Monte Cook leaving 5E

[Username17]

If your character can do just as well with a stick as an artifact, that's because he is shitty with both. It is way better to be Thor or Ironman or Green Arrow than Schmuckface The Bystander.

Yeah, but that's not the choice. The choice is between being War Machine, who has to sit around and hope that Tony Stark builds him an upgrade, and Magneto - who simply rocks out with his cock out whether he has special equipment or not.

More generally, the Christmas Tree problem comes down to two things:

• Managing large lists of equipment that provides individually small bonuses is a whole lot like computing taxes. It is not fun and a real pain in the ass. I don't give a rat's ass about my ring of deflection +1 or my amulet of natty armor +2 - only in aggregate do those things matter at all.
• Team Monster shows up without equipment much of the time. Mr. Owlbear seriously shows up to the set drunk just five minutes before filming and puts in a perfectly adequate performance while naked. If your character needs eight glowing bonus items strapped to his balls to compete with that, he's lame. Your character is not very impressive because he needs visible buffs to compete with monsters who don't have them.

-Username17

[Maxus]

EDIT: After reading it again, you can still be Link.

But without the bombchu hover exploit or Din's Fire spell / energy blast.

Fuck that, no goddamned MAGIC WAND from the first game back in NES days.

So, no, according to Mearls, Link is not a fighter.

I forgot that he got spells in Zelda 2.

And Link is extremely equipment-dependent.

Sword, shield. Bow, boomerang, hookshot. Bombs, usually some magic item, and fairly often a musical instrument of sorts. And a bug-catching net.

[Whipstitch]

Conan isn't a bumbler so much as he's a mercenary in a low powered setting in which being rich isn't half as useful as hereditary rule or being in charge of your own death cult or being what amounts to a golem. As such he usually doesn't get a chance at any particularly nice treasure to begin with and in any case given the choice between treasure or ass he always goes with hot chick. He becomes king of one of the nicest kingdoms by his 40s anyway so he does alright.

But, yeah, low powered setting, no magic sword.

[Dean]

If your character can do just as well with a stick as an artifact, that's because he is shitty with both. It is way better to be Thor or Ironman or Green Arrow than Schmuckface The Bystander.

You're thinking wrong. You don't need to be able to do "just as well" you just still need to be able to perform as a character your level should. Thor can still beat the shit out of a T-Rex with just his bare hands. He's still a character of his Tier even without a special weapon. The wizard is like this as well. That needs to be true of the Fighter as well

[Falgund]

Fair enough. Goku is not a fighter, but Superman still stands as an Alien Fighter.

Why an Alien Fighter and not an Alien Expert (Journalist), an Alien Gadgeteer or even an Alien with only racial HD ?
What skills/abilities does Superman have that are not granted by his Alien race ?

[fectin]

What skills or abilities does a fighter have that are not granted by his race?

[MfA]

I don't get why people want to see sacred cows slaughtered when there are much bigger fish to fry ... how about fixing the real problems and get D&D back on the rails before you try to piss off all the grognards.

[Wrathzog]

Why an Alien Fighter and not an Alien Expert (Journalist), an Alien Gadgeteer or even an Alien with only racial HD ?
What skills/abilities does Superman have that are not granted by his Alien race ?

Excuse me.
Superman still stands as an Alien who is possibly a Fighter but we're not sure because he's pretty much defined by his Racial Attributes so for all we know he's got 20 levels of kryptonian hit dice and doesn't have class levels at all but that doesn't necessarily mean that he can't have levels of fighter. Does this clear up the intent of my message at all?

What skills or abilities does a fighter have that are not granted by his race?

Hit things in the face better than anyone else and take hits to the face better than anyone else? That's all we know right now.

[shadzar]

Superman and Goku are fighters that happen to have disgustingly overpowered Races.

This is bullshit. Goku shoots energy blasts because he has techniques that allow him to shoot energy blasts. If being a Fighter doesn't let you shoot energy blasts, you can't play Goku. Hell, you can't even play Ken or Ryu.

-Username17

no Goku shoots energy blasts because he has the energy that allows him to do so, and can gather more form outside sources. something that IS superhuman because only Roshi was able to do a kameha-meha prior. Most of the Z fighters are non-humans. the first full human able to fly was Videl because she had the energy enough to do so and was trained by Gohan.

why do these other races shoot all these energy beams, because they ARE other races, not humans.

Saiyan = not human
Namekian =- not human
Mr Popo = not human
Tien Shinhon = not human
Chotsu = not human
Krillin = suspected not human by Roshi
all the furry people = not human
Yamcha = human
Yasarobi = human

Yamcha and Yasarobi pretty effectively became useless as Z fighters. Yasarobi only used his sword* and Yamcha could do much more that a tiny spark or energy.

