Thought exercise: a char-op thread in 5e

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Mon Feb 06, 2012 3:42 pm

Thread: Optimizing a sword and board fighter (has feats / no skills / has powers / minis )

OP: Here's how to do it <snip how to do it>

First reply: I stopped reading at "has weeabo fightan powers". No powers, feats only, FINAL DESTINATION.

OP: Why do you hate fighters doing cool stuff so much? Go play 2e!

Second reply: OP, did you consider that if you don't use a grid you don't need to worry about AoOs? This would free a feat for <other better feat>

OP: Sorry, DM is crazy for his minis, so grid stays.

Third reply: O HAI THAR, I'm just leaving this no options fighter here, go cry in a corner about this unmatched DPR, complexfag. This is totally sweet in my game because I can just describe that he's doing something awesome and the DM rolls with it. WHO NEEDS FEATS, RIGHT?

OP: I HOPE SOMEBODY PUTS RAT POISON ON YOUR MAGICAL TEA!

Fourth reply: Nice work, OP. Just hope you don't be on the same table as a two weapon [EDITED] that's going no-feats, has powers. There's one in my current game and he's making me feel small in the pants.

OP: Yeah, I've seen the numbers, I hope they errata the 2w-[EDITED] into something sensible. They're totally broken right now.

...and this continues, x100.

Maybe people can work better than this, I don't know. (I certainly could spend more time reading moderated boards instead /tg/), but right now, this is what I see happening once 5e hits the shelves. Something akin to an edition civil war. Because everybody will quickly find their favorite combination of rulesets and because human nature is a such bitch, favorite and One True Way will be argued as the same thing.

Who needs edition wars if you can have all the shirstorm inside a single edition, anyway?

CapnTthePirateG · Post by **CapnTthePirateG** » Mon Feb 06, 2012 3:59 pm

Here's my prediction on how 5e optimization will go:

Player: I'm making a wizard. Part of his hp is derived from his ambient magicality.

DM: Ok...

Player: Anyway, he casts off intelligence, so that's what the force field is based off of. As this force field is the first thing to come into contact with any incoming attacks, he can use int on any saving throw. He can also extend the force field to use it on skill checks.

(5 hours of Magical Tea Party argument later)

Player: Also, I'm trading out all my DPR for charm person, sleep, animate dead, and wall of stone.

DM: So you'll be useless in combat.

Player: ...sure, let's go with that.

(Cut to scene of player auto-winning).

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Mon Feb 06, 2012 4:20 pm

Yeah, given all these different complexity levels they keep talking about, fan-made content will be a nightmare.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Feb 06, 2012 4:32 pm

I hope to be able to multiclass Fighter (AD&D) with Fighter (3E) with Fighter (4E), personally. Or dual-class Cleric and Sorcerer and then take prestige classes for both. Possibly one prestige class from 3E and one from 4E. Just to be a pain in the ass.

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Mon Feb 06, 2012 5:11 pm

Blow the DM.

Win at everything.

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Mon Feb 06, 2012 5:57 pm

RobbyPants wrote:Yeah, given all these different complexity levels they keep talking about, fan-made content will be a nightmare.

I think it's a bit worse than this. What the thread from the future (which, btw, was WORLDFILTEROWNED, making it even more authentic!) tried to show is that different complexities will make having meaningful talk much harder.

I mean, what makes a community is in part the shared experience. Even if we implicitly know that every game is different, there is this nice illusion where you can take, for instance, a "Sorcerer 6" and have a build discussion about it, listening to feedback of people who are at least in theory playing the same game.

With the kind of game 5e seems to be, the kind of feedback you'll have from the community will be much less substantive (once the game is out, somebody more math oriented could take the existing subsystems and calculate how exactly % less). Even if some subsystems aren't relevant for your particular problem, the fact will remain that a part of the community will not be playing the game you need help with. The fact that they'll not only not be able to help, but'll also be happy to provide unsolicited advice on how their favorite subsystem combo is better and you suck is only the cherry on this shit-cake.

