PDA

View Full Version : [3.5] A system broken by complexity?



Torvon
2010-06-04, 02:29 PM
I've recently started playing d&d 3.5

I have quite some experience with other roleplayinggames, also rather complex one's like SR or the black eye 4th edition. I studied statistics. I'm good with maths. I like rules, and numbers. But I found something disturbing.

I took a couple of hours to browse through all the "PvP" threads available. Apart from the fact that the ability to kill someone in 1 vs. 1 doesn't say anything at all about the power or usefulnes of a character in a game, one thing stood out above all:

95% of the threads were rule discussions, often without agreement.

I may have read 40 or 50 threads, not a single one without extensive rule discussions. I imagine people who do level 20+ PvP in forums to be gamers who are really, really good with rules.

A starting point for a discussion:
The sheer amount of books, and thereby rules and mechanics, has made the system very complex. With complexity I mean that things and more things were designed, opening up more and more degrees of freedom, making more and more combinations possible.
I would say that with 20 mechanics, it's possible to say what will happen if something [x] gets introduced into the system (think about starcraft, and adding a new unit to one of the three races). But with several 1000 rules up (look at the insane feat lists out there), it's basically impossible to have all the possible combinations in mind. I can't imagine a game designed browsing a couple of weeks through all classes and PrC to check if the thing he is about to implement could be abused when combined with something else ...

So, did the sheer amount of rules break the system? Without being an expert of D&D 3.5, I get the impression, browsing through all these posts.

I'd love to read your opinions.

ta-ta
Torvon

Fax Celestis
2010-06-04, 02:32 PM
Nah, poor editing, little-to-no playtesting, and vague rules are what cause arguments and brokenness. The system itself--and the core mechanic--is sound: it's merely the actual implementations within that system that fail.

Greenish
2010-06-04, 02:33 PM
Apart from the fact that the ability to kill someone in 1 vs. 1 doesn't say anything at all about the power or usefulnes of a character in a gameYes it does, when you're playing arenas.

Arenas have extensive rules discussion because everyone has vested interests in their interpretation being correct. In other types of games, DM will be giving the final interpretation, end of story.

The multitude of options is D&D 3.5's strong point.

Oslecamo
2010-06-04, 02:34 PM
So, did the sheer amount of rules break the system? Without being an expert of D&D 3.5, I get the impression, browsing through all these posts.


It's more of a love-hate relationship.

Yes the amount of variety of rules open up the doors to plenty of problems, but on the good side it also offers plenty of options and it's extremely satisfying to dig trough the books and think about all the possible cool combinations.

That's pretty much why 3.X is still played as much if not more than 4e, wich offers better balance at the cost of rules variety.

RelentlessImp
2010-06-04, 02:35 PM
I'm not going to add my opinion here, because it'd be a post that took up half the page when all was said and done... but the complexity of the rules system is pretty much just established in core. Extra rulebooks typically just bring a new mechanic specific to one class or another, though it's all been derivations of something introduced in the core books - exceptions being Truenamer, Binder, and Incarnum. (Initiators don't count - their maneuvers are just spells with a different recharge mechanic.)

If you're truly worried about having to pore through so many books to figure something out, invest in the Rules Compendium instead. It's neat, condensed, and typically solves most of the complexity after a couple of reads - save for the grappling rules, which I think are the only thing that take up more than half a page.

tl;dr version: The extra books don't make it complex. Its complexity all stems from Core.

Cheesy74
2010-06-04, 02:37 PM
Well, yeah. 3.5 does have a hell of a lot of books out there. And yeah, a lot of books opens up a lot of abuses.

However, the thing a lot of people miss when they discuss this sort of thing is that there is a human being standing between players and the steaming pile of limburger that is a pile of sourcebooks. DMs make sure that rule abuses don't happen and provide a solid judge for this sort of thing (assuming they're good at their job).

As for a potential for abuse, that's all about the skill of the designer. WotC-official books tend to have professionals behind it, and they don't really need to read over the myriad sourcebooks out there to make sure their new abilities aren't abusable. There are quite a few key phrases they can toss in to cover up exploits, like "does not stack".

I agree with you that D&D 3.5, being a complex game, is going to have some problems. However, there are several layers of safeguards that prevent those problems from affecting a game. In reality, the problems with the complexity of D&D (at least related to its misuse) are a non-issue.

It's a different story on here, where characters are made in a magical land where everything is permitted and the DM is the most lenient being on the face of the earth (or nonexistent altogether, in the case of thought experiments like Pun-pun). That's where rule discussions happen, because the rules go straight to the players instead of being filtered by a DM.

So yeah, D&D does have some problems with complexity. But they're all easily fixed with a judge.

tl;dr: You forgot the DM.

Reinboom
2010-06-04, 02:37 PM
Nah, poor editing, little-to-no playtesting, and vague rules are what cause arguments and brokenness. The system itself--and the core mechanic--is sound: it's merely the actual implementations within that system that fail.

I must argue that. ( =P )

Though, that depends on what you call "the system itself".
I would say that the skill system is very much not sound. The class arrangement / increasing causes issues...


So yeah, D&D does have some problems with complexity. But they're all easily fixed with a judge.

tl;dr: You forgot the DM.

In my experiences, the vast majority of DMs have no idea on how to be a proper judge of rules.

Greenish
2010-06-04, 02:37 PM
the complexity of the rules system is pretty much just established in core. Extra rulebooks typically just bring a new mechanic specific to one class or another, though it's all been derivations of something introduced in the core books - exceptions being Truenamer, Binder, and Incarnum. (Initiators don't count - their maneuvers are just spells with a different recharge mechanic.)Well, if you count psionics in the core.

[Edit]:
As for a potential for abuse, that's all about the skill of the designer. WotC-official books tend to have professionals behind it, and they don't really need to read over the myriad sourcebooks out there to make sure their new abilities aren't abusable.Hehe, that cracked me up.

Indon
2010-06-04, 02:38 PM
Nah, poor editing, little-to-no playtesting, and vague rules are what cause arguments and brokenness. The system itself--and the core mechanic--is sound: it's merely the actual implementations within that system that fail.

Sheer volume of mechanics progressively increase the chances of unintended interactions, however, and 3.5 has that in spades.

Fax Celestis
2010-06-04, 02:40 PM
I must argue that. ( =P )

Though, that depends on what you call "the system itself".
I would say that the skill system is very much not sound. The class arrangement / increasing causes issues...

When I say "system" I mean the fundamental underlying basis of the game. The entire 3.5 game can be condensed to "roll 1d20, add modifiers, compare to target score". There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

The issues in 3.5 stem from the classes advancing at different power-rates, and the skill system--while remaining true to the core mechanic--fails to accurately deal with numbers that appear regularly in real games. Feats are too few and too static, there's no reward for not multiclassing, swift actions are by-and-large only useful for spellcasters (meaning that by virtue of being a spellcaster, you immediately gain benefit over nonspellcasters even before you cast a spell), and special combat actions are too complex. I have tried to repair most of these in my homebrew (investing feats, grapple skill, increased swift-action uses for noncasters, lowering of power curve for casters while increasing the curve for noncasters, etc), but it is not very easy.

Reinboom
2010-06-04, 02:43 PM
When I say "system" I mean the fundamental underlying basis of the game. The entire 3.5 game can be condensed to "roll 1d20, add modifiers, compare to target score". There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Which is just the core mechanic.
Not the system and the core mechanic, spoken separately.
I wouldn't of bugged you if you said one or the other.
:smalltongue:

Seatbelt
2010-06-04, 02:44 PM
That's pretty much why 3.X is still played as much if not more than 4e, wich offers better balance at the cost of rules variety.

This is why I've not played 4E. I've rolled a character who never saw play but the one impression I got was that the classes, while all different and fulfill different roles, were fundamentally the same. They behaved the same essential rules in attack power and daily's and at wills and such. In 3.5 I know the fighter works mechanically different from the wizard, who works similarly to the cleric or druid, but are completely different from the monk. Each time I roll up a 3.5 character gameplay changes because the rules for that character change, which keeps things fresh and interesting.

Binks
2010-06-04, 02:46 PM
I would say that with 20 mechanics, it's possible to say what will happen if something [x] gets introduced into the system (think about starcraft, and adding a new unit to one of the three races). But with several 1000 rules up (look at the insane feat lists out there), it's basically impossible to have all the possible combinations in mind.

20 mechanics is still too much, to use your same example there have been plenty of units/powers that were going to be in starcraft 2 that were later found to have broken combos and removed or modified. No examples off the top of my head but if you just hop on the boards over there and look at the patch notes it's easy to see that even limited mechanics can have broken new rules introduced.


So, did the sheer amount of rules break the system? Without being an expert of D&D 3.5, I get the impression, browsing through all these posts.

No, the distilling of a complex series of interactions into a limited series of simple rules broke the game. It's also the point of the game. You can't distill complexity down without introducing some holes, and those holes are always problematic. The fact that D&D is trying to represent a very very complex series of interactions in a very simple format broke the system, it's just about impossible to not have something broken when you do that.

Fax Celestis
2010-06-04, 02:49 PM
This is why I've not played 4E. I've rolled a character who never saw play but the one impression I got was that the classes, while all different and fulfill different roles, were fundamentally the same. They behaved the same essential rules in attack power and daily's and at wills and such. In 3.5 I know the fighter works mechanically different from the wizard, who works similarly to the cleric or druid, but are completely different from the monk. Each time I roll up a 3.5 character gameplay changes because the rules for that character change, which keeps things fresh and interesting.

This is, honestly, my biggest issue with 4e: not the actual gameplay (because it is fun), but that every class uses the same damn system. You get x powers at y level, z feats at a level, and enter Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies at 11 and 21 (respectively). They didn't even start messing with that basic, fundamental system on any sort of level until PHB3, far too long, IMO, to wait for something that basic.

I feel like the designers of 4e are terrified of being a bull in a china shop and so are instead a mouse in an HEv suit in a cleanroom. For a game about imagination, well...you kind of need to be adventurous to have an adventure.

Zeful
2010-06-04, 02:54 PM
The multitude of options is D&D 3.5's strong point.

It's also one of 3.5's weakest points.

