Need advice for D&D

Tons of rules just for the sake of having rules. They don't make the play more fun or exciting, they exist just to give rules wanking autists sense of achievement for memorizing them. Play Risus or something instead, much quicker to explain and get to playing.

Don't play DnD. Definitely don't START with DnD, and double plus ultra avoid starting with 3.pf.

Doing so may result in a form of roleplaying dysfunction that is commonly considered akin to brain damage. This isn't just a funny meme, it actually happens to many, many people.

Seriously OP, listen to this user The moment anyone shits on D&D, especially 3.PF, expect a roving band of morons to come out of the woodwork to (badly) defend their system while claiming other systems are too complicated to deal with.

It's even funnier when someone mentions GURPS and every reason for why they hate it can easily be applied to D&D, yet it doesn't count because...reasons.

You do NOT want to start off with D&D, especially with people who have no idea how tabletop RPG's work. If you want to get them into the hobby, go for a more rules-lite game like Apocalypse World or Paranoia and then work your way up to the more crunchy systems once they understand how to properly roleplay their characters.

Ha ha, funny joke, you dumb trolls. Now, piss off, because there's a slight chance there's still someone dumb enough to not realize you guys are just humorless contrarians.

Read the 5e starter set, it's extremely noob friendly, also, dont worry about getting the rules right all the time, try to have fun and learn from your mistakes.

They've got a point, though. D&D is actually legitimately a pretty bad game for beginner RPGs.

Not at all. New players need structure, and rules lite games are terrible for new players because it leaves them with more questions than answers.

5e is a fantastic introduction into the hobby, and only contrarian trolls would pretend otherwise. It takes players step by step through the basics that can be learned in a single session, while still having enough depth to keep them invested in the game for months to years.

It's also a fun system with an easy and exciting core mechanic, and the amount of material designed specifically for introducing new players into the hobby (including basic material and guides being free and readily available online) make it an easy first choice for new players.

Oh look, it's one of them now. Can't wait for you say that D&D is, like, the best thing evar because it's popular and how HP bloat is just a myth.

Aw, how cute. Now, run along now, little troll.

>babbies first session
>pic no related
nice try, OP

t. WOTC community manager

>New players need structure, and rules lite games are terrible for new players because it leaves them with more questions than answers.
Actually it's the opposite.

D&D (or at least, modern iterations) are bad for that, even 5e, because either there's so many rules that they end up adopting the mindset of a player instead of a roleplayer or certain options will make them have much less fun in the long term than other options, which they generally won't realize the first time they play.

A more rules-lite game will generally force you to come up with multiple ways to deal with an obstacle without necessarily spelling out what your options are beyond "this is [stat], it represents X" and leaves you to determine when X is appropriate or not.

New players need to learn that the conventions of a video game RPG won't carry over to a tabletop RPG, which is difficult to do when the game is written like a Prima Strategy Guide.

Oh man, what an excellent rebuttal.

Ignore the retarded trolls. This is the only serious advice you will get on Veeky Forums: buy the Player's Handbook, the Dungeon Masters Guide, subscribe to two or three podcasts explaining how you can manage to enjoy D&D and avoid the pitfalls, and remember, the only rule is to have FUN!!!!

>Ignore everyone who disagrees with me!!!!!

There's really not that many rules for new players. The starter set smooths over the hardest part (making characters), and the rest is all based around the very simple core mechanic. It's faster to get to the point of proficient playing than many board games.

>A more rules-lite game will generally force you to come up with multiple ways to deal with an obstacle without necessarily spelling out what your options are

That's exactly why it's not good for new players. Forcing people to come up with ideas without a good frame of reference often just leaves them confused and actually limits them to mimicking the few examples they've seen already. Leading a group that's never played a roleplaying game before into a rules lite game is like asking a band that's never played together to compose a song on the spot. You're far better off giving them a bit of sheet music and telling them to improvise and add their own flair to it.

Rules Lite games are great, but not for new players.

Here's the thing though, in a rules-lite game, you can at least prod new players into the right direction by helping them understand how their stats work.

