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1 year ago ::
May 26, 2012 - 12:36AM
#11
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3. Inflation. Just say no. Why is searing light and other spells doing so much damage compared to earlier editions? Any attempt to curb inflation will reduce the game's overhead and play drag.
The reason that this is more powerful is because it never gets any stronger, unlike in previous editions. It seems that not a single spell, save magic missile, scales at all. I would be more afraid of these spells being left behind than being too strong.
My two copper.
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1 year ago ::
May 26, 2012 - 12:56AM
#12
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Date Joined:
Jan 15, 2012
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1.) Intoxication shouldn't give any damage reduction at all, IMO. On top of what someone earlier said about drunken fistfights lasting forever, it also suggests that knifing someone in a tavern brawl will have absolutely no effect whatsoever, which is just silly.
2.) Specify that your AC is 10+armor bonus+other bonuses, instead of saying that your AC depends entirely on your armor (leather is 12+, etc etc). Why? One word: Unarmored. If your AC is almost entirely coming from your armor, then why isn't the Wizard's base AC 0? It's obvious that the AC is 10+armor bonus, so say so.
3.) Rolled hit points. I like what they did to mitigate this - a minimum HP gain equal to your CON bonus - but it's still not enough to fix how swingy the dice roll is gonna make it, especially for high-HP characters like fighters.
4.) Take Electrum coins back out. The CP/SP/GP system was really nice in that it was all in multiples of 10 and really really easy to calculate exchange rates. Putting Electrum in is like suddenly deciding that the inch is now a legit part of the Metric system.
5.) Crit damage needs to be bonus dice to roll. Max damage is nice, but I can do that on a normal hit. And the excitement of rolling a natural 20 on an attack has always been further increased by getting to roll lots of dice for damage - making it max damage actually takes away the opportunity to roll any dice for damage at all, which takes out a bunch of the excitement that nat 20 came with in the first place!
But I love the rules so much, from what I've seen so far, that I feel bad naming 5 things I think are bad, so I feel like I also have to point out at least one thing that I feel is amazing and needs to stay forever:
Advantage/disadvantage. Some people say that this mechanic needs tweaking, and that may be true, but just the concept itself takes out so much needless complexity. An example that springs readily to mind is armor check penalties - in 3e (not sure how this worked in 4e, never played it) it was such a pain to remember which armor had which armor check penalties, and masterwork armor would change it again, and it affected some abilities and not others...but in this version, wearing medium or heavy armor gives you disadvantage on stealth-related rolls. Simple as that. No more confusion. Glorious.
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1 year ago ::
May 26, 2012 - 4:01AM
#13
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Date Joined:
Mar 21, 2001
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With the knowledge that "Hit Dice" (i.e., surges) are an optional part of the system, and that alternate HP recovery rates are being provided, I'm left with only one major issue: infinite auto-damage. Both the Fighter and the Wizard have this type of attacks, and any character can (and will, once character construction is available) get either one -- why bother with with ranged weapons if you can have an auto-hit, high damage spell? For melee characters it might lead to combos where high AC and DR are used at the expense of attack, knowing that as long as the character can avoid blows, he's still going to inflict some damage. This leads to boring fights.
End of the line, infinite auto-damage needs to go away.
To be more constructive, I'd change the Reaper feat to add even more damage on a hit (although I fear it might become a tax feat), and reformulate Magic Missile as a first level spell.
Well, actually I'd reduce cantrip to minor effects, and give wizards more 1st level slots if needed for balance.
Other than that, there are minor issues such as what appear to be inconsistencies between the character sheets and the weapon/armor listings (finesse weapons not using the higher bonus, odd change in greataxe damage), and "suspicious" elements such as the sneak attack feature (seems overpowered).
On the plus side, spells other than cantrip look good, rituals are finally done well, advantage/disadvantage seems a good idea and less unbalanced than one might think, in the end is not much more than the 4e combat advantage and aid another bonuses, if taking into account that advantages do not stack.
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1 year ago ::
May 26, 2012 - 4:14AM
#14
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Date Joined:
May 24, 2012
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1st. We need attacks of opportunity back. Reckless movement and highly focused actions must be penalized for doing in the fray of battle.
2nd. armor categories, bonuses, dex calculation, skill penalties all need much work.
3rd. still have no clue about skills, who gets how many, how will you improve them etc.
4th. Charge needs to get back in ASAP. Archers should look for cover, rubble, trees and whatnot to break the line of charge but should not get auto win on open plains.
5th. magic missile seems to much with auto hit. maybe and intelligence attack vs. touch AC would give the feel of aiming and accomplishment.
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1 year ago ::
May 26, 2012 - 6:18AM
#15
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Date Joined:
Feb 26, 2011
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Bold numbers are my real points, the other are comments. 1. Restoring all HD after an extended rest is fine, but you should not automatically regain all hps as well given the description of the 'below half hp'. I'd be fine with allowing regain of all hps if you are over half...
