I'm new to D&D so have no experience, what is the difference between an Xe and an X.5e? Like in terms of broad changes, what would thst entail? What difference would it make to the consumer?
The way it's usually used on these forums, a "D&D 5.5e" would be a replacement of the original core rulebooks, or perhaps just the 5e Player's Handbook, with an updated edition that changes or improves many of the game's existing rules without changing the core game engine. The bones of the game would stay the same, but there would be changes made to the organs and muscle of it. D&D 5.5e is many things to many people, but to many of the people who want a 5.5e redux the most, what it would mean is repairing some of the faulty design in 5e, or modernizing elements of the game that haven't aged so well. Think of 5.5e as a big core patch to a video game, while all the books like Tasha's Cauldron or the like are just DLC that don't really interact with or work for the core game.
DnD is not a competitive game, there are no OP or underpowered classes or sub classes because you succeed or fail as a party, you are not competing with each other. there are some that are more interesting to play then others but depending on how you choose to play the game there is an option for you.
As a DM there is nothing in the published material that makes me go, oh I don’t want that at my table, with the exception of fly at low levels. But that is more because it makes the game a little one dimensional as fly solves so many low level challenges.
But those who sit and say X or Y is overpowerd, in relation to what? as a dm throw harder challenges at your players then, there are always clever ways to challenge them. So your Hexblade Paladin does a massive damage output, great? Buff your monsters HP, or increase the AC, or swarm them with lots of enemies so that massive overkill is wasted on just one enemy. Target the squishy back line with a flank attack.
I started out with the first edition of AD&D, and I have some fond memories of it, but for the most part, there was more bad than good. There were limitations all over the place, Alignment limitations, Score limitations, special rules for Strength, characters who randomly had psionic powers, rules buried in the DMG that the players needed to know, stuff in the PHB that only the DM should have known, and if you think the 5th edition DMG is poorly written, take a gander at the one from first edition AD&D.
I have the core rules, Tasha's, Xanathar's and Volo's and rarely does anything other than some of the character races from Volo's matter much in my games. I am probably allowing spells from the other books without knowing so.
I remember 2nd edition AD&D died from splatbook overload. I remember 3/3.5 buried under Prestige classes. 4th edition wasn't D&D. 5th edition seems to have struck just the right note. It's recognizably similar to the game I started with while updated with a lot of cool things from all the editions previous, even a few things from 4th made their way in.
I hope not to see a 5.5 version. 3.5 was mostly a naked cash grab more than anything else, for a game that was already dying.
DnD is not a competitive game, there are no OP or underpowered classes or sub classes because you succeed or fail as a party, you are not competing with each other. there are some that are more interesting to play then others but depending on how you choose to play the game there is an option for you.
As a DM there is nothing in the published material that makes me go, oh I don’t want that at my table, with the exception of fly at low levels. But that is more because it makes the game a little one dimensional as fly solves so many low level challenges.
But those who sit and say X or Y is overpowerd, in relation to what? as a dm throw harder challenges at your players then, there are always clever ways to challenge them. So your Hexblade Paladin does a massive damage output, great? Buff your monsters HP, or increase the AC, or swarm them with lots of enemies so that massive overkill is wasted on just one enemy. Target the squishy back line with a flank attack.
It has been stated many times the issue between OP and weak classes/sub-classes. The game may co-operative, but for a DM it is a nightmare balancing encounters where one char is vastly superior to the rest, or one vastly inferior to to the rest. It is not always possible, nor desired, for the DM to always have the toughest monsters target the Conquest Paladin.
And then we have the problem of one player dominating the show, while everyone else is now a spectator.
It is far superior to have "equal, but different", and that is simply not the case with the vast majority of classes/subclasses, and made so much worse with the power leap in Tasha's.
I have always disagreed, with this argument, as a DM I don’t struggle to balance and I don’t struggle to let every player have a moment to shine. But I generally don’t play with min maxers. 20 years of playing and DMing ttrpgs I can tell you nothing in 5E matches probably the hardest thing to manage, a cyberpunk game with a Netrunner who litterely requires hours of game time on there own to do their thing while the other players watch at the table, and who can die to a single bullet in combat. But you know what, that player wants to tank 20 enemies like they are playing WoW that’s fine, I can give them that Experiance, and then put them in a canyon being attacked from range, or keep that dragon airborn. If the only attack you give your players is an attack of opportunity you significantly reduce the opportunities they have.
