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Teapot Salty
2016-02-13, 11:01 PM
Hey guys. So, I played 3.5 to death, but I know for a fact that I'm not the only one who was frustrated by it's poor balancing, and even the best possible martial classes (those being from ToB) were still considered overwhelmingly inferior to casters, while still feeling like casters themselves.

I do appreciate the sheer level of customization that it offered, but when so much of it was just plane bad it felt like you had to hamstring yourself to play an interesting character concept, or sacrifice your concept for a mechanical advantage. If you wanted to play at a high level with ranger fluff, you shouldn't be forced to play a Thri-kreen swift hunter.

Which brings me to my point: 5e is out guys, and it's good. Really good. It's balanced (more balanced than 3.5 anyway) and provides a boatload of cool character options. And I'd also like to point out, though my experience in it is virtually non-existent, that pathfinder is real, and is hailed as a direct upgrade. So my question is, for those of you who still play with the old angry man that is 3.5, which is a generally worse (IMO) system than 5e: Why do you still play this edition?

Now bear in mind, I don't hate 3.5, hell, it's still my baby, and with a good dm and smart players, it is, without a doubt, one of my favorite things, but on the surface, systems like 5e do appear to be straight upgrades.

Grod_The_Giant
2016-02-13, 11:12 PM
Because of that crunchy, crotchety muddle of mechanical complexity. For those of us who like character mechanics, 3.5 is beautiful. I've never seen another system where you can have characters as mechanically distinct as a Warblade, a Totemist, a Cleric and a Truenamer in the same game, much less the same party. If everyone knows what they're doing, you can get the entire party playing at about the same power level, too.

3.5 also has lots of rules for PCs interacting with the world-- spells, crafting, leadership, undead and summoned minionmancy, wondrous architecture, the Landlord feat... there are clear rules for doing all sorts of classic fantasy NPC actions, right there in black and white, which is quite neat and not at all common.

(Also, Pathfinder is exactly the same as 3.5. I've played houseruled 3.5 games that were more distinct. 5e looks like a great system, to be sure, but it has a fraction of the customization level of 3.5-- intentionally, to be sure, but for good or ill it'll never have anything like the character creation depth that 3.5 did)

Fable Wright
2016-02-13, 11:18 PM
Speaking as someone who plays 5e and hangs around with fans of 3.5:

When you all play at the same tier bracket, the game is fun. Everyone in tier 1 to 2? Have a fun romp being literal gods of war directing armies and playing politics. Everyone in tier 3 to 4? Have fun becoming Saitama, where you win if you hit it, but the problem is getting a shot. Everyone tier 5-6? You all know what you got into; have fun with your wacky hijinks as you proceed to not take the game seriously at all. Tired of being a god? Play E6, which still offers most of the customization of 3.PF, but means that you become legendary heroes and warriors rather than demi-to-minor-gods at the upper levels. Just remember to stay within the same tier bracket, even at E6, though.

Regarding why not Pathfinder: Because it's got the same balance issues at 3.5 with casters being superior, but with way less out there for the martials to catch up. Regarding why not 5e: Because sometimes, I want to be able to play as a monster. Or a build-a-monster. Or maybe I want to play as Cu Chulainn, or Heracles, or lead armies. Fifth edition is great for doing adventurers doing adventurer things, whereas 3.5 is a better system for playing as someone who can, has, or will have the power to personally seize control over the world. Unless you're playing 3.5 Forgotten Realms, in which case, you're doing it wrong.

Pex
2016-02-13, 11:24 PM
Technically I moved on to Pathfinder but same difference.

I play it because I do not have a problem with the so called balance issues. I am absolutely perfectly fine with the concept of a fighter, wizard, and druid in the same party. The magic system does not bother me at all. There is nothing to resent. I enjoy the "fiddly bits" of +1s and +2s stacking. I am completely calm and contented with ability score enhancement items and +# buffs to saving throws and AC. The Tier System is worth less than used toilet paper to me.

Obligatory follow up question: Why Pathfinder and not 3E? Pathfinder takes a game I already like and improves upon it. It is a currently published game with new material coming out with new options to do stuff.

VoxRationis
2016-02-13, 11:40 PM
Technically I moved on to Pathfinder but same difference.

I play it because I do not have a problem with the so called balance issues. I am absolutely perfectly fine with the concept of a fighter, wizard, and druid in the same party. The magic system does not bother me at all. There is nothing to resent. I enjoy the "fiddly bits" of +1s and +2s stacking. I am completely calm and contented with ability score enhancement items and +# buffs to saving throws and AC. The Tier System is worth less than used toilet paper to me.

Obligatory follow up question: Why Pathfinder and not 3E? Pathfinder takes a game I already like and improves upon it. It is a currently published game with new material coming out with new options to do stuff.

I agree with you very much. The tier system is over-hyped, especially for practical purposes where the party wizards aren't 20th level and haven't been able to custom-make magical items constantly. 90% of the work of the party ends up going to fighters and rogues, in my experience; wizards are great for those couple of fights, but then they have nothing to fall back on.

I too enjoy the versatility that comes with being able to distinguish between degrees of advantage, which 5e is bad at (though I am fond of the advantage system's ability to distinguish between maximum capability and reliability, which the d20 + X system does not).

More practically, though, I play 3e because I have the books, and the excellent d20srd, while the SRD for 5e is much more sparse, and I do not have the books on hand.

JoeJ
2016-02-13, 11:56 PM
I've never seen another system where you can have characters as mechanically distinct as a Warblade, a Totemist, a Cleric and a Truenamer in the same game, much less the same party.

GURPS says "Hi."

To the OP: There's only one real answer. People play 3.5 because they enjoy it. Not everybody likes the same things. And there's no actual requirement that anybody choose; it's quite possible to enjoy playing both.

Fable Wright
2016-02-13, 11:57 PM
I agree with you very much. The tier system is over-hyped, especially for practical purposes where the party wizards aren't 20th level and haven't been able to custom-make magical items constantly. 90% of the work of the party ends up going to fighters and rogues, in my experience; wizards are great for those couple of fights, but then they have nothing to fall back on.

Oh, when they're blaster wizards, it's actually all fun all around. It's when they just solve an entire encounter with a single spell and the rest is cleanup that things get boring for everyone else. Mob of enemies at level 6? Stinking cloud. Single target, low Will? Unluck, we're done here. Single target, low Dex? Grease, can we go home now? Oh, fine, I'll toss a Ray of Enfeeblement on there if you insist. Enemy Wizard? Well, I'll just cast Silence on the barbarian here, and he'll go grapple the wizard until it's dead. Problem solved.

DigoDragon
2016-02-14, 12:12 AM
I play 3.5 because the tier thing isn't a big problem at low levels, and I like playing low levels. My old local group wasn't much into optimizing casters, so that also shortened the gap a bit as well. They gave up caster levels all the time and didn't care. :3

Probably make some optimizers cringe in their sleep.

daremetoidareyo
2016-02-14, 12:13 AM
Oh, when they're blaster wizards, it's actually all fun all around. It's when they just solve an entire encounter with a single spell and the rest is cleanup that things get boring for everyone else. Mob of enemies at level 6? Stinking cloud. Single target, low Will? Unluck, we're done here. Single target, low Dex? Grease, can we go home now? Oh, fine, I'll toss a Ray of Enfeeblement on there if you insist. Enemy Wizard? Well, I'll just cast Silence on the barbarian here, and he'll go grapple the wizard until it's dead. Problem solved.

Who are these wizards who know the stats of the creatures that the DM throws at them? Maybe the real balance issue is DMs aren't putting enough class leveled enemies into the game...As far as I know, there is no way to know what a creature's ability scores are.

Slipperychicken
2016-02-14, 12:19 AM
I used to like 3.x for similar reasons (I even made one or two contributions to the optimization community here), but after going through a few GMs, trying a few other systems, and finding other things to do with my time, I realized that I could have more fun without spending so much of my time or energy on it. Also, I had finally realized that the enjoyment I get out of a tabletop game has everything to do with the people I'm playing with, and our gaming philosophy and etiquette, and almost nothing to do with how many +2s I could stack up.


While I was playing 3rd edition, I assumed that every game in existence had exactly the same flaws, that spending months studying before your first session was acceptable, that the whole table should be slave to the exact wording of the book no matter how much it detracts from your enjoyment, and that a 2-minute combat taking 4 hours of RL time was as fast as it got. I figured that the mystical "other systems" people were talking about were just excuses for hipsters to troll 3.5 players, and that anyone complaining about its complexity and bloat (or heaven forbid, showed up with a character build that wasn't copied off the internet) was a filthy casual who needed to hunker down and learn some rules.

Also, during that time I was not as mature as I am now. I often relished the chance to one-up other people (both at the table and on this forum) and I felt like my smirking abuse of this game system was evidence that I was somehow smarter or better than they were, rather than just someone who spent far too much time on a silly game. I still have a sig from my 3.5 days, and I think it kind of epitomizes the feelings of superiority and invincibility that I was going for back then. I can't hold a game system to blame for my attitude, but many parts of the game and its community encouraged that when I was just starting out.

KillianHawkeye
2016-02-14, 12:22 AM
Who are these wizards who know the stats of the creatures that the DM throws at them? Maybe the real balance issue is DMs aren't putting enough class leveled enemies into the game...As far as I know, there is no way to know what a creature's ability scores are.

Maybe not, but you can make an educated guess. And if you're playing a wizard with 20+ Int, you should be pretty darn educated.

Âmesang
2016-02-14, 01:10 AM
I "grew up" with 3.5 so it's certainly what I'm used to, especially with the dozens upon dozens of books and magazines that adds all sorts of little bits here and there to play around with; as such I played 5th during the beta test phase and I really couldn't get into it. It just seemed too simplified.

…and yet I had absolutely no problem with 4th Edition. Go figure. :smalltongue: Then again 4th was quite a different beast all together as opposed to 5th's "3.5 lite" feel, so that might have something to do with it.

I've played Pathfinder before and I've nothing against it; I've had a low-level ranger I played for a bit that I imagine a perfect fit for Pathfinder, just as a I have a high-level sorcerer/archmage that feels more at home in 3.5.

Honestly if I could pick any other edition to play it'd be 1st or 2nd; I've been slowly accumulating stuff from the AD&D days and I'd like to see "how it all began," so to speak.

Milo v3
2016-02-14, 02:28 AM
I keep playing 3.P because I cannot stand 5e's mechanics. :smalltongue:

Bohandas
2016-02-14, 02:35 AM
Mainly because I swore off buying new D&D products after 4e came out (and doubled down to no Hasboro products at all after the third season of My Little Pony)

As for Pathfinder, 3.5e stuff is like 95% compatible wih it so might as well keep using the material even if officially you're actually playing Pathfinder.

PersonMan
2016-02-14, 02:38 AM
For me it's not about 'why play 3.5?', it's about 'why switch?'. Pathfinder doesn't offer enough for me to want to put in the effort of learning all the classes, and I'd want to use enough 3.5 material that it'd be a hybrid game anyways. When I play 5e I don't find myself thinking 'oh wow, this is so well-balanced and fun', I think 'why am I doing this when I could just use 3.5 for faster, easier everything because I already know the rules?' (I'm also not the biggest fan of the stat-caps, etc.).

When I play other systems it's because they do something different. 7th Sea, GURPS and such all have very different mechanics and do things that are difficult or impossible to do using 3.5's mechanics. 5e just feels like 3.5 but with a bunch of changes that make the game more of something I don't like as much.

Bohandas
2016-02-14, 03:11 AM
They brought back stat caps? They're regressing...

sktarq
2016-02-14, 04:34 AM
I used to like 3.x for similar reasons..... Also, I had finally realized that the enjoyment I get out of a tabletop game has everything to do with the people I'm playing with, and our gaming philosophy and etiquette, and almost nothing to do with how many +2s I could stack up.

While I was playing 3rd edition, I assumed that every game in existence had exactly the same flaws, that spending months studying before your first session was acceptable........
Wow, Thankyou. that makes me happy. also explains why I look forward to your posts so much now., they sound fun now....it has nothing to do with avatar similarities.. . . I swearz

For myself. It is a matter of switching would mean dragging players who are not deeply enough into the hobby to learn new systems or we have an idea that plays off a splatbook or setting we like. As for 5th....if I'm having fun with the 3.5 games and the Pathfinder games I don't feel the need to switch it up. Switching would require time and money from not just me but also my players, the other DM's etc. And the sunk cost is enough to hold me off as D&D is no longer my primary system anymore.

Gamgee
2016-02-14, 06:02 AM
I don't play DnD anymore I never liked it honestly (Didn't know there were other RPG's in existence when I was young). I liked rpg's but I don't like DnD. Though I definitely appreciate what it's done for our chosen hobby. 5th made me run a short little game that lasted a year or so but mechanically and from a setting perspective just too generic.

johnbragg
2016-02-14, 06:09 AM
Short answer is that WOTC blew it with 4E, big time. If 4E had never been published, we'd all be playing 5E, or playing WOTC's newest update anyway. 2E to 3E was a massive, obvious upgrade with feats and skill points and flexible multiclassing. 3E to 3.5 was a set of small tweaks, but most everyone went along and there was not much carping about the price of replacement books. Was the 3.5 game really, say $90 ($30 PHB, DMG, MMI) "better" than 3.0? Naaah. But nobody complained. PArtially because 3.5 *was* $180 better than 2E. PArtially because you had the brand loyalty.

Then 4E came out. I don't want to re-start the edition war, but I think everyone agrees that 4E had design features and philosophy that a lot of 3E players did not care for. There was a massive "edition war" online. We didn't switch when 4E came out. BEfore a move, I owned 3.0 and 3.5 PHB, DMG, MMI plus a half-dozen 3.5 splatbooks. The people in my group with the most disposable income bought the 4E books, we looked at them and said, Feh. (I said feh. OThers said their regional equivalents.) We decided to become the old weird holdout groups we all remembered from our youth that didn't transition from 1E to 2E.

So WOTC abandoned 4E relatively quickly and came out with 5th edition. It sounds good. But we don't have a compelling reason to switch. And WOTC destroyed the implicit premise that newer is better and you should be playing the new, improved edition, because the last newer-and-better edition was flat-out awful, in our opinion. (PArt of that was a moral contract that we would pay WOTC for books and WOTC would keep our game alive and out of bankruptcy court.)

So you have groups that, after 15 years or so, know 3X. With old splatbooks and homebrew and workarounds aplenty for the problems the OGL architecture has, and PAizo still supplying new stuff to monkey around and tinker with. A huge knowledge base that, much like the QWERTY keyboard, becomes useless if you transition to a new, sleeker system like the Dvorak keyboard.

Why didn't we update from 3.5 to 5E? Because 4E taught us we didn't have to.

EDIT: Reread OP. A non-zero number of groups running PAthfinder will say they're running 3.5.

johnbragg
2016-02-14, 06:12 AM
I "grew up" with 3.5 so it's certainly what I'm used to, especially with the dozens upon dozens of books and magazines that adds all sorts of little bits here and there to play around with; as such I played 5th during the beta test phase and I really couldn't get into it. It just seemed too simplified.

…and yet I had absolutely no problem with 4th Edition. Go figure. :smalltongue: Then again 4th was quite a different beast all together as opposed to 5th's "3.5 lite" feel, so that might have something to do with it.

I've played Pathfinder before and I've nothing against it; I've had a low-level ranger I played for a bit that I imagine a perfect fit for Pathfinder, just as a I have a high-level sorcerer/archmage that feels more at home in 3.5.

Honestly if I could pick any other edition to play it'd be 1st or 2nd; I've been slowly accumulating stuff from the AD&D days and I'd like to see "how it all began," so to speak.

Running my campaign for my kids, I'm realizing how deep my roots in 2E are. Most important difference from pre 3E to 3E is the pre 3E assumption of "screw what the book says, I'm the DM."

Scots Dragon
2016-02-14, 07:11 AM
The reason to keep playing Dungeons & Dragons 3.5e or Pathfinder is quite simple; that's the edition you like best, and it's the one that most appeals to you. Therefore you are still playing that edition out of enjoyment for it. The reasoning begins and ends right there.

There are people still playing AD&D 1e and AD&D 2e, sometimes interchangeably since they're more compatible than D&D 3.5e and Pathfinder.

There are people still playing with B/X and BECM and the Rules Cyclopedia.

There are actually people still playing, the original 1974 version of D&D.

There are, though I might dislike the edition myself, people still playing D&D 4e.

And of course there are those who have moved on to start playing D&D 5e.

Their reasoning is exactly the same. When it comes to tabletop games, one person's advantage is another person's drawback; games are immensely subjective from the point of view of the player for the most part. The one you enjoy most is literally all of the justification you'll ever really need, in any case. For what it's worth, I usually favour Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

Reathin
2016-02-14, 07:53 AM
Hey guys. So, I played 3.5 to death, but I know for a fact that I'm not the only one who was frustrated by it's poor balancing, and even the best possible martial classes (those being from ToB) were still considered overwhelmingly inferior to casters, while still feeling like casters themselves.

I do appreciate the sheer level of customization that it offered, but when so much of it was just plane bad it felt like you had to hamstring yourself to play an interesting character concept, or sacrifice your concept for a mechanical advantage. If you wanted to play at a high level with ranger fluff, you shouldn't be forced to play a Thri-kreen swift hunter.

Which brings me to my point: 5e is out guys, and it's good. Really good. It's balanced (more balanced than 3.5 anyway) and provides a boatload of cool character options. And I'd also like to point out, though my experience in it is virtually non-existent, that pathfinder is real, and is hailed as a direct upgrade. So my question is, for those of you who still play with the old angry man that is 3.5, which is a generally worse (IMO) system than 5e: Why do you still play this edition?

Now bear in mind, I don't hate 3.5, hell, it's still my baby, and with a good dm and smart players, it is, without a doubt, one of my favorite things, but on the surface, systems like 5e do appear to be straight upgrades.

Sheer, unbelievable amount of available material is one reason. If you want to build something in 3.5, odds are there are at least a few options specifically tailored to whatever crazy specific thing you want. Some others were put off trying 5th edition after being burned by 4th (which, yes, isn't terribly fair but comfort zones exist). Some don't like some of the things done in the name of "balance" or they simply don't want to learn a new system.

Personally, I like 3.5 and Pathfinder a LOT. The idea of switching, even to a system that's supposedly much better balanced, doesn't terribly appeal to me. The primary argument I hear against 3.5 is that of balance, where whoever picks Wizard is a walking demigod and whoever picks a fighter is just sort of sitting there, picking their nose all the time. I've never experienced that discrepancy. If anything, I always get the opposite; where casters have neat options, but at the end of the day the fighter's still doing the heavy lifting. There's no artificial balancing in play, no deliberately holding back. It's just that the tier system's hypothetical scenarios never seem to play out in practice, game after game. And I assure you, my DM's are far more interested in story than mechanically balancing every little detail, so it's not happening behind the scenes either.

Our current party, with a Cleric, a Druid, a Gunslinger, a Rogue, a Fighter, and a new guy who admittedly just got introduced and I don't know his class? The fighter's damage output is HILARIOUSLY higher than the rest of us. If the DM actually lets him take a decent combo, he's going to be two shotting lesser gods. The cleric and druid are nice, but no CodZillas like we're supposed to keep expecting. In the end, I think that some people simply don't notice the tier system because, for whatever reason, it doesn't really come up. So why bother learning a new set of rules when you're so invested in an old one?

Clistenes
2016-02-14, 07:59 AM
If you want to keep things simple, play a typical party of adventurers raiding dungeons and such, 5th is probably better. You can rise to to high levels and your characters still feel human heroes. Also, it doesn't get as complex as 3.5, with characters piling obscure feats, templates and magic items and crafting overcomplicated super-optimized builds...

However, if you want to be something other than your typical party of mortal adventurers, you have to go for 3.5. It lets you build literally any character you can think of. You can be a cyborg half-plant priest of a dead god who travels the universe in a dimension-hopping spaceship with a crew of magical robots in search of the pieces of the artifact that will alllow you to resurrect your dead patron. You can be paladin-priest who became a half-celestial and later a saint, conquered a layer of the Abyss and ripped it out of it. You can be a wizard who lives in his own demiplane and has become a magical creature who lives on magic only and doesn't need to breath, eat or sleep. You can be a dragon-riding warlord of a gigantic army...etc.

Amphetryon
2016-02-14, 08:04 AM
The reason to keep playing Dungeons & Dragons 3.5e or Pathfinder is quite simple; that's the edition you like best, and it's the one that most appeals to you. Therefore you are still playing that edition out of enjoyment for it. The reasoning begins and ends right there.

There are people still playing AD&D 1e and AD&D 2e, sometimes interchangeably since they're more compatible than D&D 3.5e and Pathfinder.

There are people still playing with B/X and BECM and the Rules Cyclopedia.

There are actually people still playing, the original 1974 version of D&D.

There are, though I might dislike the edition myself, people still playing D&D 4e.

And of course there are those who have moved on to start playing D&D 5e.

Their reasoning is exactly the same. When it comes to tabletop games, one person's advantage is another person's drawback; games are immensely subjective from the point of view of the player for the most part. The one you enjoy most is literally all of the justification you'll ever really need, in any case. For what it's worth, I usually favour Advanced Dungeons & Dragons
All of this, right here. Well said.

Cluedrew
2016-02-14, 08:18 AM
I started a thread called "Why is 3.5 still so popular?" in the D&D 3.0/5/PF sub-forum some time ago. It got 11 pages of responses which I will attempt to summarize here:

Familiarity: One of the big problems with the game is the amount of start up work you need to put into it. However once you have done that (for the base systems and however many splat books) it isn't really a problem anymore.
Timing: 3.5 was the last addition before the massive re-work that was 4e. I'm not saying that one is better, but for completely subjective reasons some people didn't like 4e, so they stated with 3.5 for that entire edition. Which compounded the above point.
Variety: Of the customisation triad: The game is not uniform throughout, although this means there are some balance issues it also means there choices for everyone within the same game.
Details: Of the customisation triad: The level of rules supported details that you can embed into your character is incredible. Even individual personality traits sometimes have rules for the mechanical differences that trait makes.
Options: Of the customisation triad: Finally, let us not forget the amount of material you have to choose from. GURPS may have it beat out but other than that few systems even come close.
Build-Up: The other side of options, but instead of for characters I'm talking about campaign settings, assorted lore, DM & player aids and help guides.


And that is just what I can remember off the top of my head. OK, not quite of the top of my head, a few posts crept in while I was writing.

But D&D 3.5 is a good game, I like it with only two notable complaints:

It would be nice if it were faster.
What if I want to play a non-combatant?
You here 1 a lot but 2 is... well hardly unique to me but less common.

Âmesang
2016-02-14, 08:37 AM
Running my campaign for my kids, I'm realizing how deep my roots in 2E are. Most important difference from pre 3E to 3E is the pre 3E assumption of "screw what the book says, I'm the DM."
I had a couple of older players who were of that mindset… but only to the point of making $#%& up just to make things easier. "Oh, of course you can do that!" 'Cause Heaven forbid the thief get within 30 ft. to sneak attack (that's what greater invisibility is for!).

Me? I'm lazy. :smalltongue: I like going strictly by the rules 'cause then I can just look stuff up without having to keep track of it too much. "I wrote it in my diary so I wouldn't have to remember!" I also feel more clever if I can piece together something with my character from this source or that source without resorting to the referee just making $#%& up wholecloth, and if I do make something up, I at least try to stat it out properly (usually using the custom item creation rules or converting up a couple of 2nd Edition spells). Though I can understand having to fill in the gaps here and there (such as giving 3.5 white and black slaadi DR 15/epic and lawful and DR 20/epic and lawful, respectively, to replace what the 3.0 versions had—since they're not updated on the SRD due to copyright reasons).

It might also be because I've played as the same character across multiple groups before, so it's just easier for me to use book/magazine-stuff than homebrew stuff 'cause then I won't have to sit there explaining everything; as such, I've grown accustomed to providing book/magazine and page number resources for easy look-up.

Anonymouswizard
2016-02-14, 09:13 AM
Because of that crunchy, crotchety muddle of mechanical complexity. For those of us who like character mechanics, 3.5 is beautiful. I've never seen another system where you can have characters as mechanically distinct as a Warblade, a Totemist, a Cleric and a Truenamer in the same game, much less the same party. If everyone knows what they're doing, you can get the entire party playing at about the same power level, too.

Top of my head? GURPS allows a large variety of abilities right out of the box, without going into splats, or even the core magic system. Allowing one splatbook (Thaumatology) we can get:
-A mage who builds up to complex spells from utility spells (core magic)
-A mage who casts magic based on sets of spells (path magic)
-A mage who casts magic by drawing or placing runes (rune magic)
-A mage who speaks spells in a language of magic, making them up (verb/noun magic)
-A psychic with telepathic powers (core psionics)
-A medium who gets powers from being possessed by spirits (modular abilities, probably cosmic power)

Also, Anima: Beyond Fantasy. In the rulebook there are rules for Ki Manipulation, Gift Magic, Summoning, Psychic Powers, and Élan. All work with different systems, and are relatively balanced (but normal marshals are still weak, so most martial classes have Ki Manipulation). I haven't seen them introduce the wide array of classes 3.5 has, but a Warrior could theoretically serve as a D&D Fighter, Barbarian, Marshal, or any other nonmagical combatant. Although new magic systems would require every class to be redesigned.

I don't have my 3.5 anymore, because Anima gives me what I want from it, and I prefer it.


3.5 also has lots of rules for PCs interacting with the world-- spells, crafting, leadership, undead and summoned minionmancy, wondrous architecture, the Landlord feat... there are clear rules for doing all sorts of classic fantasy NPC actions, right there in black and white, which is quite neat and not at all common.

For fun, I'm going to look through the Anima corebook for such rules:
-spells: lots of utility spells, although it's possibly even more slanted towards combat than D&D. Psychic Powers are a bit better though.
-crafting: not a lot, a little bit that let's players forge metal weapons.
-leadership: not really in the corebook.
-summoning: yep, entire chapter on it.
-undead: looking at the necromancy list, there's Raise Corpses, Control the Dead, Summon the Dead, Raise Spectres, Necromantic Chimera, Lord of the Dead (Gnosis 40+ only), and The Awakening (Gnosis 45+ only) for creating, controlling, and summoning minions. Also Necromantic Modification for improving a minion. It's easy to start with Raise Corpses and Control the Dead (take Natural Knowledge of a Path for necromancy). I have a lot to say here because necromancers interest me, and they're the better balanced minion archetype (summoners can vary wildly in power based on player intelligence).
-wonderous architecture: rules for this?
-classical fantasy NPC actions: not as much, but that's due to a focused skill list.


(Also, Pathfinder is exactly the same as 3.5. I've played houseruled 3.5 games that were more distinct. 5e looks like a great system, to be sure, but it has a fraction of the customization level of 3.5-- intentionally, to be sure, but for good or ill it'll never have anything like the character creation depth that 3.5 did)

This is fair, I'm not a fan of Pathfinder because it's so similar, and I don't like 5e enough to run it.

Might try converting Dark Sun to Anima.


They brought back stat caps? They're regressing...

They fit with the design goal, which is that PCs aren't gods.

nedz
2016-02-14, 10:21 AM
I actually missed 3.0 because we were still playing AD&D - we went straight to 3.5. I have tried sounding people out about going back but they weren't interested.

We have all of the 3.5 books so investing in a new system is an avoidable expense.

I haven't played 5E but it does look a lot like how I used to run AD&D. Some bits look interesting, but not interesting enough so far.

Segev
2016-02-14, 10:39 AM
What most here have said remains true: 3.5 is a far more customizable D&D system than 5e, at least right now. And there is a lot of fun to be had in the very crunchy, well-defined (if thus prone to strange rule interactions) rules of the game.

One thing they're not mentioning directly is the simple fact that, for the most part, 3e represented a huge step forward in game-rules technology. 5e is its child, definitely, in that respect. But 5e also does something better than 3e that has little to do with specific mechanics: in a lot of ways, 5e is a love sonnet to 1e and 2e, borrowing and improving upon 3e's technological upgrades to capture not just the "old feel" of D&D that 3e retained, but really pull hard on that "feel" from the earlier roots.

But the main thing about 3e is that it really is a broader system than 5e, at least right now, and I am unsure 5e will ever quite achieve the same flexibility because it is built to be tighter. The areas 5e is clumsy are the areas 3e is most adaptable, so there will always be space for both, depending on the sort of game you're running.


GURPS says "Hi."

Eh, what you were responding to said that the system allowed for many different MECHANICAL feels in the same party. BESM is one of my favorite systems, and like GURPS, can do all those disparate genre-types together (and does it better than GURPS, in my opinion, because it doesn't require such specific variants on powers while still functionally calling on the same mechanics). But both of them functionally have the same core mechanical system(s) adapted to all those different character designs. BESM balances it by only caring about your end result; GURPS tries hard to tell you that how you do it makes a difference, but fundamentally uses the same few subsystems on all characters.

3e creates dramatically distinct subsystems to handle spellcasting, incarnum, binding, etc., and heavily varies them for martial maneuvers and psionics. That actually is one of 4e's biggest "sins" to most who stuck with 3e and PF: EVERYBODY used the martial adept subsystem. GURPS does have multiple subsystems, but they somehow lack the fundamental difference in FEEL behind their mechanical differences. Partially because they get too hung up in creating different points costs for different approaches without making the way they play all that different.

