Café de Nuit

Suggested optional rule: A rule about Professionals, craftsmen, sages etc that excel in their crafts without being top combatants (including Van Richten).

Looking at the tiers of play, adventurers of lvls 1-4 are basic, 5-10 are heroes, 11-16 are paragons, 17-20 are epic. Similarly, NPCs that are equivalent in combat prowess with PCs of such levels are fit in those brackets while NPCs that are lower in combat prowess than even a 1st lvl PC are common people.

What about the others? The professionals? The sage that has 7 hp, 9 AC, does 1d4-1 damage and has +10 to all knowledges? OK, he's worth 10XP if you kill him and that's even if the DM is generous. Is he a "common" person? No, he's not. What about the best smith in the Core? Is he really different to his peers' eyes from Georges Weathermay? combat-wise, obviously. In the eyes of his peers? I'm not so sure.
And I did something about it.

The professionals:
Here is my suggestion for people that are not combatants but they excel in what they do.
- Common: the average Joe. Trained in the skills/tools of his or her field.

- Basic: Our basic professional is the top in his local area. The farmer everyone asks advice of, the best blacksmith in the town etc.
While the proficiency bonus remains +2 (or as much as CR dictates), our basic professional has expertise in his field, doubling that +2, like a rogue (or bugbear). Expertise could cover tools, skills etc as needed. For example, the best alchemist in the area, could have expertise in alchemist tools, but be only trained in arcana and persuasion.

- Heroic: The "Heroic" professional is very good at what he or she does. The best carpenter in Borca, the best doctor in Mordent (let's be sincere, VR was never the best as a doctor).
Again, the proficiency bonus is normal. However, the professional has either mastery (skill\tool bonus+5 on top of the profession bonus) in his field, or expertise and advantage in his field (or both in different skill\tools that cover the field, see the surgeon example).
Note: monsters\powerful NPCs that have a proficiency bonus of +5 or more are CR 13 or more, hence they're already paragons whether they have expertise or mastery.

- Paragon: The paragon professional is the best around. For a small population like the core, there are not enough paragons to feel all occupations. The Paragon ship captain is the best ship captain the Core has seen in 3 generations (excluding darklords). Van Richten's knowledge of monsters is unmatched by his contemporaries and makes him a Paragon of monster knowledge.
As usual, proficiency bonus is calculated as normal for the Paragon professional. What truly sets the professional apart from the rest in his field is that he gets both mastery (skill\tool bonus+5) in his field and either advantage on related checks or reliable talent as a rogue (any roll below 10 counts as 10, including natural 1).

- Epic: The population of Ravenloft is very small for even one native professional or craftsman of such caliber. Unless the Mists snatch the best Dwarf blacksmith or the best elf scout that lives in Forgotten Realms there's little point in this bracket.
For reference, an epic professional (among the best in the world or the actual best in the world) gets mastery, advantage and reliable talent on any roll pertaining to his or her field. As such, a master

Examples:
The blacksmith: The best smith in his small town (basic).
Hp 13 (2d8+4), AC 12, hammer+5~>1d6+3. str 17, dex 14, con 14, int 12, cha 12.
Persuasion +3, Artisan (blacksmith) tools+6

The surgeon: The best doctor in Mordent. (heroic)
Str 8, dex 15, con 12, int 17, wis 15, cha 11
knowledge(nature) +5, medicine +9, herbalism kit+4, surgery kit+6
Expert surgeon: The surgeon has advantage (and doubles his proficiency bonus) with a surgery kit. The chances for the surgeon to make a terrible mistake are few.
Mastery: The surgeon has a +5 bonus to all medicine skill checks.

