D&D (2024) Do you plan to adopt D&D5.5One2024Redux?

[James Gasik]

Most miserable thing: in 3.e backstab did not work in shadowy conditions. Exact the situations where you expect it to be best...
I guess many people just ignored this rule.

In 2nd Edition you couldn't become hidden via Hide in Shadows in darkness!

 

[Hussar]

In 2nd Edition you couldn't become hidden via Hide in Shadows in darkness!

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To be fair, that's still true in 5e.

 

[Hriston]

None, if the party are in a familiar port or a port where the Comox is known to go.

Known by who? Familiar to who? The player of the sailor has just stipulated it’s known to their character the Comox frequents this harbor, so yes, that’s part of the hypothetical play example. It is known from the character’s background.

Quite a lot if the party are somewhere far removed from the Comox's usual trading routes and-or on a different ocean (or different world).

I’m not sure what you're saying is quite a lot of extra work here. If the Comox, its trading routes, and what oceans and worlds on which it can be found have already been established in play, then there's no way the player is going to make the action declaration I described in the first place, so this whole line of reasoning seems like a complete non sequitur.

In my own setting, for example, most of the adventuring takes place around a big inland sea - think the Mediterranean only running roughly north-south lengthwise instead of east-west - and were the Comox usually sailing that sea then sure, asking about her or her captain in almost any major port on that sea's shore has a good chance of getting some answers.

But if you travel overland south of that inland seas and get to the sea beyond that, asking about the Comox will get you nothing but blank stares; a vague real-world geographical equivalent would be asking about a Mediterranean trader while standing in Tokyo, or Vancouver. And were the Comox in fact going to the South Sea and back, then the "frequently anchors here" piece gets blown up as such a journey would take months each way.

Wouldn't the sailor, who has voyaged on sailing ships for years, know the difference in likelihood in finding the Comox between the inland sea and the south sea and avoid getting the blank stares you describe?

 

[mamba]

Wouldn't the sailor, who has voyaged on sailing ships for years, know the difference in likelihood in finding the Comox between the inland sea and the south sea and avoid getting the blank stares you describe?

so you agree that the sailor would not know any ship on the south sea when he ever only worked on the inland sea?

 

[Lanefan]

Known by who? Familiar to who? The player of the sailor has just stipulated it’s known to their character the Comox frequents this harbor, so yes, that’s part of the hypothetical play example. It is known from the character’s background.

So you're saying the background allows the player to make this up on the fly? That they know a ship that calls here frequently (and further, know its captain)? Sure, OK - but only if the PC is at a location where his having that knowledge makes sense.

Wouldn't the sailor, who has voyaged on sailing ships for years, know the difference in likelihood in finding the Comox between the inland sea and the south sea and avoid getting the blank stares you describe?

One thing I've perhaps not mentioned is that the player and I would long since (probably at char-gen when the background was chosen) have fine-tuned that background a bit in terms of roughly where the sailor had voyaged, what type(s) of ships he'd sailed on, how long he'd been at it, and so forth.

For example the experiences and knowledge of a sailor whose sailing career had nearly all been on oar-powered merchant traders on the inland sea wold be vastly different than one whose sailing career had mostly been on an age-of-sail pirate ship that had been many places but had never stayed in any one area for long enough to get to know much.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't know. The capabilities granted by the 2014 background features are pretty light. Sending a message to your contact, getting free passage aboard a ship -- these are not game breaking abilities. I don't know why those types of events might not be a fit for a campaign or whatever. I also have no idea what you mean by "gotcha abilities". Care to elaborate?

Because the issue is not how powerful the ability is, it's what the ability represents in the fiction.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You're operating under the assumption that it's ok for pyromancers and fire dragon sorcerers to suffer for their theme.

I think everyone should suffer for their theme, if circumstances make that theme inefficient to the task. That's the cost of specialization.

 

[Remathilis]

I think everyone should suffer for their theme, if circumstances make that theme inefficient to the task. That's the cost of specialization.

Theme: a completely mundane warrior.
Suffering: enjoy being a wizard's valet when you hit double digit levels.

 

[Lanefan]

Theme: a completely mundane warrior.
Suffering: enjoy being a wizard's valet when you hit double digit levels.

Theme: a typical wizard.
Suffering: enjoy cowering behind the warriors until you hit double digit levels.

Seems balanced enough to me.

 

[Micah Sweet]

In 2nd Edition you couldn't become hidden via Hide in Shadows in darkness!

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You cut off the "however"!