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

I think you're forgetting something here. Yes, a monster using it's turn to finish someone else is a tactical advantage. But, people aren't likely to celebrate someone not getting to participate in a social game for however long the combat lasts.

*Edited due to a misclick.

This is another reason I like ACKS. Everyone has at least 1, usually 2 henchmen. Somebody going down doesn't remove them from the game.
 
I think you're forgetting something here. Yes, a monster using it's turn to finish someone else is a tactical advantage. But, people aren't likely to celebrate someone not getting to participate in a social game for however long the combat lasts.
I mean we work for you with TTRPGS these days and it kind of encodes you to mass code your PCs especially in only war.
In that case it depends what branch of chaos they're from or if the nids will rip you apart.
Same thyou Necrons weaponry were literally disintegrate.
But you're really not opposed to be anybody important in that game you're just some guardsmen
 
I don't think this, because I'm not theorycrafting. I know this, because I ran 5e combat RAW for 10 years
Lol, I'm not theorycrafting, I've been running PF1 for my group for about 8 years now along with plenty of other systems. Maybe your players are just more retarded than mine, but my players pretty quickly circle the wagons and respond tactically to coup de grace attempts, and my enemies objectively do more damage and are a greater threat to the party when they shoot for a TPK.

I do also agree with the later poster that it's gay to kill someone at your table partway through the session when they didn't make an egregious mistake, but sometimes the dice just fall that way.
 
Lol, I'm not theorycrafting, I've been running PF1 for my group for about 8 years now along with plenty of other systems.

See, that's the issue, PF and 5e are very different here. If you're not talking about how 5e runs based on running it, you are speculating about how it will run in theory. That's theorycrafting.

Maybe your players are just more retarded than mine, but my players pretty quickly circle the wagons and respond tactically to coup de grace attempts

No, it's that 5e is a different game than Pathfinder. Since it's a different game, there are different consequences to different choices. You can't just assume your Pathfinder experience applies and theorycraft based on it. Here are some very important differences that affect unconsciousness and healing:
  • A cleric can heal at range as a "swift action" with a 1st-level spell.
  • 5e casting isn't Vancian. A 5th level cleric who prepares Healing Word can cast it up to 9 times per day, so they tend to pop those heals more.
  • A coup de grace does not provoke an attack of opportunity
  • There is no such thing as a "full round action" that requires sacrificing movement
  • Moving next to an enemy is much more permissive; you may move freely as long as you don't leave the enemy's reach.
  • A monster can move his full speed and do his full attack.
  • There is no way to gain multiple attacks of opportunity, i.e. no Combat Reflexes feat. You get one reaction, full stop.
  • 5e clerics can move, heal, and attack in the same round.
  • There are no negative HP, so a 1st level spell instantly heals a downed character to consciousness.
  • A character who has just been awoken can spring to his feet, move, and make his full attack all in one round.
This is why your intiution about the monster taking a "hail of arrows and axes" doesn't apply to 5e. I'll give a simple, but realistic example. A thought experiment, not meaningless calculations about expected value and DPR.

Consider this layout: A Thug (D3), who has 2 attacks, and a Bandit (E3), who has one, meet your usual Fighter (C2)/Cleric (C4)/Rogue (B4)/Wizard (A3) party, placed as so. Assume there might be more enemies, I only put the two relevant to the example.

1744060970996.png

In both PF and 5e, the Bandit opens up with a lucky critical hit on the wizard, knocking him unconscious at -8 hp in PF, 0 hp in 5e, but not killing him. It is now the thug's turn.

In 5e, the Thug simply walks up to square B3 and hits the Wizard twice. The wizard is now done, get a new character sheet. In Pathfinder, should he attempt this, he will draw AOs from the Fighter at C2 and the Cleric at C4. He also loses his Full Attack, so he bonks the rogue. He will then endure a full round of attacks, including a Full Attack from the Fighter before attempting his coup de grace. He will then suffer 3 more AoOs before finally striking the wizard.

Notice the difference. In 5e, the Thug endures zero hits to kill the wizard. In Pathfinder, he gets hit up to 9 times before attempting his coup de grace, which will probably kill him first. In PF (and 3.5), it is absolutely not worth it to kill the wizard. Agreed. In 5e? Totally different calculation.

