I haven't played 5e but I took a quick look at it when my FLGS got it in, and it read like 5e with some tweaks, basically if you wanted to stay with a 5e type game (rather than say OSR) but didn't want to give WOTC money due to the OGL fiasco and them crapping on the original creators.

a 3D map transforming DnD into a video game??? what next? violent movie make people violent??? If your game look like a video game it's because the DM make it look like a video game. here what I mean, My sorcerer enter a dungeon stealthily and see 2 guards guarding the doors. The guard didn't notice him yet What are my option: I could run away, but I hate that option since the DM worked hard in preparing this dungeon and it would suck to force him to create a new adventure on the fly 1- I can fireball and kill the guard 2- I can use my magic to avoid the guard 3- I can use a mix of magic and my charisma to talk with the guard I know some DM that if I try to pass through wall, teleport pass the guard or cast invisibility and skip the guard, their is always a good reason to prevent such attempts. The ground too dusty so the guard can see my footprint, the wall are magically protected preventing magical mean to pass through or teleportation even short teleportation, I could approach them and use social interaction, trying to deceive them telling them I'm the new recruit the boss hired, or something. Or maybe mix it with magic and detect their though in order to tell them EXACTLY what they want to hear, or maybe cut the chase and cast suggestion and suggest them to let me pass, but once again some DM will make them attack me on sight without any hope for a discussion or will make the DC so incredibly high that I'm certain to fail without rolling a 20 with a completely optimized character So yes after a few attempts that the DM shut down automatically, I will revert to "I cast fireball, action surge a second fireball and watch them burn in my flame" and just kill all enemies on sight, since any other attempts are sure to fail. But as I said this has nothing to do with if we are using a pen and paper map, a virtual 2D map, a 3D virtual map or a virtual reality simulation where I actually play my sorcerer... it all depend on the viable option the DM offers me when facing an encounter.

I'm thinking of checking it out. I just want to use the map on a flat tv laying down and we'll move the mini's on top. In my time as a DM making these tactical maps are a huge slowdown for me. If I can buy a module and have all the maps ready made, my setup time will be a fraction of when it is now.

I have received bad comments from fans for pointing out a flaw in this Luck Mechanic design. This mechanic is designed to be managed without the GM's intervention, freeing him up to focus on other things. Fine. Let's take a player with a Luck pool of 4. If the GM rewards this player for good roleplay (+1 Luck), let's say for the description of a combat maneuver, just before a roll, and immediately afterwards his player character misses his attack (+1 Luck), the player loses ALL his Luck points, must roll his meager d4, for what is basically a beautiful roleplay moment. In this case, and it will happen, although rarely, the design would leave a bitter taste in the mouth. Good design in intention but lacking in refinement, in my opinion.

Hoping that these comments help the algo!

I admit I was hoping for some mechanics that created a different feel than 5e. The spell classifications are a start, but from this review, it is too little.

Love a good house rule - I’m on a quest to collect all the house rules on KZbin and would love to hear about any others that you love to use at your table - thanks 🥳❤️👍🏿

Just wanted to pass on some advice from another KZbinr who had this same issue... those popping sounds are called "plosives", and you can help cut down on them by putting your mic off center, so it's not right in front of your mouth, or by adding a "pop filter". It will add a lot to your audio quality.

looking at the book while you guys discuss how critical works, it states that "When you roll doubles on an attack with positive SL, you score a Critical. This happens even if the roll was opposed and your opponent scored more SL than you." so you don't fumble even though you succeed with less SLs like you guys were saying

It's not exactly correct to say that ToV is "tied to WotC". It uses the 5.1 SRD, but as the 5.1 SRD is under a creative common 4.0 license, it's no longer owned by WotC , it's not owned by anyone as long as you use the CC4.0 license. If you did use the 5.1 OGL license (I don't know anyone who would), WotC could theaoretically change that at anytime. That's not true of the 5.1 SRD CC4.0

Some stuff i heard, i distinctly dont like. Luck seems underwhelming, honestly. Frequently a +1 or +2 is irrelevant. Dread in the English language has a definition and it is not this, making me a but annoyed, and "scar a creature for minutes" .... really? How do you SCAR a creature psychologically for MINUTES? Again, words have meanings, and if you are writing a book you should learn them. That said, if some of the problems with 5e that are actual problems get fixed, i will add it to my shelf, and stuff i dont like be damned, since it will be a thoroughly playable game. 5e breaks on us constantly.

