What do people actually like about the standard Elf/Dwarf/Human/Orc/Etc line-up? I've searched for answers, but have yet to find anything tangible in terms of what people feel they get out of it. Is it just familiarity, or is there some other advantage that I can't/don't grasp?
>>44985671
We can fuck halflings and its perfectly legal.
>>44985671
It's pretty much familiarity. Less time needs to be spent explaining what the races are, so the game can move on to what they do.
Though I usually abandon the standard set in homebrewsand humans, there's nothing bad about it.
>>44985671
Yes it is advantage. Different races, different stats. And that's that. Even if you're not a minmaxer, you're probably choose a race based on the stats they give or the advantages and benefits they get implied or not.
it's like every white wolf game. 90% of players choose their clan/tribe/whateverthefucktheyarecalled based on the powers they'll get and advantages that will be provided.
Roleplay be damned.
>>44985713
I guess I should say, what's the advantage of elf/orc/human/etc over just having multiple different cultures of humans? I mean, you have to explain that Drow In This Setting Are All African Tribesmen And The Gnomes Are All Chekists, why not cut out the middle man and just make humans (with culturally differentiated stats, if you must).
You can create a distinctive character with minimal work.
So instead of creating an entire culture for your character to be from and expecting to know other palyers and the DM to elarn that culutre, you can say "I'm an elf" and everyone at the game table immediately understands that.
>>44985671
We can rape elves and its perfectly legal.
It's mostly the fact they're in the player's handbook. If lizard people and demons were in the player's handbook, they'd be more common too.
Familiarity.
That's really all there is to it. They're well-established tropes that works in most settings, creating relateable motiffs that are not-human.
>>44985767
Because the attraction is the differences. When they are clearly physically different it's exotic andfantastical
>>44985671
>short human
>even shorter human
>really short human
>ugly human with tusks
>human with pointy ears
>human with really pointy ears
Who the fuck thought this was a good idea?
>>44985767
>>44986186
Compare the tiff some people get into over, say, Elder Scrolls' stats for redguards and nords, versus how they feel about all dwarves having a charisma penalty.
>>44986258
>Human but with cat features
>Human but with dog features
>Human but with lizard features
>Human but with bug features
Why can't I play a dolphin?
>>44985671
Half-ork and half-elf look like really crappy crossdressers.
>>44986258
>human with women parts
Who the fuck thought this was a good idea?
>>44986186
Mmm. What about compared to, say, how Exalted does it? Where you have people with panda skin tones or blue hair, people with scales and fangs or feathered wings, etc, but they're all just humans with mutations (ordinary or magical). Do you think that that would scratch the same itch? If not, why?
>>44986471
Sure, it happens all the time. All the races in shadowrun are just different strains of human too
>>44985671
Familiarity and... well, I don't want to say laziness, but there's definitely an element of time-saving involved.
I mean, DMs don't have to go to all the trouble of dreaming up a new race, creating a coherent and interesting visual description for it (or commissioning an artist to make some reference images), figuring out an interesting cultural character for it, and then trying to sell their players on the idea of their new race.
Likewise, players don't have to familiarise themselves with a whole new list of races in every campaign (many of which will often suck, because let's be honest: not all DMs are genius writers), nor do they have to worry about getting to grips with a new and unfamiliar set of physical and cultural baggage every time they create a new character.
Personally, I find the DM angle a bit daft, since if /tg/ is any indication, most DMs just invent new cultures for Orcs, Elves and Dwarves all the time anyway. At which point, you might as well just strip off the names and appearances and make them something entirely new.
>>44986562
>most DMs just invent new cultures for Orcs, Elves and Dwarves all the time anyway. At which point, you might as well just strip off the names and appearances and make them something entirely new.
The same could be said about basic humans
What does /th/ think about spriggans?
>elflike bodies but playful dispositions
>shorter than humans on average
>can turn into stone at will, turn to stone while sleeping
>skilled with illusions, most often making themselves appear to be giants to scare travellers
>>44986668
So gnomes?
>>44985671
Half-Orc is the original special snowflake race.
>LOOK AT ME I'M HALF EVIL BUT JUDGE MMKAY
Halflings are mainly garbage. Either they are literally Hobbits or they get turned into cannibal barbarians.
Gnomes have never been useful or relevant.
As for the line-up, Elves, Orcs, and Dwarves have become staple archetypes on par with the Dashing Rogue and Noble Knight.
>>44986850
Gypsy halflings are best
>>44986850
>>LOOK AT ME I'M HALF EVIL BUT JUDGE MMKAY
Only reason why they exist is because Gary Gygax is a stubborn cunt who hated the idea of an Orc adventurer, so this was his half-assed attempt to meet him half way.
>>44986920
Well orcs aren't supposed to be people. It's like wanting to play as the aliens from starship troopers.
>>44985671
3 factors I find important. Its easy to go with orcs elves dwarves etc than to have to go into clan politics and shit like that, it gives a nice flavour and it tends to offer mechanical benefits.
