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

General questions, debates, and rants about RPGs

Moderator: Moderators

User avatar
ACOS
Knight
Posts: 452
Joined: Thu Apr 03, 2014 4:15 pm

Post by ACOS »

infected slut princess wrote: Yet again, my childhood is raped by Mearls.
This post reminds me of a certain scene from a South Park episode. (probably NSFW)
Lago PARANOIA
Invincible Overlord
Posts: 10555
Joined: Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:00 am

Post by Lago PARANOIA »

Whoops, wrong thread.
OgreBattle wrote:What's the verdict on weapon styles, is it like AD&D where you dual wield everything or is it like 3e where greatweapons are where it's at or is it like 4e where every class has abilities to use a handful of specific weapons?
We'll have to wait for a standard treasure list to come out first to be sure, but so far it looks like it's going to be sword and board past level 5 -- unless you're playing a low-level one-shot as a human, then it's THF. Rogues and other classes with on-hit bonus damage may use TWF during this time frame.

Hooray for bounded accuracy.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
MfA
Knight-Baron
Posts: 578
Joined: Sat Jan 17, 2009 4:53 am

Post by MfA »

Rapier and board probably (because of the defensive duelist feat).
User avatar
nockermensch
Duke
Posts: 1898
Joined: Fri Jan 06, 2012 1:11 pm
Location: Rio: the Janeiro

Post by nockermensch »

infected slut princess wrote:Did anyone talk about the 5e Tarrasque? If so, I missed it. But I just saw it, and I am horrified.

I have a soft spot for the Tarrasque. Yeah, it's a big dumb monster in a lot of ways, but it is evocative in a way that most new D&D monsters are not. I thought it was cool how it would always regenerate even if it got disintegrated or killed by death magic. And you needed a wish to truly destroy it. I mean, that was a pretty cool idea.

Well guess what. Apparently you don't need a wish to destroy the 5e Tarrasque. It doesn't even regenerate anymore. You just wail away on its 600+ hitpoints until it dies. THAT'S IT.

Hey, but what about its ability "Legendary Resistance"? Forget it. All it does is let the Tarrasque auto-save 3x per day. Boring. It's like a total meta-power.

It also has "legendary actions" which are pretty fucking boring. They are just attacks or short bursts of movement outside of its turn.

Yet again, my childhood is raped by Mearls.
The Tarrasque can be kited and killed by a 2nd level elf rogue. The process takes about 7~8 hours and the only required items for the rogue are a magical bow and a shit-ton of arrows. Long story short is that rogues double dash in 5e so that an elf rogue that's just moving away can effectively gain distance from a Tarrasque that's doing nothing but trying to reach him. The fight consists on the rogue running until he gets enough distance for a safe shot, shooting then running again. Boring, requires an endless, featureless plain and takes fucking 8 hours to go, so I guess most DMs would rule against this scenario.

So lets see a more reasonable one: Acid Splash + Flight destroys the big T much faster - the fight is over in about 30 min with just one low level shooter, IIRC. The earliest you can pull this one is by level 5: Have a druid summon giant eagles (the summon lasts for 1 hour) and then a friendly wizard can fly and melt the Tarrasque safely from above. For safety, the druid can fly up too (the summon spell calls up to two eagles). If the spellcasters are small, so that more than once can ride in the same eagle, or are like level 6 (cantrips deal an extra damage die) things get pathetic for big T fast.

The only possible conclusion is that the Tarrasque is absent from from all 5e worlds, having been killed on each one eons ago once it crossed paths a gnome village or wizardry school.
@ @ Nockermensch
Koumei wrote:After all, in Firefox you keep tabs in your browser, but in SovietPutin's Russia, browser keeps tabs on you.
Mord wrote:Chromatic Wolves are massively under-CRed. Its "Dood to stone" spell-like is a TPK waiting to happen if you run into it before anyone in the party has Dance of Sack or Shield of Farts.
User avatar
virgil
King
Posts: 6339
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by virgil »

nockermensch wrote:The only possible conclusion is that the Tarrasque is absent from from all 5e worlds, having been killed on each one eons ago once it crossed paths a gnome village or wizardry school.
Or the only surviving Tarrasque is found underground in a chamber with a ceiling no higher than its reach, or possibly in the Rancor pit with a deadpool on people thrown in.
Come see Sprockets & Serials
How do you confuse a barbarian?
Put a greatsword a maul and a greataxe in a room and ask them to take their pick
EXPLOSIVE RUNES!
Night Goat
Journeyman
Posts: 120
Joined: Tue May 13, 2014 7:53 pm

