Yeah. You would get bonuses for stuff like position vs. using some random power that somehow add a stat about how handsome, fun, or witty you are to hurt people. If being Charismatic could win fist fights, then I would have never lost a fight in high school.
And if being a half-orc wizard was a thing, I'd have never lost a fight in high school.
I know that you can role play in 4e but you're kind of limited inside the video game style abilities. If I wanted to throw a dagger in 4e, the it's a basic attack, which becomes useless because it doesn't give that 2[W]+Charisma modifier damage as those Abilities do and I don't like that. I know you can House Rule stuff but I feel like the more you have to mod the game, the worst it is going to be messed up.
Edit: You can lose without dying if your party is turned to stone in a castle.
I mean this with all possible sincerity...but what the fuck are you talking about?
If you wanted to throw a dagger in 4e, you use any power that is a) ranged and b) usable with light blades. PHB, page 118. Rogue At-Will Powers. Sly Flourish and Deft Strike are both Melee OR Ranged, requiring light blades, as an example. Same thing with the Ranger, and many, many archetypes where "throwing daggers" might be something they would do on a regular basis.
Yes, if on the off chance that your wizard decided he wanted to whip a dagger at someone, he's not going to be able to do anything but basically whip a dagger at him. Same thing for that rogue who decided now would be a good time to snap his fingers and make fire appear...
Last 4e game I played was with a bunch of guys who historically were the "I hit him with my sword. Does 16 hit?" kind of guys. The DM and I decided to liven things up a bit. All it took was a bit of us roleplaying shit out, and like magic, everyone else picked up on it.
For example, "Jack slides deftly to the side of the orc. He attemps to grab him by his hair and slash his throat open. Deft Strike, 23 vs AC!"
DM: "Jack's dagger flashes out like lightning, opening up a wide, red gash in the orc's throat. Blood sprays over his leather armor as the orc eyes open wide with shock, then he falls over with a gurgle! For a split second, looks of terror play across the faces of the remaining orcs."
VS.
Player B: "I hit him with my sword. 19?"
DM: "Yeah, hit. Orc takes damage. Next player."
When one player is being describe like a total badass, and the rest are coming across as putzes, the urge to describe your attacks significantly increases.
Point is: Roleplaying or lack of is NOT the systems fault. It's yours.
I'll back out of this fight. I just hate the whole Powers thing. Seems too video gaming to me and discourages me from roleplaying.
I think with those bold words added we're probably closer to what you're trying to say, and that's something that no one needs to argue with. You see powers with names, descriptions, and rules, you think of clicking buttons on an action bar and you can't get out of that mindset. It's probably why you never use a rogue's Backstab, or a paladin's Smite, or a cleric's Turn Undead, or a wizard's Fireball, Magic Missile, Color Spray, or Any Spell At All. That's your prerogative, and no one has the right to tell you that you're using your imagination wrong.
So with that, I'm ready to leave this tangent behind and go back to discussing 5E and their ridiculous design choices. Did anyone read the blog post about the Paladin design goals? It seemed to me like several paragraphs of "Uhh, we're not sure. We kind of posited ourselves into a corner with the Big 4, and now there's not enough iconicalness left for the Paladin."
I guess we can chalk this up to different philosophies of gaming. I don't want my players to be at full or nearly full health for every encounter. I don't want them to know that they will survive the encounter guaranteed. It's just not fun for me as a DM.
Hit points are not the real measure of how well a character is doing, that measure is the character's healing surges. ... So as a DM in 4E, you should pay more attention to your players' surges since this is the real measure of how much you have punished them.
Early in my 4e DMing I had some conceptual troubles with healing surges myself until I wrapped my head around what Mikey CTS is basically saying. HP doesn't measure health. In 4e, hit points only matter as a mechanic inside combat --- they are the encounter-grade statistic of a PC's ability to survive the trials of one combat. Individual blows whittle away at that value, and healing restores it, but it ultimately only matters in the context of the encounter. HP come and go throughout the encounter and throughout the day, but make no mistake, the game takes every opportunity it can to remind you that the first thing you do after a combat is heal HP back up to at least 3/4 to prepare for the next one.
Healing surges meanwhile pretty much only go in one direction throughout the day --- down. Aside from a couple very corner casey exceptions (artificers, for example), they are a hard track of how much work the PC has done for the day and how much they have left in them.
Two cases in point:
1) Skill challenges that need a tangible penalty in the mechanics deduct healing surges, not HP. Get lost in the woods? Everyone loses a healing surge. Spent the last five hours traveling the Elemental Chaos while wearing plate mail and failed the untrained Endurance check? Lose a healing surge. HP isn't even regarded, it's your macro resources that are deducted.
2) Potions are almost always suboptimal. They deduct a surge and often provide less HP than other means of healing, including your normal healing surge value (and they obviously cost something). Their only real benefit is that within an encounter, they're another way (one of only a few) to pull down the macro resources and use them in your micro situation.
The two game elements are correlated but really measure very different things. Outside of combat it doesn't matter if you have 1 HP or 100 HP. The only time you're at true full health is when you have full healing surges, the HP are just measures of how much punishment you can take in battle.
---
It's an intriguing balance (to me anyway) and 5e is flattening it back down to all HP while still trying to emulate (somewhat wrongly in my opinion) the effect of healing surges. I find that deeply disappointing.
I also find it disappointing that the last blog post brought back the assertion that HP damage is tangible, physical damage, broken bones and whatnot, that healing repairs. 4e HP has no such fluff tied to it. Vicious mockery doesn't deal your brain actual damage, but it does reduce your will to live or however you want to look at it. As I recall 3e, it was already going down this path that HP was not always physical damage. 4e was just the logical conclusion.
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So with that, I'm ready to leave this tangent behind and go back to discussing 5E and their ridiculous design choices. Did anyone read the blog post about the Paladin design goals? It seemed to me like several paragraphs of "Uhh, we're not sure. We kind of posited ourselves into a corner with the Big 4, and now there's not enough iconicalness left for the Paladin."
I saw the whole lawful only (and maybe lawful good only, at that?) thing and just closed the tab because I'm pretty much done with alignments too. It does indeed feel like they need to figure out what's a class and what's a theme. The problem is exactly what you said though. They're now stuck balancing system design with iconicness.
3DS: 2466-2307-8384 PSN: bssteph Steam:bsstephanTwitch:bsstephan Tabletop:13th Age (mm-mmm), D&D 4e Occasional words about games:my site
That paladin post really was a mess. The best they could come up with "The Paladin is lawful. And it represents its deity. Also look at this painting. That's what you have to play."