By the time you reach mid levels in 5E nothing is that squishy and everything can be given a chance.
But if you dislike certain subclasses just don’t allow them, as a matter of course every campaign I start I limit player choices, races they can pick, the classes and subclasses available because sometimes this makes players think and do interesting things.
Q20 years of playing and DMing ttrpgs I can tell you nothing in 5E matches probably the hardest thing to manage, a cyberpunk game with a Netrunner who litterely requires hours of game time on there own to do their thing while the other players watch at the table, and who can die to a single bullet in combat.
I've only done a rules read through, so really don't know, but doesn't the new Red edition sort of solve that with the localized nets and what not? But yeah in 2013 and 2020 the parallel netrunner game was a life drainer from the table. if I had time and resourced back then I'd just do the Netrunner as a 1:1 game and let the rest of the party know how it went as their meatspace time plays out.
As to the topic, I'll say again I have a mixes of PHB and XGtE and Tasha's in my parties, and just don't have the problems often bemoaned on this hill. I'm curious what the survey is going to show, but figure we won't ever actually see the data. It's just going to become a set that can be spun by the studio to justify whatever course they want to take.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
DnD is not a competitive game, there are no OP or underpowered classes or sub classes because you succeed or fail as a party, you are not competing with each other. there are some that are more interesting to play then others but depending on how you choose to play the game there is an option for you.
As a DM there is nothing in the published material that makes me go, oh I don’t want that at my table, with the exception of fly at low levels. But that is more because it makes the game a little one dimensional as fly solves so many low level challenges.
But those who sit and say X or Y is overpowerd, in relation to what? as a dm throw harder challenges at your players then, there are always clever ways to challenge them. So your Hexblade Paladin does a massive damage output, great? Buff your monsters HP, or increase the AC, or swarm them with lots of enemies so that massive overkill is wasted on just one enemy. Target the squishy back line with a flank attack.
It has been stated many times the issue between OP and weak classes/sub-classes. The game may co-operative, but for a DM it is a nightmare balancing encounters where one char is vastly superior to the rest, or one vastly inferior to to the rest. It is not always possible, nor desired, for the DM to always have the toughest monsters target the Conquest Paladin.
And then we have the problem of one player dominating the show, while everyone else is now a spectator.
It is far superior to have "equal, but different", and that is simply not the case with the vast majority of classes/subclasses, and made so much worse with the power leap in Tasha's.
Equal classes still wouldn't necessarily make for equal characters. Some players optimize, some don't. Some characters will have applicable strengths for the DM's campaign, others might find fewer things really suit them. The DM in all likelihood has some balancing to do anyway. Not to mention that no edition so far has had actual, reliable class balance (4th probably came closest, but was disliked for doing the things it did to put everything on an even keel).
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The PHB is in sore need of errata to several character options. I'd love to see a redesign of the following:
Berserker Barbarian
Four Elements Monk
Beastmaster Ranger
Sorcerer (class boost or at least spell lists for subs)
This is would not be "power creep." It would bring those items up to be at least competitive with the other options in the same book. They do not work as advertised and have resulted in widespread disappointment after actual play - and not just from power gamers. Note that several of the other subclasses in the PHB are top-tier picks even compared to the OmG-sO-oP options in Tasha's: Battlemaster fighter, Totem barbarian, Life cleric, Moon druid, etc.
If you value balance, you should want a new 5e PHB. If not for the reasons I do, then to nerf the good ones down to the level of the bad ones.
Some people don't want balance, they really want the game to remain forever static and unchanging because being exposed to new things causes them to go on geriatric rants about how much better things were back in the days when minis were made out of lead and female characters had a strength penalty to balance out their ability to bear children.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
The classes don't have to be exactly equal, what you need is for every player to feel like they're contributing, which requires a fairly good balance. They don't have to have their strengths in a similar area at all, though.
For example, my wife is playing Bard and I'm playing a Wizard. In combat, there is no competition at the moment (largely because of her choices to not have combat spells). Even my go-to cantrip has a minimum damage only marginally lower than her average damage. That means in combat, I'm doing nearly all the heavy lifting. It works though because she has high charisma and our setup means she's doing mist of the non-combat stuff so things balance out.
It might not have been so balanced though - if we hadn't divided it up that way and I was also doing the non combat stuff too, it would quickly get boring for her. Oh yay, my husband let me take the last 4hp off of that orc, usually he blasts them into oblivion before I arrive.
