Question about 5e Legendary Actions

if a legendary action (such as Unicorn's "Heal Self") "costs [more than one] action", does the effect:

a) take place immediately and then renders the creature actionless for the next [x] turns?

OR

b) take the number of turns specified to take effect and therefore can be interrupted before it takes place (essentially wasting any actions spent on the Legendary Action up to that point)?

e.g If a Unicorn uses "Heal Self" or "Shimmering Shield" does the effect happen on the first turn/action and render the unicorn actionless for [x turns] following? or must they wait until [x turns/actions] before the effect happens?

the second option makes more sense to me because the unicorn is "channelling power" into the action until it takes place... otherwise it makes it *special* action and is *frozen by it's own concentration* until [x turns] have gone by?

thanks

Neither, Legendary Actions take place at the end of another creatures turn, and they can only use one legendary action at the end of a single creature's turn. Legendary Creatures get a certain number of Legendary Actions per round, and stronger Legendary Actions can use up more than one "use" at once. Legendary Actions don't interfere with the Legendary Creature's normal actions on their turns at all.

so depending on the number of creatures in combat, a Legendary Action that [costs 3 actions] could end up only costing one? (because a creature regains it's legendary actions at the beginning of it's next turn) or would the cost override that rule and mean that for [x] turns after that actions are spend paying the legendary action cost?

plz respond

sorry, I think you provided enough info in your first reply... a Unicorn for example has 3 actions (legendary) but some cost all 3 and would be used at the end of another creature's turn (obviously) and all 3 regained at beginning of their next turn

If the Unicorn is in a fight with only one other creature, then it can only take one Legendary Action per round, so yes, if it doesn't use Heal Self (that costs 3 Legendary Actions to use), it would end up wasting some. If there are three or more other creatures in the fight, the Unicorn could end up using the Hooves Legendary Action three times in a single round, once at the end of three other creature's turns. Then it would refresh them at the start of it's turn, take it's turn normally, then it could use more legendary actions afterwards.

does it explain all that anywhere in the rulebooks? or how would I know if I didn't come to tg/[the internet] for the answer (because imo the language was ambigous/misleading)

on a completely different topic... why do people prefer Pathfinder?

This passage at the beginning of the Monster Manual is the generic explanation, and each creature with Legendary Actions gets some reminder text in it's stat block.

Some people prefer Pathfinder because they liked D&D 3.5e, and Pathfinder is 3.5e but with changes they liked, and they didn't like the changes in D&D 4e or 5e. Pathfinder is closer to 3.5e than either 4e or 5e is.

I know this is WAY beyond the scope of this thread... and nobody asked for this but:

What are some (major) differences between 4e and either 5th or 3.5 (I'm familiar with 3.5 and 5e but not 4th)... wasn't 4e the shortest-lived... was it the least well-recieved? why was it bad? what the heck was it even? why did it exist?

>why did [4e] exist?
This is a question many have asked but few can answer.

D&D had a solid roots into wargames, with a lot of rules leveraged from wargames. At the time wargames were the hot, and D&D had a solid success.

Nowadays video games are the hot. They decided to reboot the franchise but with video games inspired rules instead of wargames inspired rules. It's different. Very, very different.

Lot of people dislike 'WoW D&D', as it is known, but some new players like. It is a mixed blessing, and a lot of curses.

because it seems like 3.5 was decently (if not wildly) successful. and did it's job as a major overhaul of TSR D&D. remarketing/rebranding, revising mechanics, making the game more approachable to new types of players...

and

it seems like 5th edition is very well received and popular. but 5th edition came RIGHT after forth, as if Wizards was cleaning up after a mistake (4e). why was 4e so bad? what was different than 3.5 and now 5e? and why did they feel any of it was necessary... was 3.5 getting old/ not selling well? was 4e the last throws of some shitty designer/producer guy who got fired/left after it tanked?

I'll have to take a look... I need to know what they did with each of the *core mechanics* (class, race, skills, combat)

Alright, the biggest difference of 4e is how PC abilities work. In 4e, things your character can do in a fight are called powers, and powers are separated into categories based on how often you can use them. At-Will powers can be used as often as you like, Encounter powers can be used once per fight, and Daily powers can be used once per day. Every character class has the same number of powers in each category as every other class at any given level (some exceptions were released in later source books).

