The Gaming Den

FatR wrote:
Phantom Steed and Magic Missile are better than a car or a gun for most purposes, so the only stumbling block is phone - it is practically easier in DnD to murder people over large distances than to have an extended conversation with them.

Phantom steeds are only better if your "for most purposes" involves getting one person with a light load over difficult terrain/bad traffic. Port that spell to a modern setting where shit is routinely paved and there's no guarantee your magic ghost pony is a better pick for a given trip than a Kia Soul. Likewise, guns can be reloaded and rifles in particular have much better range than Magic Missile. The accuracy of magic missile is super helpful, but it's not actually a walkover. Most importantly, once you start talking about 3rd level spells and enough missiles to take out multiple peasants, you're talking about a level 5 wizard, minimum, which is kinda Frank's whole point.

But Shadowrun house cats aren't as powerful as D&D house cats... or are they

FatR wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote:
A starting Mage in Shadowrun is like a 7th circle Wizard in Earthdawn. And you barely notice, because honestly it takes a lot of D&D style spells to match the basic abilities you have by owning a car, a gun, and a phone.

-Username17

Phantom Steed and Magic Missile are better than a car or a gun for most purposes, so the only stumbling block is phone - it is practically easier in DnD to murder people over large distances than to have an extended conversation with them.

Are you shitting me up the ass? Magic Missile and Phantom Steed are terrible spells for transportation and killing in the context of the modern world, let alone D&D.

Magic Missile struggles to get an effective range of 200 feet, and that's from relatively rare casters. It's only useful in the context of activities where firearms are completely incapable, such as ghostbusting. Certainly not law enforcement or military conquest.

Phantom Steed isn't as useless, as in a modern setting it can do things that modern vehicles struggles to do -- such as exploring the nooks and crannies of a canyon -- but it's still largely inferior to a dune buggy, let alone a helicopter. You know, what with the 5th level requirement, low speed, and (crucially) low carrying capacity. But I imagine that in a whiz-bang sci-fi setting of Star Wars, let alone Star Trek, it'd be even more useless.

And that's kind of my fucking point. In a sci-fi setting, magic has to be even more powerful to be distinctive. Not less. Why the hell would you spend five years training a mage whose signature spells are Fireball, Phantom Steed, Summon Monster III, Greater Magic Armor, and Invisibility sphere when you could instead spend eight weeks training a soldier to use a grenade launcher, dune buggy, drone remote, full body armor, and camoflague? It gets even more laughable in a sci-fi setting, where you could have a soldier that has a thermal detonator, jetpack, android buddy, personal force field, and invisibility cloak.

virgil wrote:By what metric?

Financial and developing a new audience base.

Pretty much precisely what 4th Ed. failed at.

FatR wrote:I found myself incapable of finding any shits to give about specific mechanics of Starfinder and their failures after a cursory examination of the book revealed that it utterly fails at emulating or producing any sort of space setting, including - and particularly so - scif-fantasy space opera, people might actually want to play. There is no fucking space exploration in the boundless galaxy, almost everything is weirdly crumpled into the same star system. There is no grand and overarching conflict spanning the same galaxy. There is no variety of technicolor-skinned space babes to fuck, in fact, all the new races look rather ugly. And the parts of the system I looked over produce divide by zero results if you try to do something as basic as trying to strafe fools in your space fighter.

Basically it seems like even more of a square-based dungeoncrawl, what with power level and flexibility of PCs seemingly nerfed further and MMO-style equipment ladders, in a setting that is technically in space, but may as well not have been.

There can be exploration, but it's very up to the DM kind of stuff. Most of the galaxy is unknown because reasons (mostly it was easier not to do setting work), so while you can get involved in the 50+ metaplots in the home system, you can also go beat up space pirates or primatives and shit elsewhere.


