D&D 5E L&L: New Packet Hits This Wednesday

[Sage Genesis]

Working as intended. You want more protection? Wear better armor.

Kind of an ironic statement, considering light armor can easily reach the highest AC values (on par with heavy and exceeding medium) but without any of the drawbacks. The only issue is getting a good Dexterity score. But that is not much of a problem: first, classes that wear light armor typically focus on Dexterity anyway; and second, all ability scores cap at 20 but you do get two +1's every four levels, so it's really not that difficult to reach that cap.

In Next, superior armor proficiency often doesn't lead to superior AC numbers.

 

[Li Shenron]

Unless it's possible rules-wise to take an alignment and oath that diverge in context of the good/evil axis e.g. an evil character takes a vow of fealty to a good ruler that he will not break for sake of the oath alone; I don't really see the purpose of having alignment and oaths for characters that can take both.

The purpose may be that because alignments are broad and oaths are narrow, but at the same time oaths do not strictly belong to one alignment only, combining them in different ways means variety, without necessarily be completely divergent.

For example a "Paladin of Nature" perhaps is usually Neutral, but how about a good Paladin of Nature and an evil Paladin of Nature, maybe the first personally values life even tho he's taken an oath to protect nature, so he's going to have interesting issues when killing someone is the best way to protect nature but perhaps not the only way; the evil counterpart may have issues when protecting nature strongly contrast his own benefit.


Another example could be a Paladin of Justice. The most natural alignment could be LG or LN, however you can come up with interesting characters that are instead LE, N, NG, so not necessarily completely opposite like CE.

Anyway alignment is going to be optional. Oaths are going to be more specific, which means that there is way more than 9 possible oaths that you can come up with (in contrast with 9 classic alignments), but at the same time each oath should not be restricted to one of those 9 only.

In conclusion the way I see it, if you use also alignment in your game, you're going to apply that to the character's personal moral feelings and belief, while the oath is like a vow taken. Most characters obviously will take vows that match their morals, but some may diverge for a variety of reasons, such as having compelled by circumstances (out of a promise given, or as part of a deal) or simply because their morals changed during their lives.

 

[Kobold Boots]

The purpose may be that because alignments are broad and oaths are narrow, but at the same time oaths do not strictly belong to one alignment only, combining them in different ways means variety, without necessarily be completely divergent.

For example a "Paladin of Nature" perhaps is usually Neutral, but how about a good Paladin of Nature and an evil Paladin of Nature, maybe the first personally values life even tho he's taken an oath to protect nature, so he's going to have interesting issues when killing someone is the best way to protect nature but perhaps not the only way; the evil counterpart may have issues when protecting nature strongly contrast his own benefit.


Another example could be a Paladin of Justice. The most natural alignment could be LG or LN, however you can come up with interesting characters that are instead LE, N, NG, so not necessarily completely opposite like CE.

Anyway alignment is going to be optional. Oaths are going to be more specific, which means that there is way more than 9 possible oaths that you can come up with (in contrast with 9 classic alignments), but at the same time each oath should not be restricted to one of those 9 only.

In conclusion the way I see it, if you use also alignment in your game, you're going to apply that to the character's personal moral feelings and belief, while the oath is like a vow taken. Most characters obviously will take vows that match their morals, but some may diverge for a variety of reasons, such as having compelled by circumstances (out of a promise given, or as part of a deal) or simply because their morals changed during their lives.

"Unless it's possible to take an alignment and oath that diverge" summed up the point of your post quite well I thought.

Thanks though, I do get it.

 

[Bow_Seat]

Should be solved by creating a decent reason for wearing each armor. Well maybe all of them is a bit hard, but at least decent reasons enough for choosing Light over Medium over Heavy, even for a Fighter who is proficient in all. After all, that's what already happens with shields: using sword & board is going to be designed to that it isn't straight better than 2 weapons or a 2-handed weapon, so those classes who have shield proficiencies have the advantage of flexibility rather than a straight better option. Maybe this should be done for armors also?

There's already really good reason to be wearing light armor. If you can move faster than your opponent and can move before and after your attacks you can outpace a slower enemy, thereby controlling your engagement with them. It becomes especially easy when you have some way to prevent them from taking OAs against you. Granted, the act of constantly running to and from your enemies would seem to adversely affect any sort of stickiness you may have had before.

 

[Visanideth]

Same with the paladin; if I want to play a non-magic, secular knight in shining armor, I should be able to do that with the fighter class. My campaigns shouldn't need paladins to have knights, rangers to have valiant woodsmen, or barbarians to have savage "men of the north."

This obviously leads to the ages-old problem of making the Fighter some sort of super-broad parent class and the other melee archetypes super-specialized ones. Which, sadly, is the reason Fighters tend to be terribly weak in most D&D editions.

To use 3.X terminology, what you want is probably the Warrior, as in the NPC class. The "fighting man", the guy with no magic and no powers, and so on. As a player class, the fighter should be as specific and detailed as the Paladin or the Ranger - not more generic or flat in order to accomodate "anything that uses a weapon but doesn't do anything cool with it".

