Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  
Pages: 1 ... 7 8 [9] 10 11 ... 131

Author Topic: Tabletop Games Thread  (Read 197502 times)

Tawa

  • Bay Watcher
  • the first mankind all over the world
    • View Profile
Re: Tabletop Games Thread
« Reply #120 on: November 14, 2014, 07:31:42 pm »

Guys. Play 13th Age. It's way better than DnD, IMO. It was made by a guy who worked on 3.5 and a guy who worked on 4e. It's pretty great~

Well... What is it? :P
From what Wikipedia tells me, it's D&D, but it seems like the kind of thing that's made to have Old Man Henderson in it legitimately--you're supposed to come up with a "one unique thing" that gives you bonuses and is incorporated into the story of the game. Oh, and freeform backgrounds replace skills.

I don't know about you, but to me that sounds like one of those terrible animes where all the characters have some kind of outlandish, exaggerated trait to make them stand out.
Logged
I don't use Bay12 much anymore. PM me if you need to get in touch with me and I'll send you my Discord handle.

Arcvasti

  • Bay Watcher
  • [IS_ALREADY_HERE] [FRIENDSHIPPER:HIGH]
    • View Profile
Re: Tabletop Games Thread
« Reply #121 on: November 14, 2014, 07:38:11 pm »

Guys. Play 13th Age. It's way better than DnD, IMO. It was made by a guy who worked on 3.5 and a guy who worked on 4e. It's pretty great~

Well... What is it? :P
From what Wikipedia tells me, it's D&D, but it seems like the kind of thing that's made to have Old Man Henderson in it legitimately--you're supposed to come up with a "one unique thing" that gives you bonuses and is incorporated into the story of the game. Oh, and freeform backgrounds replace skills.

I don't know about you, but to me that sounds like one of those terrible animes where all the characters have some kind of outlandish, exaggerated trait to make them stand out.

Seems to be sort of a compromise between mainly stat and combat based D & D and fully RP and world building centric games like Aria[Which I've always been meaning to try, since I have most of the sourcebooks for it.]. Could be interesting if done well and played with the right people.

EDIT: This is just going on what Taw said. I'll need to research it personally before I say anything more.
« Last Edit: November 14, 2014, 07:39:55 pm by Arcvasti »
Logged
If you expect to live forever then you will never be disappointed.
Spooky Signature
To fix the horrid default colour scheme, follow the below steps:
Profile> Modify Profile> Look and Layout> Current Theme> (change)> Darkling

Tawa

  • Bay Watcher
  • the first mankind all over the world
    • View Profile
Re: Tabletop Games Thread
« Reply #122 on: November 14, 2014, 07:41:01 pm »

Wikipizzle article.

Just in case I was biased.
Logged
I don't use Bay12 much anymore. PM me if you need to get in touch with me and I'll send you my Discord handle.

uber pye

  • Bay Watcher
  • murderhobo extraordinaire
    • View Profile
Re: Tabletop Games Thread
« Reply #123 on: November 14, 2014, 07:42:58 pm »

yeah play 13th age! Its great!

Guys. Play 13th Age. It's way better than DnD, IMO. It was made by a guy who worked on 3.5 and a guy who worked on 4e. It's pretty great~

Well... What is it? :P
From what Wikipedia tells me, it's D&D, but it seems like the kind of thing that's made to have Old Man Henderson in it legitimately--you're supposed to come up with a "one unique thing" that gives you bonuses and is incorporated into the story of the game. Oh, and freeform backgrounds replace skills.

I don't know about you, but to me that sounds like one of those terrible animes where all the characters have some kind of outlandish, exaggerated trait to make them stand out.

it can have that problem, but what would you rather be, Ragnarok Kingvictor, the only paladin in the city of thieves or
human paladin #352?

Logged
"Immortal" just means that you haven't killed it hard enough

X-MAS TIME!!!!!
the mad immortal child! xmas themed

Arcvasti

  • Bay Watcher
  • [IS_ALREADY_HERE] [FRIENDSHIPPER:HIGH]
    • View Profile
Re: Tabletop Games Thread
« Reply #124 on: November 14, 2014, 07:45:22 pm »

Upon further examination, 13th Age seems pretty cool. I could totally fit some of my existing characters into the whole "One special unique thing" gimmick. Character creation definitely seems like it'd be a bit of a hassle, creatively, with all the background dependent stuff. Although the people I usually play D & D with probably wouldn't like it as much.
Logged
If you expect to live forever then you will never be disappointed.
Spooky Signature
To fix the horrid default colour scheme, follow the below steps:
Profile> Modify Profile> Look and Layout> Current Theme> (change)> Darkling

Tawa

  • Bay Watcher
  • the first mankind all over the world
    • View Profile
Re: Tabletop Games Thread
« Reply #125 on: November 14, 2014, 07:46:36 pm »

yeah play 13th age! Its great!

Guys. Play 13th Age. It's way better than DnD, IMO. It was made by a guy who worked on 3.5 and a guy who worked on 4e. It's pretty great~

Well... What is it? :P
From what Wikipedia tells me, it's D&D, but it seems like the kind of thing that's made to have Old Man Henderson in it legitimately--you're supposed to come up with a "one unique thing" that gives you bonuses and is incorporated into the story of the game. Oh, and freeform backgrounds replace skills.

