Barbarian I think is a bit of column A and a bit of Column B. It has to be, because if you say they are animal types, then what is the ranger? And what would make the Shaman different than the Druid? How is a Rogue's out of combat skillset different than an Assassin? To me, Barbarian is the fighter equivalent to the primal world as fighter is to the civilized world. And I think there is going to be overlap with every class, just because there are so many.
It should be noted, I think, that the Barbarian as it's own class is only two editions old. Before that it was a Fighter kit. Shaman, likewise, is rather recent and previously would have just been a different flavor of Druid, which was itself a variant Cleric. Assassin used to be a Rogue kit, trading thieve's cant and decipher script for deathblow and poison use.
Most of the "mixed bag" classes used to be minor tweaks on the core 4, but then they gained a life of their own as D&D became more character-option heavy. There's no real reason they couldn't go back to being subclasses.
Barb was in the first UA. Though it existed as a class pretty much exclusively because of Conan.
Interesting. Then it must have been downgraded to kit sometime after that.
Still, a Conan-style Barbarian is pretty much exactly a D&D Fighter. Just a little more naked and a lot more charming.
Other games have faster resolving combat, gridless, tokenless combat, the whole nine yards, without removing complexity. IMO it's not complexity that bog down combat but bookkeeping, and you don't need to gut the tactics of your games to get there.
With respect to Fighters, IIRC, 13th Age's Fighter mechanic is "I attack, then flip a coin to see if I get a bonus." Not substantively different from "I attack" each round IMO. Their ritual system and a lot of other class' storyish out of combat elements are much too "Mother, may I?" for my tastes.
Anyway I don't disagree with you guys that they're different games with a different focus, but I guess I just strongly disagree with the statement that 13th Age takes the best bits of 4E - because IMO 4E D&D's greatest success is finally balancing combat. In a 3.5 game I'd feel bad for playing a Wizard, in a 4E game I'm coordinating with the Fighter as equals to be more badass than either of us could be alone.
Could you name those games? Like, I'm honestly curious about it.
You're also mischaracterizing the fighter attack. It's generate a number and then choose which of your abilities is available. The abilities that you knew the triggering conditions of when you were selecting them. Do you leverage ones that require high rolls to win quickly or do you make sure to grab some that trigger only on low rolls so you can always do things? The fighter system is rife with decisions, some at the strategic level and some at the tactical while being fairly quick in actual play.
I also think you're a assuming a style of DMing that the book heartily discourages with regards to story abilities. If you're the DM and you're trying to rigidly force the players to your plot in 13th Age you have seriously missed the point.
That's not my style a DMing but it's unfortunately one I encounter frequently enough that I greatly appreciate having player agency engraved in stone within the rules.
With regards to combat systems, sure! For me combat in White Wolf's nWoD, specifically Mage, has always been tedium free but tactically complex and challenging as everyone has a crazy array of decisions before them. Similarly if you've ever played Continuum I've found the combat quick and easy (although the to-hit rolls are a little clunky) and the PCs are probably the most powerful of any game, ever. Dogs in the Vineyard has a cool thing going where the character choices don't have much tactical range (it's narrativist and kinda descends into a FATE-esque mother-may-I situation), but the player has interesting choices due to their dice rolling system (this doesn't really count for our discussion but I really enjoyed it so wanted to bring it up anyway). Numenara is ok in this regard but I've barely played it so not really willing to commit there.
Legend and Star Wars Saga Edition are probably the best D&D 3.5 based solutions, they still carry a lot of baggage but I think have greatly streamlined without sacrificing tactical options as in 13th Age.
The other end of the spectrum IMO would be Shadowrun and the Fantasy Flight Games 40k RPGs - omg the bookkeeping. I love both to death but a group not prepared to process the minutiae is going to be bogged down moreso than D&D, and with no grid map or miniatures or whatever!
Basically I think it's always bookkeeping that bogs down combat, especially if you're constantly flipping to tables or looking up obscure status effects. The complexity of the actions available to the player do not need to be reduced for this sake, and I was pretty annoyed when I flipped through 13th Age's Wizard spells and saw what they had in terms of battlefield control options.
I'll agree that 13th Age is bad at giving fighters equal noncombat options (although admittedly 13th age is better at this than 4e, at least they aren't penalized).
For an example of good fighter utility that doesn't involve them smacking people with swords, I bring you Dungeon World:
In DW, fighter means fighter. If you want to be a leader, you can multiclass some bard things to help you with that, but fighter means you have a sharp thing and use that sharp thing to hurt people. However, fighters also get to Bend Bars, Lift Gates. If you so choose, your fighter can also parley with people by sharing a drink, or by threatening violence. A fighter can, while drawing his sword, look at someone in the eyes and paralyze them with fear until he looks away. And, if you do get in combat they can still contribute to the story by choosing one person who will definitely live and one person who will definitely die.
Okay yes I cheated two of those things are technically in combat, but they are very much things that make the fighter a potent force that can drive the narrative in unique ways, which I think is the heart of the question here.
Well, the best solution is to completely divorce non-combat mechanics from combat mechanics, including in the role system.
If you don't want to do that (perhaps to limit complexity / number of choices / amount of material needed), then the next best solution is to still divorce the material behind the scenes in the design phase, but then create static combinations of options for a list of individual classes. For instance, a designer might craft a "Hunter" concept as a non-combat package, then give variants of that package to the Barbarian and the Ranger to form the complete classes.
The Fighter has a couple obvious options - either a "Athlete" type if feats of strength and endurance are important in the game (outside of battles), or a "Knight" type for leadership, diplomacy, and politics.
Even better if you split it further into non-combat exploration stuff and non-combat interaction stuff, since then you could have a Fighter with Athlete stuff for exploring and Knight stuff for interacting, but now I'm dangerously close to plugging so I'll stop there
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
In the short term, I think the best way to help with that is to eliminate class skills. Why can't the Fighter have a 14 Int and take History, representing his study of cultures, places, etc., to help her in battle?
I'll agree that 13th Age is bad at giving fighters equal noncombat options (although admittedly 13th age is better at this than 4e, at least they aren't penalized).
For an example of good fighter utility that doesn't involve them smacking people with swords, I bring you Dungeon World:
In DW, fighter means fighter. If you want to be a leader, you can multiclass some bard things to help you with that, but fighter means you have a sharp thing and use that sharp thing to hurt people. However, fighters also get to Bend Bars, Lift Gates. If you so choose, your fighter can also parley with people by sharing a drink, or by threatening violence. A fighter can, while drawing his sword, look at someone in the eyes and paralyze them with fear until he looks away. And, if you do get in combat they can still contribute to the story by choosing one person who will definitely live and one person who will definitely die.
Okay yes I cheated two of those things are technically in combat, but they are very much things that make the fighter a potent force that can drive the narrative in unique ways, which I think is the heart of the question here.
Hot damn do I love Dungeon World.
D&D has never been very good at the intersection of combat and non-combat. Even back when it was theoretically about exploration, combat always made everything else stop. With that in mind, abilities like Dungeon World has (I'm taking your word for it here, I've never played) that essentially bluff combat or do narrative things to the fighting are kind of against type in a D&D game. That's not to say they can't work, in the D&D games I enjoy playing and running combat exists to serve the narrative, but declarations of life and death seem kind of out of place.
