I buried myself in D&D last night. · 8:46am Apr 28th, 2017
Had a right proper shit-tier day, and long story short, I might not be getting out of bed tomorrow.
But last night, I kept myself out of said bed by doing a deep dive into 5th edition D&D rules. I've only had the most gentle of brushes with it and was invited to play a game, so I dug in and started learning the system. I like what I've seen so far, and I think I've managed to put together a fairly badass High Elven Fighter Cleric that works as a spy for...something. Might be a descendant, or a clone of an older 3rd edition character of mine. Not sure yet.
Need to hash things out with the DM.
But besides that, while I am still awake, I'm going to work on pony words. Probably Fluttershy x Rarity clop type words. Maybe more Dazzling Sunset words. Not sure yet on that either. But when I am done there, I am going to bed and I might not do much more then lay there in pain for the next 12 to 36 hours.
Peace
-Fuzz
Ah, D&D. I only recently started playing and it surprised me how weird you could actually make a character be, and how much fun it is to play such a character. At first I played the same kind of goody two-shoes character I always play in games like Mass Effect, but that was a lot less fun in D&D, so first chance I got I changed tack completely with my character creation.
I'm currently playing a kinda-sociopathic human warlock, and have put all my levels so far into improving the Eldritch Blast cantrip from a piddly little spell to what is basically a Death Star laser with knock-back. My warlock's defining character trait is a total lack of concern for anything besides himself, which combines very nicely with my Death Star Laser to spice things up for the party.
My current favourite use of that spell was when the party was trapped in this guard tower, with some monster thing on the bridge outside trying to kill us. It got round to my turn and I wanted to use my Death Star Laser on it, but there was a problem -- one of the NPCs in our party was standing in the doorway and blocking my shot.
Naturally, I fired anyway, which sent poor old Derendil flying out of the doorway, bouncing across the bridge, and finally landing at the feet of the monster we were fighting, where he was promptly mauled and partly-eaten. This actually bought us enough time where it wasn't trying to kill us for the other party members to (with some pretty impressive acrobatics) knock the thing off the bridge and into the abyss below. They even managed to pull old Derendil (on literally 1HP) back to safety, so everything worked out in the end.
Of course, I took all the credit for our victory, since none of the others had the guts (or lack of morals) to blast one of our allies into the maws of a man-eating creature. So far, every time I've fired that spell, someone or something has ended up dead, but surprisingly enough none of my allies have fallen to it yet, and even more surprisingly, I don't even have the worst reputation for team-killing -- my friend's thief character is a buffoonish angel of death.
In short, D&D has taught me that being a good guy is boring and gets you killed, while being a sociopathic self-centred asshole gets other people killed in spectacular ways. Come over to the dark side, we have entertaining roleplay opportunities.
On more serious note, I do hope things improve for you on the whole shit-tier day front, and that your bed doesn't claim you from us forever (then how would we get our horsewords?) Don't overwork yourself for our sake, though, and hopefully you'll be feeling better soon.
5th has its moments. If you liked 3rd and haven't given it a look I personally think Pathfinder is the best set up currently. Love it save for warlocks. They are at their best in 5th.
My own tastes for D&D is the older (pre-3rd) editions, but 5th has it's good points. Hope your character has lots of fun and make sure to withhold the healing from any characters that don't show you proper respect.
4512947
I'm definitely a big fan of the older editions. I had a ton of fun with 1st and 2nd edition rules. My old gaming group picked up 3rd when it came out with the idea that we'd try to make a party that survived itself past 10th level. Which most of us managed to do.
I loved 3 and 3.5 for the overwhelming amount of options and tighter integration that the d20 system had versus 1st and 2nd. Fourth edition was a let down, to say the least. I played one short campaign with a different group using that, who were all younger, newer players, and it worked out okay, but it felt like a straight jacket compared to the earlier stuff. Fifth seems to be trending back towards 2nd edition with the better parts of 3.5 and 4th mixed in. The rules feel well polished and the freedom I like so much is back while still keeping on the training wheels for new players.
4512442
Yeah, I've already looked into the 5th edition of Warlock. It looks a lot better now than it did before. I have played the shit out of the Pathfinder, a.k.a. 3.75, rule set. I love it. It's like a even more polished version of what I liked the best out of 3-3.5.
4512419
After some much needed rest, and a not a small amount of drugs, I feel like something approaching human again.
If D&D has taught me anything, it's that there are excellent role playing opportunities across the alignment spectrum. But then again, I'm I've been playing this game (and a bi-jillion other games based off it) for well over 20 years now. I've played characters that started off as good and lived long enough to see themselves grow organically into monsters, morally speaking. The 3rd edition character that this 5th edition character might be the descendant - or recently activated clone of - was an evil character that supported firmly good ideals. They were the black ops of the empire, doing what must be done to maintain the peace and prosperity of the good folk that would balk at such blood work.
What surprises me most about building this 5th edition character was how close I could reasonably get to mimicking the older character's basic make-up. High dexterity for speed and ranged attacks. Fighter levels for higher hit points and attack bonus, Cleric levels for spellcasting boosts and self healing, and the spy background for the right sort of proficiency at skills to play a Face.
4513008
Glad to hear you're feeling a little better!
