D&D General One thing I hate about the Sorcerer

[Micah Sweet]

2e kineticist is definitely its own thing with its own mechanics. I never really looked at Pathfinder 1e so can't comment on that.

But like I said, I do believe that elementalist can be done well with subclasses. DnD just refuses to do so.

And there's no need for them to. Others have already done so.

 

[Minigiant]

Mage Hand Press has a warmage class (with great support @Minigiant ) that is all about the exploitation of cantrip magic.

MHP's Warmagee is the closest to a Harry Potter/Dresden mage.

People say "We need an easy class for newbs" but only offer the Fighter.

I always said there should be an easy class of the Classic 4

• Champion
• Warmage
• Healer
• Sneak

 

[Micah Sweet]

MHP's Warmagee is the closest to a Harry Potter/Dresden mage.

People say "We need an easy class for newbs" but only offer the Fighter.

I always said there should be an easy class of the Classic 4

• Champion
• Warmage
• Healer
• Sneak

I will happily march for MHP's Valda's Spire of Secrets.

 

[Remathilis]

how would borrowed-powered warrior even work?

I'm thinking something akin a more martial hexblade, a Bo9S crusader, or even a Bloodhunter. A non-caster with supernatural powers.

 

[FrogReaver]

I'm thinking something akin a more martial hexblade, a Bo9S crusader, or even a Bloodhunter. A non-caster with supernatural powers.

Fictionally it’s hard to justify such supernatural warriors alongside non-supernatural warriors.

 

[TwoSix]

Fictionally it’s hard to justify such supernatural warriors alongside non-supernatural warriors.

I can't see why it's difficult. It's not like Batman is suddenly unjustifiable because Superman exists.

 

[Mephista]

Fictionally it’s hard to justify such supernatural warriors alongside non-supernatural warriors.

I mean... we have monks, who are by definition supernatural warriors, and barbarians, who have more supernatural subclasses than not. And that's before we start tapping into the half-casters. So its not introducing anything new.

 

[Minigiant]

I mean... we have monks, who are by definition supernatural warriors, and barbarians, who have more supernatural subclasses than not. And that's before we start tapping into the half-casters. So its not introducing anything new.

It's the same story of the warlock.

A charismatic wimp making a pact with an Archfey for super agility or super speed

A warrior making a pact with a demon for BIG MUSCLES, HORNS, AND STEEL HARD SKIN!

A researcher reading a book and inadvertently entering a pact that gives his tentacles, a crab arm, and gills.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Learned Arcanist- Wizard
Innate Arcanist- Sorcerer
Borrowed Powered Arcanist- Warlock

Learned Warrior- Fighter
Innate Warrior- Fighter
Borrowed Powered Warrior- Fighter

Don’t forget:
Nature Warrior -Fighter

for those players who want to play a woodsman without spells.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I agree that trolls, traps, and werewolves have kind of cursed design in this regard. How much of a threat they pose is really tied to what you're allowed to know about them. In games with monster knowledge rules, you can really easily find that the difficult of many encounters boils down to "roll a die, success cuts the challenge in half".

And I like having dedicated monster knowledge rules, but so many classic monsters (and many new ones) seem to be designed with issue. Players walk into encounters predisposed to be wary of statues, beautiful women, and unassuming treasure chests- to the point that many a GM grumbles annoyed that the players are "metagaming", but the situations where the players are right to be cautious keep coming up!

5e claims to be a game where you can run it just like the old school games of old, but the options it gives to players fight against that notion every step of the way. Or alternately, there's too many "old school" challenges cluttering up a game that is designed for a different paradigm. It comes to about the same thing.

Yeah, I think part of it is just changing the expectations. For example, players are always predisposed to be wary of statues, so... I intentionally account for them seeing statues and being wary of them. Sometimes it is so that the statues aren't something to be wary of, or sometimes it is so the players can feel intelligent and well-prepared by being aware of the trope.

Now, this has occasionally backfired, when players were not as savvy as I expected, but in general it works decent enough. I've also considered using Pointy Hat's Chest Weasel instead of mimics, they seem like they would be a lot more fun, and I basically never use mimics anyways.

I remember my brain exploding when someone dug up that developer post about monsters being designed around simple hit point vs. expected damage and not things like accuracy vs. AC. I've yet to see a PC Wizard with less than 15 AC, but there's tons of monsters running around with +3 to hit at low levels, when a 1st level Cleric could have an AC of 18 (or more!).

(As an aside, I'm about to start DMing again, and I decided to convert some old 2e modules. Every time I get to an encounter with some classic monsters in it, my head hurts. I have medium encounters that look like meat grinders and hard encounters that seem like they'll be a speed bump. It really makes me wonder who exactly, WotC thinks is playing this game and how they're doing it!).

Hmm, yeah. I THINK it is because of how low a 1st level character's hp is. That cleric will have about 9 hp, 15 if they are second level. Even a single hit for a measly 5 damage is 50% to 33% of their health. I don't know if it was the plan, or if it was effective, but I can see the angle that they might have done that on purpose, making 1st and 2nd level characters hard to hit, since they are so squishy