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Dungeons and Dragons Megathread

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Nikkolas said:
If it can be killed, it's alive and a lifeform. Gods and demons can be killed.

I have no doubt you know more about D&D than I do but you seem to be splitting hairs. The alignment system is built on life. It states that life and beauty are to be maintained by order. As such, life, beauty and order are the most important things in existence.

Chaotic Evil is bad because it goes against these things. They wouldn't be bad unless life, order and beauty were the default good of existence and to be desired by all right-thinking beings.

So, unless the alignments are all just wrong - which is fine by me, I'm just quoting what I read - I don't se why what I said was wrong.
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CE can represent Entropy, but in at least some of the cases, this was considered necessary, the decomposition of what is in order to give birth to what will be. That's how the existence of the CE god Moander the Rotting God was justified in the FR Elvish pantheon. Its successor, Finder, focused more heavily on the rebirth themes but retained an understanding that the old must pass away to drive new growth.
 
I've switched to a Battlesmith Artificer in my 5e game. For my infusions, the DM disallowed Homunculus Servant for setting reasons (although I don't agree those reason, but whatever), the party has enough magic weapons, and no one really needs or can use infused armor. So pretty much the most useful Infusions are for replicating items. Among those, which ones do you think are the most useful? We have a Divination Wizard, a Storm Sorcerer, an Insightful Rogue (who has already requested Gloves of Thievery), a Bearbarian (Moon Druid/Totem Barbarian), and a Barbarian/Paladin. Note that I'm definitely going to get both Bag of Holding and Quiver of Ehlonna so that I can make an Astral Plane bomb whenever I need it.
 
Nikkolas said:
So, unless the alignments are all just wrong - which is fine by me, I'm just quoting what I read - I don't se why what I said was wrong.
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The alignments aren't wrong, but they're also not unbiased. Each of the Good and Neutral descriptions is written from the perspective of someone of that alignment, and ends with a claim of why they are "the best alignment." Each of the Evil descriptions is written by someone of an opposing alignment and ends with a claim of why it is the most dangerous alignment.

Chaotic Evil is very bad, because the end result is everything destroyed. But the end result of Lawful Evil is everyone enslaved, and the end result of Neutral Evil is everyone dead. They're all bad news. The reason that Chaotic Evil often stands out from the pack is that the crazy train has no brakes, so there's always a trail of bodies around to attract the attention of the heroes.
 
Nikkolas said:
Also what's up with this Pathfinder thing? I used to think it was just D&D but apparently it's not. Even though its description of Alignments is identical to the last word to the one in the 3.5 Player's Handbook.
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Pathfinder 1st Edition (PF1E) is basically DnD 3.75 in terms of mechanics, so far as I can tell. As others mentioned, it's made by a different company, so it has a different name an lacks many (all?) of the trademarked settings.

I haven't looked into Pathfinder 2nd Edition, so I've got no clue what its deal is.
 
PhoenixMercurous said:
Pathfinder 1st Edition (PF1E) is basically DnD 3.75 in terms of mechanics, so far as I can tell. As others mentioned, it's made by a different company, so it has a different name an lacks many (all?) of the trademarked settings.

I haven't looked into Pathfinder 2nd Edition, so I've got no clue what its deal is.
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Nah, more like 3.4, oops we screwed up distro.

trying to fix 3.5 without any depth of understanding of what 3.5's problems actually were.

2nd edition fixed the action economy, which is nice, but still has too damn much legacy code to recommend it over just playing whatever version of D&D you were already playing and saving your money.
 
Chloe Sullivan said:
Nah, more like 3.4, oops we screwed up distro.

trying to fix 3.5 without any depth of understanding of what 3.5's problems actually were.

2nd edition fixed the action economy, which is nice, but still has too damn much legacy code to recommend it over just playing whatever version of D&D you were already playing and saving your money.
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I disagree. The archetypes were a huge improvement over 3.5. And Paladin was much improved as well.
 
