The Gaming Den

shadzar -- when you played 2E AD&D, did you ever use Weapon Specialization? That's pretty much the original example of what a feat is supposed to do: differentiate you from other PCs with the same class.

RobbyPants wrote:What do feats add to the game? Rules and options. Granted, a lot of them are terrible, and I agree that a lot of things shouldn't be feats, but rather combat options like trip, grapple, and disarm.

In a perfect world, you'd have codified rules for what happens for throwing sand in someone's eyes, and it would be on par with what you could normally do with your round (possibly better or worse given the exact situation). Throwing sand in someone's eyes shouldn't be a feat, but I could see a feat where you get an improved benefit above and beyond what someone else could normally do. I'm fine with that.

Then, feats add both customization and rules consistency to the game.

there have been rules for such things, but often people throw them out like "wrestling" rules from 1st. not that they dont want to use the rules, or think they are bad, just primarily avoid unarmed conflict to require those rules.

the sand bit should be somewhere where it blinds someone for a round or 2 or whatever. singular combat, that which a "fighter" would excel at, has always been deficient in D&D with its group play nature. not only because the game itself, but the fighter being able ot do thing to take the spotlight, or show or fighter-like skills, does take a lot more time from the other players.

those feats can also present excess complexity, and barrier to entry or use. too many fiddly bits, not only to play with but to design to begin with, and you end up with lackluster design.

Wrathzog wrote:Mostly the second kind~~~~~~

on the dont and do bit. multiclassing was always there to add more so someone didnt feel stuck, as well was the DM.

what each DM offers may not be uniform and be different from game to game and DM to DM, but each group really is a different world, even if playing the same published setting. its just that players need to adjust to their new settings as do the characters.

and DM's world cannot be adjusted for.

i hope you dont mean "class roles" as in Tank, Healer, Kite, DOT, etc... or those names 4th gave them.

remember i advocate that class offers functions, not roles. the class and player takes the role it sees fit, and has the function of the class to perform ANY of those "roles" within the game.

hogarth wrote:shadzar -- when you played 2E AD&D, did you ever use Weapon Specialization? That's pretty much the original example of what a feat is supposed to do: differentiate you from other PCs with the same class.

damn new pages! almost missed this save for the thread review below the post composing textarea....

if i had my druthers in ANY game i played, WPs/NWPs/etc were NOT used.

this had NO effect on the fighter players either. remember 2e:

DMG wrote:Chapter 5:
Proficiencies (Optional)

Copyright 1999 TSR Inc.

PHB wrote:Chapter 5:
Proficiencies (Optional)

Copyright 1999 TSR Inc.

PHB wrote:As a master of weapons, the fighter is the only character able to have weapon specialization (explained in Chapter 5).

Copyright 1999 TSR Inc.

actually it was Weapon Proficiencies in 1e that is to differentiate fighter from fighter, like mage was with different spells, cleric with different diety.

but even without the hard-code idea of WPs, a fighter could just go golf-bag of sorts and have a preferred weapon, as most players do anyway. and MANY didnt need the two-handed long sword because it had the best damage roll, they went with an aesthetically pleasing weapon. not all dwarves carried a battleaxe or hammer, for example.

weapon specialization IS something that leads to the same problem presented by feats, that being everything that can be a choice exists for the sole reason of giving a metagame mathematical bonus for choosing it.

shadzar wrote: those feats can also present excess complexity, and barrier to entry or use. too many fiddly bits, not only to play with but to design to begin with, and you end up with lackluster design.

Not enough fiddly bits and you end up with undefined rules interactions and ad hoc MTP requests from the DM, or worse yet, the DM saying "no" because it's not in the rules.

Granted, you could come up with a generic catch-all attack under which "throwing sand" would fall, and it might be good enough.

RobbyPants wrote:

shadzar wrote: those feats can also present excess complexity, and barrier to entry or use. too many fiddly bits, not only to play with but to design to begin with, and you end up with lackluster design.

