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I thought I would start this thread for the community to post odd things discovered within the new Basic Rules.


Padded Armor gives Disadvantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks

Wait what?! It's padded armor... Is it made from corduroy?

But chain shirt doesn't. woo-hoo :D

Armor in general.  It takes 5 minutes to put on a chain shirt?  That whole table is wonkers

No GM advice or monsters in the basic set?  So they crippled the starter and the free release.  It's not the end of the world but it is a weird decision.

It reminds me of third and second (backgrounds are kits) more than anything.

The random trinket will come in handy when pockets are picked.

I still don't like the feat / class ability / skill divide.

But I'm happy that Hit Dice are still there in their proper place.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;764102Armor in general.  It takes 5 minutes to put on a chain shirt?  That whole table is wonkers

The way it is described it sounds more like a ring jack, but whatever.

Quote from: David Johansen;764104No GM advice or monsters in the basic set?  So they crippled the starter and the free release.  It's not the end of the world but it is a weird decision.
.

They already said the basic set release is primarily for chargen, and the monsters and DMG stuff will be added to basic when the MM and DMG are released.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;764102Armor in general.  It takes 5 minutes to put on a chain shirt?  That whole table is wonkers

Maybe it has lots of buckles mixed with dwarven stubby fingers? Gloves may come into it.

And yeah, there will be later additions to the free stuff. Like monsters.

I'm no expert in medieval weaponry, but I can't understand why the halberd and glaive do less damage than the great-axe and great-sword. I mean, yeah the polearms have reach, but...

High Elves get a Mage cantrip, so a rogue with Mage hand or a Melee warrior w/fire bolt.  I like the idea in general but jeebus. :eek:

What makes me go "WHAT?!"

No table of contents. No index. No chapter bookmarks for ease of navigation.

SERIOUSLY! What is this?? Traveller 5?

Quote from: YourSwordisMine;764099I thought I would start this thread for the community to post odd things discovered within the new Basic Rules.


Padded Armor gives Disadvantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks

Wait what?! It's padded armor... Is it made from corduroy?

Probably.  Stiff and bulky to be worth counting as primary protection.  Think serious parka .

Quote from: BarefootGaijin;764130SERIOUSLY! What is this?? Traveller 5?

Shut up you idiot.  You'll attract the constantine.

Quote from: ConradBumpus;764136Shut up you idiot.  You'll attract the constantine.

The Traveller Taliban, they'll issue a fatwa against you like they did with me. :D

Quote from: CRKrueger;764124High Elves get a Mage cantrip, so a rogue with Mage hand or a Melee warrior w/fire bolt.  I like the idea in general but jeebus. :eek:

Mage Hand as a cantrip full stop. So you have infinite uses of an unseen servant who can open all doors and chests from 30 feet away? Not on my watch.

And yeah, the armour stealth penalties are screwy.

Something weird going on with the human alternate features - you can get +1 to two stats, but you have to give up +1 to all stats to get it? I'm assuming they meant +2 to two stats instead of +1 to all.

super tempted to make mage hand a 1st level spell

Quote from: David Johansen;764104No GM advice or monsters in the basic set?  So they crippled the starter and the free release.  It's not the end of the world but it is a weird decision.

It reminds me of third and second (backgrounds are kits) more than anything.

The random trinket will come in handy when pockets are picked.

I still don't like the feat / class ability / skill divide.

But I'm happy that Hit Dice are still there in their proper place.

I disagree about trinkets most are total adventure hooks and some are obvious quest hooks.

Quote from: BarefootGaijin;764130What makes me go "WHAT?!"

No table of contents. No index. No chapter bookmarks for ease of navigation.

SERIOUSLY! What is this?? Traveller 5?

The print-unfriendly version has PDF bookmarks, but yeah, I noticed that too. There's not much excuse for the print-friendly version not to have at least a basic table of contents.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;764149Something weird going on with the human alternate features - you can get +1 to two stats, but you have to give up +1 to all stats to get it? I'm assuming they meant +2 to two stats instead of +1 to all.

The swap also gives you an extra skill proficiency and feat as well (assuming the use of some option from the PHB.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;764150super tempted to make mage hand a 1st level spell

Don't you do it...that way lies get every attack cantrip ever and 4e.:(

Mage Hand allows for non direct attack/defense in combat and SCREAMS classic wizard in every other situation.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;764149Something weird going on with the human alternate features - you can get +1 to two stats, but you have to give up +1 to all stats to get it? I'm assuming they meant +2 to two stats instead of +1 to all.

I'm pretty sure that's an 'all of these' ( +1 to 2 stats, bonus skill, bonus feat) situation.

ooo OK.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;764149Something weird going on with the human alternate features - you can get +1 to two stats, but you have to give up +1 to all stats to get it? I'm assuming they meant +2 to two stats instead of +1 to all.

Feats are a BIG deal this time. They're chunky and have very limited chances to get them. And to get one at character creation can be a gamechanger depending on the table the game is played at.

And yes.

Quote from: YourSwordisMine;764099I thought I would start this thread for the community to post odd things discovered within the new Basic Rules.


Padded Armor gives Disadvantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks

Wait what?! It's padded armor... Is it made from corduroy?

It's my understanding that historical textile armors tended to be bulky.
IIRC the Praecepta Militaria recommends a quilted garment "as thick as can be stitched."

Quote from: Marleycat;764158Feats are a BIG deal this time. They're chunky and very limited. And to get one at character creation can be a gamechanger depending on the table the game is played at.

Yeah. I can get Shield Mastery on my Mage, er... Wizard, right out the gate with that. Then nab Charge at level 4.

Heck a human wizard with that alternate method could grab armour proficiency then can cast in armour.

And while not a WTF. The location of the point by system table is way off down in another page discussing armour.

Quote from: Zeea;764152The print-unfriendly version has PDF bookmarks, but yeah, I noticed that too. There's not much excuse for the print-friendly version not to have at least a basic table of contents.

Just looked and you are be correct.

Handy for tablet play.

Quote from: Omega;764162Yeah. I can get Shield Mastery on my Mage, er... Wizard, right out the gate with that. Then nab Charge at level 4.

Heck a human wizard with that alternate method could grab armour proficiency then can cast in armour.

And while not a WTF. The location of the point by system table is way off down in another page discussing armour.

You assume feats are the same as the playtest... not a good decision honestly after today. But yes they could. Humans are surprising and versitile. It's why you play not theorize. Humans rock. Hi, I get +1/+1 and a feat? Yeah, it's fair.;

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;764149Something weird going on with the human alternate features - you can get +1 to two stats, but you have to give up +1 to all stats to get it? I'm assuming they meant +2 to two stats instead of +1 to all.

That's not a list of three separate things you can take, its all one package.

You either get +1 to all abilities, or you get the +1 to two Abilities, an extra Skill and an extra Feat.


Edit: Ninjaed by 4 hours, I really need to keep reading threads when I wake up rather than commenting.

Here's a WTF:

Burglar's pack has a bag of 1000 ball bearings.  Not marbles, pebbles, but ball bearings.  

Yeah the Romans used rather large wooden ball bearings, but still, that's pretty funny.

'For example, if you score a critical hit with a dagger, roll 2d4 for the damage, rather than 1d4, and then add your relevant ability modifier. If the attack involves other damage dice, such as from the rogue's Sneak Attack feature, you roll those dice twice as well.'

O.K., that's... erm...different!

Quote from: jadrax;764284'For example, if you score a critical hit with a dagger, roll 2d4 for the damage, rather than 1d4, and then add your relevant ability modifier. If the attack involves other damage dice, such as from the rogue's Sneak Attack feature, you roll those dice twice as well.'

O.K., that's... erm...different!

Oh, that could be nasty. Short sword and dagger TWF sneak attack correct?

Quote from: Marleycat;764286Oh, that could be nasty. Short sword and dagger TWF sneak attack correct?

You only get to use it once per turn, even when TWF, but obviously you need to hit first which TWF helps with, a lot.

Quote from: jadrax;764288You only get to use it once per turn, even when TWF, but obviously you need to hit first which TWF helps with, a lot.

Now you wonder why I want my Flame Bolt and Ray of Frost or better yet my Arcane Archer feat? I want nothing more then to be far away from any melee fight as a Wizard.:)

Quote from: CRKrueger;764270Here's a WTF:

Burglar's pack has a bag of 1000 ball bearings.  Not marbles, pebbles, but ball bearings.  

Yeah the Romans used rather large wooden ball bearings, but still, that's pretty funny.

Could have been an emulation decision since the game is aimed at a younger demographic. Marbles are easy to come by. Ball bearings are relatively not.

Marbles might shatter (unlikely) or at the very least pose a real threat if tossed on the ground.

Maybee some exec just assumed that kids dont play with marbles any more and wouldnt understand what they are.

Quote from: Marleycat;764290Now you wonder why I want my Flame Bolt and Ray of Frost or better yet my Arcane Archer feat? I want nothing more then to be far away from any melee fight as a Wizard.:)

But you could be a back stabbing with shield while sneaking wizard... From across the room if you get charge too...

As for the lack of an indec, table of contents, etc.

I think that is because this is going to change in 10 days. So it would make sense to wait to pit in till then.

Quote from: David Johansen;764104No GM advice or monsters in the basic set?  So they crippled the starter and the free release.  It's not the end of the world but it is a weird decision.

It's been stated over and over and over again that the GM stuff and monsters would be added to Basic when the PHB comes out. As in you would have needed to miss almost every single official post they've made about this stuff to not know that.

Re: index/table of contents - I hope they are just waiting until the finalised 1.0 release to add those, to save the hassle of redoing the table of contents and index every single time they update Basic.

If you need monster info, message me or something.  I'm happy to help.  That said, my Starter Set at retail was only $20...

My surprises thus far (and note I didn't participate in the playtests and some of this could be just my beer-soaked brain forgetting things):

1) The PDF was so small!  I thought it errored at first.  Love that it could be attached to an email, etc.  Love it!

2) Humans can get +1 to every stat

3) Racial subtypes are a straight-up add.  No disadvantages/tradeoffs listed.

4) Armor spell failure is GONE with proficiency.  That got a double take from me.  This means your typical Mountain Dwarf Wizard is going to rock some Half Plate.  That's a boggler right there, and unfortunately bears little resemblance to classic D&D in my mind.  Might be fun though.

5) Platinum coins aren't frequently used.

6) Gems are full value.

7) Full rest is full HP.

8) Ability checks and Ability Saving Throws both exist.  After hearing about the latter, the former seemed redundant.  Reading the rules, I still feel it is.  Effectively the save amounts to adding your proficiency bonus to save your ass.  It's just...  weird.

