The Gaming Den

Absentminded_Wizard wrote:Of course, I don't think there's anything to prevent you from giving a lower-CR 3.x monster a higher-level spell-like ability. I mean, if clerics can create skeletons at lower level than wizards, why not monsters?

Which is essentially not a system at all. Its an ass pull. I think RC's point is that 4e is an ass pull all the time whereas 3e isn't in the case of classed humanoids.

The problem with the whole affair, of course, is that fast or slow, the systems are not consistent. The biggest flaw of the whole thing is that it was not designed specifically from point zero to handle everything on a case-by-case basis and there is no conceivable hierarchy of abilities. Face it, that's all that classes are, a collection of abilities given at certain amounts of investment into the class. The logic behind building a class, however, is problematic because there is not (at least not publicly, I think) a heuristic to construct classes in order to fit a particular need or vision. Abilities should be independent from the class and the class should be an organizational tool to keep packages of abilities together so one could quickly reference it. It's like a bunch of symlinks collected together. Instead, though, the basic D&D concept has been using the class as the fundamental unit of progress, and the whole thing's skewed.

D&D has been pulling itself out of that mire slowly, edition by edition. Generic classes was an idea that wasn't terrible. Epic spell casting gave a glimpse into a proper heuristic for constructing unique and interesting spells, at least. If only there was one for regular spells as well. And for building classes.

4th edition is a step in the correct direction, but it still hasn't managed to shake off the class-centered thing. It's gone with the "Oh sure, pick one class but fluff it as something different" but that's like a cocaine addict trying to convince himself that the white powdery lines were actually sugar and that he's actually a sugar addict instead. Just... no.

Also, hello, board!

Oh, dear. Two posters with "absent" and "wizard" in their names?

AbsentWizard wrote:Epic spell casting gave a glimpse into a proper heuristic for constructing unique and interesting spells, at least. If only there was one for regular spells as well. And for building classes.

Wait what?

Epic spellcasting was broken beyond belief and didn't actually let you create any interesting spells. It was just a numbers game where you built in meaningless drawbacks and got really high buff numbers instead of actually building a spell you cared about.

Absent Wizard wrote:Also, hello, board!

Hello.

Absent Wizard wrote:Abilities should be independent from the class and the class should be an organizational tool to keep packages of abilities together so one could quickly reference it.

Why?

Seriously, while that is certainly a possible design route, it's not one that D&D especially advocates or would benefit from. Designing things from the class standpoint makes a lot of sense if you want to have role distinction and protection - which D&D has said time and time again that it does.

If your goal is to be a roleless point-based system where everyone plays "adventurers" then you're going to want to give everyone equally powerful abilities. If however your goal is to make characters distinct and categorizable then your goal instead is to give every character equally powerful sets of abilities. And that frees you up in theory to make abilities that are heavily different in scope or power because they are part of sets that make up for shortcomings in other ways.

For example, if you play a hexer or a warrior who drops down a curse or stance that damages enemies in an automatic fashion then your individual attacks should be weaker than those of a character whose entire round by round damage output relies upon landing their attacks. And in a class centered game that's a reasonable tradeoff. But in an ability centered game that's much harder to do - because the people are just going to take the damaging stance and the better attack and power creep the game.

I mean let's face it: the things you bring up as positive developments for the game (generic classes, epic spellcasting) were not good. They were completely broken and added nothing to the game. You can make a point based system or a skill based system. And there's nothing wrong with that. But there are different mechanisms for those than for a class and level system - and you don't gain anything by using the principals of one in the other.

Making D&D into GURPS isn't improving D&D, it's making a shitty version of GURPS.

-Username17

AbsentWizard wrote:The logic behind building a class, however, is problematic because there is not (at least not publicly, I think) a heuristic to construct classes in order to fit a particular need or vision. Abilities should be independent from the class and the class should be an organizational tool to keep packages of abilities together so one could quickly reference it.

Abilities don't have to be class independent. You are correct that D&D never seems to have any process for determining what level an ability is appropriate at. They should have been using something like the same game test but I doubt they did.

