D&D 5e
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Apparently the fifth edition has been released.
And Wizards of the Coast are giving away the basic rule-set in the form of a free, PDF: -
Ya…....I will continue to stick with 3.5 editions.
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3.5 and pathfinder are more than good enough for me, I'm sceptic about anything wizards of the coast makes in regards to d&d after they ruined the last version utterly.
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But….barbarians must keep attacking to maintain rage. That means RAGE BOW SHOOTING!
[Pulls out an arrow, fumbles a bit in rage, notches arrow, drool and foam coming out of the mouth, then shoots!]
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[punches the floor on the way to the next battle]
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Always with the loopholes eh chesh?
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I won the fishing competition with RAGEFISHING as you well know, Connie… Why not RAGEARCHERY?
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I bought the basic set.
I was thinking maybe some folks at the ecovillage might play with me. tho it hasn't happened yet…
I didn't mind 4th ed that much... i liked some of the simplifications, like fewer but better representative skills (sort of like how knights of the old republic adapted their skill options from 3.5 dnd to be reduced but still inclusive).The main goal of 4e I think was to balance the different classes and levels, ie so that 1st level wiz wasn't always sort of useless compared to anyone else, and then at high levels, if you were not cleric or wiz with high spell progression, you were useless... they made it so everyone had 'powers' at least on the attack scale, defined as physical or magical or what have you, with a limited number of uses...
if fighting classes had 'stamina' - so they couldn't fight non-stop without resting, and if spellcasters had regenerating 'magic points' which could be tweaked to limit the amount of powerful spells casters can lob off in close succession... hmm shadowrun used stamina for spells to i think... resist fatigue... at any rate there are probably other ways to balance things. The other strength I think 4e had, which it possibly partly took from the mmorpg genre, was the design of needing specialists and working as teams to solve problems, and not trying to have badass characters that can 'do everything', but that actually fulfill a specific role or roles
the main roles they had in 4e were striker, defender, leader, and controller
striker = high damage, focused target
defender = tank
leader = buffs and healer mostly
controller = some buffs, lots of battlefield manipulating powers, and area of effect power to control or fight large numbers of enemies at once, etcpeople could sometimes sub as one of the other areas, but if you were taking on a certain role, and trying to do others as well, often you were not doing it as well, ie if you are a striker-defender-leader you need to find ways of balancing high damage to enemies with directing enemy attacks to yourself to nullify them to healing the rest of the party, etc ... with only so many actions per round, if you power game to be the best damage dealer, you may end up choosing not to tank to kill the enemy, allowing your squishy friends to take hits; similarly with healing.
I noticed that people often wanted to be 'strikers' - the heroes dealing devastating blows to the enemy - but that often the 'tank' was the most important role to fill first to make sure the party didn't get hosed, but was often the least glamourous if you weren't also a devastating striker, and just kept going down, and getting back up, and then going down and taking it again... some people were not willing to stay there and take it if there character was going to die; others didn't know when they should back off and let the rest of the party handle things until they could get back to fighting readiness.
I also noticed in 4e that people deferred to 'rolling dice' instead of roleplaying to work out some situations in game, but depending on the players and dm, it could be handled differently.
With the return and ... requirement? of mini's and a map, the game is much more ...boardgame like than rpg... but that started with 3.0 i think...So like i think 4e was experimenting with balance and teamwork a lot more, as well as a monetizing model - the more 'powers' etc their are, the more books you may want to sell - but i think it was getting way over complicated ... i've known many dm's who've run games on just the phb, mm, and dmg, and every other book or option etc was talk to the gm to allow it or not... so you don't have to bring a ridiculous library of books to every game, and the dm doesn't have to memorize what's in every book to be able to run the game. Some people can't handle that kind of information overload/management - I would say I was one of those.
I really liked how some of the 3.0/3.5 generic rpg books, gave rules for making templates or customizing rules, designing your own monsters, traps, classes, etc, which felt like it brought back some of the simplicity and creativity to the game... and players didn't have to like take wild paths to seek different classes and p-classes to fulfill their characters design/ goals etc.
the white wolf system (vampire, mage, werewolf, etc) seemed pretty good at this customizeable thing, and so did the guardians of order tristat system a bit (big eyes small mouth) but I didn't really follow up how the system shifted when they switched onto the d20 bandwagon...
i liked the big eyes small mouth system because i felt like it was simple enough for younger kids, like my niece, to figure out, and for someone like me to make specialized rules without getting unbalanced or to complicated (but i never actually got around to trying that out...)
wow this is long. I'm going to stop right here.
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Say what you will, I think DnD 5e got wizards perfectly with the wizard / sorcerer combo and rituals. Finally got rid of that cast-and-forget-spell nonsense.
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heard 5th was a return to source of sort, touching old 2 and 3, but simplified a lot of stuff and added in advantages and disadvantages. How good is it, how bad is it compared to good old 3 & 3.5?
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I still stand by that it's awesome because of rage bow shooting.
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My friends tried it, when I asked them if it was 3.5's replacement they made a sour face and one of them said….. "wellllllllll, it's not as bad as 4th ed at-least" I'm not holding my breath.
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says the l33t powergamer who seems to have nearly memorized the archaic 3.0 rules of nwn in coa …
(points at the smiley cat) -
I don't powergame in PnP, its not very hard to abuse PnP rules no matter what the edition is and it won't impress anyone in your group to do it. In-fact they'd just think you're an ass if you did it lol.
Also any good dm will make a list of which sourcebook he's allowing for his campaign and which ones he isn't (usually the allowed list comprises only of the books he's familiar with), while that does seem like a limitation it's not…. You can make a very fun campaign with the core rulebooks alone, NwN for example is almost exclusively core rulebook content.
And anyone looking for a change of pace in game rules can easily make house rules.3.5 was created by taking the best house rule suggestions by the playerbase and applying it to 3.0 as an official rework after a few years of 3.0 being out. Pathfinder is much the same, after several years of 3.5 being out there were even more improvement suggestions and great houserules out there so they just compiled the best ones and applied them.
In the end Pathfinder is actually a version of 3.5 that's far more userfriendly for new starting players, that still keeps to the style of 3.5 without losing any features. It's also more balanced from a mechanical standpoint.
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yeah i picked up the pathfinder phb although haven't really read through it or got a chance to use it… don't know where some of my stuff is still, but pathfinder is really creating a niche for itself... hopefully it keeps a good player base while wizards and official dnd do their different new versions...
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I've played it, and it's actually quite fun. I think the biggest difference from 3.5 is how it's a lot harder to overpower any one ability or skill, which is sort of scary for a lot of hardcore players, I think. Still, it's not all that different, and the rules are easy to change as you see fit. Personally I just like the class and race changes the most. Everything feels a lot more unique. Warlocks just seem plain awesome.