9) 2nd level really is only 300 XP, which is shockingly low.  And 'Challenge 1' monsters give 100 XP each, which seems like a lot.  Since that's supposed to be a match for a party of four, you need twelve of those to level.  So it's right back where it was before, causing a double WTF loop.

I'm sure there will be more as I read/re-read.  Fun times.

Quote from: mcbobbo;7643439) 2nd level really is only 300 XP, which is shockingly low.  And 'Challenge 1' monsters give 100 XP each, which seems like a lot.  Since that's supposed to be a match for a party of four, you need twelve of those to level.  So it's right back where it was before, causing a double WTF loop.

When I was a teen in the eighties a very common house rule was that you automatically went up to second level if you made it home alive from your first adventure. This sort of codifies that.

Posted this stuff in the Hobgoblin thread but it's worth noting here since we're onto the experience progression:

Quote from: Warthur;764312I'm not bothered by the experience progression as presented because it's so very, very trivial to just substitute in some other XP table.

And it should definitely be emphasised that stuff does seem to slow down a LOT when you hit 5th level, and in fact compared to both 3E and 4E you actually need much more XP to hit 20th. Check it out:

(http://i.imgur.com/dc1NjI4.png)

Compared to 3E, in 5E you need about the same number of XP to go from level 4 to level 5 (4000 vs. 3800), and substantially more XP for every level increase after that; in terms of total XP, 5E overtakes 3E at level 7.

It's even more stark compared to 4E (possibly due to 4E being calibrated for a 1-30 scale, and to have you hit level 30 at a cool 1 million XP). Comparing with 4E, in 5E you need a little more XP to go from level 3 to level 4, and masses more XP for every level increase after that, and the 5E table overtakes the 4E table at level 5.

(Of course, with earlier editions you needed millions of XP to hit 20th, mind, but a comparison there is more difficult because you didn't have a unified XP progression.)

It occurs to me that if you wanted a slower early progression, a quick and simple fix would to be to use the 3E target numbers for levels 1-5, and then use the standard 5E progression from then on. If you wanted even slower progression it requires more tinkering, but that's easy enough to do.

Quote from: Warthur;764314Another thing I've noticed: note how the 5E table throws in curveballs at the distinctions between tiers. To go from level 4 to level 5 it's a big jump. To go from level 10 to level 11 (the distinction between competent, hardened adventurers and Big Ass Heroes) is a huge leap - the gulf is actually greater than between level 11 and level 12, or 12 and 13, or 13 and 14, presumably to represent just how big a sea change in the campaign getting to high level is. To go from level 16 to 17 (Big Ass Heroes to walking demigods), conversely, is about as easy as going from 15 to 16, presumably because you're getting to the point where your character's power plateaus.

In summary:
- The rapid advancement oddness only takes place at levels 1-5.
- It's trivially easy to tweak the progression at those levels to get something indistinguishable from the 3.X progression.

I'm generally really impressed with the nuanced way in which they've fine tuned this old bitch. It is the first version of D&D I've seen that I think is better at the basic gears and pulleys system shit than C&C. But I'm not sure what it will feel like to play D&D where you get to fully reset your HP clock every day. Wow. I get why they did it. And I suspect it will make for better game play. But it feels weird. When you combine this with the basically abstract way damage is handled in general, it feels like a world where it is impossible for anyone to break a bone or get a deep cut. Like, if I didn't die yesterday, then I'm ready to roar! Something about that bugs me.

Quote from: Larsdangly;764397I'm generally really impressed with the nuanced way in which they've fine tuned this old bitch. It is the first version of D&D I've seen that I think is better at the basic gears and pulleys system shit than C&C. But I'm not sure what it will feel like to play D&D where you get to fully reset your HP clock every day. Wow. I get why they did it. And I suspect it will make for better game play. But it feels weird. When you combine this with the basically abstract way damage is handled in general, it feels like a world where it is impossible for anyone to break a bone or get a deep cut. Like, if I didn't die yesterday, then I'm ready to roar! Something about that bugs me.

I was thinking of using something like this:

Crippling Wounds

Whenever you receive damage from a critical hit OR you are knocked down to 0 or less HP from damage, the damage from that source becomes a Crippling Wound.

Crippling Wound damage cannot be healed in the same way as normal damage.

A long rest does not heal Crippling Wound damage. Crippling Wound damage cannot be healed through any mundane class or racial ability.

Magical healing only restores 1 point per spell level of the spell cast to heal it. Any casting after the first has no affect.

-1 to all checks per Crippling Wound
Each Crippling Wound a character has heals at a rate of 1 point per 2 days.

(This is totally an off the cuff idea. Not sure how well it would work in play)

This is pretty good, though I think it might be more fun to 'old school' it with a crit table or something. A character with a broken arm or an eye put out is more fun than one with a -1 mod.

Quote from: Larsdangly;764397But I'm not sure what it will feel like to play D&D where you get to fully reset your HP clock every day.

If you can get 8 Hours rest that's not interrupted by more than 1 hour of activity...


Never let them sleep, my minions. NEVER LET THEM SLEEP!

Quote from: Larsdangly;764411This is pretty good, though I think it might be more fun to 'old school' it with a crit table or something. A character with a broken arm or an eye put out is more fun than one with a -1 mod.

Yeah, I was thinking of a hit table and more specific penalties when I was writing it, aha, but was trying for something a little simpler.

Quote from: jadrax;764412If you can get 8 Hours rest that's not interrupted by more than 1 hour of activity...


Never let them sleep, my minions. NEVER LET THEM SLEEP!

That was advice in Dragon Mountain, in fact, back in the day.

That said, it does make allowances for a two hour watch.  Since two hours per four characters is eight, that's kinda nifty right there.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;764409Each Crippling Wound a character has heals at a rate of 1 point per 2 days.

OH, replace this with "After each long rest, for each Crippling Wound the character has, make one Constitution Save DC 12. On a success, that Crippling Wound is healed by 1 point".

This way, heartier folk, and those proficient in Constitution saves (like Fighters), heal a bit faster from bad wounds.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;764149Something weird going on with the human alternate features - you can get +1 to two stats, but you have to give up +1 to all stats to get it? I'm assuming they meant +2 to two stats instead of +1 to all.

Presumably because the 'bonus feat' is worth it if you're using feats?

Quote from: Emperor Norton;764409I was thinking of using something like this:

Crippling Wounds

Whenever you receive damage from a critical hit OR you are knocked down to 0 or less HP from damage, the damage from that source becomes a Crippling Wound.

Crippling Wound damage cannot be healed in the same way as normal damage.

A long rest does not heal Crippling Wound damage. Crippling Wound damage cannot be healed through any mundane class or racial ability.

Magical healing only restores 1 point per spell level of the spell cast to heal it. Any casting after the first has no affect.

-1 to all checks per Crippling Wound
Each Crippling Wound a character has heals at a rate of 1 point per 2 days.

(This is totally an off the cuff idea. Not sure how well it would work in play)

Why not adapt Arnesons original Wounds + hit locations system from OD&D?

Quote from: Omega;764446Why not adapt Arnesons original Wounds + hit locations system from OD&D?

I started in 2e, so I don't think I've ever seen it.

Quote from: CRKrueger;764124High Elves get a Mage cantrip, so a rogue with Mage hand or a Melee warrior w/fire bolt.  I like the idea in general but jeebus. :eek:

Not on a boat in a moat with goat strangling a stoat.

Maybe it would have been more succinct to list who doesn't get at-will magic?  My instinct is that this needs to be limited casts per day or something, at least.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;764150super tempted to make mage hand a 1st level spell

I wouldn't stop just there.  Where there's one problem cantrip, there are more. I was pretty happy with the tone of what I was reading for the most part, but the high magic feel coming from half the population having at-will magic is turning me off.

One of the things I'm thinking about doing is working in a Wounds/Vitality system. Any attack that does over your CON score does the difference in Wound points.  Wound points reduce your Max HP. You recover Wound points equal to your level + your CON mod for every 3 days of rest you get.

Critical hits do 1/2 the total damage as Wound points, or damage in excess of your CON score, which ever is higher.

If you have wound points equal to your Max HP, you are dying, and make your death saves with Disadvantage.

Lesser Restoration recovers Wound points at 1/level the spell is cast, and Heal restores them as HP.

So let's say you have Beric the Ballsy with 34 HP and a CON score of 18.  A troll smacks him for 22 Damage. His HPs are now 12, and he has taken 4 Wounds, reducing his MAX HP down to 30. No amount of healing will get him above 30.

Later, a bugbear crits for 36 damage. He's unconscious and takes another 18 WP, for a total of 24. His max HP is now 8-- even if he gets back up, he's severely wounded and needs to get some rest.

Ah so I misread a few things in the book:

1. You can't assign a stat higher than 15 using point-buy. I'm assuming that it is to discourage min-maxing, which is cool to me, but still a bit weird.

2. Wizards can cast spells while wearing armor that they're proficient with. They've reduced the glass canon aspect, I guess. Another interesting change from previous editions! A bit weird, though: other than magic armor, I can't think of the spellcaster archetypes from fantasy media ever using medium to heavy armor...

Granted, the charOP crowd are really upset about these things, but I just find them odd.

Quote from: Necrozius;764482Ah so I misread a few things in the book:

1. You can't assign a stat higher than 15 using point-buy. I'm assuming that it is to discourage min-maxing, which is cool to me, but still a bit weird.

2. Wizards can cast spells while wearing armor that they're proficient with. They've reduced the glass canon aspect, I guess. Another interesting change from previous editions! A bit weird, though: other than magic armor, I can't think of the spellcaster archetypes from fantasy media ever using medium to heavy armor...

Granted, the charOP crowd are really upset about these things, but I just find them odd.

Proficiency may be too low a bar for no penalty ever.  As I noted above,  dwarves get it gratis.

Quote from: mcbobbo;764487Proficiency may be too low a bar for no penalty ever.  As I noted above,  dwarves get it gratis.

True, although aside from that you pretty much have to multi-class, which a) may not be allowed and b) tends to slow down your spell progression. Of course it may be a feat becomes available, but there was not really one in the play test.

The Dwarf thing I think will pretty much end up being an odd corner case, because Dwarf Wizards are not a common concept outside of min-maxing.

Quote from: Omega;764293But you could be a back stabbing with shield while sneaking wizard... From across the room if you get charge too...

As for the lack of an indec, table of contents, etc.

I think that is because this is going to change in 10 days. So it would make sense to wait to pit in till then.

I figure there won't be a table of contents or index until it's done updating at the end of the year.

Quote from: mcbobbo;764487Proficiency may be too low a bar for no penalty ever.  As I noted above,  dwarves get it gratis.

It's not as big a deal as it seems because of bounded accuracy.  Even with magic armor you just won't see anything above +3. So AC 22-23? At very high level it's fine because everyone is +11-12 to hit so it balances out alright.