Great Ape form and the Saiyan race is what allows Goku to shoot energy beams, not a technique, but a genetic ability...ergo RACE/species other than human.

you cant play Ken or Ryu because this is medieval European fantasy, not Asian fantasy. its D&D, not Avatar the Last Air Bender. of course the genres will offer different things! Ken and Ryu NEVER worked, as they were psionicists with the channeling of ki and such, not unlike Goku channeling energy.

in D&D wizards channel random energy, not fighters. clerics channel the gods. fighter are mundane. Goku, Ken, and Ryu would all be wizards in D&D.

Madieval Europe =/= Asia (any time period)

*
Bulma: Why arent you going after them to fight too you lazy blahblahblah
Yasarobi: I cant fly lady!
Bulma: Oh.

[nockermensch]

Why an Alien Fighter and not an Alien Expert (Journalist), an Alien Gadgeteer or even an Alien with only racial HD ?
What skills/abilities does Superman have that are not granted by his Alien race ?

Excuse me.
Superman still stands as an Alien who is possibly a Fighter but we're not sure because he's pretty much defined by his Racial Attributes so for all we know he's got 20 levels of kryptonian hit dice and doesn't have class levels at all but that doesn't necessarily mean that he can't have levels of fighter. Does this clear up the intent of my message at all?

What skills or abilities does a fighter have that are not granted by his race?

Hit things in the face better than anyone else and take hits to the face better than anyone else? That's all we know right now.

His STR 57438530* (for a +28719260 bonus on Strength tasks) also takes care of hitting things in the face.

* actual number may vary

[Kaelik]

Fair enough. Goku is not a fighter, but Superman still stands as an Alien Fighter.

Why an Alien Fighter and not an Alien Expert (Journalist), an Alien Gadgeteer or even an Alien with only racial HD ?
What skills/abilities does Superman have that are not granted by his Alien race ?

The guy you quoted misunderstood the issue. Goku is clearly a fighter, because his powers are not granted by race. Superman might be his race, it's arguable, but I would say the fact that all his skills point to being way better at fighting than other Kyrptonians, where he beats them up, and some of them genuinely seem to not have all his powers, even in yellow sun indicates he is a fighter.

Goku is definitely a fighter, because he has all the same skills as Yamcha, Krillian, and that girl Gohan dates who obviously didn't get those powers from race.

[FatR]

I don't get why people want to see sacred cows slaughtered when there are much bigger fish to fry ... how about fixing the real problems and get D&D back on the rails before you try to piss off all the grognards.

But Fighter IS one of the biggest problems in DnD. For that matter, so is magical item dependency/overload.

[FatR]

• Managing large lists of equipment that provides individually small bonuses is a whole lot like computing taxes. It is not fun and a real pain in the ass. I don't give a rat's ass about my ring of deflection +1 or my amulet of natty armor +2 - only in aggregate do those things matter at all.
• Team Monster shows up without equipment much of the time. Mr. Owlbear seriously shows up to the set drunk just five minutes before filming and puts in a perfectly adequate performance while naked. If your character needs eight glowing bonus items strapped to his balls to compete with that, he's lame. Your character is not very impressive because he needs visible buffs to compete with monsters who don't have them.

-Username17

I'd also say that magic items as implemented in 3.X often work like your second power set... or as your actual power set if you are from a magic-impaired class. This just makes crunch a lot more complex and unwieldy, particularly at high levels.

[Josh_Kablack]

At low levels, Conan uses climb, stealth a bit of cunning and hitting things with a sword a lot. As he advances, Conan's 2nd tier schtick is strategy, leadership and command.

It would be possible to set the game up such that as you enter the mid levels, where wizards are getting AoE damage, save or lose attacks, mobility spells and assorted knot-cutting fighters compete by getting troops, armies, siege engines and kingdoms.

However given the history of attempts to integrate D&D back into any sort of game that handles armies, let alone makes them meaningful, I don't think that's a possibility for 5e, not even if you had someone much more competent than Mearls running it.

[ishy]

If your character can do just as well with a stick as an artifact, that's because he is shitty with both. It is way better to be Thor or Ironman or Green Arrow than Schmuckface The Bystander.

You're thinking wrong. You don't need to be able to do "just as well" you just still need to be able to perform as a character your level should. Thor can still beat the shit out of a T-Rex with just his bare hands. He's still a character of his Tier even without a special weapon. The wizard is like this as well. That needs to be true of the Fighter as well

I'm sorry but what does 'able to perform as a character your level should' mean in this specific context? Does that mean you want magical items to have a small impact on a character?

[TOZ]

Team Monster shows up without equipment much of the time. Mr. Owlbear seriously shows up to the set drunk just five minutes before filming and puts in a perfectly adequate performance while naked. If your character needs eight glowing bonus items strapped to his balls to compete with that, he's lame. Your character is not very impressive because he needs visible buffs to compete with monsters who don't have them.

