Quote from: Doom;1103685"Trade" as in going to a merchant in a town? Well, you generally don't have wandering monsters in a town. That said, merchants have long since discovered a silvery mist they spray over goods, to make them immune to Mage Hand (it wears off after a month). I outlawed Moon Druids because there's just not way to make a coherent pseudo-fantasy world with characters able to turn into rats or whatever even if they're not famous heroes.

You know what I meant you nob. How do merchants travel between towns if they have a random encounter every 10 minutes? Or are monsters only attracted to PC-ass.

Also a magical spray to prevent the abusive powers of MAGE HAND? Good lord man, if cantrips are causing drastic setting re-writes just switch to an OSR system already. DMs are hard to come by and I tell prospective players "tough shit" if they want to only play D&D.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1103703You know what I meant you nob. How do merchants travel between towns if they have a random encounter every 10 minutes? Or are monsters only attracted to PC-ass.

Also a magical spray to prevent the abusive powers of MAGE HAND? Good lord man, if cantrips are causing drastic setting re-writes just switch to an OSR system already. DMs are hard to come by and I tell prospective players "tough shit" if they want to only play D&D.

Honestly, no, I didn't. Merchants don't travel in dangerous places without guards, of course (and you generally don't see them in dungeons, The Evil Overlord's Castle, or comparable places where players, well, adventure...).

And, yes the infinite cantrips really warp a game world. Mage Hand would either mean no markets exist (because they'd get robbed blind), or there must be some way to counter Mage Hand that's pretty cheap and easy to implement.

If you want to make short rests harder - just make them take a night.

Endless wandering monster attacks are boring.

Regarding Encounter Checks (note, weather phenomena & other things count):
* Roughly per 10 minutes inside dungeon;
* Roughly per 4 hour block in wilderness, often skipping some blocks depending on terrain, population density, and regional/ hegemon safety.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1103703Also a magical spray to prevent the abusive powers of MAGE HAND? Good lord man, if cantrips are causing drastic setting re-writes just switch to an OSR system already. DMs are hard to come by and I tell prospective players "tough shit" if they want to only play D&D.

Yes, cantrips are very much a problem for my games. I limit them to Casting per Long Rest = Casting Stat value. e.g. Wizard with INT 10 has enough magic within them between Long Rests to cast 10 cantrips, in any combination they please. And yes, I switch to OSR when viable. But I can run my style in 5e with houserules. Again, strong chassis.

Also, it's not that I want Short Rests harder. I actually find S/L Rest concept to be an Explore & Social convenience of 5e! It's an excuse to get other gaming pillars done beyond Combat. I want to line item veto the problematic "conveniences" cooked into the RAW. There are some great bookkeeping tools in 5e for the other pillars, BUT they also added other functions that often made such tools redundant, optional, or forgettable. THAT is my problem. But it is also my responsibility as a GM to tailor the content to my playstyle, too, and that involves me choosing the right tools.

Quote from: Opaopajr;1103708Regarding Encounter Checks (note, weather phenomena & other things count):
* Roughly per 10 minutes inside dungeon;
* Roughly per 4 hour block in wilderness, often skipping some blocks depending on terrain, population density, and regional/ hegemon safety.



Yes, cantrips are very much a problem for my games. I limit them to Casting per Long Rest = Casting Stat value. e.g. Wizard with INT 10 has enough magic within them between Long Rests to cast 10 cantrips, in any combination they please. And yes, I switch to OSR when viable. But I can run my style in 5e with houserules. Again, strong chassis.

Also, it's not that I want Short Rests harder. I actually find S/L Rest concept to be an Explore & Social convenience of 5e! It's an excuse to get other gaming pillars done beyond Combat. I want to line item veto the problematic "conveniences" cooked into the RAW. There are some great bookkeeping tools in 5e for the other pillars, BUT they also added other functions that often made such tools redundant, optional, or forgettable. THAT is my problem. But it is also my responsibility as a GM to tailor the content to my playstyle, too, and that involves me choosing the right tools.

I've found 5e to be a hot-mess and the extensive house-rules needed to make it do anything do not change my mind.

Nah give me an actual strong chassis like The Black Hack 2e that does not have a bunch of rules I need to change to make things work.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1103710I've found 5e to be a hot-mess and the extensive house-rules needed to make it do anything do not change my mind.

Nah give me an actual strong chassis like The Black Hack 2e that does not have a bunch of rules I need to change to make things work.

Black hack! Cool system. I'm not all in on the usage die, but I'll bet it really makes things interesting. I house rule supplies using DW's model when I run BH

Quote from: cranebump;1103712Black hack! Cool system. I'm not all in on the usage die, but I'll bet it really makes things interesting. I house rule supplies using DW's model when I run BH

In 2e they added a table that converts usage die to a fixed number of uses if the GM would prefer that (2e was basically just adding 80 some pages of GM tools).

Quote from: Rhedyn;1103710I've found 5e to be a hot-mess and the extensive house-rules needed to make it do anything do not change my mind.

Nah give me an actual strong chassis like The Black Hack 2e that does not have a bunch of rules I need to change to make things work.