Pic related is how these powers are displayed in the book.

The classes themselves also had a number of preset roles, Defender, Striker, Controller, and Leader, and the game recommended you have one of each. Each class generally had some "builds" that you could choose between that let the class be a different role (for example, Fighters could be Defenders or Strikers depending on what powers they took). Each build generally relied on a different combination of stats, so there was a limit to how well you could hybridize between the two roles.

A lot of the older fans reacted to 5e like this, stating they didn't want D&D to play like an MMO with "cool downs" on their fighter's sword attacks, and characters being set into Tank, DPS, Mezzer and Healer/Buffer roles.

Another big problem was that the monsters in the 4e Monster Manual 1 had double the health, and half the damage they should have due to a math error, fights taking twice as long as they should have with little danger of dying from the monsters low HP was called "Padded Sumo" combat. This was noticed and fixed later, but it did a lot of damage to 4e's reputation.

>danger of dying from the monsters low HP
er, low damage, rather

Look who acquired WotC.
They wanted a new edition without the OGL.
They wanted to cut Paizo out.

It backfired.

When WOTC bought D&D from TSR, they had high hopes. 3.5 was indeed successful and made d20 popular, but it wasn't pulling in the money WOTC thought it would. They wanted something MTG tier.

While 3E was about making a new D&D under WOTC's name, 4e really tried to modernize it. In addition to using lots more modern mechanics, influences, and approaches, 4e also planned to embrace modern media, with an online playing app, movies, games, tie-in board games, and other media tie-ins. They also got rid of their open source ruleset, hoping it would prevent 3rd party companies from competing with them using their own game rules.

The app never got off the ground. The games languished in development hell or weren't very good. The Book of Vile Darkness movie was meh. The financial crises putting a dent into everyone's free time/disposable income didn't help. Also, ironically, Pathfinder used the 3e open rules set to create a D&D derived game that promised people they could still use all their old 3.5 books and not have to bother learning a new system. It ended up being 4e's biggest competitor, and was always close second/sometimes leader in a very small market.

So even with 4e, D&D still wasn't raking in MTG dough WOTC wanted.

So WOTC drastically scaled back their ambitions for D&D. The 5e team is a handful compared to 4e's and 3e's teams. New products are coming out at a relatively slow pace. The tone of the game is more low key and nostalgic than flashy and ambitious.

They've decided that they've got a niche of hardcore players and devoted enough attention to them to keep them playing the game so they can make some profit until such time as they can figure out how to really exploit the D&D brand for those big bucks.

>I'll have to take a look...

D&D has wargames roots.

AC is from wargames. Vancian magic is from wargames. Saving throws are from wargames. Classes and levels are from wargames. In wargames, AC is supposed to be your only way to soak damage, unless you have more than one hp, which is very rare. D&D murkied that affair by giving you AC and lot of HPs, and that is one root of the problem.

D&D until 3.5 is only piles and piles and piles of rules on top of the wargame core. That is why fighters are only fighty, and not awesome weeaboo magician, and why, and how, magic functions. This is also why in old-school D&D your character was very fragile and everything was so deadly: it's only one soldier in your army, you know?

If you want to touch this core, you should try some D&D retroclones like ACKS, which are usually far better thematically and systematically designed than this pile of mess called 3.5.

Anyway, D&D has wargame roots. And then 4E went and decided to take the wargame roots and throw them to the trash bin, and instead capitalize on video game (and specifically WoW).

Your character is now shoehorned into one expected slot: either Tank, DPS, Crowd Control, or Healer. Some creatures are elite, and some other are trashmobs. Each character has access to atomic spells-like 'abilities' that work, and are designed, like a traditional WoW ability. In fact, the only way you have to combat is through those abilities.

So your character, a Tank fighter level 3, has access to Cleave (1 per encounter), Gouge (3 per encounter), and Be More Killy (1 per day).

As in a video game, there is little to do outside of combats, and all your abilities are pertaining to fighting. Your character is also healed between encounters of all his HPs as he drinks water, I mean, he gets healing surges.

