Zero Buzz on 5E...Is It Dead Out The Gate?

MfA · Post by **MfA** » Sun Sep 28, 2014 1:09 am

Rapier and board probably (because of the defensive duelist feat).

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Mon Sep 29, 2014 3:52 pm

infected slut princess wrote:Did anyone talk about the 5e Tarrasque? If so, I missed it. But I just saw it, and I am horrified.

I have a soft spot for the Tarrasque. Yeah, it's a big dumb monster in a lot of ways, but it is evocative in a way that most new D&D monsters are not. I thought it was cool how it would always regenerate even if it got disintegrated or killed by death magic. And you needed a wish to truly destroy it. I mean, that was a pretty cool idea.

Well guess what. Apparently you don't need a wish to destroy the 5e Tarrasque. It doesn't even regenerate anymore. You just wail away on its 600+ hitpoints until it dies. THAT'S IT.

Hey, but what about its ability "Legendary Resistance"? Forget it. All it does is let the Tarrasque auto-save 3x per day. Boring. It's like a total meta-power.

It also has "legendary actions" which are pretty fucking boring. They are just attacks or short bursts of movement outside of its turn.

Yet again, my childhood is raped by Mearls.

The Tarrasque can be kited and killed by a 2nd level elf rogue. The process takes about 7~8 hours and the only required items for the rogue are a magical bow and a shit-ton of arrows. Long story short is that rogues double dash in 5e so that an elf rogue that's just moving away can effectively gain distance from a Tarrasque that's doing nothing but trying to reach him. The fight consists on the rogue running until he gets enough distance for a safe shot, shooting then running again. Boring, requires an endless, featureless plain and takes fucking 8 hours to go, so I guess most DMs would rule against this scenario.

So lets see a more reasonable one: Acid Splash + Flight destroys the big T much faster - the fight is over in about 30 min with just one low level shooter, IIRC. The earliest you can pull this one is by level 5: Have a druid summon giant eagles (the summon lasts for 1 hour) and then a friendly wizard can fly and melt the Tarrasque safely from above. For safety, the druid can fly up too (the summon spell calls up to two eagles). If the spellcasters are small, so that more than once can ride in the same eagle, or are like level 6 (cantrips deal an extra damage die) things get pathetic for big T fast.

The only possible conclusion is that the Tarrasque is absent from from all 5e worlds, having been killed on each one eons ago once it crossed paths a gnome village or wizardry school.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Mon Sep 29, 2014 3:58 pm

nockermensch wrote:The only possible conclusion is that the Tarrasque is absent from from all 5e worlds, having been killed on each one eons ago once it crossed paths a gnome village or wizardry school.

Or the only surviving Tarrasque is found underground in a chamber with a ceiling no higher than its reach, or possibly in the Rancor pit with a deadpool on people thrown in.

Night Goat · Post by **Night Goat** » Mon Sep 29, 2014 7:31 pm

MfA wrote:Rapier and board probably (because of the defensive duelist feat).

I'm not impressed by Defensive Duelist. Proficiency bonuses are thoroughly underwhelming, and dexterity is a dump stat for heavy armor users so they won't want to use finesse weapons.

I think polearms might be the way to go, especially after you get Polearm Master and Sentinel feats. I'm making a first-level paladin and having trouble choosing between Polearm Master and Heavy Armor Master.

Harshax · Post by **Harshax** » Mon Sep 29, 2014 8:03 pm

nockermensch wrote: The Tarrasque can be kited and killed by a 2nd level elf rogue. The process takes about 7~8 hours and the only required items for the rogue are a magical bow and a shit-ton of arrows. Long story short is that rogues double dash in 5e so that an elf rogue that's just moving away can effectively gain distance from a Tarrasque that's doing nothing but trying to reach him. The fight consists on the rogue running until he gets enough distance for a safe shot, shooting then running again. Boring, requires an endless, featureless plain and takes fucking 8 hours to go, so I guess most DMs would rule against this scenario.

