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 Chongara wrote:
Especially for hard things this seems like it could feel very meaningful. If you're moving from 19+ (10%) to 18+ (15%), that's a 50% increase to your chance to succeed.

Unless you phrase it differently, of course: there is a 5% difference in chance to succeed between a 19+ and an 18+. There is quite a bit of difference between a 5% increase and a 50% increased chance. Fun with numbers.

Excluding that those numbers are taken in a vacuum*, I think breaking it down entirely to numbers and thinking about adventuring in terms of discreet numbers or relative performance misses the point entirely of playing an RPG.


*The guy with the 18+ could fail every time irl and the guy with the 19+ could succeed each time. How it plays out on paper doesn't always translate into actual results.

 Chongara wrote:
I'm [not] going to be forcing them to fight a giant red dragon.

You're no fun.

It seems most GM's wants to make a new novel using players, but no one wants to raid a dungeon for glory and riches. I just wanted to get that off my chest.

I'm still debating on whether to make my first full 5E character a Human or a Half-Orc Bear Totem Barbarian. If I go with the human I get another feat but if I go with the Half-Orc I can get slightly better starting stats.

I forgot someone made a 5E character Generator using Java. It isn't half bad.

 Chongara wrote:
especially since haflings are so well established elsewhere.

IIRC weren't halflings based on hobbits from LotR? So originally they looked more like this than scaled down humans:



I did run across an artist on Deviantart that had done some halflings that appear similar to the one in the book, but not as bad. There is other D&D stuff there as well.

The fighter chose the protection style, which did a lot of work. I think it kept people from getting critted to death 3 or 4 times since the disadvantage wound up downgrading natural 20s into just regular hits.

The guy in our group that made a dwarven fighter chose the static +2 damage from Dueling Style (iirc) over Protection Style, to my chagrin. It wouldn't be an issue but he wants to be a defender type fighter. I think it stems from 4E mentality and worrying that giving disadvantage once a turn is less powerful than always doing two more damage. Of course it could be that it would allow me to do Reckless Attack more often as well...

 Chongara wrote:
It seems immensely unpopular with the charop crowd in general. I suspect one line of thinking is that new abilities and items are acquired there is competition for the use your reaction. I'm not sure how many other battlemaster abilities are reactions, or if items grant powers like that.

I think he went Battlemaster so that is probably it, and a bit of Disadvantage being undervalued.

 Alpharius wrote:
Having only played 1E and a bit of 2E, that paragraph makes me a bit less inclined to try 5th!

Noooooo!

Fighters get a bonus to using certain weapon combinations not unlike in Skills and Powers. Protection Style is when they are using 'Sword and Board' they give enemies Disadvantage to attacking nearby allies as a Reaction. There is also a Dueling Style which requires using only a one handed weapon with no weapon in the other hand that just gives a +2 to damage. A Shield isn't a weapon so you can use a shield and get the dueling style.

Personally I use a Maul, because I am a man. /flex

 pretre wrote:

Currently, it is looking like pirates.
- "Starbuck-esque" Ranger
- "Queequeg-esque" Barbarian
- Squeezebox playing Bard
- Random DMPC for funsies

Gee, wonder who the real villain will turn out to be...

Oddly, while I realized that was wrong, this was the first person I thought of when I saw Starbuck. No idea why when there are actually people named Starbuck.

We ended up with all martial so I ended up switching from Barbarian to an Elven Evoker (I was on the fence about it anyway) to give us a little balance. So a few quick questions about magic. It sounds like I can cast a spell I have memorized for the day any amount of times up to my number of spells for the day, is that correct? As it stands I have four Level 1 and three Level 2, so if I wanted to I could cast Magic Missile four times as Level 1 and twice as a Level 2 if I wanted? I know I can memorize more spells but it doesn't seem like you are only limited to X uses of Spell Y. Is this an accurate understanding of how the new spell system works?

I like the inclusion of concentration (though they stole my idea so that is part of why I like it) as a way to limit how many spells a caster can have running at a given time.

You can cast other spells while concentrating, just not other concentration spells. Well that isn't quite right, you can cast other concentration spells but it would git rid of the last one. You should always have a back up though. My Elven Evoker has a Long Sword, Short Sword, and a Short Bow as back up weapons.