Being really strong isn't a class ability, not in D&D anyway. Neither is being scary or killing things. Theoretically, everyone can do that stuff to some degree or another. And that's kind of the problem: Fighters have class abilities that are a matter of degree (stronger, scarier, whatever) while Wizards, Druids, et al have class abilities that are a matter of Kind - they get to do things that are completely impossible for everyone else, while probably also being able to do the things that those other people do better.
That's the problem with Fighter as D&D handles the concept.
I'll agree that 13th Age is bad at giving fighters equal noncombat options (although admittedly 13th age is better at this than 4e, at least they aren't penalized).
For an example of good fighter utility that doesn't involve them smacking people with swords, I bring you Dungeon World:
In DW, fighter means fighter. If you want to be a leader, you can multiclass some bard things to help you with that, but fighter means you have a sharp thing and use that sharp thing to hurt people. However, fighters also get to Bend Bars, Lift Gates. If you so choose, your fighter can also parley with people by sharing a drink, or by threatening violence. A fighter can, while drawing his sword, look at someone in the eyes and paralyze them with fear until he looks away. And, if you do get in combat they can still contribute to the story by choosing one person who will definitely live and one person who will definitely die.
Okay yes I cheated two of those things are technically in combat, but they are very much things that make the fighter a potent force that can drive the narrative in unique ways, which I think is the heart of the question here.
Hot damn do I love Dungeon World.
D&D has never been very good at the intersection of combat and non-combat. Even back when it was theoretically about exploration, combat always made everything else stop. With that in mind, abilities like Dungeon World has (I'm taking your word for it here, I've never played) that essentially bluff combat or do narrative things to the fighting are kind of against type in a D&D game. That's not to say they can't work, in the D&D games I enjoy playing and running combat exists to serve the narrative, but declarations of life and death seem kind of out of place.
Being really strong isn't a class ability, not in D&D anyway. Neither is being scary or killing things. Theoretically, everyone can do that stuff to some degree or another. And that's kind of the problem: Fighters have class abilities that are a matter of degree (stronger, scarier, whatever) while Wizards, Druids, et al have class abilities that are a matter of Kind - they get to do things that are completely impossible for everyone else, while probably also being able to do the things that those other people do better.
That's the problem with Fighter as D&D handles the concept.
I was talking more about a system that handles fighters in the way Kalanur described, not necessarily how D&D should.
To clarify, what I'm saying isn't that they get plusses to intimidate or strength or something. This is the fighter being able to tell the GM "hey this is what's happening now". When I say they are able to paralyze someone by looking at them I mean literally. Also, no one else can do that. When I mean they get to say who lives and dies, I mean they get to tell the GM who lives and dies and that can not change, this is something other characters cannot do.
Even my example of Bend Bars, Lift Gates, if you have a generous GM that allows you to try and break things without being a fighter, you are still at the GM's mercy. Fighters get to say "hey I break it and it was quiet and nothing broke inside and the chest itself is easy to fix afterwards."
I get what you mean about how D&D handles this kind of stuff and how it doesn't translate, though. Although your example (fighters get to do something slightly better, magic users get to do something unique) is an issue with all martial vs magical classes, and is a different issue altogether. After all, rogues aren't the only ones who can lock pick and rangers aren't the only ones who can track.
+1
Options
KalnaurI See Rain . . .Centralia, WARegistered Userregular
Barbarian I think is a bit of column A and a bit of Column B. It has to be, because if you say they are animal types, then what is the ranger? And what would make the Shaman different than the Druid? How is a Rogue's out of combat skillset different than an Assassin? To me, Barbarian is the fighter equivalent to the primal world as fighter is to the civilized world. And I think there is going to be overlap with every class, just because there are so many.
It should be noted, I think, that the Barbarian as it's own class is only two editions old. Before that it was a Fighter kit. Shaman, likewise, is rather recent and previously would have just been a different flavor of Druid, which was itself a variant Cleric. Assassin used to be a Rogue kit, trading thieve's cant and decipher script for deathblow and poison use.
Most of the "mixed bag" classes used to be minor tweaks on the core 4, but then they gained a life of their own as D&D became more character-option heavy. There's no real reason they couldn't go back to being subclasses.
Well, the best solution is to completely divorce non-combat mechanics from combat mechanics, including in the role system.
If you don't want to do that (perhaps to limit complexity / number of choices / amount of material needed), then the next best solution is to still divorce the material behind the scenes in the design phase, but then create static combinations of options for a list of individual classes. For instance, a designer might craft a "Hunter" concept as a non-combat package, then give variants of that package to the Barbarian and the Ranger to form the complete classes.
The Fighter has a couple obvious options - either a "Athlete" type if feats of strength and endurance are important in the game (outside of battles), or a "Knight" type for leadership, diplomacy, and politics.
Even better if you split it further into non-combat exploration stuff and non-combat interaction stuff, since then you could have a Fighter with Athlete stuff for exploring and Knight stuff for interacting, but now I'm dangerously close to plugging so I'll stop there
In the short term, I think the best way to help with that is to eliminate class skills. Why can't the Fighter have a 14 Int and take History, representing his study of cultures, places, etc., to help her in battle?
All this I think gets to something I liked in 4th ed but would love to see developed more. In 4th they were introduced late-game and I think they were called "Themes"? In any regard, I'd like to see classes that were umbrella classes with many subclasses, perhaps named archetypes (for example, Fighter is the Warrior, Barbarian, Warlord, etc; Rogue would have Ninja/Assassin, Thief, Ruffian, Swashbuckler, etc ) each with some feature or another that makes them the quintessential of their archetype. That along with one archtypical skill and some weapon/ armor proficiencies would be it for archetypes. Then the player would pick a theme/background, which would contain all but that one skill in terms of non-combat options; the skills, abilities, and options to diversify would be outside the archetypical mechanics for the exact reason that once you apply something to the archetype, you change the nature of it.
Since classes are commonly archetypical, it just makes sense to me that the individuality would be chosen separate from the class itself. The archetype would have all the combat stuff, the background would have the non-combat stuff, so you might get a [Thief] who is a [Veteran], or a [Barbarian] [Scholar]. The Barbarian is a frothy mouthed crazy man with an axe, but you would not believe how peaceful he gets with a book. And the thing is that's a totally possible combo; vikings read or at least tried to read some of the stuff they took when raiding, why can't the psuedo-nordo-germanic fantasy barbarian be really into the library?
Imagine it, the big gruff barbarian steps forward and is the face for the party, meanwhile, the Bard's background is in [Professional Street Brawling] or something.
I make art things! deviantART:Kalnaur ::: Origin: Kalnaur ::: UPlay: Kalnaur
+1
Options
oxybeEntei is appaled and disappointed in youRegistered Userregular
As Zed said, part of the "Fighter Problem" is that it's a class that's flavour-wise "fights better then everyone else" whereas "everyone else" is still be pretty darn good in a scrap.
I honestly want the fighter class killed off. Just strait-up asked to come into a back ally for a chat and ruthlessly, viciously and unrepentantly shanked, shived and left to die behind a rank dumpster, all his possessions stolen and given to another class.
Let's say the Warlord. He's a cool guy and deserves the PHB spot way more.
Let the Warlord be the leader of men and technical combatant. We already have a "simple combat guy": the raging Barbarian. I keep hearing people extoll how the 3rd ed fighter was the newbie friendly class but that just makes me laugh... the Fighter requires the most planning of feats to be effective.
The Barbarian requires you to remember that X times per day for Y rounds you get +4 str/con sure, but you can easily boil that down to
+2 to hit & damage, +3 damage if using a 2-hander
+2xLevel HP (the reason why to keep track of damage, not HP, folks!)
