrong. Advantage means better at doing something. You don't come anywhere near addressing what this advantage is good towards. Is 5e better at....
Being 3e? No, it's about even (because all 3e material can be used with tweaking)
Being 4e? Definitely.
Being a pick up game? About the same.
Being smooth at high levels? Yes.
Having party balance at high levels? Yes.
Removing simulationism? Yes.
Indulging simulationism? No.
Playing world of darkness? About the same.
Teaching people how to sing? Not applicable.
Using 1e and 2e books directly? Yes.

5e is good if it does what you want. It's bad if it doesn't. But "what you want" is a subjective variable, not objective.

Sartharina

2014-10-16, 03:09 PM

Actually, 5e maintains strong simulationism while still being balanced.

And I'd say it's better at being 3e than it is at being 4e. You can play just fine with a party of Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, Rogue, instead of having to try some weird stuff like Warblade, Factotum, Dread Necromancer, and Beguiler for a balanced and fun party.

silveralen

2014-10-16, 03:22 PM

First, I think asking for opinions, then complaining when you get opinions is pretty funny.

Second, I am going to take a guess that you've neither played a Warlord nor seen one in play, because it doesn't seem like you're understanding how they work differently in either theme or abilities, compared to bards, fighters, or paladins. :smallsmile:

Third, I have no idea where you're going with this "classic D&D" and "not fitting campaign worlds" thing. Well, I guess I do have an idea, tbh, which is kind of what Eslin and Sartharina were talking about, so....

Fair enough, but I was looking for more concrete things warlord brought to the table that other classes currently cannot. Which really seems to boil down to "I wanna be a caster, but not cast spells".

I barely palyed 4E, but every time I did we had a warlord. I remember him mainly moving us/ the enemies around, healing, hitting things a little worse than a fighter, and granting various buffs and an occasional extra attack. All of which is completely in line with what a valor bard can do for sure, and more or less in line with paladin.

My love of DnD came first form the novels. Being able to knock people down, trick people, inspire your allies, etc, are in line with what you would expect a warlord to be able to do. A cleric can and will be able to do so much more along those lines though. Trying to build a non magical character to do everything a cleric or wizard can do is going to look absolutely silly in a simulationist genre game. I don't feel like this is hatred of the class, I have nothing against him. It just kinda defeats the purpose of having magic if there is nothing magical about magic. Warlord can be perfectly viable as a class, but he wouldn't be comparable to a cleric. It'd be more a hybrid of the various non magical parts of bard, paladin, and battle master.

Geoff

2014-10-16, 04:29 PM

Actually, 5e maintains strong simulationism while still being balanced. Can't agree with that. D&D has never been a strong simulation of anything - hps, alone, shatter simulation to tiny pieces. Vancian casting doesn't help, either, it simulates 'magic' in one series of novels that spawned one sub-genre of science fiction (and, even within the rest of that sub-genre, you don't see much Vancian casting). Then there's turn-based cyclical initiative. And classes & leveling: Kill monsters in a dungeon all day, learn more about Nature, get better at using your Artisan Tools that you left back in town. Maybe I just played too much RuneQuest back in the day, but none of that screams 'simulation' to me. (And you'll note I'm playing D&D, now - simulation isn't always all that much fun.)

Oh, and D&D's never been all that balanced, either. 4e came closest, but it 'wasn't D&D.' 5e didn't exactly follow in 4e's better-balanced footsteps, either.

And I'd say it's better at being 3e than it is at being 4e. You can play just fine with a party of Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, Rogue, instead of having to try some weird stuff like Warblade, Factotum, Dread Necromancer, and Beguiler for a balanced and fun party. Did you reverse something, there? 5e is like 3e because it lacks/doesn't need Tier 4 classes that only appeared in 3e?

Fair enough, but I was looking for more concrete things warlord brought to the table that other classes currently cannot. Which really seems to boil down to "I wanna be a caster, but not cast spells". That, in turn, boils down to "Casters must be strictly superior."

Trying to build a non magical character to do everything a cleric or wizard can do is going to look absolutely silly in a simulationist genre game. I don't feel like this is hatred of the class, 5e is supposed to be D&D for everyone who ever loved D&D, not D&D exclusively for those who hated 4e, or who want casters to be overpowered and martial characters to be their minion and meatshields, even if they do hide behind the false claim that D&D must be exclusively simulationist.

The hypothetical late addition of a decent version of the Warlord or a better sub-class of the Fighter actually able to live up to it's 3.5 and 4e iterations or a non-casting Ranger, will not harm you. They've already been excluded from the basic and standard versions of the game. The mere possibility that someone, somewhere, might play a martial character not overshadowed by casters in the same party - or even, that some group might be successful playing all martial characters - will not keep you from playing the game the way you like. No one will force you to play any future worthwhile martial class or sub-class, nor compel you to join groups where they're not banned out of spite for simulationist verisimilitude.

Forum Explorer

2014-10-16, 05:00 PM

On the Warlord thing, I simply imagine it got cut for time. We got 12 classes, each with a couple of subclasses to go with it. That's a lot of information and work done already. Perhaps the Warlord will be a new subclass released for the Fighter, or even an entirely new class in of itself.

silveralen

2014-10-16, 05:01 PM

That, in turn, boils down to "Casters must be strictly superior."

5e is supposed to be D&D for everyone who ever loved D&D, not D&D exclusively for those who hated 4e, or who want casters to be overpowered and martial characters to be their minion and meatshields, even if they do hide behind the false claim that D&D must be exclusively simulationist.

The hypothetical late addition of a decent version of the Warlord or a better sub-class of the Fighter actually able to live up to it's 3.5 and 4e iterations or a non-casting Ranger, will not harm you. They've already been excluded from the basic and standard versions of the game. The mere possibility that someone, somewhere, might play a martial character not overshadowed by casters in the same party - or even, that some group might be successful playing all martial characters - will not keep you from playing the game the way you like. No one will force you to play any future worthwhile martial class or sub-class, nor compel you to join groups where they're not banned out of spite for simulationist verisimilitude.

No it isn't. Different but equal. There are going to be things magic can do you flat out cannot do without magic. That's the entire point of magic. Characters without it aren't worse, they approach problems differently. If you had a hypothetical warlord who could grant temporary HP, use battle master maneuvers, and grant allies bonuses on attack checks he'd be useful. The difference is, his abilities are subtle and more mundane. It is the difference between a mage and a fighter. A mage can conjurer up fireball, but a fighter can just hack through enemies. His abilities aren't as showy, but they are just as effective. Yes, I do wish the non magical classes had more bonuses towards skills and mundane problem solving, but it isn't half as bad as you seem to imply.

The third core book isn't even out, and DMG is all about tweaking options. The default assumption is stimulationist, because that is literally how DnD was conceived and what it was for both its most successful iteration well as the majority of its iterations. Fighter is my favorite class in core, have you even played the game? He is no way weak.The current concentration rules kinda support wizards focusing on improving fighters as ell, hardly making them the minions.

Also, if you don't want to use magic, why do you literally want to have magical abilities but not call them that? Warlord in 4e used magic. Many of his abilities were overtly magical. In fact, practically every class had abilities that, especially at high levels, were overtly magical. As did practically every destiny. If that's what bothers you, play a paladin and call him a warblade/warlord. His spells aren't magic at all, his lay on hands involves inspiring allies to ignore wounds, his spells are mostly strikes that come from his intense training (and are exactly the sort of thing warblade could do in 3.5) and his aura's aren't magical but come from his personal charisma. It changes nothing, because the fact is you want to play a caster/fight hybrid and pretend he doesn't use magic despite overtly magical abilities. If it makes you happy, by all means do so, but its a very silly "issue" to raise. You want a class that does magical things, and its silly to get annoyed you have to play a class that uses magic to do so.

Sartharina

2014-10-16, 05:08 PM

On the Warlord thing, I simply imagine it got cut for time.No... I'm pretty sure it got cut for "How is someone making someone attack multiple times when they're attacking someone else at the same time?" and "How are you shouting hitpoints back into someone?"

Things a mundane warlord could do:
1. Kick ass in his own right
2. Provide temporary resilience - Temp HP, boosted saves, etc.
3. Create Reaction Attack opportunities
4. Provide combat boosts - Boost attacks to specific targets, or boost defenses against attacks.

I remember the Fighter from the Playtest's Expertise Dice let him do a lot of this stuff, but at that point, the problem was a lack of things to do with them instead of lack of dice (You got a decent number, and restored one with an action). I have no idea why they gimped Expertise Dice recovery so badly in 5e. Unfortunately, the Battlemaster was reduced to a subclass, instead of being worked into full support from the class.

And now we're left without a name for the new Warlord (Tactician might work).

MaxWilson

2014-10-16, 05:17 PM

No... I'm pretty sure it got cut for "How is someone making someone attack multiple times when they're attacking someone else at the same time?" and "How are you shouting hitpoints back into someone?"

Hobgoblin Warlord does something like this: for 1 minute, he can "utter a special command" whenever someone within 30' of him attacks, thus granting them advantage on their attacks. It's actually kind of weird and jarring because it raises issues like "what happens if there are 30 other hobgoblins near him? is he uttering 30 special commands every 6 seconds?"

Galen

2014-10-16, 05:24 PM

Hobgoblin Warlord does something like this: for 1 minute, he can "utter a special command" whenever someone within 30' of him attacks, thus granting them advantage on their attacks. It's actually kind of weird and jarring because it raises issues like "what happens if there are 30 other hobgoblins near him? is he uttering 30 special commands every 6 seconds?"
No, he utters one command, and all 30 hobgoblins hear it. It's not rocket science, really. If a platoon commander yells "charge that machine gun, men!! Have no fear!!", does one soldier fearlessly charge the machine gun, or does the entire platoon fearlessly charge?

Geoff

2014-10-16, 06:04 PM

No it isn't. Different but equal. There are going to be things magic can do you flat out cannot do without magic. Are there just as many (and just as important) things that characters without magic can do that those who use it cannot?

In fiction, sometimes there actually were a few. You have mages who can't touch iron, or sorcerers who are powerless if you carry the right talisman, or witches who can't kill ("we can just put you to sleep for 1000 years" - mad props for anyone who gets that super-obscure reference). In D&D, there hasn't been in quite a while, and what little such restrictions there were rarely mattered that much. A wizard in AD&D "couldn't" wear armor, but he could still cheese up a -10 AC (best possible back then for those who weren't around).

That's the entire point of magic. Characters without it aren't worse, they approach problems differently. Then there's no problem with the 4e warlord doing all his leader stuff, since he did it differently, via tactics & inspiration &c, instead of by waving around implements and casting spells.

The default assumption is stimulationist, because that is literally how DnD was conceived and what it was for both its most successful iteration well as the majority of its iterations. Nope. Look for an early D&D book that says it's a simulation with realism as it's first priority. You won't find one. What you will find, in the 1e DMG, is Gygax specifically saying it's no such thing. Game first, realism second when it didn't get in the way of being a halfway decent game - "simulationsism" something dreamed up on UseNet in the late 90s.

Fighter is my favorite class in core, have you even played the game? Please. Since 1e. I've always preferred the archetypes the fighter was meant to cover, and I know from experience how marginal D&D has generally been in delivering on them. The 3e fighter was a great leap forward for the class, while the 4e fighter narrowed it with the other martial classes making up some of the difference while opening up entirely new realms of possibility and, remarkably, actually being balanced with casters (mainly because casters were so much less broken).

The 5e fighter is pretty cool compared to the 2e, but lacks both the elegance and customization of the 3e fighter, and the balance and solid contribution of the 4e fighter (not to mention lacking the potential of the Warlord which it so pitifully tries to cover with 3 battlemaster maneuvers).

And, frankly, if you were a fan of the fighter, you wouldn't be arguing so hard against it being expanded. It's not like the Champion would disappear.

Also, if you don't want to use magic, why do you literally want to have magical abilities but not call them that? Warlord in 4e used magic. Many of his abilities were overtly magical. You've already admitted to having virtually no knowledge of or experience with 4e, now you're just piling on the proof that you know nothing about it except what you heard in the edition war.

Dig up a copy of the 4e PH1 and read the explanations of the three Sources it presented. Or stop commenting on topics like this. Willful ignorance is not constructive.

MaxWilson

2014-10-16, 06:07 PM

No, he utters one command, and all 30 hobgoblins hear it. It's not rocket science, really. If a platoon commander yells "charge that machine gun, men!! Have no fear!!", does one soldier fearlessly charge the machine gun, or does the entire platoon fearlessly charge?

That's not what the stat block says, and it's also not what the mechanic does. If sometime during that one minute, another hobgoblin runs shouting range of the warlord, shoots off an arrow, and run off again, the text says that the Warlord "utters a special command" while he is firing his arrow, and we do in fact see that the hobgoblin gets advantage on his shot. But if that hobgoblin instead charges the enemy, he loses the bonus as soon as he is more than 30' from the warlord.

It's not an instantaneous effect that lasts for 1 minute on all hobgoblins currently within 30' of the warlord; it's an effect that continuously radiates from the warlord for 30' in all directions for one minute.

Galen

2014-10-16, 06:12 PM

Ok, I see you insist making a rocket science out of it after all, artificially creating a problem where there is none. Good luck with that.

Forum Explorer

2014-10-16, 06:14 PM

No... I'm pretty sure it got cut for "How is someone making someone attack multiple times when they're attacking someone else at the same time?" and "How are you shouting hitpoints back into someone?"

Things a mundane warlord could do:
1. Kick ass in his own right
2. Provide temporary resilience - Temp HP, boosted saves, etc.
3. Create Reaction Attack opportunities
4. Provide combat boosts - Boost attacks to specific targets, or boost defenses against attacks.

I remember the Fighter from the Playtest's Expertise Dice let him do a lot of this stuff, but at that point, the problem was a lack of things to do with them instead of lack of dice (You got a decent number, and restored one with an action). I have no idea why they gimped Expertise Dice recovery so badly in 5e. Unfortunately, the Battlemaster was reduced to a subclass, instead of being worked into full support from the class.

And now we're left without a name for the new Warlord (Tactician might work).

Counterpoint, the PHB also lacks Psions and Psionic classes and they are more or as iconic as the Warlord.

I do like Tactician as a name though.

Please. Since 1e. I've always preferred the archetypes the fighter was meant to cover, and I know from experience how marginal D&D has generally been in delivering on them. The 3e fighter was a great leap forward for the class, while the 4e fighter narrowed it with the other martial classes making up some of the difference while opening up entirely new realms of possibility and, remarkably, actually being balanced with casters (mainly because casters were so much less broken).

The 5e fighter is pretty cool compared to the 2e, but lacks both the elegance and customization of the 3e fighter, and the balance and solid contribution of the 4e fighter (not to mention lacking the potential of the Warlord which it so pitifully tries to cover with 3 battlemaster maneuvers).

Woah seriously? The 3e fighter was so boring. I'll fully admit that I haven't played 1st or 2nd edition but I do have a hard time believing that the fighter who was essentially get more feats, and hit more often, was a big improvement. Not to mention the whole casters breaking everything so hard that a druid's pet bear outperforms the fighter.

MaxWilson

2014-10-16, 06:20 PM

Ok, I see you insist making a rocket science out of it after all, artificially creating a problem where there is none. Good luck with that.

Creating a problem or creating a precedent? Since we're talking about Warlord as a character class, the precedent is relevant, both to show that WotC seems willing to go there and to show how it breaks Suspension of Disbelief when implemented poorly.

Woah seriously? The 3e fighter was so boring. I'll fully admit that I haven't played 1st or 2nd edition but I do have a hard time believing that the fighter who was essentially get more feats, and hit more often, was a big improvement. Not to mention the whole casters breaking everything so hard that a druid's pet bear outperforms the fighter.

My only real exposure to 3rd edition was through CRPG (specifically Icewind Dale and ToEE), but I know 2nd edition very well, and 2nd edition fighters had way more options and more interesting options than were available in those CRPGs. They weren't build options, though, they were tactical options: anyone could theoretically attempt a Disarm manuever in 2nd edition, but the fighter was six times as good at it as a wizard was due to having 2.5x to 3.5x as many attacks and a THAC0 which was three times as good. Fighters were still not as cool as wizards but they weren't boring, and they were a lot faster to build since you didn't have to pre-select which maneuvers you knew--everyone knew all maneuvers.

Starsinger

2014-10-16, 06:21 PM

Woah seriously? The 3e fighter was so boring. I'll fully admit that I haven't played 1st or 2nd edition but I do have a hard time believing that the fighter who was essentially get more feats, and hit more often, was a big improvement. Not to mention the whole casters breaking everything so hard that a druid's pet bear outperforms the fighter.

In the old days, do you know what a Fighter got? NOTHING! He was a pile of THAC0 and HP and that's about it.

silveralen

2014-10-16, 06:25 PM

Then there's no problem with the 4e warlord doing all his leader stuff, since he did it differently, via tactics & inspiration &c, instead of by waving around implements and casting spells.

Please. Since 1e. I've always preferred the archetypes the fighter was meant to cover, and I know from experience how marginal D&D has generally been in delivering on them. The 3e fighter was a great leap forward for the class, while the 4e fighter narrowed it with the other martial classes making up some of the difference while opening up entirely new realms of possibility and, remarkably, actually being balanced with casters (mainly because casters were so much less broken).

The 5e fighter is pretty cool compared to the 2e, but lacks both the elegance and customization of the 3e fighter, and the balance and solid contribution of the 4e fighter (not to mention lacking the potential of the Warlord which it so pitifully tries to cover with 3 battlemaster maneuvers).

And, frankly, if you were a fan of the fighter, you wouldn't be arguing so hard against it being expanded. It's not like the Champion would disappear.

You've already admitted to having virtually no knowledge of or experience with 4e, now you're just piling on the proof that you know nothing about it except what you heard in the edition war.

Dig up a copy of the 4e PH1 and read the explanations of the three Sources it presented. Or stop commenting on topics like this. Willful ignorance is not constructive.

Oh okay, so instead of spell slots he has maneuver slots and he doesn't cast, he activates them via martial practices. You could make him a wizard reskin and explain it away like that if you wanted. "No he doesn't cast meteor storm, he just jumps super high and throws spears/boulders into the ground so hard it creates AoE damage!" It's still magic and baltently impossible. The fact the writers of 4e tried to pretend it wasn't magic on the basis that someone might be trusting enough to buy it doesn't change the fact that they are clearly magical effects. It wasn't arcane magic, or divine magic, or primal magic, it was martial magic.

I own PHB 1 and 2 (not three) for 4e, as well as all the number one _____ power books. There are absurdly improbable abilities that are quite clearly magical in nature available to them. Just because you call them manuevers instead of spells doesn't make them stop being a form of magic. Monk abilities are a good example of clearly supernatural abilities that aren't technically spells.

You think 5e fighter is worse than 3e fighter. Compare the options of 3rd edition fighter USING ONLY THE PHB to 5e and that's quite obviously a flat out falsehood.

Your version of warlord clearly overshadows battle master. Battle master could use improvement (more dice, better recharge), but that's as much warlord as I'd want, and yes your warlord would overshadow that and make him redundant, I'm almost positive.