Don't get me wrong: 3.5 is shitty, and Pathfinder, which is 3.75, is incredibly, ungodly retarded. Piling up rules and rules and rules on a simple core until the original idea is all but forgotten is not good game design, and /pfg/ (and almost all Pathfinder players worthy of this name) agrees, even when they still play Pathfinder out of nostalgia.

But 4E is a different kind of shitty, and trying to copy a video game, but worst, and with worst graphics, is not a good game design either.

^and anyone else

Angry GM.

(he made me look at RPG's in a *new* light. I feel like I barely need a rulebook after reading his articles)

God I wish 4e memes would die, and possibly people who post them would die with them.

>4e was short-lived
Wrong. 4e was absolutely on par with most of the preceding editions - people clump together "old D&D" as a singular entity when actually there was a major revision every 4 or 5 years. Even 3.x, which lasted longer as a whole, got an update halfway through that overwrote the preceding books (and no, Essentials doesn't count, as it didn't invalidate the preceding books).

>Another big problem was that the monsters in the 4e Monster Manual 1 had double the health, and half the damage they should have due to a math error, fights taking twice as long as they should have with little danger of dying from the monsters low HP was called "Padded Sumo" combat.

This is an overstatement. Monster damage was off by an average of 2 points across levels, and solo monsters got their HP reduced by 1/5. The rest of the monster math stayed unchanged. Also, it's not like bounded accuracy didn't bring back the issue with a vengeance.

I can't even begin to tell you how wrong you are.
Roles are not "pigeonholes", they are descriptors of what the baseline for your class is in combat. And within each role, you have several ways to reach that baseline.
4e also is the only edition of D&D with actual working systems for noncombat scenes that are very close to what other games do - skill challenges appear in almost equal forms in Fate and Chronicles of Darkness, games usually considered more narrative than anything.

The tale I'm about to tell is an ancient one, passed down through the ages. It tells of heroes, villains, and even you, fair user.

In the beginning, there were wargames. Though now the only of their number of any note is Warhammer 40k, for a time they were rulers in their own right.

One day however, a group of nerds wondered
>what would it be like to play as warrior from the battalion they commanded?

Thus, the very first RPG was born: Chainmail.

Chainmail was a very different game from the RPGs that you know today. Some would hardly recognize it as an RPG at all, but it was a start. In time fantastical elements were added, and it came to be called Dungeons and Dragons.

Compared to the modern incarnation this game was almost comically simplistic. All weapons only dealt 1d6 of damage (because d6s were the only dice they had), and wizards had but a single spell. Additionally, fantasy, pulp adventure and science fiction elements were freely mixed, owing to the lack of hard genre lines during the time period.

This game grew stronger and more popular. Other games from other companies followed, some simply copying D&D, others going off in new directions. A brand new hobby was taking root and growing, and D&D was about to push it even farther.

Enter Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. This is the system that most old timers started with. It added unprecedented complexity to D&D, allowing options that had never before been seen. Rules were fleshed out, and the rulebooks hired professional artists to illustrate, rather than throwing some mechanical pencils at an intern and telling them to get drawing.

Contrary to OD&D, there was now a hard, presumed setting (Greyhawk), and the rules made assumptions and gave explanations about the setting. It was a renaissance for tabletop RPGs.

Despite the seemingly sunny skies, a storm loomed. Beyond the horizon, problems were brewing.

You see, despite all this newfound popularity, AD&D faced a very real problem: It's design was a bit shit. Seriously, the game was a hot mess. There were few to no unifying mechanics, and many of them were counter intuitive. Eventually, D&D was sold to new owners called Wizards of the Coast, a company that had already made it big for themselves off of Magic the Gathering.

The first things WotC decided to do was start a 3rd edition. When it was released, there was a huge controversy around it. 3rd edition was a complete overhaul of traditional D&D mechanics. Everything had been rebuilt from the ground up. There was now a unification of the rule system, making it much easier to understand, and the artwork was made even more appealing to the mainstream, allowing a wider marketshare.

Old school players decried, it claiming that there was foulness in the works, but they were ignored. The masses ate it up, making it the most successful RPG ever. Most people in their late 20s to 30s likely got their start with this edition. The books flew off the shelves, and people couldn't get enough of it. Thus, the trap was sprung.

