Quote from: bryce0lynch;647879Rogue->Level2 "Distract" is the 1/2 damage thing
"Benefit: When a creature within 5 feet of you that can see or hear you hits with an attack, you can use your reaction to cause the damage of the attack to be halved."


Rogue->Assassin is the bullshit Backstab thing.
"Backstab: Once on your turn when you make a melee attack, you can give yourself advantage on that attack roll if there is at least one creature hostile to your target within 5 feet of it."

So this:

""I take half damage because of Curse of the World Bizarre feat!""

Is more like:

is more "I use my quick reflexes to sidestep the brunt of the attack."

And this:

""My friend is 5' away?!!? That let's me backstab him in the face!"

Is more like:

"The orc is occupied fighting my friend, so I attack while he's distracted and get advantage."

None of those seem all that crazy when the hyperbole is stripped out.

QuoteOn a completely unfair/granular level: the 4E adventure conversion sucks. PC's hit at least 50% of the time, players are routinely doing 15-17 points of damage, and creatures have 35+ hit points.

In general, there are still some balance issues to be worked out using the encounter builder.  I probably won't use it anyway since I prefer to just build encounters based on what makes sense in the adventure rather than making sure PC levels are the primary driving factor.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;647885It's a side effect of constant arguments.

When people are exposed to evidence supporting a position they disagree with, after hearing the evidence they almost always become more committed to their original position, more committed to their disagreement.

Evidence, logic, and debate make people more polarized, and less likely to listen to opposing positions.

So, the people who are the most flexible and adaptable are those who argue and debate the least. That is, the least invested.

And the people who are the most rigid and inflexible — whoops. I mean "most committed and devoted" are those who argue with others frequently.

Discussion — actual, real discussion — tends to affect people differently. But arguing (via evidence and reason) solidifies opposition, it doesn't persuade.

I have to give Brendan credit.  He seems to be the only one who acts on message boards the way most people act in real life.

The rest of us become monsters

Quote from: Haffrung;647758You're not alone. I'm in the same boat. So is a long-time 1E and 3E DM who I recently started playing with. We're pleased to see an edition of D&D that has the coherence of 3E without the huge amount of mechanical grit. As soon as I found out it didn't presume using a battle grid, I was half-way sold. Then I saw the smart way feats were preconfigured in specialties, and thought yeah, that's the level of character customization I want.

I gotta say, as far as D&D Next goes, I am living in wait-and-see town until probably six months after they make the books, but, this stuff is very encouraging because this is exactly what I'd hoped the game would look like. So, here's another marketing data point I guess.

Quote from: Mistwell;647874No they haven't.  Nobody cares Jeff.  And you fail even at shunning.  If you meant it, you'd stick me on ignore.  You don't mean it though, you just want others to hear you complain.  I got no problem with you though.  We agree sometimes, disagree other times, and there is no issue between us as far as I am concerned.  But hey, if you do think there is an issue - do the manly thing and stick me on ignore, rather than continuing to bitch.  It's no wonder you white knighted Testubo.

That's so cute how you rewrote the post to appear that you are the aggrieved party here. Keep it up, I'm sure that someone will be dumb enough to believe you.

Quote from: Mistwell;647873He's been saying the same thing incessantly for half a decade.  You tell me, when is enough, enough? When is it appropriate for someone to point it out?

When you're not on an online forum devoted to discussing RPGs, probably. Complaining about someone complaining about a system on a forum devoted to complaining about RPG systems is kinda "wack", to quote the vernacular.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;647885It's a side effect of constant arguments.

When people are exposed to evidence supporting a position they disagree with, after hearing the evidence they almost always become more committed to their original position, more committed to their disagreement.

Evidence, logic, and debate make people more polarized, and less likely to listen to opposing positions.

So, the people who are the most flexible and adaptable are those who argue and debate the least. That is, the least invested.

And the people who are the most rigid and inflexible — whoops. I mean "most committed and devoted" are those who argue with others frequently.

Discussion — actual, real discussion — tends to affect people differently. But arguing (via evidence and reason) solidifies opposition, it doesn't persuade.

True, unless you force yourself to argue the other side.  Which is what they teach you in college debate - to always be able to argue both sides.

Quote from: TristramEvans;647898When you're not on an online forum devoted to discussing RPGs, probably. Complaining about someone complaining about a system on a forum devoted to complaining about RPG systems is kinda "wack", to quote the vernacular.

Devoted to complaining about RPG systems? I don't view this forum that way...but it's an interesting way to view it.

Quote from: Mistwell;647866Saying it once, fair enough.
...SNIP....

My bad for asking in the first place.

At this point I actively support Tetsubo mentioning it again. It's amusing to see how a failed save v. butt hurt can migrate to other parties. Like magic, it is.

Quote from: Opaopajr;647955At this point I actively support Tetsubo mentioning it again. It's amusing to see how a failed save v. butt hurt can migrate to other parties. Like magic, it is.

Mistwell has been championing butthurt for ages now.

Personally, I've moved on from butthurt to prematurely dancing on 5E's grave.

Quote from: Haffrung;647758But in the real world, a lot of players have misgivings and issues with the version of D&D they play. Then end up houseruling their games, or putting up with mechanics they don't like out of simple fatigue or convenience.

I don't think that's true anymore. Gamers have too many options today.

I have friends who like 3e. They won't play 5e. They will play Pathfinder because it's 3e with new stuff to buy. There is nothing 5e can give them because Pathfinder Society is giving them loads of free adventures and an active community of fellow people who play a suck ass edition.

I run OD&D and a bunch of other RPGs. In the future, I cannot see any reason to run a 5e game. If the Pathfinder guys want a break from suck ass, they will ask me to run Warhammer, OD&D or Mazes & Minotaurs for them.

Would I play 5e at a con slot if no other game was available? Yeah, but I'd would definitely check the minis and boardgame schedule first.

I doubt my situation is unusual. If you love 4e, there will be 4e fans to get together. 3e fans have Pathfinder and non-Pathfinder 3e fans have a load of 3PP D20 products. 0e to 2e fans have a dozen retroclones and a load of TSR products and 3PP OSR products.

I agree that 5e is "rules medium", but I am not seeing who that will appeal to. I don't see that drawing in non-RPG players because that is far more complex than a video game or most boardgames.

I am not seeing 5e as an introductory product. What I am seeing in the playtest would be a game with all its supplements and add-ons shoved in for maximum complexity.

I don't think WotC needs people who are still playing old versions of D&D to play Next. They have the PDFs and stuff for them.

Based on what I've seen of the packets and what they've said, it looks like they're more interested in people who used to play D&D, stopped playing RPGs entirely, and might want to get back into it again.

Young people have short attention spans and mountains of games to choose from. We old geezers don't have much time to game. That's an interesting intersection for them to aim at.

If Next allows everyone to make characters in 10 minutes and prep or make an adventure in an hour or less, that's a huge improvement over anything else sold in game stores outside of retroclones.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;647684When 3e came out, there were lots of people who never bought any D&D stuff for a decade who bought it?  I'll take your word since I didn't pay a lot of attention in 2000.

I remember that the local Media Play (the now defunct bigbox book/music store) had a midnight release party for 3e.  It blew my mind! Was it successful?  Don't know, but 3e sure was.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Play