Trapped in the Underdark ~ Out of Character discussion
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Re: Trapped in the Underdark ~ Out of Character discussion
I think we've circled back to familiar territory with our discussion. Yes I can build a 'roguish' character from any class. But doesn't that defeat the point of having a rogue class in the first place? To play what one wants without avoiding inbuilt traps, it requires that a casual player must read through enough material to base a university course upon, or hand their sheet over to the person who knows it already, in which case the joy of planning your own build is lost.
The obfuscation inbuilt into the system is intense. Either we ignore it and let the GM give us our moments in the sun through artifice (I don't mind seeing the man behind the curtain from time to time) or we all have to master it.
And given those options I'd rather choose the easier path because ultimately get more fun out of that - with the caveat that I talk frequently with the GM and they know what I am and am not cool with.
I think we've circled back to familiar territory with our discussion. Yes I can build a 'roguish' character from any class. But doesn't that defeat the point of having a rogue class in the first place? To play what one wants without avoiding inbuilt traps, it requires that a casual player must read through enough material to base a university course upon, or hand their sheet over to the person who knows it already, in which case the joy of planning your own build is lost.
The obfuscation inbuilt into the system is intense. Either we ignore it and let the GM give us our moments in the sun through artifice (I don't mind seeing the man behind the curtain from time to time) or we all have to master it.
And given those options I'd rather choose the easier path because ultimately get more fun out of that - with the caveat that I talk frequently with the GM and they know what I am and am not cool with.
OP
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Re: Trapped in the Underdark ~ Out of Character discussion
Pretty much. Also, It's my birthday, I'm drunk, screw you all, man Zilrax you write way too much.:
I've got a limited wish saying you don't get a save LOL
Just Kidding, Zilrax, your kinky writing is cool, Blue, your kinky writing is hawt, go get me into more kickass trouble. Wohohohoooo!
DaBomb, remember paladin mentality. You wanna do good, you wanna do orderly, you wanna redeem and or smite evil, be proactive in an LG Way.
Whilea t it, we need more cute futa paladin pron. Why paladin you ask? The lay on hands approach, you see, eh.. eeeeh?
I didn'T quote this one to respond to it, I just really like the word obsfucsica.. obfsuc
that word.
Anyway, I'ma nap, responding proper later.
Pretty much. Also, It's my birthday, I'm drunk, screw you all, man Zilrax you write way too much.:
I've got a limited wish saying you don't get a save LOL
Just Kidding, Zilrax, your kinky writing is cool, Blue, your kinky writing is hawt, go get me into more kickass trouble. Wohohohoooo!
DaBomb, remember paladin mentality. You wanna do good, you wanna do orderly, you wanna redeem and or smite evil, be proactive in an LG Way.
Whilea t it, we need more cute futa paladin pron. Why paladin you ask? The lay on hands approach, you see, eh.. eeeeh?
I didn'T quote this one to respond to it, I just really like the word obsfucsica.. obfsuc
that word.
Anyway, I'ma nap, responding proper later.
Zilrax
Master of Kinky Fetishes. Or just Bitch if you pre
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Re: Trapped in the Underdark ~ Out of Character discussion
Well the rogue class' existence has always been an awkward one.
It started with Thief. I actually argue with the guy who made this thing a fair bit. Prior to thief, anyone could find traps. Now only the Thief could. And he wasn't even that great at it.
Later in 2nd he mostly existed to take up most the skills and again, traps, instead of things everyone could use.
Going into third, he existed as the one guy who could find traps.
Pathfinder though, he lost his position as sacred cow piece by piece. Anyone could find a trap now, something that made way more sense cus otherwise 95% of the planet can be killed by a patient enough person with enough rope and buckets, and disable the mundane ones because it does not take a rogue to figure out if the hole shoot arrow, clogging hole means no arrow. Only the rogue could disable magical traps still, but the ways to circumvent them still existed. And then other classes archetypes got trapfinding. And the one thing the rogue had special to himself by denying it to everyone else was gone.
The thing is, the rogue was always just brought along because he had to be. Much like the cleric really. You can use any martial, you can do wizard or sorc. You could even replace the martial with another cleric or druid or whatnot. But the rogue was always mandatory because otherwise traps. He was a wand as a class and that he can be invalidated BY a wand speaks volumes of what he brought to the game. Clerics healing abilities may be overshadowed by a wand but they provide way more than that. The rogue with trapfinding get's skill points. But he's still capped so he maxes more skills but int casters and bard and rangers and such all get tons of skillpoints and often can exceed the base totals.
Now, there's not much you can do about it in pathfinder. Fact is the rogue takes tons of work and multiclassing to work out on par with an Archivest bard who exerts less effort to keep up.
Now in the pre-alpha, the current work we're doing in the other system for the rogue... Well I'll start at the beginning or it won't make sense.
In the system we're making there are only three classes in the sense you know them now, which is a progression table. The three tables are Martial, Hybrid and Caster. Martials have ranger/paladin style casting, full bab and lots of skill points. Hybrids have mid bab, less skill points and 6th level casting. Casters have low bab, few skill points and full casting. You won't be able to get more skill points easy. The reason is we're using a sort of skill unlock system for skill ranks that can allow you to perform superhuman abilities with the skills. A wizard may be able to use spells to replicate them but he can't just do them, since if he's got one rank and +30 modifier he still can't pull those shenanigans. Things like balancing on water, scaling cliffs with ease, healing incredible injuries, etc.
So how do classes work? Well, every level you can pick a sort of... Class package, and select talents from it. Some stuff you can only get by taking more levels in the class, so you can't just dip into everything and be on par with a solo classed specialist.
The rogue in this case is built around a few diffrent possible designs. Comboing abilities, allowing to unleash nasty damage. Stacking debuffs, allowing you to whittle them down and such. I think there's a third design but I need to check the document again. I think it's stealth related.
