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Godskook
2010-06-05, 12:48 AM
Ok, so I've been doing a lot of drafts and the more friendly fat-pack draft-duels in MtG lately, and it got me thinking about how in MtG, things can be 'worth' the same cost, both in card costs and mana costs, and yet one is clearly better than the other, and this is ok. One of the many reasons for this is rarity. Its accepted that commons are considered 'worthless' next to their most comparable rares. The gears spun in my head, and I wondered about introducing such a mechanic into D&D, and how that would help game balance.

To flesh out, there'd be 'levels' of rarity, and once you hit a certain level, certain rarities become available for direct XP purchase, while certain rarities never get offered that way. Feats gained via feat slots that are now available via xp can be 'retrained' to free up the feat slot for a higher rarity feat.

"Common" feats become trainable at L4, and could include things like Skill Focus, Weapon Focus, and the +2 to 2 skills feats. Training them might cost 1k xp to 2k xp, to throw out a number.

So, thoughts on how well this might work?

(And yes, I'm aware that xp is a river)

PId6
2010-06-05, 01:07 AM
Overall, this seems unnecessarily complex for not much gain. First of all, you'd have to rank every feat on their rarity, mostly in order to force people to purchase bad feats. Don't really see much point to this. You're also preventing people from playing builds that they want to play, and widening the gulf between feat-starved classes (most martial classes) with the less feat-starved ones (often casters).

Its accepted that commons are considered 'worthless' next to their most comparable rares.
Nitpick: Not true; there often are tournament-worthy commons printed, Lightning Bolt being a clear example. The main difference between commons/uncommons and rares is that commons/uncommons are more often meant for limited and so many of them are not tournament-worthy; however, that certainly doesn't mean that all commons are worthless, nor even that the best playable cards are rares (recent trend in mythics notwithstanding).

Maerok
2010-06-05, 01:12 AM
Commons aren't entirely useless. What would you do without lands?

I haven't checked back on Magic in a while but I assume they still use lands. Or at least, haven't feature creeped their way past needing mana at all...

Eurus
2010-06-05, 01:14 AM
Commons aren't entirely useless. What would you do without lands?

I haven't checked back on Magic in a while but I assume they still used lands. Or at least, haven't feature creeped their way past needing mana at all...

Give it a few more sets, they're working on it. :smallamused:

PId6
2010-06-05, 01:16 AM
If commons are useless, what would you do without lands?

I haven't checked back on Magic in a while but I assume they still used lands. Or at least, haven't feature creeped their way past needing mana at all...
Well, to be fair, many tournament decks use expensive dual lands in place of basics, especially in older formats like Extended and Legacy. Basics are still used in fewer-color decks, but there are a lot of decks that don't use any basics at all (any kind of Zoo, for example).

chiasaur11
2010-06-05, 01:17 AM
Commons aren't entirely useless. What would you do without lands?

I haven't checked back on Magic in a while but I assume they still use lands. Or at least, haven't feature creeped their way past needing mana at all...

No, lands are still useful, at least since they banned the lotuses.

And, if I recall, some commons are really handy for a lot of stuff.

Rares are just fancier.

Godskook
2010-06-05, 01:59 AM
Overall, this seems unnecessarily complex for not much gain. First of all, you'd have to rank every feat on their rarity, mostly in order to force people to purchase bad feats. Don't really see much point to this. You're also preventing people from playing builds that they want to play, and widening the gulf between feat-starved classes (most martial classes) with the less feat-starved ones (often casters).

Now you see, I'm not sure you see what I'm driving at here. And it wasn't meant to be just feats. Spells, too, would suffer. Specifically, Fireball would be a 'common' spell, available just about everywhere, while Orb of X would be rare.

And yes, I realize that I'm biting off one really big monkey of a task when thinking about this, but I think it would make things more balanced in the end if blaster wizards were 'cheap' to build while god-wizards cost a near fortune in rares.


Nitpick: Not true; there often are tournament-worthy commons printed, Lightning Bolt being a clear example. The main difference between commons/uncommons and rares is that commons/uncommons are more often meant for limited and so many of them are not tournament-worthy; however, that certainly doesn't mean that all commons are worthless, nor even that the best playable cards are rares (recent trend in mythics notwithstanding).

