The Gaming Den

Lago PARANOIA wrote:So why should game designers even worry about game balance at all if the DM is just going to go 'fuck it' and throw out bugbear sorcerers with maximized lightning bolt?

Well for a couple reasons.

Because intra party balance is always important. I seriously don't care what level you need to be to kill a dragon, but I do care if a level 10 barbarian and a level 10 druid have a huge power gap, because as a DM I can't control that without changing the rules.

The nice gravy of having intraparty balance is that you also get PC versus monster balance as a side effect, which is nice for beginning DMs, who have trouble making encounters.

But mostly, we care that two PCs are even so both people can have fun.

Ideally we also want to make it easy on the DM, who may not be great at running the numbers, so trying to keep power level within a specific window is ideal.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:So why should game designers even worry about game balance at all if the DM is just going to go 'fuck it' and throw out bugbear sorcerers with maximized lightning bolt?

If the DM can just shave off attack points of monsters or cut monster hit points in half behind the scenes then you don't even have to worry about game balance. All you have to do is make sure that the characters are equal and then the DM can pull out whatever deus/diabolus ex machina they want. Someone in the party has a +32 spot skill? Well, the invisible stalkers have a +22 hide skill on top of their invisibility! If no one has a bonus above +8? Then the invisible stalkers start making noise somehow.

You got it. As long as everyone has fun it's a good game. No skin off my back if I have to adjust enemies.

And ye,s for inexperienced GMs, having a good baseline helps a lot. But over time, many groups will adjust their game anyway, deviating from the baseline through house rules, fluff, or just general focus.

So how come Mutants and Masterminds hasn't taken off as an awesometastic RPG yet?

Effects are easy to adjust to monsters and all of the PCs are generally about equal to each other as long as they have blast and flight. And you can grab whatever bullshit effects you want to 'express' your charater. Seems like the perfect kind of roleplaying game.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:What's the point of doing anything if your DM is just going to float encounters?

Why wouldn't I just want to be a fighter 1 / bard 2 / cleric 1 / wizard 3 who took nothing but skill focus? As long as everyone else builds their characters like that then the DM will downgrade the encounters anyway so I'll face the same amount of challenge.

Conversely, what is the point of playing SoL-spamming God-Wizards and CoDzillas, if the GM will upgrade the enemies to challenge them, anyway?

Anyway, the answer from me, as a GM, to your question would be: because you probably wouldn't want to deal with the small fish of the setting forever and go around fighting petty bandits, minor monsters and other enemies suitable for your weak abilities, when you can already be a world-changing hero.

FatR wrote:

Kaelik wrote:But that has nothing to do with the idea that weak PCs cannot play the actual game of D&D, which yes, does involve your level 10 Fighter facing the occasional CR 8 challenge every once in a while.

A level 10 fighter beating CR 8 challenges =/= rocket launcher tag, as described by Roy and the need to optimize relentlessly to keep up. Not even nearly. Particularly if the GM tries to specifically compensate weaker classes, or places the encounters in places that allow the fighter to easily engage them (like, you know, dungeons).

So I explicitly went with a CR 8 to be really nice to the fighter, since by the rules I really should be using mostly EL 10-12 encounters.

What's your response? "Well against that really easy foe who's way lower CR than I should be fighting, the DM should also pick the opponent to be easy for me and have it fight someplace good for me (because it's not going to arrange it's home to be something better for it than for it's enemies?)."

Fuckity Fuck fuck. So under normal circumstance unoptimized characters cannot fight the encounters that the CR system demands under the assumptions the CR system expects without having no hope. Thank you for proving my point for me.

Fuchs wrote:

Kaelik wrote:But that has nothing to do with anything. If you aren't going to come even remotely close to following the CR guidelines, then your game stops having anything to do with D&D at all.

Sure sure... you're the high priest of D&D, and you define what's D&D... right. /rolleyes.

I know. What was I thinking? How dare I expect people who want to play D&D to follow the rules of D&D.

You know what. If someone who has never ever in their entire life seem an actual book or computer screen, and plays a game were they punch a wall really hard, and they call it D&D, then clearly that has relevance to our discussion of optimization in D&D.