+2 fort save,
+2 will save
+2 to Str & Con-based skill checks
-2 AC
-Can't use Int, Wis or Cha skills beyond intimidate
And that's it, really. Beyond that, you pick the biggest weapon you can and go to town. If you think your newbie can handle it, show them power attack, If not, give them weapon focus, as an unoptimized barbarian is still a better choice then an unoptimized fighter.
This way we still have the martial, master combatant archetype, but it's also the leader of men with the ability to do so.
The fighter is a bad class with a bad concept.
you can read my collected ravings at oxybesothertumbr.tumblr.com
The idea that I had, as I was mentally checking off boxes for a theoretical edition of D&D I would design, was to combine all the "highly skilled normal person" classes into one that could then be built to taste. Something like the Fighter from 3E but with more options and faster acquisition of those options, a ton of skills and such.
Make "not a Wizard" a lot of mundane but useful things that could respond usefully to any situation and be built in a bunch of different ways. But only make it one class so you don't have to chain level dip to get a smattering of abilities that actually matter.
Honestly the Fighter is just fine for D&D (combat) as long as you keep with the 4E concept - mechanically, it's the tank.
Here's a super-simple version for 5E (you'd add a bunch of little extras as it levels up of course, also note that I don't have a copy of the rules on hand to make sure this is 100% compatible):
Martial Mastery
The fighter is a master of close combat, forcing opponents to pay close attention or leave themselves open to mortal injury. When a fighter makes a melee attack against an enemy, the enemy is considered engaged by the fighter until the start of the fighter's next turn. Engaged enemies have disadvantage against the fighter's allies, and the fighter gets advantage on opportunity attacks provoked by the engaged enemy.
As the fighter levels up and gets more attacks, it can mark more enemies in a single turn. You can power this up further by letting opportunity attacks halt movement and having attacks against allies provoke opportunity attacks, both mechanics borrowed right from 4E of course.
Does the 5E fighter really not get anything like this? I mean it's super simple, even with gridless combat, and makes the fighter a worthy part of the group without having any other tricks at all. Last I saw the fighter had some damage reduction interrupt ability it could use, but that was back when it had the expertise dice thing.
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
+1
Options
oxybeEntei is appaled and disappointed in youRegistered Userregular
I think the closest it gets is one maneuver, which requires you to spend a superiority dice on a hit to force a wisdom save, where if it fails, the enemy has disadvantage on all attacks on targets other then you until the end of your next turn.
Also, since i'm on the topic of the "warlord" build: his "grant attack" or "grant movement" maneuvers, beyond requiring the use of your limited superiority dice pool, also requires the ally to give up their reaction action. Which also breaks the action economy... but even less in your favour as it requires 2 actions on the party's part to do one thing: you use up your attack action AND your ally's reaction to get one attack from that ally.
I can see it being situationally useful, but those situations seem VERY rare IMO.
you can read my collected ravings at oxybesothertumbr.tumblr.com
My preferred solution for fixing out of combat inequality is:
1. All skills can be trained by all classes (in equal amounts)
2. If you are trained in a skill, it's calculated as if you had put an 18 in the ability score at character creation.
3. Utility powers that are actually utility based and have little to no combat use besides maybe movement.
The third step is the killer, since it's hard to think up mundane ways to do things magic can do and balancing out of combat stuff is difficult, but as long as there's something each level for the guy who wants gritty realism and the guy who's fine with fighters performing amazing and impossible heroic deeds, it's fine.
1. All skills can be trained by all classes (in equal amounts)
This is the one that has always weirded me out.
So there's a guy who can turn into a bear and cast spells, and he theoretically learned all this in the same amount of time that this other guy learned to swing a sword. How in the hell does bear-guy have more opportunity to learn mundane skills? It seems like the person who wasn't meditating with woodland creatures would maybe have spent some of their off time talking to people or reading a book.
1. All skills can be trained by all classes (in equal amounts)
This is the one that has always weirded me out.
So there's a guy who can turn into a bear and cast spells, and he theoretically learned all this in the same amount of time that this other guy learned to swing a sword. How in the hell does bear-guy have more opportunity to learn mundane skills? It seems like the person who wasn't meditating with woodland creatures would maybe have spent some of their off time talking to people or reading a book.
Because learning to swing a sword well enough to rival the guy that turns into a bear in power takes a long time?
Because Olympians are just as skilled outside their field of expertise as Chess Grandmasters?
Because it's stupid to limit one class's skill selection over another's because they fight differently if they are balanced in power?
1. All skills can be trained by all classes (in equal amounts)
This is the one that has always weirded me out.
So there's a guy who can turn into a bear and cast spells, and he theoretically learned all this in the same amount of time that this other guy learned to swing a sword. How in the hell does bear-guy have more opportunity to learn mundane skills? It seems like the person who wasn't meditating with woodland creatures would maybe have spent some of their off time talking to people or reading a book.
Because learning to swing a sword well enough to rival the guy that turns into a bear in power takes a long time?
Because Olympians are just as skilled outside their field of expertise as Chess Grandmasters?
Because it's stupid to limit one class's skill selection over another's because they fight differently if they are balanced in power?
Sorry, I should have made it clear that I wasn't critiquing your idea directly. In a system that's set up for it, there is absolutely nothing wrong with everyone having equal access to skills.
What is weird to me is how it seems like the more weird shit you've learned to do, and the weirder it is, the more other skills you've picked up along the way. Specifically in 3rd Edition, the more it seemed like you were completely removed from mundane life the more skills you were given to be awesome at the normal stuff. It was very strange.
1. All skills can be trained by all classes (in equal amounts)
This is the one that has always weirded me out.
So there's a guy who can turn into a bear and cast spells, and he theoretically learned all this in the same amount of time that this other guy learned to swing a sword. How in the hell does bear-guy have more opportunity to learn mundane skills? It seems like the person who wasn't meditating with woodland creatures would maybe have spent some of their off time talking to people or reading a book.
Because learning to swing a sword well enough to rival the guy that turns into a bear in power takes a long time?
Because Olympians are just as skilled outside their field of expertise as Chess Grandmasters?
Because it's stupid to limit one class's skill selection over another's because they fight differently if they are balanced in power?
Sorry, I should have made it clear that I wasn't critiquing your idea directly. In a system that's set up for it, there is absolutely nothing wrong with everyone having equal access to skills.
What is weird to me is how it seems like the more weird shit you've learned to do, and the weirder it is, the more other skills you've picked up along the way. Specifically in 3rd Edition, the more it seemed like you were completely removed from mundane life the more skills you were given to be awesome at the normal stuff. It was very strange.
Yeah, you'd think that going to school to learn how to blow up things with your mind would give you LESS opportunity to learn about history and geography and riding horses, not more.
Two combat feats and one that is almost strictly non-combat.
Not a fan of putting that kind of choice to players. Granted, Dungeon Delver is awesome if that's your bag, but if it's going to be in competition with a (theoretical) uber backstab feat or something it's going to be second picked forever.
Dungeon Delver also feels like a feat tax for Rogues, to be honest.
As Zed said, part of the "Fighter Problem" is that it's a class that's flavour-wise "fights better then everyone else" whereas "everyone else" is still be pretty darn good in a scrap.
I honestly want the fighter class killed off. Just strait-up asked to come into a back ally for a chat and ruthlessly, viciously and unrepentantly shanked, shived and left to die behind a rank dumpster, all his possessions stolen and given to another class.
