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Re: D&D 5th Edition XII: Peasant Militias Can Defeat Smartphones?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Seerow
I didn't say any extra spell slots. I specified that you get an extra spell prepared. Because you prepare spells as a caster of that level so you get spells prepared as a 19th level wizard and 1st level cleric. That gets you 20 wizard spells and 2 cleric spells (as opposed to 21 Wizard spells)
Already corrected and further explained. I disagree because he doesn't say "prepare as" he says "prepare spells available to." Given mearls's command with the english language you may well be right, but I think my interpretation better matches the wording.
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Re: D&D 5th Edition XII: Peasant Militias Can Defeat Smartphones?
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Originally Posted by
Doug Lampert
Why did it feel like this to you?
It's been a long time since I played, so I can't answer as well as I'd like. I'd have to chalk it up to the same hoarding instinct that keeps my characters in 3.5 from using scrolls or potions properly. Sure, I need it now, but I might need it more later. Wands are easier because they can be used so many times before running out.
(My impressions of the system in general tend to be weighted by the fact that I only played back at the dawn of the system, too, before they figured out how to write interesting classes or balanced monsters.)
But what you're saying gets back to proving my point, I think-- if the resource cost is insignificant, and the main restriction is time, why not ditch the resource altogether?
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Re: D&D 5th Edition XII: Peasant Militias Can Defeat Smartphones?
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Originally Posted by
Person_Man
So a Wizard 10/Cleric 10 can memorize spells like a 20th level character, but only has access to 5th level spells? That's a terrible trap option.
Is it? I know it was in 3.x, but is it in Next? It seems like spell powers got scaled down, so I'm not sure it's as bad a deal. However, it does sort of exemplify why I think multiclassing is terrible in general.
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So wait, I can't just multi-class with any two classes? I can multiclass as a Cleric/Wizard but not a Fighter/Wizard, and instead I have to take certain sub-classes for some combinations?
That's a terrible idea. There ae just too many possible permutations. After WotC publishes a couple of suppliments, there are going to be dozens of base classes, and who knows how many sub-classes. 3.5 had
175 base classes (many of them variants) and
782 prestige classes. WotC needs to create one set of consistent multiclassing rules, not "these permutations get to multi-class, but these permutations should just take a subclass (which may or may not exist")
I'd prefer it if those subclasses could work on their own without the inherent badness of multiclassing. I think "take this subclass to effectively multiclass with a wizard" is kludgy at best.
Still. The designers deserve some leash here, so I'll be interested to see how it turns out. I mean, I was sold on the Apprentice Tier once I actually saw it, so who knows?
-O
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Re: D&D 5th Edition XII: Peasant Militias Can Defeat Smartphones?
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Originally Posted by
Grod_The_Giant
It's been a long time since I played, so I can't answer as well as I'd like. I'd have to chalk it up to the same hoarding instinct that keeps my characters in 3.5 from using scrolls or potions properly. Sure, I need it now, but I might need it more later. Wands are easier because they can be used so many times before running out.
(My impressions of the system in general tend to be weighted by the fact that I only played back at the dawn of the system, too, before they figured out how to write interesting classes or balanced monsters.)
But what you're saying gets back to proving my point, I think-- if the resource cost is insignificant, and the main restriction is time, why not ditch the resource altogether?
I see a lot of use for them in my Dark Sun game, but I'm hardly running BtB there. Four factors have changed this... (1) You can't buy, make, or sell magic items, so there's no reason to hoard your ceramics, (2) I cut the costs and times in half, (3) I regularly seed components as treasure, and (4) I hand out rituals as treasure, too.
I have one character who casts Fastidiousness every day, for flavor. Eagles' Flight is popular now that we've done enough desert travel to know what it's like. (Also, houseruled - one hit kills a spirit eagle, so it's dangerous, too.) Silt Walk saw a lot of use in Giustenal, as did Silt Breathing. Make Whole saved a few valuable items, too. Oh, and Comprehend Languages has been a campaign fixture.
So it's really a matter of setting up the game accordingly. By the book, there certainly is an instinct to hoard because of how default 3e and 4e function. If your GP is just a secondary XP track, which basically amounts to a point-buy system to purchase Power Widgets, hoarding often makes sense. (After all, this is usually out of combat stuff, and they're frequently luxury/ease-of-life castings as opposed to life-or-death.)