Not enough fiddly bits and you end up with undefined rules interactions and ad hoc MTP requests from the DM, or worse yet, the DM saying "no" because it's not in the rules.

Granted, you could come up with a generic catch-all attack under which "throwing sand" would fall, and it might be good enough.

sand or other loose material/liquid in opponents eyes:
on successful hit the enemy becomes blinded for 1d4 +1 rounds, minimum 1.

the problem with the DM saying "no" is varied, but often things the players dont know, or something a rule cannot fix, that being a bad DM. each DM must be judged on his own. more codified rules wont make a bad DM a good one.

just dont play with bad DMs. you DO have a choice. it IS a social game after all, not some rigid world-class tournament sporting event.

Shadzar wrote:i hope you dont mean "class roles" as in Tank, Healer, Kite, DOT, etc... or those names 4th gave them.
remember i advocate that class offers functions, not roles. the class and player takes the role it sees fit, and has the function of the class to perform ANY of those "roles" within the game.

I use the terms Role and Function interchangeably. I don't see a meaningful difference between them. Either way, we're describing the capabilities of the class.
Honestly, I'm surprised that you're an advocate for Multiclassing.

RobbyPants wrote:Granted, you could come up with a generic catch-all attack under which "throwing sand" would fall, and it might be good enough.

This is pretty much how I'd do something like that. Basically, give up your weapon damage to apply a Status Effect from a defined List. The flavor of how you apply the status effect is up to you.
i.e: Knocking someone Prone could be the result of you tripping them up or just straight up bowling them over. Inflicting someone with slow could be from you hitting them somewhere in the Leg. Blinding someone could be either cutting them above the eye or throwing sand or what have you.

shadzar wrote: sand or other loose material/liquid in opponents eyes:
on successful hit the enemy becomes blinded for 1d4 +1 rounds, minimum 1.

the problem with the DM saying "no" is varied, but often things the players dont know, or something a rule cannot fix, that being a bad DM. each DM must be judged on his own. more codified rules wont make a bad DM a good one.

Well, at low levels, thats better than Glitterdust in most ways, and Glitterdust is pretty bad ass. You trade range and a small AoE for the ability to spam it at will.

If sand-in-the-eyes is that effective, I'd expect smart opponents to be doing it to the PCs all the time. And this is the exact sort of ad hoc ruling I'm talking about. It looks good at first glance, but what it would likely encourage is each side attempting to blind the other first before chopping them up, because 3.5 rounds of blinding is better than some HP damage.

This is why it's nice to have well thought out rules in the first place.

shadzar wrote:just dont play with bad DMs. you DO have a choice. it IS a social game after all, not some rigid world-class tournament sporting event.

Yes, even the most perfect game can be ruined by a bad DM. Still, there are plenty of well-intentioned DMs out there who don't realize when an ad hoc ruling will ruin the game down the road.

i always like multiclassing as an idea, even if i prefer straight fighter in each edition. but there are some little tidbits that i think woudl add to it. not the full compliment of a class exactly, but that is how you had to get those tidbits.

i would MUCH prefer the tidbits being broken out, than have:

paladin
ranger
thief
bard
assassin
warlord
barbarian
buttscratcher
swashbuckler
etc
etc
etc

that only really adds to bloat, and offers little to the archetype that someone may want, but giving an archetypal name to something based on the view of the designer. i would prefer the player be able to tailor his character to the archtype HE seeks and its variations, without some tight-ass version created by the designer.