Another problem: Despite the market talk about all options being equal, I can't even visualize how this can be the case for skills. With skills, assume you'd have the competing subsystems:
1) you have skills
2) you don't have skills

With 2, there must be a way to resolve what would be otherwise skill checks. This may be from pure MTP to something like MTP and then make and ability check. Without even entering in the nightmare of balancing 1 and 2, chances are like 100% that people will analyse the actual chances of 1 and 2 and come with situations where it's better to have one or another. Then you'll have actual build advice to the point of: "To make an effective sorcerer, don't use skills, to make an effective wizard use skills" which defeats the expressed purpose of several sub-systems.

By now, I'll just stop thinking ahead, because this is proving to be very depressing. I'm not seeing any positive point in what's being offered.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Feb 06, 2012 6:57 pm

You know, until this thread came up I never realized exactly how unworkable from first principles 5E D&D would be.

I mean, take 4th Edition D&D right now. The community is permanently fractured, even among nominal fans, because there are seriously like four kinds of non-overlapping games:

1.) People who play with any and all of the rulebooks minus errata.

2.) People who play with any D&D material up to the October 2010 character builder (after which D&D switched to being fully online) which includes errata before this point but not afterwards. They may or may not have bought any additional books afterwards.

3.) People who play up-to-date everything. As in, they either exclusively use the online character builder, use the SA / Enemy of Fun's cracked program, or have really lost their minds and have printed out/memorized the free errata.

4.) People who play the game minus Essentials. Admittedly these people are a minority, but considering how Essentials stealth-errata'd/retconned much of the gameplay and in fact new pre-Essentials errata was still being released they don't overlap with the other groups.

5.) People belonging to any of the groups minus 3 who own the Rules Compendium. The Rules Compendium stealth errata'd a ton of shit, such as the limitation on free action attacks 1/round or the stealth rules.

And of course this is ignoring the smaller changes like people who pay attention to the FAQ (which has its own series of stealth errata in it), people who use or do not use Dragon or Dungeon people or don't, or god forbid anyone who buys 3rd party material. Which is of course tiny but these people still exist.

With that in mind, you're telling me that these chucklefucks for 5E D&D want to split the fanbase even further than that? Even if you could have such a setup be balanced and satisfying to all those involved, as far as the long-term health of the product is concerned how could anyone think that this is a good idea?

Blasted · Post by **Blasted** » Mon Feb 06, 2012 11:33 pm

Mask_De_H wrote:Blow the DM.

Win at everything.

Anyone else looking forward to DMing 5th ed?

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Feb 06, 2012 11:52 pm

I don't want any of the kind of weirdos who would want to play a D&D designed by Mearls and Cordell AND willing to give oral to the DM for a power-up to be touching my junk.

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Tue Feb 07, 2012 12:04 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:I don't want any of the kind of weirdos who would want to play a D&D designed by Mearls and Cordell AND willing to give oral to the DM for a power-up to be touching my junk.

qft

Morzas · Post by **Morzas** » Tue Feb 07, 2012 2:28 am

Maybe this is part of Monte Cook's scheme: he could be aiming to create a game that is virtually impossible to optimize since there is no common ground. The very core of the game will be extremely bare-bones and every group will have their own set of preferred modules ("my group uses the Advanced Diplomancy Handbook" "well MY group uses the Book of Vile Diplomancy!"), so coherent CharOp discussions will be difficult. He aims to strike down the Tower of Babel.

I don't think it would work though, a Tower of Babel is useful to WotC's bottom line since it means that more people are buying more books. The strategy of releasing splatbooks that can all work with each other is more profitable than "modules" which replace each other, unless the modules just become splatbooks with a different name.

Neurosis · Post by **Neurosis** » Tue Feb 07, 2012 2:49 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:I don't want any of the kind of weirdos who would want to play a D&D designed by Mearls and Cordell AND willing to give oral to the DM for a power-up to be touching my junk.

The latter here is much more disconcerting than the former.

Sashi · Post by **Sashi** » Tue Feb 07, 2012 4:06 am

Morzas wrote:unless the modules just become splatbooks with a different name.

BINGO. They are claiming that you will be able to mix/match all of these subsystems at the same table.