YossarianLives
2016-02-14, 11:18 AM
I play 3.5 for several reasons.

1. I despise 5E. I know it sounds harsh, but I hate the lack of mechanics and advantage/disadvantage is literally the worst mechanics I've ever seen in an RPG. Great way to make bonuses completely redundant. This also eliminated the concept of a wizard who buffs their party to godlike levels of power. For shame.

2. I dislike Pathfinder. In my opinion, it's not a bad system by any means. But it feels artificial to me, I can't quite describe it but it just doesn't feel as organic and 3.5. It also lends itself to a much higher power level which I dislike. One of the advantages of 3.5 is the many different levels of power that it can be played at.

3. I like 3.5. That's it.


Of course, I'd rather be playing OD&D but none of my friends want to.

GrayDeath
2016-02-14, 11:33 AM
Because its still the Best "Zero to Demigod" Level using System there is.
Simple in its Basics, complex to master, Massive amount of Material from balanced and grounded to whacky, all flaws are known, and almost everything can be played.

Yes, its clunky, yes, it´s Powercreepy/Dungeoncrawly at its core, and yes, Balance CAN be a problem (depending on played Levels, Optimizazion and books avaliable from minor to huge).
Which is why our main Systems are others. But when the gusto for Levels, Classes and Combos returns, we turn to 3.x.
(To be precise: pathfinder with some 3.5 Material).

Pluto!
2016-02-14, 11:46 AM
Truth be told, inertia.

Edit:
There's very little about the system that I don't find immensely distasteful, except that there are already a lot of people familiar with it/PF.

D+1
2016-02-14, 12:06 PM
Why do you still play this edition?
No version of the game has an expiration date. New versions are not what EVERYONE is looking for. For every person who thinks it's superior someone else doesn't, or at the very least isn't interested in changing editions in the middle of an ongoing campaign - which could continue on for decades.

I bought the 5E PH, skimmed it, but have almost zero interest in it. I am much more interested in 1E with all its faults and outright failures. Even with that I think 1E STARTS in a better place than any other edition does. I'd rather house-rule the snot out of 1E which I am intensely familiar with, than learn yet another new edition, play it for years to really find its faults and glories, and only THEN start in on actually making THAT into what I really want it to be instead of what it actually is.

Rarely - exceptionally rarely - will an edition be exactly, precisely what someone wants and needs in RPG rules. It NEVER, EVER will be what EVERYONE wants and needs, much less simply be the place they want to start in GETTING the precise set of rules that they want and need.

Tiktakkat
2016-02-14, 12:32 PM
1. It's cheap. Last year I spent precisely $0 on my RPG habit. Woo Hoo!

2. It's finished. Last year precisely zero new official splatbooks were released for it. Double Woo Hoo!

3. The alternatives have failed to impress me.
Pathfinder claims to be the same but just isn't, and winds up having too many subtle changes that serve as traps in converting material.
The newest game system that uses the D&D name looks nice, and would have been quite interesting 15 years ago. Now it is just too little, too late to get my time and money.

Anonymouswizard
2016-02-14, 12:43 PM
The reason it's still being played is because everyone has their own view on the editions. I personally do not care for the lots of classes with subclasses take of 5e, preferring 2e's 4 class categories with various classes (and kits). I personally don't play 3.5 anymore if I can get away with it, because characters are either in too much danger (low levels), or not enough (high levels, especially 10+). My favourite setting is only in 2e and 4e, with my second and third favourite being 2e only (although some of Planescape survived). As Hasbro doesn't yet have game ninjas who will come into your house and burn your books nobody has a need to 'upgrade'.

I'm also not fond of some of the changes made after 3.X, with the Paladin being the key example. I don't like the fact that the Paladin was changed from 'force for good' to 'divine warrior' in 4e, and then even 5e has shifted it towards 'warrior of an ideal', which while better than 4e, still makes only the Devotion Paladin a true paladin to me.

I also don't like the corebook spread in post 2e editions. While early D&D dropped the ball in assuming most spellcasters learnt it academically, but I don't think the game should differ between 'academic mage/natural mage/pact mage' in the core rules (and even don't really think in editions later than 1e the druid deserves to be a separate class). I don't think the Barbarian is different enough to the fighter to deserve it's own class.

The final big one is the 'trained Y/N' skills. Even in 2e nonweapon proficiencies could be increased by spending extra slots on them.

JAL_1138
2016-02-14, 12:53 PM
I personally hated 3.X. The sheer fiddliness of it, and the rules-bloat that came later, and the ludicrous amount of prepwork that went into making encounters, and how slow it was just made it unplayable and un-DM-able for me. But different people like different things--the bits I hate are the very bits some people like. And vice-versa; the things about AD&D that I liked are often the things 3.X players hated. But the complaint 3.X fans had about 4e, that it "didn't feel like D&D," was the same complaint I had about 3.X compared to AD&D.

My favorite "edition"--air quotes here--is a hybrid mishmash of 1e and 2e, mainly 2e as far as combat mechanics go, without the later 2e "Players' Options" rules that essentially set the stage for 3.X combat, and with low caps on numbers of hirelings and henchmen.
Practically nobody runs 1e by the "full" combat rules--look at ADDICT sometime--and 2e combat is cleaner and more intuitive, massively streamlining the convoluted surprise and iniative rules from 1e and getting rid of segments. I use 1e's version of Greyhawk and ignore almost anything 2e did with it when I run that setting; even when I'm not, I use plenty of 1e modules, items, and monsters, and have occasionally used 1e classes and levels with 2e everything-else for combat.

5e to me isn't as good as that mishmash of 2e-with-a-smattering-of-1e, but it's still good. I have trouble finding 2e games to join as a player or getting players to join a 2e game, so I've been using it a lot lately, and I enjoy it. It's not AD&D, and really not a lot is even derived from AD&D, but for the most part the feel is there. It feels like it could have been another branch of the old game, a new line added to the stable of BX/BECMI/RC and AD&D. So it appeals to my old bitter grognard heart, and I'm pretty content to settle for it when AD&D's not available.

OldTrees1
2016-02-14, 01:05 PM
Feature/level density

I have gained enough experience and familiarity with 3.5 (such familiarity translates well to 5E) that I am quite comfortable with adjusting content/and creating custom content. However one thing I have found is that 3E presumes higher feature/level density than 5E presumes (despite WotC writing better for 5E than for 3E). So when one is comfortable with replacing WotC's content, then feature/level density becomes both more visible and more controlled.

Darth Ultron
2016-02-14, 02:03 PM
For me 3.5 and Pathfinder is the last legacy of 0/1/2 E D&D, before what they now call ''D&D'' became another game. I still play 1 and 2 E, but it is much easier to find players for 3.5 and pathfinder. Though I do houserule a lot of old 2E stuff into my 3.5/P games. The new forms of D&D took the game way to far into the area of making the game for little kids.

3.5E/P is also the last D&D game that allows a player to play anything they want, and does not force them into roles.

3.5E/P also has a ton of books, both D&D and all the open source stuff, plus all the stuff you can find online. And the newer so called D&D books are very over priced, full of too much art, full of bad art, and lots of other wastes of space. And this is on top of the change in the world: From 2000 to 2010 the world was full of bookstores, comic book stores and game shops. Now, there are only a couple left. And even if you find a bookstore, you might find a single shelf with a pathetic two or three D&D books mixed in with the ''graphic novels''.

Segev
2016-02-14, 05:14 PM
For me 3.5 and Pathfinder is the last legacy of 0/1/2 E D&D, before what they now call ''D&D'' became another game. I still play 1 and 2 E, but it is much easier to find players for 3.5 and pathfinder. Though I do houserule a lot of old 2E stuff into my 3.5/P games. The new forms of D&D took the game way to far into the area of making the game for little kids.


I think you might find 5e is actually a closer heir to the "feel" of 2e and 1e. This is speaking as somebody who learned D&D on 1e with 2e hybridized in, and really, really likes 3.5 in a general sense: it is the edition I play preferentially of all D&D editions. 5e does its job well, and while I prefer 3.5, if what you're looking for is something that harkens back to the feel of 1e and 2e, you should probably give 5e another, closer look.

Dimers
2016-02-14, 06:06 PM
There are people still playing AD&D 1e and AD&D 2e, sometimes interchangeably since they're more compatible than D&D 3.5e and Pathfinder.

There are people still playing with B/X and BECM and the Rules Cyclopedia.

There are actually people still playing, the original 1974 version of D&D.

There are, though I might dislike the edition myself, people still playing D&D 4e.

And of course there are those who have moved on to start playing D&D 5e.

And I'm almost all of those :smallsmile: Right now I'm in ongoing games of 2e, 3.X, 4e, more 4e, 5e and 13th Age, which is totally a D&D product even if it's neither WotC nor TSR. Why play 3.5 anymore? Because people I like are playing interesting characters in a game with an interesting premise. And since we're aware of kinks and problems in the system, we know how to address them, reducing the Minus column while keeping all of the Plus.

VoxRationis
2016-02-14, 06:32 PM
I think you might find 5e is actually a closer heir to the "feel" of 2e and 1e. This is speaking as somebody who learned D&D on 1e with 2e hybridized in, and really, really likes 3.5 in a general sense: it is the edition I play preferentially of all D&D editions. 5e does its job well, and while I prefer 3.5, if what you're looking for is something that harkens back to the feel of 1e and 2e, you should probably give 5e another, closer look.

Yeah, I feel like the AD&D throwbacks of 5e come across quite strongly when one looks at the actual books, and not just the way people talk about it on the forums.

oxybe
2016-02-14, 07:31 PM
3rd ed has problems. lots of problems. problems i've ranted about for quite some time to people i've never met in person and made my most disliked version.

but quite honestly? I'd likely play 3rd over 5th any day of the week if both were offered.

5th ed, at it's core is a very vanilla system. very unassuming, very safe. it's core options in mechanical choices are rather limiting and without having my GM do some extra work outside of getting the game setup, I found my interesting options in character building lacking. I struggled to make a character i would find interesting to actually play and the resources WotC are coming out with are very limited in what they offer me as a player. the "ask your gm" philosophy of 5th ed feels far more limiting to me as a player, restricting me to a handful of choices unless i want to start bothering my gm for stuff.

3rd ed, for all it's many warts, blisters and open, festering sores is a far more interesting system to play in and that earns it brownie points in my books.

I've been gaming since 2nd ed and 5th ed seems a throwback to that game, a 2nd ed through the eyes of 3rd ed, but while it's got the simplistic core like 2nd and built around a more standardized system like 3rd, it doesn't seem to have that oomph that would draw me to either of those systems, lacking the weird quirks of 2nd or the vast sea of options of 3rd.

the gameplay of a roleplaying game, to me, is very important to the experience as a whole. i've been roleplaying since before i even knew what the term was and my group's been consistent in their ability to roleplay regardless of system. but if given the option of a game with perfectly ok, if a bit bland gameplay or a game known as broken but still possibly interesting, i'll pick the latter over the former.

5th ed still has potential to win me over, but it's being aggressively vanilla in it's content and I prefer chocolate, neapolitan, mint... anything else, really.

Segev
2016-02-14, 07:48 PM
I will say that there is a lot of unique flavor buried in 5e's subclasses. I'm getting a kick out of the options the Illusionist-only powers open up wrt wizard spellcasting, for instance.

Velaryon
2016-02-14, 08:42 PM
I play both 3.5 and 5e, though I only DM 3.5 other than a one-off 5e adventure I did as a library program. Both editions have their strengths, but for the most part I find that I prefer 3.5 for its flexibility, greater range of options, and the comfort I have with the system thanks to 15 years of experience.

I do find it frustrating sometimes how you have to bend and twist the rules, or make crazy creative builds in order to make simple character concepts like an archer work at mid-to-higher levels, and I am bothered by the vast array of trap feats, spells, and classes, but even after you take all those away, I still feel like I have more to work with in realizing the characters I want to make than I do in 5e. In 5th I seem to keep running up against the limits of the game, finding things that I can't do. I also struggle to make unique or interesting characters - every time I build a wizard or sorcerer I seem to find myself taking mostly the same spells, even more so than in 3.5. Sure, you have the different subclasses like the various flavors of paladin, or the assassin vs. thief rogues, but they still don't offer nearly as much variety as prestige classes do. On the other hand, I like that they come online early and don't require wasting character resources on garbage choices in order to satisfy entry requirements, so it's not all bad.

I'm still a bit of a noob with 5th edition, and have yet to play a character past level 5, but in my so far limited experience I can at least say I don't see as many trap choices as 3.5. Ideally I'd love to have a D&D that takes the best features of these two editions - the better balance, lack of garbage mechanics and choices of 5th, and the flexibility, ability to make more unique characters, and come up with crazy interesting builds from 3.5. But since that doesn't exist and I have neither the time or inclination to make it myself, I play both and run 3.5.

JNAProductions
2016-02-14, 08:45 PM
Have you considered using the Homebrew on this forum? There's a lot of good stuff you could take for 5th. (And a lot of bad stuff-choose wisely.)

oxybe
2016-02-14, 09:20 PM
the problem i have with the "ask your GM!" or "just use homebrew!" answer is that it doesn't solve the base issue that the core system is failing to deliver content we particularly like. it's not that the content is mechanically or flavourfully bad, just we find it unappealing or unattractive.

we could always homebrew or ask our gms in every other game... it's not a new thing 5th ed created, but for some of us while we might not like some of the content in other editions, there was likely something else there for us. "ask your gm/homebrew" was just one option out of many others, many of which were usually less of a hassle.

second, the same homebrew content might simply not be accepted by Velaryon's GM while my current 5th ed GM might... it's pretty hit or miss what some GMs may or may not allow and when our current 5th ed game eventually comes closes (and it will, the GM is moving off province in 3-4 months), if another of our GMs steps up to run 5th, will he allow it if i want to run something similar? what if our pathfinder GM decides to run 5th, what then?

if my current 5th ed gm doesn't allow the content at that point it's eventually up to him to decide if he wants to put in extra effort to rebalance that content or make some up wholesale that fits with what I bring him (whether it was made by me or some forumite). And that's if he even considers allowing my idea/concept through.

for some of us "ask your gm" isn't necessarily a feature when we feel it's a requirement.

JNAProductions
2016-02-14, 09:24 PM
That was specific advice for Velaryon. They seem to like the 5E mechanics more the 3.5, just missing the options. Well, through homebrew, there are options.

I do agree, base system wise, 3.5 has many more options, and more hard-coded rules. Honestly, what it comes down to is that they're different systems, with different ups and downs. I like both.

Cosi
2016-02-14, 10:19 PM
Because what else is there? I don't think there is a system that has provided a better version of the experience 3.5 does, and I very much doubt there ever will be. Nothing has come close to the power progression, the level of customization, or the shear wealth of content that exists. I don't think 4e or 5e have as many character classes as there are viable Wizard level builds in 3e.

As to specific problems I have...

4e: The story of 4e is, in my mind, that of failing to implement good ideas. The early hype for 4e promised an edition that would fix problems like caster/martial disparity or the magic item Christmas tree. The final product horribly failed to meet expectations, but the promises it was sold on were good. Even at the level of design decisions, there are still a lot of good high level choices. Skill Challenges should have been a revolution in resolving non-combat situations. Tiers represent the perfect solution to the problem of being mundane. Even rituals are good in theory.

Pathfinder: Pathfinder is exactly 3e with random changes (few of which are improvements), and a bunch of fiddly options which are by and large incredibly weak. There are good things there (PF classes tend to have far fewer dead levels), but it failed to fix many of the problems with the game and made caster/martial disparity worse overall. I am also deeply offended by their practices during the open playtest.

5e: I cannot for the life of me understand the value of a system with bounded accuracy over playing a system with unbounded accuracy in a constrained level range. I also have essentially no faith that 5e will persist as an edition, being as close to dead now as it is.

It would be, IMHO, very easy to produce a better system than 3e. Roll initiators, Binders, meldshapers, and all the other weird subsystems into core, run SGTs from 1 - 20 until classes are balanced, and slap on a version of skill challenges that counts successes instead of failures. That's easy to make, but I don't foresee designers having the aptitude to make it.

Milo v3
2016-02-14, 10:24 PM
I am also deeply offended by their practices during the open playtest.
What happened in the open playtest that offended you?

Segev
2016-02-14, 10:28 PM
It would be, IMHO, very easy to produce a better system than 3e. Roll initiators, Binders, meldshapers, and all the other weird subsystems into core, run SGTs from 1 - 20 until classes are balanced, and slap on a version of skill challenges that counts successes instead of failures. That's easy to make, but I don't foresee designers having the aptitude to make it.

Your propose methodology may work, but I would not characterize it as "easy," especially in the same breath that I called the people who are professionals at it too inept to pull it off. While I won't say you have to put up or shut up, I will note that armchair quarterbacking is a lot easier than actually doing the job.

Cosi
2016-02-14, 10:29 PM
What happened in the open playtest that offended you?

The ignored actual data in favor of fluff. People game in and ran tests to analyze the ways in which classes were strong or weak, and they rejected that data in favor of people who said the game was "awesome". Running the largest open playtest in history should have lead to a game that was as close to perfectly balanced as it is possible to get. Instead, it made Wizards stronger while nerfing or leaving unchanged most martial options.

ImNotTrevor
2016-02-14, 10:56 PM
I don't play 3.5 anymore. Or D&D at all, actually. I'm grateful because the system kicked off the hobby. But I'm not a huge fan of systems that are crunchy for the hell of it.

What I mean by that is, the rules are seemingly meant to do everything kinda well or poorly. Rather than doing what it does, and doing it really, really well.

There aren't quite so many ways to play Apocalypse World. (It will always be post-apocalypse, and will always have deeply ingrained social components.) But every time you play will be awesome and immersive because Apocalypse World is built for what it does. And it does it very, very well. I would rather have a lot of smaller, streamlined, refined systems than one clunky mess that I can get to do most things provided I beat it into submission. The former is easier, and the group I play with likes trying new things. So in my experience, I have very little to gain from D&D and a lot to gain from games like Apocalypse World, Stars Without Number, Fall of Magic, FATE, and others. There are ways to construct RPGs outside of making as many rules as possible for as many things as could possibly happen. Sometimes less really is more.

Cosi
2016-02-14, 11:06 PM
Your propose methodology may work, but I would not characterize it as "easy," especially in the same breath that I called the people who are professionals at it too inept to pull it off. While I won't say you have to put up or shut up, I will note that armchair quarterbacking is a lot easier than actually doing the job.

Here's the thing. Professional design for a tabletop game pays poorly, and requires skills that are in high demand. You could write a kick-ass setting for D&D, but you could also write a kick-ass setting for Elder Scrolls VI and make more money. That means the people working in TTRPG design tend to be fanboys (who care more about seeing their name on the next edition of D&D than making more money) or incompetents (who don't have the skills to do good work). These people do not design good games. Mike Mearls revised skill challenges more than a dozen times without hitting on the idea of counting successes rather than failures. People pointed out power loops with 3.5 shapechange and it went to print unchanged. I expect game designers not to make fixes that are easy because, historically, they do not make those fixes.

As for the (sort of) implied question of why I don't do it myself, there are three reasons. One, it is a lot of work. Not necessarily terribly complicated work, but lots of it. I have other ways of spending my time, many of which are better than writing a system that is unlikely to be published. Two, any system I produce will be one that is likely played only by people I have met and convinced to play it. That dampens the benefit of a better system considerably. Three, as a result of the previous point I tend to vacillate a great deal on what I actually want. If I am making D&D for me and people I can convince to play it, that looks somewhat different from the version of D&D I consider ideal for the mass market.

gtwucla
2016-02-14, 11:53 PM
Personally I find 5e too generic in its mechanics. I like the concept of advantage and disadvantage, but I think it would work much better if it didn't apply to so many things. Proficiency bonuses essentially guarantee there's no difference between a lot of characters in some respects, especially with ability scores capped. And lastly and most importantly, the hold outs from 4e piss me the *&%$ off. The self healing nonsense of short rests and such are ridiculous. I remember arguing with another player who brought up the question, 'what is damage' as if it some philosophical question. He says he likes to think about it as an endurance counter as opposed to physical damage. WHAT?! Not only the statement, but the sentiment is just, it's just, I can't even. It's true that we're playing in a non-fiction world, but every world has to be bounded in its own reality. In no reality are two *&^holes dancing around 'trading blows' that aren't really blows, because they aren't really getting hurt, they're only getting tired to a point that they can get hurt. It's just so many hoops. And its stupid.

JNAProductions
2016-02-14, 11:56 PM
As opposed to 3.5, where every single blow was actual, physical damage.

gtwucla
2016-02-15, 12:00 AM
As opposed to 3.5, where every single blow was actual, physical damage.

Hey there are varying degrees of damage one could take. Though I will say having relatively lower hit points was a good idea on 5e's part, even if it was just the monsters. That said, I may be unique in wanting it to be easier to die.

Milo v3
2016-02-15, 12:00 AM
The self healing nonsense of short rests and such are ridiculous. I remember arguing with another player who brought up the question, 'what is damage' as if it some philosophical question. He says he likes to think about it as an endurance counter as opposed to physical damage. WHAT?! Not only the statement, but the sentiment is just, it's just, I can't even. It's true that we're playing in a non-fiction world, but every world has to be bounded in its own reality. In no reality are two *&^holes dancing around 'trading blows' that aren't really blows, because they aren't really getting hurt, they're only getting tired to a point that they can get hurt. It's just so many hoops. And its stupid.

umm.... That's the same in 3.5e.


Hit points mean two things in the game world: the ability to take physical punishment and keep going, and the ability to turn a serious blow into a less serious one.

gtwucla
2016-02-15, 12:09 AM
umm.... That's the same in 3.5e.

You can take take short rests in 3.5 to gain hit points (as in the mechanic, short rest in 5e)? If there is I didn't realize. The resting in 5e allows you to take an hour rest and gain a Hit Dice or number of Hit Dice + Con mod of hit points (spells too?). And a long rest is regain all hit points. Isn't it that in 3.5 you gain your characters levels worth of hit points? Granted that's still pretty accelerated, but it's nothing like 5e as I understand it.

Physical punishment and lessoning blows is not endurance. When I say endurance I literally mean how long it takes not to get tired. That means no cuts, bruises, or chipped nails.

Fable Wright
2016-02-15, 01:25 AM
You can take take short rests in 3.5 to gain hit points (as in the mechanic, short rest in 5e)? If there is I didn't realize. The resting in 5e allows you to take an hour rest and gain a Hit Dice or number of Hit Dice + Con mod of hit points (spells too?). And a long rest is regain all hit points. Isn't it that in 3.5 you gain your characters levels worth of hit points? Granted that's still pretty accelerated, but it's nothing like 5e as I understand it.

Physical punishment and lessoning blows is not endurance. When I say endurance I literally mean how long it takes not to get tired. That means no cuts, bruises, or chipped nails.

You know, fifth edition comes with a built-in fix for that, that I personally enjoy. Longer rests, so 8 hours is a short rest, and a long rest is a full week. It's a fix for DMs who enjoy one or two combats a day, it provides more 'realistic' healing for the 3.5 people who enjoyed gritty rests for mundanes, and allows for more downtime and politics for those who enjoy it. Hit dice become the limit of what your body can withstand, rather than how much of your breath you can get back while licking your wounds at a lunch campfire.

oxybe
2016-02-15, 01:30 AM
HP has never, to my knowledge of D&D meant solely meat points.

Per this book, page 34 under CHARACTER HIT POINTS
https://33.media.tumblr.com/3ec73c237cdf9c2e2c577c3a36d03212/tumblr_inline_n9tyi2qgM11qhjeaf.jpg

Each character has a varying number of hit points, just as monsters do. These hit points represent how much damage (actual or potential) the character can withstand before being killed. A certain amount of these hit points represent the actual physical punishment which can be sustained. the remainder, a significant portion of hit points at higher levels, stands for skill, luck and/or magical factors. A typical man-at-arms can take about 5 hit points of damage before being killed. Let us suppose a 10th level fighter has 55 hit points, plus a bonus of 30 hit points for his constitution, for a total of 85 hit points. this is the equivalent of four huge warhorses. it is ridiculous to assume that even a fantastic fighter can take that much punishment. the same holds true to a lesser extent for clerics, thieves, and the other classes. thus the majority of hit points are symbolic of combat skill, luck (bestowed by supernatural powers), and magical forces.

That's as far back as my personal D&D library will go. if someone has an older source to reference, be my guest.

Milo v3
2016-02-15, 01:33 AM
You know, fifth edition comes with a built-in fix for that, that I personally enjoy. Longer rests, so 8 hours is a short rest, and a long rest is a full week. It's a fix for DMs who enjoy one or two combats a day, it provides more 'realistic' healing for the 3.5 people who enjoyed gritty rests for mundanes, and allows for more downtime and politics for those who enjoy it. Hit dice become the limit of what your body can withstand, rather than how much of your breath you can get back while licking your wounds at a lunch campfire.

That is literally one of the two things I like about 5e.

gtwucla
2016-02-15, 03:17 AM
You know, fifth edition comes with a built-in fix for that, that I personally enjoy. Longer rests, so 8 hours is a short rest, and a long rest is a full week. It's a fix for DMs who enjoy one or two combats a day, it provides more 'realistic' healing for the 3.5 people who enjoyed gritty rests for mundanes, and allows for more downtime and politics for those who enjoy it. Hit dice become the limit of what your body can withstand, rather than how much of your breath you can get back while licking your wounds at a lunch campfire.

I did not know that. Good to know. Despite my seeming vehemence I should say I like 5e as a game, it's just not for me. Most my anger towards it is because of the people I played with treated it like WoW. That said I dislike its 'default setting,' which I think helps players like ones mentioned above play it like so. It seems to me to play into the trend of capturing a larger audience, which don't get me wrong I understand, but I don't like it.

Also, don't mistake- I don't mean HP is strictly 'meaty' points, I mean simply it's not an endurance pool.

poignant123
2016-02-15, 03:34 AM
I'm currently playing 5e with my group and I've seen some stuff I like, but there is a good deal of stuff I miss from 3.5e.

Character customization is the main draw of 3.5. Being able to challenge yourself to make a build, even if it doesn't see play, is fun. Look at the character optimization boards, people have made builds just to achieve certain things without actually playing them. 3.5 got rules bloated but part of the appeal was piecing together something unique and fun from the rules everywhere.

In 5e, the concept of bounded accuracy never makes you feel as awesome when leveling up. The difficulty to get flat bonuses leaves more things to the dice roll even as your character. I don't feel like a level makes a huge difference and my usefulness is left a lot to the luck of the roll. In 3.5e you could craft consistency into your character and it made you feel awesome when things came together. 5e feels like there's constantly a box around your character, for example the limit of one concentration spell means I can't keep supporting the party with spells as a wizard and instead just stand around shooting cantrips or blasts which suffer from bounded accuracy. Plus, 5e has very little rules for interacting with the world around you. A lot of it is left to DM fiat. How do I identify monsters? How do I craft certain items? How do I get magic items in a certain area? 5e did simplify some rules but to the extent that some rules are extremely vague and will never see play like the crafting mundane items rules.

TL;DR: 5e is like buying one Lego set, 3.5 is like buying a truckload of pieces from numerous sets.

Anonymouswizard
2016-02-15, 03:51 AM
It would be, IMHO, very easy to produce a better system than 3e. Roll initiators, Binders, meldshapers, and all the other weird subsystems into core, run SGTs from 1 - 20 until classes are balanced, and slap on a version of skill challenges that counts successes instead of failures. That's easy to make, but I don't foresee designers having the aptitude to make it.

First off, you've grown the core rulebook by, say, 100 pages per extra magic system? We're getting to the point where few people will bother lugging books to where they'll be playing, limiting your audience. Plus the extra printing costs.

Secondly, the sort of test you're talking about will take lots of time, and time is money. Let's assume it takes one billion man hours to do it, at £6 an hour (to make the numbers even). To make back your money just from playtesting you need to make £9,000,000,000. Now, even if you are selling your books for £40 a volume you wont make £40 a book. Assuming printing costs £10 per physical book you have to sell 200,000,000 books before you can pay your writers and advertisers.

Also, I'm confused as to how skill challenges 'count failures instead of successes'. They count both, and work alright as designed (if not brilliantly).

Pinjata
2016-02-15, 05:05 AM
I have sold my 3.5 books the same day I have bought the 5e books.

3.5 is basically an Abuse edition. It's for people who feel like investing dozens of hours into studying the most worldbreaking build to **** with the DM and cackle like an idiot. 5e puts a nice stop to all those shenannigans, even at high levels.

Wizards did 5e right and anyone looking for a fun D&D edition should stick to it. Anyone fapping over Contingency upon Contingency can stay in the 3.5 realm. In a group I have no desire to meet let alone play with.

VoxRationis
2016-02-15, 05:15 AM
The more fleshed-out (if not necessarily less broken) skill system of 3rd edition is an attractor, relative to 5e.

Did the proliferation of NounVerber and [Noun]Blade class names in 3.5 bug anyone else? They ended up seeming generic and repetitive after a time. It felt like when WotC was trying to come up with new classes, they had a random two-part list they rolled on to bring come up with a name. The fact that they correspond to classes introduced in the later supplements and are disproportionately frequent in forum-speak only aggravated this.

Milo v3
2016-02-15, 05:27 AM
3.5 is basically an Abuse edition. It's for people who feel like investing dozens of hours into studying the most worldbreaking build to **** with the DM and cackle like an idiot
That's a rather hostile statement.