SiuiS

2014-10-16, 06:29 PM

Actually, 5e maintains strong simulationism while still being balanced.

Mmm. I meant that in the sense that the game rules are physics, and 5e does not do that.

And I'd say it's better at being 3e than it is at being 4e. You can play just fine with a party of Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, Rogue, instead of having to try some weird stuff like Warblade, Factotum, Dread Necromancer, and Beguiler for a balanced and fun party.

I do not disagree. It's simply not mutually exclusive.

Can't agree with that. D&D has never been a strong simulation of anything - hps, alone, shatter simulation to tiny pieces. Vancian casting doesn't help, either, it simulates 'magic' in one series of novels that spawned one sub-genre of science fiction (and, even within the rest of that sub-genre, you don't see much Vancian casting). Then there's turn-based cyclical initiative. And classes & leveling: Kill monsters in a dungeon all day, learn more about Nature, get better at using your Artisan Tools that you left back in town. Maybe I just played too much RuneQuest back in the day, but none of that screams 'simulation' to me. (And you'll note I'm playing D&D, now - simulation isn't always all that much fun.)

None of that is the whole sum of D&D. It had training, minimum efforts, times, justifications, and other things that filled in the gaps. People just got into the fluff/crunch dichotomy mindset and dismissed things as not being "real" in the game.

Woah seriously? The 3e fighter was so boring. I'll fully admit that I haven't played 1st or 2nd edition but I do have a hard time believing that the fighter who was essentially get more feats, and hit more often, was a big improvement. Not to mention the whole casters breaking everything so hard that a druid's pet bear outperforms the fighter.

Objection: bear > fighter has absolutely 0 to do with casters at all. The ranger's animal companion, the paladins mount, the wizards familiar, and any classes wild cohort all can compete with badly done fighters (or well done ones sometimes).

Fighters were mechanically identical. The systems they plugged into worked better with them however; fighters gained attack bonus, attacks, and fast proficiency they could use for stuff like quick draw or trick shots or martial arts (basically feats), but they were hitting target numbers better and more consistently.

MeeposFire

2014-10-16, 06:37 PM

In the old days, do you know what a Fighter got? NOTHING! He was a pile of THAC0 and HP and that's about it.

Well the 1e fighter eventually got weapon specialization which was not much but worth something.

2e you could get a lot of mileage out of weapon mastery, weapon styles, and various NWP. You could be very powerful and in most every way a 2e fighter was better in relation to 2e than a 3e fighter is to 3e (and really it is not even close as the 2e fighter is a lot harder to kill) however that is not to say that it was the most interesting class mechanically as it did not get anything mechanical to change the world as all of its special abilities were limited to getting bigger numbers (+ to hit, damage, and attacks, also lower saving throws, possibly +AC, etc).

Still you could get a lot out of an AD&D fighter. I think the skill system helped as in there was not much of one. This meant you did not have as many players thinking they could not do something because you lacked skill points (think trying to converse in 3e or 4e and you lack the skill points or training in the conversation skill you are likely better to not talk).

I will say you are mostly right though fighters did not get too many special abilities in AD&D (they did get a few in D&D but that mostly related to getting extra attacks, special attacks, and becoming a paladin analogue).

Forrestfire

2014-10-16, 06:38 PM

In the old days, do you know what a Fighter got? NOTHING! He was a pile of THAC0 and HP and that's about it.

Also eventually a castle and an army, but even then, it was wasn't that much compared to Phenomenal Cosmic Power.

Geoff

2014-10-16, 06:43 PM

Woah seriously? The 3e fighter was so boring. I'll fully admit that I haven't played 1st or 2nd edition but I do have a hard time believing that the fighter who was essentially get more feats, and hit more often, was a big improvement.Seriously. The 1e and 2e fighter essential hit more often. No feats. So, yeah, they were pretty boring. Also, no skills or weapon specialization, and virtually no combat options besides attacking for the 1e fighter - grappling was a mess (yes, more so than 3e, way more), disarming bizarrely easy but only with exotic polearms & pointless most of the time, anyway, nothing like sunder or trip. Mechanically, they were a block of hps you bolted cool magic items too. Well, maybe not that cool, if you didn't like longswords, which most of the better magic weapons you found were likely to be. 2e fighters got weapon specialization and could do a ridiculous amount of damage if they used a bow or TWF, and there was an optional non-weapon proficiency system that was kinda, sorta, but not really, like having a skill system. And Kits, like Backgrounds that did nothing (for the fighter, the Wizard and Cleric has some that gave them special abilities). C&T they got some more combat options.

So, yeah, it really was kind of amazing. 3.5 kept and improved on the C&T stuff, exploded options from specialization to the whole slew of fighter bonus feats, and opened up multi-classing that the fighter design worked really well with. It also toned down multiple attacks & TWFing....

Not to mention the whole casters breaking everything so hard that a druid's pet bear outperforms the fighter. .... and, yes, utterly broke the already pretty broken casters. I'll concede that. I think Tier 5 is unnecessarily harsh given what some build could do, though.

4e fighters were weird. 'Better' designed in the sense they were much better balanced with the other classes, had lots of choices, and could 'pull out the stops' along with everyone else when the party wanted to Nova - and did their traditional 'tanking' better than ever. But disappointing in all the things you couldn't do with them at all. You couldn't customize them with feats to make a great archer or a reach-based battlefield control build or almost-viable duelist or anything. They just tanked along, locked into the strong, heavy-armor, high hp, Defender role.

Once you realized, though, that the whole "Martial Source" in 4e was actually doing what the Fighter had been called on to do by itself all this time, it was a lot more exciting. The Warlord, in particular, opened up a lot of very cool stuff 'fighters' in fiction did, but the fighter class was never able to back up, mechanically. The Ranger provided the TWF or Archery DPS (maybe not as broken as in 2e), but with a lot of cool tricks mixed in. Even the Rogue was more like the tempting, never-quite-right 'light fighter' builds of 3.5, than the sad little Thief sulking around 1e dungeons, opening locks (sometimes) and getting killed by traps (most of the time).

... but, still, a little disappointing, because there were those few, really cool, 3.5 fighter builds that you just couldn't do in 4e, because they were essentially controllers - so something as simple as taking an AoO on someone running up to your pike square was nerfed to oblivion.

5e fighters have some (a Combat Style at 1st, then sub-class, plus two bonus feats starting at 6th) of the 3e fighter's customization (11 bonus feats that run the gamut), and the 2e fighters potentially game-breaking DPS, and a slightly better implementation of it's Kits in the form of Backgrounds. But, net, it still feels like a big step backwards, even if the raw DPS power is there. If they had the 1e/2e fighter's crazy-good high level saving throws, you could at least figure they'd be able to stick around and take actions, however limited, when other classes had been turned to stone or vaporized or whatever, but that boat sailed with 3.0 and has definitely not been sighted since.

MaxWilson

2014-10-16, 06:46 PM

D has never been a strong simulation of anything - hps, alone, shatter simulation to tiny pieces.

That claim is unsound. It's true only if you think D&D is simulating real-world physics, but Spelljammer blows that theory out the airlock. It's questionable whether D&D creatures even have cell differentiation, and it's indisputably true that the bodies of high-level fighters are much more resilient than the bodies of 0th level peasants, enduring a wide range of stresses gracefully: anything from falling off a cliff while unconscious to getting shot with a crossbow to falling in lava. Simulationism is totally cool with that. The difference is that in simulationism, the inhabitants of the world are themselves aware of this fact, and will ask themselves questions like, "If you were trying to construct a space elevator, would it be better to build it out of steel or highly-experienced soldiers?"

Seriously. The 1e and 2e fighter essential hit more often. No feats. So, yeah, they were pretty boring.

Apparently you never read The Complete Fighter's Handbook, the very first splatbook for 2nd edition. 2nd edition fighter options were based around called shots, not feats. It's been long enough that I no longer remember what all the options were, but I remember you could spend an attack to negate someone else's attack ("Parry") and then you could use your other attack(s) to do something mean to them ("Disarm" his weapon, or just hamstring him). 2nd edition fighters had lots of fun and nasty options, and it has nothing to do with feats.

Feats were kind of invented late in 2nd edition during the Skills and Powers series, and I always thought they were tacked-on and quite lame. Who wants a world where only certain fighters know how to disarm people and only certain fighters can make a called shot to cut your throat? Not me. Then there were other abilities like certain fighters inexplicably having magic resistance.

I still don't love the "feat" mechanic from a roleplaying standpoint, but at least in 5E it is relatively well-integrated into the game and fits with other build-time choices like subclasses and fighting styles.

Sartharina

2014-10-16, 06:53 PM

Oh okay, so instead of spell slots he has maneuver slots and he doesn't cast, he activates them via martial practices. You could make him a wizard reskin and explain it away like that if you wanted. "No he doesn't cast meteor storm, he just jumps super high and throws spears/boulders into the ground so hard it creates AoE damage!" It's still magic and baltently impossible. The fact the writers of 4e tried to pretend it wasn't magic on the basis that someone might be trusting enough to buy it doesn't change the fact that they are clearly magical effects. It wasn't arcane magic, or divine magic, or primal magic, it was martial magic.

I own PHB 1 and 2 (not three) for 4e, as well as all the number one _____ power books. There are absurdly improbable abilities that are quite clearly magical in nature available to them. Just because you call them manuevers instead of spells doesn't make them stop being a form of magic. Monk abilities are a good example of clearly supernatural abilities that aren't technically spells.Can you please name them? I've not seen any.

You think 5e fighter is worse than 3e fighter. Compare the options of 3rd edition fighter USING ONLY THE PHB to 5e and that's quite obviously a flat out falsehood.

Your version of warlord clearly overshadows battle master. Battle master could use improvement (more dice, better recharge), but that's as much warlord as I'd want, and yes your warlord would overshadow that and make him redundant, I'm almost positive.Eh... not necessarily. His warlord is to the Battlemaster as a Wizard is to an Eldritch Knight - except more on the support side.

Geoff

2014-10-16, 07:03 PM

That claim is unsound. It's true only if you think D&D is simulating real-world physics, but Spelljammer blows that theory out the airlock. Not just simulation or realism, but simulationsm. The explanation for D&D hps - given way back in the dark ages of the 1970s in the 1e DMG - is incompatible with simulationism, because it doesn't present a consistent model of wounds. Not just not contrary to what trauma surgeons know today, but inconsistent with any concept of hp damage neatly modeling physical wounds, whether a fighter's body turns Asgardian by 10th level or not.

It's questionable whether D&D creatures even have cell differentiation, and it's indisputably true that the bodies of high-level fighters are much more resilient than the bodies of 0th level peasants, enduring a wide range of stresses gracefully: anything from falling off a cliff while unconscious to getting shot with a crossbow to falling in lava. That's not having a more resilient body. It's spelled out as having extraordinary luck, skill, divine grace, and whatnot. In the 1e DMG, way back in 1979. Indisputably.

Though, if you do want to go there, any objections to non-magically "healing" such a hyperunrealistic supernaturally tough being by shouting at it, also go out the window, as everything can just be rationalized as simulating some weird fantasy-physics that works exactly like the corresponding mechanics. But, at that point, you're playing a Discworld RPG, and 'simulationism' has gone full-circle to simulating narrativism.

Apparently you never read The Complete Fighter's Handbook, the very first splatbook for 2nd edition. Well, I did mention Kits, so, obviously, I did read it, rather anxiously really. Then I tossed it on a shelf somewhere because it contained nothing much of value. Style specializations were trivial compared to what you could already do with weapon specialization, kits were largely cosmetic, called shots were pointlessly sub-optimal compared to just slicing the target to tiny pieces.

Forum Explorer

2014-10-16, 07:07 PM

Objection: bear > fighter has absolutely 0 to do with casters at all. The ranger's animal companion, the paladins mount, the wizards familiar, and any classes wild cohort all can compete with badly done fighters (or well done ones sometimes).

Fighters were mechanically identical. The systems they plugged into worked better with them however; fighters gained attack bonus, attacks, and fast proficiency they could use for stuff like quick draw or trick shots or martial arts (basically feats), but they were hitting target numbers better and more consistently.

Not quite what I meant. I was trying to showcase the huge gap between Tier 1 and Tier 5 characters, using one of the more infamous (IMO) examples, that plagued 3.5

Seriously. The 1e and 2e fighter essential hit more often. No feats. So, yeah, they were pretty boring. Also, no skills or weapon specialization, and virtually no combat options besides attacking for the 1e fighter - grappling was a mess (yes, more so than 3e, way more), disarming bizarrely easy but only with exotic polearms & pointless most of the time, anyway, nothing like sunder or trip. Mechanically, they were a block of hps you bolted cool magic items too. Well, maybe not that cool, if you didn't like longswords, which most of the better magic weapons you found were likely to be. 2e fighters got weapon specialization and could do a ridiculous amount of damage if they used a bow or TWF, and there was an optional non-weapon proficiency system that was kinda, sorta, but not really, like having a skill system. And Kits, like Backgrounds that did nothing (for the fighter, the Wizard and Cleric has some that gave them special abilities). C&T they got some more combat options.

So, yeah, it really was kind of amazing. 3.5 kept and improved on the C&T stuff, exploded options from specialization to the whole slew of fighter bonus feats, and opened up multi-classing that the fighter design worked really well with. It also toned down multiple attacks & TWFing....

.... and, yes, utterly broke the already pretty broken casters. I'll concede that. I think Tier 5 is unnecessarily harsh given what some build could do, though.

5e fighters have some (a Combat Style at 1st, then sub-class, plus two bonus feats starting at 6th) of the 3e fighter's customization (11 bonus feats that run the gamut), and the 2e fighters potentially game-breaking DPS, and a slightly better implementation of it's Kits in the form of Backgrounds. But, net, it still feels like a big step backwards, even if the raw DPS power is there. If they had the 1e/2e fighter's crazy-good high level saving throws, you could at least figure they'd be able to stick around and take actions, however limited, when other classes had been turned to stone or vaporized or whatever, but that boat sailed with 3.0 and has definitely not been sighted since.

That is pretty crazy. I do think the gap between Tier 1 and Tier 5 was too big to make a difference though. Yeah, you could customize your fighter in a bunch of ways, but because it was overshadowed so harshly, I felt the class was basically unplayable in anything but low power games.

I haven't played a 5e fighter yet (so many classes to play and so little time), but it certainly looks a lot more fun and interesting to play. It may have technically lost some customization potential (I don't think the 3e fighter had much customization on a core only game) but they look like they are in a much healthier spot.

silveralen

2014-10-16, 07:11 PM

Can you please name them? I've not seen any.

Eh... not necessarily. His warlord is to the Battlemaster as a Wizard is to an Eldritch Knight - except more on the support side.

Uhhhh... literally everything in the elemental discipline section just uses the rules for an existing spell, but isn't technically a magic spell, it's the monk channelling chi to produce a magic effect. It's the exact same in practice, especially considering the abilities that don't mimic spells exactly still follow the same basic rules, but they are technically disciplines. Which, again, doesn't actually matter.

Okay, but what would warlord lack that fighter has?

MaxWilson

2014-10-16, 07:11 PM

Not just simulation or realism, but simulationsm. The explanation for D&D hps - given way back in the dark ages of the 1970s in the 1e DMG - is incompatible with simulationism, because it doesn't present a consistent model of wounds. Not just not contrary to what trauma surgeons know today, but inconsistent with any concept of hp damage neatly modeling physical wounds, whether a fighter's body turns Asgardian by 10th level or not.

All that simulationism requires, according to the inventor of the term (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/3/), is a "priority placed on resolving the Explored feature(s) in in-game, internally causal terms." Measured-HP-as-increased-physical-durability is very much in keeping with simulationism. You assert without evidence that this is impossible, but it was very consistent with the rules back in 2nd edition and from what I can see in 5th edition it is still consistent today. For example, high-level fighters who are paralyzed by Hold Person are still quite difficult to kill via throat-cutting. This isn't GURPS, it's D&D, and HP clearly have a physical basis.

That's not having a more resilient body. It's spelled out as having extraordinary luck, skill, divine grace, and whatnot. In the 1e DMG, way back in 1979. Indisputably.

Though, if you do want to go there, any objections to non-magically "healing" such a hyperunrealistic supernaturally tough being by shouting at it, also go out the window, as everything can just be rationalized as simulating some weird fantasy-physics that works exactly like the corresponding mechanics. But, at that point, you're playing a Discworld RPG, and 'simulationism' has gone full-circle to simulating narrativism.

One can accept an alternate physics in principle while still finding certain versions of alternate physics unaesthetic. I don't really like short-rest-healing, and I would probably find closing-wounds-by-shouting-at-them to be unaesthetic too. I might be able to live with my discomfort though, in the same way that I live with my discomfort with hobgoblin captain shouting. So far at least.

BTW, there is no "simulating narrativism". What you describe is just "simulationism". Narrativism is focused on an entirely different portion of the real-world play experience.

Edit: typo fix, 2nd => 5th.

Well, I did mention Kits, so, obviously, I did read it, rather anxiously really. Then I tossed it on a shelf somewhere because it contained nothing much of value. Style specializations were trivial compared to what you could already do with weapon specialization, kits were largely cosmetic, called shots were pointlessly sub-optimal compared to just slicing the target to tiny pieces.

Wow. Just, wow. Your sense of pointless sub-optimality is very, very different from mine. It may take dozens of rounds to whittle certain opponents down to "tiny pieces", and having him be without a weapon that entire time due to a Disarm called shot is "pointlessly sub-optimal"?

Geoff

2014-10-16, 07:15 PM

Your sense of pointless sub-optimality is very, very different from mine. It may take dozens of rounds to whittle certain opponents down to "tiny pieces", and having him be without a weapon that entire time due to a Disarm called shot is "pointlessly sub-optimal"? I don't recall a lot of 10000hp creatures in 2e. Certainly not any that also used weapons and had trouble picking them up.

Measured-HP-as-increased-physical-durability is very much in keeping with simulationism. You assert without evidence that this is impossibleIf you don't believe what I'm saying about the official explanation of hps, read the 1e DMG yourself. For that matter, read it in 3.x, 4e, or 5e, as well.

but it was very consistent with the rules back in 2nd edition and from what I can see in 5th edition it is still consistent today. For example, high-level fighters who are paralyzed by Hold Person are still quite difficult to kill via throat-cutting. In 1e, helpless characters could be killed at 1/round, hps notwithstanding. In 5e, 3 hits while you're down kills anyone, even though a single hit would have to do their full hp total to do so. Those are not simulationist rules.

I've noticed that folks who started with 2e sometimes miss this stuff, because 2e is largely silent on the issue, so they reach some odd conclusion and assume it's 'always' explicitly been what they're only guessing at. Actually, the idea of increasing hps with level representing absurd levels of increased physical resilience was an early criticism of D&D, and one that Gygax went to the trouble of refuting in detail. His explanation is particularly contrary to what simulationists seem to want, but even their revisionist history interpretations of hps don't add up to something that's so all-fired internally consistent as all that. Pounding D&D into the simulationist hole just doesn't work that well. You can do it, but you mangle the game a bit in the process.