Classes are meant to provide roles so everyone can contribute. A spellcaster can blast enemies, but needs a fighter with high AC to tank shots for him. Then they might need a bard to sweet talk the guard so they can sneak into the palace later.
There can be a variation in strengths, but the variation has to be small enough that everyone has a vital role. A spell caster ghat can wipe out an entire room of foes has no need for a fighter to tank hits that will never come. A fighter that has an AC so high that no one can touch him has no need of a spellcaster, nor a bard to sneak anywhere.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Well, it’ll be just as banned at my table as it is now, and if they change the races on DDB and I have to Homebrew each and every one of them to put back the standard ASI’s I will be severely pissed off at having wasted this much money on this ****ing website.
This is the sort of thing that could very well end my Roman campaign, which is on hiatus but slated to come back in another couple of months, permanently. No matter what there is in a new edition, either 5.5, or 6, or whatever they call it, I am not changing rulesets in the middle of a campaign. Period. On top of that, I detest the direction in which WOTC is going with 5e, so odds are, I would not enjoy their 5.5e changes and wouldn't want to use them. If I can ignore them and keep playing 5, that's fine. But if it becomes difficult or impossible to ignore them, or if I have to spend hours homebrewing them away, I'm not going to do that. I have better things I can do with my time as a GM.
If this site made these changes as you describe, my first step would be to stop using DDB. I use it in my campaign only as a character sheet storage tool anyway, as we do everything else in Foundry. So my first cut at this, which would allow the existing Roman campaign to continue to its ultimate conclusion, would be to just switch to 100% Foundry. Slightly annoying, but doable. If, however, the Foundry D&D module then swapped over to 5.5e without leaving a 5.0e version behind to use (even if it no longer gets updated), which probably wouldn't happen but theoretically could (depends on what the modders want to do with it), and I couldn't do it in Foundry either, then that'd be it. I'm done. I'm not changing editions.
Not because I love 5e so much or any of that, but just because (a) I don't like switching game editions or systems mid-campaign, and (b) however much I like or don't like things in 5e, I detest the new direction so I am not going with them in that direction.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I find it confusing that people get so upset over custom lineages. What exactly is the problem that DMs are experiencing? It feels on this forum like a few people really hate it, and I am just not sure why it's such a problem. What's the argument against it?
I think we are more likely to see more Optional Rules books, with updated versions of the original classes than a complete overhaul. We've already seen some of that with Steady Aim and other optional class features. The difficulty with doing that is that the only option is to raise the power level of the 'weak' subclasses, and then there'll just be more balance whine anyway.
I find it confusing that people get so upset over custom lineages. What exactly is the problem that DMs are experiencing? It feels on this forum like a few people really hate it, and I am just not sure why it's such a problem. What's the argument against it?
Speaking just for me, it's not problematic at all; I just find it somewhat annoying. The floating ASIs detract from the races IMO and custom lineages feel like formalized homebrew, which should be a contradiction in terminis. "Come up with whatever you want, but it should look something like this" is a mixed message and a bad signal. Again, just my opinion and not something I get upset over. I think it was a bad call, that's all.
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My only issue with these polls is that the squeakiest people answer them. I’m fine with DnD, I don’t see a need for much change at all so it’s unlikely people like me would log in and give a response to say that I’m comfortable with where most things are. But change happens regardless, I’ll just roll with it - I just see foresee that when we start bulk revamping things and the pendulum swings too far in favour of a few peoples perceptions, that we will have yet another group saying that the whole thing is broken…
I find it confusing that people get so upset over custom lineages. What exactly is the problem that DMs are experiencing? It feels on this forum like a few people really hate it, and I am just not sure why it's such a problem. What's the argument against it?
Speaking just for me, it's not problematic at all; I just find it somewhat annoying. The floating ASIs detract from the races IMO and custom lineages feel like formalized homebrew, which should be a contradiction in terminis. "Come up with whatever you want, but it should look something like this" is a mixed message and a bad signal. Again, just my opinion and not something I get upset over. I think it was a bad call, that's all.
I just hate how lazy the custom lineage was....like it would take an intern 15 minutes to come up with that. What I wanted was a more thoughtful discussion on how to design a race from the people who designed the system but instead got a slapped together option that I see almost nobody use now because of how stupid it is.
