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[Neonivek]

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It still presents fundamental issues.

Even when you present Wizards with anti-wizards they still function, they have things they can do (and the fact that Wizards are so spell slot dependent is an issue as well). Clerics can go outside their comfort zone and still function. Fighters have ways to fight outside their comfort zone (the exception are Swarms... which are flat out broken.. except in 4e where they are fun again).

Rogues just sort of cease to be against certain enemies.

When you go out of your way to accommodate your player's party... it shows and weakens your game.

But sure Rakonas.. no problem... Except then DMs might as well Ban rogues because they kill the DM's fun because they essentially ban 50% of the bestiary.

"The DM can fix it" excuse only goes so far. If the DM is responsible to make a system good... then I don't give credit to the system I give it to the DM. If Rogues need to be coddled to work in a setting, then I don't give credit to the way rogues are made, but to the DM for making a very limited skillset work.

Heck I've seen modules that outright just give players free Rogue-skillsets just so they don't even need to be in the game.

Don't get me wrong... Counters are perfectly legit. My issue is mostly that this is like making a Super Hero and making their weakness water without any ability to really prevent it... except that Hero is absolutely necessary for the game. But that is fine right? Just set the game in the middle of a desert and problem solved. Perhaps on the moon, or on mars.

I mean I KNOW the Rogue's entire gimmick is "I suck 50% of the time and I am amazing 50% of the time" but unfortunately that isn't a good concept for a character class. They are supplemented by being skill monkeys but that is both their greatest strength and the game's biggest detriment. Even more hilariously since a lot of guides on crafting sessions outright state not to use traps and locked doors unless it makes sense for them to be there.

4e and Pathfinder both handled rogues better then 3.5 did. 4e did it by taking away everything absolutely necessary about the rogue and instead let them be a character with a diverse set of skills. Pathfinder did it by not only significantly decreasing the amount of enemies immune to him, but also by giving the rogue a lot of cool features and tricks, sure they still have the Magic Trap find ability (which some modules allow people to take as a trait) but it still is leagues above 3.5 in terms of just making them more fun.

It is why I am waiting on more stuff about 5e to be revealed.

Rogues could be perfectly fine... or they could be characters who mostly sit on their butts who are railroaded into absolute necessity.

It is all a long winded way of saying Rakonas that You are right in that DM can fix things. Yet it doesn't mean I can give any credit to the system, just the DM.

It shouldn't 'have' to be fixed. It should work on its own merits and that the Rogue's overspecialization creates a double edged problem of them both being too good within their sphere and too terrible outside it, at least in terms of 3.5.

5e? Who knows.

[Scripten]

Having played the beta version of 5e for over a year now, there's a few things I've noticed as a DM:

Fighters are useful. They have a decent amount of skills that translate well to non-combat scenarios, surprisingly. Certain enemies become both easier and deeper in combat against a fighter, as well. Death Knights, for instance, have a particularly interesting flow to combat that I'd never seen before this version. Previously, I'd only really seen them be a fairly normal, if tough, enemy that hits hard with magic and melee, but in the 5e beta, they also had a number of reactions and some fun effects that helped make fights more dynamic. Granted, I should probably mention that I got into D&D during 4e and thus you can assume all that entails.

Rogues are not nearly as vital to a fully functional party if you have creative players. I've run into situations where a low-leveled ranger and cleric party were able to get through a relatively hard dungeon without dying. A particular example from another game had a combat mage freezing and heating metal bars so that the Barbarian could rage her way through with a maul. Granted, some DMs might not account for special effects on obstacles, but the rules kept everything generic enough that attacking a wall could be a viable tactic in certain situations. I feel like criticizing the system for leaving certain things to the DMs discretion is unfair to the way tabletop RPGs work.

The other classes, Druid, Ranger, Barbarian, etc. have all come across as fun and diverse. They each play very differently and even players entirely new to D&D seemed to understand their roles pretty quickly. To be entirely fair, the Ranger class is more like a combat-centric rogue while the Druid is the same for mages. They do offer a different experience from what I've seen, though.

[Neonivek]

I feel like criticizing the system for leaving certain things to the DMs discretion is unfair to the way tabletop RPGs work

Then tabletop RPGs are inscrutable.

[Scripten]

I feel like criticizing the system for leaving certain things to the DMs discretion is unfair to the way tabletop RPGs work

Then tabletop RPGs are inscrutable.

Not at all. You can criticize them for plenty of other issues. There are lots of places where the rules are more to-the-letter. Spells, for instance, are often kept within constraints and the rules are designed to act as an arbiter between DM and player. However, there are points where the rules just cannot be expected to take every situation into account. You find similar problems in computer RPGs, where you can rarely ever do -exactly- what you want and have it respond in a realistic fashion. The principle difference between the two RPG forms is that tabletop allows for dynamic play while cRPGs are, even at their best, restricted to what the developers are able to put in place. If you're lucky, they may have emergent systems in play, but that's very rare and never as deep as a tabletop campaign.

[Neonivek]

All aspects of a system are "up to DM discretion" even sections that are to the letter.

Even then, how the rules interact with the creation process EVEN IF they are "up for discretion" is a very apt way to judge a book.