Anonymouswizard
2016-02-15, 05:47 AM
I have sold my 3.5 books the same day I have bought the 5e books.

3.5 is basically an Abuse edition. It's for people who feel like investing dozens of hours into studying the most worldbreaking build to **** with the DM and cackle like an idiot. 5e puts a nice stop to all those shenannigans, even at high levels.

Wizards did 5e right and anyone looking for a fun D&D edition should stick to it. Anyone fapping over Contingency upon Contingency can stay in the 3.5 realm. In a group I have no desire to meet let alone play with.

But, sometimes you want that 'abuse'. There are better games for playing demigod wizards, Ars Magica springs to mind as a favourite of mine with several archetypal houses of wizards you can fit most concepts into along with House Tremere and a house that's essentially 'the rest', but 'wizards abuse magic rules to rule the setting as god-kings' is a fine D&D setting to play in, as the god-kings' or the plucky underdogs trying to bring them down, and 3.X's magic is the best edition to do the god-kings in, followed by AD&D (which doesn't have as much metamagic abuse, but still has the real game changing spells working correctly). Respectively, 5e does the plucky underdogs better, although you have to remove several classes.

Do people enjoy such settings? Look at the success of Dark Sun, some people enjoy that the Sorcerer-Kings are the next best thing to gods and are near-impossible to kill, some people want to make killing the Sorcerer-Kings the campaign goal, and some want their characters to reach the level of the Sorcerer-Kings and change the planet.

hifidelity2
2016-02-15, 06:50 AM
Why stick with 3.5


We have the books and no desire to buy more
We know the system
We are not optermisers
We enjoy it

Cosi
2016-02-15, 08:21 AM
First off, you've grown the core rulebook by, say, 100 pages per extra magic system? We're getting to the point where few people will bother lugging books to where they'll be playing, limiting your audience. Plus the extra printing costs.

Only if don't cut down the number of words per power, something you should be able to do very easily. Consider fireball. Here is the current entry for fireball in the SRD:


Fireball
Evocation [Fire]
Level: Sor/Wiz 3
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Long (400 ft. + 40 ft./level)
Area: 20-ft.-radius spread
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Reflex half
Spell Resistance: Yes

A fireball spell is an explosion of flame that detonates with a low roar and deals 1d6 points of fire damage per caster level (maximum 10d6) to every creature within the area. Unattended objects also take this damage. The explosion creates almost no pressure.

You point your finger and determine the range (distance and height) at which the fireball is to burst. A glowing, pea-sized bead streaks from the pointing digit and, unless it impacts upon a material body or solid barrier prior to attaining the prescribed range, blossoms into the fireball at that point. (An early impact results in an early detonation.) If you attempt to send the bead through a narrow passage, such as through an arrow slit, you must “hit” the opening with a ranged touch attack, or else the bead strikes the barrier and detonates prematurely.

The fireball sets fire to combustibles and damages objects in the area. It can melt metals with low melting points, such as lead, gold, copper, silver, and bronze. If the damage caused to an interposing barrier shatters or breaks through it, the fireball may continue beyond the barrier if the area permits; otherwise it stops at the barrier just as any other spell effect does.
Material Component

A tiny ball of bat guano and sulfur.

That's just under 250 words. Here's a shorter version of fireball you might use for the next edition:


Fireball
Wizard 3 (Fire)
Range: Long
Area: 20ft Spread
Save: Reflex half

Fireball deals 1d6 fire damage per caster level to all creatures and objects with its area.

That's under 30. Assuming you get that kind of savings with every spell, you could fit eighteen more subsystems (remember, you're saving on Cleric and Druid spells too) into the same page count, and still shrink the total number of words for spells. It requires more text dedicated to defining things, but I submit that having rules for how fire works is a good thing.


Secondly, the sort of test you're talking about will take lots of time, and time is money. Let's assume it takes one billion man hours to do it, at £6 an hour (to make the numbers even). To make back your money just from playtesting you need to make £9,000,000,000. Now, even if you are selling your books for £40 a volume you wont make £40 a book. Assuming printing costs £10 per physical book you have to sell 200,000,000 books before you can pay your writers and advertisers.

There is absolutely zero chance that takes one billion man hours. Frankly, even if it did people have proven that they will playtest D&D with exactly that sort of rigor for free if you let them.


Also, I'm confused as to how skill challenges 'count failures instead of successes'. They count both, and work alright as designed (if not brilliantly).

The skill challenge rules (when I looked at them) have you roll skill checks until you roll three failures. This is a huge failure of design, as it causes them to generate binary results (did you get X successes before 3 failures, yes/no) and discourage participation from anyone without the best skill bonus. If you had a system that went X rounds and gave a success gradation based on the number of successes or failures at that point, you'd end up with a system that fixed both of those problems and I literally just did 100% of the design work for it.

Milo v3
2016-02-15, 08:35 AM
6e fireball
You cannot be serious, you're removing a lot of mechanics with that :smallconfused:

Krazzman
2016-02-15, 08:37 AM
For us it is mainly because "Never change a running system." is a pretty decent dogma for these sort of things. If it is fun, why bother with switching systems.

That said we switched from 3.5 because our group broke up/decided to play pathfinder or we joined a PF game.
Currently we have 2 circles.
In one I DM a PF game, my wife DM's a SWSE game and we could try out All Flesh Must Be Eaten or Mutants and Masterminds 2e (got it in may last year but can't find the time to read it enough to DM it).
The other is currently strictly PF (Carrion Crown now, back to Tsar after that) and maybe Shadowrun later. (BIG maybe).

Change is always work and some people don't want to invest that much into it again and again.

Cosi
2016-02-15, 08:46 AM
You cannot be serious, you're removing a lot of mechanics with that :smallconfused:

Some. Some of the stuff should just be defaulted (SR, casting time, duration). It's no longer a Sorcerer spell, but that's because I was planning to keep everyone on a separate casting system. Some more stuff isn't, IMHO, worth tracking like components (which should either be defaulted for verbal or somatic components, or removed for free material ones) or spell schools, particularly given that specialists would likely be replaced with Beguiler or Dread Necromancer type extra classes.

It doesn't detail what happens when the fireball hits flammable stuff, but I think that should be detailed in the description of fire damage so that it applies to the Red Dragon's breath weapon, the Balor's aura of fire, or the wall of fire spell. I think that's a good thing even if you aren't trying to reduce spell verbosity, because it increases the mechanical consistency of the game.

The thing that's lost is the big section about it can hit things early or whatever, but that doesn't seem like something that adds enough to the game to be worth doubling the number of words the spell takes.

Anonymouswizard
2016-02-15, 09:32 AM
I agree that verbal and somatic components should be assumed, but otherwise I think you're missing some crucial information.

A casting time on one standard action is a lot different to a swift action, an immediate action, a full round action, or 4 rounds.

Costless material components are a case where you can ignore it or require it, depending on the game. Stripped of your component pouchyou can tell if you can scavenge the material components for a fireball spell.

Also, what if a have a spell, heat wave, that deals fire damage but doesn't set anything alight?

goto124
2016-02-15, 09:38 AM
Also, what if a have a spell, heat wave, that deals fire damage but doesn't set anything alight?


It doesn't detail what happens when the fireball hits flammable stuff, but I think that should be detailed in the description of fire damage so that it applies to the Red Dragon's breath weapon, the Balor's aura of fire, or the wall of fire spell. I think that's a good thing even if you aren't trying to reduce spell verbosity, because it increases the mechanical consistency of the game.

There.....

Morcleon
2016-02-15, 09:42 AM
I still play 3.5e (preferably with some QoL things from PF) because 5e is too low magic/power for me. I just don't enjoy the lack of worldchanging power and the extremely rigid way the mechanics work. You simply cannot create anything lasting with magic (with minor exceptions) and I absolutely detest the whole "magic items are rare" thing, since I tend to have magic items be as common as electricity in my worlds.


Some. Some of the stuff should just be defaulted (SR, casting time, duration). It's no longer a Sorcerer spell, but that's because I was planning to keep everyone on a separate casting system. Some more stuff isn't, IMHO, worth tracking like components (which should either be defaulted for verbal or somatic components, or removed for free material ones) or spell schools, particularly given that specialists would likely be replaced with Beguiler or Dread Necromancer type extra classes.

It doesn't detail what happens when the fireball hits flammable stuff, but I think that should be detailed in the description of fire damage so that it applies to the Red Dragon's breath weapon, the Balor's aura of fire, or the wall of fire spell. I think that's a good thing even if you aren't trying to reduce spell verbosity, because it increases the mechanical consistency of the game.

The thing that's lost is the big section about it can hit things early or whatever, but that doesn't seem like something that adds enough to the game to be worth doubling the number of words the spell takes.

SR shouldn't be defaulted because it has only two options of Yes and No. Casting time and duration could be defaulted to standard action and instantaneous if none are listed, but for the sake of completeness and clarity, it's better to have it displayed.

Also, you could simply shorten the part about striking things and compress the wording without actually losing anything, although I do agree that some of the fluff should be removed to allow the player more input on that end.

Cosi
2016-02-15, 09:45 AM
A casting time on one standard action is a lot different to a swift action, an immediate action, a full round action, or 4 rounds.

Sure, but I thought I was clear that the casting time (1 Standard) and duration (Instantaneous) were supposed to be defaults. You'd have a section like this:


Wizards cast spells. Unless otherwise noted a spell has a casting time of one standard action and a duration of instantaneous. Wizard spells require spell resistance.


Costless material components are a case where you can ignore it or require it, depending on the game. Stripped of your component pouchyou can tell if you can scavenge the material components for a fireball spell.

I think spell components (except some of the expensive foci, like scrying's mirror) are just a bad idea. The spell component for fireball is literally a joke (you're supposed to be fashioning primitive gunpowder, not actually using magic). I don't see any particular reason to keep that.


Also, what if a have a spell, heat wave, that deals fire damage but doesn't set anything alight?

Then you'd define that in the spell. Maybe it looks like this:


Heat Wave
Wizard 4 (fire)
Range: 0ft
Area: 60ft cone
Save: Fortitude partial (see text)

Targets within the cone take 1d6 fire damage per caster level. Unlike most sources of fire damage, this does not start fires. Creatures within the cone must make a fortitude save or be fatigued from the heat.

Maybe you give it a duration or something. Note that I'm assuming that range rules are changed. The intention is that this starts from your square, creating a 60ft cone of exhausting heat.

Segev
2016-02-15, 10:35 AM
The highly-simplified fireball proposed above has its attractions, but assumes far, FAR more system mastery is required before one can run a game smoothly. While it is impossible and undesirable to always repeat every mechanic, there is something to be said for having longer descriptions that more completely describe what is going on, so you don't have to cross-reference 23 different pages and 37 different sections of the rules scattered between those pages just to figure out what the 30-word spell actually does. Especially if the interactions are at least slightly inobvious, such as "all fire damage does this list of things," and all the spell says is "fire damage." If you don't know to go look up "fire damage" for umpteen additional effects, you might think it's just damage with an adjective.

There's a concept related to this - though not precisely covering it - in information theory called Minimum Description Length. The basic premise of that concept is that you can have simple rules with a lot of exceptions, or highly complex rules with few to none. Each will take different amounts of bits - or word count, in our context - to get the full rule across. The goal is to find the level of complexity of rule that, when combined with all its required exceptions, produces the smallest word count.

This is not perfectly related; in this case, the conflicting goals are a desire to not require tons and tons of cross-referencing vs. consistency (because you know people won't always c/p the exact rule correctly each time) and overall word-count (because repeating rules every time they're relevant inflates them significantly).

Personally, I would recommend having detailed indexes and spending the word count to put cross-reference information (footnotes or in-line footnotes) wherever there is a relevant base-rules section to reference. So, if all fire damage does a specific set of things detailed in the "fire damage" section of the rules on PHB p. 66, have a small footnote section in the margin that lets you always tag reference to "fire1 damage" and leave "1PHB p. 66" in the footnote.

That, or do it as an electronic ruleset only, and have hyperlinks everywhere.

(This is not the only way to do it, but it would be a reasonable solution to the problem discussed above.)


HP has never, to my knowledge of D&D meant solely meat points.

Per this book, page 34 under CHARACTER HIT POINTS
https://33.media.tumblr.com/3ec73c237cdf9c2e2c577c3a36d03212/tumblr_inline_n9tyi2qgM11qhjeaf.jpg

Each character has a varying number of hit points, just as monsters do. These hit points represent how much damage (actual or potential) the character can withstand before being killed. A certain amount of these hit points represent the actual physical punishment which can be sustained. the remainder, a significant portion of hit points at higher levels, stands for skill, luck and/or magical factors. A typical man-at-arms can take about 5 hit points of damage before being killed. Let us suppose a 10th level fighter has 55 hit points, plus a bonus of 30 hit points for his constitution, for a total of 85 hit points. this is the equivalent of four huge warhorses. it is ridiculous to assume that even a fantastic fighter can take that much punishment. the same holds true to a lesser extent for clerics, thieves, and the other classes. thus the majority of hit points are symbolic of combat skill, luck (bestowed by supernatural powers), and magical forces.

That's as far back as my personal D&D library will go. if someone has an older source to reference, be my guest.

I have that book on my bookshelf. It was the first RPG book I ever read or owned. It was inherited from a good friend who introduced me to the hobby (who traces his own "lineage" back to gaming with Weis and Hickman in college). Reading that passage filled me with nostalgia.

MrStabby
2016-02-15, 10:53 AM
I transitioned from 3.5 to 5th last year (well i was pushed, I didn't completely do it willingly).

At first i didn't like it - starting a new campaign and i had three or four different character concepts and i could only make one of them so it did feel very narrow. Also playing the game kind of felt a bit naked. There were few rules and few certain successes.

After a few sessions i got to like it though. The less cumbersome rules were quicker, advantage/disadvantage is a great mechanic for a streamlined game and i really appreciated that I could play with a group of people I liked rather than a group of people with the same level of system mastery.

I still feel the lack of options though but this isn't so much about the editions as it is about the stage of development. With Elemental Evil and SCAG released for 5th edition the content is growing. All in all I am happy with the move. It fixes so much of what spoiled 3.5, it improves things I didn't even recognise as broken and the downsides are being fixed with each release.

I think in the long term the number of viable character concepts in 5th edition may actually be greater than 3.5. 5th multiclassing rules are certainly better for casters (so half casters are now actually viable), and there are fewer clear cutoff points to shift between classes so even two characters with the same class combinations may be at different levels in each and have some distinction.

Cosi
2016-02-15, 10:57 AM
The highly-simplified fireball proposed above has its attractions, but assumes far, FAR more system mastery is required before one can run a game smoothly.

Yes and no. You have to learn more stuff to play, but there are a lot less special cases. You do need to look up the rules on fire damage to cast fireball, but once you've done that all fire damage behaves in exactly the same way. You don't have to see what a Dragon's fire breath versus a Fire Elemental's fire fists light on fire. You don't have to check to see if fireburst has a chance of lighting people on fire.

Also, as far as fireball specifically goes, I think a good deal more time is spent (even with 3e fireball) figuring out how the various aspects of the environment would interact with fire than would be spent looking up "fire damage".


Especially if the interactions are at least slightly inobvious, such as "all fire damage does this list of things," and all the spell says is "fire damage." If you don't know to go look up "fire damage" for umpteen additional effects, you might think it's just damage with an adjective.

...

Personally, I would recommend having detailed indexes and spending the word count to put cross-reference information (footnotes or in-line footnotes) wherever there is a relevant base-rules section to reference. So, if all fire damage does a specific set of things detailed in the "fire damage" section of the rules on PHB p. 66, have a small footnote section in the margin that lets you always tag reference to "fire1 damage" and leave "1PHB p. 66" in the footnote.

I don't know that I like footnotes per se. I'd probably bold any keywords with mechanical relevance. So this:


Fireball deals 1d6 fire damage per caster level to all creatures and objects with its area.

Becomes this:


Fireball deals 1d6 fire damage per caster level to all creatures and objects with its area.

So you know that you need to look up fire and caster level to figure out what the spell does. Maybe switch caster level with level and drop the bolding. Maybe bold creatures or objects or both. It would depend on a style guide. Also, the game needs a style/syntax guide (like MTG) so the same effect is always phrased the same way.


That, or do it as an electronic ruleset only, and have hyperlinks everywhere.

I wouldn't do it as an electronic ruleset only, but I think it is required to have an SRD if you want your game to succeed.

anti-ninja
2016-02-15, 11:08 AM
Honestly ? because M e and my friends already invested a lot of time and money into 3.5 ,and we enjoy it . So why change when we like 3.5 and 5e seems like 3.5 but more simple.

Âmesang
2016-02-15, 11:17 AM
I'm actually quite used to Hit Points equally "meat points." Probably too much time spent watching Dragon Ball Z during high school (the recent Resurrection 'F' notwithstanding). :smalltongue:

I suppose with all of the punishment characters take (falling down cliffs, monsters smacking 'em around, spells exploding), it just made sense to me that—over time—a character's body becomes more resilient to damage. I also find it as a convenient means of comparison; it's one thing when a low-level character can survive a gunshot, another when a high-level character can be wrapped up in dynamite, blown up Looney Tunes style, and still walk it off.

Fable Wright
2016-02-15, 11:19 AM
I still play 3.5e (preferably with some QoL things from PF) because 5e is too low magic/power for me. I just don't enjoy the lack of worldchanging power and the extremely rigid way the mechanics work. You simply cannot create anything lasting with magic (with minor exceptions) and I absolutely detest the whole "magic items are rare" thing, since I tend to have magic items be as common as electricity in my worlds.

You say lack of worldchanging power, I look at my druid that's building dungeons in his free time with Move Earth, Stoneshape, and earth elemental form, enhancing crops with Plant Growth, using Decanters of Endless Water to create hot spots and therefore pockets of valuable minerals beneath said dungeons, and using Sympathy to lure dungeon races into living there. Or his ability to keep a stable of 60 elephants fed with a single spell slot. Or how his friend True Polymorphs stones into various dungeon guardians for fun. Not to mention things like Awaken, the rituals mentioned in the MM for creating things like Spectators or Scarecrows, etc.

Point is, you can do a lot with magic, and if you use the magic item creation guidelines, you can do a whole lot more, a whole lot sillier. Plus, magic items as common as electricity lines up with Uncommon items being just 500 gold to create, never breaking or malfunctioning, etc.

Fifth edition has defaults that not everyone likes, but it's designed to be a modular system so you can take out the stupid bits and put fun ones back in. Base setting? Well, some basic lore is required, but it even points you at other fleshed out settings that are fun to work with. Don't like the rests? Use the various rest length mechanics. Want more magic items? Sure, go nuts, we got the rules for it right here. I think one of the hangups on fifth edition is that, unlike the immutable 3.X and 4th edition rulesets, it's designed to be tinkered with, where RAW provides optional rules instead of hard and fast bounds.

Mind you, I like 3.X and derivatives, and they have quite fun mechanics to tinker with. But I also think 5e gets an unfairly bad rap at times when it's a surprisingly good system.

Segev
2016-02-15, 11:32 AM
Yes and no. You have to learn more stuff to play, but there are a lot less special cases. You do need to look up the rules on fire damage to cast fireball, but once you've done that all fire damage behaves in exactly the same way. You don't have to see what a Dragon's fire breath versus a Fire Elemental's fire fists light on fire. You don't have to check to see if fireburst has a chance of lighting people on fire.This is more or less what I said. It requires much more system mastery, because you're likely to forget fiddly details that apply.

Heck, in 3.5, technically you should be having a lot of things make saving throws vs. fireball lest they ignite...when most people ignore this because it's too much detail for too little benefit. And that's right there in the spell! Put that as an effect of every fire damage, and then hide it away, and most people won't even realize they'd missed it.

I'm not saying "don't do it this way," mind. I'm just pointing out that this apparent simplicity can be deceptive. It has its advantages, but it has drawbacks as well.


I don't know that I like footnotes per se. I'd probably bold any keywords with mechanical relevance.

...

So you know that you need to look up fire and caster level to figure out what the spell does. Maybe switch caster level with level and drop the bolding. Maybe bold creatures or objects or both. It would depend on a style guide. Also, the game needs a style/syntax guide (like MTG) so the same effect is always phrased the same way.One of my biggest complaints about the (lack of) organization in RPG systems tends to be that, even when something does make a reference to something else, it often doesn't help you FIND that original reference. And since it is all but guaranteed that you'll eventually introduce keywords that weren't in "the keyword section" of your original core book, people will need ways to identify where to find any given keyword.


I wouldn't do it as an electronic ruleset only, but I think it is required to have an SRD if you want your game to succeed.Fair and valid, though you need better cross-referencing without the hyperlinks.

Cosi
2016-02-15, 11:40 AM
This is more or less what I said. It requires much more system mastery, because you're likely to forget fiddly details that apply.

But defining it at the spell level inevitably leads to different spells having different definitions of how fire works, and that's even worse. Not only do you have to remember the fiddly details, but you have to remember several sets of details, some of which are contradictory.


Heck, in 3.5, technically you should be having a lot of things make saving throws vs. fireball lest they ignite...when most people ignore this because it's too much detail for too little benefit. And that's right there in the spell! Put that as an effect of every fire damage, and then hide it away, and most people won't even realize they'd missed it.

If people are ignoring it now, I can't really see how changing organization could make it worse. If anything, I'd expect emphasizing mechanically relevant terms to increase understanding.


One of my biggest complaints about the (lack of) organization in RPG systems tends to be that, even when something does make a reference to something else, it often doesn't help you FIND that original reference. And since it is all but guaranteed that you'll eventually introduce keywords that weren't in "the keyword section" of your original core book, people will need ways to identify where to find any given keyword.

Any keyword used in a book should either be core, or be defined in that book. If it's a keyword from an earlier but non-core book, the definition should be an exact reprint, plus or minus any errata. Like MTG cards. Defender always means exactly the same thing, as does Trample, as does First Strike. Also, they keywords section should always be in the same (relative) position in the book, probably the end. Flip to the end, look up alphabetically seems easy enough.

Segev
2016-02-15, 11:53 AM
But defining it at the spell level inevitably leads to different spells having different definitions of how fire works, and that's even worse. Not only do you have to remember the fiddly details, but you have to remember several sets of details, some of which are contradictory.

Indeed. I stated as much.

It's a tug-of-war between which is more effective for conveying maximum information as simply as possible.

Morcleon
2016-02-15, 11:58 AM
You say lack of worldchanging power, I look at my druid that's building dungeons in his free time with Move Earth, Stoneshape, and earth elemental form, enhancing crops with Plant Growth, using Decanters of Endless Water to create hot spots and therefore pockets of valuable minerals beneath said dungeons, and using Sympathy to lure dungeon races into living there. Or his ability to keep a stable of 60 elephants fed with a single spell slot. Or how his friend True Polymorphs stones into various dungeon guardians for fun. Not to mention things like Awaken, the rituals mentioned in the MM for creating things like Spectators or Scarecrows, etc.

Point is, you can do a lot with magic, and if you use the magic item creation guidelines, you can do a whole lot more, a whole lot sillier. Plus, magic items as common as electricity lines up with Uncommon items being just 500 gold to create, never breaking or malfunctioning, etc.

Fifth edition has defaults that not everyone likes, but it's designed to be a modular system so you can take out the stupid bits and put fun ones back in. Base setting? Well, some basic lore is required, but it even points you at other fleshed out settings that are fun to work with. Don't like the rests? Use the various rest length mechanics. Want more magic items? Sure, go nuts, we got the rules for it right here. I think one of the hangups on fifth edition is that, unlike the immutable 3.X and 4th edition rulesets, it's designed to be tinkered with, where RAW provides optional rules instead of hard and fast bounds.

Mind you, I like 3.X and derivatives, and they have quite fun mechanics to tinker with. But I also think 5e gets an unfairly bad rap at times when it's a surprisingly good system.

Yeah, but all of those effects can also be done with mundane means, and thus don't count. I'm talking about things like permanent walls of fire for steam engines, magic traps as fabricators, magically powered airships, etc.

The issue with the creation guidelines is that there's no actual rules behind it, which is fine for being a DM where you can just say that this is how the magic item creation works, but requires bothering the DM with everything you want to do. The other issue is that, while 5e technically supports high magic worlds by virtue of the modularity, it's unlikely to come out with more magic items and spells and similar that support such a playstyle because of the intent of the system.

Also, I don't like bounded accuracy and how you could kill Asmodeus with an army of commoners with bows. It's both nonsensical and unfun.

Cosi
2016-02-15, 12:03 PM
Indeed. I stated as much.

It's a tug-of-war between which is more effective for conveying maximum information as simply as possible.

That's fair.


Also, I don't like bounded accuracy and how you could kill Asmodeus with an army of commoners with bows. It's both nonsensical and unfun.

This is the biggest reason I don't like 5e. A lot of the stuff in 5e is on some level forgivable. I'd never play it, but if there hadn't been a 3e, it would be the best edition of D&D. But bounded accuracy just takes a crap all over the core conceit of D&D: the adventurer. If the army can kill the dragon, or the giant, or the demon, why do you hire a guy with a sword to go out and do it?

AMFV
2016-02-15, 12:08 PM
That's fair.



This is the biggest reason I don't like 5e. A lot of the stuff in 5e is on some level forgivable. I'd never play it, but if there hadn't been a 3e, it would be the best edition of D&D. But bounded accuracy just takes a crap all over the core conceit of D&D: the adventurer. If the army can kill the dragon, or the giant, or the demon, why do you hire a guy with a sword to go out and do it?

Because hiring one dude with a sword is a lot easier and cheaper than A.) Mobilizing a big chunk of your workforce (Armies have to come from somewhere after all, and if they aren't working, then your economy suffers, which is one of the reasons war is so bad for countries economically). B.) Feeding an Army of potentially thousands while they march after the Dragon, which is expensive and possibly ruinous for some reasons. C.) Paying the Army, you do have to pay them, and their generals. And D.) The cost of worrying about if the generals are going to try and overthrow the government later.

There are a lot of legit complaints on that front, but the "Why Hire Adventurers if you can do it?" is one that has never held merit for me. I know how to do home repairs, and odds are that I would still hire a contractor for most large scale things, not because I can't do it, but because I'd rather spend my money than spend the amount of my time that large scale projects would require. I have more profitable things I could be doing, and hiring somebody is easier and quicker.

Cosi
2016-02-15, 12:19 PM
A.) Mobilizing a big chunk of your workforce (Armies have to come from somewhere after all, and if they aren't working, then your economy suffers, which is one of the reasons war is so bad for countries economically).

Medieval countries had standing armies. By the best estimates I can find those armies were around the 10,000 mark, which is overwhelmingly more troops than you need to kill any particular thing in the 5e MM.


B.) Feeding an Army of potentially thousands while they march after the Dragon, which is expensive and possibly ruinous for some reasons.

You don't need an army, really. The militia of most small towns is enough to drive off anything but the most powerful of ancient dragons.


C.) Paying the Army, you do have to pay them, and their generals.

You gotta pay the adventurer too. Remember that this way you get the hoard of the dragon. Also, don't ignore sunk costs.


And D.) The cost of worrying about if the generals are going to try and overthrow the government later.

But hiring an adventurer to kill the dragon already abdicates the government to him. Medieval legitimacy comes, not from the consent of the governed, but from the ability to quash any challenge to your legitimacy. If you hire an adventurer to kill the dragon, he becomes the government. Any claim that you might lose legitimacy because of some other action holds no water, because you absolutely lose legitimacy if you hire an adventurer.

AMFV
2016-02-15, 12:25 PM
Medieval countries had standing armies. By the best estimates I can find those armies were around the 10,000 mark, which is overwhelmingly more troops than you need to kill any particular thing in the 5e MM.


Dragons are intelligent, have gold, they can have armies too, fairly easily.



You don't need an army, really. The militia of most small towns is enough to drive off anything but the most powerful of ancient dragons.


Provided that the Dragon is operating alone, which seems like a losing game for a super intelligent being with tons of liquid assets.



You gotta pay the adventurer too. Remember that this way you get the hoard of the dragon. Also, don't chase sunk costs.


I can't eat gold... A ton of gold isn't necessarily that useful to a kingdom, there are resources that are much easier to unload without crushing the economy, gold isn't always one of them.



But hiring an adventurer to kill the dragon already abdicates the government to him. Medieval legitimacy comes, not from the consent of the governed, but from the ability to quash any challenge to your legitimacy. If you hire an adventurer to kill the dragon, he becomes the government. Any claim that you might lose legitimacy because of some other action holds no water, because you absolutely lose legitimacy if you hire an adventurer.

Not true in any case or sense of the word. The government hires contractors all the time, they very rarely have overthrown any government. An adventurer doesn't have political contacts, like a lord does. He doesn't have local support (and can be killed by the militia of a small town), so he's not really in a position to seize power, a nobleman who has just killed a dragon, absolutely is.

Fable Wright
2016-02-15, 12:36 PM
Yeah, but all of those effects can also be done with mundane means, and thus don't count. I'm talking about things like permanent walls of fire for steam engines, magic traps as fabricators, magically powered airships, etc.

...Said druid has a railgun and is working towards a space station capable of orbital bombardment, but I didn't think those were relevant. Trust me when I say you really can do crazy stuff like this if you put your mind to it in 5th edition. Come up with a crazy idea that just might work as the magical item 'formula', the DM tells you whether it'd be Uncommon, Rare, Very Rare, or Legendary to craft, you pony up the time and cash, and boom. There you go.