Floating ASI bother me a lot less because I was already doing that but I get how its kinda expected now and DMs may feel pressure to use.
My only issue with these polls is that the squeakiest people answer them. I’m fine with DnD, I don’t see a need for much change at all so it’s unlikely people like me would log in and give a response to say that I’m comfortable with where most things are.
First rule of polling for customer satisfaction: people with a grievance are a hundred times more likely to speak up than people who are fine with everything. I assume that a company with a history of public playtesting knows at least the 101 of these processes.
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I just hate how lazy the custom lineage was....like it would take an intern 15 minutes to come up with that. What I wanted was a more thoughtful discussion on how to design a race from the people who designed the system but instead got a slapped together option that I see almost nobody use now because of how stupid it is.
I don't disagree, but I would not be surprised at all if someone decided "we need a racial template" and painted the whole thing in a corner with that decision.
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I find it confusing that people get so upset over custom lineages. What exactly is the problem that DMs are experiencing? It feels on this forum like a few people really hate it, and I am just not sure why it's such a problem. What's the argument against it?
I think we are more likely to see more Optional Rules books, with updated versions of the original classes than a complete overhaul. We've already seen some of that with Steady Aim and other optional class features. The difficulty with doing that is that the only option is to raise the power level of the 'weak' subclasses, and then there'll just be more balance whine anyway.
The arguments for and against customizing origins are as old as the announcement of Tasha's Cauldron, or even older. It was a constant ongoing forum firestorm back in late 19, early/mid 20, and the embers still flare up occasionally. In brief* summation, and making an attempt to be as neutral and non-inflammatory as possible...:
There is a contingent of D&D players/DDB users who feel that the ability to move stat points around and disregard the 'natural' bonuses attributed to a D&D species betrays that species. They feel that these bonuses are a critical part of the species identity and that removing them weakens the lore and history of D&D. Some folks feel it to be a betrayal of the history of D&D itself, though those are rare. More typically, the belief is simply that dwarves should be stout, orcs should be strong, elves should be graceful, and so on. Most folks of this camp argue that being able to assign ability scores after rolling and/or using Standard Array, as the game suggests, is more than enough freedom to accommodate any reasonable character concept. Many, though not all, of these folks feel that Tasha's Cauldron's rules for adjusting species stat points is there solely to encourage/pacify powergaming and munchkin-esque minmaxing, allowing people to start with higher numbers than they otherwise would. They want selection of species to matter, and they usually see accepting a "bad" combination of species/class with decidedly suboptimal ability point distributions as inherently more interesting than making sure everything lines up neatly.
The other camp believes that more control over one's story is never bad, and for a myriad of different reasons they do not care for fixed ability scores. Many folks don't like the bioessential nature of fixed scores, the fact that elves are bad at being Strength-based classes but good at being Dex-based ones. Many folks simply don't like that the pre-Tasha's rules didn't allow them to tell the story of a particularly clumsy elf, a weak-but-smart orc, or the halfling Stone Cold Steve Austin. And yes, a lot of people who enjoy creating powerful characters lauded the new rules, but primarily because it opened up new stories for them, too. A player who couldn't bring herself to play a species/class combination with absolutely no synergy, however much she might otherwise have wanted to, could now play the species/class combination she wanted to play without dealing with the brain caltrop of having badly mismatched numbers.
D&D in general has traditionally been regarded as being exceptionally poor at handling diversity, racism/sexism/creedism, and similar topics that, until recent years, were generally held to be largely unimportant to a typical D&D player. The game was held to be the nigh-exclusive domain of white male nerds, and anyone else who got into it simply had to deal. D&D's recent explosion in popularity and the realization that everybody plays it, not just stereotypical nerds, has shone a rather ugly light on some of D&D's historic decisions and sparked a bit of a reverse-course from Wizards of the Coast. The latter player camp above applauds this change and is eager to accelerate it, while the former camp typically - not always, but typically - sees this as caving to cancel culture and/or corrupting the history and lineage of D&D for a bunch of Johnny-come-latelies. They see the 'bad' decisions D&D has historically made as being grandfathered in, an indelible part of the game's history, and tend to strongly reject any attempt to modernize the game's approach.
