Ado guys.
As we trek through the abandoned temple, two new rules came up this week that I wanted to tell you about:
Disengage
This is one of those situations where you have a new rule that's kind of a re-working of an old one, and it confused a lot of my players so I think it is worth mentioning. It basically concerns how you move out of combat without provoking an attack of opportunity. However, in order to explain the confusion, it is necessary to explain how combat worked in previous editions, and how it works now:
In Pathfinder and DnD 4th, you could usually take three actions: A Standard action, a Move action and a Swift/Minor action. Disengaging from combat - usually called a five-foot-step - was a Move action and could be done before or after your standard action, e.g. making an attack.
In this new edition of DnD, it doesn't work in quite the same way. You get a Move, and an Action. Move is just that - you move up to your maximum distance with all relevant regards for terrain, spell effects that affect movement etc. An Action is something you do in combat, which can either be an attack or some other action - like Disengage. So if you want to Disengage from your opponent, you have to do it instead of an attack.
The way the rule works is this: You move up to half your movement. If this takes you out of the reach of your opponent, they don't make an attack of opportunity against you.
Thinking about it, if you do this instead of making an attack but NOT instead of your move, that could potentially grant you 45ft (usually 9 squares) of uninterrupted movement. So, the rule is still useful, but its potential applications are different from the previous editions, where you would only be allowed to move 5ft. You might use it to beat a hasty retreat, or to reposition yourself at the other side of the battle.
That being said, I think I'm going to have to see it used more often before I can pass judgement on whether this rule is any good. It's certainly different from what I have been used to in the past!
Death
This came up a couple of times during the game last week and I actually got it wrong. Here's how:
In any RGP, falling to 0 hit points rarely kills you straight away. More likely you'll fall unconscious, and there's usually at least one mechanism in place to determine how much damage you can take before you actually die, and what you can do to prevent it. In the new edition of DnD, if you fall to 0 hit points, you fall unconscious, but any remaining damage still applies. If this takes you over your maximum hit points, you die. Which is fair enough, because lets be honest, any blow that can do that kind of damage to you would be pretty fierce! Otherwise, you just lie there until you either bleed out or stabilize - and this is the bit I got wrong, because I forgot to do it:
Each turn that you are at 0 hit points, you have to make a DC10 Constitution Saving Throw. If you pass 3 of them, you stabilize and are still alive. If you fail 3, you die. If you roll a Natural 20, you regain 1 hit point. If you roll a natural 1, you count as having failed 2 saving throws. I completely forgot to get my players to do this when they fell unconscious last session.
As it turned out it was unlikely to have made a difference either way, as in both situations the cleric got to them within one turn and cast Spare the Dying on them, which is a great little spell that revives an unconscious PC with one hit point. As he can do it as a cantrip (i.e. as many times as he likes,) then as long as he stays out of trouble, he can help the party if he needs to. And incidentally, I certainly like the idea of doing this as a spell, rather than relying on capricious dice rolls. I remember in 4th edition having to do it as a Heal check, and that could be the victim of some very poor rolling - though I never allowed that to result in character death if the players were doing the right things.
So that's what came up this week. Next week we're hoping to level up so we might be looking at some new powers and rules, let's see what happens there...
Showing posts with label Wizards of the Coast. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wizards of the Coast. Show all posts
Saturday, 18 January 2014
Magic The Gathering: Blue/White v Black.
I've decided to include my Magic: The Gathering games into the gaming blog, in case anybody is interested in hearing how my games went and also assessing my deck build. I played 2 games today in Titan Games, Stourbridge, and lost them both. Here's how it all went down:
My deck is Blue and White, and is built around the tactic of swarming the field with creatures and shutting down the opposing creatures. It was built as follows:
Mana:
The first thing to mention is that the games were one round each. The reason I've called it like that is because Steve used different decks for each game. They were both Black decks, but built slightly differently.
So, as I've mentioned, the tactic revolved around swarming the field with low-cost monsters, and doing as much as I could to make sure they were blocked as little as possible. It worked, but not quickly enough. My spells were getting through, but because they were low-powered attacks, they weren't hitting hard enough to stop Steve from building up an attack with his Black decks. But when it did work, it worked well, so I'm going to keep doing it.
I'm also going to change some of the deck:
I'm going to add 10 cards to it to bring it up to 72. This is because of my... thing with the numbers 4, 8 and 6, and 72 is the nearest legal limit of cards that divides into those three numbers. I've also swapped out both Setessan Battle Priest cards for two Scroll Thief cards, because their effect of allowing me to draw a card when they do battle damage is better conducive to my strategy. In addition to this I have added:
My deck is Blue and White, and is built around the tactic of swarming the field with creatures and shutting down the opposing creatures. It was built as follows:
Mana:
- Island: 15
- Plains: 9
- Coral Merfolk: 4
- Merfolk Spy: 1
- Air Servant: 2
- Seacoast Drake: 2
- Warden of Evos Isle: 2
- Messenger Drake: 1
- Wind Drake:1
- Seraph of Dawn: 3
- Serra Angel: 1
- Master of Diversion: 2
- Setessan Battle Priest: 2 (I managed to put these in without realising!)
- Deputy of Aquittals: 1
- Claustrophobia: 4
- Frost Breath: 4
- Riot Control: 1
- Spare from Evil: 1
- Show of Valour: 2
- Opaline Unicorn: 1
- Staff of the Mind Magus: 1
- Prowler's Helm: 1
The first thing to mention is that the games were one round each. The reason I've called it like that is because Steve used different decks for each game. They were both Black decks, but built slightly differently.