For example, if I used humans exclusively I would need to expain their tribal interactions and such and that could often mean limiting what groups can travel together. After all, if Tribe A are mortal enemies of Tribe B then 2 people from tribes A and B travelling together will seem weird, whereas when it comes to elves and orcs you can say ''well, not all elves and orcs are at war'' or something.
Furthermore, if one attempts to physically distinguish the humans you run yourself into a minefield. The evil, agressive and stronk humans have dark skin? Thats racist. They're white? Now you're pandering. The techy ones are all sallow? Thats also racist.
And of course familiarity is a benefit. I can tell someone ''its an orc'' and theyll have an approximate mental image. If I say ''Theyre a human from tribe z'' they need to remember what that tribe looks like based on my earlier maybe once off description. Even if I was using all humans, Id be inclined to use the cliche names to make explanation easier.
>>44986780
They're taller, physically stronger gnomes from a different culture's fairy tales and they look pretty neat
Am I the only one that's even slightly miffed about the half orc's portrayal here?
At that point a full blooded orc male would basically just be a green ogre
>>44985671
in my setting, human, elf, dwarf, orc, halfling, ect are just broad group of races with individual sub-races. each have a unique set of traits that make them different from another
for example the elves of my setting can undergo physical changes if the spend long enough in an eviroment which is why many take to carrying mementos of there home to ward of the changes
>>44987093
Well, Orcs are usually meant to be about a head taller than the next tallest of the classic species, which I recall to be elves. On the other hand, the elves here are shorter than humans so the artist may just be working off a reference Im unaware of.
They're significantly over-muscled though. And very broad, more so than I would have estimated.
>>44987093
>>44987157
That image is from the 3e Player's Handbook, you faggots. It's canon.
>>44987093
3.5 ogres were barely humanoids
>>44987157
D&D elves have always been shorter than humans
>>44987179
For 3e. The 5e proportions are what Im familiar with and from my understanding of them (thers no handy images like the op provided) Half-Orcs are a head taller than elves and about half again as broad as humans. Elves, then, are about a half a head smaller than Humans.
The closest 5e has is a table showing the smallest and the largest of each species basically.
>>44987259
Yeah, but I wouldn't have rated it that dramatically. According to the 5e tables elves are an average of 2 inches shorter. That difference looks like a head and, assuming correct proportions, that'd mean more than 2 inches. Unless they're all much smaller than they seem.
>>44987389
>The 5e proportions are what Im familiar
I'm sorry.
>>44987404
Dont get me wrong, I played PF and 3e. They were pretty sweet but the amount of maths involved made it near impossible with my group and I wasn't too fond of running it either.
But I started on 4e because it was the most recent one when I started and 5e is a good step up from that so its all cool.
>>44985671
Human: +1 feat and skills. Useful, but uninspired and only at low level.
Elf: Human with pointy ears. Usually racist and boring
Dwarf: short fat human. Boring
Halfling: short Human. sneaky, but boring.
Half-Elf: Boring Human with mommy/daddy issues
Half-Orc: Sperg.
So tired of the standard Human races. Lineup needs to be more original. I guess as a standard lineup, yeah it's standard fantasy material. No reason not to include originality, though.
>>44987450
>5e is a good step up from that
Now I'm really sorry.
>>44987469
Thats the thing, they're the basics. You cut your teeth on them and build from there. Whether you do that in how you characterise them or by moving on to other races is down to you.
>>44987475
Dude, I can remember what 4e was like. Oh my christ.
To be honest, Id move to a different system but finding groups where I live is near impossible. Its taken me 5 years to grow my group from me and 2 others to me and 3 others. As of now, I just run 1 on 1 sessions with one of the dudes sometimes and run proper games with the group.
>>44987404
>>44987475
dumb 3.PFposter
>>44985713
This is correct. Familiarity is what does it for me.
I also wonder why people would play anything else, really. I don't care much for anything other than humans and demihumans.
>>44987450
>But I started on 4e because it was the most recent one when I started and 5e is a good step up from that
>>44987558
Eh, I was 16 and knew precisely jack shit about gaming. I still dont know much but Im better off than I was then.
Now, if you like 4e thats you but I found it frustrating as balls. Every fight was so fucking protracted and everything was a fucking ''ability''. Every fight Ive run in 5e has gone faster and the feel of the entire thing is better in my opinion.
>>44987633
Ignore him, he's a 3.PF drone mocking you for not playing REAL D-UHN-D.
>>44987766
I've played ''real d&d''. Wasn't too impressed. lots of options and lots of maths. 5e has basically the same and less maths.
But each to their own. So, to keep on topic, whats your opinion on the classic races? Do you play them straight and classic? Do you subvert them? Do you leave them out altogether?
>>44985767
>I mean, you have to explain that Drow In This Setting Are All African Tribesmen And The Gnomes Are All Chekists, why not cut out the middle man and just make humans
Despite what /tg/ would lead you to believe most people are totally fine with leaving the standard D&D races as is, or at most put a couple of setting or campaign specific twists on them to add some flavor without radically changing their core theme.
