The spell which gave me my grudge against 5e : rpgmemes

[-] nxdefiant@startrek.website 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Just give it to your warrior. I played a game where I wanted just ice spells for RP reasons, but most of the ice spells suck, so I just reskinned the fire ones as ice, and left the damage as "cold" fire (affected by fire resistance) so as not to affect the game balance.

Ice bolt, ice ball, ray of ice, etc.

[-] Maven@lemmy.sdf.org 31 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

so as not to affect the game balance

Obviously ask your DM first, but it's worth noting that Crawford himself says that they literally just don't take damage types into account when designing spells, so changing them shouldn't break anything.

Of course, that's kind absurd, but a slightly more sane take, from the homebrew community, is that damage types are roughly aligned in trios, and you can safely change damage types between the same level or worse without hurting anything.

Those trios being:
bludgeoning/piercing/slashing
cold/fire/poison
acid/lightning/necrotic
force/psychic/radiant

So a cold fireball would be fine, a slashing fireball would be slightly weaker, but a necrotic fireball would be a bit much, and a force fireball is (self-evidently) quite a bit more powerful. I use this myself, to allow casters to be a bit more thematic; at my table, when you learn a spell, you can set it to any equal or lesser damage type and reflavour it however you want. E.g. if someone took fireball, they might say it does piercing damage and flavour it as a blast of needles.

[-] Sol0WingPixy@ttrpg.network 10 points 1 year ago

That setup only works if the Bludgeoning/Piercing/Slashing damage is non-magical - practically nothing resists magical B/P/S damage, to the point where I’d put in on the same tier as Force damage, if not higher.

[-] F04118F@feddit.nl 11 points 1 year ago

I know what you mean but magical and non-magical B/P/S damage is not defined as such.

The resistance you mean is B/P/S damage from a non-magical weapon. Any source of damage that is not a weapon bypasses that.

So yeah, in the case of a needles fireball, make it damage from a non-magical weapon.

I'm sorry for being pedantic. I hate these rules too but this is how they're written. Pathfinder 2E ends up a lot simpler if you use a VTT (Foundry VTT is amazing, and has no recurring costs).

[-] Sol0WingPixy@ttrpg.network 5 points 1 year ago

Oh this is exactly one of the reasons my group is switching to PF2e. I got introduced to TTRPGs via 5e but there’s so much about it that irks me. The caster/martial gap, the “big 3” saves that you just have to take Resilient to make work at higher levels, that AC just doesn’t scale properly, balancing combats (especially at high levels), Rogue having a huge gap in subclass features, classes having dead levels, etc.

My group was a little trepidatious about Pathfinder 2e but Foundry automating a lot of the math has been super helpful. We’ll be starting a proper Spelljammer-inspired interplanar campaign once the remaster releases.

[-] nxdefiant@startrek.website 4 points 1 year ago

Ah! Exactly! When I DM, I take players requests as a challenge, and that makes it more fun for me. For this case I was a guest so I played it safe 😁

[-] TheGreatDarkness@ttrpg.network 13 points 1 year ago

While I agree with the Steel Wind Strike being an insult to put on a wizard and none of the martial classes, this is a bad argument because pretty much every anime swordsman who would pull out a shit like Steel Wind Strike as it is written, is explicit supernatural. I get your sentiment but this is a very flawed, easy to dismantle argument.

[-] IggythePyro@ttrpg.network 19 points 1 year ago

That would be a good point if this was an argument, and not just me bellyaching. Also, the supernatural side of anime swordsmen tends to be "They studied the sword so much that they've got these expert abilities" rather than "they spent long enough in the library to unlock these techniques". To my understanding, I'm not a big anime person.

[-] TheGreatDarkness@ttrpg.network 5 points 1 year ago

Nah, a lot of the anime are having their own magic systems - chakra, nen, stands, pacts. It's common to sometimes make mundane look like supernatural (Demon Slayer), but generally if someone teleports most anime would qualify that as a magic use.

[-] IggythePyro@ttrpg.network 10 points 1 year ago

Yeah, but there's also plenty of magical martial arts right, like hamon? DnD wizards have a particular flavour of spellcasting (int based, using a spellbook and weird spell components) which doesn't really fit well with stands or nen, right? Like, performing magic through sheer martial prowess rather than study and arcane research feels like something that DnD doesn't have much support for.

[-] DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe 5 points 1 year ago

3.5's Tome of Battle, released at the end of the version's life had three Martial Casters that hit all the anime highlights.

The book was also notorious for being broken as hell, but I really wish they'd have taken what worked from it instead of just dumping the whole idea after 4.0 was a fan flop.

[-] DroneRights@hexbear.net 2 points 1 year ago

Like, performing magic through sheer martial prowess rather than study and arcane research feels like something that DnD doesn't have much support for.

It had plenty of support for that in 4e. These days only monks get to be magically martial

[-] MimicJar@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

none of the martial classes

Classic ranger erasure.

[-] TheGreatDarkness@ttrpg.network 4 points 1 year ago

Back in reddit days this community made it very clear that Rangers are casters to them, up to having memes about it.

[-] MimicJar@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

I mean they are, half casters. But also it's a 5th level spell which means Rangers get it at level 17. No one plays at level 17 so basically only wizards get it.

[-] hglman@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

No one sees you hiding in the woods...

[-] Aielman15@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

If a warrior can withstand the tail weapon of an adult dragon without batting an eye, they should be able to perform Steel Wind Strike just fine.

Besides, nothing in SWS is explicitly supernatural, except for the "teleport next to one of the targets" bit, which could be flavoured as "you move really fast next to them".

[-] TheGreatDarkness@ttrpg.network 2 points 1 year ago

That's why I've said "as written". I'm sure this was designed by people who hold the mindsets that doesn't do reflavoring (the recent feat allowing you use deck of cards as spellcasting focus from Book of Many Things is another good example) and also thinks Fighter and Barbarian and Monk are just "guys at the gym". Sadly same sentiments were in WotC since 3rd edition, hence why options martial should get were all given cringy anime names and relegated to new classes and explicit called magic by the text.

[-] DroneRights@hexbear.net 4 points 1 year ago

Back in 4e, fighters were explicitly supernatural

[-] lescher@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 year ago

Bladesinger ist just pretty broken, this spell especially.

[-] melmi@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I love Steel Wind Strike if only because it gives Bladesingers a group damage option that actually feels Bladesinger-y rather than being forced to throw out Fireballs and the like

[-] loki_d20@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Forced. At least it's an option that works unlike Eldritch Knight. Don't get me started on the double strike rules bending people pull with shadow blade and easily end up out damaging the fighter while also having free plate armor AC.

[-] melmi@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 year ago

What do you mean by double strike rules bending?

[-] coffee_poops@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago

Makes more sense for Rangers, honestly

[-] GolGolarion@pathfinder.social 2 points 1 year ago

It was the two level dip in paladin on literally any caster that did it for me. Why ever play any other martial when you could do the same thing but with all of the narrative agency of a mage and get 10+ combat revives per day.

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