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2021-04-09, 02:11 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Two Sets of Rules, the Good and Bad?
I think the primary controversy is over whether the DM should be allowed to ever use the PHB rules. Some people say "yes, sometimes that is appropriate" and some people say "why would you ever want to do that?" which may or may not be the same thing as "no".
5E's official position is "yes, sometimes", per the 5E DMG, but the WotC-published 5E adventures never do AFAIK so WotC's internal position may be closer to "why would you ever want to do that?"
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2021-04-09, 02:33 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Two Sets of Rules, the Good and Bad?
Dawn of Hope: a 5e setting. http://wiki.admiralbenbo.org
Rogue Equivalent Damage calculator, now prettier and more configurable!
5e Monster Data Sheet--vital statistics for all 693 MM, Volo's, and now MToF monsters: Updated!
NIH system 5e fork, very much WIP. Base github repo.
NIH System PDF Up to date main-branch build version.
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2021-04-09, 02:56 PM (ISO 8601)
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2021-04-09, 03:11 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Two Sets of Rules, the Good and Bad?
I've seen a number of thread where folks have been told, in effect or fairly explicitly, that if they are doing NPCs as PC builds they are Doing it WrongTM
Of course, the most common time this comes up is someone trying to figure out how level maps to CR.
(Short version is it doesn't, you need to compare it to the DMG table and see what CR comes out.)Last edited by Tanarii; 2021-04-09 at 03:12 PM.
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2021-04-09, 03:21 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Two Sets of Rules, the Good and Bad?
As with all of these things, it depends on your goal. Making NPCs as PCs as a matter of course isn't exactly wrong, but it's not how the game was designed so it causes a lot of extra work. If you're doing that extra work toward some purpose, then fine. If you're doing it because you don't know there's an Easier Way, then, well, it might be worth it to learn that way.
In the vast majority of cases, you don't need to make NPCs as PCs and the game will work fine. If you can't tolerate that NPCs and PCs are built on different chassis (even if they drive the same road and use the same fuel and all that), again, no one's going to stop you from making them the same. But the game itself isn't wrong for being built otherwise.
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2021-04-09, 03:30 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Two Sets of Rules, the Good and Bad?
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2021-04-09, 03:37 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2014
Re: Two Sets of Rules, the Good and Bad?
They're not useless, because they serve their purpose really well in Final Fantasy, and their purpose is to dunk. You dunk on the muggles with your god-wizard powers to show-off how powerful and cool of a super-being you are. These kinds of dunk-powers, of course, have no place in a climactic throw-down between equally powerful super-people. That would be anti-climactic, after all.
In my ideal version of DnD, it would be the same their. But a degree more than what 5e has already achieved is going to be needed to move the table culture of the game towards a place where dunking on minions is considered properly fun without "optimizers" shutting things down, and/or demanding "dunk" abilities work equally well on every main villain or climactic end-conflict. Pathfinder 2 has made great strides in this area, but it has other issues in other areas.
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2021-04-09, 03:38 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2014
Re: Two Sets of Rules, the Good and Bad?
There is no controversy over whether "whether the DM should have to use the PHB rules". Literally nobody on this thread is arguing that position, ergo there's no controversy.
There are people though who seem to be arguing that a DM should never use PHB rules for NPCs, and others who disagree. Ergo, controversy.Last edited by MaxWilson; 2021-04-09 at 03:38 PM.
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2021-04-09, 03:45 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Two Sets of Rules, the Good and Bad?
The OP clearly wishes the DM would use more aligned rules. That is the "argument" that has created the thread, and if it has been thoroughly enough debunked, then that's great. Though you see the attitude often enough on forums like this in other threads, mostly in the context of simulationism. The DM shouldn't use PHB rules for NPCs because it's pointless. You can if you want to, just like you can stand up and turn around three times before you roll your dice.
Last edited by NorthernPhoenix; 2021-04-09 at 03:45 PM.
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2021-04-09, 03:48 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2013
Re: Two Sets of Rules, the Good and Bad?
I have not seen either extreme in this thread. I have seen people describe a preference and appreciation for there being simpler rules. I have seen people describe how they did not like the more complicated rules.
However I have not seen the "The PHB rules must/must not be used"
Even the OP is asking about degrees (asking the good and the bad over having different rules)
What, you mean you don't do the hokey pokey before each roll?Last edited by OldTrees1; 2021-04-09 at 03:54 PM.
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2021-04-09, 05:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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2021-04-09, 05:20 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Two Sets of Rules, the Good and Bad?
One of the quotes in question was:
1) They say DMs should be able to use the PHB when creating encounters.
2) They suspect there is almost always a "better / easier" way.
This does not sound like either extreme. It shows a strong preference for one method and says both methods should be available to the DM.Last edited by OldTrees1; 2021-04-09 at 05:22 PM.
