Any chance of adding a 5E option?
Brastias
Member Posts: 10
Hello,
I spent an insane amount of hours on this game back in the day, from playing the campaigns to playing on persistent worlds and even scripting for one. I really hope this game takes off again and revives some of the absolute best online playing experiences I ever had.
I currently have a very strong 2+ year PnP group playing and loving 5E. I have been very disappointed that no one has created a true 5E NWN/BG style game (SC legends was hugely disappointing). I am curious, given 5E's popularity and D&D resurgence in general, is it possible to implement 5E in NWN (as an option) in the future? Snd I guess the other question is, am I alone in this desire?
I spent an insane amount of hours on this game back in the day, from playing the campaigns to playing on persistent worlds and even scripting for one. I really hope this game takes off again and revives some of the absolute best online playing experiences I ever had.
I currently have a very strong 2+ year PnP group playing and loving 5E. I have been very disappointed that no one has created a true 5E NWN/BG style game (SC legends was hugely disappointing). I am curious, given 5E's popularity and D&D resurgence in general, is it possible to implement 5E in NWN (as an option) in the future? Snd I guess the other question is, am I alone in this desire?
2
Comments
You could do it right now with enough hitting stuff with a wrench and NWNX.
I would also guess that 3.5 wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility given how similar it is to standard 3.
To be fair though, I have doubts that they will be doing this. The best course of action here may be to simply open up the ruleset to be more moddable so that the community can do it.
3.5E was too mechanics focused and, while mechanically you can do a lot more than in 5E, that aspect of roleplaying often feels lost due to the heavy emphasis on mechanics (rolling a d20 + a whole list of different skills with different allocation, not even Oghma can keep track of everything!)
5E simplifies a lot of the mechanics in a very good way, allowing players to focus more on roleplaying than stressing over the mechanics, all the while keeping some of the essences of 3.5E (ability score, for example. It's a great step-up from 2E system and I'm glad they kept those bonuses through and through)
Since NWN featured riding whereas NWN2 didn't, this is actually a great game to implement 5E rules provided some of the hardcoded stuffs can somehow be circumvented.
NWN2 with all the expansions had SOO MANY classes \ feats \ skill and races. it took hours to make a build for yourself.
Pure speculation, but I'm guessing WotC only licensed NWN to do 3.0 and that those terms still apply. If I'm right, going past that ruleset would require BD to negotiate a new license to make the core game 3.5 or higher.
That would be sweet
5e Fighters get multiple attacks per round and most other classes don't. The power bump Fighters get at levels 5, 11 and 20 is pretty crazy, especially at level 5 when you're suddenly twice as lethal. This is something 3e did better. Not only is the power bump with extra attacks in 3e more gradual but Rogues, Clerics and even Wizards get their extra attacks too.
A level 20 Rogue or Cleric with only one attack in NWN would look just as slow as a level 1 in combat.
It would certainly be much more familiar to the loads on new D&D players out there. Plus I think it fixes some of the sever balance issues (not perfectly of course). I love things like concentration spells and Advantage/Disadvantage plus the natural limit on stats (20 is max). It fixes a lot of classes like paladin and ranger that were dependent on having good scores in like 4 stats to get the full abilities (mostly because spell slots are fixed amounts and not based on stats anymore).
Sorry I rambled a bit there. Again I would not want the current campaing modules to be changed I was thinking more new content with ths ruleset implemented.
Though unlocking the ruleset code somehow to make it modifiable in the toolset would be great too.
5E is meant to be played in turn-based and player's response to encounters rather than in real-time, hence only fighters get beyond 1 extra attack compared to the other classes.
In PnP sessions I've found that fighters hardly have fun interactions outside of battles unless you go out of your way multiclassing first level rogue and/or 2nd level knowledge cleric for tons of proficiencies and expertise in skills.
Like what @Brastias suggested, some of the awesome mechanics/changes from 5E can be incorporated into NWN's 3.5E system. The following list may not entail all the differences there are in between 3.5E and 5E, but I imagine the following 5 aspects of the current edition that NWN is running on can be updated.
1. Skills and proficiencies
2. Prestige Classes -> Class archetypes/domains/oaths/colleges/etc..
3. Short Rest (1hr), Long Rest (8hr), and Timed Cooldown
4. Advantage/Disadvantage system
5. Spells (Concentration and Components: Verbal, Somatic, Material)
I am one of those people that's played every version of D&D (I'm old...) and I was one of the few, mentally challenged, who loved THAC0.