Options are not distributed and supported equally. Many of the options are for casters, a subset of classes that not everyone plays. Further a significant number of those options invalidate many of the the class' innate restrictions (Baccob's Blessed Book, Pearls of Power, Knowstones, Mordenkain's Lubricant, most of the Conjuration (creation) subschool, Metamagic) which would be roughly equivalent to a sword that gave infinite hit-points and the ability to resist all spells.

How many options are there to enhance or change a Paladin's Smite? Why can't a fighter's sword stun his victims (or for that matter a freaking hammer)? How is a 20+ level Rogue still detectable at all?

As Fax said: The underlying mechanic of the game (roll 1d20+modifiers Vs. Target number+modifiers) is solid, the rest of the game isn't.

Morty
2010-06-04, 02:57 PM
Nah, poor editing, little-to-no playtesting, and vague rules are what cause arguments and brokenness. The system itself--and the core mechanic--is sound: it's merely the actual implementations within that system that fail.

I'm inclined to agree. The issues of 3rd edition come from bad playtesting and several mistaken assumptions. The designers greatly underestimated the effects magic has on the game but overestimated the deterring effect having to prepare spells has on spellcasters. As well as a bunch of other stuff that'd take too long to list. The system itself and the number of options aren't that important here.

Kaiyanwang
2010-06-04, 03:00 PM
It's not a simpel answer. 3.5 is big. Very, very big. It's really impossible to avoid loopholes.

In other instances, desingers clearly overlooked the potential brokennes of something, or did not put enough limitations in a certain mechaninc.

Sometimes, a loophole is simply a silly interpretation of a rule by a munchkin.

oxybe
2010-06-04, 03:00 PM
some of 3rd ed's most broken spells is found strait out of the PHB, spells like Gate, Alter Self/Polymorph line, Timestop, ect... are all core spells. the "construct/mindless undead" buster called grease is core. glitterdust (a low level mass blind+invisibility disabler) is core. enervation, black tentacles, ect... all core.

some of the mechanics, like grapple/disarm/trip/turn undead can be either overpowered or entirely useless and are generally more complex then they need to be.

the classes were tested using certain archetypes (i vaguely remember the playtest wizard being a blaster rather then utility/debuff machine and the cleric a "healbot") over the course of the 20 levels, but the going outside of those archetypes allows some classes to do dual roles: the wizard can summon his own fighters, the cleric can self-buff to be a better fighter, the druid has a pet he can buff... all while doing their jobs as casters (area control, utility, debuff, ect...). the classes themselves are unbalanced.

the addition of the extra sourcebooks adds to the issue, but it already existed before the sourcebooks came out. saying "a good GM can fix it" is ignoring the fact that the issues exist.

i don't mind playing 3rd ed, but i acknowledge it's problems and refuse to GM it because of them.

Greenish
2010-06-04, 03:02 PM
It's also one of 3.5's weakest points.True enough.

How many options are there to enhance or change a Paladin's Smite?Is that rhetorical, or shall I make a list?

Why can't a fighter's sword stun his victims (or for that matter a freaking hammer)?It can, with proper enhancement.

(or for that matter a freaking hammer)?Three Mountains Style for Nauseated, which is pretty strong debuff.

How is a 20+ level Rogue still detectable at all?With the right spells/powers.

Zeful
2010-06-04, 03:13 PM
Is that rhetorical, or shall I make a list?Please, I like Paladins, but find the lack of core support frustrating.

It can, with proper enhancement.Which requires one of the many caster options to be available, why can't a Fighter do this on his own?

Three Mountains Style for Nauseated, which is pretty strong debuff.Not a Fighter though.

With the right spells/powers.And not a Rogue.

Which was my point, many options "for" a class are options for every class but happen to synergize well with one. A level 20 Fighter's weapons can't stun or push people away because no one allowed him to. A Level 20 Rogue can be detected by a lucky shot by someone half his level.

Kaiyanwang
2010-06-04, 03:17 PM
Three mountains is a style feat. viable for meleers and viable for fighters. BTW, shares prerequisites with charge feats.

Other condition can be stunned (Staggering Blow, Dragon Compenidum) Staggered (Staggering Critical, DotU) Dazed (Dire Flail Smash, CoR).

Barring the evergreen knockback, if you want to push away someone, bull rush him.


BTW, take a look in the Pathfinder PRD: you could find useful at this regard:

Critical Feats, adding condition on target on a critical

Shield Slam feat, bullrushing for free on a shield bash

Knockback barbarian rage power. Barbarian rocks in combat maneuvers!



Moreover, consider that being invisible in front of a balor worths nothing. An high rank in some skill can always be something useful.

Greenish
2010-06-04, 03:18 PM
Not a Fighter though.What, why not?

And not a Rogue.Well, assumedly the rogue can detect himself.

A level 20 Fighter's weapons can't stun or push people away because no one allowed him to.Yes they can. Knockback pushes people away, Three Mountains Style, well, doesn't stun but Nauseates.

A Level 20 Rogue can be detected by a lucky shot by someone half his level.Not really. (Skill checks won't autosucceed or autofail.)

Zeful
2010-06-04, 03:29 PM
What, why not?Cause I thought you were reffering to a ToB style.

Well, assumedly the rogue can detect himself.But a Rogue can't become undetectable by virtue of being a Rogue.

Not really. (Skill checks won't autosucceed or autofail.)
Not what I was referring to (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/scrying.htm)

Dragosai
2010-06-04, 03:30 PM
To the OP, short answer; yes to your question “is 3.5 broken by its complexity”.
Long answer; Yes with a but; the but being that it is not so much all extra books that make it complex and thus easy to break, it is broken after about level 8 or so. After level 8ish even a core PHB wizard/cleric/druid/sorcerer are so powerful that playing any other class makes no sense.
The problem you run into is exactly what the OP said that “broken” stuff is judged by player vs. player, and the problem with that is well everyone will have their own opinion.
I am wondering why the OP went from playing 4th to 3.5? I am guessing maybe you joined a group that still plays 3.5, just play something with regular spell progression and you will be fine. If the game is going to start at low level and end before 8 well play what you want, if high level play is expected yeah a caster or don’t bother.
All the extra books/stuff/things/junk in 3.5 doesn’t really break the system, the basic rules just send it down the hole of madness after level 8ish. All the extra books just make the madness have more forms of destruction.

Kaiyanwang
2010-06-04, 03:37 PM
Not what I was referring to (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/scrying.htm)

Scry has save and 1 hour casting time. Sometimes couldn't matter, sometimes could.

Torvon
2010-06-04, 03:37 PM
(just to be polite: I'm reading eaglerly. Keep going. Thanks so far, there seems to be some general line of agreement)

Optimystik
2010-06-04, 03:40 PM
Sometimes, a loophole is simply a silly interpretation of a rule by a munchkin.

And sometimes, rules used as intended are just as bad. Natural Spell is a mechanic that never needed to exist, especially not without drawbacks.

Greenish
2010-06-04, 03:42 PM
Cause I thought you were reffering to a ToB style.No, I was referring to the feat. There's no martial school by the name.

But a Rogue can't become undetectable by virtue of being a Rogue.Shadowdancer dip and Darkstalker is pretty close.

Not what I was referring to (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/scrying.htm)Yeah, magic always wins. At least that offers a save.


Look, I'm not saying 3.5 is balanced. I'm saying it has huge amounts of options, and that it's the strength of the system. Balance is the weakness of the system, and is a direct result of the amount of options, but that's a different thing.

Kaiyanwang
2010-06-04, 03:44 PM
And sometimes, rules used as intended are just as bad. Natural Spell is a mechanic that never needed to exist, especially not without drawbacks.

Of course.. I already said that designers simply overlooked benefits and drawbacks of a specific thing. And yeah, Natural Spell is a very good example of this.



Look, I'm not saying 3.5 is balanced. I'm saying it has huge amounts of options, and that it's the strength of the system. Balance is the weakness of the system, and is a direct result of the amount of options, but that's a different thing.

Agree 100% here. I love 3.5 for this: I imagine a PC, NPC, creature, place, world, and take the tool to make it.

I'm not forced at all to include everything at the same moment. This, of course, does not means that the system (and its evolution) is fine as is, but, at least for my tastes, is the best I have seen.

Even if, sometimes I have nostalgia for BECMI :smallwink: BUt there are things that came in my mind or my player asked, that I simply couldn't do with that.

TheThan
2010-06-04, 03:55 PM
Nah, poor editing, little-to-no playtesting, and vague rules are what cause arguments and brokenness. The system itself--and the core mechanic--is sound: it's merely the actual implementations within that system that fail.

Very true

In a most dnd games, the system is actually fairly easy to manage. Unless you have an unlimited open-ended game that allows for all Wotc books, 3rd party and dragon magazine. Then thing can start to get out of hand. If that becomes a problem, simply don’t use all those extra rules, they’re just that extra.

lsfreak
2010-06-04, 03:59 PM
I'd say 3.5e's strength and weakness is its complexity, combined with the lack of playtesting and serious thought that Fax mentioned. WotC wrought a complex game even if you never leave Core, thanks to spells, and it's something that they simply didn't take into consideration. Not to mention completely ignoring the largest group of playtesters ever; WotC was slow on the uptake to take into consideration that the internet may have something to say about their system. The last few series of books - ToB, PHB2, and the final 3 Completes - finally started to look what people were saying about class balance, and they are among the best and most balanced books to be published for 3.5, including fixes to help the subpar classes published in the first few years to remain competitive longer compared to the monstrosity that is the Vancian spellcasting system.

Of course, the complexity is also a great strength. Character creation becomes its own game-within-a-game, one many people including myself enjoy greatly. If you come up with the concept of a lightly armored swashbuckler-type, there's a few good chassis upon which the start the character and dozens different ways to actually implement it (solo-oriented: warblade with tiger's claw and diamond mind, daring outlaw, Jack B. Quick; group support: vexing flanker daring outlaw, white raven warblade, crusader/snowflake wardancer bard), each of which plays different from the next. Different mechanics spice things up, rather than everybody using all the same mechanics, and help make characters more unique. Incarnum, ToB, psionics, binders, invokers, factotums - they are not only the more balanced aspects of 3.5, but the more unique and fun aspects as well.

Sir Giacomo
2010-06-04, 04:10 PM
Hi Torvon,

yes, there are a lot or rules disputes in PvP.
This is I guess because many such PvPs are done with a lot of non-core optional rules, sometimes houserules and at very high levels.

