D&D V6 - Edition jokes don't really make sense anymore - Games

[QUOTE=Vengeful Falcon;51367402]What does adding the chance of doing it add to the gameplay in anyway? It's punishing someone for rolling well on damage. It's like sniggering and saying because someone rolled a nat 20 on an intimidation check the person had a heart attack that you were trying to question.[/QUOTE] It's pretty simple stuff. If you're trying to take someone alive, you're not going to throw everything you've got at them. Would you apply the same complaint if, in a modern setting, someone was punished by being unable to capture someone alive if they used a rocket launcher for it? What about using a disintegrate spell to capture someone in D&D? Less lethal weapons like clubs and knives are less likely to kill your target, so if you're trying to capture someone alive it makes sense to bring a less damaging approach. Rolling high on damage means your attack inflicted a lot of damage. That's generally a good thing, but unlike a d20 roll it's not a "you did a good attack" roll, it's a "you did high damage" roll.

[QUOTE=Glent;51367424]Would you apply the same complaint if, in a modern setting, someone was punished by being unable to capture someone alive if they used a rocket launcher for it? What about using a disintegrate spell to capture someone in D&D? Less lethal weapons like clubs and knives are less likely to kill your target, so if you're trying to capture someone alive it makes sense to bring a less damaging approach. [/QUOTE] You can't pull the attack if its a rocket launcher or spell made of fire. If a paladin with a flaming sword hits a dude, it's going to do lethal damage. If a player wanted to shoot someone in the foot with a pistol to intimidate them, and rolled mad damage I wouldn't make their foot explode and have them instantly die. Because that wouldn't be fun. If a player manages to get a hit through on an opponent with the intent of it being non-lethal, then they're going to pull the hit. It may hurt like shit, maybe even kill them without adequate medical attention but killing them outright just feels like you're pissing in a player's face. If a GM really doesn't want people non-lethally taking people down without making it more difficult, they should work out a penalty for making non-lethal attacks rather than just having a chance for the player to crit and splatter their target's brains over the place. Even if that chance is small. It honestly just adds a possibility to piss people off and provide nothing meaningful or interesting.

[QUOTE=Vengeful Falcon;51367450]You can't pull the attack if its a rocket launcher or spell made of fire. If a paladin with a flaming sword hits a dude, it's going to do lethal damage. [B]If a player wanted to shoot someone in the foot with a pistol to intimidate them, and rolled mad damage I wouldn't make their foot explode and have them instantly die. Because that wouldn't be fun. [/B] If a player manages to get a hit through on an opponent with the intent of it being non-lethal, then they're going to pull the hit. It may hurt like shit, maybe even kill them without adequate medical attention but killing them outright just feels like you're pissing in a player's face. If a GM really doesn't want people non-lethally taking people down without making it more difficult, they should work out a penalty for making non-lethal attacks rather than just having a chance for the player to crit and splatter their target's brains over the place. Even if that chance is small. It honestly just adds a possibility to piss people off and provide nothing meaningful or interesting.[/QUOTE] That would be a specific called shot though, not a straightforward attack. Many systems have rules for doing exactly that. A damage roll isn't a success roll. Rolling highly on it doesn't have to be a good thing. Knocking people out without injuring them isn't as easy as just proclaiming your attacks are magical and can't cause lasting wounds.

[QUOTE=Mellowbloom;51367507]That would be a specific called shot though, not a straightforward attack. Many systems have rules for doing exactly that. A damage roll isn't a success roll. Rolling highly on it doesn't have to be a good thing. Knocking people out without injuring them isn't as easy as just proclaiming your attacks are magical and can't cause lasting wounds.[/QUOTE] Hitting a dude with the flat of your sword will not instantly kill the dude unless you attempt to nonlethally brain him like a complete incompetent. And the problem with simulating stuff unneccesarily in D&D is that its not a system designed for simulating things with any degree of realism. So why punish players for something that they have no control over, and adds nothing to the actual gameplay? If you deal lethal damage and you want to get simulationist about it, then surely not all lethal attacks should deal full lethal damage since armor, bones etc would get in the way of the instant kill. Other systems are designed with this shit in mind, but D&D is not one of them. Like I said, putting penalties on using lethal weapons non-lethally (like other editions have done) would be a better solution if you really wanted to add that layer. Especially considering that a nat 20 on an attack roll (i.e. what should be a complete success in the given task) is the thing that is most likely to kill a target instead of knocking them out because of a crit (i.e. failing what you want to do).