Simulationism as the One True Way of D&D is just nonsense. As one possible way of playing D&D, it can be made to work, but it's not the only way, and definitely isn't the only way or "the way it always was." That's just a fallacious appeal to tradition combined with a willful misrepresentation of said tradition.

Let the other 2/3rds of gamers arbitrarily sorted into 'gamists' and 'narrativists' by GNS have their fun with D&D, too. That's supposed to be the spirit 5e was conceived in.

I do think the gap between Tier 1 and Tier 5 was too big to make a difference though. Yeah, you could customize your fighter in a bunch of ways, but because it was overshadowed so harshly, I felt the class was basically unplayable in anything but low power games. One of the nice things about E6. ;)

I'm not really disputing that point, though. The 3.x fighter wasn't a bad class because casters were horribly broken, the caster classes were the problem because they were horribly broken. The fighter was a great design, and a huge improvement over it's earlier incarnations. It just had the misfortune to be in the same system with CoDzilla. (And, really, even then, with a good enough group and a capable enough DM, you could avoid a lot of the worst issues all the way through the single-digit levels.)

I haven't played a 5e fighter yet (so many classes to play and so little time), but it certainly looks a lot more fun and interesting to play. It may have technically lost some customization potential (I don't think the 3e fighter had much customization on a core only game). Even core only, yes, you could create a lot of distinct and fun fighters, they might be overshadowed by double-digit levels, but, again, that's the rest of the game screwing up. ;)

For the 5e fighter, I've played the Champion and Battlemaster. The former is boring, much like the 2e fighter was. The latter is frustrating, but I'm still holding out a little hope for it. The fact you can't just start as a battlemaster is a definite strike against it. I get the fear of 'dipping' but there must be other ways to combat it. One thing 4e did right was reduce the need for 'late blooming' builds.

Geoff

2014-10-16, 07:29 PM

Can you please name them? I've not seen any.

Eh... not necessarily. His warlord is to the Battlemaster as a Wizard is to an Eldritch Knight - except more on the support side. Not an unreasonable way of putting it.

Okay, but what would warlord lack that fighter has? Massive DPS via 4 attacks + Action Surge?

Really, that's most of the Fighter's schtick. If the extra attacks and/or Action Surge were in the sub-classes instead of the class backbone, it could cover a lot more, instead of being a hardwired 'striker.'

Oh, and spells - I don't visualize a half-caster warlord sub-class. Though, I suppose with 5e sub-class design, almost anything is possible.

Doesn't really need d10 HD, either.

Sartharina

2014-10-16, 07:49 PM

Uhhhh... literally everything in the elemental discipline section just uses the rules for an existing spell, but isn't technically a magic spell, it's the monk channelling chi to produce a magic effect. It's the exact same in practice, especially considering the abilities that don't mimic spells exactly still follow the same basic rules, but they are technically disciplines. Which, again, doesn't actually matter.

Okay, but what would warlord lack that fighter has?
Oh. You're talking about magical effects in 5e being magic, since monks are called out as explicitly supernatural. I thought you were talking about martial abilities in 4e that were magic (There aren't any.).

As for what a Warlord would lack that a fighter has... Hmm:
2 attacks - and no attack-boosting traits like a Barbarian, Ranger, or Paladin
1st Level combat styles.
Heavy Armor Proficiency
Action Surge
Second Wind
2 extra feats

MaxWilson

2014-10-16, 07:55 PM

I don't recall a lot of 10000hp creatures in 2e. Certainly not any that also used weapons and had trouble picking them up.

And 10,000 HP is necessary how? I thought you said you knew how to play fighters in 2nd edition? You don't know how to defend yourself from other fighters? You don't know how to exploit a dropped weapon? I think you may have breezed through the Complete Fighter's Handbook way too quickly.

Here's the drift: if you have an attack advantage over someone else (e.g. you're specialized and he's not), you use your attacks to negate his (via Disarm or Parry) and then you use your extra attacks to inflict damage on him. I can't remember offhand if you had options for getting rid of his dropped weapon somehow (tossing it off a cliff?). If you get 1 attack to my 3/2 and we just hammer away at each other, I'll end up taking roughly 50% of your HP in damage over time. If I fight smart I deal damage at a slower rate but will take something much closer to 0 damage than 50%.

The math is different for group fights but that's the basic idea.

Edit: also, having briefly reviewed CFH's style specializations--if you think they were useless, you're 180 degrees wrong. Weapon-and-shield specialization is borderline overpowered.

obryn

2014-10-16, 07:55 PM

Also, if you don't want to use magic, why do you literally want to have magical abilities but not call them that? Warlord in 4e used magic. Many of his abilities were overtly magical. In fact, practically every class had abilities that, especially at high levels, were overtly magical. As did practically every destiny. If that's what bothers you, play a paladin and call him a warblade/warlord. His spells aren't magic at all, his lay on hands involves inspiring allies to ignore wounds, his spells are mostly strikes that come from his intense training (and are exactly the sort of thing warblade could do in 3.5) and his aura's aren't magical but come from his personal charisma. It changes nothing, because the fact is you want to play a caster/fight hybrid and pretend he doesn't use magic despite overtly magical abilities. If it makes you happy, by all means do so, but its a very silly "issue" to raise. You want a class that does magical things, and its silly to get annoyed you have to play a class that uses magic to do so.
:sigh:

No. They weren't. And really, if weird and outdated edition war rhetoric is the best you can bring to this discussion, I'm done with it.

At epic levels, of course everyone's getting superhuman. As well they should; that's the nature of the beast. You don't hear myths about how Beowulf ... swung a sword four times. Or how Hercules ... tripped everyone all the time. But superhuman <> spellcaster, man.

Starsinger

2014-10-16, 08:10 PM

Geoff

2014-10-16, 08:22 PM

And 10,000 HP is necessary how? You said 'dozens of rounds.' That's a long time when you're sucking up DPS that effortlessly tops 100, and can go a lot higher. And, if the target were surviving via virtually untouchable AC instead of massive hps, called shots would miss pretty consistently.

Edit: also, having briefly reviewed CFH's style specializations--if you think they were useless, you're 180 degrees wrong. Weapon-and-shield specialization is borderline overpowered.Just not much compared to what they could already do.

I think part of the reason we're talking past eachother is that I keep saying something about 1e or 3e (or even get on topic and talk 5e), and you keep finding something in 2e to talk about. 1e's the ed I started with and I all but memorized it back in the day. 2e was not that different, and the groups I was in often glossed over, missed, or used variants that obviated that difference. So I recall the broad strokes and my reactions to it - like what a disappointment CFH was - but I might have missed the odd exploit that worked well at some DMs' tables, in spite of playing it for so many years, and even running it (with my 1e variants mostly still in place) quite a bit. I recall disarm being pointless, mainly because not a lot of monsters used weapons, but also very significantly because not many things stood up to a 2e fighter long enough for degrading their offense in some marginal way to make a difference. Then again, I didn't exactly do a lot of PvP back then, either.

So if I include 2e in a statement about 1e, and you think I'm missing some detail, maybe I am. But unless that detail is a whole manuever and feat system, and modular multiclassing, I'm not going to assume that I somehow wasn't playing 2e back then (which, y'know, with as many variants as people used back in the day, isn't impossible, I suppose), so I remain unconvinced that 2e somehow had just as much customization and choice for fighters as 3e delivered.

silveralen

2014-10-16, 08:28 PM

:sigh:

No. They weren't. And really, if weird and outdated edition war rhetoric is the best you can bring to this discussion, I'm done with it.

At epic levels, of course everyone's getting superhuman. As well they should; that's the nature of the beast. You don't hear myths about how Beowulf ... swung a sword four times. Or how Hercules ... tripped everyone all the time. But superhuman <> spellcaster, man.

Hey, I've literally never even discussed this before, I made my account for oots talk, I don't know what's old.

That being said, superhuman typically implies the person is somehow tougher or more powerful. I'm fine with this. Things like innate regeneration and HP pools mimic superhuman.

Healing another person's wounds without actually using medicine, instead using pure force of personality, tends to lean more towards supernatural/spells. It's external.

I'm okay with warlord if he actually fits a martial character (again, things like maneuvers, granting advantage/extra attacks, or even temporary HP fit reasonably well), but some stuff in 4e went well beyond that.

Not an unreasonable way of putting it.

Massive DPS via 4 attacks + Action Surge?

Really, that's most of the Fighter's schtick. If the extra attacks and/or Action Surge were in the sub-classes instead of the class backbone, it could cover a lot more, instead of being a hardwired 'striker.'

Doesn't really need d10 HD, either.

So you'd be fine with one attack? D8 HP? No bonus damage for manuevers?

MaxWilson

2014-10-16, 08:29 PM

Simulationism as the One True Way of D&D is just nonsense. As one possible way of playing D&D, it can be made to work, but it's not the only way, and definitely isn't the only way or "the way it always was."

Oh, good, so you're backing off your incorrect claim that

D has never been a strong simulation of anything - hps, alone, shatter simulation to tiny pieces.

which drew my attention in the first place. Instead you're refuting a straw man that "Simulationism has always been the One True Way of D&D." Since I don't believe in that straw man, nor does anyone else I know, I guess we're done here. QED.

TheCrowing1432

2014-10-16, 08:35 PM

- Ability increase as features – 5 of them
- Proficiency bonuses
Both of the above are the same for all classes and are just sand in the D&D Next consumers' eyes, serving as would-be class features. They're not features at all.

Erm, This is more akin to Saves and Skillpoints, not Class Features.

- #Attacks as class features instead of general mechanic.
This is bad, because when someone wishes to introduce a new class concept, instead of having a formula to work with, they have to draw from existing examples.
WotC went this route with the pricing of magical items in 3e, when they already had a solid template for item pricing in the BECMI Rule Cyclopedia.
They shouldn't have changed the basic concept of BAB and iterative attacks. They could've used it and tweak the numbers to reach their desired sweat spot (same goes for item pricing).

BAB was dumb and oftentimes tons of classes was ignored due to them not advancing it.

This way at least if you multiclass/PRC into something else, you have your proficiency bonus to fall back on, its clean, streamlined and simple.

instead of the 20/15/10/5 bullcrap, and adding all the modifiers from your stats/magic items, it gets very mathy, very fast.

- Class variants as substitution for PtCs.
While character balance is surely less of an issue than 3e PrCs, class variants are the wrong way to go, because you have to invent new stuff for character concepts that don't already exist.
They should've put more effort in making those variants into character-build options and to mix & match concepts via general rules (and it is doable).
If they did, this could have served as a powerful means of building hundreds of character concepts without the need to create new classes (or class variants - sameo sameo).

Ok first off, PRCS werent introduced until the DMG of 3.5, which hasnt been even released for 5.0.

Second, these character varients arent supposed to be PRC's, they're supposed to be Alternate Class Features, which 3.5 has tons of.

- Races. They didn't make them more iconic or more distinct.
What they did is more to make them different on the numeric modifiers aspect.

"Iconic or more distinct"

Please, everyone with half a brain choose the best race for whatever their character was trying to do. Most often that race was human.

Tons of races were completely ignored because lets be frank, they sucked. 5.0 made a lot of them actually playable now.

In the creation of 3e, their heart was in the right place on most aspects (PrCs were a new concept, so I wouldn't hold it against them on that one).
(4e is not D&D in any way in my view, so I'm not even addressing it)
In the creation of 5e, the impression I'm getting is that, what they aimed for more than anything else, is to make sure they have potential of selling more game supplements than even in 3e.

....it was said they didnt want to do that. The writers of the PHB said each expansion was meant to be big and bring a lot of content to the game at once, and not litter the market with a million splatbooks.

Geoff

2014-10-16, 08:38 PM

So you'd be fine with one attack? D8 HP? No bonus damage for manuevers? As a baseline, yes. I think higher damage or more than one attack roll for some maneuvers might still be on the table, but not extra attacks as a feature, nor all maneuvers being damaged tacked on retroactively to hits as with the Battlemaster. I could also see a lot of maneuvers that don't involve an attack roll or don't do damage directly. In 4e, it was a design axiom that every class dished some damage, virtually every round, and most could tack something on with the damage, most of the time. In 5e, you have more room for pure damage and for alternate contributions without any damage.

With the battlemaster, there's a little less need for the really in-your-face style of Warlord, so it could slide more towards the tactical, lazy, resourceful, etc versions, and less towards the bravura (which was a fightery build, in 4e, with secondary defender stuff, including marking, heavier armor and an extra surge, IIRC).

silveralen

2014-10-16, 08:42 PM

As a baseline, yes. I think higher damage or more than one attack roll for some maneuvers might still be on the table, but not extra attacks as a feature, nor all maneuvers being damaged tacked on retroactively to hits as with the Battlemaster. I could also see a lot of maneuvers that don't involve an attack roll or don't do damage directly. In 4e, it was a design axiom that every class dished some damage, virtually every round, and most could tack something on with the damage, most of the time. In 5e, you have more room for pure damage and for alternate contributions without any damage.

With the battlemaster, there's a little less need for the really in-your-face style of Warlord, so it could slide more towards the tactical, lazy, resourceful, etc versions, and less towards the bravura (which was a fightery build, in 4e, with secondary defender stuff, including marking, heavier armor and an extra surge, IIRC).

I will admit that's fairly distinct from anything that currently exists. Personally I think open hand monk and battle master are sufficient for my tastes, but this is interesting enough and distinct enough it would make a good base class.

MaxWilson

2014-10-16, 08:42 PM

You said 'dozens of rounds.' That's a long time when you're sucking up DPS that effortlessly tops 100, and can go a lot higher. And, if the target were surviving via virtually untouchable AC instead of massive hps, called shots would miss pretty consistently.

The only way I can think of to get a DPS even roughly topping 100+ in 2nd edition is a 15th-level dart specialist (6 attacks/round) using a Girdle of Storm Giant Strength (14.5 damage per attack) and +5 magic darts against a target of AC 1 or worse for 111 DPS. (19.5 damage per dart, x6 for attacks, x0.95 for hitting on 2 or better=111. IIRC dart specialists don't add +2 to damage, that is only for melee specialists.) That's not "effortless", in fact it's incredibly munchkin cheese that would never happen in real life.

[Edit: fixed math error with AC.]

It's really, really hard to get DPS up into the 100+ range in 2nd edition. For the most part you're doing 1d8+2 (specialization) plus maybe some extra damage for it being magic, plus one or two points for Strength bonus. Add in the fact that the target is likely to be parrying one or more of your attacks per round, and a fight between a high-level fighter and a mid-level specialized fighter can easily go on for a dozen rounds with only one or two hits being scored during that time. Obviously that requires that they be fighting intelligently and not just hammering away. I guess you know 1st edition better than 2nd edition though, and I get the impression you played in heavy-magic campaigns where STR 19-24 was commonplace via magic items, so no wonder you didn't know this.

I think part of the reason we're talking past eachother is that I keep saying something about 1e or 3e (or even get on topic and talk 5e), and you keep finding something in 2e to talk about. 1e's the ed I started with and I all but memorized it back in the day. 2e was not that different, and the groups I was in often glossed over, missed, or used variants that obviated that difference. So I recall the broad strokes and my reactions to it - like what a disappointment CFH was - but I might have missed the odd exploit that worked well at some DMs' tables, in spite of playing it for so many years, and even running it (with my 1e variants mostly still in place) quite a bit. I recall disarm being pointless, mainly because not a lot of monsters used weapons, but also very significantly because not many things stood up to a 2e fighter long enough for degrading their offense in some marginal way to make a difference. Then again, I didn't exactly do a lot of PvP back then, either.

So if I include 2e in a statement about 1e, and you think I'm missing some detail, maybe I am. But unless that detail is a whole manuever and feat system, and modular multiclassing, I'm not going to assume that I somehow wasn't playing 2e back then (which, y'know, with as many variants as people used back in the day, isn't impossible, I suppose), so I remain unconvinced that 2e somehow had just as much customization and choice for fighters as 3e delivered.

Geoff, I'm trying to address your claim that 2e fighters were "boring" because they didn't have feats. I think it's fair to say at this point that that claim has been thoroughly disproven. That doesn't make you a bad person, and it doesn't make you wrong about 1st edition which I never played, but it disproves a false claim about 2nd. Perhaps we'll see some of 2nd edition's approach (generalized combat options vs. character feats) return in 5E's DMG--there's a shout-out to Called Shots at least, but who knows how far they'll take that. With the way proficiency bonuses work in 5E, fighters wouldn't necessarily be any better at targetting vulnerable locations anyway, except for having more attacks/round.

Geoff

2014-10-16, 08:54 PM

Geoff, I'm trying to address your claim that 2e fighters were "boring" because they didn't have feats. I think it's fair to say at this point that that claim has been thoroughly disproven. I take it you're a bit invested in 2e being a particularly stellar ed in some way?

OK, I get wanting to defend a favorite edition.

Now try looking at the 3.5 fighter from the eyes of someone accustomed to the 1e fighter. 1e, specialization was a late addition, combat maneuvers other than simply attacking were obscure and not that useful, all fighters were basically the same but for their magic items, which were virtually always found items placed by the DM or randomly generated. You had very little say in how your character turned out. 3.5 added this tremendous customization that was entirely on the player's side. Big difference.

For my experience of 2e, it did little to change the 1e fighter. Kits were cosmetic, weapon specialization and TWF were even deadlier, C&T & S&P were quite late additions. Compared to massive damage from double-specialization + TWF, and being a randomly-obtained magic item platform, the rest was noise. If you found something to get excited about in there, I'm happy for you. Clearly we were playing different games. A danger of encouraging lots of variants. I can only imagine what arguments about 5e will be like 30 years from now, given it's taking that same road again - I doubt I'll be around to see 'em.

Oh, good, so you're backing off your incorrect claim I stand by my observation that D&D hps are incompatible with simulationism, even to the metaphorical point of 'shattering' it. That you've glued it back together in your own mind in a manner you find satisfactory, notwithstanding.

which drew my attention in the first place. Instead you're refuting a straw man that "Simulationism has always been the One True Way of D&D." Since I don't believe in that straw man, nor does anyone else I know, I guess we're done here. QED. Lack of nested quotes strikes again. Here's the statements I was arguing against, and, by unquoted extension, you were defending:

The default assumption is stimulationist, because that is literally how DnD was conceived and what it was for both its most successful iteration well as the majority of its iterations.

Actually, 5e maintains strong simulationism while still being balanced.

MaxWilson

2014-10-16, 09:03 PM

Lack of nested quotes strikes again. Here's the statements I was arguing against, and, by unquoted extension, you were defending:

The infamous Internet Audience problem. A says "X", B says "not X", C says "not always X", D says "I disagree," everyone thinks D is talking to them.

FWIW, I have no opinion on silveralen's claim about D&D's historical roots, but I very much agree with Sartharina's claim that D&D has strong support for simulationism including in 5E. (4E possibly excepted.) Edit: Neither of them claimed that it was the One True Way of D&D though, so your straw man is still a straw man AFAICT.

