Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)

[Corn Flakes]

This is a fun one. I don't care about CR or their new campaign but it's hilarious to see how much Kotaku is trying to find anything to bitch about, so they complain about the pre-game intro video because the group dressed up as Indiana Jones or something.

https://kotaku.com/critical-role-marquet-third-campaign-asian-cultures-col-1848500055

My favorite line: "This may seem like an overly cynical and bad-faith interpretation of what Critical Role is doing with this new campaign." Ya don't say?

Kotaku stretching hard to find something to complain about a white person creating an even remotely minority-inspired project?

Must be Tuesday already.

I disagree. Our monk is quite slippery. There's more to classes than maximum theoretical damage per turn. The high number of attacks also means they love potions that boost damage in some way. We're level 10 I think, so I'll have to see how they are late game.

I've had this happen with the 5e games I've been involved with. Someone plays a sub optimal race or class the internet claims is awful and it turns out fine.

It also depends on how the GM builds encounters. If every adventure is a sequence of straight damage races, sub-optimal choices become very obvious very quickly. If the GM likes to play with a bit more variety or nuance in the encounters and designs them with something for everybody in the party to do, it's a lot easier to make even an "underpowered" archetype feel valuable.

The weak character customisation is one thing I don't like about 5e. After level 3, there's not really any choices to make as your build is usually obvious, assuming it has any options at all.

My problem is that unless you have a character concept that slots exactly within an existing archetype, you have to talk to your GM and do a lot of hammering of square pegs into round holes to make it work.

For all my gripes with 3.5e's overabundance of prestige classes, at least the base classes were generic enough that with the right choice of feats, classes and spells you could make almost any concept work reasonably well. In 5e you're so tightly locked into your archetype and its progression it's stifling.

 

[BlazikenLover]

In fairness, balance in general starts falling apart around level 10-12 in 5e. After level 14 you might as well just give up trying to find balanced shit and just homebrew/houserule buffs to the players' underpowered classes/archetypes as they come up.

If I recall, a big reason for that is that playtests were primarily done in levels 1 to 5, with 6-11 getting less attention and anything further being an afterthought. That may also be a factor on why so many published adventures cover those levels.

I do provide buffs, mainly to warlocks since thematically are one of my favourite races.
Speaking of homebrew stuff, I always struggle to give my full casters cool shit since they already get plenty of neat spells. Guess i will have to start giving them custonized or homebrew spells

 

[Adamska]

I agree, but I can see it going the rout of many incremental editions. I forget what game tried this (I think it was 40k?) and it has good and bad sides. The most obvious downside is they can keep re-releasing old content forever.

The upside for WotC is that consoomer bugmen will consoom, and people who complain on the internet will buy every new edition just to be mad at them. For people that actually play the game, it gives a simple common point for everybody to go to without having to need a dozen expansions and homebrew.

What's wrong with monk? We have one in our current campaign party and they're kicking arse.

40k didn't do that; they did something far awful: Release updates and only apply them to the most profitable of the factions that they made models for. They did this with Sororitas, and they did it with shit like the Dark Eldar too. You picked the wrong army? Well tough titties, you had to cope with it and field a new one due to how the rules changed.

They were equally and just as guilty as doing this with Fantasy and it was truly terrible. Fielded a Bretonnian army? Well fuck you you didn't get an update since 6th edition, ie when the two minds behind the nation ditched the company and GeeDubz didn't fucking bother to replace it.

Also re-releasing isn't exactly a negative, given that this was how you could play a variety of very old classic modules. If it's just that they don't release a new edition, so what? 3.5 lasted forever and honestly a lot of the later splats started to balance stuff just a little bit better, especially since one of the last books for it introduced initiators and maneuvers, which gave martials something that let them partially narrow the gap between them and casters.

Also I again don't think people buy books super often outside of kickstarter scams, but they do pirate and brag about them.

And monk slaps in 5e; there's a couple of paths that sucked for them, but they were great at neutralizing single targets. I played one back when I still cared for the system. Stopped caring because they're forcing worse and worse ideas and mechanics into the game, but still, the base Player's Handbook, the initial run was good.

 

[Ghostse]

This is a fun one. I don't care about CR or their new campaign but it's hilarious to see how much Kotaku is trying to find anything to bitch about, so they complain about the pre-game intro video because the group dressed up as Indiana Jones or something.

https://kotaku.com/critical-role-marquet-third-campaign-asian-cultures-col-1848500055

My favorite line: "This may seem like an overly cynical and bad-faith interpretation of what Critical Role is doing with this new campaign." Ya don't say?

Counter point to that article:
People in that region have done fuck-all to both preserving their precious hertiage. From just bog-standard looters, to religious crazies trying to bring about year zero, to just mundance incompetence

https://newspunch.com/cairo-museum-breaks-king-tuts-beard-and-super-glues-it-back-on/

The anglo museums should have taken everything and never returned a stone.