[QUOTE=Mellowbloom;51367507]That would be a specific called shot though, not a straightforward attack. Many systems have rules for doing exactly that. A damage roll isn't a success roll. Rolling highly on it doesn't have to be a good thing. Knocking people out without injuring them isn't as easy as just proclaiming your attacks are magical and can't cause lasting wounds.[/QUOTE] Punishing your players for rolling high is never a good idea. Punishing them for not going out of their way to get a new weapon specifically for a single quest, in D&D, isn't a good idea, either. The only game I could see that being a good idea is a Shadowrun game, where you've already got them planning out the job before they actually do it. Just fucking let them take someone down non-lethally. Use Pathfinder's rules if you have to, where they get a -2 to the attack to represent pulling the blow. Even if they crit, their attack shouldn't kill the target immediately, because they specifically chose to make a non-lethal attack. Sure, it might nick an artery, and you can add to the drama by making them have to stop the bleeding, but don't outright kill the NPC they wanted to keep alive just because they rolled well. That's the exact [I]opposite[/I] of what a good roll should do.

[QUOTE=Rats808;51367596]Punishing your players for rolling high is never a good idea. Punishing them for not going out of their way to get a new weapon specifically for a single quest, in D&D, isn't a good idea, either. The only game I could see that being a good idea is a Shadowrun game, where you've already got them planning out the job before they actually do it. Just fucking let them take someone down non-lethally. Use Pathfinder's rules if you have to, where they get a -2 to the attack to represent pulling the blow. Even if they crit, their attack shouldn't kill the target immediately, because they specifically chose to make a non-lethal attack. Sure, it might nick an artery, and you can add to the drama by making them have to stop the bleeding, but don't outright kill the NPC they wanted to keep alive just because they rolled well. That's the exact [I]opposite[/I] of what a good roll should do.[/QUOTE] For not going out of their way to get a weapon? Everyone has two fists and access to a literal world full of things to hit people with that aren't the same thing they use to dismember people anyway, literally all of this is moot because I am now reminded that in pathfinder non-lethal damage isn't real damage and thus massive damage is irrelevant, and in 5e non-lethal damage doesn't exist and massive damage is only for pc's

Anyone know where I can find topdown tokens that don't look like cgi shit? Something in this style is more prefered (ignore the weird smoothiness to it I had to upscale it from a low res picture) [t]http://i.imgur.com/1It1vzI.png[/t]

[QUOTE=Vengeful Falcon;51367579]Hitting a dude with the flat of your sword will not instantly kill the dude unless you attempt to nonlethally brain him like a complete incompetent. And the problem with simulating stuff unneccesarily in D&D is that its not a system designed for simulating things with any degree of realism. So why punish players for something that they have no control over, and adds nothing to the actual gameplay? If you deal lethal damage and you want to get simulationist about it, then surely not all lethal attacks should deal full lethal damage since armor, bones etc would get in the way of the instant kill. Other systems are designed with this shit in mind, but D&D is not one of them. Like I said, putting penalties on using lethal weapons non-lethally (like other editions have done) would be a better solution if you really wanted to add that layer. Especially considering that a nat 20 on an attack roll (i.e. what should be a complete success in the given task) is the thing that is most likely to kill a target instead of knocking them out because of a crit (i.e. failing what you want to do).[/QUOTE] Hitting someone with the flat of your sword in this case would be an improvised attack. It'd do less damage than a proper attack (about 1d4 damage), so it's almost certainly not going to kill the target. The increased difficulty is represented by the fact that you aren't proficient with it (so you don't get your proficiency bonus) - unless you are (such as by having the tavern brawler feat), in which case that's fine since it's an unusual benefit your character possesses. It's not a matter of simulationism. The damage roll isn't a test (like a d20 check) to determine if you succeed or pass, it's a dice roll you make to determine how much damage something deals. Armor is considered in the to-hit portion of an attack roll. Natural toughness is determined by somebody's Constitution bonus to their hit points, the higher that being also making it less likely that they'll die outright to any given attack. If we wanted to simulate the effects of the wound in detail, we'd probably use a different system - in D&D it's enough to know that more damage = more damage.