Geoff

2014-10-16, 09:10 PM

The infamous Internet Audience problem. A says "X", B says "not X", C says "not always X", D says "I disagree," everyone thinks D is talking to them. Yeah. The way this board automatically deletes nested quotes exacerbates it, IMHO.

FWIW, I have no opinion on silveralen's claim about D&D's historical roots, but I very much agree with Sartharina's claim that D&D has strong support for simulationism including in 5E. (4E possibly excepted.) I don't think it's worth going over again. ;)

MaxWilson

2014-10-16, 09:17 PM

I don't think it's worth going over again. ;)

Yeah. Peace.

obryn

2014-10-16, 09:33 PM

Hey, I've literally never even discussed this before, I made my account for oots talk, I don't know what's old.

That being said, superhuman typically implies the person is somehow tougher or more powerful. I'm fine with this. Things like innate regeneration and HP pools mimic superhuman.

Healing another person's wounds without actually using medicine, instead using pure force of personality, tends to lean more towards supernatural/spells. It's external.

I'm okay with warlord if he actually fits a martial character (again, things like maneuvers, granting advantage/extra attacks, or even temporary HP fit reasonably well), but some stuff in 4e went well beyond that.
So this is a definition of hit points thing? Not even going there. Suffice to say, your strictly physical approach is (a) not universally held, and (b) is at odds with their definition in D&D's rules. Put another way, restoring hit points does not necessarily mean yelling wounds closed.

But seriously, I have no desire at all to repeat this particular crazy rabbit hole of a conversation, so...

Mechaviking

2014-10-16, 10:13 PM

We´ve yet to receive the splatbooks, but at least I spend less time in character creation and more in actual playing.

4e Chargen took about 2-5 hours in the end searching through the character builder and or crossreferancing builds. Dudes in 4e were so overpowered that they could potentially 1 round Tiamat at the end of the scales of war campaign(was it scales of war the 1-30 epic campaign?).

I played A LOT of 4e and I had a bunch of fun with it and oddly enough I enjoyed the heroes of the forgotten lands(and kingdoms) most because of their simplicity I guess.

But then again if somebody and their group wants to run 4e/3.x/PF rather than 5e I completely understand but personally I will not touch 4e or 3.x with an eleven foot pole.

To those who have an issue with this system:

It was in open playtesting 1 year and then some and everything typed in the playtest forum was read and examined so if your bitchin now its 1 year too late. Just remember in x years when they start doing the next edition BE SURE to take part in the friggin playtest and shape the system to your needs. I personally like this version(aside from a couple of things :smallbiggrin:) and most things I had an issue with were fixed.

This turned out longer than I expected, but as always you as a player and gm have all of the rights to play or not play whatever the hell you want.

MeeposFire

2014-10-17, 12:06 AM

A lot of these conversations are really hashing out the quality of the character in terms of power not necessarily fun.

I find that 2e fighters are powerful (warrior type powerful of course but very effective for their time) but mechanically they do not offer much outside of the basics. Oddly for me those 2e fighters were often much more fun than my 3e fighters (often because unlike the 3e fighter the 2e fighters could really pull their weight in their game system). It was sometimes fun trying to figure out a tricky build for a 3e fighter but often after you figure out a trick it becomes your one trick and so really it just becomes like playing a 2e fighter that you think has cool tricks but really has just one trick that at first seems cooler (but quickly becomes stale). The fact that you actually built yourself for it just makes this issue even more glaringly obvious to me as now I can't ignore it. To make matters even worse it takes so much effort to make a fighter "decent" and then that is all you get. The 3e fighter even with its feats are often more limited in effect than a 2e fighter since the 2e fighter is far more competent especially if you were to translate some of the only "cool" feats in 3e into weapon style proficiencies or the like. Think of a 2e fighter with a robilar's gambit/combat reflexes type ability it would be really sweet.

I have a hunch that the 5e fighter will go back to being about as fun as the 2e fighter for me which is not a bad thing and will be noticeably easier to build and go into the fun which is a big plus. I think it will probably be less fun than the 4e fighter but he has a few more tricks (not as many as you think since even in 4e you tend to build towards a certain power strategy and spam it so chances are you are actually going into a power rut but don not realize it as quickly since you do have a few key choices). Honestly though I think the 4e fighter's biggest fun accomplishment is more system based in that 4e has much more tactical war game style gameplay which means you can use powers that enhance that gameplay which is probably the greatest part of 4e in truth. You see something of that sort in most editions but it is not pervasive nor as well done as this gameplay is shown in 4e.

nonsi

2014-10-17, 08:27 AM

Advantage is a meaningless buzzword in this context. So in that regard, you're wrong. Advantage means better at doing something. You don't come anywhere near addressing what this advantage is good towards. Is 5e better at....
Being 3e? No, it's about even (because all 3e material can be used with tweaking)
Being 4e? Definitely.
Being a pick up game? About the same.
Being smooth at high levels? Yes.
Having party balance at high levels? Yes.
Removing simulationism? Yes.
Indulging simulationism? No.
Playing world of darkness? About the same.
Teaching people how to sing? Not applicable.
Using 1e and 2e books directly? Yes.

5e is good if it does what you want. It's bad if it doesn't. But "what you want" is a subjective variable, not objective.

If I were to sum my expectations in one sentence, it would by: "I'd expected 5e to give me more for less".
More options for less written material.
More characters concepts for less classes. To a point where there are more character-concept options than the sum of character options that even the writers had thought about (where the rules allow you to invent new character concepts with the existing rules).
And who said there had to be symmetry in the number of class variants between the different classes? That in itself is a bad design goal. It reduces the practical symmetry of options or game enjoyment between the different classes, because for some of them you have less to work with, so you end up with a class variant that's lacking (without getting into details, because others here could probably give better examples than I would).

And I'm not so sure regarding your claims about high-levels in 5e. It doesn't seem to me like there was enough public experience with 5e high-levels to make that claim.

@Geoff: Your assumption regarding me hoping WotC takes something from me is wrong for two reasons:
1) My view of things never went with the general public on any aspect of existence, so it would be bad for business for the publishers (this doesn't bother me one bit).
2) Suppose they did – I'd gain nothing from it. Since I don't have neither the time nor the opportunity to play anywhere in the visible future, the only thing I could gain from a new edition is a collection of ideas.

Yet you have that giant, bold, link in your sig, like you want the whole world to marvel at your genius.

Size 5 is not that "giant" :smalltongue:
What I want is more feedback, which so far has driven a lot of changes. If I were so full of myself as you assume, I wouldn't've made so many feedback-based changes.
I'm the first to admit that most of what's in the codex is not mine (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=17597947&postcount=33). The codex is a continuous WIP I'm conducting for intellectual curiosity more than for any other reason.

5e fighters have some (a Combat Style at 1st, then sub-class, plus two bonus feats starting at 6th) of the 3e fighter's customization (11 bonus feats that run the gamut), and the 2e fighters potentially game-breaking DPS, and a slightly better implementation of it's Kits in the form of Backgrounds. But, net, it still feels like a big step backwards, even if the raw DPS power is there. If they had the 1e/2e fighter's crazy-good high level saving throws, you could at least figure they'd be able to stick around and take actions, however limited, when other classes had been turned to stone or vaporized or whatever, but that boat sailed with 3.0 and has definitely not been sighted since.

I haven't played 5e, so I can only say from my impression of seeing the 5e Fighter description that it seems like this is a correct analysis.
To me, this indicates bad design goals (or maybe they want to preserve the "Fighters suck" discussion, idk).
A good design goal is that the Fighter should be overall the strongest combatant on the battlefield ("Fighter" = the one whose primary function is to be the first one in the party to do the fighting more often than not).
That's why I always hated the Barbarian and Ranger being separate classes.
And for those that worry about putting too much into a single class, then I ask: what are spells if not exactly that?
I say that with a bit of effort, one could arrange many options in an organized and readable manner.

Look for an early D&D book that says it's a simulation with realism as it's first priority. You won't find one. What you will find, in the 1e DMG, is Gygax specifically saying it's no such thing. Game first, realism second when it didn't get in the way of being a halfway decent game - "simulationsism" something dreamed up on UseNet in the late 90s.

I find it tedious that people still stick to Gygax's point of view on some issues.
3e and 5e have so much in them that Gygax never even dreamed of.
Yes, he's the one that gave birth to RPG and all credit to him for it, but times move on and things of today build on things on the past and move them forward.

I stand by my observation that D&D hps are incompatible with simulationism, even to the metaphorical point of 'shattering' it.

Actually, this is where point of view can make a lot of difference (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=18027478&postcount=153).

Geoff

2014-10-17, 11:32 AM

If I were to sum my expectations in one sentence, it would by: "I'd expected 5e to give me more for less".
More options for less written material. Yeah, high expectations are always more likely to leave you disappointed.

And I'm not so sure regarding your claims about high-levels in 5e. It doesn't seem to me like there was enough public experience with 5e high-levels to make that claim. I don't recall a playtest adventure that was designed for high level.

I haven't played 5e, so I can only say from my impression of seeing the 5e Fighter description that it seems like this is a correct analysis.
To me, this indicates bad design goals (or maybe they want to preserve the "Fighters suck" discussion, idk).

A good design goal is that the Fighter should be overall the strongest combatant on the battlefield ("Fighter" = the one whose primary function is to be the first one in the party to do the fighting more often than not). "Best at fighting" was a 5e design goal. If we define fighting as attacking an enemy with a weapon, for 40 rounds or so, and taking the mode (not mean) effectiveness of those rounds for comparison, the Fighter meets that goal handily.

I find it tedious that people still stick to Gygax's point of view on some issues.
3e and 5e have so much in them that Gygax never even dreamed of. This case (the explanation of gaining hps), is not one of those many things, though. 3e's explanation of hps is basically the same as Gygax's, just blessedly terse by comparison. Same with 4e and 5e - though, arguably, 4e did maybe go further with implementing rules that fit that explanation, while 5e, in keeping with it's philosophy, 'optionalizes' it in a sidebar.

Morty

2014-10-17, 11:53 AM

Oscredwin

2014-10-17, 12:07 PM

What if a warlord class was flavored as having an aura of destiny around them? This would require them to be charisma based, but there's nothing wrong with that. What if they had a bond with one other character (changeable given a short/long rest) and can help them do cool things (likely spending the target character's reaction). This should help with the flavor, and keep them from stepping on anyone's toes.

Geoff

2014-10-17, 12:07 PM

I think this is another example of how the Fighter class in 3e and 5e is effectively written into a corner. Any abilities it may have beyond the universal skills/backgrounds and swinging/shooting/throwing their weapons frequently and incessantly risk stepping out of its extremely narrow niche. The 5e Fighter can cast spells (Eldritch Knight). Isn't that something beyond skills/backgrounds and swinging/shooting/throwing weapons? Or is the EK stepping out of the fighter's extremely narrow niche? What's the problem with that, if it is? Doesn't that set a precedent for other archetypes in the future that might also do something more?

obryn

2014-10-17, 12:18 PM

The 5e Fighter can cast spells (Eldritch Knight). Isn't that something beyond skills/backgrounds and swinging/shooting/throwing weapons? Or is the EK stepping out of the fighter's extremely narrow niche? What's the problem with that, if it is? Doesn't that set a precedent for other archetypes in the future that might also do something more?
EK is a fake multiclass and uses the magic system instead of a more suitable martial system. So they veer towards Wizard rather than being better at Fighter.

MaxWilson

2014-10-17, 12:22 PM

The 5e Fighter can cast spells (Eldritch Knight). Isn't that something beyond skills/backgrounds and swinging/shooting/throwing weapons? Or is the EK stepping out of the fighter's extremely narrow niche? What's the problem with that, if it is? Doesn't that set a precedent for other archetypes in the future that might also do something more?

Seems fine to me. The Eldritch Knight is a fighter who can magically Haste himself and/or toss around fireballs. It's not really any kind of replacement for a wizard, more like a low-level battle sorcerer focused (almost?) completely on combat. Seems pretty fighter-ish to me.

silveralen

2014-10-17, 02:15 PM

I think this is another example of how the Fighter class in 3e and 5e is effectively written into a corner. Any abilities it may have beyond the universal skills/backgrounds and swinging/shooting/throwing their weapons frequently and incessantly risk stepping out of its extremely narrow niche.

As silly as it may sound, I wish fighter had more things like remarkable athlete ( 7th level champion feature). Things that make them better at using skills, or let them use them in more interesting ways, feels like it should be a hallmark of fighter. You see a lot of this sort of ability in rogue as well, like expertise , and pretty much everything from the thief archetype. It'd make me happy at least to see more athlete or explorer (even if overlaps with ranger slightly) mixed in with fighter.

MadGrady

2014-10-17, 02:18 PM

As silly as it may sound, I wish fighter had more things like remarkable athlete ( 7th level champion feature). Things that make them better at using skills, or let them use them in more interesting ways, feels like it should be a hallmark of fighter. You see a lot of this sort of ability in rogue as well, like expertise , and pretty much everything from the thief archetype. It'd make me happy at least to see more athlete or explorer (even if overlaps with ranger slightly) mixed in with fighter.

I agree here. I don't think EK is too far off base as a fighter subclass, but I do feel that the essence of the class is non-magical martial bad-a**ery. I was so happy to see that they aren't shafted in skill points like they were in PF (especially since SP don't exist in 5e......yet). But yes, I would love to see more tactical and more physical type abilities.

nonsi

2014-10-19, 04:42 AM

Yeah, high expectations are always more likely to leave you disappointed.

1. They're the guys that invented 3e.
2. They had more than 10 years from 3.5e till 5e.
3. They already had so much to draw from on top of the core mechanics (complete ___, races of ___, UA, ToB, XPH, ToM, MoI etc).
4. Unlike in pre-3e versions, they had thousands of various forum discussions to draw from.

All in all, yeah, I think my expectations were within reason.

In 3e, they went for something entirely new (BAB, save categories, simplified multiclassing, the new approach to skills, well defined conditions, rich combat etc. - these things made sense and were virtually intuitive), and regardless of the problems we're all aware of, it was a good step forward.
If they only had the balls to do that again istead of conforming to what people are already used to, I believe the result would've been a lot better.

Yes, you don't have to tell me that I didn't invent something entirely new either, but I'm just a single homebrewer and I did come up with some original ideas in my codex, even though I'm busy with everyday's life - contrary to the guys that actually make a living out of writing up the rules (btw, when I started playing 3e, I found that quite a few game tweaks I came up with when I was a part of a BECMI group, of which approx. 50% were actually adopted by my group, were implemented in 3e).

At the very least, I'd expected 5e not to compromise on anything that 3e already had to offer in terms of basic game mechanics and character options and diversity.

Eslin

2014-10-19, 06:54 AM

1. They're the guys that invented 3e.
2. They had more than 10 years from 3.5e till 5e.
3. They already had so much to draw from on top of the core mechanics (complete ___, races of ___, UA, ToB, XPH, ToM, MoI etc).
4. Unlike in pre-3e versions, they had thousands of various forum discussions to draw from.

All in all, yeah, I think my expectations were within reason.

In 3e, they went for something entirely new (BAB, save categories, simplified multiclassing, the new approach to skills, well defined conditions, rich combat etc. - these things made sense and were virtually intuitive), and regardless of the problems we're all aware of, it was a good step forward.
If they only had the balls to do that again istead of conforming to what people are already used to, I believe the result would've been a lot better.

Yes, you don't have to tell me that I didn't invent something entirely new either, but I'm just a single homebrewer and I did come up with some original ideas in my codex, even though I'm busy with everyday's life - contrary to the guys that actually make a living out of writing up the rules (btw, when I started playing 3e, I found that quite a few game tweaks I came up with when I was a part of a BECMI group, of which approx. 50% were actually adopted by my group, were implemented in 3e).

At the very least, I'd expected 5e not to compromise on anything that 3e already had to offer in terms of basic game mechanics and character options and diversity.

Agreeing with this guy for once. They had time and experience on their side, plus they had a huge variety of interesting materials to draw from - there should have been either a lot more of what worked in previous edition or a step forward into different territory with their mechanics.

The reason that's not a game breaker is the base is solid and they have plenty of time to add interesting things to it.

Segev

2014-10-19, 01:36 PM

Uh...

They DID learn a lot from 3.5e's later years, and applied a lot of it to 5e. The Fighter class is one of the big showcases for this.

There's only so much word count in a single book. Covering the ENTIRETY of 3.5's breadth - which comes from (just off the top of my head, listing the most-commonly popular books on this forum) PHB, DMG, Complete Arcane, Complete Divine, Complete Warrior, Complete Champion, Complete Adventurer, Complete Scoundrel, Complete Mage, and the Tome of Battle, for a total of 10 books - would be impossible in just the PHB. Heck, I'm only counting things that arguably had inspiration drawn from them to make up the classes that ARE in the 5e PHB.

I do think it is unreasonable to expect that the mechanics would cover every base in just this one book. They did an admirable job with the first book, and it IS a step in a new direction, if not "forward," attempting to recapture some of the feel that might have been lost from 2e->3e while simplifying and streamlining things even more than 3e did. It still, most importantly, feels like D&D (unlike 4e), and yet is distinct in its approach. The philosophies are a little different, as well, with the huge emphasis on bounded accuracy.

rlc

2014-10-19, 03:13 PM

In 3e, they went for something entirely new (BAB, save categories, simplified multiclassing, the new approach to skills, well defined conditions, rich combat etc. - these things made sense and were virtually intuitive), and regardless of the problems we're all aware of, it was a good step forward.
If they only had the balls to do that again istead of conforming to what people are already used to, I believe the result would've been a lot better.

so riddle me this:
why are there so many threads on this very forum about how x is different than it was in any other edition?

Knaight

2014-10-19, 11:59 PM

Simulationism as the One True Way of D&D is just nonsense. As one possible way of playing D&D, it can be made to work, but it's not the only way, and definitely isn't the only way or "the way it always was." That's just a fallacious appeal to tradition combined with a willful misrepresentation of said tradition.

Let the other 2/3rds of gamers arbitrarily sorted into 'gamists' and 'narrativists' by GNS have their fun with D&D, too. That's supposed to be the spirit 5e was conceived in.

The spirit 5e was conceived in is the one where it's a broad D&D game. That doesn't mean that it should appeal to a narrativist bent, and I say this as someone who enjoys playing some seriously narrativist games*. There is a fundamental structure to D&D regarding what it models and what it is about - it's about characters doing things, centered around the matter of whether they do what they set out to do. Proper narrativism isn't coming out of that. It requires something so fundamentally different that starting fresh is generally a better option.

*Microscope is a personal favorite. InSpectres, Fiasco, Dogs in the Vineyard, and more recently Lairshare are all of interest. There is no way that D&D can get into this territory and remain D&D.

Geoff

2014-10-20, 02:37 PM

There is a fundamental structure to D&D regarding what it models and what it is about - it's about characters doing things, centered around the matter of whether they do what they set out to do. Proper narrativism isn't coming out of that. Fundamentally, D&D is a game. If any of the factions imagined by GNS theory have an exclusive claim on D&D, it's the gamists. But, no one has such a claim. D&D was the first RPG and people adapted it to all sorts of styles, including those that GNS would class as 'narativism' and 'simulationism.' 5e's trying to live up to that (and incidentally sell to everyone who's ever been into D&D). So, while it's fans can get catty with each other over their respective ways of playing, and make up elaborate theories to exclude each other, 5e will get nowhere by taking any of the sides they come up with.