But yes, it is a dungeon crawl most of the time. And a super short range, because guns are made of ass and the sniper rules are laughable, and we aren't allowed to make people feel bad for making melee specialists in a future with absurd amounts of guns, and not even the possibility of gun control (there is a level 1 gun attachment that makes a weapon look like anything else, and true seeing or the equivalent is the only counter)

On the new races- yeah, I'm morbidly impressed with how terrible a lot of the art is. Most of the rat-creatures look like stick figures with photoshopped rat heads just pasted on. The not!andorians look like normal humans with crowns or antenna just stapled to their foreheads- in some cases it looks like a completely different art style with no attempt at blending or shading.

Some of it isn't too bad, particularly the big spectacle pieces, and the old races you aren't supposed to use from the back of the book are pretty nice.

Lago Paranoia wrote:Magic Missile struggles to get an effective range of 200 feet, and that's from relatively rare casters. It's only useful in the context of activities where firearms are completely incapable, such as ghostbusting. Certainly not law enforcement or military conquest.

Ah, well. Yes, MM still sucks. But one of the big failure points of Starfinder is guns (especially pistols) are shit. Especially ranges.

Your choice of starting pistols is a laser that does 1d4 damage and an 80' range, or a projectile weapon that does 1d6 damage and a 30' range. Around level 4 you can upgrade to a sonic pistol that does 1d8 at 40', and at 7th you can either pick up a gun that does 2d6 at 60' or a laser that does 2d4 at 90'.

So the sell of MM is not only the autohit, and the better damage (the spell is different in SF) 2d4+2 or 3d4+3 if you spend a full action, but no level scaling. At a better range as well. You're still better off with utility/buff spells, but there is a small window in Starfinder where MM actually kills people and weapons don't.

Voss wrote:Your choice of starting pistols is a laser that does 1d4 damage and an 80' range, or a projectile weapon that does 1d6 damage and a 30' range. Around level 4 you can upgrade to a sonic pistol that does 1d8 at 40', and at 7th you can either pick up a gun that does 2d6 at 60' or a laser that does 2d4 at 90'.

Wait, in the science fiction future the guns are worse than bows?

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Are you shitting me up the ass? Magic Missile and Phantom Steed are terrible spells for transportation and killing in the context of the modern world, let alone D&D.
Magic Missile struggles to get an effective range of 200 feet, and that's from relatively rare casters.
It's only useful in the context of activities where firearms are completely incapable, such as ghostbusting.

Even in terms of sheer damage that is only if you're talking about your idea of how firearms shall be in DnD, not about their actual stats in most incarnations of DnD (although I agree that their stats do suck). That before we consider the fact that Magic Missile autohits targets. It will be not be able to substitute for heavy sniper rifles, machineguns and other shit you may expect to encounter in a warzone, yes, but by about level 5 it is straight-up better than any pistol or SMG.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Phantom Steed isn't as useless, as in a modern setting it can do things that modern vehicles struggles to do -- such as exploring the nooks and crannies of a canyon -- but it's still largely inferior to a dune buggy, let alone a helicopter. You know, what with the 5th level requirement, low speed, and (crucially) low carrying capacity. But I imagine that in a whiz-bang sci-fi setting of Star Wars, let alone Star Trek, it'd be even more useless.

Look if you have to bring helicopters or vehicles specialized for a specific terrain to argue that a spell is not as good as a car, that in fact proves that it is as good as a car, on the sum of its characteristics (besides the fact that it can also fly at high enough levels).

Lago PARANOIA wrote:And that's kind of my fucking point. In a sci-fi setting, magic has to be even more powerful to be distinctive. Not less. Why the hell would you spend five years training a mage whose signature spells are Fireball, Phantom Steed, Summon Monster III, Greater Magic Armor, and Invisibility sphere when you could instead spend eight weeks training a soldier to use a grenade launcher, dune buggy, drone remote, full body armor, and camoflague?

(1)I'm pretty sure you won't be able to train a soldier to use all of that shit adequately within eight weeks. During WWII that was not enough for the full process of teaching a soldier to use a rifle and a hand grenade skillfully, against opponents armed with the same. German army used 16-weeks training courses until very late in the war for common infantry, 21 weeks for motorized infantry, plus additional training in replacement batallions. US Army initially spend less time on training, but still up to 13 weeks, and strived to increase that to 17 weeks later in the war. As about today, one of the reasons the era of draft mass armies is effectively over lies in the fact that even infantry equipment had grown too complicated and expensive, but a unit that has all proper equipment and mastered it, has its effectiveness increased manifold over a unit that merely knows how to shoot their AKs.

