D&D 5E Open Interpretation Inspirational Healing Compromise.

[FormerlyHemlock]

wait... @Tony Vargas is this true? because if you aren't even playing the game why argue?

Tony doesn't have the desire to run PCs in 5E, AFAIK, but he does DM it.

I get the impression that his desire to play a PC in 5E would experience an uptick if Warlords were an option.

 

[Tony Vargas]

So, the only options that work for you is "Do it my way or don't use it."

The Warlord is a legitimate class that has been done very well in the game before. Some people are opposed to the very concept. They don't have to use it. That's a fair compromise, but how it turns out is of no interest to them.

What remains to iron out is whether the Warlord goes into the Standard Game and AL - which would be faithful to 5e's goal of including fans of all editions, but slightly inconvenience its detractors - or only the Advanced Game, with no AL play at all, which would still leave a lingering appearance of exclusion, but wouldn't inconvenience detractors in the least.

You don't even play 5E

wait... [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] is this true? because if you aren't even playing the game why argue?

Zardnar is engaging in that most time-honored of deceptions: the partial truth.

He knows I'm a DM, that I run 5e and actively promote it.

I've only gotten to play from the other side of the screen a handful of times. I find it a lot more fun on the DM side, but the existing classes are of little interest. I've been playing D&D since 1980, and I went through my nostalgia period years ago. Most 5e classes are so wonderfully faithful to their classic versions that they're just deadly-dull to me at this point.

12 classes, 38 sub-classes, not a single potentially interesting character for me among them. I've been sick of playing Vancian casters for decades - I did it a lot back in the day, I fully appreciate the challenge and interest they presented, but I've played that mine out. That's something like 24 of the available sub-classes, right there. Also of no interest: DPR characters, so there go all the non-casters, and the warlock. That leaves the Sorcerer, which is disappointing compared to the playtest version, and the Monk, a concept I've never cared for at all in any form. In the pipe-line, psionics, which, though I'm happy to see it's fans getting it, also, like the Monk, has never held the least appeal to me personally (indeed, for most of my D&D career, I felt about psionics at least as negatively as some of you feel about the warlord).

So, can we please have a Warlord? Maybe some additional, more interesting martial classes that can handle more of what the 4e and 3.5 fighter builds could do?

DMing 5e is a blast, but I'd like something worth playing at some point.


Though, honestly, the attitudes on this forum are slowly eroding my enthusiasm for the current edition. I'd hoped the promise of the new edition would affect the attitudes of fans, not just be reflected in the mechanics. Maybe if the mechanics catch up to the promise, fans will finally start coming around to? Still reason to hope, for now.

 

[Zardnaar]

The Warlord is a legitimate class that has been done very well in the game before. Some people are opposed to the very concept. They don't have to use it. That's a fair compromise, but how it turns out is of no interest to them.

What remains to iron out is whether the Warlord goes into the Standard Game and AL - which would be faithful to 5e's goal of including fans of all editions, but slightly inconvenience its detractors - or only the Advanced Game, with no AL play at all, which would still leave a lingering appearance of exclusion, but wouldn't inconvenience detractors in the least.


Zardnar is engaging in that most time-honored of deceptions: the partial truth.

He knows I'm a DM, that I run 5e and actively promote it.

I've only gotten to play from the other side of the screen a handful of times. I find it a lot more fun on the DM side, but the existing classes are of little interest. I've been playing D&D since 1980, and I went through my nostalgia period years ago. Most 5e classes are so wonderfully faithful to their classic versions that they're just deadly-dull to me at this point.

12 classes, 38 sub-classes, not a single potentially interesting character for me among them. I've been sick of playing Vancian casters for decades - I did it a lot back in the day, I fully appreciate the challenge and interest they presented, but I've played that mine out. That's something like 24 of the available sub-classes, right there. Also of no interest: DPR characters, so there go all the non-casters, and the warlock. That leaves the Sorcerer, which is disappointing compared to the playtest version, and the Monk, a concept I've never cared for at all in any form. In the pipe-line, psionics, which, though I'm happy to see it's fans getting it, also, like the Monk, has never held the least appeal to me personally (indeed, for most of my D&D career, I felt about psionics at least as negatively as some of you feel about the warlord).

So, can we please have a Warlord? Maybe some additional, more interesting martial classes that can handle more of what the 4e and 3.5 fighter builds could do?

DMing 5e is a blast, but I'd like something worth playing at some point.

Well you never say anything nice about 5E or any other version of D&D except 4E. As I said have you checked out the Noble? Its more or less a warlord in all but name. I doubt it will satisfy you but it does a decent enough warlord type job in a 5E context and one of them may even be broken as the Heart Noble (lazylord) enable cantrip casting so there is some powerful combos there with things like Eldritch Blast Warlocks, Great Weapon/Sharpshooter feats as the Noble can grant attacks and charisma bonus to hit. The class might even be broken in the right party, underpowered in others so its probably about right.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

So, can we please have a Warlord? Maybe some additional, more interesting martial classes that can handle more of what the 4e and 3.5 fighter builds could do?

