The VTT isn't even D&D dependent, never mind a specific subset of the rules. They've literally said you can use it as a tabletop for any game
This is because making it do the rules is actually really hard, so they might as well call it a feature.
Oh almost definitely lol. But it's definitely not going to be having an impact on the rules in the way that was mentioned. As you say, it's not a computer game
It’s a VTT for now, but one should not assume it may stay that way for long.
You clearly have no idea how software engineering works. Regardless of what Hasbro wants, if what they've written is a VTT, turning it into a full game automation engine is both a huge task and a dumb way of building (this is not to say a game automation engine is impossible, it's been possible for decades (see, for example, Neverwinter Nights), but you wouldn't start with a VTT).
It’s a VTT for now, but one should not assume it may stay that way for long.
You clearly have no idea how software engineering works. Regardless of what Hasbro wants, if what they've written is a VTT, turning it into a full game automation engine is both a huge task and a dumb way of building
Eh, it's probably a fine starting point, since you're going to need everything it provides, and it shouldn't force you into any bad abstraction decisions.
But it's like putting together the design for your business website and saying you're done. All your business logic is missing. "There are objects. You can move them around on this surface." is like "We have an 'add to cart' button, so purchasing is taken care of."
(this is not to say a game automation engine is impossible, it's been possible for decades (see, for example, Neverwinter Nights), but you wouldn't start with a VTT).
Dunno about NWN, but BG3 definitely simplified and changed a lot of stuff to make it workable.
But, just for starters, to do a full implementation of 5e, they'd need a coherent systemic model of how it all fits together, and I don't think that even exists in the sense of "one of the designers has it in their head". I'm not even sure it's possible -- I'd bet money that there are actual inconsistencies in the rules, where thing X works one way, and thing Y works the other, and if you wanted to reconcile them, you'd have to change one of them, but both X and Y are officially correct, so you just try not to think about it too much. (And yes, you can handle those in software by special-casing, which is a thing than never ever has unexpected consequences.)
Just the simpler task of "putting together a fully functional character builder" has proven to be A Lot. (Though I blame that on poor initial design choices and the difficulty of fixing them when it requires rebuilding the guts of the site and having everything still work.)
They dropped the word hostile from in front of creature for AOO. But if you read above it, the heading mentions
Opportunity Attacks
Combatants watch for enemies to drop their guard. If you move heedlessly past your foes, you put yourself in danger by provoking an Opportunity Attack.
Avoiding Opportunity Attack. You can avoid provoking an Opportunity Attack by taking the Disengage action. You also don’t provoke an Opportunity Attack when you Teleport or when you are moved without using your movement, action, Bonus Action, or Reaction. For example, you don’t provoke an Opportunity Attack if an explosion hurls you out of a foe’s reach or if you fall past an enemy.
Making an Opportunity Attack. You can make an Opportunity Attack when a creature that you can see leaves your reach. To make the attack, take a Reaction to make one melee attack with a weapon or an Unarmed Strike against that creature. The attack occurs right before it leaves your reach.
They dropped the word hostile from in front of creature for AOO. But if you read above it, the heading mentions
Opportunity Attacks
Combatants watch for enemies to drop their guard. If you move heedlessly past your foes, you put yourself in danger by provoking an Opportunity Attack.
Avoiding Opportunity Attack. You can avoid provoking an Opportunity Attack by taking the Disengage action. You also don’t provoke an Opportunity Attack when you Teleport or when you are moved without using your movement, action, Bonus Action, or Reaction. For example, you don’t provoke an Opportunity Attack if an explosion hurls you out of a foe’s reach or if you fall past an enemy.
Making an Opportunity Attack. You can make an Opportunity Attack when a creature that you can see leaves your reach. To make the attack, take a Reaction to make one melee attack with a weapon or an Unarmed Strike against that creature. The attack occurs right before it leaves your reach.
Yes. I am fairly certain they did that on purpose.
You have far more faith in the D&D team's competence at writing rules than I do. My assumption is that they didn't even think of the possibility.
It's not a matter of faith. They have talked about these sorts of things in previews. It's by design. They've made all sorts of little teamwork-oriented changes (like how a 10th level monk can move an ally with them when they use Step of the Wind).
Being able to cast a spell on an ally via War Caster means the cleric can cast cure wounds on the fighter as a reaction on the fighter's turn as the fighter goes past them rather than having to wait and use an action on their own turn. This stuff isn't a mistake.
