We're Back! Let's Discuss This Week's Stuff!

[Chris_Nightwing]

We had an L&L on Monday that made the Rogue sound potentially interesting, and threw armour at Wizards!
Tuesday was all about Celestials and how to fit everything into various cosmologies!
Wednesday was quiet in the art corner.
Thursday's Q&A explained that we like races as they are (?), maneuvers aren't meant to be balanced (??) and skills might be renamed (???).

I spent the week on the WotC message boards and boy, do they like a fight. Let's have some civil discussions here instead

 

[RangerWickett]

Thanks for posting this!

Apparently EN World is instrumental to my gaming, because it didn't even occur to me to go over to WotC's site for 5e news. I wonder if their traffic saw a hit while we were down.

I think skills don't need to be renamed.

I'm okay with the celestial thoughts as long as they offer some suggestions on other ways to use them.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

First post back! (Not anyone's fault, but I need to update bookmarks again. Well, actually, it's the hackers' fault...)

I saw two of these at RPGNet.

 

[Evenglare]

Not meaning any disrespect but why is this labeled 4th edition when it has nothing to do with 4th edition that I saw?

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I get why they're thinking of renaming skills, but I think it's unnecessary.

And I'm not happy with races, and won't be until humans no longer have ability modifiers and penalties return.

Actually, after a horrendously long and bitter fight on the WotC forums, I think that there should be two options: no modifiers at all for any race, and modifiers and penalties for races like the vast majority of editions. The former fits the needs of those who want balanced characters of any race and class they can imagine, and the latter fills the needs of those who want the modifiers to reflect the setting.

 

[heptat]

I get why they're thinking of renaming skills, but I think it's unnecessary.

They've confused themselves.

And I'm not happy with races, and won't be until humans no longer have ability modifiers and penalties return.

Are you talking about the +2 to any ability and the +1 to *all* other ability scores? I keep looking at that and thinking, "yeah, that can't be right" (yeah I know, it's still in playtest...)

Actually, after a horrendously long and bitter fight on the WotC forums, I think that there should be two options: no modifiers at all for any race, and modifiers and penalties for races like the vast majority of editions. The former fits the needs of those who want balanced characters of any race and class they can imagine, and the latter fills the needs of those who want the modifiers to reflect the setting.

Sounds good.

 

[heptat]

First post back! (Not anyone's fault, but I need to update bookmarks again. Well, actually, it's the hackers' fault...)

I saw two of these at RPGNet.

Two what? Two hackers?

 

[Klaus]

1 - I think high elves aren't very "elven" at the moment, and the humans' ability modifier is boring and overpowered (+1 to all ability scores =/= from extra trained skill/feat; it also makes humans more agile, stronger, smarter, etc, than other races).
2 - I see no problem with this. If all you care about is damage, then Deadly Strike to your heart's content. If you want more versatility, other maneuvers have their uses.
3 - ??? Just keep 'em named "skills". "Forbidden Lore is one of my areas of expertise" is more cumbersome than "I'm skilled in Forbidden Lore".

 

[DEFCON 1]

1) I currently don't have an issue with the races personally... but the Human issue seems to have been brought up enough times by other people that I'd probably just rather have it adjusted than to keep it and the large swathe of people complaining about it. Although I will say that I don't find adding penalties to races to be necessary, because at this point... the fewer number of ability score adjustments from race (positive or negative) across the board will reduce the number of "useless classes" in people's mind's for a particular race.

2) I think having Deadly Strike be the one A+ maneuver and every other one good in certain situations is exactly the way to go. Because every Fighter will have it, and thus it doesn't matter what Fighting Style a player takes... they ALWAYS have the best maneuver in their arsenal. And that's how you keep the Styles balanced. Give everyone the best one, and then each player can then decide the other situations where they want options (and thus their choice of Style). The fact that the best maneuver just happens to be the one we'd use to create the more basic Fighters (the ones that just get extra damage and don't use Maneuvers) is a huge plus.

3) I think they should rename it... because of all the people I've seen (I did, in fact, delve into the WotC forums a bit during the downtime) who still don't grasp that everyting in 5E are Ability Checks and not Skill Checks. Some dudes were talking about how the "skill list" should be smaller and skills unified, because they wouldn't fit on the character sheet, otherwise. When I mentioned that there probably won't be a "skill list" on the character sheet (a la the 3/4E skill lists) because you don't need pre-calculated numbers written down considering that "skills" do not automatically have a single modifier that adds to it... they just didn't seem to grasp it.

If changing the identity of those things from "skills" to "areas of expertise" helps people realize that the game has changed and that they need to start thinking about what Ability Checks are and how those things you're an expert in now modify those checks (rather than BE those check like in 3/4E)... the better off we'll all be.

***

I've said it before and I'll say it again... we've learned the hard way that terminology MEANS something to everybody-- whether to make things easier to understand, or to better illustrate what it is the term is meant to convey. You can't use "Ranger" and refluff it to make a "Fighter archer". You can't use "Healing Surges". You can't use "Powers". These are terms that don't convey either the actual meaning of what they do, or are loaded terms that people would reflexively rebel against. And I'd rather see us find better terms in all cases.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Two what? Two hackers?

I saw two of those four articles previously.

Not meaning any disrespect but why is this labeled 4th edition when it has nothing to do with 4th edition that I saw?

Probably just an error akin to a typo. (On a related note, the post tags don't work currently. Although that's not a surprise, given how much functionality has to be rebuilt.)