Chloe Sullivan said:
Nah, more like 3.4, oops we screwed up distro.

trying to fix 3.5 without any depth of understanding of what 3.5's problems actually were.

2nd edition fixed the action economy, which is nice, but still has too damn much legacy code to recommend it over just playing whatever version of D&D you were already playing and saving your money.
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An updated version doesn't necessarily mean fewer bugs. If it adds new content, it usually adds new bugs. At least that's what Warframe's taught me.

Arawn_Emrys said:
I disagree. The archetypes were a huge improvement over 3.5. And Paladin was much improved as well.
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I haven't played enough 3.5 to know what all the changes are, let alone if all of them are good, but I really like archetypes. They allow a lot of options without requiring a bazillion classes. There's still a few options I can't find ways to do well, but there's a lot of stuff it covers.
 
Arawn_Emrys said:
I disagree. The archetypes were a huge improvement over 3.5. And Paladin was much improved as well.
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Classes were a superficial problem.
The actual problem is the linear fighter/quadratic wizard mentality and how people tried to put characters who can wield obvious magic into a party with characters that resemble real-life warriors and trying to force the latter to be "realistic" despite them being obviously superhuman.
Chucking fireballs at people is totally fine if you're a wizard, but god forbid you do it using martial skill. That's unbalanced weeb shit, unlike wild shape and Natural Spell[1]​. But until you show me how non-casters get equivalents to shield, true strike, scorching ray, invisibility, wind wall, and haste, I'm gonna say you're missing the forest for the trees[2]​.

People talk about Gandalf and Aragorn, but Gandalf isn't a PC, or even properly analogous to any class (druid gets closest, but really he'd just be something like a solar).

PhoenixMercurous said:
An updated version doesn't necessarily mean fewer bugs. If it adds new content, it usually adds new bugs. At least that's what Warframe's taught me.
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Pathfinder would probably get a lot less shit for keeping so many of 3.5e's flaws if they hadn't tried to hype it up as "3.5e, but balanced" while maintaining so much of the hilariously imbalanced magic from 3.5e.

[1] For clarity, I do not attribute this position to Arawn_Emrys. This is a generic claim/counter-point that was made about Tome of Battle during the years of 4e, and an example of the core imbalance of every edition of D&D but 4e.
[2] This part is definitely saying I think Arawn_Emrys is missing the core imbalance because of a superficial improvement to mechanics.
 
AuraTwilight said:
This is all ignoring, also, that technically a bunch of dead rocks is an entirely valid possible world.
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But there's order and beauty in rocks, too.

The Narrator said:
The alignments aren't wrong, but they're also not unbiased. Each of the Good and Neutral descriptions is written from the perspective of someone of that alignment, and ends with a claim of why they are "the best alignment." Each of the Evil descriptions is written by someone of an opposing alignment and ends with a claim of why it is the most dangerous alignment.

Chaotic Evil is very bad, because the end result is everything destroyed. But the end result of Lawful Evil is everyone enslaved, and the end result of Neutral Evil is everyone dead. They're all bad news. The reason that Chaotic Evil often stands out from the pack is that the crazy train has no brakes, so there's always a trail of bodies around to attract the attention of the heroes.
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This was not my impression. Unlike 40K or WoD things are not all written from in-universe perspectives. The stuff in the Player's Handbook is omniscient Word of God about the setting.
 
Arawn_Emrys said:
I disagree. The archetypes were a huge improvement over 3.5. And Paladin was much improved as well.
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Archetypes as a concept was not an improvement over 3.5 - they weren't actually in PF from the start, and 3.5 had things pretty much exactly like them (class variants in UA), or in similar mechanical/conceptual space (substitution levels). The difference is that PF1E got them very early in its run and added more over the rest of its run at most opportunities.
 
azoicennead said:
Classes were a superficial problem.
The actual problem is the linear fighter/quadratic wizard mentality and how people tried to put characters who can wield obvious magic into a party with characters that resemble real-life warriors and trying to force the latter to be "realistic" despite them being obviously superhuman.
Chucking fireballs at people is totally fine if you're a wizard, but god forbid you do it using martial skill. That's unbalanced weeb shit, unlike wild shape and Natural Spell[1]​. But until you show me how non-casters get equivalents to shield, true strike, scorching ray, invisibility, wind wall, and haste, I'm gonna say you're missing the forest for the trees[2]​.