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2021-04-09, 06:34 PM (ISO 8601)
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2021-04-09, 06:43 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Two Sets of Rules, the Good and Bad?
They're not using "Should" as a moral thing. They're using it as a practical thing.
Put another way, when you want to cut the beef you just cooked, do you use a knife, or do you use a laser? Both work just fine (assuming a sufficiently powerful laser) but one is a lot more practical, convenient, and easy.I have a LOT of Homebrew!
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2021-04-09, 06:49 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Two Sets of Rules, the Good and Bad?
"[A] DM should never use PHB rules for NPCs" is also not a moral claim. It's an (fallacious) practical claim. It's like claiming that a knife is a sufficiently-good substitute for a spoon that you shouldn't buy spoons, just knives.
What they really mean is "I personally don't like using PHB rules for NPCs; they don't fit my style of game" but then they overgeneralize.Last edited by MaxWilson; 2021-04-09 at 06:52 PM.
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2021-04-09, 06:49 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Two Sets of Rules, the Good and Bad?
This debate has gotten unusually pedantic, even for this forum!
(I don't even know if I should use blue text or not.)
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2021-04-09, 07:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Two Sets of Rules, the Good and Bad?
The difference is:
One perspective writes a paragraph in the Monster Manual about adding class levels to monsters. Then writes 5 pages of support for the better / easier method.
The other writes a paragraph in the Monster Manual telling you monsters can't have class levels. Then writes 5 pages of support for the better / easier method.
Basically they know their style, but are they shutting down the other style, or still including it just in case?Last edited by OldTrees1; 2021-04-09 at 07:06 PM.
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2021-04-09, 07:41 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Two Sets of Rules, the Good and Bad?
Okay, now I'm really confused. Are we still talking about what's controversial w/rt this thread, or about the opinions of hypothetical WotC employees in a universe where the 5E books have been written with less support for NPCs with character classes? E.g. no NPC-only subclasses like Oathbreaker in the DMG. Because if you have to go that far out in the hypotheticals to find a distinction, that isn't a meaningful distinction: it's accurate to describe them as claiming you should never use NPCs with class levels.
While we're at it, if we're measuring "better" by page count, 300+ pages on creating (N)PCs with character classes certainly trumps 5 pages on creating them by fiat.
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2021-04-09, 07:42 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Two Sets of Rules, the Good and Bad?
Should be able to. Absolutely. Should not be considered "doing it wrong" for doing so.
However, doing it that way is extra, unnecessary work every time I've tried to do it (which I've tried). And doing so has led to less-successful monsters than doing it the "normal" way.
An analogy: Someone making a Skyrim mod could build all his own animations and scripting from scratch. Or, realizing that he's just making a minor change to an existing thing, alter the included asset and scripts and call it a day. There are cases where the first is the right thing to do. But they're cases that the vast majority of modders will never run into. Is it forbidden? No. Just...not encouraged. Because honestly, the chances of accidentally breaking things is much higher. It's like using straight C (the programming language) for web development. The risk of foot-gunning well outweighs (for most of us) the increased efficiency and speed.
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Realizing that monsters and PCs have complementary but different roles and different mechanical needs is the key to the whole thing. And realizing that the game mechanics are just a UI into a fictional world. They don't define anything other than how the players interact with the world and with those game elements. They're not part of the world at all, although they should be designed to be compatible (at some level of abstraction).
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And he, not she or they. But I don't particularly care.Dawn of Hope: a 5e setting. http://wiki.admiralbenbo.org
Rogue Equivalent Damage calculator, now prettier and more configurable!
5e Monster Data Sheet--vital statistics for all 693 MM, Volo's, and now MToF monsters: Updated!
NIH system 5e fork, very much WIP. Base github repo.
NIH System PDF Up to date main-branch build version.
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2021-04-09, 07:54 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Two Sets of Rules, the Good and Bad?
Sorry, "he." Didn't want to assume without a picture.
Anyway, if NPCs with class levels are difficult for you, it's fine for you to avoid it. No one is telling you that you have to use them. But sometimes just plopping a 7th level Diviner with 46 HP into an adventure is simpler than adjusting an MM Mage template to be 7th level and recalculating the CR, which is a nightmare if the spell loadout includes spells like Hypnotic Pattern, Lightning Bolt, Polymorph, Evard's Black Tentacles, and Tasha's Hideous Laughter.
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2021-04-09, 07:57 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Two Sets of Rules, the Good and Bad?
The issue arise when using some abilities that then feels constrained by the arbitrary barrier between the two sets of rules.
