This Week in D&D

VinylTap · Oct 16, 2012

Libramarian · Oct 16, 2012

Magil said:
What elements do you think they could include to attract the so-called "old school" crowd, then?

Tools for sandbox games, rather than adventure paths where the monsters and loot are scaled to the PCs' level.

My basic concern is that D&D Next looks like it's headed to be 4e-lite (i.e. the same basic playstyle but with much less mechanically interesting encounters).

I'm A Banana · Oct 16, 2012

There is a redonkulous level of woe-is-me in this thread, and I can't really puzzle out as to why.

To address a few things that have been brought up:

Falling Icicle said:
I was worried that this would happen, based on all the people screaming for a non-vancian wizard option. I actually like mechanics that go together with fluff in making classes. I liked that sorcerers and warlocks used magic very differently from wizards. I liked this in 3.x also. I guess I'm in the minority.

Steely_Dan said:
I'm wary of a catch-all "magic user" (though i have no problem calling the wizard that), part of class identity for me is the way they cast/use magic.

[sblock]
While I'm fond of magical classes with distinct casting mechanics, it's not a solution that's very modular. "Don't use the Wizard" or "Don't play with the Sorcerer" isn't a useful thing to tell someone -- there's no reason that an academic spellcaster must be tied to A Particular Spell System.

There's also a lot of worldbuilding juice in defining how magic works in your setting. Think of FR's deity-based Weave and Dark Sun's defiling and Eberron's industrial spellcasting. It's more than just adding a certain class, it's defining how magic works.

I also don't believe that this rules out the possibility of using multiple spellcasting mechanics alongside each other. Slot-based magic and at-will magic and other forms of spellcasting can be (generally) balanced alongside each other, so those who want Wizards to be one and Warlocks to be another can probably do that.

This also removes the need for 1,001 magical sub-classes all just differing in their magical mechanic, and promotes the idea of mechanics that back up the other story elements of the class. Now, we can have sorcerers with bloodlines instead of sorcerers who are "wizards, but with different mechanics."

I'm in your boat with what I think I'd like to play with, but it's not appropriate for every game (such as a game from a 4e fan who wouldn't touch Vancian spellcasting with a ten-foot pole, or a Dark Sun game where any spellcasting should be an environmental metaphor). I don't think what I'd like to play with is going to be ruled out, though. It has been implied that all these magical systems can be used alongside each other.
[/sblock]

Falling Icicle said:
Again, I guess I'm in the minority of people that actually liked Turn Undead being a spell. I absolutely loathe it as a class ability that all clerics have. I always have. If I'm a cleric of the god of life or something, okay, give me turn undead as a domain power. But for clerics of other deities that have no good reason to hate undead, it makes no sense whatsoever.

[sblock]
Just because it's not a spell doesn't mean every cleric has to have it. It can be one of those "granted powers" mentioned for the God of Life.
[/sblock]

Falling Icicle said:
Is just spending your CS dice on damage every round really that difficult, if you can't handle doing more than "I hit. I hit. I hit?"

[sblock]
Some folks want it that simple, and those are the folks who aren't going to bother to invest the time in the game that you would need to understand that the Expertise system CAN be that simple.

But, as above, just because this is an option doesn't mean it'll be the ONLY option
[/sblock]

Falling Icicle said:
The whole master of skills thing is just boring and stupid. I really wish they'd stop trying to make that their focus and instead explore new ways of making rogues cooler and more interesting as a class.

[sblock]
On this I actually kind of agree, I just think it has to do more with a pillar other than combat, and they might not be ready to show off what those other pillars can do yet. I think you need to be able to scale exploration with the rogue like the fighter can scale combat.
[/sblock]

Falling Icicle said:
They want to make skills even narrower? Really? Having dozens of different Lore skills isn't already narrow enough? Seriously?

[sblock]
I'm kind of with you here, too "More, but narrower" doesn't seem like what I really want out of the skills system. What I really want out of the skills system is ways to interact with it instead of "roll a d20."
[/sblock]

Bluenose said:
Bad enough for the Rogue, who will suddenly find that Mr Cleric of Thief God is sneaking around and picking locks - presumably worse than him - and has all the cleric abilities on top of that.

[sblock]
A modular game cannot be exclusive with regards to dominance. If a devotee of the Thief God is as sneaky as a Thief, that's a good thing. The rogue can also be that sneaky, without magic, and a cleric of the Deciever can be that sneaky, with magic, and as long as they are the same sneaky, it doesn't really matter how they get there.
[/sblock]

thewok said:
My disappointment mainly stems from the news about the sorcerer. No, the heritage they gave was not like the sorcerer from 3E, but that's what I thought was exciting about it.