Lightning Bolt has no comparable rare nor uncommon that I could find.

------------

On the subject of lands, I wouldn't really call basic lands 'commons', in so much as when you open a booster pack, basic lands don't count against the number of commons you get in the pack.

Mystic Muse
2010-06-05, 02:02 AM
On the subject of lands, I wouldn't really call basic lands 'commons', in so much as when you open a booster pack, basic lands don't count against the number of commons you get in the pack yet.

Fixed it for you.

PId6
2010-06-05, 02:15 AM
Now you see, I'm not sure you see what I'm driving at here. And it wasn't meant to be just feats. Spells, too, would suffer. Specifically, Fireball would be a 'common' spell, available just about everywhere, while Orb of X would be rare.

And yes, I realize that I'm biting off one really big monkey of a task when thinking about this, but I think it would make things more balanced in the end if blaster wizards were 'cheap' to build while god-wizards cost a near fortune in rares.
This seems like just another way to soft-ban powerful archetypes. There are easier ways to nerf casters without introducing something as time-consuming and complex as this. If you want casters to be blasters for example, just ban all of them besides warmage. Job complete.

Besides, if you carry this through with feats as well as spells, you're going to nerf non-casters just as much. Forcing barbarians to take Weapon Focus or rogues to take Skill Focus hits them with the nerf-bat just as hard as forcing wizards to take Fireball. In the end, all you're going to end up is players not having money for the good rares (i.e. not being able to play the characters that they want).


Lightning Bolt has no comparable rare nor uncommon that I could find.
Char (http://magiccards.info/rav/en/117.html) comes pretty close for a rare. There are a bunch of worse uncommons like Chain of Plasma (http://magiccards.info/on/en/193.html) or Strafe (http://magiccards.info/ps/en/73.html), not to mention numerous cards that aren't strictly worse... but you're not going to be seeing them at tournaments alongside Lightning Bolt either. Other examples are Wild Nacatl and Putrid Leech. As one and two drops, very few creatures are better than these, regardless of rarity (and Wild Nacatl is arguably the best one drop creature in the game).

Reinboom
2010-06-05, 02:28 AM
Fixed it for you.

That's... not a very accurate "fix".

They actually moved to being a free card overtime. They started out in common slots (and even in uncommon! - yay 1994's Revised!).

You can get plenty of free basic lands at Wizards events. They sell special packs that flood you with extra basic lands just in case.
Most of the people here really seem to get Wizard's marketing backwards in these cases. =P

They have made it a goal to make basic lands available and have reduced set sizes and adjusted rarity slots in order to make certain staples more common.
Why?
Because then more people can buy magic decks for cheaper. In turn, this causes more people who can afford to play - and eventually become addicted.





That aside, I am fascinated by the idea of drafting builds. Getting "packs" of pieces. You get X number of level slots and you draft for class levels, feats, and other similar concepts.
This lets the DM really really control what is available while still providing a unique choice for the players.


I want to play this now. =P

Bayar
2010-06-05, 02:31 AM
Druid, want to trade 3 Shock Trooper and 2 Leap Attack with any uncommon or rare dinosaur wildshape cards !

PId6
2010-06-05, 02:32 AM
That aside, I am fascinated by the idea of drafting builds. Getting "packs" of pieces. You get X number of level slots and you draft for class levels, feats, and other similar concepts.
This lets the DM really really control what is available while still providing a unique choice for the players.


I want to play this now. =P
That... actually sounds incredibly fun! The mechanics will be incredibly wonky, but I kinda wanna play it too. :smalltongue:

Druid, want to trade 3 Shock Trooper and 2 Leap Attack with any uncommon or rare dinosaur wildshape cards !
No way! My Fleshraker Wildshape card is worth at least a full playset of both Shock Trooper and Leap Attack. Would you take this Planar Shepard 2 card instead?

averagejoe
2010-06-05, 02:39 AM
I thought the idea of prerequisites basically already covered this concept. Typically you have to spend resources to get certain abilities, and the more resources you have to spend the more powerful the ability. (At least, that's the idea. It works only arguably in implementation.) If you want to do something like this simply toughen feat prerequisites/increase spell material and xp component costs and you get basically the same thing without so much work, using systems already in place. And you probably don't have to do it to every spell, feat, or ability, just the problematic ones, or the ones favored by people you know.