I don't know about you, but to me that sounds like one of those terrible animes where all the characters have some kind of outlandish, exaggerated trait to make them stand out.

it can have that problem, but what would you rather be, Ragnarok Kingvictor, the only paladin in the city of thieves or
human paladin #352?


Uh.

You do realize you could write that into your backstory anyway, right?

And who names their character "human paladin #352"? You're implying that you need to play 13th age to have a backstory.
Logged
I don't use Bay12 much anymore. PM me if you need to get in touch with me and I'll send you my Discord handle.

Arcvasti

  • Bay Watcher
  • [IS_ALREADY_HERE] [FRIENDSHIPPER:HIGH]
    • View Profile
Re: Tabletop Games Thread
« Reply #126 on: November 14, 2014, 07:52:58 pm »

yeah play 13th age! Its great!

Guys. Play 13th Age. It's way better than DnD, IMO. It was made by a guy who worked on 3.5 and a guy who worked on 4e. It's pretty great~

Well... What is it? :P
From what Wikipedia tells me, it's D&D, but it seems like the kind of thing that's made to have Old Man Henderson in it legitimately--you're supposed to come up with a "one unique thing" that gives you bonuses and is incorporated into the story of the game. Oh, and freeform backgrounds replace skills.

I don't know about you, but to me that sounds like one of those terrible animes where all the characters have some kind of outlandish, exaggerated trait to make them stand out.

it can have that problem, but what would you rather be, Ragnarok Kingvictor, the only paladin in the city of thieves or
human paladin #352?


Uh.

You do realize you could write that into your backstory anyway, right?

And who names their character "human paladin #352"? You're implying that you need to play 13th age to have a backstory.

Some of the D & D backstories I've seen on Bay12 have been really cool and unique. But... Not everyone plays D & D like that and the characters often tend towards the generic.
Logged
If you expect to live forever then you will never be disappointed.
Spooky Signature
To fix the horrid default colour scheme, follow the below steps:
Profile> Modify Profile> Look and Layout> Current Theme> (change)> Darkling

Gentlefish

  • Bay Watcher
  • [PREFSTRING: balloon-like qualities]
    • View Profile
Re: Tabletop Games Thread
« Reply #127 on: November 14, 2014, 07:58:55 pm »

Sounds like in 13th age that you background affects your skills, and in D&D you pick your skills then set up your background.

uber pye

  • Bay Watcher
  • murderhobo extraordinaire
    • View Profile
Re: Tabletop Games Thread
« Reply #128 on: November 14, 2014, 08:15:32 pm »

Sounds like in 13th age that you background affects your skills, and in D&D you pick your skills then set up your background.

in 13th age you get a number of points that you can distribute among your backgrounds and these are your skills.
if you want to use one, if it is reasonable that this background would help, then you get however many points you put in to it as a bonus to your roll.

for example, Ragnarok Kingvictor needs to sneak up on a dragon, so she uses her thief-blood background so that she could be in a better position when combat starts.
Logged
"Immortal" just means that you haven't killed it hard enough

X-MAS TIME!!!!!
the mad immortal child! xmas themed

timferius

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Tabletop Games Thread
« Reply #129 on: November 14, 2014, 08:19:53 pm »

Oh, so basically, instead of skills, you get a bonus if you can tie a background trait to an action? That's not terrible actually. When originally presented here it sounded like "right up your background story however you like and if you can tie it to your paragraph somewhere the bonus points" which sounded like it would just lead to people cheesing it out.
Logged

Flying Dice

  • Bay Watcher
  • inveterate shitposter
    • View Profile
Re: Tabletop Games Thread
« Reply #130 on: November 14, 2014, 08:38:09 pm »

-snip-
I feel like you probably shouldn't make a judgment on 5e without having actually looked at the Player's Handbook yourself. I mean, yes, compared to the full run of 3.5, it's limited, but we only have the Player's Handbook so far, and it has a lot more options available for characters than the 3.5 PH did. It may not have as many Feats as 3.5, but that's because they got rid the idea from 3.5 that you need a feat for basic competency, so they made feats be things that are actually worth taking instead.

And the classes are designed in such a way that they are varied, like in 3.5, but somewhat balanced, like in 4e. But they're not as balanced as 4e. It's somewhere between 3.5 and 4, so that the wizard isn't just a glorified mook-smasher like in 4e, but he also isn't so overpowered he makes all other classes redundant, like in 3.5.

I did. I read it through a couple times a while back to be sure. It's pretty much exactly what I described: a blend of 3.5e and 4e with some (but not near all) of the 4e stupidity cut, and some of the extreme edges of 3.5e blunted. The discussion on caster spells/day above is a good example of that, and it's one of the better balance changes they made from a perspective of trying to find a lower-power neutral ground.