I hate seeing the alignment system come back. I sincerely hope it's a module that I can drop, because let's be honest, except in the case of spells that require it, no one pays attention to it anyway.
I'll back out of this fight. I just hate the whole Powers thing. Seems too video gaming to me and discourages roleplaying.
This just hurts my head. People like this will never get improvised roleplaying or that the rules are a guideline.
To be fair, he said discouraged, not rendered impossible. When a player looks down and sees a list of available powers, people tend to think that those powers (and no others) are what's available. Just like if people see a list of things, they tend to think that anything not on the list doesn't belong. And I don't think wotc did themselves any favors by making those power cards, that just seems to reinforce this idea.
Moving beyond the stated rules into more improvising in terms of fluff and mechanics is a somewhat advanced roleplay type of thing, and I don't think any version of D&D has really done it well.
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VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I think the Belief system in BW is the best moral/ethical/goal system I've seen in a game. At the same time, I've never had a problem with the alignment system. My biggest complaint is people not playing within the bounds of it, but it's been pretty minor.
DCC RPG goes back to OD&D alignment: Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic. Your alignment tangibly effects your abilities (certain thief skills get bonuses based on it, clerics ability to heal is affected by it, etc).
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GrogMy sword is only steelin a useful shape.Registered Userregular
I think the Belief system in BW is the best moral/ethical/goal system I've seen in a game. At the same time, I've never had a problem with the alignment system. My biggest complaint is people not playing within the bounds of it, but it's been pretty minor.
DCC RPG goes back to OD&D alignment: Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic. Your alignment tangibly effects your abilities (certain thief skills get bonuses based on it, clerics ability to heal is affected by it, etc).
This does not sound like a good idea, since it quite easily leads to picking alignment based on what bonuses you want rather than what fits your character.
Why not a motivation system like in Eclipse Phase? In that game your character had things that he liked, disliked, or some personal mission like finding his wife's murder and when you did things that followed that believe (Like if a cop won't help a thief steal something because he's a policeman) then you get some small bonus (in EP it's Moxie which acts like luck and karma.) Honestly, I've never even worried about my alignment. I've roleplayed my character based on his background and personality.
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VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I think the Belief system in BW is the best moral/ethical/goal system I've seen in a game. At the same time, I've never had a problem with the alignment system. My biggest complaint is people not playing within the bounds of it, but it's been pretty minor.
DCC RPG goes back to OD&D alignment: Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic. Your alignment tangibly effects your abilities (certain thief skills get bonuses based on it, clerics ability to heal is affected by it, etc).
This does not sound like a good idea, since it quite easily leads to picking alignment based on what bonuses you want rather than what fits your character.
It seems like it could be an issue, but the's no way to game the system. Want a better backstab chance? You have to play a chaotic thief, but your ability to Find and disable traps will be sub-par. Want to be a master at forgery? You have to play neutral to get the best bonus, and your ability to handle poison will be diminished.
As far as Clerics go, how well someone receives your divine healing is based on the nearness of alignment. Those of the same receive the most benefit, those who are adjacent are only slightly diminished, while those who are opposed receive little healing.
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GrogMy sword is only steelin a useful shape.Registered Userregular
I think the Belief system in BW is the best moral/ethical/goal system I've seen in a game. At the same time, I've never had a problem with the alignment system. My biggest complaint is people not playing within the bounds of it, but it's been pretty minor.
DCC RPG goes back to OD&D alignment: Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic. Your alignment tangibly effects your abilities (certain thief skills get bonuses based on it, clerics ability to heal is affected by it, etc).
This does not sound like a good idea, since it quite easily leads to picking alignment based on what bonuses you want rather than what fits your character.
It seems like it could be an issue, but the's no way to game the system. Want a better backstab chance? You have to play a chaotic thief, but your ability to Find and disable traps will be sub-par. Want to be a master at forgery? You have to play neutral to get the best bonus, and your ability to handle poison will be diminished.
As far as Clerics go, how well someone receives your divine healing is based on the nearness of alignment. Those of the same receive the most benefit, those who are adjacent are only slightly diminished, while those who are opposed receive little healing.
That just seems to be tying alignment choices to bonuses arbitrarily. Can't I play a Chaotic thief that can disable traps effectively? It's basically reducing the amount of choice that the player has about their own character.
Then applying that to healing? You'd only see single alignment groups because if someone has the choice between getting more healing or having an interesting clash of morals within the group they're going to pick the former.
Hit points was never anything other than a vague abstraction that combined your character's badassery and durability in one convenient metric. The level 10 fighter of early D&D was worth roughly ten men on account of 10d10 hp. That d8 of damage doesn't mean as much to a hero as it does to the grunt or town guard. You can put this down to personal skill or the heroic luck of a charmed life.
My impression of healing surges is that they were to do away with what was perceived to be the "heal bot" problem, because this was supposed to be boring and unrewarding for the healer of the party. Now everybody has a built-in healing reserve.
I have no preference one way or the other. This is a fantasy game about improbable badasses. Picking over the abstraction has no profit. And if you're into gaming in one form or another, you gotta get used to silly abstractions.
Secondly, I'm probably one of the few people who hates the alignment system. And there are a few reasons for this.
It's philosophically and linguistically *dumb.*
You can describe a person as greedy, malicious, sadistic, compassionate and so on and achieve very precise and accurate descriptions of character that's actually meaningful to social interaction. Naming a guy "Evil" tells you very little about a character other than that somebody has a low opinion of him. However, describing somebody as a "compulsive liar" does quite a lot to inform a player's actions.
That isn't to say that it's wrong to play D&D as a black-and-white morality system, where the villains literally are black knights who cackle nefariously in their fortress of doom. But if you want to play a more nuanced setting, then alignment sort of forces you to downplay the alignments or house-rule them away.
Discussions of morality with D&D nerds also tends to be infuriating beyond-the-pale because of alignments. Because now you're literally talking to somebody who honestly thinks that labeling a character "Chaotic Evil" actually has any meaning.
There's very little that alignments adds to the game besides unnecessary complexity. A paladin's powers could just smite undead/demons or anybody affiliated with them and you'd still achieve that high storybook fantasy tone without having to arbitrate that this guy is "Evil" as some kind of technical designation.
I'm not a fan of systemizing player actions or morality for the most part. I mean, yes, I can say that it's because it limits player freedom. But personally it has more to do with how it seems to just confuse people and ends up being quite difficult to implement and arbitrate well.