Knaight

2014-10-20, 07:41 PM

Fundamentally, D&D is a game. If any of the factions imagined by GNS theory have an exclusive claim on D&D, it's the gamists. But, no one has such a claim. D&D was the first RPG and people adapted it to all sorts of styles, including those that GNS would class as 'narativism' and 'simulationism.' 5e's trying to live up to that (and incidentally sell to everyone who's ever been into D&D). So, while it's fans can get catty with each other over their respective ways of playing, and make up elaborate theories to exclude each other, 5e will get nowhere by taking any of the sides they come up with.
The "elaborate theories to exclude each other" interpretation of my post would work a great deal better if I was excluding some group I wasn't in. Moreover, "exclude" is extremely loaded language - a less loaded way to express the same thing would be to say that analyses of D&D indicate that it better suits people who favor certain types of play. My saying that it doesn't support narrativism very well is essentially the same as saying that D&D doesn't handle modern horror well. It has a particular scope; those things are outside it.

Geoff

2014-10-21, 02:05 PM

My saying that it doesn't support narrativism very well is essentially the same as saying that D&D doesn't handle modern horror well. It has a particular scope; those things are outside it. Genre and GNS theory are very different things. There are games more focused on the kinds of things narrativists are depicted by GNS as exclusively valuing, and, similarly, games that are more 'simulationist' or better-implemented by 'gamist' standards. D&D is a Fantasy Roleplaying Game. There's something that label that says it's not trying to be an ideal, or even adequate, game for a campaign based on the Aliens franchise: "Fantasy." The rest of the label is RPG, and GNS is an internet theory about gamers who play RPGs.

D&D was the first RPG, it didn't try to carve out a niche for itself by being specialized in some highly theoretical sense. Later games, competing in an established market, often needed to. Maybe GNS analysis is helpful in identifying what niche one of those games might fill, at least in as much as it has any validity at all.

A lot of folks seem to want to claim D&D for one narrow play style or one arbitrary GNS wedge of the community or fans of one pior edition or whatever, but 5e isn't having any of that. It's supposed to be 'modular,' and has so far presented a game that relies very much on the DM (as early D&D tended to), and is thus open to DM customization. It calls back to D&D traditions, which include things that can be construed as supporting or being hostile to each of the GNS classifications, coming as they do from the early days of they hobby when there were no such classifications.

Knaight

2014-10-22, 09:27 AM

A lot of folks seem to want to claim D&D for one narrow play style or one arbitrary GNS wedge of the community or fans of one pior edition or whatever, but 5e isn't having any of that. It's supposed to be 'modular,' and has so far presented a game that relies very much on the DM (as early D&D tended to), and is thus open to DM customization. It calls back to D&D traditions, which include things that can be construed as supporting or being hostile to each of the GNS classifications, coming as they do from the early days of they hobby when there were no such classifications.

This doesn't follow. The classifications were made to categorize things that already exist as much as to influence new things, they work on old stuff just fine. GNS has some issues - the way it was depicted by the Forge was pretty hostile to the GS part of it - but it's a pretty solid framework if used as a three measure set for game suitability. D&D 5e has the G part just fine, with the focus towards balance, the niche protection, the subsystems made to be fun. S it is clearly meant to handle to some degree - you've got the economic system put in place with hard numbers, a push towards tools helping (e.g. armor being useful rather than a decorative element used to express character through their aesthetic), so on and so forth. Narrativism just doesn't have much in the way of support. The fundamental mechanic is a check to see if a character can accomplish something, traits about who a character is rather than what they can do are minimal and questionably implemented (alignment), so on and so forth.

Maybe it's supposed to support a more narrative style. It fails at that goal if it has it. I could see trying 5e if I'm in a more G-S mood, particularly if I'm leaning towards gamism at the moment*. It's not a bad system for that. If I'm looking for something more narrative, it gets weeded out on the very first pass.

*Provided that I'm also in a fantasy mood. One of the perks of being perpetual GM is getting to pretty much choose games.

Segev

2014-10-22, 10:03 AM

Like any game, D&D supports certain play styles better than others. 5e is trying to be as supportive of as broad a set of play styles as possible while still being D&D, but its focus is definitely where it should be: on being a dungeon-crawling adventure simulator. 5e is actually LESS gamist than 3e was, but it still has plenty to interest you. Narrativists, in truth, can make any system work for them; they tend to pull back on the rules anyway. This doesn't mean there aren't systems designed for them, nor that 5e is not trying to accommodate them, but it does mean that it's not aimed at them in any direct sense. They can use it or not, but if they use it it's probably for the genre conventions and how well it models the genre (coming back to narrativists who like simulation of the world they're narrating to be reflected in the rules) or how well it makes for balanced arbitration (a more gamist thing) where their narrative doesn't dictate a result as superior to all others.

...

2014-10-22, 10:11 AM

so riddle me this:
why are there so many threads on this very forum about how x is different than it was in any other edition?

Because there are problems. There were problems, there are problems, and there always will be problems. Fourth and Fifth Edition simply have too many problems.

Segev

2014-10-22, 10:15 AM

So far, the biggest problems with 5e I'm seeing are two particular spells (which is a pretty low error-rate), and "it's not 3.5." And while I sympathize with that last one, it's not nearly so damning as the problem with 4e: "This game is a perfectly fine and well-balanced fantasy combat simulator which is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike D&D."

5e admirably retains the feel of D&D, takes lessons from the mechanics of 3.5 and 4e, and builds a new core system with interesting classes and class design that retains the uniqueness of each class and their special mechanics that make them distinct. I think 5e is a well-designed and -thought-out system, overall. Even if the gamist in me still prefers 3.5 for a lot of things. I will not balk at 5e games the way I did at 4e ones. (I just didn't enjoy them; if I want to play a mage, I am not enthused at playing a Martial Adept instead.)

MadGrady

2014-10-22, 11:08 AM

Gnomes2169

2014-10-22, 11:11 AM

Because there are problems. There were problems, there are problems, and there always will be problems. Fourth and Fifth Edition simply have too many problems.

If having ~6-8 strange rules problems and imbalance issues is enough to damn a game for all eternity, then you must absolutely loathe 1e and 2e, which only really function in fantasy lala world where you homebrew either half of the rules away entirely, or you deal with many very, very strange inconsistencies or difficult to understand systems (weapon speeds, THAC0, negative armor classes and the saving throw system, anyone?)

And yet oddly, despite the broken nature of the systems (as in, doesn't work or at least doesn't work well without active fixing) they were wildly popular systems. Ever heard of Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights and anything in Dragonlance? Say hello and thank you to 2e, which all started in that system. How about dungeons and dragons, and second edition? Those were both launched by 1e, so you can thank it as well.

Not to mention the problems in 5e are often also problems in 3.P, but in lower numbers and most often to lesser degrees. Infinite simulaci is RAW in 3.5, Wish is still broken as all hell and has a cost that can be trivially overcome or payed, gate gets you permanent critters who you can permanently planar bind for a pittance of gold and no save, polymorph makes you literally immortal, starting at level 3 one of the most useful skills is replaced by a single spell until level 17 even if a caster doesn't invest a single point in their charisma score or their bluff skill (glibness, anyone?) Roleplaying has no inherent impact on literally any part of the game mechanically unless the DM slaps down fiat or you are a paladin (in which case, by RAW you fall the moment you step foot in the underdark or an orc city), you can convince people who hate you, hate your guts, hate your god, hate your cow (dishonor on it) and hate the very air you breathe that you are the best person ever with a single skill check and 6 seconds of effort, the spells section, the spells section, the spells section, clever use of altar self, polymorph and shapechange got you attribute scores ~110 and immunity to almost every condition and energy type in the game, and literally nothing stopped the wizard, cleric or druid while the fighter was weaker than the druid's animal companion. Welcome to the problems I can remember off the top of my head with the 3.5 core materials. Let's not even get into the splatbooks.

And 5e somehow is more unplayable than 1e, 2e, 3.5 (or heaven forbid 3.0)? Color me suspicious that the simpler, more balanced and more playtested-on-release system is somehow objectively worse in every single way. Other systems are heavily flawed, we are just so used to these flaws that we either subconsciously correct or ignore them without even thinking about it and look at them through rose tinted glasses. Any yet, these flaws don't make the system inherently bad, just flawed. It is not badwrongfun if you have fun with the systems, and there is no arbitrary "X number of flaws means that the system is unplayable" cutoff. If you don't like it, fine. But you should really use different criteria than "a few things don't work perfectly," because literally every game system has that (yes, even video games and TCG's).

Sartharina

2014-10-22, 11:37 AM

Because there are problems. There were problems, there are problems, and there always will be problems. Fourth and Fifth Edition simply have too many problems.

But not as many as 3e. The only game that might be superior is Pathfinder, but that's only because catfolk are playable.

Gnomes2169

2014-10-22, 11:40 AM

But not as many as 3e. The only game that might be superior is Pathfinder, but that's only because catfolk are playable.

You really like catfolk if you are willing to say that. :smalltongue:

Geoff

2014-10-22, 01:52 PM

This doesn't follow. The classifications were made to categorize things that already exist as much as to influence new things, they work on old stuff just fine. GNS has some issues - the way it was depicted by the Forge was pretty hostile to the GS part of it - but it's a pretty solid framework if used as a three measure set for game suitability. I think the 'suitability' measure based on dividing gamers into 3 camps and assuming they're mutually incompatible is wrong-headed to begin with. No one's 100% one GNS letter and repelled by the least 'support' for either of the other two. A system can allow all three pretty easily - indeed, given the nature of an RPG, it almost can't help it. RPGs are games, they fail at being games if they're not gamist at all. The degrees of freedom open to DMs and players when RPing leave plenty of room for building stories or building worlds/characters, regardless.

D&D 5e has the G part just fine, with the focus towards balance, the niche protection, the subsystems made to be fun. S it is clearly meant to handle to some degree - you've got the economic system put in place with hard numbers, a push towards tools helping, so on and so forth. Case in point, you can clearly see how 5e 'supports' the two styles you identify with less strongly. They're not incompatible. Yet, a simulationist can decide that 5e fails him because of Second Wind, for instance. The question isn't really rather the system can be used for one of the 3 (or infinitely more likely, an RP experience that includes elements of all three), but whether someone's looking for an excuse to reject it.

Narrativism just doesn't have much in the way of support. The fundamental mechanic is a check to see if a character can accomplish something, traits about who a character is rather than what they can do are minimal and questionably implemented (alignment), so on and so forth.In that sense, the fundamental mechanic is the DM determining success/failure or calling for a check to do so. The DM also decides on the world and how it reacts to the party. If he has a status quo world, his campaign's going to feel more simulationist, if he has a tailored world, more narrativist. Nothing stops the DM from putting story first - if a resolution has to go one way for story purposes, it does, because resolution is DM first and last.

Maybe it's supposed to support a more narrative style. It fails at that goal if it has it. I'm pretty sure it's not a goal to support any one of the GNS labels over any of the others, rather, it's goal is to be D&D, and D&D has historically been used in all three of the ways GNS describes.

Geoff

2014-10-22, 02:01 PM

so riddle me this:
why are there so many threads on this very forum about how x is different than it was in any other edition? Lack of familiarity with the one other edition in which x was similar to what it is in 5e, would be my guess.

You could say Advantage or bounded accuracy or casting with slots are 'new,' for instance, but they really aren't. Re-rolls or roll-twice-take-the-highest (or lowest) mechanics have been used in D&D before. Even advancement of the BAB/THAC0 equivalent for all classes has been done before. Spontaneous casting has been done before.

There's really virtually nothing new in 5e. Which, really, is the point, it's borrowed from every past edition. Few of us have an encyclopedic knowledge of absolutely everything from absolutely every edition (my blindspot is Expert-Immortals/RC, for instance, never touched 'em).

Not realizing that is nothing new, either. There was a lot of 'totally new to D&D' stuff in 3.0 that was actually in C&T or S&P for 2e, for instance.

4e is probably the only ed that actually did something 'new,' and even most of that was experimented with in late 3.5, or a continuation of a trend started in 3e.

Segev

2014-10-22, 02:21 PM

Indeed, I think part of what makes 5e successfully feel like a new edition of D&D is that it does not invent entirely new concepts and mechanics which had never been part of D&D before, but instead picks and chooses what worked well and what fits going towards the new goals they set (e.g. bounded accuracy). It IS new, but it's built from familiar parts and has a familiar, pleasing shape to those who are familiar with AD&D through 3.5e. It probably even has some familiarity to 4e players (i.e. those who have not known any prior edition other than 4e), though I can't speak to that as well so I don't know.

4e may have similarly borrowed from existing material, but it made the mistake of rooting itself firmly in one of the more late- and hotly-debated mechanics sets. And then generalizing it to the whole of the game. This made it feel significantly less like "D&D" than 5e does, because it almost innovated too much, and where it didn't, it relied heavily on a singular subsystem that was not really a part of the legacy of D&D as a whole yet. It was good at what it tried to do, in terms of creating a balanced fantasy combat game, but it would have worked better, marketing-wise, as its own system. (Well, except for the fact that "D&D" attached to ANY game is going to sell that game better than that game would sell without it.)

5e works for the crowd that abandoned 4e for PF because even where it's new, it's a new combination of old, familiar parts. It is more than a refinement of 3.5, but it is not a brand new system with all new innovations. It's a refinement of the whole of what came before, with a careful selection and retooling of the rules and elements chosen to work together to form a cohesive whole. But they're sticking with the overall chassis and remembering to include the favorite options.

4e was one-size-fits-all in a lot of ways, and that one size was one of the newer models introduced late in the last cycle rather than any of the popular standbys.

5e has re-introduced the standbys and brought some of the most popular newer models back as well, and incorporated features from the model used to fashion 4e in several places. 5e manages, therefore, to be D&D in a way that 4e just never quite managed.

Icewraith

2014-10-22, 02:33 PM

A lot of the issues I've seen with 5e are actually isuues with people seeing an ability name in the 5e phb and assuming it works exactly like it did in 3.5.

Gnomes2169

2014-10-22, 02:37 PM

A lot of the issues I've seen with 5e are actually isuues with people seeing an ability name in the 5e phb and assuming it works exactly like it did in 3.5.

With the added bonus of the similarly named ability not working all that well in 3.5 either! :smallbiggrin: (Grapple, I'm looking at you...)

nonsi

2014-10-29, 04:14 AM

5e works for the crowd that abandoned 4e for PF because even where it's new, it's a new combination of old, familiar parts. It is more than a refinement of 3.5, but it is not a brand new system with all new innovations. It's a refinement of the whole of what came before, with a careful selection and retooling of the rules and elements chosen to work together to form a cohesive whole. But they're sticking with the overall chassis and remembering to include the favorite options.

When refining, you don't throw away stuff that works in favor of more complex rules that make no sense or cut down on build/gametime versatility.

Saves:
3e for one did those perfectly as they should've been from the start.
When targeted with an effect that you have a chance to reduce/eliminate, there are really only 3 options:
- you evade it
- you physically resist it
- you mentally resist it
There's nothing really to fix here.
If you think things are too easy in 3.5e, then you play with the DCs (Adv./Dis. kills stacking of modifiers, so that issue is out the window as far as saves go).

Skills:
3.5e is the only system that actually got the mechanics right.
Sure, many have complained that there aren't enough skill ranks in 3.5e, and I'd wholeheartedly agree.
You fix it by granting a preliminary pool for everyone rather than multiplying x4 on 1st ECL.
You fix it by upping ranks/level for skill starved classes.
You fix it by granting certain classes auto-skill-increment in the primary skills that define them.
You cut down on spells and powers that render skillmonkeys obsolete (I'm not expecting Fly to disappear, but Detect Secret Doors for instance should vanish)
Doing the above allows you to fine-tune skills to simultaneously better model realism and increase the overall usefulness of skills.
What you DON'T DO is melt them into the ability scores and guarantee that a rogue can never again be a multifaceted skillmonkey.

Lokiare

2014-10-29, 07:08 AM

If having ~6-8 strange rules problems and imbalance issues is enough to damn a game for all eternity, then you must absolutely loathe 1e and 2e, which only really function in fantasy lala world where you homebrew either half of the rules away entirely, or you deal with many very, very strange inconsistencies or difficult to understand systems (weapon speeds, THAC0, negative armor classes and the saving throw system, anyone?)

And yet oddly, despite the broken nature of the systems (as in, doesn't work or at least doesn't work well without active fixing) they were wildly popular systems. Ever heard of Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights and anything in Dragonlance? Say hello and thank you to 2e, which all started in that system. How about dungeons and dragons, and second edition? Those were both launched by 1e, so you can thank it as well.

Not to mention the problems in 5e are often also problems in 3.P, but in lower numbers and most often to lesser degrees. Infinite simulaci is RAW in 3.5, Wish is still broken as all hell and has a cost that can be trivially overcome or payed, gate gets you permanent critters who you can permanently planar bind for a pittance of gold and no save, polymorph makes you literally immortal, starting at level 3 one of the most useful skills is replaced by a single spell until level 17 even if a caster doesn't invest a single point in their charisma score or their bluff skill (glibness, anyone?) Roleplaying has no inherent impact on literally any part of the game mechanically unless the DM slaps down fiat or you are a paladin (in which case, by RAW you fall the moment you step foot in the underdark or an orc city), you can convince people who hate you, hate your guts, hate your god, hate your cow (dishonor on it) and hate the very air you breathe that you are the best person ever with a single skill check and 6 seconds of effort, the spells section, the spells section, the spells section, clever use of altar self, polymorph and shapechange got you attribute scores ~110 and immunity to almost every condition and energy type in the game, and literally nothing stopped the wizard, cleric or druid while the fighter was weaker than the druid's animal companion. Welcome to the problems I can remember off the top of my head with the 3.5 core materials. Let's not even get into the splatbooks.

And 5e somehow is more unplayable than 1e, 2e, 3.5 (or heaven forbid 3.0)? Color me suspicious that the simpler, more balanced and more playtested-on-release system is somehow objectively worse in every single way. Other systems are heavily flawed, we are just so used to these flaws that we either subconsciously correct or ignore them without even thinking about it and look at them through rose tinted glasses. Any yet, these flaws don't make the system inherently bad, just flawed. It is not badwrongfun if you have fun with the systems, and there is no arbitrary "X number of flaws means that the system is unplayable" cutoff. If you don't like it, fine. But you should really use different criteria than "a few things don't work perfectly," because literally every game system has that (yes, even video games and TCG's).

Unfortunately we aren't talking about one or two mistakes. We are talking about the many mistakes that have been found on this forum and others with infinite armies, spells that can't really be saved against and make other spells near auto successes, feats that by pass entire subsystems meant to limit casters, the ability to make infinite magic items, the ability to invalidate an entire class once you hit a certain level... Etc... Etc...