The issue with the creation guidelines is that there's no actual rules behind it, which is fine for being a DM where you can just say that this is how the magic item creation works, but requires bothering the DM with everything you want to do. The other issue is that, while 5e technically supports high magic worlds by virtue of the modularity, it's unlikely to come out with more magic items and spells and similar that support such a playstyle because of the intent of the system.

"Hey, DM, could I build a permanent wall of fire?"
"Hm. Sounds like a Rare magic item. Go nuts."

If you want a convoluted magic item with unique effects and weirdness, you're going to have to run that by a 3.5 DM all the same as you would have to a 5e one. Fifth edition streamlines the magic item process a lot: If it's mostly working with effects in line with level 1-3 spells, it's Uncommon. 3-5, Rare. 6-8, Very Rare. 9, Legendary. As for shallowness of magic items... not really. Think of Eberron, the posterchild for magisteampunk. In Keith Baker's books, there are a large number of magic items never mentioned in any rules just for basic day to day living. They do not and would in no world ever get proper stats, because they don't matter on an adventure. Almost all of 3.5's magic item versatility boiled down to "is this poorly worded, or was it designed to be used for combat?" Turns out, 5th edition just tends to be more lenient about it, and the magic items are, frankly, cheaper than equivalent 3.5e items.

But yes. We're less likely to have spells that change the campaign world. Which 3.5 spells, in particular, had the kinds of effects that would permanently change the campaign world that you'd never see in fifth edition?


Also, I don't like bounded accuracy and how you could kill Asmodeus with an army of commoners with bows. It's both nonsensical and unfun.

You can't, Asmodeus has immunity to nonmagical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.


This is the biggest reason I don't like 5e. A lot of the stuff in 5e is on some level forgivable. I'd never play it, but if there hadn't been a 3e, it would be the best edition of D&D. But bounded accuracy just takes a crap all over the core conceit of D&D: the adventurer. If the army can kill the dragon, or the giant, or the demon, why do you hire a guy with a sword to go out and do it?

As opposed to the, say, level 3 AD&D PC fighting a Vampire and winning with clever tactics rather than being completely unable to hit due to the ridiculous scaling of armor class and dying in one hit due to rocket tag as would happen in 3.5? Unbounded growth sounds fun on paper, but it restricts the kind of adventure you run, much as bounded accuracy, well, means that the impossible stays possible for more than just spellcasters.

Cosi
2016-02-15, 12:36 PM
Provided that the Dragon is operating alone, which seems like a losing game for a super intelligent being with tons of liquid assets.

If the game does not support Smaug bathing Lake-town in fire without any risk of retaliation (baring Bard's plot device arrow), it is a bad fantasy game. Smaug should get to pillage, not be forced to use pawns to get what he wants.


I can't eat gold... A ton of gold isn't necessarily that useful to a kingdom, there are resources that are much easier to unload without crushing the economy, gold isn't always one of them.

Apparently, it hires armies, which is what you're trying to do with it in this case, so it should all work out fine.


Not true in any case or sense of the word. The government hires contractors all the time, they very rarely have overthrown any government.

Yes. The government hires civilians, who do not have any particular personal power. You really think if those contractors were Superman or Thor the idea that the government got to do anything except by their implicit consent would make any sense?


An adventurer doesn't have political contacts, like a lord does. He doesn't have local support (and can be killed by the militia of a small town), so he's not really in a position to seize power, a nobleman who has just killed a dragon, absolutely is.

You vastly overestimate the effect of political contacts, and massively underestimate the effects of killing a dragon. Remember, the noble didn't do that personally, he did it with the help of the army, which was mustered by the king's political apparatus. The king still defended the kingdom. If the adventurer does it, that looks a lot shakier, particularly if he wasn't hired by the king.

Fable Wright
2016-02-15, 12:39 PM
If the game does not support Smaug bathing Lake-town in fire without any risk of retaliation (baring Bard's plot device arrow), it is a bad fantasy game. Smaug should get to pillage, not be forced to use pawns to get what he wants.

Well, let's take a look at how 5e handles the burning of Laketown, shall we?

*Opens Hoard of the Dragon Queen*

Turns out, it just tells the DM to ignore whatever effects the NPCs have on the dragon. Seems like a reasonable guideline for handling this.

Cosi
2016-02-15, 12:40 PM
...Said druid has a railgun and is working towards a space station capable of orbital bombardment, but I didn't think those were relevant. Trust me when I say you really can do crazy stuff like this if you put your mind to it in 5th edition. Come up with a crazy idea that just might work as the magical item 'formula', the DM tells you whether it'd be Uncommon, Rare, Very Rare, or Legendary to craft, you pony up the time and cash, and boom. There you go.

While "the DM makes something up" does in fact allow you to do whatever you want in any game, it works in any game and requires no design time. Presenting it as a strength of 5e is insulting.


As opposed to the, say, level 3 AD&D PC fighting a Vampire and winning with clever tactics rather than being completely unable to hit due to the ridiculous scaling of armor class and dying in one hit due to rocket tag as would happen in 3.5? Unbounded growth sounds fun on paper, but it restricts the kind of adventure you run, much as bounded accuracy, well, means that the impossible stays possible for more than just spellcasters.

You know what allows things to stay possible for non-casters? Having them scale properly. All bounded accuracy does is stop you from ever being able to beat a random dude consistently at anything, which is insulting if you are nominally supposed to kill dragons or demon lords with ease.

You're justifying bad design in 5e (bounded accuracy) by point to bad design in 3e (non-casters sucking). That's not a good argument, particularly when you realize that 5e came out a decade and a half after 3e, and should probably be a better product.


Well, let's take a look at how 5e handles the burning of Laketown, shall we?

*Opens Hoard of the Dragon Queen*

Turns out, it just tells the DM to ignore whatever effects the NPCs have on the dragon. Seems like a reasonable guideline for handling this.

So the game handles an iconic fantasy moment by telling you to ignore the rules. And you paid money for this. In other news, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you. Just PM me your credit card information and I'll be good to go.

AMFV
2016-02-15, 12:41 PM
If the game does not support Smaug bathing Lake-town in fire without any risk of retaliation (baring Bard's plot device arrow), it is a bad fantasy game. Smaug should get to pillage, not be forced to use pawns to get what he wants.


Smaug was killed in that attack, I think that's therefore a predictable and expected result.



Apparently, it hires armies, which is what you're trying to do with it in this case, so it should all work out fine.


Why wouldn't it?!? Seriously, why the flip, wouldn't the Dragon hire allies? He knows his own power and vulnerability.



Yes. The government hires civilians, who do not have any particular personal power. You really think if those contractors were Superman or Thor the idea that the government got to do anything except by their implicit consent would make any sense?

Lots of folks do, which is why not all Superman or Thor stories have them tyrannically running the government, in fact that's the vast minority of such stories.



You vastly overestimate the effect of political contacts, and massively underestimate the effects of killing a dragon. Remember, the noble didn't do that personally, he did it with the help of the army, which was mustered by the king's political apparatus. The king still defended the kingdom. If the adventurer does it, that looks a lot shakier, particularly if he wasn't hired by the king.

No I don't. Period. I have a lot of study of history. Simply being able to take over a country, doesn't really do much for you, just look at any failed coups. An adventurer killing a dragon won't make the king look weaker in a way that the adventurer will be able to exploit, but rather in a way that other nobles will. The same as we can see demonstrated historically.

Cosi
2016-02-15, 12:44 PM
Smaug was killed in that attack, I think that's therefore a predictable and expected result.

By one guy, with a plot device arrow. Not by the militia.


Why wouldn't it?!? Seriously, why the flip, wouldn't the Dragon hire allies? He knows his own power and vulnerability.

Because he's a dragon fighting peasants and why should he need to?


Lots of folks do, which is why not all Superman or Thor stories have them tyrannically running the government, in fact that's the vast minority of such stories.

Yes, and Batman spends lots of Batman stories not killing the Joker, despite the fact that doing so is logically and ethically the correct choice.


No I don't. Period. I have a lot of study of history. Simply being able to take over a country, doesn't really do much for you, just look at any failed coups. An adventurer killing a dragon won't make the king look weaker in a way that the adventurer will be able to exploit, but rather in a way that other nobles will. The same as we can see demonstrated historically.

Yes, when you try to oust the current king without enough force to do it, you fail. Because the king has more force and is therefore more legitimate. Not a hard problem.

johnbragg
2016-02-15, 12:52 PM
If the game does not support Smaug bathing Lake-town in fire without any risk of retaliation (baring Bard's plot device arrow), it is a bad fantasy game. Smaug should get to pillage, not be forced to use pawns to get what he wants.


Now I *REALLY* want to go work out Incantation-type rules, where the people of LAketown spend one hour every MArs-DAy and from sundown to sunup on the day of every new moon building up psychic energy to blanket the town in a Resist Fire effect.

Still doesn't let NPC militia mooks do anything to the dragon, but it's better than nothing, and more useful to LAketown than the Plant Growth spell effect most towns access, or longstridering the boats when they dock.

AMFV
2016-02-15, 01:03 PM
By one guy, with a plot device arrow. Not by the militia.

A regular non-magical arrow, with no special properties, no elvish enchantments. It's just as easy to surmise that the one guy was only able to defeat him because of all the other ones. Just because somebody gets a killing blow doesn't mean that they alone were the victors in a conflict.



Because he's a dragon fighting peasants and why should he need to?


I don't know, why do people need support fighting bees? Or ants? Enough of a small number of things can kill you? Also why is the Dragon fighting peasants? That doesn't seem to have much value. I mean historically dragons such as Smaug have died against peasants, so that seems like a losing game, particularly without any real gain from it.



Yes, and Batman spends lots of Batman stories not killing the Joker, despite the fact that doing so is logically and ethically the correct choice.


That's certainly a debatable point. Probably why most people have reacted strongly and negatively to stories where he has. Because they don't agree with you.



Yes, when you try to oust the current king without enough force to do it, you fail. Because the king has more force and is therefore more legitimate. Not a hard problem.

The thing is, the King rules because the people don't rise up in rebellion, and the nobles don't. The king doesn't have enough force to stop everybody, there's never been an Empire where that's been the case. He just needs enough to keep enough people happy that they'll back him. That's where the support and politics come in.

VoxRationis
2016-02-15, 01:23 PM
I myself like bounded accuracy. I'm really not a fan of ridiculous hyper-scaling, and like it to be possible (if difficult and prone to casualties) for a mob of low-level characters to defeat a single upper-level one.

Fable Wright
2016-02-15, 01:32 PM
While "the DM makes something up" does in fact allow you to do whatever you want in any game, it works in any game and requires no design time. Presenting it as a strength of 5e is insulting.

And the design of 3.5's "look, here are the rules for it so I can build it and there's not a thing you can do about it" is so much better?

Look, I get it. Fifth edition takes options away from the player, and you don't like that. But think about it from the DM's side of the screen. "Oh, this is a neat magic item I want to see in play. Let's drop it in with the loot." Players look at it, shrug, throw it on the pile of items they can sell at the store, makes the usual combination of +1 Flaming Frost weapon with GMW thrown on for the rest of the bonus. Player goes "Hey, how about that industrial revolution, can we do that?" when the DM wants to make a campaign about killing the dragon that's terrorizing a small town. Can't stop them, because it's in the rules.

Fifth edition has that rare balance of magic items having definitive stats separate from a character's individual power along with enough freeform rules to eyeball cool effects together without it breaking game balance. This is not the case in 3.5 or 4th edition. In fifth edition, I can make a cool, unique magic item and a custom monster to throw at the party in, what, five minutes. In 3.5, I can spend at least an hour making the monster, looking at magic item creation guidelines to eyeball the wealth by level of my cool custom effect, fret about how to add a bunch of other loot to keep other players at parity, then sigh with resignation when the players just chuck the magic item on the loot pile and sell it. Expressly putting "the DM makes something up" in a crunch heavy system is a strength of fifth edition, because it clearly shows where the rights of the player end and the powers of the DM begin. And frankly, they did it in such a way that makes the whole system easier for everyone involved.


You know what allows things to stay possible for non-casters? Having them scale properly. All bounded accuracy does is stop you from ever being able to beat a random dude consistently at anything, which is insulting if you are nominally supposed to kill dragons or demon lords with ease.

And unbounded accuracy also stops your plucky PC from ever winning an arm-wrestling competition with the legendary dragonslayer, and keeps those plucky commoners or low level PCs with an iron arrow from ever having a chance to pierce the dragon's hide. Because really, since when should an underdog hero ever actually have a chance to win against a dragon? It takes a band of 4 heroes each only slightly weaker than the dragon banding together to kill it, obviously. Anything less might as well just slit their throats now.


So the game handles an iconic fantasy moment by telling you to ignore the rules. And you paid money for this. In other news, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you. Just PM me your credit card information and I'll be good to go.

Sure, right after you tell me how your level 1 characters would meaningfully impact a battle with a Huge, airborne dragon at level 1 in this exact same scenario. Go on, I'll wait. I've got this epic fantasy moment I can meaningfully contribute to without being a demigod to pass the time.

Felyndiira
2016-02-15, 01:45 PM
I play 3.5e (actually, mostly Pathfinder) because I'm more familiar with the rules system, and because quadratic wizards are a feature, not a bug.

Morcleon
2016-02-15, 01:56 PM
And the design of 3.5's "look, here are the rules for it so I can build it and there's not a thing you can do about it" is so much better?

But the DM can simply say "don't do that b/c it'll break the game" and let the PCs do the work behind the things, only needing to ask when they're doing something outside of the specific rules and even then, it's usually something like "is this okay, if not what should I change". In 5e, the DM would have to create rules for everything not specified.


Look, I get it. Fifth edition takes options away from the player, and you don't like that. But think about it from the DM's side of the screen. "Oh, this is a neat magic item I want to see in play. Let's drop it in with the loot." Players look at it, shrug, throw it on the pile of items they can sell at the store, makes the usual combination of +1 Flaming Frost weapon with GMW thrown on for the rest of the bonus. Player goes "Hey, how about that industrial revolution, can we do that?" when the DM wants to make a campaign about killing the dragon that's terrorizing a small town. Can't stop them, because it's in the rules.

If the PCs don't wanna use a certain magic item, the DM shouldn't force it on them. Just have an NPC use it. And that last part is an issue of the players and DM having different views of how the game should go, which can be a problem regardless of system.

Also, who using Flaming and Frost? :smalltongue:


Fifth edition has that rare balance of magic items having definitive stats separate from a character's individual power along with enough freeform rules to eyeball cool effects together without it breaking game balance. This is not the case in 3.5 or 4th edition. In fifth edition, I can make a cool, unique magic item and a custom monster to throw at the party in, what, five minutes. In 3.5, I can spend at least an hour making the monster, looking at magic item creation guidelines to eyeball the wealth by level of my cool custom effect, fret about how to add a bunch of other loot to keep other players at parity, then sigh with resignation when the players just chuck the magic item on the loot pile and sell it. Expressly putting "the DM makes something up" in a crunch heavy system is a strength of fifth edition, because it clearly shows where the rights of the player end and the powers of the DM begin. And frankly, they did it in such a way that makes the whole system easier for everyone involved.

You can't do the "just sell the item" thing in 5e not because the items are better, but because you can't sell magic items because they're so rare (which is another thing I dislike about 5e).


And unbounded accuracy also stops your plucky PC from ever winning an arm-wrestling competition with the legendary dragonslayer, and keeps those plucky commoners or low level PCs with an iron arrow from ever having a chance to pierce the dragon's hide. Because really, since when should an underdog hero ever actually have a chance to win against a dragon? It takes a band of 4 heroes each only slightly weaker than the dragon banding together to kill it, obviously. Anything less might as well just slit their throats now.

Why should someone just starting adventuring be able to defeat a legend without having earned that power already?


Sure, right after you tell me how your level 1 characters would meaningfully impact a battle with a Huge, airborne dragon at level 1 in this exact same scenario. Go on, I'll wait. I've got this epic fantasy moment I can meaningfully contribute to without being a demigod to pass the time.

Why should they? It's like putting a couple of police officers against a battle tank, except the tank can fly.

AMFV
2016-02-15, 01:57 PM
Why should they? It's like putting a couple of police officers against a battle tank, except the tank can fly.

Somalians armed with only puddy beat an M1 Abrams, that doesn't seem like a horribly unlikely scenario.

Morcleon
2016-02-15, 02:01 PM
Somalians armed with only puddy beat an M1 Abrams, that doesn't seem like a horribly unlikely scenario.

I have no idea what puddy is, but I doubt they could have done the same if the tank could fly. :smalltongue:

Segev
2016-02-15, 02:02 PM
Is "bounded accuracy" ever actually given a hard mechanical guideline, or is it just an aspiration to which, so far, the designers have mostly adhered? Because nothing I have seen in the PHB suggests that it's impossible for monsters to go up to 30+ AC, nor for bonuses not to be found to stack similarly high to attack. They just don't, currently.

Yes, it'd be power creep, but it would not be, unless I am missing something, actually breaking the rules of the game.

Morcleon
2016-02-15, 02:05 PM
Is "bounded accuracy" ever actually given a hard mechanical guideline, or is it just an aspiration to which, so far, the designers have mostly adhered? Because nothing I have seen in the PHB suggests that it's impossible for monsters to go up to 30+ AC, nor for bonuses not to be found to stack similarly high to attack. They just don't, currently.

Yes, it'd be power creep, but it would not be, unless I am missing something, actually breaking the rules of the game.

It's not explicitly stated, but is made that way by capping PC stats at 20, making AC incredibly hard to increase, as well as removing basically all permanent bonuses to things outside of the normal formula.

Segev
2016-02-15, 02:11 PM
It's not explicitly stated, but is made that way by capping PC stats at 20, making AC incredibly hard to increase, as well as removing basically all permanent bonuses to things outside of the normal formula.

So putting a dragon's AC at the extreme limit of "hittable" for PCs would, in fact, make it out of reach for peasants, I think, then.

If the peasants have attack bonuses of +2 or +3, an AC of 22 or 23 is enough to be out of their reach barring the nat 20 that always hits (even in 3.5).

Morcleon
2016-02-15, 02:27 PM
[QUOTE=Segev;20426101If the peasants have attack bonuses of +2 or +3, an AC of 22 or 23 is enough to be out of their reach barring the nat 20 that always hits (even in 3.5).[/QUOTE]

But a natural 20 is only a 5% chance, so an army of peasants can kill a dragon.

JoeJ
2016-02-15, 02:49 PM
But a natural 20 is only a 5% chance, so an army of peasants can kill a dragon.

A natural 20 is a hit in 3.5 too. As far as armies of peasants killing dragons go, the only difference is the DR, which is a difference in stat block, not a difference in the game rules. Some monsters in 5e do have resistance or even outright immunity to nonmagical weapons.

Aliquid
2016-02-15, 02:58 PM
There are people still playing with B/X and BECM and the Rules Cyclopedia.
I would totally run a game with the Rules Cyclopedia if I could find players that were interested. Maybe it is just nostalgia though.

Anonymouswizard
2016-02-15, 03:01 PM
Is "bounded accuracy" ever actually given a hard mechanical guideline, or is it just an aspiration to which, so far, the designers have mostly adhered? Because nothing I have seen in the PHB suggests that it's impossible for monsters to go up to 30+ AC, nor for bonuses not to be found to stack similarly high to attack. They just don't, currently.

Yes, it'd be power creep, but it would not be, unless I am missing something, actually breaking the rules of the game.

It's a design goal. Specifically, that enough orcs should be a legitimate threat that you can throw a load at a party of 5 level 20 PCs and they still have a chance of dying.

On the 'why hire adventurers when an army can kill it', here's my view:

King Geoff is having a little dragon trouble near the Here Be Dragons Mountains. He could send the army after it, but it escapes with several sheep before taking more than a couple of arrows, and the militias near the mountains have suffered heavy losses. Also, King Bob is eyeing his iron mines suspiciously. King Geoff decides to hire a few mercenaries better equipped to negate the dragon's advantage, and sends a message to King Bob.

Segev
2016-02-15, 03:02 PM
Yeah, for the "why not use an army to kill that dragon?" question to have a different answer in 5e than 3.5, the conditions that make killing that dragon possible for an army have to be different. I am not convinced that is the case, since both are relying on nat 20s and large numbers of actions to try to get them.

Cosi
2016-02-15, 03:15 PM
A regular non-magical arrow, with no special properties, no elvish enchantments. It's just as easy to surmise that the one guy was only able to defeat him because of all the other ones. Just because somebody gets a killing blow doesn't mean that they alone were the victors in a conflict.

Said arrow was in fact of dwarven craft, and handed down over generations to Bard, who fired it to kill Smaug because a bird told him the secret of Smaug's vulnerability.


I don't know, why do people need support fighting bees? Or ants? Enough of a small number of things can kill you?

Can you breath fire? Does you skin turn swords? Do you fly? No? Interestingly, dragons do all of those things.


Also why is the Dragon fighting peasants? That doesn't seem to have much value. I mean historically dragons such as Smaug have died against peasants, so that seems like a losing game, particularly without any real gain from it.

Dragons fight peasants because that is an iconic part of fantasy. The dragon ravages the peasants, then is killed by the noble knight. If that story cannot happen in your fantasy game, your fantasy game is a failure.


That's certainly a debatable point. Probably why most people have reacted strongly and negatively to stories where he has. Because they don't agree with you.

Sure. Because the myth of Batman is that he doesn't kill. Not because it would be wrong. If we're judging by what stories people like, dragons getting killed by heroes seems to resonate a whole lot more than dragons being killed by unnamed bystanders.


The thing is, the King rules because the people don't rise up in rebellion, and the nobles don't. The king doesn't have enough force to stop everybody, there's never been an Empire where that's been the case. He just needs enough to keep enough people happy that they'll back him. That's where the support and politics come in.

Yes, because the king has feudal arrangements which allow him to quash rebellion. But that's not true in D&D. The dragon was more badass than the king, and the adventurer killed it. By the transitive property, he is more badass than the king, and therefore the new king.


And the design of 3.5's "look, here are the rules for it so I can build it and there's not a thing you can do about it" is so much better?

Yes!

The entire point of having rules is that they allow you to have a say in what happens. The reason we have hit points is so that when the DM says "rocks fall, everyone dies", we can say "no, how much damage did that do?". The reason we have CR guidelines is so that when the DM has an ancient dragon attack us at level one, we can say "dude, not cool that's an encounter for 20th level PCs". 100% of the reason rules exist is so that player can adjudicate what happens without argument about whether the DM thinks that is cool.


But think about it from the DM's side of the screen. "Oh, this is a neat magic item I want to see in play. Let's drop it in with the loot." Players look at it, shrug, throw it on the pile of items they can sell at the store, makes the usual combination of +1 Flaming Frost weapon with GMW thrown on for the rest of the bonus.

Think about that from the player's side. They have a cool character planned out. He's all about the elements, and they're looking to get him a greatsword that is Flaming Frost Shock and Acid. The DM gives them a +4 Unholy scythe as treasure. Why are they obligated to take it? It's their character, not the DM's.


Player goes "Hey, how about that industrial revolution, can we do that?" when the DM wants to make a campaign about killing the dragon that's terrorizing a small town. Can't stop them, because it's in the rules.

The story is told by the DM and the players. In fact, the DM is a player. If the other four players want to industrialize fantasyland, the DM should either work with them to tell that story, or say that he isn't interested in DMing for that story and ask someone else to do it. Just like if three players and the DM want to go dungeon crawling, and the fourth player wants to do a plane-hopping adventure, he should either bow out or play the game other people want. It's a cooperative storytelling game, the DM doesn't get to unilaterally decide how the story should go.

Also, if you can't work in a dragon fight into a story about industrialization, you just aren't trying. It's immediately obvious that the dragon's innate power is going to be less relevant in a world with industrial technology, so it would presumably try to fight people pushing for that. Or maybe the PCs need the dragon's hoard for some reason (either capital to industrialize, or specific artifacts). Maybe the dragon runs a bank and is in conflict with the players because they're trying to introduce fractional reserve banking.


Expressly putting "the DM makes something up" in a crunch heavy system is a strength of fifth edition, because it clearly shows where the rights of the player end and the powers of the DM begin. And frankly, they did it in such a way that makes the whole system easier for everyone involved.

If the best thing you can say about your system is what rules it doesn't have, your system sucks.


And unbounded accuracy also stops your plucky PC from ever winning an arm-wrestling competition with the legendary dragonslayer, and keeps those plucky commoners or low level PCs with an iron arrow from ever having a chance to pierce the dragon's hide. Because really, since when should an underdog hero ever actually have a chance to win against a dragon? It takes a band of 4 heroes each only slightly weaker than the dragon banding together to kill it, obviously. Anything less might as well just slit their throats now.

Yes. The reason underdogs win in fiction isn't because they are lucky, it is because they are protagonists. Their actions succeed or fail not by the uncaring whims of the dice, but because the author chooses for them to succeed or fail. That character doesn't translate into a medium where decisions are the result of a process that is actually random.


Sure, right after you tell me how your level 1 characters would meaningfully impact a battle with a Huge, airborne dragon at level 1 in this exact same scenario. Go on, I'll wait. I've got this epic fantasy moment I can meaningfully contribute to without being a demigod to pass the time.

They don't. Because that is the point of levels. There are stories you can tell at low level you can't tell at high level and vice versa. If you want starting characters to battle dragons, start at level 10.


Is "bounded accuracy" ever actually given a hard mechanical guideline, or is it just an aspiration to which, so far, the designers have mostly adhered?

Who knows? A few points:

1. Technically, 5e doesn't have bounded accuracy at all. You accumulate bonuses at some rate and therefore would eventually push random peasants off the RNG for anything those bonuses applied to. It's just the point that happens is level 30 not level 8.

2. Mike Mearls is designing it, and while he has stated (at various points) that bounded accuracy is supposed to be how the system "works", I have no real faith in his ability to keep to any particular design goals he nominally has.

3. Because of the way PC bonuses progress, bounded accuracy is largely here to stay for PCs even if someone prints a monster that has large AC, save, or attack numbers.

4. I don't think they're producing enough content for power creep to happen. There have been five rulebooks (as opposed to adventures) out thus far, and three of those are core books. FFS, they haven't released a campaign setting (unless Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide is a setting book, but I have no idea if that's for FR, Eberron, or just generic pirates).


So putting a dragon's AC at the extreme limit of "hittable" for PCs would, in fact, make it out of reach for peasants, I think, then.

If the peasants have attack bonuses of +2 or +3, an AC of 22 or 23 is enough to be out of their reach barring the nat 20 that always hits (even in 3.5).

First, let's note that this is a dragon that is a challenge for max level PCs fighting peasants. Not an adult dragon fighting trained militia, an ancient dragon fighting peasants. And they still are just barely off the RNG.

Second, while 3e had the 20 hits rule, it also had DR which made damage from peasants all but meaningless to adult dragons.

Segev
2016-02-15, 03:29 PM
The dragon was more badass than the king, and the adventurer killed it. By the transitive property, he is more badass than the king, and therefore the new king.This is often the theory behind why part of the "prize" for killing the dragon was the King's daughter's hand in marriage. Sure, he might still off you for the throne, but at least he doesn't HAVE to, and can enjoy a life of "living like a King" without the responsibility if he's willing to be patient.



First, let's note that this is a dragon that is a challenge for max level PCs fighting peasants. Not an adult dragon fighting trained militia, an ancient dragon fighting peasants. And they still are just barely off the RNG.Like I said, I don't have the MM to pull the numbers from, so I'll take your word for this.

What's the AC of a "mere" Adult Red Dragon? What's its CR?


Second, while 3e had the 20 hits rule, it also had DR which made damage from peasants all but meaningless to adult dragons.Do dragons not have resistance or immunity to physical non-magic weapons in 5e?

mephnick
2016-02-15, 03:42 PM
I mean, if I was a government, I'd probably try and hire some professional dragonslayers to kill a dragon than slaughter half my army doing it. It still makes no sense to throw an army against a dragon in 5e. Sure, a 5e peasant army has a better chance of killing one as a 3.5 peasant army, but it would still cripple the kingdom.

Cosi
2016-02-15, 03:49 PM
This is often the theory behind why part of the "prize" for killing the dragon was the King's daughter's hand in marriage. Sure, he might still off you for the throne, but at least he doesn't HAVE to, and can enjoy a life of "living like a King" without the responsibility if he's willing to be patient.

Yep. "Half my kingdom and my kid" is a fairly typical prize for doing something the king needs done in fantasy.


Like I said, I don't have the MM to pull the numbers from, so I'll take your word for this.

Actually, that particular thing was working from your math where you posited that as a CR where high level PCs would be on the RNG but peasants would not. I was just assuming that such an AC would belong to ancient dragons (those being the dragons fought by high level PCs)


What's the AC of a "mere" Adult Red Dragon? What's its CR?

Do dragons not have resistance or immunity to physical non-magic weapons in 5e?

The Adult Red Dragon has an AC of 19 (256 HP) and is immune to fire. It's "challenge" (because CR was too much like the most popular edition of D&D to ever exist) 17, so it's actually close to a high level dragon than I thought. The "challenge" 10 red dragon (young, FYI) is AC 18, so it doesn't matter much (also, accuracy is apparently pretty bounded). They have no resistance to weapons that I can see.