2. Yeah, the intoxicated thing takes 'feeling no pain' to an all new level - that needs work.
[...]
4. Comprehend Languages needs to be added to the spells that can be cast as rituals (as should most future utility spells as they are added).
1. Yes, it made me think on how recovering work in Alien vs Predator (2011) for the marine: 5 sector and you auto-recover only the lowest sector.
We could make that in a night you can auto-recover only to bloodied-value if more than 0 and to full if you had more than half HP. 2. OH MY... I THOUGHT THAT WAS A REDUCTION FOR INFLICTED DAMAGE! No, no no, no... this is stupid! You are less able to fight, not to withstand damage! You only don't perceive them, but they are still there! 4. Completely agree... 1) Rolled hit points. You're stuck with one roll for the lifetime of your character. That's frustrating. Replace with a flat system.
[...]
5) The intoxicated condition definitely should not have a roll for damage reduction. That's just a bunch of rolls we don't need. Make it a flat -3 or something.
1. Agree...
5. Agree... but for GIVEN damage. 5) spell ranges are way crazy. 1oo feet for the majority of them, could we knock them down a bit 80 seems like a realistic range.
[...]
2) a better variant on critical hit gamage..max damage is so anti climatic.
1)bnetter math in describing how you determine attack and magic level bonuses.
5. I thought that too... but at least they are giving weapon the same treatment, and now they a lot more realistic.
I've made a futuristic campaign setting for 4e, and when I looked back for actual crossbow range to make the sinper rifle not too powerful I felt bad... in earlier edition, they were more realistic. 2. As I said many time in the past, rolling a double 1 is way worst. I think there will be bonus for magic weapon like 4th, and hoping there will be high-crit weapon with extra damage. 1. Agree... It's hard to understand if you have to hit or not... and you have to hit on AC even if the attack is a spell? Why don't get 4th edition style? It's better if it's the player to hit a defense with a bonus given by his abilities and spell instead to let the DM doing all the work. I have to track down everything else, I roll enough dice, wizards roll fewer then average character. Distribuite rolls.
This is especially true when the wizard attacks a large group of enemies. You've set a lovely mechanics for saving throws, I love it. But I feel they should work for after-effects, like Hold Person, for traps, special effects... In this, I insert my last point (since there is a dedicated thread on armors): X: I really hope that spells are written so bad, as long as many other rules, because this is a draft... You guys made a splendid work with 4th edition handbook, under every aspect: page layout, colors, presentation... The rules are so clear that I can't find anything written better.
This document is horrific, some rules repeat themselves many times to express the same concept. Hell, critical is explained twice and only the second time we get that extra dice are also maxed out. Power and monsters where the quintessence of readability and understandability. The layout perfect, if you have any doubt you can find easily what you need to know. Please, mantain the same level for spells.
You can give description for movements and the appareance of the effect in the... description. And range/radius in a dedicated section. In the effect section we need to know what they do on the game mechanic side: we already get that the mage hand is spectral (unless you meant ethereal which really means something in game rules). Hold person: is "struggle" an action cover by rules? No? Than say what we need to know, if it requires an action or not. (I prefer that these kind of saves will be better explained: do they require an action? When can you do that? At the start of your turn? At the end? At start of end of the caster turn?) I feel that divine spells have less or none repetition, so I think it's just a refinement work. Thanks.
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1 year ago ::
May 26, 2012 - 8:24AM
#16
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I will add a point I found interesting regarding the coup de grace rule:
As it stands, if you hit the target, you slay it outright, reducing its hp to 0.
This may be problematic, however. Consider a creature that is purposefully designed to be easy to hit but have bucketloads of hitpoints, like a hulking brute that gets smacked by the fighter round after round but keeps coming.
Find that same creature asleep? It is as easy (or perhaps easier) to kill than a goblin in one strike.
Personally I found nothing wrong with the old coup de grace grants free critical hit. This made incentive for the fighter to walk up and smash the thing as hard as possible, rather than someone trying to hit it with a rock and kill it.
I am also interested in what other people thought of this rule? Perhaps I am over thinking it.
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1 year ago ::
May 26, 2012 - 8:58AM
#17
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Just a couple of responses
1) Magic Missle damage and no attack roll -> This is one of the things that was brought up repeadetly in edition war threads. I think that we might see an adjustment to its damage but magic missle is going to be an auto hit. Its also going to be always available.
2) Crits shouldn't do anything more than max damage. The problem with 3.X crits was that they were like getting an extra attack.
3) I don't think that skills, saves, attack rolls, defenses, or really anything except damage and hit points advance that much across the game. This is an interesting math fix but we do need to see more about the games math in order to know this for sure.
My 5 things I want to see changed:
1) Rogue needs lots of work. His abilities are all edge cases anyway and they need to more clearly be advantages.
