D&D 5E Discussion

[ProphetSword]

Remember the 3e Pit Fiend?

I remember the Pit Fiend before it became an overcomplicated mess of statistics during a far more elegant age of D&D:

 

[Magellan]

I remember the Pit Fiend before it became an overcomplicated mess of statistics during a far more elegant age of D&D:

On a side more, it's cool seeing old D&D art, it hits that nostalgia factor.

By the way, this thread is entertaining, even for somebody like myself that hasn't played any pen and paper RPGs in 20 years or so. It's almost making me want to pick up some of these new books just to flip through them, even if I'm not going to play them.

 

[tuluse]

Remember the 3e Pit Fiend?

I remember the Pit Fiend before it became an overcomplicated mess of statistics during a far more elegant age of D&D:

Looks like he lost some of the stuff in the 2nd paragraph mang.

 

[Alchemist]

Oh hey, it's the new Pit Fiend!

Remember the 3e Pit Fiend? How it had a variety of abilities, that would further its goals both on and off the battlefield, and made fighting it exciting and memorable? Well apparently that was too interesting, so 5e's team decided it should basically just be a big orc. Nice of it to give the heroes a motivational speech, though.

You do realize that's probably just 1 page of the Pit Fiend entry right? The tactics, flavor and behavioral text is most likely on the facing page next to it. And I don't remember many big orcs with a fear aura, magic resistance, at-will fireballs, and wall of fire 3x per day.

We get it that you have a vendetta against 5E for some reason. No one really cares. Why do you spend so much time talking about a game you aren't interested in playing? Oh yeah, that's the Codexian way....

Edition warring is a stupid waste of time.

I guess we'll have a better understanding tomorrow.

Good luck man, I expect you'll have to endure much whining from Night Goat because he isn't playing Pathfinder.

 

[Irenaeus]

I'll attack Night Goat as my first free action.

 

[ED-209]

I remember the Pit Fiend before it became an overcomplicated mess of statistics during a far more elegant age of D&D:

"Intelligence: Exceptional"!?!?! WTF is dat shit? How am I gonna get lost in a fantasy world of fantasy adventure if I don't have exact stats on everything? I need date of birth, shoe size and SAT score at bare minimum.

Decline, everything is shit, unsubscribe.

 

[Night Goat]

Unlike you, I have actually played the game. Ran an eight month campaign in it. I don't need to be desperate to like it because I already know it's a solid system. And I had just come off a three year stint of running Pathfinder, so I'm pretty aware of the differences. The only person desperate here is you. Why the hell do you care if other people like 5E? Go play Pathfinder if you want, nobody's stopping you.

This is the Codex, where people are allowed to criticize things. I don't have to hide my opinion - if I see decline, I'll call it out. And if that really bothers you, there's an ignore button.

You do realize that's probably just 1 page of the Pit Fiend entry right? The tactics, flavor and behavioral text is most likely on the facing page next to it. And I don't remember many big orcs with a fear aura, magic resistance, at-will fireballs, and wall of fire 3x per day.

The Pit Fiend isn't going to use the fireballs or wall of fire, because spell damage doesn't scale anymore and it's fighting level 20 characters. Its tactics will consist of multiattacking every turn.

 

[ProphetSword]

No wonder you need the book to tell you how the tactics for the Pit Fiend works. You can't seem to imagine anything beyond what it gives you.

Party enters room. Pit Fiend throws up a Wall of Fire to hold the party back, and then pelts them safely from behind the fire every round with 8d6 Fireball spells. When the weakened party overcomes the Wall of Fire, he then multiattacks them to death.

 

[Night Goat]

At level 20, with 16 CON and the Toughness feat, characters will have:
Barbarian: 245 HP
Fighter, Paladin, Ranger: 225 HP
Bard, Cleric, Druid, Rogue: 205 HP

Do you really think they're going to be held back by the wall of fire, instead of just running through it and taking 5d8 damage?

 

[Irenaeus]

At level 20, with 16 CON and the Toughness feat, characters will have:
Barbarian: 245 HP
Fighter, Paladin, Ranger: 225 HP
Bard, Cleric, Druid, Rogue: 205 HP

Do you really think they're going to be held back by the wall of fire, instead of just running through it and taking 5d8 damage?

Will they overcome the fear aura?

 

[J1M]

Where do the spellcasting rules say that monsters only cast spells at the lowest spell slot that can be used for that spell? One of the nice things about damage spells scaling with spell slots is that fewer direct damage spells are needed. If the only difference between fireball and firestorm is 4d6 damage, one of them does not need to exist. That space can be used for another spell like fly or web.