That said, I've been hearing a lot of praise for Pendragon's morality system, which tends to encourage well-defined character traits. In theory, high scores in something like "Chaste" appear to set up self-reinforcing loops of behavior for the player when he's being chaste that sometimes gives him bonuses when acting according to that trait. A "Chaste" character might also act according to "Lust," and insist on that course of action, but may come across looking awkward and uncomfortable when doing so. Most of these traits are intended to highlight the character's adherence (or departure) from established Arthurian mores.
Guys...you don't need rules for DMs to reward players for good roleplaying...
No kidding. I know I'm rewarded when I'm creative about solutions and make them themed to my character. To argue the other side, there's a reason why something like a barbarians howling strike ISN'T ranged, as it's meant to be a howling, charging blow on someone, not a dinky throw. There's also a ton of people who use the "I want to roleplay" as "I want to do overpowered moves and just be a demigod".
That isn't to say that it's wrong to play D&D as a black-and-white morality system, where the villains literally are black knights who cackle nefariously in their fortress of doom. But if you want to play a more nuanced setting, then alignment sort of forces you to downplay the alignments or house-rule them away.
Discussions of morality with D&D nerds also tends to be infuriating beyond-the-pale because of alignments. Because now you're literally talking to somebody who honestly thinks that labeling a character "Chaotic Evil" actually has any meaning.
Well, in the editions that bother themselves with it (like, as you mention, 3e paladins), labels like "chaotic" and "evil" are as real as it gets. Magic can detect it, living creatures like dragons are innately bound to their alignment, swords radiate it and circles repel it. The cosmology is built around it. It's definitely dumb from a PC perspective and questionable from a setting or ecology standpoint, but in those editions those labels have meaning.
Unless you mean out-of-game real-world morality in which case what the hell, certainly that stuff should be tightly constrained to amusing-at-best jpegs and joking around figuring out if your friend is CE or NE because he took the last soda.
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Wait, is there someone who likes the Alignment system? Beside Monte Cook; cause his opinion doesn't count anymore (thank god).
I liked the alignment system as it applied to the world and the pantheons and such, not so much as it applied to actual players and individuals. I really like the Lawful/Chaotic division that separates demons and devils.
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VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I think the Belief system in BW is the best moral/ethical/goal system I've seen in a game. At the same time, I've never had a problem with the alignment system. My biggest complaint is people not playing within the bounds of it, but it's been pretty minor.
DCC RPG goes back to OD&D alignment: Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic. Your alignment tangibly effects your abilities (certain thief skills get bonuses based on it, clerics ability to heal is affected by it, etc).
This does not sound like a good idea, since it quite easily leads to picking alignment based on what bonuses you want rather than what fits your character.
It seems like it could be an issue, but the's no way to game the system. Want a better backstab chance? You have to play a chaotic thief, but your ability to Find and disable traps will be sub-par. Want to be a master at forgery? You have to play neutral to get the best bonus, and your ability to handle poison will be diminished.
As far as Clerics go, how well someone receives your divine healing is based on the nearness of alignment. Those of the same receive the most benefit, those who are adjacent are only slightly diminished, while those who are opposed receive little healing.
That just seems to be tying alignment choices to bonuses arbitrarily. Can't I play a Chaotic thief that can disable traps effectively? It's basically reducing the amount of choice that the player has about their own character.
Then applying that to healing? You'd only see single alignment groups because if someone has the choice between getting more healing or having an interesting clash of morals within the group they're going to pick the former.
It's too much to type here, but it gives explanations of the roles that a thief of each alignment would occupy. It's far less arbitrary than you think. Lawful thieves, for example, are the best at hiding and sneaking around as they tend to be spies of one stripe or another.
And that's not to say you can't disable traps or backstab effectively, just that thee are those mor adept at doing so than you.
You also roll 2-5 characters at level 0 without a class and have no idea which ones are going to survive. I suppose the entire party could all choose the same alignment, but I would step in as a DM and force them to choose other options. A group of 20 people couldn't easily decide on what they'd like to eat for breakfast, let alone reach a consensus about their moral compass.
Character creation in this game is 100% random, so it's pretty impossible to powergame, which seems to be your inclination.
Wait, is there someone who likes the Alignment system? Beside Monte Cook; cause his opinion doesn't count anymore (thank god).
I liked the alignment system as it applied to the world and the pantheons and such, not so much as it applied to actual players and individuals. I really like the Lawful/Chaotic division that separates demons and devils.
Yeah, this is my opinion. I like the fact that good and evil are actual forces in the world, as well as order/chaos, but the gameplay impact of the character's alignments should be basically nil.
i think the worst part is that WotC believes there's some 'core essential' of Dungeons and Dragons when the past few pages have demonstrated that just about everyone has their own version of D&D that they grew up playing or have become accustomed to
it's a shame that the 3e fans are the most vocal, because if every DnD player out there had a reasonable chance of being heard we might actually get it across to Wizards that their game has no real identity which is why it's bombing so hard compared to Pathfinder
Even being a huge fan of Planescape I hate the alignment system.
Planescape is like the only setting where alignment makes sense (well, outside of the michael moorcock books they took it out of)
Like, I am fine with supernatural beings of pure good / evil being and the realms they have created being tied up with the alignment system.
Where it is sheer stupidity is when you try and apply it to everyday mortals like player characters.
Even then, it wouldn't be so bad if there were only a tiny handful of situations where a character might seriously gain a serious connection to a true alignment. Becoming truly Lawful Good could be an epic destiny of sorts. But to make it define whether or not someone can smite things, get really angry, or STEAL is absurd. Alignment should be something you can strive to obtain throughout your career.
Wait, is there someone who likes the Alignment system? Beside Monte Cook; cause his opinion doesn't count anymore (thank god).
I liked the alignment system as it applied to the world and the pantheons and such, not so much as it applied to actual players and individuals. I really like the Lawful/Chaotic division that separates demons and devils.
Yeah, this is my opinion. I like the fact that good and evil are actual forces in the world, as well as order/chaos, but the gameplay impact of the character's alignments should be basically nil.
Keep in mind that your characters are not the average person on the street. The majority of inhabitants of a world are going to be Unaligned. Alignments in D&D 4e are something that helps define your character as a major player in regards to alignment and any ongoing battles tied to that alignment and opposed to that alignment.
The RPG Bestiary - Dangerous foes and legendary monsters for D&D 4th Edition
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VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
edited May 2012
If certain actions fall within a particular area of the alignment matrix, I'm okay with certain characters of that alignment being better at said actions.