>>44987766
No, I'm pretty sure the mockery is because of thinking 5e > 4e.
>>44987633
5e is a tremendous step backwards, in design terms, from the tight design of 4e. Yes, there were problems with 4e combat, length being prominent among them, but "protracted combat" is easily fixed by iterating (halve all the HP bars, double the damage, whatever).
5e took all the elements of 4e's design that worked and made it a superior system to 3e - vastly compacted class tiers, martial classes that were interesting in play and capable of meaningfully contributing to combat, clearly defined combat roles for classes, functional mechanics to roughly determine how difficult a fight would be, etc - and threw them in the garbage. Baby with the bathwater.
>>44986318
I told you, Steve--we're not comfortable with rape as a major theme in our games.
>>44987901
Honestly, Ive run and played both and Im really not seeing it.
Yes, the 4e classes had little keywords telling you what they were meant to do but do you really need that? I mean, do you need the phb to tell you that Fighters can make good tanks or something?
And martials are still interesting and able to contribute. Ive played a barbarian in 5e in a party with a sorcerer and a fighter. Me and the fighter were the main meat of our parties in combat power and our out of combat flexibility.
And what the fuck does that last thing even mean? If yer on about the Bloodied condition, that still pretty much exists in 5e. You ask the DM what your enemy looks like and they give you an approximation. If you're on about encounter building, theres a pretty functional CR mechanic in 5e.
>>44987901
tic tac toe has incredibly tight design
all classes are balanced because there are no classes
no tiers at all!
wow
perfect
>>44985671
Because it's narrative shorthand. The classic races are all familiar and different enough from one another that they simplify things from a storytelling perspective. If a DM needs someone big and intimidating they can just say "the half Orc guard glares at you" rather than having to add more details for a human. If the DM needs a bad guy, they can simply reveal that the shadowy figure in the alley is a drow, so the party knows shit is going down, without having to build more than that.
For some DMs it's an excuse to be lazy, yes. But for some people it's just expedient. Take it as you will.
The alternative?
>>44988019
Actually, 4e fighters are not really tanks. They have very little to force the enemy to hit them.
They do have a lot to rape the other guy sideways if he went for an ally though.
>>44988364
Generally speaking, making up your own races and half-breeds but that often gets accusations of being special snowflake races.
On the topic though, I have been thinking of throwing half-giants into my setting. Any ideas on how to stat them up?
>>44988410
Well, true but the idea of the marks was to try and make sure enemies would have to fight the fighter for that tanking pretty much. Or at least that they could end the dude fast if he didn't.
Making a tank is tough in D&D because it always seems videogamey or you get stuff like DurrClang. I tend to use an ''aggro'' approach myself. Enemies tend to go for what seems like the biggest threat at the start or whoever does the most damage to them and/or grabs the most attention. Its sorta allows for tanking but requires some non-standard play.
>>44988019
>I mean, do you need the phb to tell you that Fighters can make good tanks or something?
Designers generally do. The most prominent example of the issues that result from not delineating roles like that is 3e's Druid, a class more or less defined by its stupid, incredibly imbalanced mechanics that let it do basically everything, and no clear design space outside of "turn into a bear and cast spells as a bear and have a bear ally."
>Ive played a barbarian in 5e in a party with a sorcerer and a fighter. Me and the fighter were the main meat of our parties in combat power and our out of combat flexibility.
Plenty of people could say the exact same thing about 3e - that their party's fighter contributed more than the wizard - but that doesn't mean it represents anything real about the system. People can play bad systems without running into all the nonsense and bullshit, but ideally there is no nonsense or bullshit. 5e has Invisibility, Knock, Fly, but expects me to care about picking locks and stealth?
>If you're on about encounter building, theres a pretty functional CR mechanic in 5e.
It's exactly as functional as 3e's, which is to say, not really at all.
>>44988032
"Balance" is not the same as "identical," you dishonest piece of shit. In Starcraft, Protoss, Zerg, and Terran are very different and all (more or less) balanced against each other - in competitive, high level games, they're all viable. Obviously D&D doesn't quite require that level of balance, since it's not a competitive game, but "doesn't obviate the other half of the party" is definitely on the agenda and definitely something 3e and 5e failed to do and 4e succeeded at.
>>44988019
Fighters aren't THE tanks of 5e. They're firstly damage dealers that can off-tank. Barb is the tank of 5e, ironically introverting the the fighter/barb roles form 4e.
The clear class roles thing was more for the benefit of the designers; they had an idea of what to do with a class because it's distinctly said what they should be good at. When you don't have that you get increasingly sloppy mechanics as designers try to tack on skills and roles to a class where it doesn't quite work out, or they devalue a class' role by making the others too versatile. Look at the shit position the 5e ranger is in. Nobody has a damn clue what role it's supposed to fit when everyone else can do it's job better.
Also, bloodied was a mechanically useful distinction as it allowed opportunities to escalate a fight. Many classes and monsters had abilities that triggered off it that could completely change the flow of a fight.
