The Gaming Den

4e DMG 184-85, I think.

Then don't play a fucking fighter if they suck so much.

I keep telling people this, but people can't bother to listen. People don't have any problem steering clear of the warrior and adept NPC class, why are they so hung up on the fighter?

Yeah, I understand that it is a problem if someone else in your group INSISTS on playing a fighter. You'd have the same problem of someone INSISTS on playing an aristocrat. Yes, this has happened to me before.

So what the fuck? What is so fucking important about the game that one class that didn't work as advertised caused you to throw out the baby with the bathwater and make you declare 'fuck it, we're all playing adepts from now on'?

I never get a satisfactory answer for this question and I am never going to. But I am going to keep asking, because someone has to.

It's not just fighters. Yeah, they suck especially hard, but that's no the point. The point is that by the mid levels, there's really no compelling reason to have a fighter, monk, barbarian, ranger, or paladin with you. Sorcerers and Bards actually do get real abilities, but both can done better by casters.

So reall, the "iconic" core 3.5 party is the Druid, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard party. To use any other classes is a deliberate nerf.

So reall, the "iconic" core 3.5 party is the Druid, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard party. To use any other classes is a deliberate nerf.

So?

Voss wrote:
None of which excuses the flaws of 4e.

No it doesn't. But 3.5's shit doesn't smell like roses either.

I'm not sure why everyone is so willing to handwave 3.5's shortcomings now (And there are alot), and yet finds every little thing about 4E so damning.

My list of 3.5 house rules is pages and pages long. The tomes are like 75+ pages, so if you're using those you've got probably at least 100 pages of house rules.

Yet, your so eager to excuse the flaws of 3.5.

Oh and also, the tomes aren't even finished.

There's shit in there that still needs to be done. Like fixing diplomacy, fixing magic item creation and so on. If we use the tomes as a guide, then pretty much the entire core rules for 3.5 have to be rewritten. I mean, what have the tomes really kept aside from the spell section? Like everything else got tossed.

Yeah, 3.5 definitely isn't perfect by any means. We all have a mountain of house rules that say otherwise.

Lets cut the bullshit about 3.5 being so awesome and 4E sucking. If 3.5 was so great, you wouldn't need 100+pages of house rules.

Lets cut the bullshit about 3.5 being so awesome and 4E sucking. If 3.5 was so great, you wouldn't need 100+pages of house rules.

If the difference is the choice of eating a day-old hamburger left out on the grill all night and eating a veggie burger that someone dropped on some dog doo. If that's the only food they have in the house, then hell yeah I'm going to get pissed when the host serves up a plate of stinky veggie burgers and insist that we go with the ones still sitting out there.

RandomCasualty2 wrote:

Voss wrote:
None of which excuses the flaws of 4e.

No it doesn't. But 3.5's shit doesn't smell like roses either.

I'm not sure why everyone is so willing to handwave 3.5's shortcomings now (And there are alot), and yet finds every little thing about 4E so damning.

My list of 3.5 house rules is pages and pages long. The tomes are like 75+ pages, so if you're using those you've got probably at least 100 pages of house rules.

Yet, your so eager to excuse the flaws of 3.5.

Oh and also, the tomes aren't even finished.

There's shit in there that still needs to be done. Like fixing diplomacy, fixing magic item creation and so on. If we use the tomes as a guide, then pretty much the entire core rules for 3.5 have to be rewritten. I mean, what have the tomes really kept aside from the spell section? Like everything else got tossed.

Yeah, 3.5 definitely isn't perfect by any means. We all have a mountain of house rules that say otherwise.

Lets cut the bullshit about 3.5 being so awesome and 4E sucking. If 3.5 was so great, you wouldn't need 100+pages of house rules.

I don't think anybody is arguing that 3.5 didn't have problems. I think the complaint is that the 4e solution to just about every problematic area in 3.5 was to eliminate it from the game. Most of the major problems in 3.5 (aside from the multiclassing problems) were present in some form in earlier editions, but 3e at least made the game more playable while keeping the cool stuff in, even if the balance problems were still there. While 4e did a few interesting mechanical things at the margins (like the constant level-based bonuses), because it removed so many things from the game, it feels more like a step backward than a step forward.

