5e D&D is Vaporware

[tussock]

Actual interrupts are a lie. It's taking turns, same as if you were taking turns. That thing where you negated their attack, so does your AC.

Saving throws are only "interactive" if you are superstitious or cheating.

Everyone is superstitious, our brain uses the English language to think, and it's a mess. You are too in the way you think about interrupts. "I attack". "I failed my save". It's not just an abstract mental rendition of probability curves, it's a genuine impression of ownership and control over the outcome.

[hogarth]

But that's the fun part about them!
"Ok, so now you're screwed - go ahead and take --"
"Objection! [/phoenixwright] Actually, I'm not screwed, and the ogre that was trying to do so is now over there and on fire."

The DM has unlimited resources at their fingertips. If they can't handle a few negated attacks, they need to step up their game.

I agree that interrupting is kind of fun for the interrupter. However... Maybe you're more mature and fair-minded than I am, but if the DM's creatures cock-blocked me in the middle of a sentence three combats in a row (say), I'd be irked and (perhaps more importantly) I'd feel drawn out of the game.

Actual interrupts are a lie. It's taking turns, same as if you were taking turns. That thing where you negated their attack, so does your AC.

No, sometimes it really does involve one person eagerly rolling damage dice (say) and the other person saying `ha ha, you just wasted your time because I retroactively nullified your action`.

[Lago PARANOIA]

No, sometimes it really does involve one person eagerly rolling damage dice (say) and the other person saying `ha ha, you just wasted your time because I retroactively nullified your action`.

How do you feel about the DM revealing that the sneak attack doesn't work on the guard captain because as the adventure will later show he's a disguised vampire and/or had a magical amulet that negated critical hits? Or a troll revealing that he drunk a potion of fire resistance before an expected battle? Or that the Assassin Prince prepared a booby trap in the hex you stepped on that teleported you ouside the building in the middle of a charge?

Having normally-successful actions being nullified because of some action someone took earlier, while not strictly speaking a necessary part of tactical combat, is such a vital component of tactical combat that you seriously cannot have a game more complicated than the 8-Bit Final Fantasies if you excise it from the game. I mean, shit, even collectible card games have them.


I like the idea of interrupts. That kind of narrative control and reversal can be empowering. I have three major problems with them, though.

1.) In certain contexts, like a game that pushes a standard of 'one attack per action', they can be overpowered due to action advantage. This is true even if interrupts are strictly defensive, because people also couple defensive powers with 'regular' attacks.

2.) If there isn't some sort of opportunity cost for using interrupts beyond 'you don't have it anymore' and they get refreshed quickly they become boring and expected and their disruptiveness is irritating rather than attention-getting.

3.) Interrupts can make control flow of the game confusing if they get complicated or people aren't paying attention.

Now, 1 and 2 are potentially solvable. I don't know about 3. It might just be something we have to grit our teeth and bear with if we want it in the game.

[Ice9]

Actual interrupts are a lie. It's taking turns, same as if you were taking turns. That thing where you negated their attack, so does your AC.

Not really. In a non-crap implementation, the interrupt involves at least involves a choice whether to use a resource.
Often, the interrupt could be a trade-off - Dive for Cover, for example, moves you completely out of the way of a given attack, but you are then prone.

[JonSetanta]

Rolling saving throws is essential to the illusory interaction of players with the game when it's not their turn. It's a delicious sacred cow.

It gives you something to fucking do while the lich or demon is blasting at you.

Otherwise I sit there with a fucking 4e character sheet and read off one of 6 defensive stats whenever the DM calls for it, and I don't like that.

In simple terms, if you ain't rollin saves, it ain't D&D.

[Seerow]

Rolling saving throws is essential to the illusory interaction of players with the game when it's not their turn. It's a delicious sacred cow.

It gives you something to fucking do while the lich or demon is blasting at you.

Otherwise I sit there with a fucking 4e character sheet and read off one of 6 defensive stats whenever the DM calls for it, and I don't like that.

In simple terms, if you ain't rollin saves, it ain't D&D.

As opposed to 3.5 where casters never roll anything but damage on their own turns? I don't see that as any better, and having both sides roll dice all the time is bad.

