D&D General Requesting permission to have something cool

[billd91]

Luke Skywalker was no more competent in Episode IV than a 1st level 1e character, and you don't get more Hero's Journey than Luke.

I dunno. Do 1st level PCs bullseye womp rats in a T-16? Or fly state of the art fighter-bombers they‘ve never been in before?

 

[Micah Sweet]

I dunno. Do 1st level PCs bullseye womp rats in a T-16? Or fly state of the art fighter-bombers they‘ve never been in before?

They do if they have pilot skill and proficiency in ranged weapons, both things a 1st level Star Wars PC should be able to manage.

 

[Reynard]

Luke Skywalker was no more competent in Episode IV than a 1st level 1e character, and you don't get more Hero's Journey than Luke.

I totally disagree. It is absolutely clear from context that all the main characters have leveled up. Calling Luke a "farm boy" in context of the results of EP4 is naughty word.

 

[Minigiant]

Luke Skywalker is higher than level 1 1e at the start of EP4.
He's like like 1e level 2 or 3 which is 5e level 1
Luke then gets, something I'd think should be more common in D&D, a class swap. going from a normal class to a jedi class.

Then he levels up like crazy.

 

[mamba]

I think every version of D&D is a interesting and good game.

I was not disagreeing with that, but it is not moving in the direction I would like it to move. I am only seeing one step forward, one step back in 2024. 5e is probably my preferred version, followed by 2e, but if things aren’t improving, why get 2024.

I didn't particularly like 4E but I would love to see its SRD released under CC or even the DMsGuild because there are people that love it. I want the whole 3.0 SRD released under CC because someone, somewhere thinks 3E is the PERFECT version of D&D.

there never was a 4e SRD, so I would not hold my breath for that. Apart from that I agree, have / make them available.

I guess there is a 4e ‘clone’ now, and 13th Age might be an evolution of it, so people can use those, but SRDs would be nice - maybe you can start with the 13th Age one and work your way backwards?

At a minimum I guess you could publish adventures for all editions still, no idea how much interest in those there is however

 

[Lanefan]

I don't need to. A level 1 PC in 2e*, 3e, 4e, and 5e all allow me to pick my race, class, background/kit/theme, and alignment. I'm not tossing farmers at kobolds until one of them makes to first level fighter. I don't rely on random rolls to figure out what race or class I can be. I say "I'm going to play a human ranger/monster hunter" and pick the options that let me. I don't say "I'm going to randomly generate 10 commoners and the one who makes it past Tucker's Kobold's gets to become a 1st level thief".

Where I'm of the mindset that while I might have an idea for a character going in, I'm willing to bend that idea or even abandon it outright if the dice don't co-operate. The thought that I-as-player can play what I want even if what I want has pre-req's that the dice didn't let me meet is over-entitlement at best and arrogance at worst; never mind that I can always put that idea on the shelf for next time.

* While 2e did still use AD&D 1e style generation as default, I don't know many DMs who didn't use some form of customizable ability score placement, max HP at level one, and a number of options like kits and NWP to flesh out your PC. By the end of 2e, creating a PC was far more common than rolling one up.

Well, the only time I've ever seen max h.p. at 1st level was when playing 3e (where it's RAW). I'm roll-for-stats all the way, though rearranging rolls has always been allowed IME; and also prefer rolling for various other aspects as well (background and family in particular) if only to prevent exploits and shenanigans. I've never really done the kits and NWPs that 2e brought in so I can't speak to those.

All that said, one thing I'd really like to see happen is a very harsh chop-down of the whole "character build" side of the game. Char-gen in the WotC era has become far too complex; if I can't go from a blank page to something playable in 15 minutes, there's a problem.

 

[Tony Vargas]

A game is better balanced the more choices it presents to the player that are both meaningful and viable.

But you repeating that balance is important doesn't make it a priority for anyone else.

Humor me for a second, and explain how it's not important to present the player with choices?
Is it your position that an RPG with no choices is just fine?

Or how is it not important that those choices be meaningful, or that they be viable?

 

[Scribe]

A game is better balanced the more choices it presents to the player that are both meaningful and viable.

I think part of the issue may be, not everyone agrees with that being the definition of balance. It can be a definition of something, but thats not 'balance'.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I think part of the issue may be, not everyone agrees with that being the definition of balance. It can be a definition of something, but thats not 'balance'.

Indeed. meaningful viable choices are a good thing. But "balance" often means the opposite. It doesn't matter what you choose, your overall effectiveness will be the same. You see this a lot in MMOs. Different fluff, same average DPS. So your 17th level fighter gets a sword attack that does 40d6 damage to all targets within a 40 ft. radius. Because that's what wizards can do.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Firstly, I know how to check the validity of a formal syllogism.

Secondly, How many times has invoking this solved the problem? 0. Sure, you can win the argument... but you don't actually solve your own problem. So... congratulations, I guess?

It's not that I don't know what Oberani meant - it's that what he meant doesn't matter as a practical solution to a real problem. In other words,

"Ok, the game is broken, now what are you going to do about it?"

The answer cannot be "complain on the forums". The answer is the homebrewing/house ruling/rule zeroing/brainstorming on the forums.

"If you don't have a solution, don't argue" isn't giving a solution either though. The argument defeats itself.

The solution to the problem is for WotC to actually goddamn analyze their own game. A bit of statistical analysis, avoiding some really boneheaded math simplification choices (like treating all AoE spells as though they only ever hit 2 targets), and letting a computer run some simulations. Just a bit of computer simulation to perform bulk data tests over time can make a huge difference. (Heck, now that BG3 exists, just crack it open, program in the stuff you want to try, and let the AI go to town. It does a lot of stupid things, to be fair, but you'll get some idea of how things play out.) Then you can focus the live, human playtesting, the part that is expensive and time-consuming, on the things that actually need human brains to think through.

Hence, I will continue to call for such things. I will continue to criticize WotC's piss-poor survey design, lackluster to nonexistent mathematical testing, and frankly bizarre logic on when to abandon something as unworkable (tons of stuff in the original playtest died after only ONE attempt!) vs when to keep something long past its pull date (e.g. "proficiency dice," Specialties, several attempts at Fighter mechanics).

So...yeah. I do have a solution. The solution is to actually bloody test the rules--and when rules are found to be busted, FIX THEM, don't just let them sit there broken for a bloody decade. But WotC is allergic to the very concept of serious errata. That's (another reason) why we're getting 5.5e; they can't not fix things, but they can't print errata because they're afraid of the backlash from admitting that anything could be wrong and in need of fixes.