Commons aren't entirely useless. What would you do without lands?

I haven't checked back on Magic in a while but I assume they still use lands. Or at least, haven't feature creeped their way past needing mana at all...

I thought they did that back in Alpha. :smalltongue:

Bayar
2010-06-05, 02:39 AM
No way! My Fleshraker Wildshape card is worth at least a full playset of both Shock Trooper and Leap Attack. Would you take this Planar Shepard 2 card instead?

If you can throw a Mabar, the Endless Night plane card with that...

Reinboom
2010-06-05, 02:42 AM
That... actually sounds incredibly fun! The mechanics will be incredibly wonky, but I kinda wanna play it too. :smalltongue:

No way! My Fleshraker Wildshape card is worth at least a full playset of both Shock Trooper and Leap Attack. Would you take this Planar Shepard 2 card instead?

*hides Worship the Dream Plane card*

Uh... if he doesn't want it... I'd.. I'd be willing to trade for it. I hope I have enough though. :smalleek:
*leans over*




---
I doubt trading would be allowed with such a format. =P

TheFirstStraw
2010-06-05, 03:38 AM
I think it would be more interesting if there were common, uncommon, and rare versions of the same spell. Common versions could be researched in your local library, but uncommon and rare versions would come from special circumstances.

These versions of the spell would use up the same spell slot but have some sort of added or increased effect.

That's cool.

I've played campaigns that do things sort of like that.

Jair Barik
2010-06-05, 04:02 AM
Give it a few more sets, they're working on it. :smallamused:

Actually at least one deck can win with a no land hand, turn one, going second, during the opponents first turn. Yeahhhhhhhh.......

Coidzor
2010-06-05, 04:13 AM
So... What is actually the good here?

What is actually gained?

Because I'm not seeing much other than establishing XP costs for retraining. And possibly XP costs for taking feats in the first place.

Which raises the question of bothering with an XP cost for feats without allowing for feats to be bought freely with XP.

Reinboom
2010-06-05, 04:14 AM
Actually at least one deck can win with a no land hand, turn one, going second, during the opponents first turn. Yeahhhhhhhh.......

Flash/Hulk

Vintage only. It's a format you play only if you have the money for it, and there are almost no major tournaments that use it - this is also the only official format to allow Black Lotus and the rest of the power.

Even in this format, the main piece (Flash) is restricted. And the format can handle it.
The other major piece that enables the going second play to win, Gemstone Caverns, is an otherwise terrible card.
You also need to have Protean Hulk AND a mana guide (Elvish Spirit Guide or Simian Spirit Guide) in order to do that.

...
And after all of that, Force of Will will still be able to counter it.

Also, the centerpiece (Flash) was printed in 1996.




...Sorry Godslook for this diversion. :smallfrown:

Azernak0
2010-06-05, 04:38 AM
So the Fighter actually loses experience for a class feature that is already considered sub par? The Druid who only takes 1 feat at level 6, even if it is 4,000 experience, is going to completely crush the Fighter while advancing in levels a lot faster.

I have seen something like this used in regards to spells. Certain spells, like Fireball, where very easy to find and sort of just fell out of the sky while "better" spells (Haste, Glitterdust) were more difficult to find. The idea was to help other classes at times because the more encounter ending spells were not available until higher level when the spell was less useful. What actually happened was that the group Sorcerer went into the Wizard's Guild and came back with enough gold to fuel a small army. The next time around, when the DM banned the Sorcerer from taking Scribe Scroll, the players just used every magic spell possible to locate areas where the harder to find spells were available. It stopped from being a DnD Campaign and became a Might and Magic game with a strategy book.

Shpadoinkle
2010-06-05, 04:46 AM
Congratulations, you've made fighters even worse. Now they're entirely useless instead of mostly useless.

Eldariel
2010-06-05, 09:44 AM
Vintage only. It's a format you play only if you have the money for it, and there are almost no major tournaments that use it - this is also the only official format to allow Black Lotus and the rest of the power.