Hopefully that clarifies. I'm risking infraction points just by posting at all, but this was a stupendous forum fireball several months ago that resulted in a few permanent bans. I don't think anybody really wants to let those embers flare up again T_T
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The way it's usually used on these forums, a "D&D 5.5e" would be a replacement of the original core rulebooks, or perhaps just the 5e Player's Handbook, with an updated edition that changes or improves many of the game's existing rules without changing the core game engine. The bones of the game would stay the same, but there would be changes made to the organs and muscle of it. D&D 5.5e is many things to many people, but to many of the people who want a 5.5e redux the most, what it would mean is repairing some of the faulty design in 5e, or modernizing elements of the game that haven't aged so well. Think of 5.5e as a big core patch to a video game, while all the books like Tasha's Cauldron or the like are just DLC that don't really interact with or work for the core game.
Please do not contact or message me.
DnD is not a competitive game, there are no OP or underpowered classes or sub classes because you succeed or fail as a party, you are not competing with each other. there are some that are more interesting to play then others but depending on how you choose to play the game there is an option for you.
As a DM there is nothing in the published material that makes me go, oh I don’t want that at my table, with the exception of fly at low levels. But that is more because it makes the game a little one dimensional as fly solves so many low level challenges.
But those who sit and say X or Y is overpowerd, in relation to what? as a dm throw harder challenges at your players then, there are always clever ways to challenge them. So your Hexblade Paladin does a massive damage output, great? Buff your monsters HP, or increase the AC, or swarm them with lots of enemies so that massive overkill is wasted on just one enemy. Target the squishy back line with a flank attack.
I started out with the first edition of AD&D, and I have some fond memories of it, but for the most part, there was more bad than good. There were limitations all over the place, Alignment limitations, Score limitations, special rules for Strength, characters who randomly had psionic powers, rules buried in the DMG that the players needed to know, stuff in the PHB that only the DM should have known, and if you think the 5th edition DMG is poorly written, take a gander at the one from first edition AD&D.
I have the core rules, Tasha's, Xanathar's and Volo's and rarely does anything other than some of the character races from Volo's matter much in my games. I am probably allowing spells from the other books without knowing so.
I remember 2nd edition AD&D died from splatbook overload. I remember 3/3.5 buried under Prestige classes. 4th edition wasn't D&D. 5th edition seems to have struck just the right note. It's recognizably similar to the game I started with while updated with a lot of cool things from all the editions previous, even a few things from 4th made their way in.
I hope not to see a 5.5 version. 3.5 was mostly a naked cash grab more than anything else, for a game that was already dying.
<Insert clever signature here>
I have always disagreed, with this argument, as a DM I don’t struggle to balance and I don’t struggle to let every player have a moment to shine. But I generally don’t play with min maxers. 20 years of playing and DMing ttrpgs I can tell you nothing in 5E matches probably the hardest thing to manage, a cyberpunk game with a Netrunner who litterely requires hours of game time on there own to do their thing while the other players watch at the table, and who can die to a single bullet in combat. But you know what, that player wants to tank 20 enemies like they are playing WoW that’s fine, I can give them that Experiance, and then put them in a canyon being attacked from range, or keep that dragon airborn. If the only attack you give your players is an attack of opportunity you significantly reduce the opportunities they have.
By the time you reach mid levels in 5E nothing is that squishy and everything can be given a chance.
But if you dislike certain subclasses just don’t allow them, as a matter of course every campaign I start I limit player choices, races they can pick, the classes and subclasses available because sometimes this makes players think and do interesting things.
I've only done a rules read through, so really don't know, but doesn't the new Red edition sort of solve that with the localized nets and what not? But yeah in 2013 and 2020 the parallel netrunner game was a life drainer from the table. if I had time and resourced back then I'd just do the Netrunner as a 1:1 game and let the rest of the party know how it went as their meatspace time plays out.
As to the topic, I'll say again I have a mixes of PHB and XGtE and Tasha's in my parties, and just don't have the problems often bemoaned on this hill. I'm curious what the survey is going to show, but figure we won't ever actually see the data. It's just going to become a set that can be spun by the studio to justify whatever course they want to take.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Equal classes still wouldn't necessarily make for equal characters. Some players optimize, some don't. Some characters will have applicable strengths for the DM's campaign, others might find fewer things really suit them. The DM in all likelihood has some balancing to do anyway. Not to mention that no edition so far has had actual, reliable class balance (4th probably came closest, but was disliked for doing the things it did to put everything on an even keel).