I wonder if D&DN is essentially going to be like a three volume set of Unearthed Arcana.
If certain actions fall within a particular area of the alignment matrix, I'm okay with certain characters of that alignment being better at said actions.
So would a Good thief be better at picking the lock on the prison cell of the captured princess, versus the Evil theif who's better at picking the lock on the local town vault?
EDIT: You know what's really cool? Letting the players play their characters, and then having their alignments evolve around how they actually act, not some arbitrary phrase on their character sheet.
EDIT MORE: And I'm fine with Alignment in the cosmology/dieties/religion side. I have no problem with a diety being describe as Lawful Good, here's his code, etc. etc. If you consider yourself a follower, or want to be granted powers from this diety, you better do what he likes or else...but you have to give players meaning and purpose to their "alignment" otherwise, what's the point?
I think the Belief system in BW is the best moral/ethical/goal system I've seen in a game. At the same time, I've never had a problem with the alignment system. My biggest complaint is people not playing within the bounds of it, but it's been pretty minor.
DCC RPG goes back to OD&D alignment: Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic. Your alignment tangibly effects your abilities (certain thief skills get bonuses based on it, clerics ability to heal is affected by it, etc).
This does not sound like a good idea, since it quite easily leads to picking alignment based on what bonuses you want rather than what fits your character.
It seems like it could be an issue, but the's no way to game the system. Want a better backstab chance? You have to play a chaotic thief, but your ability to Find and disable traps will be sub-par. Want to be a master at forgery? You have to play neutral to get the best bonus, and your ability to handle poison will be diminished.
As far as Clerics go, how well someone receives your divine healing is based on the nearness of alignment. Those of the same receive the most benefit, those who are adjacent are only slightly diminished, while those who are opposed receive little healing.
That just seems to be tying alignment choices to bonuses arbitrarily. Can't I play a Chaotic thief that can disable traps effectively? It's basically reducing the amount of choice that the player has about their own character.
Then applying that to healing? You'd only see single alignment groups because if someone has the choice between getting more healing or having an interesting clash of morals within the group they're going to pick the former.
It's too much to type here, but it gives explanations of the roles that a thief of each alignment would occupy. It's far less arbitrary than you think. Lawful thieves, for example, are the best at hiding and sneaking around as they tend to be spies of one stripe or another.
And that's not to say you can't disable traps or backstab effectively, just that thee are those mor adept at doing so than you.
You also roll 2-5 characters at level 0 without a class and have no idea which ones are going to survive. I suppose the entire party could all choose the same alignment, but I would step in as a DM and force them to choose other options. A group of 20 people couldn't easily decide on what they'd like to eat for breakfast, let alone reach a consensus about their moral compass.
Character creation in this game is 100% random, so it's pretty impossible to powergame, which seems to be your inclination.
8->
A game system where I have zero choices in what character I get to play? Great. Awesome Sign me up that, it sounds like good times.
// PSN: wyrd_warrior // MHW Name: Josei //
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VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I think the Belief system in BW is the best moral/ethical/goal system I've seen in a game. At the same time, I've never had a problem with the alignment system. My biggest complaint is people not playing within the bounds of it, but it's been pretty minor.
DCC RPG goes back to OD&D alignment: Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic. Your alignment tangibly effects your abilities (certain thief skills get bonuses based on it, clerics ability to heal is affected by it, etc).
This does not sound like a good idea, since it quite easily leads to picking alignment based on what bonuses you want rather than what fits your character.
It seems like it could be an issue, but the's no way to game the system. Want a better backstab chance? You have to play a chaotic thief, but your ability to Find and disable traps will be sub-par. Want to be a master at forgery? You have to play neutral to get the best bonus, and your ability to handle poison will be diminished.
As far as Clerics go, how well someone receives your divine healing is based on the nearness of alignment. Those of the same receive the most benefit, those who are adjacent are only slightly diminished, while those who are opposed receive little healing.
That just seems to be tying alignment choices to bonuses arbitrarily. Can't I play a Chaotic thief that can disable traps effectively? It's basically reducing the amount of choice that the player has about their own character.
Then applying that to healing? You'd only see single alignment groups because if someone has the choice between getting more healing or having an interesting clash of morals within the group they're going to pick the former.
It's too much to type here, but it gives explanations of the roles that a thief of each alignment would occupy. It's far less arbitrary than you think. Lawful thieves, for example, are the best at hiding and sneaking around as they tend to be spies of one stripe or another.
And that's not to say you can't disable traps or backstab effectively, just that thee are those mor adept at doing so than you.
You also roll 2-5 characters at level 0 without a class and have no idea which ones are going to survive. I suppose the entire party could all choose the same alignment, but I would step in as a DM and force them to choose other options. A group of 20 people couldn't easily decide on what they'd like to eat for breakfast, let alone reach a consensus about their moral compass.
Character creation in this game is 100% random, so it's pretty impossible to powergame, which seems to be your inclination.
8->
A game system where I have zero choices in what character I get to play? Great. Awesome Sign me up that, it sounds like good times.
At 0-level, when you don't even pick your class, yes, you have few choices. You can name your characters, pick their gender, and assign an alignment. Everything else is determined by the dice. Should they survive and reach level 1, you then pick your class.
You might want to process the information you read before hitting that reply button. This may not be the game for you, but I know that my players had more fun trekking through a dungeon at level-0 with a horde of peasants than they did when they were level 12 in Pathfinder, tackling a Black Dragon and fighting a 5 round combat for two hours.
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VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
If certain actions fall within a particular area of the alignment matrix, I'm okay with certain characters of that alignment being better at said actions.
So would a Good thief be better at picking the lock on the prison cell of the captured princess, versus the Evil theif who's better at picking the lock on the local town vault?
EDIT: You know what's really cool? Letting the players play their characters, and then having their alignments evolve around how they actually act, not some arbitrary phrase on their character sheet.
EDIT MORE: And I'm fine with Alignment in the cosmology/dieties/religion side. I have no problem with a diety being describe as Lawful Good, here's his code, etc. etc. If you consider yourself a follower, or want to be granted powers from this diety, you better do what he likes or else...but you have to give players meaning and purpose to their "alignment" otherwise, what's the point?
It doesn't work like that. At this point, all I'm going to do is recommend you thumb through a copy of the book at your FLGS and look at the table.
The implied world of DCC RPG is one where the deities/cosmology plays a huge influence and every character is affected by it. Wizards summon demons and make pacts in exchange for arcane knowledge, Thieves either uphold the law of mankind from the shadows, seek to undermine it through sewing chaos, or remain indifferent to either cause. Warriors are the champions of kings, tyrants, or mercenaries.
