PDA

View Full Version : What is wrong with me?



Pex
2017-04-22, 08:14 PM
Potentially I'll be joining a new Pathfinder campaign. Yay. We have our Session 0. When it comes to how to generate ability scores the DM uses dice rolling but is open to Point Buy, and I . . . advocate for Point Buy! 25 Pathfinder points, but still, ME, wanting to use Point Buy? I just blurted it out. I was looking forward to it. Other players were ok with it. So is the DM. It's still to be determined whether it's 20 or 25, and 25 has equal voice, but we're using Point Buy because I suggested it. It's Pathfinder Point Buy and not 5E Point Buy, but still.

Today I'm playing in one of my 5E games. It's developed into a treasure rich campaign. This is the one where we befriended goblins with one joining us as de facto my cohort. That's ok. I'm used to this sort of play even if it is the first time for a 5E game that I've been in. We're playing through a module and come across a magic weapon, and my first thoughts as a player is What The Heck? It is way too powerful for our level 5 party. My cleric is already wielding Light Bringer from Phandelver, which is more than I can say for my 8th level Paladin in another campaign without any magic weapons at all, so the campaign is working fine with magic weapons in general. Anyway, the wizard purposely Identified it upon discovery because of circumstances. The DM just had to say "This battle axe is +2 to hit and damage" before I was screaming inside my head "Way too powerful" before he could finish reading the box text and there was still more. Out of character I can think of a reason why the party doesn't end up keeping all the loot this module is providing or we can still get to keep it all, but this is a published 5E module? I'm not blaming the DM at all, and I told him so. The module itself is fine. The way he's running the game is fine. He's a fellow player wanting to try out DMing for an adventure as opposed to our regular DM. He was wise enough to leave his own character out of this. There is no DMPC to share in our found riches. I question the published treasure hoard. I'm being critical of a 5E game going overboard with magic items, along with the DM being completely innocent about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVSRm80WzZk

oxybe
2017-04-22, 09:49 PM
I think the problem is that people have always made FAR too much of a big deal about +1 or +2 weapons. Even back in 2nd ed my reaction to these weapons was "that's it?".

The end result is you hit on an 8 what you would normally on a 10, and a certain subsection of monsters are no longer in the "HAHA! Martials suck! I resist non-magical weapons!" category. In 2nd ed you wanted the magic gear because some monsters couldn't even be hit by gear without the correct "+" in front of it. the fact that it gave a +3 to hit was a nice boon on top of allowing you to actually murder a new tier of outsiders.

In 3.5 & PF ed the + to hit and damage is insignificant in the long run, it's simply the fact you want the weapon to be magical so you could bypass DR.

Quite honestly, the bog standard +X magic weapon is one of the most boring treasures you can find, no matter what text box is attached to it, second only to the non-magical weapon. It's a nice boon, but broken or overpowered? it's basically a slightly better axe then your old one.

Mechanically speaking, a 5th ed character, by level 5 can have a +8 to hit (3 from prof, 5 from stat), though a +7 or +6 is more likely depending on point buy used. So we're looking at a character having somewhere between a +8 to +10 to hit after the magic weapon is considered.

Assuming a decently armoured foe in 5th, a 16 AC warrior type, your chance to hit increased from 55%-65% to 65%-75%, depending on your old to-hit.

You're still missing 1 out of every 4 hits instead of 1 out of 3 on a good day, and the boost to damage is pretty minimal.

Against the lightly armoured foes (12 ac) you went from having a 75%-85% to hit to a 85%-95%.

Greatweapon fighting maybe has potential to problematic (i think that's the one that gives the 5th ed power attack equivalent, can't remember off hand) when dealing with low-AC enemies as the magic weapon allows it to be effective earlier then normal, but those low-AC enemies have always been damage sponges.

RazorChain
2017-04-22, 11:36 PM
By level 8 when I was playing 2nd ed. we had excel spreadsheats to keep track of our magic items,. We played a lot of published adventures and from Dungeon magazine. I remember one instance we had to keep a door ajar so it wouldn't lock as it had a magical lock. So we look at our equipment list and nobody wanted to use anything until one player chimes in "I have a lot of spare magical weapons in my bag of holding". So in the end we used a +1 sword as a doorstopper because our mundane items were too useful to part with :)

Then you realize you are playing a Mounty Haul campaign.