This isn't precisely accurate. There's Vintage World Championships yearly along with the various SCG tournaments; they aren't GP-size but breaking 100 players without a sweat.

It's also worth noting that exempli gratia, Gush is a Common that breaks the game wide open. Frantic Search is restricted in Vintage and banned everywhere else, for a good reason. Tinker is a common. Channel is an unc IIRC. Rarity does not correspond to power in Magic. Indeed, Rares tend to form the "cool parts" or the gamebreakers of the deck while stuff like Counterspell, Lightning Bolt, etc. - utility á la D&D's stat boosters, Cloak of Resistance and company is common. Rares would rather correspond to stuff like Belt of Battle, Apparatus of the Crab, et cetera. Rares do interesting stuff but power is not linked to rarity. The specialty is what the rarity is about.

CockroachTeaParty
2010-06-05, 09:55 AM
I haven't checked back on Magic in a while but I assume they still use lands. Or at least, haven't feature creeped their way past needing mana at all...

Then maybe I'd actually enjoy playing MtG...

Tengu_temp
2010-06-05, 10:01 AM
WotC using Magic design philosophy is one of the reasons why DND 3.x is such a mess balance-wise (because what works for a CCG doesn't necessarily work for an RPG). Do we want to introduce even more of it?

Vizzerdrix
2010-06-05, 10:02 AM
WTT Full Set of FOIL Toughness. For anything!

....

Maybe half a ham sammich? Anyone?

....

Hellooo.... :smallfrown:

Eloi
2010-06-05, 10:03 AM
I believe in spells its called 'spell level', equipment 'gp cost' and in feats 'prerequisite', I could be wrong, but that just seems horribly redundant.

The Glyphstone
2010-06-05, 10:07 AM
WTT Full Set of FOIL Toughness. For anything!

....

Maybe half a ham sammich? Anyone?

....

Hellooo.... :smallfrown:

That might be worth a Complete Warrior Samurai Greater Ki Shout...

Vizzerdrix
2010-06-05, 10:10 AM
As a fan of the old Cube game Lost Kingdoms, I do like the idea of summons as cards.

Godskook
2010-06-05, 10:18 AM
Congratulations, you've made fighters even worse. Now they're entirely useless instead of mostly useless.

Which is roughly the same problem, except now, hopefully people will either (A) realize the trap or (B) homebrew effective solutions. It *IS* possible to 'brew fighter-looking feats that are actually powerful enough to scare a wizard. And I also never mentioned fighter feats, in general, were going to be common. Only one I mentioned was weapon focus.

--------------------------

And as far as Flash-Hulk goes, you're using gemstone caverns(a land, but also a rare), which is not technically required. 2 spirit guides and a manamorphose does the trick as well, but is less likely to be how its done.
...Sorry Godslook for this diversion. :smallfrown:

Who are you apologizing to?

Kylarra
2010-06-05, 10:19 AM
WTT Full Set of FOIL Toughness. For anything!

....

Maybe half a ham sammich? Anyone?

....

Hellooo.... :smallfrown:
If you can get 6, I'll trade you an improved toughness for the lot of them. I need to complete my Tarrasque set.

Il_Vec
2010-06-05, 11:18 AM
Actually, this idea is very good. But I think using XP as the currency is not going the right way.

In one game I play, the DM actually enforces something similar: He will only allow feats/spells/wildshape forms/summoned creatures that you have already encountered and interacted with. Some exceptions for doing research if a specific problem needs a specific answer.
Reading about it in a book(Unless it's a wizards' grimoire) or hearing a bards tale will not make the cut. So he controls things by "rarity".

Coidzor
2010-06-05, 01:59 PM
Which is roughly the same problem, except now, hopefully people will either (A) realize the trap or (B) homebrew effective solutions. It *IS* possible to 'brew fighter-looking feats that are actually powerful enough to scare a wizard. And I also never mentioned fighter feats, in general, were going to be common. Only one I mentioned was weapon focus.

So... What do we actually GAIN? I mean, abolishing the fighter as a class is all well and good, but that's easily accomplished with a match and a few seconds effort.