For example you say that sir Kay the CR5 knight that the team fought at the end of their first campaign due to a misunderstanding and a lost letter could shrug off many abilities through his extreme training (legendary resistance or something) and sir kay was exceptionally good at fighting (CR5 boss monster and not just an ordinary CR5 monster)
Now much later the adventurers gets access to true polymorph and for some reason one player with a fifth level fighter that is otherwise similar to sir kay joins the table.
That fighter could be true polymorphed in sir kay which is stronger than him but that is not the only weird thing: you could also turn a rock in a sir kay but you can not turn sir kay nor a rock to that adventurer despite that adventurer seemingly being weaker than sir kay and sir kay being very widely within the limits of what you could get by transforming a rock.
Furthermore it also means an adventurer can have legendary resistance but only while transformed but they can not get legendary resistance by training despite sir kay being an human and having gained legendary saves somehow.
So now the wizard having read that true polymorph can not turn a creature in a creature stronger than itself is definitively confused by that situation(the wizard player can just read the rules and figure out it is due to the pc/npc separation)
The problem comes from abilities that handles in a fundamentally different way npcs and pcs while both from their own pov are living in the same world and are of the same species.
Why such abilities even exists?
Could dnd finally make polymorph make sense one day?Last edited by noob; 2021-04-09 at 07:59 PM.
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2021-04-09, 08:06 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Two Sets of Rules, the Good and Bad?
A 7th level wizard is like CR 2. Maybe. If even. Defensive CR << 1, offensive CR...not much better.
So you're recalculating the CR anyway, if you care. You can't have it both ways. Dropping in PC-classed creatures requires you to recalculate the CR from scratch, and will not come out how you think it does. I've done the math with a bunch of different characters. CR =/= level. At all. Not in any way. Roughly, CR is anywhere from > level (a low-level martial) to ~ 1/2 level (asymptotically). With lots of build-specific messiness.
Calculating CR for PC-classed things is way harder than adjusting an existing monster. Most of the time, you can eyeball it (every 15 HP and 6 DPR is +1 CR bracket) for existing monsters. PCs have to go from scratch. Those other things? Don't affect CR at all. Because they don't cause damage or soak damage. If you're going to adjust for them, you'll also be adjusting for situational factors.
Remember, CR is just a first step. It's a filter--"will this creature have a chance of surviving to do its cool things" + "can this creature ORKO a weak party member"? It bounds both above and below the range of "viable" monsters for new DMs against stock parties. Against any party using any variant rules or with significant magic items, it's not worth calculating. Nor is it meant to be calculated.Last edited by PhoenixPhyre; 2021-04-09 at 08:12 PM.
Dawn of Hope: a 5e setting. http://wiki.admiralbenbo.org
Rogue Equivalent Damage calculator, now prettier and more configurable!
5e Monster Data Sheet--vital statistics for all 693 MM, Volo's, and now MToF monsters: Updated!
NIH system 5e fork, very much WIP. Base github repo.
NIH System PDF Up to date main-branch build version.
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2021-04-09, 08:11 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2019
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2021-04-09, 08:20 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2013
Re: Two Sets of Rules, the Good and Bad?
Ach, sorry for not being clear. I think PhoenixPhyre makes it a bit clearer himself. I don't see much "controversy" here if everyone seems to be saying "Yes, let both exist. I have opinions on which is <insert qualifier> better but let both exist." Nobody has being saying one or the other is the wrong way.
Nice I am glad I read that accurately.
I apologize. I have a strong intentional habit of calling everyone they. Maybe I should rethink that.Last edited by OldTrees1; 2021-04-09 at 08:30 PM.
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2021-04-09, 08:24 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2014
Re: Two Sets of Rules, the Good and Bad?
Prove it with sources.
There's no DMG guidance on how Polymorph affects offensive and defensive CR, or how Hypnotic Pattern or Tasha's Laughter affects offensive CR. It's just up to the DM to guesstimate something.
Aside: "They" has a 700 year-old history in English as the gender-neutral pronoun. It is perfectly correct to refer to anyone as "they" if you aren't sure. Obviously once you know better you can be more specific, but there's nothing wrong with "they" as a wildcard.
"Eche of theym sholde ... make theymselfe redy." — Caxton, Sonnes of Aymon (c. 1489)Last edited by MaxWilson; 2021-04-09 at 08:31 PM.
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2021-04-09, 08:25 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Two Sets of Rules, the Good and Bad?
Even if making a 7th level Diviner NPC, there's little reason to build them as a full PC. When you create the stat block for this NPC are you really going to add features like Divination Savant? It's entirely irrelevant for an NPC. Even possibly relevant abilities like Expert Divination which might grant extra spell slots seem rather pointless, it's just work for no reward.
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2021-04-09, 08:34 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2014
Re: Two Sets of Rules, the Good and Bad?
What do you mean by "add features"? The feature is there in the PHB. It probably won't be relevant, and I'm certainly not going to write "Divination Savant" in my notes because "Diviner 7" already tells me that it has all of the features of a Diviner.