War Caster does not allow you to cast a healing spell upon yourself or an ally in reaction to an enemy leaving your reach. The very name is Opportunity ATTACK. You can cast a spell to attack the enemy leaving your reach in lieu of a weapon or unarmed strike. The target of that spell must be the enemy attempting to leave your reach.
Read the totality of the Opportunity Attacks description, and this should be clear. If you need a microscope, mirror, and a source of smoke to interpret a rule in a bizarre fashion - that's probably your first clue that the interpretation is mistaken.
The clear intent of war caster is to allow you to use a spell to attack that enemy, instead of just a weapon or unarmed strike - allowing spellcasters to take advantage of Opportunity Attacks and not just martial types.
The idea is that an enemy exposes themselves to counter-attack when they attempt to flee.
Yes. I am fairly certain they did that on purpose.
You have far more faith in the D&D team's competence at writing rules than I do. My assumption is that they didn't even think of the possibility.
It's not a matter of faith. They have talked about these sorts of things in previews. It's by design. They've made all sorts of little teamwork-oriented changes (like how a 10th level monk can move an ally with them when they use Step of the Wind).
But that is explicit. This is extremely not explicit.
Being able to cast a spell on an ally via War Caster means the cleric can cast cure wounds on the fighter as a reaction on the fighter's turn as the fighter goes past them rather than having to wait and use an action on their own turn. This stuff isn't a mistake.
If this is deliberate, it's the sort of fiddly rules-lawyer interpretation that most people won't notice. (I say this as a fiddly rules lawyer.)
If they meant it, and chose to convey it this way, they are bad, and should feel bad.
But, given the precedent of two-weapon fighting, I can't completely say "this is an error". (Though this is worse.)
I don't think they meant it, and whether the text actually allows it depends on whether you consider the descriptive text at the start as flavor or rules.
The VTT isn't even D&D dependent, never mind a specific subset of the rules. They've literally said you can use it as a tabletop for any game
The VTT is going to have monsters in it. Those monsters have stat blocks, and combat features. You think the DM is supposed to code every action/reaction/legendary action (oops, those were removed because it was too hard) for every monster? Not a chance. And if those actions/features are hard coded, then ranges and PC features, spells, etc are going to be hard coded.
The VTT is going to have monsters in it. Those monsters have stat blocks, and combat features. You think the DM is supposed to code every action/reaction/legendary action (oops, those were removed because it was too hard) for every monster? Not a chance. And if those actions/features are hard coded, then ranges and PC features, spells, etc are going to be hard coded.
You're supposed to import them from D&D Beyond (or possibly just use D&D Beyond directly, not clear). Most likely you could also import homebrew from D&D Beyond, as they're coded in basically the same way.
The VTT isn't even D&D dependent, never mind a specific subset of the rules. They've literally said you can use it as a tabletop for any game
The VTT is going to have monsters in it. Those monsters have stat blocks, and combat features. You think the DM is supposed to code every action/reaction/legendary action (oops, those were removed because it was too hard) for every monster? Not a chance. And if those actions/features are hard coded, then ranges and PC features, spells, etc are going to be hard coded.
They’re almost certainly not going to be hardcoded. They *could* be, for sure, but it’d be to no gain and only serve to make homebrew more difficult.
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Errata is sadly dependent on Sigil compatibility.
Sigil compatibility?
The VTT they're quite literally banking on.
I fear all future errata depends on the Project:Sigil team being willing to code it on their end.
The VTT isn't enforcing the rules, AFAIK at all, certainly no more than the DDB character sheet does.
It's a VTT, not a video game.
The VTT isn't even D&D dependent, never mind a specific subset of the rules. They've literally said you can use it as a tabletop for any game
This is because making it do the rules is actually really hard, so they might as well call it a feature.
Oh almost definitely lol. But it's definitely not going to be having an impact on the rules in the way that was mentioned. As you say, it's not a computer game
You clearly have no idea how software engineering works. Regardless of what Hasbro wants, if what they've written is a VTT, turning it into a full game automation engine is both a huge task and a dumb way of building (this is not to say a game automation engine is impossible, it's been possible for decades (see, for example, Neverwinter Nights), but you wouldn't start with a VTT).
Wonder if they will post an old fashion pdf of these errata changes. You know so I can put it in my physical book?
Eh, it's probably a fine starting point, since you're going to need everything it provides, and it shouldn't force you into any bad abstraction decisions.