Most normal gameplay is
- not PvP (thus there are more incentives for consensus)
- not at very high level (typically 1-12)
- and only with a limited amount of additional optional rules.

As such, the different picture gained from the experience you describe you found on these boards is the result.

- Giacomo

Fax Celestis
2010-06-04, 04:12 PM
Please note how Giacomo is the only one to hold that opinion in the entirety of this thread.

Kaiyanwang
2010-06-04, 04:22 PM
Our endless debates about 3.5, its blatant flaws, and mine (and I guess our) love for it, make me think about

"Sometimes I think maybe we'll patch it all up
Like a favourite pair of jeans that you won't give up on
And I hope maybe one of these arguments we'll make up
And start again like when we started this up
Back when everything was fresh
And every moment a blessing..."

Rixx
2010-06-04, 04:34 PM
d20 is a beautifully designed and versatile system.

Expanded D&D 3.5 is a horrible mess.

ScionoftheVoid
2010-06-04, 04:38 PM
Please note how Giacomo is the only one to hold that opinion in the entirety of this thread.

Also note: I just Googled "Sir Giacomo". Every result in English was against his views or was not obvious either way (and that was one result). I'm fairly sure that Google doesn't know my reactions to Giacomo yet, so I must assume it is displaying the most common reaction. I have to say there is usually fault on both sides of an argument with Giacomo (neither side is particularly willing to expand on points, for example), but that Giacomo often uses interpretations that people object to even after they have objected to them, refuses any restrictions on his builds that are not in place on opposing builds also and is generally not willing to listen to perfectly valid arguments (e.g. retreat and return later with more power is an acceptable strategy, Monks have few reasons to have a high Charisma let alone ranks in a Charisma-based cross-class skill, that non-core material generally adds more variety to non-magic capabilities which helps with, but does not eliminate, the gap between casters and non-casters, etc.).

TL;DR: I would advise a pinch, if not a handful, of salt with every one of Sir Giacomo's statements.

oxybe
2010-06-04, 04:55 PM
Hi Torvon,

yes, there are a lot or rules disputes in PvP.
This is I guess because many such PvPs are done with a lot of non-core optional rules, sometimes houserules and at very high levels.

Most normal gameplay is
- not PvP (thus there are more incentives for consensus)
- not at very high level (typically 1-12)
- and only with a limited amount of additional optional rules.

As such, the different picture gained from the experience you describe you found on these boards is the result.

- Giacomo

-not a lot of PvP in my experience, but there is PC class VS NPCs with PC class levels. in our last major 3.5 game the gist of the enemies up until level 18 or so were PHB races with class levels. maybe a +1 or +2 CR template, but the gist was "human wizard X" or something.

-our last game went from 1-20, the last session bringing us to 21. our current pathfinder game the GM said he expects us to go up to level 14ish. that GM runs modules. the last real campaign i played in i would have gone past level 12 but i kinda had to leave for university out of town.

-the 1-20 game was all sources available are open with only a few exceptions, BoVD & BoED. our current pathfinder game is core only so we can get used to the more minute changes and alter 3.5 stuff accordingly. virtually every other game i've played has been pretty lax in the material open to the players, with the most "houserules" being small clarifications and corner case adjudications.

my experience with 3rd is pretty much what is reflected on the boards. low-levels are FAR too swingy, melee types start loosing steam at around levels 5-7 when casters get good utility spells and lots of slots (and the cash to create wands/scrolls of utility stuff) and levels 13+ are casters rule territory. i won't muddle words: 3rd ed D&D is hardly my system of choice, but for one of the other GMs, it's his, and truthfully it's the group that makes the game, not the system. i don't play with that group because they play 3.5. i play with them because they're awesome.

Keld Denar
2010-06-04, 04:58 PM
I dunno, FATAL is an extremely complex RPG system. Doesn't mean its good.

Yea...I went there...oh god it burns!

Weezer
2010-06-04, 05:04 PM
I dunno, FATAL is an extremely complex RPG system. Doesn't mean its good.

Yea...I went there...oh god it burns!

Cause FATAL is such a good system to use as an example for typical RPG's. I have no sympathy. You deserve the burn.

oxybe
2010-06-04, 05:05 PM
I dunno, FATAL is an extremely complex RPG system. Doesn't mean its good.

Yea...I went there...oh god it burns!

GURPS is quite complex and deep due to it being a point system with a much wider base of skills and abilities, more then 3.5 can ever hope to be using levels alone, but honestly? task resolution is quite easy and all you ever really need is 3d6

Greenish
2010-06-04, 05:07 PM
I dunno, FATAL is an extremely complex RPG system. Doesn't mean its good.FATAL gives a player precisely one option: you get to select your PC's sex.

Keld Denar
2010-06-04, 05:13 PM
FATAL gives a player precisely one option: you get to select your PC's sex.

And if you've ever actually read 1/100th of the rules, you'd know that there is only one choice for that. Female characters are likely to be raped, mutilated, and/or killed (order may vary by case) before they even finish character creation. Its in the rules...

So, in other words, the only choice you have in FATAL is...not to play FATAL.

Seatbelt
2010-06-04, 08:03 PM
I've never played a character higher than 15th level, and I've only one run one one-shot adventure with characters at ECL 15. Out average campaign starts at level 4 and goes to level 10. I lurk a lot and I feel like, as annoying as Giacomo may be, his mere presence in a thread is not enough vindication to start trolling him.

DragoonWraith
2010-06-04, 08:11 PM
So, in other words, the only choice you have in FATAL is...not to play FATAL.
When presented with this situation, I don't believe you do have any such choice. There is only one option.

Prodan
2010-06-04, 08:21 PM
Also note: I just Googled "Sir Giacomo". Every result in English was against his views or was not obvious either way (and that was one result).
What happens when you run the non-English results through Babelfish?

Amphetryon
2010-06-04, 08:31 PM
What happens when you run the non-English results through Babelfish?

Given babelfish's usual level of translation fluency, I'd wager it talks about guacamole lizards...

WorstDMEver
2010-06-04, 08:39 PM
Look, I'm not saying 3.5 is balanced. I'm saying it has huge amounts of options, and that it's the strength of the system. Balance is the weakness of the system, and is a direct result of the amount of options, but that's a different thing.

I agree totally.

It's not balanced by a longshot, but as a DM it's easy enough to see a game breaker coming and shoot it down. My players and I always watch for this as a group because we take turns running campaigns - and what's fair in one is fair in the next.

As far as complexity goes, D&D is only "complex" because of its sheer size (as has already been said). There are far more complex systems out there, mechanically, but D&D has such a large volume of source material that it can be staggering. If you're thinking of running a game yourself, just limit your players to the core, or a select few additional sourcebooks - whatever you feel comfortable with. Just within the core rules there is plenty of variety to get you going (as has also been said). And if you want to clean it up a little more, look at Pathfinder's Combat Maneuver Bonus (CMB) and Combat Maneuver Defence (CMD) features that basically clean up grapple, overrun, sunder, etc. They also move Hide and Move Silently into Stealth, Bluff and Intimidate are rolled into Diplomacy, and Spot, Search and Listen into Perception which simplifies some things.

It's still a big step up from it's older brothers AD&D and 2nd Edition. They were considerably more complex and just as imbalanced.

I guess the main reason for the balance issue is that the whole system and setting were predicated on high magic settings, where the casters were capable of feats of incredible power. There are very few such settings where the soldiers are the stars of combat.

WorstDMEver
2010-06-04, 09:01 PM
Given babelfish's usual level of translation fluency, I'd wager it talks about guacamole lizards...

They're delicious!

Tequila Sunrise
2010-06-04, 09:05 PM
I'm confused, why are we hating on Giacomo?

Anywho, hi Torvon! Yes, 3e is very complex and prone to debate, abuse and the occasional mad cackle. Which is why I play mostly 4e now. 4e doesn't have nearly as many fun flame war-starters (alignment, paladins, ToB, etc) that 3e does, but on the plus side I only need half a page of house rules to play the game I want to play. :smallsmile:

WorstDMEver
2010-06-04, 09:11 PM
Hey... we've only got two house rules:


Tie goes to the player
If you roll exactly the number required to hit, you do half damage (all parties involved)

The second was a sort of counter to critical hits and actually came up as a way to save a PC's life (brought him to -4 instead of -15).

RelentlessImp
2010-06-05, 12:32 AM
I'm confused, why are we hating on Giacomo?


Do a couple of google searches on his name with site:giantitp.com and you'll find out.

Anyways, just want to chime in one more time. Everyone's pretty much said the consensus on the good AND bad of 3.5. But I haven't seen anyone talk about the actual FUN.

Yes, it's FUN to have character options. D&D 3.5 is the only level-based system to provide even close to as many options as a point-based system. So long as your group stays within the same optimization level (Within 2-3 tiers of each other), you rarely have one player overshadowing the other while maintaining a group that's as diverse as a bunch of shadowrunners. Unless you're all running Dungeoncrasher Fighters, I guess.

Just staying within one book - Tome of Battle - you've only got 3 base classes. Yet those 3 base classes can differ so incredibly that it's difficult to tell that, yes, those two are both Swordsages, or those two are both Crusaders, or all four of them are Warblades. And everyone can contribute (not that they WILL - ToB's hard to screw up, but it can be done, and it can be done too well - see Chuck E. Cheese, the Ruby Knight Vindicator throwing people into the sun), despite the disparity in what they can and can't do - and that's more satisfying to a group than having the Wizard outshine the rest of the party playing a Monk, Fighter, Bard and CW Samurai.

Or even having the following party is more fun than people being more than 2-3 tiers apart: Wizard, Cleric, Archivist, Druid.

So, while the complexity may seem somewhat daunting, do a little research. Check out the Tiers thread over on BrilliantGameologists or any one of a thousand thousand threads discussing the same thing. Check out LogicNinja's Guide to Being Batman (reposted lately by someone else, I think) to find out WHY Wizards destroy everything else in Core.

Look at a few theoretical optimization threads; Pun-Pun, Omnifiscier, LordofProcrastination's Dirty Tricks threads (if they're not lost), UberCharger, Hulking Hurler madness... these threads will show you what to look out for, what to shoot down the moment it's even mentioned.

Overall:
Yes, as others have said, it can be broken - rather easily. But that's not fun except as thought exercises. 3.5 can be one of the most involving games you'll play - but at least half of that involvement comes from the character creation process and the sheer number of options you have.