Besides the ones noted so far the one that jumped out at me was correlating clerics divine power to destroy undead to CR instead of HD. It just seems to add another fiddly bit of rules to the system. We never used CR properly in 4e going more for "do what feels right. I could have lived without CR in the game at all.

Not a big deal and can probably be home brewed easily enough. But I haven't seen any of the monsters other than the starter set samples.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;764448I started in 2e, so I don't think I've ever seen it.

Basically it equated HP into actual meat. When a section took all its damage it was severed. The system gave you a bit more health than HP does though.
Head: 15%, Upper Torso: 80% Lower Torso: 60%: Limbs: 20%.

So say you have 20HP, youd have 3 points to the head, 16 upper, 12 lower, and 4 per limb. Where you hit depended on facing. So youd apply the damage to both HP and the section hit. Reducing the points of the head or chest killed you flat out. Reducing the points for a limb severed it and youd lose 1 hp per round from bleeding. Loss of a limb also detrimentally effected movement, etc.

Murderously lethal when combined with a thief as attacking from behind upped the chance of hitting the head and chest.

This was also applied seperately for non-humanoids like animals, bugs, etc.

So you could kill someone by fatiguing them to death or via limb loss.

System reminded me of Battletech in a way. Or vis-a-vis.

Quote from: JonWake;764478One of the things I'm thinking about doing is working in a Wounds/Vitality system. Any attack that does over your CON score does the difference in Wound points.  Wound points reduce your Max HP. You recover Wound points equal to your level + your CON mod for every 3 days of rest you get.

Critical hits do 1/2 the total damage as Wound points, or damage in excess of your CON score, which ever is higher.

If you have wound points equal to your Max HP, you are dying, and make your death saves with Disadvantage.

Lesser Restoration recovers Wound points at 1/level the spell is cast, and Heal restores them as HP.

So let's say you have Beric the Ballsy with 34 HP and a CON score of 18.  A troll smacks him for 22 Damage. His HPs are now 12, and he has taken 4 Wounds, reducing his MAX HP down to 30. No amount of healing will get him above 30.

Later, a bugbear crits for 36 damage. He's unconscious and takes another 18 WP, for a total of 24. His max HP is now 8-- even if he gets back up, he's severely wounded and needs to get some rest.

An option for vitality/wounds will be in the DMG.

Quote from: Necrozius;764482Ah so I misread a few things in the book:

1. You can't assign a stat higher than 15 using point-buy. I'm assuming that it is to discourage min-maxing, which is cool to me, but still a bit weird.

That's pretty awesome.  If you want to have super-high stats you have to roll for them.  Otherwise you can get average.

Quote from: Omega;764531Basically it equated HP into actual meat. When a section took all its damage it was severed. The system gave you a bit more health than HP does though.
Head: 15%, Upper Torso: 80% Lower Torso: 60%: Limbs: 20%.

Just for the record, I've heard Old Geezer and others state that Dave didn't use or write that system. Not sure if I've seen anyone trace who actually wrote it. It might be related or inspired by the hit location system in Underworld & Wilderness Adventures (the one for aerial combat,) although that one doesn't include hp values for individual body parts, only extra critical hit chances.

Quote from: MonsterSlayer;764513Besides the ones noted so far the one that jumped out at me was correlating clerics divine power to destroy undead to CR instead of HD. It just seems to add another fiddly bit of rules to the system. We never used CR properly in 4e going more for "do what feels right. I could have lived without CR in the game at all.

Not a big deal and can probably be home brewed easily enough. But I haven't seen any of the monsters other than the starter set samples.

Haven't finished reading or catologuing my thoughts on it, but I did notice that CR thing and thought it was stupid. There's already a danger/difficulty rating: HIT DICE. I've always thought CRs or MLs were unnecessary add-ons that make things needlessly complicated.

One of the more WTF-ish bits, though, is the divine intervention rule. I may be reading it wrong, but it sounds like it's a percentile dice roll instead of the d20+mods roll, which surprised me given the WotC obsession with unified mechanics... but also, at level 20, the chance jumps to 100% and no roll is necessary. Unless they are mislabeling a d20 <= level roll as a percentile roll, in which case there is no enormous leap.

Quote from: Kravell;764547An option for vitality/wounds will be in the DMG.

Are you sure of that? 'Cause that would be pretty cool. I liked the one Wizards used in Star Wars d20 a lot.

Quote from: talysman;764561Just for the record, I've heard Old Geezer and others state that Dave didn't use or write that system. Not sure if I've seen anyone trace who actually wrote it. It might be related or inspired by the hit location system in Underworld & Wilderness Adventures (the one for aerial combat,) although that one doesn't include hp values for individual body parts, only extra critical hit chances.

Really? Blackmoor has just Dave's name on it? With "Thanks to Gygax, Kask, Kuntz and Marsh for ideas and suggestions."

Anything based on CR/CL instead of HD: Stupid. Never needed CR, still don't need it.

Healing: Borderline brain dead.  It basically assumes all HP damage is fatigue and no one actually got chopped, stabbed, burnt, etc.  Every day Full HPs, what in the name of god are you thinking?  It's such a bad idea, I almost think it's a ploy to get you to buy the DMG where there might be some sane options.

Proficiency in Armor means Wizards can cast unhindered?  Umm, no.

At-will cantrips? Raid the old Unearthed Arcana for those, the ones in Basic are First Level spells.

Quote from: Omega;764600Really? Blackmoor has just Dave's name on it? With "Thanks to Gygax, Kask, Kuntz and Marsh for ideas and suggestions."

Pretty sure I read that it was basically ghost written but based upon his game notes, although that may have been someones sour grapes.

The hit location rules in OD&D were ridiculous and I doubt more than a dozen people in the history of humanity have used them other than as a failed experiment. And I am not suggesting anything like that would be desirable here. But, I think any game should someone include the possibility that someone will be hurt in a way that can't just be shrugged off in a few hours. Done right, this sort of thing is actually a source of dramatic excitement and challenge rather than just being a pain in the ass.

Quote from: Larsdangly;764616The hit location rules in OD&D were ridiculous and I doubt more than a dozen people in the history of humanity have used them other than as a failed experiment. And I am not suggesting anything like that would be desirable here. But, I think any game should someone include the possibility that someone will be hurt in a way that can't just be shrugged off in a few hours. Done right, this sort of thing is actually a source of dramatic excitement and challenge rather than just being a pain in the ass.

Just remove the "heal all in a day" part and remand it to heal your HD type + CON  bonus per day.

I'm not liking some of these rules I'm reading about here, like full HP every day. That doesn't really jive with my view of damage and healing. As has been said, a vitality/wounds split makes a bit more sense of it.

Quote from: Endless Flight;764630I'm not liking some of these rules I'm reading about here, like full HP every day. That doesn't really jive with my view of damage and healing. As has been said, a vitality/wounds split makes a bit more sense of it.

from day 1 of the playtest, I houseruled it like this.  No automatic healing of any kind after a long rest, but you do get your HD back.. So you can heal, but if you use your HD for that right off, that means no healing during short rests.  I much prefer that slower healing progression

Quote from: LibraryLass;764597Are you sure of that? 'Cause that would be pretty cool. I liked the one Wizards used in Star Wars d20 a lot.

Yes, it was confirmed by Mearls via Twitter a few days ago. Also there will be several options for healing rates, lingering wounds etc.

Quote from: Marleycat;764649Yes, it was confirmed by Mearls via Twitter a few days ago. Also there will be several options for healing rates, lingering wounds etc.

Well, that's cool.

Quote from: VectorSigma;764444Presumably because the 'bonus feat' is worth it if you're using feats?

I think that's the idea. I believe in the playtest you could trade in a +2 ability boost for a feat, so human is 1 feat (worth two +1s), two +1s, and a skill (worth the final +1 ?).
It makes sense, I just didn't realize you got all three things at the same time.

Quote from: Endless Flight;764651Well, that's cool.

Someone said somewhere that I can't find the actual quote is that the baseline is 4e in many things but are easily modded in either direction and it actually makes sense.

With the DMG and whatever setting you are using you can literally can change the baseline without just houserules right, left, and center. It's very 2e to me.:)

Quote from: Endless Flight;764630I'm not liking some of these rules I'm reading about here, like full HP every day. That doesn't really jive with my view of damage and healing. As has been said, a vitality/wounds split makes a bit more sense of it.

Short rest and long rest can be what you want. Find healing too fast? Make a short rest 8 hours anywhere, and a long rest 7 days in a town or castle. Done.

Quote from: Haffrung;764693Short rest and long rest can be what you want. Find healing too fast? Make a short rest 8 hours anywhere, and a long rest 7 days in a town or castle. Done.

We did 1hour SR and 2 days in an inn or fortified place LR for example. Those ritual spells suddenly become relavent.

It's a decent attempt by WotC.

There's a lot I already don't like or want: even stat mod progression rate, at-will Cantrips, natural healing as reset button, narrowed race/class skill proficiencies, backgrounds as compensating skill & language resource, starting class phat loot (whee! free armor!), Rate of Fire undefined until Feats introduced, bonus action spells (cuz, why not cast moarz!), stats still boiled down to mods, alphabetized spell list mixing spell levels together, finesse (does DEX need more nice things?), wonky armor maths with Dex still a god stat and heavy armor just full of confusion, equalized XP progression, weird 0-60 acceleration then breaking in level advancement, etc.

However there are some good ideas in here: Advantage/Disadvantage, Proficiency Bonus for skill/save/BAB/MAB, Prepared Spell Lists and flexible spell slots, double dipping Prof Bonus for Thief Skills, reattempting Kits thru Backgrounds, the Solid Gold! that is the Trinkets table, etc.

Overall, it is a WotC D&D I'd currently play if I had no other D&D choices. Which is actually very high praise from me right now. Let's see if it holds after a year or so of play.

Quote from: Marleycat;764649Yes, it was confirmed by Mearls via Twitter a few days ago. Also there will be several options for healing rates, lingering wounds etc.

Where, in the DMG or PHB?

Quote from: Haffrung;764693Short rest and long rest can be what you want. Find healing too fast? Make a short rest 8 hours anywhere, and a long rest 7 days in a town or castle. Done.

.... I kinda like this fix: redefine what SR and LR are.

Now I'm thinking that Short Rest be rest in an unsecured location, and Long Rest be rest in a secured location. So unless you are amid civilization or a heavily populated camp/caravan bivouac, you are otherwise insecure and thus limited to short rest. Cuts down on a lot of recharging while also being elegant bookkeeping.

Quote from: Larsdangly;764813Where, in the DMG or PHB?

DMG.

Quote from: Opaopajr;764754starting class phat loot (whee! free armor!)