But it's like putting together the design for your business website and saying you're done. All your business logic is missing. "There are objects. You can move them around on this surface." is like "We have an 'add to cart' button, so purchasing is taken care of."
Dunno about NWN, but BG3 definitely simplified and changed a lot of stuff to make it workable.
But, just for starters, to do a full implementation of 5e, they'd need a coherent systemic model of how it all fits together, and I don't think that even exists in the sense of "one of the designers has it in their head". I'm not even sure it's possible -- I'd bet money that there are actual inconsistencies in the rules, where thing X works one way, and thing Y works the other, and if you wanted to reconcile them, you'd have to change one of them, but both X and Y are officially correct, so you just try not to think about it too much. (And yes, you can handle those in software by special-casing, which is a thing than never ever has unexpected consequences.)
Just the simpler task of "putting together a fully functional character builder" has proven to be A Lot. (Though I blame that on poor initial design choices and the difficulty of fixing them when it requires rebuilding the guts of the site and having everything still work.)
They dropped the word hostile from in front of creature for AOO. But if you read above it, the heading mentions
Opportunity Attacks
Combatants watch for enemies to drop their guard. If you move heedlessly past your foes, you put yourself in danger by provoking an Opportunity Attack.
Avoiding Opportunity Attack. You can avoid provoking an Opportunity Attack by taking the Disengage action. You also don’t provoke an Opportunity Attack when you Teleport or when you are moved without using your movement, action, Bonus Action, or Reaction. For example, you don’t provoke an Opportunity Attack if an explosion hurls you out of a foe’s reach or if you fall past an enemy.
Making an Opportunity Attack. You can make an Opportunity Attack when a creature that you can see leaves your reach. To make the attack, take a Reaction to make one melee attack with a weapon or an Unarmed Strike against that creature. The attack occurs right before it leaves your reach.
I have already seen videos on Youtube talk about buffing your allies with a reaction as they run by you with War Caster.
Yes. I am fairly certain they did that on purpose.
You have far more faith in the D&D team's competence at writing rules than I do. My assumption is that they didn't even think of the possibility.
It's not a matter of faith. They have talked about these sorts of things in previews. It's by design. They've made all sorts of little teamwork-oriented changes (like how a 10th level monk can move an ally with them when they use Step of the Wind).
Being able to cast a spell on an ally via War Caster means the cleric can cast cure wounds on the fighter as a reaction on the fighter's turn as the fighter goes past them rather than having to wait and use an action on their own turn. This stuff isn't a mistake.
War Caster does not allow you to cast a healing spell upon yourself or an ally in reaction to an enemy leaving your reach. The very name is Opportunity ATTACK. You can cast a spell to attack the enemy leaving your reach in lieu of a weapon or unarmed strike. The target of that spell must be the enemy attempting to leave your reach.
Read the totality of the Opportunity Attacks description, and this should be clear. If you need a microscope, mirror, and a source of smoke to interpret a rule in a bizarre fashion - that's probably your first clue that the interpretation is mistaken.
The clear intent of war caster is to allow you to use a spell to attack that enemy, instead of just a weapon or unarmed strike - allowing spellcasters to take advantage of Opportunity Attacks and not just martial types.
The idea is that an enemy exposes themselves to counter-attack when they attempt to flee.
Playing D&D since 1982
Have played every version of the game since Basic (Red Box Set), except that abomination sometimes called 4e.
But that is explicit. This is extremely not explicit.
If this is deliberate, it's the sort of fiddly rules-lawyer interpretation that most people won't notice. (I say this as a fiddly rules lawyer.)
If they meant it, and chose to convey it this way, they are bad, and should feel bad.
But, given the precedent of two-weapon fighting, I can't completely say "this is an error". (Though this is worse.)
I don't think they meant it, and whether the text actually allows it depends on whether you consider the descriptive text at the start as flavor or rules.
The VTT is going to have monsters in it. Those monsters have stat blocks, and combat features. You think the DM is supposed to code every action/reaction/legendary action (oops, those were removed because it was too hard) for every monster? Not a chance. And if those actions/features are hard coded, then ranges and PC features, spells, etc are going to be hard coded.
You're supposed to import them from D&D Beyond (or possibly just use D&D Beyond directly, not clear). Most likely you could also import homebrew from D&D Beyond, as they're coded in basically the same way.
They’re almost certainly not going to be hardcoded. They *could* be, for sure, but it’d be to no gain and only serve to make homebrew more difficult.