Some quick calcs for militia versus dragon:

To hit on a 16+ (25% of the time), you need your militia to have +3 to hit. That's within the range for attribute scores, and proficiency bonus is +1 or +2 depending on how trained your troops are. It seems pretty reasonable to say militia hit 25% of the time.

I don't know 5e weapons stats, but assuming bows are still 1d8 damage, you get an average of just over 1 damage per militia per round (4.5 damage * .25 to hit).

It takes less than 300 dudes to kill an adult red dragon. A Roman Cohort (500 soldiers) could kill one with ease. I think that puts paid to the idea that an adventurer is a better tool for killing dragons in 5e than an army.

JoeJ
2016-02-15, 03:59 PM
The most awesome game concept or mechanic you've ever seen is, for somebody else, absolutely bad design and a reason why they utterly hate that system. And for a different person, it's just okay; neither fantastically great nor completely terrible.

For me, the level advancement in 3.5 is a negative. When I play a superhero game, I want the characters to start that way. The part where Billy Batson meets an old wizard and gets transformed into the world's mightiest mortal should be covered in the very first issue, or possibly even a flashback. Conversely, I like characters who start the game as normal humans to finish as somewhat more skilled normal humans. Advancing from one to another is jarring, and especially so if there's no specific event in which the characters gain their superhuman abilities.

And as a DM, I find the sheer volume of options in 3.5 to be another negative because for the most part, they are player options, not world-building options. For example, it's hard to create a world in which magic requires extended rituals, so spells can't be cast during combat. Or one in which there are no dedicated spellcasters, but nearly everybody knows one or two spells. Or one in which there is only one spellcasting class. Or one where style specializations are enforced by prerequisites, so that you have to learn Burning Hands before you can cast Fireball. Or simply a world in which a person doesn't get better at fighting just because they become a master chef. (The idea of having every possible NPC have to fit into a class/level system really doesn't work for me.)

What I think of as negatives are, of course, positives to somebody else who likes those things.

Cazero
2016-02-15, 03:59 PM
The Adult Red Dragon has an AC of 19 (256 HP) and is immune to fire. It's "challenge" (because CR was too much like the most popular edition of D&D to ever exist) 17, so it's actually close to a high level dragon than I thought. The "challenge" 10 red dragon (young, FYI) is AC 18, so it doesn't matter much (also, accuracy is apparently pretty bounded). They have no resistance to weapons that I can see.

Some quick calcs for militia versus dragon:

To hit on a 16+ (25% of the time), you need your militia to have +3 to hit. That's within the range for attribute scores, and proficiency bonus is +1 or +2 depending on how trained your troops are. It seems pretty reasonable to say militia hit 25% of the time.

I don't know 5e weapons stats, but assuming bows are still 1d8 damage, you get an average of just over 1 damage per militia per round (4.5 damage * .25 to hit).

It takes less than 300 dudes to kill an adult red dragon. A Roman Cohort (500 soldiers) could kill one with ease. I think that puts paid to the idea that an adventurer is a better tool for killing dragons in 5e than an army.

You forgot the part where the panicked militia runs around screaming instead of shooting with perfect martial discipline and disregard for their own survival, and the part where the dragon use his breath attack to exterminate half of the peasants in one round.

JoeJ
2016-02-15, 04:09 PM
It takes less than 300 dudes to kill an adult red dragon. A Roman Cohort (500 soldiers) could kill one with ease. I think that puts paid to the idea that an adventurer is a better tool for killing dragons in 5e than an army.

Maybe that's why towns exist at all in a world with dragons and giants. If the militia was unable to defend the town against the local monsters, it would have been wiped out long before the adventurers got there.

Cosi
2016-02-15, 04:12 PM
You forgot the part where the panicked militia runs around screaming instead of shooting with perfect martial discipline and disregard for their own survival, and the part where the dragon use his breath attack to exterminate half of the peasants in one round.

That's a good point in favor of 3e. 3e dragon frightful presence triggers when the dragon swoops into view and inflicts the Panicked condition, which causes exactly that behavior. 5e dragon frightful presence requires an action (at least, it is in the "Actions" section), which makes it worthless when the militia kills it in one round. 5e frightful presences inflicts disadvantage, and stops the soldiers using ranged attacks from closing to melee.

But yes, compelling point in favor of 3e for accurately simulating battles with dragons and large armies.

JAL_1138
2016-02-15, 04:15 PM
But hiring an adventurer to kill the dragon already abdicates the government to him. Medieval legitimacy comes, not from the consent of the governed, but from the ability to quash any challenge to your legitimacy. If you hire an adventurer to kill the dragon, he becomes the government. Any claim that you might lose legitimacy because of some other action holds no water, because you absolutely lose legitimacy if you hire an adventurer.

That explains how the independent professional mercenary forces from Switzerland and Germany, such as the Landsknecht, that were hired by countless European governments in innumerable wars and skirmishes (occasionally on both sides at once) in the Late Medieval clear up to the Enlightenment totally undermined the legitimacy of every nation that hired them and consequently took over all of Europe--oh, wait, that didn't happen. The governments that hired them kept right on going and frequently became more powerful for it.

Cosi
2016-02-15, 04:20 PM
That explains how the independent professional mercenary forces from Switzerland and Germany, such as the Landsknecht, that were hired by countless European governments in innumerable wars and skirmishes (occasionally on both sides at once) in the Late Medieval clear up to the Enlightenment totally undermined the legitimacy of every nation that hired them and consequently took over all of Europe--oh, wait, that didn't happen. The governments that hired them kept right on going and frequently became more powerful for it.

Please, tell me more about how those mercenary forces were more powerful than the governments which hired them.

JoeJ
2016-02-15, 04:25 PM
But yes, compelling point in favor of 3e for accurately simulating battles with dragons and large armies.

"Accurately simulating" and "dragon" are not ideas that actually work in combination.

Cosi
2016-02-15, 04:32 PM
"Accurately simulating" and "dragon" are not ideas that actually work in combination.

Not necessarily. Certainly if you put "real world" in there you'd have a contradiction, but you can accurate simulate things that aren't the real world. D&D, for instance, is called upon to simulate fantasy stories, a feat that I submit (in the particular case of army versus dragon at least) that 3e does better than 5e. If you wrote a game that was supposed to accurate simulate comic book stories, and it gave an incentive for players to reveal their identities or kill their enemies, we would call that a failure of simulation even though we live in a world without superheroes.

AMFV
2016-02-15, 04:36 PM
Not necessarily. Certainly if you put "real world" in there you'd have a contradiction, but you can accurate simulate things that aren't the real world. D&D, for instance, is called upon to simulate fantasy stories, a feat that I submit (in the particular case of army versus dragon at least) that 3e does better than 5e. If you wrote a game that was supposed to accurate simulate comic book stories, and it gave an incentive for players to reveal their identities or kill their enemies, we would call that a failure of simulation even though we live in a world without superheroes.

In fantasy stories armies often defeat Dragons. See: the fall of Smaug, several battles in the Silmarillion, and others...

Cosi
2016-02-15, 04:41 PM
In fantasy stories armies often defeat Dragons. See: the fall of Smaug, several battles in the Silmarillion, and others...

You mean the fall of Smaug, where a named character who is guided by a talking bird uses an arrow which was crafted by an ancient dwarven king and passed down through the generations one shots a dragon? Because if that qualifies as an army, I have been sorely confused as to the definition of that word.

Morcleon
2016-02-15, 04:43 PM
In fantasy stories armies often defeat Dragons. See: the fall of Smaug, several battles in the Silmarillion, and others...

Also note that LotR is at a signifcantly lower power level than normal D&D, where Gandalf is likely only level 6.

Segev
2016-02-15, 04:44 PM
In the backstory for a module I wrote up for D&D 3.5 (which could be pretty easily adapted to 5e, honestly), the local Duke's armies were drastically depleted at all levels in driving off a Juvenile Red Dragon some six months ago, and he his vassals haven't been able to replenish their numbers yet.

This is in part to explain why the kobold bandits that have developed a practical blockade-level stranglehold on the duchy haven't been handled by said armies: they're too depleted and can't muster the numbers to effectively search for all the little encampments. Now the PCs are needed to resolve this issue!

Cazero
2016-02-15, 04:58 PM
That's a good point in favor of 3e. 3e dragon frightful presence triggers when the dragon swoops into view and inflicts the Panicked condition, which causes exactly that behavior. 5e dragon frightful presence requires an action (at least, it is in the "Actions" section), which makes it worthless when the militia kills it in one round. 5e frightful presences inflicts disadvantage, and stops the soldiers using ranged attacks from closing to melee.

But yes, compelling point in favor of 3e for accurately simulating battles with dragons and large armies.

That's a bad point for D&D regardless of edition. A barbarian doesn't need a class feature to scare people out of a fight if he became legendary for butchering an entire army all by himself. That's the kind of rep dragons have by virtue of existing, and that's what Frightful Presence do. It's not some mind control psionic thingie, it's the intimidation skill.
Problem : "social" skills can't do anything to PCs. A deliberate design choice to allow players to have more agency and not pee their pants when meeting a random thug who mistakenly took a 6th level murderhobo for an easy prey. So far so good, but then they make a 180° turn and pull Frightful Presence out of nowhere. With Frightful Presence, Kang the Dragonslayer, who's been slaying dragons for fun and profit for the last five years, can get too scared to fight against a small one for some reason. Since it's identical to the situation with the random thug described above, that's beyond absurd.

Anonymouswizard
2016-02-15, 05:00 PM
It takes less than 300 dudes to kill an adult red dragon. A Roman Cohort (500 soldiers) could kill one with ease. I think that puts paid to the idea that an adventurer is a better tool for killing dragons in 5e than an army.

Cool, let's play out the battle now.

A wild DRAGON appeared. It used flame breath, the buildings closest to it are on fire. A few peasants die.

Peasants run screaming from the rampaging engine of destruction. Some town guard run, some go and grab bows, and some go to muster the rest of the militia. The dragon takes a few hps of damage.

Dragon sits on town guards. Town guards are dead. Fire spreads to more buildings, air near dragon is full of smoke.

Some militia members arrive and fan out. They attack the dragon with bows. The dragon takes a few hps of damage.

Dragon eats a few militia members, and starts looking for a sack. Fire still spreads.

More militia members arrive and start plinking with bows. Might be getting up to 30 hp of damage now.

Dragon locates sack and begins looting sheep. Less panicked peasants have started to try to fight the fire.

Another few members of the militia arrive. Dragon's looking like he might have to do something soon.

Dragon loots a few more sheep and closes sack. He takes off into the sky. Several peasants catch fire.

Yet more peasants arrive. Dragon really should do something.

Dragon unleashes fire breath on militia members. Some buildings which had been untouched are now burning. Dragon flies away, carrying sack of sheep.

Militia continues firing arrows. The members who have just arrived search for bows that are not currently on fire. Dragon looking like he might have taken 80hp or more damage.

Dragon flies away. More peasants and militia members catch fire.

Some militia members keep firing at the dragon, but few hit. The rest put out the peasants and help with the fire burning it's way through the village. Rest of the militia arrive.

Dragon is glad that he didn't stay until most of the militia had arrived, enjoys roast mutton, and plans next village to raid. Maybe one a little further away from it's lair this time.


You forgot the part where the panicked militia runs around screaming instead of shooting with perfect martial discipline and disregard for their own survival, and the part where the dragon use his breath attack to exterminate half of the peasants in one round.

Yep, I hate how these scenarios always assume a perfectly disciplined perfectly organised militia of exactly the number needed. Good thing the dragon is smart enough to grab what it wants and run. It can wear the village down over a few days anyway.

What? Dragons don't attack towns on their own, siege weapons might do some serious damage. They pay some smucks to go in and disable all of them first, and then work with mercenaries to decimate the town.

JoeJ
2016-02-15, 05:03 PM
Not necessarily. Certainly if you put "real world" in there you'd have a contradiction, but you can accurate simulate things that aren't the real world. D&D, for instance, is called upon to simulate fantasy stories, a feat that I submit (in the particular case of army versus dragon at least) that 3e does better than 5e. If you wrote a game that was supposed to accurate simulate comic book stories, and it gave an incentive for players to reveal their identities or kill their enemies, we would call that a failure of simulation even though we live in a world without superheroes.

Meh. I think a dragon that tries a frontal assault against a deployed, alert army equipped with missile weapons should lose.

In some fantasy stories armies can't beat dragons, but in others they can. A number of dragons in the history of Song of Ice and Fire were done in by armies.

In some stories, magic is required to kill a dragon. in others, a great hero can manage it by combat skill alone. 3.5 does not do a very good job of simulating the latter.

JAL_1138
2016-02-15, 05:04 PM
Please, tell me more about how those mercenary forces were more powerful than the governments which hired them.

Tell me how the army that can kill the dragon can't kill the adventurers? The adventurers are not more powerful. They're cheaper and more efficient. Much more expedient. So hiring them to kill the dragon makes sense, without damaging legitimacy. That's the point.

But as for the Swiss and the Landsknecht, on occasion they'd be the only military force a given noble had, or the only forces in a particular battle. Interesting to read about. One notable mercenary force of the time, The Black Army of Hungary, a collective name for the thousands of (largely non-Hungarian) mercenaries hired by King Corvinius, was bigger than the entire French army, and served as Hungary's main military force; they had practically no regulars or conscripts.

Also, you're essentially assuming the dragon attacks where it's expected to, in broad daylight, on an open plain, while all the military are awake, equipped, and ready to fire. As opposed to, say, strafing a camp at night with flame breath and leaving it to burn. Setting fields ablaze so the army starves. Setting fire to the rooftops. Attacking where there aren't enough clean firing lanes for 300 trained people to hit it at once. Like...oh...strafing a fishing/trading town with no army to speak of, at night, without warning, like the oft-mentioned Smaug...

JoeJ
2016-02-15, 05:12 PM
I'll just note here that all the complaints about armies being able to beat dragons in 5e has nothing to do with bounded accuracy. It's just a difference in the stat block, with dragons no longer requiring a magic weapon to hurt them. Both resistance and immunity are things, so if you don't like dragons not having that feature, there's absolutely nothing in the rules to keep you from adding it back in again.

Cosi
2016-02-15, 05:18 PM
That's a bad point for D&D regardless of edition. A barbarian doesn't need a class feature to scare people out of a fight if he became legendary for butchering an entire army all by himself. That's the kind of rep dragons have by virtue of existing, and that's what Frightful Presence do. It's not some mind control psionic thingie, it's the intimidation skill.

If the rules do not say something happens, that thing does not happen. That's what rules mean. If we're allowing dragons to pull out AoE intimidate "because reputation", then why don't they pull out nukes because they are "like super smart" and would "totally figure out" nuclear physics? Right, because it's not what the rules say and the rules are the foundation for any meaningful discussion about a game.

Also, the specific D&D 5e dragon in question does not have intimidate at all.


With Frightful Presence, Kang the Dragonslayer, who's been slaying dragons for fun and profit for the last five years, can get too scared to fight against a small one for some reason. Since it's identical to the situation with the random thug described above, that's beyond absurd.

Not if he makes his save. In 3e even if he doesn't, it's just a -2 penalty to stuff unless he has 4 or less HD (in which case, how is he a dragonslayer?).


A wild DRAGON appeared. It used flame breath, the buildings closest to it are on fire. A few peasants die.

A wild dragon loses initiative. A bunch of peasants hit it with arrows and it dies in one round.


Peasants run screaming from the rampaging engine of destruction. Some town guard run, some go and grab bows, and some go to muster the rest of the militia. The dragon takes a few hps of damage.

Games where the rules say that happens: 3e.
Games where the rules do not say that happens: 5e.


What? Dragons don't attack towns on their own, siege weapons might do some serious damage. They pay some smucks to go in and disable all of them first, and then work with mercenaries to decimate the town.

Except for all the stories where they do exactly that. Like the Hobbit.


Meh. I think a dragon that tries a frontal assault against a deployed, alert army equipped with missile weapons should lose.

How many guys with bows should be required to bring down an Apache Attack Helicopter?


In some stories, magic is required to kill a dragon. in others, a great hero can manage it by combat skill alone. 3.5 does not do a very good job of simulating the latter.

Yes it does. Provided you can force it to ground and/or negate its breath weapon as an offensive tool, a (high level) guy with a sword is a solution to a dragon. Now, he has to have some personal magic or be higher level than the CR guidelines say he should be, but it is by no means impossible or even any harder than fighting a Purple Wurm or Grey Render.


Tell me how the army that can kill the dragon can't kill the adventurers? The adventurers are not more powerful. They're cheaper and more efficient. Much more expedient. So hiring them to kill the dragon makes sense, without damaging legitimacy. That's the point.

The adventurers are by definition more powerful than the dragon if they defeat it. Also, I am hard-pressed to imagine a situation where all of the dragon's treasure is less than the difference between 300 soldiers and an adventuring party.


I'll just note here that all the complaints about armies being able to beat dragons in 5e has nothing to do with bounded accuracy. It's just a difference in the stat block, with dragons no longer requiring a magic weapon to hurt them. Both resistance and immunity are things, so if you don't like dragons not having that feature, there's absolutely nothing in the rules to keep you from adding it back in again.

Go go gadget Oberoni fallacy!

JNAProductions
2016-02-15, 05:20 PM
Games where the rules say that happens: 3e.
Games where the rules do not say that happens: 5e.

Which rules say that happens? I know of no morale system in 3E.

In 5E, there's also no morale system, but it explicitly grants the DM license to do things which make the world make sense, such as men breaking and fleeing. 3E also has that ability, but it's a lot less ingrained into the system.

JAL_1138
2016-02-15, 05:21 PM
I'll just note here that all the complaints about armies being able to beat dragons in 5e has nothing to do with bounded accuracy. It's just a difference in the stat block, with dragons no longer requiring a magic weapon to hurt them. Both resistance and immunity are things, so if you don't like dragons not having that feature, there's absolutely nothing in the rules to keep you from adding it back in again.

This is a very good point.

There's even guidelines for it in the DMG and how it'll affect CR and XP.

Take away the immunity from a 3.X dragon, and it goes down to a large army of archers on a flat plain almost as easily, since nat 20s are still auto-hits (albeit not auto-crits). 5% of the archers in firing range but out of Frightful Presence range will hit each round.

Morcleon
2016-02-15, 05:25 PM
Which rules say that happens? I know of no morale system in 3E.

In 5E, there's also no morale system, but it explicitly grants the DM license to do things which make the world make sense, such as men breaking and fleeing. 3E also has that ability, but it's a lot less ingrained into the system.

It's not morale system, it's Frightful Presence, which is a passive thing in 3.5, while being an active ability in 5e. So the dragon isn't actually scary until it deliberately wants to be scary.

JNAProductions
2016-02-15, 05:27 PM
Is the range limitless/line of sight? Or if not, what range is it?

That being said, I did not know that. I thought it was an action. (Been a long time since I've had my 3.5 MM.)

Cosi
2016-02-15, 05:28 PM
Which rules say that happens? I know of no morale system in 3E.

In 5E, there's also no morale system, but it explicitly grants the DM license to do things which make the world make sense, such as men breaking and fleeing. 3E also has that ability, but it's a lot less ingrained into the system.

Read 3e Frightful Presence. Read it carefully and read the conditions it cites to.


This is a very good point.

There's even guidelines for it in the DMG and how it'll affect CR and XP.

Take away the immunity from a 3.X dragon, and it goes down to a large army of archers on a flat plain almost as easily, since nat 20s are still auto-hits (albeit not auto-crits). 5% of the archers in firing range but out of Frightful Presence range will hit each round.

Did you miss the point where 1st or 2nd level characters hit a "challenge" 17 dragon 25% of the time even without the nat 20 rule? To do that to the first CR 17 dragon in 3.5, they would need +18 to hit (Very Old White Dragon, AC 34).

And the 3.5 dragon can travel through the ranks of the enemy army, sowing fear totally passively with Frightful Presence.

But yes, if you ignore the ways in which the games are different, they are the same. Surely this cunning insight will win you the argument!

Anonymouswizard
2016-02-15, 05:33 PM
A wild dragon loses initiative. A bunch of peasants hit it with arrows and it dies in one round.

A wild dragon loses initiative. Peasants fail DC 30 spot checks, continue with life.

Wild dragon drops below clouds, in a dive.

Guard on watchtower who is actually looking sees dragon, fires arrow.

Dragon burns watchtower and surrounding buildings.

Town guards muster. Unarmed peasants run for their lives (because who attacks a dragon with their bare hands?). What sort of peasant routinely carries a ranged weapon?


Games where the rules say that happens: 3e.
Games where the rules do not say that happens: 5e.

Fine, the town guard split into two groups. One goes to rally the militia, the other attacks with bows. The Dragon sustains 5-10 extra damage.

The unarmed peasants still flee. Some might go to get weapons, most just wait for the dragon to stop attacking.


Except for all the stories where they do exactly that. Like the Hobbit.

I don't believe laketown had siege weapons available. Also, Smaug got took down by a masterwork arrow from a low level character (probably a fighter) who scored a lucky crit on a called shot to ignore it's DR. The dragon had already been taking damage from everybody else's arrows, just not a lot from each one on it's own. Smaug likely thought he could swing round and roast Bard on his next pass. It's a legitimate example of a dragon being taken down by a small and lucky force.

JAL_1138
2016-02-15, 05:33 PM
Go go gadget Oberoni fallacy!

Except it's not. Stat block missing an immunity you think should be there =/= bounded accuracy. Bounded accuracy is the to-hit probability, a cap on the bonuses, rather than whether there's an immunity there or not. So the problem is different.

Rather than "bounded accuracy is bad because peasants can kill dragons because of the math," the problem is "the dragon stat block is bad because they're not immune to nonmagical weapons, meaning that peasants could kill them (which would be the case in every edition due to auto-hits on nat-20s if you took the immunity away)." There are rules for modifying this bad stat block (although you can ceryainly argue you'd prefer they already did it for you and have people who want more-vulnerable dragons use those modification rules instead of you having to, but that's still not a problem with bounded accuracy).

JoeJ
2016-02-15, 05:36 PM
How many guys with bows should be required to bring down an Apache Attack Helicopter?

I don't know about bows. One with a rifle, if they get lucky and hit the intake just right.


Yes it does. Provided you can force it to ground and/or negate its breath weapon as an offensive tool, a (high level) guy with a sword is a solution to a dragon. Now, he has to have some personal magic or be higher level than the CR guidelines say he should be, but it is by no means impossible or even any harder than fighting a Purple Wurm or Grey Render.

With no spells, no buffs, no magic items (including the big 6), it's possible in theory, but it isn't going to happen.


Go go gadget Oberoni fallacy!

Wrong on two counts, but thanks for playing. First, modifying monsters, and even creating your own, is part of the core rules. Second, dragons that are vulnerable to non-magic weapons is in no sense broken; it's just not to your personal taste.

Cosi
2016-02-15, 05:38 PM
A wild dragon loses initiative. Peasants fail DC 30 spot checks, continue with life.

Unless the dragon can single move from outside range to close enough to use its breath effectively, that is not in fact what happens.



Also, Smaug got took down by a masterwork arrow from a low level character (probably a fighter) who scored a lucky crit on a called shot to ignore it's DR.

Or Smaug rolled a natural 1 on his save against Bard's Arrow of Slaying.


Except it's not. Stat block missing an immunity you think should be there =/= bounded accuracy. Bounded accuracy is the to-hit probability, a cap on the bonuses, rather than whether there's an immunity there or not. So the problem is different.

Again, adult red is hit on 16+ by people with minimal training. That's bounded accuracy.

And yes, it is still Oberoni even if you are given explicit permission to modify. If the game was well designed, the change would be included. Problems with the game aren't the end of the world. If 5e was good, it could survive needing DM meddling to make dragons work.

JoeJ
2016-02-15, 05:40 PM
In 5E, there's also no morale system, but it explicitly grants the DM license to do things which make the world make sense, such as men breaking and fleeing. 3E also has that ability, but it's a lot less ingrained into the system.

Morale rules in 5e are on p. 273 of the DMG.


If 5e was good, it could survive needing DM meddling to make dragons work.

No meddling is required to make dragons work; they work just fine as is. I could just as easily say that 3.5 is broken because they added DR to dragons (they didn't have it in AD&D), which would of course be wrong for exactly the same reason.

Not to your taste =/= broken.

Cazero
2016-02-15, 05:42 PM
If the rules do not say something happens, that thing does not happen. That's what rules mean. If we're allowing dragons to pull out AoE intimidate "because reputation", then why don't they pull out nukes because they are "like super smart" and would "totally figure out" nuclear physics? Right, because it's not what the rules say and the rules are the foundation for any meaningful discussion about a game.

Also, the specific D&D 5e dragon in question does not have intimidate at all.
'kay. PCs can't talk 'cause there aren't any rules for it.
They can use diplomacy/persuasion/etc at each other, but it's not the same as talking. What's next, different rules for different types of doorhandles?

The dragon doesn't need Frightful Presence for the peasants to run away screaming. It's a goddamn dragon. It's huge and scary, it breathes fire and stuff, and it ate Joe in one bite. People who aren't PCs run by default. You don't need a rule for that.
What you need a rule for is to bullsh*t a fear penalty into the PCs who have natural immunity to fear by game-design decision.


Not if he makes his save. In 3e even if he doesn't, it's just a -2 penalty to stuff unless he has 4 or less HD (in which case, how is he a dragonslayer?).
And my point is that this rule is fine and dandy the first five times or so, but by the point you eat dragon steak for breakfast you shouldn't need to save anymore.

Cosi
2016-02-15, 06:09 PM
No meddling is required to make dragons work; they work just fine as is. I could just as easily say that 3.5 is broken because they added DR to dragons (they didn't have it in AD&D), which would of course be wrong for exactly the same reason.

Not to your taste =/= broken.

I have yet to see a compelling argument that dragons behaving in the way 5e requires them is good or typical of fantasy.


'kay. PCs can't talk 'cause there aren't any rules for it.

Keep digging buddy, 3e has rules for that.


The dragon doesn't need Frightful Presence for the peasants to run away screaming. It's a goddamn dragon. It's huge and scary, it breathes fire and stuff, and it ate Joe in one bite. People who aren't PCs run by default. You don't need a rule for that.

But there actually is a rule for that in 5e. It just doesn't do what you think it should


And my point is that this rule is fine and dandy the first five times or so, but by the point you eat dragon steak for breakfast you shouldn't need to save anymore.

So maybe if he specializes in killing dragons, he should take a Dragon Slayer PrC to be immune to fear.

Anonymouswizard
2016-02-15, 06:10 PM
Unless the dragon can single move from outside range to close enough to use its breath effectively, that is not in fact what happens.

So, assuming the peasants are all armed, and assuming that they are keeping one eye on the sky at all times despite not seeing an airbone monster today? Yes, a village militia can in theory defeat a dragon.

If the majority of people are acting realistically before the dragon attack? The dragon has a round or two of basically taking no damage as it starts to fall at approaching terminal velocity, before announcing it's presence to people who have jobs that require them looking at an area other than the sky and unleashing it's breath weapon. Most peasant jobs require you to look at what you're doing.


Or Smaug rolled a natural 1 on his save against Bard's Arrow of Slaying.

Now we're getting into the 'Aragorn was a level 20 ranger because he fought level 15 elite orcs' argument.

Please give me the line from the book that implies that the arrow is magical. It's certainly well-made, but I see no reason to assuming it has any magical properties (and judging by the magic blades in the world at that time, then it would be better at harming things and might glow blue when orcs are near, but would not cause instant death.


Again, adult red is hit on 16+ by people with minimal training. That's bounded accuracy.

And yes, it is still Oberoni even if you are given explicit permission to modify. If the game was well designed, the change would be included. Problems with the game aren't the end of the world. If 5e was good, it could survive needing DM meddling to make dragons work.

The problem is you're constructing an improbable situation to fit your views. If you think dragons are too easy to take out, that's fine, but don't try to argue it's stupid because, in a situation that will likely never happen in the game-world, a small army kills a dragon in one round.

For the record, I have more problems with army immune dragons. Implies that the bloody adventurer could just take over the whole kingdom by himself, and I hate those levels of power, you need to tread carefully or you're convincing Palpatine to give up the Empire with 12 seconds of speech and then having unrealistically strong technology compared to 40k. Okay, needs-to-be-more-nerdy time, but the Imperium and the Empire always struck me as at a similar level of technological power, it's just the Imperium has more outliers.

Milo v3
2016-02-15, 06:11 PM
Go go gadget Oberoni fallacy!
This should be on the blurb of the 5e DMG :smalltongue:

Cosi
2016-02-15, 06:25 PM
So, assuming the peasants are all armed, and assuming that they are keeping one eye on the sky at all times despite not seeing an airbone monster today? Yes, a village militia can in theory defeat a dragon.

If the dragon can't move into range in a single move from out of LoS, the town gets a turn to act.


Now we're getting into the 'Aragorn was a level 20 ranger because he fought level 15 elite orcs' argument.

Or the best mechanical model for that scene is an Arrow of Slaying. Or massive damage.


The problem is you're constructing an improbable situation to fit your views. If you think dragons are too easy to take out, that's fine, but don't try to argue it's stupid because, in a situation that will likely never happen in the game-world, a small army kills a dragon in one round.

We aren't talking about "small" dragons, we're talking "challenge" 17 dragons. Which get killed by 300 troops. The freakin' Spartans should be able to kill an adult red dragon according to 5e. In one round.