Rudolf Van Richten: The most knowledgeable monster hunter in the Core's history. (Paragon).
Proficiency bonus: +3. Int 17, wis 15
Arcana+6, investigation+6, nature+6, religion+6, medicine+8, herbalist kit+4
Mastery: Van Richten receives a +5 to all monster lore checks for monsters he has written a guide for even if he's untrained in the relative field. He also has this bonus on lore checks about the Vistani. For example, Van Richten would have a +11 to intelligence (religion) checks to recall information about vampires (and would make that with advantage) but just a +6 to identify a piece of religious lore.
Expert monster hunter: Van Richten has advantage on monster lore checks (except for fiends) for monsters he has written a guide for. He doesn't gain this benefit for Vistani.

NOTE: The way I envision him, Van Richten doesn't have reliable Talent. He has done mistakes that his companions paid dearly.

In addition to advantage on rolls, you can do like the rogue and give them double proficiency.

I assume you talk about the heroic professinals. I did.
It's expertise & advantage or mastery.

So... Core books are 2 adventures are out.

I won't use wild mage sorcerers, hence I'm stuck with the draconic ones. But I want more. Warlocks... I also want more. Wizards are OK but I want more spells.

Hence, I want the arcane accessory. I also want an accessory on paragons (11th+) for monsters that are not fiends\dragons\giants, shadowfell adventuring and of course, strongholds and fief-running. So far, I'm using the OD&D rules from Cyclopedia. Which work, but are complex and not even remotely realistic.

And I believe all of us would like an accessory on Ravenloft. Or at least an accessory that includes 7-8 planes (10-15 pages each) expanding on the DMG. Or at least a manual of the planes or something that includes Ravenloft, Darksun, Greyhawk etc along with the others (which means they would get just 1-2 pages).

Does anyone know when WotC will stop basking at the success of the core books and start making other books?

alhoon wrote:Does anyone know when WotC will stop basking at the success of the core books and start making other books?

If it's not on 4chan, then there's no news.

Dion of the Fraternity wrote:

alhoon wrote:Does anyone know when WotC will stop basking at the success of the core books and start making other books?

If it's not on 4chan, then there's no news.

What's 4chan? I found ... image sharing

alhoon wrote:

Dion of the Fraternity wrote:

alhoon wrote:Does anyone know when WotC will stop basking at the success of the core books and start making other books?

If it's not on 4chan, then there's no news.

What's 4chan? I found ... image sharing

ALHOON WHATEVER YOU DO..... DO NOT DIG TO DEEP!

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED......

>.>

lol actually I've never been there, some parts aren't too bad but their are some 'seedier' spots I guess we could call it on that site?

alhoon wrote:So... Core books are 2 adventures are out.

I won't use wild mage sorcerers, hence I'm stuck with the draconic ones. But I want more. Warlocks... I also want more. Wizards are OK but I want more spells.

Hence, I want the arcane accessory. I also want an accessory on paragons (11th+) for monsters that are not fiends\dragons\giants, shadowfell adventuring and of course, strongholds and fief-running. So far, I'm using the OD&D rules from Cyclopedia. Which work, but are complex and not even remotely realistic.

And I believe all of us would like an accessory on Ravenloft. Or at least an accessory that includes 7-8 planes (10-15 pages each) expanding on the DMG. Or at least a manual of the planes or something that includes Ravenloft, Darksun, Greyhawk etc along with the others (which means they would get just 1-2 pages).

Does anyone know when WotC will stop basking at the success of the core books and start making other books?

We know the next adventures will be out in March, three months away. But even WotC has not really commented on that or formally announced those products.

So if March is vague, why would anything further out be known?

March?
I was hoping for the self-destructing, 1-product-per-month timeline that got all race\class\environment books of 4E out in like 3 years, practically shelving the edition since we wouldn't really buy a 3rd book for martial heroes.

As in, I expected we'll see 3 products till March.

In the meantime, there's a flowering of fan made stuff. For example, check the stuff on ENWorld

alhoon wrote:Does anyone know when WotC will stop basking at the success of the core books and start making other books?

To be more specific: Wizards of the Coast is being very careful with splat for 5E. From what I've garnered, they're releasing one or two adventure books a year that have player options (and the Unearthed Arcana blog on the website), but most of them look to be on the DM side of things.