There's a lot more to it but we're still awhile away from alpha testing.
Well the rogue class' existence has always been an awkward one.
It started with Thief. I actually argue with the guy who made this thing a fair bit. Prior to thief, anyone could find traps. Now only the Thief could. And he wasn't even that great at it.
Later in 2nd he mostly existed to take up most the skills and again, traps, instead of things everyone could use.
Going into third, he existed as the one guy who could find traps.
Pathfinder though, he lost his position as sacred cow piece by piece. Anyone could find a trap now, something that made way more sense cus otherwise 95% of the planet can be killed by a patient enough person with enough rope and buckets, and disable the mundane ones because it does not take a rogue to figure out if the hole shoot arrow, clogging hole means no arrow. Only the rogue could disable magical traps still, but the ways to circumvent them still existed. And then other classes archetypes got trapfinding. And the one thing the rogue had special to himself by denying it to everyone else was gone.
The thing is, the rogue was always just brought along because he had to be. Much like the cleric really. You can use any martial, you can do wizard or sorc. You could even replace the martial with another cleric or druid or whatnot. But the rogue was always mandatory because otherwise traps. He was a wand as a class and that he can be invalidated BY a wand speaks volumes of what he brought to the game. Clerics healing abilities may be overshadowed by a wand but they provide way more than that. The rogue with trapfinding get's skill points. But he's still capped so he maxes more skills but int casters and bard and rangers and such all get tons of skillpoints and often can exceed the base totals.
Now, there's not much you can do about it in pathfinder. Fact is the rogue takes tons of work and multiclassing to work out on par with an Archivest bard who exerts less effort to keep up.
Now in the pre-alpha, the current work we're doing in the other system for the rogue... Well I'll start at the beginning or it won't make sense.
In the system we're making there are only three classes in the sense you know them now, which is a progression table. The three tables are Martial, Hybrid and Caster. Martials have ranger/paladin style casting, full bab and lots of skill points. Hybrids have mid bab, less skill points and 6th level casting. Casters have low bab, few skill points and full casting. You won't be able to get more skill points easy. The reason is we're using a sort of skill unlock system for skill ranks that can allow you to perform superhuman abilities with the skills. A wizard may be able to use spells to replicate them but he can't just do them, since if he's got one rank and +30 modifier he still can't pull those shenanigans. Things like balancing on water, scaling cliffs with ease, healing incredible injuries, etc.
So how do classes work? Well, every level you can pick a sort of... Class package, and select talents from it. Some stuff you can only get by taking more levels in the class, so you can't just dip into everything and be on par with a solo classed specialist.
The rogue in this case is built around a few diffrent possible designs. Comboing abilities, allowing to unleash nasty damage. Stacking debuffs, allowing you to whittle them down and such. I think there's a third design but I need to check the document again. I think it's stealth related.
There's a lot more to it but we're still awhile away from alpha testing.
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Re: Trapped in the Underdark ~ Out of Character discussion
Right.
Which is what it comes down to really. I'm not against rules. If you can give me a more elegant and balanced ruleset, and make it easier to digest, then I'm all for it... which is why I don't normally play Pathfinder.
---
Happy B-day to the GM.
Right.
Which is what it comes down to really. I'm not against rules. If you can give me a more elegant and balanced ruleset, and make it easier to digest, then I'm all for it... which is why I don't normally play Pathfinder.
---
Happy B-day to the GM.
DaBomb
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Re: Trapped in the Underdark ~ Out of Character discussion
Eh, I enjoy 5e's simplicity, but it honestly does not have remotely enough spells/feats/archtypes to make it my preferred rule set. Which is saddening, considering the game has been out for... 3 years already? And we've only have two books that created more spells.
A bit disappointing.
Eh, I enjoy 5e's simplicity, but it honestly does not have remotely enough spells/feats/archtypes to make it my preferred rule set. Which is saddening, considering the game has been out for... 3 years already? And we've only have two books that created more spells.
A bit disappointing.
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Re: Trapped in the Underdark ~ Out of Character discussion
Doesn't disappoint me in the slightest. If a spell's not there and you want it to be, homebrew it for your game.
If your DM and PCs are cool with it, then make it so. Why does something need to be published in a book for your individual group to be okay with it?
And if your group decides it's underpowered or overpowered, then change it again.
Doesn't disappoint me in the slightest. If a spell's not there and you want it to be, homebrew it for your game.
If your DM and PCs are cool with it, then make it so. Why does something need to be published in a book for your individual group to be okay with it?
And if your group decides it's underpowered or overpowered, then change it again.
DaBomb
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Re: Trapped in the Underdark ~ Out of Character discussion
In most cases, I don't know I want the spell until I see it. So, it hard to homebrew stuff, to that regard.
And homebrewing isn't an option in official games/strict GM's.
In most cases, I don't know I want the spell until I see it. So, it hard to homebrew stuff, to that regard.
And homebrewing isn't an option in official games/strict GM's.
Zilrax
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Re: Trapped in the Underdark ~ Out of Character discussion
Eh, it's more most homebrew stuff isn't that great. It;s why there's few good third party things. Pathfinders been a lot better as far as third party quality goes. Hell, Dreamscarred press is better balanced than pathfinder for the most part.
But most dms aren;t game designers so it's not too big a surprise. Game designs hard. Same with balance work, something I;ve experience with.
Eh, it's more most homebrew stuff isn't that great. It;s why there's few good third party things. Pathfinders been a lot better as far as third party quality goes. Hell, Dreamscarred press is better balanced than pathfinder for the most part.
But most dms aren;t game designers so it's not too big a surprise. Game designs hard. Same with balance work, something I;ve experience with.