For the record, I have more problems with army immune dragons. Implies that the bloody adventurer could just take over the whole kingdom by himself, and I hate those levels of power,

So play at a lower level. I mean duh.


This should be on the blurb of the 5e DMG :smalltongue:

My favorite part of this discussion is the person who says 5e is great because it lets the DM make things up. Do they not understand you can do that without any rules?

AMFV
2016-02-15, 06:38 PM
My favorite part of this discussion is the person who says 5e is great because it lets the DM make things up. Do they not understand you can do that without any rules?

There is no reason to waste rules text and valuable page space (which is at a premium as per your earlier statement) describing how peasants fight dragons. That's pretty much just a point for narration. Or background noise. But again, I don't think it's particularly unrealistic to have an army able to defeat a dragon.

JoeJ
2016-02-15, 06:45 PM
I have yet to see a compelling argument that dragons behaving in the way 5e requires them is good or typical of fantasy.

I have yet to see a compelling argument that having dragons behave the way 3.5 requires them to is good or typical of fantasy. (Actually, saying that anything at all is "typical" of fantasy would be a very hard argument to make. The field is extremely broad, and new stories are being published daily.) So far, all you've said is that you'd prefer dragons to be tougher, but for some reason you won't use the rules that allow them to be. Now, I'm not going to tell you what kind of dragon, or which game, you should like; you have as much right to a preference as anybody else. But the fact that you prefer something different does not mean that 5e did it wrong. It just means that it's not your preference.

Anonymouswizard
2016-02-15, 06:46 PM
If the dragon can't move into range in a single move from out of LoS, the town gets a turn to act.

Assuming the town has spotted it. LOS is not the same as spotted. Just because I can theoretically see every bird in the sky you argue that I should be able to recognise a red kite 6 seconds after it becomes possible for me to see it, when what I'm actually doing is building a shed.


Or the best mechanical model for that scene is an Arrow of Slaying. Or massive damage.

Or 'it's a children's book'. One of those three is 100% accurate, but I won't tell you which one it is.


We aren't talking about "small" dragons, we're talking "challenge" 17 dragons. Which get killed by 300 troops. The freakin' Spartans should be able to kill an adult red dragon according to 5e. In one round.

Yep. I think large dragons should be able to be taken out by a small army. I'm personally running 2e next, specifically the Birthright setting, and so I open up my pdf and turn to dragon, cerilian. It's quite powerful, able to breath a cone of burning venom a bit under twice a minute for at least 12d6+12 damage, having access to at least 5th level spells from 4 schools of magic, minimum of 19 hit dice (or 85.5hp), radiates fear for 50 yards, can paralyse with fear for 2d4 turns (not rounds) with it's gaze, AC0, and THAC0 of 6. But it can be taken down by 380 archers in one round, as long as they don't have bad luck and stand at least 51 yards away.


So play at a lower level. I mean duh.

Nah, I'll play a better edition instead. Like 2e. AND I'll play at a lower power level.


My favorite part of this discussion is the person who says 5e is great because it lets the DM make things up. Do they not understand you can do that without any rules?

My favourite part of this discussion is when it hadn't turned into an edition war about whether or not dragons should be vunerable to a disciplined force of archers in the mid-hundreds.

Cosi
2016-02-15, 06:52 PM
There is no reason to waste rules text and valuable page space (which is at a premium as per your earlier statement) describing how peasants fight dragons. That's pretty much just a point for narration. Or background noise. But again, I don't think it's particularly unrealistic to have an army able to defeat a dragon.

Interestingly, increasing dragon AC to 3e levels and removing the nat 20 rule saves words.


I have yet to see a compelling argument that having dragons behave the way 3.5 requires them to is good or typical of fantasy.

Smaug, every story where a knight kills a dragon, the Elient in Malazan, technically Rand al'Thor is a dragon who trumps armies.


Nah, I'll play a better edition instead. Like 2e. AND I'll play at a lower power level.

Editions which use THAC0 are not better by any meaningful standard.

Anonymouswizard
2016-02-15, 07:02 PM
Smaug

Killed by a guy with no dragon-slaying experience. With a masterwork arrow.

It's a novel! It doesn't HAVE to jive with YOUR particular favourite edition of D&D.


Editions which use THAC0 are not better by any meaningful standard.

THAC0 is BAB, but negative. That's quite easily it. Make your attack roll, subtract from THAC0, you hit that AC. It's as simple as BAB.

2e is better because of features I like. Maybe you don't like them, in which case 2e isn't for you. But don't pretend the only standard that can be meaningful is your own, that's why this discussion is so vicious. You refuse to except any standard but yours as the default.

JNAProductions
2016-02-15, 07:05 PM
Interestingly, increasing dragon AC to 3e levels and removing the nat 20 rule saves words.

Young Adult Red Dragon has an AC of 26. A 20th level Fighter hits that on a 15.

Adult has 29. Now our Fighter needs a 18.

Mature Adult has 32. Now our Fighter needs a nat 20, or a 19 if he's an Archer.

Old now has 33. Now even the Archer needs a 20.

JoeJ
2016-02-15, 07:11 PM
Smaug, every story where a knight kills a dragon, the Elient in Malazan, technically Rand al'Thor is a dragon who trumps armies.

We've already established that there is significant disagreement about which category Smaug fits into. And "every story where a knight kills a dragon" includes an awful lot where the dragon never fought an army, and some where the armies are mostly made up of knights just like the one who killed the dragon. I'm not familiar with Elient or Rand al'Thor, so I'll take your word about them. Dreamfyre in The Princess and the Queen was brought down by masses of archers.

But really? Your argument is to count up fantasy stories with armies losing or winning against dragons to determine which is the "best" edition? Do we use 50% + 1 to determine the "winner"? Is it so hard to accept that a game you don't like might still be a very good game?

Cosi
2016-02-15, 07:18 PM
Killed by a guy with no dragon-slaying experience. With a masterwork arrow.

With the advice of a talking bird. And the arrow is an ancient heirloom forged by a dwarven king. But yes totally just masterwork.


THAC0 is BAB, but negative. That's quite easily it. Make your attack roll, subtract from THAC0, you hit that AC. It's as simple as BAB.

They are statistically identical. THAC0 is just more complex for no reason. There is a reason no game has gone back to THAC0.


Young Adult Red Dragon has an AC of 26. A 20th level Fighter hits that on a 15.

Adult has 29. Now our Fighter needs a 18.

Mature Adult has 32. Now our Fighter needs a nat 20, or a 19 if he's an Archer.

Old now has 33. Now even the Archer needs a 20.

Well I was assuming you would fix bounded accuracy, but whatever.


But really? Your argument is to count up fantasy stories with armies losing or winning against dragons to determine which is the "best" edition? Do we use 50% + 1 to determine the "winner"? Is it so hard to accept that a game you don't like might still be a very good game?

The best edition is the one that models the most stories. Given that 5e models exactly zero stories where anyone at all destroys armies, and E6 (a strict subset of 3e) models all the low power stuff 5e does, 3e is better.

JNAProductions
2016-02-15, 07:26 PM
Well I was assuming you would fix bounded accuracy, but whatever.

The best edition is the one that models the most stories. Given that 5e models exactly zero stories where anyone at all destroys armies, and E6 (a strict subset of 3e) models all the low power stuff 5e does, 3e is better.

Bounded accuracy is a feature, not a bug. It's one you don't like, but one that I do. Don't say it needs fixing, because it's a core design principle. That'd be like saying you need to fix Wizards being able to cast spells-that's the whole flipping point!

And no, the best edition is whichever edition you have the most fun with. Which means different people will have different best editions. Understand that?

I like 5E. I like 3.5. In my opinion, 5E is better designed, but 3.5 has the benefit of a lot of history behind it. They're both good systems because they are both fun.

JoeJ
2016-02-15, 07:29 PM
The best edition is the one that models the most stories. Given that 5e models exactly zero stories where anyone at all destroys armies, and E6 (a strict subset of 3e) models all the low power stuff 5e does, 3e is better.

I see. In that case, 3e doesn't even get into the running. Hero, GURPS, and Fate are the front runners. (Although you're still ignoring the part where 5e dragons can destroy armies.)

Morcleon
2016-02-15, 07:30 PM
The best edition is the one that models the most stories. Given that 5e models exactly zero stories where anyone at all destroys armies, and E6 (a strict subset of 3e) models all the low power stuff 5e does, 3e is better.

Okay, I disagree with this pretty heavily. The best edition is the one that lets you have the most fun while playing, which is a very subjective distinction.

Anonymouswizard
2016-02-15, 07:37 PM
With the advice of a talking bird. And the arrow is an ancient heirloom forged by a dwarven king. But yes totally just masterwork.

First off, the bird doesn't talk, Bard just has the ability to understand it, because it's that kind of story.

Also, all the treasure in the mountain was passed down from dwarven kings of old, I guess Smaug was covered in +5 coins.

Wait, you're telling me coins don't get magic just because a dwarf king forged them? The neither should arrows. There is no reason from the novel to assume that the arrow was magical, I can think of 14 probably-magic weapons that appear in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Elves had a hand in all 14 of them, not dwarves.


They are statistically identical. THAC0 is just more complex for no reason. There is a reason no game has gone back to THAC0.

Oh, here it is. The idiotic 'but subtraction is harder than addition except being 99.99999999999999999999999999999% identical' thing. Games don't use THAC0-esque systems because you are lazy.

I guess no system uses skill level-roll to work out your degree of success, oh, right, GURPS, WH40kRP....


Well I was assuming you would fix bounded accuracy, but whatever.

Why is bounded accuracy broken. Seems to work to specification, no need to fix. Just don't play games with bounded accuracy if you don't like bounded accuracy.

No, seriously, everybody here has been saying 'don't run it like that if you don't want to' while you've been whining 'my precious 3.5 dragons which are far stronger than most literary dragons! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!' Seriously, calm down, except that some of us like how 5e goes to a high power level without rendering normal people useless, and we can get back onto the discussion about why some people prefer 3.X.


The best edition is the one that models the most stories that it intends to in a competent fashion. Given that 5e models exactly zero stories where anyone at all destroys armies, and E6 (a strict subset of 3e) models all the low power stuff 5e does, 3e is better.

There, an alteration that makes it accurate to my views. I think that 3.5 is horrible at modelling the stories it wants to, the worst of any edition bar 3.0. Stop trying to objectively prove a subjective opinion.

Cosi
2016-02-15, 07:37 PM
Bounded accuracy is a feature, not a bug. It's one you don't like, but one that I do. Don't say it needs fixing, because it's a core design principle. That'd be like saying you need to fix Wizards being able to cast spells-that's the whole flipping point!

Bounded accuracy makes high level nonexistent. I don't understand how that could possibly be good. If you don't like high level, play low level. Don't remove it from the game and claim that design decision was good.


I see. In that case, 3e doesn't even get into the running. Hero, GURPS, and Fate are the front runners.

Sure. Those model more stories. But they model fantasy stories worse, because they also model superhero or sci-fi stories. The best game for a genre models the most stories in that genre. So you could make a case that 5e is a better game within the scope of "low powered fantasy", and you could make the case that 3e is a better game within the scope of "fantasy".


Okay, I disagree with this pretty heavily. The best edition is the one that lets you have the most fun while playing, which is a very subjective distinction.

The best game is that, certainly. But an edition of a mass-market game serves many masters, and it must attempt to model many things.

JNAProductions
2016-02-15, 07:42 PM
Bounded accuracy makes high level nonexistent. I don't understand how that could possibly be good. If you don't like high level, play low level. Don't remove it from the game and claim that design decision was good.

Sure. Those model more stories. But they model fantasy stories worse, because they also model superhero or sci-fi stories. The best game for a genre models the most stories in that genre. So you could make a case that 5e is a better game within the scope of "low powered fantasy", and you could make the case that 3e is a better game within the scope of "fantasy".

The best game is that, certainly. But an edition of a mass-market game serves many masters, and it must attempt to model many things.

Bounded accuracy makes high-levels human. You aren't a god-you're a man. (Or woman. Or non-binary-you get the point.) You're still miles ahead of a level 1 player, you're just not a god.

And FATE can model fantasy damn well, because it's FATE. It can model ANY STORY incredibly well. Better than 3.5, with good players.

Cosi
2016-02-15, 07:44 PM
First off, the bird doesn't talk, Bard just has the ability to understand it, because it's that kind of story.

So Bard is more magic then I've been claiming. Cool.


Also, all the treasure in the mountain was passed down from dwarven kings of old, I guess Smaug was covered in +5 coins.

Because clearly the dwarven kings forged their coins, as opposed to literally any other dwarves.


Oh, here it is. The idiotic 'but subtraction is harder than addition except being 99.99999999999999999999999999999% identical' thing. Games don't use THAC0-esque systems because you are lazy.

Games don't use it because complexity for no benefit is bad design.


Why is bounded accuracy broken. Seems to work to specification, no need to fix. Just don't play games with bounded accuracy if you don't like bounded accuracy.

Because it is in D&D. D&D is not a "low power" fantasy game, it is a generic fantasy game. Which includes high power content for which bounded accuracy is less than useless.


There, an alteration that makes it accurate to my views. I think that 3.5 is horrible at modelling the stories it wants to, the worst of any edition bar 3.0. Stop trying to objectively prove a subjective opinion.

Why do you think that? What stories is 3e bad at telling?

JoeJ
2016-02-15, 07:53 PM
Sure. Those model more stories. But they model fantasy stories worse, because they also model superhero or sci-fi stories. The best game for a genre models the most stories in that genre. So you could make a case that 5e is a better game within the scope of "low powered fantasy", and you could make the case that 3e is a better game within the scope of "fantasy".

No, you really can't make the case that 3e is better. Not by the standard you proposed. Hero, GURPS, and Fate are all much better at fantasy than any version of D&D, if "better" means able to model more stories. In fact, even if you restrict it to "fantasy stories where protagonists advance from normal person to demigod-like power, with modified Vancian casting for both wizards and priests with only the latter able to use healing magic, in a world where all the significant characters fit into a relatively few number of defined adventuring classes" it would be very hard to make an argument that 3e models more stories.

OTOH, if you want to argue that 3.5 is the best game because it's the one you enjoy playing the most, then you're right. By that standard, it is.

Fable Wright
2016-02-15, 08:10 PM
Did you miss the point where 1st or 2nd level characters hit a "challenge" 17 dragon 25% of the time even without the nat 20 rule? To do that to the first CR 17 dragon in 3.5, they would need +18 to hit (Very Old White Dragon, AC 34).

I seem to have missed the point where this was a problem. As opposed to "Oh, no, this is a plot event. Heavens forbid you try to make a difference!", the players can, if they're lucky, get in a good shot and feel like they did something important. Why is this a bad thing again?


And the 3.5 dragon can travel through the ranks of the enemy army, sowing fear totally passively with Frightful Presence.

Fun fact: The 5e Dragon gets Frightful presence for free whenever it takes the multiattack action. So it can travel through the ranks of the army, sowing fear and chaos, and then making three strafing attacks.


If the game was well designed, the change would be included.

May I interest you in GURPS? If you're going for heavy simulationism, that's far, far more efficient than any D&D derivative system. And I mean, if you're going to complain about a game not simulating things correctly, may I point out this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?471964-Dysfunctional-Rules-VIII-When-General-Trumps-Specific), or any of its seven predecessors and one or more spinoffs?

Cosi
2016-02-15, 08:15 PM
No, you really can't make the case that 3e is better. Not by the standard you proposed. Hero, GURPS, and Fate are all much better at fantasy than any version of D&D, if "better" means able to model more stories.

HERO and GURPS are both colored by simulating other genres. They are better games fro the general case of "stories" but worse for the case of "fantasy stories". Fate has its own problems.


In fact, even if you restrict it to "fantasy stories where protagonists advance from normal person to demigod-like power, with modified Vancian casting for both wizards and priests with only the latter able to use healing magic, in a world where all the significant characters fit into a relatively few number of defined adventuring classes" it would be very hard to make an argument that 3e models more stories.

That which is asserted without evidence...


I seem to have missed the point where this was a problem. As opposed to "Oh, no, this is a plot event. Heavens forbid you try to make a difference!", the players can, if they're lucky, get in a good shot and feel like they did something important. Why is this a bad thing again?

If you can do all plots at all levels, why are you playing a leveled system?


Fun fact: The 5e Dragon gets Frightful presence for free whenever it takes the multiattack action. So it can travel through the ranks of the army, sowing fear and chaos minor inconvience, and then making three strafing attacks.

Keeping in mind what 5e fear actually does, FTFY.


May I interest you in GURPS? If you're going for heavy simulationism, that's far, far more efficient than any D&D derivative system. And I mean, if you're going to complain about a game not simulating things correctly, may I point out this thread, or any of its seven predecessors and one or more spinoffs?

I'm not really sure how "but if you read X thing Y way, the game doesn't work right" makes the overall system worse. That's a symptom of bad writing or lack of playtesting, not the game being bad at telling stories in its genre.

Anonymouswizard
2016-02-15, 08:23 PM
Bounded accuracy makes high level nonexistent. I don't understand how that could possibly be good. If you don't like high level, play low level. Don't remove it from the game and claim that design decision was good.

5e has that high level world changing army obliterating play. Characters just have one foot on the ground.

In fact, Concentration goes further to removing high level play than bounded accuracy does.


Sure. Those model more stories. But they model fantasy stories worse, because they also model superhero or sci-fi stories. The best game for a genre models the most stories in that genre. So you could make a case that 5e is a better game within the scope of "low powered fantasy", and you could make the case that 3e is a better game within the scope of "fantasy".

My current game is fantasy. The GM set it in the warhammer world, with roughly 1918 technology. We've effectively been at 2nd level all game, yet Father Reichardt has slowly become more powerful. GURPS models the story better than D&D would.


The best game is that, certainly. But an edition of a mass-market game serves many masters, and it must attempt to model many things.

And yet I'm still waiting on my mythological wizards.


So Bard is more magic then I've been claiming. Cool.

It's a bloodline thing, I think a bit like Aragon's healing. Middle Earth is a subtle magic world, you're more likely to have a Weird talent than to be casting spells.


Because clearly the dwarven kings forged their coins, as opposed to literally any other dwarves.

Of course not, they've been running the hold for a century or two, they've got barely any technique. It's probably the same smith who makes his weapons and armour.


Games don't use it because complexity for no benefit is bad design.

It's not more complex. Games don't do it because people have a strange and illogical aversion to doing subtraction.


Because it is in D&D. D&D is not a "low power" fantasy game, it is a generic fantasy game. Which includes high power content for which bounded accuracy is less than useless.

I'm sure the army destroying 9th level magic is happy being forgotten.

And D&D isn't a generic fantasy game. What if I want to run a social-focused game with no combat but a lot of intrigue? D&D is a dungeon delving fantasy game.


Why do you think that? What stories is 3e bad at telling?

Any where powerful mages aren't demigods, for starters?

Oh, and political adventures as well. Recurring D&D problem actually (and one in Anima as well).

EDIT: I'd offer you this freshly harvested cherry, but you seem to have gone to the tree yourself.

Milo v3
2016-02-15, 08:23 PM
I have to say, the strength of 3.5e is not that it can tell more fantasy stories than other games. Because in general it cannot. It's reliance on magic items, it's unique method of magic (no fiction outside of D&D fiction uses 3.5e style casting, not even the writings of Vance), limited martials, lack of ability to get power through bargains, poisons not working like poison in fiction, inability to do low-magic because of healing requirements, tippyverse being possible, WBL, needing to be high level to be good at your profession, etc. etc. etc. makes it wierd

3.P is my game of choice, but let's not kid ourselves here.

Cosi
2016-02-15, 08:31 PM
And yet I'm still waiting on my mythological wizards.

Assuming I understand your complain, here are books (or other works of fiction) with Wizards (or other magic users) that have army destroying or otherwise 3.5 level magic:
-Malazan: Book of the Fallen
-Lord of Light
-Creatures of Light and Darkness
-The Codex Alera
-The Chronicles of Amber
-Dominions
-Wheel of Time
-The Tide Lords
-Dresden Files


I'm sure the army destroying 9th level magic is happy being forgotten.

What? I feel like you think you made a knock-out point here, but I have no idea what it was.


And D&D isn't a generic fantasy game. What if I want to run a social-focused game with no combat but a lot of intrigue? D&D is a dungeon delving fantasy game.

Because it totally doesn't have a skill system, or any non-combat magic.


Any where powerful mages aren't demigods, for starters?

Have you heard of low levels? There's no reason the most powerful mage in a setting should be required to be 20th level.

Tiktik Ironclaw
2016-02-15, 08:31 PM
I hate showing up late to threads. There's always an edition war in the way of the topic.

Anyway, I discovered D&D by reading OOTS, so naturally I started with 3.5. While I have little actually gaming experience (getting a single session together is hard for me), I have read most of the rulebooks extensively, to the point where making a character sheet takes me only an hour by hand, rather than four.
I personally enjoy rules, and strict codes of adherence, because adaptability is a weakpoint for me, so 3.5's massive set of rules suits me fine. I also enjoy the customizability, because it let's me play around with fun character concepts, even if they aren't totally optimized (I only play transmuters or conjurers when I play a wizard, though). For instance, in my morning D&D game that me and my friends run during homeroom, I play an Eilistraeen who was forcibly converted after slaying a paladin of the Dark Maiden. She fights in the buff (I homebrewed a prestige class to make this feasible, but it mostly amounts to treating the drow's skin like armor and fighting like a dire wolf) to honor her new goddess, but she's still a raging psychopath that merely parrots the words while rampaging on her former kinswomen with a silver bastard sword. So, a very unoptimized cleric, but a fun cleric for a Roleplayer like me (I have to be the Roleplayer, though, because besides my one friend who is the only other experienced D&D player, we play with a bunch of freshmen and a Loony who keeps playing the same obnoxious warforged, that literally Shinesparked at one point like in Super Metroid).
As for why I don't switch? I just don't like the other editions. AD&D's okay, but I already just convert its famous adventures and redraw the old art with charcoal, so I'm fine. I also don't like the mortality rate (with that drow, I took the time to write a parody of "Paul Revere" by the Beastie Boys to explain how she met my kobold sorc from another game we played, as well as a ginger highwayman that is my other backup sheet, so I don't want her to be slain by something inconsequential). 4e...I'd just start playing Warcraft instead. Now 5e, I like buffing melee warriors, I like being a demigod at 20th-level, and I like splatbooks.
Enjoy the wall of text (sorry).

JNAProductions
2016-02-15, 08:33 PM
I've only read Dresden Files out of that. And magic there is nothing like 3.5 magic. At all. Not even close.

And let's be honest-the noncombat parts of D&D-any edition I know of, at least-are pretty crap. 4E had it best, with Skill Challenges, but even those weren't the greatest.

JoeJ
2016-02-15, 08:36 PM
HERO and GURPS are both colored by simulating other genres. They are better games fro the general case of "stories" but worse for the case of "fantasy stories". Fate has its own problems.

I can only conclude from your response that you haven't played any of those games. By the standard you gave, the sheer number of fantasy stories that can be modeled, they are not just better but much better. Any of those games can model every story that D&D can, and many more that it can't.

johnbragg
2016-02-15, 08:37 PM
I meant to post this before, but I got sucked down a rabbit hole of calculating the DPR of 1000 militia with light and heavy crossbows against a 3.5 adult red dragon, and deleted the post because, well, re-read the last sentence.

But can someone who actually read the 3.5 Miniatures Handbook help me out here? I thought I remembered mass-combat rules that struck out "nat 20 always hits" and used "on a 20, pseudo-roll d20+20", so instead of 5% of 1st-level Warriors with Toughness hitting AC 31, 2.5% would hit, and 0.5% would hit AC 39. Did one of my groups houserule that after playing a White Wolf game or something?

Fable Wright
2016-02-15, 08:44 PM
If you can do all plots at all levels, why are you playing a leveled system?

"Near-beginning characters fighting impossible odds and somehow, in the end, getting something approaching victory." Not a plot that can be done beyond level 4, something that 3.5 is absolutely horrible at modeling, and something that's both fun and a great team-building exercise for a new party just beginning to think tactically.


Keeping in mind what 5e fear actually does, FTFY.

You and I appear to be reading different things. Disadvantage on most anything and an inability to close distance is a pretty big handicap, not going to lie.


I'm not really sure how "but if you read X thing Y way, the game doesn't work right" makes the overall system worse. That's a symptom of bad writing or lack of playtesting, not the game being bad at telling stories in its genre.

...Right, we're done here.

goto124
2016-02-15, 09:18 PM
How does one model an edition war? :smalltongue:

Cosi
2016-02-15, 09:21 PM
4E had it best, with Skill Challenges, but even those weren't the greatest.

4e skill challenges fail at every design goal they have. How you can claim those are better than 3e in any way at all baffles me.


"Near-beginning characters fighting impossible odds and somehow, in the end, getting something approaching victory." Not a plot that can be done beyond level 4,

Yes, you can't tell plots in which characters are low level at high level. In other news, you cannot tell stories without dragons with dragons.


something that 3.5 is absolutely horrible at modeling,

How exactly is 3e bad at modeling that?


You and I appear to be reading different things. Disadvantage on most anything and an inability to close distance is a pretty big handicap, not going to lie.

It drops hits/militia to .06. That means you need about 1,000 people to kill the dragon. Still less than a roman legion.


...Right, we're done here.

Seriously, how do rules dysfunctions like "this stacks wrong" prove your argument at all?

JNAProductions
2016-02-15, 09:26 PM
4e skill challenges fail at every design goal they have. How you can claim those are better than 3e in any way at all baffles me.

Yes, you can't tell plots in which characters are low level at high level. In other news, you cannot tell stories without dragons with dragons.

How exactly is 3e bad at modeling that?

It drops hits/militia to .06. That means you need about 1,000 people to kill the dragon. Still less than a roman legion.

Seriously, how do rules dysfunctions like "this stacks wrong" prove your argument at all?

4E Skill Challenges were fun. That's a pretty damn good game mechanic.

Also, your second and third line-in the second, you claim that 3E cannot do that (low level/high level discrepancy) then in the third line ask how it's bad at modeling that. So... You answer your own question there.

1,000 people who don't break, flee, or do anything but shoot at the rampaging dragon that is probably skirting low to the ground so buildings are in the way of line of fire. If you can manage to train 1,000 people to not break when faced with a dragon and corner him on an open plane where everyone has line of sight, you deserve a victory.

You at least imply that 3E was well-designed. There are 8 threads about how that is horribly, horribly wrong. Let's take a look at core-Monks aren't proficient with unarmed strikes. That's a pretty glaring flaw.

Cosi
2016-02-15, 09:32 PM
4E Skill Challenges were fun. That's a pretty damn good game mechanic.

Skill challenges incentivize people not to participate, and produce a binary outcome from half a dozen skill checks.


Also, your second and third line-in the second, you claim that 3E cannot do that (low level/high level discrepancy) then in the third line ask how it's bad at modeling that. So... You answer your own question there.

The plot in question is "low level people hold out against impossible odds". What does any part of that have to do with high level/low level disparity?


1,000 people who don't break, flee, or do anything but shoot at the rampaging dragon that is probably skirting low to the ground so buildings are in the way of line of fire. If you can manage to train 1,000 people to not break when faced with a dragon and corner him on an open plane where everyone has line of sight, you deserve a victory. follow the actual rules of the actual game you are actually playing

FTFY.


You at least imply that 3E was well-designed. There are 8 threads about how that is horribly, horribly wrong. Let's take a look at core-Monks aren't proficient with unarmed strikes. That's a pretty glaring flaw.

Good design does not equal good writing. Bad writing does not equal bad design. And my claim isn't that 3e is good, it's that it is the best version of D&D. Which is obviously true. Seriously, it is wildly more successful than any edition of D&D has ever been, and the most successful TTRPG company is producing a 3e riff.

Milo v3
2016-02-15, 09:38 PM
And my claim isn't that 3e is good, it's that it is the best version of D&D. Which is obviously true.
It is highly subjective, not obviously true. I may prefer it over the other versions of D&D, but preference is a ridiculously subjective thing. Stating preference as if it was fact tends to rub people the wrong way so I think it may be best if you rephrase.

JNAProductions
2016-02-15, 09:40 PM
FTFY.

There is a DM. The game rules are for adventurers-brave heroes who routinely face impossible odds and come out ahead. And yet, the dragon is so damn scary he's actually able to Frighten them.

The DM, being a reasonable human being, understands that the average person, even if given some militia training, will panic when faced with a dragon. People routinely panic when someone with a gun arrives and is clearly hostile-now replace gun with a giant fire-breathing winged lizard.

In addition, to avoid an Adult Dragon's aura in 3.5, you need only be 180' away. That's just two range increments on a heavy crossbow (120'). So get 10,120 commoners (easily fittable in an area about 700' to a side) with heavy crossbows and the adult red dragon goes down. By game rules, none of them panic, so the average city can easily take out a dragon. Right?

Edit: 600' per side square isn't actually quite enough. 700', though, is.

Pluto!
2016-02-15, 09:54 PM
Not one of the points that have been argued for the last 6 pages are at all pertinent to what I care about in a game.

And even if we were to try to use the rules to our narratives and not vis-versa, I think there's some selective blindness happening if anyone would herald 3e for its models of any fiction at all, what with all its quirks like housecats as the leading cause of death in the civilized world, a drowning-bucket being a key part of any good first-aid kit, and group hugs being the fastest form of foot travel.