Let's say the Warlord. He's a cool guy and deserves the PHB spot way more.
Let the Warlord be the leader of men and technical combatant. We already have a "simple combat guy": the raging Barbarian. I keep hearing people extoll how the 3rd ed fighter was the newbie friendly class but that just makes me laugh... the Fighter requires the most planning of feats to be effective.
And that's it, really. Beyond that, you pick the biggest weapon you can and go to town. If you think your newbie can handle it, show them power attack, If not, give them weapon focus, as an unoptimized barbarian is still a better choice then an unoptimized fighter.
This way we still have the martial, master combatant archetype, but it's also the leader of men with the ability to do so.
The fighter is a bad class with a bad concept.
I think you're right. Rogues, Warlords, and to a lesser extent, Rangers, take too many skills out of what real life Fighters use (sneaking, traps, leading others, etc), so it leaves you with a comparatively small archetype.
Apparently there's a fair bit of confusion on how Durable actually works.
Whether or not it applies to the individual die roll or the total after adding your Con mod seems to be up for debate, since there's not a lot of clarity on whether "roll" = "the individual die roll" or "roll" = "die roll + relevant modifier".
oxybeEntei is appaled and disappointed in youRegistered Userregular
edited August 2014
I would say it's the individual roll itself as your hit dice healing roll is dice+con.
if it meant the minimum you can heal with dice+con = double con, it would have been easier to simply say "if you roll less then your Constitution modifier on your Hit Dice roll, treat it as a number equal to your Constitution modifer".
The language it uses "... the minimum number you gain from the roll is twice your Constitution modifier (minimum 2)", in this case, speaks to the die roll itself as it calls out the roll rather then the check and it uses "minimum 2" which is the minimum anyone with a +1 con mod can get anyways on a dX+Y roll, where Y=1. Unless the feat was made to cover for PCs that have 11 or less con (thus the possibility of them healing 1 or less is actually a thing), at which point they're extremely fragile and the feat probably won't help them much.
Even then, if the dice roll is set to a minimum of 2, then a character with a 6 con (score-2) can at worst break even on the hit dice roll.
oxybe on
you can read my collected ravings at oxybesothertumbr.tumblr.com
That's one interpretation, but an attack roll is defined as d20+modifiers. Is a hit dice roll different?
Using a hypothetical wizard with 20 con as an example, here are the two possibilities:
If Durable affects the total result (Hit Dice + Con modifier):
You have 1d6 Hit Dice. Your minimum regained HP without the Durable feat is 6 (1+5). Your maximum is 11 (6+5). With the Durable feat, your minimum regained HP is 10 (5x2). Your maximum is 11 (6+5).
If Durable affects the individual Hit Dice:
You have 1d6 Hit Dice. Your minimum regained HP without the Durable feat is 6 (1+5). Your maximum is 11 (6+5). With the Durable feat, your minimum regained HP is 15 ({5x2}+5). Your maximum is also 15 ({5x2}+5). Note that your minimum roll is now larger than the actual size of the Hit Die.
Wow, I totally read that part of the feat wrong. I thought it was referring to when you gain a hit die, like, on level-up, not when you use a healing surge spend a hit die.
Reading it again, I gotta believe that @Denada's first reading is the correct one. The roll = dice + modifiers.
Both the Short Rest rules and the Durable rules could really use some clarification. Like, oh, I don't know:
Spend a Hit Die
During a short rest, roll 1[HD] + Constitution modifier. Regain hit points equal to the result (minimum 1).
Durable
Permanently increase your Constitution score by 1 (to a maximum of 20). In addition, when you spend a Hit Die, the minimum amount of hit points you gain is equal to twice your Constitution modifier (minimum 2).
But that's not 4 paragraphs long, so it would never work.
Note: The people named in this article have a history of harassing their critics. As such I have chosen to keep my sources and any traceable information they have given me anonymous to protect them.
This at the top of a article already sets the tone pretty bleakly.
Edit: Wow. I know nothing about the two people he is talking about, but they sure do sound like stand up guys. Is all that accurate?
It's not accurate. They're even worse than that.
And they've collected a sad menagerie of yes-men around them. I don't want to get too political, but really - faced with all the real, serious problems in the world, some people are actually wasting their time... fighting for the RPG Pundit against rpg.net. It really baffles, and scares, me.
Other games have faster resolving combat, gridless, tokenless combat, the whole nine yards, without removing complexity. IMO it's not complexity that bog down combat but bookkeeping, and you don't need to gut the tactics of your games to get there.
With respect to Fighters, IIRC, 13th Age's Fighter mechanic is "I attack, then flip a coin to see if I get a bonus." Not substantively different from "I attack" each round IMO. Their ritual system and a lot of other class' storyish out of combat elements are much too "Mother, may I?" for my tastes.
Anyway I don't disagree with you guys that they're different games with a different focus, but I guess I just strongly disagree with the statement that 13th Age takes the best bits of 4E - because IMO 4E D&D's greatest success is finally balancing combat. In a 3.5 game I'd feel bad for playing a Wizard, in a 4E game I'm coordinating with the Fighter as equals to be more badass than either of us could be alone.
Could you name those games? Like, I'm honestly curious about it.
You're also mischaracterizing the fighter attack. It's generate a number and then choose which of your abilities is available. The abilities that you knew the triggering conditions of when you were selecting them. Do you leverage ones that require high rolls to win quickly or do you make sure to grab some that trigger only on low rolls so you can always do things? The fighter system is rife with decisions, some at the strategic level and some at the tactical while being fairly quick in actual play.
I also think you're a assuming a style of DMing that the book heartily discourages with regards to story abilities. If you're the DM and you're trying to rigidly force the players to your plot in 13th Age you have seriously missed the point.
That's not my style a DMing but it's unfortunately one I encounter frequently enough that I greatly appreciate having player agency engraved in stone within the rules.
With regards to combat systems, sure! For me combat in White Wolf's nWoD, specifically Mage, has always been tedium free but tactically complex and challenging as everyone has a crazy array of decisions before them. Similarly if you've ever played Continuum I've found the combat quick and easy (although the to-hit rolls are a little clunky) and the PCs are probably the most powerful of any game, ever. Dogs in the Vineyard has a cool thing going where the character choices don't have much tactical range (it's narrativist and kinda descends into a FATE-esque mother-may-I situation), but the player has interesting choices due to their dice rolling system (this doesn't really count for our discussion but I really enjoyed it so wanted to bring it up anyway). Numenara is ok in this regard but I've barely played it so not really willing to commit there.
Well that sure is a list of games I've never played. I came up on oWoD and never really looked much at nWoD. First time I've heard such a description pointed at it and with some of the other Mage stuff that's come up lately perhaps it deserves a look.
Legend and Star Wars Saga Edition are probably the best D&D 3.5 based solutions, they still carry a lot of baggage but I think have greatly streamlined without sacrificing tactical options as in 13th Age.
Legend, in a not bad way, kinda seemed to round the corners of characters and cut down on fiddly details (e.g. their weapon system.) I kinda liked that.
The other end of the spectrum IMO would be Shadowrun and the Fantasy Flight Games 40k RPGs - omg the bookkeeping. I love both to death but a group not prepared to process the minutiae is going to be bogged down moreso than D&D, and with no grid map or miniatures or whatever!