The rest? Well, if you've had fun with other systems, you can have fun with D&D too. Just don't try to break it. All it takes is the lightest touch.

Ormur
2010-06-05, 01:31 AM
All the options and complexities of D&D are a big part of what makes it fun as a system. Building characters can be very fun and you can find options for almost every mechanic and flavour you'd like your character to have. Playing it can be a lot of fun but the game varies a lot according to what level you are on. As fun as the level up system is for the mechanics and increasing sense of power it's quick to get very unrealistic.

I don't think the most blatant loopholes are such a big problem either. You'd have to be very disruptive to actually want to abuse most of them and DM's should be quick to catch on and ban things, at least if they know the game or browse forums. It's probably impossible to avoid brokenness when you've got dozens of splatbooks. But as has been pointed out some things are blatantly broken, including a lot of the core, and must be the result of sloppy work, insufficient knowledge of other published mechanics and poor play testing. D&D 3,5 could easily have made a lot more sense.

In fact the biggest problem isn't stuff like chain gating and Pun Pun but the innate lack of balance between classes even when completely unoptimized. Casters are just better than melee. It actually requires a pretty good knowledge of the system to construct approximately balanced parties.

Hague
2010-06-05, 02:06 AM
Well, of course magic always trumps the fighter. Heck, the fighter depends on magical weapons and armor that they can't even make. But you don't play a fighter to be better than everyone, you play a fighter because you don't want to use magic. It'd be like trying to be an advertiser today without using the internet or a telephone. Magic is the technology of the D&D universe. If your DM is sick of overpowered spell users, just make Arcane and Divine Dead zones or Mana Shallows where spells are limited by level and so on.

The campaign I'm creating right now has plenty of dead zones and wild magic areas as a result of a pseudo nuclear style holocaust as a result of a massive war and doomsday device, the Arcanopsionic Disjunction Bomb, which is effectively a very large epic-level disjunction item that destroys enchantments, spells, and psionics. Since the old world relied heavily on magic and psionics (ectoplasm was the cheap and efficient building material, much like plastic) the disjunction bombs wreaked havoc on the fabric of reality in the world (not to mention the other plot twist surrounding the real nature of the game-world.) Large areas are dead zones, negative energy zones, fissures leading into various planes and other assorted nastiness. Players have to be careful in being too dependent on magic because sometimes it simply doesn't work.

Reinboom
2010-06-05, 02:17 AM
Well, of course magic always trumps the fighter. Heck, the fighter depends on magical weapons and armor that they can't even make. But you don't play a fighter to be better than everyone, you play a fighter because you don't want to use magic. It'd be like trying to be an advertiser today without using the internet or a telephone. Magic is the technology of the D&D universe. If your DM is sick of overpowered spell users, just make Arcane and Divine Dead zones or Mana Shallows where spells are limited by level and so on.

The campaign I'm creating right now has plenty of dead zones and wild magic areas as a result of a pseudo nuclear style holocaust as a result of a massive war and doomsday device, the Arcanopsionic Disjunction Bomb, which is effectively a very large epic-level disjunction item that destroys enchantments, spells, and psionics. Since the old world relied heavily on magic and psionics (ectoplasm was the cheap and efficient building material, much like plastic) the disjunction bombs wreaked havoc on the fabric of reality in the world (not to mention the other plot twist surrounding the real nature of the game-world.) Large areas are dead zones, negative energy zones, fissures leading into various planes and other assorted nastiness. Players have to be careful in being too dependent on magic because sometimes it simply doesn't work.

That... tends to not go so well.

It is very depressing to have your entire class ripped out from you - especially when you had no intention on breaking the game.
In much the same fashion that most people don't like Save-or-Lose/Save-or-Die... just think, constant dead zones means that, for these characters, it's an "or-Lose", skipping straight over the Save part. That is much worse than most of what a normal spellcaster would be willing to throw at you.

It's as though you are setting their house on fire while they are sleeping in it because someone else accidentally burned a hole into your couch last week with a dropped cig. Not cool.

Bayar
2010-06-05, 02:22 AM
So, in other words, the only choice you have in FATAL is...not to play FATAL.



Darren:

Alright.

It's Saturday Night and YOU MUST GAME!

All that's in the house are Wraeththu, RAHOWA, and the Game That Must Not Be Named.

What'a play?

I would play Eat The .44 Magnum, by Smith & Wesson.

-Darren MacLennan

So yeah...

Hague
2010-06-05, 02:46 AM
Well, I don't want to go too far off-topic, but the fact of the matter is that there are places where each class is not ideal for a particular area. There will be an area where scouts can't skirmish because of the terrain, there will be areas where magic doesn't work (this applies to magic weapons and armor, supernatural abilities and the like too, not just spells) and places where summoning doesn't work properly. The players will have the opportunity to know about these places and work to defeat them, but they are part of the world and I'm not going to get rid of them simply because the spell casters feel badly about them. The players have every choice NOT to go somewhere, I don't railroad the players into going into places with these dead zones, but preparing to deal with them in other ways is ideal. If the magic-user can't think beyond "How can my stat-sheet win the day," then they are bound to fail regardless. The players have enough options with hiring and befriending other NPCs to fulfill the roles in these regards. The dead zones exists, if the players use their noggin to research where they're going first instead of following some silly dialogue that holds their hand the entire way. If they don't look before they leap, well, I can't help them.

Yora
2010-06-05, 05:15 AM
The sheer amount of books, and thereby rules and mechanics, has made the system very complex. With complexity I mean that things and more things were designed, opening up more and more degrees of freedom, making more and more combinations possible.
I would say that with 20 mechanics, it's possible to say what will happen if something [x] gets introduced into the system (think about starcraft, and adding a new unit to one of the three races). But with several 1000 rules up (look at the insane feat lists out there), it's basically impossible to have all the possible combinations in mind. I can't imagine a game designed browsing a couple of weeks through all classes and PrC to check if the thing he is about to implement could be abused when combined with something else ...

So, did the sheer amount of rules break the system? Without being an expert of D&D 3.5, I get the impression, browsing through all these posts.

I'd love to read your opinions.
Yes, which is why a lot of groups don't play with every book ever printed.
you can forget about blacklisting, that's just impossible. Better make a short list of 6 to 10 books that are used in the game (or even less) and if a player spots something somewhere else and really wants to play it, it is considered case by case.

yes, there are a lot or rules disputes in PvP.
This is I guess because many such PvPs are done with a lot of non-core optional rules, sometimes houserules and at very high levels.

Most normal gameplay is
- not PvP (thus there are more incentives for consensus)
- not at very high level (typically 1-12)
- and only with a limited amount of additional optional rules.

As such, the different picture gained from the experience you describe you found on these boards is the result.
I completely support that.

lesser_minion
2010-06-05, 06:08 AM
I guess you could say that it's broken by complexity, but it's an interesting issue. Complexity and ambition don't necessarily doom a project on their own, but they do mean that you need good managers, plenty of time to work, and a talented QA team.

If you look through the rules, there are signs that the designers knew what they were doing. A lot of issues are to do with WotC rushing their initial design team and then never taking the time to go back and polish the work they produced.

Spells are a good example. Reading through the way spells work, it looks like the daily limit was never meant to be a balancing factor - it was just an attempt to enforce a particular style at low levels and reduce those limitations at high levels. It might have worked if it had been playtested and refined a bit, but QA were apparently asleep.

After that promising start, you ended up with a series of designers and editors who sat down and made a complete and utter mess of everything. Some of them were competent but were given a badly-written memo, some were talentless hacks, and some were downright malicious.

And there appears to have been no attempt to control the various revisions, no attempt at keeping QA awake, and no attempt at even identifying what any given revision or sourcebook needed to do.

The writers could have produced a decent project - at least some of them, anyway. The mistakes that appeared show that - rules that don't take into account other rules, rules that contradict each other, rules that weren't even added to the books, and rules that didn't go through QA but might have been refined into something better if they had (e.g. Drowning). These aren't mistakes that come from bad designers, they're the mistakes that come from poor organisation.

Certain bits of brokenness can be attributed to rules lawyering and certain individuals expecting a rather ridiculous amount of detail on a point that should be obvious - see also the whole "you can take actions when you're dead" issue.

The worst bit is that WotC learnt completely wrong lessons from all this - 4th edition, for example, assumes that the DM is asleep or incompetent. Bad DMs run bad games in spite of the rules, not because of them, so all that can hope to achieve is a set of limitations on where the DM can take the game. The end result isn't necessarily bad games by good DMs, but it isn't helpful either.

Reinboom
2010-06-05, 06:15 AM
In a similar vein, there is a major problem with 3.x in general in that...
so much of it is copy-pasta from 2E.

Not that 2E is bad, just that it was a completely different beast. So you get holdovers like... Teleport needing to be spell level 5 or Time Stop needing to exist at all.
From here extends other problems.


If they only could have just figured out "Oh hey, we are making it much easier to level Wizard now. Perhaps we should slow down their power growth a wee bit."
Of course, that is just another brick in the 3.x wall.

Oslecamo
2010-06-05, 07:30 AM
Of course.. I already said that designers simply overlooked benefits and drawbacks of a specific thing. And yeah, Natural Spell is a very good example of this.


Sometimes they seem to don't even care about drawbacks.

Look at unhearted arcana. There it sugests to give druids one domain like clerics. But for free, not even costing a feat. And the other classes don't get anything on that section.

And then in other section of the book there's a specialized wizard variant, wich is strictly superior to the normal specialized wizard.

Honestly, sometimes it seems like the designers were just completely drunk and added stuff just for the sake of adding. Druids aren't cool enough, so let's give them a free domain! Hell yeah no!

Torvon
2010-06-05, 07:37 AM
I've only done some designing for a German role-playing-game, but to my experience, the people who work on a specialized super-wizard book are wizard fanboys. They don't very much care about balance. And people who work on a specialized super-druid book are druid fanboys.

Or if such books don't exist, the druid dude gets the druid section, and the wizard dude gets the wizard section.

Leading to a system in which classes who are loved more also get more love.

But as I pointed out, that's just my experience with a small local RPG.

Oslecamo
2010-06-05, 07:53 AM
...
Or if such books don't exist, the druid dude gets the druid section, and the wizard dude gets the wizard section.