Post by Night Goat »

MfA wrote:Rapier and board probably (because of the defensive duelist feat).
I'm not impressed by Defensive Duelist. Proficiency bonuses are thoroughly underwhelming, and dexterity is a dump stat for heavy armor users so they won't want to use finesse weapons.

I think polearms might be the way to go, especially after you get Polearm Master and Sentinel feats. I'm making a first-level paladin and having trouble choosing between Polearm Master and Heavy Armor Master.
Harshax
Knight
Posts: 393
Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2014 3:12 pm
Location: Chicago, USA

Post by Harshax »

nockermensch wrote: The Tarrasque can be kited and killed by a 2nd level elf rogue. The process takes about 7~8 hours and the only required items for the rogue are a magical bow and a shit-ton of arrows. Long story short is that rogues double dash in 5e so that an elf rogue that's just moving away can effectively gain distance from a Tarrasque that's doing nothing but trying to reach him. The fight consists on the rogue running until he gets enough distance for a safe shot, shooting then running again. Boring, requires an endless, featureless plain and takes fucking 8 hours to go, so I guess most DMs would rule against this scenario.

So lets see a more reasonable one: Acid Splash + Flight destroys the big T much faster - the fight is over in about 30 min with just one low level shooter, IIRC. The earliest you can pull this one is by level 5: Have a druid summon giant eagles (the summon lasts for 1 hour) and then a friendly wizard can fly and melt the Tarrasque safely from above. For safety, the druid can fly up too (the summon spell calls up to two eagles). If the spellcasters are small, so that more than once can ride in the same eagle, or are like level 6 (cantrips deal an extra damage die) things get pathetic for big T fast.

The only possible conclusion is that the Tarrasque is absent from from all 5e worlds, having been killed on each one eons ago once it crossed paths a gnome village or wizardry school.
Harshax wrote:

There has got to be monster templates that haven't yet been released for consideration. Otherwise, this game is nonsense, and I'll be sticking with other systems.


I'm an optimistic idiot.

Honestly, the happiest I was with Next was the first playtest packet. They hadn't yet divided divine and arcane magic and I had this crazy high hope that they had dispensed with that particular division of magic. Clerics would be a specific flavor of Fighter-Wizard. And Fighters could (well, still can) take a feat that lets them use ritual spells. And if you wanted to play a "white" wizard who could heal and buff, so be it.
infected slut princess
Knight-Baron
Posts: 790
Joined: Tue Jun 14, 2011 2:44 am
Location: 3rd Avenue

Post by infected slut princess »

Shouldn't they have figured out by now that the Tarrasque needs a Godzilla-like breath weapon of destructive energy? Or something???

5e Tarrasque is the worst Tarrasque I have ever seen. It's a whiny little bitch, completely unworthy of its Monster Level 30. Seriously, fuck 5e. They are ruining all the high-level monsters that used to be cool and pumped people up to play the game.
Oh, then you are an idiot. Because infected slut princess has never posted anything worth reading at any time.
User avatar
Stinktopus
Master
Posts: 187
Joined: Sat Jan 26, 2013 5:07 am

Post by Stinktopus »

So, my girlfriend is running the Hoard of the Dragon Queen AP. We have the following characters:

A wizard. He hasn't done anything yet, so I don't know what to say about him.

A TWF rogue who is really unhappy that his off-hand weapon doesn't get a stat bonus to damage. He's going to take a one level dip of fighter to get the TWF style. He's not happy that only one attack counts as a Sneak Attack, but at least extra attacks give an extra chance to apply it if the first one misses.