I've rolled a Aasimar Paladin, who is following the Oath of Devotion path and worships Bahamut. I've told myself I ain't gonna be a stick-in-the-mud type of Paladin who ruins the enjoyment of the session for everyone else by constantly countering anything violent or bad people wanna do. Instead, I told the group if they do shit that my character doesn't agree with, he'll be unhappy and shake his head but he won't intervene as "everyone must follow their own path". So far it's going well. I'm a bit gutted I picked Pally tbh, I really wanted to be Barbarian but we already had one in the group and I figured it'd be better to have diversity. My first and only fight consisted of me being a shit Pally though. I kept rolling 1's and attacking teammates instead, but I followed my Oath really well (in the eyes of my DM) by letting my teammates attack me out of frustration. One guy who I almost killed attacked me and I blocked it because my AC was high, but then I said "Nah, I'm gonna stand down and move aside my shield so little Monk can have his satisfaction. It's only fair since I hurt him, albeit accidentally". So he attacked me again and hit for 6 damage, but everyone in the group thought it was pretty badass I was sticking to my oaths. That being said, playing in a 9-person group can be shit at times. It's so large that the DM has trouble keeping everyone interested and people inevitably break down into small talk between each other and it can make the going really, really slow. Especially fights, where you can be waiting 5 minutes before you get to do shit. [editline]14th November 2016[/editline] Just posting my experience, been having a tonne of fun and I look forward to the group's Wednesday session. Over Christmas break, I'd love to get in on Roll20 with some FPers or whoever. [editline]14th November 2016[/editline] [B]For anyone thinking of playing D&D for the first time but think it'd be too nerdy:[/B] it depends entirely on your group. I joined my uni's D&D group and I spent a good 40 mins moving from table to table until I found one that didn't consist of dudes who couldn't make eye contact when they spoke to you. A safe tip is to pick tables that have both guys and girls in, as the girls tend to scare away the super socially awkward people.

[QUOTE=Glent;51367687]It's not a matter of simulationism. The damage roll isn't a test (like a d20 check) to determine if you succeed or pass, it's a dice roll you make to determine how much damage something deals. Armor is considered in the to-hit portion of an attack roll. Natural toughness is determined by somebody's Constitution bonus to their hit points, the higher that being also making it less likely that they'll die outright to any given attack. If we wanted to simulate the effects of the wound in detail, we'd probably use a different system - in D&D it's enough to know that more damage = more damage.[/QUOTE] It doesn't FEEL good to get punished for rolling well, a nat 20 roll with a sword with the intent of being nonlethal would imply the attacker was successful and in control of where they placed their sword. I would actually be hoping I don't roll a 20 if I wanted to knock a dude out, since otherwise I'd have a really low chance of killing them. And there's nothing in the rules about nonlethal damage with lethal attacks being improvised. And that would also make a steel sword the same amount of damage as a wooden table leg, and slapping somebody instead of slashing them doesn't suddenly make you fumble everywhere with it. Using the flat of the sword would also have tactical uses, so pretending its somehow an original and improvised way to use a lump of sharp steel is kind of silly. Same with things like pommel hits etc. The rules dictate that reducing an opponent to 0 hp with nonlethal damage (declared before, or after the attack is made) the creatures 'falls unconscious and is stable'. So both mechanically, and in the interests of fun I'd say that unless you're in some crazy specific situation or you really want to start homebrewing things to stop everyone just nonlethalling everything then nonlethal damage should always be nonlethal.