So lets see a more reasonable one: Acid Splash + Flight destroys the big T much faster - the fight is over in about 30 min with just one low level shooter, IIRC. The earliest you can pull this one is by level 5: Have a druid summon giant eagles (the summon lasts for 1 hour) and then a friendly wizard can fly and melt the Tarrasque safely from above. For safety, the druid can fly up too (the summon spell calls up to two eagles). If the spellcasters are small, so that more than once can ride in the same eagle, or are like level 6 (cantrips deal an extra damage die) things get pathetic for big T fast.

The only possible conclusion is that the Tarrasque is absent from from all 5e worlds, having been killed on each one eons ago once it crossed paths a gnome village or wizardry school.

Harshax wrote:

There has got to be monster templates that haven't yet been released for consideration. Otherwise, this game is nonsense, and I'll be sticking with other systems.

I'm an optimistic idiot.

Honestly, the happiest I was with Next was the first playtest packet. They hadn't yet divided divine and arcane magic and I had this crazy high hope that they had dispensed with that particular division of magic. Clerics would be a specific flavor of Fighter-Wizard. And Fighters could (well, still can) take a feat that lets them use ritual spells. And if you wanted to play a "white" wizard who could heal and buff, so be it.

infected slut princess · Tue Sep 30, 2014 12:33 am

Shouldn't they have figured out by now that the Tarrasque needs a Godzilla-like breath weapon of destructive energy? Or something???

5e Tarrasque is the worst Tarrasque I have ever seen. It's a whiny little bitch, completely unworthy of its Monster Level 30. Seriously, fuck 5e. They are ruining all the high-level monsters that used to be cool and pumped people up to play the game.

Stinktopus · Post by **Stinktopus** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 4:18 am

So, my girlfriend is running the Hoard of the Dragon Queen AP. We have the following characters:

A wizard. He hasn't done anything yet, so I don't know what to say about him.

A TWF rogue who is really unhappy that his off-hand weapon doesn't get a stat bonus to damage. He's going to take a one level dip of fighter to get the TWF style. He's not happy that only one attack counts as a Sneak Attack, but at least extra attacks give an extra chance to apply it if the first one misses.

A total rookie playing a Champion Fighter. I had to make the character for her, so I decided to try her with a Halberd, Polearm Mastery, and Great Weapon Fighting Style (because 1's and 2's on a d10 make baby Jesus cry). She just wants to hit stuff hard.

My character is a rogue with a shortbow and Sharpshooter. As long as someone else is adjacent to my target, I'm getting my Sneak Attack, so it seems like the best combo of damage/survivability I'm going to get with a non-caster.

It will be interesting to see how we fare with no healer and nobody really set up for tanking.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 5:38 am

Stinktopus wrote:So, my girlfriend is running the Hoard of the Dragon Queen AP. We have the following characters:

A wizard. He hasn't done anything yet, so I don't know what to say about him.

A TWF rogue who is really unhappy that his off-hand weapon doesn't get a stat bonus to damage. He's going to take a one level dip of fighter to get the TWF style. He's not happy that only one attack counts as a Sneak Attack, but at least extra attacks give an extra chance to apply it if the first one misses.

A total rookie playing a Champion Fighter. I had to make the character for her, so I decided to try her with a Halberd, Polearm Mastery, and Great Weapon Fighting Style (because 1's and 2's on a d10 make baby Jesus cry). She just wants to hit stuff hard.

My character is a rogue with a shortbow and Sharpshooter. As long as someone else is adjacent to my target, I'm getting my Sneak Attack, so it seems like the best combo of damage/survivability I'm going to get with a non-caster.

It will be interesting to see how we fare with no healer and nobody really set up for tanking.

Plan on transcribing it to the trenches section of TGD?

Hiram McDaniels · Post by **Hiram McDaniels** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 5:52 am

Stinktopus wrote: A TWF rogue who is really unhappy that his off-hand weapon doesn't get a stat bonus to damage. He's going to take a one level dip of fighter to get the TWF style. He's not happy that only one attack counts as a Sneak Attack, but at least extra attacks give an extra chance to apply it if the first one misses.
.

