D&D 5th Edition XII: Peasant Militias Can Defeat Smartphones?

[Flickerdart]

Is that really the sort of thing we want to be drawing inspiration from for our ability names? Right down to "video graphics adapter" actually being better than "enhanced graphics adapter"?

If you really expect to have a hundred different types of Improved Grab, just name it after the creature. An illithid would have Illithid Improved Grab, for instance (which is distinct from Improved Illithid Grab, which would help it grab other illithids).

[SiuiS]

Can we not have a truly negative title again? Let's do something happy for once.

As I said, I find it to be a positive note despite the snark. That the game means nothin without you and your table is important! It means you are important.

Why not just call it "Thread 13"?

That too. I wouldn't mind a thread 13.

It simply is more overhead. Push X and Ongoing Fire X are the entirety of the rule; there's nothing you need to look up for either, once you know the basic vocabulary of the game.

Oh? How does forced movement interact with opportunity attacks? Damaging zones? Movement triggered abilities? Because I'm pretty sure there are some important fine details in there; slide doesn't trigger OH, but does push/pull?

...Or how about something even more concise that doesn't need to leverage a separate fireball spell. Say, "Area Burst 8 in 30, 11d6 damage, Save: Half, sets crap on fire"?

Yeah. All you need.

Statting up monsters as PCs is not a saving grace. It's a ridiculous amount of overhead to give your monster a few more hit points and Rage.

This is false, and can be proven so. You want to give a monster rage and some HP? Do it. The 3.5 monster system can entirely mimic the 4e system. The 4e system Cannot Handle The 3.5 System AT ALL. I find the much more adaptable system with the more powerful engine to be inherently better. Just trim it down and throw some training wheels on it. Learn from 4e.

Standardization is unnecessary when every single ability in the game is spelled out in clear, precise language. Standardization gives precisely zero benefit, apart from appealing to OCD-level simulation.

It's not OCD until its a disorder.
Standardization keeps down page count, for one, but it also causes problems. I'm all for the 4e approach here.

Everything is spelled out. My prep work for an encounter is checking out the monster stat blocks and seeing exactly what they say, without reference to anything outside the stat block.

So? That's how prep work is in 3.5. You need to compare monster creation! How do you build a monster from the ground up? You pick it's type, referencing a chart. You figure it's level, then needed expressions. How do you pick it's special abilities? Is there a list somewhere telling you the appropriate slidin distance for a 13th level monster?

Past about 4th or 5th level in 3e, my prep work was to read up on overlong spell descriptions, most of which I'd never turn out using, and have the SRD open to read the 3-paragraph spells in the middle of combat.

This is making more work for yourself. If in a given encounter the monster won't use certain abilities, then you don't need to know them for this fight.your prep work doesn't have to exceed the 4e level at all.

Apples to oranges comparison. Push and Ongoing are standard game effects not tied to any specific condition and there is nothing you need to look up.

See above; this isn't strictly true.

How many PCs have you ever seen with the Swallow Whole ability? I'm prepared to bet that the average table never sees PCs use Swallow Whole. How often do you use the Swallow Whole ability? I'd be surprised if it's once every four sessions.

I find the idea that we should eliminate niche monsters because they aren't common enough to be an uncomfortable one. Should we also remove mongrel folk, drakes, tritons? They don't see much use.

The overhead on swallow hole is "you're permagrappled. You take damage. You can crawl out te mouth with a grapple check or cut out the belly with a weapon." If that's too hard for you, don't use any non-fighter NPCs! I hear rogues get bonus dice to damage, but only when flanking or unnoticed, as you need a subsystem to go unnoticed!

All this "grappling is haaaaaaard" crap is just that. It comes from kids who gloss over at three paragraphs and ne'er put the knowledge to work. It's a trigger for me; grapple is easy. You're just lazy.

As for Improved Grab, how often do you wade into the multi-step mess that is the grapple rules? But the thing about Improved Grab is that learning it is almost redundant. You just put under Standard Attacks: "If it hits a creature one size category smaller, this monster may immediately roll to start a grapple." Only a handful of words - but nothing to learn.

Every game, every fight, often multiple times. And there isn't much to learn, you're right – just like slide/push/pull. But it establishes a keyword for other things to work off of. Just like slide/push/pull. I though you wanted that level of 4e coordination?

That wasn't a grace. It was a curse. It meant that monsters took as long to build as PCs. It meant that monsters were very cookie-cutter because you forced them into only a limited set of archetypes.

Huh? You'll have to explain this one. I could take it off on a tangent but that's just distracting.
How does "you have any and all possibilities available" equate to a limited number of archetypes?

