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

[Kaelik]

What Koumei said. All the stupid people who are busy making jokes about how the only people who use insults on the internet are cowards too afraid to call you names to your face for fear of your big manly muscles and illegal violent assaults should probably get around to learning how to insult people to their faces, because that instantly solves the problem of retards.

I imagine if Chamomile heard all the laughter people have when he says something stupid and someone makes fun of him he'd say stupid stuff less often too.

[GnomeWorks]

If you needed a 9 on the first roll, you needed a 9 on the second. There was no reason to look up attack bonuses again unless a person had a mental illness that affected memory.

Short-term memory for single instance, no repetition, is... what, seven seconds, thereabouts? That's the number I've heard commonly cited in my psych courses, at any rate.

If you look at the number before the roll, fiddle with dealing with other modifiers you forgot about (hey, what about the bard?), and then deal with the MC resolving the roll and/or figuring out if you need to roll again or whatever, it really is not that much of a feat to forget a number in that short a span. Especially if you're not someone overly focused on the numbers, or if you only glance at your character sheet every once in awhile.

[hamstertamer]

Interesting though that the new starter kit comes with only one d20. So the game designers had a base assumption that people would using a adv/dis as a re-roll mechanic, and that rolling twice at once was optional.

You should win some sort of award for how terrible this reasoning is.

So you believe that "the 5th" with it's signature new mechanic Adv/Dis was meant to be used by rolling a d20 two at a time, but they decided to give new players just one d20. It's always possible that the boys and girls working at wotc are that stupid, and didn't make sure to include another d20 in their starter product. Perhaps that is what you think about them. I'd like to think that they discussed the amount of dice to be put in the new product. The pathfinder starter kit gives you 7 dice (you get both d10s), but the wotc starter kit makes you roll twice with your d10 as well to get your percentage roll. So basically the game designers don't think re-rolls are a problem, even when they know that people will be forced constantly re-rolling because of adv/dis.

[hamstertamer]

If you needed a 9 on the first roll, you needed a 9 on the second. There was no reason to look up attack bonuses again unless a person had a mental illness that affected memory.

Short-term memory for single instance, no repetition, is... what, seven seconds, thereabouts? That's the number I've heard commonly cited in my psych courses, at any rate.

If you look at the number before the roll, fiddle with dealing with other modifiers you forgot about (hey, what about the bard?), and then deal with the MC resolving the roll and/or figuring out if you need to roll again or whatever, it really is not that much of a feat to forget a number in that short a span. Especially if you're not someone overly focused on the numbers, or if you only glance at your character sheet every once in awhile.

Sorry this was already explained to you. The bonus is the same and the target number is still the same. No math needed at all. If your friends all have mental illnesses then I feel sorry for you, but personal handicaps isn't a justification for complaining about a mechanic. Every time I've seen someone roll a natural 20 in 3rd edition, they immediately re-roll the d20 against the same target number from the last roll. Then again I play with people can spell their names and count past 10.

[hamstertamer]

Because they're not calculating a target roll, and most MCs don't even announce a target number (AC). So they're rolling, adding everything piecemeal, and then announcing a result.
That really does take longer, especially when you have to go through it twice.

I'm not sure I follow. If I know my total bonus is +17, I'm not going to forget that my bonus was +17 just because I added it to die roll.

That is correct. The total attack modifier is exactly the same for confirmation, and does not need to be reconfigured. It's the easiest roll in D&D since you don't need to do any new math. All you have to do is roll higher then the target number that you needed before. Which is what happened in every 3rd edition D&D game I've played in and observed by working at a gaming store.

[Username17]

That is correct. The total attack modifier is exactly the same for confirmation, and does not need to be reconfigured. It's the easiest roll in D&D since you don't need to do any new math. All you have to do is roll higher then the target number that you needed before. Which is what happened in every 3rd edition D&D game I've played in and observed by working at a gaming store.

The only time it gets creaky is when DMs get all paranoid about keeping the ACs of team monster secret or the inclusion of shitty feats that give special bonuses to confirmation rolls. The fact that you just rolled a 19 and hit (and threatened a crit) doesn't inherently give you a lot of information about what happens if you roll a 13.

-Username17

[LeadPal]

I'd like to tell players like that to fuck off completely, but they're really too common for that.