Eliminating Divination Savant or Expert Divination would be extra work, because then I'd have to write "Diviner 7, but without Divination Savant", and why would I ever do that? It complicates the NPC for no reason. I need that space for other things like documenting the NPC's relationships with PCs and other NPCs.Last edited by MaxWilson; 2021-04-09 at 08:44 PM.
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2021-04-09, 08:53 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Two Sets of Rules, the Good and Bad?
The DMG specifically says how to calculate CR. It says "include these factors". Including anything else is a houserule.
You calculate offensive CR (a function of DPR and hit bonuses/saves) and defensive CR (a function of HP and AC), and then you average the two. There's a finite list of things that modify the components of CR. And they can't give you specifics for anything else, because it all depends on the details.
Does hypnotic pattern deal damage? No? Then it doesn't affect CR because using it reduces the best-three-rounds DPR. Which is what is used.
42 HP: base defensive CR 1/4.
AC (assuming mage armor and +2-3 DEX): 15-16. That's 2-3 above par, so final defensive CR: 1/2.
Without further information, I can only assume that their offensive best three rounds are
1) lightning bolt (4) = 9d6 * 2 = 63
2) lightning bolt (4) = 9d6 * 2 = 63
3) lightning bolt (3) = 8d6 * 2 = 56
For a base offensive CR of 9. Level 7 ==> +4 INT ==> save DC = 15, which is one below the specified, so final offensive CR is unchanged = 9.
Total CR: 4.5 ==> 5 (rounding up due to damage output). So I was off a bit. But functionally, it acts like a really bity monster of much lower CR, because it will die if a PC sneezes on it.
Alone, this thing will die before it gets more than one attack off. 42 HP is trivial, even against a level 4 party.
Not to mention it's a bad monster, as are all such glass cannons. Because it comes down to "did it go first?" Then someone's going to be seriously hurt. Otherwise, it dies without putting up a fight at all. Likely won't even get a turn.
And in building this using PC rules, you've spent 5-10 minutes writing down a bunch of details you'll never use.
PCs and monsters have different design needs. They are best if they're built differently. Monsters can be built back-to-front, cherry picking the pieces you need. You both save time and make better fights that way. PCs have to have staying power over an entire day. And lots of moving bits to play with. Monsters don't need either, in fact those get in the way.Last edited by PhoenixPhyre; 2021-04-09 at 08:54 PM.
Dawn of Hope: a 5e setting. http://wiki.admiralbenbo.org
Rogue Equivalent Damage calculator, now prettier and more configurable!
5e Monster Data Sheet--vital statistics for all 693 MM, Volo's, and now MToF monsters: Updated!
NIH system 5e fork, very much WIP. Base github repo.
NIH System PDF Up to date main-branch build version.
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2021-04-09, 09:03 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2014
Re: Two Sets of Rules, the Good and Bad?
AFB, but you might want to re-read the final steps of the CR calculation because no, considering additional factors is NOT a houserule, it's just something with no guidance given beyond the fact that you should do it. Explaining how they derived the existing guidance for Nimble Escape, Legendary Resistance, etc. would help in extrapolating guidance for other things, like the ability to steal memories and warp enemy spells, or sunder weapons.
And in building this using PC rules, you've spent 5-10 minutes writing down a bunch of details you'll never use.
I think now we know why NPCs with classes are so hard for you, PhoenixPhyre: you're doing unnecessary work.
I guess you must really hate the 45 HP CR 7 Drow Mage in the MM too.
Well, that's a revealing comment. It says a lot about how you run your game: Combat As Sport apparently, with NPCs whose presence onscreen lasts for approximately six to eighteen in-game seconds. I play Combat As War (sometimes hybridized with DramaSystem), and NPCs are meant to have an onscreen presence that lasts between minutes and years--otherwise they'd be monsters instead of NPCs. No wonder we build NPCs so differently.Last edited by MaxWilson; 2021-04-09 at 09:21 PM.
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2021-04-09, 09:21 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Two Sets of Rules, the Good and Bad?
He, and it is clearly indicated by the little blue circle/arrow symbol under his avatar, just like the one under my location.
NPCs: use the PHB for them sparingly. Easier to use the MM/Volos premades (less work).
Of my NPCs, as a DM, maybe two dozen are PC built. (That's in three different campaigns, but one of them's dead...)Last edited by KorvinStarmast; 2021-04-09 at 09:22 PM.
Avatar by linklele. How Teleport Worksa. Malifice (paraphrased):
Rulings are not 'House Rules.' Rulings are a DM doing what DMs are supposed to do.
b. greenstone (paraphrased):
Agency means that they {players} control their character's actions; you control the world's reactions to the character's actions.
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