ATHATH
2017-04-23, 12:06 AM
I think the problem is that people have always made FAR too much of a big deal about +1 or +2 weapons. Even back in 2nd ed my reaction to these weapons was "that's it?".

The end result is you hit on an 8 what you would normally on a 10, and a certain subsection of monsters are no longer in the "HAHA! Martials suck! I resist non-magical weapons!" category. In 2nd ed you wanted the magic gear because some monsters couldn't even be hit by gear without the correct "+" in front of it. the fact that it gave a +3 to hit was a nice boon on top of allowing you to actually murder a new tier of outsiders.

In 3.5 & PF ed the + to hit and damage is insignificant in the long run, it's simply the fact you want the weapon to be magical so you could bypass DR.

Quite honestly, the bog standard +X magic weapon is one of the most boring treasures you can find, no matter what text box is attached to it, second only to the non-magical weapon. It's a nice boon, but broken or overpowered? it's basically a slightly better axe then your old one.

Mechanically speaking, a 5th ed character, by level 5 can have a +8 to hit (3 from prof, 5 from stat), though a +7 or +6 is more likely depending on point buy used. So we're looking at a character having somewhere between a +8 to +10 to hit after the magic weapon is considered.

Assuming a decently armoured foe in 5th, a 16 AC warrior type, your chance to hit increased from 55%-65% to 65%-75%, depending on your old to-hit.

You're still missing 1 out of every 4 hits instead of 1 out of 3 on a good day, and the boost to damage is pretty minimal.

Against the lightly armoured foes (12 ac) you went from having a 75%-85% to hit to a 85%-95%.

Greatweapon fighting maybe has potential to problematic (i think that's the one that gives the 5th ed power attack equivalent, can't remember off hand) when dealing with low-AC enemies as the magic weapon allows it to be effective earlier then normal, but those low-AC enemies have always been damage sponges.
That's still effectively around a +10% increase in DPS from a +2 weapon, which seems to be pretty good/big, especially if the item has other powers.

This wouldn't happen to be a cursed sword of some kind (that detects as another kind of magical sword when identified), would it?

hymer
2017-04-23, 01:07 AM
That's still effectively around a +10% increase in DPS from a +2 weapon, which seems to be pretty good/big, especially if the item has other powers.

Your instinct is right, but it's actually much more than that. At the lowest end (going from 85% to 95% chance to hit), the increased hit chance and +2 damage on a longsword (1d8+5 for base, 1d8+7 with the +2 sword) is an increase of over 35%. Going from 50% to 60%, the damage increase is over 45%. At extremely low chances to hit (10% going to 20%), the damage increase is over 140%.

Edit: May be worth pointing out that this is 5e style numbers, and doesn't take crit into account. Oxybe is talking 3.X it seems, where the numbers look different.

oxybe
2017-04-23, 02:03 AM
Time for maths and yes i'm not counting crits because that adds a level of math i'm not willing to do at 4am on a lunch break.

Assuming a 5th ed fighter with 20 str VS an AC of 16 using longsword+shield. We're looking at 2 attacks at +8(65% accuracy) for 1d8+5 (avg 9.5). So 9.5 damage * 65% accuracy = 6.175 avg damage per round x2 hits, so 12.35 avg damage per round.

Same deal as above, but with a +2 magic sword, so 2 attacks at +10(75%) for 1d8+7(avg 11.5) gives us 11.5*75% = 8.625 avg x2 hits = 17.25 avg damage per round

throw those numbers in for an AC of 12 (85% & 95%) respectively and you get on average 16.15 VS 21.85 avg damage per round for a fighter type.

In short you're basically getting an average boost of ~5 damage / round if you have 2 attacks.

It's nice but hardly game breaking or overpowered.

To put in practice, an SRD-standard Hill giant has 105 HP, 13 AC, a +8 to hit & 18.5 avg damage with it's club. We'll give our fighter a 16 con, AC 20 for fullplate+shield and 49hp (the avg for his level).

