D&D 5E Of Fighters and Sammiches

AntiStateQuixote · Apr 30, 2012

Build your own sammich:

1. Choose your meat(s) and/or cheese(s): class
2. Choose your bread: background
3. Choose your special sauce: theme
4. Add trimmings: feats, skills not included in class, background, theme?

Go!

Stormonu · Apr 30, 2012

My litmus test for a deli is pastrami on rye (with spicy mustard), I don't know what translates to in D&D

Joking aside, I think your analogy hits the nail right on the head. If the basic fighter doesn't work to my liking - or for that matter, any of the basic four (including races too - human, elf, dwarf, halfling), I'm probably not staying for the ride. And it's got to work at the basic level, without trying to cover up its faults with all sorts of gimmicks, powers and whatnot.

CleverNickName · Apr 30, 2012

Brent_Nall said:
Build your own sammich:

It looks like our first taste of the 5E Delicatessen won't be like this, though. It sounds like they have only four sandwiches for us to choose from on the menu, and they are pre-made ahead of time.

But I think this goes farther than just rolling up characters, though. It sounds like you want an entirely open-ended level of customization. Now, even if we could do this during the playtest, I think this would be a step in the wrong direction. The trouble with that is you end up with a classless system where no two sandwiches are alike. You don't get lots of different sandwiches on the menu; you end up with one sandwich called "adventurer."

(It's not a bad way of doing it...I mean, it works for Oblivion and Skyrim, after all. I just don't think it would be the kind of deli I would visit more than once.)

Sunseeker · Apr 30, 2012

CleverNickName said:
It looks like our first taste of the 5E Delicatessen won't be like this, though. It sounds like they have only four sandwiches for us to choose from on the menu, and they are pre-made ahead of time.

I think that's a good thing. The more free-form rules might not be finished yet, and what they build for us will likely indicate the core direction they want to take the class. If the Fighter they build for us can't hit kobolds and the Wizard can blast down everything in it's path, we've got a serious inherent design issue. Because what they build for us gives us a look into how they believe a class should work by default.

Lets see what they think the default game should look like, and then as things progress, hopefully we will get new layers of customization and complexity to tailor the game to our likes.

CleverNickName · Apr 30, 2012

Stormonu said:
My litmus test for a deli is pastrami on rye (with spicy mustard), I don't know what translates to in D&D

I dunno, probably some kind of barbarian. And you're doing it wrong.

Stormonu said:
And it's got to work at the basic level, without trying to cover up its faults with all sorts of gimmicks, powers and whatnot.

This, a thousand times over. Apparently I've got to spread some XP around...

GX.Sigma · Apr 30, 2012

CleverNickName said:
But I think this goes farther than just rolling up characters, though. It sounds like you want an entirely open-ended level of customization. Now, even if we could do this during the playtest, I think this would be a step in the wrong direction. The trouble with that is you end up with a classless system where no two sandwiches are alike. You don't get lots of different sandwiches on the menu; you end up with one sandwich called "adventurer."

No, sandwiches would still be defined by the meat and cheese; it's just we can have different toppings. We can both eat a turkey and Swiss, but mine has mayo and mustard and is on rye bread. Yours may just be a turkey and Swiss on wheat with nothing extra, but it's still a turkey and Swiss. So we're not divided by our topping preference, and we can eat our favorite sandwiches at the same table.

And maybe someone comes up with a strange bacon and egg salad on half wheat and half Dutch crunch that isn't even on the menu. And he can eat with us too. After all, it would be a pretty sad deli if everyone could only choose from the 10 or so sandwiches on the menu.

CleverNickName · Apr 30, 2012

shidaku said:
I think that's a good thing. The more free-form rules might not be finished yet, and what they build for us will likely indicate the core direction they want to take the class. If the Fighter they build for us can't hit kobolds and the Wizard can blast down everything in it's path, we've got a serious inherent design issue. Because what they build for us gives us a look into how they believe a class should work by default.

That's true, I didn't think of that. I guess this would be a good way to reduce variability in the test...a way to narrow the focus and scope of the test.

Woah. I don't know how it happened, but someone on the Internet managed to change my opinion about something. That's gotta be a first.

CleverNickName · Apr 30, 2012

GX.Sigma said:
No, sandwiches would still be defined by the meat and cheese; it's just we can have different toppings. We can both eat a turkey and Swiss, but mine has mayo and mustard and is on rye bread. Yours may just be a turkey and Swiss on wheat with nothing extra, but it's still a turkey and Swiss. So we're not divided by our topping preference, and we can eat our favorite sandwiches at the same table.

And maybe someone comes up with a strange bacon and egg salad on half wheat and half Dutch crunch that isn't even on the menu. And he can eat with us too.

No argument here. I think that you and I have different interpretations of Brent_Nall's post.

Minigiant · Apr 30, 2012

I did a Fighter=Food analogy once. If I recall correctly fighter was cheeseburger, rogue was sammiches, and wizards was pizza.(I test pizzerias with a sausage and I have strict Brooklyn tastes). Toppings and condiments were skills and feats, now backgrounds and themes.

But yeah. If they can't pull off a simple fighter that could be tweaked later, that is a major strike against.

Stormonu · Apr 30, 2012

CleverNickName said:
I dunno, probably some kind of barbarian. And you're doing it wrong.

Y'know, that strangely makes sense to me...especially the mustard part (as a dwarf).

Also, I'd figure that the wizard would be a combo pizza (meat, bell peppers, mushroom or your favorite combination of 3 or more toppings) - thin-crust pepperoni would be a sorcerer. <edit> The idea being that the wizard thrives on diversity that works together. Specialist wizards and sorcerers (in the blaster/narrow spell list available) being a 1-topping flavoring (Pepperoni being the "everybody loves it" topping - in D&Ds case, damage-based spells).