I have to ask... ...is this all your attempt at a "Notice me, Mercer-Senpai! uwu"? Thats for the news! Well, everything that wasn't the 2024/5.5/Next/One/Electric Boogaloo D&D stuff... my KZbin feed has been bombarded with that over the last few days, and I dont even subscribe to 90% of these channels!

you can visualy resize a map on roll20 as well.

I ran a one-shot in the system, one thing that was very different gameplay wise is that everyone had bonus actions they could pull off; spells, weapon actions, martial actions, class and lineage features all gave access to new bonus actions and even new reactions. The combat was interesting and fairly engaging, with few if any "I attacked and missed so I sit and wait to get hit" moments. The real star tho was that one character was a wild/chaos magic sorcerer and the wild magic surges are so much more fun and frequent.

"The Hotness stat" 😅🔥

The fact it is so much like 5e is what turns me off ToV. They didnt expect Hasbto to throw the 5e SRD into CC so now they are stuck with this 5e clone.

1. Anything for that Mercer clickbait, aye? :P 2. Wow... that ToV casting call sounds kinda awful. 3. LOL! Outgunned's inspiration is The Mummy & Indianna Jones? Well, throw in Pirates of the Carribean and Sleepy Hollow, and you have the core inspirations for the Eberron setting in D&D! LOL! 4. Infinite Staircase... technically, it was the "Plane of Fairies" back then, "Feywild" was coined during 4E. But the more WotC slips in 4E material, the more Im convinced their "Forgotten Realms" setting is actually "Nentir Vale", aka "The Dawn War" 4E setting and Pantheon. Thanks for the Weekly Breakdown! Really enjoyed it! :)

I look forward to the changes Adam Bradford will bring to Fantasy Grounds.

Thank you for your Work

Yeah the biggest issue is how much of it feels like DnD5E and holding onto its vestigial issues, and little bitties of PF2E wording and adjusting. Not enough is really streamlined, simplified, or solved. Rather, additional things are slapped on without making them more compelling to new players or those taking more modern games. It *feels* crunchier by how much it focuses on being 5E, but again with extra stuff slapped on, and its focus on granular design rather than significant sweeping design twists.

50:00 proof no one reads the 5e DMG. There's a very functional system for abstracting AoE without grids on page 249. I've never played gridded combat with 5e and I've been playing since release. Also, you got it all backwards, the game assumes teathre of the mind combat and offers optional rules for minis

Hope you do an update to this review

Thanks for the breakdown! So are Archetypes like what Prestige Classes use to be? Or inspired by that idea? Or are they something wholey original? Just wondering your take on that.

Hasbro raises price of handbooks to 60$ --> outrage. Kobold Press joinds the bandwagon and sells handbooks at 60$ --> perfectly fine.

God, I hate 5e system clones... Like, its not that great of a system, and all these people *obsessing* over trying to make it into this universal "can do anything" -thing, is just showing how reluctant people are to try literally anything else... ...even if what they are doing, again, *literally* ends up replicating another system that they didnt bother to try. I so sick of these 5e systems. But, hey, good on the UK Games Expo for awards "Old Gods of Appalachia" an award! Cant wait for next year when "The Magnus Archives" comes out! ...also, your jokes are terrible...keep 'em coming! LOL! :D

I really hope that this takes off. I am enjoying the channel.

not an actual review for majority of this video.