So exactly the same way late 3.5 could have five players with characters based on five entirely unique subsystems if your party was made up of a Wizard, Psion, Truenamer, Incarnate, and Warblade. Except all five of those players have "fighter" written on their character sheet, and are using three entirely unique subsystems.

Dog Quixote · Post by **Dog Quixote** » Tue Feb 07, 2012 5:11 am

Morzas wrote:Maybe this is part of Monte Cook's scheme: he could be aiming to create a game that is virtually impossible to optimize since there is no common ground. The very core of the game will be extremely bare-bones and every group will have their own set of preferred modules ("my group uses the Advanced Diplomancy Handbook" "well MY group uses the Book of Vile Diplomancy!"), so coherent CharOp discussions will be difficult. He aims to strike down the Tower of Babel.

I don't think it would work though, a Tower of Babel is useful to WotC's bottom line since it means that more people are buying more books. The strategy of releasing splatbooks that can all work with each other is more profitable than "modules" which replace each other, unless the modules just become splatbooks with a different name.

Who's going to buy the splatbooks?

If they've learnt anything from 4E, it ought to be that there's no future in producing endless splatbooks, they just lead to the necessity of new editions sooner rather than later, and a fanbase that is further split.

Paizo seems to be doing quite well out of selling adventures and setting material.

I don't think it really matters how good or how shit their system is; if they follow the splatbook business model of 3E and 4E they'll probably only get about 2 years from the edition.

I'm waiting to hear what their expected business model is. That should tell us a lot about what they really hope to achieve with 5e.

Morzas · Post by **Morzas** » Tue Feb 07, 2012 5:48 am

That's a good point, I never considered the possibility of WotC switching to a sane business model. Toward the end of 4e, didn't they try to integrate CCG elements into D&D? I think that's where I lost the last of my hope in their D&D game designers (not that I had much left). I really hope they don't try to pull that kind of shit in 5th, but they DID move Tom LaPille (A Magic: The Gathering designer) to the D&D division a while back...

koz · Post by **koz** » Tue Feb 07, 2012 5:52 am

Morzas wrote:That's a good point, I never considered the possibility of WotC switching to a sane business model. Toward the end of 4e, didn't they try to integrate CCG elements into D&D? I think that's where I lost the last of my hope in their D&D game designers (not that I had much left). I really hope they don't try to pull that kind of shit in 5th, but they DID move Tom LaPille (A Magic: The Gathering designer) to the D&D division a while back...

This is the same Tom LaPille who is responsible for developing the homesick abortion of a block that is Innistrad. Besides, as I mentioned before, the DnD division is where they put people as a last-chance-at-redemption after they've failed everywhere else - and frankly, nobody liked Tom LaPille much in his MtG role. For good reason.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Wed Feb 08, 2012 12:50 am

I haven't played MAGIC for the better part of 2 years. I'm not sure what Innistrad is though I've seen the boosters.

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Wed Feb 08, 2012 1:00 am

It's a horror-movie-monster themed block. And it has the highly contentious transforming cards (the ones that have no back and you physically flip over).
My impression (not sure how accurate) is that it seems rather insular, a lot of the cards don't combine that much with outside material. And I like NP-style horror better than the vampires and werewolves stuff, so I haven't gotten into it much.

CapnTthePirateG · Post by **CapnTthePirateG** » Wed Feb 08, 2012 1:36 am

Ice9 wrote:It's a horror-movie-monster themed block. And it has the highly contentious transforming cards (the ones that have no back and you physically flip over).
My impression (not sure how accurate) is that it seems rather insular, a lot of the cards don't combine that much with outside material. And I like NP-style horror better than the vampires and werewolves stuff, so I haven't gotten into it much.

And the transform mechanic is shit because the flipping is either:
a)Skip a turn!
b)Completely under your opponent's control
c)You have this one card, Moonmist, which is the only card which can make your monsters grow.

And that's why I traded all my wolves for elves.

koz · Post by **koz** » Wed Feb 08, 2012 2:24 am

Innistrad represents the culmination of MaRo's retarded 'creatures first' philosophy, begun in Lorwyn, combined with Tom LaPille's retarded 'therefore everything else must blow' philosophy. The gimmicky stupid that is the furry flip mechanic aside, this block is basically a purely draft one. As in actually, Constructed with it is so boring it makes me long for Kamigawa block. Which wasn't exactly known for making for an interesting Constructed metagame.