5e is the "Compromise Edition." My best compliment for it is its the best work I've seen WotC do for D&D. But there are a lot of discrete tools that do their job well, and I dig that. It is a strong chassis, that already has built-in "amenities" when some of us are looking for an economy model. To this day I have not bought any 5e; I just use 5e Basic .pdfs.

As for Black Hack 2e, I'll believe you, though will have to see it for myself. I got a BH 1e game and it was nifty with some novel functions. Overall found 5e had more useful parts to cannibalize and a stronger body to rest my ideas, but my BH 1e game was fun. I'm wholly over any admiration for widgets-for-widgets'-sake and complexity-as-interactivity, so I'd be sad if BH 2e widgets leans more WotC D&D 3e or 4e than OD&D. But I will keep an eye out for any free BH 2e-lite versions.

Quote from: Doom;1103704And, yes the infinite cantrips really warp a game world. Mage Hand would either mean no markets exist (because they'd get robbed blind), or there must be some way to counter Mage Hand that's pretty cheap and easy to implement.

Mage Hand is less dangerous to a merchant than a deft-fingered urchin. It can lift an item up in the air, but it doesn't do fine manipulation unless the Mage Hander is an Arcane Trickster.

Re infinite casting, well I take it casting is similar to attacking in a battle; I limit it to about 5 minutes worth (50 actions) before you start making CON saves vs Exhaustion. Of course you can cast 50 times, SR an hour then cast 50 more times no problem. Keep it to 10 times (1 minute) and you can do it every 10 minutes (an old school Turn), or 60 times an hour.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1103727In 2e they added a table that converts usage die to a fixed number of uses if the GM would prefer that (2e was basically just adding 80 some pages of GM tools).

Huh... I have 2E and didn't even see the fixed number.

5e doesnt suck at exploration. You do.

There. I said it. I feel much better now. (probably because in 75% of threads on this false topic, they do.)

Quote from: S'mon;1103754Mage Hand is less dangerous to a merchant than a deft-fingered urchin. It can lift an item up in the air, but it doesn't do fine manipulation unless the Mage Hander is an Arcane Trickster.

The 5e version of Mage Hand lets you grab things from 30' away. You can't pick a lock with it, sure, but no open air stall can defend against that. An urchin might be a threat...but mage hand is the same threat, with a 30' head start  from all directions. Toss in possibly doing this from an adjacent rooftop or something. It's just too easy.

*clears throat* back in mah day the way you kept young nimble fingered characters from pilfering the town dry was you had ludicrously powerful wizards keeping a whole wizard school's worth of watchful eyes on their entire towns and quickly reprimanding the dirty thieves in the name of the crown they are loyal to.  In order for wizards to not all become a hunted class, they have to prove to the common folk that they will not use their powers for evil and will keep their own kind in check.

If the owner of the local magic item shop needed to hit the road for a few days well... He sells magic items for a living. Pretty sure he can afford to pay a powerful party to escort him from place to place if he hasnt already set himself up with magical transportation of his own.  Thats the thing about society.  Towns come together so that their communities can depend on each other to behave well with each other and watch out for each other.  A pickpockety 2nd level wizard should be visited by the local mage's guild long before he gets to be a pickpockety 5th level wizard or he's gonna have to quickly be the kind of wizard that isn't welcome in town at all anymore.

Thats why the good guys are supposed to always win.  In fantasy settings, unlike the real world, its easy for good guys to put together 20 really powerful good guys who want to do the right thing for the right reasons, and the bad guys are like the sith or saruman or starscream. Disperate individuals or pairs at each others throats in back handed one upmanship with upstart backstabbing powerhungry minions that you also have to keep in check and under thumb to prevent them from being the student that becomes the teacher or murdering you in your sleep.  In a fantasy setting its hard to be powerful evil because your days as a weak evil are under no mentorship and lots of scrutiny.  Its hard to form large groups of evil because bad people dont play well with others and lonely is dangerous especially in a world with magic.  The only way for bad guys to get any degree of power being bad particularly in groups is with isolation, secrecy and discretion. Not downtown.

Combine natural power structure with the idea that its easy for good to come together and difficult for evil to find sponsors patronage and fellowship.  Its supposed to be a self policing system.

Frankly by the time you're poweful enough to scry and go invisible at the local mage's academy, it wouldnt surprise me at all if part of your duties included a shift as security and surveilance at the local magic item shop.

Look at hogwarts. They've got ghosts floating through the halls and dead people living in pictureframes hanging on the walls.  I'm surprised theres a square inch of that place that isnt under constant surveillance. Thanks to moaning myrtle even the bathroom isnt safe.

Quote from: Doom;1104052The 5e version of Mage Hand lets you grab things from 30' away. You can't pick a lock with it, sure, but no open air stall can defend against that. An urchin might be a threat...but mage hand is the same threat, with a 30' head start  from all directions. Toss in possibly doing this from an adjacent rooftop or something. It's just too easy.

I would think if it was that easy I'd have seen a player try it sometime!

This seems a really strange thing to worry about, and your anti mage hand powder destroys the actual utility of the cantrip in play, which tends to be more stuff like lifting the jailer's key from a wall hook to free the imprisoned PCs, not stealing an apple from the market stall.

I'd say just ban the cantrip, but then that is impinging on a significant class ability of the Arcane Trickster. The one IMC does the remote lockpick/disarm thing a lot and avoids a lot of traps that way.