Poll: Let's Talk about D&D!

[Saelune]

Personally I did not like the new magic item system, seems to lose a lot of the wonder from the old set since they have a very strong "adds pluses to rolls" theme compared to the older sets.

Sometimes I use http://www.seventhsanctum.com/generate.php?Genname=magicitem cause it just gives a weird name for magic items, not what it does. So its fun to create a function for them.

Like, what would a "Throwing Axe of Blood and Clairvoyance" do? Sounds like a haunted murder axe to me.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

Overall I like 3.5/Pathfinder the most just because of the sheer expressive power of the rules. There's enough content that you can make just about any character concept you want and make them competitive. One of my last characters was a psychic warrior who I designed in such a way that all of his abilities would pretty much be indistinguishable from just being a adept fighter. It fell apart at a certain level due to lack of good power options, but it was a fun concept to play with.

However, 3.5 becomes too much of a number game, and I like how 5e focuses more on your abilities changing the way your character plays as opposed to incrementally making yourself better at things. It's nice how you can pretty much make a whole build around a single feat. It's also a really easy game to introduce people too, which is why I chose it for my current game with a group of people who never really played D&D before.

What stops me from liking 5e better is the lack of customization options, and the way some mechanics get really weird results. For instance, Bards and Rogues are by far the strongest grapplers in the game, a 19th level Bard with 8 strength can have the same grapple bonus as a 19th level Barbarian with 20 strength. Also I think that Advantage and Disadvantage are often too much of a simplification.

The lack of reliance on numbers is nice, but I find there's just so much randomness in the results. Which I suppose is more generally a problem with d20 systems as a whole. I prefer systems that have a better distribution, favoring average results with the extremes coming less likely. It's like playing Fire Emblem when all your attacks have a 30% hit chance, it's hard to strategize.

Overall I like Fate better for what 5e's trying to do, and I think it encapsulates broad circumstances a lot better.

 

[Saelune]

Had to vote for 5E because I've only played D&D once ( a few weeks ago) and it was obviously the latest version. I have always wanted to play but just recently got linked up with a group of friends who have experience/the interest to play as well. Long story short, I FUCKING LOVED IT. My first character is a human Paladin and I am playing with my girlfriend ( a wood elf druid) as well as two of our friends who are a couple who are an Eladrin Paladin and a halfling rogue. Our buddy Chris is our DM and it's his first time as DM so there are a lot of firsts in our group. I am toying with making something a little more unusual like an incredibly obnoxious bard or a blind monk.

Currently wrestling with other people in our friends group who want to get involved but aren't as committed. So we're trying to balance being exclusionary and coming across as rude and giving everyone a chance to play. I just don't want things to get too hectic and unwieldy. I have very little patience for dealing with who can make it this week/who can't get there on time/ etc. Plus it's not fair to our DM who needs to plan ahead for all this.

My current campaign got started as a back up cause one player was being unreliable.

It is always interesting when the whole DnD group is new. My first time DMing was after my first game as a player, and was so my brother who DM'd the first two games could be a player. (First game was him and his friends then I got invited on, and have taken over as Primary DM, brother is secondary)

Could let the less reliable players have characters that just show up when the players do, but otherwise just sorta sit back.

 

[Saelune]

Love me some DnD!
This year I've really gotten into true play podcasts and spiraled downwards into Dnd way more that I liked it previously.

I've been making a random Carousing table recently


EDIT: I just thought of the best/worse 5e rule.
Performance check on bardic inspiration on a natural 1 it becomes a vicious mockery spell.
[small][sub]I am an evil Dm]/sub][/small]

I made a random encounter random table, and a critical fail random table. Need to make a critical hit one now.

 

[Saelune]

Overall I like 3.5/Pathfinder the most just because of the sheer expressive power of the rules. There's enough content that you can make just about any character concept you want and make them competitive. One of my last characters was a psychic warrior who I designed in such a way that all of his abilities would pretty much be indistinguishable from just being a adept fighter. It fell apart at a certain level due to lack of good power options, but it was a fun concept to play with.