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The PHB is in sore need of errata to several character options. I'd love to see a redesign of the following:
This is would not be "power creep." It would bring those items up to be at least competitive with the other options in the same book. They do not work as advertised and have resulted in widespread disappointment after actual play - and not just from power gamers. Note that several of the other subclasses in the PHB are top-tier picks even compared to the OmG-sO-oP options in Tasha's: Battlemaster fighter, Totem barbarian, Life cleric, Moon druid, etc.
If you value balance, you should want a new 5e PHB. If not for the reasons I do, then to nerf the good ones down to the level of the bad ones.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Some people don't want balance, they really want the game to remain forever static and unchanging because being exposed to new things causes them to go on geriatric rants about how much better things were back in the days when minis were made out of lead and female characters had a strength penalty to balance out their ability to bear children.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I think that they definitely need to do a revision of older core classes.
Personally I have beef with the un-synergistic nature of the Eldritch Knight, my favorite class.
Altrazin Aghanes - Wizard/Fighter
Varpulis Windhowl - Fighter
Skolson Demjon - Cleric/Fighter
The classes don't have to be exactly equal, what you need is for every player to feel like they're contributing, which requires a fairly good balance. They don't have to have their strengths in a similar area at all, though.
For example, my wife is playing Bard and I'm playing a Wizard. In combat, there is no competition at the moment (largely because of her choices to not have combat spells). Even my go-to cantrip has a minimum damage only marginally lower than her average damage. That means in combat, I'm doing nearly all the heavy lifting. It works though because she has high charisma and our setup means she's doing mist of the non-combat stuff so things balance out.
It might not have been so balanced though - if we hadn't divided it up that way and I was also doing the non combat stuff too, it would quickly get boring for her. Oh yay, my husband let me take the last 4hp off of that orc, usually he blasts them into oblivion before I arrive.
Classes are meant to provide roles so everyone can contribute. A spellcaster can blast enemies, but needs a fighter with high AC to tank shots for him. Then they might need a bard to sweet talk the guard so they can sneak into the palace later.
There can be a variation in strengths, but the variation has to be small enough that everyone has a vital role. A spell caster ghat can wipe out an entire room of foes has no need for a fighter to tank hits that will never come. A fighter that has an AC so high that no one can touch him has no need of a spellcaster, nor a bard to sneak anywhere.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
There are plenty of ways to attack a character that don't involve an attack roll (even if technically they don't constitute an "attack" by the rules).
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Yeah magic missile, Mind Sliver, fireball, etc...
Plenty of ways to attack or kill a high AC PC.
This is the sort of thing that could very well end my Roman campaign, which is on hiatus but slated to come back in another couple of months, permanently. No matter what there is in a new edition, either 5.5, or 6, or whatever they call it, I am not changing rulesets in the middle of a campaign. Period. On top of that, I detest the direction in which WOTC is going with 5e, so odds are, I would not enjoy their 5.5e changes and wouldn't want to use them. If I can ignore them and keep playing 5, that's fine. But if it becomes difficult or impossible to ignore them, or if I have to spend hours homebrewing them away, I'm not going to do that. I have better things I can do with my time as a GM.
If this site made these changes as you describe, my first step would be to stop using DDB. I use it in my campaign only as a character sheet storage tool anyway, as we do everything else in Foundry. So my first cut at this, which would allow the existing Roman campaign to continue to its ultimate conclusion, would be to just switch to 100% Foundry. Slightly annoying, but doable. If, however, the Foundry D&D module then swapped over to 5.5e without leaving a 5.0e version behind to use (even if it no longer gets updated), which probably wouldn't happen but theoretically could (depends on what the modders want to do with it), and I couldn't do it in Foundry either, then that'd be it. I'm done. I'm not changing editions.
Not because I love 5e so much or any of that, but just because (a) I don't like switching game editions or systems mid-campaign, and (b) however much I like or don't like things in 5e, I detest the new direction so I am not going with them in that direction.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I find it confusing that people get so upset over custom lineages. What exactly is the problem that DMs are experiencing? It feels on this forum like a few people really hate it, and I am just not sure why it's such a problem. What's the argument against it?
I think we are more likely to see more Optional Rules books, with updated versions of the original classes than a complete overhaul. We've already seen some of that with Steady Aim and other optional class features. The difficulty with doing that is that the only option is to raise the power level of the 'weak' subclasses, and then there'll just be more balance whine anyway.