STR is for lifting and attacking, DEX is for stealth and ranged, INT are for spells, CHA is good for influencing people before you interact with them, etc. etc.

And once the players have an idea for how their stats work, you can start introducing exceptions to the rule in order to teach them that, unlike a video game, a stat can be used for different scenarios depending on the nature of the action, like using STR to intimidate a stingy shopkeep by crushing a stone in your bare hands or using DEX to subtly cast a spell without getting caught.

Now, the players are thinking of how they can use their stats in multiple ways, which will also make it easier for them to figure out how to roleplay their characters as well and once they make that leap, it'll become even easier to get them to roleplay in future games.

The basics of 5e are d20+ability checks. Skills provide a bit more complexity to the mix, but as soon as a player has figured out exactly what you just described, they're already up and running in 5e. At level 1, they might also have four or so special abilities to read up on, but the game at that point is actually comparable to many rules-lite games.

Admittedly, Combat is another layer of complexity, but it's also one of the things that new players need the most structure with.

>And once the players have an idea for how their stats work, you can start introducing exceptions to the rule

Which is basically the process of leveling up. 5e can look pretty scary if you look at it in its entirety, but if you're looking at it step by step, level by level, it's actually a rather slow build-up, designed to lead players through the basics of roleplaying before hitting level 5 where the game really comes into its own.

Thing is, new players looking at the book will see the whole thing in it's entirety, if they're not scared by the relative complexity of it they'll quickly realize there's still very concrete rules for a lot of things that's lacking in a rules-lite game, while yes a DM with experience would know you can house rule things. A new DM might not realize that or feel he's too inexperienced to play with the rules of the game. So this leads to situations where players will feel like they can't be creative when they really can, because the rules are more or less set in stone.

Magic is versatile as fuck and gets the most focus but there's so many options that new players will feel overwhelmed, especially since spells have their own unique rules that you have to know in order to use them effectively.

Combat is the most efficient way of dealing with most issues without using magic but it also starts to stagnate as everything gains more HP than you can reliably deal damage, compounded with the fact that most options that aren't "attack" will tend to have their own rules or not be covered by the rules at all, so they default to auto-attacking and hitting the enemy until they die, which is the worst thing you can teach a new player.

The section for learning how to use your ability scores comprises like 4 pages and even then each skill only gets a few sentences and using different combinations of skill+stat is a variant that most people will ignore.

So it's like a rules lite game being run by a very constrictive GM by default.

I'm not sure about 5E but isn't there literally no point to do anything but full attack in DnD since you just waste an action tripping the guy and can't even attack afterwards.

You have to be a specific type of Fighter (the only one anyone ever plays because they have actual options beyond "extra attack") in order to do it. The attempt piggybacks off an attack, so you're still doing your game math-required DPR. So the only options for fighters are "I attack" and "I attack plus something extra".

action surge
shoving

>Thing is, new players looking at the book will see the whole thing in it's entirety, if they're not scared by the relative complexity of it they'll quickly realize there's still very concrete rules for a lot of things that's lacking in a rules-lite game,

That's what the 5e starter set is for.
New players don't see the game in its entirety, only the first two levels. It'd actually be underwhelming, rather than overwhelming, if they didn't also release the 1-20 basic rules online as well.

>So this leads to situations where players will feel like they can't be creative when they really can, because the rules are more or less set in stone.

With new players, being "too" creative tends to be more of a problem than not being creative enough, as any kids playing at a playground or RPing in online forum can attest to. With new players, simply getting everyone on the same page should take precedence over everyone wowing each other with their creativity.

It is important to not let players feel constricted by the rules, but for new players, being able to follow the road should be the first step before you decide to cut your own path.

Doesn't action surge just let you hit twice?

You have to invest heavily in order to be...okay at tripping people, and all the resources you use to get good at tripping is resources that isn't being spent on buffing your attack/damage numbers.

5e is baby's first rpg anyway. You might as well realize that it's not a very good first rpg at all, and skip the whole first step on your road of finding something good to play.

