Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
If they don't make that choice, though, then the wizard cannot hit as well as a fighter with a sword.
Most frustrating quirk of 5E?
If they don't make that choice, though, then the wizard cannot hit as well as a fighter with a sword.
We use Standard array in our latest campaign. A High Elf gets +2 Dex and +1 Int. That would allow a 16 in both of those stats. Either way this is splitting hairs. My point was that EVERY character has similar fighting abilities at low level. Sure the fighter with feats and additional attacks will get better but the whole concept is a departure from classic D&D and AD&D. I get it, most people here hate that concept. The best part is that the only people that need to be on board with my style of play is my players. Personally I am most likely returning to 2E but a few things are coming with me. The biggest addition will be cantrips. We never used them back in the day and I am coming up with a cantrip list. They won't be unlimited use except for the wizard. There is a 2E/5E homebrew version that a guy named Chris Perkins (different one) made and I really like a lot of it. I am sure that most will balk at it but this is the ONLY damage dealing cantrip in the game. It's only available to the Magic User but is unlimited use.
To me this is how cantrips should have been done. Of course with bloated hit points and damage all around this spell would be worthless. In AD&D this spell is a little better than the standard darts, doesn't require ammo tracking, still needs an attack roll, but types of damage can be changed to give vulnerability if needed. It's a good cantrip imo. Again, different strokes. This type of spell will fit in my old school style campaign without breaking anything.
To me this is how cantrips should have been done. Of course with bloated hit points and damage all around this spell would be worthless. In AD&D this spell is a little better than the standard darts, doesn't require ammo tracking, still needs an attack roll, but types of damage can be changed to give vulnerability if needed. It's a good cantrip imo. Again, different strokes. This type of spell will fit in my old school style campaign without breaking anything.
Hussar
Legend
For me the cantrip issue has more to do with clerics and druids.
What’s the point of giving a class good weapons and armour then giving the same class as good or better ranged attack cantips?
Which is it? Is a cleric supposed to stand back and plink away with sacred flame or is the cleric supported to step up beside the fighter?
As it stands, both clerics and druids are rather schizophrenic in design. The can’t actually decide to be one or the other.
What’s the point of giving a class good weapons and armour then giving the same class as good or better ranged attack cantips?
Which is it? Is a cleric supposed to stand back and plink away with sacred flame or is the cleric supported to step up beside the fighter?
As it stands, both clerics and druids are rather schizophrenic in design. The can’t actually decide to be one or the other.
After a few months and a few other players dropping, the GM showed one day and said "after tonight's game we are done." Claims about time constraints, restart if time frees up etc but it had been obvious it wasnt something he enjoyed. He has since then shifted time to other hobbies more now - SCA iirc.
I offered him and wife a spot in the game I started working up after his shut down but that was a no.
I believe, based on what I had been told of history before I joined, that game had some prior issues finding/keeping players before - and that 5e was easily the top resource pool for players around there.
The final session was down to only three regulars including the GM wife iirc plus like three drop-ins. That was down from like 7 regular plus usually 2-3.drop-ins when I started in with that game.
The other regular followed into my new game (5e ), plus three of my own regulars plus one more we got when I ran a one shot at a LGS for fans of Crit Role (after that game's GM and wife declined.)
So, i got my 5 and that's how many I wanted so chargen is gone and sessions start later this week. All is good...
But I miss playing that sorc.
"To me this is how cantrips should have been done. Of course with bloated hit points and damage all around this spell would be worthless."
So you think cantrips should have been worthless? They should have been done this way even with the changes to HP and damage elsewhere?
Obviously not, that's not what you meant but it highlights a point that I think also eluded my previous gm.
He saw d10 damage fire bolt thru the eyes of older editions where d20 on it's own was a strong attack **in the context** of those systems.
He did not see that in 5e it was the same expected dmg as a dagger strike from that same halfling sorc. He saw it as "like a fighter swing" when it was way short.
Your +2 per tier is really not far off how scaling works for cantrips now cuz a d4 base is only avg 2.5. Honestly, relative to HP et al of 2e, in the context of that system and especially given the "cant change thrm" nature of cantrips, your cantrip seems to me to be more powerful in a 2e context than fire bolt is in its 5e context.