Anyone get the MM yet? I'm wondering if there is a random encounter chart in it. It could also be in the DMG but it never hurts to ask. I was thinking of running a completely random dungeon where the dungeon and contents are generated on the fly for off days when the DM can't make it and the like.

 Chongara wrote:
Yes I have it, no it doesn't.

Well that just makes me sad.

 pretre wrote:
Generally those are in the dmg.

I know, but that is still a bit aways and I am nothing if not hopeful.

 Chongara wrote:
Well I don't think it'd be too hard to cobble together one's own random encounter table. You could probably get something functional for your game with an online CR index and hour of work.

Oh absolutely. The dungeon layout will also be completely random as well as I am using Blue Dungeon Tiles to create it on the fly. The random list will be themed so would need to be home crafted anyway, it just would have made coming up with reasonable 'surprises' and probably a few unreasonable ones.

In the PC game Temple of Elemental Evil I got Shades as a random encounter at low level and couldn't hurt them and couldn't escape. It was fun.

 Manchu wrote:
But nothing about game design or rules can get in the way of a bad DM.

So following the rules as they are written would make someone a bad DM? Unless we assume the creators were idiots, it seems at odds to believe they would make rules specifically saying monsters will chase/kill you while also making you bad for following those rules; that random encounter chart wasn't a fan made item and was in the book and official and everything. I know a DM can houserule, but I've also seen you argue against people houseruling and ignoring rules before so I am a bit confused. Perhaps you just aren't making your point clearly enough.

Of course if one wants bloodthirsty then they should read the original Tomb of Horrors, though that was designed with bloodthirstiness in mind.

I don't carry around other weapons because I have to, but because it is deliciously thematic.

 Manchu wrote:
How about the Fighter specialization that lets you cast spells?

Eldritch Knight

 Melissia wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
How about the Fighter specialization that lets you cast spells?

Are those spells just generic wizard spells?

EK is a 'tanky' spellcaster, which is what a Swordmage is. Of course they aren't exactly the same as this isn't the same edition and it plays very differently. The EK gets class abilities around their limited casting ability which might be similar to the At-Wills and such of a Swordmage, but don't have the book in front of me at the moment.

Swordmage also wasn't initially in 4E either, so it may appear later in another book, but for now there are a few options that can fill a similar niche.

 Melissia wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:
EK is a 'tanky' spellcaster, which is what a Swordmage is.

Leather armor doesn't really make for a tank... maybe if you reduce damage by using a single one-handed sword with no shield to get the aegis bonus to +3... but I usually opted for a two-handed sword instead, and the +1 bonus. I played mine like a striker more than a defender/controller...

Doesn't change the fact that it is a Defender and gets Defender HP, surges, boost to AC and NAD, as well as a mark. Being a Defender isn't just having the highest AC, but making it harder for the enemies to attack allies. The two-handed Aegis punishes those that ignore your mark by attacking them, just like a Fighter or a Paladin, both of which are still Defenders as well.

The War Wizard feat lets you cast spells instead of do weapon attacks for Opportunity Attacks.

 pretre wrote:
Anyone can do that if they have the proficiency.

Getting it is the trick though. Multiclassing into Fighter doesn't get it for you, though starting at level 1 as a fighter does. If you don't have it you would have to spend feats to get it, and requires each armor proficiency feat of the previous type (light > medium > heavy) to get it, which is a lot of feats just for that.

 pretre wrote:

Or be a dwarf, iirc.

The multi-classing route is probably my favorite though.

Dwarves just don't have any penalties to wearing heavy armor, they don't get it as a free proficiency. If multi-classing make sure to check the list of things you don't get for doing so, which is why if you start as a Fighter you get it but if you multiclass into it later you don't the armor. Feats/Attributes bonuses are also class based and not done by base leve ie if you take one level of fighter and then go wizard you won't get a bonus/feat until level five (level 4 Wizard).

Someone made a pdf of the all spells in order of spell level so I have just been copy/pasting the ones I know/learned into a document then make some minor changes. The first page has a list of spells per day, time for memorization, and spell slots that recharge on a short rest.

I would have guessed they would have waited for people to acclimate to Dungeonscape for a week or two before cancelling it.

This seemed like the place for this:

I am trying to put together a short dungeon crawl and according to the system it says that for a group of 5 level 1 adventurers 3 goblins (or 2 orcs) is a 'Hard' challenge. Am I figuring this up right?