Bad news. I don't think Rogues in D&D5 get extra attacks like Fighters and Barbarians and such. Might have to go for a two level dip in Fighter to pick up Action Surge.

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 6:06 am

They do, if they have two weapons. Fighters and barbarians get extra attacks on top of those, but anyone can claim the extra attack for two weapon fighting.

Hiram McDaniels · Post by **Hiram McDaniels** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 4:39 pm

Grek wrote:They do, if they have two weapons. Fighters and barbarians get extra attacks on top of those, but anyone can claim the extra attack for two weapon fighting.

Ahh. That's right. My brain was stuck in the 4E paradigm wherein "two weapon fighting" means a static bonus to something, rather than extra attacks. Carry on.

MfA · Post by **MfA** » Wed Oct 01, 2014 6:21 pm

Night Goat wrote:I'm not impressed by Defensive Duelist. Proficiency bonuses are thoroughly underwhelming, and dexterity is a dump stat for heavy armor users so they won't want to use finesse weapons.

You just need 13 dex to take the feat, you can still use strength for attack with a finesse weapon and benefit from the feat.

Rawbeard · Post by **Rawbeard** » Thu Oct 02, 2014 7:53 pm

Not sure if it came up here already, but I just stumbled over an amusing multiclassing omission. Got a player who wants to multiclass fighter with... fighter. So his character will be fighter 2/fighter 2 to get both champion and weaponmaster (or whatever the fuck it's called). I am like "wait... that's not... oh, look at that, the PHB does not seem to explicitly forbit that kind of stupid". You seriously can't play 5e without knowing 2e and 3e, since this is not the first "it was like that in previous editions, so we don't mention it" rules shit pile I found.

Ravengm · Post by **Ravengm** » Thu Oct 02, 2014 9:09 pm

Rawbeard wrote:Not sure if it came up here already, but I just stumbled over an amusing multiclassing omission. Got a player who wants to multiclass fighter with... fighter. So his character will be fighter 2/fighter 2 to get both champion and weaponmaster (or whatever the fuck it's called). I am like "wait... that's not... oh, look at that, the PHB does not seem to explicitly forbit that kind of stupid". You seriously can't play 5e without knowing 2e and 3e, since this is not the first "it was like that in previous editions, so we don't mention it" rules shit pile I found.

Now waiting on a loophole that gives 20 times the spells of a 20th level Wizard to a Wizard 1/Wizard 1/Wizard 1/Wizard 1/Wizard 1/Wizard 1/Wizard 1/Wizard 1/Wizard 1/Wizard 1/Wizard 1/Wizard 1/Wizard 1/Wizard 1/Wizard 1/Wizard 1/Wizard 1/Wizard 1/Wizard 1/Wizard 1.

animea90 · Post by **animea90** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 10:07 pm

nockermensch wrote:
Lago PARANOIA wrote:[*] Powergaming is best handled by the DM line-item vetoing powers. People complaining that a magic item is overpowered? Everyone selecting one particular feat tax? Everyone is summoning a problematic monster? If we take these toys out of the hands of players and make them suck the cock of the DM, that solves everything.
Your nostalgia glasses is making you forget that 3/3.5/3.P also bows deeply to rule 0 and DM worship. D&D books are always peppered by remarks that DMs can change or adapt whatever they want.

I don't remember seeing it much in Pathfinder. I amm sure there was a line somewhere saying houserules are okay, but I rarely saw a "Ask your GM before taking feat X".

5e seems to have quite a lot of it. The most obvious being "GM decides if you get magic items".

animea90 · Post by **animea90** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 10:13 pm

infected slut princess wrote:Did anyone talk about the 5e Tarrasque? If so, I missed it. But I just saw it, and I am horrified.

I have a soft spot for the Tarrasque. Yeah, it's a big dumb monster in a lot of ways, but it is evocative in a way that most new D&D monsters are not. I thought it was cool how it would always regenerate even if it got disintegrated or killed by death magic. And you needed a wish to truly destroy it. I mean, that was a pretty cool idea.