-O
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Re: D&D 5th Edition XII: Peasant Militias Can Defeat Smartphones?
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Originally Posted by
Craft (Cheese)
I dunno, I think that's giving the designers too much credit. Meaningfully interpreting playtester feedback from a complete, coherent system is difficult enough: Doing it with the individual components of an intentionally stripped-down and patchwork system is all but impossible.
I mean, surely you see how "individual components of an intentionally stripped-down and patchwork system" is pretty much the only way Wizards can do this playtest?
For one thing, they can't just delete your beta characters and shut down the server. The rules are the game, and they're so trivially copied that any DRM would just be a speed bump. Any "complete, coherent system" is the whole game, and one assumes that Wizards hopes to eventually make some money on this interminable process. Admittedly, they could make this work if they had a sharply limited testing crew and equally sharp legal documents, but given that Next is trying to reunite the base, that kind of narrow focus is problematic. Plus, the playtest is also an attempt to market the game, a purpose defeated by locking it down.
I also don't really see how interpreting feedback is so much harder with smaller playtest packages; indeed, I'd argue that the opposite is true. D&D is not a small game, and trying to test everything all at once is crazy. Imagine that this was a scientific study of the relationships between several species of birds. Would researchers just sit in the wild and watch all the birds at once? Or would they bring those birds into the lab, isolate them, and test them in controlled circumstances designed to facilitate the exact data needed?
God, I sound like a shill. Certainly, the Next team has occasionally stumbled and comparing them to scientists is totally preposterous. But I don't think this playtest methodology is really all that questionable.
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Re: D&D 5th Edition XII: Peasant Militias Can Defeat Smartphones?
Not all classes mesh nicely together. You have to hack them a bit to make them work. Thus, you get subclasses as hacks to make them work. Where such hacking is not necessary, you won't need the subclass, you can just multiclass.
I'm not going to slam/praise the design until I read the whole thing. A high level summary just doesn't have the details that I need.
My understanding is that they want 10th level characters to get the advantage of being 10th level characters when choosing multi-class spells, but the wording is so hasty that even I'm a bit befuddled.
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Re: D&D 5th Edition XII: Peasant Militias Can Defeat Smartphones?
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Originally Posted by
archaeo
I also don't really see how interpreting feedback is so much harder with smaller playtest packages; indeed, I'd argue that the opposite is true. D&D is not a small game, and trying to test everything all at once is crazy. Imagine that this was a scientific study of the relationships between several species of birds. Would researchers just sit in the wild and watch all the birds at once? Or would they bring those birds into the lab, isolate them, and test them in controlled circumstances designed to facilitate the exact data needed?
Games are complex systems with lots of moving parts: Any one of which could cause the entire thing to break down if removed or changed, and it's not always exactly clear which changes are safe and which parts aren't. Cutting out a part of a game and trying to playtest it incomplete is like cutting out a bird's internal organs and then running behavioral experiments on it.
"We're trying to train the bird to push this button when it sees a flashing light, but no matter how many seeds we have the button dispense, the bird just refuses to respond to the stimulus and lays there. I wonder why..."
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Re: D&D 5th Edition XII: Peasant Militias Can Defeat Smartphones?
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Originally Posted by
PairO'Dice Lost
How about (3), use a non-D&D-specific unit of measurement, like the
pace? It's suitably archaic-sounding, it's roughly equal to 1.5 meters or 5 feet for easy conversion, and it lends itself to theater of the mind because "He's about 4 paces away" (= about 8 steps/strides away) is as easy or even easier to visualize than "He's about 20 feet away" or "He's about 4 meters away".
Because then we'd be using silly arbitrary and imprecise human based measurements that have no place in a modern society, or so I'm told. Personally, I prefer using the best tool for the job and thus like the idea.
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Re: D&D 5th Edition XII: Peasant Militias Can Defeat Smartphones?
Hang on, what happens to the "pace" when we have Halflings and Giants? Their strides would be different.
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Re: D&D 5th Edition XII: Peasant Militias Can Defeat Smartphones?
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Originally Posted by
noparlpf
Hang on, what happens to the "pace" when we have Halflings and Giants? Their strides would be different.