Same with all the diceless bookless freeform players. The moment one of them calls the game D&D, then we have to except that the best optimization policy is being friends with the DM, because fighters are usually stronger than Wizards when you are friends with the DM.

And likewise, if people want to completely ignore half of the fucking rules by never fighting anything higher the EL 2 with their level 50 Epic characters, well fuck. That's D&D too, and that totally has a bearing on whether or not the game expects a certain level of optimization.

Fuck you and your stupid fucking evolution is a theory argument. If you want to prove that unoptimized characters can face challenges of appropriate CR, then do that. If you want to claim that you don't really need to follow the rules to be playing the game in question, suck a giant dick and die.

Also, Frank, your Shadowrun board game sucks because when I print out all the cards and eat them, they taste bad. And clearly eating the cards is playing the game just the same as following the rules.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:So how come Mutants and Masterminds hasn't taken off as an awesometastic RPG yet?

Effects are easy to adjust to monsters and all of the PCs are generally about equal to each other as long as they have blast and flight. And you can grab whatever bullshit effects you want to 'express' your charater. Seems like the perfect kind of roleplaying game.

LP, it's really simple: People like different games. I have no doubt that my D&D campaign would not be to everyone's taste, but as long as my group likes it and DMing it is fun, I'm doing it right.
It's like music - not everyone likes classic music, j-pop, country, hip-hop, or metal. But those who like any of that are not wrong.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:So how come Mutants and Masterminds hasn't taken off as an awesometastic RPG yet?

Effects are easy to adjust to monsters and all of the PCs are generally about equal to each other as long as they have blast and flight. And you can grab whatever bullshit effects you want to 'express' your charater. Seems like the perfect kind of roleplaying game.

Well it's 3rd party d20, which instant limits its widespread nature.

Also, fantasy RPGs tend to be more popular than superhero games for whatever reason. Really, no superhero game has ever been that popular in general. M&M is maybe the most popular Superhero RPG, beat out only by Champions maybe, but I don't have statistics. But the genre just doesn't seem to be something that sells well.

Kaelik wrote: I know. What was I thinking? How dare I expect people who want to play D&D to follow the rules of D&D.

I think you forgot rule 0, Kaelik. Blind adhering to the rules if they are no fun is stupid. If you can improve a game for you and your group by changing fluff, rules, or just some parameters you are by the rules allowed to - last I knew no one stated in the rules how NPCs need to act - why wouldn't you?

I find the idea that just because my NPCs rather capture than kill - something Frank mentioned as a concept too, once - I am suddenly not playing D&D anymore rather ... weird.

Kaelik wrote: So I explicitly went with a CR 8 to be really nice to the fighter, since by the rules I really should be using mostly EL 10-12 encounters.

EL 12 is sure death to any single lvl 10 character, except for those who used something hideously overpowered to rape the game, and is supposed to be such. EL 10 is 50/50 chance of death. You sure shoudn't mostly use them by the rules.

Kaelik wrote:What's your response? "Well against that really easy foe who's way lower CR than I should be fighting, the DM should also pick the opponent to be easy for me and have it fight someplace good for me (because it's not going to arrange it's home to be something better for it than for it's enemies?)."

Fuckity Fuck fuck. So under normal circumstance unoptimized characters cannot fight the encounters that the CR system demands under the assumptions the CR system expects without having no hope. Thank you for proving my point for me.

Except it is not what I said. But as your entire example was loaded from the beginning (using a single character of the third-weakest class, known for being dependent on strict optimization and/or buffs from others), a strawman is what I should have expected. How the fuck "being in dungeon/other closed space" is not "normal cirsumstances", for starters?

And some reading for Kaelik: DMG 3.5, p. 14 "Changing the rules".

Fuchs wrote:I think you forgot rule 0, Kaelik. Blind adhering to the rules if they are no fun is stupid. If you can improve a game for you and your group by changing fluff, rules, or just some parameters you are by the rules allowed to - last I knew no one stated in the rules how NPCs need to act - why wouldn't you?