However, 3.5 becomes too much of a number game, and I like how 5e focuses more on your abilities changing the way your character plays as opposed to incrementally making yourself better at things. It's nice how you can pretty much make a whole build around a single feat. It's also a really easy game to introduce people too, which is why I chose it for my current game with a group of people who never really played D&D before.

What stops me from liking 5e better is the lack of customization options, and the way some mechanics get really weird results. For instance, Bards and Rogues are by far the strongest grapplers in the game, a 19th level Bard with 8 strength can have the same grapple bonus as a 19th level Barbarian with 20 strength. Also I think that Advantage and Disadvantage are often too much of a simplification.

The lack of reliance on numbers is nice, but I find there's just so much randomness in the results. Which I suppose is more generally a problem with d20 systems as a whole. I prefer systems that have a better distribution, favoring average results with the extremes coming less likely. It's like playing Fire Emblem when all your attacks have a 30% hit chance, it's hard to strategize.

Overall I like Fate better for what 5e's trying to do, and I think it encapsulates broad circumstances a lot better.

Adv/Dis I think are mainly there to help DMs with on the fly situations.

I am mixed on skills. I like the simplification, but I do sometimes miss having characters being crazy good at certain things cause they have +10 or more.

 

[Dr.Susse]

Love me some DnD!
This year I've really gotten into true play podcasts and spiraled downwards into Dnd way more that I liked it previously.

I've been making a random Carousing table recently


EDIT: I just thought of the best/worse 5e rule.
Performance check on bardic inspiration on a natural 1 it becomes a vicious mockery spell.
[small][sub]I am an evil Dm]/sub][/small]

I made a random encounter random table, and a critical fail random table. Need to make a critical hit one now.

Crit tables always scare me when Dm-img. They can pretty quickly mess up a player's shit.

 

[Saelune]

Love me some DnD!
This year I've really gotten into true play podcasts and spiraled downwards into Dnd way more that I liked it previously.

I've been making a random Carousing table recently


EDIT: I just thought of the best/worse 5e rule.
Performance check on bardic inspiration on a natural 1 it becomes a vicious mockery spell.
[small][sub]I am an evil Dm]/sub][/small]

I made a random encounter random table, and a critical fail random table. Need to make a critical hit one now.

Crit tables always scare me when Dm-img. They can pretty quickly mess up a player's shit.

I more often use them against creatures than players, but I tend to DM very character driven campaigns where killing off a player essentially ends the game cause it was too specific to them. Something I hope to do less in the future though, cause I want to run some more deadlier sessions down the line.

 

[Ironman126]

FUCK D&D, PLAY GURPS!

Ew.

But real talk though, I'm digging 5e.

5E isn't without problems, but it's a massive step up from 3.5. After a while, 3.5 really started to grate, especially since I ended up playing with stat-padding, munchin twats.

I still find the combat in D&D to be bananas. I don't really like Armor Class, or weapon damage, or the total imbalance of magic. Using firearms makes it substantially worse. But at least there's a reason to play a human character now.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

FUCK D&D, PLAY GURPS!

Ew.

FUCK YOU, GURPS DA BESTO! L2READ!

But real talk though, I'm digging 5e.

5E isn't without problems, but it's a massive step up from 3.5. After a while, 3.5 really started to grate, especially since I ended up playing with stat-padding, munchin twats.

I still find the combat in D&D to be bananas. I don't really like Armor Class, or weapon damage, or the total imbalance of magic. Using firearms makes it substantially worse. But at least there's a reason to play a human character now.

But half-elves are still just better >.>

But yes, 3.5/Pathfinder end up as exercises in character building. I have the most fun there bending the rules to do dumb concepts. Like a fighter that dual wields shields and serves tea on them because he is also a butler.