So, as I've mentioned, the tactic revolved around swarming the field with low-cost monsters, and doing as much as I could to make sure they were blocked as little as possible. It worked, but not quickly enough. My spells were getting through, but because they were low-powered attacks, they weren't hitting hard enough to stop Steve from building up an attack with his Black decks. But when it did work, it worked well, so I'm going to keep doing it.
I'm also going to change some of the deck:
I'm going to add 10 cards to it to bring it up to 72. This is because of my... thing with the numbers 4, 8 and 6, and 72 is the nearest legal limit of cards that divides into those three numbers. I've also swapped out both Setessan Battle Priest cards for two Scroll Thief cards, because their effect of allowing me to draw a card when they do battle damage is better conducive to my strategy. In addition to this I have added:
- Isperia's Skywatch: 2
- Opaline Unicorn: 1
- Darksteel Ingot: 1
- Celestial Flare: 1
- Solem Offering: 2
- Annul: 1
- Island: 1
- Show of Valour: 1
- Congregate: 1
- Archaeomancer: 1
Monday, 13 January 2014
D&D Next: Is it any good? Part 2
Hi there.
A bit late with the blog this week, sorry about that, but I'm here now and I've got one or two new rules to discuss that came up in last week's session. But before we do that, here's a few contextual qualifications:
Critical Hits
Of course, this is nothing new. Pretty much every game system I have played so far has used some form of Critical Hit system, or at least a better than average result if a certain set of conditions are met (usually to do with the dice.)
This one functions well enough: You get a critical hit if you roll an unmodified, or 'natural' 20 on a D20. You then add one more of the same kind of dice you would normally roll when rolling for damage, add the numbers together and the result is the amount of damage you do. For example, if you were attacking with a short sword, you would normally roll 1D6 for damage. If you get a critical hit, you roll 2D6 and add them together.
Is this a good system? In principle, yes it is. Taking the 'bell curve' mechanics of dice into consideration, the average score on any number of dice other that 1 (provided you're rolling the same kind of dice) is this: n*s/2+n-1, where 'n' is the number of dice you're rolling and 's' is the number of sides of the dice. This means that you can expect to roll a slightly higher number on two of the same kind of dice than the maximum possible score on one of that kind of dice.
Or, taking the super-nerdyness out of it, it basically means that at Level 1 you can expect to do a little bit more damage off a critical hit than you would have done if you'd rolled the highest possible score off a regular hit. Which works well enough for me.
It's certainly a lot more straightforward than Pathfinder's system of critical hits, which is comprehensive to the point of being convoluted. To be fair, it has to be; there is a huge range of weapons involved with this game and it needed a system that could accommodate the nuances of all of them. But it's still a long-winded process. For a start, some of the weapons have a 'critical threat range,' meaning that some of them will score a critical hit on a roll of 19, and if I remember rightly I think one of them will even do this on a roll of 18. You write this down on your character sheet, but you've still got to remember to do it. And then there's the 'threat' system. Because you see, rolling a critical hit is not enough. Rolling a natural 20 or whatever you need only threatens a critical hit; you still need to confirm it by rolling to hit again. Thankfully, if you miss, you've still hit, just not with a critical.
This makes critical hits very hard to get off in Pathfinder, because you've effectively got to roll to hit twice. I understand why this needs to happen though: the effect of the critical hit is that the damage doubles, and sometimes even trebles depending on the weapon. Given the range of hit points you usually have to work with in Pathfinder, and the damage potential of some of the weapons and especially magic weapons, this should not happen lightly. But it still makes for a complicated procedure.
On the other hand, DnD 4th goes perhaps a little too far the other way. With that system, if you get a critical hit, you automatically do the maximum possible amount of damage. This might not seem like much, but combine this with some of the powers and you've got a potentially horrific amount of damage that can be applied. It has to happen this way because of the range of hit points that monsters etc tend to have in 4th; in order for critical hits to mean anything you have to be reasonably certain of a large amount of damage if they hit. But it does take some of the fun out of rolling the dice to see what happens when you score a critical hit. It works for the system, but nothing more.
So what we have here with Next is a nice kind of middle ground that works well enough at lower levels and I'm assuming will scale up well with upper levels of play, Or at least it would work well if the players hadn't rolled appallingly badly for damage both times it came up during the game.
Movement
Movement could cover all sorts of things really but there was one particular part of the process that caught our eye during the game: You can move both before and after your attack.
This is a rule that took me somewhat by surprise as it dispenses with the usual combination of Standard Action/Move Action/Minor Action or however they're articulated in the various games. Instead of that, you are allowed to move a certain distance and, as long as you don't go over it, it doesn't matter when in the turn you do it. You can do it before your action, after your action or even both. This effectively means that you can move, attack and then move again.
I didn't expect this to be deployed all that much because to do this would provoke an attack of opportunity, but we actually found it surprisingly useful for repositioning yourself if you manage to kill whatever you were attacking. Now that we're aware of this I expect to see it used a lot more!
Flanking (or lack thereof)
This seems an odd thing not to put in the game given how long we've all spent working it out before, but there is currently no provision in the rules for flanking. I expected this to be a part of the advantage system mentioned last week, but I have yet to find a rule that says so.
This is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, it takes a lot out of the clever flanking tactics used in previous editions. On the other hand, we're not slowing the game down to a crawl as we try to work out whether our position gives rise to flanking or not. It's a peculiar change but one that I would welcome, since all it would usually do is give you a +2 bonus to hit. Rogues still have their sneak attack, but this applies when attacking any enemy adjacent to an ally, and when you have advantage.