It meant that an orc beserker was largely indistinguishable from a human one, breaking down the diversity.

How so, and how is this in contrast to 4e? My experience shows otherwise.

But you don't have to learn the monster mechanics. You just have to read them. And unlike any previous edition the mechanics are right there in front of you.

Push/slide/pull/OA/damage zones/movement triggers/resist as vulnerable interactions/recharge/status effects?

[Raineh Daze]

Grapple rules are easy, but I swear 3.5 should have made them more useful, at least on PC's part.

[Ashdate]

Oh? How does forced movement interact with opportunity attacks? Damaging zones? Movement triggered abilities? Because I'm pretty sure there are some important fine details in there; slide doesn't trigger OH, but does push/pull?

Forced movement (any forced movement) does not trigger opportunity attacks. "Damage zone" isn't really a concept in the game, but if a zone deals damage to a target that enters a zone, it will say so in the power.

You would need to be more concrete about what a "Movement trigger ability" is, because such a thing is not defined in the game. If a power allows you to make an attack when an enemy is forcibly moved, it will say so in the power (I can't think of any off the top of my head).

I don't think anyone is suggesting that you don't need to read the rulebook in order to play 4e. Rather, once you understand the rules for forced movement, they'll work consistently 99 times out of 100, with the odd-time being some flagged directly in a power (either a player's or a monster's).

And in fairness, there were some things in monster stat blocks that weren't directly referenced, and they were a pain in the ass. "Aquatic" creatures and "variable resistance" as examples. Neither came up often (the former was only relevant if fighting in water, the later showed up pretty much only on devils/demons) but they, if anything, showed how much better simply writing what stuff did directly on the monster was.

This is false, and can be proven so. You want to give a monster rage and some HP? Do it. The 3.5 monster system can entirely mimic the 4e system. The 4e system Cannot Handle The 3.5 System AT ALL. I find the much more adaptable system with the more powerful engine to be inherently better. Just trim it down and throw some training wheels on it. Learn from 4e.

I'm not even sure what you're trying to say here; 4e could mimic 3.5. Rage would be easy; (minor action, this monster's attacks deal +2 damage, and it gains +10 temporary hit points).

If you want to compare the 3.5 to 4e monster creation, then recognize that all of that "adaptability" in 3.5 (I would call it "work") comes with a cost: it's inherently more difficult to use, plus it relies on the DM having enough system mastery to effectively gauge the power level of their creation.

Even if we can't agree over which system (3.5 or 4e) is better in a vacuum, I hope we could at least agree that cutting down the complexity of 3.5 monster creation would be a good thing.

[Oracle_Hunter]

This thread is too long. Here's the new thread

[Grod_The_Giant]

This may be the best thing I've ever seen on the internet.

[tasw]

That seems a lot more flexible than you're implying.

Actually no, as written its not.

You...you don't read very many mysteries do you? Usually you can come up with a short list of suspects fairly quickly and simply.

Those mysteries are solved by the city guard, not PC's. PC's dont get called into solve "this cheating wife with an angry husband was murdered, gee sarge who do you think did it?"

PC's are called into difficult cases where the short of obvious suspects was already eliminated. Or didnt exist in the first place for some reason.

Now if you really want to play your level 10+ party as first day detectives solving first day detective crimes maybe some of the spells would make them easier. But why the hell are you doing that?

But so would the 10th level fighter just breaking out his torture implements and grabbing that same short list and making them talk in a messier way. So damn the intimidate skill, it ruins mysteries.

Or teh 10th level bard using diplomacy to make everyone just WANT to tell you. Damn the diplomacy skill, it ruins mysteries.

Is the ranger following the killers tracks? Damn the survival skill. It ruins mysteries.

Animal companion following a scent? Damn all animal companions and damn the handle animal skill for letting you train a blood hound. They ruin mysteries.

The list could go on.

[Anderlith]

Level 10+ Mysteries should be like. Find the Tomb of Archibald the Awakened, a long dead sorcerer said to have founded the magical university that is currently under attack & needs a macguffin to help bolster it's defenses.

Or who slew the King of the Stonelords. A mysterious person was able to bypass the wards & somehow killed a stone giant & then fled to another plane.

Or who is the heir of the Balmore Royal line. There are rumors that the late king had a liaison with an elven preistess that traveled through the capitol 17yrs ago.

At level 10+ figuring out the the butler killed Miss Evengale with a candlestick is about as challenging as a level 10+ barbarian fighting the butler. It's all about relativity.