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Re: Trapped in the Underdark ~ Out of Character discussion
Yes game balance is hard, but it's easier to police at a table of 5 or so than it would be to send it out for the world to deal with. Maybe creating a new water spell is really neat for the island hopping campaign one is playing but is completely disruptive to a desert world game someone else is playing. I'd say that so long as it isn't ruffling feathers and it sounds cool, it should be okay.
Some of the more successful YouTube games are doing this.
Yes game balance is hard, but it's easier to police at a table of 5 or so than it would be to send it out for the world to deal with. Maybe creating a new water spell is really neat for the island hopping campaign one is playing but is completely disruptive to a desert world game someone else is playing. I'd say that so long as it isn't ruffling feathers and it sounds cool, it should be okay.
Some of the more successful YouTube games are doing this.
Zilrax
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Re: Trapped in the Underdark ~ Out of Character discussion
Can be. I'd say dnd isn't really too well suited to a survival style game on it's own. It's not well built for it. Most survival aspects are easy to handle at low level and there's better systems for handling that sort of thing in my experience. Same thing with low magic. You CAN shoehorn it in but it requires you to tinker with the entire game. I don't really get the idea of devoting so much energy to doing so when you could switch to games that deal with it better like Iron Kingdoms and so forth.
But I don't have an issue adapting to a certain degree either. But it depends what sort of game everyone wants. And dnd really only lends itself well to a certain design. Which is fine. There's other games that do other styles better.
Though we are working on this system to allow it to be adaptable to other setting styles like low magic or sci-fi or superheroes and such.
Can be. I'd say dnd isn't really too well suited to a survival style game on it's own. It's not well built for it. Most survival aspects are easy to handle at low level and there's better systems for handling that sort of thing in my experience. Same thing with low magic. You CAN shoehorn it in but it requires you to tinker with the entire game. I don't really get the idea of devoting so much energy to doing so when you could switch to games that deal with it better like Iron Kingdoms and so forth.
But I don't have an issue adapting to a certain degree either. But it depends what sort of game everyone wants. And dnd really only lends itself well to a certain design. Which is fine. There's other games that do other styles better.
Though we are working on this system to allow it to be adaptable to other setting styles like low magic or sci-fi or superheroes and such.
OP
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Re: Trapped in the Underdark ~ Out of Character discussion
Well, now I got some stuff to read up on, disclaimer, mostly what we disagree on seem to be not factual but philosophical/emotional things, so don't take anything I say as anything more than personal viewpoints unless I got evidence.
To start off, yes, I am a gygaxian DM, a benevolent one, I dare claim, but nonetheless, I like the authorian 'I tell this story, you guys help me tell and shape it' style. Just, in erotica, 'you messed up' turns into 'lewdtimes ahoy!' Like, there are paths, there are huge ending differences, example if Dasyra destroys Ventus blade and how she does it would massively impact ending credits for her,...
But the big bad is kind of set, the rough outline is the same. I've tried a 'make your own choices' campaign and even if you keep the choices binary players struggle, unless you got one sufficiently strong force pushing in one direction and rallying others around them.
I completely agree, if my innocent 'lil campaign kicks off, which it seems it might soon, spoiler alert:
I personally like the idea more of there BEING creatures and things you can't deal with from the start, because the world is dynamic and for every hundred goblins, every ten ogres there should be one adult red dragon if you decide to wander into that cave with the skulls.
Per campaign DMing rules I can have a few overwhelming encounters, namely an encounter of +2 cr vs the pcs I needn't tell you what, for example, a single CR 5 creature can do to a lvl 3 group if played right.
But your response to that is creating pcs that appear to aim at doing exactly the same. Your reaction to a dangerous earth elemental wasn't 'lets lure it away!' it was 'DISMISSAL!' your reaction to an earth elemental priestess wasn't 'lets try to trick her', it was 'CAUSE FEAR!' you are the player version of the DM you despise, that rather than creating investment for the story goes for the one hit and you're down sollutions by wanting to have all the answers.
So what would you have, if the players need to fail, or need to succeed? This boils down not to player agency, but to creativity again, for me. You expect creative reactions of the DM to what the players do, while putting your pcs on a very narow path of what you think works best in confrontations. You ask for creativity but do not give it.
Don't tempt me.
Yarrr I'm a pirate! Errr.. Pretty much agree with everything Blue says, infact, the more of a -plan- I see from a player the more I enjoy the view, usually. I enjoy Kalia and Vel as the demonic mayhem couple, enjoy Lior whos kinda wobbling about still, enjoy Dasyra the devoted undead elfess. (Haven't seen enough of Asheroth and Lena seems to be struggling for a place, sorry.. though apparently Vel helps her find her.. place.
)
I'm personally both capable of rather powerful bulids and don't usually give enough of a crap about being powerful to let it compromise my storytelling, like.. if I enjoy myself in a campaign I find myself considering what to do on next level, how to get X, how to be more awesome at Y, (Frigging 5th edition lacks in options there imo)..
My most powerful character came out of adapting numerous.. and I mean numerous rebuilds, defeats, and re-goes, it was on an online server and in the end I was at the point were other exeptionally powerful characters could barely put a dent into her, some ungodly mix of cleric, dragon disciple and shadowdancer, but that was just a hobby and afterwards, henceforth I forbade myself from playing any class of tier 2 or above, simply because I realized I could build to a point where I could do everything, the other players nothing and it was.. boring.
The same thing happened once again before I realized how nasty paladin smites are in pathfinder, but ever since I've basically focused on building a characters.. character. Sure, I don't want them to be weak, but I want them to have clear weaknesses. For example, give a barbarian insane hitpoints and only average strength, that way I still get to rp her as the unstoppable, unkillable combat force mua ha har har you can't hurt me! But at the same time she can't really steal the show by also cutting enemies down with 20 damage rolls left and right, she's a good frontliner but if her allies don't put out damage for her..