The only way flanking would come in to it that I can see is by what the game is calling situational modifiers at the DM's discretion, where the DM might decide you have a better or worse chance to hit due to a situation beyond the player's control. But this applies to things like applying cover, and it never mentions flanking.
We will see where this takes us!
A bit late with the blog this week, sorry about that, but I'm here now and I've got one or two new rules to discuss that came up in last week's session. But before we do that, here's a few contextual qualifications:
- This week we actually had 7 people playing. If you've read the adventure then you know that there are only 6 pre-gen characters, and might be wondering how I've managed it: I let the 7th player have the NPC with strict instructions on how that NPC was supposed to be run. I did that because of the context of the club: It's a social club and there are around 30 of us; the 7th player hadn't got a game for this rotation and between having an NPC and not playing, he was grateful for the opportunity to get involved!
- We're up to the 'Dungeon Crawl' part of the adventure so a lot of the new rules I'm going to discuss relates to what happens in combat.
- I tend to contrast the rules to Pathfinder and 4e because those are the systems that I am a) most used to and b) consider the most relevant to the discussion, Pathfinder being DnD's closest rival and 4e being the system that 5e is replacing.
Critical Hits
Of course, this is nothing new. Pretty much every game system I have played so far has used some form of Critical Hit system, or at least a better than average result if a certain set of conditions are met (usually to do with the dice.)
This one functions well enough: You get a critical hit if you roll an unmodified, or 'natural' 20 on a D20. You then add one more of the same kind of dice you would normally roll when rolling for damage, add the numbers together and the result is the amount of damage you do. For example, if you were attacking with a short sword, you would normally roll 1D6 for damage. If you get a critical hit, you roll 2D6 and add them together.
Is this a good system? In principle, yes it is. Taking the 'bell curve' mechanics of dice into consideration, the average score on any number of dice other that 1 (provided you're rolling the same kind of dice) is this: n*s/2+n-1, where 'n' is the number of dice you're rolling and 's' is the number of sides of the dice. This means that you can expect to roll a slightly higher number on two of the same kind of dice than the maximum possible score on one of that kind of dice.
Or, taking the super-nerdyness out of it, it basically means that at Level 1 you can expect to do a little bit more damage off a critical hit than you would have done if you'd rolled the highest possible score off a regular hit. Which works well enough for me.
It's certainly a lot more straightforward than Pathfinder's system of critical hits, which is comprehensive to the point of being convoluted. To be fair, it has to be; there is a huge range of weapons involved with this game and it needed a system that could accommodate the nuances of all of them. But it's still a long-winded process. For a start, some of the weapons have a 'critical threat range,' meaning that some of them will score a critical hit on a roll of 19, and if I remember rightly I think one of them will even do this on a roll of 18. You write this down on your character sheet, but you've still got to remember to do it. And then there's the 'threat' system. Because you see, rolling a critical hit is not enough. Rolling a natural 20 or whatever you need only threatens a critical hit; you still need to confirm it by rolling to hit again. Thankfully, if you miss, you've still hit, just not with a critical.
This makes critical hits very hard to get off in Pathfinder, because you've effectively got to roll to hit twice. I understand why this needs to happen though: the effect of the critical hit is that the damage doubles, and sometimes even trebles depending on the weapon. Given the range of hit points you usually have to work with in Pathfinder, and the damage potential of some of the weapons and especially magic weapons, this should not happen lightly. But it still makes for a complicated procedure.
On the other hand, DnD 4th goes perhaps a little too far the other way. With that system, if you get a critical hit, you automatically do the maximum possible amount of damage. This might not seem like much, but combine this with some of the powers and you've got a potentially horrific amount of damage that can be applied. It has to happen this way because of the range of hit points that monsters etc tend to have in 4th; in order for critical hits to mean anything you have to be reasonably certain of a large amount of damage if they hit. But it does take some of the fun out of rolling the dice to see what happens when you score a critical hit. It works for the system, but nothing more.
So what we have here with Next is a nice kind of middle ground that works well enough at lower levels and I'm assuming will scale up well with upper levels of play, Or at least it would work well if the players hadn't rolled appallingly badly for damage both times it came up during the game.
Movement
Movement could cover all sorts of things really but there was one particular part of the process that caught our eye during the game: You can move both before and after your attack.
This is a rule that took me somewhat by surprise as it dispenses with the usual combination of Standard Action/Move Action/Minor Action or however they're articulated in the various games. Instead of that, you are allowed to move a certain distance and, as long as you don't go over it, it doesn't matter when in the turn you do it. You can do it before your action, after your action or even both. This effectively means that you can move, attack and then move again.
I didn't expect this to be deployed all that much because to do this would provoke an attack of opportunity, but we actually found it surprisingly useful for repositioning yourself if you manage to kill whatever you were attacking. Now that we're aware of this I expect to see it used a lot more!
Flanking (or lack thereof)
This seems an odd thing not to put in the game given how long we've all spent working it out before, but there is currently no provision in the rules for flanking. I expected this to be a part of the advantage system mentioned last week, but I have yet to find a rule that says so.
This is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, it takes a lot out of the clever flanking tactics used in previous editions. On the other hand, we're not slowing the game down to a crawl as we try to work out whether our position gives rise to flanking or not. It's a peculiar change but one that I would welcome, since all it would usually do is give you a +2 bonus to hit. Rogues still have their sneak attack, but this applies when attacking any enemy adjacent to an ally, and when you have advantage.
The only way flanking would come in to it that I can see is by what the game is calling situational modifiers at the DM's discretion, where the DM might decide you have a better or worse chance to hit due to a situation beyond the player's control. But this applies to things like applying cover, and it never mentions flanking.
We will see where this takes us!
