Thaumaturge
Wandering. Not lost. (He/they)
Not just the game.
Mearls said:
It's not the game that they named Anduril, it was everything surrounding the game and how they interacted with fans.
The game was codenamed Iowa.
Thaumaturge.
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D&D 5E Official D&D Basic Discussion Thread
- Thread starter Cybit
- Start date
Not just the game.
It's not the game that they named Anduril, it was everything surrounding the game and how they interacted with fans.
The game was codenamed Iowa.
Thaumaturge.
Another nit...and I know there are plenty of people that prefer it the way it is...and I know [or at least it seems] it is the norm for just about all fantasy games (including OSR ones, oddly enough)...but it's something I simply do not like or think is in any way "better"...
The strictly alphabetical spell list. Cleric and MU spells all listed together, A-to-Z. No sorting by class. No sorting by spell level. Just makes me mad (i.e. "crazy" mad, not "angry" mad). It's a purely preference thing. I just don't like it.
Put my cleric spells all together, in one section. List all of the 1st level spells, all together, alphabetically. Then all of my 2nd level spells. Then the 3rd. etc...Then the MU/arcane spells. Start with level 1, alphabetically. Then my level 2's. etc. etc... I shouldn't need to become familiar with 100+ pages of spell descriptions straight out the gate. Sure, I'll read them for fun. But for my 1st, 2nd, 3rd, level PC, I have these 2 or 3 or 5 pages to deal with...and that's it. Everything I need, that I might be casting (until I get into higher levels/using a bunch of spell levels) is there in those few pages.
The spells are listed, always and often in multiple places, by their spell level...then, we're basically told, go find it among these 100+ pages? It's just one of those things that has been changed in the game that doesn't make sense [never did to me].
The strictly alphabetical spell list. Cleric and MU spells all listed together, A-to-Z. No sorting by class. No sorting by spell level. Just makes me mad (i.e. "crazy" mad, not "angry" mad). It's a purely preference thing. I just don't like it.
Put my cleric spells all together, in one section. List all of the 1st level spells, all together, alphabetically. Then all of my 2nd level spells. Then the 3rd. etc...Then the MU/arcane spells. Start with level 1, alphabetically. Then my level 2's. etc. etc... I shouldn't need to become familiar with 100+ pages of spell descriptions straight out the gate. Sure, I'll read them for fun. But for my 1st, 2nd, 3rd, level PC, I have these 2 or 3 or 5 pages to deal with...and that's it. Everything I need, that I might be casting (until I get into higher levels/using a bunch of spell levels) is there in those few pages.
The spells are listed, always and often in multiple places, by their spell level...then, we're basically told, go find it among these 100+ pages? It's just one of those things that has been changed in the game that doesn't make sense [never did to me].
I appreciate the effort. But it is the chassis that is not appealing to me. I do not believe that this can be pimped by enough "modules" to make me want to drive this car. And if I want to play a simple game That I get for free, I will play 13th Age, which has very modern mechanics. Just take a look and compare. Plus, I only have to buy one book to get more design advice and mechanical explanations that make me understand the game better. Or do you really believe that the basic AD&D setup will change? I think that they think that this is where the money is. And I think this is a huge step backwards to the 80s or 90s. So, no: WotC has lost me on this edition. But by all means: if you like this, enjoy. Unlike others, though, I will stop posting about this edition since I have nothing to contribute.
Necromancy is defined as "manipulat[ing] the energies of life and death". I know the names evokes other things, but it seems perfectly appropriate for Spare the Dying. (and even some other healing spells).
That's pretty unfair. Wizard's staffs and wands and the cleric's holy symbol are pretty standard fantasy tropes, even before Harry Potter.
Once there are more spellcasters, and more cleric domains (and so more domain spells), the items on the list will be less class-specific. Given what's coming, I think this makes perfect sense.
evileeyore
Mrrrph
Bwahahahahahahahaha!
Bwahahahahahahahaha!
No, what Second Wind does is it rubs up against all the other rules and we can't haves that! It'll taint the other rules with it's toxic taintyness! Then we can't use the other rules either!
No, no, best to remove it entirely.
Seriously. News letter subscribed!