(2)And the mage would be considerably more effective. Massively better camouflage, drones can actually kill, personal firepower is worse against, armored vehicles but better against infantry.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:It gets even more laughable in a sci-fi setting, where you could have a soldier that has a thermal detonator, jetpack, android buddy, personal force field, and invisibility cloak.

So, while yes, that would make a figher finally somewhat competitive with a wizard, what setting exactly you're talking about? You seem to argue here about some version of Star Wars or Star Trek as they should be according to you, not about the shows where an all-cutting sword or even merely a big knife are useful weapons, relatively minor feats of precognition, telekinesis, and general physical enhancement offer an edge in infantry combat that can only be surpassed by the most elite of foes or waves and waves of enemies, and fancy tech with plot-bypassing capabilities like teleportation is regularly rendered non-functional by some random factors.

Look, yes, I know that there are sci-fi settings out there that would shit on all but high-level system-abusing DnD mages, and some that would shit even on those. But that is hardly true for space operas that would come to mind of most people wishing to play pulply fantastic adventures about beating bad guys in space.

Occluded Sun wrote:

virgil wrote:By what metric?

Financial and developing a new audience base.

Bull. Their product line and employee numbers say the exact opposite. New audience base has already been pointed out as being completely not their fault, but nostalgia window with celebrity reminder (Wheaton, Stranger Things, etc)

Talking about how soldiers ideally get more than 3 or 4 whole months to learn marksmanship and small unit tactics doesn't come across as very onerous when a level 5 wizard is apparently the point where comparison becomes most reasonable. FFS, by the 3.x RAW you can get Leadership at level 6 and officially be the Wise Mentor figure that burninates goblin raids and trains the next generation of adventurers. Magic is obviously great and all, but amateur hour wizardry doesn't really cut the mustard.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:

Voss wrote:Your choice of starting pistols is a laser that does 1d4 damage and an 80' range, or a projectile weapon that does 1d6 damage and a 30' range. Around level 4 you can upgrade to a sonic pistol that does 1d8 at 40', and at 7th you can either pick up a gun that does 2d6 at 60' or a laser that does 2d4 at 90'.

Wait, in the science fiction future the guns are worse than bows?

Until higher levels, yeah. A bow is (if you blow a feat on just the bow) is a competitive choice until about 5th or 6th level.

Unless it falls under the 'archaic' category, and uses iron arrow types rather than polymers or whatever (or grenade arrows, which are a thing, though absurdly expensive for shit damage). Then it gets a -5 damage penalty against anyone in future armor, which is literally everyone since a suit that you can wear under clothing is an option at level 1. Complete with environmental protection for 24 hours.

Which leads to the next genre emulation fail. All armor is environmental, and can sustain people safely for days per item level. Even if shot full of holes, even if it actually has the broken condition. So killing people with vacuum or radiation isn't a thing that can happen, and the hardness rules and shitty gun damage means you can't shoot out walls and shit until really late level (if at all).

What makes the guns even worse is fire resistance is still a thing (as are spells and class features that hand it out), and lasers do fire damage. So, fuck people who come at you with lasers.

The item level system has the obvious problems: take a squad of soldiers, and instead of giving a reasonable 8d8 damage rifle, the system informs you that they aren't tall enough yet, so they have to use the 1d6 autotarget rifle or a 1d8 hunting rifle. Because fuck you, that's why. The game mechanics savagely beat the background material and any hope of a functional setting at every opportunity.

A bow in Starfinder is a level 1 Special weapon that does 1d6 damage at a 60' range increment. It costs 255 credits (you start with 1,000 credits, and yes they're actually called credits). Bows don't have the Analog or Archaic properties, and they don't add Strength to damage, so presumably they're special electronic space bows or something.

Side note, but the feats are also completely bonkers again. Some of them are just as terrible as before- like Pathfinder Cleave. Others like Enhanced Resistance just give you DR/- equal to your BAB, no questions asked. No attempt was made to decide what a feat is for or what it's worth as a resource.