It seems like you're just trying to trade in the splatbook power-value thing and justifying traps as a valid part of a good design philosophy.

jiriku
2010-06-05, 02:26 PM
IMC I apply a sort of rarity mechanic to determine access to wizard spells. Or more accurately, I might call it an abusability mechanic.

The mechanics are a little complicated, but basically, for spells that strongly facilitate breaking and entering (knock, invisibility, fly, dimension door, polymorph), a wizard cannot purchase access to these spells until he is capable of casting the next-highest level of spells. Spells that grant access to other planes and call extra-planar entities (contact other plane, planar binding, plane shift) aren't available for purchase until the wizard can cast spells two levels higher. If they wish, wizards can still learn these spells independently using their free spells learned at level-up, or loot them from captured spellbooks.

In-game, the justification is that NPCs aren't wild about giving every hotshot wizard who just gained a level the tools to destabilize society, but once the wizard proves he can handle greater power responsibily, they'll be less concerned. From a metagame perspective, it limits the speed at which wizard players acquire magics that severely curtail my adventure design options (flight, teleportation, planar travel), while still making those options available if the player is willing to allocate a free spell known to acquire them.

Another_Poet
2010-06-05, 02:51 PM
It's not going to help game balance, it's going to further hurt game balance while making things more confusing at the same time.

The reason for this is arbitrary assignment of XP value to feat rarity. If I have to pay 4,000 XP for a really cool feat, and the other guy in my party takes a crappy feat for free, I'm still ahead even though I had to spend XP. So now I am overpowered compared to my friend, and the only drawback I have is losing an arbitrary amount of XP that I will quickly replace.

In the current system, there is a clear XP to Feat value exchange rate. It takes x XP to reach level y, and at every 3rd level I gain 1 feat.

In your proposed system, XP and level growth become detached from feat gaining and the exchange rate is meaningless because it's just a number you make up. "This feat is worth 1,000; this feat is worth 4,000." Why? Why not 2,000 and 10,000 or 3,000 and 5,000?

Theoretically with an algorithm of the sliding scale of XP-to-Level versus Levels-to-get-a-Feat you could mathematically derive the exact XP value of 1 extra feat, and then pro-rate it by how good each type of feat is considered to be. That would give you an actual working system which would not affect how balanced one class is to another, and thus not affect game balance at all; but would raise the power creep so that players can get even more powerful characters than they currently can. So you still wouldn't fix game balance but you would at least add new minmaxing options and not mess up game balance any worse than it already is.

However, that's not what you're doing. By assigning arbitrary XP values to buying extra feats, you both depart from whatever semblance of game balance already exists and also make it impossible for players to calculate whether a given feat purchase is worth the XP. After all, the only other thing for (non-crafters) to spend XP on is gaining levels, and you haven't correlated the value of a feat to the value of a level.

Really though charging XP for non-level-related powerups is never a good solution in D&D. It's why every optimiser wants to craft their own gear instead of buying it. XP is the one constant in D&D. There is literally a free and unlimited amount of XP available to the players. All they have to do is go risk their lives killing things to get it, and they're going to go risk their lives and kill things anyway. The whole point of the game is to risk your life killing things. You're going to get XP every session pretty much no matter what; you may as well spend it when you get it.

The only possible downside to spending it is falling a level behind the other PCs. In a different system that might be more meaningful, but in D&D if someone falls behind in levels because they spent their XP on feats, the system is self-correcting to put them back at APL in no time. Once they're lower level than the others they earn XP at a higher rate from any given kill, so they will be back to the same level as the others quickly. There is literally no incentive to save your XP when you could spend it on feats, because the more XP you spend, the more XP you get to earn.

For example a 5th level fighter spends 2,000 XP on a weapon focus feat. Boo hoo. He probably levels to 6th at the same time as the others anyway, or maybe he is delayed by one 4-hour session. If so he gets to earn extra XP during that session because he's lower level than everyone else. By the time they are all ready to hit 7th level he is already back to being tied with everyone else.