-Username17

So do we make the monster buffs visible, or take them away completely? Because looking at the owlbear, statistically he's wearing a huge Str and Con boosting item and a +5 Amulet of Natural Armor. Or do we just make the fighters buffs invisible?

[Whipstitch]

It would be possible to set the game up such that as you enter the mid levels, where wizards are getting AoE damage, save or lose attacks, mobility spells and assorted knot-cutting fighters compete by getting troops, armies, siege engines and kingdoms.

However given the history of attempts to integrate D&D back into any sort of game that handles armies, let alone makes them meaningful, I don't think that's a possibility for 5e, not even if you had someone much more competent than Mearls running it.

From a roleplaying perspective such things can really end up highlighting the murder-hobo tendencies of the "heroes" too if you're not careful. In my head it goes kinda like this:

"You see, wizards have a preset spell slot limit. Knowing their weakness, I sent wave after wave of my own men at them, until they reached their limit and shutdown. Kif, show them the medal I won."

[Koumei]

Managing large lists of equipment that provides individually small bonuses is a whole lot like computing taxes. It is not fun and a real pain in the ass. I don't give a rat's ass about my ring of deflection +1 or my amulet of natty armor +2 - only in aggregate do those things matter at all.

This is obviously true and I can't both disagree with that and also be smarter than my dog, however there is something related:

Play Monster's Den. Rock out with a "Damage Reflection 250%" party. You find yourself scanning item lists for anything that can boost your damage reflection, and going "You know what? Even though I lose 25 points of armour (out of "a few hundred"), that extra 5% Reflection makes it a deal!" or pawning artefact cloaks because they don't offer damage reflection.

It's a video game, sure, so the main math is done for you, you just need to look at "Does this improve (what I care about) enough to make a loss in (what I don't care as much about) worth it?" But can tabletop games get this kind of interest? I figure it would require items affecting multiple stats each, and for things where everyone does their own math, that could be a pain in the ass. It's also more that it's specifically fitting a strategy in that case ("Sit down, keep healing, let enemies kill themselves" as opposed to "Get higher numbers from my stuff and then kill everything"), so maybe it could be managed specifically by abilities.

But it is worth looking at, to see if there is a way that "picking gear" could actually be interesting.

[Username17]

But it is worth looking at, to see if there is a way that "picking gear" could actually be interesting.

Flipping through the Street Samurai Catalog to select cyberware in Shadowrun is pretty fun. Flipping through the Spell Compendium to select spells in D&D can be pretty fun too.

So I think it can be done. I just don't think the Diablo model actually works for tabletop because you don't have numbers turning red or blue when you are comparing items.

-Username17

[Whipstitch]

I have a friend who calls shadowrun chargen porn. He has never actually played.

[DSMatticus]

But it is worth looking at, to see if there is a way that "picking gear" could actually be interesting.

Flipping through the Street Samurai Catalog to select cyberware in Shadowrun is pretty fun. Flipping through the Spell Compendium to select spells in D&D can be pretty fun too.

So I think it can be done. I just don't think the Diablo model actually works for tabletop because you don't have numbers turning red or blue when you are comparing items.

-Username17

Cyberware selection and spell selection is generally a lot more meaningful than the knapsack of bonuses problem posed by D&D magic items. If magic gear in D&D was at all interesting, that would be a step in the right direction. A +3 sword does not feel cooler than a +2 sword, so you're wasting player's time by asking them to allot resources between such things.

[Josh_Kablack]

"You see, wizards have a preset spell slot limit. Knowing their weakness, I sent wave after wave of my own men at them, until they reached their limit and shutdown. Kif, show them the medal I won."

Well if Mearls or any of the developers came out and said they were gonna design the fighter to be like Zap Branigan, that would sell me on the project.

[Korwin]

I have a friend who calls shadowrun chargen porn. He has never actually played.

Why not? Porn is fun!

[MfA]

so is magical item dependency/overload.

The accounting angle of magic item bonuses is a major turn off to new players ... but once you get rid off most of the bonus items (except the weapons) and cut down the amount of slots a little I doubt most people would care if things like mobility or terrain altering magic for fighters came from items or class abilities. Something like BAB dependent item effects might also be a good idea.

For those people who do care you can always make separate more magical martial classes (good fit for the monk) with reduced item slots. As for the casters, the items are just a small bonus for them to begin with ... the whole Christmas tree argument feels like Wrong Bad Fun to me ... let someone play a VAH only kept level through magic items if that's what they like, don't be such a fucking control freak. For 99% of the game it matters fuck all, for that 1% of the time your items get stolen ... well, variety is the spice of life.

[ishy]

I have a friend who calls shadowrun chargen porn. He has never actually played.

Why not? Porn is fun!

Maybe Whipstitch meant that he never did anything after chargen.