3.5 lasted forever

I have some bad news for you and the rose-colored glasses.
D&D 3.5 was only the official edition for around for 5 years: 2003 to 2008. If you want to include 3.0, that's 8 years. It just feels like it was around forever, because there were still 3rd party splats, especially with Paizo/Pathfinder releasing what was effectively 3.5 material until PF2e in 2018 or 2019. (and if you'd have asked me before I had educate myself a while back, I would have sworn 3e was released in the 90s). It also feels longer because of how fast the switch from 4e happened once Wizards dropped support because unlike the 3.5 SRD, the 4e SRD is a worthless design document.

D&D 5e has been around as long 3+3.5 was actively developed.

 

[Corn Flakes]

I have some bad news for you and the rose-colored glasses.
D&D 3.5 was only the official edition for around for 5 years: 2003 to 2008. If you want to include 3.0, that's 8 years. It just feels like it was around forever, because there were still 3rd party splats, especially with Paizo/Pathfinder releasing what was effectively 3.5 material until PF2e in 2018 or 2019. (and if you'd have asked me before I had educate myself a while back, I would have sworn 3e was released in the 90s)
D&D 5e has been around as long 3+3.5 has.

For a lot of people 3.5e lasted until 5e. Just because no new splats were being released, doesn't mean people stopped playing it. 4e did not grab most 3.5e players, but 5e managed to pull a lot of people back when it was released.

 

[Fagnacious D]

5.5e is functionally 5e+Xanathar's Guide to Everything+Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. They said it as such, a bunch of rules from Tasha's (including the Featureless Blob racial features) will be the default rules for upcoming splats.

At this point just make Human the only playable race.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Also re-releasing isn't exactly a negative, given that this was how you could play a variety of very old classic modules.

It's one thing to re-release old modules, either as is or updated to the new rules. It's entirely another when that's all it is.

"New release! It's Tomb of Horrors ... again."
"Next month! It's Ravenloft, plus another one. Also some of it isn't like the original module and that makes people on the internet shit their pants in rage."

3.5 lasted forever and honestly a lot of the later splats started to balance stuff just a little bit better,

That's a problem though. Even with 5e we get problems with there being bunch of different Ranger revisions. People wanting to play but only if this book is included, or we don't use that book.

Also I again don't think people buy books super often outside of kickstarter scams, but they do pirate and brag about them.

When I see people who buy board games and RPGs, then tend a wall covered in games and books they've never played.

 

[Adamska]

I have some bad news for you and the rose-colored glasses.
D&D 3.5 was only the official edition for around for 5 years: 2003 to 2008. If you want to include 3.0, that's 8 years. It just feels like it was around forever, because there were still 3rd party splats, especially with Paizo/Pathfinder releasing what was effectively 3.5 material until PF2e in 2018 or 2019. (and if you'd have asked me before I had educate myself a while back, I would have sworn 3e was released in the 90s). It also feels longer because of how fast the switch from 4e happened once Wizards dropped support because unlike the 3.5 SRD, the 4e SRD is a worthless design document.

D&D 5e has been around as long 3+3.5 was actively developed.

No it feels forever because that's the version I got to play, despite 4e being a thing and my very first PCs being for that edition; I never could find a group that played 4e. On the other hand I easily found 3.5 or Pathfinder players, and it was only when 5e came out that it really changed.

It also helps it had a shitload of splats that actually are good, so the opposite of 5e in that regard.

It's one thing to re-release old modules, either as is or updated to the new rules. It's entirely another when that's all it is.

"New release! It's Tomb of Horrors ... again."
"Next month! It's Ravenloft, plus another one. Also some of it isn't like the original module and that makes people on the internet shit their pants in rage."

No they do release new modules... they just really fucking suck. Like the terrible high school prom one.

That's a problem though. Even with 5e we get problems with there being bunch of different Ranger revisions. People wanting to play but only if this book is included, or we don't use that book.

The basic classes from the PHB never really changed. It's just they got new feats or spells that you could use if you had the book.

 

[Judge Dredd]

No they do release new modules... they just really fucking suck. Like the terrible high school prom one.

Yes, but I'm talking about if they go for incremental updates.

Lets say releasing a new edition every 2 years. I can easily see wizards leaning on the same popular adventures over and over and over again with minor changes each time. Doing new stuff even less than they do now. By the time all the classics are remade, it'll be time for the new edition.

 

[Dr. Pasquale]

This is a fun one. I don't care about CR or their new campaign but it's hilarious to see how much Kotaku is trying to find anything to bitch about, so they complain about the pre-game intro video because the group dressed up as Indiana Jones or something.

https://kotaku.com/critical-role-marquet-third-campaign-asian-cultures-col-1848500055

My favorite line: "This may seem like an overly cynical and bad-faith interpretation of what Critical Role is doing with this new campaign." Ya don't say?

This has been talked about to death in the critical role thread, but they have made their own bed.

Twitter pandering has completely removed any edge their campaigns had and now every Critical Role episode is composed of mostly boring inoffensive tavern roleplaying. Every questgiver NPC they meet is a pseudo-marxist type trying to get rid of the city's corruption to distribute the wealth or some shit. Most of their fights have been against fucking living furniture. There's also no risk of any PC ever dying (unless its in the plans) because of fans suicide baiting over a characters death in C2, so now they have 1 fight per long rest and they're always 8v1. The Arabian setting has no Arabia in it at all, all the maps are just more fake european shit.