The same thing that happens when elves complain that calling them "humanoids" or "demi-humans," depending on the edition, is biased and bigoted: the humans say "tough" and use a human-length pace anyway. :smallwink:
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Re: D&D 5th Edition XII: Peasant Militias Can Defeat Smartphones?
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Originally Posted by
1337 b4k4
Because then we'd be using silly arbitrary and imprecise human based measurements that have no place in a modern society, or so I'm told. Personally, I prefer using the best tool for the job and thus like the idea.
I like them because it doesn't assume you're in a particular country and using a particular system of measurement, whilst sounding archaic and being possible to visualise. XD
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Re: D&D 5th Edition XII: Peasant Militias Can Defeat Smartphones?
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Originally Posted by
Raineh Daze
Er... I was responding to your response, which contains these:
And directly descends from this:
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Originally Posted by
1337 b4k4
A US degree is x change in temperature and a UK degree is Y change and that's completely different from and aren't both of them silly because they're different from a Kelvin degree and also because unlike Kelvin they both go below zero.
Wherein a "US degree" is mentioned. And when someone glossed over that to make a fallacious point, I pointed out what was meant and you jumped on how that was wrong.
That's how conversation works. The whole thing, there? It's all relevant.
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Originally Posted by
Stray
I never know when he says something like that, does he mean last published packet of public playtest, last internal R&D playtest packet, or last packet that went out to non-public friends&family playtesters.
Yeah. But the impressions I get of the direction they want to go makes me sad.
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Originally Posted by
obryn
Considering 2013-08-02 is the very first packet I've liked at all, I'm more optimistic than that.
Should have used a quote box. That, all of that, was a comment in the comments section. I generally don't like phrases such as "stick a fork in it". My favorite part was that someone said to Mearls' face "this sucks, you suck, you should feel bad" because Internet.
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Seriously. I hate multiclassing in pretty much every edition, but in 3.x most of all. I like my classes to be unique archetypes, and would rather see new base classes than a mechanical kludge to build (generally over- or under-powered) special snowflakes. The toe-dipping of 4e feat multiclassing (not hybriding; hate those) is about as far as I like to go, and I can hold my nose for 1e multiclassing due to how it integrates with the system, but that's it.
I think there are merits to both systems. For D&D, I would prefer there to be fewer base classes. Broad and generic; you can put ten together in whatever proportion and get a workable range of numbers.
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Originally Posted by
Felhammer
EDIT: The real game will be much better then any single playtest packet but, in broad strokes, we can all see where the design is going.
Better is relative, and I think Next is doing the same thing pathfinder did; goo idea with execution I don't value.
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Originally Posted by
Kurald Galain
Also, Santa Claus is totally real. Honest.
Hey, don't bring up that "big man is a fallacy" crap here, mate. :smallyuk:
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Originally Posted by
obryn
I don't think these are necessarily that different, with the subclass mechanics we've seen so far in Next. I can easily imagine a Fighter subclass that picks up magic tricks and Wizard that learns some skullduggery. You might run into some small overlap or weirdness - is a Fighter who learns some Wizardry that different from a Wizard who can kill stuff with swords? - but that's a small price to pay, IMO.
You can also accomplish this through some of the Next feats that let you pick up a handful of spells, for what it's worth. That's also fine and dandy, IMO.
Either this or added base classes would be fine for me. I just don't want to mash two different core classes together and pretend it makes something unique.
I refer again to Mass Effect. Uniqueness is not really a suitable rubric for need.
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Originally Posted by
Seerow
We all know that
good is stupid. It only makes sense that Positive Energy translates to Idiocy.
Positive energy being related to Good is a fallacy.
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Originally Posted by
noparlpf
Ooh, I like it.
Aye.
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Originally Posted by
Person_Man
No, it doesn't. Currently, each class has it's own separate progression for Ability Score bonuses and other bonuses. So it's actually quite easy for a character's math to be screwed up by multi-classing. The simple solution to this would be to make flat character bonuses (1 + 1/4 your character level or whatever, +1 to two Ability Scores or a Feat every X levels).
If fighter bonuses are class specific, then it's easy to extrapolate that there is a base chassis the fighter exceeds, so your "no" is premature I feel.
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So a Wizard 10/Cleric 10 can memorize spells like a 20th level character, but only has access to 5th level spells? That's a terrible trap option.