Anyway, on topic, what matters to me in a game are:

Is the game easy for a new player to pick up and play?
Once you're playing, is everyone going to have fun?
Do the rules emphasize the parts of the game that the group cares about?

3e fails all of these spectacularly (it's complex and rules-heavy with an elaborate char-gen minigame; it's imbalanced and unforgiving to the point that one bad roll will send you back to that painfully prolonged char-gen; all game rules not pertaining to the combat minigame are flippant and typically detrimental to any story that isn't about declining HP values or increments of movement around a 100ftx100ft grid).

But I still play it semi-regularly. Why? Because 3e/PF is a language that is immediately familiar to most 2000s gamers, which my peer group is right in the middle of. It's a game we all spent a lot of time thinking about at some point, and is pretty a familiar ground for new or unconfident DMs to get comfortable or for games with new or different groups.

Cosi
2016-02-15, 09:57 PM
The "3e tells a bunch of stories" claim seems to have ruffled a bunch of feathers, so I'm going to try to re-frame my position.

First, games (stories in general, really) exist as a trade-off between story detail and story variety. Vampire tells stories about vampires in the modern world better than D&D does, because it doesn't try to tell stories about medieval politics or killing dragons but D&D does.

So the "best game" for any given genre will be (assuming homogeneous design quality, which is a separate debate) whatever game tells only stories of that genre, but only stories of that genre. So GURPS might be the best game for stories, but it will never be the best game for any particular story, because those stories have unique demands. The choices for a pulp action story or a noir detective story or a political intrigue story or whatever are not the same, and claiming that one system models them all makes you look like a fool.

Second, D&D is a kitchen skin fantasy game. There are more races of fish people in core 3e (Locathath, Merfolk, Sea Elves, Kuo Toa, Sahuagin, and Tritons) than Shadowrun has races at all in core (Human, Ork, Troll, Elf, Dwarf). The game is full of stuff, which makes the game well suited to telling fantasy stories in general (because there are a bunch of fantasy elements to use) but poorly suited to modeling specific fantasy stories (because those races are necessarily sketched very loosely).

Third, the power spread, from zero to demigod, makes D&D well suited to tell varied fantasy stories. You can do LotR at 5th level, Lord of Light at 10th level, or Malazan at 15th level. That kind of power scaling is absolutely required for a fantasy kitchen sink game like D&D, because a fantasy kitchen skin doesn't just include "Orcs" and "Deep Ones" and "Elves", it includes "heroes struggle with a journey across a continent" and "heroes destroy an entire army" and "heroes reshape reality to meet their ends". If you want a system that tells only some of those stories, play a system that isn't D&D. Don't demand people modify D&D to fit your tastes.


It is highly subjective, not obviously true. I may prefer it over the other versions of D&D, but preference is a ridiculously subjective thing. Stating preference as if it was fact tends to rub people the wrong way so I think it may be best if you rephrase.

It is objectively best insofar as it is possible for any edition to be objectively best. It was enjoyed by the most people, and I will defend it as being better designed than other editions, but that doesn't imply that anyone has to like it. Just that anyone who doesn't needs to acknowledge that they are in the overwhelming minority of the gaming public. The market has spoken. It likes 3e, and it doesn't like 4e or 5e.


There is a DM. The game rules are for adventurers-brave heroes who routinely face impossible odds and come out ahead. And yet, the dragon is so damn scary he's actually able to Frighten them.

The DM, being a reasonable human being, understands that the average person, even if given some militia training, will panic when faced with a dragon. People routinely panic when someone with a gun arrives and is clearly hostile-now replace gun with a giant fire-breathing winged lizard.

Games that do that: 3e.
Games that don't do that: 5e.


In addition, to avoid an Adult Dragon's aura in 3.5, you need only be 180' away. That's just two range increments on a heavy crossbow (120'). So get 10,120 commoners (easily fittable in an area about 700' to a side) with heavy crossbows and the adult red dragon goes down. By game rules, none of them panic, so the average city can easily take out a dragon. Right?

Someone forgot DR exists. Also, that is 100% because of the natural 20 rule, whereas in 5e it happens because people are actually good enough to hit the dragon.

EDIT: Here's a more detailed comparison. I'm going to compare apples to apples, so instead of an adult dragon I'm going to use a CR 17 dragon (because the 5e dragon in question is "challenge" 17). Specifically, the first CR 17 dragon in D&D 3e - the Very Old White Dragon. Our militia will be 1st level Human Warriors with 13 in DEX.

First, the militia. They have +3 to hit (+1 BAB +1 DEX +1 Weapon Focus). Their bows deal d10 damage on a hit. They only hit on 20s, and never confirm (arguably they confirm on 20s as well, but the text just says "results in a hit against the target's AC" without the natural 20 special case). This means their maximum damage is 10.

Second, the dragon. Its frightful presence goes out 270ft, and it is DC "lol nope" for the Warriors. It has DR 15/magic, so the warriors cannot possibly hurt it at all. Even if you believe they crit an opponent they can't naturally hit, it still takes an average of one potentially damaging hit per 400 warriors per round. I like its chances, especially if it gets to use its treasure or spellcasting.

JNAProductions
2016-02-15, 09:59 PM
Games that do that: 3e.
Games that don't do that: 5e.

Someone forgot DR exists. Also, that is 100% because of the natural 20 rule, whereas in 5e it happens because people are actually good enough to hit the dragon.

First bit-how the hell does 3E do that any more than 5E? Please, explain.

And no, I factored in DR. Heavy crossbow does 5.5 damage on average. DR 5/Magic means it'll be doing .5 damage on average. Red Dragon, Adult, has 253 HP. 253*20*2 is 10,120.

Milo v3
2016-02-15, 10:02 PM
It is objectively best insofar as it is possible for any edition to be objectively best. It was enjoyed by the most people, and I will defend it as being better designed than other editions, but that doesn't imply that anyone has to like it. Just that anyone who doesn't needs to acknowledge that they are in the overwhelming minority of the gaming public. The market has spoken. It likes 3e, and it doesn't like 4e or 5e.
That definition is flawed because it ignores external factors like marketing, availability, competition, and licencing that gave 3e a Colossal advantage that has nothing to do with the quality of the game.

druid91
2016-02-15, 10:12 PM
3.5 also has lots of rules for PCs interacting with the world-- spells, crafting, leadership, undead and summoned minionmancy, wondrous architecture, the Landlord feat... there are clear rules for doing all sorts of classic fantasy NPC actions, right there in black and white, which is quite neat and not at all common.

I believe this is a big one. Sure, there are vague sidebars for the rough costs of building or obtaining ships or strongholds in 5e. Heck, I'd even say their means of handling undead is better because instead of having a zombie version of the last boss fight, you have an actual undead army.

But by and large, the game is very much balanced around and encourages a wandering, nomadic adventuring party. This is the base assumption and there's very little way for a group of adventurers to shift from wanting to kill big monsters to wanting to build their own empire.

Cosi
2016-02-15, 10:12 PM
First bit-how the hell does 3E do that any more than 5E? Please, explain.

Well, when a 3e dragon's frightful presence triggers, it scares low level (HD < 5) people more than high level people (HD >= 5). This is the exact effect that you would like frightful presence to have.


And no, I factored in DR. Heavy crossbow does 5.5 damage on average. DR 5/Magic means it'll be doing .5 damage on average. Red Dragon, Adult, has 253 HP. 253*20*2 is 10,120.

I have a more detailed comparison in my previous post now. It finds if you compare by CR (which is fairer, because 5e changed age categories) that the equivalent of the Adult Red Dragon literally cannot be hurt by militia. This is also true for the Mature Adult Red (CR 18 is closest to the 5e dragon, it has DR 10/magic).


That definition is flawed because it ignores external factors like marketing, availability, competition, and licencing that gave 3e a Colossal advantage that has nothing to do with the quality of the game.

I don't think 3e has those factors going for it now and it is still the most successful version of the game (maybe Pathfinder is, but that's splitting hairs).

JNAProductions
2016-02-15, 10:17 PM
Well, when a 3e dragon's frightful presence triggers, it scares low level (HD < 5) people more than high level people (HD >= 5). This is the exact effect that you would like frightful presence to have.

In 180' radius. 10,120 commoners armed with heavy crossbows can, again, easily fit inside a 700' by 700' square and remain outside that 180' radius.

Cosi
2016-02-15, 10:19 PM
In 180' radius. 10,120 commoners armed with heavy crossbows can, again, easily fit inside a 700' by 700' square and remain outside that 180' radius.

And for the dragons actually comparable to the 5e dragon in question, it does not matter literally at all because they cannot hurt it even with the natural 20 rule. And they only even potentially hurt it because of said rule, whereas their 5e counterparts can actually hit the dragon's AC. Also, FWIW 10,000 is a much bigger number than 300.

JNAProductions
2016-02-15, 10:22 PM
Sure. It's still possible to kill a dragon with an army of sufficient size, you just have to hit them before they get really old.

Unless, of course, people respond realistically. It's almost like D&D isn't computer code, and people can make sure the game world makes sense even when the rules don't explicitly say so. But that's crazy talk, ain't it?

Cosi
2016-02-15, 10:28 PM
Sure. It's still possible to kill a dragon with an army of sufficient size, you just have to hit them before they get really old.

Unless you drop the natural 20 rule, or let the dragon cast spells (interestingly, invisibility doesn't stop Frightful Presence as far as I can tell), or let the dragon use items, or any number of other things (most of) which are part of the rules.


Unless, of course, people respond realistically. It's almost like D&D isn't computer code, and people can make sure the game world makes sense even when the rules don't explicitly say so. But that's crazy talk, ain't it?

It's not "crazy talk" so much as "the Oberoni Fallacy". Yes, you can change the rules to make the game behave differently. That says nothing about the actual game.

JNAProductions
2016-02-15, 10:31 PM
Actually, it does. 3E is big on rules being followed. 5E is much more relaxed and gives more power to the DM.

It's like calling FATE a bad system for being light on rules. That's the point.

3E tries to have rules for every situation. 5E says "we can't possibly think of everything, so we're going to assume you're reasonably smart and can handle it".

The Oberoni Fallacy is more like saying "My DM makes Monks full BAB, so Monks aren't a bad class". That is the DM fixing a mistake in the rules. This is the DM covering a gap in the rules. There's a difference.

Edit: Also, Invisibility not stopping frightful presence is... Kinda dumb. Unless it's outright magical fear, which according to your logic, it is not (merely rational response upon seeing a dragon) it working when you can't actually tell there's a dragon makes no sense.

druid91
2016-02-15, 10:35 PM
Actually, it does. 3E is big on rules being followed. 5E is much more relaxed and gives more power to the DM.

It's like calling FATE a bad system for being light on rules. That's the point.

3E tries to have rules for every situation. 5E says "we can't possibly think of everything, so we're going to assume you're reasonably smart and can handle it".

The Oberoni Fallacy is more like saying "My DM makes Monks full BAB, so Monks aren't a bad class". That is the DM fixing a mistake in the rules. This is the DM covering a gap in the rules. There's a difference.

Edit: Also, Invisibility not stopping frightful presence is... Kinda dumb. Unless it's outright magical fear, which according to your logic, it is not (merely rational response upon seeing a dragon) it working when you can't actually tell there's a dragon makes no sense.

Invisibility doesn't necessarily mean you can't tell there's a dragon there. I mean what's going to scare you more? Some massive presence moving in the dark that you can't see? Or a big reptile?

Milo v3
2016-02-15, 10:36 PM
Also, Invisibility not stopping frightful presence is... Kinda dumb. Unless it's outright magical fear, which according to your logic, it is not (merely rational response upon seeing a dragon) it working when you can't actually tell there's a dragon makes no sense.

In some D&D ficition it is supernatural. I'm pretty sure in dragonlance they foundout a dragon was nearby after everyone was suddenly struck by fear and dread, with it's very presence creating fear... thus the abilities name I suppose.

JNAProductions
2016-02-15, 10:36 PM
Fair enough. I imagine dragon wingbeats are pretty loud. Still, I would rule that it doesn't take effect until the first breath attack or something similar. THEN people start to panic. (In fact, everyone starts to panic, even those outside the aura. Because that makes sense.)

Cosi
2016-02-15, 10:38 PM
3E tries to have rules for every situation. 5E says "we can't possibly think of everything, so we're going to assume you're reasonably smart and can handle it".

Why do I need to give WotC $150 to make things up? I can make things up for free right now. If the best part of your system is the rules it doesn't have, your system sucks.


The Oberoni Fallacy is more like saying "My DM makes Monks full BAB, so Monks aren't a bad class". That is the DM fixing a mistake in the rules. This is the DM covering a gap in the rules. There's a difference.

Officially sanctioned Oberoni is still Oberoni. If your argument was "the rules don't describe the reactions of peasants to dragons properly, the DM should fix this problem by playing 3e (or some other solution)" that would be fine. The problem is saying that rules cover things they don't cover because the DM can write new rules.

JNAProductions
2016-02-15, 10:40 PM
Except 3E doesn't cover it. It covers it in a 180' radius for an adult dragon. Meaning if you're 181' away? You are 100% calm. You are in no fear whatsoever.

How does that make sense?

Cosi
2016-02-15, 10:44 PM
Except 3E doesn't cover it. It covers it in a 180' radius for an adult dragon. Meaning if you're 181' away? You are 100% calm. You are in no fear whatsoever.

How does that make sense?

You're not "totally calm" you're just "not afraid enough to be mechanically impaired". You're worried, because there is a dragon over there killing people, but you're not terrified because it is over there killing people who are not you. When it moves towards you (presumably to kill you), you start freaking out.

JoeJ
2016-02-15, 10:58 PM
First, games (stories in general, really) exist as a trade-off between story detail and story variety.

First off, this is completely wrong. Variety and detail in a game are unrelated variables. Compare GURPS with Fate; both have incredible versatility, one has a great deal of detail in the mechanics and the other very little.


So the "best game" for any given genre will be (assuming homogeneous design quality, which is a separate debate) whatever game tells only stories of that genre, but only stories of that genre. So GURPS might be the best game for stories, but it will never be the best game for any particular story, because those stories have unique demands.

Again, I have to conclude that you're not familiar with the games you so readily dismiss. What specific demands of a D&D-type story do you think GURPS or Fate can't handle?

johnbragg
2016-02-15, 11:04 PM
If you want a system that tells only some of those stories, play a system that isn't D&D. Don't demand people modify D&D to fit your tastes.

Or, given the amount of options and modularity in 3X, go ahead and modify D&D to fit your tastes. E6, DArk Sun, Tippyverse and Golarion are all different games for different tastes, and they're all 3X.

I haven't played 5e, so I'm not enlisting in the edition war at this point. I just wanted to respond to that one line.

Cosi
2016-02-15, 11:07 PM
First off, this is completely wrong. Variety and detail in a game are unrelated variables. Compare GURPS with Fate; both have incredible versatility, one has a great deal of detail in the mechanics and the other very little.

Not mechanical detail, conceptual detail. If you spend a bunch of time detailing how your magic system works (i.e. Sanderson) you will get radically different stories than if you don't (i.e. Rowling).


Again, I have to conclude that you're not familiar with the games you so readily dismiss. What specific demands of a D&D-type story do you think GURPS or Fate can't handle?

Different genres treat the same thing in different ways. A gunshot in an action movie behaves radically differently from one in a noir or pulp movie and the both behave differently from a gunshot in a superhero movie. I am openly contemptuous of the idea that you can have a universal system that models particular genres as well as specialized systems.


Or, given the amount of options and modularity in 3X, go ahead and modify D&D to fit your tastes. E6, DArk Sun, Tippyverse and Golarion are all different games for different tastes, and they're all 3X.

Absolutely. I should have been clearer. Don't demand that D&D as a whole excludes certain stories because you don't want them in your game. I personally dislike psionics and do not use it in games. That doesn't mean that D&D shouldn't include psionics, just that I don't like it.

I'm also totally supportive of modifying D&D to tell particular stories better. E6 is a fine game, but it should not be the whole game (as it is in 5e).

Talakeal
2016-02-15, 11:21 PM
In many ways E6 characters are a lot more competent than 5e characters. Heck, I can make a first level 3.5 character that is better at a lot of things than a level 20 5e character.

JoeJ
2016-02-15, 11:41 PM
Not mechanical detail, conceptual detail. If you spend a bunch of time detailing how your magic system works (i.e. Sanderson) you will get radically different stories than if you don't (i.e. Rowling).

Different genres treat the same thing in different ways. A gunshot in an action movie behaves radically differently from one in a noir or pulp movie and the both behave differently from a gunshot in a superhero movie. I am openly contemptuous of the idea that you can have a universal system that models particular genres as well as specialized systems.

So I guess I was right about your lack of familiarity with Fate and GURPS? In that case, your contempt for games you know nothing about is meaningless.


Absolutely. I should have been clearer. Don't demand that D&D as a whole excludes certain stories because you don't want them in your game. I personally dislike psionics and do not use it in games. That doesn't mean that D&D shouldn't include psionics, just that I don't like it.

I'm also totally supportive of modifying D&D to tell particular stories better. E6 is a fine game, but it should not be the whole game (as it is in 5e).

Let me get this straight. Your argument is that 3e is better than GURPS because it's more narrowly focused, but better than 5e because it's less narrowly focused?

Cosi
2016-02-15, 11:45 PM
So I guess I was right about your lack of familiarity with Fate and GURPS? In that case, your contempt for games you know nothing about is meaningless.

Maybe you could explain why you are right? I suppose that might be difficult for you, as it it involves being right. Or you could continue dismissing arguments because reasons.


Let me get this straight. Your argument is that 3e is better than GURPS because it's more narrowly focused, but better than 5e because it's less narrowly focused?

3e is a better D&D than 5e. It's a worse low power fantasy game, but that's not what D&D is. It's a better fantasy game than GURPS for telling fantasy stories (because it is written for those stories in a way GURPS is not).

Mith
2016-02-16, 12:01 AM
My view on this:

I DM 5e because that was the cheapest option for me to pick up for a first time DM, and was a different system to run then the regular 3.5 games two other friends DMed. Currently, I am DMing 5e. The more rules lite approach allows for me to build a rule set to allow everyone (including two DMs with experience in a more rules heavy 3.5) to cover any gaps that we need. At least until we find a rule that clarifies things for us in text. But things move faster as we just go with what feels right at the moment, and then check afterwards. And that works well for me as a new DM, as this collusion on the rules means that everyone agrees on the outcome. But 3.5 has some fun parts to it as well

So if you have 3.5 and are willing to run it/play it: Good for you! Enjoy Game Night and may the dice be ever in your favour.

The same goes for 5e, and every other version of D&D.

JoeJ
2016-02-16, 12:15 AM
Maybe you could explain why you are right? I suppose that might be difficult for you, as it it involves being right. Or you could continue dismissing arguments because reasons.

Pot, meet kettle.

I already did explain: GURPS tells all the fantasy stories that D&D does, and many that it doesn't. So do Fate and Hero. By your argument earlier, that makes them better fantasy games because you can use them to tell more stories in the fantasy genre.

They do this by not locking you into incredibly rapid power growth, Vancean casting, defined class roles, defined races, an arcane/divine magic split, or a requirement to obtain magic items in order to stay relevant, even though all of those things can easily be included if that's what the group wants.

Granted, not everybody likes the crunchiness of GURPS and Hero, or the rules-lite approach of Fate. People have different opinions about normal vs. linear dice distributions, too. But judged solely by your specified standard of how many different fantasy stories they can tell, they are definitely superior to D&D.

Cosi
2016-02-16, 12:32 AM
I already did explain: GURPS tells all the fantasy stories that D&D does, and many that it doesn't. So do Fate and Hero. By your argument earlier, that makes them better fantasy games because you can use them to tell more stories in the fantasy genre.

Except you have literally zero demonstration that any of those claims are true. GURPS is saddled with baggage from attempting to support every genre, a claim which you have no answer to.


They do this by not locking you into incredibly rapid power growth,

Wow, I never realized that 3e came to my house when I ran games and beat me up if I didn't level people up. You should go tell everyone who ever played E6 that they never actually did that.


Vancean casting,

Wow, I never realized the Binder, Psion, Incarnate, Warblade, Truenamer, and Shadowcaster don't exist. I was also totally unaware that the pages of Unearthed Arcana which described recharge magic and spell points were in fact blank.


defined class roles,

Wow, I thought 4e and 3e were different editions. I guess the whole thing where they have separate PHBs, separate rules systems, and separate assumptions about the game was a hallucination.


defined races,

This is an actual argument. Maybe if you could demonstrate a meaningful difference between the set of "races that exist in D&D" and "races you can conceivably make with GURPS" you could get somewhere.


an arcane/divine magic split,

Alright, that makes two arguments. Now, name a fantasy story which has casters whose spell effects are not a subset of those available to a build in D&D.


or a requirement to obtain magic items in order to stay relevant,

Wow, I had no idea that you stopped being able to cast evard's black tentacles if you didn't get a Headband of Intellect.

I find most of your arguments insultingly poor, and strongly suspect that the rest have no meaningful effect on what stories D&D can or cannot tell.

Now, I suspect that your point is probably trivially true as you can construct D&D as a special case of those systems, but that makes them no more meaningful as categories than "games". And in that case I accept that, yes, it is more technically correct to say that "games" model fantasy stories better than D&D does. But I submit that any such category is essentially meaningless and does not in any meaningful sense count as a system.

Milo v3
2016-02-16, 12:36 AM
Could you name a story you can do in 3.5e that cannot be done in GURPS?

ImNotTrevor
2016-02-16, 12:38 AM
"A game system is only good if it has rules for absolutely everything that I might possibly want to do."
Um. Ok. That's not actually true, but ok. If that's what you like, more power to ya. But that's not the objective measure of goodness for an rpg.

Neither is popularity, actually.
If it was, you would have to explain videogames like Ico or Rez, both of which performed poorly but were not only critically acclaimed, but hailed by virtually all of their playerbase. Marketing has a lot more to do with sales than quality does. McDonalds does not have objectively the best burgers despite being highly popular. Meaning that something else is at work making McDonalds so popular. (Price, Marketing, Familiarity, Brand Identity, etc.) These things are actually quite divorced from quality. The product need only be "good enough" so long as the marketing can back it up.

5e doesn't sell so well right now for a variety of reasons. One of the reasons is Unfamiliarity. (It is different! Oh no!) Another is that WotC's consumer base is jaded and slow to trust WotC after 4e. Most people I have talked to about it are interested, but want to see more about it first. (They're hesitant. Not bought into the idea that they own the best edition. Just hesitant to invest in a new one.)

So yeah, the "objective" reasons to call it the Objectively Best are loaded with so many additional variables as to be rendered meaningless as measurements.

As I've said before, I don't necessarily want a game that can tell every conceivable story. I want a game that can tell the stories it tells, and tell them REALLY REALLY WELL. And do so without me needing to beat their mechanics into submission. And to do so without needing to sit my players down with a list of houserules. And hell, if my players can get in on the worldbuilding with me, all the better.

There are multiple philosophies to gaming. Some people want a slim but flexible system that can easily adapt to new situations because it has a broad reach and ruling things on the fly is made trivial because of it. (FATE, Apocalypse World, PbtA systems generally, Blades in the Dark, etc.) It's the Rubber Band approach. It is simple in design but easy to use and expands according to your needs.

D&D is a Graphing Calculator by comparison. Powerful, can be used to do a lot of things, but a pain in the ass to learn how to make it do those things, not particularly easy to use even then, and not very flexible in terms of its uses without hacking it. (And this is true across most editions, including 3e.) If I want to play D&D nowadays, I play Dungeon World instead because we have a better time with it. I can be much more flexible. It’s balanced. I don't need to track down 57 splatbooks and read them to have a deep experience. And neither do my players. Homebrewing a rule for a one-time situation is of trivial difficulty. (And the Moves cover most things since their descriptions are so broad.)

In the end, we do this hobby to have fun. The moment you try to tell people that the fun they're having is objectively less fun than your fun is, you have become Douchelord.

Don't be Douchelord.

137beth
2016-02-16, 12:43 AM
Because of that crunchy, crotchety muddle of mechanical complexity. For those of us who like character mechanics, 3.5 is beautiful. I've never seen another system where you can have characters as mechanically distinct as a Warblade, a Totemist, a Cleric and a Truenamer in the same game, much less the same party. If everyone knows what they're doing, you can get the entire party playing at about the same power level, too.

These are my reasons exactly. I ended up not enjoying Pathfinder with only Paizo stuff because the base classes all follow the same framework (yet somehow manage to have balance even worse than 3.5). Much the same reason I wasn't satisfied with 4e.


I will note, however, that Interjection Games' base classes (notably the nine classes in Strange Magic (http://drivethrurpg.com/product/149011/Strange-Magic--Ethermagic-Composition-and-Truemagic?term=strange+magic)) present a similar diversity but written for Pathfinder. As far as I can tell, the main author of Interjection Games products creates a new subsystem for almost every base class, and only goes back to expand it and add additional classes if the first one sells well enough.
That said, since the Interjection subsystems don't directly interact with the changes Paizo made to the core game, you can use the Interjection Games classes just as easily in 3.5 as you can in Pathfinder.

Cosi
2016-02-16, 12:44 AM
Could you name a story you can do in 3.5e that cannot be done in GURPS?

I'm not familiar enough to say. My guess is that insofar as it is a system, it probably falls apart a the tactical positioning level. The demands on that subsystem and the granularity it uses are very different in different genres, and supporting all of them has contradictory demands. Probably also hit points.

To be clear, if Joe is trying to claim that instructions to build a system that does what you want tells more stories than a system, that is true but totally irrelevant to my claim.

EDIT: If he's making that claim, which I assume he is, he needs to compare to d20, not D&D. He should compare GURPS Fantasy (or whatever the actual fantasy game built on GURPS is) to D&D, because that is an apples to apples comparison.

Pluto!
2016-02-16, 01:21 AM
I'm not familiar enough to say.

This is clear.

Some people familiarize themselves with topics before developing strong enough opinions to go on 8-page tirades. I take it you don't subscribe to that school of thought.

Segev
2016-02-16, 01:38 AM
In my experience, GURPS is worse at telling fantasy stories because its magic system is less forgiving, its combat mechanics are grittier, and using the options to lessen either tends to make the game work less well in other areas. Its fantasy expansion book defines a magic system more rigid and less forgiving, with fewer ways of representing varied kinds of magic, than D&D 3.5 had before we even got to Tome of Battle's release. It does not handle divine spellcasting well at all, forcing either the generic magic system paradigm or a discounted attribute for every "spell," which cannot be changed.

The paradigms are entirely different, and the stories told in GURPS are inevitably grittier and more constrained by mechanics that have tons of fiddly differences that somehow fail to actually play any differently in practice.

If I want a GURPS-like flexibility, I vastly prefer BESM, which achieves the same variability with far fewer rules, more flexibility, and no less difference in practical feel between types of characters.

This is, obviously, anecdotal, and my dislike for the experiences I've had means I have not played in many GURPS games. However, I played all the ones I tried under GMs who were true believers in the system, loved the system to death inside and out, and were convinced it could be made to do anything at least as well as any other system. I was always disappointed when I tried anything other than gritty modern or post-modern. Sci-fi/future can be handled okay, as long as it's fairly hard sci-fi. The more soft the sci-fi, the less well the system handles it. GURPS is very rigid, ironically, and for all its many, many books meant to expand options, all it has is a number of new attributes, each more solidly cordoning off design space without really making new subsystems.

As I've said, BESM does it better. BESM keeps it simple and open, with broad attributes that can be adapted. D&D 3e is not that flexible without a TON of work and only does high fantasy well, but its many expansions actually introduce new subsystems and materials to use as options, rather than constraining design space. (There are a few areas it's guilty of that, but not nearly so many as GURPS, where that's almost the design paradigm.) GURPS creates new attributes which cordon off things you might have done with earlier ones, and fails to make subsystems that create a distinct play "feel." It's the worst of both worlds.

JoeJ
2016-02-16, 01:39 AM
Except you have literally zero demonstration that any of those claims are true.

What demonstration would you accept? It's against forum rules, and a violation of copyright, to post the books even if I was willing to do that much typing (which I'm not).


GURPS is saddled with baggage from attempting to support every genre, a claim which you have no answer to.

I've already given you the answer, you just don't like it. The claim is flatly false. It's a modular system; not "saddled" with anything.


Wow, I never realized that 3e came to my house when I ran games and beat me up if I didn't level people up.

Oberoni Fallacy. The fact that your table doesn't use the rules doesn't mean they aren't there.


Wow, I never realized the Binder, Psion, Incarnate, Warblade, Truenamer, and Shadowcaster don't exist. I was also totally unaware that the pages of Unearthed Arcana which described recharge magic and spell points were in fact blank.

And which of those is missing from GURPS? But in your list of magic styles don't forget effect shaping, ritual magic, unlimited-but-dangerous magic, syntactic magic (combine a noun and a verb to define the effect), sympathetic magic, or hermetic astrological magic. Or magical creatures, if you want to play, say, a shapeshifter or a magical construct of some sort.


Wow, I thought 4e and 3e were different editions. I guess the whole thing where they have separate PHBs, separate rules systems, and separate assumptions about the game was a hallucination.

I don't understand what this refers to. We were talking about 3.5; I've never played 4e, so I can't really comment on it.