Oh god you are retarded. Stop thinking with memes and actually fucking read the games before you feel the need to comment on forums.

For you see, 3rd edition was plagued by a problem: balance. In older editions of D&D, each class had a role to fill in the game. It was heavily centered around teamwork, and any character that tried to go it alone was likely to meet an untimely end.

Now, balance was gone. Any shred of the old school difficulty went out the window, and very powerful characters were able to steam roll challenges with ease. And powerful characters were aplenty, for balance went the other way as well. Whereas before teamwork was the focus of the game, now power was the focus. For when WotC designed 3rd edition, they did so with the same mindset that they designed MtG with. Many of the character options were traps, with some classes being absolutely useless, and no classes being able to compete with high level wizards and sorcerers. Casual players had no hope of being able to compete with munchkins, who reigned supreme. The people cried out, and WotC answered.

Know this: WotC is a calculating beast. They know their craft, and the true names of 4th and 5th edition are 5th and 6th edition. When WotC heard the cry of the people, they released the 4th edition of Dungeons and Dragons, called D&D 3.5. This edition fixed some of the problems that were in 3rd, but left many things (such as spellcasters being able to steamroll through things) intact. The people sighed and accepted their lot. 3.5 became the standard RPG.

More and more books were published for it. Options flourished. Characters gained all new abilities, and source books were being churned out by the day. This exacerbated the balance problem, giving thousands of options to those that would break the game. Eventually, balance became such an issue that WotC was forced to finally accept their mistake and fix it as revenues went down.

They went to work, crafting a secret project that none could know of. The people wondered what could possibly be being worked upon, until one horrible day, they found out.

...

Wizards of the Coast released 4th edition upon the public. The balance was out of control. Each class was the same. Gone was any hint of variety amongst players. Monsters were no longer creatures, but mobs to be thrown at the players in Acceptable EXP Packages. Gone was any hint of the fantastical artwork of past editions, and now a comic booky, weeaboo art style reigned. The wailing and grinding of teeth was so mighty that even the GURPS players could hear it. WotC, once the supposed saviour of D&D, instead relished in the wailing of those who loved her.

The people despaired. Was D&D finally dead?

No. For from the ashes of 4th edition, a new edition rose up. By combining the unification of mechanics that took place in 3rd edition, using the setting and feel from AD&D, and building classes upon the lessons learned from 4th edition, they were able to create what could finally be called a Grand Unified Dungeon System.

At long last there was a system that was simple to learn, intuitive, not overly complicated, and had decent artwork. Dungeons and Dragons was saved, and the people could game in peace.

And now user, I have passed the memes on to you, for the tale does not end here. Though the Wizards have been vanquished this time, they may yet arise from their slumber to release yet another edition of Dungeons and Dragons. Keep the faith user, and we shall yet prevail over their trickery.

Gygax be with you all.

Truth hurts, uh? That is because it is truth, user. You should listen to people who actually have the experience playing D&D for a long, very, very long time.

>each class was the same
>balance was out of control

Which is it?

...

...

>Additionally, fantasy, pulp adventure and science fiction elements were freely mixed, owing to the lack of hard genre lines during the time period.

Also because the players just thought it was awesome.

Every D&D player who has tried creating his or her own setting/rule set has introduced elements from their favorite TV show/comic/anime even though they don't actually belong in D&D.

Gygax and his buddies just happened to be fans of- in addition to Tolkien- Pulpy Sword and Sorcery novels, Hammer horror films, and Sci-fi literature.

If they had made D&D today, it'd be full of Harry Potter style magic, Star Wars aliens as races, and lots more anime stuff.

Dude, I'm not even a fan of 4e and I think that line of argumentation is retarded. My complaint with 4e is that the very tactical nature of its game play leads it to play like a miniatures wargame to the detriment of cinematics and immersion. The whole standardization of the format of powers with dailies and so forth doesn't make it a video game anymore than 3e's move to the unified d20 format did. It's just another step towards simplification and standardization, and if you hate that, you should be playing old school D&D, where you roll d20s (roll over) for saving throws and to-hit, d20s (roll under) for attribute checks, d6s for surprise, d10s for initiative, d% for thief skills, 2d6 for morale, and so forth.