The giant will kill the fighter in ~6 turns, fighter goes from ~7 turns(with mundane sword) to 5 turns(with +2 sword). It basically goes from "fight in giant's favour" to "fight in fighter's favour" but it can still go either way.

Now, our fighter will have allies with him, throwing in a stereotypical fighter/rogue/cleric/wizard party and the giant is very likely to drop much earlier then the 7-5 turns he would've lasted against the solo fighter, so our fighter may only get one or two rounds of damage in that fight, so ~10 more damage done in a fight then normal.

Again, not seeing the OPness of this.

Even arguing the corner cases where the fighter only hits on a 17 or 18, yes, you'll see a big jump in average damage, percentile wise, but in a practical sense you're still probably better off running away, because going from a 20% to 30% accuracy is a difference of 3.8 dpr and 6.9 dpr, and monsters with that level of defenses are probably going to smear you before you can land enough hits for it to matter.

Dappershire
2017-04-23, 02:47 AM
The end result is you hit on an 8 what you would normally on a 10, and a certain subsection of monsters are no longer in the "HAHA! Martials suck! I resist non-magical weapons!" category. In 2nd ed you wanted the magic gear because some monsters couldn't even be hit by gear without the correct "+" in front of it. the fact that it gave a +3 to hit was a nice boon on top of allowing you to actually murder a new tier of outsiders.
.

Wow, I take the exact opposite approach. Whatyou just described is what literally separates a town guard from a hero. I mean "Dozens fought against the demon, and dozens fell. Spears splintered against its hide. Steel grew too hot to hold under its infernal gaze. The KeepsMen were seconds away from being routed entirely. Until Lord Howard entered the fray, wielding the sword passed down through generations of his Noble family. And he struck true, a large cut on the creature's arm hissing and bubbling. It was a small step, but it was all he needed. 'It bleeds! And by the Gods, if it bleeds, we can kill it! To me men, to me! For Alchion!'" has a heavy feel to it.

RazorChain
2017-04-23, 03:28 AM
Wow, I take the exact opposite approach. Whatyou just described is what literally separates a town guard from a hero. I mean "Dozens fought against the demon, and dozens fell. Spears splintered against its hide. Steel grew too hot to hold under its infernal gaze. The KeepsMen were seconds away from being routed entirely. Until Lord Howard entered the fray, wielding the sword passed down through generations of his Noble family. And he struck true, a large cut on the creature's arm hissing and bubbling. It was a small step, but it was all he needed. 'It bleeds! And by the Gods, if it bleeds, we can kill it! To me men, to me! For Alchion!'" has a heavy feel to it.

Then the heroes met lord Howard, did him in, took his sword and used it as a doorstopper.

Lazymancer
2017-04-23, 03:33 AM
Wow, I take the exact opposite approach. Whatyou just described is what literally separates a town guard from a hero. I mean "Dozens fought against the demon, and dozens fell. Spears splintered against its hide. Steel grew too hot to hold under its infernal gaze. The KeepsMen were seconds away from being routed entirely. Until Lord Howard entered the fray, wielding the sword passed down through generations of his Noble family. And he struck true, a large cut on the creature's arm hissing and bubbling. It was a small step, but it was all he needed. 'It bleeds! And by the Gods, if it bleeds, we can kill it! To me men, to me! For Alchion!'" has a heavy feel to it.

Would you mind explaining the difference between improv and role-playing game? I'm quite certain there is one.

oxybe
2017-04-23, 03:40 AM
Wow, I take the exact opposite approach. Whatyou just described is what literally separates a town guard from a hero. I mean "Dozens fought against the demon, and dozens fell. Spears splintered against its hide. Steel grew too hot to hold under its infernal gaze. The KeepsMen were seconds away from being routed entirely. Until Lord Howard entered the fray, wielding the sword passed down through generations of his Noble family. And he struck true, a large cut on the creature's arm hissing and bubbling. It was a small step, but it was all he needed. 'It bleeds! And by the Gods, if it bleeds, we can kill it! To me men, to me! For Alchion!'" has a heavy feel to it.