So if the ranger is the martially competent woodland warrior with some magic, and the paladin is the heavily armored warrior with faith and divine magic, then the Fighter is the martial combat specialist that has no magic but far greater skill than both others.

It's very important to divorce Fighter and Warrior, in my opinion, because making the Fighter into the Fighting Man is what leads to all the opacity the class has suffered from in these years. People often go "Is this character doing anything special? No? He's a Fighter then", which in turns make the entire concept of "Fighter" fairly lame.

Fighters should be as rare as Rangers and Paladins: they should be the elite troopers, the battle hardened veterans, the sword saints, and if no room for the Warlord is left, then also the generals and the commanders. If the definition of the Fighter is "anything with a sword that isn't a paladin, ranger, barbarian or rogue", then you have an archetype that probably doesn't deserve a place in a class-based system.

 

[avin]

For the Paladin, I think the mount is a little late. 8th level is well in the territory of Flight, bordering Teleport. And the Paladin gets a horse? Furthermore the Mount is an iconic element of the Paladin, it changes the way the character looks. I'd rather have those at first level, much like they put Wildshape at first level.

On a second thought I absolutely agree with this. It's just a mount. Maybe designers are worried it can be used as a fighting tool... well, maybe their fighting skills improve only at higher levels... maybe they're just summoned mounts with no fighting skill.

 

[Gorgoroth]

Yeah, mounts at level 1, when they're actually an advantage! And something to worry about dying. If it's a celestial creature, that's fine, but it can still die and perhaps you can only summon a new one a week later. I want it to be like a taxi / charging mount that's not just an MMO-style pet but is more intelligent than the typical beast, and has your alignment and shared outlook or even purpose, etc. Like Shadowfax was to Gandalf.

Definitely needs to be there for Level 1, IMO. A knight in shining armor (even if it is just chainmail at level 1), should still be on his horse. Don't give us class features that sound good until you actually realize it's worth basically 50gp. Your "summon mount" should be a magical ability that improves, eventually summoning griffins and so on (I predict this will be in a later splat book, and I love it!)

I detested what Wizards did with the 4e cavalier / paladin bastardization of mounts. The took away the last drop of enjoyment I had, when they gave it then took it away, all via their stupid online builder. I hope whoever did that was fired, no joke! It was a huge mess in the forums. Why can't all paladins summon a mount? at least they seem to be getting it (more) right in 5e than 4e.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Is there any functional difference between a spell and a magical supernatural ability? Because it seems quite often some players will decry the idea of paladins and rangers having spells, but be okay with them having magical supernatural abilities. Like the ranger being able to call an animal to them and in a matter of an hour or two turn the beast into an animal companion that will follow, fight, and assist the ranger, no questions asked, no years of training necessary. We all know that this is a magical effect-- it's just not a "spell" (because it doesn't appear in the spell list and instead is just assigned to the ranger directly).

But is there any particular reason why one is acceptable but the other isn't? To me... the reason why rangers and paladins get "spells" is because they get a choice of magical supernatural abilities from a wider list. Rather than filling up the class description with a list of 12 or more "magical supernatural abilities" from which the ranger and paladin select like one every couple of levels... the game just equates the mechanics and design to the spellcasting format. Makes it much easier for people to learn, understand and organize if you ask me.

After all... once you select your spell or two (and you don't acquire new ones haphazardly like the wizard does)... they pretty much are functionally equivalent to magical supernatural abilities. A particular paladin once per day can imbue his weapon with magical energy. Another paladin once per day can bless his fellow compatriots. The only difference is that "Magic Weapon" and "Bless" come from a long "spell list" of options rather than just being an entry in the paladin's class description.

Not many people seem to be adverse to paladins being able to detect evil undead and fiends... which is just as much a spell as a supernatural class feature. The only difference being every paladin has the ability, rather than some paladins picking and choosing.

Quite honestly... I just don't see the difference between the two.

 

[Bow_Seat]

If we just took ranger and paladin spells and called them abilities would everyone be okay with that? Here the monicker ability could imply something supernatural or mundane, whatever tickled the player's fancy.

 

[Li Shenron]

Quite honestly... I just don't see the difference between the two.

Narratively, there isn't. Which is why by the way I often pop up ranting that cleric's energy challenging is a redundant feature for a class that already has spells.

Mechanically, the difference is important only if the group likes a tactical rules-heavy game, and anyway depends on the edition. For my tastes, in 3ed the differences between spells, spell-like-abilities, and supernatural abilities are minor, but for a more tactically inclined player they could be major; then it may all change in another edition with different rules.

IMHO the only time when it will really matter, will be when multiclassing is finally added to the game. Then, we will see how 2 classes with spells will be handled, how spellcasting will or will not stack.

Having a unified spellcasting system like in 3ed makes the game easier, because once you know how spells are cast in the game, you know how every class will cast its spells.
The flip of the coin is that different spellcasting rules for each class could otherwise make the game more interesting in the long term, since playing a different class will yield a more different experience.