#ixdnd

It's taken over six months for me to actually miss Barclay Bluestring. I guess I've used the time to revise who he was compared to how I was able to play him.

I love that he swore an oath to protect the world, after spending a youth mocking knights. I love that his final action was to take a gamble with a cursed glove, dooming his soul. I love the only thing he's remembered for is ridding a city of its rat problem.

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As much as I enjoy introducing myself as Barclay Bluestring, the music always felt tacked on. I like Bards in the sense of a polymath / dabbler / wanderer. Some martial proficiencies and a wonky spell list of tricks -- nothing that encroaches on the domain of a specialist. That flies against being a virtuoso. And I hate the idea of pulling a lute out in combat.

Maybe I’d drop the range on it. Maybe let it provoke Opportunity Attacks. Maybe it costs all of your movement. Maybe the range varies or it has a chance to fail.

But it’s more of a fundamental tactical combat problem (movement has no cost → things that limit movement need to be more debilitating → cheap teleports are especially strong), so I guess everyone just bamf-s everywhere.

† About as bad as me taking Shield whenever I can (just about any character, unless they prioritise Healing Word). It’s an arms race with these combat spells.

Been thinking a lot about these videos from Deficient Master. I guess it takes exaggerated editing and someone shouting at me that I’m “doing it wrong” to get out of the rut of watching inane videos about ranking status conditions.

Rounds are fast. Positioning is important. Weapons are interesting. No bullshit spells.

It’s a fluke that I’ve stumbled on one of the better designed classes — the Rogue. Tons of skills and feats to build around, though I’m probably fooling myself into thinking that I can do everything. I’d definitely play the class again, which is a good sign.

Thief is clearly the best racket, though. I’m playing a Ruffian, but that was before I realised that medium armor isn’t necessarily an improvement, and most useful weapons are agile anyway.

By comparison, a (bow-based) Ranger looks pretty boring, and spellcasters seem quite weak at these early levels.

Athletics and Medicine seem too generally applicable, but besides those, skill choices seem niche. Healing between combat with Medicine seems like an unwritten rule which I wish was more explicit (and didn’t feel like a feat tax). I can see all of my low-level characters looking similar.

I wish archetypes offered a little more – progression is a little slow and only the multiclass dedications seem like complete packages. We’re playing with Free Archetype. I’m ambivalent, but anything giving more feats should make character building interesting.

The game is great on Foundry, but it seems like it wouldn’t work so well at a table where not everyone knows the rules.

Random gripes (when the system is so vast, it’s easy to criticise):

I would definitely streamline ‘deadly’ and ‘fatal’ and a host of other things. Armor Class is a ‘special difficulty class’, immunity to bleed isn’t found in the stat blocks, creatures with immunity to critical hits still take critical effects.

Head Stomp and The Harder They Fall, two similarly situational feats, occupy the same slot. Gang Up, already an oppressively strong choice, gets even better in the remaster. Plant Evidence, which might be used once in a campaign (with middling odds of success), really ought to be a skill feat.

Anyway, for all of the mechanical changes and niceties, there’s also a sort of blandness to the new material. For me, it’s the generic spurt of energy/healing/holiness which spellcasters perform that makes magic seem mundane and overly egalitarian. It probably doesn’t help that the default subclasses are very plain and mostly nerfed from their current versions.

I guess the wackiness needs to come from somewhere else.

I’m a little iffy about the new optimised Wizard in the party. Arcane Abeyance with spells that should take 10 minutes to cast is pretty bullshit, and it turned an interesting encounter into a totally non-threatening one. In the end, I’m probably more annoyed that she handed off the mote to me so I’m not only complicit, but I had to waste my action casting it!

Silvery Barbs

Totally fine with it if it didn’t work on saves as well. As is, it’s encounter disrupting, but doesn’t do anything that lucky rolls wouldn’t. My proposed balance is that you actually need to make a Vicious Mockery-style insult for it to work. I might take it myself in the future and only use it sparingly, but holding back creates a problem, too.

Principles

I’m still not able to define ‘bullshit’, but I think it’s along the lines of designer intention (potentially disregarding later rulings) rather than anything about balance or fantasy-feeling. I hate the aesthetic of hand crossbows and avoid them because I believe the intention for Crossbow Expert is to work in combination with a melee weapon rather than itself. (This didn’t change for One D&D, so maybe it’s time to give up that thought.)

I still think melee doesn’t confer enough advantage. My imagined fix would be more things provoking Attacks of Opportunity, and removing DEX bonuses to damage.

I tend to view everything through the lens of a Fighter, even though that’s the premiere ‘Attack’ class. It means that every turn that isn’t dealing damage is a waste in my mind, and class features need to be as good as ASIs.

Ranger is decent! But progression is much slower after Level 5. It’s probably better to start levelling in Druid or something but I’ll try to make it work.

Speaking of which, ‘Spells Known’ feels bad. And it’s a shame because I really like the Ranger spell options.

I’m enjoying the Fey Wanderer. It’s flavourful and encourages me to interact more. It’s not that dramatic in combat, but none of the party is really optimised anyway. 

I’ve generally been taking attribute bonuses. I think it’s because picking feats feels like a choice I’ll be judged on and I personally dislike Sharpshooter and Crossbow Expert.

I reckon weapon damage is too weak. Magical weapons should do 2× damage, rather than +1.

Enjoyed playing through Solasta, a mostly solid campaign despite the limitation of being a video game.

Having rules enforced helps me understand the game much better — 5e mechanics feel better with grid combat. It’s certainly down to encounter design, but I don’t feel like martial classes are weak any more. (Eldritch Knight still sucks!)