Robby, if everyone is doing it, it is fair, as so long as the ruling is consistent..then it too is fair. it really is no different than a surprise round as far as the and trick goes, and is a tactic that so far i dont think has EVER been employed in the rules due to things you speak of wherein the magic duplicates the effect, leaving such small effect there is NO room for the mundane of the same nature to fit in with it. this is a MAJOR reason the fighter "cant have nice things", when the wizard already has a weak spell that duplicates mundane activities the fighter should be able to do, and just cannot weaken the effect of the spell any more than the weakest spell the wizard has.

not sure the exact wording on glitterdust at this time, but designing the fighter first, then building off that would be the best way to judge whether a spell is causing a problem with giving such abilities that are NOT anime-esque to the fighter.

best similar spell i could think for a wizard would be a cantrip that blinds for one round as a spark of light flashes in the enemies eyes and cannot directly block the attack or or your friend, but can still attack on their turn.

this would make the sand more potent for a fighter. then further wizard blinding spells come later upon advanced power gained. and a wizard using all Vancian slots on little cantrip flashes to blind will burn out quickly so not be an effective tactic over long fights..so the cantrip should NOT be able to be misused that way, or else you end up with the 15 MWD waiting for the wizard to re-mem.

shadzar wrote:Robby, if everyone is doing it, it is fair, as so long as the ruling is consistent..then it too is fair.

Fair? Yes. Fun? Probably not.

RobbyPants wrote:If sand-in-the-eyes is that effective, I'd expect smart opponents to be doing it to the PCs all the time. And this is the exact sort of ad hoc ruling I'm talking about. It looks good at first glance, but what it would likely encourage is each side attempting to blind the other first before chopping them up, because 3.5 rounds of blinding is better than some HP damage.

This is why it's nice to have well thought out rules in the first place.

Definitely. Making shit up at a second's notice is almost never superior than giving it some thought beforehand. Sloppiness is not a virtue!

With regards to that particular example, there was an old (1E or 2E) article in Dragon magazine about using improvised weapons. One of the possibilities was throwing pepper in someone's face; that either stunned or blinded your enemy (or both?) for several rounds. I definitely thought about a run on the pepper market after that.

Obviously, once it becomes apparent that your ruling has stupid unforeseen consequences, you just shit out a NEW ruling. If you can crank out weird ad hoc judgments faster than their idiocy becomes apparent, you're running a great game!

RobbyPants wrote:

shadzar wrote:Robby, if everyone is doing it, it is fair, as so long as the ruling is consistent..then it too is fair.

Fair? Yes. Fun? Probably not.

ahh the 4th edition motto.

sorry, but you have to accept it you try something a a player, it should also be available to the opponents of players as well, and most times vice versa.

you cant have something like sand in the eyes for the players to do, that cannot be done back to them.

Feats are there by design as a way to give players a lot of options without overwhelming them at the table. Build options that are not play options. That's pretty much why I prefer games without them. Want to trip people? Carry a glaive. Want to wrestle? Have a free hand. Want metamagic? It's got a slot cost already. Items? Time, money, and risk. Want to cleave mooks? Have at it, on the house, good for the game.

Screw feats, takes to long too build decent NPCs and monsters, especially 3e style.


Anyhoo, back to my spell DC rant for a tick.

Kaelik wrote:If you are telling me that the Wizard never ever casts spells with a saving throw because everyone always makes them and they have spells without saving throws that work all the time then you have just removes spells with saving throws from the game, and Wizards now don't have DCs.

No. You are not paying attention. I'll try smaller words.

In 2e, some spells are best, but the best spells don't work on gods (or near-gods), and probably not on Giants either. There are also not-so-good spells that do work on everything. A clever Wizard carries and uses both, because sometimes there's a Dryad where you want to be and Disintegrate makes it not exist, but other times there's a Titan and Solid Fog lets you live to fight another day.

The point of this is that casters can do awesomely awesome things to middling and weak monsters, without automatically killing everything in the world, and also have things to do against monsters they aren't allowed to auto-win against. By good fortune, this also allows high level PCs to not die despite facing terribly terrible monsters who literally destroy armies with their very gaze, without being immune to every single thing monsters and NPCs might try.

Meanwhile, I will continue to play the much better game where Wizards can effectively win fights by casting spells. And no, forcing them to bring fighters around is not a good thing, if you have 4 players who all want to be Wizards, that's fucking okay. It is not good game design in a cooperative storytelling game to tell people what their characters have to be.