Speaking just for me, it's not problematic at all; I just find it somewhat annoying. The floating ASIs detract from the races IMO and custom lineages feel like formalized homebrew, which should be a contradiction in terminis. "Come up with whatever you want, but it should look something like this" is a mixed message and a bad signal. Again, just my opinion and not something I get upset over. I think it was a bad call, that's all.
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My only issue with these polls is that the squeakiest people answer them. I’m fine with DnD, I don’t see a need for much change at all so it’s unlikely people like me would log in and give a response to say that I’m comfortable with where most things are. But change happens regardless, I’ll just roll with it - I just see foresee that when we start bulk revamping things and the pendulum swings too far in favour of a few peoples perceptions, that we will have yet another group saying that the whole thing is broken…
I just hate how lazy the custom lineage was....like it would take an intern 15 minutes to come up with that. What I wanted was a more thoughtful discussion on how to design a race from the people who designed the system but instead got a slapped together option that I see almost nobody use now because of how stupid it is.
Floating ASI bother me a lot less because I was already doing that but I get how its kinda expected now and DMs may feel pressure to use.
First rule of polling for customer satisfaction: people with a grievance are a hundred times more likely to speak up than people who are fine with everything. I assume that a company with a history of public playtesting knows at least the 101 of these processes.
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I don't disagree, but I would not be surprised at all if someone decided "we need a racial template" and painted the whole thing in a corner with that decision.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
The arguments for and against customizing origins are as old as the announcement of Tasha's Cauldron, or even older. It was a constant ongoing forum firestorm back in late 19, early/mid 20, and the embers still flare up occasionally. In brief* summation, and making an attempt to be as neutral and non-inflammatory as possible...:
There is a contingent of D&D players/DDB users who feel that the ability to move stat points around and disregard the 'natural' bonuses attributed to a D&D species betrays that species. They feel that these bonuses are a critical part of the species identity and that removing them weakens the lore and history of D&D. Some folks feel it to be a betrayal of the history of D&D itself, though those are rare. More typically, the belief is simply that dwarves should be stout, orcs should be strong, elves should be graceful, and so on. Most folks of this camp argue that being able to assign ability scores after rolling and/or using Standard Array, as the game suggests, is more than enough freedom to accommodate any reasonable character concept. Many, though not all, of these folks feel that Tasha's Cauldron's rules for adjusting species stat points is there solely to encourage/pacify powergaming and munchkin-esque minmaxing, allowing people to start with higher numbers than they otherwise would. They want selection of species to matter, and they usually see accepting a "bad" combination of species/class with decidedly suboptimal ability point distributions as inherently more interesting than making sure everything lines up neatly.
The other camp believes that more control over one's story is never bad, and for a myriad of different reasons they do not care for fixed ability scores. Many folks don't like the bioessential nature of fixed scores, the fact that elves are bad at being Strength-based classes but good at being Dex-based ones. Many folks simply don't like that the pre-Tasha's rules didn't allow them to tell the story of a particularly clumsy elf, a weak-but-smart orc, or the halfling Stone Cold Steve Austin. And yes, a lot of people who enjoy creating powerful characters lauded the new rules, but primarily because it opened up new stories for them, too. A player who couldn't bring herself to play a species/class combination with absolutely no synergy, however much she might otherwise have wanted to, could now play the species/class combination she wanted to play without dealing with the brain caltrop of having badly mismatched numbers.
D&D in general has traditionally been regarded as being exceptionally poor at handling diversity, racism/sexism/creedism, and similar topics that, until recent years, were generally held to be largely unimportant to a typical D&D player. The game was held to be the nigh-exclusive domain of white male nerds, and anyone else who got into it simply had to deal. D&D's recent explosion in popularity and the realization that everybody plays it, not just stereotypical nerds, has shone a rather ugly light on some of D&D's historic decisions and sparked a bit of a reverse-course from Wizards of the Coast. The latter player camp above applauds this change and is eager to accelerate it, while the former camp typically - not always, but typically - sees this as caving to cancel culture and/or corrupting the history and lineage of D&D for a bunch of Johnny-come-latelies. They see the 'bad' decisions D&D has historically made as being grandfathered in, an indelible part of the game's history, and tend to strongly reject any attempt to modernize the game's approach.
Hopefully that clarifies. I'm risking infraction points just by posting at all, but this was a stupendous forum fireball several months ago that resulted in a few permanent bans. I don't think anybody really wants to let those embers flare up again T_T
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