4e as a whole was just a very neatly designed game. Many of it's little fiddly bits, while annoying, were very useful and served a unified purpose in fulfilling some design goal of the game. A lot of stuff in D&D before and since seems just slapped just because "it feels like it should be there" on without much consideration for game design. I understand and agree with many of the complaint you and others voice about it, and you're entirely allowed to hold 5e as a better game for you and your group. But 4e had a quality about it that 5e fails to replicate.
>>44988477
Large size, no attribute modifiers, 50ft speed, resistance to critical wounding, hurled bonus?
Most town gaurds would be put on edge if some of the more monstrous playable races would stroll in all decked out. Only reason I can think of.
>>44988477
I rather liked the 4e way. It put some real choice into it. I see enemies violate marks a decent bit in 4e games when they think that a given attack is worth the risk (often a heavy disabling attack on someone like a Rogue or Sorcerer)
>>44988019
>I mean, do you need the phb to tell you that Fighters can make good tanks or something?
As a newbie? Likely yeah. I mean, I'm pretty sure everyone's first 3e wizard was an evocation specialist, despite them being pretty shit at it as the game didn't really tell people 'Control and Utility, this is the wizard's true power'
>>44988543
I really hate this default mindset that if the PCs want to play nonstandard races that they're only allowed to play in settings where everyone is hostile to them.
>>44988630
It gets weird when people talk about it with stuff like Aasimar or Hamadryads.
You have someone who is decended from angels and a beautiful, almost universally good, spirit of nature
>>44988516
Oh yeah, 4e had some stuff going off it and I can understand all that, but honestly it is all stuff that I dont think are too dire a loss.
Like, the classes having pretty varied purposes is something I rather like because it means Im no longer shackled to a certain fluff just because I want to do something that only 1 or 2 classes are intended for. The ranger is still an odd duck alright but then wasn't it always? I mean, I never recall seeing on played in 4e but I dont remember them being paragons of balanced classes either.
And yeah, Bloodied could be cool alright but its something one can easily replicate if one chooses. Have abilities auto-regen on half hp, that sorta stuff.
>>44988511
Fair point about design, Ill give ya that one.
And yeah, a wizard can do a lot of shit but its not like it negates the rogue or whatever. The rogue tends to have skills and abilities that the Wizard has no spells for, like trap detection for example. And even then, which is preferable: Blow slots on every locked door or just have the rogue deal with them?
I dont know what your issues are with 5es CR set up. It aint perfect but it works well enough and it doesnt seem any worse than 4es in my experience.
Of course, this is all anecdotal but we're talking about a games system, wtf else do ya expect?
>>44988551
Yeah, 4e had some stuff going for it. But it burned me and my party out so fast that I wouldn't even get away with suggesting it anymore so now I just nick some of the cooler ideas for my setpieces.
>>44988599
See, Id usually say thats the DMs job but you've got a point to be fair. Even then though, none of my group listened to that shit really so I dunno how useful it was.
>>44985671
And literally no other reason.
>>44988630
If you're talking about monstrous races, you usually mean ''fucking weird looking''. Then again, I usually play my villagers and shit as suspicious of most races anyway. You want them to trust a tiefling? The most any of them knows about tieflings is that they're born from devils! You have the tools to make them trust you, go for it.
>>44988527
Sounds like that'd be pretty balanced. Also pretty well set up for a barb or Hulking Hurler more specifically.
>>44988786
4e rangers were the best striker in the game with a decent controller secondary. Measuring every other striker was basically finding out how much worse than a ranger it was.
Rangers have fallen far since then.
>>44988824
Fucking Twin Strike. One of the many PHB things that never vanished because people hadn't realized how silly it would be when they started 4e.
>>44988824
Really? Eesh, they took a hard fall. I mean, they are still alright for damage and control but they're definitely waaay lower down.
They're one of those classes Id still happily play but Id do so not expecting to shine in combat and more just to have fun with the character and concept.
>>44988809
>implying it's widely known tieflings come from devils
>implying you're not in a setting where tieflings had a world-spanning empire and were the most powerful people around once upon a time
>implying having horns and a tail isn't associated with divinity in such a setting
BAEL TURATH WILL RISE AGAIN!
>>44988883
Yeah. Twin Strike was just...silly.
The idea behind it was decent. You get two attacks at highly reduced damage (You don't get +stat to damage. Just weapon dice).
Issue: Past like level 5 (And even before then if you have anyone tossing out buffs), your extra damage from other sources is making +stat a only a fraction of the real damage.
So you ended up with (Very early example)
1d10+5(Dex)+1(Magic Weapon) +5(Warlord)
vs
2x 1d10+1(Magic Weapon) + 5(Warlord)
The second is going to shit all over the first without even trying.
>>44986668
I use spriggans as enemies all the time, but I usually paint them and blood hungry Forest guardians.
>>44988786
>Oh yeah, 4e had some stuff going off it and I can understand all that, but honestly it is all stuff that I dont think are too dire a loss.