Disagree. There's no basis for this other than knee-jerk expectation that focus beats versatility. A 20th level character with double the possible uses for magic, good armor and weapon use and ritual skill is basically a Nobirian wonderworker. And those are neat.
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So wait, I can't just multi-class with any two classes? I can multiclass as a Cleric/Wizard but not a Fighter/Wizard, and instead I have to take certain sub-classes for some combinations?
I took that as you can, but when you take classes which do not share numbers (fighters have 0 spells, wizards have 0 fighter stuff) they need to allow for synergy anyway; you could be a dragonslayer necromancer, but you won't be as good at base wizard/fighter as the Mystic Swordsman/spellsword (though he will be better at dragon slaying and romancing necks).
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Originally Posted by
Doug Lampert
Why did it feel like this to you?
There were useful rituals costing as little as 10GP, knock didn't cost hundreds. The prices were in the books. A ritual 3-4 levels below the highest you could possibly cast was generally an utterly trivial cost. Complaining about losing the WBL is like complaining that 3.x magic sticks of extra HP cost too much, how can your party that gets 1000s of GP per encounter POSSIBLY afford a hundred for something that usefully lets them beat an encounter and get loot they'd otherwise miss.
Because when half of my group was using Manila folders filled with printed out beta PDFs and the rest were jockeying with hardback, it was harder to get rituals, get the right specific reagents, and harder to afford to restock between uses unless you were getting ritual components as treasure.
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Originally Posted by
noparlpf
Hang on, what happens to the "pace" when we have Halflings and Giants? Their strides would be different.
Once it's an arbitrary unit size doesn't matter anymore.
Like, light years as measured in phallus, it isn't measured per subjective phallus, is it? :smallwink:
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Re: D&D 5th Edition XII: Peasant Militias Can Defeat Smartphones?
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Originally Posted by
Grod_The_Giant
But now we start splitting hairs about the difference between common and expensive rituals should be. You name Speak with Dead and Summon Monster as things that should be expensive; I'd have put both of them as common rituals-- and Summon Monster maybe even as a combat spell. Ability to overcome challenges is the point of utility magic, after all. If an adventure can be completely overcome with one ritual-- heck, with any one action-- then it wasn't a very good challenge in the first place.
The whole reason we pay 30.00 to 40.00 a book is so game designers figure that out for us. I'm pretty sure we've all seen unorthadox use of spells that are often forgetten about break games. Or use of spells leave other classes, that are supposed to fill a party niche, in the dust while still fulfilling their purpose;A 3rd edition cleric with righteous might, divine power and stone body anyone? Overcoming challenges is one thing, being able to do everything better than the people who are intended to do them with almost no cost or challenge is something else. Getting completely true answers out of a fallen ally or adversary (even if they can be twisted) is a potentially powerful thing. Having an extra set of hands/natural weapons/special abilities can completely change a fight and should be saved for bigger fights. Not used every time you encounter a ground squirrel. "Hey Mr. Monk. You know that awesome DC 30 jump check you just made? Well levitate is a level 2 spell! BAHAHAHA!". "Mr. Rogue, is that door giving you a hard time? *Knock* HAHAHAHAHA!". "Aw, is the big bad boss guy giving you trouble Mr. Fighter? *Divine Power* *Righteous Might* *Stone Body* "Well sit back and let me handle it!" Seriously, I'm all for giving the casters their cool moments and specialty schticks, but atleast half of all D&D games turn into watching *that guy* (every group has one) stealing all the fun while every body else sits back watching some jerks gish find new and unique ways for prestidigitation to break the game. Because he can. :smallfurious:
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Re: D&D 5th Edition XII: Peasant Militias Can Defeat Smartphones?
Everything listed there has drawbacks. Jump is more useful in combat than levitate, for example - much harder for a clever use of lasso to ruin your day.
There's nothing wrong with the idea of magic being an acute spike in temporary effectiveness. The problem is when you expect five full grown adults with ambition and drive to sit on their ass while the one or two other guys refresh for nine hours.
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Re: D&D 5th Edition XII: Peasant Militias Can Defeat Smartphones?
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Originally Posted by
Wamyen
The whole reason we pay 30.00 to 40.00 a book is so game designers figure that out for us.
Well, yes. We pay game designers to design the game. Not to give some vague guidelines and tell the DM to sort it out for them.