Also, the assumption that all characters will have the toughness feat is quite silly so subtract 40 hp from those numbers.

 

[ProphetSword]

At level 20, with 16 CON and the Toughness feat, characters will have:
Barbarian: 245 HP
Fighter, Paladin, Ranger: 225 HP
Bard, Cleric, Druid, Rogue: 205 HP

Do you really think they're going to be held back by the wall of fire, instead of just running through it and taking 5d8 damage?

What's to stop the Pit Fiend from dropping Walls of Fire on top of himself and then Fireball centered on himself since he's immune to fire? I think that damage will add up pretty quickly.

 

[J1M]

Is that 5e game still happening tomorrow? If so, which programs should players have installed? etc.

 

[nikolokolus]

At level 20, with 16 CON and the Toughness feat, characters will have:
Barbarian: 245 HP
Fighter, Paladin, Ranger: 225 HP
Bard, Cleric, Druid, Rogue: 205 HP

Do you really think they're going to be held back by the wall of fire, instead of just running through it and taking 5d8 damage?

What's to stop the Pit Fiend from dropping Walls of Fire on top of himself and then Fireball centered on himself since he's immune to fire? I think that damage will add up pretty quickly.

Or sending a score of lesser thall devils against the party to slow them up? Why is this hypothetical Pit Fiend taking on a party of high level adventurers alone? Granted I haven't had a chance to look at the Monster Manual, but since when did demons and devils lose their ability to gate in more demons and devils? If that's been removed, then I can tell you the first thing I'll be adding back in.

 

[Night Goat]

Will they overcome the fear aura?

Well, I guess it depends on the character. From what I've read about 5e's balance, it still favors casters, and so serious players will most likely be druids or clerics - who have high Wisdom and proficiency with Wisdom saves.

Where do the spellcasting rules say that monsters only cast spells at the lowest spell slot that can be used for that spell? One of the nice things about damage spells scaling with spell slots is that fewer direct damage spells are needed. If the only difference between fireball and firestorm is 4d6 damage, one of them does not need to exist. That space can be used for another spell like fly or web.

Also, the assumption that all characters will have the toughness feat is quite silly so subtract 40 hp from those numbers.

It doesn't say that the monster casts spells with higher slots, and it doesn't even use spell slots. If it did, I assume this would be specified.

And how is my assumption that all characters will have Toughness silly? I'm assuming that the players will have built the most effective characters possible. Toughness is a great feat, and a level 20 character will have had plenty of opportunities to take it.

If anything, I think I'm underestimating the characters' HP. If point buy is used, an optimal character will start with 15 in his primary stat and in Constitution. The player will most likely choose the human variant that starts with +1 to two ability scores and one feat - he'll raise his primary score and Constitution to 16, and he's likely to choose Toughness right then and there. During his career, he will have five opportunities to choose between a feat or a +2 to an ability score. Two of these will be used to maximize his primary score. Three of these will be used either for feats, or to increase Constitution. It is very likely that a level 20 character will have 20 or 40 hp more than my estimate.

What's to stop the Pit Fiend from dropping Walls of Fire on top of himself and then Fireball centered on himself since he's immune to fire? I think that damage will add up pretty quickly.

The Pit Fiend's multiattack will do vastly more damage than a wall of fire or fireball. He knows that for every opponent he neutralizes, the threat to himself is substantially reduced. I think it would be much more advantageous for the Pit Fiend to spend his turn doing high damage to a single opponent, than doing low damage to two or three.

Or sending a score of lesser thall devils against the party to slow them up? Why is this hypothetical Pit Fiend taking on a party of high level adventurers alone? Granted I haven't had a chance to look at the Monster Manual, but since when did demons and devils lose their ability to gate in more demons and devils? If that's been removed, then I can tell you the first thing I'll be adding back in.

The image I linked doesn't show any summoning abilities in the Pit Fiend's stat block. And while there's no logical reason for a intelligent, wise and charismatic lord of Hell to be encountered alone, adding more creatures to the encounter would push the challenge rating beyond 20.

 

[ProphetSword]

What's to stop the Pit Fiend from dropping Walls of Fire on top of himself and then Fireball centered on himself since he's immune to fire? I think that damage will add up pretty quickly.