 

[COMaestro]

I have to go with 2nd Edition, as it is the version I played the most overall. I picked it up just before starting high school and continued with it until 3rd Edition came out. The games I played in high school are still the most memorable to me, so that's what I am nostalgic for. I did appreciate the streamlining that 3rd did for the rules, and the feats were a nice addition, giving the characters more power and some diversity in ability from others of the same class, but in the long run the characters of any class all seemed to become the same as people chose the "best" feats available.

Never played 4th and never heard anything good about it, though I have heard 5th is pretty decent. Don't really have that much of an urge to get into it right now though. There will probably be a 6th or 7th edition by the time I feel the need to play D&D again.

 

[BreakfastMan]

You're all satanists. D&D is of satan.

 

[Ironman126]

FUCK D&D, PLAY GURPS!

Ew.

FUCK YOU, GURPS DA BESTO! L2READ!

There is no need to bring my illiteracy into the argument!

But real talk though, I'm digging 5e.

5E isn't without problems, but it's a massive step up from 3.5. After a while, 3.5 really started to grate, especially since I ended up playing with stat-padding, munchin twats.

I still find the combat in D&D to be bananas. I don't really like Armor Class, or weapon damage, or the total imbalance of magic. Using firearms makes it substantially worse. But at least there's a reason to play a human character now.

But half-elves are still just better >.>

Sadly.

But yes, 3.5/Pathfinder end up as exercises in character building. I have the most fun there bending the rules to do dumb concepts. Like a fighter that dual wields shields and serves tea on them because he is also a butler.

I wish my players were half that creative. All they every want to do is make fucking anime characters and whine about how I won't let anyone play characters from extant IPs.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

I'll go for 2nd ed, that being the only one I've ever played, albeit not much. I read and owned a fair number of the books though.

Anyway, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay til death! DEEEEAAAATH!!!! (which will arrive swiftly and horribly).

 

[crimson5pheonix]

FUCK D&D, PLAY GURPS!

Ew.

FUCK YOU, GURPS DA BESTO! L2READ!

There is no need to bring my illiteracy into the argument!

I will grant that your typing is quite amazing considering...

But real talk though, I'm digging 5e.

5E isn't without problems, but it's a massive step up from 3.5. After a while, 3.5 really started to grate, especially since I ended up playing with stat-padding, munchin twats.

I still find the combat in D&D to be bananas. I don't really like Armor Class, or weapon damage, or the total imbalance of magic. Using firearms makes it substantially worse. But at least there's a reason to play a human character now.

But half-elves are still just better >.>

Sadly.

But yes, 3.5/Pathfinder end up as exercises in character building. I have the most fun there bending the rules to do dumb concepts. Like a fighter that dual wields shields and serves tea on them because he is also a butler.

I wish my players were half that creative. All they every want to do is make fucking anime characters and whine about how I won't let anyone play characters from extant IPs.

I have a group that plays WoD games (mostly vampire) and they like to just build "the broken" stuff. I have more fun playing against type. They don't understand why.

 

[Marik2]

Wow this is actually a good thread in the wild west

 

[Saelune]

Im thinking of replacing Druid's mistletoe which essentially acts like a Cleric's Holy Symbol with a "Druid's Vine" that wraps around some part of them, like their arm and acts as their Druid Focus, and can have spells cast on it. Like the spell Goodberry, instead of just having 10 berries appear in their hands, the spell causes them to sprout from the vine to be plucked off. And maybe if the player wants, as they get higher leveled, it grows bigger and basically covers them by the end.

I also am working on basically modifying The Wizard into a "Priest" class by replacing their arcane spells with divine ones, and instead of giving them the spell school stuff, giving them the Cleric Domains. They can add Cleric Spell scrolls into their book which instead of being full of arcane mathematical formula, is full of Divine Sermons/Scripture that is the source of their magic. I know Clerics tend to be the 'priests' but they are too martial for my liking.

 

[Souplex]

Im thinking of replacing Druid's mistletoe which essentially acts like a Cleric's Holy Symbol with a "Druid's Vine" that wraps around some part of them, like their arm and acts as their Druid Focus, and can have spells cast on it. Like the spell Goodberry, instead of just having 10 berries appear in their hands, the spell causes them to sprout from the vine to be plucked off. And maybe if the player wants, as they get higher leveled, it grows bigger and basically covers them by the end.