>New players don't see the game in its entirety, only the first two levels.
The first two levels don't even give you a good idea for how the game works though.

At low levels, mages can only afford to cast a few spells before resting, martials can die to a stiff breeze, and skill checks actually mean something. Not to mention, who the fuck starts at level 1-2 anymore when you don't even get the interesting shit until level 3 with most classes?

But you see, unlike a playground or freeform RP, there's a GM adjudicating what a person can and can't do. There's nothing wrong with being too creative at all, because that leads to fun story telling and solutions. What you mean to say "Players being little shits and thinking they can do stupid shit like using dex to judo slam a boulder" is bad.

Wow, using your (worse than 4e) encounter power bonus action to shove when you could've just been a Battlemaster and shoved without wasting that DPR! Action Surge only has a role for that at 2nd level. As soon as you hit third, you can stop tanking your DPR and wasting your shitty encounter power for non-DPR reasons.

So what you're saying is using the starter set is retarded because everyone would just be playing gimped versions of the class they want to play and not actually representative of their final power output?

I'd go a step further and say that using D&D 5e is retarded because, if you want to play a fighter, two out of three archetypes are essentially trap options because they're boring to play. Now, I always felt that D&D's strongest suite was casters, so if everyone's playing a caster that might be fun (and if you skip the first few meatgrinder levels). It doesn't do it well, but that's what is the most fun.

While I heavily encourage people to play better systems, the most I can ask for is for them to try other, non-D&D games, sooner rather than later.

>The basics of 5e are d20+ability checks.
Frankly this is where I'd stop if I were to run D&D. I wouldn't introduce the players to skills or feats or builds or anything like that, just abilities + d20 and a bonus from character doing what they're supposed to be good at. It works entirely fine that way as a stress-free and fun game to play.

>The reason I don't like D&D is because it's a bad system, which is also the reason OP shouldn't play it.
>Why is it bad and why should we try your pet system no one cares about instead?

I'll give this a go. I'll even attach a picture of a cute girl so more people see it.

D&D started off as a hexmap wargame almost fifty years ago. Later, other rules were added on top of the wargame rules to allow players to control single characters, but these rules were made on the fly by people who didn't spend a great deal of time thinking about the math behind the rules. "Broken" characters were often fixed by adding additional rules that newly-created characters could have to counter these overpowered characters, rather than bringing the broken characters back in line with the existing rules.

Many of these vestigial rules, such as elves being mostly immune to sleep and charm spells, were created in the hopes of balancing the game as it was at the time (a semi-wargame meatgrinder), but stuck around because by then people had gotten used to their existence and nobody at the time questioned their continued inclusion because game design theory hadn't evolved past the point of "roll these dice and take the statline it gives you without complaining".

Later, the game had more rules put on top of it based on the personal preferences and wants of the players. For example, the Cleric class in D&D was originally created on the fly because one of the other players was already playing a vampire and the Cleric player wanted to make a Van Helsing-type class to counter the vampire PC.

(cont.)

For almost fifty years, a hexcrawl skirmish game developed by amateurs has had coat after coat of paint applied to what is a fundamentally poorly-designed system. Rules and entire sub-systems of rules have been created to work around the constraints of the D&D system, which has led us to the point where the Conan stand-in that the cover art presents as the ideal player character is actually a trap option, magic inflation means every first-level character is expected by the rules to start off with magical items to add some semblance of game balance, and failure to create a magic-based character means your character will be gimped and unable to interact with the game world through the constraints of the game rules at the same level as magic-using PCs.

The fact that the term "system mastery" not only exists but is used by supporters of D&D as an acclamation is proof enough that the system is garbage. The very idea that your options for character creation have "trap" choices is blatantly calling a bug a feature, because even the most retarded system designer would agree that building hidden "Gotcha! your PC sucks from now on!" options into the rules is a bad idea. But it exists in D&D, along with plenty of other problems, because the core ideas behind the system, and the ideas about how an RPG should work, are decades old and have been cobbled together by many, many different hands during that time.