I would point out that if you take the class/background equipment, you don't roll for gold. When I made a character, I was able to buy better stuff by rolling for gold than I got from the class/background packages.

Its more quickstart than free.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;764835I would point out that if you take the class/background equipment, you don't roll for gold. When I made a character, I was able to buy better stuff by rolling for gold than I got from the class/background packages.

Its more quickstart than free.

So it is. I had to dig through class chapter and then equipment chapter to find that. Apparently rolling for gold is the alternative method of equipment.

But could they be arsed to blue box that, or at least label that table Alternate Starting Wealth By Class? Noo... Sloppy editing. (But Exhaustion has its own yellow box and whole page!) Another something for the living document to fix.

Here's a new one I don't think anyone has mentioned:

TWF is free.

For everyone.

So that Medium-Armored Mountain Dwarf Wizard?  He can dual wield, too.

That's... different.

:)

Quote from: mcbobbo;765169Here's a new one I don't think anyone has mentioned:

TWF is free.

For everyone.

So that Medium-Armored Mountain Dwarf Wizard?  He can dual wield, too.

That's... different.

:)

At least the Fighter can potentially do it better than the other classes.

Quote from: mcbobbo;765169Here's a new one I don't think anyone has mentioned:

TWF is free.

For everyone.

So that Medium-Armored Mountain Dwarf Wizard?  He can dual wield, too.

That's... different.

:)

He can, but since most spells have a Somatic component he wont be casting...

I've got no problem with it actually. Anyone can pick up two weapons and use them... They wont be very good at it without proper training however. At least the fighters style makes it better than anyone else so at least it somewhat "simulates" being trained.

Quote from: robiswrong;764552That's pretty awesome.  If you want to have super-high stats you have to roll for them.  Otherwise you can get average.

Yeah, the average of the "standard array" (15-14-13-12-10-8) comes to 12, which is less than the expected mean for 4d6 drop lowest, but it guarantees you won't have a horrible stat.

But I've noticed that on leveling-up HP you can choose to roll the HD or take the mean rounded up (e.g. 5 HP if you get a d8). I think this is a bad design choice.

I suppose for the first few levels you could opt to roll the die and then deliberately play recklessly/aggressively if you did worse than average, but long term the fixed value is clearly better. I think in general players should be rewarded for taking risks.

Holy shit, some of the crazy damage spells can do makes no sense to me at this time. I must be missing something.

Well, Hobgoblins are 2HD+8 so I'm guessing monsters are being built like characters and having stat blocks again.  On the one hand I'm glad that they kept Hit Dice and stayed away from fixed HP / level.  On the other hand I don't think they really get what Hit Dice are or how they work.  Which was also true of 4e, Hit Dice already are a mook rule so you don't need a minion rule.

Quote from: mcbobbo;765169Here's a new one I don't think anyone has mentioned:

TWF is free.

For everyone.

So that Medium-Armored Mountain Dwarf Wizard?  He can dual wield, too.

That's... different.

:)

Given that Proficiency is where the atk bonus is from, and fighters are proficient in all weapons, shields, and armor, whatever a fighter touches starts with +2 to-hit. Fighter can always grab two light weapons and go TWF, regardless of style bonus, whereas other classes have to check their proficiencies. It is a fascinating inversion of 2e Weapon Proficiencies, which mostly narrowed the fighter while allowing other classes to get their longsword on.

Interesting and elegant. A bit more powerful than I am interested in myself. But a nice compromise between editions and their respective power curves.

Quote from: Arminius;765198Yeah, the average of the "standard array" (15-14-13-12-10-8) comes to 12, which is less than the expected mean for 4d6 drop lowest, but it guarantees you won't have a horrible stat.

But I've noticed that on leveling-up HP you can choose to roll the HD or take the mean rounded up (e.g. 5 HP if you get a d8). I think this is a bad design choice.

I suppose for the first few levels you could opt to roll the die and then deliberately play recklessly/aggressively if you did worse than average, but long term the fixed value is clearly better. I think in general players should be rewarded for taking risks.

I noticed that, too. I was scrambling for a reason to chance it, but just came to the 4e conclusion that fixed mod values uber alles. Just go for the high CON to rely on extra HP and take the mean rounded up.

I will say Sine Nomine's HD fix in SWN (IIRC) really hits my sweet spot. When you level up, roll your new HD total, if it exceeds your current HP keep it, otherwise keep your old HP. The risk is still there, but overall mitigates risk, evening out early low rolls while preserving early high rolls.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;765199Holy shit, some of the crazy damage spells can do makes no sense to me at this time. I must be missing something.

It is because spells that were good in TSR, such as Fireball, became pretty rubbish in 3e due to the fact that Con inflates Hit Points. They have just been boosted to put them back to where they used to be.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;765199Holy shit, some of the crazy damage spells can do makes no sense to me at this time. I must be missing something.

You tend to get fewer of them at the higher levels and some like fireball have been limited in their oomph in odd ways.

Example.
Fireball and Lightning Bolt are 8d6 when you get it at level 5. But it stays 8d6 unless you spend a higher level slot. so 9d6 at level 7, 10d6 at level 9, 11d6 at level 11 12d6 at level 13, 13d6 at level 15 and finally 14 d6 at level 17.

Weird as it starts out with more oomph than the original. But as you level it eventually gets a little weaker. Vastly moreso if you only ever cast it from slot 3. But there you go.

And don't forget, everyone has more hit points (and many combatants can recover HP in combat). So, the value of an 8d fire ball in 5E is not so different from a 5d fireball in 1E.

Quote from: jadrax;765214It is because spells that were good in TSR, such as Fireball, became pretty rubbish in 3e due to the fact that Con inflates Hit Points. They have just been boosted to put them back to where they used to be.

Correct it's to make going the blaster route a good choice again unlike 3/4e.. And it's just stupid to have any less then a 12 in CON if you're using the array which will probably be required for OP. Especially since it's possible to really dump DEX if you go the heavy armour route and  pump your CON up for the hitpoints.

It's not what I'd do but a charopper would certainly think about it. Also the monsters seem to have around triple the hitpoints then the playtest.

I think it is a bit unfortunate that Saves and Save DCs (for spells) increase on so different scales. In fact, except for your proficient saves, Saves seem to not increase at all (at least beyond the ability bonus cap). That's... just not what I like. There is a somewhat useable workaound - just add the proficiency bonus to all Saves, and grant automatic advantage to the two special ones. I mean I did not expect a D&D version that would make sense to my twisted preferences right out of the box, but finding stuff in need of houseruling before rolling the first character somewhat curbs my enthusiasm.

However, the most surprising thing is how much I actually like the game so far. I had not particularly high expectations, but the game seems quite good in general.

Quote from: Beagle;765245I think it is a bit unfortunate that Saves and Save DCs (for spells) increase on so different scales. In fact, except for your proficient saves, Saves seem to not increase at all (at least beyond the ability bonus cap). That's... just not what I like. There is a somewhat useable workaound - just add the proficiency bonus to all Saves, and grant automatic advantage to the two special ones. I mean I did not expect a D&D version that would make sense to my twisted preferences right out of the box, but finding stuff in need of houseruling before rolling the first character somewhat curbs my enthusiasm.

However, the most surprising thing is how much I actually like the game so far. I had not particularly high expectations, but the game seems quite good in general.

Except the biggest difference it will ever be is +6 one way or another. And that's a 20th level character compared to a non proficient 1st level character. That what, 30%?  And you can always use your Stat increases to bump up your weaker stats.

I just don't like the idea that the Saves do not increase at all while the DCs for spells keep to increase; add to the fact that the main casting stat will very likely maxed out a lot sooner than the Saving abilities, simply because it is one instead of 6, so the +6 difference (which is still huge) is not given. For my personal taste,  if they had done it exactly the other way around, and made the Saves outscale the DCs the system would have been a lot better, at least within the intended universe I have in mind (where a halfway experienced character is not affected by something as lame and ephemeral as mere magic) but I concede that this is my personal niche; the best way would have been to make these two scale equally. That would still give a certain edge to the casters due to the distribution of stats, but would have make it less extreme... or obnoxious.

Quote from: Omega;764446Why not adapt Arnesons original Wounds + hit locations system from OD&D?

Need more hp, else you get stuff like .15 x  6 = 0.9 points.

I think the old RQ numbers work better, but above all a range from 1 to 50+ hp for humans is not well suited to this in my experience. Don't take the hit locations rules without also taking the hit points rules. Some other rules should also be taken into account for adjustment of the variant, even if you won't be using them directly.

Quote from: Larsdangly;764616The hit location rules in OD&D were ridiculous and I doubt more than a dozen people in the history of humanity have used them other than as a failed experiment. And I am not suggesting anything like that would be desirable here. But, I think any game should someone include the possibility that someone will be hurt in a way that can't just be shrugged off in a few hours. Done right, this sort of thing is actually a source of dramatic excitement and challenge rather than just being a pain in the ass.

Get the whole context, or the closest you can, i.e., Adventures in Fantasy by Arneson & Snider (Adventure Games, 1979), if you really want to judge it.

The main thing, though, is that back in the day everything was routinely a mashup. Arneson deciphered by Kuntz wasn't all that huge a difference from the usual Gygax vs. Gygax vs. actual playtesting. We grabbed what ideas we liked and warped as much as needed to fit our campaigns.

Quote from: Arminius;765198Yeah, the average of the "standard array" (15-14-13-12-10-8) comes to 12, which is less than the expected mean for 4d6 drop lowest, but it guarantees you won't have a horrible stat.

But I've noticed that on leveling-up HP you can choose to roll the HD or take the mean rounded up (e.g. 5 HP if you get a d8). I think this is a bad design choice.

I suppose for the first few levels you could opt to roll the die and then deliberately play recklessly/aggressively if you did worse than average, but long term the fixed value is clearly better. I think in general players should be rewarded for taking risks.

What is the mean for best 3 of 4d6, then?

Beagle, I actually like that Save fix of Prof Bonus everything, Advantage favored stats. Still, I do anticipate unintended consequences for such elegant and integrated Prof Bonus mechanics. Elegant and integrated seem good on paper. But elegant often comes with unforeseen costs later -- and integration makes it harder to fix without altering things elsewhere.

Quote from: Phillip;765272Need more hp, else you get stuff like .15 x  6 = 0.9 points.

We rounded up to the nearest whole number.

Quote from: Phillip;765282What is the mean for best 3 of 4d6, then?

Bell spikes at 13.

Quote from: Omega;765333We rounded up to the nearest whole number.

Which in that case is 1.

With 17 it would be 3.

Quote from: Phillip;765369Which in that case is 1.

With 17 it would be 3.

Moral of the story. Dont get hit in the head...

Quote from: Omega;765335Bell spikes at 13.