That said, it's still less versatile both in and out of combat -- Tawa made a good point on that -- not least because it is partially derived from 4e. Honestly, I'd argue that it's better for RAW to have the potential for absurdity and non-combat adventures that you got with 3.5e, I just think that it should have been expanded beyond primary casters and certain skills. When I say that it's a step between 3.5e and 4e, that's not a good thing, because what 4e did was not a good way to fix balance issues.

Obviously 3.5e has balance issues, but the way to solve them is not to remove potential and make the game less interesting, it's to balance things by bringing everything up to the same level. 4e is a fairly good example of how perfect balance doesn't necessarily mean a game is good, because all of the classes basically do the same thing with different fluff. Good balance is asymmetrical; look at Starcraft or TF2 as example of how classes/factions can be radically different without one being overpowered compared to the others. Moreover, 4e's focus on the most boring parts of DnD is telling -- the main thing that made dungeoncrawling and random encounters fun for players is giggling about what their build can do, but 4e removed most of the variety, risk, and wow factor from combat.

Exalted in some respects is a good example of how to do a high-power game full of bullshit-hax powers and make it interesting -- moreover, while dealing with problems other than combat.

Heck, look at some of the stories we get out of 3.5e and Pathfinder. Would the Tale of an Industrious Rogue happened in 4e? Would it have been anywhere near as interesting? That's why I honestly think that, while 5e is not necessarily bad as a standalone, and good in comparison to 4e, it's still only a step in the right direction by virtue of moving away from 4e.

Don't nerf casters, give martial and skillful classes better bullshit. Here, take an example class with random ideas off the top of my head: fix the basic problems with monks, give them real bullshit (Haste and a Nerveskitter-like as #/days at # level? Featherfall at 1st or 2nd level at-will instead of that bullshit-long useless slowfall progression? Automatically give them things like arrow-catching, Spiderwalk and Spring Attack as they level? Make Flurry of Blows not suck a barrel of dicks? Better unarmed damage? Better class AC progression? Shift some of the class bonuses to reduce MAD? Let them enchant their bodies? Give them a selection of extra special abilities to pick from: let them choose things like getting massive boosts to dipl/intimidate/bluff checks made in combat, element-typed unarmed damage, at-will Blink, &c.) Stuff like that. Make as many classes bullshit enough to at least make it to Tier 2 classification of "Does a small selection of things really, really well."
Logged


Aurora on small monitors:
1. Game Parameters -> Reduced Height Windows.
2. Lock taskbar to the right side of your desktop.
3. Run Resize Enable

Gentlefish

  • Bay Watcher
  • [PREFSTRING: balloon-like qualities]
    • View Profile
Re: Tabletop Games Thread
« Reply #131 on: November 14, 2014, 08:42:55 pm »

-snip snop-

This is exactly why I love Tome of Battle. It puts martial characters on the same footing as casters. I know it's more "Hey look magic martial arts!" rather than "Okay we fixed up some martial characters so they suck less" but I think it really fills the gap between "regular" martial combat and the "fantastic" element of magic.

Tawa

  • Bay Watcher
  • the first mankind all over the world
    • View Profile
Re: Tabletop Games Thread
« Reply #132 on: November 14, 2014, 08:48:05 pm »

Yeah, Book of Weeaboo Fightan Magic was pretty good. I'm getting a pretty good run out of a duelist-esque Swordsage right now and have a Crusader written up that seems pretty badass compared to a run-of-the-mill fighter. (Speaking of which, you can get some obscene damage rolls at early levels with a lance.)

That said, my favorites are still probably DFA (the MONARCH of direct damage) and Sorcerer, but Tome of Battle is a necessity for anybody who wants to play a melee character with any spellcasters in the party.
Logged
I don't use Bay12 much anymore. PM me if you need to get in touch with me and I'll send you my Discord handle.

Bohandas

  • Bay Watcher
  • Discordia Vobis Com Et Cum Spiritum
    • View Profile
Re: Tabletop Games Thread
« Reply #133 on: November 14, 2014, 08:53:40 pm »

I don't like the half-assed way they redid the alignment system in 4e. They should have either kept it as it was or scrapped it entirely, instead of arbitrarily removing two of the nine alignments.

Have they done anything different with alignment in 5e?
Logged
NEW Petition to stop the anti-consumer, anti-worker, Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement
What is TPP
----------------------
Remember, no one can tell you who you are except an emotionally unattached outside observer making quantifiable measurements.
----------------------
Έπαινος Ερις

Gentlefish

  • Bay Watcher
  • [PREFSTRING: balloon-like qualities]
    • View Profile
Re: Tabletop Games Thread
« Reply #134 on: November 14, 2014, 08:54:31 pm »

Yeah, Book of Weeaboo Fightan Magic was pretty good. I'm getting a pretty good run out of a duelist-esque Swordsage right now and have a Crusader written up that seems pretty badass compared to a run-of-the-mill fighter. (Speaking of which, you can get some obscene damage rolls at early levels with a lance.)

That said, my favorites are still probably DFA (the MONARCH of direct damage) and Sorcerer, but Tome of Battle is a necessity for anybody who wants to play a melee character with any spellcasters in the party.

Dat 8d8 4th level maneuver. I can't imagine that hit with a lance.
Pages: 1 ... 7 8 [9] 10 11 ... 131