Basically I think it's always bookkeeping that bogs down combat, especially if you're constantly flipping to tables or looking up obscure status effects. The complexity of the actions available to the player do not need to be reduced for this sake, and I was pretty annoyed when I flipped through 13th Age's Wizard spells and saw what they had in terms of battlefield control options.
Well condition definitions don't bother me chiefly because I have a very good memory for that kind of thing. The stuff that gets me are when small mathematical changes just pile on top of each other repeatedly and you get an attack calculation that is like ten operations long. Bonus aggravation points if it is so lopsided that you barely have to roll.
Really the whole thing kinda begs for a system to be created in parallel to a companion app to handle all the book/math shit. You want to use an integral as a resolution mechanic? Whatever, the computer just does it so who cares. Sadly, the only people with the resources to try it suck at technology.
Somebody make me rich. Also, know how to program. Also, be good at game design....
So uh, this article explains a lot about where 5th Ed went, and also goes on to expose some of the... nastier stuff going on behind the scenes.
Wow, that's . . . not endearing.
You know, Mike Mearls is not helping his tone-deaf track record . . .
This has been the Next design teams MO from the start and right through the "playtests". Despite the house being on fire, deny there is any problem whatsoever and never listen to anyone who has a view you didn't already start out agreeing with.
Which is why they are thanking two of the most toxic and frankly awful people in the DnD community at the moment.
Other games have faster resolving combat, gridless, tokenless combat, the whole nine yards, without removing complexity. IMO it's not complexity that bog down combat but bookkeeping, and you don't need to gut the tactics of your games to get there.
With respect to Fighters, IIRC, 13th Age's Fighter mechanic is "I attack, then flip a coin to see if I get a bonus." Not substantively different from "I attack" each round IMO. Their ritual system and a lot of other class' storyish out of combat elements are much too "Mother, may I?" for my tastes.
Anyway I don't disagree with you guys that they're different games with a different focus, but I guess I just strongly disagree with the statement that 13th Age takes the best bits of 4E - because IMO 4E D&D's greatest success is finally balancing combat. In a 3.5 game I'd feel bad for playing a Wizard, in a 4E game I'm coordinating with the Fighter as equals to be more badass than either of us could be alone.
Could you name those games? Like, I'm honestly curious about it.
You're also mischaracterizing the fighter attack. It's generate a number and then choose which of your abilities is available. The abilities that you knew the triggering conditions of when you were selecting them. Do you leverage ones that require high rolls to win quickly or do you make sure to grab some that trigger only on low rolls so you can always do things? The fighter system is rife with decisions, some at the strategic level and some at the tactical while being fairly quick in actual play.
I also think you're a assuming a style of DMing that the book heartily discourages with regards to story abilities. If you're the DM and you're trying to rigidly force the players to your plot in 13th Age you have seriously missed the point.
That's not my style a DMing but it's unfortunately one I encounter frequently enough that I greatly appreciate having player agency engraved in stone within the rules.
With regards to combat systems, sure! For me combat in White Wolf's nWoD, specifically Mage, has always been tedium free but tactically complex and challenging as everyone has a crazy array of decisions before them. Similarly if you've ever played Continuum I've found the combat quick and easy (although the to-hit rolls are a little clunky) and the PCs are probably the most powerful of any game, ever. Dogs in the Vineyard has a cool thing going where the character choices don't have much tactical range (it's narrativist and kinda descends into a FATE-esque mother-may-I situation), but the player has interesting choices due to their dice rolling system (this doesn't really count for our discussion but I really enjoyed it so wanted to bring it up anyway). Numenara is ok in this regard but I've barely played it so not really willing to commit there.
Well that sure is a list of games I've never played. I came up on oWoD and never really looked much at nWoD. First time I've heard such a description pointed at it and with some of the other Mage stuff that's come up lately perhaps it deserves a look.
Legend and Star Wars Saga Edition are probably the best D&D 3.5 based solutions, they still carry a lot of baggage but I think have greatly streamlined without sacrificing tactical options as in 13th Age.
Legend, in a not bad way, kinda seemed to round the corners of characters and cut down on fiddly details (e.g. their weapon system.) I kinda liked that.
The other end of the spectrum IMO would be Shadowrun and the Fantasy Flight Games 40k RPGs - omg the bookkeeping. I love both to death but a group not prepared to process the minutiae is going to be bogged down moreso than D&D, and with no grid map or miniatures or whatever!
Basically I think it's always bookkeeping that bogs down combat, especially if you're constantly flipping to tables or looking up obscure status effects. The complexity of the actions available to the player do not need to be reduced for this sake, and I was pretty annoyed when I flipped through 13th Age's Wizard spells and saw what they had in terms of battlefield control options.
Well condition definitions don't bother me chiefly because I have a very good memory for that kind of thing. The stuff that gets me are when small mathematical changes just pile on top of each other repeatedly and you get an attack calculation that is like ten operations long. Bonus aggravation points if it is so lopsided that you barely have to roll.
Really the whole thing kinda begs for a system to be created in parallel to a companion app to handle all the book/math shit. You want to use an integral as a resolution mechanic? Whatever, the computer just does it so who cares. Sadly, the only people with the resources to try it suck at technology.
Somebody make me rich. Also, know how to program. Also, be good at game design....
nWoD is waaaay more streamlined than oWoD. I played a lot of oWoD, too, and yea it's combat can get bogged down so quickly; multiple action rules, roll to hit, roll to dodge, roll to damage, roll to soak, lots of little modifiers floating around. God help you if you actually play with the RAW initiative rules (roll for initiative each round, and have everyone declare their actions in reverse initiative order to give the fastest person a tactical advantage). Every group I've been in has wholesale discarded that craziness, basically doubles the length of a round by itself.
But nWoD significantly reduced the dice rolling to a single pool for hitting and damage against a fixed difficulty, modified by opponent defensive stats, and that's it. The newest update got rid of the remaining multiple action shenanigans, too, although I admit for mortals it seems like it could devolve into gunman firing his gun every round with little decision making. Luckily you're playing some crazy monster of the night with lotsa powers to choose from, and, well, Mage is Mage with respect to how crazy you can go there.
They're currently releasing material for what is essentially nWoD 2.0 (officially called the God Machine Chronicle update) and it has a lot of revamped mechanics to encourage roleplay that look very interesting. The oWoD fluff was really cool but goddamn does nWoD have the mechanics that I adore. The new Vampire book (Blood and Smoke) is already out with Mage and Werewolf in the works.
Barbarian I think is a bit of column A and a bit of Column B. It has to be, because if you say they are animal types, then what is the ranger? And what would make the Shaman different than the Druid? How is a Rogue's out of combat skillset different than an Assassin? To me, Barbarian is the fighter equivalent to the primal world as fighter is to the civilized world. And I think there is going to be overlap with every class, just because there are so many.
It should be noted, I think, that the Barbarian as it's own class is only two editions old. Before that it was a Fighter kit. Shaman, likewise, is rather recent and previously would have just been a different flavor of Druid, which was itself a variant Cleric. Assassin used to be a Rogue kit, trading thieve's cant and decipher script for deathblow and poison use.
Most of the "mixed bag" classes used to be minor tweaks on the core 4, but then they gained a life of their own as D&D became more character-option heavy. There's no real reason they couldn't go back to being subclasses.
Barb was in the first UA. Though it existed as a class pretty much exclusively because of Conan.
Interesting. Then it must have been downgraded to kit sometime after that.