I calculated it by hand when I was a kid, teaching myself a bit of probability theory, and I remember the most likely result was 13. If you google for a discussion of the mean, you'll find a page that says it's around 12.85 or something like that, which I don't doubt. The standard deviation is also a bit higher than the standard array, I think.

I seem to recall a claim that Arneson didn't invent or use the hit location thing. Probably comes from Tim Kask, who didn't much like Arneson, so YMMV.

I remember wanting to use the system but it was plainly unworkable because of inflating hp as Phillip says. Didn't stop my college group from doing something like that but character advancement was much flatter and slower. (Higher HP at level 1, less gained per level, nobody advanced beyond 3-5.)

In addition to RQ, which really showed the way to a workable hit location system, Ysgarth got partway there.

Average of 4d6 keep 3 is 12.24

Quote from: Phillip;765282What is the mean for best 3 of 4d6, then?

13 (12.8ish) for all intents and purposes, yes that means random roll is better then the standard array or point buy. That wasn't an accident and pisses off the optimization crowd (charoppers and system wonks). I suspect Pundit or Zak  or maybe both had a hand in that.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;765390Average of 4d6 keep 3 is 12.24

No chance sorry.

Quote from: Marleycat;76540513 (12.8ish) for all intents and purposes, yes that means random roll is better then the standard array or point buy. That wasn't an accident and pisses off the optimization crowd (charoppers and system wonks). I suspect Pundit or Zak  or maybe both had a hand in that.

the part of random ability rolls that pisses off the 3/4e most is the perceived unfairness of it.  The chance that another player has a higher score without  having to had "buy" it just sets them right off.  For most adults, that isn't a big deal because I'm worried about my fun with my character, and Billy over there having a higher ability score doesn't impact that by any significant measure.

For humans, the extra points in each shifts it up a little. But it still averages better by rolling since it equals out.

But point buy or array will get you what you want without the uncertainty factor.

What I think is bemusing is that the point buy system is set up to penalize min-maxing. Going the median (13 13 13 12 12 12) gets you 75 points worth of stats. But min maxing at the farthest end (15 15 15 8 8 8) nets you only 69

No, I'm pretty sure Emperor Norton is right (and I misremembered what I read here. (http://catlikecoding.com/blog/post:4d6_drop_lowest))

As for standard deviation, someone on this Paizo thread (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2lto2&page=2?4d6-vs-Pathfinder-Point-Buy-observations) gives it as 2.85 (this page agrees (http://kill-0.com/duplo/2008/06/02/dd-dice-probabilities/comment-page-1/)), while s.d. for the standard array is about 2.38.

Basically you're likely to get a higher total across all your abilities by rolling the dice. But the chance of any given score being less than 8 is ~5.7%, and the chance of a given score being greater than 15 is ~13%. The chance that at least one score will be less than 8 is 29.7%; the chance that at least one score will be higher than 15 is ~56.8%.

If you really hate having at least one bad score, you shouldn't roll the dice. I'm guessing that 5e has gone at least as far as any other edition at eliminating the dump stat, so nearly 1/3 of the time you'll be unhappy.

(This also looks useful for calculating die stats. (http://rumkin.com/reference/dnd/diestats.php))

Quote from: Sacrosanct;765408the part of random ability rolls that pisses off the 3/4e most is the perceived unfairness of it.  The chance that another player has a higher score without  having to had "buy" it just sets them right off.  For most adults, that isn't a big deal because I'm worried about my fun with my character, and Billy over there having a higher ability score doesn't impact that by any significant measure.

Obviously given I roll impossibly bad regardless and 5e is like 1e in that you can try any skill anyway.

Quote from: Omega;765412For humans, the extra points in each shifts it up a little. But it still averages better by rolling since it equals out.

But point buy or array will get you what you want without the uncertainty factor.

What I think is bemusing is that the point buy system is set up to penalize min-maxing. Going the median (13 13 13 12 12 12) gets you 75 points worth of stats. But min maxing at the farthest end (15 15 15 8 8 8) nets you only 69

It's the FantasyCraft factor in an odd way. 5e has the right idea but it won't let go of the 3e C/R/W model. It's not brave enough to actually make each stat independent thereby making every class MAD. Though it does seem they have a clue about MCing. I will be entertained by the next Mountain Dwarf single class wizard build when feats are used. They are a great F/M choice though.

They needed to load primary stat bumps into the classes themselves so that it signals it's ok to have 12-15 across the board at the start and just take feats or bump up your weaker stats already knowing your 2 primes auto improve anyway like FantasyCraft.:)

The other solution is to make feats big like Arcane Archer or taking the Initiate/Divine/Druidic /Bardic feat chain and roll it into a single multilevel deal as they should with metamagic.

With the basic scores being so high combined with a hard cap on abilities you need to make feats something even charopper types will take around 40-50% of the time instead of stat bumps. As for Basic? I would use something like B/X for chargen.... 3d6 rearrange and possibly escalated point swap between abilities.

Elephants cost half as much as a Warhorse!

Seriously? How does that make any sense?

Quote from: jadrax;769083Elephants cost half as much as a Warhorse!

Seriously? How does that make any sense?

Probably the training. Though the upkeep and feeding of the elephant is going to outstrip the warhorse pretty quick if it cant graze.

Cost-skepticism aside, I'm super hella excited about the possibility of heroes riding a freakin' ELEPHANT into battle!

Quote from: Necrozius;769178Cost-skepticism aside, I'm super hella excited about the possibility of heroes riding a freakin' ELEPHANT into battle!

You could be Hannibal.:)

Quote from: Omega;769133Probably the training. Though the upkeep and feeding of the elephant is going to outstrip the warhorse pretty quick if it cant graze.

Isn't an elephant useless as a mount without a mahout? Is a guy in a loincloth included in the price?

Quote from: Haffrung;769205Isn't an elephant useless as a mount without a mahout? Is a guy in a loincloth included in the price?

As an elephant is not a flying or aquatic creature, according to the rules you don't seem to need any special equipment for it. It also looks suspiciously like elephant barding costs the exact same as warhorse barding...

Quote from: jadrax;769083Elephants cost half as much as a Warhorse!

Seriously? How does that make any sense?

And they cost only 5 copper a day to feed... :)

Just let it wash over you, some things are going to need GM judgment right quick. I'm currently setting up a Basic RAW PbP game, and mercifully elephants are not attainable on my continent by setting. But mounts also have no real battle stats yet either, so they are non-coms or made of bubbles like minions, haven't decided yet.

Quote from: jadrax;769233As an elephant is not a flying or aquatic creature, according to the rules you don't seem to need any special equipment for it. It also looks suspiciously like elephant barding costs the exact same as warhorse barding...

And the cost to feed it is the same... This makes me go "what" right there.

Id say youd at least need an exotic saddle to fit it.

Maybee its a small elephant? Economy size? Half off sale?

Quote from: jadrax;769083Elephants cost half as much as a Warhorse!

Seriously? How does that make any sense?

If the elephant isn't battle - trained, it actually makes sense. Proper destriers were extremely pricy.

Quote from: Opaopajr;769257And they cost only 5 copper a day to feed... :)

Just let it wash over you, some things are going to need GM judgment right quick. I'm currently setting up a Basic RAW PbP game, and mercifully elephants are not attainable on my continent by setting. But mounts also have no real battle stats yet either, so they are non-coms or made of bubbles like minions, haven't decided yet.

Inflatable minions. But how much does a tire pump cost?

I prefer instant minions. Just add water.
(http://mediccopcom.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/marvin_martians_instant.jpg)

And yeah. Right now at least its all handwavium till the rest of the rules are out.

Quote from: Rincewind1;769260If the elephant isn't battle - trained, it actually makes sense. Proper destriers were extremely pricy.

Wikipedia thinks 20 to 300 pounds for a 17th century warhorse. so 400 gold seems on the steep side, but perhaps not excessively so.

But 200 gold for an elephant?

I am pretty sure a single tusk is would be worth a few thousand gold. And how do they get elephants anyway? Is there a summon elephant spell? Maybe a company of international elephant suppliers who use trained rocs to ship them overseas?

Quote from: jadrax;769277Wikipedia thinks 20 to 300 pounds for a 17th century warhorse. so 400 gold seems on the steep side, but perhaps not excessively so.

But 200 gold for an elephant?

I am pretty sure a single tusk is would be worth a few thousand gold. And how do they get elephants anyway? Is there a summon elephant spell? Maybe a company of international elephant suppliers who use trained rocs to ship them overseas?

Who says anything about shipping them overseas? I'd assume that if elephants are for sale as beasts of burden it's because we're in elephant country.

Quote from: Blacky the Blackball;769283Who says anything about shipping them overseas? I'd assume that if elephants are for sale as beasts of burden it's because we're in elephant country.

Your assumptions are not humorous and therefore can safely be ignored. ;o)

Although the next table is Trade Goods, which has 1 lbs. of saffron equal to the cost of an ox, so they do seem to have taken the shipping into account there.

Quote from: Opaopajr;769257And they cost only 5 copper a day to feed... :)

Just let it wash over you, some things are going to need GM judgment right quick. I'm currently setting up a Basic RAW PbP game, and mercifully elephants are not attainable on my continent by setting. But mounts also have no real battle stats yet either, so they are non-coms or made of bubbles like minions, haven't decided yet.

Think of the Thaumaturgy you can do from the back of an elephant.

Quote from: jadrax;769277Maybe a company of international elephant suppliers who use trained rocs to ship them overseas?

Now you just gave me ideas.  ;)

Quote from: Beagle;765245I think it is a bit unfortunate that Saves and Save DCs (for spells) increase on so different scales. In fact, except for your proficient saves, Saves seem to not increase at all (at least beyond the ability bonus cap). That's... just not what I like. There is a somewhat useable workaound - just add the proficiency bonus to all Saves, and grant automatic advantage to the two special ones. I mean I did not expect a D&D version that would make sense to my twisted preferences right out of the box, but finding stuff in need of houseruling before rolling the first character somewhat curbs my enthusiasm.

However, the most surprising thing is how much I actually like the game so far. I had not particularly high expectations, but the game seems quite good in general.

It could also be that there will be items that improve Saves, but not Save DC's for Spells. Rings of Protection provide bonuses both to Defense and Saves in the Starter Kit.

Quote from: CRKrueger;769289Think of the Thaumaturgy you can do from the back of an elephant.

You bet you know I'm trying very hard to not. ;)

Quote from: JonWake;764478One of the things I'm thinking about doing is working in a Wounds/Vitality system. Any attack that does over your CON score does the difference in Wound points.  Wound points reduce your Max HP. You recover Wound points equal to your level + your CON mod for every 3 days of rest you get.

Critical hits do 1/2 the total damage as Wound points, or damage in excess of your CON score, which ever is higher.