It's also been floated that "a max of one splat book per player" will become an official suggestion especially for the Adventurers' League, so that should help things too.

Mike Mearls went on record basically saying they're more focused on building the strength and reputation of the D&D brand than on selling more books per annum. Makes sense: Hasbro is used to losing money on cartoons or books, and making it back on associated toys and movies, so I can surmise that they'd rather see the D&D brand strong and happy with only a few quality books than make some chump change selling a half-baked "Manual of Being Slightly Better At Stabbing Things" or "Madame Ida Ho's Sexxxy-rific Guide To A Niche Campaign World That Would Tank Our Printing Budget." That way, they make more money off their movies and video games and crap like that, making us nerds happy as a result.

Only time will tell if they stick to their guns on this. If they do, they'll sidestep a quarter of what made previous editions unappealing; so I hope they do. I've been enjoying 5E so far, and I'd rather not have it turn into something where "system mastery" turns into an excuse to screw the game up.

I 100% agree and I consider the "let's not rush to publish books that will break the game" a good thing.

The good things:
D&D next is usable with practically everything. So:
-I can have more spells by opening my dusty 2nd edition 4 tome spell compendium. Half the spells are usable as is. Everything that gives a buff or has meaningful duration is concentration spell for balance.
- Fiefs? Pick up OD&D companion set or Cyclopedia. The rules could be used for every edition (except 4th). I just don't find them to my liking.
- Strongholds aside of "a big one costs 1 million" ? Stronghold guide of 3rd edition.
- Planes? If I gathered all my planes books from the various houses they are, I could fill a shelf. Shadowfell/Feywild were nicely detailed in 4E and the rest were in other editions.
- adventures? I haven't tried 4E adventures with D&D next, but it runs everything else. 3E is actually a bit harder than 2E. And I bet 4E won't be hard either.

The bad things:
I can't show my appreciation for the new edition through buying stuff. I want this edition to succeed. Yes, I know I complained over the (admittedly high) prices. But if they release an adventure in March and a splat book in summer, then I'll probably buy those expensive books over again and gift them somewhere.

We don't have enough experience to make warlock paths yet that are balanced and there are not enough examples to make sorcerers yet. We practically have 1 sorcerer (draconic) and wild mages.

Does anyone know when they'll update the PDF for DMG? I want a PDF that I can use... that means, a PDF with treasure tables. The rest, I can make.

alhoon wrote:I
-I can have more spells by opening my dusty 2nd edition 4 tome spell compendium. Half the spells are usable as is. Everything that gives a buff or has meaningful duration is concentration spell for balance.

Actually, it's probably not that simple. Several buff spells (e.g. Mirror Image) DON'T have concentration duration, and you're leaving out the "spells don't scale unless you have a higher level slot" thing.

Yeah, but that's not a problem. There are more than enough spells to give me a clue.
And mirror image aside, if you want to err on the side of balance, put concentration on all other spells outside the PHB.

Problem encountered: Uncommon item base price (i.e. sword+1) is 500 gp. FAR from prohibiting.
An investigation check with DC 20, to find a buyer after 3-4 days willing to give you 250gp (or even just 50!) for a +1 axe? While a splint mail, shield and sword cost about the same? Isn't that extreme?
Even with advantage from your buddies, a 6th lvl character trained in investigation has about 40% chance to waste 10 days and NOT find a buyer.
Keep in mind that 250gp is about 2 months of wealthy (not aristocratic) lifestyle. Not that much.


So... I think I'll bump uncommon permanent item price to 2000gp, rare to 10K, keep very rare to 50K and drop legendary to 250K. I also think I'll bump creation to 50gp/day for uncommon/rare and 100 gp for very rare/legendary.

So, to order a +2 sword (rare), you need to pay 10K + the fees of 200 days for suitable spellcasters + the costs for special materials/locations if needed.