>Like, the classes having pretty varied purposes is something I rather like because it means Im no longer shackled to a certain fluff just because I want to do something that only 1 or 2 classes are intended for.
>Liking 5e over 4e because you don't want fluff to shackle you to certain mechanics
... literally what? That's the opposite of everything true. Hell, one of the few things in the playtest that Wizards actually listened to was "we're tired of fluff not mandating mechanics, because it's disassociated."
The class name was literally a keyword and nothing else, and the class itself was a set of mechanics you could fluff any way.
In 5e, the mechanics and the fluff are irrevocably intertwined, and it actively resists refluff almost as hard as 3e did.
Like, if your argument was "if a class is just a set of mechanics that could be any fluff, then it cheapens the fluff. I want my fluff to MEAN something, and if that means I'm shackled to some sub-par mechanics for a concept, so be it" in favor of 5e, I'd be like "alright, valid point, I just disagree with the taste-based premise, but whachugonnado?" However, you're literally arguing against 4e saying you want it's largest strength. That's like saying "I prefer beer over vodka because beer has a higher alcohol content and gets you drunk faster."
Most of what I DM is stolen from Diablo, including Humans ONLY no other races.
Saves on bullshit special snowflakes, and makes everything a lot more simple.
>>44988905
Thats what I run my setting like. But then again, a lot of people in my setting are anti anything they dont understand if yer in the shithole countryside. The cities are metropolitan enough that no one cares but out in Deliverance territory you'll get stares and the odd muttered comment.
I mean, the whole ''Tieflings are the spawn of devils'' isn't even really true in my setting, they're some weird fucking magical mutation. People just heard of some demon or some shit called an incubus, see a tiefling and think it must be related to them.
They also tend to think Elves are poncey twats but since they're good guys too they're not given much shit. Dwarves are considered bros because they drink heavily and are practical. Halflings are loved for storytelling and food, gnomes are watched carefully in case they blow something up, so on and so forth. Hell, in elven villages Humans get everyone treating them like mentally deficient children.
>>44989006
Nah, what Im saying is ''I can play a paladin a number of ways pretty effectively. In my brief stint with 4e, as a 16 year old until it burnt out me and my party, it didn't seem as flexible.''
My main reason for sticking with 5e? Ive been able to find people to play it. I show fuckers 4e and they recoil in horror, I show them 5e and they're down for it.
And, honestly speaking, I find the 5e fluff easier to rework myself. I can rationalise it easier. When I look at 4e, everything seems to be a caster but not a caster and it just feels wrong.
>>44988786
>And yeah, Bloodied could be cool alright but its something one can easily replicate if one chooses. Have abilities auto-regen on half hp, that sorta stuff.
You can replicate damn near anything in any system, doesn't mean it fits or is balanced. Yeah you can mimic it it 5e, but 4e was built to do it, from the surge mechanics to the class features to the magic items.
That's another thing that gets me: the weird mimicking of 4e's surge mechanics with 5e's hit dice. It's like it totally missed the point of surges. If you're not willing to go whole hog, don't bother butchering it at all.
>>44989148
Its weird alright but it does sorta make more sense that you could heal up over the course of an hour than suddenly in the middle of a fight.
I do like it though. Forces the PCs to measure their time and decide if the extra 1d8 hit points is worth the risk of getting rushed by goblins.
>>44989148
>It's like it totally missed the point of surges.
Almost as though D&D 5e was designed for "feel" over "coherent and sound mechanics." Weird.
>>44989094
>Nah, what Im saying is ''I can play a paladin a number of ways pretty effectively
just off the top of my head, on top of the usual paladin builds, there's
>Hybrid Fighter/Paladin
>Avenger for the killy paladin
>Marauder's Rush Ranger refluffed as a killy paladin Paladin
>Pure fighter refluffed as a defenderey fallen paladin
>Hexblade with pact refluffed into ordination as a holy-lightsaber wielding swashbuckler paladin
and that's just off of the top of my head. Hell that's more options than the total number of mechanical character archetypes 5e has.
1: Do consistently high damage with no ability to spike it up or do anything
2: Do consistently high damage with the ability to spike it up with spell-like resources
3: Do consistently high damage with the ability to splash control with spell-like resources
4: Use spell-like resources to do spike damage or control, but your consistent damage is stuck at cantrip-tier
>And, honestly speaking, I find the 5e fluff easier to rework myself. I can rationalize it easier.
Warlord when?
I'm>>44989275 Continuing my thought
>>44989094
>My main reason for sticking with 5e? Ive been able to find people to play it. I show fuckers 4e and they recoil in horror, I show them 5e and they're down for it.
I'll give you that. Granted, I guess to me, 5e is so milktoast bland and uninterresting that I'd rather play [insert any other system] than play 5e.... actually you could probably say that about any edition of D&D that isn't 4e.
>>44989208
Healing surges in 4e were meant to be a limited resource. Everything from potions to magical healing ate into your surges. Once you were out, you were screwed. Nothing save like 3 limited cleric abilities could save you. Healing surges were baked deep into the system and were consequentially potent and valuable. You could have monsters/effects/abilities that ate through surges and give your players a reason to panic.