Leading to a system in which classes who are loved more also get more love.

That is...Supringly logic. And scary.



But as I pointed out, that's just my experience with a small local RPG.

Altough I never participated on the development of RPGs, I participated on the development of mods for strategy games.

And I saw exactly that happen. The person who liked more faction A would buff them to hell and back. If a faction didn't have lovers in the dev team, it would be left behind.

Most of the team loved the grenade system from another game, so they imported that system to the project and sudenly grenades were by far the best weapon untill the non-devs complained so much they changed it back, but even then grenades are one of the top weapons on that mod, up from a minor ability in the original game.

So yes, if the wizard section is done by the player who likes wizards more and nobody willingly volunteers to do the feat section then it explains why we get half the splatbooks focusing on magic and half a dozen pages focused on feats.

Kaiyanwang
2010-06-05, 07:57 AM
Sometimes they seem to don't even care about drawbacks.

Look at unhearted arcana. There it sugests to give druids one domain like clerics. But for free, not even costing a feat. And the other classes don't get anything on that section.

And then in other section of the book there's a specialized wizard variant, wich is strictly superior to the normal specialized wizard.

Honestly, sometimes it seems like the designers were just completely drunk and added stuff just for the sake of adding. Druids aren't cool enough, so let's give them a free domain! Hell yeah no!

This is true. I think that is linked to the old issue of consider +1 BAB very powerful and to not understand in what way spelcasting was gimped in AD&D (not so much, but say, cast in melee in AD&D, cast in 3.5 and then come back to me).

Amphetryon
2010-06-05, 08:06 AM
This is true. I think that is linked to the old issue of consider +1 BAB very powerful and to not understand in what way spelcasting was gimped in AD&D (not so much, but say, cast in melee in AD&D, cast in 3.5 and then come back to me).

Very true. Earlier editions of D&D also used experience differentials to maintain balance. Caster classes didn't level at the same rate as Fighters, who didn't level at the same rate as Thieves (who had a more restrictive SA mechanism), etc.

Hague
2010-06-05, 09:36 AM
Unearthed Arcana? Ick. It's a pretty convoluted mess, especially the rules variations. I personally think it should've stayed earthed. Things like "spontaneous divine casters" Those are already published in another book under the Favored Soul base class. Though, since it's all optional, you really don't have to use any of it.

There's lots of awful stuff like "Contacts" from DMG2. I mean, you can only have (charisma bonus) friends willing to do things for you? Really?! That's just terrible. I like to play games where players have to rely on the strength of others just as much as they do upon themselves. Then you end up with better role-playing situations instead of dice-rolling situations.

Frankly, from what I've read on this board, it seems like all the classes from Tome of Battle are always used in power builds. That leads me to believe that they are the most powerful. Not surprising, considering that it came out right at the end of 3.5's publishing period. Developers probably just said "Screw it!"

WorstDMEver
2010-06-05, 09:36 AM
Very true. Earlier editions of D&D also used experience differentials to maintain balance. Caster classes didn't level at the same rate as Fighters, who didn't level at the same rate as Thieves (who had a more restrictive SA mechanism), etc.

Yes. Exactly correct. The spell progression is not very different from 1st and 2nd ed, but in 3rd they level at the same rate as the rest of the classes, causing them to grow in power much too quickly. Perhaps caster classes should have a 20% XP penalty, or it should cost (spell level x 4 XP) to cast a spell (can't lose levels this way, cost is 0 at the level crux). Our group had an encounter with a bullete where we had been in two prior fights for the day and we're like 5th or 6th level. The thing crashes out of the trees into our clearing, sees us and charges. The wizard casts levitate on the bullete and turns it into a pinata - it can't maneuver, so we all just stayed away from claws and mouth while we beat it to death. 'Course, it was pure luck that he had that spell memorized at all, but still.

Optimystik
2010-06-05, 09:50 AM
Unearthed Arcana? Ick. It's a pretty convoluted mess, especially the rules variations. I personally think it should've stayed earthed.

Pardon my netspeak, but NO U.

Unearthed Arcana is one of the best sourcebooks around. If most of it weren't available for free I would be advising everyone to buy it. The class variants (Paladin of X, Cloistered Cleric, Barbarian Totems, Monk Fighting Styles, Specialist Wizard Variants,) Class Feature/Spell variants (Themed Summoning Lists, Planar Banishment, ... it's all revolutionary. The Incantation system is the biggest boon to gritty, low-magic campaigns I've ever seen. Spell Points and Recharge Magic add a granularity to the magic system that Vancian simply cannot provide, allowing for cool effects like Vitalizing and partial rest.

The best contribution of all from UA is Fractional BAB, which is just so intuitive that it should have always been part of the base game.

Eloi
2010-06-05, 09:53 AM
Pardon my netspeak, but NO U.

Unearthed Arcana is one of the best sourcebooks around. If most of it weren't available for free I would be advising everyone to buy it. The class variants (Paladin of X, Cloistered Cleric, Barbarian Totems, Monk Fighting Styles, Specialist Wizard Variants,) Class Feature/Spell variants (Themed Summoning Lists, Planar Banishment, ... it's all revolutionary. The Incantation system is the biggest boon to gritty, low-magic campaigns I've ever seen. Spell Points and Recharge Magic add a granularity to the magic system that Vancian simply cannot provide, allowing for cool effects like Vitalizing and partial rest.

The best contribution of all from UA is Fractional BAB, which is just so intuitive that it should have always been part of the base game.
In more atrocious net-speak, 2nd'd!
Unearthed Arcana has proved valuable in mixing up my campaigns, adding new mechanics to spice things up, and the Taint and Insanity mechanics are perfect for Lovecraftian horror settings (which I have DM'd before.)

Kaiyanwang
2010-06-05, 10:01 AM
Pardon my netspeak, but NO U.

Unearthed Arcana is one of the best sourcebooks around. If most of it weren't available for free I would be advising everyone to buy it. The class variants (Paladin of X, Cloistered Cleric, Barbarian Totems, Monk Fighting Styles, Specialist Wizard Variants,) Class Feature/Spell variants (Themed Summoning Lists, Planar Banishment, ... it's all revolutionary. The Incantation system is the biggest boon to gritty, low-magic campaigns I've ever seen. Spell Points and Recharge Magic add a granularity to the magic system that Vancian simply cannot provide, allowing for cool effects like Vitalizing and partial rest.

The best contribution of all from UA is Fractional BAB, which is just so intuitive that it should have always been part of the base game.

THIS. This. This.

If not clear: definitively this.

lesser_minion
2010-06-05, 10:33 AM
Unearthed Arcana? Ick. It's a pretty convoluted mess, especially the rules variations. I personally think it should've stayed earthed. Things like "spontaneous divine casters" Those are already published in another book under the Favored Soul base class. Though, since it's all optional, you really don't have to use any of it.

It's not stellar, but it deserves a lot more praise than you give it.

In general, the alternatives it presents are at least OK, even if you never use them. And it's nice to have them there, because using the same rules over and over again is boring.


Frankly, from what I've read on this board, it seems like all the classes from Tome of Battle are always used in power builds. That leads me to believe that they are the most powerful. Not surprising, considering that it came out right at the end of 3.5's publishing period. Developers probably just said "Screw it!"

No. No. Not in the slightest. Just no. No.

All Tome of Battle is is another way of thinking about melee characters - basically, it presents martial arts techniques as nonmagical spells and opens them up to three new classes who are (very) broadly equivalent to the fighter, the monk, and the paladin.

They are stronger than their equivalents, but that's not generally considered to be saying much.

Sir Giacomo
2010-06-05, 11:25 AM
Also note: I just Googled "Sir Giacomo". Every result in English was against his views or was not obvious either way (and that was one result). I'm fairly sure that Google doesn't know my reactions to Giacomo yet, so I must assume it is displaying the most common reaction.

How perspectives can be different... When I google it up I find my monk guide first (which has met both negative and positive comments, check out the third post for thread summaries), with the negative comments more numerous due to more repititions of the same wrong criticisms). Plus then some threads nd posts of the same posters over at brilliantgameologists who do not exactly like what I post.


I have to say there is usually fault on both sides of an argument with Giacomo (neither side is particularly willing to expand on points, for example), but that Giacomo often uses interpretations that people object to even after they have objected to them,

You just described a fairly common reaction to what I say in that even after I point out errors people do not change their opinion. Which they are entirely free to do. But I do not think it makes sense to criticise me for it.


refuses any restrictions on his builds that are not in place on opposing builds also

This is commonly referred to as a level playing field.


and is generally not willing to listen to perfectly valid arguments

let us see your examples...


(e.g. retreat and return later with more power is an acceptable strategy,

I have never criticised that. In fact, I often get criticised for suggesting when playing a monk to use the superior movement to do just that.


Monks have few reasons to have a high Charisma let alone ranks in a Charisma-based cross-class skill,

This is not a perfectly valid argument, because
- I never have claimed that a monk should have a high Charisma (in fact my example builds often have 6-10 as a start. So not even a disagreement here
- I have shown plenty of times that you can get a lot of mileage out of low CHR and cross-class UMD already since the safe activation DC for wands is fixed at 20.


that non-core material generally adds more variety to non-magic capabilities which helps with, but does not eliminate, the gap between casters and non-casters, etc.).

this is not a perfectly valid argument because non-core material adds WAY MORE variety to magic capabilities than non-magic capabilities, plus also WAY MORE powerful varieties (swift/immediate actions, celerity, more monsters to be used for polymorhphing/shapechange spells etc.).


TL;DR: I would advise a pinch, if not a handful, of salt with every one of Sir Giacomo's statements.

Seeing that you summarised what I allegedly say somewhat wrongly I highly recommend to you to read more threads where I posted or which I started.

- Giacomo

Oslecamo
2010-06-05, 11:37 AM
All Tome of Battle is is another way of thinking about melee characters - basically, it presents martial arts techniques as nonmagical spells

I'm pretty sure that supernatural(su) abilities are still magic.



and opens them up to three new classes who are (very) broadly equivalent to the fighter, the monk, and the paladin barbarian.

A common misconception. The crusader, healing himself from violence and becoming stronger by direct cruel combat while not having any actual way of recognizing friend from foe and being fueled by the forces of chaos (as he gets his maneuvers randomly) is actualy much closer to the barbarian.