Sure but after about 18-20 or so years of gaming, in practice it's far less carefully narrated and comes off more like "And now (2 hours into the session) it's suddenly demon time because: planned cultist ritual/it came to make due on a deal/bad adventure design"

And the pcs are now forcibly engaged with a monster they :

A)can't hit with their gear and must either:
A1)run away
A2)hope for a DM Ex Machina
A3)use the [terrain feature]/ that's obviously there to get rid of the demon
B)they can hit it because they have the gear and the gimmick is now pointless in practice.

And that's the demon encounter.

I'm probably jaded (or at the very least highly pragmatic) after a good near two decades of play, but a "slightly better stick then the one you have" with a backstory is still, at the end of the day, little more then just nice stick that will, probably, be replaced when the Slightly Nicer Stick comes around. Or maybe that Nice Stick of Sharpness. Or whatever.

This is doubly true if that's a stick you have no attachment to emotionally because you found it in a crypt somewhere or bought from the bargain barrel at McMagic's, as most treasure is obtained IME.

I mean, like, look man: I love Final Fantasy Tactics, but I have [I]no idea where my second copy came from (as in "I asked everyone I know if they're missing their copy, and they're not") nor do I particularly care to find out at this point, years after it's appeared on my shelf. All I know is that it plays FFT as I would want and expect from the game.

Unless that history is something that would come and annoy me in the future (making it so "dump the thing in the nearest river" is the best solution) a sword is a sword is a sword.

Giving it a slightly better hit and damage doesn't make it thing to be marveled at: it makes it somewhat more functional then your old one.

NichG
2017-04-23, 04:14 AM
On the '+2, so what?' thing, it was really different between 1ed and 3+ed. I actually played 3.5ed first, and then for a lark we had a summer 1ed D&D campaign played straight, with all of the accompanying randomness and weirdness that entails (hirelings, the works). In 3.5ed, all characters are going to have something non-level-based to add to their attacks or primary actions - even a 12 in a stat gives you a +1, and characters can reasonably be expected to have an 18; plus feats, etc. So in a 1ed sense, its as if you're playing a 6th level character already (or a 1st level character with a +5 weapon). If you add another +2 onto that, it gets absorbed easily in all the other additive numerical modifiers. In practice, it does end up just being +10% damage, which actually is not a big deal since fights are short (that is to say, the chance that that 10% amounts to a difference in even one round in the duration of the fight is very low).

In 1ed, the baseline miss rate is much higher at low levels - it can be something like 15-20% against completely normal enemies (who also have the same bad chances against you). And you basically one-shot or two-shot kill each-other when you hit. So that means that your first +1 or +2 is huge, since it feeds into that rocket-tag like setup and even just numericaly, its like doubling or tripling your character level. Incidentally, this is why hirelings are actually so important in 1ed - they're basically your real hitpoints at low levels, since otherwise you might have your character killed before you even get to act (this happened twice during that campaign). New characters starting at Lv1 means that a party carrying around some +2 or +3 items essentially allows a player to catch up quickly when they inevitably lose a character. Whereas in 3ed, its pretty normal to introduce a new character at the party level.

So all of those factors basically mean that '+2' doesn't mean the same thing in different editions. It can't really be compared (at least not without doing the full calculation of all the different factors in play). That's why a lot of things that were just blindly carried over unchanged really have different implications for the game. Is it worth spending an action on a Bless in 3ed when you could have just attacked again with a 60-70% hit rate anyhow? Your allies and you would have to accumulate 10 to 14 attacks before you make that up on the numbers, by which time the fight will be over. But in 1ed, if you have a 15% hit rate you just lose a 15% chance of a hit - you'd make that back in 3 attacks of fighting under the Bless.

Grod_The_Giant
2017-04-23, 08:13 AM
In short you're basically getting an average boost of ~5 damage / round if you have 2 attacks.
Yeah. People make a huge deal about tiny DPR changes in 5e, and I have no idea why.