If we're talking whether or not 5e is a success just by it being the face of DnD I believe that's more a testament to the brand more than it being any evidence of 5e being good or very successful profit wise. 5e would probably be crushed by 3.5 if they were effectively sold under the same brand side by side.

That being said I haven't been to paizo in a long time and while I know they at least had a comic book thing going did they ever branch out into books or other media? I can still randomly find people at various jobs who know about Forgotten Realms because of the books but I don't remember seeing a Icewindale style trilogy or anything for PFs setting.

So, uh, like, usually when D&D is turning up in the mainstream media like this, it's because someone is giving business lunches to reporters. Same reason that companies turn up with a positive report in various media just before their share split, though it's often stock brokers buying the business lunches in that case.

I mean, if, say, Mike Mearls was under some pressure over sales, maybe he could just divert some of the remaining company funds to free lunches at nice restaurants for reporters he knew kinda basically remembered playing D&D in a positive light when they were kids, and then just spend the afternoon telling them how amazingly well it was all going. Because if there's anything Mearls is good at, it's convincing people that things are going well, regardless of how they are really going.

tussock wrote:Because if there's anything Mearls is good at, it's convincing people that things are going well, regardless of how they are really going.

If this is true, Mearls for president. My standards might be low at this point, but that's all I want.

MGuy wrote:If we're talking whether or not 5e is a success just by it being the face of DnD I believe that's more a testament to the brand more than it being any evidence of 5e being good or very successful profit wise. 5e would probably be crushed by 3.5 if they were effectively sold under the same brand side by side.

They are though. They did a lot of reprints in the lull between 4th and 5th, and there is a lot of shit still lying around on shelves.

That being said I haven't been to paizo in a long time and while I know they at least had a comic book thing going did they ever branch out into books or other media? I can still randomly find people at various jobs who know about Forgotten Realms because of the books but I don't remember seeing a Icewindale style trilogy or anything for PFs setting.

They do (which is funny, because D&D doesn't anymore). The quality varies, unsurprisingly. Some aren't terrible for the standards of such thing, especially if we're comparing the avalanche of drizzit shit, which WotC reprinted every other year.

But they fall into several distinct categories:

- books about random places with random characters that you'll never see again so you have no reason to care about them.

- books about the Worldwound and the fight (largely by paladins) against the endless hordes of the abyss. This almost inevitably includes some form of betrayal, and is generally pretty boring.

- books about not!Transylvania (Ustalav), complete with their not!gypsies and usually vampires or some shit. Occasionally they include things that aren't totally derivative. [Like, for example, randomly a penanggallan from not!India, because reasons.]

-books about Cheliax (the empire with the devilish pact) which is the only corner of the setting that is particularly detailed and also isn't an expy of some real world country.


Most notable of these are the ones featuring the pathfinder scholar and his rogue tiefling henchman (which hit all of the above through the course of the series), by Dave Gross. Probably the best the pathfinder books have to offer, but get a bit repetitive as they go along. Queen of Thorns is probably the best of them. Prince of Wolves is the first, and it shows- and is also very disjointed. Master of Devils is by far the worst, for a lack of character agency and nothing happening for hundreds of pages.

The other big ones are done by Liane Merciel, which either feature a former wizard/priest of the god of sadism, or a paladin/devil binder pair. Both feature S&M a bit, and surprisingly less so for the former acolyte of the god of sadism. The paladin and devil binder get it on a lot, and despite the profound 'association' the paladin seems immune to falling, even though his lover is explicitly evil [to the point that he uses detect evil at one point, and she registers as more powerful and more evil than the undead they're fighting], keeps devils as pets and he chokes her out on a regular basis.

On the topic of Starfinder I tried to sketch out a review several times actually after getting early access to the book but as others have said it is so uninteresting that it was hard to get up the gumption to even do that. Even the books failures are boring. It's just a deeply disempowering uninteresting setting with uninteresting mechanics and tons of ERROR404 events in the rules when you try to figure out anything more complicated than how much damage something deals.