Don't get me wrong, I love games that are just some vague guidelines and having the DM sort them out (aka rules-light games), it's just that I see no reason to pay more than $3 - $5 for them. I don't think D&D has any business pretending it's a rules-light game.
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Re: D&D 5th Edition XII: Peasant Militias Can Defeat Smartphones?
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Originally Posted by
SiuiS
The problem is when you expect five full grown adults with ambition and drive to sit on their ass while the one or two other guys refresh for nine hours.
We could, you know, get rid of vancian casting.
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Re: D&D 5th Edition XII: Peasant Militias Can Defeat Smartphones?
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Originally Posted by
Craft (Cheese)
We could, you know, get rid of D&D 'daily packet' casting.
Or we could implement actual, honest to Goddess Vancian casting.
Or we could use Arnesonian casting.
The 3.5 epic magic system was remarkably balanced; you could scale the DCs down and, if required for difficulty, make it so you needed 'skill training' in separate categories to fully utilize spells ("make an evocation roll!" "Okay, and I get advantage due to my fire specialty").
My favorite idea worked down through systems from thaumaturgical to alchemical, but that's kinda over-complex for next. If we stick with Cantrips being at will, 'spells' being single-use rechargeable power shots and Rituals being drawn out but re-usable powers, we've got everything we need. Questions like "what about summon monster?" Miss the point of not including every detail from prior editions; we don't have Thac0 or skill points, why include this specific wizard trick?
But seriously? "Some jackaninny is abusing a system in a way that makes no rational sense in any way, let us rip the entire system out instead of roll out eyes at the numpty" is an Internet Echochamber answer. I still don't get why Joe McFighter is going to take strategic advice from the guy who thinks running almost naked into a dragon's den armed with a stick and barely able to survive stumbling and scraping his knees is a good idea "because if you sit on your ass for a day, I can throw fire one more time!", I mean really? The answer to that is "it's not all about you, Carl." And then You continue adventuring.
Mm. Apologies; you've been rather straightforward and personable, and I'm bein more acerbic than You deserve. I do feel that "ditch Vancian" is almost to the point of being meaningless buzzwords by now though.
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Re: D&D 5th Edition XII: Peasant Militias Can Defeat Smartphones?
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Originally Posted by
Craft (Cheese)
We could, you know, get rid of vancian casting.
Infinitely better to take it and do it properly than to remove it altogether.
Most complaints people have against Vancian magic are things that aren't actually inherent to a Vancian magic system -- the fifteen minute workday, for example.
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Re: D&D 5th Edition XII: Peasant Militias Can Defeat Smartphones?
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Originally Posted by
SiuiS
Everything listed there has drawbacks. Jump is more useful in combat than levitate, for example - much harder for a clever use of lasso to ruin your day.
There's nothing wrong with the idea of magic being an acute spike in temporary effectiveness. The problem is when you expect five full grown adults with ambition and drive to sit on their ass while the one or two other guys refresh for nine hours.
But there’s no real reason not to. It’s not like you’re actually waiting for nine hours. You describe your actions, the DM rolls to see if you get ambushed and describes the events that happen during the night, you grab a Mountain Dew and the whole “night” takes fifteen minutes. In past editions there have been enough spell slots to stretch out a casters casting ability to make the fifteen minute intermissions worth the price of admission for most of the group that wants to get through the adventure, get the xp and count the gold pieces. And Gish boy is more than willing to pay the fifteen minute “price of admission” to be able to mow through everything and say his willingness to chase down number bonuses is superior to your wish to roleplay and story tell. I’m hoping the dramatic reduction in spell slots in Next addresses this problem.
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Originally Posted by
Kurald Galain
Well, yes. We pay game designers to design the game. Not to give some vague guidelines and tell the DM to sort it out for them.
Don't get me wrong, I love games that are just some vague guidelines and having the DM sort them out (aka rules-light games), it's just that I see no reason to pay more than $3 - $5 for them. I don't think D&D has any business pretending it's a rules-light game.
I don’t mind paying so long as I get the product I pay for. If they genuinely deliver a modular “rules light” or atleast lightish system that I can add complexity to as I see fit, I’ll more than happily fork over my hard earned cash. Especially is they make some supplements available in a more affordable digital format? Hint hint? Nudge nudge?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
SiuiS
Or we could implement actual, honest to Goddess Vancian casting.