All that rambling said, I think Beamdog's primary goal is to just touch up some of the things in NWN, they probably wanted to touch up back in the Bioware days, and adding a 5th Edition rule set (even as an additional option) would require some extensive coding, and potential bug troubleshooting.
In fact, I'd much rather have 3.0 than 3.5, for some reason 3.0 feels better to me, even though 3.5 has some improvements over it.
If anyone sees or knows of someone working on something like this please point me to them.
Thanks
- Slower Leveling
- Armor Caped
- Lower BAB - Keeps players from mowing through lower level mobs.
- All classes don't get multiple attacks
- SavesThrows - that allow players to still fail at higher level
- Advantage and Disadvantage - Going away from really high Advantages so high level
characters can still be challenged
- Far less feats
- Spells - the power of spells tweaked / weakened a little.
Changes like these help to keep players from blowing through content. Which allows for content that DM's/Creators create to be used longer, without have to keep buffing up encounters as much and/or pumping out new content to try and keep the game challenging for players. So I see all kinds of upsides to using 5e with computer games.
These are just some of the reasons I really hope someone makes some haks and scripts to run NWN1 like 5e.
If anyone is working or knows of someone who is working on creating 5e for NWN1 could you please point me to them.
Thanks for your time.
Playing PnP, I find levelling is faster in 5e than it was in 3e.
A 3e character needs 190,000 to be level 20
While a 5e character needs 355,000 to be level 20
There for a 5e character with 190,000xp would be level 16 and 5,000 from turning level 17. So when playing a NWN game where players level up to say level 40 it would take a lot longer to get there using 5e vs 3e.
Do you enjoy endless grinding that much?
D&D isn't meant for getting to max level.
It is meant for RPing.
It is meant to tell a story.
I never understood people who just wanted to level fast get all the best items and beat the game. There are all kinds of games out there for that. But that isn't what D&D was meant to be.
I don't have time for PnP D&D now days, which is why I really love what all can be done with NWN. So yes for me as an old PnP gamer I like slower leveling, I do not like becoming a supper hero. I want combat and a few levels and items. But no I don't want to rush to max level and beat a game I'm enjoying playing. Like I have said as an old PnP AD&D gamer (before 3e) it was about telling a story and you didn't have to be level 20, 15, or even level 7 to tell that story. Over time you would get a level here or there and find a few items. Players should be just enjoying the journey the DM or creator is taking them on.
To think about it we would play all night and only get 3 or so combat encounters in. While at the same time you can do that in less then 20 minute with NWN1. So I guess its all bout what your comparing it to, because its't far far faster then PnP
Shoot part of the reason why they came out with 5e was because they wanted to take out all the number crunching, all the many different choices, mid maxing, and just streamline the game so groups could focus more on the story.
Different strokes for different folks, eh?
-Dave
Leveling in 5e by numbers is certainly not numerically comparable to 3e any more than 3e is comparable to 2e. There are also usually misconceptions floating around about ability scores, as 2e it was an exponential system and 3e was linear, while 5e is linear but the numbers are lower, however you get many more point allotments than 3e so your stats overall are much more powerful.
There are ways to break 5e which usually makes use of stacking different features to exceed limits of bounded accuracy on opposing rolls. Other strategies include repeated use of certain spells in every encounter to diminish the opposition.
Feats are also for example much more powerful. In 3e the toughness feat gives +3 hp (in NWN it's 1 hp per level) while in 5e the tough feat gives 2hp per level. Everyone gets more hp overall, recovers their hp quickly, death turns into a revolving door or wack-a-mole experience where allies go down and party uses long ranged bonus action healing to recover them.
It's interesting to discuss but at the same it's not at all that interesting to discuss too much.
What's needed to make a good 5e conversion is unhardcoding the character progression for feat gain and ability score gain.
@Tonden You don't need 5e to make gaining experiences/levelling harder.
As for other features, 5e is very very simplified. I understand the tension for a PnP session where 3.5 could be a big nuisance with so many attributes and rolls, but all the rolling does game for us so this is not a problem. And for me the big variety of classes, spells, feats and combinations is what appeals me on NWN. (overstatement) If i would want to choose from 5 classes with no choice behind maybe except choosing a one of five skill trees/specializations then I wouldn't play NWN but WoW.
There are some good ideas in 5e but overally I don't see it suitable for NWN at all. Not just because of many hardcoded mechanisms that doesn't allow to implement 5e properly but also because of the general design and options we now have and 5e doesn't have such as epic levels and prestige classes. Sure one could just keep these options and maybe house-rule them in a way it somehow matches, but the end result will be ugly hybrid that won't be used by many.
