Tabletop Games Thread

[Ratman]

human fighter is the most common player character.

The world would be a brighter place if that was the case rather than Tiefling Paladin/Bard.

It's the ideal blank slate upon which the player can reflect themselves. Only if there's nothing to reflect do you end up with the 'boring' you might expect. Until you can write and perform a human fighter as an interesting character then you can neither write nor perform. The inability to resolve problems with spells or skill checks will force you to either take agency and try to actually resolve them as you would, you know, a problem, or effectively not exist outside of combat if you don't. Great litmus test of players all in all.

The real problem is it’s TOO GOOD at the things it specializes at, so much so that it basically removes that element from the game... which sucks if that’s the reason you picked ranger. Imagine picking fighter because you love combat but the fighter ability automatically skips all combats as wins. Now the game loses the thing you picked the class to enjoy.

I understand completely what you mean, actually. And that's a GM issue, but you can easily make an argument that the book just gives you nothing to work with and you have to homebrew a system for tracking results. It's also a side-effect of 5e refusing to give you flavor in descriptions, so priests basically are wizards etc.

[Zork Knight]

The inability to resolve problems with spells or skill checks will force you to either take agency and try to actually resolve them as you would, you know, a problem, or effectively not exist outside of combat if you don't.

But what if I turn those problems into a combat?

Yes, I failed the litmus test.

[Ratman]

I want to find the guy who wrote primeval awareness and ask him what he meant by this. As written it's around the power level of ninth circle divination spell. Completely retardedly overpowered and campaign-breaking unless GM nerfs your character by making it not do what it's supposed to do.

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But what if I turn those problems into a combat?

Yes, I failed the litmus test.

It's stuff that's as simple as tying a rock to a rope and checking how deep a hole is before casting feather fall. If everyone has their entire sheet of stuff they can do to read through most of which they don't very well remember, they often end up doing something stupid, like featherfalling down onto the spikes.

[Mattias]

In those situations you just have to go bigger. Beasts too easy? Hunt dragons. Zombies a cake walk? Find yourself a Lich as an archenemy.

[mAc Chaos]

The world would be a brighter place if that was the case rather than Tiefling Paladin/Bard.

It's the ideal blank slate upon which the player can reflect themselves. Only if there's nothing to reflect do you end up with the 'boring' you might expect. Until you can write and perform a human fighter as an interesting character then you can neither write nor perform. The inability to resolve problems with spells or skill checks will force you to either take agency and try to actually resolve them as you would, you know, a problem, or effectively not exist outside of combat if you don't. Great litmus test of players all in all.



I understand completely what you mean, actually. And that's a GM issue, but you can easily make an argument that the book just gives you nothing to work with and you have to homebrew a system for tracking results. It's also a side-effect of 5e refusing to give you flavor in descriptions, so priests basically are wizards etc.

Agreed on all counts! Human Champion fighter is the pinnacle rp build.

[Saiga]

RP wise Human Fighters are fine. It's just that (5e wise) mechanically they're horribly boring.

It amused me that session 4 of my latest campaign had the Fighter ask if he'd get more choices and varied abilities as he levelled up and then realized how crap it was that that wasn't the case for non-spellcasters. All newbies must pass through the fire!

New players are not going to understand that mechanically, which is probably why human fighter is so popular. That and the data WOTC use is from an extremely poor sample size.

[SpoonyViking]

The ranger is fine power wise. [...]

The real problem is it’s TOO GOOD at the things it specializes at, so much so that it basically removes that element from the game... [...]

Well, that's a pretty huge design flaw right there. But no, the Ranger isn't even close to being on the same level as the other martials in terms of power; most of its abilities are situational*, and those that aren't (such as Fighting Style and Spellcasting), other classes can also do the same things just as well, or even better.

* And often just plain silly as well, like Hide in Plain Sight. Yay, you can do - well, something which pretty much anyone should be able to do! At least you do get a +10 to Stealth - as long as you stay absolutely still, and you need to spend one full minute doing nothing else to get even that much! Meanwhile, the Rogue is probably rolling at least +13 for Stealth at that level and needs only a bonus action to Hide (with a minimum result of 23 with just one level more), and the spellcasters had access to Invisibility something like 7 levels ago.

I want to find the guy who wrote primeval awareness and ask him what he meant by this. As written it's around the power level of ninth circle divination spell. Completely retardedly overpowered and campaign-breaking unless GM nerfs your character by making it not do what it's supposed to do.

Eh. I used to think so, too, but now I think the opposite: the GM actually has to abstract away *a lot* of stuff to make the ability work. See, it lets the Ranger sense the presence of certain types of creatures, but not their numbers or location, which means the Ranger still has to search for them the old-fashioned way. The thing is, 1 mile is actually quite a bit of ground to cover when searching for something, particularly something which may not be easily detectable, and particularly something which is probably mobile - and we're not even taking into account any difficulties inherent to the terrain! Unless the GM abstracts it to a die roll of some sort, in practical terms, the Ranger will be using one of their few spell slots for precious little useful information.

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RP wise Human Fighters are fine. It's just that (5e wise) mechanically they're horribly boring.

Battle Master! Though it IS a shame that in the standard rules they don't recover their Superiority Dice every combat.

[Mattias]

and we're not even taking into account any difficulties inherent to the terrain!

Not for a Ranger. Rough terrain is a thing of the past for them and their party. And all their recon skills do actually give the numbers direction and general distance.

Against favoured enemies, Rangers are basically the Doomslayer.