They are stronger than their equivalents, but that's not generally considered to be saying much.
Depends on the group's playstyle.

If the wizards are throwing non-meta fireballs and the clerics are healing during combat then the warblade will overshaddow everyone easily.

If the paladin brings spell compendium and complete champion for paladin spell goodyness and the fighter cherry picks the best feats out there then it's more than a fair match. Like some people say, Wotc totally should have done a feat compendium, because the best gems are scattered and hidden.

Philistine
2010-06-05, 11:37 AM
Unearthed Arcana? Ick. It's a pretty convoluted mess, especially the rules variations. I personally think it should've stayed earthed.
Nein, nyet, negative, no.


Things like "spontaneous divine casters" Those are already published in another book under the Favored Soul base class. Though, since it's all optional, you really don't have to use any of it.
Spontaneous divine casters are a solid step toward fixing Clerics and Druids, who otherwise - by RAW - have access to every single spell on their lists. There's not even a question of finding scrolls or spellbooks containing unusual spells, as there is with the Wizard (or Archivist); prepared divine casters just know every divine spell ever printed. Limiting the divines' spell selection won't reduce their power much, but it does limit their versatility, probably enough to drop them from Tier 1 to Tier 2 (well... for the Druid, you'd probably also need the PHB2 Shapeshift variant). Also, Favored Souls don't get Turning.


There's lots of awful stuff like "Contacts" from DMG2. I mean, you can only have (charisma bonus) friends willing to do things for you? Really?! That's just terrible. I like to play games where players have to rely on the strength of others just as much as they do upon themselves. Then you end up with better role-playing situations instead of dice-rolling situations.
The specifics of 3E's social interaction rules are problematic; but if you resolve all interactions as "role-playing instead of dice-rolling" then in effect you're actively discouraging players from spending resources on their chartacters' social abilities (via investing in CHA, distributing skill points, and so on). If in your game the 8 CHA Fighter is just as good a haggler and negotiator as the 22 CHA Bard with maxed ranks in Appraise, Bluff, Diplomacy, and Sense Motive - because the Fighter's player RPs such things better - then the Bard has basically wasted a ton of skill points.


Frankly, from what I've read on this board, it seems like all the classes from Tome of Battle are always used in power builds. That leads me to believe that they are the most powerful. Not surprising, considering that it came out right at the end of 3.5's publishing period. Developers probably just said "Screw it!"
ToB classes are stronger than the three weakest classes in the PHB, you say? O Noes! However shall we cope with this terrible crisis! First, I'd say you need look more closely at the "power builds" for melee types. Barbarian - straight from the PHB! - is a favorite for high-damage Charge-happy builds, while Fighter's feat access is popular for Spiked Chain Trippers. And Paladins and Rangers become a lot more viable with splatbooks. Monk... well, Monk just sucks.

But in general, yes - it's true that there's little reason to play a PHB Fighter, Monk, or Paladin if you have access to Warblade, Swordsage, and Crusader. Of course, it's also true that there's little reason to play a Fighter, Monk, or Paladin if you have access to Cleric, Druid, and Wizard, and those came out at the very beginning of 3.5's run. So, no.

Starbuck_II
2010-06-05, 11:48 AM
I'm pretty sure that supernatural(su) abilities are still magic.


So are extraordinary because the game states they break the laws of physics.

I say anything that breaks physics is magic.

Math_Mage
2010-06-05, 11:51 AM
So are extraordinary because the game states they break the laws of physics.

I say anything that breaks physics is magic.

Assuming this was sarcastic? After all, the SRD is pretty explicit... (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm)

lesser_minion
2010-06-05, 12:01 PM
I'm pretty sure that supernatural(su) abilities are still magic.

Yes, some of them are Su abilities and hence magic. That's not the whole thing, and it's not even most of it.


Depends on the group's playstyle.

If the wizards are throwing non-meta fireballs and the clerics are healing during combat then the warblade will overshaddow everyone easily.

A state of affairs that does not outlast a wizard's first use of Colour Spray (or, for that matter, the wizard learning effective BC in general).


If the paladin brings spell compendium and complete champion for paladin spell goodyness and the fighter cherry picks the best feats out there then it's more than a fair match. Like some people say, Wotc totally should have done a feat compendium, because the best gems are scattered and hidden.

I think the increase in 'overt' power of the ToB classes was just a response to what WotC internally felt constituted power creep.

However, they still don't match up in 'non-overt' power, do they?

Eloi
2010-06-05, 12:06 PM
I think all of the debate about rules and sourcebooks only help prove the OP's original point.

Greenish
2010-06-05, 12:40 PM
I think all of the debate about rules and sourcebooks only help prove the OP's original point.If OP's point was that different people like different sourcebooks, yeah.

Although I seem to recall that it was about the system's complexity breaking the game.

Eloi
2010-06-05, 12:44 PM
If OP's point was that different people like different sourcebooks, yeah.

Although I seem to recall that it was about the system's complexity breaking the game.

My interpretation of the OP's point was that there were a lot of discussion about rules, a lot of books=a lot of mechanics=too much complexity, so I think all of those points were ironically reinforced in the last few pages.

Math_Mage
2010-06-05, 12:58 PM
Hi Torvon,

yes, there are a lot or rules disputes in PvP.
This is I guess because many such PvPs are done with a lot of non-core optional rules, sometimes houserules and at very high levels.

Most normal gameplay is
- not PvP (thus there are more incentives for consensus)
- not at very high level (typically 1-12)
- and only with a limited amount of additional optional rules.

As such, the different picture gained from the experience you describe you found on these boards is the result.

- Giacomo

To go into more depth, PvP incentivizes rules discussion, while the campaign setting disincentivizes it. There are a number of reasons for this.

-PvP is conducted on a much larger scale than campaigns. A typical playgroup is 4-6 people. I don't want to try to count the number of people participating in Test of Spite, but it's got to be several dozen at least. A ToS vet could probably give a better estimate. That means 10x as many people with 10x as many views on what the rules should be. It must be like herding cats.
-In general, the rules complexity involved in intensive character building is 5x greater than the rules complexity involved in combat, which is 5x greater than the rules complexity involved in non-combat play. PvP is 90% character building and 10% combat. Campaigns are about 10% character building, 50% combat, and 40% other (very rough guesstimates).
-PvP character building encourages powergaming through clever utilization of the rules, which encourages a complex ruleset and a complex build. Campaign character building generally focuses on fitting the mechanics to a character concept, which can be complicated but usually isn't.
-PvP referees have to be a lot more careful and explicit in laying down the rules. The ToS banlist has to be fairly comprehensive, because otherwise people would break the game in the interest of victory. Also, the ruleset has to be fairly objective--the winner should not be determined by who's refereeing the match. By contrast, a campaign DM can get by with a gentleman's agreement with his players to avoid breaking the campaign, because campaigns don't have to tread the line between powerful and broken, and Rule 0 is well-understood.

This is not to say that one game is better than the other, or that one is more balanced than the other. But they are different games, and the extensive rules discussions in PvP threads are a consequence of that.

And let me just say, Giacomo, I think you got shafted on this thread. Your post has nothing to do with the usual Wizard/Swordsage vs. Monk/Fighter debates (and your...shall we say, unpopular position on those topics), but people were quick to extend their opinion of you on those topics to this one. Of course, now you're getting back into that vein, and I think you and others would be behooved to avoid doing so.

Greenish
2010-06-05, 01:01 PM
a lot of books=a lot of mechanics=too much complexity, so I think all of those points were ironically reinforced in the last few pages.I'm not seeing it.

Optimystik
2010-06-05, 01:13 PM
My interpretation of the OP's point was that there were a lot of discussion about rules, a lot of books=a lot of mechanics=too much complexity, so I think all of those points were ironically reinforced in the last few pages.

Then you didn't read Fax's post on the first page.
The core system is not complex, therefore the OP is wrong. Period.

Eloi
2010-06-05, 01:13 PM
I'm not seeing it.

That's a rather frustratingly ambigious statement.

If you mean you don't see how that's the OP point:

95% of the threads were rule discussions, often without agreement.


I may have read 40 or 50 threads not a single one without extensive rule discussions.


The sheer amount of books, and thereby rules and mechanics, has made the system very complex. [...] So, did the sheer amount of rules break the system?

If you mean you don't see how this page's discussions reinforces the OP point:

Rules-discussion on third page involving mechanics from different books:

*Discussion of mechanics introduced in Unearthed Arcana.
*The possible brokeness of the mechanics introduced in Tomb of Battle.

So thus, our extensive rule discussion about certain mechanics found in many books does reinforce the OP's point.

Eloi
2010-06-05, 01:15 PM
Then you didn't read Fax's post on the first page.
The core system is not complex, therefore the OP is wrong. Period.

<sarcasm> Yes because every single 3.5 campaign runs on the core system only. </sarcasm> That is certainly the exception to the norm on every online and real-life campaign I've been in.

Optimystik
2010-06-05, 01:15 PM
<sarcasm> Yes because every single 3.5 campaign runs on the core system only. </sarcasm> That is certainly the exception to the norm on every online and real-life campaign I've been in.

You misunderstand me.

By core I mean "Roll d20, add modifiers, compare to target number." I do not mean "DMG + PHB + MM1."

Eloi
2010-06-05, 01:17 PM
You misunderstand me.

By core I mean "Roll d20, add modifiers." I do not mean "DMG + PHB + MM1."

But from what I understand, almost everything beyond the Holy Trinity of Core Rulebooks introduces new rules, variations of rules, or mechanics, correct?

Greenish
2010-06-05, 01:18 PM
Rules-discussion on third page involving mechanics from different books:

*Discussion of mechanics introduced in Unearthed Arcana.
*The possible brokeness of the mechanics introduced in Tomb of Battle.

So thus, our extensive rule discussion about certain mechanics found in many books does reinforce the OP's point.Unearthed Arcana is a collection of variant rules. It's an exception, not a rule.

ToB didn't really introduce new mechanics.

Also, OP's points were that

A) the number of books meant the mechanics were too complicated
and
B) the rules discussion means the system is broken

Neither is correct.

[Edit]:
But from what I understand, almost everything beyond the Holy Trinity of Core Rulebooks introduces new rules, variations of rules, or mechanics, correct?Incorrect. They (mostly) use the same rules, just add new options within said rules.