On the contrary, hit dice exist separate from everything else. Magic, potions, etc are all free healing and do the job better than hit dice. HD seem to only exist as backup for when you don't have those things. By mid level when you have a fuckton of potions (because if you use the loot tables you will have an obscene amount of them) or some good healing spells, HD become irrelevant. They seem tacked on just to mimic something of old that they didn't really understand. They are a negligible mechanic.
That is my issue with it, not the realism of how you can "suddenly heal in battle". 5e has a wealth of things that let you do that, like the spells and potions previously mentioned.
>>44989275
You missed the important part of my statement. I got 6 months into 4e before my party got burned out and just would not play for the next 2 or so years. We have never had that issue with 5e. Thats why I go with 5e.
I dont know if 4e is better or worse. I got 3 sessions of it in before my party got sick of the way it was playing out. I barely know the fucking system and I can't get them to go back to it, nor am I strongly motivated to do so.
And I like the feel of it on the whole. It feels right to me.
As to warlord, Ive seen a few homebrews. Dont know about an official archetype though.
And each of the paladin archetyppes can be played in multiple ways RP wise, to be fair.
>>44989370
Honestly I tried a few other systems a while back. Id still like to go back to some of them, like the Supernatural one, but I only know 1 dude that will play anything bar D&D or WHRP.
Living in an area with a weak TTRPG scene sucks hard.
>>44989387
Negligible? Eh, depends. Ive run some mid level games and even with level appropriate loot and a paladin with lay on hands and some mild healing people have had to fall back on them.
But then again I like to throw gauntlets at my players now and then. Nothing like a string of near cr approrpriate encounters to eat into your healing and make you wonder if you need to use your hit die.
Also, I think Hit Die are intended mainly as a low level mechanic. They're your ''we gave ye fuck all low level healing options so have this'' mechanic. Cause if ya look at it, low level healing potential tends to be low as fuck given the lack of potions and healing spells.
>>44989406
>And I like the feel of it on the whole. It feels right to me
Well I respect your right to hold that opinion, but holy fuck do I hate the use of "feels" as a justification for anything.
Personally I had high hopes for 5e. 4e was great to me, but it had flaws and I would've loved to see something fresh. But it became increasingly obvious during the playtest that 5e was not interested in good game design or any creative, fresh ideas, but only in appealing to "feels", this nebulous concept that somehow makes a game good without any logical deliberation.
>>44985671
It's got a good variety of races with different physiques and cultures, none of which are too bizarre or vary too much from Tolkien.
>>44989548
I might have gotten a better opinion of 4e if we had ever run more than 3 games, who knows?
And yeah, 5e definitely didn't live up to the hype. But at least it doesn't feel like the sort of system thats going to leave my party burned out once we properly get into the swing of playing.
I hope. Oh please god. We had to switch DM and everything. I dont even like to DM but our DM just has some sort of dming ptsd after his stint with 4e. I think he just took on too much material at once but still, fucking hell its frustrating.
>>44989621
I have already been burned out on it. I was in three separate games and enjoying none of them. During 4e I was in three and actively looking for more. Now I feel relief whenever one of my groups cancels or goes on an indefinite hiatus. The only 5e game that still consistently happens I dread and only really still go to because it's the only context in which I interact with that group of friends.
5e has pretty much killed my interest in D&D and I've begun looking into alternatives to get my RP kicks.
>>44989754
Ouch. Have you tried Rogue Trader? I found it pretty good myself, Id recommend it.
Especially if you know about the setting and can find a group that stick to the tone of it. One of my guys ran an astropath named ''Internet'' and just spouted memes and lolcat jokes.
Potentially funny but ''Tacocat is the same word both ways'' is not helpful when you're trying to get a message to the local PDF for aid in dealing with DE raiders.
>>44989754
This, so much this.
5e has killed the gaming scene where I live. Nobody wants to play anything other than 5e, and the only games I show up to I literally have a stack of character sheets, a random name generator, and a random "gimmick" generator, because I have no interest in actually playing the game, but it's the only time I interact with my old TTRPG buddies.
>>44985671
I absolutely that all those "standard races." When you make a new stetting, at least make something that is original.
Beside, there are much more interesting creature in mythology all around the world. It really annoys me that people keep on using the "standard European fantasy."
>>44985671
That halfling is way too thin, you can't even put a human dick inside her.
>>44989044
Human races is the way it was meant to be played mane.
Picture related, one of the first DMPCs and hes not even a dwarf.
I'm glad they added variant humans in 5e.
>>44986099
I assure you that a game that had lizard people and demons in the player's handbook wouldn't be nearly as popular as a similar game that had elves and dwarves in the player's handbook.
>>44988879
It was supposed to be silly, that's what made rangers the best at what they do. It set the standard for how to striker.