GPS
2017-04-23, 08:49 AM
Would you mind explaining the difference between improv and role-playing game? I'm quite certain there is one.
That's debatable

Hopeless
2017-04-23, 09:44 AM
My reaction was the dm just announced a +2 Axe and I wondered what are you about to run into that merits that axe being needed?

Could be worse, I ran a 3e Cleric of Helm who had his own enchanted bastard sword made and paid for and deliberately enhanced it into a +1 Sure Striking Weapon...

So it counts as a +5 weapon for Damage Resistance purposes and the time I was away they had someone else running my character after they ran into a pair of Golems... that's how long it took before did they even bothered to check what that sword could do!

So a +2 Axe not that big a problem unless its actually a cursed berserker axe... then be worried!:smallsmile:

Pex
2017-04-23, 02:11 PM
There's more to the battle axe. It was just the +2 that got me all "giantitp forum enraged". It has charges to allow magical effects. Burning Hands and Passwall for certain. Fog Cloud if I remember correctly. The DM sent a notice after the game that he read the magic item wrong, and we couldn't access the spells right away to be explained next game. Still not blaming the DM. He's doing well considering it's his first time. He really wants to learn. I gave him lots of brownie points for choosing on his own not to tag along his own PC. We're still in the middle of the adventure. Next game I'll see how it all pans out.

Meanwhile I'm still not bothered we're using Point Buy for the Pathfinder game. I suppose I have to admit to myself that it's more than just lip service to say I like Pathfinder's Point Buy. 5E's Point Buy is still garbage to me, so what I said in the past remains true. I have no issue with the concept of Point Buy, just 5E's implementation of it.

Grod_The_Giant
2017-04-23, 03:31 PM
Meanwhile I'm still not bothered we're using Point Buy for the Pathfinder game. I suppose I have to admit to myself that it's more than just lip service to say I like Pathfinder's Point Buy. 5E's Point Buy is still garbage to me, so what I said in the past remains true. I have no issue with the concept of Point Buy, just 5E's implementation of it.
I'm not particularly fond of how 5e does Abilities at all, but... how so?

Pex
2017-04-23, 08:07 PM
I'm not particularly fond of how 5e does Abilities at all, but... how so?

Absolute forbiddance of an 18 at first level. I don't need one; I just object to the denial of it. To be (subjective) competent in what you want to do you must be gimped elsewhere, mainly for MAD classes which are always hurt in a Point Buy System. It encourages racial stereotypes. If a character is a rogue, 9 times out of 10 he's a halfling, the rest human. If a character is a warlock, 5 out of 10 are tieflings, 4 out of 10 are half-elves, the rest human. If a character is a halfling, he's a rogue. If a character is a tiefling, he's a warlock. 9 out of 10 characters who are not a wizard have an 8 Intelligence.

Grod_The_Giant
2017-04-24, 07:04 AM
Absolute forbiddance of an 18 at first level. I don't need one; I just object to the denial of it. To be (subjective) competent in what you want to do you must be gimped elsewhere, mainly for MAD classes which are always hurt in a Point Buy System. It encourages racial stereotypes. If a character is a rogue, 9 times out of 10 he's a halfling, the rest human. If a character is a warlock, 5 out of 10 are tieflings, 4 out of 10 are half-elves, the rest human. If a character is a halfling, he's a rogue. If a character is a tiefling, he's a warlock. 9 out of 10 characters who are not a wizard have an 8 Intelligence.
Mmm, yeah. Rather than point buy, I think the root problem is 5e's incredible emphasis on ability scores-- because they're much less important in Pathfinder, you can be more generous with point buy and race choices.

You might be interested in my 5e-without-ability-scores overhaul (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?503455-5e-Without-Ability-Scores-skills-Skills-Skills)?

neonchameleon
2017-04-24, 10:10 AM
Would you mind explaining the difference between improv and role-playing game? I'm quite certain there is one.

Improv has a huge problem with conflict resolution. "Always say yes" - and you never get two opposed foes. RPGs played in one way (there are lots of ways) are "improv plus" in that they have the dice to handle direct conflict (roll the dice and both sides accept the outcome) and the dice adds random elements that improv never would.

Other ways? D&D started life as a hacked tabletop wargame. This is not uncommon either.