Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Astrosicebear" data-source="post: 5925641" data-attributes="member: 67017">Defeating minions is overpowered at 1st?  The fact is the designers have said the minion mechanic in 4e was a good thing, and wanted something equivalent.  The slayer theme is just that.  -->And even if damage is capped at the ability mod forever, it still hurts my brain...in my mind, when you miss your target, you fail to do damage.  Answered your own question, but yes it is clearly capped at ability mod.  And, as we all know the designer's intent is to keep math small, and keep the ability scores the main focus.  I high doubt we will see inflated ability scores beyond +6 in most campaigns.  Heck even the DM guide provided a list of appropriate DCs and anything over 19 (still achievable on a straight roll, btw) is listed as "extreme".So, maybe I just don't get it.  Maybe I'm progressive.  I've played 4e and thought the minions were interesting.  I've played a lot of D&D and cannot count the number of times as a player I've dreaded the next 4-5 rounds of droll combat finishing an encounter that was all too clearly over. The slayer, and to extend 5e's Magic Missile fixes that.Now lets just look at what the hubub is about. 3 monsters in the entire adventure can be killed outright by Slayer. Kobolds, rats, and a giant centipede.  People are making a huge stink about Slayer because it makes "minions" of the 3 monsters in the adventure that are, for all intents and purposes, MINIONS.And practically it makes sense. A Slayer is a killing machine. HP is ambiguous, we all agree to that.  A Slayer simply allows all his attacks to wear down his opponent.  Either he hit, but not with enough force to cause serious damage.  Or his attacks, even when they miss, cause the opponent to use vital energy avoiding the attack.  Its explainable a thousand different ways.I've played the fighter in this playtest, and frankly it let me feel powerful.  Nothing like a system that says, "Oh the fighter in our system is great... when  he hits."Which brings the second point around, Magic Missile.  As previously said, MM always hits. It is as D&D as it gets.  And yes, we are complaining about 5 damage always hitting, 10 at 3rd level, 15 at 6th and 20 at 9th, maxed of course. Avg them out and you get 3,6,9,12.Again I do not see the huge deal here.  Looking at the list, and having played with a good player on the wizard the char has many options beyond spamming MM.  It's a great option instead of a crossbow, or daggers. It makes a wizard feel like a magic caster.Could it be house ruled? Absolutely, that's the great thing about this base core system. Dont like something, change it without issue. 3+ability is a great idea, and frankly if monster HP goes downhill I can actually see this being the case.In my playtest, it allowed the wizard player freedom to choose when to cast his good spells, and extended the length of the adventuring day.</blockquote>

Verification