Of course, these are simplifications, and the book encourages you to hack the game to suite your needs. You could just easily allow your players to pick four elite thief skills, four average thief skills, and four below average thief skills to suit their needs.
I think the Belief system in BW is the best moral/ethical/goal system I've seen in a game. At the same time, I've never had a problem with the alignment system. My biggest complaint is people not playing within the bounds of it, but it's been pretty minor.
DCC RPG goes back to OD&D alignment: Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic. Your alignment tangibly effects your abilities (certain thief skills get bonuses based on it, clerics ability to heal is affected by it, etc).
This does not sound like a good idea, since it quite easily leads to picking alignment based on what bonuses you want rather than what fits your character.
It seems like it could be an issue, but the's no way to game the system. Want a better backstab chance? You have to play a chaotic thief, but your ability to Find and disable traps will be sub-par. Want to be a master at forgery? You have to play neutral to get the best bonus, and your ability to handle poison will be diminished.
As far as Clerics go, how well someone receives your divine healing is based on the nearness of alignment. Those of the same receive the most benefit, those who are adjacent are only slightly diminished, while those who are opposed receive little healing.
That just seems to be tying alignment choices to bonuses arbitrarily. Can't I play a Chaotic thief that can disable traps effectively? It's basically reducing the amount of choice that the player has about their own character.
Then applying that to healing? You'd only see single alignment groups because if someone has the choice between getting more healing or having an interesting clash of morals within the group they're going to pick the former.
It's too much to type here, but it gives explanations of the roles that a thief of each alignment would occupy. It's far less arbitrary than you think. Lawful thieves, for example, are the best at hiding and sneaking around as they tend to be spies of one stripe or another.
And that's not to say you can't disable traps or backstab effectively, just that thee are those mor adept at doing so than you.
You also roll 2-5 characters at level 0 without a class and have no idea which ones are going to survive. I suppose the entire party could all choose the same alignment, but I would step in as a DM and force them to choose other options. A group of 20 people couldn't easily decide on what they'd like to eat for breakfast, let alone reach a consensus about their moral compass.
Character creation in this game is 100% random, so it's pretty impossible to powergame, which seems to be your inclination.
8->
A game system where I have zero choices in what character I get to play? Great. Awesome Sign me up that, it sounds like good times.
At 0-level, when you don't even pick your class, yes, you have few choices. You can name your characters, pick their gender, and assign an alignment. Everything else is determined by the dice. Should they survive, you then pick your class.
You might want to process the information you read before hitting that reply button. This may not be the game for you, but I know that my players had more fun trekking through a dungeon at level-0 with a horde of peasants than they did when they were level 12 in Pathfidner, tackling a Black Dragon and fighting a 5 round combat for two hours.
Maybe my reading comprehension isn't the problem. Maybe the problem is your ability to put an idea out into the world using words. Or maybe you could be civil and not interpert everything people post as a person attack.
I don't know anything about this game, I can only go on what you tell me since I will never purchase it. If stats are randomly rolled, as you say, based their array the character they make is going to favor one class. In my experience, this doesn't actually leave much room for making any meaningful choices. If you roll a high Int and a low-to-middling Str, well you're playing a wizard. Got a decent Cha and a high Dex? Rogue. You're still left with little to no choice in this sort of system, unless you want to play a subpar cleric with the bare minimum Wis. Playing a fighter with 13 Str and being completely incapable of doing your one job because of bad stats is always a good time. Moving on...
Why would it take you two hours in Pathfinder to resolve five rounds of combat? I understand if you said this about 4E. I think that's maybe the one truly valid complaint I've seen about the game. But back when I ran 3.X I can't remember combat every going beyond half an hour. They were level 16. I'm not being snarky here. I just started a monthly Pathfinder game at level 1 and to hear that makes me genuinely concerned since it's a monthly session. Can you explain to me how that happened?
Honestly, I'm not here to beat anyone up over the different system they prefer.
But getting back to 5e here, an issue I've had with the last couple editions is simply the philosophy behind character creation.
It seems that 4e was really driven by the idea that you read the character handbooks, then decided what type of character you'd create using those rulebooks. And it seems like they're going to an even more rigid system with 5e.
However, I feel like it should ultimately be the opposite, where the idea should be that a player decides what type of character they'd like to play, then use the rulebooks to craft such a character.
Maybe it's difficult to express because it is more of a philosophy, but it's not one that's necessarily incompatable with a class-based system like D&D. I feel like if you designed the class-archetype framework from the ground up with the idea that a player was going to build a unique character within the structure of each class-archetype, you'd create a much richer and more compelling experience from the beginning.
If players enter a gaming world with the already set on the notion that, "I'm the leader class, an inspiring Warlord!" or "I'm the defender. I'm a protecting Paladin!" defines who they are, instead of a character concept, it's extremely difficult to create anything beyond "D&D the tabletop MMO", to be a bit crass about it.
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I think the Belief system in BW is the best moral/ethical/goal system I've seen in a game. At the same time, I've never had a problem with the alignment system. My biggest complaint is people not playing within the bounds of it, but it's been pretty minor.
DCC RPG goes back to OD&D alignment: Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic. Your alignment tangibly effects your abilities (certain thief skills get bonuses based on it, clerics ability to heal is affected by it, etc).
This does not sound like a good idea, since it quite easily leads to picking alignment based on what bonuses you want rather than what fits your character.
It seems like it could be an issue, but the's no way to game the system. Want a better backstab chance? You have to play a chaotic thief, but your ability to Find and disable traps will be sub-par. Want to be a master at forgery? You have to play neutral to get the best bonus, and your ability to handle poison will be diminished.
As far as Clerics go, how well someone receives your divine healing is based on the nearness of alignment. Those of the same receive the most benefit, those who are adjacent are only slightly diminished, while those who are opposed receive little healing.
That just seems to be tying alignment choices to bonuses arbitrarily. Can't I play a Chaotic thief that can disable traps effectively? It's basically reducing the amount of choice that the player has about their own character.
Then applying that to healing? You'd only see single alignment groups because if someone has the choice between getting more healing or having an interesting clash of morals within the group they're going to pick the former.
It's too much to type here, but it gives explanations of the roles that a thief of each alignment would occupy. It's far less arbitrary than you think. Lawful thieves, for example, are the best at hiding and sneaking around as they tend to be spies of one stripe or another.