Get yourself a pop filter my guy

. .. ... Damnit, you got me... Those are LIONS, not Wolves, thats LION Voltron, Voltron of the Far Universe! Gah! ...however, given how badly CGL borked up the Battletech Merc's kickstarter; as much as I love Voltron, I wont be getting this... I wont get any CGL products ever again. And look at that, once again Buzzfeed is 10 years late to the game on trying to cash in on the D&D craze... Given how irrelevent they are, they probably think they'll get some traction...but, c'mon...starting a D&D show in this environment? When every tom, dick, and hairy nut is already got a D&D show? Yeah, good luck with that! LOL! And also, starting a D&D show NOW, after all the D&D controversies, and the recent news that the D&D TV Show with Paramount+ has been cancelled? Buzzfeed is so shite... I do wonder what WotC is thinking... Having 3 villains on the cover of the DMG... Redesigning the Gold Dragon to something more Rokugan (Oriental Adventures)... The kafuffle with the name of this edition? One D&D? 5.5 D&D? 6e D&D? D&D 5e 2024? D&D 5e 2.0 2024: Revenge of the Return of the Reanimation of the Reunion? TV show falling through... Mass of competition that was created because of their OGL non-sense... And lets not forget, the bait and switch with the Vecna preorders... The fact that people are still talking about D&D is a miracle; but the fact that people still want to play 5e, even though its so poorly designed compared to every other edition...5e doesn't even provide balanced means to create magic items! And yes, I will always go on about that, because I started with 2e, and 2 years ago I joined a 3.5 game... and it made me remember just how badly designed 5e is! Sorry, rambling... Thanks for the video! Awesome work!

Hey you may need to look into Martial Actions, and also KP reorganization of some long spells into Rituals makes it easier for casters..

All those little changes really add up when you actually play.

I backed ToV for the Players Guide, Monster Vault, and GMG... While the Players Guide didn't go as far as I would have liked, what it does do is a series of Quality of Life updates that...yeah, can be missed if your not looking for them specifically. For example, practically everyone gets a 2/Multiattack with a weapon now...and thats pretty kool. As far as I can tell, there's still restrictions on the types of attacks made, and the action economy still seems very 5E, rather then Pathfinder 2e; but thats minor. I think in changes I noticed with classes so far, is that there's more influence from 3.5/Pathfinder then 5E... certain wording for Barbarians, Fighters, and the like have had how they read changed slightly, so that more can be gained out of them. Each level also provides something now, too, rather then there being gaps in classes at some levels... another huge QoL improvement. ...for me, the biggest is the Mechanist/Artificer... Its kept certain 5E changes, but it feels like alot of the class was designed behind the 3.5 Eberron version, With Augements feeling more like the classic Infusions, and being able to do more with them. Also, big bonus, There's no limit on using Augments, just how many active Augments you can have... This, in the hands of a creative Artificer-player, could lead to ALOT of shenanigans. But, its also in the style of the class too, that the Mechanist Subclasses also harken back to the Eberron Prestige Classes, which I really appreciate, too. That was one of my biggest annoyances with 5E Artificers... all the other classes got Subclasses based on old Prestige Classes; but the Artificer got Subclasses based on Build-types. From my takeaway of the Mechanist Subclasses so far, I would call their subclasses as being closer to the Cannith Wand Adept PrC, and somewhat a Renegade Mastermaker PrC... not 100%, but its better then WotC's null-attempt. The Mechanist also *Feels* like its a "combat mechanic", a class for someone who wants to be analysing, understanding, and making magic items... Granted, I dont think they went far enough for my liking... I wish they went full "Turbo" on "Make it a proper simplified 3.5 experiance"; because I feel sometimes thats what 5E wanted to do, but they brought too much 4E baggage with them (WotC, not KP)... so I wish KP had pushed more into that. But, for a "First Edition", its not bad...

Would like to see a Last of Us homebrew with this. Seems it would fit very well, and the only real work would be on the infected and their different types.

With 40 years of work behind it, Harn is simply incredible. I've been playing in the setting now for about 35 yrs.

Not much going on in the news this week... Thanks for not reporting on WotC's announcement to release the 2024-edition rules into creative commons "within weeks" of the Monster Manual's release in 2025... Iv seen others cover this like its good from WotC... But I see it more like "I promise to get you medical assistance *soon*, I just need to clean the knife I stabbed you with first". Well, that was my thought after reading it; going by KZbin content creators of the D&D5E sphere, Im mostly alone in that conclusion, though. Lets hope there's more news next week! :)

Every GM needs a TPK room just in case the players get all uppity.