RandomCasualty2 wrote:Yeah, 3.5 definitely isn't perfect by any means. We all have a mountain of house rules that say otherwise.

Lets cut the bullshit about 3.5 being so awesome and 4E sucking. If 3.5 was so great, you wouldn't need 100+pages of house rules.

That's just silly. Nobody claims 3.5 was perfect. 4E's flaw is that it doesn't fix any of 3.5's problems. Instead, it simply eliminates any of the problematic areas altogether. Then it replaces imperfect, but workable mechanics with a mishmash of flawed stuff.

It's like looking at a patient with heart trouble and saying, "Well, the obvious answer is to amputate the heart."

She's still right about the broken record.

I didn't say Mobbie Mc Evercrack pants wasn't right about the repetition, quiet the opposite.

It's just the WoW point remains so damn true that every 4e apologist had simply better get used to gritting their teeth, thinking of their patriotic duty and eating it up with a spoon.

Because it's going to be appended to every opinion of 4e by anyone anywhere ever. It is the great popular mark of shame that will live on in infamy for as long as anyone remembers 4e at all.

Or are you suggesting 4e ISN'T full of unwanted and unpopular WoW influence that absolutely everyone has easily identified?

The repeated outlining of the WoW debacle is a problem for the apologists NOT for the critics.

It's like they are throwing their hands up in the air and saying "Ugh, I KNOW I painted frightening clowns all over your house, but would you stop criticising the clowns already? You are SO repetitive! If your criticism were valid it would not just mix it up a bit but would never repeat the key point about the clowns ever, because, uh, I don't want you to!"

It will be hammered home again and again because it deserves it. 4e, sickeningly influenced by WoW.

The 13 Wise Buttlords wrote:Then don't play a fucking fighter if they suck so much.

So what the fuck? What is so fucking important about the game that one class that didn't work as advertised caused you to throw out the baby with the bathwater and make you declare 'fuck it, we're all playing adepts from now on'?

The 13 Wise Buttlords wrote:

So reall, the "iconic" core 3.5 party is the Druid, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard party. To use any other classes is a deliberate nerf.

So?

I'm not sure how to express this best.

It's poor RPG design. If you created 12 classes, and only four of them are playable, then either you have to jack up the other 8, or nerf the 4. Around here, people jacked up the 8.

And honestly, some people want to play fighters. The idea of swinging a sword and chopping things into little bits is viscerally cool. But you can't do that as things stand in 3.5. At least not and make any sort of useful contribution past level, oh, 2 or 3.

I don't want to play "Druid Cleric Wizard Rogue Win the Game." I want to play an RPG with choices, that allow me to create a myriad of characters who have a myriad of viable class options.

You have to go play 4e for that [the same power level, that is, not the myriad of options]. Where even if it fucking sucks, at least you're all mostly at the same power level.

I think it's worth mentioning that being influenced by MassMOGs is, by itself, not inherently negative. MassMOG designers have had to grapple with many of the same issues that RPG designers have, particularly in the form of tactical issues and class balance. Some of their answers have value, and examining them is worthwhile.

That 4e went beyond that, so that PCs are wandering around talking to green dots and attacking red dots with no ability to affect the world itself, is the bad part.

I'm not seeing how the PCs lack the ability to influence the rest of the world, exactly. Isn't that mostly up to the DM?

Psychic Robot wrote:I'm not seeing how the PCs lack the ability to influence the rest of the world, exactly. Isn't that mostly up to the DM?

It should be, to an extent. But there should be rules in place (that make sense) so the DM can't arbitrarily screw the players over. Set DCs is one way to do it.

I'm assuming you're referring more to the social skills here, yes?

Psychic Robot wrote:I'm assuming you're referring more to the social skills here, yes?

Yes.

Then again, combat skills should have an effect, too. 30th-level mages should be able to raze a small farm with a couple of spells, for example.

Or 30th-level fighters should be able to cleave said farm in two. Or prepare the fields for sowing with a couple of sword strokes while running.

But that just doesn't happen.

Being a demigod doesn't mean much in 4e. It's almost like they decided that epic meant "being a 3e fighter at level 21," where the fighter cries himself to sleep because he gets EPIC WEAPON FOCUS while the wizard's familiar is kicking his ass.