Still, a Conan-style Barbarian is pretty much exactly a D&D Fighter. Just a little more naked and a lot more charming.
Conan, in the Howard books, was actually very different than a D&D 3E Barbarian. He rarely raged because he had extensive situational awareness and consummate skill. The Unearthed Arcana version refused to use magic items until higher levels, which of course everybody ignored (just like the Paladin & Monk magic item restrictions). Conan, though, would use magic when he needed to. He even knew a few spells later in life. Conan also had a good number of rogue abilities and was basically a thief (...mostly of virginities) through most of his career. He was also a leader of men, however, and controlled armies and pirate fleets at various points throughout his life.
Honestly all the "Barbarian" archetypes that D&D says are based on Conan are essentially based on his earliest incarnations.
Pursuant to the current discussion, I would not mind at all for every character to have a combat profile and a noncombat suite of skills. So you could have someone who was normally a very civilized and knowledgeable person who had a short fuse and would fly off the handle in combat, a Berserker-profile Scholar. Or someone who could use force magic in a fight, but who mostly worked as a "security consultant" in his everyday business. Or a circus acrobat who was a pretty good animal trainer as well. You can do this stuff in skill- or point-based systems, but trying it in D&D is the most fiddly and annoying objective.
It seems like the new D&D has no real interest in growing the game beyond [flashing "ICONIC" .gif]
0
Options
oxybeEntei is appaled and disappointed in youRegistered Userregular
Wasn't Conan a barbarian due to technicalities? Like Cimmerian = barbarian, socially speaking, akin to how there was the Roman Empire and everyone else was "barbarians"?
you can read my collected ravings at oxybesothertumbr.tumblr.com
Wasn't Conan a barbarian due to technicalities? Like Cimmerian = barbarian, socially speaking, akin to how there was the Roman Empire and everyone else was "barbarians"?
Essentially. Cimmeria was all tribally-based hill country, but there wasn't just one current civilization. Most of the modern kingdoms were forged by Hyboreans, much like the Alexandran empire affected every place it visited. Howard even wrote an extensive document about the history of his world.
The "barbarians" are basically anyone from a non-Hyborean society, if they're northern (includes the Norsemen-types). Southern non-Hyboreans are mostly the middle-eastern equivalents. Though Conan was pretty much the only Cimmerian you ever meet in the pulps, you get the impression that they're mostly of his ilk.
So uh, this article explains a lot about where 5th Ed went, and also goes on to expose some of the... nastier stuff going on behind the scenes.
There's a ton of misinformation in that post, it's been torn apart thoroughly since it was posted. Short version, Zak can be obsessive in pursuing an answer in forum threads, calls people out if he thinks they're making baseless arguments, and at times comes across as full-on argumentative. But the serious accusations thrown at him in that post simply don't have any backing. Not transphobic, homophobic, racist, or a supporter of harassment.
Also, I take issue with the idea that Zak is famous for playing D&D with "random" porn stars. He played D&D with porn actors who were his friends. He and his girlfriend worked in the industry, as far as I can gather.
I don't know the guy, or much of his history with D&D, but I got a laugh out of his show while it was on The Escapist. I can see how his attitudes might be controversial and I'm not saying that he hasn't caused some uproar, but I'm having a hard time believing that he's specifically trans- or homophobic.
I mean, this is the internet. Things get taken out of context all the damn time. To this day there are people who point to David Gaider's work on Dragon Age and say that he hates little people because he made a joke about dwarf sex years ago.
+1
Options
KayWhat we need...Is a little bit of PANIC.Registered Userregular
I've read why he was banned from the RPG.net forums. He is most certainly not someone I'd want representing MY product. His entire schtick is based on bullying.
He's not as bad as 'The RPG Pundit', but he's still bad.
A friend of mine picked up the 5E starter pack thing. Going to give it A TRY at least, but I don't like what I've read so far.
Posts
Still, a Conan-style Barbarian is pretty much exactly a D&D Fighter. Just a little more naked and a lot more charming.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
That's not my style a DMing but it's unfortunately one I encounter frequently enough that I greatly appreciate having player agency engraved in stone within the rules.
With regards to combat systems, sure! For me combat in White Wolf's nWoD, specifically Mage, has always been tedium free but tactically complex and challenging as everyone has a crazy array of decisions before them. Similarly if you've ever played Continuum I've found the combat quick and easy (although the to-hit rolls are a little clunky) and the PCs are probably the most powerful of any game, ever. Dogs in the Vineyard has a cool thing going where the character choices don't have much tactical range (it's narrativist and kinda descends into a FATE-esque mother-may-I situation), but the player has interesting choices due to their dice rolling system (this doesn't really count for our discussion but I really enjoyed it so wanted to bring it up anyway). Numenara is ok in this regard but I've barely played it so not really willing to commit there.
Legend and Star Wars Saga Edition are probably the best D&D 3.5 based solutions, they still carry a lot of baggage but I think have greatly streamlined without sacrificing tactical options as in 13th Age.
The other end of the spectrum IMO would be Shadowrun and the Fantasy Flight Games 40k RPGs - omg the bookkeeping. I love both to death but a group not prepared to process the minutiae is going to be bogged down moreso than D&D, and with no grid map or miniatures or whatever!
Basically I think it's always bookkeeping that bogs down combat, especially if you're constantly flipping to tables or looking up obscure status effects. The complexity of the actions available to the player do not need to be reduced for this sake, and I was pretty annoyed when I flipped through 13th Age's Wizard spells and saw what they had in terms of battlefield control options.
For an example of good fighter utility that doesn't involve them smacking people with swords, I bring you Dungeon World:
In DW, fighter means fighter. If you want to be a leader, you can multiclass some bard things to help you with that, but fighter means you have a sharp thing and use that sharp thing to hurt people. However, fighters also get to Bend Bars, Lift Gates. If you so choose, your fighter can also parley with people by sharing a drink, or by threatening violence. A fighter can, while drawing his sword, look at someone in the eyes and paralyze them with fear until he looks away. And, if you do get in combat they can still contribute to the story by choosing one person who will definitely live and one person who will definitely die.
Okay yes I cheated two of those things are technically in combat, but they are very much things that make the fighter a potent force that can drive the narrative in unique ways, which I think is the heart of the question here.
Hot damn do I love Dungeon World.
If you don't want to do that (perhaps to limit complexity / number of choices / amount of material needed), then the next best solution is to still divorce the material behind the scenes in the design phase, but then create static combinations of options for a list of individual classes. For instance, a designer might craft a "Hunter" concept as a non-combat package, then give variants of that package to the Barbarian and the Ranger to form the complete classes.
The Fighter has a couple obvious options - either a "Athlete" type if feats of strength and endurance are important in the game (outside of battles), or a "Knight" type for leadership, diplomacy, and politics.
Even better if you split it further into non-combat exploration stuff and non-combat interaction stuff, since then you could have a Fighter with Athlete stuff for exploring and Knight stuff for interacting, but now I'm dangerously close to plugging so I'll stop there
Being really strong isn't a class ability, not in D&D anyway. Neither is being scary or killing things. Theoretically, everyone can do that stuff to some degree or another. And that's kind of the problem: Fighters have class abilities that are a matter of degree (stronger, scarier, whatever) while Wizards, Druids, et al have class abilities that are a matter of Kind - they get to do things that are completely impossible for everyone else, while probably also being able to do the things that those other people do better.
That's the problem with Fighter as D&D handles the concept.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
I was talking more about a system that handles fighters in the way Kalanur described, not necessarily how D&D should.