People talk about Gandalf and Aragorn, but Gandalf isn't a PC, or even properly analogous to any class (druid gets closest, but really he'd just be something like a solar).


Pathfinder would probably get a lot less shit for keeping so many of 3.5e's flaws if they hadn't tried to hype it up as "3.5e, but balanced" while maintaining so much of the hilariously imbalanced magic from 3.5e.

[1] For clarity, I do not attribute this position to Arawn_Emrys. This is a generic claim/counter-point that was made about Tome of Battle during the years of 4e, and an example of the core imbalance of every edition of D&D but 4e.
[2] This part is definitely saying I think Arawn_Emrys is missing the core imbalance because of a superficial improvement to mechanics.
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I didn't know about the history of PF1E's introduction, I just got into it a few months ago.

I think there are counterpoints to some of your example spells, but I'm not interested in arguing them because I more or less agree with your general point. Linear fighter does seem to be a real problem in PF1E. That's one of my big complaints with the system. Right now I feel like paladins are simply better than fighters at everything, especially when fighting evil creatures. Cavaliers also get shafted, as there's literally a 1st level spell (Shared Training, I think) that does their "share teamwork feats with allies" class feature better.

I've thought about making a homebrew "Legendary Fighter" class (WIP name) so people can actually play Herakles/Hercules, but no-one in my group has seemed all that interested in it so I haven't gotten very far. The idea was to make a purely martial class that's comparable to paladins in combat power, though with some different specialties. If there is a good way to play Hercules and I just haven't found it yet, please let me know. If there's enough interest in my homebrew class here, I'll spend some more time working on it.

Path of War classes are alright. I'm down with allowing anime shit in a game, but maneuvers running on a different meta than other classes seems like it could make encounter balance tricky. I've thought about making homebrew variations on some of the major arcane caster classes that trade the world altering, out of combat spells for the ability to refresh spells in combat so they can be more compatible with the Path classes. I haven't had enough time to really get beyond the brainstorming stage though, plus no-one in my group is all that interested in it. I haven't seen anything like that at least.
 
Pathfinder was a retread of core 3.5 made by designers who somehow failed to learn every lesson WotC learned over 3E's lifespan and also slapped people on their forums for pointing out that they were making the same mistakes. It wasn't a deliberate pivot away from 4E, either; Paizo was sacked from running Dragon before PF and couldn't really continue on as they were with 4E's different business model on top of that, so creating Not-3.5 using the OGL was the obvious choice.

They just happened to pick people who didn't really understand 3.5.

Edit: wrong magazine. Fixed.
 
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Krika said:
So we can all agree that 4e is the most balanced edition of D&D to date?
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Yes^^, but it's like avoiding harm by covering every surface in soft foam.

Arguably the imbalance of 3.5 has it's own charm, e.g. a beginner needs to understand/apply a lot less "lines of rules" to play a fighter compared to any other class.
I may even go so far as to say that D&D is so popular because it's imbalanced, the realizations as you learn the system and go "ohoho so that's possible" are pretty addicting.

But PF 2 at least looks a lot more balanced to me, condition tracks, good metamagic/action economy, the 3 branches of magic, (haven't looked at rituals yet), the trained/expert/.. skill system, or the focus system that generalizes the zillion "trade turn undead". I mean I haven't played it yet, but I've generally gotten a good impression (...okok, I also really want to play a dragon instinct barbarian named Harald Gokuson (*stealth kamehamehaaa*)).
 