Psychic Robot wrote:Being a demigod doesn't mean much in 4e. It's almost like they decided that epic meant "being a 3e fighter at level 21," where the fighter cries himself to sleep because he gets EPIC WEAPON FOCUS while the wizard's familiar is kicking his ass.

Oh, come on, a small bonus to hit is totally better than getting a level-appropriate sidekick.

It's poor RPG design. If you created 12 classes, and only four of them are playable, then either you have to jack up the other 8, or nerf the 4. Around here, people jacked up the 8.

And honestly, some people want to play fighters. The idea of swinging a sword and chopping things into little bits is viscerally cool. But you can't do that as things stand in 3.5. At least not and make any sort of useful contribution past level, oh, 2 or 3.

But you CAN make a good sword-chopping guy. Just don't make him a fighter. Or take a crazy PrC after multiclassing a lot. Be a cleric or a rogue if you want to swing a sword.

If you couldn't be a sword-chopping guy at all, that would be one thing, but you can't get me up too much in arms for false advertising or buyer's remorse if the option is still there. I really don't see why people are so butthurt that a cleric or psychic warrior makes a better fighter than a fighter, other than feeling some sympathy that they got suckered into a bad class.

http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=48840

I touch on this issue here.

Really, the question is why do we have Muggles available for high-level play, anyway? It's quite possible to make them balanced in combat I believe, but there's a reason why high-level fantasy stories involve evil magic users or evil warlords who have evil magic at their beck and call.

I've been reading the DMF thread, yes.

Here's the thing. I personally have no problems with high-level fighters being permanent residents of anime-esque crazytown.

You mentioned that if I wanted to play a sword swinging guy, I could play a PsyWar or Rogue. But that's not their primary focus...

Screw it. I don't really care enough to debate this topic. I don't actually play 3e fighters. I play Tome samurai with strange and powerful ancestral weapons, or a Shadow Warrior, or a Kantian paladin.

And I and everyone I know are ok with that, because no one I play with actually wants to play a DMF.

They want to play someone who goes to crazytown.

Dante from DMC. Ichigo. Goku. Etc.

Psychic Robot wrote:I'm not seeing how the PCs lack the ability to influence the rest of the world, exactly. Isn't that mostly up to the DM?

The DM is the world. All non-numeric interactions that don't involve other players depend on the DM.

That's what makes Rule 1 such a scary thing, and possibly why MMOs are so much more successful; if the DM is feeling pissy, Gygaxish, or particularly grogneckbeard, your game has gone down the shitter.


Also, I like crazytown, population: my warrior.
Ichigo is a great ideal for warrior archetype, as are many warrior-like OnePiece characters.
Hell, even that tard Vulcan from "Let's Bible" makes a better warrior than most Gimli-emulating grognardi creations.

Tard Vulcan from "Let's Bible"...? I know there are mecha manga Bible heroes...

Also, what's Rule 1? I know Rule 0, but I've never heard of Rule 1.

I believe Rule 1 is "The DM is always right."

Ah. Well, the DM is always right in the same way that the customer is always right.

Psychic Robot wrote:Tard Vulcan from "Let's Bible"...? I know there are mecha manga Bible heroes...

http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=16188



Main character jumps crazy distances, summons shit, transmutes materials, dodges instantaneously. Took a hit upside the chin from a summoned winnebago and continued the fight.
Don't talk to me of epic Fighters unless the character can do even have of that, and he's not even epic.

If you can't find the 2-chapter comic on your own then message me.


Correct, Rule #1 is (commonly) known as "DM's word is law".

Actually, swording people in 3.5 doesn't really work, as a system.

Sure, you cna be a rogue, which works out very well for certain styles fo swording. It doesn't cover the gamut of fighting characters.

Meanwhile, a cleric does indeed make a totally acceptable bdass mageknight, slinging a sword around and wearing shining plate and calling on divine power to get rhough noncombat issues. Trouble is, while fighitng clerics are *effective* they're also complicated bullshit that you can't hand to a new player. They're also a major cause of the many, many complaints players have about buffs, and thier destructive effect on gameplay.