A total rookie playing a Champion Fighter. I had to make the character for her, so I decided to try her with a Halberd, Polearm Mastery, and Great Weapon Fighting Style (because 1's and 2's on a d10 make baby Jesus cry). She just wants to hit stuff hard.

My character is a rogue with a shortbow and Sharpshooter. As long as someone else is adjacent to my target, I'm getting my Sneak Attack, so it seems like the best combo of damage/survivability I'm going to get with a non-caster.

It will be interesting to see how we fare with no healer and nobody really set up for tanking.
User avatar
OgreBattle
King
Posts: 6820
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2011 9:33 am

Post by OgreBattle »

Stinktopus wrote:So, my girlfriend is running the Hoard of the Dragon Queen AP. We have the following characters:

A wizard. He hasn't done anything yet, so I don't know what to say about him.

A TWF rogue who is really unhappy that his off-hand weapon doesn't get a stat bonus to damage. He's going to take a one level dip of fighter to get the TWF style. He's not happy that only one attack counts as a Sneak Attack, but at least extra attacks give an extra chance to apply it if the first one misses.

A total rookie playing a Champion Fighter. I had to make the character for her, so I decided to try her with a Halberd, Polearm Mastery, and Great Weapon Fighting Style (because 1's and 2's on a d10 make baby Jesus cry). She just wants to hit stuff hard.

My character is a rogue with a shortbow and Sharpshooter. As long as someone else is adjacent to my target, I'm getting my Sneak Attack, so it seems like the best combo of damage/survivability I'm going to get with a non-caster.

It will be interesting to see how we fare with no healer and nobody really set up for tanking.
Plan on transcribing it to the trenches section of TGD?
User avatar
Hiram McDaniels
Knight
Posts: 393
Joined: Mon Sep 15, 2014 5:54 am

Post by Hiram McDaniels »

Stinktopus wrote: A TWF rogue who is really unhappy that his off-hand weapon doesn't get a stat bonus to damage. He's going to take a one level dip of fighter to get the TWF style. He's not happy that only one attack counts as a Sneak Attack, but at least extra attacks give an extra chance to apply it if the first one misses.
.
Bad news. I don't think Rogues in D&D5 get extra attacks like Fighters and Barbarians and such. Might have to go for a two level dip in Fighter to pick up Action Surge.
The most dangerous game is man. The most entertaining game is Broadway Puppy Ball. The most weird game is Esoteric Bear.
Grek
Prince
Posts: 3114
Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2009 10:37 pm

Post by Grek »

They do, if they have two weapons. Fighters and barbarians get extra attacks on top of those, but anyone can claim the extra attack for two weapon fighting.
Chamomile wrote:Grek is a national treasure.
User avatar
Hiram McDaniels
Knight
Posts: 393
Joined: Mon Sep 15, 2014 5:54 am

Post by Hiram McDaniels »

Grek wrote:They do, if they have two weapons. Fighters and barbarians get extra attacks on top of those, but anyone can claim the extra attack for two weapon fighting.
Ahh. That's right. My brain was stuck in the 4E paradigm wherein "two weapon fighting" means a static bonus to something, rather than extra attacks. Carry on.
The most dangerous game is man. The most entertaining game is Broadway Puppy Ball. The most weird game is Esoteric Bear.
MfA
Knight-Baron
Posts: 578
Joined: Sat Jan 17, 2009 4:53 am

Post by MfA »

Night Goat wrote:I'm not impressed by Defensive Duelist. Proficiency bonuses are thoroughly underwhelming, and dexterity is a dump stat for heavy armor users so they won't want to use finesse weapons.
You just need 13 dex to take the feat, you can still use strength for attack with a finesse weapon and benefit from the feat.
Last edited by MfA on Wed Oct 01, 2014 6:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Rawbeard
Knight-Baron
Posts: 670
Joined: Sun May 15, 2011 9:45 am

Post by Rawbeard »