5e has more flaws than any other edition except 3e,and because it has the D&D label on it, it gets a free pass. People in this thread are already wearing rose tinted glasses from what I see.

MadGrady

2014-10-29, 08:04 AM

Unfortunately we aren't talking about one or two mistakes. We are talking about the many mistakes that have been found on this forum and others with infinite armies, spells that can't really be saved against and make other spells near auto successes, feats that by pass entire subsystems meant to limit casters, the ability to make infinite magic items, the ability to invalidate an entire class once you hit a certain level... Etc... Etc...

5e has more flaws than any other edition except 3e,and because it has the D&D label on it, it gets a free pass. People in this thread are already wearing rose tinted glasses from what I see.

Small critique - I would remove all references to feats from the proposed list of "issues" as they are completely optional in this edition. Simply don't allow them in your game, and they don't cause issues.

Continue

*goes back to eating popcorn and watching the firefight* :smalltongue:

Segev

2014-10-29, 08:59 AM

When refining, you don't throw away stuff that works in favor of more complex rules that make no sense or cut down on build/gametime versatility.I really, really don't get where you're seeing 5e as replacing "stuff that works" with "more complex rules that make no sense or cut down on build/gametime versatility."

5e does change things from 3e, and some of those things did work. But I don't see 5e increasing the complexity. And if anything, gametime versatility is increased. Build versatility...well, we're going from an edition with dozens of books to an edition with, currently, two. That's inevitable. It will also likely change with time and book releases.

Saves:
3e for one did those perfectly as they should've been from the start.I liked 3e's save simplification, yes. One of the things I actually liked in 4e was the shift to making them "defenses," thus making attackers always the ones rolling. They didn't stick with that in 5e, but it's not really worth being upset over.[/quote]

5e's increased it to six saves, but saying that's an increase in complexity is myopic. The six saves are the Abilities. This reduces the number of numbers one must track on the character page by 3; no longer is it six stats and 3 saves, but instead it's just six stats. If you're upset that this means having to think a little more about what you're doing to save against effects, that's valid. But I think it less of a problem than you apparently do, if I'm understanding your objection correctly.

Skills:
3.5e is the only system that actually got the mechanics right.Certainly made them more customizable. I like 3.5e's skill system. 5e's is simpler, but I can easily understand the distress over it becoming, perhaps, TOO much so.

What you DON'T DO is melt them into the ability scores and guarantee that a rogue can never again be a multifaceted skillmonkey.This is an exaggeration. Though I'd be happy to see a Rogue feat or archetype that would allow them to eventually just be broadly proficient. Bard, weirdly, can do this better than rogue, at least with just the PHB.

Unfortunately we aren't talking about one or two mistakes. We are talking about the many mistakes that have been found on this forum and others with infinite armies, spells that can't really be saved against and make other spells near auto successes, feats that by pass entire subsystems meant to limit casters, the ability to make infinite magic items, the ability to invalidate an entire class once you hit a certain level... Etc... Etc... I count 5, here, which is within the "5-8" that the person you quoted indicated. And I have not seen all of the ones you list actually discussed. How are "entire classes" invalidated and what feat(s) bypass "entire subsystems meant to limit casters?" What spells "can't be really saved against and make other spells near auto-successes?"

The infinite armies and the semi-free magic item creation are they only exploits I've really seen discussed, and they're known bugs that are fairly easy to handle in actual play.

5e has more flaws than any other edition except 3e,and because it has the D&D label on it, it gets a free pass. People in this thread are already wearing rose tinted glasses from what I see.You clearly have never played AD&D 1e or 2e. And I think you'll find yourself smack in the midst of an edition war with you as a 4e partisan against the combined forces of 3e and 5e's fans if you persist in this claim.

Flaws exist in all game systems. I don't think you've offered evidence sufficient to demonstrate your claim here. It seems like mudslinging to justify wanting to like some other edition (I'm guessing 4th). You don't need to do that. If you have an edition you like better, you can still play it. Hopefully, some enterprising game company will see the 4e fans left in the cold and make a PF-esq clone of it for them, assuming they're a big enough audience to support it.

Santra

2014-10-29, 10:16 AM

What spells "can't be really saved against and make other spells near auto-successes?"
I really dont agree with anything in his post but I believe he means Contagion giving disadvantage to the con save if you infect them with Slimy Doom

Sartharina

2014-10-29, 10:17 AM

When refining, you don't throw away stuff that works in favor of more complex rules that make no sense or cut down on build/gametime versatility.

Saves:
3e for one did those perfectly as they should've been from the start.
When targeted with an effect that you have a chance to reduce/eliminate, there are really only 3 options:
- you evade it
- you physically resist it
- you mentally resist it
There's nothing really to fix here.
If you think things are too easy in 3.5e, then you play with the DCs (Adv./Dis. kills stacking of modifiers, so that issue is out the window as far as saves go). 4e did attribute-based-defenses better than 3e, because it actually acknowledged alternate ways to evade, physically resist, and mentally resist things.

But I think 5e did them even better. There AREN'T just three ways of resisting something, and saying so is nothing but 3e Myopia. You can power through an effect. You can evade an effect. You can endure an effect. You can think through a problem or assert intellectual superiority over a mental assault. You can assert the force of your own will and personality over an effect that would subvert it. You can maintain control of yourself through self-awareness and perception.

Skills:
3.5e is the only system that actually got the mechanics right.
Sure, many have complained that there aren't enough skill ranks in 3.5e, and I'd wholeheartedly agree.
You fix it by granting a preliminary pool for everyone rather than multiplying x4 on 1st ECL.
You fix it by upping ranks/level for skill starved classes.
You fix it by granting certain classes auto-skill-increment in the primary skills that define them.
You cut down on spells and powers that render skillmonkeys obsolete (I'm not expecting Fly to disappear, but Detect Secret Doors for instance should vanish)
Doing the above allows you to fine-tune skills to simultaneously better model realism and increase the overall usefulness of skills.
What you DON'T DO is melt them into the ability scores and guarantee that a rogue can never again be a multifaceted skillmonkey.
3e did NOT get Skills right in any way, shape, or form. Frankly, I think 4e did it best. Level indicates how awesome you are at life in level-based games. Skills/proficiencies tell you what you're most awesome at life in.

The rogue is now an even better skillmonkey than he was in 3e, thanks to the consolidated proficiencies, and Expertise giving an actually appreciable edge over monsters (As opposed to struggling not to fall off the HD+3 treadmill against over-HD'd monsters that don't have anything better to do with their feats and skill points than invest in Alertness and Spot/Listen.)

Also - 'skill monkey' is a terrible concept anyway. At least when the divide between skilled characters and unskilled characters was as broad as it was in 3e.

And, Abilities weren't in 3e. They were minor boosts. In 5e, abilities are actually abilities - what your character can do.

Segev

2014-10-29, 10:23 AM

I do think 3e did good things with skills. If anything, they didn't go far enough in making skills do neat stuff. But that doesn't mean I dislike how 4e and 5e handled them. It's just a different approach.

silveralen

2014-10-29, 10:39 AM

But not as many as 3e. The only game that might be superior is Pathfinder, but that's only because catfolk are playable.

Out of curiosity, have you considered playing a wood elf reskinned as a cat person? Trade weapon prof for 1d4 unarmed damage (if anyone raises objections at that they are legitimately insane). Assuming you don't mind being a cat person with fey ancestry, that's pretty much all you need. If you do... maybe see if the person running it will let you trade fey ancestry an trance for acrobatics?

What you DON'T DO is melt them into the ability scores and guarantee that a rogue can never again be a multifaceted skillmonkey.

Rogue has 6 skills total (4 class, 2 background). He can double his proficiency in up to 4 of them. He eventually cannot roll lower than 10 with them. He also has thief tool proficiency, which is basically pick lock and disable trap rolled up together, and his expertise can be used on it.

He gets an extra ability score that can be used for feats such as actor, dungeon delver, observant, lucky, skilled, or magic initiate (guidance and whatever else or you want).

Thief and assassin both offer some additional skill bonuses.

Variant human gets you a free skill prof, half elf gets you two, variant human who gets skilled has 4 extra.

So, assume this is a full on skill monkey concept, half elf rogue. That's a net total of 8 starting skills, 1-3 tool proficiencies, and double prof on two of them. That seems like a multifaceted character, especially considering thieves' tool is equivalent to two skill proficiencies in 3.5. You can be good at a variety of skills and very good at a select subset. Then you add on the potential for the feats, the second expertise at lvl 6, and reliable talent at 11 and you have a very skilled character.

Trunamer

2014-10-29, 11:18 AM

(4e is not D&D in any way in my view, so I'm not even addressing it)

In 3e, they went for something entirely new (BAB, save categories, simplified multiclassing, the new approach to skills, well defined conditions, rich combat etc. - these things made sense and were virtually intuitive), and regardless of the problems we're all aware of, it was a good step forward.

If they only had the balls to do that again istead of conforming to what people are already used to, I believe the result would've been a lot better.
The irony is strong in this one.

Gnomes2169

2014-10-29, 11:30 AM

The irony is strong in this one.

He drinks from the nardiest of all grogs. It is a most delicious cup to drink from, I will admit, but still.

Stormageddon

2014-10-29, 01:02 PM

I actually form what I've seen like what they did with 5th ed. Especially with the non-sense of 4th ed.

My gut reactions to 5th ed was "Greater they did the awful skill system from 4th ed again." But I looked at it again and realized that the way they set it up was so much better with the Background system.

In 5th ed you can from 1st level have a paladin with a criminal past. While in 3.5 you have to either start above level 1 or take rogue for the first level and then multiclass into Paladin even then you're not getting any better at rogue skills unless you take either the able learner feat or take more levels of rogue.

4th ed was terrible because my half orc barbarian is the same as your half orc barbarian not really anything you can do about it.

3.5 is still ok but I like Pathfinder better.

I think 5th ed has a lot of potential to be great with the DMG coming out and more supplemental books coming out. It already has given out the most races and classes of any PHB.

Icewraith

2014-10-29, 01:05 PM

The irony is strong in this one.

Good eye- this brought a smile to my face.

HorridElemental

2014-10-29, 02:07 PM

Keep in mind that you're comparing the 5E PHB to a lot of varied material from 3.5, which is a bit unfair to 5E.

One of the advantages of 5E is that it puts a hard cap the main six stats at 20: people cannot go over it regardless of race or class. This means that characters aren't fighting to keep putting their ability increases into their main stat (because a certain point it's capped) and can instead either buff less stats of their choosing or pick up a feat.

The feats themselves are a LOT stronger comparatively to 3.5 with a number functioning also acting as half-ability increases in addition to features.

Casting has been changed a lot in this addition: martials will generally outshine casters in combat due to the reconstruction of "Concentration" only allowing casters a certain amount of things at once. Wizards can still cast Fly, Stoneskin, Mind Blank and all of their other buffs on themselves, but only one of them will be up at a time. Evocation is a lot stronger and a lot of the Save-or-Die stuff has been changed to either Save-or-Full-Damage or Save-or-Suck.

The individuals responsible for the 5E PHB have repeatedly said that they don't intend to make nearly as many books and over-saturate the market with unnecessary books. They're very much trying to make each one a big deal.

I much prefer the Proficiency bonus model over the "Full BAB" and such. It's a lot easier to explain to new players that they have a +2 they add to everything they're good at then having a bunch of different numbers to explain. The system is a lot easier to introduce and I much prefer the simpler quicker-to-solve math than the dealing with +20/15/10/5 non-sense.

On Extra Attack: every martial class gets Extra Attack at Level 5, with Fighters picking up a Third and Fourth attack later on. Casters notably do NOT get this.

You don't really seem to have any comments about the races except "they're the same" to which I will respond, yes. They're all rather well-understood and familiar to both the designers and the players. They will be rather easy to use populate 99% of the game world with likely a couple more unusual races (Warforged, Changeling, Aasimar).

You also have to understand that just because you didn't like 4E doesn't mean there aren't people who did. 5E is a nice sort of neutral ground between 3.5 and 4 in terms of a number of mechanics and features (There aren't 12 bazillion skills you'll never use like in 3.5, spells matter more than in 4E, etc.)

On Class Variants: I don't think I understand you're criticism here. You don't like how each class basically has a choice of 2 or 3 PrCs built-in to it and gets to choose one? Most people have rather appreciated the system as it allows them to earn both general class features along with more flavor-specific ones as well as giving a further level of difference from just the "Human Paladin" or "Half-Elf Bard." It also means that they don't need to create a whole new class for books: they can just release sub-classes. It only ADDS to the material from the PHB in this case, and they're fairly simple to construct (relatively: it only needs four or five features at certain levels that are on-par but necessarily better than the existing ones).

This edition also has an explicit focus on Rule 0 and has constant reminders in the book to "Just ask your DM," which I think it important for players to have.

Awesome, I don't have to write out a long response!

Yeah, this.

Sartharina

2014-10-29, 02:09 PM

4th ed was terrible because my half orc barbarian is the same as your half orc barbarian not really anything you can do about it.

Actually, I feel 4e had more options to differentiate Half Orc barbarians thanks to themes, powers, more feats, and backgrounds than 5e has. Of course... this would change if they hadn't forced Half Orcs and Barbarians into being "Hit With STR-Based Melee Weapon For Big Damage"

nonsi

2014-10-29, 02:41 PM

The irony is strong in this one.

Hold your horses!!

In 4e, they raped the system... raped thematics... raped common sense.............. all in the name of balance.
In 4e, you can't even sum up a class into a table - they're all just sporadic piles of powers.
I haven't played 4e, but so many 4e players have summed up its illnesses better than I could.

3e brought BAB, save categories, simplified multiclassing, well-cooked skills, well defined conditions and rich combat to write home about.
Those were entirely new concepts - each of which can be categorized in a word or two.

What did 4e bring to write home about in the aftermath?
AFAIK - zilch.

As for "If they only had the balls to do that again instead of conforming to what people are already used to, I believe the result would've been a lot better", maybe I was too general there.
What I meant was that instead of designing a small amount of base classes from which one could mix&match to assemble any character concept that comes to mind (e.g. Warrior / Expert / Arcane / Divine / Nature / Eldritch), they played it safe when they went for the known territory of the 11 known classes and just added the most popular non-core official base class to make it an even dozen.
They can declare their intent to minimize splatbooks from here to kingdom come, but only time will tell if they'll keep their word or not - and the more they keep it, the less character options you'll have in the end.
In the meantime, because the classes were no built to mix&match, a player is not at liberty to choose how much rogue-ish vs. how much arcane-ish (or cleric-ish heavens forbid) his character would turn out.

@Sartharina: "And, Abilities weren't in 3e. They were minor boosts."
Sure. They were so minor, that if you didn't put all the resources you could into them, you'd be barely functional to nonfunctional.
Go right ahead, let's see you thrive in 3.Xe with a 10th level wizard that has Int 13 or less, or a fighter at any level with 10 in both strength and dexterity (tell me how it went after 10 campaign sessions strait).

OldTrees1

2014-10-29, 03:07 PM

Race + Classes + Background is a very good way for defining Skills. In my opinion this is an improvement from 3.5.

However a homogenous rank to all trained skills is not as flexible as a point buy system. In this way 3.5 had the better idea.

Sartharina

2014-10-29, 03:34 PM

Hold your horses!!

In 4e, they raped the system... raped thematics... raped common sense.............. all in the name of balance.
In 4e, you can't even sum up a class into a table - they're all just sporadic piles of powers.
I haven't played 4e, but so many 4e players have summed up its illnesses better than I could.And also its strengths, which you ignore. And the 'sporadic pile of powers' are a lot more thematic and functional than 3e's heavily-constricted tables that make classes look better than they are.

3e brought BAB, save categories, simplified multiclassing, well-cooked skills, well defined conditions and rich combat to write home about.
Those were entirely new concepts - each of which can be categorized in a word or two.Lolno. Combat was "I full attack again". Skills were a haphazard mess (Who put points into "Intuit Direction" or "Appraise" anyway?), and a Rogue used 10 of his 8 skill points on basic competency, while a fighter had NO skills or ability to write home about. And have you seen the size of the dysfunctional rules on conditions 3e has?

What did 4e bring to write home about in the aftermath?
AFAIK - zilch.4e brought us Backgrounds, Themes, functional in-combat healing, Fighters capable of Fighting, Thematic abilities, functional math, well-defined conditions and attack types, an action economy that isn't a mess, and functional martial characters (We wouldn't have the Tome of Battle if it weren't for 4e). It also consolidated the skill list (Rogues and fighters rejoice!), improved noncaster functionality while still feeling like noncasters, and made characters competent at what they want to do straight from level 1.

As for "If they only had the balls to do that again instead of conforming to what people are already used to, I believe the result would've been a lot better", maybe I was too general there.
What I meant was that instead of designing a small amount of base classes from which one could mix&match to assemble any character concept that comes to mind (e.g. Warrior / Expert / Arcane / Divine / Nature / Eldritch), they played it safe when they went for the known territory of the 11 known classes and just added the most popular non-core official base class to make it an even dozen.
They can declare their intent to minimize splatbooks from here to kingdom come, but only time will tell if they'll keep their word or not - and the more they keep it, the less character options you'll have in the end.
In the meantime, because the classes were no built to mix&match, a player is not at liberty to choose how much rogue-ish vs. how much arcane-ish (or cleric-ish heavens forbid) his character would turn out.Backgrounds and feats disagree. It also allows the classes to actually play like their class at all levels of play, instead of requiring Martial Characters to wait until Casters have made them obsolete before they can play as they've been wanting to from the very beginning.

@Sartharina: "And, Abilities weren't in 3e. They were minor boosts."
Sure. They were so minor, that if you didn't put all the resources you could into them, you'd be barely functional to nonfunctional.
Go right ahead, let's see you thrive in 3.Xe with a 10th level wizard that has Int 13 or less, or a fighter at any level with 10 in both strength and dexterity (tell me how it went after 10 campaign sessions strait).[/QUOTE]I'm talking about non-combat abilities. The Boost from wisdom is irrelevant to Perception. A DEX 13 guy is incredibly clumsy at everything without skill points, and a CHA 18 guy can't do anything social without burning skill points as well.

Stormageddon

2014-10-29, 03:34 PM

Demonic Spoon

2014-10-29, 03:53 PM

Skill points are a confirmed variant rule in the DMG

Segev

2014-10-29, 04:19 PM

Skill points are a confirmed variant rule in the DMG

That will be interesting to see. It removes one of the simplicities of 5e - using Proficiency and stat mods everywhere, and little to nothing else - but it's still cool to have skill points for customizing things.

OldTrees1

2014-10-29, 04:37 PM

If only they could combind the two....

Skill points are a confirmed variant rule in the DMG
Nice :)
10char

Trunamer

2014-10-29, 04:55 PM

He drinks from the nardiest of all grogs. It is a most delicious cup to drink from, I will admit, but still.
Indeed, many here at GitP drink of that comfortingly inviting river named Nard Grog. Many a tribes-nerd thinks to take a refreshing sip and be on his way, only to become entrapped by its mind-numbing properties...

