The Gaming Den

To be fair, i might give Zak and RpgPundit a special thanks in my rpg under a heading along the lines of "Special Thanks as Examples of Stupidity."

...but then Mearls would be there too.

In case someone wants to go through it, here is a small adventure booklet(pdf) or something, with monster stats and encounters etc: http://media.wizards.com/downloads/dnd/ ... s_Next.pdf
Interesting note: apparently CR and encounter XP don't have anything to do with each other. So you can have a CR 2, 450 XP monster and a CR 2, 40 XP monster.

Oh and latest article talking about encounter design.

(One of the most memorable games I played in featured a running battle between 1st-level characters and an ogre.)

That quote it.... it just makes me sad.

That article...

Warning: These are not final rules. Although they've been playtested thoroughly, you can expect some adjustments before they debut in the Dungeon Master's Guide in November.

That's just mind-boggling. I know it's been said before...but how the hell are the rules not ready if you're releasing in November? It's July now, there's only like 3-4 months to go...

@phlapjackage

Standard shill-bait disclaimer. If people catch previews and leaks that put the product in a bad light, then the fanbois can just keep claiming that it's improper to judge what we've seen because it'll be totally fixed and awesome when the REAL release comes out so STOP CRITICIZING IT.

Wow! That CR-XP explanation seems rather convoluted. My favorite part is the comments section, notably:

some guy in the comments wrote: The lookup table posted here shows how poorly thought out this was. Levels 10-11, 12-13, 15-16 and 19-20 share exp values? Not only does that look sloppy and arbitrary like you just couldn't be bothered to do any more work, but it also implies that there is no appreciable character growth between those levels??

Yep, that about sums it up.

The reply to that comment just proves Lago right:

t's a work in progress, but since fighters get an additional attack, rogues another die of precision damage, and the spellcasters their first third-level spells at 11th level, I think that one obviously merits a line to itself.

Looks like they slipped in some of the other Wizard school traits in the book. I noticed Abjurers can use their Mage Armor as DR, applying half the damage they take to their Mage Armor for X damage per day.

RPGPundit is also fbmf's negaverse counterpart, and keeps tight and capricious control over the infernal pit of theRPGSite.com.

Kaelik especially loves them guys. They're the folks who offered to travel door to door, kicking the ass of any cleric caught buffing himself. Then they had a fight betwern a devil and a party, where their guy got bored and wandered off, declaring victory.
They also had an argument with Frank about how fighters could beat dragons that got progressively more ridiculous. I mostly just watched and wondered.

Personally, I'm mystified how you can like Amber and hate storygames.

fectin wrote:They also had an argument with Frank about how fighters could beat dragons that got progressively more ridiculous. I mostly just watched and wondered.

Fighters always beat dragons, its very simple. Fighters have exactly a 1 in a million chance of beating a dragon and a 1 in a million shot always comes through in a good story.

Discworld logic would have been an improvement. Highlights I recall included "hide behind a nearby waterfall and shoot it with arrows," "have your personal army of tiny men shoot it," and "climb a nearby tower, wait for it to fly by, then jump on its back."

fectin wrote:Discworld logic would have been an improvement. Highlights I recall included "hide behind a nearby waterfall and shoot it with arrows," "have your personal army of tiny men shoot it," and "climb a nearby tower, wait for it to fly by, then jump on its back."

Of course no retread of those debates can be complete without your magnum opus.

fectin wrote:The shades of night were falling fast,
as through the message board he passed,
a fool with vigor and with vim,
and motto which sustained him:
Ignoratio!

His chin was bare; his beard beneath,
bedraggled as if cheerful wreath,
once full of merry Christmas cheer,
had festered, forgotten, for untold years,
Ignoratio!

In happier games he saw the light,
of well-wrought rules, balanced and tight,
but grumbling grognards urged him on,
and from his lips escaped a groan:
Ignoratio!

"Don't roll fighter," Frank Trollman said.
"A Great Wyrm lingers overhead!
A wizard's needed to fight in the sky!"
Still loud that quarrelsome voice replied:
Ignoratio!

"I'll mount the church-tower; hide inside!
And when that lizard happens by,
jump on him, whilst my army, from below,
fills him with arrows!" (It just goes to show,
Ignoratio!)

A plan, at least, to fell the lizard
(though no plan's needed with a wizard),
Alas fell beastie sees him on the stair,
burns the risers, and traps him there!
Ignoratio!

Oh, curse that evil, agéd genius' guile!
Oh curse the Troll Man's mocking smile!
"It's his fault! Rainman! Somehow I'll prove..
(That's it! I know! I'll use...
Ignoratio!")

The dragon calmly turns about;
the archer army, frightened, routs;
with just one bite, the captain's gone,
leaving grognard all alone.
Ignoratio!

All night long, the city burns.
All night long, the neckbeard yearns
for a warm, mother-like DM,
who'll hide how much he coddles him,
Ignoratio!

But now cold snow is falling fast,
and grognard wishes he had classed
as something with a cold resistance.
Mais non! He's fighter at his own insistence.
Ignoratio!

But now there comes an end at last,
BENOIST is frozen fast!
(His head's still firmly... well, you know)
But hear him yet! He faintly gasps:
Ignoratio!

Lago PARANOIA wrote: Standard shill-bait disclaimer. If people catch previews and leaks that put the product in a bad light, then the fanbois can just keep claiming that it's improper to judge what we've seen because it'll be totally fixed and awesome when the REAL release comes out so STOP CRITICIZING IT.

Fan boys are always going to say that crap. I actually was skimming the WotC boards yesterday, and someone was pointing out problems with 5E's basic rules and someone replied how it's only version 0.1 and it'll all be fixed by version 1.0.

fectin wrote:Then they had a fight betwern a devil and a party, where their guy got bored and wandered off, declaring victory.