Opposite of my philosophy, depending on group, if I don't have a concept in mind, and currently I do (Next want to play a goblin-barbarian with roll with it and as high strength as I can get, racial penalties and great weapon penalties be damned) I either go high tier and fuck myself over intentionally, I literally once had an Orc-Wizard with negative int, high cons and str, who'd go around 'Casting' 'Inflict moderate injury!'
Or I grab a low tier, non optimal build and powerbuild the heck out of it until its so good at what it does it scares the other tiers into submission. remember the stealth discussion? (If you don't thats bad was like a page ago. ).. I am that guy that has a rogue running around with +30 stealth, +20 Sleight of hand on lvl 3 or 4 and am like 'sure I can't keep up with your damage or spellcasting but you can't see me and I will one day steal a futa unicorn bride from the Queen of fairies, screw you!
I'd make a sarcastic remark about summons and overbearing but I'll just quote my summoner a while back. 'Fuck you, have a celestial owl'... 'Fuck you, heres another celestial owl'. 'Fuck you and your friends, swarm of celestial owls, hooo hoo bitches!' (I wanted a good aligned but bad mouthed character. ^^)
I agree with and like this and would go one step further saying with the right DM you can be a paladin too. I did briefly do this song and dance with 'the best kinda pirate for 5e' but settled on rogue, swashbuckler, because the kinda pirate I wanted was the 'You will always remember this as the day!' over dramatic, kind of cocky-playful endearing kinda pirate that just kind of did their own thing and Swashbucklers Charisma synergy aka 'I get to go first so I can run away, or attack and run away, or any of the lot' was just the kinda thing for that feel I wanted.
I rather fondly remember doing the 'Evil gets shit done' angle with an evil paladin without letting the other players know her alignment, gave her an evil looking necklace that was completely harmless but an excuse for her having an evil aura, a hollow holy symbol of whatever was the LG bozo of that setting, with an unholy symbol of Dispater hidden inside of it, and a nasty high bluff score. I remember I rped a scene where we had a distressed survivor in private with DM, She goes in, 'Alright time for you to tell me what I want to know, before I give you a real reason to cry' a few intimidate rolls later comes out and goes. 'I managed to calm her down, please, let her recover in peace now, here is what she revealed to me, gather around my friends, for it is grave news and we need make haste'. Later the groups CG mage hit on her going 'you're the only one truly trustworthy here' it was great... sadly the campaign died before I got to reveal her true nature.
plz no moments in the sun for Ludmilla though. .. get it... get it?
I agree that the design was wonky. It should from the beginning, have a bit more of a split to someone who has more options available, I think the 5th edition does the Rogue a LOT of good, frankly, I'd personally welcome if it dropped the awkward sneak attacking apart from one archetype and focused on 'guy that fights dextrously and trickily.. not always fairly' at first.
That one I don't agree with, and I honestly believe you judge the rogue overly harsh because its not a class you enjoy playing. A properly played rogue can be a lot more, random example, if you had had a rogue in Overquest, you'd have Corgana by your side fighting the DICK with one easy sleight of hand.
Wont work, your system is biased towards people that WANT to build complicatedly and has no casual appeal, unless you want a niche system for people that enjoy tinkering about you can save yourself the disappointment. If its just for your gaming group or somesuch.. interesting modular concept, sounds like a pain to balance. I've seen games that tried to do everything, ask the Truenamer how that went.
I concur, well, spells Blue answers next, but I would enjoy a lot more customization options allowing me to adjust my character to the surroundings.
Homebrew is literally allowed for spells since the days of D&D's inception. The reason you have Melfs acid arrow is that there was a guy who wrote was too lazy to name his Male ELF anything more complicated, but wanted a spell that shot an acid arrow at a foe in Gygax basement.
*Considering Haunted Sexy Pirate prestige class for unrelated reasons*
Errr..
Frankly, most systems have a small 'Btw, if you wanna customize, heres how!' section for DM's, or at least they should have. One thing I most definitly like about pathfinder is that you can play as pretty much any race you can think of and some you never heard or thought about prior. Wanna be a goblin? We gotcha! Wanna be a frog girl with prehensile tongue shenanigans? We got a feat for ya that lets ya imagine a human and a grippli having sex, somehow, have fun with it! Watched too much doctor who? Heres the time thief class, heres a Samsaran, go nuts.
Watched too much Rick and Morty, heres the artificier class, heres a price list for a slave sidekick, consider magnifcient pigments as magic item later on for a 'they're drawing it' meme effect, etc. ^^
Well, now I got some stuff to read up on, disclaimer, mostly what we disagree on seem to be not factual but philosophical/emotional things, so don't take anything I say as anything more than personal viewpoints unless I got evidence.
To start off, yes, I am a gygaxian DM, a benevolent one, I dare claim, but nonetheless, I like the authorian 'I tell this story, you guys help me tell and shape it' style. Just, in erotica, 'you messed up' turns into 'lewdtimes ahoy!' Like, there are paths, there are huge ending differences, example if Dasyra destroys Ventus blade and how she does it would massively impact ending credits for her,...
But the big bad is kind of set, the rough outline is the same. I've tried a 'make your own choices' campaign and even if you keep the choices binary players struggle, unless you got one sufficiently strong force pushing in one direction and rallying others around them.
I completely agree, if my innocent 'lil campaign kicks off, which it seems it might soon, spoiler alert:
The idea would be to confront the players with someone that outranks them so far in level they have no chance in a direct confrontation, not because the character is invincible, but because the villain would be like a high level high end player, permanent immunity to most cheap shots, a nasty assortment of magital and on use items, all those shenanigans.
I personally like the idea more of there BEING creatures and things you can't deal with from the start, because the world is dynamic and for every hundred goblins, every ten ogres there should be one adult red dragon if you decide to wander into that cave with the skulls.