Don't let that stop you. It just means you have to be more vigilant in telling people to fuck off!

You could be right. I'd much rather find out that I went soft than accept that my players are too stupid to learn.

[Amalie Gaston]

So you believe that "the 5th" with it's signature new mechanic Adv/Dis was meant to be used by rolling a d20 two at a time, but they decided to give new players just one d20. It's always possible that the boys and girls working at wotc are that stupid, and didn't make sure to include another d20 in their starter product. Perhaps that is what you think about them. I'd like to think that they discussed the amount of dice to be put in the new product. The pathfinder starter kit gives you 7 dice (you get both d10s), but the wotc starter kit makes you roll twice with your d10 as well to get your percentage roll. So basically the game designers don't think re-rolls are a problem, even when they know that people will be forced constantly re-rolling because of adv/dis.

If you're going to complain that they don't give enough dice in the starter kit, why not go big? After all, for a product that's claimed to be "Ideal for a group of 4 – 6", it only includes 6 dice. Clearly we should conclude that WotC built 5th edition with the expectation that it would be played by everyone at the table passing around the lone d20. As well, the starter kit doesn't include the full rules, so we should conclude that 5e was designed with the expectation that the full rules wouldn't be used.

Alternatively, we could think that the starter kit doesn't contain quite everything needed to run a game. We could think that the rules of 5e were not designed with the expectation that everyone would use only what comes in the starter kit to play the game. But perhaps thinking that would be too close to sanity for you.

The thing is, there's a lot of stuff about 5e to criticize. I don't understand why you would seize upon the most asinine thing possible when there's so many better targets of your ire.

[Harshax]

There is one set of each die, because that's redbox retro. It fulfills the minimum needs of running the game, at minimum cost to both the manufacturer and the consumer. All entry level products, across every market, since the dawn of marketing, have been designed to satisfy the needs of the curious neophyte and entice them to upgrade their newb gear.

[hamstertamer]

Clearly we should conclude that WotC built 5th edition with the expectation that it would be played by everyone at the table passing around the lone d20.

Yes that's correct. The starter kit comes with one d20, so they expect new players to pass around one d20.

As well, the starter kit doesn't include the full rules, so we should conclude that 5e was designed with the expectation that the full rules wouldn't be used.

That is also correct, they expected people to play the starter kit without full rules.

Alternatively, we could think that the starter kit doesn't contain quite everything needed to run a game. We could think that the rules of 5e were not designed with the expectation that everyone would use only what comes in the starter kit to play the game. But perhaps thinking that would be too close to sanity for you.

Are you stupid or something?

The thing is, there's a lot of stuff about 5e to criticize. I don't understand why you would seize upon the most asinine thing possible when there's so many better targets of your ire.

I also agree that you don't understand. I was not criticizing "the 5th" exactly, I was criticizing the complaint about re-rolls with critical confirmation, when those same complainers are fine with "the 5th's" signature re-roll mechanic. Then people like you defend the re-roll mechanic claiming that you are supposed to roll 2d20 at the same time, but the damn starter kit, meant to introduce people to the "the 5th" and it's new mechanic, doesn't even give you a second d20 to roll with it. Is it still going over your head?

[Lago PARANOIA]

I can't get worked up about the whole one d20 thing. That chicken was already fucked when they decided to include less than six d20s for a game consisting of three to seven people in it. Only having one d20 for all of the advantage/disadvantage you're rolling on top of that only adds a few more humps.

[hamstertamer]

There is one set of each die, because that's redbox retro. It fulfills the minimum needs of running the game, at minimum cost to both the manufacturer and the consumer. All entry level products, across every market, since the dawn of marketing, have been designed to satisfy the needs of the curious neophyte and entice them to upgrade their newb gear.

Sounds like you don't know what you are talking about, the pathfinder starter kit gives 7 dice. An extra d10 matter of fact. Why? because they expect people will need to roll 2d10 at the same time once in while. But in "The 5th" you need to constantly roll 2d20 but you just get one d20 in the box.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I own the Pathfinder Start Kit. As in, I'm looking at it right now and its crappy orange and white dice. There is one of each of a: d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20, and d100.

[hamstertamer]

I own the Pathfinder Start Kit. As in, I'm looking at it right now and its crappy orange and white dice. There is one of each of a: d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20, and d100.