Optimystik
2010-06-05, 01:21 PM
But from what I understand, almost everything beyond the Holy Trinity of Core Rulebooks introduces new rules, variations of rules, or mechanics, correct?

Every last one of those is a variation on the core mechanic of rolling a die, adjusting the result and comparing to a target. All of them.

The disputes that arise in this and many other threads come about because of WotC's implementation, not their premise.

Eloi
2010-06-05, 01:23 PM
@Responders


But from what I understand, almost everything beyond the Holy Trinity of Core Rulebooks introduces new rules, variations of rules, or mechanics, correct?

Optimystik
2010-06-05, 01:25 PM
Repeating yourself doesn't add anything to your point. My answer remains the same:


The disputes that arise in this and many other threads come about because of WotC's implementation, not their premise.

Eloi
2010-06-05, 01:26 PM
Repeating yourself doesn't add anything to your point. My answer remains the same:

Well I know, but people 'corrected' me by saying they were variations, not new rules, which I already covered in my original response that I bolded.

Yes, well the implementation is chaotic, but I actually do find it fun to discover a new class/race/background in an obscure source book. Its one of my hobbies.

Greenish
2010-06-05, 01:27 PM
@Responders
But from what I understand, almost everything beyond the Holy Trinity of Core Rulebooks introduces new rules, variations of rules, or mechanics, correct?
Repeating yourself makes it true, huh? Well then.

Incorrect. They (mostly) use the same rules, just add new options within said rules.

Optimystik
2010-06-05, 01:29 PM
Yes, well the implementation is chaotic, but I actually do find it fun to discover a new class/race/background in an obscure source book. Its one of my hobbies.

So do I - But that's not what I'm arguing against.

I'm arguing against poor wording and lack of playtesting in their splatbooks. It is possible for WotC to have both an abundance of sourcebooks AND proper editing - they just have to be willing to involve their players in the design process to do it. They aren't.

Eloi
2010-06-05, 01:30 PM
Repeating yourself makes it true, huh? Well then.

Thats...considered a variation isn't it? Ugh...

I'm getting very frustrated with talking to you in this thread, which you probably have that mutual feeling from me, so I'm going to refrain from arguing with you or responding to your posts in this thread. Not trying to rude, but I don't want to be all flame-y or rage-y at you because that isn't fun for anyone. So no hard feelings. :smallsmile:

Eloi
2010-06-05, 01:31 PM
So do I - But that's not what I'm arguing against.

I'm arguing against poor wording and lack of playtesting in their splatbooks. It is possible for WotC to have both an abundance of sourcebooks AND proper editing - they just have to be willing to involve their players in the design process to do it. They aren't.

I agree they need to give their splatbooks to 100 groups of muchkins, have them record data, send it back to them, and then fix their wording and tables appropriately.

Greenish
2010-06-05, 01:38 PM
Thats...considered a variation isn't it? Ugh...No. For example, there's a feat in a splatbook that, say, adds +X to hit. That's a new option, but not a new mechanic.

Oslecamo
2010-06-05, 06:01 PM
I'm arguing against poor wording and lack of playtesting in their splatbooks. It is possible for WotC to have both an abundance of sourcebooks AND proper editing - they just have to be willing to involve their players in the design process to do it. They aren't.

If you want to churn out new books every month, there's really not much time for playtesting.

But hey, in 4e at least they seem much more willing to errata stuff acording to the general opinions more than before!

Hague
2010-06-05, 07:10 PM
Nein, nyet, negative, no.
The specifics of 3E's social interaction rules are problematic; but if you resolve all interactions as "role-playing instead of dice-rolling" then in effect you're actively discouraging players from spending resources on their chartacters' social abilities (via investing in CHA, distributing skill points, and so on). If in your game the 8 CHA Fighter is just as good a haggler and negotiator as the 22 CHA Bard with maxed ranks in Appraise, Bluff, Diplomacy, and Sense Motive - because the Fighter's player RPs such things better - then the Bard has basically wasted a ton of skill points.


I'm not insisting that situations be handled entirely with roleplaying. I give circumstance bonuses to checks based on logic and reasoning. Generally if the player simply threatens a guard with intimidate, they get effective penalties if granting the situation would be more detrimental than whatever the player threatens with. Simply yelling, "I intimidate them." while outnumbered will be less effective than having a threat that will be detrimental to the person. Threatening their family by knowing their names (even if you mind read for it), pretending to be the duke's cousin and threatening insolent guards with arrest, etc. Good roleplaying can only aid in a check, it can never totally make it for you.

What I was referring to was that there's a silly limit on the number of friends you can have. The rule was designed to be broken, you can get a contact by making anyone Friendly with diplomacy, so you can find any random clod and make him your contact by succeeding greatly on a simple Diplomacy check. So the limit based on charisma seemed like a quick fix for an unbalanced mechanic.

I'd rather simply assign contacts as a kind of "treasure" whereby using diplomacy and intimidate checks can 'activate' the contacts. Having a farmer gracious enough to let you stay with his family because you chased off an ankheg is a relatively low treasure value (and can substitute the actual treasure for the "Save the farm" quest instead of a formal reward.) But having a grand seer willing to scry for you or an artificer willing to craft constructs if you pay for raw materials is a greater treasure value and requiring a more difficult quest to add to your contact list. The Social skill checks are sort of like trying to convince someone to aid you specifically when you need it. Higher graded contacts (with subsequently higher treasure values) give circumstance bonuses based on how willingly they'll help you at a given time. So if you really saved that farmer's bacon (achieving more goals, killing more ankhegs, freeing his snatched daughter, et al), they'd give a very large bonus to the roll. Of course, intimidate checks will make them less apt to help you, maybe allowing you an easier roll to get what you want, but removing the use of the contact or reducing the bonus. You'd probably have to add bonuses to the checks based on the alignment of the contact too. Lawful characters stick to their word more so than chaotic and similarly with good to evil. Generally, chaotic evil contacts would tend to be unreliable.

Fax Celestis
2010-06-05, 07:26 PM
The Contacts rules are not for "friends", they are for "capable friends": the kind of people who you can go to and say, "I need this guy dead," and their only response is, "Okay."

SilveryCord
2010-06-05, 07:45 PM
Frankly, from what I've read on this board, it seems like all the classes from Tome of Battle are always used in power builds. That leads me to believe that they are the most powerful. Not surprising, considering that it came out right at the end of 3.5's publishing period. Developers probably just said "Screw it!"

...?

Cleric, Druid, Psychic Warrior, Wildshape Ranger, and Binder are all better melee combatants than anything from Tome of Battle. Three of those classes are core. As for 'powerful builds', Tome of Battle is nowhere near the top.

Hague
2010-06-05, 08:19 PM
The Contacts rules are not for "friends", they are for "capable friends": the kind of people who you can go to and say, "I need this guy dead," and their only response is, "Okay."


I think you need to read the description of contacts in DMG2 then. The sample contacts listed there do things like identify items or locate people. They don't actively fight or aid the player directly. The frequencies with which they do things are defined, but the individual power levels are different. After having just re-read the UA section on contacts they are still defined differently. However, your definition does not match either description in both DMG2 and UA. Put explicitly, they won't risk their lives for you, and I'd say killing someone is a risky endeavor.

Originally, point of bringing this up was that contacts were not well-defined in DMG2 and seemed like something someone wanted to add without giving any more detail or even a reasonable system for them working. Especially since the 'magical places as treasure' thing was popular in the later series of 3.5 books it seems like 'Contacts as Treasure' would be a novel idea as well, no?

Fax Celestis
2010-06-05, 08:24 PM
I think you need to read the description of contacts in DMG2 then. The sample contacts listed there do things like identify items or locate people. They don't actively fight or aid the player directly. The frequencies with which they do things are defined, but the individual power levels are different. After having just re-read the UA section on contacts they are still defined. However, your definition does not match either description in both DMG2 and UA. Put explicitly, they won't risk their lives for you, and I'd say killing someone is a risky endeavor.

Originally, point of bringing this up was that contacts were not well-defined in DMG2 and seemed like something someone wanted to add without giving any more detail or even a reasonable system for them working. Especially since the 'magical places as treasure' thing was popular in the later series of 3.5 books it seems like 'Contacts as Treasure' would be a novel idea as well, no?
That was a facetious example. Every example provided from the contacts description was an act you would normally have to pay for--blazing a trail, locating information, casting a spell... all of these have per-diem or per-use costs defined within the DMG. Having the contact gets you that for free.

People do favors for their friends, but they still charge their acquaintances.

Hague
2010-06-05, 08:49 PM
I understand. That's the fundamental basis for my criticism of the DMG2. Its contact system doesn't have the basis in background development that the UA system has, it can't be used as a wild card to say "Hey, I used to know a guy in Balmport that might help us." Instead it makes players say, "Here's a mirabicary-owner I got to Friendly with my Diplomacy check, I want him to be a contact." It's about present development and not background development and thus is nothing like the original contact system at all. It was something put together poorly that didn't really do anything but add another complexity to something people could already do with a Diplomacy check.

UA's system is much more detailed and I'd say better, but the murky level requirements and the like bog the system down, especially in a game that already features such a large selection of character options and it lacks a lot of adjudication as to how to handle the additional base classes featured in other books. How many contacts does a 20th Hexblade get? What about PrCs? Does the Evangelist get more contacts than a Warshaper? It seems like the system defines a lot but then leaves a lot to be defined and in the end it suffers.

The alternative I suggested was just me going off on a wild tangent and putting ideas into text. I think I will develop a system to make "Contacts as Treasure." With scales of acquaintance and friendship based on bonuses. So instead of saying, "Ooh, I got a +2 broadsword." You can say, "Ooh, I got a +4 barmaid." That way, you can operate the starting contacts as a function of player starting wealth instead of how the two systems currently work: "Welp! I gained a level/charisma bonus, time for new contacts!" Of course, this doesn't mean that a character can just go to town and buy contacts from the general store (or the optometrist *rimshot*) it simply means that a player can spend part of his starting wealth on simple contacts (or greater contacts if they start at advanced placement) Because really, contacts should be about merit, not about whether you just happened to roll over in one stat or the other and non-standard rewards are just the sort of thing to show that merit, no?

Optimystik
2010-06-05, 08:56 PM
If you want to churn out new books every month, there's really not much time for playtesting.