I actually form what I've seen like what they did with 5th ed. Especially with the non-sense of 4th ed.

4th ed was terrible because my half orc barbarian is the same as your half orc barbarian not really anything you can do about it.

3.5 is still ok but I like Pathfinder better.
'Nuff said.

Trunamer

2014-10-29, 04:56 PM

Good eye- this brought a smile to my face.
Thanks, I do produce the occasional gem. ;)

rlc

2014-10-29, 05:25 PM

Because there are problems. There were problems, there are problems, and there always will be problems. Fourth and Fifth Edition simply have too many problems.
well, you're right that there always will be problems, but i'm not sure what you mean by "too many problems." are you saying that you disagree with a lot of things or that there shouldn't be so much debate on how some things are worded?

A lot of the issues I've seen with 5e are actually isuues with people seeing an ability name in the 5e phb and assuming it works exactly like it did in 3.5.

one of my favorite threads was the one where some chick was really aggressive about how 5e was dumb because feather fall didn't make any sense to her because "they got rid of immediate actions." personally, i think reactions work much better.

HorridElemental

2014-10-29, 05:36 PM

I find it funny that a lot of 4e is actually just variant rules in 3.e but 4e is sooo horrible and 3e is what all games should be made from...

4e and 3e are actually quite backwards compatible haha.

You can put the 4e classes in a table like 3.e if you like and you will get a crap ton of options that are both thematically and mechanically awesome.

ProphetSword

2014-10-29, 08:41 PM

tcrudisi

2014-10-29, 08:53 PM

I think there's enough room in the world for multiple editions of D&D. They're all good in their own way (even 4E). They all have problems. None of them is perfect, but the beauty of RPGs is that we aren't locked into what's written on the page. They aren't video games. We can change them to suit our needs and mod them to our heart's content.

Instead of ranting about 5E, perhaps those who don't like the edition should spend more time finding people who share their loves of previous editions and connecting with them. Just a thought.

I'd rather rant. And by that, I mean discuss. I genuinely want to love this edition of D&D. I read the book and fell in love with it. Then I played it and ... fell out of love with it. I'm hoping that by discussing it, I can be shown why its great and slowly learn to love it. Because it sure as heck isn't coming from playing it or DMing it.

Envyus

2014-10-29, 08:57 PM

I'd rather rant. And by that, I mean discuss. I genuinely want to love this edition of D&D. I read the book and fell in love with it. Then I played it and ... fell out of love with it. I'm hoping that by discussing it, I can be shown why its great and slowly learn to love it. Because it sure as heck isn't coming from playing it or DMing it.

What was your problem again.

tcrudisi

2014-10-29, 10:00 PM

What was your problem again.

My problem (as well as that with my players) is how subjective the system is. I've been saying that the rules felt incomplete. My players say that it feels like its still in "beta".

Things like Inspiration are very much subjective-based. I would honestly feel more comfortable if this was a player-thing (if it was to remain subjective). After all, the players know if they are roleplaying their character a lot better than I do. Yes, by level 3 or 4 I have a pretty good idea of what their character is like, but they still know their characters better. Of course, I'd still rather have hard-rules on when to give out inspiration.

What are the rules on Stealth? I have no clue. I've read them ... and come to the conclusion that a Rogue can't stealth on his own in combat, barring him going first in initiative. Once its past the first PC in round 1, the monsters will look around, see the Rogue pop his head out, and the Rogue's stealth is busted. That feels ... crappy. Give me some rules on stealth that also aren't so dang subjective.

I don't mind broken things as much as I mind incomplete things. Fabricate is infinite wealth at level 7? It bothers me, but not as much as an incomplete rule set. And that's what 5e feels like. That's why I initially loved it after reading the book - it was only after playing/DMing it that I began to realize that this edition forces the DM to make a lot of spontaneous decisions. This is horrible for me and my group for 2 reasons: 1. We go to a lot of gaming conventions and game stores to play D&D in organized play. This ... I'm worried this edition will not work well in organized play. 2. I prefer to focus on the storytelling. This edition makes it really tough for me to do that. In other rpgs, I can simply go with what the rules say. Boom - RAW has our rules covered. We know what the rules are and we play with them. With this ... the rules aren't as rigid. It means I'm having to make decisions on the rules as they come up. That forces me to think about the rules rather than the story. It forces me to have to come up with fair rulings. The rules are subjective, so my rulings can change from one decision to the next and the players have to slowly figure out how my mind works and adapt to my set of rules.

Its still early, so I'm not going to hold the length of combat against 5e just yet. Its taking us ~30 minutes to finish a combat if we use theater of the mind, slightly more if we use a map with minis. If I'm not able to get it down to less than 4e's average combat time (about 10 minutes for an average fight, 20 minutes for a boss fight), then I'll have a problem. I'm more than willing to give this a couple more months, though.

Where's flanking?

Advantage and disadvantage sound great ... now why can't my players get advantage without using Inspiration? Ever? Its so dang easy to get disadvantage and that's happened several dozen times just from the long range on weapons. Advantage though? Nope, only about 4 or so times ... all from Inspiration. Do you know what this reminds me of? The early system of skill challenges in 4e. Absolutely FANTASTIC idea ... horribly implemented.

It's things like these. 5e is stifling my ability to tell a story. It's not letting me focus on the story and its instead forcing me to be a judge. The book looked so great when I first read it and then these problems kept popping up while I'm DMing and playing it. I want a complete ruleset, dang it. We didn't purchase 5 PHB's to beta-test this system.

Demonic Spoon

2014-10-29, 10:37 PM

I think some parts that you think are missing actually aren't.

Hiding, for example, is described in fair detail on the sidebar of page 177. The summary:

-Stealth is contested by passive perception
-You can't hide from a creature that can see you, or if you've given away your position by making noise.
-In combat, you are usually seen if you try to come out of hiding and approach a creature. However, the DM may decide that you can stay hidden on the approach and attack if the creature is distracted, thus gaining you advantage on your attack roll.

The key point is that the DM determines if you can stay in hiding when you sneak up to attack a creature out in the open.

With regards to flanking: I hope its' an optional rule in the DMG. I generally agree that it should be represented somehow.

There are plenty of ways for characters to get advantage. Long range on weapons is pretty easy to avoid...and keep in mind, long range for a weapon in 5.0 is usually at least into the first range increment for a 3.5 weapon, more for throwing weapons. Any character with stealth can get advantage by attacking from stealth. Barbarians get some features that give them pretty much perma-advantage. Martials can knock enemies over to provide advantage to their allies. Various spells provide advantage in certain circumstances. The cleric has a level 1 spell that does 4d6 damage and gives advantage to the next attack roll against the target. What more do you want?

I suspect that you played older editions enough that you got very comfortable with the rules, and thus you didn't need to think about them. That doesn't mean that older editions were more rules-light. On the contrary, I can't speak for 4.0, but 3.x was absurdly rules-heavy compared to 5. However, everything seems more rules heavy when you've only played a couple sessions with the new rules and thus are still in the stage of needing to look stuff up.

I don't think the rules in 5.0 are lacking - there are definitely rules for everything you need. I will say that rules aren't worded very well in my opinion. I think WotC tried to make the rules easier to read by using natural language, expecting that every person would interpret less formal sentences the same way. I actually would've preferred the 3.x style of rules-writing.

MeeposFire

2014-10-29, 11:27 PM

Krymoar

2014-10-30, 01:26 AM

Honestly it does not make much difference in the long run. When you try to write everything so that supposedly it si all RAW and little to no DM judgement calls we still had arguments all the time, things HAD to have errata because it was technically required, and if they did not change it we still would not agree in the interpretation despite these expectations (and at times even after it was officially changed we would still not like it).

So in short trying to write the rules differently did not help and required a DM to make a call. At least in this version they just outright admit you need judgement calls fairly often and in this way you don't have to make an official rules change and allow groups to play it how they like.

This is kind of anecdotal, I didn't have this experience at all, everything is pretty clear.

The majority of confusion that I see in this game is a muddying up of "Specific vs. General" (mostly because this has an understood way of using it in other games and is actually more an aspect of HEAVY rules enforcement, like card games) and applying other edition's rules and skimming sections instead of reading specifics (Been talking to people on other forums, explaining what I refer to as "There is no surprise round, only surprised creatures."

(You could claim the surprised creatures have a surprise round, but if you surprise someone, YOU don't actually get a bonus round, they just suffer one)

HorridElemental

2014-10-30, 06:00 AM

You guys should try running stealth like Splinter Cell Blacklist... Holy hell was that fun. Our rogue had a blast that he could move around and not be auto detected... Had a session where it was him and a sneaky bard that went around assassinating creatures.. They never rolled initiative or went into anything other than first round of combat until the boss fight. They had to find neat ways to sneak and stuff but I didn't make it particularly easy for them.

nonsi

2014-10-30, 06:20 AM

And also its strengths, which you ignore. And the 'sporadic pile of powers' are a lot more thematic and functional than 3e's heavily-constricted tables that make classes look better than they are.

Is that why 4e has failed so miserably in its 6 years of existence? (less than 50K posts overall on the 4e board in 5 years, and a lot of overall negative attitude)

Lolno. Combat was "I full attack again". Skills were a haphazard mess (Who put points into "Intuit Direction" or "Appraise" anyway?), and a Rogue used 10 of his 8 skill points on basic competency, while a fighter had NO skills or ability to write home about. And have you seen the size of the dysfunctional rules on conditions 3e has?

I'm talking about the mechanics of the game and you're getting busy with the small and tweakable details (some of which were applied at 3.5e).
And what exactly is dysfunctional about the rules 3.Xe conditions?

4e brought us Backgrounds, Themes, functional in-combat healing, Fighters capable of Fighting, Thematic abilities, functional math, well-defined conditions and attack types, an action economy that isn't a mess, and functional martial characters (We wouldn't have the Tome of Battle if it weren't for 4e). It also consolidated the skill list (Rogues and fighters rejoice!), improved noncaster functionality while still feeling like noncasters, and made characters competent at what they want to do straight from level 1.

Backgrounds:
1. Replace the 1st-level skill multiplication with everyone getting a pool of 16 - 20 skill points with all skills counting as class skills. This equalizes Fighter1/Rogue1 with Rogue1/Fighter1.
2. Incorporate the UA traits & flaws.
Now you have background without being constraint to premade packages.

In-combat healing:
One doesn't recuperate while exerting one's self.
Healing surges to everyone break suspention of disbelief.

Fighters capable of Fighting
The problem is bad class design and lack of appropriate features.

Thematic abilities:
How can abilities be thematically sound when they all play the same?
The difference mostly being the names and the fluff (at least as far as offensive powers go).

functional math:
That's the overall pecture (if indeed they got it right, I wouldn't know), but what does this have to do with mechanical tools to use in later editions?

well-defined conditions and attack types:
In what way are 4e conditions superior (game-wise) to 3.Xe conditions?

action economy that isn't a mess:
I actually find the full-round/standard/move/swift/immediate action split to make a lot of sense.
Full-attack as a standard action eliminates would've eliminated most of the mess that revolves around action economy for martial classes.

Btw, ToB is 2006 (p.2, bottom – just under WotC logo) while 4e is 2008.

Backgrounds and feats disagree. It also allows the classes to actually play like their class at all levels of play, instead of requiring Martial Characters to wait until Casters have made them obsolete before they can play as they've been wanting to from the very beginning.

Again - that's bad class design, not bad game design.
And martial characters do just fine at levels 1-6.

@Sartharina: "And, Abilities weren't in 3e. They were minor boosts."
Sure. They were so minor, that if you didn't put all the resources you could into them, you'd be barely functional to nonfunctional.
Go right ahead, let's see you thrive in 3.Xe with a 10th level wizard that has Int 13 or less, or a fighter at any level with 10 in both strength and dexterity (tell me how it went after 10 campaign sessions strait).[/ QUOTE]I'm talking about non-combat abilities. The Boost from wisdom is irrelevant to Perception. A DEX 13 guy is incredibly clumsy at everything without skill points, and a CHA 18 guy can't do anything social without burning skill points as well.

Unmodified +4 (18) vs. someone with +0 means that on equal ground you have 20% better chances of success on each and every attempt.
If you have +4 modifier, then you'd probably also have ranks in said ability-associated skills, meaning you'd have an even greater advantage to someone that has neglected one.
At 1st level, vs. DC 10, the difference between d20 + 0 and d20 + 8 is enormous (50% vs 90%).
When you get to 2nd level, synergy often kicks in and it's now suddenly +11.
That's how much ability scores could influence non-combat abilities.
As levels progress, practice outclasses inborn adequacy - as should be.

ProphetSword

2014-10-30, 07:26 AM

My problem (as well as that with my players) is how subjective the system is. I've been saying that the rules felt incomplete. My players say that it feels like its still in "beta".

That feeling is all in your mind. The game went through a massively long playtest. The final version of the game is very similar to the final playtest.

Things like Inspiration are very much subjective-based. I would honestly feel more comfortable if this was a player-thing (if it was to remain subjective). After all, the players know if they are roleplaying their character a lot better than I do. Yes, by level 3 or 4 I have a pretty good idea of what their character is like, but they still know their characters better. Of course, I'd still rather have hard-rules on when to give out inspiration.

Hard rules for roleplaying? Inspiration points are optional (like everything else). Give them out for whatever reason you want. Players won't say no when they get an inspiration point.

What are the rules on Stealth? I have no clue. I've read them ... and come to the conclusion that a Rogue can't stealth on his own in combat, barring him going first in initiative. Once its past the first PC in round 1, the monsters will look around, see the Rogue pop his head out, and the Rogue's stealth is busted. That feels ... crappy. Give me some rules on stealth that also aren't so dang subjective.

The rogue can't hide while being observed. All he has to do is find total cover where he can't be seen and hide. Duck behind a bush or tree. Even if the monster sees him go there, if they can't get to him, he'll still be hidden (that's why you have other party members run interference). Have him run into a room and slam a door shut behind him. He can hide in the room. Monster comes in after him, and he ambushes them. Total cover will keep him from being seen. Once the rogue in my game understood this, he was always watching for places where he could hide, whether that meant ducking down a side alley, turning a corner or jumping behind a wall. Anywhere that was out of sight of the monsters was fair game. Sometimes the monsters pursued him and busted his stealth. Other times, they were too busy, and he popped out to fire off a bow shot at advantage.

I don't mind broken things as much as I mind incomplete things. Fabricate is infinite wealth at level 7? It bothers me, but not as much as an incomplete rule set. And that's what 5e feels like. That's why I initially loved it after reading the book - it was only after playing/DMing it that I began to realize that this edition forces the DM to make a lot of spontaneous decisions. This is horrible for me and my group for 2 reasons: 1. We go to a lot of gaming conventions and game stores to play D&D in organized play. This ... I'm worried this edition will not work well in organized play. 2. I prefer to focus on the storytelling. This edition makes it really tough for me to do that. In other rpgs, I can simply go with what the rules say. Boom - RAW has our rules covered. We know what the rules are and we play with them. With this ... the rules aren't as rigid. It means I'm having to make decisions on the rules as they come up. That forces me to think about the rules rather than the story. It forces me to have to come up with fair rulings. The rules are subjective, so my rulings can change from one decision to the next and the players have to slowly figure out how my mind works and adapt to my set of rules.

You're trying to apply RAW to a game that uses RAI. It's not the first edition to do so. I would say most of the TSR era of D&D was like that. If you've never had experience in a game like that, I can see where the mind shift would take a little while, but you'll get there. And it isn't hard to do, honestly. You're making it much harder than it is.

If you never get there, then maybe 5E isn't the game for you. But, if you want to give it a fair shot, you have to break the line of thinking that there are hard-coded rules for everything. At this point, I rarely have to look at my book while DMing (completely the opposite of how I had to run 3.5, where I had to slow down the game to check every little thing). It's faster and smoother; because my players trust me to make a good call. If they don't agree with it, they'll speak up and suggest something else, and I'll listen to what they have to say. It's not all on you...they can help you.

Its still early, so I'm not going to hold the length of combat against 5e just yet. Its taking us ~30 minutes to finish a combat if we use theater of the mind, slightly more if we use a map with minis. If I'm not able to get it down to less than 4e's average combat time (about 10 minutes for an average fight, 20 minutes for a boss fight), then I'll have a problem. I'm more than willing to give this a couple more months, though.

I'm curious to know why this is happening to you. My experience is the opposite. 3E and 4E had terribly long fights. 5E fights are a breeze. Unless it's a boss fight, it's over quick.

Where's flanking?

Probably in the DMG. If you want flanking, why not simply make it a rule at your table? Award advantage to players and monsters who are flanking an opponent, for example. The beauty of this edition is that you can mod it to your needs. A lot of these rules you're missing can easily be added back in. Want a 5-foot step? Add one. Want attacks of opportunity if you're standing next to a caster? Add it.

Your need to have RAW for everything has kind of blinded you to the idea that in a system like this, you can add whatever you want and still make it work. It's one of the things I love about this edition. The rules in the book are guidelines. Make the game what you want. As long as you and the people at your table are happy, it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks.

Advantage and disadvantage sound great ... now why can't my players get advantage without using Inspiration? Ever? Its so dang easy to get disadvantage and that's happened several dozen times just from the long range on weapons. Advantage though? Nope, only about 4 or so times ... all from Inspiration. Do you know what this reminds me of? The early system of skill challenges in 4e. Absolutely FANTASTIC idea ... horribly implemented.

There are a number of ways to get advantage. But, it shouldn't be super easy to get all the time. Doing so would make deadly fights kind of trivial. But, it can be awarded on the fly by the DM for clever thinking.

Got a player who knocks a large table over and hits an orc? Give him advantage on his attack on that orc while the orc is trying to recover from that. Things like that.

It's things like these. 5e is stifling my ability to tell a story. It's not letting me focus on the story and its instead forcing me to be a judge. The book looked so great when I first read it and then these problems kept popping up while I'm DMing and playing it. I want a complete ruleset, dang it. We didn't purchase 5 PHB's to beta-test this system.

Your own adherence to RAW is what is stifling your ability to tell a story. Just go with it. There aren't as many hard-coded rules for everything. Tell your story, do what feels right at the moment. If you want to grant advantage, do it. If you want to add in a rule, do it. If a spell seems broken, change how it works. That's the point of a modular system and RAI, and I find it to be a much more powerful toolset to use versus hard-coded RAW.

TheDeadlyShoe

2014-10-30, 07:34 AM

4e definitely appeals to people who prefer a heavily mechanical system. i wouldn't call it a failure. It loses some of the freeform fun of earlier editions, which is one reason for 3.5/pf's lasting appeal.

I enjoy both styles personally.

