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

[maglag]

What compels anyone to play as a halfling other than game mechanics? I can understand the appeal of dwarves as caricatures of squat miners and grumpy grandpas but the halfling... I'd rather have the small sneak species be kobolds or goblins.

Halflings are sneaky badass people who look small, domestic, and non-threatening. They play into the power fantasies of a lot of girls.

-Username17

Humans are sneaky badasses who look small, domestic, and non-threatening to a lot of bigger creatures on Earth.

We've been hunting large game like lions and elephants and sharks and whales ever since we can remember.

If it's smaller than us, we consider it food. If it's bigger than us, we consider it a lot of food.

Did I mention my RL D&D group loved to cook everything we killed for rations?

[Archmage Joda]

Did I mention my RL D&D group loved to cook everything we killed for rations?

My barbarian in a pathfinder skulls and shackles game did pretty much the same thing, sometimes freaking out npcs just by hauling his catch of the day with his barbarian hulk strength.

[tussock]

Kender need, like, a bag of tricks effect built in. Rather than ending up with anything from the game they just have stuff that wouldn't have otherwise existed at all, flavoured as having handled it.

The chatty thing is merely the fluff for their taunt, you no more play that out than you have to wave your arms about and swallow a spider to cast spells. The fearlessness and curiosity is just where other players should be allowed to get your character to investigate things which are dangerous, and you can then have a +2 racial bonus at it because rules.

So the fluff is you're travelling with a walking disaster area, and the rules are Kenders get free kit that levels up with them and have bonuses to being appreciated so you keep a lid on it. Also immune to fear effects, so you can fearlessly leave with everyone else.

[Atmo]

What compels anyone to play as a halfling other than game mechanics? I can understand the appeal of dwarves as caricatures of squat miners and grumpy grandpas but the halfling... I'd rather have the small sneak species be kobolds or goblins.

Player: "Ok, now I'm a loli!"
GM: "Nice... How do you do things?"
Player: "As a normal adventurer, as loli is only a body type."
GM: "That seems... normal. For a change."

[Lago PARANOIA]

What compels anyone to play as a halfling other than game mechanics?

Smaller people that interact with a human-scale environment are inherently funny. You don't even have to be super-unPC and go Terror of Tiny Town with it; just stuff like Rescue Rangers and The Muppets and Toy Story get a lot of their mileage from the inherent hilarity of watching someone try to handle a door or book or set of stairs meant for someone a lot larger.

Belkar would not be nearly as funny if he was a human or lizardfolk or goliath. If Samwise was the size and shape of a human there'd be almost nothing comedic (or badass for that matter) about him. Puck would be even more annoying if he was a human sidekick.

[Pixels]

Puck would be even more annoying if he was a human sidekick.

Actually, he made a pretty good human sidekick.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I'm sorry, I meant the Puck from Berserk, not Gargoyles.

[RelentlessImp]

Puck would be even more annoying if he was a human sidekick.

http://gargwiki.net/images/thumb/4/43/O ... x-Owen.PNG

Actually, he made a pretty good human sidekick.

Dude, spoilers.

[brized]

Seriously? Those spoilers are old enough to vote, buy alcohol, and get fucked.

[Prak]

Did I mention my RL D&D group loved to cook everything we killed for rations?

My barbarian in a pathfinder skulls and shackles game did pretty much the same thing, sometimes freaking out npcs just by hauling his catch of the day with his barbarian hulk strength.

My drow wizard would do the same thing. We started in a "you've been imprisoned with your stuff taken away" scenario and, being a cook, my first thought went to "we don't know how lone we'll be without rations--BETTER START SLAUGHTERING DEAD GNOLLS AND GOBLINS--wait, my character has no butchery experience--BETTER STICK TO LIMBS SO I DON'T POISON US WITH BILE"

[erik]

Puck would be even more annoying if he was a human sidekick.

http://gargwiki.net/images/thumb/4/43/O ... x-Owen.PNG

Actually, he made a pretty good human sidekick.

Dude, spoilers.

Ahhh, Spoilers Puck deserves to be a meme.

[Grek]

Sneak preview of the new UA:

http://imgur.com/a/z9qR9

No, not really. The new UA is even less useful than oranges as a player race.

[RobbyPants]

And here, I was ready to most the most appropriate lulwut pear ever.

[Lurky Lurkpants]

The new UA deserves attention for being so bad multiple communities seem to have jumped on the "Mearls can't do math" train, especially since this wreak is a week late.

They republished a "Players roll all the dice" system from 3.5's Unearthed Arcana, but managed to screw up the math. The Defense Roll increases the chance of missing by 5% because they didn't remember a tie goes to the attacker, and the save chance changes by 15% because they didn't realize you aren't subtracting the base DC of a spell but average roll of a d20.

Vitality gives you points equal to CON, and you lose an amount equal to damage/10 (when it hits 0 you drop to 0 HP). Besides being a bit swingy this is a set value used in relation to a scaling value, and so obviously doesn't work out properly, with high level/high CON characters losing much of the benefit. As an extra bonus you recover 1 + CON modifier on a long rest, which means anyone with <10 CON needs magic healing to permanently fix anything.

There is also a "remove alignment" system. Which again could have been a copy/paste from other editions or even other games.

I know most of the developers are just using their time for side projects, but seriously, what the hell are people doing? Even with outsourcing most of the products they can't manage to crank this out on time once a month, or spend 10 minutes checking if any of it turns out properly.