Thursday, 2 January 2014
D&D Next: Is it any good? Part 1
It's been a while since I've had anything to say on the subject of gaming, hence the lack of posts in the last few months, but I'm currently running a game of Dungeons and Dragons at the Roleplaying club in Blackheath, and we're using the new rules set whose title flows between "Next" and "5th Edition." What I'm going to do here is give a commentary on the rules I have experienced and whether or not I think they're any good. I'll try to be as balanced as I possibly can.
A few things to keep in mind from this session:
The Advantage System.
I like this. This is a system that innovates rather than iterates, by which I mean it brings something new to the game rather than tweaks a rule from the previous edition of the game.
The way it works is easy enough: Sometimes, the rules say that you have an advantage, or a disadvantage. Either way, you roll 2D20 rather than the usual 1D20. If you have an advantage, the higher of the two dice is used, if you have a disadvantage, the lower dice is used.
This is something I've been aware of for some time due to some naughty videos on YouTube posted during the early stages of the open Beta (you weren't supposed to put anything about the new content of the game on social media,) but what I didn't appreciate at the time was just how many situations this would affect. Hidden attacks, Aiding another, Dodge, Unseen Opponents all give rise to use of the advantage system, and that's just the core combat rules; I haven't even started on Spell effects yet!
But what's great is that this is a catch-all system that almost completely replaces adding or subtracting to your D20s when you make attack rolls or ability checks. That doesn't mean you don't do it any more - your D20 roll is still modified by the relevant ability modifier - but apart from a very small number of occasions that appear to be at the Dungeon Master's discretion, that's about it. How many times have you played previous editions, or Pathfinder, and found yourself saying something like: "OK, I got 12 on the D20, plus 3 for my Strength, plus 1 for the magic weapon, minus 2 'cause he's in cover, but plus 2 because he's my preferred enemy..." And when you get your final figure, the DM tells you you've missed anyway? With the advantage system, you either have an advantage (or disadvantage!) or you don't, and the only other thing that modifies the number on the dice is your attribute modifier. It's quicker, cleaner, and saves a lot of less-than-necessary hassle, so I'm pleased with this change to the rules.
The one situation in combat that isn't covered by this new advantage system is cover. I think this is because there is no way they were going to make it work across different levels of cover. The cover system now adds to the target creature's Armour Class and any saving throws based on Dexterity, depending on how much cover the creature is in. I won't go in to too much detail about this since it didn't come up in the game, but again I'm glad to see that this affects the target creature rather than the attacker, as this reduces the amount of adding/subtracting they have to do during the attack roll.
Ability Checks
This came up a few times during the game. It seems to have completely replaced the skill system from previous editions. From what I can see, what was previously covered by skills is now a list of things you might do based on your abilities. For example, where Climb was previously a skill, now it is a Strength test. Where Sneak was previously a skill, now it is a test on Dexterity, and so on. They still exist in name, but together with abilities, rather than separately as skills.
This is somewhat similar to 4th edition in that all characters can at least attempt all skills, and don't have to be trained in them in order to do so. However it has almost completely dispensed with training skills (where a character would, at the start of the game, be better at certain skills depending on his class,) or putting ranks in to skills (where a higher modifier would be added to the skill during the level-up process.)
Do I like this? Well it's hard to say at this point. I'm pleased with the fact that they're no longer pretending Skill Checks are anything more than a test on the appropriate attribute, as they did in 4th edition. It saves a lot of tedious mucking about with levelling up, as the only time it now makes a difference is if the attribute itself increases to the point where the modifier also increases. Skills increasing with your level was pretty much pointless anyway because all it meant was that the DM would increase the difficulty of the skill checks, just to keep them challenging.
For Pathfinder players, the fact that you're no longer putting ranks in to skills may be both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand it's not shutting you out of the game if it requires a check for a skill you either don't have, or don't have enough ranks in it to have much of a chance of succeeding. On the other hand, there's less scope for individual character customisation. For example, you may want your Rogue to be good at picking pockets, so you'd give him a higher DEX score when rolling up your character, but in reality he'd be no better at picking pockets than a Wizard who happened to put the same score into DEX. This particular example is fixed with class features at higher levels, but the point remains across the board - if you're good at a particular skill, chances are someone else in your party is every bit as good, if not better.
At least, that's my theory, because to be perfectly honest I never played either DnD 4th or Pathfinder at a high enough level to see how the skills affect the dynamic of the game at upper levels. Personally, I like this new system. It didn't affect the game at level 1 because currently all the players are doing that's different is looking at a different bit of the character sheet for the same information. But I think it will be significantly better than Pathfinder, because it will stop or at least reduce situations where the adventure is de-railed because it required a skill check in order to proceed and the one character who had the relevant skill messed up the roll; now all the characters can have a go and be in with a reasonable chance of success. It is just about better than DnD 4th because the only time you were ever really in control of what skills you had was during character creation when you added an extra 5 to four or five different skills, which would mean less and less in upper levels of play because the rest of your skills increased as you levelled up.
Exploration
This is something I wasn't so fond of. This is the first time I've come across a set of core rules that gives a specific section to exploration. It basically tells you how to move, hide and look for things outside of combat, which is fine, as it promotes the idea that yes, you are supposed to be doing these things.
In previous editions, most of this was actually covered by the adventures themselves, by saying what was in a particular area if the players happened to search it. In 4th edition, they also had Skill Challenges, which was a system by which you were supposed to make skill checks and get a certain number of successes before a certain number of failures. This could be used for exploration. In my opinion it felt a bit clumsy to use, as it was hard to balance the significance of success with an appropriate penalty for failure. However, it did at least get all the characters involved in the exploration process, and was clear about what was needed for success.