Advantage and disadvantage sound great ... now why can't my players get advantage without using Inspiration? Ever? Its so dang easy to get disadvantage and that's happened several dozen times just from the long range on weapons. Advantage though? Nope, only about 4 or so times ... all from Inspiration. Do you know what this reminds me of? The early system of skill challenges in 4e. Absolutely FANTASTIC idea ... horribly implemented.

there's tons of ways your players should be getting advantage. for one thing, one player can grant another advantage with the Help action if its absolutely critical!

if you are running through that many combats, try introducing more situations where the monsters or players can gain advantage/disadvantage through use of terrain or precarious circumstances.

also, advantage applies to more than attack rolls, but ability checks as well. and there's many ways for advantage to count there.

divljak

2014-10-30, 07:45 AM

Gurka

2014-10-30, 08:05 AM

@ tcrudisi

When you run into ambiguity within the rules, rather than focusing on the RAW or even your interpretation of the RAI, consider first and foremost what makes the most sense to you in the CONTEXT of the situation at hand.

The reason the went with specifically broad rules is because no matter how complex and detailed a rule set you come up with, it simply can't cover every possible situation without improvisation. Often times the more complex the rules are, the harder it is to accommodate those exceptional cases.

That may not be the play style that fits you and your group. It works great for me and mine, but that's because we've never been the "I hit it until it's hit points go down to zero" type of group. In some earlier editions when it took significant if not massive character investment to do anything more creative in combat than "I swing my sword at it".

It's a lot easier this time around to adjudicate " I jump on it's back, plunge my hand into the rent in it's carapace (described in the previous scene), and start tearing out anything that feels squishy!"

OK, Athletics to get ahold of it, and Strength vs it's passive Constitution to pull out it's fiddly bits. Success is 2D6 damage, plus 1D6 Con damage. Failure means you're restrained until you succeed or give up and pull your hand out.

That's an actual scenario that played out in game. Not one dealt with well by all that many systems.

For stealth, don't think of it as WoW. You're not invisible when you make your stealth check... If you physically get out of sight, it gives you the opportunity to TRY and move around unnoticed once you opponent has lost track of you, or do something like set a trap or ready a weapon that they aren't aware of to gain the upper hand.

Segev

2014-10-30, 08:31 AM

Inspiration may be best handled, if you're not comfortable judging "that was in character!" by instead having your PCs' traits (in particular their Flaw) in a quick-reference document. When you, as the DM, want to exploit that personality flaw or otherwise have NPCs or the situation manipulate them based on role-playing concerns, you can offer them Inspiration in return for going along with what you think their characters "would" do.

Rather than wait for them to do something, instead offer them Inspiration for taking actions you think they would.

You can also hand it out when you think they've RP'd well, of course.

Kurald Galain

2014-10-30, 08:48 AM

@ tcrudisi

When you run into ambiguity within the rules, rather than focusing on the RAW or even your interpretation of the RAI, consider first and foremost what makes the most sense to you in the CONTEXT of the situation at hand.

He's got a point though. When dealing with multiple DMs, or "living" campaigns, or even a single DM over the course of a longer campaign, 5E is likely to get inconsistent rulings more often than 3E or 4E does. There's nothing wrong with that but it's not everybody's taste either.

HorridElemental

2014-10-30, 09:27 AM

one thing i dont like about 5e is lack of variety, like every assassin rogue is the same, every champion fighter is the same, every life cleric is the same...etc
Some classes have variety, but most dont

there should be more and different choices for each level up, it seem like step down from 4e in that respect

You do realize that it is only a PHB and they can only make it so big? Also you are dead wrong.

My assassin rogue who happened to have the acolyte background had the same mechanics as my friend's assassin rogue who had the pirate background but due to ability score differences and such they played quite differently.

But guess what? Two scientist who study the same information will pretty much be the same cog in the machine. That is until you take their personality and background into effect.

So this grip has been pretty ignorant, dare I say stupid, in 5e, 4e, and yes even 3e. The big thing is that class has never been 100% of a PC and 4e/5e has even put in mechanics to show people how two assassins can be quite different.

Micro choices aren't the only way two PCs to be different.

Trunamer

2014-10-30, 09:28 AM

Instead of ranting about 5E, perhaps those who don't like the edition should spend more time finding people who share their loves of previous editions and connecting with them. Just a thought.
Wow, what a thought!

I actually wonder how many fans decide to give 5e a try after reading a rant like the OP...

divljak

2014-10-30, 09:39 AM

You do realize that it is only a PHB and they can only make it so big? Also you are dead wrong.

My assassin rogue who happened to have the acolyte background had the same mechanics as my friend's assassin rogue who had the pirate background but due to ability score differences and such they played quite differently.

But guess what? Two scientist who study the same information will pretty much be the same cog in the machine. That is until you take their personality and background into effect.

So this grip has been pretty ignorant, dare I say stupid, in 5e, 4e, and yes even 3e. The big thing is that class has never been 100% of a PC and 4e/5e has even put in mechanics to show people how two assassins can be quite different.

Micro choices aren't the only way two PCs to be different.

so you are calling me stupid, because your excuse is they could be RPed differently LOL

move along people, nothing to see here

HorridElemental

2014-10-30, 09:39 AM

Wow, what a thought!

I actually wonder how many fans decide to give 5e a try after reading a rant like the OP...

My guess is the same number of people who say they hate 4e but never played 4e.

3.5 was a decent enough system but it really bred a very toxic fan base. Not all of them (like me) are toxic but the ones that are... Well they are just the worst.

I tend to hear the charlie brown adult voices when people rant about things like this. "Womp womp womp I hate 4e/5e womp womp womp oh, I've never actually played 4e/5e womp womp womp but my opinion is totally valid womp womp"

HorridElemental

2014-10-30, 09:50 AM

so you are calling me stupid, because your excuse is they could be RPed differently LOL

move along people, nothing to see here

For not understanding that only a PHB is out and they can't make it 500 pages... Yeah because we as fans have went over this before with 3e, 4e, and now 5e. You compare a PHB to an entire system then you will always have this issue. Compare 3e core to 2e or to 4e... 3e core each class plays the same as others of the same kind. Fighter/Barbarian are the same "move n hit", cleric/druid is the same " buff n kill", hell even the rogue/paladins got played the same way... Move in + Big Damage melee and hope the thing dies... Cause you ain't got much else.

If this was the first time this has happened then yeah I would call it ignorance. But a third time (spanning 14 years)? Now it is just getting stupid since people can't learn their lesson.

The two rogues played differently because we had different skills. My rogue was the smart religious kid and the other one was the acrobatic swashbuckler. Both could kill things but went about it differently.

Or are you really complaining that if you make every choice the same then its a problem? Cause if you do this then it won't matter how many choices you have if you keep picking the same as someone else you will be the same. Backgrounds and skills really stop two PCs from going about using their mechanics in the same way as each other. So complain about it all you want but just know that your complaint of a PHB is based on a repetitive false notion that a NEW PHB has to compete with an entire system in terms of options.

divljak

2014-10-30, 09:56 AM

For not understanding that only a PHB is out and they can't make it 500 pages... Yeah because we as fans have went over this before with 3e, 4e, and now 5e. You compare a PHB to an entire system then you will always have this issue. Compare 3e core to 2e or to 4e... 3e core each class plays the same as others of the same kind. Fighter/Barbarian are the same "move n hit", cleric/druid is the same " buff n kill", hell even the rogue/paladins got played the same way... Move in + Big Damage melee and hope the thing dies... Cause you ain't got much else.

If this was the first time this has happened then yeah I would call it ignorance. But a third time (spanning 14 years)? Now it is just getting stupid since people can't learn their lesson.

The two rogues played differently because we had different skills. My rogue was the smart religious kid and the other one was the acrobatic swashbuckler. Both could kill things but went about it differently.

Or are you really complaining that if you make every choice the same then its a problem? Cause if you do this then it won't matter how many choices you have if you keep picking the same as someone else you will be the same. Backgrounds and skills really stop two PCs from going about using their mechanics in the same way as each other. So complain about it all you want but just know that your complaint of a PHB is based on a repetitive false notion that a NEW PHB has to compete with an entire system in terms of options.

{Scrubbed}

Sartharina

2014-10-30, 10:09 AM

Is that why 4e has failed so miserably in its 6 years of existence? (less than 50K posts overall on the 4e board in 5 years, and a lot of overall negative attitude)Because this is a 3.5 Grognard board. Other forums embraced 4e.

I'm talking about the mechanics of the game and you're getting busy with the small and tweakable details (some of which were applied at 3.5e).
And what exactly is dysfunctional about the rules 3.Xe conditions?The 'small and tweakable details' are what make up the mechanics.

Backgrounds:
1. Replace the 1st-level skill multiplication with everyone getting a pool of 16 - 20 skill points with all skills counting as class skills. This equalizes Fighter1/Rogue1 with Rogue1/Fighter1.
2. Incorporate the UA traits & flaws.
Now you have background without being constraint to premade packages.... and break the game's scaling? And UA's Traits and flaws are horrible. As far as 'constraint to premade packages' - that's never been an issue in either 5e or 4e, any more than 'class' is a constraint/package on ability. 4e's backgrounds are largely an excuse to have training in a new skill, or do something you could never have done before. Themes are a whole new suite of powers and abilities that are thematic, flavorful, and class-agnostic, allowing characters to

In-combat healing:
One doesn't recuperate while exerting one's self.
Healing surges to everyone break suspention of disbelief.Only yours, because you can't get over your 3e myopia.[/quote]No, only yours. Healing surges are a limit on which a person can react positively to healing, as well as the reserves of strength within a person. They break suspension of disbelief FAR less than Hit Points do.

Fighters capable of Fighting
The problem is bad class design and lack of appropriate features.Bad class design as in the fundamental structure all classes in the system are built upon, maybe. And terrible math as well.

Thematic abilities:
How can abilities be thematically sound when they all play the same?
The difference mostly being the names and the fluff (at least as far as offensive powers go)They play even more differently than attacks/powers in 3.5.

functional math:
That's the overall pecture (if indeed they got it right, I wouldn't know), but what does this have to do with mechanical tools to use in later editions?Tools are worthless if they don't work. Want to know what you get when you don't have good math? Truenamers and Flurries of Misses.

well-defined conditions and attack types:
In what way are 4e conditions superior (game-wise) to 3.Xe conditions?They're more clear - largely because everything in the edition is more clear because it doesn't have the 3e action economy snafu halfway through.

action economy that isn't a mess:
I actually find the full-round/standard/move/swift/immediate action split to make a lot of sense.
Full-attack as a standard action eliminates would've eliminated most of the mess that revolves around action economy for martial classes.The Full Round/Standard/Move/Swift/immediate action economy wasn't implemented at the start of 3e, the Swift/Immediate interference has tripped a lot of people up, and the Full Round screwed over a lot of people. Yes, it can be fixed, but it wasn't, until later editions, at least.

Btw, ToB is 2006 (p.2, bottom – just under WotC logo) while 4e is 2008.4e was released in 2007 (And what a doozy of a launch that was!). 5e's been in development since 2012, and we're just getting it. ToB was a result of an early playtest of 4e that got scrapped because everyone played the same and there was no meaningful resource expenditure (We only got the martial options)

Again - that's bad class design, not bad game design.
And martial characters do just fine at levels 1-6.Bad class design caused by underlying and endemic problems with the system and its assumptions. If you want a class to function out of the gate, it needs to be front-loaded. With 3e-style multiclassing, front-loading classes makes them stupidly easy to dip for disproportionately powerful ability.

Unmodified +4 (18) vs. someone with +0 means that on equal ground you have 20% better chances of success on each and every attempt.
[quote]If you have +4 modifier, then you'd probably also have ranks in said ability-associated skills, meaning you'd have an even greater advantage to someone that has neglected one.This is an assumption that does not always hold up, and I've seen people put ranks in those skills simply so their attribute modifier wouldn't go to waste, demonstrating the problem. And while a +4 may be significant, that requires a full investment in that ability. The +1 and +2 for having "Significantly above average" abilities are nearly worthless compared to skill ranks, item, and synergy bonuses, and a lack of scaling outside of extremely limited skill points means your abilities never get better.

At 1st level, vs. DC 10, the difference between d20 + 0 and d20 + 8 is enormous (50% vs 90%).
When you get to 2nd level, synergy often kicks in and it's now suddenly +11.
That's how much ability scores could influence non-combat abilities.No, you've demonstrated how Skill Ranks influence non-combat ability, not ability scores.

As levels progress, practice outclasses inborn adequacy - as should be.And thus Abilities do not actually represent Abilities. In a class-and-level based system, Abilities, not fiddly little points, should be scaling with level.

Segev

2014-10-30, 10:12 AM

Thing is, playing "a Champion Fighter" is, on the face of it, roughly akin to "playing a dungeoncrasher" or "playing a trip-monster." It's a broad build choice within the broader category of "a fighter." Two dungeoncrasher builds are going to be remarkably similar in 3.5. They might differ on weapon choices or incidental feat choices that aren't part of the core build, but so, too, will the two Champion Fighters who pick different feats and weapons of choice.

PF has "alternate class features;" I think 5e could adopt something similar for variant archetypes, or even for branching archetype paths in their subclasses, but we'll see what they come up with. The DMG may have customization rules that carry subclasses into new heights of variability, for all we know.

Ferrin33

2014-10-30, 10:14 AM

{Scrub the original, scrub the quote}

Each class has the choice between two or more archetypes, that's at least two very important choices per class. Now add in backgrounds, races, and feats. That's a hell of a lot more than 3e core who's feats do not have the same impact as 5e feats, didn't have backgrounds, and had no archetypes to further differentiate players of the same class.

Z3ro

2014-10-30, 10:14 AM

what ever new book they publish, 2 champion fighters will do same things from level 1 to 20.

Really? Even the champion, probably the simplest subclass in the entire book, can make radically different builds. Consider:

Champion 1 is a polearm master/sentinel, designed with GWS and GWM, who locks down an area and does big melee damage.

Champion 2 is a ranged character who uses the sharpshooter feat and took the criminal background, giving him proficiency in thieves tools and stealth, so he can trap find and scout.

Champion 3 is a sword and board, who goes duelist and protection style, and takes the magical initiate and ritual caster feat. He defends and provides magical back-up.

How are these not three radically different characters?

McBars

2014-10-30, 10:21 AM

{Scrubbed}

Kurald Galain

2014-10-30, 10:24 AM

3.5 was a decent enough system but it really bred a very toxic fan base.

This is the internet; everything breeds a toxic fan base :smallbiggrin:

HorridElemental

2014-10-30, 10:29 AM

This is the internet; everything breeds a toxic fan base :smallbiggrin:

Very true, perhaps this is why 3.5 fans tend to be really toxic when it comes to tabletop RPG fans. Although I remembersites dedicated to 2e... The internet really wasn't as big of a deal until 2000 and onward. 3.5 came on in a great time where not only did the internet get super popular but the technology of the internet grew immensely. I think in my home town we still only had dial up until 2004 ish but other places had DSL and other faster connections and sometime between 2000 - 2004 even phones started allowing people access to the internet..

My dates may be a bit off, Kentucky isn't the most progressive technological state after all :p.

Fwiffo86

2014-10-30, 10:30 AM

Demonic Spoon

2014-10-30, 10:42 AM

Keep in mind that the DMG will have rules for customizing classes. I think WotC are trying to sanction homebrew towards this end.

HorridElemental

2014-10-30, 10:46 AM

{Scrub the original, scrub the quote}

And you have a comprehension problem. Two champion great weapon fighters don't have to play the same way. One could be more brash and attack attack attack whe the other one uses shove and grapple and attacks.

Let me spell something out for you.

The exact argument you are making was made against 4e. Sameness when talking about X class versus X class will happen to a degree if the PCs play them the same way. Just like if two PCs decide to name their character Sergei... Omg sameness!

But look at the Rogue versus the Fighter. They play drastically different. Look at the Wizard versus the Sorcerer... Drastically different. They all use the same action economy and mechanics (roll d20 add modifiers or impose a save) but you go about it all differently.

Even 3.5 has the same PHB problem of everyone playing the same if you choose to play them the same. Strength based power attack and Cleve fighter will play exactly the same as a other one who made the same choice... Unless the players approach battle differently. Same thing with 2 4e fighters who made all the same choices.

5e from just the PHB has the least amount of sameness than 4e or 3.5. Mostly because rules that came later to split up the sameness in 3.5 and 4e came later while the things that differentiate in 5e came in the PHB.

ProphetSword

2014-10-30, 10:56 AM

one thing i dont like about 5e is lack of variety, like every assassin rogue is the same, every champion fighter is the same, every life cleric is the same...etc
Some classes have variety, but most dont

If you're playing D&D like a board-game combat simulator, I could see where this is a problem. Mechanically, a lot of things are the same. D&D is an RPG, and the personalities and play-style of each player will determine how the character is played.

In 1st Edition, Fighters were really like all other Fighters. There was no variety. It was the players who brought them to life by trying different things and portraying them in completely different ways. A character is not just the numbers on the page. I hate that people think that these days.

divljak

2014-10-30, 11:28 AM

Each class has the choice between two or more archetypes, that's at least two very important choices per class. Now add in backgrounds, races, and feats. That's a hell of a lot more than 3e core who's feats do not have the same impact as 5e feats, didn't have backgrounds, and had no archetypes to further differentiate players of the same class.

this is why i said its downgrade from 4e not 3e

btw i still like and play it, but 4e is better IMO, especially with updated monsters

divljak

2014-10-30, 11:31 AM

If you're playing D&D like a board-game combat simulator, I could see where this is a problem. Mechanically, a lot of things are the same. D&D is an RPG, and the personalities and play-style of each player will determine how the character is played.

In 1st Edition, Fighters were really like all other Fighters. There was no variety. It was the players who brought them to life by trying different things and portraying them in completely different ways. A character is not just the numbers on the page. I hate that people think that these days.

look, i am actually most engaging player in RP out of my group, and still, in the end D&D is board game combat simulator, because if i have champion, i can only move and attack with increased chance of critical, no matter how much i RP i canot do some crazy ass combat maneuvers.

A battle master which is arguably most complex fighter subclass, looks like watered down 4e base "plain joe" charachter

divljak

2014-10-30, 11:34 AM

And you have a comprehension problem. Two champion great weapon fighters don't have to play the same way. One could be more brash and attack attack attack whe the other one uses shove and grapple and attacks.

Let me spell something out for you.

The exact argument you are making was made against 4e. Sameness when talking about X class versus X class will happen to a degree if the PCs play them the same way. Just like if two PCs decide to name their character Sergei... Omg sameness!

But look at the Rogue versus the Fighter. They play drastically different. Look at the Wizard versus the Sorcerer... Drastically different. They all use the same action economy and mechanics (roll d20 add modifiers or impose a save) but you go about it all differently.

Even 3.5 has the same PHB problem of everyone playing the same if you choose to play them the same. Strength based power attack and Cleve fighter will play exactly the same as a other one who made the same choice... Unless the players approach battle differently. Same thing with 2 4e fighters who made all the same choices.

5e from just the PHB has the least amount of sameness than 4e or 3.5. Mostly because rules that came later to split up the sameness in 3.5 and 4e came later while the things that differentiate in 5e came in the PHB.

again, you with RP, both can do shoves, and attack-attack, and both of them are very limited in what they can do.
You would be very limited person, if you didn't try what your class can do in so much gaming hours to get to level 20.
5e has very limited customization options, you are basically playing same scheme over and over