Zero Buzz on 5E...Is It Dead Out The Gate?

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Fri Aug 01, 2014 11:24 am

tussock wrote:1st edition [said] if you didn't have two stats of 15+ you should re-roll per the DMG.

Could you quote this paragraph? I suspect this is an extremely optimistic interpretation of what it actually says.

Ferret · Post by **Ferret** » Fri Aug 01, 2014 1:30 pm

Another 4e olive branch is spell entry language.

As frank says, the descriptors of the action economy being concise and standardized and defined was honestly a huge boon. Likewise, the power list format could still be used for spell list entries - even if they kept the natural language descriptions.

Likewise, 4e's adventure layouts were supposedly prett nice. Monster entries inline with their appearance in a module and including power descriptions so there is no need to flip pages back and forth to reference monster stats plus another book to reference spell effects sounds pretty slick.

Honestly, I think a lot of their apparent disregard for data formatting and layout is because they expect everyone to leverage their Morningstar product; the fact that spells are a giant alphabetical list is irrelevant because the morningstar interface will present you with all your potential spells by level for you to select, and less-optimal organization in the physical book is honestly a potential driver to the digital (and likely subscription based) tooling.

It has also been hinted that Morningstar is going to be the venue by which their digital content is released, so we might see modal windows and popovers used for monster data in adventures. We should know more in a couple weeks, they're doing public demos at GenCon.

Post by **fbmf** » Fri Aug 01, 2014 2:51 pm

Ancient History wrote:BTW, some numbnuts from G+ is linking to this. I meant to address this early, but please don't call Mandy a "fuckbag" or the like. It's rude, misogynistic, and unlike Zak she's never done anything to us to deserve ill treatment.

I concur. Quit that shit.
[/The Great Fence Builder Speaks]

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Fri Aug 01, 2014 4:55 pm

ACOS wrote: Dude - there was a ~30-page clusterfuck where I'm pretty sure this was attempted several times. Ancient History actually deserves a medal or a goddamn Nobel Peace Prize for the way he handled Shitmuffin; and, if memory serves, he actually tried the empiricism track several times (along with whoever else)

*at least I think it was AH. I could be wrong*

It was. Go back and look though; AH spent a lot of effort on a good-faith attempt to explain his opinions, and gave coherent answers. But those were all about his opinions (or rather, mostly about really, really conceding that Zak's group is unusual, and double pinky-swearing never to question that), and nothing about actual play.

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Fri Aug 01, 2014 5:41 pm

fectin wrote:I don't think confronting him on it is especially useful either. If I absolutely had to convince him that crunchy was better, I would do it by sharing competing experiences, where crunchy had empirically had better results. I would talk about friends' Hunter stories, about Sanderson's Laws, etc. I would go that way, because I expect a soft approach would work.
But I don't have to do that.

If you want to convince Zak just challenge him to a GM duel. I'm totally sure it'll work.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Fri Aug 01, 2014 6:23 pm

...But I'm not actually that stellar at GMing. I do okay, and I can recognize many of the reasons I'm not better at it, but a GM duel would prove nothing.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Aug 01, 2014 7:11 pm

fectin wrote:...But I'm not actually that stellar at GMing. I do okay, and I can recognize many of the reasons I'm not better at it, but a GM duel would prove nothing.

That's okay because he explicitly admitted that no matter what the result he didn't think it would prove anything, and that he was just making the challenge in bad faith.

caladfel · Post by **caladfel** » Fri Aug 01, 2014 7:12 pm

fectin wrote:...But I'm not actually that stellar at GMing. I do okay, and I can recognize many of the reasons I'm not better at it, but a GM duel would prove nothing.

"GM Duel". I had no idea of who Zak S, and therefore no opinion. The link to the "GM Duel" thread makes me think he is pants-on-head retarded.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Fri Aug 01, 2014 7:25 pm

Zak S. still wants me to apologize because I didn't answer enough of his questions in those threads. Which of course makes me a liar. 99

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Fri Aug 01, 2014 7:52 pm

Ferret wrote: Honestly, I think a lot of their apparent disregard for data formatting and layout is because they expect everyone to leverage their Morningstar product; the fact that spells are a giant alphabetical list is irrelevant because the morningstar interface will present you with all your potential spells by level for you to select, and less-optimal organization in the physical book is honestly a potential driver to the digital (and likely subscription based) tooling..