If you have wound points equal to your Max HP, you are dying, and make your death saves with Disadvantage.

Lesser Restoration recovers Wound points at 1/level the spell is cast, and Heal restores them as HP.

So let's say you have Beric the Ballsy with 34 HP and a CON score of 18.  A troll smacks him for 22 Damage. His HPs are now 12, and he has taken 4 Wounds, reducing his MAX HP down to 30. No amount of healing will get him above 30.

Later, a bugbear crits for 36 damage. He's unconscious and takes another 18 WP, for a total of 24. His max HP is now 8-- even if he gets back up, he's severely wounded and needs to get some rest.

The alternate wound /vitality models are all nice tries but i suspect too complex in play.

the simplest one and the one that makes sense int eh D&D logic is everyone gets a bunch of wounds. Now in D&D terms that is 1-6HP. You could roll it but I would rather base it on sorts of people. So a burly blacksmith might have 5 and a small child or old woman might have 1. This is how we HP for 0 level humans right.
So give the PCs their 0 level HPs as a wound score (I would do 3 + (str and Con bonus)/2 minimum 1) that is hte wounds they had at first level before they learnt to dodge and jump and so on to avoid damage.
Then give then HP as normal.
Now all HP loss work as standard but when you have no more HPs the damage comes off your wounds.
For a tweak say any Critical hit does 1 wound as well as the nortmal HP damage.
You get -1 to all rolls for each wound (you can roll specific wounds on a table for colour if you like but I find if you do that you quickly get too complex again and all your PCs look like pirates after 3 sessions). Wounds take a week to heal. A cure light cures 1 wound and so on up the stack.
Then run HPs with the full heal mechanic and state they are just skill, fatigue, luck etc.

Do this and you don't need to make any changes to anything. First level folk are a bit more robust but marginally and the HP mechainc is now associated to a genuine thing as its the skills you learnt to defend yourself as you look a class and started to progress.  
If you want to add more danger then any attack against a helpless foe comes straight off wounds. The DM should state this at the point. The assassin has a knife to your throat. If hit hits on the attack roll damage goes straight to your wounds. The guards have you cold with their crossbows. If you choose to fight we will roll initiative and  if they win then any attacks they make will come off your wounds directly. etc . these things can easily be ruled through play by a DM that is playing attention.

I have tried all sorts of variation on HP vs Wounds in the past and the others all have unforeseen corner case issues (large damage magical attacks or breath weapons, or wounds being so high you can't actually kill someone with a guilotine or a headsmans axe unless you introduce a new rule for instant death etc etc ) or require a lot of bookkeeping.

Quote from: Marleycat;76540513 (12.8ish) for all intents and purposes, yes that means random roll is better then the standard array or point buy. That wasn't an accident and pisses off the optimization crowd (charoppers and system wonks). I suspect Pundit or Zak  or maybe both had a hand in that.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;765408the part of random ability rolls that pisses off the 3/4e most is the perceived unfairness of it.  The chance that another player has a higher score without  having to had "buy" it just sets them right off.  For most adults, that isn't a big deal because I'm worried about my fun with my character, and Billy over there having a higher ability score doesn't impact that by any significant measure.

Pleases me to no end. I've lost count of how many whine threads I've seen where someone decries rolling stats as "unfair" or (even better) "unfun"

This way it's coded right in the fucking rulebook. You can either choose a perfectly mediocre set of stats to build your special snowflake/kill3r build from, or you can grow a pair and dice for glory, but live with the result either way.

I hope that choice ends up as the official rule.

Quote from: jadrax;769233As an elephant is not a flying or aquatic creature, according to the rules you don't seem to need any special equipment for it. It also looks suspiciously like elephant barding costs the exact same as warhorse barding...

Oh no...

Quote from: Raven;769418Pleases me to no end. I've lost count of how many whine threads I've seen where someone decries rolling stats as "unfair" or (even better) "unfun"

This way it's coded right in the fucking rulebook. You can either choose a perfectly mediocre set of stats to build your special snowflake/kill3r build from, or you can grow a pair and dice for glory, but live with the result either way.

I hope that choice ends up as the official rule.

It is official Raven. Check out Opa's Pbp game. My rolls are better than any array but realistic and who ever heard of a Wood Elf Wizard Sage that's pissed at her church? That is exactly what I rolled up, with an 18 Int no less. I never get 18 in any stat.:)



Dragoner rolled up Joan of Arc right when I had half my character done. I was going with a religious themed wizard because there wasn't any good cleric or anybody focused that way. Did I whine when he invalidated my original concept? No, I simply switched backgrounds and worked my bonds, flaws, ideals, traits to be his character's foil. So everyone shines and makes the game fun.:)

Besides Wood Elves almost have Warhammer Elf movement rates (35 ft) in a game where you can move, attack, move...very nice.:)

Daily recharge of wands.

Nope.

Quote from: Haffrung;770070Daily recharge of wands.

Nope.

To be fair. The wands, staves and rods now only have 10 charges. And some in the playtest required you to attune it first.

But yeah. daily free recharge? Feels too much. Maybe 1 charge per day.

Quote from: Omega;770074But yeah. daily free recharge? Feels too much. Maybe 1 charge per day.

That's what I'll probably go with.

Quote from: Haffrung;770070Daily recharge of wands.

Nope.

I don't get this attitude. The other side of the coin is well I better craft a bunch of wands. With them having all of 10 or so charges that slowly recharge it means that magic item is important not something just disposed of or just manufactured like 3e. The better response is to actually control the aquististion of magic items not just "nope". Because it affects everything else in the setting like what is your illogical reason wizards aren't pumping out wands if they're so disposable to start...?

Just slow down the recharge rate if it makes you uncomfortable much like you could do that with the healing rates and not rebuild the game from the ground up.

Quote from: Marleycat;770076Just slow down the recharge rate if it makes you uncomfortable much like you could do that with the healing rates and not rebuild the game from the ground up.

Or fall back on the older method of requiring you to recharge a spell by casting that spell into the wand repeatedly to charge it up. Or cast enchant item to add charges. Either was damn time consuming back in the AD&D era!

As with anything in the game. Its easy to curb if you think its overpowered.
Thief backstab too gamey? Gate spell wonky? Wand auto recharging too easy? ELEPHANTS!!!! Tweak it till it fits.

Personally this early in I suspect some of the oddities may be typos and signs things were rushed or understaffed. Others look like design choices. They just happen to not be choices some of us may agree on.

Quote from: Omega;770074To be fair. The wands, staves and rods now only have 10 charges. And some in the playtest required you to attune it first.

But yeah. daily free recharge? Feels too much. Maybe 1 charge per day.

Go random! 1d4 charges a day. 1d6! 1d6-3 (you can go into charge debt with enough negative rolls) More unpredictability! Chaos!

Quote from: Omega;770079Or fall back on the older method of requiring you to recharge a spell by casting that spell into the wand repeatedly to charge it up. Or cast enchant item to add charges. Either was damn time consuming back in the AD&D era!

As with anything in the game. Its easy to curb if you think its overpowered.
Thief backstab too gamey? Gate spell wonky? Wand auto recharging too easy? ELEPHANTS!!!! Tweak it till it fits.

Personally this early in I suspect some of the oddities may be typos and signs things were rushed or understaffed. Others look like design choices. They just happen to not be choices some of us may agree on.

2e was pretty rough about magic item crafting and the like. I think on the ridiculous side because it made no sense to actually craft anything under those rules.

Quote from: Imp;770081Go random! 1d4 charges a day. 1d6! 1d6-3 (you can go into charge debt with enough negative rolls) More unpredictability! Chaos!

That's how it was in the open play test, Wands gotd6+1 and staffs/rods got d6+4 iirc.

If it has changed to full recharge I think it would be a shame. I like a bit of unpredictability.

Quote from: Rincewind1;769260If the elephant isn't battle - trained, it actually makes sense. Proper destriers were extremely pricy.

If I was a soldier, and my opposition turned up on a fucking elephant, I'd surrender then and there.

One, elephants are fucking huge.

Two, a non-trained mount isn't much use in a pitched battle, so whoever is on it is confident enough they can survive and win the battle with that disadvantage.

Three, if the opposition has the money to burn on elephants, eventually they are just going to bury my side anyway.

Four, if it's a properly trained war elephant, well, elephants alone are monsters (http://www.cracked.com/article_18912_6-animals-humanity-accidentally-made-way-scarier_p2.html) (Item 2), and this one (http://www.cracked.com/article_19737_5-terrifying-serial-killers-who-happened-to-be-animals.html) (Item 3) is likely an elephant ON THE EDGE, with NOTHING TO LOSE.

No. Screw that shit. I'm going back to camp, and the washer woman is likely going to be very displeased with the state of my britches.

Quote from: jadrax;770091That's how it was in the open play test, Wands gotd6+1 and staffs/rods got d6+4 iirc.

If it has changed to full recharge I think it would be a shame. I like a bit of unpredictability.

I would keep that regardless of if they changed it for some reason.

The random recharge idea is good though I would take full overnight recharge vs people carrying around basketloads of cheap wands like I have read about 3e players doing.

Quote from: Raven;770139The random recharge idea is good though I would take full overnight recharge vs people carrying around basketloads of cheap wands like I have read about 3e players doing.

It was infuriating you had wizards with a brace of wands like a six shooter or clerics with their pick which cure set of wands and character concepts and classes built completely around wands/potions.

I think it's worth looking at why people had baskets of wands... generally they were CLW wands (or lesser vigor when allowed), because they were the easiest/cheapest way to stay healed up during an adventure.

What should be drawn from that, IMO, isn't that 'we should make wands harder to recharge' but 'our adventure pacing is messed up.'

Either people should heal faster in downtime, or longer downtime should be ok, or there should be a firmer outline of expected pace.


Ultimately, I think this is a result of 3e's approach to XP, which highly favors looking for threats that are juuust threatening enough to optimize reward. I think the solution is, ultimately, adventure rewards vs. 'grinding mob' rewards.


(And for people who legitimately just liked other kinds of wands, it might be worth making classes/PrCs/whatever focused on using items)

Quote from: Raven;770139The random recharge idea is good though I would take full overnight recharge vs people carrying around basketloads of cheap wands like I have read about 3e players doing.

In 2e it wasn't much better in my experience: one of the characters actually had a golf bag type thing made just to carry all the wands he had picked up. Of course, he had not had control over what he got, but free spells are always useful.


My favorite way of handling Wands was actually in an earlier play test packet. Holding it meant you could cast the spell in it with your own spell slots. So you got an extra prepared spell but it didn't allow you to cast more spells per day. But, that obviously did not feel like D&D to most people. C'est la vie.

Jadrax: Really?? Meh, I would have much preferred that!

Maybe they'll offer it as an option.