Now, let's suppose the Thug instead decides to ignore the downed wizard and beat on the Fighter instead. In 5e, the Cleric uses Healing Word, then hacks at the Thug with his battleaxe. The Wizard jumps to his feet, casts a spell, and pretty much everyone else gets their shot at the Thug. In Pathfinder, the Cleric has to move to the Wizard to case Cure Light Wounds, drawing an AoO from the Thug. CLW is a Standard Action, so no attack for the Cleric. He rolls 7 hp. The wizard is still unconscious, so only the Rogue and the Fighter get a shot at the Thug. In 5e, he gets attacked by all 4 characters. In Pathfinder, he only got attacked by two.

At least in this scenario, it's a lot smarter for the Thug to keep attacking the front line in Pathfinder, while it's smarter for him to knock out the wizard permanently in 5e. Obviously, the Thug does not sit there with a calculator or a rule guide, and not every situation is the same. But the general principle is that in 5e, delivering a coup de grace is a lot less risky than in 3.x, while giving the Cleric a chance to heal an unconscious ally is a lot more risky. The enemies are at least as tactically aware as the players are, and the fact that healers are quite dangerous, while it costs virtually nothing to give an enemy's skull a second whack, is something the sentient ones know.
 
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At least in this scenario, it's a lot smarter for the Thug to keep attacking the front line in Pathfinder, while it's smarter for him to knock out the wizard permanently in 5e
Well damn, I've gotta keep it real when you lay it out like that. I haven't touched 5e since a couple campaigns when it first came out; I really thought it was a lot more similar to 3.x and PF than that. I knew that it had these little individual changes to action economy and stuff, but the difference adds up to a lot more than I expected. I take back everything I said and every player of yours deserved whatever happened to their characters for playing 5e.
 
I visited the FLGS with the family today. We played some board games, nothing exciting. But I put feelers out about starting an RPG group. We spotted a troon in the wild. God I am desperately praying one of these things doesn't want to be invited to my group. Have no idea how to handle that situation. Yeah just don't let them in, right? They can cry to the manager and who knows, maybe I won't be allowed in the store or some shit. Not to mention I will most likely be playing with my dad who is a super turbo schizo racist tranny hater. He will actively try to get us kicked out to own the libs. What a kafkaesque nightmare we abide in current year.

I started writing a module. The idea is that there's an anomalous Zone that can be accessed by a single portal upon which there is an adventurer's tavern (not unlike the Yawning Portal). The Zone is some kind of eldritch realm that is different every time it is visited. It's a hexcrawl where the map is randomly generated as it's explored. The locale is very exotic. People go in for treasure, most don't come out, yadda yadda. Players go in and decide how far they want to risk going to find loot before eventually turning back. Loot and difficulty scale with distance from the entrance. Just need to write some tables for terrain and monsters and whatnot, and come up with a mini dungeon or two that can be found while exploring. Also there's a story that ties it together and I have a boss in mind, a crazy guy who entered the Zone long ago and never came out, presumed dead, but is in fact alive.

I've titled it The Zone of Terror. As usual, I came up with the title first and built ideas around it... this one is just a line from Friends when Jon Favreau wanted to be in the UFC.



No idea if anyone on this webzone would actually be interested but when I finish writing it I can export it as a pdf and post it.
 
I visited the FLGS with the family today. We played some board games, nothing exciting. But I put feelers out about starting an RPG group. We spotted a troon in the wild. God I am desperately praying one of these things doesn't want to be invited to my group. Have no idea how to handle that situation. Yeah just don't let them in, right?
Just invite people you're cool with and if anyone undesirable asks just say you're running it for your pals.
 
I visited the FLGS with the family today. We played some board games, nothing exciting. But I put feelers out about starting an RPG group. We spotted a troon in the wild. God I am desperately praying one of these things doesn't want to be invited to my group. Have no idea how to handle that situation. Yeah just don't let them in, right?
Just tell the troon that your game is "Boys only".

If a girl then joins and he complains about it, tell him she identifies as male.
 
We spotted a troon in the wild. God I am desperately praying one of these things doesn't want to be invited to my group. Have no idea how to handle that situation. Yeah just don't let them in, right?
@robohobo has it.
Either tell them this is a friend-only group, or just say there's no place in the story for a new character but they can leave their inform
I guess you want a laugh email them back on a burner and ask for a character sheet.
 
Well damn, I've gotta keep it real when you lay it out like that. I haven't touched 5e since a couple campaigns when it first came out; I really thought it was a lot more similar to 3.x and PF than that. I knew that it had these little individual changes to action economy and stuff, but the difference adds up to a lot more than I expected. I take back everything I said and every player of yours deserved whatever happened to their characters for playing 5e.