This is an actual argument. Maybe if you could demonstrate a meaningful difference between the set of "races that exist in D&D" and "races you can conceivably make with GURPS" you could get somewhere.

Wow. Races that you can conceivably make? GURPS uses a point-buy system, so literally any combination of attributes, advantages, powers, or skills that you want can be a race with its own template.


I'm not familiar enough to say. My guess is that insofar as it is a system, it probably falls apart a the tactical positioning level. The demands on that subsystem and the granularity it uses are very different in different genres, and supporting all of them has contradictory demands. Probably also hit points.

Tactical positioning? As in moving around in combat? How does any system "fall apart" at that? You move where you want to, subject to your speed, your posture, and the terrain. GURPS lets you do it with or without a map.

I have no idea what you mean by hit points as a story. If you mean characters having lots of them, that's entirely up to how many points the player wants to spend, and how many the DM will allow. Abstract hit points aren't the primary defense in combat, however; you dodge, parry, or block attacks. IOW, GURPS models parts of combat that D&D glosses over.


To be clear, if Joe is trying to claim that instructions to build a system that does what you want tells more stories than a system, that is true but totally irrelevant to my claim.

EDIT: If he's making that claim, which I assume he is, he needs to compare to d20, not D&D. He should compare GURPS Fantasy (or whatever the actual fantasy game built on GURPS is) to D&D, because that is an apples to apples comparison.

You're mistaken. GURPS is not a framework to build different games. It is the game. GURPS Fantasy is a not a game, it's a book of advice for GMs on fantasy world building.

Velaryon
2016-02-16, 02:50 AM
Have you considered using the Homebrew on this forum? There's a lot of good stuff you could take for 5th. (And a lot of bad stuff-choose wisely.)

I'm going to ignore the conversation of the last 6 pages or so and answer this question that was posed to be a little while ago.

I haven't really looked at the homebrew available for 5e. I suppose I could look into it - of the two 5e games I'm in, one DM would likely approve homebrew, but one would not.

There's more to my issue with 5e than the relative lack of options, but I'm having trouble articulating what it is. My characters feel straitjacketed in terms of power and progression in a way that they didn't in 3.X. There are a lot of little things that play into it - the inability to have more than one ongoing spell at a time thanks to concentration, ability scores capping at 20 (and really the whole bounded accuracy thing in general), the formulaic and very limited spells I've gotten to use, and a whole lot of other little things. My characters just don't feel special in 5th edition. It's not that I like the crazy imbalances of 3.5 (most of the time, anyway), and I really do hate how many basic character archetypes aren't viable without major reworking or insane system mastery tricks, but the flipside of that is that I really do like finding all the little crazy ways to make my character different and able to outperform expectations in a way that just can't be done in the tightly regulated 5e system.

That's why I'll play it, but I don't think I'll ever run it (other than for another library program perhaps).

JoeJ
2016-02-16, 04:47 AM
There's more to my issue with 5e than the relative lack of options, but I'm having trouble articulating what it is. My characters feel straitjacketed in terms of power and progression in a way that they didn't in 3.X. There are a lot of little things that play into it - the inability to have more than one ongoing spell at a time thanks to concentration, ability scores capping at 20 (and really the whole bounded accuracy thing in general), the formulaic and very limited spells I've gotten to use, and a whole lot of other little things. My characters just don't feel special in 5th edition. It's not that I like the crazy imbalances of 3.5 (most of the time, anyway), and I really do hate how many basic character archetypes aren't viable without major reworking or insane system mastery tricks, but the flipside of that is that I really do like finding all the little crazy ways to make my character different and able to outperform expectations in a way that just can't be done in the tightly regulated 5e system.

That's why I'll play it, but I don't think I'll ever run it (other than for another library program perhaps).

For me, the straitjacket feel is in 3.5. True, 5e has fewer overall options, but it seems to have quite a few more options that I want to play, or to have in my game as DM. And the amount of system mastery I need to take advantage of those options is a lot lower. I really don't like the sub-game of trying to plan out every detail of a "build" from levels 1-20. I'd rather create my character quickly and then not have to think about mechanics very much after that. (I know that's the opposite of what a lot of players want.)

In fact, most of the things you listed as not liking are areas where I prefer 5e to 3.5. The only thing I really miss still is the clerical spheres from 2e that gave priests of different gods very different spell lists.

Anonymouswizard
2016-02-16, 05:54 AM
Assuming I understand your complain, here are books (or other works of fiction) with Wizards (or other magic users) that have army destroying or otherwise 3.5 level magic:
-Malazan: Book of the Fallen
-Lord of Light
-Creatures of Light and Darkness
-The Codex Alera
-The Chronicles of Amber
-Dominions
-Wheel of Time
-The Tide Lords
-Dresden Files

Of which I've only read the last, and don't remember Harry (a very powerful wizard) taking down more than a few guys at once.


What? I feel like you think you made a knock-out point here, but I have no idea what it was.

The point was that the powerful, world changing effects are still there, despite what you clean. You just don't have noncasters (with a full set of magic items) being near useless at high levels.


Because it totally doesn't have a skill system, or any non-combat magic.

Yep, most noncombat magic focused towards dungeon delving. It even misses 'sticks to snakes', a delightful noncombat spell without much dungeon utility.

Also, you could go on for hours explaining why the skill system isn't enough to be a medieval politics simulator, but I don't have the time.


Have you heard of low levels? There's no reason the most powerful mage in a setting should be required to be 20th level.

No, no reason why I shouldn't let the PCs increase in power. GURPS wins over all editions of D&D for low power fantasy.


How does one model an edition war? :smalltongue:

Fire. Lots of fire.


Except you have literally zero demonstration that any of those claims are true. GURPS is saddled with baggage from attempting to support every genre, a claim which you have no answer to.

Yep, and 90% of that baggage is me flipping through the book and making a list of allowed advantages, disadvantages, and skills, before the players arrive. Low fantasy? No DR, HP is limited to guidelines. High fantasy? Can buy DR up to five, and as much HP as you want.

I can make a D&D wizard without touching the chapter on magic.


Wow, I never realized that 3e came to my house when I ran games and beat me up if I didn't level people up. You should go tell everyone who ever played E6 that they never actually did that.

So the solution to enjoying a low power level is to limit advancement? Not a solution for everyone.


Wow, I never realized the Binder, Psion, Incarnate, Warblade, Truenamer, and Shadowcaster don't exist. I was also totally unaware that the pages of Unearthed Arcana which described recharge magic and spell points were in fact blank.[QUOTE]

Mind if we stick to core only? It's the most often played variant, and involves the least 'I was actually referring to X!'

[QUOTE]This is an actual argument. Maybe if you could demonstrate a meaningful difference between the set of "races that exist in D&D" and "races you can conceivably make with GURPS" you could get somewhere.

Geoffian (85 points)
Advantages: Extra Arms 8 [80]; Extra Head 2 [30]; Infravision [10]; Ultravision [10].
Disadvantages: klutz [-5]; short lifespan 4 [-40].
Tell me where in D&D you can play a short lived 10 armed person with three heads that each see in a different band of the electromagnetic spectrum?


I'm not familiar enough to say. My guess is that insofar as it is a system, it probably falls apart a the tactical positioning level. The demands on that subsystem and the granularity it uses are very different in different genres, and supporting all of them has contradictory demands. Probably also hit points.

Never used it, but I've got the rules for tactical combat open here. Uses a hex grid, facing, same actions as normal combat, entire section on how facing effects movement, rules on attacking basically similar to S&D once it leaves theatre of the mind, extensions of the existing defence rules, differentiation between being in your opponent's reach and their hex, and rules for large creatures and vehicles.

Also, HP works fine. You have between 66% and 133% of your ST in HP, and start checking for death when you hit 0 HP.


To be clear, if Joe is trying to claim that instructions to build a system that does what you want tells more stories than a system, that is true but totally irrelevant to my claim.

Got the entire GURPS system here, but no splats. In my opinion, it's a much better system than any edition of D&D.


EDIT: If he's making that claim, which I assume he is, he needs to compare to d20, not D&D. He should compare GURPS Fantasy (or whatever the actual fantasy game built on GURPS is) to D&D, because that is an apples to apples comparison.

GURPS is a game. I can run fantasy stories in it without GURPS Fantasy, thank you very much. Don't try to limit us just because GURPS includes toggles D&D lacks.

Segev
2016-02-16, 09:18 AM
GURPS is a game. I can run fantasy stories in it without GURPS Fantasy, thank you very much. Don't try to limit us just because GURPS includes toggles D&D lacks.

Interestingly, my chief complaints about GURPS as a fantasy game include the fact that GURPS lacks toggles D&D lacks, in terms of what you can do in it.

Telonius
2016-02-16, 09:32 AM
Reason 1 that I still play 3.5: The group I DM has just made it to level 20 in a years-long campaign (written by me). Next session is the Boss Fight. I'm not going to spring a new system on myself and the players so late in the current game.
Reason 2: Extensive houserules to rein in the biggest balance problems in 3.5. This isn't to say that 5.0 still isn't better. The houserules aren't perfect; I have read the 5.0 PHB, and I really like a lot of what I see. But the fixes we've instituted make the downside of staying 3.5 not nearly as serious.
Reason 3: Players and DM are broke, 3.5 stuff was already purchased years ago.

Anonymouswizard
2016-02-16, 10:16 AM
Interestingly, my chief complaints about GURPS as a fantasy game include the fact that GURPS lacks toggles D&D lacks, in terms of what you can do in it.

Yeah, I understand. I'm just objecting to the idea of GURPS not being a game.

Segev
2016-02-16, 10:44 AM
Yeah, I understand. I'm just objecting to the idea of GURPS not being a game.

Oh! It definitely is a game. No question.

Frozen_Feet
2016-02-16, 11:48 AM
I don't play 3.x, but you might as well ask me "why play Twilight 2000 / AD&D / Cyberpunk 2020 anymore?"

The boring practical answer is: my game books didn't spontaneously combust when newer editions of those games were released. I play what I own, quite simply, and nothing compels me to spend n+1 € for a new one when I still have gameable content for the old ones.

The only game I've bought multiple editions of is LotFP, and I didn't do that for the rules. I bought Grindhouse box so I could give my Deluxe box as a gift to my old playgroup, and I bought the hardcover book because it speeds up the game to have two core books at a table. Also, it had pretty pictures.

JNAProductions
2016-02-16, 01:42 PM
I'm going to ignore the conversation of the last 6 pages or so and answer this question that was posed to be a little while ago.

I haven't really looked at the homebrew available for 5e. I suppose I could look into it - of the two 5e games I'm in, one DM would likely approve homebrew, but one would not.

There's more to my issue with 5e than the relative lack of options, but I'm having trouble articulating what it is. My characters feel straitjacketed in terms of power and progression in a way that they didn't in 3.X. There are a lot of little things that play into it - the inability to have more than one ongoing spell at a time thanks to concentration, ability scores capping at 20 (and really the whole bounded accuracy thing in general), the formulaic and very limited spells I've gotten to use, and a whole lot of other little things. My characters just don't feel special in 5th edition. It's not that I like the crazy imbalances of 3.5 (most of the time, anyway), and I really do hate how many basic character archetypes aren't viable without major reworking or insane system mastery tricks, but the flipside of that is that I really do like finding all the little crazy ways to make my character different and able to outperform expectations in a way that just can't be done in the tightly regulated 5e system.

That's why I'll play it, but I don't think I'll ever run it (other than for another library program perhaps).

Those are pretty fair reasons to not be a 5E fan. You don't like the features of the system, especially as compared to 3E.

Denomar
2016-02-16, 02:37 PM
I play a lot more pathfinder these days than 3.5 because pathfinder feels like 3.5 after 3.5 ceased being a teenager riddled in acne. My group never changed over to 5th because we just never felt like changing it up. It's an if it isn't broke why fix it scenario.

I did play some 4th and what I found is that by the end of the campaign combat started to really drag. It got to the point where everyone knew exactly what to do in every encounter and turn orders would go pretty much in sequence from one power to the next, if someone wanted to step out of the line then the encounter fell apart.

I understand that the disparity in power between various classes exist in theory, but in practice I've never ever played the game with someone who upstaged the entire party with a "tier 1 character." I read a lot of "the spellcaster solved the encounter with a single spell" but very, very, rarely have I seen that actually Happen. The fact that I read a lot in this thread that the only people who play 3.5 are out there to try and abuse the systems power or mess with a gm is insulting.

So, if you find the game is fun, go play it. If you don't, then don't feel forced too. It's like asking why a person listens to vinyl records when they could get an HD sound system, or why bother watching tv when you could get netflix.

Flickerdart
2016-02-16, 03:08 PM
Of which I've only read the last, and don't remember Harry (a very powerful wizard) taking down more than a few guys at once.

An excellent example of powerful caster characters is the Night Watch series (originally Russian, but translated into English). The spectrum of the wizards featured there ranged from guys just barely powerful enough to be let in on the masquerade and use magic items, to city- and army-destroying supermagic.



Tell me where in D&D you can play a short lived 10 armed person with three heads that each see in a different band of the electromagnetic spectrum?

Multiheaded insectile thri-kreen. Or multiheaded Obah-blessed sahuagin mutant. Or a chimera totemist. Really, I could go on.

Talakeal
2016-02-16, 04:34 PM
So this discussion of dragons has caused me to run some numbers for my own system (link in sig) and I realized something:

The best way for an army to kill a dragon is to simply harrass it until it dies from exhaustion. Kind of an ignoble end, but that got me thinking, is that realistic? Isnt that how anthroplogists think that cavemen hunted a lot of the ice age mega fauna irl?

Flickerdart
2016-02-16, 05:03 PM
So this discussion of dragons has caused me to run some numbers for my own system (link in sig) and I realized something:

The best way for an army to kill a dragon is to simply harrass it until it dies from exhaustion. Kind of an ignoble end, but that got me thinking, is that realistic? Isnt that how anthroplogists think that cavemen hunted a lot of the ice age mega fauna irl?
It's realistic for ice age dudes that could force a herbivore to be unable to graze, or a carnivore to be unable to hunt. It's not realistic for an intelligent, fast-flying lizard.

Let's take 3.5's stats, because it's handy. An armoured human can march at about two miles an hour. A dragon can fly at a minimum of 10 miles an hour. With that much of an advantage, the dragon can hustle for an hour (the maximum safe time) and be 20 miles away from where he started. In that time, the army will have made it 4 miles, putting it 16 miles behind. The soldiers will incur fatigue regardless of whether or not they hustle further, since it will take them 8 hours to catch up at walking speed. And you better hope they have a road or something, or else difficult terrain slows them down even further.

If the dragon keeps flying for the remainder of the day, he gains 70 miles by the time the army shows up at his previous location. It will take the army 35 hours (that's over 4 days of marching) to catch up. The dragon can safely hunt or sleep. According to the Draconomicon, the dragon can also scarf down a few random rocks for sustenance.

Dragons who are not inclined to flee can simply hide - many can breathe underwater, burrow, or dive unharmed into a lake of lava. It's hard to march an army across a forest; it's harder still to march them into the ground, underwater, or inside a volcano.

To make pursuit predation effective against dragons, you will need to make some of the following changes to dragons:

Dragons are slow, outside of minutes-long bursts of speed (for combat or hunting). A travelling dragon walks most of the time, or flies very slowly.
Dragons tire quickly, and cannot simply fly for an hour at a time. A dragon spends much of his day resting.
Dragons have a fast-burning metabolism, and require a large amount of food. Most of their day is devoted to hunting.
Dragons cannot dig, swim, or otherwise escape into an environment where a hunter cannot follow. This means dragons must not have access to convenient lairs at the top of a mountain that they can just fly up to and achieve perfect safety from hunters.
If dragons do have a lair, the humans need some means of either breaking into it (and climbing a mountain takes a long time) or encircling it and shooting the dragon down with siege weapons as soon as it shows its face.

Talakeal
2016-02-16, 06:36 PM
Oh definitely, if the dragon wants to get away it almost certainly can.

But assuming both parties are forced into fighting to the death the army's best bet seems to be sending a couple of guys in at a time until the dragon is simply too exhausted to fight back.

AMFV
2016-02-16, 06:40 PM
Oh definitely, if the dragon wants to get away it almost certainly can.

But assuming both parties are forced into fighting to the death the army's best bet seems to be sending a couple of guys in at a time until the dragon is simply too exhausted to fight back.

If we're aiming for realism... The armies best bet is to send in all of their guys at once, so that the Dragon will be able to be subdued more rapidly. Overwhelm it en masse.

Milo v3
2016-02-16, 08:00 PM
A dragon can fly at a minimum of 10 miles an hour.

*Dragon flies at 8 miles an hour and gets arrested by the dragonpolice*

ImNotTrevor
2016-02-16, 08:28 PM
If we're aiming for realism... The armies best bet is to send in all of their guys at once, so that the Dragon will be able to be subdued more rapidly. Overwhelm it en masse.

http://orig03.deviantart.net/0d5e/f/2010/259/5/d/imperial_guard_by_samupipboy-d2yup6h.jpg
>Overwhelming with sheer numbers mentioned
>swell with Imperial Guard pride and Flashlights

Talakeal
2016-02-16, 10:05 PM
If we're aiming for realism... The armies best bet is to send in all of their guys at once, so that the Dragon will be able to be subdued more rapidly. Overwhelm it en masse.

Well, it depends on how many guys they have and how many they are willing to lose.

If they clump up the dragon can take them out a lot faster, with fire breath and tail sweeps and the like it can take out multiple guys at once fairly easily.

Furthermore, the dragon's scales are tougher than plate mail, and as a result most medieval weapons can't really hurt it. The dragon only has a few vulnerable spots, and most of them are out of reach to infantry weapons, so simply rushing it and swinging away isn't going to accomplish much.

I suppose if your goal is just "kill the dragon as fast as possible" and you have unlimited resources to throw at it though, dog-piling it would be the best idea.

JoeJ
2016-02-16, 11:01 PM
Oh definitely, if the dragon wants to get away it almost certainly can.

But assuming both parties are forced into fighting to the death the army's best bet seems to be sending a couple of guys in at a time until the dragon is simply too exhausted to fight back.

But how many can you send before the others decide that fighting you is a better proposition than fighting the dragon?

goto124
2016-02-17, 01:03 AM
I suppose if your goal is just "kill the dragon as fast as possible" and you have unlimited resources to throw at it though, dog-piling it would be the best idea.

Dog-piling ensures at least one guy rolls a nat 20 and kills the dragon in that lucky hit :smalltongue:

Amphetryon
2016-02-17, 07:42 AM
Oh definitely, if the dragon wants to get away it almost certainly can.

But assuming both parties are forced into fighting to the death the army's best bet seems to be sending a couple of guys in at a time until the dragon is simply too exhausted to fight back.
How is the dragon being forced to fight to the death, rather than heading to safety at its earliest convenience? That seems to be the big question.

JAL_1138
2016-02-17, 08:52 AM
Baaaaack on the original topic, or at least on a tangent to it about editions rather than the particular stat blocks of dragons (there are other C17 critters that can't be killed by armies without sufficient quantities of magical weapons, but anyway), anybody got any experience with BX/BECMI/RC?

I picked up the B/X and BECMI boxes a few months back and have been reading through them off and on. Aside from the race-as-class thing and some weirdness with the Thief class' chances of having a thieving skill actually work, they look to be (variations on a) really, really good system. It's clean, simple, and looks like combat would be streamlined and quick, moreso even than 2e in some respects.

One thing I can't wrap my head around though is that there's a rigidly defined order of operations to combat, missile-magic-melee (I think that's the right order, not sure). I can't quite sort out how that's supposed to work or interact with initiative. In 2e, it's either side-initiative or individual initiative (casting time still modifies spells to init-roll + modifier in either), with missile combat interacting with melee through the "firing into melee" rules, RoF, and range, rather than some kind of defined order of operations. Not had much luck finding an explanation I can make sense of on the interwebs, either. That's one of the things that have kept me from trying to run it--any fans of it here that could give me the layman's version?

Anonymouswizard
2016-02-17, 09:01 AM
I've played a couple of sessions of Basic, it's how my dad introduced me to D&D, and I must say I enjoyed it. My personal favourite class is the warrior elf from the Hollow World book, who comes from an elven society that has lost magic, and is closer to a fighter or dwarf. It's fun, although I can't comment on it as I can no longer access the books.

Amphetryon
2016-02-17, 10:17 AM
One thing I can't wrap my head around though is that there's a rigidly defined order of operations to combat, missile-magic-melee (I think that's the right order, not sure). I can't quite sort out how that's supposed to work or interact with initiative. In 2e, it's either side-initiative or individual initiative (casting time still modifies spells to init-roll + modifier in either), with missile combat interacting with melee through the "firing into melee" rules, RoF, and range, rather than some kind of defined order of operations. Not had much luck finding an explanation I can make sense of on the interwebs, either. That's one of the things that have kept me from trying to run it--any fans of it here that could give me the layman's version?
My guess is that this Combat OoO is supposed to simulate the basic model of medieval warfare. Missiles were generally used before hand-to-hand combat was joined, because it thinned the ranks of the other side without running the risk of hitting your allies in the scrum (yes, exceptions are known, often in situations where the enemy had been hemmed in to create a 'turkey shoot' environment). Since many folks considered blasting the best option for Magic Users (and perhaps that was their originally conceived role), it makes some sense that the AoE blasters would be next in an Order of Operations listing, for reasons quite similar to those that put archers first in the order.

In other words, I would bet that it did not really occur to the original designers that archers would be used in ways they were not typically used in warfare, as depicted in books and cinema.

JAL_1138
2016-02-17, 10:43 AM
My guess is that this Combat OoO is supposed to simulate the basic model of medieval warfare. Missiles were generally used before hand-to-hand combat was joined, because it thinned the ranks of the other side without running the risk of hitting your allies in the scrum (yes, exceptions are known, often in situations where the enemy had been hemmed in to create a 'turkey shoot' environment). Since many folks considered blasting the best option for Magic Users (and perhaps that was their originally conceived role), it makes some sense that the AoE blasters would be next in an Order of Operations listing, for reasons quite similar to those that put archers first in the order.

In other words, I would bet that it did not really occur to the original designers that archers would be used in ways they were not typically used in warfare, as depicted in books and cinema.

Likely the reasoning for it, yes. I do know encounter distances outside dungeons are presumed to start at longer distances, to further that simulation (where in 2e the range would set up a missile-then-melee order, e.g., archers fire before the melee fighters can close distance since it's farther than they can move in a round, for instance), but not sure how it *works* in practice. Like, how to run it.

E.g.:
In a dungeon. Party enters a 30x30 room. Opponents in it. None are Surprised. Side A wins initiative, Side B loses. Archers, Magic-Users, and melee Fighters on both sides in equal numbers. How does this combat play out by BECMI rules? Alternatively, when/if using individual initiative (if it's even an option; I'm AFB), how does the combat play out then?

johnbragg
2016-02-17, 10:48 AM
Hey, if you want to go Old School, go Old School. There is no internet. You have the book. You read the book. Make a decision, and run the game.

And don't forget to rewind your VCR tapes, and be done by 7 p.m. because we're calling Uncle Danny tonight long-distance.

Amphetryon
2016-02-17, 12:00 PM
Hey, if you want to go Old School, go Old School. There is no internet. You have the book. You read the book. Make a decision, and run the game.

And don't forget to rewind your VCR tapes, and be done by 7 p.m. because we're calling Uncle Danny tonight long-distance.

We're not actually calling him tonight, because he's yet to respond to our telegram.

Talakeal
2016-02-17, 01:40 PM
How is the dragon being forced to fight to the death, rather than heading to safety at its earliest convenience? That seems to be the big question.

Who knows?

Maybe its leg is caught in a trap, maybe it is in an irrational rage after someone stole its hoard, maybe its master has compelled it to fight to the death, maybe some all powerful wizard summoned the dragon and the army into a pocket dimension to observe the fight. Maybe the dragon jas been cornered in its lair or had its wing injured.

Just talking about how the fight could play out rather than analyze reasons for the fight.



Also, back to 3.5 vs 5e:

Monsters have generally lower HP and AC
Fear auras are a lot less debilitating or far reaching
Criticals dont need confirmation
DR is a percentage rather than a flat number
Fast healing and regeneration dont seem to be things anymore

Put all these factors together and any big monster can be taken down fairly easilly by an army assuming they arent flat out immune to damage, although if they can find some way to give incoming attacks disadvantage that makes it a lot tougher.

themaque
2016-02-18, 10:52 AM
For me the simplified rules allow for a faster flowing game. Provided you are with a GM you can trust of course. That was the one thing that I liked in 3.P that I had a strong rules system to back up my ideas, plans, and builds. I tried playing a 3.5 game online recently and I just couldn't get into it anymore. Pathfinder improved it in IMHO.

But that's the thing is, with the groups I've seen 3.P encourages builds while 5e encourages characters. Yeah, I'm talking in pretty broad strokes but that's been my experience.

I'm keeping my Pathfinder books, I still want to crunch some numbers and play a power game now and again, but i'm getting rid of nearly ALL my 3.5 as I haven't looked at them in years and have no real desire to go back.

Flickerdart
2016-02-18, 02:39 PM
Provided you are with a GM you can trust of course.
For me, it was never about trust. I trust all of my friends.

It was about expectations. 3.5 has a lot of rules, sure, but all the rules set expectations. If you try to grapple a dragon, this happens. If you try to eat a goblin, this happens. The most novice of DMs picking up the game could easily adjudicate everything fairly, because the game had an established baseline of expectations. As the DM gained experience and got more comfortable with his group, the option to change things was always there in the form of Rule 0.

5e gets rid of the first part, and never sets up expectations for a lot of edge cases. For experienced gamers, this is not a problem. For newbies, this could make getting into the hobby very hard. But the real problem is when different people come into a game expecting different things, and friction flares up almost immediately. Rulings, unlike rules, can never appear perfectly impartial.

themaque
2016-02-18, 02:56 PM
It was about expectations. 3.5 has a lot of rules, sure, but all the rules set expectations.

I found a lot of those Expectations ended up being "Did you take the feat? No? Then, it's probably not worth taking the risk" The rules set me up for the answer to be not unless you took the feat.

I moved around a lot, so trust/expectations was an issue. That firm codified universe was nice. I'm not moving every 2-3 years anymore, so can know what to expect from my GM.

But not every game system is for everyone. If you like it, GREAT. I know my friend Matthew NEEDS a firm rules system before he can enjoy himself.

Flickerdart
2016-02-18, 04:35 PM
I found a lot of those Expectations ended up being "Did you take the feat? No? Then, it's probably not worth taking the risk" The rules set me up for the answer to be not unless you took the feat.
"The feat" tended to add on a static numerical bonus. All it meant was that a character of level X would be capable of doing the deed and nobody would bat an eye because it's in the rules. When it's left up to the DM, the DC for a barbarian to break the door with his headbutt could suddenly become "no" even for a level 20 guy.

themaque
2016-02-18, 05:39 PM
"The feat" tended to add on a static numerical bonus. All it meant was that a character of level X would be capable of doing the deed and nobody would bat an eye because it's in the rules. When it's left up to the DM, the DC for a barbarian to break the door with his headbutt could suddenly become "no" even for a level 20 guy.

In theory, yes. In practice I found it to be much more limiting. Most times the mechanics I found most of those "Cool" tricks to be a waste of time without dedicating yourself to a feat chain. Then you're no longer a fighter who tries a clever maneuver, you're the tripping guy.

Doing it without the Feat you're the guy getting a free punch in the face for the off chance something might work but probably not. Trip, Disarm, Grapple, all AoO without the feat and that can really make you second guess you're options rather than just a miss.

But hey, if you're group ended up doing that more often, more the lucky you.

Flickerdart
2016-02-18, 06:06 PM
In theory, yes. In practice I found it to be much more limiting. Most times the mechanics I found most of those "Cool" tricks to be a waste of time without dedicating yourself to a feat chain. Then you're no longer a fighter who tries a clever maneuver, you're the tripping guy.

Doing it without the Feat you're the guy getting a free punch in the face for the off chance something might work but probably not. Trip, Disarm, Grapple, all AoO without the feat and that can really make you second guess you're options rather than just a miss.

But hey, if you're group ended up doing that more often, more the lucky you.

That's not really my point. Compare:

3.5: tables detailing the HP of every material from paper to stone to metal.
5E: "The GM determines an object’s Armor Class and hit points."

Say I am a DM running a dungeon. The PCs encounter a door and want to bust it down because the rogue is too drunk to pick the lock. In 3.5, I flip open the DMG and see, the wooden door has 15 hit points. In 5E, I have no guidance for how hardy a wooden door is. Unless I write it down, the next time the PCs want to break down a wooden door, it might have more or less HP. Down the street in another DM's game, the door will have a different amount of HP. Next session, my friend Larry who is a carpenter convinces me that doors should have more HP than that, and the number changes again.

My point is not about doors either, but about the underlying philosophy of the game that the object HP rules are an example of.

VoxRationis
2016-02-18, 07:22 PM
You're both right. 3.5 often made it excessively hard to try combat tactics other than "attack roll" without building an entire character mechanic around it, but it also had the advantage of clearly spelling out the difficulty of a particular task, as opposed to foisting that task on the DM, forcing them to set a precedent without a lot of prior thought regarding the consequences. Now, were the mechanical difficulties always well-thought-out? No, as the Diplomacy skill proves. But at least they were there.