Quote from: jibbajibba;769368the simplest one and the one that makes sense int eh D&D logic is everyone gets a bunch of wounds. Now in D&D terms that is 1-6HP. You could roll it but I would rather base it on sorts of people. So a burly blacksmith might have 5 and a small child or old woman might have 1. This is how we HP for 0 level humans right.
So give the PCs their 0 level HPs as a wound score (I would do 3 + (str and Con bonus)/2 minimum 1) that is hte wounds they had at first level before they learnt to dodge and jump and so on to avoid damage.
Then give then HP as normal.
Now all HP loss work as standard but when you have no more HPs the damage comes off your wounds.
For a tweak say any Critical hit does 1 wound as well as the nortmal HP damage.
You get -1 to all rolls for each wound (you can roll specific wounds on a table for colour if you like but I find if you do that you quickly get too complex again and all your PCs look like pirates after 3 sessions). Wounds take a week to heal. A cure light cures 1 wound and so on up the stack.
Then run HPs with the full heal mechanic and state they are just skill, fatigue, luck etc.

Or you just say "Fuck it" and go off and play Rolemaster.

That's what we did when we decided that D&D's hit points weren't "realistic" enough. We skipped the entire second edition because of that.

These days we just handwave it and accept hit points for the abstraction they are.

Quote from: Marleycat;770076I don't get this attitude. The other side of the coin is well I better craft a bunch of wands. With them having all of 10 or so charges that slowly recharge it means that magic item is important not something just disposed of or just manufactured like 3e. The better response is to actually control the aquististion of magic items not just "nope". Because it affects everything else in the setting like what is your illogical reason wizards aren't pumping out wands if they're so disposable to start...?

Just slow down the recharge rate if it makes you uncomfortable much like you could do that with the healing rates and not rebuild the game from the ground up.

Players like to acquire loot. I like to think of ways to separate PCs from their loot in order to keep them hungry for more. So recharging wands costs time and money, like crafting scrolls or potions. It makes the wand charges a precious thing, spending days and weeks recharging them helps justify downtime between adventures, and it skims off some of those thousands of GPs the party acquires.

I really dislike the way a typical level 1-12 campaign, where the PCs go from incompetent and inconsequential nobodies to lordly powers of the land who crush all before them, takes place over two months. I like campaigns to last years in game-world time. So I like downtime. A week healing from wounds here. Two weeks recharging wands and crafting scrolls there. It gives a campaign a more sensible pace than one where they explore dungeons and defeat enemies 24/7 for weeks on end until they save the world or die.

Quote from: Haffrung;770070Daily recharge of wands.

Nope.

I assume this is something from the Starter Set (since the Basic Rules don't have any magic items in them).

How does this "daily recharge of wands" work, exactly?

Tinkering with Mutants and Masterminds (which is d20ish), I contemplated a system where you take wounds that did stuff, like slow you down or whatnot.

Then I hit Fate and realized if I wanted that, I should go play that.

So, yeah, now I just play with hit points when I play D&D.

Although I sometimes contemplate treating combat the same way as other encounters... just make some rolls and roleplay it.

Quote from: Blacky the Blackball;770153Or you just say "Fuck it" and go off and play Rolemaster.

That's what we did when we decided that D&D's hit points weren't "realistic" enough. We skipped the entire second edition because of that.

These days we just handwave it and accept hit points for the abstraction they are.

This.  Except with me, it was GURPS.

Quote from: Will;770156Then I hit Fate and realized if I wanted that, I should go play that.

So, yeah, now I just play with hit points when I play D&D.

And this.

I started playing D&D again instead of GURPS because I wanted to skip the minutae and said "screw it, I'll just deal with the things that don't make sense because they make a fun game".

Quote from: Will;770144I think it's worth looking at why people had baskets of wands... generally they were CLW wands (or lesser vigor when allowed), because they were the easiest/cheapest way to stay healed up during an adventure.

What should be drawn from that, IMO, isn't that 'we should make wands harder to recharge' but 'our adventure pacing is messed up.'

My takeaway was "probably unwise to give healing abilities to a rechargeable, small, multi-use item" and in 3e my fix was to not let wands do touch-range spells, so there's that I guess.

Quote from: Marleycat;7700842e was pretty rough about magic item crafting and the like. I think on the ridiculous side because it made no sense to actually craft anything under those rules.

It effectively left crafting magic items to NPCs. The idea is PCs have better things to do, like going adventuring.

Quote from: Raven;770139The random recharge idea is good though I would take full overnight recharge vs people carrying around basketloads of cheap wands like I have read about 3e players doing.

If you don't want PCs carrying around loads of wands, don't make them available commercially. Thankfully, 5E isn't presuming magic items shops as a default part of the game.

IMHO, wands should be a scarce resource to augment a wizard's power in times of special need. They should not be an easily-renewable, default augmentation of their power. I find few things more irksome on D&D forums than the LFQW debates. But one of the genuine sources of the problem is the lavishing of renewable magic power on wizards in addition to their class abilities.

Quote from: Will;770144Either people should heal faster in downtime, or longer downtime should be ok, or there should be a firmer outline of expected pace.

Well, if a full night's rest gets you to full, healing is certainly a lot faster now!
(Personally, I like "You heal (Hit Dice + Con modifier) per hour of rest". Quick and simple.)

Quote from: jadrax;770147My favorite way of handling Wands was actually in an earlier play test packet. Holding it meant you could cast the spell in it with your own spell slots. So you got an extra prepared spell but it didn't allow you to cast more spells per day. But, that obviously did not feel like D&D to most people. C'est la vie.

:o
That would be awesome!
Though I suppose if a Rogue can tease out a charge on a wand, it would become game-breaking (a Rogue with a brace of wands, might be more effective a spellcaster than a normal Wizard!)...

Quote from: Blacky the Blackball;770153Or you just say "Fuck it" and go off and play Rolemaster.

That's what we did when we decided that D&D's hit points weren't "realistic" enough. We skipped the entire second edition because of that.

These days we just handwave it and accept hit points for the abstraction they are.

trouble with switching to rolemaster or RQ is you are throwing the baby out with the bath water. You get rid of all the really good stuff as well as HP which as I noted are easy to tweak.
Going entirely "don't worry about it" is also fine but then you run into stuff like full overnight heals and so on which cause all the hand wringing and gnashing of teeth and my worst gripe.. those guards with crossbows cease being any sort of threat.

Quote from: Imp;770159My takeaway was "probably unwise to give healing abilities to a rechargeable, small, multi-use item" and in 3e my fix was to not let wands do touch-range spells, so there's that I guess.

The problem isn't the wand per se its the way healing works that means magical healing is all but essential

Quote from: Blacky the Blackball;770155I assume this is something from the Starter Set (since the Basic Rules don't have any magic items in them).

How does this "daily recharge of wands" work, exactly?

Wands have 10 charges, and they fully renew after a long rest.

Quote from: Haffrung;770194Wands have 10 charges, and they fully renew after a long rest.

10 shots per day/journey/adventure? That seems like a lot, depending; how much of a kick do these wands have?

Quote from: Blacky the Blackball;770155I assume this is something from the Starter Set (since the Basic Rules don't have any magic items in them).

How does this "daily recharge of wands" work, exactly?

From what I remember in the playtest, you have like... 7 or so charges and regain 1d6+1 charges per night. If you ever run out of charges you roll to see if the wand's dead or if it'll get a couple charges back tomorrow.

Quote from: Haffrung;770161If you don't want PCs carrying around loads of wands, don't make them available commercially. Thankfully, 5E isn't presuming magic items shops as a default part of the game.

I don't. I don't like item shops either. The occasional item can pop up for sale here and there, via shady pawn shops, high-end antique dealers, etc but they're really expensive, in limited quantities and sometimes come with strings attached (it's stolen property).

ACKS has what looks like a pretty good set of guidelines for handling that stuff.

I'm hoping that removing/limiting magic items works way better than it does in 3e.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;77019910 shots per day/journey/adventure? That seems like a lot, depending; how much of a kick do these wands have?

Like usual the first level the spell is usable so it's basically an emergency option if your cantrips don't have the range or are being resisted like 3e. Or for some reason it isn't in your spellbook.

Quote from: Haffrung;770194Wands have 10 charges, and they fully renew after a long rest.

Do the need to be Attuned? Do all spells cost 1 charge?

Quote from: Marleycat;769444Oh no...

Guess it's time to cross the Alps. Next stop, Rome and glory!

I like the little line in Basic about how only the most wealthy or eccentric nobility and scholars can afford to buy magic items from the adventurers. Just another way to diminish the expendable nature and commonality of magic items.

All they really need to do is make magic items expensive. If a +1 sword cost a million gold, then, well, adventurers and random lizard cultists wouldn't have them. Problem solved.

The problem D&D keeps running into is wanting magic items to be all over the place AND then detach them from any sensible economy.

Quote from: Will;770355All they really need to do is make magic items expensive. If a +1 sword cost a million gold, then, well, adventurers and random lizard cultists wouldn't have them. Problem solved.

The problem D&D keeps running into is wanting magic items to be all over the place AND then detach them from any sensible economy.

A much better thing to do is to expand attunement much like FantasyCraft and tie it to both level and reputation. Reputation is affected by lifestyle and contacts etc. and hard cap it. At a certain point you cannot have more then a defined number of items case closed. So you can't just have a bunch of items you can easily swap out because even if you aren't attuned to a particular item it STILL counts against your hard cap for total magic items.

Now you have the rationale of why there aren't magic item Walmart's around and why the magic item economy is more like a private auction network or black market set up.

It seems a little fiddly to me...

Here's a fun attunement idea: magic items are jealous/intolerant of one another. You carry two magic items, and one of them is going to murder the other one.

Quote from: Will;770367It seems a little fiddly to me...

Here's a fun attunement idea: magic items are jealous/intolerant of one another. You carry two magic items, and one of them is going to murder the other one.

It's the same concept as saying you can have 3 attuned items and a limited number of non attuned items and/or consumable magic items because or conflicting auras, spell count or whatever. Set the numbers wherever you feel comfortable.

Quote from: Will;770355All they really need to do is make magic items expensive. If a +1 sword cost a million gold, then, well, adventurers and random lizard cultists wouldn't have them. Problem solved.

The problem D&D keeps running into is wanting magic items to be all over the place AND then detach them from any sensible economy.

In the old "grand campaign" form, in which commerce is among players weighing costs, prices naturally find their level. A gizmo sold is no longer available for use. A wizard spending weeks making stuff is a wizard not going out and getting experience. If your ambition is to gain a level per year, a hundred thousand xp is almost 2000 xp per week. If the ref is reducing awards for level -- e.g., a 12th-level figure operating on the 8th dungeon level gets only 2/3 -- then xp get increasingly hard to come by.

