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I probably take a bit too much joy at telling my players no if they have dumb or offensive ideas.

Though I take equal joy in granting odd and interesting ideas permission to be played, as well, even if I have to make houserules to make it work.

 Melissia wrote:
I probably take a bit too much joy at telling my players no if they have dumb or offensive ideas.

Though I take equal joy in granting odd and interesting ideas permission to be played, as well, even if I have to make houserules to make it work.

Can I be a half-angel dark elf vampire weredragon Rangerwizard-SorcererDruid? See I'm a cowboy cop MMA fighter that doesn't play anyone's rules but his own, because I'm secretly the son of the king and an alternate-world six-times gender swapped Xena: Warrior Princess. I'd have rainbow hair, one purple and one orange eye, my mount would be all the my little ponies fused with the power of digivolution into a single SSJ3 pony named Pikachu but with half it's name also being a my little pony name.

 Chongara wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
I probably take a bit too much joy at telling my players no if they have dumb or offensive ideas.

Though I take equal joy in granting odd and interesting ideas permission to be played, as well, even if I have to make houserules to make it work.

Can I be a half-angel dark elf vampire weredragon Rangerwizard-SorcererDruid? See I'm a cowboy cop MMA that doesn't play anyone's rules but his own, because I'm secret the son of the king and an alternate-world six-times gender swapped Xena: Warrior Princess. I'd have rainbow hair, one purple and one orange eye, my mount would be all the my little ponies fused with the power of digivolution into a single SSJ3 pony named Pikachu but with half it's name also being a my little pony name.

Approved!

So my group has gotten it hands on some PHBs thanks to my recent trip to Australia. We're having a great time with 5e so far. The DM has been running a mix of pre-generated encounters and his own ones, set in his own world with his own story-line.

I'm running a human fighter using a halberd, we've also got a war cleric, a bard, a halfling fighter and a gnome wizard. Names will be forthcoming, none of us are any good at picking names.

The class balance seems pretty good so far, though the buff and de-buff ability of the bard is really powerful, the DM is throwing fights a good 2-3 CR higher than its supposed to be at us and we're still left standing at the end of it. Assuming you're using feats the polearm fighter is really fun, everyone else seems to be enjoying their characters as well.

One thing I'm a real fan of is the backgrounds. No one in my group are hardcore role players who write pages of back story and stuff, so giving you a mechanical benefit to making a back story is good. We also enjoy rolling for random traits, its quite funny the stuff you end up with. Our bard only likes sleeping in confined spaces, so our first night in an inn she slept in our room's closet. Its good fun and you see people who used to only care about getting the biggest numbers actually getting into character a bit.

 Chongara wrote:
Can I be a half-angel dark elf vampire weredragon Rangerwizard-SorcererDruid? See I'm a cowboy cop MMA fighter that doesn't play anyone's rules but his own, because I'm secretly the son of the king and an alternate-world six-times gender swapped Xena: Warrior Princess. I'd have rainbow hair, one purple and one orange eye, my mount would be all the my little ponies fused with the power of digivolution into a single SSJ3 pony named Pikachu but with half it's name also being a my little pony name.

No. Also, how did you get in my house?

nomotog wrote:
I don't think I could tell a player no you can't play that. I an really bad at telling my players no. It's part of why I am a bad DM. If the players what to do something I say OK.

The most important part of being a GM is being able to say "No". If you can't look your players in the eye and tell them "no", you aren't ready to be a GM. You don't have to be vindictive and you don't have to relish crushing their dreams, but you have to be able to say "no" if you want to keep the game stable. I have told players they can't use equipment from certain books, I have restricted races, I have point-blank shot down character concepts as unsuitable to the campaign. If you can give a reasonable explanation as to why you are saying no (it's for balance reasons, it to keep the tone of the campaign consistant, the idea is personally unsettling, etc) most players will accept your "no". As long as you are consistent. Don't deny one thing to one player while allowing it for another. Deny it for both, otherwise you are inviting conflict.

As for character concepts, I've had people play young characters in my games before and it's usually a pain in the hoop. One person, in a Star Wars game, played a kid using the "Kid" character template from the core rulebook. I couldn't really get too mad at him for that. And we were in high school, so it wasn't inherantly squicky. More recently, I've started running a low-power level Black Crusade game, set on a feral Chaos world inside the Eye of Terror. The game is starting at Dark Heresy-level power and will build as the players get better at being Chaos worshippers/champions. Since I do want Chaos Marine to be an eventual occupation for these players to achieve (like a prestige class, if you will) I started the party off very young. Of course, on most feral worlds, you are considered an adult by age 12, so having a band of 13 year olds trying to win favor with the leader of their warband and attract the notice of the Gods of Chaos isn't completely nuts. The players did have a serious discusion about how they would approach their characters (they are going for a child soldier kind of vibe) which was good to have and since they are all kids and nobody is crossplaying, we don't have the one 37 year old guy telling everyone how little clothing his 12 year old aspiring champion of Slaanesh is wearing.