I would suggest this. Imagine for a moment that instead of charging XP for extra feats, you just offered your players to each get an extra feat every level. For free. Would this make the game any more balanced? Would fighters with even more feats catch up to wizards now? Would they catch up to wizards who also have even more feats? The number of spell focus feats and metamagic reducing feats a wizard could take... wow. I don't think adding improved trip and spring attack to a fighter is going to restore balance at that point.

So if it doesn't work when it's free for all of them, why would it work when it costs them a fixed amount of XP? Anyone smart would buy the feats, so the only effect is a slower game as it takes longer for the party to achieve each level. Even that effect will wear off as they become too powerful for their level, and the DM throws higher EL encounters at them, and now they are earning abnormally large amounts of XP - easily buying feats and leveling at the normal pace.

Sell a fighter a feat and you've got a guy who's good with spiked chains. Sell a wizard a feat and you've got the new emperor of the continent. (He was gonna be emperor anyway but he appreciates the feat.)

ap

Drakevarg
2010-06-05, 03:07 PM
I actually quite like the idea of introducing rarity to spells, at least, since it also makes sense fluff-wise. Where feats are a gained attribute via hard work or specialized training (which I suppose could be argued would require a master to teach you it), spells are something you dig up in a wizard's library.

You could perhaps change it so instead of spontaneously learning 2 new spells every level, all spells would have to be obtained via actual research. The spells that are available to be researched in any given location being determined via their relative rarity. (Higher level spells being rarer than low level spells, complex spells being rarer than simple spells, etc.) And even then, it gets more difficult by the possibility that the guy who owns the local library isn't just going to let you learn how to rewrite reality for free, and will make you pay a fine based on the rarity of the spell.

Vizzerdrix
2010-06-05, 03:59 PM
You could perhaps change it so instead of spontaneously learning 2 new spells every level, all spells would have to be obtained via actual research. The spells that are available to be researched in any given location being determined via their relative rarity. (Higher level spells being rarer than low level spells, complex spells being rarer than simple spells, etc.) And even then, it gets more difficult by the possibility that the guy who owns the local library isn't just going to let you learn how to rewrite reality for free, and will make you pay a fine based on the rarity of the spell.

And any Sorc with Scribe Scroll Can make bank in a few weeks.

Drakevarg
2010-06-05, 04:03 PM
And any Sorc with Scribe Scroll Can make bank in a few weeks.

*shrug* Eh. I don't use Sorcerers in my campaigns. I'm filing that under "your problem."

Endarire
2010-06-05, 04:05 PM
Think of it this way: A human Fighter can spend his two feats at L1 on Power Attack and Cleave. He can probably do respectful damage and has a trick or two.

A human Wizard can get Extend Spell and Invisible Spell to turn all his summoned creatures invisible. Tiers (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=1002.0) exist for good reason.

In 2E, Mages ("Wizards") had to find every spell scroll and scribe it into their spellbook. This was annoying. In 2E, Sorcerers just learned spells automatically. Even with the small number of spells known, this was cool.

If you try to balance things by drastically reducing fun for certain options, that feels wrong.

Godskook
2010-06-05, 05:17 PM
The reason for this is arbitrary assignment of XP value to feat rarity. If I have to pay 4,000 XP for a really cool feat, and the other guy in my party takes a crappy feat for free, I'm still ahead even though I had to spend XP. So now I am overpowered compared to my friend, and the only drawback I have is losing an arbitrary amount of XP that I will quickly replace.

He also has the option to buy the good feat for xp, and his crappy feat still has uses. Weapon Focus, for instance, is actually better than Power Attack on a L1 PC, since a single greatsword is all the damage you'll need for the level, while to-hit is hard to come by this early in the game. At L4, he gains the option to spend 500xp to retrain weapon focus out of his feat slot, and gain a new L1 feat. Now, being L4, he picks Power Attack, which is far better at this level than it was 3 levels ago.


In the current system, there is a clear XP to Feat value exchange rate. It takes x XP to reach level y, and at every 3rd level I gain 1 feat.

In your proposed system, XP and level growth become detached from feat gaining and the exchange rate is meaningless because it's just a number you make up. "This feat is worth 1,000; this feat is worth 4,000." Why? Why not 2,000 and 10,000 or 3,000 and 5,000?