In a smaller scale game, my current players were frustrated by getting piles of gold with nothing much they wanted to buy available (at least near the Keep on the Borderlands). Cutting back on the supply of gold (but not xp, so a multiple) while increasing the supply of magic -- especially that to be wrested from the forces of Chaos --is what I'll try if we get back to that.

Quote from: Will;770367It seems a little fiddly to me...

Here's a fun attunement idea: magic items are jealous/intolerant of one another. You carry two magic items, and one of them is going to murder the other one.

There is a fun little story in Dragon about a batch of magic items collaborating during a duel and then conspiring against the user because it was in their own best interest to lose rather then take more damage. (They were really high tech items, but they were used in a fantasy style duel.)

Or a bemusing moment in d20 Gamma World since every bit of equipment is sentient.

Sammas found a box of grenades... It went kinda like this...

"Hey! You. Yes you! Pick me up and pull my pin and throw me. You know you want to..."
"Dont listen to him! Hes a dud. Throw me instead!"
"You? hah! I'll explode much brighter than you you firecracker!"
"psst. Look buddy. I'm really a fragmentation grenade. They just mis-stamped me..."

And the blaster that, well... blasted another gun so a PC couldn't replace it... The PC never found out. He just thought he had been really good at disabling that enemy.

Creates a great backdrop for the barbarian who disdains magic items. Because his tribe had many stories of the shambling remnants of people ridden by their magic items.

Quote from: Will;770367It seems a little fiddly to me...

Here's a fun attunement idea: magic items are jealous/intolerant of one another. You carry two magic items, and one of them is going to murder the other one.

  13th Age actually uses something like that, although it uses a slot/chakra system so that you can have more than one. Still limited to one a slot (two rings, and as many wondrous items as you can find--"wondrous items are not proud"), and if you have too many, the magic items wind up in the driver's seat. :)

Quote from: Haffrung;770194Wands have 10 charges, and they fully renew after a long rest.

Erm, I just got to read a copy of the Starter Set one of my gaming group brought over. Unless I am missing something, according to Appendix A, page 53.

The Wand of Magic Missiles has 7 Charges and regains 1d6+1 changes at dawn.

Needs no Attunement or spell casting ability, Can cast Magic Missile at level 1, 2 or 3 by expending 1,2 or 3 charges as a Action.

Both the staffs have 10 charges and regain 1d6+4 charges at dawn.
Both need Attunement and you must have the staff's spells on your class list to cast them.
Spider Staff can cast Spider Climb (1 charge) or Web (2 charges, Save DC 15) and deals an additional d6 poison damage when used to attack.
Staff of Defense can cast Mage Armour (1 charge) or Shield (2 charges) and increases your AC by +1 when wielded.



The staffs seem quite nice items. The Wand of Magic Missiles seems a touch overpowered.

Quote from: jadrax;771017Erm, I just got to read a copy of the Starter Set one of my gaming group brought over. Unless I am missing something, according to Appendix A, page 53.

The Wand of Magic Missiles has 7 Charges and regains 1d6+1 changes at dawn.

Needs no Attunement or spell casting ability, Can cast Magic Missile at level 1, 2 or 3 by expending 1,2 or 3 charges as a Action.

Both the staffs have 10 charges and regain 1d6+4 charges at dawn.
Both need Attunement and you must have the staff's spells on your class list to cast them.
Spider Staff can cast Spider Climb (1 charge) or Web (2 charges, Save DC 15) and deals an additional d6 poison damage when used to attack.
Staff of Defense can cast Mage Armour (1 charge) or Shield (2 charges) and increases your AC by +1 when wielded.



The staffs seem quite nice items. The Wand of Magic Missiles seems a touch overpowered.

Meh, you can do 5d4+5 1-2x/day overpowered? Not. And staves need attunement sounds right to me. Either staff is useful by the way.

The magic item atunement rules are not so different from The Fantasy Trip's 'rule of five'. So, it has enough old school street cred that I can stomach the functional purpose of the rule. But I can't stomach the meta rules that rationalize it (all the meditative mumbo jumbo).

The only other item gripe that makes some sense to me is that wands look a little over powered. There is a solution to this: don't hand them out like party favors. All games that possess magic items or machine guns include versions that impart big advantages in combat and that everyone wants. Hand them out if you get off on that sort of thing, and don't if you don't. Pretty simple, really.

Quote from: Larsdangly;771242The magic item atunement rules are not so different from The Fantasy Trip's 'rule of five'. So, it has enough old school street cred that I can stomach the functional purpose of the rule. But I can't stomach the meta rules that rationalize it (all the meditative mumbo jumbo).

I'd have to reread the article but I remember that put me off a little as well. Limiting it to three items seems a little arbitrary but I do like the increased emphasis on giving items a history.

One thing I would like to see in the DMG is a set of guidelines for mundane items becoming enchanted over time through the deeds they are used for in adventures, so the lad who took up his father's sword can keep using it instead of tossing it in a ditch when he finds a Flametongue, for instance.

Quote from: Raven;771303I'd have to reread the article but I remember that put me off a little as well. Limiting it to three items seems a little arbitrary but I do like the increased emphasis on giving items a history.

One thing I would like to see in the DMG is a set of guidelines for mundane items becoming enchanted over time through the deeds they are used for in adventures, so the lad who took up his father's sword can keep using it instead of tossing it in a ditch when he finds a Flametongue, for instance.

The 3rd Edition version of Oriental Adventures gave Samurai the option to enchant their ancestral daisho with prayer and GP expenditure (later changed to XP), which makes sense in that they wouldn't trade in their ancestor's katana just because "well, this one is +2."

JG

Quote from: Raven;771303One thing I would like to see in the DMG is a set of guidelines for mundane items becoming enchanted over time through the deeds they are used for in adventures, so the lad who took up his father's sword can keep using it instead of tossing it in a ditch when he finds a Flametongue, for instance.

That would be great, but a bit hard to work out mechanically. You'd end up having players trying to come up with all kinds of reasons why their mundane items should be magical all the time ("I was holding this shield when I survived a dragon's breath, that should make it magical!"/"I got this dagger from a bandit king and then used it to kill a goblin; does that make it do anything??"/"I really like these boots! Like, REALLY like them. That should make them boots of speed at least... how about if I say my character spends an hour running really fast on every morning that doesn't inconvenience me in the game? Huh? Huh? How about that??").


RPGPundit

Quote from: James Gillen;772171The 3rd Edition version of Oriental Adventures gave Samurai the option to enchant their ancestral daisho with prayer and GP expenditure (later changed to XP), which makes sense in that they wouldn't trade in their ancestor's katana just because "well, this one is +2."

JG

It's been a while, and I don't have my 3e books any more, but I could swear even the regular DMG included a comment about crafting being handwaved to improve existing weapons rather than swapping or making entirely new items.

This isn't so much of a 'WTF?' question, but I'll ask it anyway: does anyone know if the DMG will feature Gunpowder weapons?

I want to eventually run a campaign in pseudo-16th century Europe...

Quote from: Necrozius;772251This isn't so much of a 'WTF?' question, but I'll ask it anyway: does anyone know if the DMG will feature Gunpowder weapons?

I want to eventually run a campaign in pseudo-16th century Europe...

I think someone official said it would but I don't have a source for that of the top of my head.

There's a running joke at ENWorld that *everything* possible will be in the DMG.

Quote from: Necrozius;772251This isn't so much of a 'WTF?' question, but I'll ask it anyway: does anyone know if the DMG will feature Gunpowder weapons?

I want to eventually run a campaign in pseudo-16th century Europe...

  Gunpowder has a presence in two of the Big Settings--the Forgotten Realms and Ravenloft--so probably.

Quote from: Necrozius;772251This isn't so much of a 'WTF?' question, but I'll ask it anyway: does anyone know if the DMG will feature Gunpowder weapons?

I want to eventually run a campaign in pseudo-16th century Europe...

Take a heavy crossbow and rename it Musket. Make the light crossbow a Flintlock. End result is about the same. Reload time not sure on.

In Gamma World for example a musket did the same damage as a crossbow. But half the range.

Quote from: RPGPundit;772205That would be great, but a bit hard to work out mechanically. You'd end up having players trying to come up with all kinds of reasons why their mundane items should be magical all the time ("I was holding this shield when I survived a dragon's breath, that should make it magical!"/"I got this dagger from a bandit king and then used it to kill a goblin; does that make it do anything??"/"I really like these boots! Like, REALLY like them. That should make them boots of speed at least... how about if I say my character spends an hour running really fast on every morning that doesn't inconvenience me in the game? Huh? Huh? How about that??").


RPGPundit

Yeah that could be an issue. Maybe add a special "This is for flavor, not for assholes who want to game the system" rule.

My actual thought (and you can barely call it that) was a special set of tables (for DM use only) that would offer some colorful examples and guidelines a DM could use as a springboard for filling out the item abilities himself, not something one would leave to player input (although if your players aren't metacheesing toolsheds in the first place, it shouldn't be a problem).

Quote from: Raven;772475Yeah that could be an issue. Maybe add a special "This is for flavor, not for assholes who want to game the system" rule.

My actual thought (and you can barely call it that) was a special set of tables (for DM use only) that would offer some colorful examples and guidelines a DM could use as a springboard for filling out the item abilities himself, not something one would leave to player input (although if your players aren't metacheesing toolsheds in the first place, it shouldn't be a problem).

I hope they have an option for that because it's cool if you have decent players and believe me or not most actual players aren't dickheads, optimizers, or whatever.

Quote from: Marleycat;770357A much better thing to do is to expand attunement much like FantasyCraft and tie it to both level and reputation. Reputation is affected by lifestyle and contacts etc. and hard cap it. At a certain point you cannot have more then a defined number of items case closed. So you can't just have a bunch of items you can easily swap out because even if you aren't attuned to a particular item it STILL counts against your hard cap for total magic items.

Now you have the rationale of why there aren't magic item Walmart's around and why the magic item economy is more like a private auction network or black market set up.

What I`m thinking is that all powerful magic items work like DnD intelligent swords and that carrying two of them means that they can cooperate to mindfuck you and every unintelligent magic item you`re carrying gives your intelligent item a +1 boost to its ego as your One Ring/Stormbringer analogue can draw power off of your lesser items so carrying around a sack full of magic items is mostly a good way to turn into Gollem.

Quote from: Daztur;772496What I`m thinking is that all powerful magic items work like DnD intelligent swords and that carrying two of them means that they can cooperate to mindfuck you and every unintelligent magic item you`re carrying gives your intelligent item a +1 boost to its ego as your One Ring/Stormbringer analogue can draw power off of your lesser items so carrying around a sack full of magic items is mostly a good way to turn into Gollem.

I could see that working especially in lower magic settings.