Everyone wants to be a Wizard because being a Fighter is irrelevant in high level 3e. Wizards win everything and the Fighters are not needed. I want to play a Fighter there? Sensible people would tell me to fuck off and maybe take something that can contribute instead.

Want to play a game with four Fighters? Ha! Best have a real friendly DM.

tussock wrote:No. You are not paying attention. I'll try smaller words.

In 2e, some spells are best, but the best spells don't work on gods (or near-gods), and probably not on Giants either. There are also not-so-good spells that do work on everything. A clever Wizard carries and uses both, because sometimes there's a Dryad where you want to be and Disintegrate makes it not exist, but other times there's a Titan and Solid Fog lets you live to fight another day.

The point of this is that casters can do awesomely awesome things to middling and weak monsters, without automatically killing everything in the world, and also have things to do against monsters they aren't allowed to auto-win against. By good fortune, this also allows high level PCs to not die despite facing terribly terrible monsters who literally destroy armies with their very gaze, without being immune to every single thing monsters and NPCs might try.

And what I'm telling you is that this is a shitty fucking design goal. Having one class be worse against enemies that matter in order to be better against enemies that don't matter is fucking stupid.

If the Wizard spells that don't use saving throws are as good as every other classes combat actions, then you shouldn't have the "better" spells with saving throws in the game. If they are worse than other classes combat actions, then you should damn well allow them to use their actions, like Finger of Death, that are actually just as good as other classes combat actions with the same success rate as other classes.

tussock wrote:Everyone wants to be a Wizard because being a Fighter is irrelevant in high level 3e. Wizards win everything and the Fighters are not needed. I want to play a Fighter there? Sensible people would tell me to fuck off and maybe take something that can contribute instead.

Want to play a game with four Fighters? Ha! Best have a real friendly DM.

No you idiot, this is hypothetical ideal game balance discussion not 3e.

If you get four people in a room to play a storytelling game, and they all want to be Wizards, they should all get to play Wizards. If they all want to be Fighters, they should all get to be Fighters. If you are telling people in a storytelling game that they cannot play the character they want to play because the party already has a Wizard, and now it needs a Fighter, or it already has a Wizard and a Fighter, but someone has to play the Cleric, then the game is failing.

The goal is to have a game where all classes contribute equally, and all contribute in equally against all enemies, so that at no point does someone in a storytelling game have to play a character they don't want to play for the party to succeed.

So basically everyone should be a wizard with healing abilities?

Kaelik wrote:The goal is to have a game where all classes contribute equally, and all contribute in equally against all enemies, so that at no point does someone in a storytelling game have to play a character they don't want to play for the party to succeed.

That goal is stupid. Characters having enemies they are more effective against and enemies they are less effective against is good for the game. It creates actual (as opposed to illusory) differentiation, makes people feel as if their choices matter, and that they provide a unique value to the group.

Everyone loves to hear: 'Man, if it wasn't for your sneak attack/holy power/great cleave we'd have been screwed.' That's a result that should be encouraged.

MfA wrote:So basically everyone should be a wizard with healing abilities?

No, all classes should be able to contribute equally to everything they face does not mean that all classes must be identical and contribute in the same way.

But a party of 4 Tome Fighters is not going to be told they need a Wizard, and a party of 4 Wizards is not going to be told they need a Fighter (or Cleric) and a Party of 4 Clerics is not going to be told they need either.

And hell, if you just have a bunch of oddballs, you can have a party of Snowscaper/Firemage/StormLord/Shadowcaster, and no one can tell you that you all have to have a Fighter and a Cleric and a Wizard.

That's the entire fucking point of having all these classes, is for them to all be able to contribute equally to the game. It's bad design to have one guy Fight the Golem while everyone else plays Smash Brothers, and then have that guy join Smash Brothers while someone else fights the Goblin Wizard.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:That goal is stupid. Characters having enemies they are more effective against and enemies they are less effective against is good for the game. It creates actual (as opposed to illusory) differentiation, makes people feel as if their choices matter, and that they provide a unique value to the group.