Oh, doubtless that everyone should be given more than one ability, that's what makes it a set. The key behind creating interlinked sets of abilities is that obtaining certain abilities must have prerequisites on other abilities. That is to say, they should not be independent to each other. I don't mean in the sense of "You must have Sneak Attack III in order to take Sneak Attack IV." but rather more along the lines of "You must have X Strength and Y base speed in order to take Charge Attack of Pointy Doom."

Of course, saying that because the experiment failed, therefore the principle behind them is not good is an argument that does not quite... quite take into account whether the experiment failed because the theory was unsound or the experiment failed because the execution was unsound. Yes, Epic Casting and Generic Classes didn't work.

The very fact that there are a number of people who don't like the classes given to them as-is and want to trade things in and out in ways not strictly delineated in the printed rulebooks is evidence that there needs to be created a heuristic for measuring the relative power of a set of abilities, so called a 'class.'

No, I have never seen nor played GURPS.

What you are asking for is basically gurps. You should give it a whirl sometime.

Unfortunately the system isn't actually very good and there are a billion traps in it, but it does say "here is a pile of points. Here is a huge list of abilities, stats and skills. Abilities have stat and skill pre-reqs. Go!"

But what you don't know is that, for example, to be an effective swordsman you need several ranks in acrobatics or something, and you are totally crap as an archer unless you have some other disconected skill etc.

Just finished reading the thread.

Sorry about not posting earlier, I've been busy for the past week. I'll also be gone over the weekend, so I'll stick a few responses in right now.

TarkisFlux wrote:On the off chance that Crimson Lancer or crazysamaritan are even still reading this thread, this other thread has a more detailed explanation of why skill challenges (post errata) fail. The details were pretty much skipped here, but there they are if you're interested in the math behind them.

I don't know what the design goal behind them was, so I'm not suggesting that they fail to meet it.

Thank you for being helpful.

Amra wrote:I've seriously seen the math of Skill Challenges written out the long way, a dozen times or more, in such a comprehensive manner that a complete idiot could understand it.

Then I'm apparently a complete idiot.

I don't care to read it over-and-over again, when "too hard" or "too easy" are subjective terms. Imagine a jigsaw puzzle that doesn't give a difficulty rating, compared to other jigsaw puzzles. Is the puzzle too hard, or too easy?

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FrankTrollman wrote:You can even say that the action or item in question is a rare edge case, and that the extra page count for a rule covering it would be of negative overall value.

But seriously, saying that the mechanics for something are not missing because you can personally make up some mechanics for it and subsequently write them down makes you automatically lose.

When I invoke "Page 42", I'm generally saying you should use it to make your own rules, but I forget to add that the event is better off not wasting page counts in the core rules.

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tic wrote:What irks isn't that "Bob prefers 4e over 3e", or "I dislike point X", but some of the logic that's being used, some of the reasoning. I sure as heck don't need to shove 4e down your throat, or scream "4e is awesome, you all suck, so there". I'm fully aware that 4e makes some choices that some people find decidedly unpleasant - there's games that I wouldn't bother running in 4e, because the system doesn't mesh with the mood, the theme, whatever. The result someone comes up with is irrelevant if their logic doesn't make sense. If I call them on it, maybe they'll go "Oh, wait, no, I getcha. Adjusted. Fair enough." Maybe they'll go "No, actually, I'm right. Let me explain another way.", and I'll go "Ahhh. Right, now I'm with you." Maybe we'll both butt heads and someone will say nasty things about someone else's mother - who knows?

Aside from anything else, if I can sit in a level-headed conversation, I may come to understand the strengths and weaknesses of both systems a little better, and be able to adjust or compensate when I'm GMing or playing. Lose preconceptions and assumptions and all that jazz.

Thank you very much, tic.

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Mister_Sinister wrote:Ok, Mr. Defend-4E; Answer me these questions, which should, beyond all levels of belief, answer whether you know anything about 3E whatsoever.

1) Who is more powerful, a beguiler or a wizard? Why?
2) What is the most fundamental flaw to the 3.5 fighter?
3) What is an example of a character who can play the game at all levels effectively and why?
4) Why is the Complete Arcane warlock inefficient?
5) Is Tome of Battle unbalanced or not? Why?