It is true that if you cannot say No then you should not DM.

It is equally true that saying No to a player is a good DM's final resort.

From these two principles, we can conclude that the most important thing is to be picky about who you play with, as much as possible. There is no substitute for a good social dynamic.

 Manchu wrote:
It is true that if you cannot say No then you should not DM.

It is equally true that saying No to a player is a good DM's final resort.

From these two principles, we can conclude that the most important thing is to be picky about who you play with, as much as possible. There is no substitute for a good social dynamic.

\
A-men!

 Chongara wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
I probably take a bit too much joy at telling my players no if they have dumb or offensive ideas.

Though I take equal joy in granting odd and interesting ideas permission to be played, as well, even if I have to make houserules to make it work.

Can I be a half-angel dark elf vampire weredragon Rangerwizard-SorcererDruid? See I'm a cowboy cop MMA fighter that doesn't play anyone's rules but his own, because I'm secretly the son of the king and an alternate-world six-times gender swapped Xena: Warrior Princess. I'd have rainbow hair, one purple and one orange eye, my mount would be all the my little ponies fused with the power of digivolution into a single SSJ3 pony named Pikachu but with half it's name also being a my little pony name.

I said "odd and interesting", nothing about that is either of those, sadly

I went to a game once where someone played a half-angel/half-demon fighter/ranger/sorcerer that could shoot lasers from their eyes and a gay minotaur that had pink fur.

What is the 'Fey Knight' about? My little gang is looking at the 5e stuff, and someone has expressed an interest in this character class. I don't have the PHB yet, but should soon enough... as soon as Amazon ships it, anyway.

I always had a list of classes and races that existed in a particular campaign from which players could chose. Not all classes and races need be available in a given campaign.

It's a type of Paladin, a "green knight."

 Red Harvest wrote:
What is the 'Fey Knight' about? My little gang is looking at the 5e stuff, and someone has expressed an interest in this character class. I don't have the PHB yet, but should soon enough... as soon as Amazon ships it, anyway.

I always had a list of classes and races that existed in a particular campaign from which players could chose. Not all classes and races need be available in a given campaign.

It's a sub-class of paladin. At 3rd Level paladins take an Oath which defines some of their class abilities and gives them a theme.

Oath of Devotion: Paladin classic. Healing & Buffs, - Turns Undead. Yadda Yadda. It works well and with the right player and group makes for a good addition to a game.

Oath of the Ancients: Paladin of Nature. Fights for/because of the good things and beauty that nature brings to the world. Buffs, some druid-esque abilities, interacts with Fey/Fiends instead of undead. A cool new take on it that really works.

Oath of Vengeance: Not-a-Paladin. "Dark Knight". Smiting and Revengeance. Offensive abilities. Themes center around seeking the greater evil "By any means". Expect "That Guy" to be playing it so he can be high fantasy Jack Bauer and take the most expedient route while claiming the moral high ground. I like it mechanically and it'd work in a really/dark cynical setting unmodified. For most of my games if player wanted to use it we'd have to gut the fluff and do some re-branding into something a bit more palatable.

I think the mechanics could fit more of an "Oath of Justice" with the emphasis on seeking out and bringing down evildoers, but with a strong theme of humility and guarding against blind zeal.

I see Oath of Vengeance as the 5E version of Avenger from the 4E books.

I still miss Warlord.

Thanks guys. My knowledge of AD&D ended with the 2e PHB. Sounds like an interesting character class, or sub-class.

 Ahtman wrote:
I still miss Warlord.

The best thing we had with our Warlord was a healing banner.
When the banner was planted, and if someone was healed within 5 spaces of it, everyone else with 5 got healed 1 HP.
It was great for near-total wipeout encounters.

Ahtman wrote:I still miss Warlord.

I feel like the Battlemaster Fighter can do a lot of 'warlord-ish' stuff, but with less healing and different name.

(Warlord vs. Battlemaster is a tough one. Warlord has a lot of negative connotations: Say it to someone and they'll likely think of atrocities in Africa and similar. Battlemaster sounds less impressive, though. Much more 'Something from He-man' in style.)