Everyone loves to hear: 'Man, if it wasn't for your sneak attack/holy power/great cleave we'd have been screwed.' That's a result that should be encouraged.

No it's terrible for the game, because the differentiation between a Snowscaper and IceHeartMage (or whatever the one in BoE is called) is real differentiation and makes people feel like their choices matter when they approach problems differently with different power sets that are equally as powerful.

And nothing about both players being useful prevents someone from saying without X we'd have been screwed, because that's not a function of power imbalance between players. If one guy kills everyone, then yeah, you'd have been screwed without him, but if the four of you fight four other people, and you each kill one, you can each be told about how each of you was necessary to prevent the screwing.

Kaelik wrote:No, all classes should be able to contribute equally to everything they face does not mean that all classes must be identical and contribute in the same way.

But a party of 4 Tome Fighters is not going to be told they need a Wizard, and a party of 4 Wizards is not going to be told they need a Fighter (or Cleric) and a Party of 4 Clerics is not going to be told they need either.

And hell, if you just have a bunch of oddballs, you can have a party of Snowscaper/Firemage/StormLord/Shadowcaster, and no one can tell you that you all have to have a Fighter and a Cleric and a Wizard.

How are 4 melee oriented tome fighters going to compare to a Snowscaper / Firemage / StormLord / Shadowcaster when fighting groups of ranged opponents?

MfA wrote:So basically everyone should be a wizard with healing abilities?

thats 4th edition.

Kaelik wrote:No it's terrible for the game, because the differentiation between a Snowscaper and IceHeartMage (or whatever the one in BoE is called) is real differentiation and makes people feel like their choices matter when they approach problems differently with different power sets that are equally as powerful.

your problem however is the same flawed idea that birthed 4th edition as you stated previously.

and all contribute in equally against all enemies

you have to look at the entire game rather than just the vacuum section you are both arguing. if the game were all and only combat, then they still need not contribute equally against all enemies, otherwise there is no reason to have more than a single class.

Rock < Paper < Scissors < Rock

this prevents any one from being the most powerful and creates a system of checks and balances.

MfA wrote:How are 4 melee oriented tome fighters going to compare to a Snowscaper / Firemage / StormLord / Shadowcaster when fighting groups of ranged opponents?

They are going to "compare" by A) being Tome fighters, so they can actually just become good at Archery. and B) breaking line of effect, or moving really quickly so that they are no longer at range and being better capable of taking any punishment required to get to that range.

I think what you meant to ask was, "how would they be identical?" And the answer is, they wouldn't, so who gives a shit because I never said they should be.

Sooo ... run away?

Did any part of that look like "run away" to anyone literate? Maybe if you have unbelievable tunnel vision and saw "moving really quickly" and ignored the entire rest of the paragraph.

The problem with running with ranged opponents that you can only ever get at range with the one you're running at ... scale up the 15th level medusa archers+hellcat encounter to a party of 4 for instance, you might be able to get out of range by running away, but you aren't going to bring all of them in range by attacking.

Not every class has to be able to contribute equally to enemies, but no class may be useless against any enemies.

It is fine if the fire mage is more effective against straw men, and the frost mage more effective against fire elementals. But the fire mage may never be useless against fire elementals.

MfA wrote:Sooo ... run away?

I think the idea is that if the group wants to run 4 fighters, even if they are just melee types, the DM and everyone would acknowledge that and make encounters suited to the party, leaving archers/mortars/artillery for boss battles or dramatic moments rather than picking the strategically most advantageous counter.... just to counter the concept of the party.

Basically, the DM would acknowledge that the party wants melee combat, and the players would acknowledge that when the DM wants serious time, she will be playing on their big weakness.

So as far as to your answer "What will the XYZ do against their weakness ABC?" Have a tough battle. I don't really see a problem with it as long as the DM isn't wanking to realism "There would be archers everywhere so I'm going to keep killing you until you learn to play 'right' and play different characters" and the players don't get pissy when the DM pulls out a tough battle "We don't even have ranged weapons, how are we supposed to fight this?".