And then, these questions about 4E:

1) What is the most powerful cleric paragon path yet printed? Why?
2) What is the most powerful epic destiny in the 4E Player's Handbook? Why?
3) Is the two-weapon ranger the best two-weapon user in the game? Why or why not?
4) What is the optimal fighter race? Why?
5) What is the most effective 4E tactic at any level?

3E
1) I don’t have a PHBII, so I don’t have access to the beguiler class.
2) The Fighter was only able to access sub-systems that were available to all characters, and had no abilities out of combat.
3) A Warlock, because the ability to use magic never ran out, most attacks were ranged, and the ability to master magic items allowed it to imitate any casting class.
Clerics and Druids are also fairly good at all levels, although the cleric is less effective during the first three levels than average. Druids have an animal companion at first level who can be as effective in the party as a fighter. By the time the first animal companion is ineffective, the Druid is able to wildshape.
4) Issues with the 3e Warlock:
Had no way to eliminate his low AC and hit points
Spells were limited
Was an expensive class to play; it had a dependance on magic items that surpassed the Fighter.

These things made the Warlock weaker than a full casting class, but still more powerful than rangers, their partners in ranged attacks. The Bard-Diplomancer, however, was still generally more efficient.

5) I do not have the Tome of Battle, but as I understand, it still didn’t allow mundanes to do things casters couldn’t do.

4E
1) Dunno, haven’t played much paragon.
2) Demigod – it gives out ability score bonuses (that’s the biggest issue).
3) With or without Martial Power? The Tempest fighter powers allow more offensive power, without giving up much of the Fighter’s defensive power.
4) Haven’t given it much thought. Dwarves come highly recommended for the Hammer-builds, though.
5) Teamwork and Focused Fire

I don't care to read it over-and-over again, when "too hard" or "too easy" are subjective terms. Imagine a jigsaw puzzle that doesn't give a difficulty rating, compared to other jigsaw puzzles. Is the puzzle too hard, or too easy?

Bullshit. You don't get to play that fucking "What is the meaning of mechanics?" shit around here. If a skill challenge is supposed to be hard, it should be hard; if a skill challenge is supposed to be easy, it should be easy. Having an 83% chance of passing a difficult skill challenge is stupid. That means that you're going to auto-pass an easy skill challenge, so why the fuck even bother with rolling?

In conclusion: fuck your "we can't analyze the mechanics" idea.

When I invoke "Page 42", I'm generally saying you should use it to make your own rules, but I forget to add that the event is better off not wasting page counts in the core rules.

You're advocating an ass-pull with guidelines. While guidelines are helpful (and ass-pulls aren't always bad), it doesn't excuse the lack of mechanics. Especially when skill challenges are ass.

2) The Fighter was only able to access sub-systems that were available to all characters, and had no abilities out of combat.

Try harder. Fighters suck they have no out-of-combat abilities, true, but they suck more because...

a) ...their class name is what they do, and they can't even do that very well (full attack + Power Attack for piddly shit damage),

b) ...they have incredible magic-item dependency,

c) their class is overshadowed by clerics and druids entirely (and a single class feature from the druid, too),

d) they are designed around having access to feat chains, which means that they are locked into a certain build if they want to do things,

e) they have roughly one fighting style that works,

f) and they're boring as hell.

3) A Warlock, because the ability to use magic never ran out, most attacks were ranged, and the ability to master magic items allowed it to imitate any casting class.

Warlocks are fairly weak.

4) Issues with the 3e Warlock:
Had no way to eliminate his low AC and hit points

HAHAHA. This is the class built around UMD and you think that a d6 HD is going to limit him?

Spells were limited

Correct.

Was an expensive class to play; it had a dependance on magic items that surpassed the Fighter.

Fail. It made touch attacks and could fly and dispel magic at will.

These things made the Warlock weaker than a full casting class, but still more powerful than rangers, their partners in ranged attacks. The Bard-Diplomancer, however, was still generally more efficient.

Except the Diplomancer isn't going to get used in an actual game. Also, the warlock's damage was pitiful. 11d6? Please. And they had like DR 4/cold iron or some bullshit.