Perhaps; as I recall CharOp broke every one of their shiny new books within hours of release. If I were in R&D, an hour scouting the forums for talent would probably yield far more dividends than an hour rolling up a character with Bob from Accounting - or worse, Bob from the cubicle next to me who spent weeks designing these mechanics and thus doesn't have a fresh eye.

And even if we acknowledge that there is too small a window to playtest a book before release, there is no real timetable on errata.

The best part? They don't even have to pay us - we like doing this! Just let us see the goodies before anyone else, maybe toss out a custom title/avatar that says "official playtester" for those who want e-peen, and boom.


But hey, in 4e at least they seem much more willing to errata stuff acording to the general opinions more than before!

That - along with the use of technology to keep it both current and relevant (i.e.: Char Builder) - is the thing I like most about 4e.

Torvon
2010-06-06, 05:25 AM
Thanks again for all the comments, I really appreciate it. And I did not try to push an opinion here in my main posting -- I wanted to see a discussion about this topic. Don't get me wrong.


Then you didn't read Fax's post on the first page.
The core system is not complex, therefore the OP is wrong. Period.

I'm pretty sure my point was not "the core system is complex". And I'm also pretty sure that I made that obvious when posting.
Moreover, when 4 pages of discussion is going on, adding a "period" after a 2-liner usually doesn't improve the degree of truth in a posting, especially after a wrong premise in that argument.



OP's points were that
A) the number of books meant the mechanics were too complicated
and
B) the rules discussion means the system is broken
Neither is correct.

This is, yet again, oversimplified.
(A) Many books can't impossibly be a cause for something. It is the degrees of freedom that are opened up when combining many many possibilities that might lead to a complexity which offers many interpretations in the end of which none of can be ruled "true" for sure.
(B) I was asking whether a situation when 5 people interpret rules in 6 different ways might be a hint for a system which has reached a state of overcomplexity (due to underdetermination).


Incorrect. They (mostly) use the same rules, just add new options within said rules.
[...]
For example, there's a feat in a splatbook that, say, adds +X to hit. That's a new option, but not a new mechanic.
This point is completely irrelevant, being a pure semantical issue. It doesn't matter how you call it -- seing the answers here, I take that people understood very well what I mean with "mechanisms".
Call it "options" then. Possibilities. The word doesn't matter for the problem I describe.

ta-ta
T.

Oslecamo
2010-06-06, 05:48 AM
Perhaps; as I recall CharOp broke every one of their shiny new books within hours of release. If I were in R&D, an hour scouting the forums for talent would probably yield far more dividends than an hour rolling up a character with Bob from Accounting - or worse, Bob from the cubicle next to me who spent weeks designing these mechanics and thus doesn't have a fresh eye.

How long have we been having X vs Y discussions again? Some of wich can indeed extend trough weeks? If there was a general consensus on what's broken, what's just overpowered and what's plain misreading of the rules that could be viable but the CharOpp aren't that trustworthy or consistant. I do remember when the 4e previews started rolling out some of them trying to twist the rules right away, but for some miracle this time they didn't go trough.



And even if we acknowledge that there is too small a window to playtest a book before release, there is no real timetable on errata.

Well like you pointed out 3.X didn't have a significant online structure. A lot of people got the books and then never entered in contact with Wotc again. Errata demands a way for you to reach the players to be meaningfull.




The best part? They don't even have to pay us - we like doing this! Just let us see the goodies before anyone else, maybe toss out a custom title/avatar that says "official playtester" for those who want e-peen, and boom.


Or perhaps they expected that if we like doing this so much each group will know how to adapt the rules for their own playstyle. Some people like gritty low magic settings where everything is extra-dangerous. Other like rainbows wish-chaining where you leave behind the dragon's hoard as useless trash.

Citing MTG and 40K TT for example you don't bring a tournament worthy card/army list to a casual game or nobody will want to play with you. Wotc assumed that DMs and players would take some responsibility and cut the parts they didn't like.

But since it didn't work so well we got 4e where all the corners are cut to make sure players and DM alike need to take as few responsabilities as possible.

Greenish
2010-06-06, 07:50 AM
This is, yet again, oversimplified.
(A) Many books can't impossibly be a cause for something.I apologize for over-simplifying, but if you use sentences like the above, I'll need to simplify them to wrap my lil' mind around them. What the hell does "Many books can't impossibly be a cause for something" even mean?

(B) I was asking whether a situation when 5 people interpret rules in 6 different ways might be a hint for a system which has reached a state of overcomplexity (due to underdetermination).It might just hint to the fact that everyone is a partisan when it comes to PvP.

This point is completely irrelevant, being a pure semantical issue. It doesn't matter how you call it -- seing the answers here, I take that people understood very well what I mean with "mechanisms".
Call it "options" then. Possibilities. The word doesn't matter for the problem I describe.I'm a simple person. When someone says "mechanisms" but means something completely different, I get confused.

oxybe
2010-06-06, 08:33 AM
Citing MTG and 40K TT for example you don't bring a tournament worthy card/army list to a casual game or nobody will want to play with you. Wotc assumed that DMs and players would take some responsibility and cut the parts they didn't like.

But since it didn't work so well we got 4e where all the corners are cut to make sure players and DM alike need to take as few responsabilities as possible.

unless you scope out the scene, be it D&D or Magic, any build is a crapshoot if you jump right in.

to use personal experience:

in my area there are 2 places to play Magic. the first is a VERY competitive scene where "fun" is pointless. these guys go there to practice for the regionals, provincials, FNMs, ect... a "just for fun" deck doesn't exist. bring your A Game or go home. when i moved into town originally that was the only place i could find to play magic. my old fun decks were stomped again and again.

during this time i kept searching for someplace else, and found the FLGS i now hang out at. it's much more casual then the other place and both Tuesdays and Saturdays are called "fun nights" where you bring the weird deck and play multiplayer and whatnot. some people test out their competitive decks, but it's against other competitive decks, not the fun ones.

and at least i found a place to test and play fun decks here, in the last town i lived in "casual" was competitive. there was only that one scene. i went back there a year or so ago, and since the new store opened up (a branch of the one i'm gaming in now), the casual guys now have a place to play.

the thing with any given D&D table is that it's VERY hard to determine what they would consider "fun" or "casual" without actually sitting at a table for a session beforehand due to individual preferences. i've heard stories and personally experienced "casual" and "fun" DMs that were Min-Maxed grindfests or overly drama-class-dropout-queen and to be honest i cut my teeth on those "excellent" GMs who subscribed to the "Gygaxian Style" of gameplay (by which i mean if the players aren't crying and the characters aren't dying, the GM ain't trying. one outright said that he didn't feel it was a good session unless he killed a PC). note that all terms between " " should be taken with a VERY large grain of salt.

i'm also amazed at how many... for lack of a vocabulary (curse my english as a second language)... masochistic groups who simply play everything as is, unwilling to try to adjust the game and play it fire-breathing warts and all (and yes, these groups exist. and if my experience is of any indicator, they exist in large amounts).

at this point, be it Magic or D&D i bring my A game at first and adjust from there.

everyone is at fault to be honest. there's no "standard" to gauge any particular game of D&D barring trial and error. the fact that no any two given groups can fully agree on who bears what responsibilities should say quite a bit

SilveryCord
2010-06-06, 08:33 AM
But since it didn't work so well we got 4e where all the corners are cut to make sure players and DM alike need to take as few responsabilities as possible.

I don't exactly understand this argument--are you saying that to be a good RPG, there need to be character builds available that seem good to a novice, but are terrible in play, to punish the new player? Or that to be a good RPG, there must be power builds that are exponentially better than simpler ones? Because that is all I can think of when you speak of the 'corners' that were cut from 3e.

Torvon
2010-06-06, 10:26 AM
I'm a simple person. When someone says "mechanisms" but means something completely different, I get confused.

I told you that I was a d&d beginner - sorry if I mixed terms up. But I can hardly believe that those terms are "completely different", since all other people understood very easily what I meant, and came to the overall conclusion that "yes, you're kinda right, but it's very easy to avoid the problem: the DM allows what's ok and what's not".

At least that's how I read the many replies.


ta-ta
E.

Zeful
2010-06-06, 10:37 AM
I don't exactly understand this argument--are you saying that to be a good RPG, there need to be character builds available that seem good to a novice, but are terrible in play, to punish the new player? Or that to be a good RPG, there must be power builds that are exponentially better than simpler ones? Because that is all I can think of when you speak of the 'corners' that were cut from 3e.

I think he was referring to the variety of types of rules: Inarcanum, Binding, Psionics (modified Vancian Casting) Truespeak, Vancian Casting, Maneuvers (modified Vancian Casting), etc.

However most of the effective ones were created by modifying the existing Vancian system a little rather than new systems in their own right.

Greenish
2010-06-06, 10:52 AM
I told you that I was a d&d beginner - sorry if I mixed terms up. But I can hardly believe that those terms are "completely different", since all other people understood very easily what I meant, and came to the overall conclusion that "yes, you're kinda right, but it's very easy to avoid the problem: the DM allows what's ok and what's not".

At least that's how I read the many replies.I read quite a few pointing out that the splatbooks didn't really add new mechanisms, and that the complexity doesn't break the game.

Torvon
2010-06-06, 11:31 AM
I read quite a few pointing out that the splatbooks didn't really add new mechanisms, and that the complexity doesn't break the game.

(1)
You're completely right about the second part, which doesn't in any way contradict my conclusion. Complexity doesn't break the game if a group decides on which power level they want to play, and try to use the options for char-building in an for the group adequate power level.

(2)
And the first part is not what I intended to discuss, nor something that is of any interest to this discussion.
I was talking about complexity in terms of options, or at least intended to.

Feats add complexity, enabling combinations of these new feats with other feats. Skills add complexity. New weapons or enchants add complexity.
Etc. pp.

Look at the Gnomish-Rarzorblade-Charisma-Ijatsu (or whatever)-skill focus. It's a combination of newly implemented options, and enables pretty hilarious damage output if maxed out :smallsmile:
It's not about "mechanisms".

Now it should be very clear what I mean, as I said before, following the discussion I get the opinion that other people understood what I meant and didn't pick out the term "mechanism" to derail the discussion in that direction.

I'm not a native speaker and will try to be more careful with my choice of words next time.

ta-ta
T.