(cont.)

In contrast, the designers of many games developed within the last 10-15 years have spent a great deal of time examining the 40+ years of tabletop RPG history that came before them. They've looked at the parts that work, and the parts that don't. Whether any of the games developed in the last 10-15 years are any good depends on what you want out of an RPG, but it's important to keep in mind that D&D is "the most popular" because they spent a huge amount of cash on non-RPG items and benefited from gaining worldwide recognition thanks to the satanic panic of the 1980s.

Imagine D&D as a horse-drawn cart that's had different types of automotive systems added to it over the years as technology advances, some of which were only included to help counter the drag from earlier systems. It's not going to run as well as a vehicle that was designed with the understanding that 40+ years of development in the field offers it.

And that's why I think D&D isn't a very good system.

I like how the D&D shill replies to this post

>They've got a point, though. D&D is actually legitimately a pretty bad game for beginner RPGs.

with this post

>Not at all. New players need structure, and rules lite games are terrible for new players because it leaves them with more questions than answers.

as though your only options for tabletop gaming are D&D or a numale hipster SJW game where no one is allowed to question the actions of the other players and the GM has to say "I'm sorry" every time he rolls dice.

Compiled for future generations.

This is some pretty stupid armchair-historian style bullshit. It basically ignores how far the games have come, while trying to pretend that bits of retained flavor are somehow detrimental to design.

It's filled with half-truths, strawmen, and basically is just flat out misinformation of the lowest kind, and I hope everyone else is smart enough to not even bother going after what is basically some poor sod's pseudo-intellectual bait.

Thanks guys

This is why I only hang out on Veeky Forums.

>This is wrong
>I'm not going to explain why though
>it's just wrong
Compelling argument senpai.

The version of D&D that was completely redesigned from the ground up was also the one most reviled by D&D players. I don't think that is a coincidence.

Why was 4e hated so much? It doesn't look bad to me.

The key thing that irks me though is that how he goes to such lengths to try and explain why D&D is bad, but fails to really reach any point aside from "It's got history."

He tries to pretend that it having a history is somehow a flaw, when its a history of dramatic revisions and learned lessons. He's hoping to pretend it's stagnant or trapped in one mindset, when each edition has dramatically revised how the game has played, with most of what it retained from previous editions being flavor rather than mechanics.

The worst part is his last post, where he pretends that 5e designers didn't look back at the history of not only D&D, but all roleplaying games, and carefully examined what worked and what didn't.

It's mind-numbing how wrong someone can be.

Are you saying that in 5E, a non-caster fighter that refuses to use magic or magic items can interact with the game meaningfully (through the rules, not roleplaying) at the same level as a caster spec?

Because pic related for both counts

Uniform formating pisses off a lot of d&d players for some reason.

Literally "they changed it, now it sucks," that's really the only reason. 3aboos will keep spouting memes like "too much health" or "no rules for out-of-combat" but that's an issue with modern D&D in general and the HP problem was already fixed by now.

Yes? I know you're asking a stupid question here, but since you're asking with such vague terms as "meaningfully" and "at the same level", it's really an easy question to answer.

I like how people complain about 3aboos for trying to pretend their edition is perfect, but then those people make posts like this.

Not him, but "at the same level" is pretty fucking literal. a level 10 fighter without magic can't interact with the world nearly on the same level of a level 10 wizard can. Not because the wizard has magic, but because the fighter simply completely lacks any good options that the wizard doesn't have himself in the form of a spell.

Not really. A fighter can interact with the world in different degrees than a wizard can for different lengths of time. While a wizard can cast spells, a fighter has enough skills to allow them a fair degree of versatility that make the question vague enough to be rendered meaningless. At no point is a fighter simply twiddling their thumbs.

More importantly, why is the fighter refusing all spells and magic items? Magic is an important part of the game, and it's been made so that every class can easily pick up a few magic abilities.

If you don't like magic, the good news is that a magicless fighter is one of the strongest characters in the game, and is able to exercise a degree of self-determination based on that alone.