[Orion]

Could it be that the publication delays are less a result of designer laziness than of cuts to the production staff? Sure, you or I could write these house rules in 10 minutes, but they still have go to layout and art design and copy edit and so on. I haven't look at any 5e books, but I doubt they've descended to Onyx Path level quality control, which means that they may be overworking whats left of their staff.

[Omegonthesane]

Could it be that the publication delays are less a result of designer laziness than of cuts to the production staff? Sure, you or I could write these house rules in 10 minutes, but they still have go to layout and art design and copy edit and so on. I haven't look at any 5e books, but I doubt they've descended to Onyx Path level quality control, which means that they may be overworking whats left of their staff.

You say this like there's a noticeable difference in the results of quality control between Mike Mearls' motley crew and Onyx Scam.

Other than on the accounts, I mean (editor wages being an expense instead of an income).

[Username17]

It is of course extremely trivial to produce content of the sort that Mearls and company are throwing up at the moment. There are plenty of reasons such content can get delayed, but that kind of crap can and should be produced months in advance. If something is a week late or a couple weeks late that probably has to do with some web guru being on vacation or a a layout guy having a problem. It could be that Mearls is actually failing to submit this garbage in on time, but that would be very weird. Not unheard of for Mearls, but weird.

Much stranger is the fact that this shit doesn't add up. Flipping the dice to count up or down or be rolled by one player or another is extremely easy. The magnitudes of all the numbers are exactly the same and you just have to add and subject them in a way that the attacks succeed and fail on the same number of numbers on the dice. The concept is decades old and the implementation writes itself.

There's no particular excuse for this shit to not work mathematically. It's very strange and retarded that it doesn't. It lends credence to the idea that this crap was sent in at midnight 3 days after it was supposed to be posted. Because of course even a second glance notices how terribly poorly this was designed.

-Username17

[rasmuswagner]

The new UA deserves attention for being so bad multiple communities seem to have jumped on the "Mearls can't do math" train, especially since this wreak is a week late.

They republished a "Players roll all the dice" system from 3.5's Unearthed Arcana, but managed to screw up the math. The Defense Roll increases the chance of missing by 5% because they didn't remember a tie goes to the attacker, and the save chance changes by 15% because they didn't realize you aren't subtracting the base DC of a spell but average roll of a d20.

Vitality gives you points equal to CON, and you lose an amount equal to damage/10 (when it hits 0 you drop to 0 HP). Besides being a bit swingy this is a set value used in relation to a scaling value, and so obviously doesn't work out properly, with high level/high CON characters losing much of the benefit. As an extra bonus you recover 1 + CON modifier on a long rest, which means anyone with <10 CON needs magic healing to permanently fix anything.

There is also a "remove alignment" system. Which again could have been a copy/paste from other editions or even other games.

I know most of the developers are just using their time for side projects, but seriously, what the hell are people doing? Even with outsourcing most of the products they can't manage to crank this out on time once a month, or spend 10 minutes checking if any of it turns out properly.

IIRC, the 3.5 UA implementation was exactly the same, retard math and all.

[Lurky Lurkpants]

I checked and you are indeed correct. Although the "saving throw check" being saving throw DC -8 is still entirely on them.

[Insomniac]

Enworld, a,place that seems supportive of 5E, much, much more than here, at any rate, is busting Mearls' chops over this one.

"This is nothing I have not seen in dozens of other RPG systems."

"These rules are derivative and poorly done."

Wonder of wonders, somebody pointed out how the math was shoddy and wrong and skews saving throw failure rates sharply upwards in magic user's favor!

"This was phoned in."

"I cannot see myself using any of these rules."

"This was lame and rushed and I will give it poor marks in the survey."
Along with people who Liked those posts.

UA, more like PU, huh?

[OgreBattle]

If I were the D&D5e lead at this point I'd be remaking classic AD&D modules updated to 5e rules. Considering how DM fiat heavy 5e is expected to be it's not much mechanical work.

[ishy]

So they released some errata for 5e.
They finally fixed stealth

You didn't really believe that, did you?

Hiding (p. 177). The DM decides when circumstances are appropriate for hiding.
Also, the question isn’t whether a creature can see you when you’re hiding. The question is whether it can see you clearly.

Also because SKR joined the 5e team, there is a weird monk unarmed strike change.

“Instead of using a weapon to make a melee weapon attack, you can use an unarmed strike:

Because they keep referring to weapon attacks and unarmed strikes are no longer a weapon, this change for no reason, has many probably unintentional changes.
For example, most forms of physical resistance specify that they apply to weapon attacks.

[Axebird]

That sentence doesn't really imply they aren't weapon attacks, it implies that you can use an unarmed strike in place of a weapon to make a "melee weapon attack".

[ishy]

That sentence doesn't really imply they aren't weapon attacks, it implies that you can use an unarmed strike in place of a weapon to make a "melee weapon attack".

I... uhmmm.... I honestly don't know how to respond to that.
Are you saying 'weapon attacks' also includes stuff that are not weapons (and/or stuff that are not attacks)? Are you saying that, 'instead of a weapon', does not imply it is not a weapon?
Exactly what kind of crazy mental gymnastics are you making?

[RelentlessImp]

It's "instead of using a weapon to make a melee weapon attack" - the subject here is "melee weapon attack", and then it outlines unarmed strikes as a melee weapon attack. It's basic context.