[QUOTE=elowin;51365406]And now it's a frankly unusable magic item that takes precious limited resources and either wastes them or straight up backfires.[/QUOTE] When did you become such a power gamer?

[QUOTE=elowin;51366635]5th edition? Sure don't remember nothing like this from 2 or 3e. So now every attack from anything large ought to be instant death, lmao. What a stupid rule.[/QUOTE] You think all rules are stupid though.

My Shadowrun group is pissing me off (not the one I play with some of you guys), most of the team are simply just terrible despite IC and OOC advice from me, the GM and the guy playing the mage, Our sniper has no concept of overwatch, ranges, fire support, etc unless you point it out to them and ends up beside me ~10m from the enemy and getting shot to bits because her armour and dodge sucks, the melee/infiltrator adept has the opposite problem, they refuse to get into melee range and instead use a crossbow they have 10 dice with that does 7 damage even through they do 9P and roll 15+ dice with their elemental weapon focus katana. The decker is just completely incapable in combat which is kinda expected as a decker, but also not great at decking, the character themselves is well built but the player has terrible judgement of what's useful to hack and what's just going to attract attention, he's managed to get caught literally every single time he's tried to hack things, either by failing rolls and people getting suspicious, and once by not checking his overwatch score and having grid overwatch nearly brick his deck and dumped him. AND he has 2 charisma and no social skills but keeps trying to help with interrogations and negotiations that the mage or adept already had under control and totally fucking it up so that we end up having to shoot people or use control thoughts, thankfully the GM seems to have caught onto that and is making him roll when he butts in. The mage keeps getting wrecked too but that's mostly due to bad luck and not enough pressure on the enemy since me and my drones are doing nearly all the combat, I can't really get a lot done either since my character has nothing in any kind of subtlety besides setting traps and most of the jobs so far require a lot of recon that drones aren't suitable for and tracking people down. The guy playing the decker keeps justifying his and everyone else's ineptness as "acting in character" which [i]really[/i] irritates me since my character would probably dump most of the team for putting her in danger if I acted properly IC. [editline]14th November 2016[/editline] I've talked about it with them and tried to give them pointers with things, but even basic stuff like "geek the mage first" gets forgotten 5 minutes later, but I don't want to be telling them how to play either.

[QUOTE=Nerts;51368422]My Shadowrun group is pissing me off (not the one I play with some of you guys), most of the team are simply just terrible despite IC and OOC advice from me, the GM and the guy playing the mage, Our sniper has no concept of overwatch, ranges, fire support, etc unless you point it out to them and ends up beside me ~10m from the enemy and getting shot to bits because her armour and dodge sucks, the melee/infiltrator adept has the opposite problem, they refuse to get into melee range and instead use a crossbow they have 10 dice with that does 7 damage even through they do 9P and roll 15+ dice with their elemental weapon focus katana. The decker is just completely incapable in combat which is kinda expected as a decker, but also not great at decking, the character themselves is well built but the player has terrible judgement of what's useful to hack and what's just going to attract attention, he's managed to get caught literally every single time he's tried to hack things, either by failing rolls and people getting suspicious, and once by not checking his overwatch score and having grid overwatch nearly brick his deck and dumped him. AND he has 2 charisma and no social skills but keeps trying to help with interrogations and negotiations that the mage or adept already had under control and totally fucking it up so that we end up having to shoot people or use control thoughts, thankfully the GM seems to have caught onto that and is making him roll when he butts in. The mage keeps getting wrecked too but that's mostly due to bad luck and not enough pressure on the enemy since me and my drones are doing nearly all the combat, I can't really get a lot done either since my character has nothing in any kind of subtlety besides setting traps and most of the jobs so far require a lot of recon that drones aren't suitable for and tracking people down. The guy playing the decker keeps justifying his and everyone else's ineptness as "acting in character" which [i]really[/i] irritates me since my character would probably dump most of the team for putting her in danger if I acted properly IC.[/QUOTE] Just drop 'em. If they're going to flout acting in character to justify being shit, you have every right to act in character and look for a new team. Obviously explain this OoC as well. It's not like you haven't tried to make them stop being unfun to play with.