This right here is what I really don't like about the short rest rules. It's not that they don't work the way I want; it's that they're extremely ambiguous, as evidenced by the number of people with radically different takes on them. We should be arguing over whether the rules are good rules, not about what the rules are. <snip>
Fortunately, rules ambiguities can usually be resolved by consulting Michaelus Mearlsus, the Twittersage. Though I expect today he's taking a well-earned break.
I genuinely don't believe that the rule as stated is ambiguous. If people are going to choose to game it and the DM is going to let them, who does it hurt? However...
This is Well said. If at any point during that hour, an encounter comes by, players need to decide whether they are going to continue to rest or fight the encounter. And when they do, the clock resets... I can see groups struggling to fit the short rest in during some campaigns.
As Mearls has said, they're not going to stop people playing one rest after another. If that's what the table wants to call fun, people can have at'er.
Tony Semana
First Post
Quite right. My intention was to say the all-encompassing 'game'; the community, the disparate editions, the big picture 'thing'.
I'm aware of that. And that's fine. You seem to have missed my point. Yes, it does make sense for Spare the Dying. If that's necromancy, then make the spells dealing with "the energies of life and death" necromancy spells. Not some evocation...and some conjuration...and whatever else. (I don't have it in front of me, but I think I saw Restoration -or some other "healing" spell- was listed as a transmutation?) PICK one!
It's "unfair" that I like what they've done? That I think appealing to both groups is a good thing? That's unfair to you?
The cleric holy symbol has always been a D&D trope. Cleric's need their symbol )in many/most games) to cast their spells. Always have. I didn't say anything about that.
The wizards with staffs and wands...yeah, it's a fantasy trope. But they were never something in the game of D&D as something you could use in spellcasting until the "implement" rules of recent times...which was obviously an attempt to invite fans [jump on the wagon] of Harry Potter world/series/books/movies/magic. I have no qualms about it. D&D has always (and usually obviously) borrowed from current/popular cultural fantasy sources of its edition's era. But I'm not going to pretend it isn't a "thing"/doesn't exist/the introduction of casting implements just occurred in a vacuum.
Again, I think you're [somehow] missing my point. This seems to indicate you believe that the addition of MORE spellcasters and MORE spells, inserted into a single rambling alphabetical list is going to somehow be clearer/easier to use? I'll just disagree and leave it at that.
Agreed.
It was a cheap shot, and one that you know had nothing to do with the "Harry Potter generation", as indeed you go on to explain. It was a way of ghettoizing a minor play style choice, and you're better than that.
Yes, I would much prefer a single list rather than having to consult several lists to find the spells my caster is able to use. Given that they have much better things to do with the space than repeat spell descriptions for spells in multiple lists, a single alphabetized spell list is best, IMO.
Yeah, the tools work best with certain patterns of usage. It sounds like you want to print or look at a bunch of contiguous pages and be done. If every individual spell could be cast by only one class (or if spells were printed in multiple places in the rulesbook, but that's a complete non-starter for anything bound in a book) this would be perfect. Unfortunately, many spells are cast by multiple classes, will be added to a list they don't normally belong to (perhaps domains), or may be apportioned differently for future classes or subclasses. The more deviations from the "ideal", the more time you spend looking up or compiling spells from completely different lists, and having to remember which completely different list it is on.
For a game with the PHB and 4 splats all those little changes probably add up to a giant mess. For Basic, which has essentially no way to create such deviations and is a totally self-contained PDF, I hear you, doing it using your preference is about as smooth as possible.
I generally make a spell sheet with a bunch of summaries, so that most of the time looking up the full rules isn't necessary. Even when it is, having one giant alphabetized list of spells is pretty efficient to do with binary search (doubling the page count generally means flipping only 1 more page). I think it's the path of least resistance once the game grows large enough. That said, making a spell sheet of summaries is certainly more time consuming than looking at 5 contiguous pages, so it's not like I can blame someone for thinking making a sufficiently detailed spellsheet is needless busywork, particularly for something as self-contained as Basic.
If 5e avoids giving casters the same spell at different levels I might have preferred spells sorted by level first, however, even as the game grows. If you know the spell level and name you can find things pretty much as fast as a single alphabetized list. However, when you need to compare a bunch of spells of the same level it is much nicer. In 3.5, at least, I spent a lot of time doing that very thing when trying to choose new sorcerer spells, etc. Since 5e pretty much decouples slot level from a spell's base level that might not come up as much as it did in past editions.