There's d100 in your box? Really? There's a die with one hundred sides. Wow that's strange because most people just got an extra d10. Maybe you should counts the sides again to make sure.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Don't be a blockhead. 10-sided dice where all of the numbers are multiples of 10 are called d100s. If you want to sperg over that, that's what Amazon.com calls them, too.

[angelfromanotherpin]

o rly?

[malak]

Don't be a blockhead. 10-sided dice where all of the numbers are multiples of 10 are called d100s.

Err, no.

[Sakuya Izayoi]

What else do you use a d10 *10 for? Saving time multiplying a d10 by 10? As far as RPG arithmetic goes, there are better time-saving measures that could be taken.

[Lago PARANOIA]

angelfromanotherpin, malak: Yes. Really. Dice with a hundred faces are also called d100s. But that doesn't mean that 00-90 dice aren't also called d100s. If you don't like how one word can refer to two moderately different things, feel free to suck the nuts of the English language.

[name_here]

We call those percentile dice because we enjoy clarity.

[momothefiddler]

I'd never heard it called that. A brief search yields significantly fewer such uses than for a 100-sided die, but I'm glad to have a word for it other than "the tens digit die" and that's a good one, so thanks. In nearly all contexts, the distinction between that and a 100-sided die will be clear from context, so I'm not worried about that. My only issue is that I encounter situations where "d100" is used to refer to both that and the d10 rolled together as a linear rng for numbers 1-100, so situations like "roll a d100" are...

never mind. If you're rolling it, obviously you're rolling both. It does work. Thanks.

Preview Edit: percentile also refers to the pair rolled together, in my experience and through a (similarly cursory) search. As far as language goes, if you're fine with random{10,20,30,40,50,60,70,80,90,100} being called a "percentile die", but not fine with it being called a "d100", your choice must be arbitrary because those mean basically the same thing. I can see how using one to refer to both dice and one to refer to one die would be useful, but it'd be an arbitrary choice and I have no evidence that it's a widely standardized one yet, so....

[angelfromanotherpin]

The standard is that the d10 with extra zeroes is called 'a d10.' Because it is a 10-sided die. That it happens to be conveniently marked as the 10's digit for percentile use so you don't have to declare that 'blue is 10s' or roll more than once isn't distinguished. I actually work in a game store, we order dice, and there isn't a separate term for them.

Seriously, go to the Koplow and/or Chessex sites. Try to find one of them listed as a d100.

[momothefiddler]

Yes and that is a completely legitimate, accurate way to refer to them. It's just not a precise way to do so and I would like, when referring to a d10 with consecutive multiples of 10 starting at 10 on it, to have a way to conveniently do so that distinguishes it from a d10 with consecutive integers starting at 1 on it.

And context is a fine way to do this, when it works. I'm not demanding that we stop using "d20" because an irregular icosahedron labeled with five instances of "1" and fifteen instances of "$" is still a d20, because everyone knows what I mean in a gaming context. But when I say "d10", it's not clear even in context, and having a quick differentiation method is something I like. Using a term that doesn't have any other use in context is fine with me, even if it has another use in a different context. I can think of a few instances where "d100" for a tens-digit die could be confused with "d100" for a 100-sided die, but not enough to keep using "tens-digit die" if I don't have to.

That said, I presume you don't order a bunch of "d10"s and hope half of them are labeled a certain way. I'd guess you order by, say, SKU.

[erik]

angelfromanotherpin, malak: Yes. Really. Dice with a hundred faces are also called d100s. But that doesn't mean that 00-90 dice aren't also called d100s. If you don't like how one word can refer to two moderately different things, feel free to suck the nuts of the English language.

Maybe this is like a regional thing. I dunno. I don't think I've ever heard people refer to the 10's d10 as a d100. When rolling both d10's for a percentile I've heard them collectively called d100, but not for just the single d10.

I actually had one of those golfball d100's so maybe that's why I never had the notion to apply the nom to d10s.

[Sakuya Izayoi]

What is the elevator pitch for 5e exactly? What makes it "classic" to the guys who are so enthusiastic about it? Like, if this is the edition that brings things back to basics, why does unplugging the Feats module make Fighters unable to charge?