Well guess what. Apparently you don't need a wish to destroy the 5e Tarrasque. It doesn't even regenerate anymore. You just wail away on its 600+ hitpoints until it dies. THAT'S IT.

Hey, but what about its ability "Legendary Resistance"? Forget it. All it does is let the Tarrasque auto-save 3x per day. Boring. It's like a total meta-power.

It also has "legendary actions" which are pretty fucking boring. They are just attacks or short bursts of movement outside of its turn.

Yet again, my childhood is raped by Mearls.

That has been discussed before on the boards. As it stands the Tarrasque dies to anyone with ranged attacks and fly,

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Sat Oct 04, 2014 1:42 pm

animea90 wrote:
nockermensch wrote:
Lago PARANOIA wrote:[*] Powergaming is best handled by the DM line-item vetoing powers. People complaining that a magic item is overpowered? Everyone selecting one particular feat tax? Everyone is summoning a problematic monster? If we take these toys out of the hands of players and make them suck the cock of the DM, that solves everything.
Your nostalgia glasses is making you forget that 3/3.5/3.P also bows deeply to rule 0 and DM worship. D&D books are always peppered by remarks that DMs can change or adapt whatever they want.
I don't remember seeing it much in Pathfinder. I amm sure there was a line somewhere saying houserules are okay, but I rarely saw a "Ask your GM before taking feat X".

5e seems to have quite a lot of it. The most obvious being "GM decides if you get magic items".

It showed up on spellfire in 3.0. That wasn't a terrible way of handling that, but it did make a small chunk of that book basically unusable.

ACOS · Post by **ACOS** » Sat Oct 04, 2014 6:17 pm

fectin wrote: It showed up on spellfire in 3.0. That wasn't a terrible way of handling that, but it did make a small chunk of that book basically unusable.

No - the RAW for spellfire made a small chunk of that book unusable. If you want the DM to allow something from a splatbook, you have to make sure it plays nice with the rest of the game.

Ferret · Post by **Ferret** » Fri Oct 24, 2014 8:43 pm

DMG Table of Contents preview.

I don't hate this. LOL that "RULES MODLUES!" gets relegated to 22 pages in the back of the book.

Edit: LOL FUCK YOUR TABLES. (added spoiler tags)[/spoiler]

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Oct 24, 2014 9:11 pm

Well, that's not too offensive. Some of it is a bit suspicious (10 pages to discuss the friggin' Outer Planes?) but just going by the ToC it's not super-awful.

However, what happened to that huge list of alternate rules that had shit like gestalt classes and skill challenges and whatever the fuck? They're all salami-sliced and it looks like they MIGHT appear in the last 22 pages Ferret mentioned. Did Mike Mearls and friends just give up on it? So much for modularity; I guess the design team decided that it'd be easier to be a cut-rate clone for 3E D&D than to establish its own identity.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Oct 24, 2014 9:24 pm

Where are the hiding rules? The basic rules don't have hiding rules and it was supposed to be in the DMG.

-Username17

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Fri Oct 24, 2014 9:33 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:Where are the hiding rules? The basic rules don't have hiding rules and it was supposed to be in the DMG.

-Username17

They better be on pages 238-239, because I don't see another viable spot for them.

ACOS · Post by **ACOS** » Fri Oct 24, 2014 9:36 pm

nockermensch wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote:Where are the hiding rules? The basic rules don't have hiding rules and it was supposed to be in the DMG.

-Username17
They better be on pages 238-239, because I don't see another viable spot for them.

possibly 260-263 "Adventuring Options"?

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Oct 24, 2014 9:41 pm

What makes you think that the 5E DMG will have hiding rules? 4E D&D didn't have crafting rules in them.

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Fri Oct 24, 2014 11:28 pm

The fact that they called Appendix A: Random Dungeons makes me wonder why you'd want a random dungeon.
((I do understand the need for dungeon building rules))