D&D 5E Unearthed Arcana: Travelers of the Multiverse

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Looks like Spelljammer and/or Planescape is back on the menu!

 

[Parmandur]

That's fair. Other people play differently and I've been with DMs that have a natural 20 always hits, no matter how high you need to roll mentality.

It's hard to break the game if everyone is coming in with good will.

 

[Maxperson]

I wonder if I am recalling an off-hand "this is how we design monsters" and took that as a rule. I mean, it's worked out pretty OK, at any rate.

Possibly. As I said, they have to consider the average of all gaming table styles when they design, so they won't want to go past certain points to extremes. That doesn't mean that the game is forbidding those extremes, though.

 

[Maxperson]

It's hard to break the game if everyone is coming in with good will.

1000% agreed here.

 

[Parmandur]

Possibly. As I said, they have to consider the average of all gaming table styles when they design, so they won't want to go past certain points to extremes. That doesn't mean that the game is forbidding those extremes, though.

Bounded Accuracy might be more of a...guideline, than a rule per se.

 

[Faolyn]

There are multiple classes/subclasses with expertise. +5 for stat, +12 for proficiency, +1d4 for that cantrip that slips my mind at the moment and you can be rolling at +21. A 40 DC is achievable, and a 30 DC is pretty darn easy with those numbers.

The cantrip is guidance. One of my players likes using that on others. Like the Investigative rogue's Insight and Investigation weren't high enough already.

Last Friday, what with the druid's pass without trace, almost everyone was getting 25+ with Stealth checks, and several were getting 30+. Only the poor paladin with a +0 Dex and disad on Stealth checks because of armor kept rolling really badly. If it weren't for her, I'd be weeping in despair because what's a DM supposed to do when none of the baddies can hear the party coming?

 

[Chaosmancer]

It is typical enough: random encounters at night are a serious danger to consider. And that is just one example, not having to manage weapons or armor, ever, while staying even is a significant logistical advantage. Having magical weapons without DM buy-in is huge. Martial Arts are very much at the core of the Class, and just because the 4E provides more Ki abilities it doesn't negate any Class features at all.

Not having to buy weapons and armor is only useful if you have something to spend gold on. Which becomes highly DM dependent. And no, maybe in your games random night encounters when no one is near their equipment are common, but that is not the case for most of us. And any character using light armor can sleep in their armor and have their weapons at hand, which means any dex-based martial character. Or Barbarians.

Again, I'm not saying that Martial Arts and Unarmored Defense abilities are utterly useless, but they are simply there to make the monk match what any other martial character can do with their weapon and armor proficienies, with a tiny bonus thrown in to match the dual-wielding fighting style (which incidentally locks Monks out of using the Dual-Wiedling Feat, which comes with a +1 AC they cannot access). To make the monk actually competetive with other martial character's actual abilities, they need their ki for their ki-based abilities. And 4e sacrifices those abilities for flashy spells that are worse than simply punching people for the same Ki cost.

 

[Maxperson]

Bounded Accuracy might be more of a...guideline, than a rule per se.

I heard way back when, and I can't remember where anymore, that bounded accuracy was supposed to be on the DM side of things and the player side wasn't bounded. No clue where it came from any longer, though.

 

[Maxperson]

The cantrip is guidance. One of my players likes using that on others. Like the Investigative rogue's Insight and Investigation weren't high enough already.

Players do like their overkill.

Last Friday, what with the druid's pass without trace, almost everyone was getting 25+ with Stealth checks, and several were getting 30+. Only the poor paladin with a +0 Dex and disad on Stealth checks because of armor kept rolling really badly. If it weren't for her, I'd be weeping in despair because what's a DM supposed to do when none of the baddies can hear the party coming?

Set noisy traps.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Thanks for the context, wow.

Agreed that there are no truly "bad" options in the game, as there were in prior Editions.

Since I guess (shocker) I now need to defend myself from ad hominem attacks instead of discussing my position...

Yes, I have advocated for starting at a 16 in your primary stat, especially for spellcasters. I have had multiple games where we did not do that, and those characters felt bad to play. You can hate and deride me for my experiences, but that doesn't discount their existence.

Yes, I see no purpose in the Ranger Primeval Awareness feature by RAW. It costs a spell slot to tell you "some number of fey exist somewhere within a six mile sphere of your location". That information is largely worthless. It tells the player nothing that they didn't already suspect, because why would you attempt to detect dragons, fey, undead or other types of enemies if you didn't suspect they existed somewhere within 6 miles.

As for the second half of Max's post, let me be clear. The 4e monk and the Beastmaster ranger aren't entirely unplayable and worthless, that is a strawman of my position. But they were badly designed and did not work properly. Something that in the case of the 4e monk, you yourself have agreed with.

Now, I imagine I will continue to be harrassed over these points. For those of you who didn't wish for every single thing ever to be relitigated again, I am sorry, but I refuse to simply stand by silently while ad hominems are thrown at me for why I shouldn't be listened to on any subject, because one two people don't like my positions on one or two issues.

 

[overgeeked]

It's hard to break the game if everyone is coming in with good will.

I wish I could find those players.