And NWN:EE doesn't give as any feature which would help make alternative rulesets yet and won't give as alternative rulesets itself either. I don't understand this need to have alternative rulesets in core game anyway. Why? Why it must be part of the game? Why cannot you download alread existing fan content (at least in case of 3.5 rules) ?
There are a lot of little things I like about 5e over 3e
- A lot lower BAB
- Takes longer to get to level 20
- Saving throws are set up in a way that even higher level characters have a nice chance to fail.
- The advantage and disadvantage system isn't over powered.
- A lot less Feats
There are others but you should get the point. 5e makes it so players aren't playing supper hero's and you can use lower level mobs against player longer without them just mowing through them.
If your a fan of what 3e did to the game then 3e is for you. However I liked it years before 3e so i like what 5e has done.
5e wanted to speed combat up for PnP
- not needed for NWN
5e wanted to turn down the player power gaming
- This I like a lot
5e wanted to make it take more XP to get to level 20 instead of a fast train to get there
- I like
5e wanted to make it so higher level players can't mow through lower level mobs like they can in 3e
- I like
5e wanted to make saveing throws and the advantage and disadvantage systems in a way to make content just a little more of a challenge then it is in 3e.
- I like
Its really all about what you like/want out of a system.
- a lot lower BAB - not sure why someone consider swinging once per 6seconds enjoyable but if you want to do this, it is just a simple 2da edit that doesn't even need haks, nwn even allows to grant +0bab/level.
- takes longer to get to lvl 20 - module related, has nothing to do with which rules nwn uses
- saving throws - are fine until epic levels as saving throws and especially hostile abililities' DC was never designed with epic levels in mind.
- a lotless feats - easy to do, just remove 90% feats there are, nwn client allows player to continue without selecting any feat if no feat is available so this is not an issue, you can leave just 3 feats available if you want or none.
imo, the 3.5 is quite balanced (don't confuse with rules under which operates NWN I mean 3.5srd) at least if you limit the level cap to 20. Those superman character are only possible due to the epic levels, lvl 40 cap, skill points saving (which is against 3.5rules) and homebrew nwn mechanics such as PM AC bonus, PM epic spells or homebrew bard song or oversimplified bonus stacking in nwn. Make your module restricted to lvl 20, which if you want 5e you would have to do anyway, and maybe restrict multiclassing (completely, dual class only or just monk/paladin) and you basically get the environment you want and you can call is pseudo 5e.
I am however sceptical about the interest from players... but since there was more peoples who wants 5e I guess it won't be problem, unless they misunderstood what is 5e about...
If you like 3e good for you. I don't and never have and to be one hundred percent honest I never will.
That said I love what can be done with NWN1 which is why I have owned it since it first came out and why I bought all the expansion for both NWN1 and NWN2. Plus I have payed for NWN1 like 3 or 4 times now. I believe in supporting something you want to see do well.
All that said if they are asking what people would like to seen done for NWN-EE and some people would like to see 5e there is nothing wrong with them saying so. There are other things people are asking for that i think is pointless, but we all do not think alike.
Hard coded things is something the community cant really do anything about which is why those things should be to the for front.
Character models - community easy
Tilesets - community easy
New Campaigns - community easy
There are a lot of things being asked for that the community can do with out the help of BD.
NWN doesn't even implement 3.0 rules properly so it doesn't seem interesting to discuss NWN vs 5e. If you concede NWN is the base design then alterations towards 5e wont have the expected effect of 3e to 5e, and might exacerbate some of the problems 5e has for example both bounded accuracy and hp glut.
As for advantage/disadvantage, it corresponds to average flat bonuses, the difference is the average roll goes up or goes down but you achieve the same thing as various minor circumstance bonuses and penalties.
It's not really a discussion worth having. It's like folding each slice of bread separately instead of putting one on top of the other and cutting it down the middle, it's still a sandwich. Like sure if it feels significant to ppl I guess that's fine.
@Shadooow It's actually possible to swing more often in a round than it first appears. If you google something like "5e most attacks per round" you can find some discussions detailing high amounts of attacks with some becoming absurd.
I've given it some thought before and the vast amount of work needed would be in removing content from the game. Prestige classes: gone, skills: gone, many spells: gone, many feats: gone. The races would be simple enough, so would the base classes. Slap a concentration mechanic on a bunch of spells, edit the values and effect details used in spell scripts. Reduce bab, reduce class bonus feats, make new feats.
Scripted systems would be needed for things like 5e proficiency rolls and to prevent a character exceeding the ability cap without magic, and magic item attunement.
As I've said before the main issue is you would probably need an NWNX system to remove hardcoded incremental ability bonuses and bonus feats after level up.