And that's not to say you can't disable traps or backstab effectively, just that thee are those mor adept at doing so than you.
You also roll 2-5 characters at level 0 without a class and have no idea which ones are going to survive. I suppose the entire party could all choose the same alignment, but I would step in as a DM and force them to choose other options. A group of 20 people couldn't easily decide on what they'd like to eat for breakfast, let alone reach a consensus about their moral compass.
Character creation in this game is 100% random, so it's pretty impossible to powergame, which seems to be your inclination.
8->
A game system where I have zero choices in what character I get to play? Great. Awesome Sign me up that, it sounds like good times.
At 0-level, when you don't even pick your class, yes, you have few choices. You can name your characters, pick their gender, and assign an alignment. Everything else is determined by the dice. Should they survive, you then pick your class.
You might want to process the information you read before hitting that reply button. This may not be the game for you, but I know that my players had more fun trekking through a dungeon at level-0 with a horde of peasants than they did when they were level 12 in Pathfidner, tackling a Black Dragon and fighting a 5 round combat for two hours.
Maybe my reading comprehension isn't the problem. Maybe the problem is your ability to put an idea out into the world using words. Or maybe you could be civil and not interpert everything people post as a person attack.
I don't know anything about this game, I can only go on what you tell me since I will never purchase it. If stats are randomly rolled, as you say, based their array the character they make is going to favor one class. In my experience, this doesn't actually leave much room for making any meaningful choices. If you roll a high Int and a low-to-middling Str, well you're playing a wizard. Got a decent Cha and a high Dex? Rogue. You're still left with little to no choice in this sort of system, unless you want to play a subpar cleric with the bare minimum Wis. Playing a fighter with 13 Str and being completely incapable of doing your one job because of bad stats is always a good time. Moving on...
Why would it take you two hours in Pathfinder to resolve five rounds of combat? I understand if you said this about 4E. I think that's maybe the one truly valid complaint I've seen about the game. But back when I ran 3.X I can't remember combat every going beyond half an hour. They were level 16. I'm not being snarky here. I just started a monthly Pathfinder game at level 1 and to hear that makes me genuinely concerned since it's a monthly session. Can you explain to me how that happened?
Except I clearly said in my previous post that no class is chosen at 0-level, so . . .
Stats are rolled like they were in OD&D. 3d6, assigned organically. The modifiers follow the old bell curve too, (8-12 is +0 and 18 is only +3). So, while stats may seem to dictate class, the vast majority of your characters are going to be average at everything, so you're not really pre-dispositioned at any one thing unless you happened to land 15 or 16 in one stat.
Combat took that long because we had five hasted players. The Dragon had also hasted himself. And it was airborn.
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And if being a half-orc wizard was a thing, I'd have never lost a fight in high school.
I mean this with all possible sincerity...but what the fuck are you talking about?
If you wanted to throw a dagger in 4e, you use any power that is a) ranged and b) usable with light blades. PHB, page 118. Rogue At-Will Powers. Sly Flourish and Deft Strike are both Melee OR Ranged, requiring light blades, as an example. Same thing with the Ranger, and many, many archetypes where "throwing daggers" might be something they would do on a regular basis.
Yes, if on the off chance that your wizard decided he wanted to whip a dagger at someone, he's not going to be able to do anything but basically whip a dagger at him. Same thing for that rogue who decided now would be a good time to snap his fingers and make fire appear...
So, I'm not sure where you're going with this.
For example, "Jack slides deftly to the side of the orc. He attemps to grab him by his hair and slash his throat open. Deft Strike, 23 vs AC!"
DM: "Jack's dagger flashes out like lightning, opening up a wide, red gash in the orc's throat. Blood sprays over his leather armor as the orc eyes open wide with shock, then he falls over with a gurgle! For a split second, looks of terror play across the faces of the remaining orcs."
VS.
Player B: "I hit him with my sword. 19?"
DM: "Yeah, hit. Orc takes damage. Next player."
When one player is being describe like a total badass, and the rest are coming across as putzes, the urge to describe your attacks significantly increases.
Point is: Roleplaying or lack of is NOT the systems fault. It's yours.
This just hurts my head. People like this will never get improvised roleplaying or that the rules are a guideline.
If you want to roleplay, it's because you genuinely enjoy or want to learn to enjoy it. No system is going to suddenly force you to roleplay.
I think with those bold words added we're probably closer to what you're trying to say, and that's something that no one needs to argue with. You see powers with names, descriptions, and rules, you think of clicking buttons on an action bar and you can't get out of that mindset. It's probably why you never use a rogue's Backstab, or a paladin's Smite, or a cleric's Turn Undead, or a wizard's Fireball, Magic Missile, Color Spray, or Any Spell At All. That's your prerogative, and no one has the right to tell you that you're using your imagination wrong.
So with that, I'm ready to leave this tangent behind and go back to discussing 5E and their ridiculous design choices. Did anyone read the blog post about the Paladin design goals? It seemed to me like several paragraphs of "Uhh, we're not sure. We kind of posited ourselves into a corner with the Big 4, and now there's not enough iconicalness left for the Paladin."
Early in my 4e DMing I had some conceptual troubles with healing surges myself until I wrapped my head around what Mikey CTS is basically saying. HP doesn't measure health. In 4e, hit points only matter as a mechanic inside combat --- they are the encounter-grade statistic of a PC's ability to survive the trials of one combat. Individual blows whittle away at that value, and healing restores it, but it ultimately only matters in the context of the encounter. HP come and go throughout the encounter and throughout the day, but make no mistake, the game takes every opportunity it can to remind you that the first thing you do after a combat is heal HP back up to at least 3/4 to prepare for the next one.
Healing surges meanwhile pretty much only go in one direction throughout the day --- down. Aside from a couple very corner casey exceptions (artificers, for example), they are a hard track of how much work the PC has done for the day and how much they have left in them.
Two cases in point:
1) Skill challenges that need a tangible penalty in the mechanics deduct healing surges, not HP. Get lost in the woods? Everyone loses a healing surge. Spent the last five hours traveling the Elemental Chaos while wearing plate mail and failed the untrained Endurance check? Lose a healing surge. HP isn't even regarded, it's your macro resources that are deducted.
2) Potions are almost always suboptimal. They deduct a surge and often provide less HP than other means of healing, including your normal healing surge value (and they obviously cost something). Their only real benefit is that within an encounter, they're another way (one of only a few) to pull down the macro resources and use them in your micro situation.