I really like the part where he realized his party was fucked and gave up, and it did pretty much directly lead to the quote in my sig. But for me, my favorite part was the rechallenge.

Because in order to prove me wrong about my claim that PCs fighting four EL=Partly level fights a day played by intelligent monsters who they didn't know of in advance would lose, they proposed the following rules:

1) Party of level 10 characters faces a single CR 9 monster.
2) Party knows what monster it fights.
3) Party knows what monster it fights and totally gets to tailor their build for it by taking holy weapons, because anyone in any game ever uses those.
4) Party gets to know every action taken by CR 9 monster so they can metagame.

Amazing. I had missed that.

fectin wrote:Amazing. I had missed that.

I didn't. I remember the thing well. One guy actually didn't believe that fighters couldn't keep up with casters and I was challenged to show just that. Which I did though we couldn't finish because the person acting as GM threw his hands up in the air when someone mentioned that the dire bats I was swarming him and his mount with didn't get their AoOs. Now this was after the GM ruled that my bats can't see through the Solid Fog I'd made, had a chance to attack each other, the ride DC was increased for me to cast on my mount, , alleging that I refuse to go along with the check (even though I had already rolled it and sent him the results), and an argument about whether or not I could use Silent image to make a screen around/in front of myself. It all didn't matter because my un-optimized conjuration specialist wizard (who basically carried a sack of scrolls) had already won the fight and anyone who would've been watching could've easily seen it but later on one of the onlookers called it cheap for me to use solid fog and summon stuff.

MGuy wrote:but later on one of the onlookers called it cheap for me to use solid fog and summon stuff.

"Hey, using the abilities of your class to demonstrate that your class is mechanically superior to another isn't fair!"

What.

GnomeWorks wrote:

MGuy wrote:but later on one of the onlookers called it cheap for me to use solid fog and summon stuff.

"Hey, using the abilities of your class to demonstrate that your class is mechanically superior to another isn't fair!"

What.

Sounds crazy but Solid Fog was described as "overpowered" I believe.

Well, sure. But wasn't that the whole point?!

Lago PARANOIA wrote:@phlapjackage

Standard shill-bait disclaimer. If people catch previews and leaks that put the product in a bad light, then the fanbois can just keep claiming that it's improper to judge what we've seen because it'll be totally fixed and awesome when the REAL release comes out so STOP CRITICIZING IT.

Last time I checked, published material still needs a 2-3 month lead time between final version and printing. So not only shill bait, but completely disingenuous shill bait. Plus, of course, the PH absolutely must be done for next month's release, as does the MM. So fuck the encounter design table of bullshit numbers* that don't make any sense if the character classes and their opponents are already finished!


*seriously, zero aspects of that table make sense. Things aren't adjusted consistently, Easy sometimes doesn't change for 3 levels, and I really can't believe that Challenging and Hard just consistently double and triple at all levels, when easy and moderate don't even have a relationship.

And its seriously unforgivable at the start, where most people are going to be playing. Easy can't be the same for levels 1 & 2 when the party pretty specifically has 50-100% more resources, nor can a moderate level 2 fight be an easy and moderate level 1 fight smushed together- especially with that bullshit about the number of monsters in relation to the party.

from the idiot's article wrote: In my own games, I tend to use only challenge rating to gauge monster power, then wing it from there when designing encounters.

Once again Meals designs a shit-terrible system, proceeds to completely ignore it and pronounces the system working as intended. Even better, encounter design promises to be 5e's system debacle. Thats a hell of a lot worse than the skill challenges that didn't exist before and no one cared about.


@ishy- that pdf is pretty dated- it is completely unchanged from the version that was released after GenCon last year- it in fact came zipped with the final playtest package last October. A lot of it does carry over, but they have redone levels and XP ratings since that document. None of what we've seen is in that doc, but notably orcs have the same HP as the hobgoblins we have seen and are listed as level 3 rather than CR 1/2.

Everything is a fucking debacle.

The fucking system didn't change almost at all, except for proficiency, which just proves that the ability checks are a bunch of fucking coinflips.

Its so uninspired and bland it doesn't even invoke any desire for a lengthy rant in me.

Well, after looking at it, they've managed to "work" on this since October 2010 and they produced porridge. It is a bit watered down, lukewarm and not sugared of seasoned, but this is Porridge 0.1 and they'll totally have it be a flavorful and hot Porridge 1.0 by November. Because they couldn't get it right in 4 years but the developers are gonna ace it in the next 12 weeks.

I've got zero expectations. It looks like 2.0 and 3.5 put in a blender set to "Whirling Apathy." So unlike 4E, it probably won't give you prostate cancer, but there will be zero reason to play it over 3.5 or Pathfinder 2.0

sarcasmoverdose wrote: G) Equipment. All of 4e's "this weapon/armor is the one true weapon/armor". Nonsensical pricing (maul and greatsword are pretty much identical, greatsword costs 5x

I wouldn't call it nonsensical. Swords are expensive compared to hammers.

Your maul is going to have a wood handle and an simple iron or lead head. It's most likely created by pouring molten lead into a mold, since lead has a realitvely low melting point.

The Greatsword, on the other hand, is a piece of steel that has to be hammered into shape, heat treated to exacting specifications, polished and sharpened, and peened.

The material is much more expensive and the crafting process is much more labor intensive. Not to mention more time consuming.

Lead is too soft for blunt force weapons. Other than that, spot on.

Ferret wrote:Lead is too soft for blunt force weapons. Other than that, spot on.

Yes. Nobody has ever been harmed by a lead pipe. They are like puddy.

Oh, it'll work fine.

For a while.