Heck, to be honest, if you offered it straight up in a 5e game, my bet is many eould take it over firebolts. Me for one.
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
Versatile rather than schizophrenic. Sometimes you want to rush in, other times you want to hit from range.
Yeah... Low levels cleric can use weapons as his go-to and spend cantrips on other stuff like guidance, resistance, others. By the time the canttip scaling moves them to clear and signigicant superiors, they have more cantrips to choose.
If so inclined of course.
Tonight my group began Dungeon of the Mad Mage. My group has 4 regular players and 1 who is very irregular. They went in with the 4 of them tonight. All are level 5. We have a Assimar Grave Cleric, Human Battlemaster Fighter, Half Elf Lore Bard, and an Elven Hunter Ranger. They only had 2 combat encounters tonight and they walked through them both. They faced 5 Shadows in the Hall of Mirrors and crushed them with no trouble at all. The big encounter was 4 Bugbears and 6 Goblins with the Bugbears attacking from 2 sides of them. The encounter ended with the ranger taking 2 hits but never in any real trouble. Now I rolled pretty bad but still it was a total cake walk. I ran every creature with full hit points so the Goblins were 12 I believe and the Bugbears were 45. I really find combat to be a joke in 5E. I would have to up the encounters to just ridiculous levels to make them a real challenge.
Now someone will be quick to tell me that this is by design and these encounters are just part of the design meant to wear down PC resources in their 6-8 encounters per day. The problem is that these fights did nothing to wear down any resources. The Fighter didn't even need to use his Superiority dice since these encounters were such a cake walk. The only healing used was when the bard stepped through an old portal that was affected by the spell plague and took 4d10 damage. Sure if I had gotten some big rolls it might have gone a little different but lets be honest, 4 Bugbears and 6 Goblins really should be wiping a part of 4 level 5s. Given the confines of the dungeon the goblins really weren't able to make use of their hide and the Bugbears extra damage dice 2d8+2 doesn't count for much when they can't hit the AC 19 Fighter and AC18 Cleric.
I just don't see the fun in this style of play. As soon as the combat ended the players immediately spoke up and said "I know what you're thinking, that was just too damn easy". They are the ones that benefit from the overpowered superhero system and even they can see the problems with it.
Now someone will be quick to tell me that this is by design and these encounters are just part of the design meant to wear down PC resources in their 6-8 encounters per day. The problem is that these fights did nothing to wear down any resources. The Fighter didn't even need to use his Superiority dice since these encounters were such a cake walk. The only healing used was when the bard stepped through an old portal that was affected by the spell plague and took 4d10 damage. Sure if I had gotten some big rolls it might have gone a little different but lets be honest, 4 Bugbears and 6 Goblins really should be wiping a part of 4 level 5s. Given the confines of the dungeon the goblins really weren't able to make use of their hide and the Bugbears extra damage dice 2d8+2 doesn't count for much when they can't hit the AC 19 Fighter and AC18 Cleric.
I just don't see the fun in this style of play. As soon as the combat ended the players immediately spoke up and said "I know what you're thinking, that was just too damn easy". They are the ones that benefit from the overpowered superhero system and even they can see the problems with it.
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
So none of the monsters hit at all? That's just bad luck. Most of the time the first few encounters are the easy ones, and as hit dice and healing become scarcer towards the middle and end encounters, the players become more worried about little bits of damage adding up to take them out and start unloading the big guns. By the end encounters they will be sweating it. Of course good or bad luck can drastically alter that.
In the game I'm playing in right now the DM is hitting us with 1-2 encounters a day and we are just annihilating them. We've discussed this and when his game ends and my game starts, I've already told them that it will be 1 week until the long rest kicks in. That way I don't have to hit them with 6-8 encounters in a day.
Yes, my rolls were pretty bad tonight. There were a couple hits but nothing of any real consequence but part of that is due to the high AC of the party also. This is the beginning of level 1 of Undermountain but it's designed for level 5 and if using milestone they should hit level 6 by the end of this level. That encounter with the Bugbears and Goblins really should have been a challenging encounter. I am going to really read through the rest of the level and prep it for next week. Sadly I am pretty disappointed with it so far. I know its only the beginning but from what I have read so far it's not the massive deadly dungeon that it was in 2E. Might need some upgrading to make it worthy. We'll see how next week goes.
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