Or we could use
Arnesonian casting.
The 3.5 epic magic system was remarkably balanced; you could scale the DCs down and, if required for difficulty, make it so you needed 'skill training' in separate categories to fully utilize spells ("make an evocation roll!" "Okay, and I get advantage due to my fire specialty").
My favorite idea worked down through systems from thaumaturgical to alchemical, but that's kinda over-complex for next. If we stick with Cantrips being at will, 'spells' being single-use rechargeable power shots and Rituals being drawn out but re-usable powers, we've got everything we need.
I don’t really think they are overly complicated though. Most of the people playing the finger waggly types crave that complication anyway. Plus the fact that it’s one of the checks and balances that keeps… or rather kept them, from over running the game.
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Re: D&D 5th Edition XII: Peasant Militias Can Defeat Smartphones?
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Originally Posted by
Wamyen
But there’s no real reason not to.
Wandering monster checks. 1 check every 30 minutes, do you feel confident surviving 16 checks without an encounter? Even in 3e I believe it was stipulated that fleshing spell slots required 8 hours (implied continuous if not outright stated) of rest, and combat is not rest.
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Re: D&D 5th Edition XII: Peasant Militias Can Defeat Smartphones?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
SiuiS
But seriously? "Some jackaninny is abusing a system in a way that makes no rational sense in any way, let us rip the entire system out instead of roll out eyes at the numpty" is an Internet Echochamber answer. I still don't get why Joe McFighter is going to take strategic advice from the guy who thinks running almost naked into a dragon's den armed with a stick and barely able to survive stumbling and scraping his knees is a good idea "because if you sit on your ass for a day, I can throw fire one more time!", I mean really? The answer to that is "it's not all about you, Carl." And then You continue adventuring.
D&D is a cooperative game. The party lives together, or they die together. Not letting the caster refresh their spell slots is like dragging the Fighter into combat without their weapons or armor.
Note: When I say "vancian casting" I mean "vancian casting as it exists in 3.5/PF D&D", not "any magic system that vaguely resembles the magic system in Dying Earth."
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Re: D&D 5th Edition XII: Peasant Militias Can Defeat Smartphones?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Wamyen
But there’s no real reason not to. It’s not like you’re actually waiting for nine hours. You describe your actions, the DM rolls to see if you get ambushed and describes the events that happen during the night, you grab a Mountain Dew and the whole “night” takes fifteen minutes. In past editions there have been enough spell slots to stretch out a casters casting ability to make the fifteen minute intermissions worth the price of admission for most of the group that wants to get through the adventure, get the xp and count the gold pieces. And Gish boy is more than willing to pay the fifteen minute “price of admission” to be able to mow through everything and say his willingness to chase down number bonuses is superior to your wish to roleplay and story tell. I’m hoping the dramatic reduction in spell slots in Next addresses this problem.
This strikes me as a fallacy. In fifteen years of play (only counting the most recent!) across states, conventions and chatting up FLGS store owners and regulars, I've never actually come across this "it's cool, I'm not waiting for real so go ahead" attitude. I also can't believe it's true that the same people would both say "fifteen minute work day boo" and "nah it's cool", nor can I believe that the same people say both "dungeon crawls are dumb I want deep story" and "I want my Gp and XP so screw verisimilitude". There is also the fact that every single DMG (maybe even more; I haven't really read my LBB stuff cover to cover yet!) addresses the supposed issue; monsters adapt. Fast. They entrench, multiply and prepare.
I cannot accept that this is a real issue, because for it to be a real issue, you must selectively ignore rules in the book, rules of social engagement, verisimilitude and apply logic in a vacuum. It's the same self-indulge meant masturbatory technicality crap that makes people think you can build instantaneous travel by chaining thousands of skeletons together for a permanent commoner rail gun.
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I don’t really think they are overly complicated though.
How can you tell if my system is too complicated? I haven't told you what it is yet! :smalltongue:
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Most of the people playing the finger waggly types crave that complication anyway. Plus the fact that it’s one of the checks and balances that keeps… or rather kept them, from over running the game.
This I don't disagree with.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Craft (Cheese)
D&D is a cooperative game. The party lives together, or they die together. Not letting the caster refresh their spell slots is like dragging the Fighter into combat without their weapons or armor.