One of the most damning things I could say about the system is that try as I might I couldn't make any characters I didn't think were incredibly weak. The most powerful things I could build were Str build sword fighters or straight 6th level casters with gimped abilities and spells. The most powerful Starfinder character would be a 4th tier 3.E party member. What's interesting about that is Starfinder doesn't come with its own bestiary, telling you that you should be able to use the Pathfinder Bestiary and I can guaran-fucking-tee you that any starfinder party would have it's asshole ripped open by about half of the monsters in any Pathfinder Bestiary. I'm not saying Pathfinder monsters are well written or interesting but they are at least sometimes written with the concept that a 13CR monster will be operating in a world with flying, teleporting, high damage dealing opponents and would bend over a barrel a group of bards and fighters.

Is there any in-universe explanation on Starfinder for why are weapons level restricted?

Because on a scale of stupid videogameish tropes, leveled items rank as barely less grating than items that bind to the first character that wears them.

nockermensch wrote:Is there any in-universe explanation on Starfinder for why are weapons level restricted?

There is not. You also can't improve them from one tier to the next, have to buy new. Salvaging old equipment is also subject to the 10% value back rules, and crafting is effectively pointless. Like most things, an explanation would have been super simple (require a license) that could have resulted in tons of flavor for the setting, adventure hooks, and adding some sense to the rules, but game design is hard....

They made a very on the rails number range for combat, and you will stay on those rails come hell or high water. Much like Dean says, you basically can't really make weak characters (with exceptions where the rules break down*), but you also can't really make strong or individual characters.

* Example: The mechanic can take a 'hover drone' that has only a move OR a standard action each round. This means with it's average maneuverability and flight rules, it crashes if it doesn't move at least 15' or succeed at an acrobatics check to hover which it fails about 1 in 3 checks. That is a failure on so many levels people should have been reprimanded.

Has anyone suggested that the surge of DnD podcasts using 5e (Critical Roll, Adventure Zone) also might be responsible for the popularity of 5e? Everyone I know who got into DnD also knows of/listens to at least one of those podcasts.

It's probably two separate things: an increased interest in DnD and then 5e being the edition that's sold. 5e failed to kindle DnD's brand but someting else managed it.

The mechanic in particular has a lot of rule failures. The alternative to a drone is a AI cortex implant, but the base ability (combat tracking- a kind of targeting assist) is only usable in combat, and several of its functions, like wireless hack, are used instead of combat tracking. Another ability grants skill focus as a bonus feat, but the whole ability 'can't be used' while combat tracking is in use.

The operative class is overtuned to the point that being a skill monkey is the sole province of being the operative. 8 skill points, plus a free one (and skill focus) for your specialization, plus a universal insight bonus on all skills, the ability to take 10 on any skill with skill focus.

In addition, it looks like it has good damage, but because of the way pistols and operative weapons are specifically shit (likely because of the operative's trick attack), it actually starts really poorly (+1d4) and ends up being terrible. There is probably a sweet spot at 5-7th where it is actually competitive, but it is a mechanically a mess: a single attack that you have to roll a skill check to get sneak attack style bonus damage.

The envoy class could be interesting but ends up being a fucked action economy and trivial bonuses (bonuses on as a whole are largely removed from the system, mostly, apparently to make the envoy pretend to be useful.

The solarion is a weird MAD mess of mechanics, particularly if you go for the strength based melee version. (It should be noted that Dex is even more of a god stat). But the solarion has the highest DPR ability in the game, if it sacrifices charisma (and therefor any save DC abilities, and resolve points, which matter for healing) But the way it does damage is completely fucked.
It can manifest a Tenchi-Muyo style lightsaber, which has scaling base damage, but needs a weapon crystal to be brought in line with normal weapon damage ranges, and the class can get multiple buffs to increase damage more, on a +1/X class basis.

The damage value for the 8th level solarion pregen is listed as 2d6+1d6+13 slashing, but it is actually 2d6 slashing (solar weapon) +1d6 (weapon crystal, which could be one of several damage types), +5 (str) +8(weapon specialization) +2 (plasma sheath ability, if active) +1 (photon mode, if active), which makes me utterly despise the idiot that came up with this trivial accounting bullshit.