Per campaign DMing rules I can have a few overwhelming encounters, namely an encounter of +2 cr vs the pcs I needn't tell you what, for example, a single CR 5 creature can do to a lvl 3 group if played right.
But your response to that is creating pcs that appear to aim at doing exactly the same. Your reaction to a dangerous earth elemental wasn't 'lets lure it away!' it was 'DISMISSAL!' your reaction to an earth elemental priestess wasn't 'lets try to trick her', it was 'CAUSE FEAR!' you are the player version of the DM you despise, that rather than creating investment for the story goes for the one hit and you're down sollutions by wanting to have all the answers.
So what would you have, if the players need to fail, or need to succeed? This boils down not to player agency, but to creativity again, for me. You expect creative reactions of the DM to what the players do, while putting your pcs on a very narow path of what you think works best in confrontations. You ask for creativity but do not give it.
Don't tempt me.
Yarrr I'm a pirate! Errr.. Pretty much agree with everything Blue says, infact, the more of a -plan- I see from a player the more I enjoy the view, usually. I enjoy Kalia and Vel as the demonic mayhem couple, enjoy Lior whos kinda wobbling about still, enjoy Dasyra the devoted undead elfess. (Haven't seen enough of Asheroth and Lena seems to be struggling for a place, sorry.. though apparently Vel helps her find her.. place.
)I'm personally both capable of rather powerful bulids and don't usually give enough of a crap about being powerful to let it compromise my storytelling, like.. if I enjoy myself in a campaign I find myself considering what to do on next level, how to get X, how to be more awesome at Y, (Frigging 5th edition lacks in options there imo)..
My most powerful character came out of adapting numerous.. and I mean numerous rebuilds, defeats, and re-goes, it was on an online server and in the end I was at the point were other exeptionally powerful characters could barely put a dent into her, some ungodly mix of cleric, dragon disciple and shadowdancer, but that was just a hobby and afterwards, henceforth I forbade myself from playing any class of tier 2 or above, simply because I realized I could build to a point where I could do everything, the other players nothing and it was.. boring.
The same thing happened once again before I realized how nasty paladin smites are in pathfinder, but ever since I've basically focused on building a characters.. character. Sure, I don't want them to be weak, but I want them to have clear weaknesses. For example, give a barbarian insane hitpoints and only average strength, that way I still get to rp her as the unstoppable, unkillable combat force mua ha har har you can't hurt me! But at the same time she can't really steal the show by also cutting enemies down with 20 damage rolls left and right, she's a good frontliner but if her allies don't put out damage for her..
Opposite of my philosophy, depending on group, if I don't have a concept in mind, and currently I do (Next want to play a goblin-barbarian with roll with it and as high strength as I can get, racial penalties and great weapon penalties be damned) I either go high tier and fuck myself over intentionally, I literally once had an Orc-Wizard with negative int, high cons and str, who'd go around 'Casting' 'Inflict moderate injury!'
Or I grab a low tier, non optimal build and powerbuild the heck out of it until its so good at what it does it scares the other tiers into submission. remember the stealth discussion? (If you don't thats bad was like a page ago.
).. I am that guy that has a rogue running around with +30 stealth, +20 Sleight of hand on lvl 3 or 4 and am like 'sure I can't keep up with your damage or spellcasting but you can't see me and I will one day steal a futa unicorn bride from the Queen of fairies, screw you!I'd make a sarcastic remark about summons and overbearing but I'll just quote my summoner a while back. 'Fuck you, have a celestial owl'... 'Fuck you, heres another celestial owl'. 'Fuck you and your friends, swarm of celestial owls, hooo hoo bitches!' (I wanted a good aligned but bad mouthed character. ^^)
I agree with and like this and would go one step further saying with the right DM you can be a paladin too. I did briefly do this song and dance with 'the best kinda pirate for 5e' but settled on rogue, swashbuckler, because the kinda pirate I wanted was the 'You will always remember this as the day!' over dramatic, kind of cocky-playful endearing kinda pirate that just kind of did their own thing and Swashbucklers Charisma synergy aka 'I get to go first so I can run away, or attack and run away, or any of the lot' was just the kinda thing for that feel I wanted.
I rather fondly remember doing the 'Evil gets shit done' angle with an evil paladin without letting the other players know her alignment, gave her an evil looking necklace that was completely harmless but an excuse for her having an evil aura, a hollow holy symbol of whatever was the LG bozo of that setting, with an unholy symbol of Dispater hidden inside of it, and a nasty high bluff score. I remember I rped a scene where we had a distressed survivor in private with DM, She goes in, 'Alright time for you to tell me what I want to know, before I give you a real reason to cry' a few intimidate rolls later comes out and goes. 'I managed to calm her down, please, let her recover in peace now, here is what she revealed to me, gather around my friends, for it is grave news and we need make haste'. Later the groups CG mage hit on her going 'you're the only one truly trustworthy here' it was great... sadly the campaign died before I got to reveal her true nature.
plz no moments in the sun for Ludmilla though. .. get it... get it?
I agree that the design was wonky. It should from the beginning, have a bit more of a split to someone who has more options available, I think the 5th edition does the Rogue a LOT of good, frankly, I'd personally welcome if it dropped the awkward sneak attacking apart from one archetype and focused on 'guy that fights dextrously and trickily.. not always fairly' at first.
That one I don't agree with, and I honestly believe you judge the rogue overly harsh because its not a class you enjoy playing. A properly played rogue can be a lot more, random example, if you had had a rogue in Overquest, you'd have Corgana by your side fighting the DICK with one easy sleight of hand.
Wont work, your system is biased towards people that WANT to build complicatedly and has no casual appeal, unless you want a niche system for people that enjoy tinkering about you can save yourself the disappointment. If its just for your gaming group or somesuch.. interesting modular concept, sounds like a pain to balance. I've seen games that tried to do everything, ask the Truenamer how that went.