To clarify, what I'm saying isn't that they get plusses to intimidate or strength or something. This is the fighter being able to tell the GM "hey this is what's happening now". When I say they are able to paralyze someone by looking at them I mean literally. Also, no one else can do that. When I mean they get to say who lives and dies, I mean they get to tell the GM who lives and dies and that can not change, this is something other characters cannot do.
Even my example of Bend Bars, Lift Gates, if you have a generous GM that allows you to try and break things without being a fighter, you are still at the GM's mercy. Fighters get to say "hey I break it and it was quiet and nothing broke inside and the chest itself is easy to fix afterwards."
I get what you mean about how D&D handles this kind of stuff and how it doesn't translate, though. Although your example (fighters get to do something slightly better, magic users get to do something unique) is an issue with all martial vs magical classes, and is a different issue altogether. After all, rogues aren't the only ones who can lock pick and rangers aren't the only ones who can track.
All this I think gets to something I liked in 4th ed but would love to see developed more. In 4th they were introduced late-game and I think they were called "Themes"? In any regard, I'd like to see classes that were umbrella classes with many subclasses, perhaps named archetypes (for example, Fighter is the Warrior, Barbarian, Warlord, etc; Rogue would have Ninja/Assassin, Thief, Ruffian, Swashbuckler, etc ) each with some feature or another that makes them the quintessential of their archetype. That along with one archtypical skill and some weapon/ armor proficiencies would be it for archetypes. Then the player would pick a theme/background, which would contain all but that one skill in terms of non-combat options; the skills, abilities, and options to diversify would be outside the archetypical mechanics for the exact reason that once you apply something to the archetype, you change the nature of it.
Since classes are commonly archetypical, it just makes sense to me that the individuality would be chosen separate from the class itself. The archetype would have all the combat stuff, the background would have the non-combat stuff, so you might get a [Thief] who is a [Veteran], or a [Barbarian] [Scholar]. The Barbarian is a frothy mouthed crazy man with an axe, but you would not believe how peaceful he gets with a book. And the thing is that's a totally possible combo; vikings read or at least tried to read some of the stuff they took when raiding, why can't the psuedo-nordo-germanic fantasy barbarian be really into the library?
Imagine it, the big gruff barbarian steps forward and is the face for the party, meanwhile, the Bard's background is in [Professional Street Brawling] or something.
I honestly want the fighter class killed off. Just strait-up asked to come into a back ally for a chat and ruthlessly, viciously and unrepentantly shanked, shived and left to die behind a rank dumpster, all his possessions stolen and given to another class.
Let's say the Warlord. He's a cool guy and deserves the PHB spot way more.
Let the Warlord be the leader of men and technical combatant. We already have a "simple combat guy": the raging Barbarian. I keep hearing people extoll how the 3rd ed fighter was the newbie friendly class but that just makes me laugh... the Fighter requires the most planning of feats to be effective.
The Barbarian requires you to remember that X times per day for Y rounds you get +4 str/con sure, but you can easily boil that down to
+2 to hit & damage, +3 damage if using a 2-hander
+2xLevel HP (the reason why to keep track of damage, not HP, folks!)
+2 fort save,
+2 will save
+2 to Str & Con-based skill checks
-2 AC
-Can't use Int, Wis or Cha skills beyond intimidate
And that's it, really. Beyond that, you pick the biggest weapon you can and go to town. If you think your newbie can handle it, show them power attack, If not, give them weapon focus, as an unoptimized barbarian is still a better choice then an unoptimized fighter.
This way we still have the martial, master combatant archetype, but it's also the leader of men with the ability to do so.
The fighter is a bad class with a bad concept.
Make "not a Wizard" a lot of mundane but useful things that could respond usefully to any situation and be built in a bunch of different ways. But only make it one class so you don't have to chain level dip to get a smattering of abilities that actually matter.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Here's a super-simple version for 5E (you'd add a bunch of little extras as it levels up of course, also note that I don't have a copy of the rules on hand to make sure this is 100% compatible):
Martial Mastery
The fighter is a master of close combat, forcing opponents to pay close attention or leave themselves open to mortal injury. When a fighter makes a melee attack against an enemy, the enemy is considered engaged by the fighter until the start of the fighter's next turn. Engaged enemies have disadvantage against the fighter's allies, and the fighter gets advantage on opportunity attacks provoked by the engaged enemy.
As the fighter levels up and gets more attacks, it can mark more enemies in a single turn. You can power this up further by letting opportunity attacks halt movement and having attacks against allies provoke opportunity attacks, both mechanics borrowed right from 4E of course.
Does the 5E fighter really not get anything like this? I mean it's super simple, even with gridless combat, and makes the fighter a worthy part of the group without having any other tricks at all. Last I saw the fighter had some damage reduction interrupt ability it could use, but that was back when it had the expertise dice thing.
Also, since i'm on the topic of the "warlord" build: his "grant attack" or "grant movement" maneuvers, beyond requiring the use of your limited superiority dice pool, also requires the ally to give up their reaction action. Which also breaks the action economy... but even less in your favour as it requires 2 actions on the party's part to do one thing: you use up your attack action AND your ally's reaction to get one attack from that ally.
I can see it being situationally useful, but those situations seem VERY rare IMO.
1. All skills can be trained by all classes (in equal amounts)
2. If you are trained in a skill, it's calculated as if you had put an 18 in the ability score at character creation.
3. Utility powers that are actually utility based and have little to no combat use besides maybe movement.
The third step is the killer, since it's hard to think up mundane ways to do things magic can do and balancing out of combat stuff is difficult, but as long as there's something each level for the guy who wants gritty realism and the guy who's fine with fighters performing amazing and impossible heroic deeds, it's fine.
So there's a guy who can turn into a bear and cast spells, and he theoretically learned all this in the same amount of time that this other guy learned to swing a sword. How in the hell does bear-guy have more opportunity to learn mundane skills? It seems like the person who wasn't meditating with woodland creatures would maybe have spent some of their off time talking to people or reading a book.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Because learning to swing a sword well enough to rival the guy that turns into a bear in power takes a long time?
Because Olympians are just as skilled outside their field of expertise as Chess Grandmasters?
Because it's stupid to limit one class's skill selection over another's because they fight differently if they are balanced in power?
What is weird to me is how it seems like the more weird shit you've learned to do, and the weirder it is, the more other skills you've picked up along the way. Specifically in 3rd Edition, the more it seemed like you were completely removed from mundane life the more skills you were given to be awesome at the normal stuff. It was very strange.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Yeah, you'd think that going to school to learn how to blow up things with your mind would give you LESS opportunity to learn about history and geography and riding horses, not more.
Durable = Fix for a problem that sucks anyway (random HP)
Elemental Adept = Pretty cool.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Not a fan of putting that kind of choice to players. Granted, Dungeon Delver is awesome if that's your bag, but if it's going to be in competition with a (theoretical) uber backstab feat or something it's going to be second picked forever.
Dungeon Delver also feels like a feat tax for Rogues, to be honest.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
I think you're right. Rogues, Warlords, and to a lesser extent, Rangers, take too many skills out of what real life Fighters use (sneaking, traps, leading others, etc), so it leaves you with a comparatively small archetype.