I find the idea that just because my NPCs rather capture than kill - something Frank mentioned as a concept too, once - I am suddenly not playing D&D anymore rather ... weird.

So in other words, you are anti-conversation of any form.

Fuck you. When someone says, "X is true." You don't get to say, "You are totally wrong because if you change the rules, X is no longer true."

When someone makes a statement about D&D, you don't get to say, "No Roy, you are totally fucking wrong because I can change the rules." Go suck a cock and die. The one thing I hate more than anything else is people who hang out on RPG forums just to tell other people that they are wrong for making definitive statements about definitive things because you can ignore those definitive things. Fuck you. Suck a cock and die.

FatR wrote:EL 12 is sure death to any single lvl 10 character, except for those who used something hideously overpowered to rape the game, and is supposed to be such. EL 10 is 50/50 chance of death. You sure shoudn't mostly use them by the rules.

No one is fucking talking about a single level 10 character. We are talking about how level 10 Fighters who are unoptimized (and level 10 Wizards, and level 10 Rogues, but not level 10 Druids) die very quickly to CR creatures of their level. An unoptimized party has a great deal of difficulty facing an effreeti, a Behir, a Lammasu, and a Treant all in one day, much less facing actual EL 10 encounters, Like a Pair of Effreeti, A nine headed Pyrohydra, a Coutal, and an Annis Hag and her three Etin Friends.

Unoptimized parties fail to live up to CR. They do.

FatR wrote:Except it is not what I said.

It's exactly what you said. You said that all fights should be designed in places that are advantageous to the PCs, and should be weaker versions of the actual challenges.

Lago wrote:If the DM can just shave off attack points of monsters or cut monster hit points in half behind the scenes then you don't even have to worry about game balance. All you have to do is make sure that the characters are equal and then the DM can pull out whatever deus/diabolus ex machina they want.

That's 4e in a nutshell.

Kaelik raging wrote: RAGE

Roy being Roy wrote: DM CODDLING WTF IS THIS BULLSHIT

RC2 and FatR whining wrote: OBERONI

While I am vaguely amused at the level of rage Kaelik and Roy are bringing to this discussion, I fear that I must side with them. EL and CR guidelines are there because parties of level X are expected to fight things of their EL/CR. This is how the rules work.

Yes, you can subtract five points from a monster's attack bonus and give it a Strength penalty so that it doesn't one-hit the Commoner in the party, but then you're just bullshitting the system.

The Oberoni Fallacy:

If you say that a problem in a rule set does not exist because the rule set could be changed to not have the discussed problem, you are wrong.

It's a bad argument, don't make it if you don't want people to be extremely pissed off and devalue you as a person. It's perfectly acceptable to say that such and such a rule is as written not a problem because you disagree with the analysis stating its problematic nature. It's even perfectly acceptable to say that you aren't bothered by the problematic nature of rule X because you personally don't use Rule X. But it is under no circumstances acceptable to argue that Rule X is not problematic as a rule on the grounds that you don't use it.

This would be akin to me saying that FATAL is a perfectly fine role playing game with no faults because I don't play it. Making that argument is insulting to the intelligence of everyone I am directing that argument at, and I should not be surprised if people hurled invectives back at me.

-Username17

Psychic Robot wrote: While I am vaguely amused at the level of rage Kaelik and Roy are bringing to this discussion, I fear that I must side with them. EL and CR guidelines are there because parties of level X are expected to fight things of their EL/CR. This is how the rules work.

At the end of the day, the EL and CR guidelines are just that. Guidelines. Nobody says you have to put parties of level X against the encounters that the guidelines say you have to.

Not doing that isn't using Oberoni, that's just not using guidelines in cases where they'd be stupid. I mean for fucks sake, the magic item guidelines let you create a sword of always on true strike, but we don't because it would be stupid. So would TPKing a party because the encoutner guidelines say so.

Not following guidelines is not changing the rules. There is nothing in the rules stopping you from just making the encounters easier.