The Pit Fiend's multiattack will do vastly more damage than a wall of fire or fireball. He knows that for every opponent he neutralizes, the threat to himself is substantially reduced. I think it would be much more advantageous for the Pit Fiend to spend his turn doing high damage to a single opponent, than doing low damage to two or three.

And this is why you don't need a turn-by-turn layout of what the Pit Fiend will do; because there are multiple ways to play it out. I would definitely drop a Wall of Fire around the Pit Fiend so that any player attempting to engage him in melee would take fire damage in addition to his multiattack, and if the melee characters tried to hamper his ability to get to the spellcasters of the party, I would have him drop Fireballs on the casters to keep them scrambling. You would choose different tactics. And that's why not having it all laid out for you with so much detail is ultimately better.

 

[Night Goat]

I never asked for a turn-by-turn layout. My problem with the Pit Fiend, before we got sidetracked, is that it's missing so many of the interesting and flavorful abilities it had in 3e: blasphemy, create undead, greater dispel magic, greater teleport, invisibility, persistant image, unholy aura, wish, and the ability to summon more devils. Some of these would add variety and depth to combat, others wouldn't be much use in combat but still seem like something a powerful devil should be able to do. The 5e Pit Fiend - a fucking paragon of evil - doesn't even have any evil spells.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

Larping

I'm sorry but that's wrong. LARPING refers to rp-ing with costumes and shit in tabletop RPGs and playing according to imaginary rules that don't effect the game in the context of cRPGs. I assume you refered to the later. It's impossible to LARP in tabletop RPGs because these games have unlimited reactivity. If players buy a tavern it's there, people can come in there, someone might burn it etc. If you pretend to live in a house in Balmora in Morrowind nothing really changes.

At level 20, with 16 CON and the Toughness feat, characters will have:
Barbarian: 245 HP
Fighter, Paladin, Ranger: 225 HP
Bard, Cleric, Druid, Rogue: 205 HP

Do you really think they're going to be held back by the wall of fire, instead of just running through it and taking 5d8 damage?

IIRC correctly challenge rating 20 means that at this levels characters are supposed to fight a number of creatures at level corresponding their challenge rating between rests. In 3rd edition goblins have 1/3 challenge rating and I don't think that you were supposed to rest after slaying 6 goblins at level 2.

 

[ProphetSword]

IIRC correctly challenge rating 20 means that at this levels characters are supposed to fight a number of creatures at level corresponding their challenge rating between rests. In 3rd edition goblins have 1/3 challenge rating and I don't think that you were supposed to rest after slaying 6 goblins at level 2.

If we assume a party of 4 characters at 20th level, a hard encounter comes out to around 34,000 XP and a deadly encounter is 50,800 XP.

A deadly encounter might include two Pit Fiends. A hard encounter would include a Pit Fiend and 9,000 XP worth of minions.

A single Pit Fiend with no minions is a deadly encounter at 13th-15th level based upon the XP budget you can spend.


On an unrelated note, did anyone play today? How did that go?

 

[Irenaeus]

IIRC correctly challenge rating 20 means that at this levels characters are supposed to fight a number of creatures at level corresponding their challenge rating between rests. In 3rd edition goblins have 1/3 challenge rating and I don't think that you were supposed to rest after slaying 6 goblins at level 2.

If we assume a party of 4 characters at 20th level, a hard encounter comes out to around 34,000 XP and a deadly encounter is 50,800 XP.

A deadly encounter might include two Pit Fiends. A hard encounter would include a Pit Fiend and 9,000 XP worth of minions.

A single Pit Fiend with no minions is a deadly encounter at 13th-15th level based upon the XP budget you can spend.


On an unrelated note, did anyone play today? How did that go?

It's going on right now, I'm have lots of fun.

 

[ProphetSword]

Be sure to let us know how it turned out.

 

[Ulminati]

I'll let Anora Inkwing, Princess of the Pixies tell you how things went. The party was as competent as you'd expect from a coxed pic up group. :3

 

[Raghar]

I'll let Anora Inkwing, Princess of the Pixies tell you how things went. The party was as competent as you'd expect from a coxed pic up group. :3

This reminds me how I did GM in Shadowrun and one character was homeless with HF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_fluoride defensive pepper spray.

 

[ED-209]

Amazon finally shipped my Handbook. I'm more excited than I should be.

 

[LeStryfe79]

So we're pretty sure the DMG will include options for skill points, THAC0, and Magic Item crafting, buying, selling. What other optional rules are going to be included? any guesses?