[JonSetanta]

You could split a caster's spell between ranged touch attack (which is fairly easy to hit) and required save (albeit with a higher save DC) every time they target someone with a spell. It wouldn't be much different than melee debuff effects, which require a touch and save.
It would increase the amount of rolling, but at least give casters something to do on their turn other than just roll damage.

[ishy]

As opposed to 3.5 where casters never roll anything but damage on their own turns? I don't see that as any better, and having both sides roll dice all the time is bad.

That is one of the draws of casters for me actually, that I can declare an action and make someone else roll instead of having to roll myself.

[Ice9]

I'm not saying that the defender rolling is bad, a number of people do seem to like it, so why not use it? I'm just saying that isn't the same thing as actual interaction.

[sake]

So there was a new maybe-bullshit/maybe-real leak over on the Something Awful forums recently.

http://pastebin.com/zRWmNeZd (page someone made of the SA stuff)

Now granted, it should be noted that the people writing the leak stuff are mostly all big 4E fans, so a lot of this could just be 'The sky is falling!" stuff from them. But it seems to be almost copy/paste of 3e/3.5e with a few bad window dressing changes. Fighters can only suck balls and full attack, wizards can do everything the other classes can do only better, and so on. The 4E people are going pissed off crazy about it except the few who keep clinging to the hope that the 'modules' will fix it.

"It's like 3e, only: Wizards get at-will powers. No more crossbows!
Fighters still don't get shit."

"When they say 'drawing on 4e', they mean '3e by way of the dodgier bits of essentials"

[Lokathor]

http://kotaku.com/5893670/baldurs-gate- ... r-explodes

New baldur's gate announced: an HD remake of 1 and 2 and the expansions, by a team that's partly new guys and partly guys that worked on the original versions of the games.

Both games will use an udated version of the Infinity Engine with "a variety of modern improvements".

So the odds that it's using 5e mechanics are low, unless 5e is basically playable on the Infinity Engine (aka: ADnD 2e). Which actually might be possible, since "it's all modular guys".

[sake]

New baldur's gate announced: an HD remake of 1 and 2 and the expansions, by a team that's partly new guys and partly guys that worked on the original versions of the games.

Sounds more like it'll just be the old games with higher quality sprites and maybe one new dungeon so they can say they added new stuff. It would be nice if they at least make a few quality of life changes like removing race restrictions for classes and so on.

[ishy]

From the something asful forum (which really is awful)
">You have to raise a common class character to level 10 before you can unlock the uncommon ones. Or you can unlock them right now for 400 Wizard Points."

Would that mean that you'd have to buy points from wotc to be able to take prestige classes? ^^
.

[sake]

From the something asful forum (which really is awful)
">You have to raise a common class character to level 10 before you can unlock the uncommon ones. Or you can unlock them right now for 400 Wizard Points."

Would that mean that you'd have to buy points from wotc to be able to take prestige classes? ^^
.

Yeah, that bit and the line about books having random classes like a ccg didn't any make sense at all. Maybe it's something related just to the testing process?

EDIT: Someone has suggested that the playtest documents all have small random differences which means they could be tags meant to identify the sources of any leaks. "Or you can unlock them right now for 400 Wizard Points." could be one of those tag lines.

[CapnTthePirateG]

That's gotta be a joke. If there are rare classes, I expect them to be all over the internet. And no one will pay for wizard points. I hope.

[Foxwarrior]

I'm pretty sure that the statements by the actual leaker are not marked with a '>'.

[hogarth]

No, sometimes it really does involve one person eagerly rolling damage dice (say) and the other person saying `ha ha, you just wasted your time because I retroactively nullified your action`.

How do you feel about the DM revealing that the sneak attack doesn't work on the guard captain because as the adventure will later show he's a disguised vampire and/or had a magical amulet that negated critical hits? Or a troll revealing that he drunk a potion of fire resistance before an expected battle? Or that the Assassin Prince prepared a booby trap in the hex you stepped on that teleported you ouside the building in the middle of a charge?

As I said, any of those things would probably peeve me if it happened three combats in a row.

[Ice9]

In the transcript, the lines prefaced with ">" are comments, not part of the leak. So no randomized class packs - probably.

Even so, if the leak is true, then 5E looks fucking terrible. No way to prove whether it's true yet, but it looks compatible with the articles they've been writing.