So you prefer one kind of arbitrary to another?


Theoretically with an algorithm of the sliding scale of XP-to-Level versus Levels-to-get-a-Feat you could mathematically derive the exact XP value of 1 extra feat, and then pro-rate it by how good each type of feat is considered to be. That would give you an actual working system which would not affect how balanced one class is to another, and thus not affect game balance at all; but would raise the power creep so that players can get even more powerful characters than they currently can. So you still wouldn't fix game balance but you would at least add new minmaxing options and not mess up game balance any worse than it already is.

Yeah, this is kinda what I'm expecting, except certain feats won't have the option to be 'bought', like metamagic, for instance. Those'll always require feat slots.


However, that's not what you're doing. By assigning arbitrary XP values to buying extra feats, you both depart from whatever semblance of game balance already exists and also make it impossible for players to calculate whether a given feat purchase is worth the XP. After all, the only other thing for (non-crafters) to spend XP on is gaining levels, and you haven't correlated the value of a feat to the value of a level.

1.I haven't done anything yet except 'pitch' the idea to you guys, and even then, I didn't go into any detail about how I'm doing it, so why are you commenting on something I didn't say????

2.Why do I need to correlate the value of a feat to a level when the point is to move away from that in the first place? Some feats just aren't worth much, and are worth even less as you level. They're worth even less still if you've already got a copy of them. Weapon Focus is a great example here. If the weapon focus tree could be bought with xp almost independent of leveling, they'd be far more useful than they are now.


Really though charging XP for non-level-related powerups is never a good solution in D&D. It's why every optimiser wants to craft their own gear instead of buying it. XP is the one constant in D&D. There is literally a free and unlimited amount of XP available to the players. All they have to do is go risk their lives killing things to get it, and they're going to go risk their lives and kill things anyway. The whole point of the game is to risk your life killing things. You're going to get XP every session pretty much no matter what; you may as well spend it when you get it.

I don't know too many optimizers who craft in classes other than Artificer, including Treantmonk, who in particular dislikes crafting(according to his guide).


I would suggest this. Imagine for a moment that instead of charging XP for extra feats, you just offered your players to each get an extra feat every level. For free. Would this make the game any more balanced? Would fighters with even more feats catch up to wizards now? Would they catch up to wizards who also have even more feats? The number of spell focus feats and metamagic reducing feats a wizard could take... wow. I don't think adding improved trip and spring attack to a fighter is going to restore balance at that point.

So if it doesn't work when it's free for all of them, why would it work when it costs them a fixed amount of XP? Anyone smart would buy the feats, so the only effect is a slower game as it takes longer for the party to achieve each level. Even that effect will wear off as they become too powerful for their level, and the DM throws higher EL encounters at them, and now they are earning abnormally large amounts of XP - easily buying feats and leveling at the normal pace.

Sell a fighter a feat and you've got a guy who's good with spiked chains. Sell a wizard a feat and you've got the new emperor of the continent. (He was gonna be emperor anyway but he appreciates the feat.)

*Sigh*

Bad analogy, really.

Sell a fighter weapon focus and exotic weapon proficiency, and you've got a slightly better fighter. Sell a typical wizard weapon focus and exotic weapon proficiency, and you've got a temporarily worse wizard.

-----------------

This thread was apparently a bad idea. Between naysayers who aren't even getting the idea I'm driving at and all the MtG tangent, there's little care for what I'm actually talking about.

Drakevarg
2010-06-05, 05:42 PM
Gonna think out loud here; may get way off course, and not be even remotely accurate.

You're idea here is that any given feat has both a prerequisite (i.e., must have feat X, ability score Y, and level Z before taking the feat) and a cost (instead of the arbitrary 1 feat every three levels).

So if you want, say, Weapon Focus, you need Prerequisite: Proficiency with that particular weapon, and Cost: 1000 XP.

To wander off on a tangent on this thought, lets say you're a Level 2 Fighter and have 200 XP. Since you can't really un-learn things, you shouldn't be able to spend 1000 XP anyway and go down a level. The XP you "spent" on taking another Fighter level is gone, just as the XP you spent on the feat is gone.