@nockermensch- the item level description vaguely implies its licensing and shit. ("rather than track every arms dealer contract, guild and license a character has access to, the game assumes...", p 167). And then handwaves that you can buy character level +1 items mostly anywhere, and level +2 in 'major settlements.' Which is pretty necessary, since while a light reaction cannon is ilevel 1, its ammo is ilevel 2, because reasons.

But even then, this sort of shit doesn't fly. Everything is built from dumping some universal polymer in a fabricator and getting what you want. and the polymer is equal to a credit on a unit by unit basis, as a trade good, the UPBs are equivalent to credits. So everything can just be made, star trek style.

But still, rather than deal with some licensing process, if you murder a higher level mob with a better gun, that gun is now yours. And since selling/upgrading is has a 10% of value, because fuck you, this is primarily how you get better gear, to the point that the system effectively encourages the party to gangbang higher level individuals for their guns.

And then slap a glamoured weapon fusion(level 1) on it (which makes it look like anything else of the same rough shape, if it hasn't been fired within a minute), which can only be countered by true seeing (which is largely 16th level ability due to the 6th level casters). The only loophole in the true seeing is that operatives can use it for a single round as a full action of a resolve point at 10th level (or 5th for the detective speciality). Which... yeah. the fuck? But unless every check point and cop patrol shells out 30,000 credits every quarter hour or so, getting away with a weapon you don't 'qualify' for is trivial.

Cervantes wrote:Has anyone suggested that the surge of DnD podcasts using 5e (Critical Roll, Adventure Zone) also might be responsible for the popularity of 5e? Everyone I know who got into DnD also knows of/listens to at least one of those podcasts.

It's probably two separate things: an increased interest in DnD and then 5e being the edition that's sold. 5e failed to kindle DnD's brand but someting else managed it.

Yeah, this is my interpretation. There's a lot of D&D-friendly media being created right now: Big Bang Theory, Community, Adventure Time, Stranger Things, etc. The generation that grew up playing D&D is now writing TV. In addition, streaming platforms like Twitch have contributed to its accessibility. Basically, the pipeline goes like this: people see D&D on TV and then look it up on youtube and find Critical Role, etc. which feature pretty people playing D&D. There's still a disconnect there where it's still hard to find a local game IRL, but there's a pipeline that keeps generating and maintaining interest.

Of course all of that is totally unrelated to 5e as a system. All of the pop culture appearances are based on 2e (AFAICT), and Critical Role was a PF game until they decided to switch to 5e just before the stream started. Whatever success D&D is experiencing right now, in mindshare if not in actual sales, is not about 5e.

I actually think 5e might be relatively stream-friendly, because the number of modifiers to any roll is very small and you tend not to see people doing extended arithmetic takes on screen.

Cervantes wrote:5e failed to kindle DnD's brand but someting else managed it.

It's what happens when you take the budget originally asigned to paying Monte Cook and spend it all on payola instead.

Payola, that's the word you're looking for.

Previn wrote:That is a failure on so many levels people should have been reprimanded.

Can you even be reprimanded for being bad at your job in the RPG industry? Doesn't the whole thing run on nepotism and handjobs?

On a less derisive tone, it seems like being a writer for an game company should be more like being a technical writer. You're trying to document rules for a game and communicate ideas, ideally in an engaging manner. But the way everyone talks about the industry makes it seem like it's more like being an independent author. Like, no superior will ever say that your writing was poor and failed to conform to the style guide (or rules, or voice, or whatever) unless sales were low.

How much authority do editors typically have to send stuff back for rewrites?

violence in the media wrote:How much authority do editors typically have to send stuff back for rewrites?

It depends what other hats the writer and editor in question are wearing. If the writer is also the line developer, then the editor doesn't really get an opinion. If the writer is some freelancer, then the editor might have some power, assuming that the freelancer in question wasn't brought in because he's butt buddies with the line developer. It's nepotism and handjobs all the way down.