All a fighter can do, through sheer mechanics, is interact with the world in a limited number of ways,thanks to a lack of skill points (though this is alleviated in 5E a little to my knowledge) for a long period of time. Maybe the fighter can pick a lock or climb real good. But a wizard can just open a door magically, lock it magically, fly over any height and so on. Sure he has a limited number of spells per day, but with those spells he can drastically change the world in a mere instant while a fighter both has to spend time and actually has a risk for doing something.

And how is a magicless fighter strong? He lacks a breadth of skills to do much, doesn't have spells and in combat his sole purpose is to deal 1d8+X damage to a target with possible over 100 HP.

That's because everytime 3aboos hear someone calling their game shit, they derail the thread and try excusing objectively shit game design just because it was their introduction into the hobby and 3aboos will also claim that the system can handle anything when it can barely handle the shit that it was designed to handle.

For comparison, there isn't really a whole lot that's actually wrong with 4e that hasn't already been fixed by now yet people shat on it because it was too different from 3.PF.

>while a fighter both has to spend time and actually has a risk for doing something.

But he can do it as much as he likes. You tried to just rush right past that little thing, but spending a minute to pick a lock is hardly a tradeoff compared to only being able to pick two or three locks a day without straining yourself. And you're still trying to argue a moot point that just highlights that you've never actually played the game.

And, if you honestly just don't know anything about the game, can you just be quiet? In 5e, the Battlemaster is by the numbers one of the best combatants, and has maneuvers that provide him with versatility beyond what other martials already have, and far more than simply dealing damage (though they're are one of the best offensive classes in that regard).

Basically the Fighter can be expected to achieve something that is roughly realistic, while Wizard has all kinds of weird magic in addition to that - a kinda deep pit is a suitable challenge for a Fighter at all levels while Wizard needs to be handcrafted situation where he cannot use his spells to bypass the problem. That is by design, and imho it's downright garbo design.

It's funny, because it's always the anti-3,pf trolls who flip their lids when anyone even simply mentions 3.PF, and they need to rush out to demand that their "objective" opinions be taken seriously.

I guess trolls and hypocrisy really do go hand in hand.

Not him but here's why you're full of shit.
>But he can do it as much as he likes.
Sure, up until he fucks up and ends up getting caught, or triggering combat, or taking damage, or whatever the consequences are for failure. Meanwhile, Wizard pops a spell and boom, auto-succeed in a fraction of the time at no risk to life-and-limb.
>In 5e, the Battlemaster is by the numbers one of the best combatants, and has maneuvers that provide him with versatility beyond what other martials already have, and far more than simply dealing damage (though they're are one of the best offensive classes in that regard).
Yeah, for a fraction of the resource as the wizard can which all mainly boil down to straight combat. Meanwhile, the wizard is useful in every situation beyond just combat and they only gain versatility as they gain more levels and more spells.

Right so what I'm getting from everyone here that in 5e, there's no reason to play any other fighter type but Battlemaster because he actually has options. Not to mention the lock was just a minor example that a low level wizard can pull. I know wizards can literally change the fucking world in the mere blink of an eye whereas a fighter attempting the same thing would go through a campaign attempting the same thing.

Ontop of that, what other benefits in combat does a battlemaster have besides sheer damage? Tripping someone? pushing them back a tile? Imposing debuffs? while a wizard can do what? make an area entirely impassible, instantly kill at least one person, summon allies, teleport out of there, become invisible, sap ability scores...

>Basically the Fighter can be expected to achieve something that is roughly realistic

Key is roughly.
Fighters get more ability bonuses than other classes, so they can really jack up their physical stats. With how 5e works, your ability scores remain important throughout the game, and with the lowered DCs they can really do impressive stuff, both reliably and continually.

While the wizard does have spells, they can't use them all the time, and they might not have the right spell for the right situation. And, they really can't just fire off spells at whim until they get rather high in level, because they need them for combat and for emergencies.

Regardless of what you might hypothesize to be the case, you might want to try actually playing the game and seeing how it goes first.