Skinnereal wrote:The best thing we had with our Warlord was a healing banner.
When the banner was planted, and if someone was healed within 5 spaces of it, everyone else with 5 got healed 1 HP.
It was great for near-total wipeout encounters.

I don't want to be that guy, but if the best thing about a character was his magic items.... It'll be interesting when the DMG drops to see if they kept anything like this,a s the magic standards were popular in 4e and could be good in 5e with modified rules.

 Balance wrote:

Ahtman wrote:I still miss Warlord.

I feel like the Battlemaster Fighter can do a lot of 'warlord-ish' stuff, but with less healing and different name.

(Warlord vs. Battlemaster is a tough one. Warlord has a lot of negative connotations: Say it to someone and they'll likely think of atrocities in Africa and similar. Battlemaster sounds less impressive, though. Much more 'Something from He-man' in style.)

There is definitely something of the legacy of the Warlord in the battle master, but not enough to fully capture the feel of it. YellsAtYouGuy is a concept deep enough for a dedicated class.

Luckily 5e is nothing if not cohesive. Classes follow pretty clear templates and the game as whole follows pretty obvious guidelines for how abilities are structured, and what bonuses can be given when. This looks to be the easiest edition yet to homebrew in, anyone with some general content creating experience could probably come up with a solid "Warlord" class prototype given a couple hours.

I agree the name is a tad problematic, but you could always call it something like "Marshal" for the callback to 3e or something more generic like "Commander".

Do we have any idea about whether there will be a PHB 2/3 for many of the other classes that became "standard" starting classes for 4th?

I ask because well, I actually enjoyed 4th, but I've played as a Warden, a Monk, and an Assassin.

The only odd one being the Assassin, because for some reason WotC thinks that they are best with great weapons and the like (I use a standard longsword).

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Do we have any idea about whether there will be a PHB 2/3 for many of the other classes that became "standard" starting classes for 4th?

I can't imagine them not making these.

That being said, my gaming group is talking about only buying the first three books (PH, DMG, MM) and using those to avoid power/rules bloat.

 pretre wrote:

That being said, my gaming group is talking about only buying the first three books (PH, DMG, MM) and using those to avoid power/rules bloat.

I can see the value in that, I just like to "identify" with my characters, and when I first started playing, my first character was the Warden... I guess you could say they are a heavily armored, combat druid (they deal with nature, but are also a combat centric class)

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
The only odd one being the Assassin, because for some reason WotC thinks that they are best with great weapons and the like (I use a standard longsword).

I don't think the essentials version in Heroes of Shadow used two-handers, but the original version sure did. At least everyone I met used a two-handed weapon.

 Ahtman wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
The only odd one being the Assassin, because for some reason WotC thinks that they are best with great weapons and the like (I use a standard longsword).

I don't think the essentials version in Heroes of Shadow used two-handers, but the original version sure did. At least everyone I met used a two-handed weapon.

Yeah, I built my assassin in the online character builder, so when I selected the weapon under "build my kit for me" they gave him a Greatsword, but since the character himself was based off of Jaqen H'gar from the GoT books, I swapped that for a basic longsword. He still does some serious face melting damage though

I doubt many 4E classes will become 5E classes. More likely, they will "inspire" class variants published in subsequent 5E player option books.

 pretre wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Do we have any idea about whether there will be a PHB 2/3 for many of the other classes that became "standard" starting classes for 4th?

I can't imagine them not making these.

That being said, my gaming group is talking about only buying the first three books (PH, DMG, MM) and using those to avoid power/rules bloat.

That method should work out really well, actually!

As long as you avoid Psionics you shoudl be good.


... yes, psionics scarred me for life.

 Alpharius wrote:

 pretre wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Do we have any idea about whether there will be a PHB 2/3 for many of the other classes that became "standard" starting classes for 4th?

I can't imagine them not making these.

That being said, my gaming group is talking about only buying the first three books (PH, DMG, MM) and using those to avoid power/rules bloat.

That method should work out really well, actually!

I agree. A few more backgrounds would be nice, but I worry about bloat and system mastery creep more than anything. I surprisingly liked Psion in 4E, though Battlemind and the psionic Leader class (I forget the name) were 'meh'. Monk is not psionic. There...I said it.

Then I guess you didn't have someone utterly abuse the broken rules to make an unkilllable superdeadly character

 Melissia wrote:
Then I guess you didn't have someone utterly abuse the broken rules to make an unkilllable superdeadly character

I think you're having flashbacks to 3.5. In fourth edition everyone is an unkillable super deadly character.

Well yes. Most people in my primary group didn't like 4th (which was sad, really, as I thought it was okay).