I concur, well, spells Blue answers next, but I would enjoy a lot more customization options allowing me to adjust my character to the surroundings.
Homebrew is literally allowed for spells since the days of D&D's inception. The reason you have Melfs acid arrow is that there was a guy who wrote was too lazy to name his Male ELF anything more complicated, but wanted a spell that shot an acid arrow at a foe in Gygax basement.
*Considering Haunted Sexy Pirate prestige class for unrelated reasons*
Errr..
Frankly, most systems have a small 'Btw, if you wanna customize, heres how!' section for DM's, or at least they should have. One thing I most definitly like about pathfinder is that you can play as pretty much any race you can think of and some you never heard or thought about prior. Wanna be a goblin? We gotcha! Wanna be a frog girl with prehensile tongue shenanigans? We got a feat for ya that lets ya imagine a human and a grippli having sex, somehow, have fun with it! Watched too much doctor who? Heres the time thief class, heres a Samsaran, go nuts.
Watched too much Rick and Morty, heres the artificier class, heres a price list for a slave sidekick, consider magnifcient pigments as magic item later on for a 'they're drawing it' meme effect, etc. ^^
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Re: Trapped in the Underdark ~ Out of Character discussion
That's all imagination stuff and 5e is so mechanically simple compared to pathfinder that it's quite easy to customise race, class, background and items. The DMG for 5e has a guide for all that and Unearthed Arcana is constantly rolling out more ideas for class concepts. Artificer rules came out in January.
But really if the system is simple it's easier to portion new ideas. So I'm happy with the new ed.
That's all imagination stuff and 5e is so mechanically simple compared to pathfinder that it's quite easy to customise race, class, background and items. The DMG for 5e has a guide for all that and Unearthed Arcana is constantly rolling out more ideas for class concepts. Artificer rules came out in January.
But really if the system is simple it's easier to portion new ideas. So I'm happy with the new ed.
Zilrax
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Re: Trapped in the Underdark ~ Out of Character discussion
I don't take much personally on the internet. Poe's Law being a thing, it's too easy to misinterpret so I try to err on the assumption that people mean things in the best possible way.
First off, I enjoy the idea of the rogue. I've played the rogue. I actually played it primarily starting up. I can make a rogue that hits hard. I can make a rogue with skills. But the rogue has no inherent advantage on slight of hand over any other class so that's not really a "rogue" thing per say. There's tons of ways we could get the thing off the DICK but our rebel allies want her eliminated so it runs into conflict time. But if Yan put all her ranks in slight of hand she'd have just as good odds. Possibly better.
And that's where it rubs up for me. If rogues are supposed to be good at skills, they need ways to be good at skills. As it is the Bard effectively has more skill points because of Versatile Performance, and then spells. And the Investigator is amazing at skills in general. They've class features that actually make them good at skills.
Then the Bard and Investigator have more combat options overall to deal with varied situations. The Rogue has very few ways to deal with their counters. Total concealment of any kind shoots them, so they have to burn out of class resources to deal with it. If they can at all. And then on top of it you have no way to bolster accuracy meaning that many enemies can be hard nuts to crack for the rogue. Sure, the damage can be decent (Not for me though, I've unholy bad luck with d6's. My level 17 rogue tended to create the Argus, thats how many 1's I tended to roll) but if you two weapon, your kinda lousy accuracy goes down even further. You can alleviate this with multiclassing and so forth but if you have to leave your class to make your class effective, kinda doesn't speak well for it.
It's a resource issue. Each class brings certain things to the table. The best martials bring their own buffs, or in the barbs case can push those buffs better than any other class. The bard brings good skills, magic utility, most of the best buffs in the game including Bardic Music. Then you've got fighter Rogue and Monk who either need to take UMD to pretend to be another class, multiclass into other classes or just be a resource sponge. Fact is, if you can be creative on the rogue, you can be creative on any class. Creativity is not a rogue class feature. That's a player feature.
That stronger things are out there isn't an issue really but it leads to short campaigns. Having above equal cr encounters is not unusual though. cr +2 is slightly harder than usual. CR+3 is the upper limit because you're probably gonna kill someone as it is but it's beatable. Par cr is generally a simple encounter.
As for the elemental thing, there's several obvious problems there. First, luring it away? It's a guardian. With tremorsense. That no one in the party can hurt. We could lure it away, and hope that it doesn't notice us despite nobody having darkvision to sneak by and see the darn thing. I could air walk but if it can see, same problem.
As for the witch, how were we gonna fool her? She automatically assumed our intentions all over the place. She was paranoid and aggressive. She would probably have assumed everything was a trick and none of the party was bluff based. It wasn't in our range of abilities. We were one ranger and a cleric, our options were not exactly the widest. I used the options available to me. I mean I could use the screwdriver to hammer in the nail and it'd be creative, but I have a hammer right there. And seeing as everyone else didn't even have a screwdriver...
I prefer doing both. Having a character be strong doesn't make a character better or worse as a character. Same goes for having them weak. But having them weak doooooes tend to mean that your fellow party members need to use more of their resources to let you keep up/get resurrected. Unless everyones weak. But that's called a TPK generally.
I mean, it's not like I'm doing any unusual builds or any extreme level optimization. This is pretty baseline stuff.
Also, I personally prefer kobold barbarian. Yeah your strengths even lower than a goblin, but people underestimate how effective a kobold actually is in melee because they're much more difficult to hit than a goblin and nearly as sneaky. Though if you wanna do a mounted barb, goblins better. But it's not like being a small sized barb is bad by any means. I prefer one handed weapons myself really. You can two hand em if you want and leaves you open to use a shield or drop the shield or do other one handed things and defend yourself. Less damage generally but it's a preference thing.