Have you tried playing 5e?

>Everyone who disagrees with me is a troll.

Mind you, the Battlemaster doesn't really have shit outside of combat.

>coat after coat of paint applied
Post 3e editions work on completely different math than the ones before. You are talking out of your ass

All martials have options, including the Champion, which was a class designed specifically for the people who really didn't want to think too much, but still wanted to be good at combat. The Battle Master simply has more magicless-options than most other classes, since most other martials have some touch of magic.

A castle and a couple dozen men at arms. Or did they nerf that too? I haven't kept up in a while.

The core of the issue is that given time and patience doesn't increase much what Fighter can achieve, but increases greatly what Wizard can. If I need to get across a kinda deep chasm I'd rather have a Wizard by my side than a Battlemaster, you know?

The Batlemaster doesn't get that any more than any other class. Less so than the Bard or Paladin does (As nothing promotes them going Charisma)

Have you? The Wizard gets Ritual spells now. He can do non-combat stuff all day (Not ALL non-combat stuff but a good amount of non-combat stuff is rituals).

They've got great ability scores (which also means more access to more feats if desired), and depending on what feats/background they've chosen, they can be very capable outside of combat.

Yes? And?

It kinda defeats the whole 'But the battlemaster can do it as much as he likes' thing that was basically the one thing the fighter had. Now the Wizard can also do it as much as he likes AND his range of effects is a lot wider.

Backgrounds are not really an advantage the battlemaster has. That's something every character gets.

The ritual spells add 10 minutes of time, making it useless for time sensitive actions.

5e should have just scrapped non-combat spells and focused on the skill system. Spells bypassing skills is kinda crappy.

In actual play, the martials are going to be resting more often than the mages because of HP drains faster than spell slots do.

Just saying.

It kinda ruins the point of rituals (And why 4e included them). It was to separate away out of combat stuff away from combat stuff and let anyone do that sort of stuff rather than limiting it to only spells you could otherwise cast. To help even the playing field when it came to out of combat stuff.

Yet it'd still take marginally less time than a Battlemaster attempting the same thing without magic, and it comes with the added bonus of knowing that once you finish the ritual, you auto-succeed.

>wait ten minutes and auto-succeed

The core problem with D&D, as other people have stated, is that casters have a YES option, non-casters have a MAYBE WITH A CHANCE OF DAMAGE option.

That's not really how ritual spells work. To start, not every spell can be cast as a ritual (a surprising very few can, in fact), and it takes at least 10 minutes to cast the simplest of them.

They're certainly useful, but its kind of something that was added to actually help spellcasters have a role outside of combat, because combat tends to really drain their available spells.

Requiring the right spell, at least ten minutes and if required the material components is not a yes option

Don't play D&D

Well, it sorta is. It's not like 4e where they made you actually roll skills for your rituals (On top of all of those things). If you can case a ritual, you'll succeed every attempt. As an int 8 wizard, drunk off his face and blind still can't fail to cast a ritual.

That's what the short rest is for. It restores HP and most martial combat stuff, but the only caster that really benefits from short rests that much is the warlock (though others do get some things restored).

The party will be taking short rests more often, but that's to be expected.

Are you here to discuss the subject or are you here to start fights?

*punch* *kick* *headbutt*

There's your fight, now fuck off.

>The party will be taking short rests more often, but that's to be expected.

Not really. Short rests are in an awkward place where they are not really much more feasible than long rests.

The number of situations where you can take a 1 hour break but are also prevented from taking an 8 hour break are highly limited. Adventurer's Guilds don't come with union-protected lunch breaks.

>*punch* *kick* *headbutt*
Average D&D poster, everyone

Avoid D&D like the plague, its the my little pony of role playing, OP.

Average D&D hater everyone, cannot comprehend when he is being mocked and insulted

Actually, wizards, get arcane recovery, which allows them to restore some of their spell slots once per day.

In fact, it's even easier for a wizard to get a short rest in because of rope trick.

It's still better than a *action* autist.