DMing 5e is a blast, but I'd like something worth playing at some point.

I'd like more interesting non-martial and non-magical rules/options. I tried out Courtney Campbell's social rules (hackslashmaster.blogspot.com/2013/07/on-non-player-character.html) for the first time tonight, and the players appreciated it. I tweaked the rules a bit to make the PCs roll on 2d10 instead of d20, which the players liked because the average is higher and I liked because it makes the results match the bell curve of the original rules better. My chief worry about using these rules is that it could tend to make Charisma overpowered, since you can use it both for combat and for socializing, and half-elf bardlocks are already kind of overpowered.

The thing I liked best about using these rules was that the transition between combat and non-combat felt far more natural. It wasn't just, "Oh, you see four quaggoths. Roll for initiative!" It was, "These quaggoths look unfriendly. They're growling and eyeing you hungrily. What do you do? Choose from this list of actions." The players opted to Demand safe passage, after Threatening to gain an advantage. The Threaten check was failed miserably, and the Quaggoths attacked! It felt more organic and therefore more enjoyable, to me and I hope to my players, than having the Quaggoths be nothing but an automatic combat challenge. It was easy to believe that a more helpless and low-level PC party could have chosen a different approach like Grovelling and still survived the encounter, which is great because I can't believe in a world where every encounter ends in half the participants dying. Such a world would depopulate itself in short order.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Well you never say anything nice about 5E or any other version of D&D except 4E.

I have many times expressed my enjoyment of running 5e, my delight with it's success in getting the community to accept DM Empowerment (which I did not believe was going to work). I have defended 5e from unfair or ignorant criticism, and did the same for 3.5 when it was the current ed (and still do - especially the 3.5 fighter), as well as for 4e.

I'm actually a fan of all three modern versions, and of 1e (and 2e isn't /that/ different from 1e), and will stand up for them when they're unjustly maligned. I'll also be honest about each edition's failings when those come up in a constructive way (for instance, in the game's and the community's desperate need to get over caster-supremacy issues).


You may have noticed me rising to the defense of 4e a lot more than the other editions, but that's only because it has been maligned so much more and so much more unfairly than are other editions.

I'd like more interesting non-martial and non-magical rules/options.

What does that leave?

I tried out Courtney Campbell's social rules (hackslashmaster.blogspot.com/2013/07/on-non-player-character.html) for the first time tonight, and the players appreciated it. I tweaked the rules a bit to make the PCs roll on 2d10 instead of d20, which the players liked because the average is higher and I liked because it makes the results match the bell curve of the original rules better. My chief worry about using these rules is that it could tend to make Charisma overpowered, since you can use it both for combat and for socializing, and half-elf bardlocks are already kind of overpowered.

Nod. Of course, CHA has often been underpowered in the past, and other stats can pull double-duty in other areas (in exploration, for instance). It probably wouldn't be hard to add uses for WIS to the social pillar, as well.

The thing I liked best about using these rules was that the transition between combat and non-combat felt far more natural. It wasn't just, "Oh, you see four quaggoths. Roll for initiative!" It was, "These quaggoths look unfriendly. They're growling and eyeing you hungrily. What do you do? Choose from this list of actions." The players opted to Demand safe passage, after Threatening to gain an advantage. The Threaten check was failed miserably, and the Quaggoths attacked! It felt more organic and therefore more enjoyable, to me and I hope to my players, than having the Quaggoths be nothing but an automatic combat challenge. It was easy to believe that a more helpless and low-level PC party could have chosen a different approach like Grovelling and still survived the encounter, which is great because I can't believe in a world where every encounter ends in half the participants dying. Such a world would depopulate itself in short order.

Sounds great. But, weren't Quaggoths pretty implacably hostile? (I only remember them from their first appearance, maybe they changed?)

 

[ZickZak]

If everyone would get class they enjoyed in previous editions, we would have hundreds.

 

[JediGamemaster]

Zardnar is engaging in that most time-honored of deceptions: the partial truth.

He knows I'm a DM, that I run 5e and actively promote it.

I've only gotten to play from the other side of the screen a handful of times.

OK, then we are in similar boats... I run D&D 90% of the time, I have only played 5e (not counting playtest pre relase) 1 campaign that last like 10 sessions, and 3-4 one shots...

 

[TwoSix]

If everyone would get class they enjoyed in previous editions, we would have hundreds.

Gee, that sounds terrible.

 

[Aldarc]

If everyone would get class they enjoyed in previous editions, we would have hundreds.

It's a Player's Handbook 1 class.

 

[JediGamemaster]

It's a Player's Handbook 1 class.

in only 1 edition that regardless of your personal thoughts (my dislike is known) you must admit is at best controversial