That actually sounds like a fun build. Ranger focused on monstrosities and fiends, with close quarter arrow proficency.

[Saiga]

Favoured Enemy does literally nothing to make you good at FIGHTING that enemy, unless you're talking about Revised. They're only the Doomslayer if it's when he's locked in his coffin and can't do shit.

[mAc Chaos]

just take monster slayer subclass, boom

[Mattias]

Favoured Enemy does literally nothing to make you good at FIGHTING that enemy, unless you're talking about Revised. They're only the Doomslayer if it's when he's locked in his coffin and can't do shit.

It got revised? So all the stuff about added raw damage to favoured enemy stuff is a patched buff? Damn. I tend to use the hard copy materials when I'm browsing around making a new character and then shift to online stuff when I'm actually looking up skills, spells and specializations so I never noticed. I just assumed it was something I skimmed over previously, though it not being there would explain why I never paid it much attention.

[SpoonyViking]

The Revised Ranger wasn't released in an official manner. It's akin to the playtest versions they release in Unearthed Arcana.

Not for a Ranger. Rough terrain is a thing of the past for them and their party. And all their recon skills do actually give the numbers direction and general distance.

See, this is where I said the GM needs to abstract a lot of stuff to make the feature work. I'm not talking about just difficult terrain, I'm talking about all the possible natural features which can passively hinder the search - such as needing to go around a mountain, or a piranha-infested river, or something of the sort. Their recon skills also only work if there are any tracks to follow in the first place, but until the Ranger actually finds such tracks*, the creature may have just moved out of Primeval Awareness' range (or its duration may just run out - it's pretty short, all in all!).

* Assuming there even are any such in the first place, considering the possible abilities of the creatures that are detected by PA.

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just take monster slayer subclass, boom

Eh, +1d6 damage per turn against a single foe is nice (at the cost of a Bonus Action, so that's one round in which you can't use Two-Weapon Fighting or cast Hunter's Mark), but it's nothing to write home about. The Monster Slayer has nice defensive features, but its offensive abilities aren't anything spectacular.

[Saiga]

It got revised? So all the stuff about added raw damage to favoured enemy stuff is a patched buff? Damn. I tend to use the hard copy materials when I'm browsing around making a new character and then shift to online stuff when I'm actually looking up skills, spells and specializations so I never noticed. I just assumed it was something I skimmed over previously, though it not being there would explain why I never paid it much attention.

Yeah, it got a revision in 2016 - but that revision only improved the damage output and action economy of Beastmaster (the second of which was sorely needed), while doing nothing for the identity issues or lack of exploration pillar in the game. They've since announced that they have abandoned the idea of the revised ranger. Instead, they introduced deliberate power creep in the new subclasses released to try and improve the Ranger that way, and are currently experimenting with "Variant Class Features" that, in the Ranger's case, are significant power upgrades.

Given that WOTC had a strong policy against patching/fixing weak content, the fact that they have outright addressed the Ranger's weakness and are trying multiple avenues of improving it show just how underwhelming the Ranger is.

[LegalLoliLover]

And that's why the only response to noobs who complain about being "excluded" is.

I would rather exclude others than let others exclude me.

[Mattias]

I would rather exclude others than let others exclude me.

So basically taking your ball and going home because someone hurt your feelings?

[Twelveseal]

Eh. Ignore the haters, play what you want, and if they kill the OG, well, there's 3rd party and your own imagination.

Also, WotC needs to get over that "we break it, you buy it," no-fix policy already. It's a base element of the core game here.

[LegalLoliLover]

So basically taking your ball and going home because someone hurt your feelings?

If you want to play the game, follow its rules and lore, and spare me your pity seduction just because some aspects offend you. You know that term "when in Rome, do as the Romans do"? Well, for those who don't, we have the crucifix (and not just because of kinky crucifixion fetish, which I can personally confirm is totally a thing). Read my response to that Tweet. We need more genocidal avengers as heroes, not less. And not just towards "monster" races, like Goblin Slayer is to goblins or [whatever] Belmont is to vampires. https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Pelinal_Whitestrake Pelinal Whitestrake is a bipolar sociopath. https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Wuuthrad And Ysgramor's ax is literally made of solidified elf hate. I would not say that Darth Vader's attitude towards Tusken Raiders is not cruel enough, but rather he needs to be more methodical and efficient, rather than impulsive and sloppy:

[mAc Chaos]

You play D&D too, lvl?

[LegalLoliLover]

Back in my Boy Scout days. Though, admittedly, I was too young to know if it was D&D in its "purest" form, or if the dungeon master customized some things. Heck, I even made my own character sheets for both player characters and enemies. Needless to say, they were all based on other media. I specifically remember making a Cao Cao, whom I accidentally spelled Tsao Tsao, because I was unaware of writing pinyin in English at the time. IIRC, my first player character was a black mage based on Mummies Alive's Scarab. My attempts to get a serpent-style staff to complete the look kept getting interrupted, but it was fun harassing constables. Don't ask me the stat details, given that was a very long time ago.

[Bloble]

If you want to play the game, follow its rules and lore, and spare me your pity seduction just because some aspects offend you.

Look, mate, I hate ignorant people meddling in shit they don't understand as much as the next sane person, but rule 0 of every tabletop game is that all the rules are just guidelines you can change to your liking. And like hell am I gonna give a single crap about D&D lore unless it's literally in a game I'm playing. Most people who play the game don't care about it at all, and they shouldn't have to.