Bull crap and Straw man. If you can't differentiate between "allow partner to refresh his spells" and "let partner be the only contributing member of the team because his demands shut down everyone else", then I can't help you. But fifteen minute work day has jack-all to do with cooperation and not letting a caster blablabla. It's gaming a system, and if its a problem then stop doing it and the problem goes away.
Quote:
Note: When I say "vancian casting" I mean "vancian casting as it exists in 3.5/PF D&D", not "any magic system that vaguely resembles the magic system in Dying Earth."
Really? Cuz not only would Vance's actual system be more rightfully titled such, but now we aren't drawing from AD&D or D&D before third at all?
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Re: D&D 5th Edition XII: Peasant Militias Can Defeat Smartphones?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
SiuiS
This strikes me as a fallacy. In fifteen years of play (only counting the most recent!) across states, conventions and chatting up FLGS store owners and regulars, I've never actually come across this "it's cool, I'm not waiting for real so go ahead" attitude. I also can't believe it's true that the same people would both say "fifteen minute work day boo" and "nah it's cool", nor can I believe that the same people say both "dungeon crawls are dumb I want deep story" and "I want my Gp and XP so screw verisimilitude". There is also the fact that every single DMG (maybe even more; I haven't really read my LBB stuff cover to cover yet!) addresses the supposed issue; monsters adapt. Fast. They entrench, multiply and prepare.
I cannot accept that this is a real issue, because for it to be a real issue, you must selectively ignore rules in the book, rules of social engagement, verisimilitude and apply logic in a vacuum. It's the same self-indulge meant masturbatory technicality crap that makes people think you can build instantaneous travel by chaining thousands of skeletons together for a permanent commoner rail gun.
Welcome to gamers... we are a versatile lot. Some what to grind for teh gp and teh xp, some want story (me!), some what the commoner railgun, some want to burn and bone entire worlds of nameless NPC's and barmaids, some are manipulative jerks willing to ignore anything that doesn't fit into their character's "I WIN!" button. I just described many issues in a very short amount of time. Some people just play D&D to stroke their own ego.
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Re: D&D 5th Edition XII: Peasant Militias Can Defeat Smartphones?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
SiuiS
Wherein a "US degree" is mentioned. And when someone glossed over that to make a fallacious point, I pointed out what was meant and you jumped on how that was wrong.
So, following this chain of conversation:- Someone mentions US Degrees and UK Degrees (though weather reports are given in Celsius AND Fahrenheit here, so that's inaccurate.)
- This gets derailed into Celsius and Kelvin
- You say something that includes saying one degree Celsius and one kelvin aren't the same thing
- I correct that, being a pedant far too often. :smallsigh:
- You tell me I'm laughably wrong based on something that hadn't been brought up since the very start of the discussion and I was in no way referencing. :smallconfused:
... you really had to stretch to claim I was declaring Fahrenheit to be the same thing as either of the others. :smallfrown:
I thought the spellcasting multiclassing rules were MUCH worse than they're probably meant to be for a second--it looked to me like Mearls was saying that you'd have the spells of a Wizard 10/Cleric 10, but the slots of a Wizard 20/Cleric 20.
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Re: D&D 5th Edition XII: Peasant Militias Can Defeat Smartphones?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
SiuiS
This strikes me as a fallacy. In fifteen years of play (only counting the most recent!) across states, conventions and chatting up FLGS store owners and regulars, I've never actually come across this "it's cool, I'm not waiting for real so go ahead" attitude. I also can't believe it's true that the same people would both say "fifteen minute work day boo" and "nah it's cool", nor can I believe that the same people say both "dungeon crawls are dumb I want deep story" and "I want my Gp and XP so screw verisimilitude".
Well, here's my perspective. My problem with vancian spellcasting (or suppose I should more accurately say daily spell preparation) it that it makes the balance of the game depend on a rigid narrative timescale.
Like, let's compare two different scenarios: An investigation into political corruption that plays out over several weeks, and bandit attack that lasts several minutes. For the sake of argument let's assume that they both take the same amount of real time to play out at the table.