>>44986291
This. When in-game scenarios parallel real-world ones it makes the issue of race a bit more touchy. Especially if races are designed to have specific advantages and disadvantages (which they almost always are). When people like playing what they can most identify with, this can leave implications about their own IRL "stats" that might not sit right with them.
>The year of our lord 2016
>People still don't use playable trolls and goblins
>Not making settings that make use of the traditional monsterous/bad guys and make them into regular neutral races instead
>Not being original
>>44994041
>being original
>using the traditional monstrous races
Pick one.
>>44985671
because humans like to think themselves the ideal or average, and the world is built around them. Imagine if the lineup had humans being the smallest out of all the creatures, and all main cities towns, doors, and chairs, were made for bigger creatures like orcs or trolls. And as much as you might think that setting sounds cool, most people would hate it if it were the norm.
>>44987834
>5e has basically the same and less maths.
So it's for children.
The "maths" were literally never an issue for anyone who graduated third grade.
Consolidating base attack and saves into proficiency bonus? That was a good idea.
Making it less bonus-focused? That was a good idea.
Dumbing down the game with narrativist bullshit? Bad idea.
Capping ability scores at 20 then having all the races giving +2s to two different things as well as a +2 every 4 levels? Bad idea.
Capping level at 20? Fucking bad idea.
Orcs with > 10 hit points? Shitty idea.
>>44987901
>martial classes that were interesting in play and capable of meaningfully contributing to combat
There were no martial classes in 4e. Only casters. Get that through your thick skull.
4e had a lot of nice ideas but it didn't solve the caster issue it just made maritals and casters work the exact same fucking way.
Stop congratulating retarded design.
>>44985671
Man I just want to play a centaur. Or an awakened cat that's really good at stealth and magic but can only wear a hat and a cloak and can't use wands or rods or other weapons. Or an octopus with eight ring slots. Or trolls as a hyper carnivorous clawed race.
Really I just want to play a lot of races only found in dungeon crawl games.
>>44995689
>There were no martial classes in 4e. Only casters. Get that through your thick skull.
You are mentally retarded, just like everyone else who says this. Sorry 3e gave you brain damage.
>>44988516
>4e as a whole was just a very neatly designed game.
It had shitloads of powers half of which were useless after level 1, all it did was make rangers viable and that was only by following the strictly-laid-out guidelines for assigning attributes. Overly linear game where you could barely play against type and feats were a useless afterthought for the most part.
You also started with ~20 times as many hit points as the average goblin or orc. It was set up like DOTA 2.
Also blabbablabba disscoiated mechanics. I actually agree with it but you'll just dismiss it with a reaction image because you can't actually refute how stupid it is for a football player to make an epic tackle then go "lol wow too bad he own't be able to do that again until tomorrow"
>>44989148
>That's another thing that gets me: the weird mimicking of 4e's surge mechanics with 5e's hit dice. It's like it totally missed the point of surges.
That's what they do, though. They have no fucking idea what they are designing, they just pick the parts that people said were good, kludge them into shit, then write a blog post about the game design theory behind their shitty decision.
>>44989217
>Almost as though D&D 5e was designed for "feel" over "coherent and sound mechanics." Weird.
So the job of mechanics is to touch your grognard fee-fees, rather than actually work competently? No wonder it's such a shit game.
>>44995749
Explain why then. Also I didn't even play 3e so nice strawman.
No I want you to explain why fighters were at all mechanically different from wizards in 4e
> inb4 "b-but, it was magic!"
>>44995812
I never said they were mechanically different from wizards (I mean, obviously they are, but not in the sense you mean it). If wizards just cast magic missile over and over again all day, would they be martials?
>>44995853
>If wizards just cast magic missile over and over again all day, would they be martials?
Effectively yes.
Please understand this from a design point of view; martials can do their shit infinitely per day, wizards can do it a set number of times.
You can change up this formula if you want, make wizards able to do cantrips at will. Actually, 4e had the best spellcasting system of ANY of the D&D editions because it broke from the fucktarded vancian magic system.
But adding fighters into that, and making martial fighting work like spells, is fucking idiotic. Stances would be one thing but that's not what this was, it was "you can swing your sword really cool but only once per day cause we said so"
It also made lower-tier powers useless after a certain level, just like regular spells. Not ALL of them, but most of them. So much of the game was focused on tracking -2s and +2s debuffs, as well as ongoing damage that was often forgotten.
Ongoing was a fucking spice in 3.5 not a staple mechanic for monsters.
And the maneuvers had shitloads of autistic bonuses tacked on.
Overall the game required a shit ton more bookkeeping unless your DM kept it all in his head.
4e had many good ideas but half of it was shit, like EVERY D&D edition so far including the new one. Once the game gets some competent designers it might get better, but that won't happen as long as D&D designers get tenure.
>>44995753
>you can't actually refute how stupid it is for a football player to make an epic tackle then go "lol wow too bad he own't be able to do that again until tomorrow"
Does the football player do an epic tackle every time he tackles people? No. He only does it rarely.