>just happened to be fans of- in addition to Tolkien
I can't find it right now, but I read a really interesting article talking about how Gygax actually didn't really like Tolkien, and that it wasn't that much of an inspiration for D&D.

>I can't find it right now, but I read a really interesting article talking about how Gygax actually didn't really like Tolkien, and that it wasn't that much of an inspiration for D&D.

Mostly the races and inhabitants. D&D's Human/Halfling/Dwarf/Elf quartet, and a world populated by Orcs and Goblins, Giant Eagles, Treants, Balrogs, etc makes the comparisons inevitable.

It's like saying my sci-fi game doesn't take much inspiration from Star Wars, but Wookies and Twileks are half the playable races, and you can find Droids, Ranchors, Toon-Toons, and Krall Dragons in the antagonists section.

So? Just because something uses similar animals and species doesn't mean it's inspired by it.

The story is that hobbits and so forth were fan service, and Gygax generally didn't like demihumans all that much as player characters. So basically, the Tolkien stuff is skin deep, or at least it was. Personally, I don't completely buy it, but I can accept that maybe it wasn't as deeply bound to Tolkien as it might have first appeared, and that swords & sorcery stuff like Conan, Lankhmar, and Elric were much bigger influences.

>So? Just because something uses similar animals and species doesn't mean it's inspired by it.

It was lifted pretty much wholy from the text. little furry footed burrowers called Halflings, big gray skinned pig faced evil men called Orcs, big fire demons called Balrogs/Balors with fire whips and swords, Giant Trees called TreeANTS/Ents, and Giant Eagles that could talk. These aren't just generic monsters at the time. They were distinctly Tolkien.

Hell, they even faced potential legal action. Before that, they had literal "Hobbits", "Ents", and "Balrogs".

>>The story is that hobbits and so forth were fan service, and Gygax generally didn't like demihumans all that much as player characters.

He envisioned a human dominated world and didn't like demihumans without level restrictions. But rules for them were right there in the OD&D book. Older than the Thief/Rogue class even.

I'm not saying there aren't many other influences, especially in regards to the style of the game and its general philosophy, but I don't recall Hammer Films, the Robert E. Howard estate, and others being able to cite such flagrant references so as to be able to threaten legal action.

>the very tactical nature of its game play leads it to play like a miniatures wargame to the detriment of cinematics and immersion

To be honest that is how I end up playing all editions of D&D. In other games I roleplay my character and try to keep their sorry going but sick me in front of a map with scenery on it and miniatures for everything and I just engage Warhammer mode.

Gygax thought Tolkien was fine. He didn't like the idea of players being demihumans for several reasons:

1. Demihumans are an entirely different species than humans. They're supposed to think differently, with thought processes far different than humans. That makes playing like them difficult, according to Gygax (I.E. although an elf player MIGHT be upset that their father died, none of them would consider going full Noldor for vengence)

2. The question of age. If Dwarfs and Elves could live for hundreds of years, why would any human go out adventuring? All the elves and dwarfs would go out and solve the world's problems. That is why you see class limits on those races in older editions. Gary was trying to reconcile the issue of "why haven't the dwarfs and elves made the justice league already?" Or, for that matter, if a group of player characters become level 20 as a party of elves, why would this world have any problems?

3. The source material. Lord of the Rings and Conan were about the older races dying or being long forgotten. Gygax wanted to ensure that players got that type of feeling when it came to fantasy. Making demihumans just flat-out better than humans gave little incentive as to why any man would go out adventuring, when the entire backdrop of pulp fantasy was that the old guard was dying and humans are to replace them.

In which case, 4e is probably a pretty good choice for you. I'm a firm believer in role-playing throughout combat, and letting people do anything they can describe that somebody like their character should have a chance of pulling off. That means people describing all sorts of shit that's unconventional when compared with "standard attack" RPG combat, and a lot of mechanical improvisation. But when you've got specific mechanical maneuvers / exploits / techniques to choose from, it ends up being more about what play you'll run out of your team's book than anything that's truly interactive from a role-play standpoint. But that's a shitload better than the folks who play other editions of D&D like a miniatures wargame and just spam "standard/full attack" over and over. That has to be the most boring bullshit ever.

Is there a game mechanic for building Legendary Actions?