I agree 5th edition rogues much better. Not how I'd have done it because I tend to find 5e a little... Undercooked but it's not nearly as in a hole as pathfinder's one is.
As for not working, we'll see. It's not even Alpha yet, but the idea is to make making the character you want less a hassle and to make martials not constantly being overshadowed because the wizard can make a fortress in 24 hours and no martial can and so forth. And to get rid of the feat bloat overall cus so many of those feats are a waste of paper. We're getting rid of basically all the +X number feats in general, including power attack incidentally and making adjustments to things accordingly. Also making making monsters less opaque so it's easy to do and by extension makes it easier to play atypical and monstrous classes without running into balance problems playing a Lamia Matriarch or a Drider or a Medusa can bring in pathfinder.
There is gonna be a way to make a fully non magical character but we're still trying to work out the kinks.
I don't take much personally on the internet. Poe's Law being a thing, it's too easy to misinterpret so I try to err on the assumption that people mean things in the best possible way.
First off, I enjoy the idea of the rogue. I've played the rogue. I actually played it primarily starting up. I can make a rogue that hits hard. I can make a rogue with skills. But the rogue has no inherent advantage on slight of hand over any other class so that's not really a "rogue" thing per say. There's tons of ways we could get the thing off the DICK but our rebel allies want her eliminated so it runs into conflict time. But if Yan put all her ranks in slight of hand she'd have just as good odds. Possibly better.
And that's where it rubs up for me. If rogues are supposed to be good at skills, they need ways to be good at skills. As it is the Bard effectively has more skill points because of Versatile Performance, and then spells. And the Investigator is amazing at skills in general. They've class features that actually make them good at skills.
Then the Bard and Investigator have more combat options overall to deal with varied situations. The Rogue has very few ways to deal with their counters. Total concealment of any kind shoots them, so they have to burn out of class resources to deal with it. If they can at all. And then on top of it you have no way to bolster accuracy meaning that many enemies can be hard nuts to crack for the rogue. Sure, the damage can be decent (Not for me though, I've unholy bad luck with d6's. My level 17 rogue tended to create the Argus, thats how many 1's I tended to roll) but if you two weapon, your kinda lousy accuracy goes down even further. You can alleviate this with multiclassing and so forth but if you have to leave your class to make your class effective, kinda doesn't speak well for it.
It's a resource issue. Each class brings certain things to the table. The best martials bring their own buffs, or in the barbs case can push those buffs better than any other class. The bard brings good skills, magic utility, most of the best buffs in the game including Bardic Music. Then you've got fighter Rogue and Monk who either need to take UMD to pretend to be another class, multiclass into other classes or just be a resource sponge. Fact is, if you can be creative on the rogue, you can be creative on any class. Creativity is not a rogue class feature. That's a player feature.
That stronger things are out there isn't an issue really but it leads to short campaigns. Having above equal cr encounters is not unusual though. cr +2 is slightly harder than usual. CR+3 is the upper limit because you're probably gonna kill someone as it is but it's beatable. Par cr is generally a simple encounter.
As for the elemental thing, there's several obvious problems there. First, luring it away? It's a guardian. With tremorsense. That no one in the party can hurt. We could lure it away, and hope that it doesn't notice us despite nobody having darkvision to sneak by and see the darn thing. I could air walk but if it can see, same problem.
As for the witch, how were we gonna fool her? She automatically assumed our intentions all over the place. She was paranoid and aggressive. She would probably have assumed everything was a trick and none of the party was bluff based. It wasn't in our range of abilities. We were one ranger and a cleric, our options were not exactly the widest. I used the options available to me. I mean I could use the screwdriver to hammer in the nail and it'd be creative, but I have a hammer right there. And seeing as everyone else didn't even have a screwdriver...
I prefer doing both. Having a character be strong doesn't make a character better or worse as a character. Same goes for having them weak. But having them weak doooooes tend to mean that your fellow party members need to use more of their resources to let you keep up/get resurrected. Unless everyones weak. But that's called a TPK generally.
I mean, it's not like I'm doing any unusual builds or any extreme level optimization. This is pretty baseline stuff.
Also, I personally prefer kobold barbarian. Yeah your strengths even lower than a goblin, but people underestimate how effective a kobold actually is in melee because they're much more difficult to hit than a goblin and nearly as sneaky. Though if you wanna do a mounted barb, goblins better. But it's not like being a small sized barb is bad by any means. I prefer one handed weapons myself really. You can two hand em if you want and leaves you open to use a shield or drop the shield or do other one handed things and defend yourself. Less damage generally but it's a preference thing.
I agree 5th edition rogues much better. Not how I'd have done it because I tend to find 5e a little... Undercooked but it's not nearly as in a hole as pathfinder's one is.
As for not working, we'll see. It's not even Alpha yet, but the idea is to make making the character you want less a hassle and to make martials not constantly being overshadowed because the wizard can make a fortress in 24 hours and no martial can and so forth. And to get rid of the feat bloat overall cus so many of those feats are a waste of paper. We're getting rid of basically all the +X number feats in general, including power attack incidentally and making adjustments to things accordingly. Also making making monsters less opaque so it's easy to do and by extension makes it easier to play atypical and monstrous classes without running into balance problems playing a Lamia Matriarch or a Drider or a Medusa can bring in pathfinder.
There is gonna be a way to make a fully non magical character but we're still trying to work out the kinks.
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Re: Trapped in the Underdark ~ Out of Character discussion
Until I see the Truenamer done right I shall not be lauding it.
I guess I can agree that 5e did a good job with simplifications, but I feel like it went a little far in the feats/items department, I'd like more options there, from a mechanical basis as well. In pathfinder I can build 5 Barbarians that all feel exeptionally different yet are effective in their own ways, in 5th its 1, maybe 2 if I'm very generous.