Whether or not it applies to the individual die roll or the total after adding your Con mod seems to be up for debate, since there's not a lot of clarity on whether "roll" = "the individual die roll" or "roll" = "die roll + relevant modifier".
if it meant the minimum you can heal with dice+con = double con, it would have been easier to simply say "if you roll less then your Constitution modifier on your Hit Dice roll, treat it as a number equal to your Constitution modifer".
The language it uses "... the minimum number you gain from the roll is twice your Constitution modifier (minimum 2)", in this case, speaks to the die roll itself as it calls out the roll rather then the check and it uses "minimum 2" which is the minimum anyone with a +1 con mod can get anyways on a dX+Y roll, where Y=1. Unless the feat was made to cover for PCs that have 11 or less con (thus the possibility of them healing 1 or less is actually a thing), at which point they're extremely fragile and the feat probably won't help them much.
Even then, if the dice roll is set to a minimum of 2, then a character with a 6 con (score-2) can at worst break even on the hit dice roll.
Using a hypothetical wizard with 20 con as an example, here are the two possibilities:
If Durable affects the total result (Hit Dice + Con modifier):
You have 1d6 Hit Dice. Your minimum regained HP without the Durable feat is 6 (1+5). Your maximum is 11 (6+5). With the Durable feat, your minimum regained HP is 10 (5x2). Your maximum is 11 (6+5).
If Durable affects the individual Hit Dice:
You have 1d6 Hit Dice. Your minimum regained HP without the Durable feat is 6 (1+5). Your maximum is 11 (6+5). With the Durable feat, your minimum regained HP is 15 ({5x2}+5). Your maximum is also 15 ({5x2}+5). Note that your minimum roll is now larger than the actual size of the Hit Die.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Reading it again, I gotta believe that @Denada's first reading is the correct one. The roll = dice + modifiers.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Spend a Hit Die
During a short rest, roll 1[HD] + Constitution modifier. Regain hit points equal to the result (minimum 1).
Durable
Permanently increase your Constitution score by 1 (to a maximum of 20). In addition, when you spend a Hit Die, the minimum amount of hit points you gain is equal to twice your Constitution modifier (minimum 2).
But that's not 4 paragraphs long, so it would never work.
I predict a bold iconic strategy of ignoring such issues and therefore can say how you published "perfect" books.
The outrage some people had over the 4e errata made me foam at the mouth.
"Ugh stop tweaking your product to be clearer and better balanced for free ugghh"
It's not accurate. They're even worse than that.
And they've collected a sad menagerie of yes-men around them. I don't want to get too political, but really - faced with all the real, serious problems in the world, some people are actually wasting their time... fighting for the RPG Pundit against rpg.net. It really baffles, and scares, me.
Well that sure is a list of games I've never played. I came up on oWoD and never really looked much at nWoD. First time I've heard such a description pointed at it and with some of the other Mage stuff that's come up lately perhaps it deserves a look.
Legend, in a not bad way, kinda seemed to round the corners of characters and cut down on fiddly details (e.g. their weapon system.) I kinda liked that.
Well condition definitions don't bother me chiefly because I have a very good memory for that kind of thing. The stuff that gets me are when small mathematical changes just pile on top of each other repeatedly and you get an attack calculation that is like ten operations long. Bonus aggravation points if it is so lopsided that you barely have to roll.
Really the whole thing kinda begs for a system to be created in parallel to a companion app to handle all the book/math shit. You want to use an integral as a resolution mechanic? Whatever, the computer just does it so who cares. Sadly, the only people with the resources to try it suck at technology.
Somebody make me rich. Also, know how to program. Also, be good at game design....
This has been the Next design teams MO from the start and right through the "playtests". Despite the house being on fire, deny there is any problem whatsoever and never listen to anyone who has a view you didn't already start out agreeing with.
Which is why they are thanking two of the most toxic and frankly awful people in the DnD community at the moment.
nWoD is waaaay more streamlined than oWoD. I played a lot of oWoD, too, and yea it's combat can get bogged down so quickly; multiple action rules, roll to hit, roll to dodge, roll to damage, roll to soak, lots of little modifiers floating around. God help you if you actually play with the RAW initiative rules (roll for initiative each round, and have everyone declare their actions in reverse initiative order to give the fastest person a tactical advantage). Every group I've been in has wholesale discarded that craziness, basically doubles the length of a round by itself.
But nWoD significantly reduced the dice rolling to a single pool for hitting and damage against a fixed difficulty, modified by opponent defensive stats, and that's it. The newest update got rid of the remaining multiple action shenanigans, too, although I admit for mortals it seems like it could devolve into gunman firing his gun every round with little decision making. Luckily you're playing some crazy monster of the night with lotsa powers to choose from, and, well, Mage is Mage with respect to how crazy you can go there.
They're currently releasing material for what is essentially nWoD 2.0 (officially called the God Machine Chronicle update) and it has a lot of revamped mechanics to encourage roleplay that look very interesting. The oWoD fluff was really cool but goddamn does nWoD have the mechanics that I adore. The new Vampire book (Blood and Smoke) is already out with Mage and Werewolf in the works.
Conan, in the Howard books, was actually very different than a D&D 3E Barbarian. He rarely raged because he had extensive situational awareness and consummate skill. The Unearthed Arcana version refused to use magic items until higher levels, which of course everybody ignored (just like the Paladin & Monk magic item restrictions). Conan, though, would use magic when he needed to. He even knew a few spells later in life. Conan also had a good number of rogue abilities and was basically a thief (...mostly of virginities) through most of his career. He was also a leader of men, however, and controlled armies and pirate fleets at various points throughout his life.
Honestly all the "Barbarian" archetypes that D&D says are based on Conan are essentially based on his earliest incarnations.
Pursuant to the current discussion, I would not mind at all for every character to have a combat profile and a noncombat suite of skills. So you could have someone who was normally a very civilized and knowledgeable person who had a short fuse and would fly off the handle in combat, a Berserker-profile Scholar. Or someone who could use force magic in a fight, but who mostly worked as a "security consultant" in his everyday business. Or a circus acrobat who was a pretty good animal trainer as well. You can do this stuff in skill- or point-based systems, but trying it in D&D is the most fiddly and annoying objective.
It seems like the new D&D has no real interest in growing the game beyond [flashing "ICONIC" .gif]
Essentially. Cimmeria was all tribally-based hill country, but there wasn't just one current civilization. Most of the modern kingdoms were forged by Hyboreans, much like the Alexandran empire affected every place it visited. Howard even wrote an extensive document about the history of his world.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/42182/42182-h/42182-h.htm
The "barbarians" are basically anyone from a non-Hyborean society, if they're northern (includes the Norsemen-types). Southern non-Hyboreans are mostly the middle-eastern equivalents. Though Conan was pretty much the only Cimmerian you ever meet in the pulps, you get the impression that they're mostly of his ilk.
Getting off-topic, though.
Full explanation here http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com/2014/08/how-dungeons-and-dragons-is-totally-not.html
SoogaGames Blog
I don't know the guy, or much of his history with D&D, but I got a laugh out of his show while it was on The Escapist. I can see how his attitudes might be controversial and I'm not saying that he hasn't caused some uproar, but I'm having a hard time believing that he's specifically trans- or homophobic.
I mean, this is the internet. Things get taken out of context all the damn time. To this day there are people who point to David Gaider's work on Dragon Age and say that he hates little people because he made a joke about dwarf sex years ago.
He's not as bad as 'The RPG Pundit', but he's still bad.
A friend of mine picked up the 5E starter pack thing. Going to give it A TRY at least, but I don't like what I've read so far.
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991