Another aspect I am curious with 5e is if the game doesn't make enemies ENTIRELY outpace you and vise versa with ACs so high they are impossible to hit.

[Bauglir]

My recollection is that, based on what little we have, AC values don't climb much, if at all. The whole bounded accuracy schtick means that a given AC means sort of the same thing at any given level, or at least there isn't a strong correlation between level and AC. However, hit points scale much faster than damage output, and players do generally get better at hitting things, so you wind up with a situation where players succeed more often at higher levels but each success is less meaningful.

If this is the case, I kind of like that there's a built-in way for the game to start feeling different as levels increase, instead of the numbers treadmill that's an ever-present threat for this sort of thing (wherein you get bonuses, but they're exactly balanced out by enemy bonuses, so nothing's changed but the special effects). On the other hand, I really don't like that the way they make this happen is to turn every encounter into an HP grindslog at high levels. So I dunno.

EDIT: Incidentally, I don't know the intricacies of non-3.5 editions, but I do know that in that one the problem wasn't exactly that AC grew too fast, it's that on the upper end the variance between an optimized attack bonus and a lousy one was so wide that the former could hit any AC trivially and the latter might only hit on a 20. Falling off the RNG is an easy problem to fall into with an open-ended system, which is why they implemented this bounded accuracy paradigm in the first place, IIRC.

[Neonivek]

Indeed that was a big part of it Bauglir. It is annoying to fight enemies who simply... cannot miss and do a ton of damage as well (dungeons and dragons is one of the few games I know of where the "Big strong guy" is also the most accurate guy on your team) Or when you know your wizard simply cannot even hit an enemy (SORT OF!!! enemy AC tends not to scale very high outside enemies meant to have high-AC... most enemies after a certain CR just stop caring about AC)

What I am specifically talking about doesn't show a lot because most DMs don't shrimp swarm you (because it takes a lot of time). Yet in normal dungeons and dragons you will simply be too far outside something CR -8 from you (At high levels... low levels... anything -4 has issues). I have many a time wanted to use many small enemies or enemies with unoptimized attack accuracy and found that they could never hit a PC. I like using varied CR in my encounters.

D20 Modern mind you is interesting in that not only are "shrimps" decently accurate, but they are actually quite deadly and do good damage against even high level heroes. It was actually kind of refreshing. Sure you will seriously out perform them, but even 3 peons weren't a threat you should shrug off as trivial.

[BishopX]

My standard rules for "shrimp swarms" is that everyone within a square of the attacker can roll vs a 10 to add +1 to attack and damage to a single mook who takes the swing.

This makes things like a squad of 8 orcs reasonably scary at medium-high levels (optimally +13 to hit and 2d4+13 vs a bunch of +4/2d4+4 hits and unless the pc has cleave they can only remove the orcs in 9hp increments). This works for grapple too.

But really, 3.5 gets kinda silly past level 10-15, which is why I think the planar stuff becomes such a big deal, as you can remove the PC from  a realistic setting and send them somewhere big a scary.

I'm hoping that next tone that down a bit, mostly by capping monster stats and using advantage/disadvantage rather than ludicrous number of bonus types in 3.5.

[Neonivek]

What I sometimes did is just made enemies do "aid other" a lot... it is unfortunately often the only way shrimps can face high level PCs.

Even level 5 guards (typical guards) would have a hard time (impossible time actually) hitting a level 10 individual.

Since they would have 10 + 9 for his armor + 2 for his shield + 2 for dex + 3 for Enhancement bonus + 2 for protective item = 29

Against the Guard's roll of 5 + 2 + 2 = 9 (and that is being generous...)

However even at low levels... like 5... you can expect armor values of 22 from PCs.

[Sensei]

So, did anybody here preorder the starter set? What do you think of it?

Also, it's already on sale for some reason, at the price of $12-13. ILL OMEN or just WALMART'S FAULT? YOU DECIDE.

[BishopX]

My friend pre-ordered, we're taking a look at it Saturday

[My Name is Immaterial]

So, did anybody here preorder the starter set? What do you think of it?

Also, it's already on sale for some reason, at the price of $12-13. ILL OMEN or just WALMART'S FAULT? YOU DECIDE.

Mine arrived in the mail today. BRB going to go grab it.

It's a pretty good deal at $12, since it's pretty sparse. You get a pretty nice (looking, I haven't finished reading through it) premade adventure, with some basic rules for quick play, and five premade characters.

[tompliss]

OK guys, I've finally played it with some friends IRL, and loved it.

Now, I'd like to know whether you guys are interested in playing it here.
I have some character sheets ready and some other ideas I got from reading the books that should work and make nice PCs. This means I will provide you the Characters without needing you to have any book.
Of course, if anyone wants to customize his character or simply has an idea about what they wants to play, don't hesitate to say so.

The campaign will be played in a Thread in the FG&RP sub-forum here, if anyone is interested. It will be an home-made one, with 4 to 6 "normal" characters (preferably no chaotic evil PC, no Drow), with a rule against PvP (as long as it's not accepted by both players).

So... Anyone interested ?

[My Name is Immaterial]

I'll play.

[Varee]

I will play to i guess