Now, you have two basic ways of simulating the simple fact that sometimes, rarely, a fighter can pull off awesome bullshit. Not every hit, but once in a while. Either a) it's random whether or not he can do it, or b) it's in the PC's control when he can do it. Obviously the former is just a lot less fun - and a lot less engaging - than the latter. It's an abstraction for the sake of fun; there are plenty of those in the game already.
>>44996008
>PC's
*player's
>>44995699
Are you referencing Stone Soup you motherfucker?
>>44996008
>Does the football player do an epic tackle every time he tackles people? No. He only does it rarely.
There is no set cooldown period for how long it takes him to make another epic tackle.
> Now, you have two basic ways of simulating the simple fact that sometimes, rarely, a fighter can pull off awesome bullshit. Not every hit, but once in a while. Either a) it's random whether or not he can do it, or b) it's in the PC's control when he can do it. Obviously the former is just a lot less fun - and a lot less engaging - than the latter. It's an abstraction for the sake of fun; there are plenty of those in the game already.
It results in retarded meta-game strategizing and makes the martial have to rest to do his cool shit again. Taking away one of his few advantages.
Also: abstractions are compromises, not benefits. Just because there are some doesn't mean it's a good idea to add more.
>>44996130
>It results in retarded meta-game strategizing and makes the martial have to rest to do his cool shit again. Taking away one of his few advantages.
It's not an "advantage" because parties constantly stop to rest every time the wizard runs out of spells. And they /should/ do that, generally, both from a mechanical point of view (it is optimal, players do optimal things), and from a meta perspective (it is not fun to just sit in the corner and twiddle your thumbs because you ran out of spells).
>>44996008
>Either a) it's random whether or not he can do it, or b) it's in the PC's control when he can do it
Also this false dichotomy is retarded.
There is nothing saying those are the only two options.
In fucking 3.5 even, I could cleave or power attack whenever I wanted. Or whirlwind attack. No one complained about that shit being overpowered. I didn't have to mark up my goddamn character sheet to do it, either.
Most of the powers were retarded shit anyway, or just a higher-damage version of a lower-level power. There were few if any cool maneuvers and most of them were templated making it look like one of those video games where the guy throws his shield in the air, jumps on top of the shield and throws 3 daggers, before getting back down and moving his turn on to the next autistic fuckhead's overly dramatic display of fake badassery.
It added more complexity to shit that didn't need complexity. Playing a martial was simpler and less boring in both 3.5 and AD&D as well as D&D 5e. Because you had to make actual choices, not decide which predetermined template to use.
>>44996160
>It's not an "advantage" because parties constantly stop to rest every time the wizard runs out of spells.
That's because lots of wizards were retarded and blew their loads casting high level spells in the first two combats. Another reason why at-wills were a good idea. For fighters? Not so much.
>>44996182
>In fucking 3.5 even, I could cleave or power attack whenever I wanted. Or whirlwind attack. No one complained about that shit being overpowered. I didn't have to mark up my goddamn character sheet to do it, either.
In that case, you do it all the time. So, actually, it's not relevant to my post. Go back one sentence from the one you quoted.
>>44995968
>Please understand this from a design point of view; martials can do their shit infinitely per day, wizards can do it a set number of times.
This is a stupid D&Dism with no basis in reality (or even genre fiction) whatsoever.
Do people fight all day, swinging their sword nonstop? No, fighting is fucking tiring. Do they do badass moves where they hamstring their opponents or decapitate them or shatter their shield or blind them with blood or whatever every move every fight? No, they can't always pull it off.
There is NO REASON to make it so fighters can do their shit infinitely every day. It's not more interesting, it's not more fun, it's not more realistic or representative of fantasy fiction.
>>44994041
sounds like warcraftwhere Im currently running a campaign
>>44985671
That dwarf looks a lot like my gf.
I'm a furry, so I scrap the usual racial setup in our 3.5/PF games in favor of different anthropomorphic animals. My group thought it was magical realm at first, but I'm the only competent DM in our immediate area, so everyone sort of dealt with it. It's a lot easier in my head to throw a group of 4 dog skirmishers and 3 cat archers with a deer chieftain than some traditional equivalent.
It's important you get rid of humans if you do this though, because shit gets ferngully otherwise, and no one wants that.
Everyone's pretty cool with it now. When you go off animal motifs using folklore/biology for inspiration, it's not too hard to get a feel for what's supposed to be what. Once you're used to it, you can expect to seek out rats for reliable shipwrights and sailors, know you're gonna run into cats not just in the local den of thieves, but also in high society parties, and a magic using goat is obviously a witch or shaman.
Gets rid of some of the cultural baggage certain fantasy races have accumulated too. My players hate elves for being the default "Better than you" race in most settings, but they don't immediately shut out any negotiations with the deer in the forest who would otherwise take the role of "forest dwelling community with higher affinity for magic and mysticism". Though, I'm sure they'll make new prejudices with time, cause the cervines might not have that "mary sue race" aftertaste the elves do, but they're still a bunch of uncooperative hippies who are in the way of things.