[sblock]
They did mention that the class isn't going anywhere, it's just not going to be called "sorcerer," because that meant something different in D&D history. So you don't need to get too bent out of of shape.

[/sblock]

*whew*

For me, I'm otherwise a little miffed that they're going with the idea that specialization means you cast more often rather than with the idea that specialization means that you cast things no one else can cast, but it'll be worth seeing what happens with that with regards to the "different magic systems." It's quite possible that translates into a Vancian system or something more cleanly than the pseudo-at-will/encounter power they're advocating here.

And I really think that the firs step in making the Rogue awesome is to better address the whole Exploration Pillar, because I don't think the rogue is going to be very awesome without that.

Truename · Oct 16, 2012

Enough already.

KidSnide · Oct 16, 2012

Libramarian said:
Tools for sandbox games, rather than adventure paths where the monsters and loot are scaled to the PCs' level.

I don't really understand what tools you're looking for? Random monster tables? All you need to "unscale" monster level is to ignore the level of the PCs when you are populating the world.

-KS

ppaladin123 · Oct 16, 2012

Ratskinner said:
Totally agree with this idea. I think mental block is just because a) Clerics having to use bludgeoning weapons and b) being the only source of healing kinda overwhelmed other aspects of the class. If they just make one unified spell list...including letting wizards cast healing spells...this all could be cleared up so neatly.

Clerics are mostly self-buff gishes; they use magic to make themselves stronger and more durable. This is a bit different from the duskblade or swordmage, which usually use magic to directly harm their enemies (channeled through a sword strike, close bursts and cones, etc.) I think a lot of players want something like this that doesn't suck (like the duskblade or hexblade did).

Sir Brennen · Oct 16, 2012

Stormonu said:
I'd also ask the converse: what should be proffered to appeal directly to 4Eers?

To me the umbrella Magic User sounds alot like the Arcane Power Source, so I'd say they've got that covered, especially if they do something similar for Divine Casters.

I'm A Banana · Oct 16, 2012

ppaladin123 said:
Clerics are mostly self-buff gishes; they use magic to make themselves stronger and more durable. This is a bit different from the duskblade or swordmage, which usually use magic to directly harm their enemies (channeled through a sword strike, close bursts and cones, etc.) I think a lot of players want something like this that doesn't suck (like the duskblade or hexblade did).

This has been the case historically, but needn't be the case going forward. A cleric of the god of fire, for instance, might blast enemies with holy flame from one hand and bean them with righteous hammers in the other. A cleric of the storm god might channel lightning bolts into her spears, in hand or out of of it. A cleric of the seasons might use ice (winter), lightning (spring), radiant (summer), and necrotic (autumn) all while using a blade whose hilt is wood of the Ever-Living World Tree.

The 5e cleric is said to be a creature that changes drastically depending on the deity. If this is the case, it's fairly simple to make one resembling any gish -- or fighter or rogue or cloistered "squishy wizard" healer or whatever -- you want: you simply have a deity that does that. If you have a deity that lets you use swords and cast lightning attack spells bang, you've got a gish.

And there's still room for the classic "Protection and Life" wall of steel that is the classic Cleric archetype in that class, too.

ALSO: It's possible that "cleric" falls under the "magic-user" category, too. I think "magic-user" is more a way to point at the fact that different classes may (or may not) use the same magic mechanics, if the DM decides that her game uses one universal magic mechanic. So that clerics (as well as druids, psions, wizards, sorcerers, warlocks, etc.) might be "Vancian" or "Point-Based" or "At-Will" depending on the magic system -- they're all "magic users."

pemerton · Oct 16, 2012

Kamikaze Midget said:
A modular game cannot be exclusive with regards to dominance. If a devotee of the Thief God is as sneaky as a Thief, that's a good thing. The rogue can also be that sneaky, without magic, and a cleric of the Deciever can be that sneaky, with magic, and as long as they are the same sneaky, it doesn't really matter how they get there.

What you say is true as far as it goes, but [MENTION=49017]Bluenose[/MENTION]'s concern was clearly that the devotee of the Thief God will also get "all the cleric abilities on top of that."

And that would be a clear problem, in my view.

I'm A Banana · Oct 16, 2012

pemerton said:
What you say is true as far as it goes, but @Bluenose 's concern was clearly that the devotee of the Thief God will also get "all the cleric abilities on top of that."

And that would be a clear problem, in my view.

True! I think my response to that is: "And the rogue gets all the rogue abilities on top of that."

If all your class can do is roll Stealth checks, you've got the Exploration equivalent of the "Attack, attack, attack" fighter.