2) Fighter needs work. The fact that his character sheet fits on one page while all the others pretty much take up all of 2 is extremely disapointing. I think there are compromise positions between people who don't want encounter/daily type powers on the fighter/martial types and people who want more intreicate fighters. Basically, the game HAS to have a fighter who is in all ways as complex as a wizard. Even if his powers are all at wills, he would just have a stunning number of them.
3) Rolled hit points seem problematic, possibly extremly so.
4) Not enough healing without a cleric. I don't particularly care for a simulationist playstyle. If my group doesn't have a healer it should be possible to play with the hit dice mechanic. Instead the stupid healers kit is more of a block than a help. Further, second wind, at least for the rogue and fighter REALLY needs to return.
5) Bonus control -> Advantage/Disadvantage is brilliant. DO NOT REMOVE THIS. Instead there needs to be a LOT more control of bonus from other sources.
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1 year ago ::
May 26, 2012 - 9:08AM
#18
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1. Definitely get rid of the drunken damage resistance. The first thing noted by a friend of mine was that drunken fist fights (punch = 1d4) are never going to end.
1d4 + str so might do damage or you can roll a 4 on the damage and a 1 on the DR no matter what they would end. It might take forever but it would end. Have you watched a drunken fight. That is kinda how it goes. any problem posed by the drunken DR is counteracted by the fact that only is exploitable if you are drunk 24/7 you don't get drunk by drinking at the start of the fight you are going into. Alchohol doesn't work that fast. If your player's characters are running around hammered all the time then you should just start making them make checks for menial tasks, they have disadvantage to all attacks and checks.
"Oh you want to walk down the street gordamor?"
"You have been drinking and maintaining level of intoxication for over a week now."
"I'm gunna need you to give me a check for walking down the street"
"lets make that a balance check"
"And your second die roll is a nat one, awesome"
"you make it five feet then fall straight on your face"
"I roll a d4 of damage and get a 4, go ahead and roll your DR"
"Oh you rolled a six so you didn't feel the hit"
From there you can just start asking for more and more checks as the DM can call for a check any time he thinks there is a chance of failure. You have been drunk for week straight. There is a chance of failure in everything you do.
Also dwarfs are immune to the condition unless it is created by non poison based magic.
although dialing it back to maybe a d4 of resist wouldn't be off the mark.
I am planning on having any torchbearers and porters I bring with me remain drunk and will constantly Dodge. +4 AC, -1d6 damage. Then they can carry my dead body home along with the treasure we collect.
One tweak to the Intoxicated condition is that it should grant Advantage to any opponent as well as giving you Disadvantage.
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1 year ago ::
May 26, 2012 - 9:19AM
#19
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Date Joined:
Mar 28, 2008
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Some of these will be things others have said or things I have said in other places butwha the heck maybe it will get through
1) Light/medium/heavy armor- needs fixed in a bad sort of way- as it stands now the best fighters will be ultra-high dex swashbuckler types and while I think there is a place for such characters they should not be hands down the best fighter
2) Better guidelines on what provides advantage/disadvantage
3) Magic missile- okay we know the iconic mm is 1d4+1 scaling with level autohit but making it an at will 1d4+1 scaling autohit is a bit much imo especially when you've gotten rid of scaling for other spells (3a I also think ray of frost imobilize is a bit much -maybe slowed but that doesn't concern me as much as the mm does)
4) Racial bonuses - not a huge fan of immunities to some races -also not a fan of human's LACK of bonuses even if they have some hidden bonuses that we can't see (like +1 to all stats) those are not as interesting to me as the flavor of some of the other stuff.
5) Intoxicated DR- no. I understand that pain threshold etc are part of taking damage but including the DR for being intoxicated offends me mightily. It would be fairly easy to create a wizard who rarely if ever has to roll attacks (instead making his opponent roll saves or using autohit spells like MM) and doesn't suffer much from the intended drawback but benefits from the DR- so just say no to drunken wizards.
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1 year ago ::
May 26, 2012 - 10:35AM
#20
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The reason that this is more powerful is because it never gets any stronger, unlike in previous editions. It seems that not a single spell, save magic missile, scales at all. I would be more afraid of these spells being left behind than being too strong.
From the Legends & Lore articles, and also the general spell rules in the packet, it sounds like the intent is to give these spells a greater effect if you prep them in a higher-level spell slot, and those rules simply aren't implemented yet because we only have two levels to work with. Magic missile scales because it's a cantrip and can't be prepped in a higher-level slot.
That's my interpretation, anyway.
Find that same creature asleep? It is as easy (or perhaps easier) to kill than a goblin in one strike.
Isn't that the point of a coup-de-grace? I don't care how big something is, if you unimpeded access to its carotid artery, it should be easier to kill than a goblin that's actively trying to avoid you.
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