In the adventure I was running, the characters had to explore to find an ancient temple where a Dragon was currently residing. The problem was this: at no point during the adventure or the rules did it give any indication of how this exploration was supposed to play out. I knew, for example, that I was supposed to roll a D20 for every hour they explored and spring a random encounter on them if a certain range of numbers came up, but I had no idea what they were supposed to be doing in the hours they spent exploring. In the end, the players told me they were following an NPC who was acting as a guide, and I gauged the speed they were moving with the time they ought to have taken to find what the guide was leading them to, which made matters a lot more straightforward - if they hadn't have done this, how was I supposed to run the exploration?
This might have more to do with the way the adventure was written than the rules, and it may be addressed in a Dungeon Master's Guide. But that is the only thing I'm not happy with at this point - we needed a better set of rules for wilderness exploration.
So, that's the new rules as it has affected us so far. What do you guys think?
A few things to keep in mind from this session:
- We had fewer than the expected number of players because of some confusion over when the game was supposed to start, so we were running with 3 people rather than 6.
- The rules we were working to are currently in closed Beta. I should imagine that the rules are pretty much as they're going to be in the final edit; currently they (Wizards of the Coast) are working through stat blocks of monsters etc to make sure everything is balanced. Or at least, as balanced as it ever gets in DnD.
- Currently the rules make no provision for character generation. It is important to recognise this, particularly in the section that relates to ability checks, as some of the characters have Class Features that affect the ability checks and I have no idea how these are going to work when generating characters.
The Advantage System.
I like this. This is a system that innovates rather than iterates, by which I mean it brings something new to the game rather than tweaks a rule from the previous edition of the game.
The way it works is easy enough: Sometimes, the rules say that you have an advantage, or a disadvantage. Either way, you roll 2D20 rather than the usual 1D20. If you have an advantage, the higher of the two dice is used, if you have a disadvantage, the lower dice is used.
This is something I've been aware of for some time due to some naughty videos on YouTube posted during the early stages of the open Beta (you weren't supposed to put anything about the new content of the game on social media,) but what I didn't appreciate at the time was just how many situations this would affect. Hidden attacks, Aiding another, Dodge, Unseen Opponents all give rise to use of the advantage system, and that's just the core combat rules; I haven't even started on Spell effects yet!
But what's great is that this is a catch-all system that almost completely replaces adding or subtracting to your D20s when you make attack rolls or ability checks. That doesn't mean you don't do it any more - your D20 roll is still modified by the relevant ability modifier - but apart from a very small number of occasions that appear to be at the Dungeon Master's discretion, that's about it. How many times have you played previous editions, or Pathfinder, and found yourself saying something like: "OK, I got 12 on the D20, plus 3 for my Strength, plus 1 for the magic weapon, minus 2 'cause he's in cover, but plus 2 because he's my preferred enemy..." And when you get your final figure, the DM tells you you've missed anyway? With the advantage system, you either have an advantage (or disadvantage!) or you don't, and the only other thing that modifies the number on the dice is your attribute modifier. It's quicker, cleaner, and saves a lot of less-than-necessary hassle, so I'm pleased with this change to the rules.
The one situation in combat that isn't covered by this new advantage system is cover. I think this is because there is no way they were going to make it work across different levels of cover. The cover system now adds to the target creature's Armour Class and any saving throws based on Dexterity, depending on how much cover the creature is in. I won't go in to too much detail about this since it didn't come up in the game, but again I'm glad to see that this affects the target creature rather than the attacker, as this reduces the amount of adding/subtracting they have to do during the attack roll.
Ability Checks
This came up a few times during the game. It seems to have completely replaced the skill system from previous editions. From what I can see, what was previously covered by skills is now a list of things you might do based on your abilities. For example, where Climb was previously a skill, now it is a Strength test. Where Sneak was previously a skill, now it is a test on Dexterity, and so on. They still exist in name, but together with abilities, rather than separately as skills.
This is somewhat similar to 4th edition in that all characters can at least attempt all skills, and don't have to be trained in them in order to do so. However it has almost completely dispensed with training skills (where a character would, at the start of the game, be better at certain skills depending on his class,) or putting ranks in to skills (where a higher modifier would be added to the skill during the level-up process.)
Do I like this? Well it's hard to say at this point. I'm pleased with the fact that they're no longer pretending Skill Checks are anything more than a test on the appropriate attribute, as they did in 4th edition. It saves a lot of tedious mucking about with levelling up, as the only time it now makes a difference is if the attribute itself increases to the point where the modifier also increases. Skills increasing with your level was pretty much pointless anyway because all it meant was that the DM would increase the difficulty of the skill checks, just to keep them challenging.
For Pathfinder players, the fact that you're no longer putting ranks in to skills may be both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand it's not shutting you out of the game if it requires a check for a skill you either don't have, or don't have enough ranks in it to have much of a chance of succeeding. On the other hand, there's less scope for individual character customisation. For example, you may want your Rogue to be good at picking pockets, so you'd give him a higher DEX score when rolling up your character, but in reality he'd be no better at picking pockets than a Wizard who happened to put the same score into DEX. This particular example is fixed with class features at higher levels, but the point remains across the board - if you're good at a particular skill, chances are someone else in your party is every bit as good, if not better.
