The Gaming Den

I'm not talking about the powers themselves, merely the format. Absolutely. The format is terrible, and the only reason that it's not ten times as terrible is because the powers are ultra-simplified as a rule. Reading pages and pages of powers with little to no related fluff is terribad. I guess fl...

I cannot disagree with this more. If the powers are easier to read compared to 3.5, it's because they don't do anything at all interesting or complicated. The format itself is specifically designed to cause either a migraine or a narcoleptic attack after reading 5 or 10 powers, from my experience. ...

-One bonus type for buff powers. Everything is a power bonus, as opposed to a hodgepodge of random crap that can be stacked and abused. -Much easier NPC creation. -Numerical guidelines for monster stats and skill DCs. -The power format. It's just so much easier to read than prior editions. -Healing ...

Then equal-level creatures' attacks eventually auto-hit. That solution is bad, and it just looked like it worked in AD&D because PCs were more likely to be low level. You could write an attack/defense progression that does work though. For example, have attack/defense growth slow down as level ...

It's pretty obvious minions are a kludge for overinflated monster HP, but they're also a kludge for a level progression that's too damn long. In 4e you can theoretically fight something up to 5 levels lower than you. It's easy to write the core math so that a level 6 PC can oneshot a level 1 monste...

How did 3E do so well? Why does it seem to be impossible for them to recreate that improvement on the game? Well first, lets remember there was a huge gap between 2E getting released and 3E getting released. Like close to 20 years if I recall. 2E had been out a long time and people were ready for a...

From the articles I've read about it, it sure seems like 5E is gonna suck worse. 4E is at least a coherent rules set with a design goal. People may not like that it's a bunch of low powered stories with a dungeon crawl theme, but it's there. 5E seems to be this odd attempt to try to cater to everyon...

I really have no idea what PL is talking about. I see him blabbing some crap about infinite modifiers, and harping on about the "Clear a dungeon" analogy for several paragraphs, while not responding to the important stuff like what You lost Me said about target, action and method.

Weird gamer guy in my area had a huge "universal conversion document" he used whenever he ran D&D. The premise was supposed to be that you could make your character using any edition, any source, and that running it through this rules set would somehow normalize everything and lead to...

I understand what PL's core argument is here (I think). At least, what it was from his first few posts in the thread. I may be very wrong. He's saying that there are situations where you really don't have any modifiers that can be applied. Maybe the PCs are arguing against a perfectly legitimate vi...

No one on their team is competent or knowledgeable enough to pull off what they're proposing. They seem to be trying to do everything they can to mechanically fail. Yeah, they've basically decided to have multiple games and stuff them together. Their team is lucky to design one good game, let alone...

No they aren't. The goal of having everyone contributing to combat encounters is not contradictory with having Fighters. Actually it's funny because your counterpoint proves my point, because fighters are a class with a lot of problems. Mainly because fighters only real schtick is fighting and othe...

Wait, what? Are you just now noticing that larger parties can handle tougher challenges? The problem is that if you have a task like reactivating a magic golem and it takes 6 successes in 3 rounds, a pack of apprentices can potentially succeed, while a lone archmage cannot. To make major plot point...

What if you're fucking stupid. I mean, what if you're too stupid to play Lord Handsomeface (great name BTW) and roleplay him well, for whatever reason. Then you're probably not going to be as effective as you could be. What if you're too stupid to play an archmage and can't choose the right spells ...

Plus you're against rewarding players for going above and beyond and actually... you know... getting into character. You think "I diplomancy the king into attacking the elves: I rolled 35" is getting into character. Which the rest of the people in this thread says is not roleplaying. It's...

If you want to formalize everyone contributing abstractly to big problems like preparing for an ocean voyage or reactivating an ancient golem or negotiating a settlement with the Orcs or whatever, that actually isn't hard. You just make a number of rounds where everyone can make a skill check, you ...

Actually, an "idea man/woman" is exactly the sort of person you want as the product lead - they come up with a very general goal, and their team (the actual designers) works to implement it. But that person also has to listen to QA diligently, because any idea which comes back unworkable ...

4E statblocks are fucking great. The only real pain is "Close Burst 5, target: One or two creatures within the burst". Just say "one or two creatures within 5", define that shit and the rulebook, and be done with it. Well 4E statblocks even are a bit too wordy, and not very spac...

OgreBattle wrote:You could fuck pandas in exalted.

You can do that in D&D too. Actually multiple ways...

wildshape, dominate monster, charm monster, animal empathy or plain old use rope.

In D&D they could take a huge number of options to fuck up the elves or get the king to attack. I dunno, here's a few off the top of my head: 1. Publicly murder someone while disguised as elves, continue doing this until the kingdom is fed up and wants to kill them. 2. Support a coup where the ...

Yeah, the original 3e stat block wasn't great, but it was a hell of a lot better than what they left us with at the end of 3e. Statblocks (3E and 4E) need a significant reduction in size. There's generally too much redundant information and stats that could be combined. You might as well for instan...

Ikeren wrote:Want a good picture of Mike Mearls and Monte Cooks thinking?

Here, have all of their Legend and Lore articles from 2011:
http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... l/20111227

Yeah, with Monte and Mearls at the helm, 5E is pretty much fucked.

Well to be honest, if you're incompetent and not an asshole about it you wouldn't be able to keep your job. Yeah pretty much. The thing is that the people deciding the hiring and firing likely don't understand D&D or anything about it. So Mearls can pretty much BS them as far as what's going on...

Then do it. Seriously, you obviously don't want to play with other people so why don't you go write your diplomatic drama somewhere else. The rest of us will stay here and play D&D. The point is that he does want to play with other people . He wants them to think creatively as humans, not as so...

Essentials not following the power schedule of 4E is actually a pretty big deal. That would be like mixing 3.0 and 3.5 if 3.5 decided it wasn't going to have Feats, and instead you get bonuses to AC, attacks and Saving Throws based on skill ranks or some such nonsense. While you're right about 3.0 ...