2) Demigod – it gives out ability score bonuses (that’s the biggest issue).

No. Not at all. Look at the brokenness of the demigod's abilities.

5) Teamwork and Focused Fire

Fuck you. "Teamwork"? Fuck you in the face. That's a non-answer. The most effective tactic in 4e is stunlocking.

Psychic Robot wrote:The most effective tactic in 4e is stunlocking.

I think it's a tie between stunlocking and kiting.

MartinHarper wrote:

Psychic Robot wrote:The most effective tactic in 4e is stunlocking.

I think it's a tie between stunlocking and kiting.

With Focus Fire. Of course, the stuns stick the first time due to your wall fucking of the RNG, so 'stun until target A gets locked, then move to B etc' ends up amounting to about the same as spread attacks, except that it actually works.

Stunlock kiting with focus fire.

CS wrote:Then I'm apparently a complete idiot.

I'll take that. The numerics on skill challenges are unacceptably bad. As in, the pre-errata ones were so bad that they errataed them. The post errata ones are so bad that players cannot fail.

The non-numerical aspects are also completely horrendous when judged on the criteria that the designers set for themselves.

We go over the non-numeric aspects in detail Here.

This is open and shut. Skill challenges are a disaster. This is not an opinion statement. If you say that you like them, you are objectively wrong.

-Username17

Compel the Craven
Attack: Dex vs. Will
Hit: 2[W] + Dex mod damage; target moves away from you Cha mod squares.
Miss: No damage, and target moves 1 square away from you.

This is why dissociated mechanics are bad. This is why pure gamism is bad. This is why 4e is an abortion to God and man.

I can handle the math sucking. I can handle the piddly shit damage chipping away at a monster's HP. I can handle the broken orbizards and rain of blows bullshit. I can give PCs bonuses to hit and damage. I can nerf broken abilities.

What I can't do is close my eyes every time I roll the dice and pretend I don't know the mechanics are a gigantic pile of perpetual "What the fuck?"

Yeah. Too much "suspension of disbelief", especially with all the "move target" powers.

Honestly, I don't see what your problem with that power is, Psychic Robot.

3E also had its share of 'make the target move away' spells. Is the fact that it's done with a weapon is what galling you?

It's what galls me. Especially if all those non-magical powers somehow can make targets move so much.

And even in 3E, if you say feared a target it did not move magically 4-6 squares away - it started to run with its normal movement once its turn came up. Any instant move would have had to be an actual push (by physical force or magic) or a teleport effect.

It's what galls me. Especially if all those non-magical powers somehow can make targets move so much.

But forcing the foe to move is no mechanically different from sliding them, except for the fact that a move draws OAs and is hampered by difficult terrain. If they changed the power to 'slides and the movement draws OAs'

As a crowning example of fail, I think it's pretty weaksauce myself--it sounds more like 'sword-based characters don't get nice things' complaining.

I have no trouble with a sword master using "Ki thunder wave" to blow enemies back. Or Conan shieldbashing a guard so it falls down 2 meters away.

But I have a problem with anyone, mage or swordmaster, scaring an enemy so much that he instantly moves 6 squares outside his turn (and in addition to his normal movement rate, though that I could rationalize as soime sort of buff).

And I really hate the term "slide".

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Honestly, I don't see what your problem with that power is, Psychic Robot.

3E also had its share of 'make the target move away' spells. Is the fact that it's done with a weapon is what galling you?

Because the rogue is attacking the guy's Will defense. Is he using a psychic crossbow now? And how is he doing damage if he's attacking the guy's Will Defense? And why does the guy move exactly the number of squares equal to the character's Charisma bonus?

If I wanted to do a power like this, I would say Dex vs. AC, secondary Intimidate vs. Will, and the target becomes shaken/frightened.

What's the flavour text on that ability?

"Your unnerving attack forces your foe to run away from you, heedless of its enemies."

Fear effects in general (magic or otherwise) tend to annoy me. When the point of the game is to play brave heroes, it pissed me off everytime some random effect forced my character to run away or cower in fear.