Not to dismiss the 5ths advances to be clear but it still has ways to go imo.
Until I see the Truenamer done right I shall not be lauding it.
I guess I can agree that 5e did a good job with simplifications, but I feel like it went a little far in the feats/items department, I'd like more options there, from a mechanical basis as well. In pathfinder I can build 5 Barbarians that all feel exeptionally different yet are effective in their own ways, in 5th its 1, maybe 2 if I'm very generous.
Not to dismiss the 5ths advances to be clear but it still has ways to go imo.
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Re: Trapped in the Underdark ~ Out of Character discussion
Roll with it is too hillarious to me and synergizes wonderfully with barbarian DR,
If you grab enough acrobatics and DR you are both dangerous, hard to kill and hillarious. If your DM is strict on movement rules that feat becomes even more insane because you determine the direction you flop in.
As someone who has herp a derped game systems in the past, see the corruption tournament, I advice you narrow your scope, you can't make everything possible.
I'll respond mainly to this because that one seems your core argument and my counter is simply...
Yeah, all true but I can be more creative on the rogue.
Or infact the monk, though I don't dig their.. monastic rp bent, else I'd be all over those various mixed goodies they get too. If I were a monk, I'd try to get my enemies equipped with bows just for the hillarity of catching arrows alone.
Roll with it is too hillarious to me and synergizes wonderfully with barbarian DR,
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If you grab enough acrobatics and DR you are both dangerous, hard to kill and hillarious. If your DM is strict on movement rules that feat becomes even more insane because you determine the direction you flop in.
As someone who has herp a derped game systems in the past, see the corruption tournament, I advice you narrow your scope, you can't make everything possible.
I'll respond mainly to this because that one seems your core argument and my counter is simply...
Yeah, all true but I can be more creative on the rogue.
Or infact the monk, though I don't dig their.. monastic rp bent, else I'd be all over those various mixed goodies they get too. If I were a monk, I'd try to get my enemies equipped with bows just for the hillarity of catching arrows alone.
Zilrax
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Re: Trapped in the Underdark ~ Out of Character discussion
I am unsure how you can be more creative with a rogue but I think that might be a player thing and not a thing intrinsic to the rogue. I suspect it's more you have to be because you don't have a choice but to rely on it. But you can't balance a class around that. That's a player thing.
And well I'm not head dev. I'm just helping it along best I can and watching. As for do it all? No. Probably not. But we can try to do it better than what we have now, which is basically wizard get's all the toys.
Also the truenamer's problem was that it scaled backwards. It got worse as it leveled. Which is pretty dumb design. But I'm not even sure how that's even related? I'd say it has more in common with the qinggong monk personally. Or d20 modern.
Yeah Monk suffers from forced flavor a fair bit. But Brawlers not that effective compared to Unchained Monk. But refluffing is doable.
I am unsure how you can be more creative with a rogue but I think that might be a player thing and not a thing intrinsic to the rogue. I suspect it's more you have to be because you don't have a choice but to rely on it. But you can't balance a class around that. That's a player thing.
And well I'm not head dev. I'm just helping it along best I can and watching. As for do it all? No. Probably not. But we can try to do it better than what we have now, which is basically wizard get's all the toys.
Also the truenamer's problem was that it scaled backwards. It got worse as it leveled. Which is pretty dumb design. But I'm not even sure how that's even related? I'd say it has more in common with the qinggong monk personally. Or d20 modern.
Yeah Monk suffers from forced flavor a fair bit. But Brawlers not that effective compared to Unchained Monk. But refluffing is doable.
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Re: Trapped in the Underdark ~ Out of Character discussion
You keep pointing out examples how a character can fill the role of the rogue as if that invalidates them, Well, the rogue can fill the role of other characters just as well, infact, a well played arcane Trickster can 'invalidate' all the tier 1 and 2 npcs a DM throws out. D&D is ment to allow for one class to somewhat fill another classes shoes. The paladin can be the healer, the ranger can go to the frontlines. The rogue is designed to deal with a lot of situations creativly, without magici'n them away. They have the most available tools to deal with situations, without having direct answers in form of spells, thats what makes them interesting, creatively, to me.
The Truenamer problem is a lot more related to your system design than you think, because they started out as something that sounds a lot like your game system, rather than weak mages that could ignore saves but not hit anything past lvl 5ish without massive gear dumping, they had a building toolkit to build their own spells and effects with, to put the design notes in a nutshell.
It was dropped, because the building blocks of creativity approach to game systems has unsurmountable limitations.
The sad part about monks is I can build an unarmed barbarian and outpunch them with power attack. That said, fear the svirfneblin monk with nothing to lose. Give one mirror image, displacement, and if you want to be cruel in high level,
You keep pointing out examples how a character can fill the role of the rogue as if that invalidates them, Well, the rogue can fill the role of other characters just as well, infact, a well played arcane Trickster can 'invalidate' all the tier 1 and 2 npcs a DM throws out. D&D is ment to allow for one class to somewhat fill another classes shoes. The paladin can be the healer, the ranger can go to the frontlines. The rogue is designed to deal with a lot of situations creativly, without magici'n them away. They have the most available tools to deal with situations, without having direct answers in form of spells, thats what makes them interesting, creatively, to me.
The Truenamer problem is a lot more related to your system design than you think, because they started out as something that sounds a lot like your game system, rather than weak mages that could ignore saves but not hit anything past lvl 5ish without massive gear dumping, they had a building toolkit to build their own spells and effects with, to put the design notes in a nutshell.
It was dropped, because the building blocks of creativity approach to game systems has unsurmountable limitations.
The sad part about monks is I can build an unarmed barbarian and outpunch them with power attack. That said, fear the svirfneblin monk with nothing to lose. Give one mirror image, displacement, and if you want to be cruel in high level,
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and not even nat 20's gonna do a thing to them.
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