I think this may have been just what I've been searching for after pouring over multiple "Determining Difficulty Class" sources and finding much of the same information amongst all of them. Looking at the D20 chart, would a DC 20 be the same as a DC 15 for someone with a +5 bonus? Would it become a DC 10 for someone with a +10 bonus?

One of the most underrated TTRPGs of all time. Easily one of the best settings ever made.

How am I just finding this channel now?! Also, thanks for the info about Williams, I guess we know why she suddenly jumped ship!

You are informative and funny Dave. Keep it up!

Great discussion! Im a long time Dark Heresy 1e player and whats my community stay with 1e (and not go to even 2nd ed) is 1e has so many source books and options to make make what you want. 2nd ed only had 3 extra sourcebooks while 1e has 7 and all the FFG line 40k books (Only War, Death Watch, Rogue Trader, Black Crusade) are almost compatible so its easy to get more stuff from the other games and bring over to Dark Heresy

One thing that I love about the layout of this book is that it has page numbers for certain rules in the margins when those rules are referenced. That’s insanely helpful.

Short, sweet, and funny. Thank you!

I like DMing for friends. I don't like the idea of charging friends. I have DM'd for strangers. I am increasingly considering becoming a paid DM for strangers. Because why not.

They're releasing a Fallout RPG!?! Next thing you know somebody like Lorien is going to turn it into a video game!!!

I've been a player and GM for about 28 years and I have seen both, problem players and GMs on countless occasions. That being said, after I basically quit playing tabletop RPGs I went to text based roleplaying in Discord for a short time. Which was my best roleplaying experience ever since the people involved made a great fit and we didn’t need any game system to make it work. But also here there are bad players, who try to be the star in every scene and diminish other characters whenever they can. In general the best parties I played with as player and GM were groups that were partially evil. The characters were completely overpowered compared to normal enemies and the general focus of the game was having a great time, doing silly stuff and being funny. While most of the fights were not hard for those characters, they still could have been challenging and even deadly if they underestimated an enemy or situation.

What's weird is that AD&D might have been technically simpler, but the way it presented that technically simpler rules set was not in any respect simple to understand. Instead of a chart with your character's abilities and the results of progression, a class would simply have 4-9 long paragraphs discussing the abilities you gained at various levels in plain, colloquial language that was sometimes difficult to parse. Advancement in your hit chance were obscured, and in some cases your weapon and armor selection were handled outside the description of your specific class. I know as a new DM starting as a 10 year old with a combination of 1st edition and 2nd edition books, I ran spellcasters as advancing 1:1 with spell levels and class levels, because the way these concepts were explained in 2nd edition were not clear at all. I would not have made that mistake in 5th edition. So I don't understand people claiming AD&D is friendlier to new DMs with these old texts with basically zero information design, dozens of optional rules seeded throughout, and non-centralized rules scattered between PHB and DMG, in multiple places for basic resolutions. I remember losing track of where the Saving Throws table was MANY times back in the day. I think your alternate explanations for why DM shortage is such a common saying are much more satisfying and ring much more true than other claims I've heard from other sources.

Dang! Nice presentation. Really liked listening to you.

Mhm, my campaign ended recently due to that. I did establish rules on how to punish problematic behaviour (use Intrusion system from TTRPG Numenera, but without a reward, probably something related to the problematic behaviour), but in the middle of the game ... I do not really have a brain or will to use it. I want to help my players, collaborate with them. Even if I remember that the rule exists, I do not actually want to "punish" them, it is a totally different mind space, so I usually just do not feel like using it until after the game already ended and figuring it would make sense to use it. To GM is quite a mental load, but now one should also constantly try to figure out if players should be punished? And for the punishment to be creative or make a story-sense? I would rather just not play with such a person or a group.

Isn't Lancer like at least in part based on 4e? That's probably why there's a resurgence.