At least, that's my theory, because to be perfectly honest I never played either DnD 4th or Pathfinder at a high enough level to see how the skills affect the dynamic of the game at upper levels. Personally, I like this new system. It didn't affect the game at level 1 because currently all the players are doing that's different is looking at a different bit of the character sheet for the same information. But I think it will be significantly better than Pathfinder, because it will stop or at least reduce situations where the adventure is de-railed because it required a skill check in order to proceed and the one character who had the relevant skill messed up the roll; now all the characters can have a go and be in with a reasonable chance of success. It is just about better than DnD 4th because the only time you were ever really in control of what skills you had was during character creation when you added an extra 5 to four or five different skills, which would mean less and less in upper levels of play because the rest of your skills increased as you levelled up.
Exploration
This is something I wasn't so fond of. This is the first time I've come across a set of core rules that gives a specific section to exploration. It basically tells you how to move, hide and look for things outside of combat, which is fine, as it promotes the idea that yes, you are supposed to be doing these things.
In previous editions, most of this was actually covered by the adventures themselves, by saying what was in a particular area if the players happened to search it. In 4th edition, they also had Skill Challenges, which was a system by which you were supposed to make skill checks and get a certain number of successes before a certain number of failures. This could be used for exploration. In my opinion it felt a bit clumsy to use, as it was hard to balance the significance of success with an appropriate penalty for failure. However, it did at least get all the characters involved in the exploration process, and was clear about what was needed for success.
In the adventure I was running, the characters had to explore to find an ancient temple where a Dragon was currently residing. The problem was this: at no point during the adventure or the rules did it give any indication of how this exploration was supposed to play out. I knew, for example, that I was supposed to roll a D20 for every hour they explored and spring a random encounter on them if a certain range of numbers came up, but I had no idea what they were supposed to be doing in the hours they spent exploring. In the end, the players told me they were following an NPC who was acting as a guide, and I gauged the speed they were moving with the time they ought to have taken to find what the guide was leading them to, which made matters a lot more straightforward - if they hadn't have done this, how was I supposed to run the exploration?
This might have more to do with the way the adventure was written than the rules, and it may be addressed in a Dungeon Master's Guide. But that is the only thing I'm not happy with at this point - we needed a better set of rules for wilderness exploration.
So, that's the new rules as it has affected us so far. What do you guys think?
Sunday, 5 August 2012
Bitter Veterans
OK normally I'm not one for moaning about people on my blog. It's not something I've done since I used to do gig reviews; in all honesty I'm not a fan of receiving the backlash that comes with saying negative things about people. It rarely came up because I was never nasty about it, but the few times it did knocked my confidence quite a bit.
However, with the games I've been involved with in the last sort of year and a half, and some of the conversations I've had with people, there is a demographic with which I find my patience rapidly receding into the dark and spite-filled hole from whence it came. That demographic is what I've now come to recognise as 'Bitter Veterans,' and since there are quite a few of this sort of people around and I know many in person, I'm in quite a strong postition to say I'm not talking about anybody in particular here. When I refer to specific conversations I'm not going to use names, most of them ought to know who they are and if they've got a problem with what I'm saying, well, maybe they should think about the reasons why I'm saying it and be a bit more careful what they're saying in future.
So what is a 'Bitter Veteran?' Let's start with Veteran shall we - I don't really know what characteristics you need to be able to call yourself a veteran but I tend to find they're people who've been doing the hobbies for a long time and are particularly good at playing the game or painting the models where applicable, or both. Now I've been doing the Games Workshop hobby on and off for half my lifetime and I don't think I'm much good at either painting or gaming, and I don't consider myself a veteran for that reason. So it's a subjective matter as much as anything else.
I'm afraid that my attitude towards veterans isn't always kind, and this is largely to do with the time I spent working for Games Workshop. A lot of the reason it caused me so much anxiety was that I always had to make a terrific effort to go up to people and talk to them, and particularly if I knew those people didn't want me talking to them. With veterans, I'd say this was the case about 80% of the time. Understandable to a degree - I know the GW staff come on too strong sometimes, and it can put people off going in to the shop at all so it's not surprising that veterans don't always think too kindly of the GW staff either. But what I really didn't like when they would say things like "I've been doing this longer than you've been alive," as though I'm not going to find that the slightest bit condescending. The worst one I had was when I worked in the Walsall store, which at that time was packed with veterans who didn't think I had the right to be telling them anything at all and that I should just let them get on with it. Every single time I worked in that shop I closed up wishing I didn't work for the company, it was horrible. The specific incident I'm talking about was when one person I'd never seen before but was clearly a hobbyist - he knew everyone in the shop and had a certain 'look' about him - came into the shop to either buy a model or pick up a mail order, I can't quite remember which. When I handed over whatever it was I asked him if he'd got all his clippers, glue, paints etc, a perfectly reasonable question that I would have asked anyone who'd brought a model. He gave me a look of bitter amusement then looked back into the shop, saying to everyone something to the general effect of "He's asking me if I've got clippers and glue?" There's something about being treated like a pile of dog mess that still resonates with me, years later.
Now to avoid tarring everybody with the same brush, some veterans are actually really nice people when I get talking to them. Most of the ex-staffers I'd happily sit and talk to for hours. A lot of the regulars who went into the Dudley store when I worked there I have no problem with. Even one or two of the tournament players, with whom I usually entertain very little patience indeed, escaped my prejudice because they had no problem with talking to me and understood what needed to be considered in a shop environment. And it's those people whose names and company and remember as being the good bit about working for GW.
So, moving on. Bitter Veterans, what are they? Well, for a start, applying everything I've just said about veterans, bitter veterans are miserable buggers who don't really enjoy the hobby anymore and think that nobody else should either. Everybody's story is different, but the pattern rarely varies: At some point, the game company they have been following for years and years and years have done something, said something, or heaven forbid release a new version of their game, the bitter veteran isn't happy with it and on principle decides to boycott the game, the company and all who play it. The reason they annoy me so much is that they've somehow got the idea that just because they think that something is rubbish, that means that no one else is allowed to enjoy it either.