Thanks, I have found over the years that players who are the most deeply experienced with 3.5 struggle the most with 5e due to the sheer number of small details that are different surrounding the action & magic economies, yet the character sheets and verbiage are so similar that it feels like almost the same game at first blush.
 
5e parties don't rely on Resurrection to do whack-a-mole in fights. They start using Healing Word to do that from level 1.
Make D&D Lethal Again
I know I stole it from somewhere, but when I ran 5e I always made it so when a PC was downed, the act of getting them back on their feet(with the exception of a Nat20 Death save) would give them 1 point of exhaustion. That way they could still play whack-a-mole with healing word but every time somebody got to their feet they would be worse for wear, and if the combat dragged on too long, or they had a particularly nasty string of fights, everyone would have to be a lot more strategic. I think during one very long battle they had our Warlock ended up with 5 points of exhaustion so if he went down again he would have just died if anyone healed him, and he was working with 0 movement, half max hp and disadvantage on everything.

I always found it alleviated some of the problems 5e had with tensionless battles.
 
Got a new campaign on VTT using the Nimble ruleset. It's not going well.

The players and system are fine. The problem is DM lawyers.


I had a whole rant planned, but the short version is this. People know the game inside out. This is handy if I want a rule clarified. I can just ask "what's the rule for swimming?" and someone will know it. It's a problem when I step away from RAW. Even making magic items is a pain in the arse.
 
Got a new campaign on VTT using the Nimble ruleset. It's not going well.

The players and system are fine. The problem is DM lawyers.


I had a whole rant planned, but the short version is this. People know the game inside out. This is handy if I want a rule clarified. I can just ask "what's the rule for swimming?" and someone will know it. It's a problem when I step away from RAW. Even making magic items is a pain in the arse.
That's interesting. Almost everyone I play with has DM'd and has moderate to advanced knowledge of RAW and it has never come up that one of us seriously contradicts what the DM is doing unless there's a clear rule misunderstanding. Almost every time there's an implicit trust that what is happening is happening because It Has Been Willed and to question it is akin to heresy. I love playing with guys who know their shit because when I get confused (often) it's brilliant to bounce questions off of, like you're saying.
I know I stole it from somewhere, but when I ran 5e I always made it so when a PC was downed, the act of getting them back on their feet(with the exception of a Nat20 Death save) would give them 1 point of exhaustion. That way they could still play whack-a-mole with healing word but every time somebody got to their feet they would be worse for wear, and if the combat dragged on too long, or they had a particularly nasty string of fights, everyone would have to be a lot more strategic. I think during one very long battle they had our Warlock ended up with 5 points of exhaustion so if he went down again he would have just died if anyone healed him, and he was working with 0 movement, half max hp and disadvantage on everything.

I always found it alleviated some of the problems 5e had with tensionless battles.
I like this generally but also think that using exhaustion more consistently is a great idea, especially as punishment/effect for things. That said, I think they cucked the exhaustion system badly in 5.5e compared to what it was before in pursuit of streamlining and simplicity but I'll let others chime in on their thoughts.
 
That's interesting. Almost everyone I play with has DM'd and has moderate to advanced knowledge of RAW and it has never come up that one of us seriously contradicts what the DM is doing unless there's a clear rule misunderstanding. Almost every time there's an implicit trust that what is happening is happening because It Has Been Willed and to question it is akin to heresy. I love playing with guys who know their shit because when I get confused (often) it's brilliant to bounce questions off of, like you're saying.
There's a certain sort of rules lawyer that believes the DM is not allowed to put anything in the world the players can't create themselves. This is kind of annoying in 5e, not because I have any problem using DM fiat to put a magical talking illusion that can only cast Magic Missile, but because I'll inevitably get a rules lawyer whining that there's no way for a powerful wizard to do such a thing, and then get mad when, after killing the wizard, he can't find the spell in his spell book.
 
There's a certain sort of rules lawyer that believes the DM is not allowed to put anything in the world the players can't create themselves. This is kind of annoying in 5e, not because I have any problem using DM fiat to put a magical talking illusion that can only cast Magic Missile, but because I'll inevitably get a rules lawyer whining that there's no way for a powerful wizard to do such a thing, and then get mad when, after killing the wizard, he can't find the spell in his spell book.

I'll admit I'm that a bit of that kind of rules lawyer, but that's why I play systems that let me do what NPCs do (if I spend a decade researching how to do it).
 
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