The two game elements are correlated but really measure very different things. Outside of combat it doesn't matter if you have 1 HP or 100 HP. The only time you're at true full health is when you have full healing surges, the HP are just measures of how much punishment you can take in battle.
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It's an intriguing balance (to me anyway) and 5e is flattening it back down to all HP while still trying to emulate (somewhat wrongly in my opinion) the effect of healing surges. I find that deeply disappointing.
I also find it disappointing that the last blog post brought back the assertion that HP damage is tangible, physical damage, broken bones and whatnot, that healing repairs. 4e HP has no such fluff tied to it. Vicious mockery doesn't deal your brain actual damage, but it does reduce your will to live or however you want to look at it. As I recall 3e, it was already going down this path that HP was not always physical damage. 4e was just the logical conclusion.
Tabletop:13th Age (mm-mmm), D&D 4e
Occasional words about games: my site
I saw the whole lawful only (and maybe lawful good only, at that?) thing and just closed the tab because I'm pretty much done with alignments too. It does indeed feel like they need to figure out what's a class and what's a theme. The problem is exactly what you said though. They're now stuck balancing system design with iconicness.
Tabletop:13th Age (mm-mmm), D&D 4e
Occasional words about games: my site
I hate seeing the alignment system come back. I sincerely hope it's a module that I can drop, because let's be honest, except in the case of spells that require it, no one pays attention to it anyway.
To be fair, he said discouraged, not rendered impossible. When a player looks down and sees a list of available powers, people tend to think that those powers (and no others) are what's available. Just like if people see a list of things, they tend to think that anything not on the list doesn't belong. And I don't think wotc did themselves any favors by making those power cards, that just seems to reinforce this idea.
Moving beyond the stated rules into more improvising in terms of fluff and mechanics is a somewhat advanced roleplay type of thing, and I don't think any version of D&D has really done it well.
DCC RPG goes back to OD&D alignment: Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic. Your alignment tangibly effects your abilities (certain thief skills get bonuses based on it, clerics ability to heal is affected by it, etc).
This does not sound like a good idea, since it quite easily leads to picking alignment based on what bonuses you want rather than what fits your character.
It seems like it could be an issue, but the's no way to game the system. Want a better backstab chance? You have to play a chaotic thief, but your ability to Find and disable traps will be sub-par. Want to be a master at forgery? You have to play neutral to get the best bonus, and your ability to handle poison will be diminished.
As far as Clerics go, how well someone receives your divine healing is based on the nearness of alignment. Those of the same receive the most benefit, those who are adjacent are only slightly diminished, while those who are opposed receive little healing.
That just seems to be tying alignment choices to bonuses arbitrarily. Can't I play a Chaotic thief that can disable traps effectively? It's basically reducing the amount of choice that the player has about their own character.
Then applying that to healing? You'd only see single alignment groups because if someone has the choice between getting more healing or having an interesting clash of morals within the group they're going to pick the former.
Hit points was never anything other than a vague abstraction that combined your character's badassery and durability in one convenient metric. The level 10 fighter of early D&D was worth roughly ten men on account of 10d10 hp. That d8 of damage doesn't mean as much to a hero as it does to the grunt or town guard. You can put this down to personal skill or the heroic luck of a charmed life.
My impression of healing surges is that they were to do away with what was perceived to be the "heal bot" problem, because this was supposed to be boring and unrewarding for the healer of the party. Now everybody has a built-in healing reserve.
I have no preference one way or the other. This is a fantasy game about improbable badasses. Picking over the abstraction has no profit. And if you're into gaming in one form or another, you gotta get used to silly abstractions.
Secondly, I'm probably one of the few people who hates the alignment system. And there are a few reasons for this.
It's philosophically and linguistically *dumb.*
You can describe a person as greedy, malicious, sadistic, compassionate and so on and achieve very precise and accurate descriptions of character that's actually meaningful to social interaction. Naming a guy "Evil" tells you very little about a character other than that somebody has a low opinion of him. However, describing somebody as a "compulsive liar" does quite a lot to inform a player's actions.
That isn't to say that it's wrong to play D&D as a black-and-white morality system, where the villains literally are black knights who cackle nefariously in their fortress of doom. But if you want to play a more nuanced setting, then alignment sort of forces you to downplay the alignments or house-rule them away.
Discussions of morality with D&D nerds also tends to be infuriating beyond-the-pale because of alignments. Because now you're literally talking to somebody who honestly thinks that labeling a character "Chaotic Evil" actually has any meaning.
There's very little that alignments adds to the game besides unnecessary complexity. A paladin's powers could just smite undead/demons or anybody affiliated with them and you'd still achieve that high storybook fantasy tone without having to arbitrate that this guy is "Evil" as some kind of technical designation.
I'm not a fan of systemizing player actions or morality for the most part. I mean, yes, I can say that it's because it limits player freedom. But personally it has more to do with how it seems to just confuse people and ends up being quite difficult to implement and arbitrate well.
That said, I've been hearing a lot of praise for Pendragon's morality system, which tends to encourage well-defined character traits. In theory, high scores in something like "Chaste" appear to set up self-reinforcing loops of behavior for the player when he's being chaste that sometimes gives him bonuses when acting according to that trait. A "Chaste" character might also act according to "Lust," and insist on that course of action, but may come across looking awkward and uncomfortable when doing so. Most of these traits are intended to highlight the character's adherence (or departure) from established Arthurian mores.
No kidding. I know I'm rewarded when I'm creative about solutions and make them themed to my character. To argue the other side, there's a reason why something like a barbarians howling strike ISN'T ranged, as it's meant to be a howling, charging blow on someone, not a dinky throw. There's also a ton of people who use the "I want to roleplay" as "I want to do overpowered moves and just be a demigod".
Oh no, no no no.
The people who hate the alignment system are as few as the stars in the sky.
Well, in the editions that bother themselves with it (like, as you mention, 3e paladins), labels like "chaotic" and "evil" are as real as it gets. Magic can detect it, living creatures like dragons are innately bound to their alignment, swords radiate it and circles repel it. The cosmology is built around it. It's definitely dumb from a PC perspective and questionable from a setting or ecology standpoint, but in those editions those labels have meaning.
Unless you mean out-of-game real-world morality in which case what the hell, certainly that stuff should be tightly constrained to amusing-at-best jpegs and joking around figuring out if your friend is CE or NE because he took the last soda.
Tabletop:13th Age (mm-mmm), D&D 4e
Occasional words about games: my site
I liked the alignment system as it applied to the world and the pantheons and such, not so much as it applied to actual players and individuals. I really like the Lawful/Chaotic division that separates demons and devils.