20 years! Blimey, the adventures you must have had. Interesting that you've played characters whose moral journey perfectly follows the whole 'die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain' concept, and I like the idea of evil (or at least morally suspect) characters whose cause is good even if their actions aren't. On the subject of that character of yours, the clone option seems to fit quite well into that whole shady black ops idea -- it kinda makes sense to me that this black ops guy might have cloned himself so that in the event of his death, there's another him ready to be reactivated and carry on the job.
Before reading this post (and the comments) I'd just assumed that the editions of D&D were more of the light refinement kind, but from what you and others here have been saying, I'm getting the impression that the changes between editions are fairly substantial. On the subject of all alignments having opportunities for good roleplaying, in hindsight I think my issues with playing a good-alignment character that time was probably a combination of inexperience and the fact that we already had two paladins and a fairly lawful fighter in our party (unbeknownst to me when making my own character) which left us all fighting over who got to reprimand the one chaotic evil guy in our group. I'm also not the loudest speaker in the world, so a lot of the time I'd get talked over by someone louder who wanted to do the same thing, which quickly became tedious.
Meanwhile, my current Death Star warlock is one of only two shady characters in our 4-player party (which is smaller than the other game's) and the other half of the party is neutral. Our two neutral characters do a pretty good job non-verbally sharing the options to be decent people between them, and the other chaotic character is a charismatic thief, while mine is more a direct, brute-force approach. In short, the reason playing this character has been fun is probably as much to do with none of the things we want to do clashing as it is the inherent fun of playing a bad guy. I'd probably be having less fun if three other members of my party were also sociopathic magic users, and likewise, my lawful character would have been more fun if every opportunity to do something (barring combat, which thankfully has turns) didn't result in four of us fighting over who gets to be the designated good guy this time.
Anyhow, I've rambled enough. Again, I'm glad to hear you're not feeling so bad, and I hope you feel more like your usual self before too long. Thanks for taking the time to reply, by the way; it was nice to talk to you.
4513008
If it's not too late to redesign, single-classing as a Paladin might fill your durability, spellcasting/healing requirements without sacrificing overmuch of either. The Paladin's spellcasting power is based on the Charisma stat, so you won't lose out on your ability to act as the party Face. There's nothing that requires a Paladin to forego high dexterity and ranged attacks; the only limitation is that smites don't work on ranged attacks.
4515494
True, I could go Paladin, but we already have a Paladin in the party and I wanted to fill in a somewhat different role. Fun trivia though: the OG 3rd edition character this one is based off started off as a Paladin! After breaking certain...key values...to the whole Pally schtick, I changed to Fighter/Cleric, which served as the basis for the 5th edition character. Though I admit the Sniper Paladin build is one of those hard ones that throw my brain into overdrive to figure the best way of doing it.
4514499
I hashed it out with the DM and we are going with the clone angle. It WAS something the original character did, AND there were more than a few running around that were created by enemies of that character. The way we're playing it out is that this clone comes from a really old sample, taken when the original character was still early in their career and was stored for a long time. The clone has a spotty memory though, and lacks the original's high skill level and specific details of things. Think the DnD equivalent of Jason Bourne from the first of those movies. Normal person that has very specific skills but no memory of how those skills were acquired.
The editions are vastly different. From the outside, and in very large, vague ways they work very similarly. But it's always the details that make the real difference mechanically. For a small example, previous to 3rd edition, DnD was owned by a company called TSR, and they started out making miniature war games, kind of like what Warhammer is. In those ancient days, we didn't have the d20 system yet. There was a lot of rules where you wanted to roll high, like you do in the modern system, but also parts where you wanted to roll low to stay under a sort of "ceiling DC" or bad stuff for your character happened. There was more long division and algebra involved. Fireball used to come with a formula to calculate volume based on caster level and then how to find the volume of spaces that weren't perfectly spherical, because Fireball was napalm and did not stop just because you slammed a door closed in its path. Fighters got multiple attacks per round that came in fractions, so they would end up taking one attack on round 1, then 2 attacks on round 2, and then back to 1 attack.
Third edition, and the d20 system all the editions have been built on since Wizards of the Coast took over was a friggin' godsend.
Stepping on other players' toes like that can be a real downer, and not just for you but them as well. It's something that has always inspired me to make unique characters within even well defined tropes and roles. It's one of the reasons I was the one to play a female character back when my first gaming group got together back in the 90's. I knew that we'd likely gravitate toward similar concepts(and I wasn't wrong), so I decided to play something radically different and for bonus points, I wasn't going to make the character look like the typical fantasy female adventurer either. So I ended up with a small, flat chested, Scottish accented elf with a low charisma and a big ass nose.
That trend played itself out again and again over the years. I've played a grandfather that became a masked arsonist when his granddaughter was selected by the local government as part of a lottery to be sacrificed to a powerful evil. I've played a half-orc gypsie that wasn't female, but had to pretend to be a human woman because the area the adventure took place in hated orcs and would lynch them on sight. I played a necromancer that had his dead wife as a zombie companion and was also a licensed grief counselor. I'm trying to tone it down, now that I'm playing with a new group that isn't well versed in my peculiar character love. So of course I went with sleeper cell clone that works for a secret organization that might have very bad plans for the world at large.
Seemed the obvious choice to me.