The problem is the caster player is vastly more powerful (in terms of their ability to drive the narrative) in the first scenario, by simple virtue of how spells/day works. The difference is that the two scenarios have very different narrative timescales, in that each piece of description at the table corresponds to different levels of in-world action. In the combat scenario you're describing what you do in very minute detail, while in the investigation scenario in most cases you're going to be describing it very broadly. If you cast a spell every turn, you're going to run out of spells much more quickly in the high-detail situation than in the low-detail one, because there are much fewer "turns" in a day in the low-detail sequence.
The balance can only be maintained if the same narrative timescale is kept all the time. This is effectively the solution offered when people say "Just throw random encounters at the players" or "Give them a short time limit." If this works for you, great, but I find it unsatisfactory because not all scenarios are best played at the same pace, and I shouldn't have to worry about one player becoming disproportionately powerful when the pace relaxes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
SiuiS
Bull crap and Straw man. If you can't differentiate between "allow partner to refresh his spells" and "let partner be the only contributing member of the team because his demands shut down everyone else", then I can't help you. But fifteen minute work day has jack-all to do with cooperation and not letting a caster blablabla. It's gaming a system, and if its a problem then stop doing it and the problem goes away.
I think we're talking about two completely different things here. For the record, I'm talking about when the caster has run out of spells (either completely or to the point where they can no longer effectively contribute) but the party hasn't accomplished the goal they've set out to do. Pressing on in this situation is tactical suicide at best and being a jerk to the caster's player at worst.
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Re: D&D 5th Edition XII: Peasant Militias Can Defeat Smartphones?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Craft (Cheese)
Like, let's compare two different scenarios: An investigation into political corruption that plays out over several weeks, and bandit attack that lasts several minutes. For the sake of argument let's assume that they both take the same amount of real time to play out at the table.
The problem here is that you are comparing two vastly different things, assuming the DM will run them exactly the same way and that the players will approach them exactly the same way and concluding that things are broken because of that. If you play a corruption investigation the same way you play a bandit raid, quite frankly, you're doing it wrong, and not in a "your vanilla is worse than my chocolate way" but in an honest "you seriously aren't doing what you're supposed to do" way.
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Re: D&D 5th Edition XII: Peasant Militias Can Defeat Smartphones?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
1337 b4k4
The problem here is that you are comparing two vastly different things, assuming the DM will run them exactly the same way and that the players will approach them exactly the same way and concluding that things are broken because of that. If you play a corruption investigation the same way you play a bandit raid, quite frankly, you're doing it wrong, and not in a "your vanilla is worse than my chocolate way" but in an honest "you seriously aren't doing what you're supposed to do" way.
How are you supposed to run an ongoing investigation such that abilities limited per day aren't going to be considerably stronger? :smallconfused:
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Re: D&D 5th Edition XII: Peasant Militias Can Defeat Smartphones?
As far as I can tell, there are two ways to limit spells: limit their power, or limit their frequency. Preparing a limited number of spells in advance is one way to limit their frequency of use, but its effect as a limit is only meaningful if it's not possible to stop to prepare more at whim.
Is this fair to say?
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Re: D&D 5th Edition XII: Peasant Militias Can Defeat Smartphones?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
BayardSPSR
As far as I can tell, there are two ways to limit spells: limit their power, or limit their frequency. Preparing a limited number of spells in advance is one way to limit their frequency of use, but its effect as a limit is only meaningful if it's not possible to stop to prepare more at whim.
Is this fair to say?
Yes. Things consequently break down when you either have the 15-minute workday, or something that allows you to repeatedly stop, refresh, and continue on with the full complement of spells without doing untoward--unless criminal investigations and the like are aided by sleep-deprived wizards for some reason.
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Re: D&D 5th Edition XII: Peasant Militias Can Defeat Smartphones?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
BayardSPSR
As far as I can tell, there are two ways to limit spells: limit their power, or limit their frequency. Preparing a limited number of spells in advance is one way to limit their frequency of use, but its effect as a limit is only meaningful if it's not possible to stop to prepare more at whim.
Is this fair to say?
You can also make a mechanic that is in essence an "endurance check" for various spells depending on the power level of the spell being cast. Cast too many spells, or botch a check too badly and you go night night. It also leads to interesting possibilities like "feedback" from a botched counter spell and other imaginitive things that make people a little reluctant to throw magic around like it's going out of style. It also gives a DM alot of wiggle room as to how harsh he's going to be.