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Recent Posts

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1
I'm still on the fence with Perkins. On one hand, all of the evidence in front of my face. On the other, this dude has a true and deep love of the game. From being an absolute pest until getting his stuff published as a teenager to DM'g on stage for years and years despite reportedly suffering from crippling anxiety, my current status with CP is...complicated.

I'm taking a wait and see with this one. Although, if I pushed my chips in...my guess is he'll make all the concessions he needs to the overlords and we'll have Soy D&D.

There's a disconnect in Perkin's brain between what he writes and what he means--this was true even in his first adventures for Dungeon magazine.  When I see that kind of pervasive disconnect, I suspect lots of minor fudging in his games to make it work.  He's just not really a mechanics/system guy, and it shows.
2
Hadn’t really thought about it, but yeah. I was the only human character at the one shot. The elf at the table I won’t decry as it was literally their first ever D&D game. Other characters were a tiefling, triton, and a Dragonborn. It was just more the way they acted during the game and subsequent Skype discussion. Like angsty high school theater kids with main character syndromes.
3
Yes and no. If you use the modern 4 person adventuring party, one is probably going to be useless except for that one fight where he uses sleep.

But back in the day if you had 6 to 12 people in the party, he could hide in the back throwing darts or whatnot until sleep was needed.

Agree in spades.  Then add light sources.  Sure, that 12 person party probably has the "link boy" to handle that, but as the hired help goes down, someone has to hold a torch or lantern.  Is it the thief trying to sneak, the fighter with sword & board or a 2-handed weapon or a ranger with a bow?  Nope.  Sure don't want your cleric to do it when he could be using a shield and staying up.  Heck, that's even true when you have a 5-person party, which was more typical of the "small" group.  Hand-wave all the light source stuff, and that all goes out the window.

Then as mentioned, there's the wand of magic missiles.  But you don't even need to go that far.  The GM can just use the treasure tables, where the majority of early magic is going to be magic arrows, potions, and scrolls--most of the latter being wizard scrolls.  By third or fourth level, the wizard has not only picked up a few more spells, he's also likely got several consumable things that might come in really handy.

However, I think the biggest roadblock to that kind of play is not embracing the style--whether because can't or won't doesn't really matter.  It can suck to be the wizard until about 5th level in that kind of game.  OTOH, giving a few hired NPC body guards to keep him out of the front line and playing smart, the wizard player gets a little dopamine hit every time they get a new spell, wand, or scroll.  What really sets it apart is the playing smart part, though.  If you stay at levels 1-3 perpetually, because the party keeps getting wiped out, then there's not enough payoff.

It's been very eye-opening for some of my moderately experienced but younger players in one of my new groups.  Even with my system allowing multiple charges of spells, having random cantrips to lead off is not what they are used to in a caster.  (Also, not being able to heal certain kinds of damage easily.)  Just last session I had a lightly-armored healer volunteer to hold the torch in a desperate running night fight, and he was reveling in it.  His decisions probably made the difference in the party not losing anyone.  And he knew it.  His announced reasoning was the was position in the middle so that everyone could see, he had a hand free, and the torch was a beacon for anyone hurt to make their way to him (or be dragged by someone else or for him to see to go to them).  That's in a party of 10 players, no one able to see in the dark.  He never even tried to attack, but did use tactical movement to stay out of melee until the last few rounds, where upon a couple of other PC's immediately converged on him to get him out of melee again.

Comment after the game, immediately echoed by several other players:  "This is so much more tactically rich than 5E".  None of them had ever played AD&D before.
4
Quirky in what way?

Like all non-humans? Thats as old as D&D, probably older.

Or they all had weird and overly elaborate backgrounds? Thats been around too. Just not as overwhelming as it feels modern games seem to obsess over.

Thanks. That was my question too.
5
Yes and no. If you use the modern 4 person adventuring party, one is probably going to be useless except for that one fight where he uses sleep.