 

[BlazikenLover]

I disagree. Our monk is quite slippery. There's more to classes than maximum theoretical damage per turn. The high number of attacks also means they love potions that boost damage in some way. We're level 10 I think, so I'll have to see how they are late game.

I've had this happen with the 5e games I've been involved with. Someone plays a sub optimal race or class the internet claims is awful and it turns out fine.


The weak character customisation is one thing I don't like about 5e. After level 3, there's not really any choices to make as your build is usually obvious, assuming it has any options at all.


Wtf I love critical role now. (Seriously, fuck Kotaku.)

Oh you are right about that, monks are stupidly mobile. They can run on walls and water, so lets say there is a pit full of crocodiles or sharks inside a dungeon, you could simply wallrun and do some acrobatics to bypass it or zoom past them before they can even react.
I maintain my stance though, archetypes are often the issue, you got some that build on top of the base class (like open hand) then others which simply don't (way of the four elements). The rest are alright but beats me why wotc nerfed some of them from UA to release (except the healing archetype, they somehow made it better I heard).
Personally I am unhappy with kensei because kensei weapon is so damn limited and with tasha's new optional feature letting you choose a weapon you are proficient with as a monl weapon, the class loses a lot of its appeal. Should have added polearms as an exception to the restriction, I don't know why they restricted kensei weapons so much, is not like dexterity greatswords were going to break anything.
Sunsoul is another archetype I apply a few houserules to when I DM.

 

[anti SJW]

Rogue: Shit, I just can't pick this lock.

Bard: Why not let the monk try?

Monk: I do not know the art of lockpicking.

Bard: Nah, but you've got the ki.

 

[Jet Fuel Johnny]

Rogue: Shit, I just can't pick this lock.

Bard: Why not let the monk try?

Monk: I do not know the art of lockpicking.

Bard: Nah, but you've got the ki.

 

[PaladinBoo]

This is a fun one. I don't care about CR or their new campaign but it's hilarious to see how much Kotaku is trying to find anything to bitch about, so they complain about the pre-game intro video because the group dressed up as Indiana Jones or something.

https://kotaku.com/critical-role-marquet-third-campaign-asian-cultures-col-1848500055

My favorite line: "This may seem like an overly cynical and bad-faith interpretation of what Critical Role is doing with this new campaign." Ya don't say?

A wise man once said; "You get what you fucking deserve!"
I have no sympathy for Critical Role in the same way that I had no sympathy towards the creators of Steven Universe and Hazbin Hotel when the Twitter tranny mob went after them. Just like the two other franchises I mentioned, Mercer and his crew cultivated this audience. Even as going as so far as to tell people that if they don't like Social Justice politics in TTRPG's then they don't want them as a fan. Now the Twitter tranny mob has turned on them because they are middle age rich white people. No matter how much you pander and donate to the Twitter woke crowd it will never be good enough for these people. The Left always eats their own.

Also, ignore Jeff Gerstmann as he is a retarded sperg who has a hate boner for me and is proceeding to down vote all my post because he hates what I say about Critical Role.

 

[Snekposter]

is not like dexterity greatswords were going to break anything.

You say that, but a buddy's Japan-themed campaign had greatswords get Finesse by default. I wound up naming my Fighter Raiden because even before the game started I was expecting him to be capable of going through his enemies like a Slap Chop through veggies. And our first combat was even more limb-severing than I had anticipated. Granted there's a lot of downsides to a Kensei (like being a Monk archetype), but even so the question "Will they blend?" is largely rhetorical.

 

[Bob's Fries]

What the fuck is up with Suptg? I try to go there and it looks like it has some Insecure Connection?

 

[ZMOT]

What the fuck is up with Suptg? I try to go there and it looks like it has some Insecure Connection?

certificate issue:

Websites prove their identity via certificates. Waterfox does not trust this site because it uses a certificate that is not valid for thisisnotatrueending.com. The certificate is only valid for lws.thisisnotatrueending.com.

Error code: SSL_ERROR_BAD_CERT_DOMAIN

 

[Wormy]

Even as going as so far as to tell people that if they don't like Social Justice politics in TTRPG's then they don't want them as a fan.

As if I didn't have enough reasons to ban mention of them at my table....

Now the Twitter tranny mob has turned on them because they are middle age rich white people. No matter how much you pander and donate to the Twitter woke crowd it will never be good enough for these people. The Left always eats their own.

As a leftist, can confirm. You cannot be pure enough for wokescolds no matter what you do, so I don't even bother trying.

Bard: Nah, but you've got the ki.

"May your only son become a fan of High Guardian Spice."

 

[Bob's Fries]

certificate issue:

So is it safe to go on there or what? I'm not exactly tech savvy.

 

[ZMOT]

So is it safe to go on there or what? I'm not exactly tech savvy.

unless there are some weird hosting shenanigans (possible but unlikely) it should be fine, you can see the 2 domains are still the same, and it's only an archive site. if it shows up on a site that wants a login from you I'd be very suspicious.

just in case you can always open it with an up2date browser that runs umatrix (always good to have anyway)