It's too much to type here, but it gives explanations of the roles that a thief of each alignment would occupy. It's far less arbitrary than you think. Lawful thieves, for example, are the best at hiding and sneaking around as they tend to be spies of one stripe or another.
And that's not to say you can't disable traps or backstab effectively, just that thee are those mor adept at doing so than you.
You also roll 2-5 characters at level 0 without a class and have no idea which ones are going to survive. I suppose the entire party could all choose the same alignment, but I would step in as a DM and force them to choose other options. A group of 20 people couldn't easily decide on what they'd like to eat for breakfast, let alone reach a consensus about their moral compass.
Character creation in this game is 100% random, so it's pretty impossible to powergame, which seems to be your inclination.
You don't NEED lots of things that are in the rules, but some of them are good ideas anyway.
Yeah, this is my opinion. I like the fact that good and evil are actual forces in the world, as well as order/chaos, but the gameplay impact of the character's alignments should be basically nil.
it's a shame that the 3e fans are the most vocal, because if every DnD player out there had a reasonable chance of being heard we might actually get it across to Wizards that their game has no real identity which is why it's bombing so hard compared to Pathfinder
Planescape is like the only setting where alignment makes sense (well, outside of the michael moorcock books they took it out of)
Like, I am fine with supernatural beings of pure good / evil being and the realms they have created being tied up with the alignment system.
Where it is sheer stupidity is when you try and apply it to everyday mortals like player characters.
Even then, it wouldn't be so bad if there were only a tiny handful of situations where a character might seriously gain a serious connection to a true alignment. Becoming truly Lawful Good could be an epic destiny of sorts. But to make it define whether or not someone can smite things, get really angry, or STEAL is absurd. Alignment should be something you can strive to obtain throughout your career.
Keep in mind that your characters are not the average person on the street. The majority of inhabitants of a world are going to be Unaligned. Alignments in D&D 4e are something that helps define your character as a major player in regards to alignment and any ongoing battles tied to that alignment and opposed to that alignment.
I wonder if D&DN is essentially going to be like a three volume set of Unearthed Arcana.
So would a Good thief be better at picking the lock on the prison cell of the captured princess, versus the Evil theif who's better at picking the lock on the local town vault?
EDIT: You know what's really cool? Letting the players play their characters, and then having their alignments evolve around how they actually act, not some arbitrary phrase on their character sheet.
EDIT MORE: And I'm fine with Alignment in the cosmology/dieties/religion side. I have no problem with a diety being describe as Lawful Good, here's his code, etc. etc. If you consider yourself a follower, or want to be granted powers from this diety, you better do what he likes or else...but you have to give players meaning and purpose to their "alignment" otherwise, what's the point?
8->
A game system where I have zero choices in what character I get to play? Great. Awesome Sign me up that, it sounds like good times.
At 0-level, when you don't even pick your class, yes, you have few choices. You can name your characters, pick their gender, and assign an alignment. Everything else is determined by the dice. Should they survive and reach level 1, you then pick your class.
You might want to process the information you read before hitting that reply button. This may not be the game for you, but I know that my players had more fun trekking through a dungeon at level-0 with a horde of peasants than they did when they were level 12 in Pathfinder, tackling a Black Dragon and fighting a 5 round combat for two hours.
It doesn't work like that. At this point, all I'm going to do is recommend you thumb through a copy of the book at your FLGS and look at the table.
The implied world of DCC RPG is one where the deities/cosmology plays a huge influence and every character is affected by it. Wizards summon demons and make pacts in exchange for arcane knowledge, Thieves either uphold the law of mankind from the shadows, seek to undermine it through sewing chaos, or remain indifferent to either cause. Warriors are the champions of kings, tyrants, or mercenaries.
Of course, these are simplifications, and the book encourages you to hack the game to suite your needs. You could just easily allow your players to pick four elite thief skills, four average thief skills, and four below average thief skills to suit their needs.
Maybe my reading comprehension isn't the problem. Maybe the problem is your ability to put an idea out into the world using words. Or maybe you could be civil and not interpert everything people post as a person attack.
I don't know anything about this game, I can only go on what you tell me since I will never purchase it. If stats are randomly rolled, as you say, based their array the character they make is going to favor one class. In my experience, this doesn't actually leave much room for making any meaningful choices. If you roll a high Int and a low-to-middling Str, well you're playing a wizard. Got a decent Cha and a high Dex? Rogue. You're still left with little to no choice in this sort of system, unless you want to play a subpar cleric with the bare minimum Wis. Playing a fighter with 13 Str and being completely incapable of doing your one job because of bad stats is always a good time. Moving on...
Why would it take you two hours in Pathfinder to resolve five rounds of combat? I understand if you said this about 4E. I think that's maybe the one truly valid complaint I've seen about the game. But back when I ran 3.X I can't remember combat every going beyond half an hour. They were level 16. I'm not being snarky here. I just started a monthly Pathfinder game at level 1 and to hear that makes me genuinely concerned since it's a monthly session. Can you explain to me how that happened?
But getting back to 5e here, an issue I've had with the last couple editions is simply the philosophy behind character creation.
It seems that 4e was really driven by the idea that you read the character handbooks, then decided what type of character you'd create using those rulebooks. And it seems like they're going to an even more rigid system with 5e.
However, I feel like it should ultimately be the opposite, where the idea should be that a player decides what type of character they'd like to play, then use the rulebooks to craft such a character.
Maybe it's difficult to express because it is more of a philosophy, but it's not one that's necessarily incompatable with a class-based system like D&D. I feel like if you designed the class-archetype framework from the ground up with the idea that a player was going to build a unique character within the structure of each class-archetype, you'd create a much richer and more compelling experience from the beginning.
If players enter a gaming world with the already set on the notion that, "I'm the leader class, an inspiring Warlord!" or "I'm the defender. I'm a protecting Paladin!" defines who they are, instead of a character concept, it's extremely difficult to create anything beyond "D&D the tabletop MMO", to be a bit crass about it.
Except I clearly said in my previous post that no class is chosen at 0-level, so . . .
Stats are rolled like they were in OD&D. 3d6, assigned organically. The modifiers follow the old bell curve too, (8-12 is +0 and 18 is only +3). So, while stats may seem to dictate class, the vast majority of your characters are going to be average at everything, so you're not really pre-dispositioned at any one thing unless you happened to land 15 or 16 in one stat.
Combat took that long because we had five hasted players. The Dragon had also hasted himself. And it was airborn.