Additionally, every card in it is overcosted, stupid and does nothing exciting. They had such a brilliant idea and killed it so thoroughly, it surprises me why people buy it.

Oh wait, this is the same company who created the 4rry demographic. Luckily, it seems that WotC understood that LaPille basically needs to be gotten rid of. MaRo's also a master of 'explaining' retarded design decisions by stuff which sounds logical until you actually consider what it says, when you understand that it's drooling imbecility of the worst kind.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Wed Feb 08, 2012 2:55 am

Seems like there also might be a mechanical issue with having cards with no back...

koz · Post by **koz** » Wed Feb 08, 2012 2:58 am

fectin wrote:Seems like there also might be a mechanical issue with having cards with no back...

They had to change several rules, and introduce the first and only official proxies into tournament play as a result of those fuckers.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Wed Feb 08, 2012 3:47 am

MGuy wrote:I haven't played MAGIC for the better part of 2 years. I'm not sure what Innistrad is though I've seen the boosters.

Innistrad's a block that really exemplifies M:tG's current focus on a "top-down" approach to card design, that is come up with the flavor (werewolves, zombies coming out of graves, etc.) and then figure out how to most elegantly fit them in the rules.

For example, Blue, the innistrad theme is 'mad scientist'. The 'insanity' part is represented by self-discarding (as in the past making other people discard cards was often flavored as an attack on their sanity)

so you have a card like:

the discarding represents your loss of sanity as you do your wacky frankenstein experiments (note it is a common card, so it is meant to be simple, introduce mechanics, and later on be replaced as you get more uncommons/rares)
self discarding sucks though, because when you reach zero you lose, unless...

play this and your mad plans, your xanatos gambit, whatever, you win even when you'd lose because you're a god damn mad scientist whose seen his grand experiment come to fruition.

Seems like there also might be a mechanical issue with having cards with no back...

You have proxy cards to represent them, they come in the booster pack with a checklist. This was done because it's the only way to preserve full card art and detail. Double cards are visually jarring and those rotating ones in Kamigawa are really ugly and a jumble to look at.

They've also distributed the complexity a good way through common->rare and overall the learning curve has been reduced.
So the combination of more intuitive to grasp design and a controlled introduction of complexity has lead to a steady increase of M:tG sales, new people are actually entering the game.

Morzas · Post by **Morzas** » Wed Feb 08, 2012 4:19 am

Innistrad, from a design viewpoint, is kind of an anti-Time Spiral. Time Spiral was a block that played with nostalgia, it was full of all kinds of in-jokes that only Magic neckbeards would get (for the record, I loved Time Spiral). Innistrad, on the other hand, reaches out into horror fiction tropes that the average person would get. Cards like these are good examples:

A vampire-slaying tool.
Innocent girl posessed by evil spirit.
The Invisible Man.
A bat that turns into a vampire. (Compare with the previous attempt at creating this trope: Sengir Nosferatu)
The land cracks open beneath you and sucks you into Hell (note the unlucky amount of damage)
My dude fights your dude.

These cards are elegant in design compared to past Magic sets, and since they rely on existing ideas, they're easy for newcomers to grok. I don't really like Innistrad though.

Vebyast · Post by **Vebyast** » Wed Feb 08, 2012 4:33 am

OgreBattle wrote: the discarding represents your loss of sanity as you do your wacky frankenstein experiments (note it is a common card, so it is meant to be simple, introduce mechanics, and later on be replaced as you get more uncommons/rares)

You know, I haven't bought any MtG cards in about six years. The last cards I bought were Kamigawa. Most of my cards are old Urza's and Masques cards and a scattering from Invasion, Odyssey, Onslaught, and newer sets.

That card sucks compared to the cards in my closet. Seriously. I played a black/white pestilence deck for a year and a half, and not a single creature in it had less than 4 toughness. Most were 1/4s for 2W or 1WW. That card is ass.

I guess you could make it work with a pile of return-from-graveyard cards so you can cycle through your library faster, but still.