The Gaming Den

Does anyone know where I can find (or can someone put together) a selection of the 5e devs explicitly prioritizing "feel" over math? I remember that Mearls (or one of those chucklefucks) said they didn't want to see math in playtest survey responses, but the D&DNext PLaytest Review thr...

I don't know if anyone mentioned this, but it grated in an otherwise entertaining write-up. Every level you can trade one maneuver for another, and you will usually elect to take one of your lowest level maneuvers and trade it in for one of the highest level you can attain. And every other level you...

Well, for instance beast claws from Complete Divine/Spell Compendium grants two claw attacks. Whether the damage the claws deal is a function of the caster's size depends on the writer's assumptions. To wit, if spells are written with an assumption of humanity, then the reader is expected to underst...

I seem to remember from back in the 3.X days that spell descriptions (for instance) were written assuming the caster was a typical PHB humanoid. Was this convention ever stated in an official book?

The 20 = Hit mechanic introduced by 3rd is one of the biggest offenders. If you give everything a minimum 5% chance to hit, then you either have to band-aid the system or have higher-level monsters be vulnerable. 3rd patches the problem with DR, confirming crits, high regeneration, and trivializing...

D&D never really got an organized gaming scene. Most people can't even fully agree how the D&D rules work for any edition. If I meet another MTG player, neither of us need to discuss shady wording interpretations or dozens of pages of houserules just to set up a game. That's partially becau...

"It's a mystery," is just a tool for enabling GM fiat, which in turn hamstrings player agency. By leaving a possibly important question in an indeterminate state and presenting it as such, writers encourage the GM to withhold possibly important information from the players. Then, when the ...

Not that ToB went anywhere far enough.

K wrote: You mean Geomancer, not Geometer.

That I do.

No, they really can't be. If you make any feat level specific, that means that all the feats have to be level specific in order for that to be balanced. And if you make all of your feats level specific, what you're really doing is just decreasing the number of useful feats people get at any given l...

I wouldn't trade casting of one stat for getting to wear Heavy Armor I'm not proficient in. (Or even that I am frankly). I can't fathom why people have such raging clue for armored casting. When the Geometer first came out, I remember people going nuts for the ability to treat their spells as divin...

I can see a large portion of DMs accepting that you can buy scrolls of domain spells. I can even see some of them letting you buy scrolls of spells from consolation-prize lists. But buying scrolls from variant classes (divine Bard) or some scribed as divine by use of an additional prestige class fro...

Feats are the opposite. They should be available at level one and give you things which are appropriate to have at level one. And they should be either horizontal power boosts that apply just as well at all levels, or they should scale to level. Having the "option" of taking Dodge as your...

Blowing 750 gp at level 4 for five 2nd-level spells isn't financially crippling, but it's not peanuts, either. Actually, it'd be 150gp per 2nd level scroll and another 200gp for the inks and stuff used to copy it into the prayerbook. So each 2nd level spell effectively costs 350gp. five 2nd level s...

As for archivists not having good spells in levels 1-5, it's only true in campaigns where DMs are not followijg the magic item purchasing rules from the DMG. Scrolls of the best low-level spells are crazy cheap and easily available in one-horse towns and shit-farming settlements because the rules a...

Healers are a full casting class. Healers get a d8 hit die. Healers get 4+Int mod skill points per level. Healers get two good saves. Healers get a bunch of neat class abilities (actually more than the Archivist, whose table is padded with extra uses per day), including an intelligent companion crea...

Priority chargen, fixed TNs, limits, cyberdecks, better unified mechanic (atrib+skill for almost everything), one attack per phase, streamlined matrix, higher combat lethality. You literally just listed things that were discussed as being horrible in the review. :bored: You're literally responding ...

It's not actually different from the rule that Wizards can scribe any Shugenja or Paladin scroll they come across into their spellbook and then start casting it (yes really, that's what the rules say). This was actually patched in the Rules Compendium by adding the stipulation that you could only c...

Most people here have a hate on for the particular way in which the tiers have been generated. Mostly this is because it leads to labelling classes that actually can function in a game--and do so effectively--at a higher (i.e., less powerful) tier than they should be, and certain classes that can't ...

Wait, what are the positives? Priority chargen, fixed TNs, limits, cyberdecks, better unified mechanic (atrib+skill for almost everything), one attack per phase, streamlined matrix, higher combat lethality. You literally just listed things that were discussed as being horrible in the review. :bored...

Do we have a thread summarizing the failures of fifth, like we do for Pathfinder?

I'd like to be able to link to a single nice, concise list for those who may not be willing to read through all the old threads.

We then say, "hey, what if the legends and myths and stories about people in these lifestyles and professions were true? And what if each of these, now mystical, professions gave a person roughly equal opportunity to gain paranatural power?" I take it you don't frequently get into discuss...

Using Lokathor's format. Normal Set Tome Set Barbarian Tome Barbarian Bard Beguiler Cleric Cleric Druid Druid Fighter Tome Soldier Monk Tome Monk Paladin Tome Soulborn Ranger Tome Totemist Rogue Shadow Warrior Sorcerer Psion Untamed Psychic Wizard Wizard

If you want to know what he means you've got to ask him. Remember? Dont take his text to mean what it says, let him tell you what it means and if there's any glaring problems just let him explain them too, cyclically, forever. Its easy to see why the rulings not rules crowd feels the way they do gi...

Thanks NineInchNail. Reading slowly through it from time to time, though I'll binge through once school lightens up a bit. I kinda liked the backstory of the Earth Elemental in the workshop, but my players don't have any reason to know Terran so it would just be a random monster to them. Wonder if ...