[QUOTE=UzumakaiPatch;51368455]Just drop 'em. If they're going to flout acting in character to justify being shit, you have every right to act in character and look for a new team. Obviously explain this OoC as well. It's not like you haven't tried to make them stop being unfun to play with.[/QUOTE] Well, if my character drops out then I drop out, but I really like playing with the person playing the mage and the GM, and it's not like I can kick them out or anything. [editline]14th November 2016[/editline] Oh, and everyone is indecisive as hell, that's irritating too, I can't do anything involving stealth and anyone stealthy doesn't do anything, last session I had to drive the van through a fence to get people actually doing things despite us already having a solid plan of causing a distraction on the far side of the place and going in fast to shoot a couple of people and get out.

reminds me of that one time I played a sneaky character and nothing sneaky happened ever and also you blew my apartment up elo what the fuck

[QUOTE=Mellowbloom;51368569]reminds me of that one time I played a sneaky character and nothing sneaky happened ever and also you blew my apartment up elo what the fuck[/QUOTE] I would just like to say that was the first time I ever played SR and as such have no fault whatsoever in the lack of sneaking. It was all Cro's fault.

[QUOTE=Mellowbloom;51368569]reminds me of that one time I played a sneaky character and nothing sneaky happened ever and also you blew my apartment up elo what the fuck[/QUOTE] This is more "Sneaky things should happen, I'm not good at that." "I am." "Ok." "Right." "Yeah." "Oh they spotted the suspicious van that was parked outside for an hour." [editline]14th November 2016[/editline] And then I ram raid the place with everyone in the van to get them into the action while the guards are on the other side of the compound.

[QUOTE=plunger435;51368010]You think all rules are stupid though.[/QUOTE] haha epic zinger bro you really got me I think stupid rules are stupid rules. [QUOTE=Glent;51367687]Hitting someone with the flat of your sword in this case would be an improvised attack. It'd do less damage than a proper attack (about 1d4 damage), so it's almost certainly not going to kill the target. The increased difficulty is represented by the fact that you aren't proficient with it (so you don't get your proficiency bonus) - unless you are (such as by having the tavern brawler feat), in which case that's fine since it's an unusual benefit your character possesses. It's not a matter of simulationism. The damage roll isn't a test (like a d20 check) to determine if you succeed or pass, it's a dice roll you make to determine how much damage something deals. Armor is considered in the to-hit portion of an attack roll. Natural toughness is determined by somebody's Constitution bonus to their hit points, the higher that being also making it less likely that they'll die outright to any given attack. If we wanted to simulate the effects of the wound in detail, we'd probably use a different system - in D&D it's enough to know that more damage = more damage.[/QUOTE] Being proficient in swords doesn't make you proficient in using the flat of a blade? That's pretty damn silly. Anyway, this argument is fucking stupid, if someone is specifically trying not to kill a guy, they shouldn't kill the guy no matter how many criticals they happen to roll. Protip, if you're trying to be non-lethal, you're probably not chopping their face off. 5e literally removed non-lethal damage specifically so it would be simpler and less of a hassle to be non-lethal, but you're turning that around to somehow make it even more of a fucking hassle than it was originally.

[QUOTE=elowin;51369539]haha epic zinger bro you really got me I think stupid rules are stupid rules. [/QUOTE] Realtalk: Name ONE rule you like.

[QUOTE=Broguts;51369593]Realtalk: Name ONE rule you like.[/QUOTE] wait are we talking D&D or tabletops in general oh god i cant name any good rules in D&D oh no everything is bad I'll one-up you and name a cool rule from a rules-light RPG since people seem to think I hate all rules-light games. The career system from Barbarians of Lemuria is fucking excellent. It's a great way to handle non-combat abilities in a simple but logical fashion, and it perfectly fits the kind of swords and sorcery story the game is tailored for.

