A Land Far Away

Companion poll to Legends of Aria/Shards Online Post-Alpha. Curious what system of D&D people prefer. It sounded like people want any ALFA3 to be 5e, but it'd be good to get actual statistics for that.

Terrible editions are excluded because... yeah.

I was speaking about combat systems with shad0wfax and FoamBats4All on voice. A big drawback from 5e is that it's very important on Encounter Abilities, Rituals, Advantage/Disadvantage and so on.

My suggestion, which made everyone pause and look at it in a different light, was turn-based combat. You step within a certain distance of hostility/a fight, you're brought into a turn-based system - similar to Divinity Original Sin, but ultimately allows for it to be scripted so that abilities per encounter, advantages and disadvantages could fire off properly and work. It would also allow for players to have a bit of time to think and, god help us if we pull it off, roleplay a bit in the middle of combat (something that is nearly impossible to do without a DM pausing every other second). This also allows a DM to plan out their fights as well, turning combat into a true PnP-feeling scenario, while also being legitimate PC gameplay.

I don't know if people would prefer that, but I know a lot of people would love to have that extra moment to think over their move, consider their actions, plan ahead of time and, well, not have to spastic worry about how the fight may possibly go and select the closest spell ASAP because combat is NOW and it's moving whether or not you want it to.

I'm excited to build and DM for 2e.

I'm far less excited for 5e.

I would probably bow out if we move to 2e as opposed to 5e I really don't think we need to take a Step BACK in time

That's funny to hear, given how many people have gone BACKWARD to NWN1...

Arianna wrote:I would probably bow out if we move to 2e as opposed to 5e I really don't think we need to take a Step BACK in time

2e is mostly there because I was surprised the support for it in voice. I don't see it realistically being an option going forward. That said, 2e and 3.5e are far easier to code than 5e. There's no rerolling, no roll-modifying mages, etc.

I've always thought that a hybrid/localized turn based system might work well for alfa Magile, interesting you bring that up. I love the tension build up, tactical possibilities, and the smack talking/emoting that can happen during intense, deadly round by round combat. Not everyone's cup of tea I'm sure.

Editions... I'd love to get in on a 2e tabletop game sometime but it's not going to work for alfa if we're trying to bring more people in. 5e probably is the way forward for new blood; 3.5e still can draw a good crowd as well (Pathfinder is extremely successful) but lately I'm sort of in favor of/curious about a simpler ruleset that encourages creative, flexible and narrative resolution of situations more than mechanics and rules to the nth degree; 5e ironically is more like 2e in spirit from what I've heard.

From a development standpoint, 2e and 3.5e allow us to remain true to the class abilities, skills, talents, feats, etc.

5e forces us to make many sacrifices in core abilities for character classes by replacing them with other "equivalents".

Logistically, 5e is much harder to develop for than 1e, 2e, 3e, 3.5e

Updated poll to let you choose 2 options.

Wow. 3 way tie...

FoamBats4All wrote:Updated poll to let you choose 2 options.

In that case I voted for both 3.5 and 5e.

pathfinder?

causk wrote:pathfinder?

ALFA pillars explicitly say D&D. Though the community could change that, it'd be a more striking change.

Pathfinder definitely is D&D foam, whatchutawkinabout? It's just not WOTC (which might be an improvement just for that alone)

Wouldn't mind PF either honestly; it's an improvement over 3.5e and probably a bit less work to convert if we're going by the book (combat manuevers vs grapple/trip/disarm/etc checks, PF is much more streamlined), but people (myself included) would need to familiarize themselves with a slightly different ruleset. Less of a shift than 5e obviously.

I would prefer to move forward, not backward, but if 5e cannot be properly coded, then 3.5 is fine.

Uh, shit. Well, I went to add Pathfinder and accidentally wiped out the previous votes. But hey, there's Pathfinder.