Kaelik wrote:Fuck you. When someone says, "X is true." You don't get to say, "You are totally wrong because if you change the rules, X is no longer true."

When someone makes a statement about D&D, you don't get to say, "No Roy, you are totally fucking wrong because I can change the rules." Go suck a cock and die. The one thing I hate more than anything else is people who hang out on RPG forums just to tell other people that they are wrong for making definitive statements about definitive things because you can ignore those definitive things. Fuck you. Suck a cock and die.

You are telling me I am wrong, and stating I would not be playing D&D. You are claiming that if one changes some rules - or just some assumptions - it's not D&D anymore.

Hate yourself much?

RandomCasualty2 wrote:At the end of the day, the EL and CR guidelines are just that. Guidelines. Nobody says you have to put parties of level X against the encounters that the guidelines say you have to.

Not doing that isn't using Oberoni, that's just not using guidelines in cases where they'd be stupid. I mean for fucks sake, the magic item guidelines let you create a sword of always on true strike, but we don't because it would be stupid. So would TPKing a party because the encoutner guidelines say so.

Not following guidelines is not changing the rules. There is nothing in the rules stopping you from just making the encounters easier.

I already called bullshit on evolution is just a theory arguments. It's a guideline that tells you what sorts of encounters your players should be facing. If you divert the percentages a little bit, that's not a big deal. If your boss encounter for a level 10 party is a CR 8 monster, then you have burned the guidelines.

They are guidelines because you are supposed to follow the spirit of CR system more than the letter.

So of course someone has to come in and say that totally violating the spirit of the rules is okay, because the guidelines were invented just to be ignored.

I have some news for you RC. Evolution is just a theory. It's also true. And the CR guidelines are just guidelines, you still have to follow them to play D&D.

Kaelik wrote: I already called bullshit on evolution is just a theory arguments. It's a guideline that tells you what sorts of encounters your players should be facing. If you divert the percentages a little bit, that's not a big deal. If your boss encounter for a level 10 party is a CR 8 monster, then you have burned the guidelines.

They are guidelines because you are supposed to follow the spirit of CR system more than the letter.

So of course someone has to come in and say that totally violating the spirit of the rules is okay, because the guidelines were invented just to be ignored.

I have some news for you RC. Evolution is just a theory. It's also true. And the CR guidelines are just guidelines, you still have to follow them to play D&D.

As I see it, the the spirit of the CR system is to make sure that the PCs are challenged appropriately.

I (and quite a few others) follow that spirit by adjusting the monsters and NPCs to the actual capacity of the actual PCs, therefore achieving the challenge desired. That has the nice effect that should I end up PCs who are vastly more powerful than the CR system assumes I am not left with cakewalk after cakewalk - which is a goal.

Do you never adjust the monsters? You use them out of the box, no matter what the PCs can do? Even if it's a total cakewalk for the PCs? Do you use a CR 12 monster as a boss for a level 8 party even if you know they'll just walk over it?

Kaelik wrote: I already called bullshit on evolution is just a theory arguments. It's a guideline that tells you what sorts of encounters your players should be facing.

Yes, if your players are "average". If they happen to be good min/maxers, you'll have to go above those guidelines and they happen to suck at it, you'll fall somewhere under. It has nothing to do with theories or anything. Guidelines are just that. A guide that you apply as an average basis for a standard party. Not every party is standard.

And the CR guidelines are just guidelines, you still have to follow them to play D&D.

No you don't. The DM has total freedom as far as creating adventures. You can create an adventure that's a total meatgrinder by the guidelines, like the Red Hand of Doom, or you can create an adventure that's a cakewalk. The idea is that you fine tune it for your particular PCs.

Now, ideally we'd have a game where everyone was balanced regardless and you could always just go by the guidelines. But we all know that's not the case.

But just because a party is underpowered doesn't mean that you're suddenly "not playing D&D" anymore, or that you're breaking the rules in any way. You could damn well run a 1st level adventure for a party of 10th level PCs and it would still be D&D. It would just be very easy cakewalk D&D, but you'd still be playing by the rules. It might not be a game you or I would enjoy but to say "That's not D&D" is total bullshit.