I also am working on basically modifying The Wizard into a "Priest" class by replacing their arcane spells with divine ones, and instead of giving them the spell school stuff, giving them the Cleric Domains. They can add Cleric Spell scrolls into their book which instead of being full of arcane mathematical formula, is full of Divine Sermons/Scripture that is the source of their magic. I know Clerics tend to be the 'priests' but they are too martial for my liking.

I feel ya, I'm tinkering with the idea of a Paladin "Oath of Command/Leadership" to fill the void left by 4E's Warlord as a sort of Leader of Men.
One of the central mechanics is...
Tactical Aura: The range of all of your aura abilities increases by 5ft x your Intelligence modifier.
...Then its features would all relate to this tactical range, things like "When you attack, you can forego one of your attacks and a creature in your tactical aura can use its reaction to make a weapon attack or cast a spell" and "When a creature within your tactical aura takes damage, you can use your reaction and expend a spell slot to reduce the damage by (Spell level + 1) D8 +Charisma modifier."

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Frankly, I love Planescape (lore, characters, factions, everything) far too much not to say I prefer 2E, but I've spent more time playing 3.x becqause that's kind of the 'settling' ground for both young and older gamers.

That and I love Pathfinder. The artwork and the worldbuilding is just wunderbar.

I tried playing 4E and immediately hated it. It felt like there was zero possibility for 'rule of cool'.

Sure 3.x had needless garbage getting in the way, but if you wanted a catfolk ranger/fighter/barbarian (Spirit Lion)/Dervish build with Shi'Quos School and Battle Jump in a 4 player party that is comprised of no less a druid, wizard and cleric ... the DM might toss you a bone given the relative disparate power difference.

Getting 3 full attacks plus a freebie enemy on enemy hit through deceptive dodge through 'Up the Wall', slippers of Battle Dancing, 65' move speed, auto-proning enemey targets in a single round is pretty fucking awesome.

18+1 attacks at level 17. Much hilarity. Only could pull that off once a fight and only if I was pre-flying or there was stuff I could jump off nearby wiuth larger enemies. Feycraft scimitars ftw, deadly defence, weapon capsules, and improved crit (15-20, x2) ... so I could hold my own at least compared to the full casting, swift wildshape cheesing other PCs.

On the flip side, I had ridiculous good saves due to class scumming a whole lot of basics and PrCs, and my touch AC was fucking ridiculous. AC tanks ftw in 3.x ... So sure, I couldn't reliably blast as well as any other PC, but with my ring of evasion, and just my saves and AC alone I was untouchable and that's a pretty awesome feeling right there.

 

[Souplex]

On the 4E hate train: I'm pretty sure the only reason it's a thing was because it was the first edition to come out in the age of prominent internet. (While there was internet at the era of 3.0, it was less widespread, and TSr was a dead company, so they were saving D&D from oblivion)
4E was great at what it was: Tactical, accessible, streamlined, balanced, functional.

 

[Jei-chan]

I'm currently playing a campaign in 5e with my boyfriend and our two best friends. I'm playing a beast mastery ranger and the DM gave me a sideways glance but allowed me to use a horse as my animal companion based on the revised rules for Ranger that they put out a while ago XD it's awesome. Storm of Teeth and Claws is OP af

for some reason I'm only good at RPing comedy characters, though. my last character was sort of a parody of Aragorn and Drizzt and every fantasy character who's ever worn a dark hooded cloak unironically all rolled together, and he was great fun, but somehow I can't... get in the zone with characters that are meant to be taken seriously.

we have serious trouble as a group though because we're ALL easily distracted by shiny new things. my boyfriend has rolled like four characters this one campaign and we often switch mid-playthrough because we really like a different idea someone had. like a Vampire the Masquerade campaign I have prepared for if we party-wipe in this one