D&D 5E Starter Set Character Sheet Revealed!

[jbear]

I'm going to go learn blacksmithing now, because I have to do something with all the irony in this line.

I am sorry. Did you feel that I was dismissive of you? Did I define you as something and pooh-pooh what you were saying because that is what you would expect that type of obviously inferior person to say i.e. them rules lawer-y folk who go and read the rules and then come back here with arguments backed up with text ... from the actual (play-test) rules?

No, I don't think so. Nor did I do it to anyone else.

I did react to another poster who was doing this, someone other than you I might add. And I can assure you that much biting of tongue was involved in my response. So do with your iron-y what you will.

Perhaps we should all become engineers instead. Then we could all build bridges ...

 

[Chaltab]

It doesnt matter that it's in one round. Action surge, by working off a whole action, is going to give the best burst in the game once you attach it to any class. It will add to all other damage calculations. It's a problem, it's broken, on any class, coz it will be the clear best pick for combat effectiveness re damage. Sure save or suck/die will still be an option, but even that gets a boost with action surge - you force the BBEG to save twice.

The devs second (but lesser) mistake was attaching it the class with the most attacks in the game... it's such an obviously broken ability, why oh why would you tack it onto the class with the most attacks! It's pure facepalm.

It's an encounter power. It can only be used once between short rests. It's really not as much of a problem as you're suggesting here. I mean it may be absurdly good like the Ranger's Twin Strike in 4E, but that's still far from broken. Optimal, sure, but only useful for dropping enemies with HP damage. It has no real control, leader, or defender utility, and certainly nothing outside of combat.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

It's inconsistent because of the most important inconsistency: there is no actual human sitting around bored or forced to be doing something entirely different than the rest of the party. It's a metagame reason, sure, but it's an important metagame reason.

If you're just going to be straight-forward honest about that, then it's something with which I can totally sympathize. You don't want to make a player wish that his or her character was dead, which would happen if they had to play through with only one arm or whatever. I would still prefer either of the other options, though.

 

[Cybit]

It doesnt matter that it's in one round. Action surge, by working off a whole action, is going to give the best burst in the game once you attach it to any class. It will add to all other damage calculations. It's a problem, it's broken, on any class, coz it will be the clear best pick for combat effectiveness re damage. Sure save or suck/die will still be an option, but even that gets a boost with action surge - you force the BBEG to save twice.

The devs second (but lesser) mistake was attaching it the class with the most attacks in the game... it's such an obviously broken ability, why oh why would you tack it onto the class with the most attacks! It's pure facepalm.

I do love how everyone seems to immediately know how the ability is balanced with the rulesets they haven't read yet.

FWIW, looking at the spreadsheet we built for the last packet I saw, it goes back and forth about 50/50 between pure evocation casters and action surging casters throughout the levels. Some levels action surge wins out a bit, other levels pure caster wins out. That said, I know that they've revised some of the spells such that it will work out better for the pure caster.

But I also don't know what abilities they are not allowing folks to get when multiclassing as well. There's probably a 50/50 chance that MC'ing fighter will not get you Action Surge, ala the restrictions on Extra Attack and such.

 

[Remathilis]

This actually does show a problem. The blaster mage is actually better off MCing to fighter than being a pure mage. I suspect you will see exactly the same results for all other classes, including barbarians, paladins, etc. Action surge is OP - coz all classes will be better with it.... Just because a pure fighter does the most damage with it doesnt make it ok, it simply indicates it is most OP on the fighter chasis, but still the best option for other classes, too. The best fix is to change it to one extra attack, not a whole action, imo.

It's only a problem when the f/m can go rest right after. (15 min workday)

The pure mage still has his three 3rd level spells. The f/m has only 2nd level ones. The pure mage can still release three more fireballs (1 per round, naturally) while our f/m is scorching raying. Even if they short rest, the F/m can't recover both 3rd level spells.

Again, this is fine if you are doing one fight and then rest, but since next is balanced over the adventure and not the encounter, the f/m isn't going through his spells twice as fast for only minimal advantage. He burns brighter, but 1/2 as long. Five rooms in, he's a half-ass fighter.

I'm sorry, but burning two 3rd level spells and an encounter power to get 6 damage over a single 4th level spell is a waste of resources. I remain unworried.

 

[Cybit]

I am sorry. Did you feel that I was dismissive of you? Did I define you as something and pooh-pooh what you were saying because that is what you would expect that type of obviously inferior person to say i.e. them rules lawer-y folk who go and read the rules and then come back here with arguments backed up with text ... from the actual (play-test) rules?

No, I don't think so. Nor did I do it to anyone else.

I did react to another poster who was doing this, someone other than you I might add. And I can assure you that much biting of tongue was involved in my response. So do with your iron-y what you will.

Perhaps we should all become engineers instead. Then we could all build bridges ...

As an engineer; no, all we do is become spreadsheet jockeys. I'm not bitter AT ALL...nope....

 

[Chaltab]

Does a Fighter-Mage not get cantrips, by the way? I've seen repeated references to a wizard without spells being a 10 STR fighter, but I thought that wizards could memorize some simple spells like Magic Missile and Ray of Frost as cantrips.

 

[Tony Semana]

Common sense says that two hours of resting should not produce better results if it's interrupted in the middle by a goblin attack. Silly rules produce silly behavior.

Lack of common sense leads to silly rules interpretations that in turn produce silly behavior. I see that jbear has been trying to explain things to no avail so, I sincerely hope you find a reasonable resolution to your personal challenge.

 

[tuxgeo]

Does a Fighter-Mage not get cantrips, by the way? I've seen repeated references to a wizard without spells being a 10 STR fighter, but I thought that wizards could memorize some simple spells like Magic Missile and Ray of Frost as cantrips.

"Ray of Frost," yes; however, "Magic Missile" became a 1st-Level spell sometime during the playtests.

 

[Obryn]

I'm fine with an imperfect model (broken limbs cause no penalty), or an incomplete one (there are no rules for broken limbs, so improvise where appropriate), but I'm not fine with an inconsistent one (broken limbs can only happen when you're not rolling for it).

If NPCs can lose limbs, but PCs can't, then that's inconsistent.

I still don't get it. With this logic, the actual rule-set you're using is irrelevant, so long as you pretend it's an actual simulation of the game-world's physics. Next is, with this reverse-simulation philosophy, as simulation-driven as Rolemaster, Fate Core, 3e, and 4e.

So why not just extrapolate from there, then? All of a sudden, PC/NPC asymmetry is an observable characteristic of the game world, too. People in the game world don't even need to know why. I mean, people might remark on it, but then again without it, they also know that veterans always come back from wars with all their limbs, eyes, and ears; and that it takes merely a day or two for a farmer to recover from even the worst injury.