Muhkat Lomorki said:
[5e]

Is there anyway to make a party functionally immortal (ei, giving them a curse where when they die, they come back to life in a safe location) while still making death have consequences?
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Not sure how much it matters now, but I had a Thought:

Treat it like the Undead Curse from Dark Souls. They can resurrect, but the stress of dying slowly breaks down their sanity. Use the madness rules from Out of the Abyss - the characters have a madness stat, going from 0 to 3. In certain circumstances (in this case death) have them make a saving throw - Out of the Abyss makes it Wisdom, but it could also be Charisma, for example - with failure incurring a level of madness. Each level of madness corresponds respectively to a short-term (1d10 minutes), long-term (1d10 x 10 hours), or indefinite madness. Once they hit 3, it resets to 0 and starts again but they keep the indefinite madness, meaning they can get progressively more fucked up as the adventure continues.
 
Yeah, I just want martials to be buffed. Leave casters alone. They are already busted. PC's who mainly have martial classes are supposed to be akin to heroes in our myths and legends.

All the classes should be a little busted in their little ways.
 
I do have to muse that, in spite of my pouring over a few big series, there is nothing quite like 40K Chaos. Some things very similar and interesting in their own right but as I consider the various evil deities and demons of D&D, there really is no equivalent to Slaanesh.

From all I've read on my own time and from dedicated experts doing crossovers, Slaanesh is the one that really stands out as being unique. Graz'zt has been suggested and I like him but it's really not the same. As I said, Chaos and specifically Slaanesh is unique. Gods in D&D are gods of things. Graz'zt is not a god but he's still associated with, say, sex. Slaanesh is not sex any more than Nurgle is plagues. There are gods of disease in D&D but Nurgle is not really about disease. Disease is just a means to the end which is Nurgle's true portfolio and domain: Despair. Same for Slaanesh. Sex is just one avenue to explore Desire which is what Slaanesh is the true lord of.

And speaking of alignments, The Chaos Gods aren't really Chaotic necessarily. Chaos in 40K is not the same as D&D Chaos. Tzeentch could be Lawful Evil. I think only Slaanesh is really Chaotic in D&D sense as his/her entire thing is about doing whatever whenever. No D&D figure I know embodies experience until you can experience no more and have lost your mind.
 
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Nikkolas said:
I do have to muse that, in spite of my pouring over a few big series, there is nothing quite like 40K Chaos. Some things very similar and interesting in their own right but as I consider the various evil deities and demons of D&D, there really is no equivalent to Slaanesh.

From all I've read on my own time and from dedicated experts doing crossovers, Slaanesh is the one that really stands out as being unique. Graz'zt has been suggested and I like him but it's really not the same. As I said, Chaos and specifically Slaanesh is unique. Gods in D&D are gods of things. Graz'zt is not a god but he's still associated with, say, sex. Slaanesh is not sex any more than Nurgle is plagues. There are gods of disease in D&D but Nurgle is not really about disease. Disease is just a means to the end which is Nurgle's true domain: Despair. Same for Slaanesh. Sex is just one avenue to explore Desire which is what Slaanesh is the true lord of.

And speaking of alignments, The Chaos Gods aren't really Chaotic necessarily. Chaos in 40K is not the same as D&D Chaos. Tzeentch could be Lawful Evil. I think only Slaanesh is really Chaotic in D&D sense as his/her entire thing is about doing whatever whenever. No D&D figure I know embodies experience until you can experience no more and have lost your mind.
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....you don't think Khorne is chaotic?

And Slaanesh is very broad and badly defined. D&D gods and demon lords have much more specifically defined areas of interest. They are supreme within that "Portfolio", and anything outside that is secondary at best.
 
Arawn_Emrys said:
....you don't think Khorne is chaotic?

And Slaanesh is very broad and badly defined. D&D gods and demon lords have much more specifically defined areas of interest. They are supreme within that "Portfolio", and anything outside that is secondary at best.
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I didn't mention Khorne or Nurgle as I'm uncertain about them. I honestly don't know much about Khorne beyond the basics since he bores me.

I think Nurgle is pretty Neutral, though.
 
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