D&D and Other Tabletop RPGs

[Glen]

8 minutes ago, HorizontoZenith said:

We can say [inappropriate/removed] now?

Reported

[fretgod99]

22 minutes ago, Gmen4ev said:

That seems simple enough. I was moreso comparing the ease of getting into it compared to 3e/3.5e. One of my buddies wants to run a pathfinder campaign. I assumed it was much like D&D with some minor differences. 

Pathfinder is based on D&D 3.5, but tweaked. When WotC moved on to 4E, they created a permanent open license for companies to use the 3.5 ruleset and continue making product with it. Paizo created Pathfinder based on that. It's very, very similar. Instead of getting feats every third level, you get them every even level. They created capstone abilities so there was more incentive to stick with one class throughout (rather than a hodgepodge of classes that became common in 3.5). They tried (marginally successfully) to simplify the mechanics for combat maneuvers. That sort of stuff. I really enjoy Pathfinder. Good system. It is D&D with some minor differences, but D&D 3.5. It's not like 5E is worlds away from 3.5, either, but it would be enough of a change that things might not necessarily play out exactly as you'd expect. I haven't gotten all the way through 5E's PHB, but it seems like the basic chassis of D&D didn't change a ton from 3.5 to 5E.

[fretgod99]

1 hour ago, iPwn said:

One rule I've seen brought up a lot that people don't like from previous editions is flanking. It's particularly a pain in the ass if you're doing a specific combat in theater of the mind. 

Flanking isn't honestly very difficult in 3.5/PF; people just want it to do a lot more than the rule says it does.

It's actually pretty simple:

1. Are you making a melee attack?

2. Are you standing on the opposite side of an enemy from an ally who also threatens that enemy?

If you satisfy 1 & 2, you are flanking for whatever general purpose it matters (sneak attack, bonus to attack roll, etc.). Some character abilities, feats, or whatever might alter how one of these two things work (for instance, the Gang Up feat changes condition 2 so as long as two allies are threatening that enemy from whatever position, you are flanking - it does not however change the requirement for making a melee attack which is where some people got confused). Threatening, very simplified, basically means you're wielding a melee weapon (that's not all there is to it, but just so you get the point).

People tried very hard to get flanking to apply to ranged attacks. It never worked, then people would be upset by that.

Part of the issue PF had with some of its wording is that they had to base it off of the open source 3.5 ruleset. When WotC released the 3.5 ruleset open source, they removed some of the specific clarifying examples of some of the rules. So people read the PF rules without some of those examples and assume that it allowed things that were clearly not intended by the original rule. Then there would be many pages of discussion based on rules interpretations. I was a party to many of those conversations. (Paizo's website has pretty expansive message boards, including a good, active one for rules clarifications.)

I am glad 5E seems to have done away with the Bastard (Hand-and-a-Half) Sword. Good lord that was a ridiculous and frustrating conversation that spanned numerous threads. the Development team finally chimed in and said, "No, it works like this", which is the way I and a number of people had been saying it worked. So naturally people still argued about it in any number of threads after that.

Flanking was one of those issues. It very clearly works like I outlined above. The Pathfinder Development Team (you know, the people literally in charge of writing and explaining the rules) came out and clarified it to work pretty much exactly how I outlined above. People still tried to argue it worked some other way, typically trying to allow it to function with ranged attacks. It's hard to get people to give up their dreams. In Pathfinder, unless you have an ability that explicitly tells you you can sneak attack from range, you cannot do it. Doesn't keep people from arguing for it really, really hard, though.

[Kiltman]

I've always wanted to play...never could find a group who'd get into with me

[pwny]

14 hours ago, Kiltman said:

I've always wanted to play...never could find a group who'd get into with me

What size city do you live in? If it's at least decent sized, I'd bet you could use Meetup and find a group playing at a comic book shop or something. That's how I ended up finding my group to play with.

[Kiltman]

1 hour ago, iPwn said:

What size city do you live in? If it's at least decent sized, I'd bet you could use Meetup and find a group playing at a comic book shop or something. That's how I ended up finding my group to play with.

I move between a midsize and small city

I went to one but that group wasnt very welcoming...which from what I heard isnt what it's usually like

[pwny]

15 minutes ago, Kiltman said:

I went to one but that group wasnt very welcoming...which from what I heard isnt what it's usually like

Yeah, that's really abnormal. I came in knowing absolutely nothing and my group was super welcoming, and as best I can tell, that's the norm. You'll get a few groups like that, not normally. From what I've been told by other players, of the 8 or so public groups in Chicago, only one of them has been like that, and they ended up kicking out the organizer because of her unwelcoming behavior.

[fretgod99]

It might be a good idea to find out who the regional/area organizer is for organized play in whatever version of the game you want to play. D&D 5E has one, so does Pathfinder. If it's all very new to you, they can help you come on a night when they have low level quests running and there will be people around who can help you learn rules, build a character, etc. Most systems have pregenerated characters so you can try it out the first time just focusing on gameplay rules and not having to worry about character builds. You can then build a character to your liking later.

[The Gnat]

My wife, I, and a couple of friends do a D&D podcast (as well as some Star Wars RPG trilogies), and we do a recap/Q&A every 25 episodes, so I'm fishing for questions about RPG's, about playing in them, running them, stuff like that, which you'd want answered. I'll answer them here as well to the best of my ability, but then use them on the podcast as well.