You can say it's a bad game, but it's still D&D.

Part of the strength of D&D is its open ended ness. You can go into a kobold cave at level 15 if you wanted to. You can run around slaying giant rats. It's boring as fuck, but you can do it in D&D. That's the whole point. The rules are there to simulate stuff, but they're not there to say "You can't create this in your world."

For my games, I actually try to cleave very closely to the CR guideline; mainly by varying tactical options (either their choices or their situation) and choosing the monsters within a CR that have abilities/defenses tailored for the party's talents.

As a result, I virtually always challenge my party with appropriate CR encounters despite wild swings in optimization, all while staying within the letter of the rules.

Kaelik wrote: No one is fucking talking about a single level 10 character.

You are (bolding mine), in a post Mon Jun 15, 2009 8:05 pm (no edits at this moment):

Kaelik wrote:Yes a level 10 Fighter can kick ass on Kobolds. (Unless they are Sorcerers, in which case they win). But that has nothing to do with the idea that weak PCs cannot play the actual game of D&D, which yes, does involve your level 10 Fighter facing the occasional CR 8 challenge every once in a while.

Kaelik wrote:We are talking about how level 10 Fighters who are unoptimized (and level 10 Wizards, and level 10 Rogues, but not level 10 Druids) die very quickly to CR creatures of their level. An unoptimized party has a great deal of difficulty facing an effreeti, a Behir, a Lammasu, and a Treant all in one day, much less facing actual EL 10 encounters,

Except... no. A classic party of fighter, cleric, rogue and wizard won't have any problem. Even though you picked cream-of-the-crop of CR8 challenges, instead of destrachans, mohrgs and whatever. Unless by "unoptimized" you mean "deliberately crippled". Granted, they won't have problems mostly because the casters are inherently awesome, but they won't.

Kaelik wrote:Like a Pair of Effreeti, A nine headed Pyrohydra, a Coutal, and an Annis Hag and her three Etin Friends.

And again... no. Unless you put of them in situations that seriously favor the monster in question and give the party no time to prepare, and rearrange spells for the couatl, these will be moderately difficult at best. As they should be. Hydra, in fact, requires a very advantageous terrain, that allows it to melee and does not allow the party to scout it beforehand, to be a threat at all.

Kaelik wrote:It's exactly what you said. You said that all fights should be designed in places that are advantageous to the PCs, and should be weaker versions of the actual challenges.

Quote? Stop strawmanning.

How is it a straw man that Kaelik said 'these hard encounters are too hard for unoptimized characters?'

-Crissa

Fuchs wrote:As I see it, the the spirit of the CR system is to make sure that the PCs are challenged appropriately.

I thought Frank beat me to the Oberoni post but looks like another opening here. If you honestly think taking all the SoDs away from enemies isn't a massive houserule then you're a tool. If you admit its a hourserule then you're spamming Oberoni at us. Get a decent arguement or admit defeat.

I do not think it's not a massive house rule (though I would take them away from the PCs too, of course), but my point is it's still D&D.

Though, technically, picking enemies that do not have SoDs from among the "official" opponents presented is not a massive house rule at all. You can go on about Oberoni and all, but it's not a house rule if I simply do not use all stuff I could - unless you suddenly claim that D&D requires me to use all in the MM, or even a certain, specific monster.

Unless of course you claim that a campaign like "against the goblin horde", where opponents are mostly goblinoids, and lacking non-humanoid foes, is suddenly not D&D anymore.

And frankly, "get a decent argument" should apply to you. Could you please point out where in the rules it is stated that I have to use SoD? That I have to play my NPCs as wanting to kill PCs, and not capture them? The DMG states that the DM controls the NPCs. That includes their goals and motivations.

If you say "it's in the book", well, is it a massive house rule if none of my opponents use toughness and dodge feats? Is it a massive house rule if I skip spells I consider to weak to be of use? Or is it only a massive house rule if I skip effective spells?

Logically, you can't claim ditching SoDs is a massive house without accepting that ditching useless spells is a massive house rule too.