And what better time to see them cropping up like boils on a backside than after Games Workshop release 6th Edition of 40K? One particular conversation I saw on Facebook yesterday involved one person wanting to sell something like 27,000 points worth of Tau because the new rules didn't fit his tactics, and he'll never play the game again. Now I can understand that some of the new rules don't fit all the armies quite as well as they did before, but to be brutally honset this nothing more than a bitter veteran having a strop. A few holes in his comments to pick out straight away:
I saw this quite a lot with the new edition of Warhammer Fantasy as well, a lot of people who I knew from the shop - I'd not long left, at that point - wanting to sell their armies because they don't like the new edition of the game, their armies don't work, or whatever. Now, I'm not being funny, but if your current army doesn't work, it can't be that much of a tall order to find something that does? I shouldn't imagine that it would be much more of a job than coming up with an army list that will work better in the game, and buying another couple of units if you need to? I'm not sure how many Warhammer armies get an update in one gaming iteration - I've never really sat Warhammer out from one edition to the next so I don't actually know when a lot of the current army books were published - but chances are, if your army is that bad for the current edition of Warhammer, an update can't be far away? And GW have more freedom to do this with Warhammer than they do with 40K because they aren't restricted to lavishing so much attention on Space Marines...
Now I've seen a blog from FrontlineGamer - well worth a read - who is quite adamant about his dislike of the current edition of Warhammer Fantasy. Initial reading of his blog might make him come across as the kind of veteran that I wouldn't necessarily enjoy talking to while I worked for GW. But looking a little deeper and you discover that his opinions are formed not by taking the popular opinion, or by looking at the rulebook and deciding he hates it, but by road-testing it and actually playing some games. Reading his coverage on Warhammer, he did actually give the new edition a go and found that he didn't enjoy it because of the way the game plays. Now to me, that's fair enough, for two reasons:
I could go on, but... Basically, I find conversations with bitter veterans uncomfortable, claustrophobic and infuriating. It's ironic that they voice their opinions about games so strongly as they are the people I am least likely to listen to. Because at the end of the day, I can't help but think that most of them are moaning for it's own sake; they like to have a bit of a whinge, and because they're not enjoying something quite as much as they did before they think that none of the rest of us are allowed to enjoy it either.
Now, I'm not exactly rushing to Games Workshop or Wizards of the Coast's aid here. They're the more popular companies for roleplaying and wargames and are easy to pick on. I know GW has made some appalling decisions in the last few years that I don't agree with, but funnily enough I'm still coming back to them after 13 years... Because the plain fact is that with the popularity of their games still outstripping their competition by quite a long way, this is where the new hobbyists/gamers/roleplayers are going to come from. And by refusing to get involved in anything new, all they're doing is stifling themselves from the evolution of their own hobby. Change is going to happen - it has to. Otherwise the companies that make the games will stagnate, fold completely and you'll be left with all you've got now. It will never change, and you'll be stuck playing the same game for however long it takes you to get fed up with it.
In the spirit of this, I sometimes find myself in a position of responisbility when I'm running games; it's up to me to make sure that everybody's having a good time so that they'll come back and have another go; I'll talk about that another time.
So yeah. Not a fan of bitter veterans.
Now I've avoided saying what I think about the new edition of 40K because that's something for another blog I think. Hopefully it won't be too long before I can get some new painting blogs and some commentary on my armies out. Until then, ciao, hope you've enjoyed my thankfully rare rant and I'll see y'all again soon.
However, with the games I've been involved with in the last sort of year and a half, and some of the conversations I've had with people, there is a demographic with which I find my patience rapidly receding into the dark and spite-filled hole from whence it came. That demographic is what I've now come to recognise as 'Bitter Veterans,' and since there are quite a few of this sort of people around and I know many in person, I'm in quite a strong postition to say I'm not talking about anybody in particular here. When I refer to specific conversations I'm not going to use names, most of them ought to know who they are and if they've got a problem with what I'm saying, well, maybe they should think about the reasons why I'm saying it and be a bit more careful what they're saying in future.
So what is a 'Bitter Veteran?' Let's start with Veteran shall we - I don't really know what characteristics you need to be able to call yourself a veteran but I tend to find they're people who've been doing the hobbies for a long time and are particularly good at playing the game or painting the models where applicable, or both. Now I've been doing the Games Workshop hobby on and off for half my lifetime and I don't think I'm much good at either painting or gaming, and I don't consider myself a veteran for that reason. So it's a subjective matter as much as anything else.
I'm afraid that my attitude towards veterans isn't always kind, and this is largely to do with the time I spent working for Games Workshop. A lot of the reason it caused me so much anxiety was that I always had to make a terrific effort to go up to people and talk to them, and particularly if I knew those people didn't want me talking to them. With veterans, I'd say this was the case about 80% of the time. Understandable to a degree - I know the GW staff come on too strong sometimes, and it can put people off going in to the shop at all so it's not surprising that veterans don't always think too kindly of the GW staff either. But what I really didn't like when they would say things like "I've been doing this longer than you've been alive," as though I'm not going to find that the slightest bit condescending. The worst one I had was when I worked in the Walsall store, which at that time was packed with veterans who didn't think I had the right to be telling them anything at all and that I should just let them get on with it. Every single time I worked in that shop I closed up wishing I didn't work for the company, it was horrible. The specific incident I'm talking about was when one person I'd never seen before but was clearly a hobbyist - he knew everyone in the shop and had a certain 'look' about him - came into the shop to either buy a model or pick up a mail order, I can't quite remember which. When I handed over whatever it was I asked him if he'd got all his clippers, glue, paints etc, a perfectly reasonable question that I would have asked anyone who'd brought a model. He gave me a look of bitter amusement then looked back into the shop, saying to everyone something to the general effect of "He's asking me if I've got clippers and glue?" There's something about being treated like a pile of dog mess that still resonates with me, years later.