But back in the day if you had 6 to 12 people in the party, he could hide in the back throwing darts or whatnot until sleep was needed.

This was my experience as well. A clutch sleep or charm person was the main contribution. The secondary contribution was as a pack mule.

Our usual approach was for a wizard to find* a wand of magic missiles pretty early in their career, and give them something to do/use when their big spells would be wasted.

*GM discretion when placing treasure.

Fantastic idea. That never occurred to us.
6
With regard to magic users, we need to take a look at how they started out. In original pre-supplement OD&D there were only three classes. The fighting man got 1d6+1 hit points and the magic user and clerics each got 1d6, not exactly a huge disparity there. Since there were no bonuses to hit or damage for STR the fighting man only had a 5% edge in attacking in combat and EVERYONE did 1d6 damage on a hit  regardless of weapon. In fighting ability the cleric and magic user user fought as 1 man and the fighting man fought as 1 man +1. The cleric and fighting man could both wear armor while the magic user couldn't. Before skill systems and other assorted baggage was added, all characters were assumed to be equally competent general adventurers. Everyone could climb, ride, survive in the woods, and sneak around (if not heavily armored).

So in retrospect the original magic user wasn't particularly weak in relation to the other classes. Then comes:

- massive STR bonuses for fighters
-reordering the combat tables to leave magic users fighting as normal men for 5 LEVELS. In OD&D the magic user fought as 2+1 man at level 4.
-variable weapon damage leaving magic users with only d4 weapons
-reducing magic user hit dice to d4 while promoting the fighter to d10
-introducing a specialist thief class that gave the impression that other classes suddenly couldn't sneak around anymore.

So I firmly blame AD&D for making the magic user into the ultimate pussy.
7
Yes and no. If you use the modern 4 person adventuring party, one is probably going to be useless except for that one fight where he uses sleep.

But back in the day if you had 6 to 12 people in the party, he could hide in the back throwing darts or whatnot until sleep was needed.

This was my experience as well. A clutch sleep or charm person was the main contribution. The secondary contribution was as a pack mule.

Our usual approach was for a wizard to find* a wand of magic missiles pretty early in their career, and give them something to do/use when their big spells would be wasted.

*GM discretion when placing treasure.
8
The way WotC is marketing this is just weird.  It's like they are trying to have their cake and eat it too.  They want to make a new edition but they don't want to alienate all of the 5e players.  So it's 5e but it's also not 5e.  It's the same but different.  It's okay if things go away because they will still be there?  What the fuck?  Either it goes away or it doesn't go away.  Is it 5e again or is it different?  If it's 5e again, why does anyone need it?  Are they removing things or not?  Why can't they just tell us what this product is going to be?

Because if they told us we'd wouldnt buy it. Perkins has already stated the DMG will practically push storygamer screeds like "The DM is there to serve the players and every player is a DM!" What DM is going to buy a book that tells them they have to be the players slave?

Slave is a banned word at Wizards of the Woke. The DM will be referred to as the facilitator of player fantasies while players are editors of their own unique stories. That is woke speak for slave to to a bunch of narcasisstic wanna-be actors.
9
I'm still on the fence with Perkins. On one hand, all of the evidence in front of my face. On the other, this dude has a true and deep love of the game. From being an absolute pest until getting his stuff published as a teenager to DM'g on stage for years and years despite reportedly suffering from crippling anxiety, my current status with CP is...complicated.

I'm taking a wait and see with this one. Although, if I pushed my chips in...my guess is he'll make all the concessions he needs to the overlords and we'll have Soy D&D.
10
You could view an adventuring party more like one of those "lost expedition" type media ("starring Doug McLure") where the professor (the "magic user" in D&D's case) is the specialist who has no combat skills whatsoever (and fights with his umbrella, in one example) but is needed for their knowledge of archaeology/anthropology/botany or whatever. Magic users aren't just spell repositories - they should have an understanding of magical stuff that the fighters and other adventurers don't have.
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