Not sure if it came up here already, but I just stumbled over an amusing multiclassing omission. Got a player who wants to multiclass fighter with... fighter. So his character will be fighter 2/fighter 2 to get both champion and weaponmaster (or whatever the fuck it's called). I am like "wait... that's not... oh, look at that, the PHB does not seem to explicitly forbit that kind of stupid". You seriously can't play 5e without knowing 2e and 3e, since this is not the first "it was like that in previous editions, so we don't mention it" rules shit pile I found.
To a man with a hammer every problem looks like a nail.
User avatar
Ravengm
Knight
Posts: 386
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Ravengm »

Rawbeard wrote:Not sure if it came up here already, but I just stumbled over an amusing multiclassing omission. Got a player who wants to multiclass fighter with... fighter. So his character will be fighter 2/fighter 2 to get both champion and weaponmaster (or whatever the fuck it's called). I am like "wait... that's not... oh, look at that, the PHB does not seem to explicitly forbit that kind of stupid". You seriously can't play 5e without knowing 2e and 3e, since this is not the first "it was like that in previous editions, so we don't mention it" rules shit pile I found.
Now waiting on a loophole that gives 20 times the spells of a 20th level Wizard to a Wizard 1/Wizard 1/Wizard 1/Wizard 1/Wizard 1/Wizard 1/Wizard 1/Wizard 1/Wizard 1/Wizard 1/Wizard 1/Wizard 1/Wizard 1/Wizard 1/Wizard 1/Wizard 1/Wizard 1/Wizard 1/Wizard 1/Wizard 1.
Random thing I saw on Facebook wrote:Just make sure to compare your results from Weapon Bracket Table and Elevator Load Composition (Dragon Magazine #12) to the Perfunctory Armor Glossary, Version 3.8 (Races of Minneapolis, pp. 183). Then use your result as input to the "DM Says Screw You" equation.
animea90
Journeyman
Posts: 110
Joined: Sun Jul 06, 2014 7:16 pm

Post by animea90 »

nockermensch wrote:
Lago PARANOIA wrote:[*] Powergaming is best handled by the DM line-item vetoing powers. People complaining that a magic item is overpowered? Everyone selecting one particular feat tax? Everyone is summoning a problematic monster? If we take these toys out of the hands of players and make them suck the cock of the DM, that solves everything.
Your nostalgia glasses is making you forget that 3/3.5/3.P also bows deeply to rule 0 and DM worship. D&D books are always peppered by remarks that DMs can change or adapt whatever they want.
I don't remember seeing it much in Pathfinder. I amm sure there was a line somewhere saying houserules are okay, but I rarely saw a "Ask your GM before taking feat X".

5e seems to have quite a lot of it. The most obvious being "GM decides if you get magic items".
Last edited by animea90 on Fri Oct 03, 2014 10:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
animea90
Journeyman
Posts: 110
Joined: Sun Jul 06, 2014 7:16 pm

Post by animea90 »

infected slut princess wrote:Did anyone talk about the 5e Tarrasque? If so, I missed it. But I just saw it, and I am horrified.

I have a soft spot for the Tarrasque. Yeah, it's a big dumb monster in a lot of ways, but it is evocative in a way that most new D&D monsters are not. I thought it was cool how it would always regenerate even if it got disintegrated or killed by death magic. And you needed a wish to truly destroy it. I mean, that was a pretty cool idea.

Well guess what. Apparently you don't need a wish to destroy the 5e Tarrasque. It doesn't even regenerate anymore. You just wail away on its 600+ hitpoints until it dies. THAT'S IT.

Hey, but what about its ability "Legendary Resistance"? Forget it. All it does is let the Tarrasque auto-save 3x per day. Boring. It's like a total meta-power.

It also has "legendary actions" which are pretty fucking boring. They are just attacks or short bursts of movement outside of its turn.