Now to avoid tarring everybody with the same brush, some veterans are actually really nice people when I get talking to them. Most of the ex-staffers I'd happily sit and talk to for hours. A lot of the regulars who went into the Dudley store when I worked there I have no problem with. Even one or two of the tournament players, with whom I usually entertain very little patience indeed, escaped my prejudice because they had no problem with talking to me and understood what needed to be considered in a shop environment. And it's those people whose names and company and remember as being the good bit about working for GW.
So, moving on. Bitter Veterans, what are they? Well, for a start, applying everything I've just said about veterans, bitter veterans are miserable buggers who don't really enjoy the hobby anymore and think that nobody else should either. Everybody's story is different, but the pattern rarely varies: At some point, the game company they have been following for years and years and years have done something, said something, or heaven forbid release a new version of their game, the bitter veteran isn't happy with it and on principle decides to boycott the game, the company and all who play it. The reason they annoy me so much is that they've somehow got the idea that just because they think that something is rubbish, that means that no one else is allowed to enjoy it either.
And what better time to see them cropping up like boils on a backside than after Games Workshop release 6th Edition of 40K? One particular conversation I saw on Facebook yesterday involved one person wanting to sell something like 27,000 points worth of Tau because the new rules didn't fit his tactics, and he'll never play the game again. Now I can understand that some of the new rules don't fit all the armies quite as well as they did before, but to be brutally honset this nothing more than a bitter veteran having a strop. A few holes in his comments to pick out straight away:
- The Tau codex was designed for 4th edition. Of course it's not going to work as well with 6th; that shouldn't be news to anyone.
- That being the case, Tau are probably going to get an update in the mid term future, where they'll be resdesigned to work just as well as they ever did, if not better.
- In the meantime, if you have 27,000 points of an army and can't find SOMETHING that works in the new edition of the game then you probably shouldn't be playing it anyway. Be honest, when did you last play a game?
I saw this quite a lot with the new edition of Warhammer Fantasy as well, a lot of people who I knew from the shop - I'd not long left, at that point - wanting to sell their armies because they don't like the new edition of the game, their armies don't work, or whatever. Now, I'm not being funny, but if your current army doesn't work, it can't be that much of a tall order to find something that does? I shouldn't imagine that it would be much more of a job than coming up with an army list that will work better in the game, and buying another couple of units if you need to? I'm not sure how many Warhammer armies get an update in one gaming iteration - I've never really sat Warhammer out from one edition to the next so I don't actually know when a lot of the current army books were published - but chances are, if your army is that bad for the current edition of Warhammer, an update can't be far away? And GW have more freedom to do this with Warhammer than they do with 40K because they aren't restricted to lavishing so much attention on Space Marines...
Now I've seen a blog from FrontlineGamer - well worth a read - who is quite adamant about his dislike of the current edition of Warhammer Fantasy. Initial reading of his blog might make him come across as the kind of veteran that I wouldn't necessarily enjoy talking to while I worked for GW. But looking a little deeper and you discover that his opinions are formed not by taking the popular opinion, or by looking at the rulebook and deciding he hates it, but by road-testing it and actually playing some games. Reading his coverage on Warhammer, he did actually give the new edition a go and found that he didn't enjoy it because of the way the game plays. Now to me, that's fair enough, for two reasons:
- He's formed an opinion on something more solid than arrogant wishful thinking
- At no point during any of his reviews does he instuct that people do not play the game; he recognises that others have their own opinions and reviews are there to form and assist opinions, not instruct. So he's never said "None of you must ever play Warhammer 8th!"
I could go on, but... Basically, I find conversations with bitter veterans uncomfortable, claustrophobic and infuriating. It's ironic that they voice their opinions about games so strongly as they are the people I am least likely to listen to. Because at the end of the day, I can't help but think that most of them are moaning for it's own sake; they like to have a bit of a whinge, and because they're not enjoying something quite as much as they did before they think that none of the rest of us are allowed to enjoy it either.
Now, I'm not exactly rushing to Games Workshop or Wizards of the Coast's aid here. They're the more popular companies for roleplaying and wargames and are easy to pick on. I know GW has made some appalling decisions in the last few years that I don't agree with, but funnily enough I'm still coming back to them after 13 years... Because the plain fact is that with the popularity of their games still outstripping their competition by quite a long way, this is where the new hobbyists/gamers/roleplayers are going to come from. And by refusing to get involved in anything new, all they're doing is stifling themselves from the evolution of their own hobby. Change is going to happen - it has to. Otherwise the companies that make the games will stagnate, fold completely and you'll be left with all you've got now. It will never change, and you'll be stuck playing the same game for however long it takes you to get fed up with it.
In the spirit of this, I sometimes find myself in a position of responisbility when I'm running games; it's up to me to make sure that everybody's having a good time so that they'll come back and have another go; I'll talk about that another time.
So yeah. Not a fan of bitter veterans.
Now I've avoided saying what I think about the new edition of 40K because that's something for another blog I think. Hopefully it won't be too long before I can get some new painting blogs and some commentary on my armies out. Until then, ciao, hope you've enjoyed my thankfully rare rant and I'll see y'all again soon.
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