You may be right on this. Going through the spells in the current documents feels like a punishment. That they aren't tagged by class is frustrating as hell.

I kind of get why, since the addition of bard yoinking, domains spells, oaths spells, warlock pacts and all that shit adds even more crap on top (plus I suspect at least part of it is the word count that referencing would eat up), but as is, it is a reference nightmare.

But selling digital tools to make spell reference for the base book functional is a complete asshole move.

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Sat Aug 02, 2014 5:11 pm

From the adventure league player guide.

Arms and armor taken from defeated monsters is worthless and cannot be sold unless specified in the adventure (the party can use the items during the session in which they are found, though). As a general rule of thumb, if an item is part of a monster’s statistics, it’s not sellable.

The fuck is up with that?

Corsair114 · Post by **Corsair114** » Sat Aug 02, 2014 5:13 pm

ishy wrote:From the adventure league player guide.
Arms and armor taken from defeated monsters is worthless and cannot be sold unless specified in the adventure (the party can use the items during the session in which they are found, though). As a general rule of thumb, if an item is part of a monster’s statistics, it’s not sellable.
The fuck is up with that?

Their olive branch to 4E adopters is cynical indeed.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Sat Aug 02, 2014 7:20 pm

ishy wrote:From the adventure league player guide.
Arms and armor taken from defeated monsters is worthless and cannot be sold unless specified in the adventure (the party can use the items during the session in which they are found, though). As a general rule of thumb, if an item is part of a monster’s statistics, it’s not sellable.
The fuck is up with that?

I'm not sure if its some bizarre attempt at blocking Greyhawking to keep things moving on, or if there is some secret unlock for real character power for having cash hidden somewhere in the PH or DMG.

The basic rules have similar language (monster equipment being essentially unsellable), but as magic items aren't buyable either... cash seems to serve no purpose beyond spell components, expensive armor (half plate and plate), and shadow run style lifestyle payments. So, really, I'm not sure why it matters if you do strip everything down.

ACOS · Post by **ACOS** » Sat Aug 02, 2014 8:01 pm

Voss wrote: some bizarre attempt at blocking Greyhawking to keep things moving on,

^This would be my guess.
If they had been demonstrating something other than full potato, I might be inclined to think that they intended you to figure out a way to actually make it useful somehow. Maybe you re-craft stuff, or maybe you use it as trade goods with creatures that can actually use it, or maybe you use it to outfit the army you're trying to build.

But again, potato.

Hicks · Post by **Hicks** » Sat Aug 02, 2014 8:23 pm

So you can't sell it. Whatever. The plan now is to use your wealth to levy an army of followers and equip them for free using all the now non-vendor trash you greyhawked of the still warm corpses of your fallen conquests.

Edit: GODDAMNIT! TWENTY MINUTES LATE! WHY MUST YOU ARTICULATE YOUR THOUGHTS BEFORE I CAN! FFFFFFFFFFUUU-

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Sat Aug 02, 2014 8:24 pm

Pretty much. On the upside, that means you have to get invested in the setting.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sat Aug 02, 2014 8:26 pm

But it also disappears at the end of the session. Take that, you dirty min-maxer.

Hicks · Post by **Hicks** » Sat Aug 02, 2014 8:30 pm

Where does it say that the "worthless" items dissappear at the end of the session?

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Sat Aug 02, 2014 8:33 pm

DSMatticus wrote:But it also disappears at the end of the session. Take that, you dirty min-maxer.

Eh. That seems to be an 'adventurer's league' rule, and pretty consistent with RPGA, Living Whatever, PF Society and various other bizarre contortions to leverage organized play. From that perspective it makes perfect sense- some of the shit people got up to in order to leverage bizarre crap from one DM's session to another got pretty crazy, and needed some protections.

Though naturally they often took it too far.

Hicks wrote:Where does it say that the "worthless" items dissappear at the end of the session?

ishy was quoting from the 'adventurer's league' guidelines. The new Living Whatever/RPGA, essentially. Just a quirk of organized play to keep some of the crazy in line. In a normal campaign, you can stockpile 500 suits of non-sellable hobgoblin chainmail if you like.

animea90 · Post by **animea90** » Sat Aug 02, 2014 8:37 pm

ishy wrote:From the adventure league player guide.
Arms and armor taken from defeated monsters is worthless and cannot be sold unless specified in the adventure (the party can use the items during the session in which they are found, though). As a general rule of thumb, if an item is part of a monster’s statistics, it’s not sellable.
The fuck is up with that?