Yet again, my childhood is raped by Mearls.
That has been discussed before on the boards. As it stands the Tarrasque dies to anyone with ranged attacks and fly,
fectin
Prince
Posts: 3760
Joined: Mon Feb 01, 2010 1:54 am

Post by fectin »

animea90 wrote:
nockermensch wrote:
Lago PARANOIA wrote:[*] Powergaming is best handled by the DM line-item vetoing powers. People complaining that a magic item is overpowered? Everyone selecting one particular feat tax? Everyone is summoning a problematic monster? If we take these toys out of the hands of players and make them suck the cock of the DM, that solves everything.
Your nostalgia glasses is making you forget that 3/3.5/3.P also bows deeply to rule 0 and DM worship. D&D books are always peppered by remarks that DMs can change or adapt whatever they want.
I don't remember seeing it much in Pathfinder. I amm sure there was a line somewhere saying houserules are okay, but I rarely saw a "Ask your GM before taking feat X".

5e seems to have quite a lot of it. The most obvious being "GM decides if you get magic items".
It showed up on spellfire in 3.0. That wasn't a terrible way of handling that, but it did make a small chunk of that book basically unusable.
Vebyast wrote:Here's a fun target for Major Creation: hydrazine. One casting every six seconds at CL9 gives you a bit more than 40 liters per second, which is comparable to the flow rates of some small, but serious, rocket engines. Six items running at full blast through a well-engineered engine will put you, and something like 50 tons of cargo, into space. Alternatively, if you thrust sideways, you will briefly be a fireball screaming across the sky at mach 14 before you melt from atmospheric friction.
User avatar
ACOS
Knight
Posts: 452
Joined: Thu Apr 03, 2014 4:15 pm

Post by ACOS »

fectin wrote: It showed up on spellfire in 3.0. That wasn't a terrible way of handling that, but it did make a small chunk of that book basically unusable.
No - the RAW for spellfire made a small chunk of that book unusable. If you want the DM to allow something from a splatbook, you have to make sure it plays nice with the rest of the game. :educate:
User avatar
Ferret
Knight
Posts: 324
Joined: Wed Aug 12, 2009 2:08 pm

Post by Ferret »

Image
DMG Table of Contents preview.

I don't hate this. LOL that "RULES MODLUES!" gets relegated to 22 pages in the back of the book.

Edit: LOL FUCK YOUR TABLES. (added spoiler tags)[/spoiler]
Last edited by Ferret on Fri Oct 24, 2014 8:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Lago PARANOIA
Invincible Overlord
Posts: 10555
Joined: Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:00 am

Post by Lago PARANOIA »

Well, that's not too offensive. Some of it is a bit suspicious (10 pages to discuss the friggin' Outer Planes?) but just going by the ToC it's not super-awful.

However, what happened to that huge list of alternate rules that had shit like gestalt classes and skill challenges and whatever the fuck? They're all salami-sliced and it looks like they MIGHT appear in the last 22 pages Ferret mentioned. Did Mike Mearls and friends just give up on it? So much for modularity; I guess the design team decided that it'd be easier to be a cut-rate clone for 3E D&D than to establish its own identity.
Last edited by Lago PARANOIA on Fri Oct 24, 2014 9:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
Username17
Serious Badass
Posts: 29894
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Username17 »

Where are the hiding rules? The basic rules don't have hiding rules and it was supposed to be in the DMG.

-Username17
User avatar
nockermensch
Duke
Posts: 1898
Joined: Fri Jan 06, 2012 1:11 pm
Location: Rio: the Janeiro

Post by nockermensch »

FrankTrollman wrote:Where are the hiding rules? The basic rules don't have hiding rules and it was supposed to be in the DMG.

-Username17
They better be on pages 238-239, because I don't see another viable spot for them.
@ @ Nockermensch
Koumei wrote:After all, in Firefox you keep tabs in your browser, but in SovietPutin's Russia, browser keeps tabs on you.
Mord wrote:Chromatic Wolves are massively under-CRed. Its "Dood to stone" spell-like is a TPK waiting to happen if you run into it before anyone in the party has Dance of Sack or Shield of Farts.
User avatar
ACOS
Knight
Posts: 452
Joined: Thu Apr 03, 2014 4:15 pm

Post by ACOS »

nockermensch wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote:Where are the hiding rules? The basic rules don't have hiding rules and it was supposed to be in the DMG.

-Username17
They better be on pages 238-239, because I don't see another viable spot for them.
possibly 260-263 "Adventuring Options"?
Post Reply