[shadzar]

i remember something in a past L&L or such that mentioned there would be "rare" something... what would be rare though i dont recall, so doesnt seem too far fetched.

also assume Character Points such as 2.5. Wizard points could just be something similar. (assuming Wizard means the class, not the company)

so rather than getting CPs as you level you could get points as a wizard...or quite possibly a combination of XP and CP. so a class does not get XP based on class ability, but the XP comes from group awards, and class based actions such as casting the right spell, get awarded wizard points..such as the old "thief gets bonus XP for stealing treasure; fighter gets bonus XP for killing things" so along those lines each class can earn new abilities or "unlock" them as it were, but spending those points awarded for class based actions.

seems possible something like this could work with the modularity of 5e, not that i would be interested in it too much, but it isnt like it hasnt been done before.

also it could be a part of WPN or whatever the organized play system is...

[ModelCitizen]

@SomethingAwful 5e "leak": Man, I really hope this isn't fake because I am thoroughly enjoying the taste of 4rry tears.

Knock still exists (fuck off Rogues) and in fact opens basically anything. They go so far as to specify that it opens stuff that's welded shut, chains that are used to hold a portal shut are loosened, etc.

WAAAAH the wizard opened a door D&D IS RUINED!!!!!!!!1

#
>Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go compute how many hit dice of servants I can control using Animate Dead.
#
The answer is an infinite number, because there's an item that makes it so every enemy you kill is raised as a 1 HD zombie under your control that specifically doesn't count against the max HD of undead you can control with Animate Dead.

Undead creation in core! Suck it!

#
So as a hypothetical, imagine if minor actions kinda exist? But instead of defining them in a glossary, and using a standard name for it, each instance in the rules is a plain-speech sentence describing a small unit of time which is never quite the same thing.

It's really breathtaking. There are a ton of things in the game that just say "This can be done so quickly that it still allows you time to take an action" or "at the same time as you move during your turn, you.." or a similarly clumsy sentence. Because, presumably, Move Actions are too immersion-breaking and gamey.

Hey, 4rries, tell me again how cool Exception Based Design is. Doesn't look so fucking awesome now, does it?

[Lago PARANOIA]

For a low-level game what I've heard doesn't sound too bad for a fantasy heartbreaker. I mean, I'm pretty fucking disappointed that they're not even going to try to avoid the same LWQW, race/class combination, or multiclass traps that they fell into earlier and I'm also double disappointed that the 'oppose with whatever stat you feel like' crap is an actual thing. For a playtest in alpha that actually sounds pretty improvable.

Of course, we know that the playtest is pretty much a sham -- both in the scheduling and lovefestery -- and they're just going to flat-out ignore higher levels, so 5E D&D is probably going to come out pretty crap already. I will be uberpissed if Pathfinder turns out to be the better-functioning RPG when all is said and done.

[Lago PARANOIA]

As I said, any of those things would probably peeve me if it happened three combats in a row.

I honestly don't know what to tell you, then. Traps and readied actions and triggered spells has totally been a part of D&D and tactical RPG gaming for years. 4E D&D certainly made it more noticeable by highlighting what was going in big bold words with immediates, but 3E D&D planted that flag years earlier.

I think that they don't get used more often because of a simple poverty of imagination and/or rules ignorance. They can be totally devastating in both editions when used properly, but they don't get used. Oh, well.

[hogarth]

As I said, any of those things would probably peeve me if it happened three combats in a row.

I think that they don't get used more often because of a simple poverty of imagination and/or rules ignorance.

Wait -- you don't think telling a rogue that his sneak attack is useless for three combats in a row shows a "simple poverty of imagination" as well?

[Lago PARANOIA]

Wait -- you don't think telling a rogue that his sneak attack is useless for three combats in a row

This statement is so broad as to be equivocating.

[ModelCitizen]

I'm all for toning down the triggered actions because they tend to assume D&D only happens in combat. If you can turn invisible for 1 round when you're attacked, you're likely to eventually want to be invisible out of combat and have to argue with the DM about whether the wizard is allowed to punch you in the face. And even if you win that argument it's still stupid. I mean, I could see a barbarian demanding someone punch him in the face to get psyched up before he Juggernauts through a locked door but that fluff doesn't work most of the time.

That would be totally fine if your invisibility power is "Minor or Immediate Interrupt" or something, but I don't think the writers will consistently remember to do that / care about doing that. ToB and 4e have plenty of utility stuff that can only be used off attack triggers.