With the "Bounded Accuracy" system in 5e, monsters and PCs have set attack and AC values. However, PCs can bump their stats up with magic items, so monsters are going to need magic items too in order to keep up.

However, the devs don't want the players to be blinged out with a ton of magic gear, so they just make the magic gear the monsters wear useless for the players.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sat Aug 02, 2014 8:42 pm

animea90 wrote:However, the devs don't want the players to be blinged out with a ton of magic gear, so they just make the magic gear the monsters wear useless for the players.

It's one thing to stop players from trading in a huge stack of bone spears and feather headdresses for a +2 sword, it's quite another to stop players from wielding the +2 swords the lizardman elite were wielding just a few minutes ago.

The 4Erries might have been okay with the game breaking the fourth wall to protect the so-called 'game balance', but that was like design paradigm #3 in the list of things detractors used to dismiss 4E D&D as an MMORPG-wannabe.

animea90 · Post by **animea90** » Sat Aug 02, 2014 8:43 pm

Hicks wrote:Where does it say that the "worthless" items dissappear at the end of the session?

It says "the party can use the items during the session in which they are found, though" which implies that these items can't be used after that session.

animea90 · Post by **animea90** » Sat Aug 02, 2014 8:47 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:
animea90 wrote:However, the devs don't want the players to be blinged out with a ton of magic gear, so they just make the magic gear the monsters wear useless for the players.
It's one thing to stop players from trading in a huge stack of bone spears and feather headdresses for a +2 sword, it's quite another to stop players from wielding the +2 swords the lizardman elite were wielding just a few minutes ago.

The 4Erries might have been okay with the game breaking the fourth wall to protect the so-called 'game balance', but that was like design paradigm #3 in the list of things detractors used to dismiss 4E D&D as an MMORPG-wannabe.

I completely agree that its a dumb mechanic. I was just explaining the rationale. The smarter move would have been to just give monsters innate stat improvements if you want them to be stronger.

The rules on acquiring magic items are weird. You can't buy them and you can't loot them off enemies. It seems the only way you can get magic items is as a quest reward or to find it in a treasure horde.

Because apparently the orcs are going to keep their +2 longswords in the treasure horde instead of using them to fight the pcs.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sat Aug 02, 2014 8:52 pm

animea90 wrote:The rules on acquiring magic items are weird. You can't buy them and you can't loot them off enemies. It seems the only way you can get magic items is as a quest reward or to find it in a treasure horde.

Because apparently the orcs are going to keep their +2 longswords in the treasure horde instead of using them to fight the pcs.

I don't think anyone is advocating post-hoc treasure drops these days. If the wyvern family has a nest of shinies that they threw up/excreted/nibbled around, you can just leave it like that. But if you roll up a +4 longsword for the orc raiders' loot then one of them should be using it. And you can then either make it a surprise for the players or adjust the encounter accordingly.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Aug 02, 2014 8:59 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:
animea90 wrote:The rules on acquiring magic items are weird. You can't buy them and you can't loot them off enemies. It seems the only way you can get magic items is as a quest reward or to find it in a treasure horde.

Because apparently the orcs are going to keep their +2 longswords in the treasure horde instead of using them to fight the pcs.
I don't think anyone is advocating post-hoc treasure drops these days. If the wyvern family has a nest of shinies that they threw up/excreted/nibbled around, you can just leave it like that. But if you roll up a +4 longsword for the orc raiders' loot then one of them should be using it. And you can then either make it a surprise for the players or adjust the encounter accordingly.

No. D&DNext is advocating post-hoc treasure drops. The +4 longsword in the Orc's "treasure hoard" is something that you can use or sell, but a +4 longsword in the Orc's "monster equipment" can't be sold and may not even be available to you once the current session is over.

The fact that this is almost universally regarded as an almost inconceivably stupid idea doesn't mean that they aren't advocating precisely that. This is Mike Mearls we're talking about.

-Username17