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[ductape]

Maybe I am old...I was playing back when the red book was out, well before the hardbound stuff. I know I may sound like some old bastard shouting at kids to get off his lawn, but its like this:

If your stats, and thusly the rules books, are the only way to make viable characters then your DM is doing it wrong.

[My Name is Immaterial]

Viable in what sense?

[ductape]

Viable in what sense?

My point was well made I think and your question seems meaningless, like you picked out one word to base some new argument on. I wont take the bait and I suggest you stop being trollish for the sake of it.

EDIT: I will add some more so this post doesnt go to waste. I havent played 5 but as an old vet, I think any move toward lightening the rules up (which just get in the way) sounds good to me. SPlat books are lame and we usually banned them completely.

In fact, I am a fan of the Old School Rennaisance anyway.

[My Name is Immaterial]

I'm not trying to be trollish, I'm honestly just confused. Viable can mean lots of things: effective in combat, good at roleplay, fun to play, simply playable, etc.

[ductape]

I'm not trying to be trollish, I'm honestly just confused. Viable can mean lots of things: effective in combat, good at roleplay, fun to play, simply playable, etc.

Just read the post for comprehension, like they taught you in English class. It has little to do with the definition of that one word. I'm out, wont respond again.

[My Name is Immaterial]

I'm sorry I frustrated you. Didn't mean to.
I've reread it multiple times, and I'm still confused. Can anyone else help me here? I sorta get the point, but I'm still lost in 'viable'.

[Neonivek]

As well lowering the number of necessary books to buy in 5e hasn't "succeeded"

Technically the complete divine, arcane, and martial... weren't "necessary"

They still have the same number of absolutely necessary books that 3.5 did...

Player Guide, DM Guide, Monster Manual

[Arcvasti]

Meh, viability is relative. A good DM or, more importantly, good players can make stuff work across tiers. Normally, this is how it works: Monks, and similar classes, can't even fight very well and will feel sub-par in everything. In the same way, a dedicated fighter will feel sub-par with non-combat stuff. A rogue will feel sub-par with stuff only resolvable by magic and the casters can literally do whatever they please. Thing is, the players with more options can ENABLE other players to do better instead of just exceeding them. Sure, the wizard could fry the monsters from orbit, but he could also buff the fighter and have them wipe the floor with the monsters while tossing less powerful evocations. Having some characters with more power is not inherently bad, as long as they channel some of that power through other characters. If, like me, you get your warm fuzzies by being a support caster and helping everyone else to do neat stuff too, it doesn't usually matter that you're objectively more powerful then the rest of the party as long as everyone else benefits.

[Neonivek]

Monks weren't Unviable ever.

They had their purpose and their major flaws was more that they were spread so thin rather then their concept being bad.

In fact one of their major flaws is that they are built like an anti-mage fighter in a game where mages are so deadly that almost no DM ever uses them and few monsters are legitimately deadly mages. THAT and their other gimmick is "combat maneuvers" in a game that hates combat maneuvers.

Rogues were unviable in the vast majority of situations... such as "Guards who weren't inept, who had an unobstructed view and thus couldn't be sneak past" or "Fight a zombie"... while being absolutely unavoidable monsters in others "A fireball trap! well... we are boned... want to reroll and have a rogue?"

Mind you in 5e they took away the Rogue's necessity (they only start off with the ability to disable magic traps... to my knowledge anyone can take that) while making them more viable.

Unviable means "does not work".. and while I would say that you could get things that work so badly that they are "unviable" such as playing a commoner or a samurai. Being "subpar" is sort of different then being unviable.

[wereboar]

Yeah, no.
I've never seen single-classed characters in 3.x except for some lazy full-casters, so monk/rogue viability is an incredibly moot point.

[Kadzar]

Maybe I am old...I was playing back when the red book was out, well before the hardbound stuff. I know I may sound like some old bastard shouting at kids to get off his lawn, but its like this:

If your stats, and thusly the rules books, are the only way to make viable characters then your DM is doing it wrong.

Well, all editions since 3.0 have made stats more important because, since then, modifiers have increased and decreased linearly with ability scores, whereas in earlier editions, bonuses and penalties tended to only accrue on the higher or lower ends of the spectrum. Whereas in 3.0+, anything less than a 9 is at least a -1 and anything more than a 12 is a +1 or more, in AD&D (going by OSRIC since I don't have an actual copy of 1st or 2nd edition) penalties don't appear for most abilities scores unless you have about a 6 or lower, and most bonuses aren't gained for anything less than at least a 15. And I don't have any copy or retro-clone to check, but I've heard that in OD&D, stats were just used to decide what races/classes you qualified for, and if you rolled really high you got a slight xp bonus.

This is why I'd be more willing to roll for stats for an older or retro-inspired game than for anything 3.0+.


As for the other discussion that popped up while I was typing this reply, I'd say 5e solves the 3e Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit problem without the 4e problem of all classes using the same sort of framework.

[Neonivek]

Yeah, no.
I've never seen single-classed characters in 3.x except for some lazy full-casters, so monk/rogue viability is an incredibly moot point.

I certainly seen a ton of single classed characters. Multiclassing was generally just something you did to midmax because for the most part the game didn't handle it at all unless you found a broken combination or had such a milk toast class that it didn't matter.

They made prestige classes that existed ONLY to make multiclassing work...

In Pathfinder they made new classes specifically because multiclassing didn't work.

[Criptfeind]

Yeah, no.
I've never seen single-classed characters in 3.x except for some lazy full-casters, so monk/rogue viability is an incredibly moot point.

I think the question is, how much D&D have you actually played? Because I've played games where fighter 18 was a perfectly legitimate character, and others where anything past a fighter 2 dip would have you laughed out of the generic player meeting tavern.

Optimization, viability, all this stuff, it just depends on your group anyway, and actually isn't that big of a deal? I mean, it really isn't. You just do what fits in the group. And work with the other players to make sure you don't have what Kadzar has hilariously termed (and I'm totally going to use that from now on) the Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit problem.

[Neonivek]

Naw wereboar has played the game... If you go on the Dungeons and Dragons site where people like to make complex characters you will see the biggest bunch of lego brick characters with like several classes meshed together.

If you played with nothing but them... you would probably expect that to be normal.

Though my experience with most people is the exact opposite. People tend to not multiclass mostly because they are aiming for the greater bonuses down the road, the ones that they likely never get to.

[Neonivek]

So I finally have my hands on 5th edition and in my opinion the game has promise already

But because it has so many features in many ways it feels like it doesn't have enough.

For example it has monsters but it lacks rules on how to apply classes to Monsters

It has Zombies but it only has 3 zombies exactly and no way to make your own... outside guess work... which is fine I guess.

Honestly you want to know what I would have liked? Rules on "de-legendifying" or "Legendifying" creatures as well as rules that more clearly outlined how to make a legend versus a normal monster.

I am honestly kind of overwhelmed with how to exactly run a 5e game. I know it is early and that you need about 2-3 monster manual to have truly unique encounters (1 always feels like a tasting menu)