[QUOTE=elowin;51369539]Being proficient in swords doesn't make you proficient in using the flat of a blade? That's pretty damn silly. Anyway, this argument is fucking stupid, if someone is specifically trying not to kill a guy, they shouldn't kill the guy no matter how many criticals they happen to roll. Protip, if you're trying to be non-lethal, you're probably not chopping their face off. 5e literally removed non-lethal damage specifically so it would be simpler and less of a hassle to be non-lethal, but you're turning that around to make it even more of a fucking hassle than it was originally.[/QUOTE] I don't see how it's a hassle at all to check the damage of your attack versus the hit points of the target. You do that each time you get a hit.

If you're trying to do something creative in D&D you're better off playing something else.

[QUOTE=Glent;51369720]I don't see how it's a hassle at all to check the damage of your attack versus the hit points of the target. You do that each time you get a hit.[/QUOTE] Maybe you should put some more thought into what I'm saying, it should be pretty obvious that's not what I meant on account of that making no sense whatsoever. You're making it more of a hassle because the players now have to use the weakest possible attacks they can, just in case they accidentally get a critical hit and do too much damage. You're transforming an easy as fuck fight that shouldn't take more than a few hits to finish into an easy as fuck fight that's a huge hassle because you need to do as little damage as you possibly can. It drags it out for absolutely no reason, this adds NOTHING to the game.

[QUOTE=elowin;51369873]Maybe you should put some more thought into what I'm saying, it should be pretty obvious that's not what I meant on account of that making no sense whatsoever. You're making it more of a hassle because the players now have to use the weakest possible attacks they can, just in case they accidentally get a critical hit and do too much damage. You're transforming an easy as fuck fight that shouldn't take more than a few hits to finish into an easy as fuck fight that's a huge hassle because you need to do as little damage as you possibly can. It drags it out for absolutely no reason, this adds NOTHING to the game.[/QUOTE] You don't have to use your weakest attacks. The NPC dying from massive damage is a fringe scenario, unless you do so much damage (maybe because it's a commoner and you're a 20-STR fighter) that a lower damage attack would still knock them out in one go anyway (you could clobber the commoner with one punch, so it doesn't take longer) or you're using an overkill attack like a high damage spell that wouldn't be able to deal nonlethal damage anyway. More to the point if it's ever important to the flow of the game that you capture a certain NPC alive, your DM is probably going to ignore the fringe scenario that killed them by massive damage unless it was something like a disintegrate spell anyway. If the DM does kill the NPC from massive damage, then it probably wasn't critical to the flow of the game that you captured them.

[QUOTE=Glent;51370402]You don't have to use your weakest attacks. The NPC dying from massive damage is a fringe scenario, unless you do so much damage (maybe because it's a commoner and you're a 20-STR fighter) that a lower damage attack would still knock them out in one go anyway (you could clobber the commoner with one punch, so it doesn't take longer) or you're using an overkill attack like a high damage spell that wouldn't be able to deal nonlethal damage anyway. More to the point if it's ever important to the flow of the game that you capture a certain NPC alive, your DM is probably going to ignore the fringe scenario that killed them by massive damage unless it was something like a disintegrate spell anyway. If the DM does kill the NPC from massive damage, then it probably wasn't critical to the flow of the game that you captured them.[/QUOTE] Massive damage only applies to PCs in the first place, this entire discussion came from someone houseruling it to apply to NPCs.

So my second ever skill check on nWoD is a roll to stalk a girl online. [t]http://i.imgur.com/XuV4fU2.png[/t] 9 Successes on 8 dice.

[QUOTE=Mellowbloom;51368569]reminds me of that one time I played a sneaky character and nothing sneaky happened ever and also you blew my apartment up elo what the fuck[/QUOTE] Hey literally the very first run was sneaky, at least until Croguy messed up the complex art opening a fucking window.

Today in Shadowrun: Elowin blows up the party, then punches out an Insect Shaman, then convinces the infiltrator to give him money to buy another rocket for next time he wants to blow something up.

Got Volo's monster guide three days before the package was supposed to arrive.