I'm kinda visualizing a video game menu here, where you can spend the XP on either one or the other. (Feats or Class Levels, that is.) The thing stopping someone from being 1st level with 8000 feats or so is simply the fact that the better feats have class level prerequisites in the first place, so you'll have to level eventually. (There's the whole "do you want to keep fighting goblins forever?" bit to consider as well.)

If this is even remotely accurate to what you're talking about, I kinda like it. I wouldn't call it "rarity", though. That makes more sense for spells and the like. Feat costs would simply be to show that you need a certain ammount of worldy experience to benefit from a certain trait (in the case of general stat boosts like Great Fortitude) or to truely grasp a certain aspect of training (Improved Sunder or somesuch).

Umael
2010-06-05, 05:52 PM
DISCLAIMER: I think I read every post, but I'm not sure if I understood everything, nor am I sure that I will be saying anything new. Please correct me if I am repeating something said earlier, or if I am wrong.

I think the mechanics are done incorrectly for the effect you seem to be trying to obtain.

In MtG and every other CCG out there, you purchase your cards randomly. To then go and give feats or whatnot an experience point cost above that to reflect the rarity of that feat... does not reflect rarity as given.

To speak broadly, blaster wizards are not as effective as batman wizards because the spells that a blaster wizard takes lack versatility. Find a bad guy, blast it, wash, lather, rinse, repeat. A blaster wizard might cast five or six spells in one combat, whereas a batman wizard might need only cast one or two.

As I understand this, the blaster wizard is the equivalent of having a lot of common spells, the batman wizard is the equivalent of having a lot of rare spells (with a selection of the more useful common and uncommon spells). So as a way to make it more difficult to be a batman wizard (and thus overtake the fighter), you want to make certain spells rare and other spells more common. The end result being a wizard with, say, 4 Commons, 2 Uncommon, and 1 Rare spell instead of 7 Common or 1 Common, 1 Uncommon, and 5 Rare.

Problem #1: This will make it more likely to balance wizards or other spell-casters with each other. It will not help balance out the wizard and the fighter.

I venture that even if you had a wizard with NO feats and NO "Rare" or "Uncommon" spells, by the time the wizard and the fighter got to 20th level, the wizard would be kicking the fighter's behind. Go ahead and select eight different 9th-level spells (17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th wizard class level, two spells each). Tell me how a 20th level fighter is going to compare to that.

Problem #2: Rarity should not be based on experience points - so how will you insure that you have a fair distribution of feats? Or worse, spells?

Oi, this one is a killer.

First, rarity vs. experience point. Well, experience points are used for creating magic items or powering certain spells... or they are used for leveling up. In fact, why should experience points be used at all? A fair distribution is a random one, not one that is bought.

Okay, so how do we get a fair, random distribution? Well, we have to start by figuring out which feats are what rarity. Yeah, that will work well - because even the designers of MtG put out some stinkers. For those of you familiar with L5R CCG... what was AEG thinking when it came out with Occupied Territory? Even as a Common - it stinks!

But let's say that you do manage to come up with a list of Common Feats, Uncommon Feats, and Rare Feats. Okay, now what? Well you get one Feat for free for being 1st level. Roll a die? So I rolled a 1, Common Feat, rolled again, got 11, got Metamagic Common Feat. Umm... I'm playing a fighter. Or better yet, what if I get Run for my feat and then because I am human I get Run again? Do I get to pick a different Common Feat, you know, actually pick? Or am I allowed to "upgrade" to rolling on the Uncommon Feat list?

Then let's say I get to spells. Well, wizards get spells through going up levels and through purchasing them. Are you saying I get my spells I purchase randomly?

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/images/oots0049.gif

Problem #3: WBL

There is a huge difference between a 20th-level character you just created, using the WBL, and one you created as a 1st-level character and then played through 19 level advances. There is also a difference between a PC created at 20th-level where you purchase all your extra gear and one where you roll up your extra gear using the WBL charts.

Now I'll be honest, I'm not sure how this matters so much, but I know it does. The more choice you get in your character's design, the more you can customize your own character. It would really suck to randomly get Weapon Focus (Bastard Sword), Weapon Specialization (Bastard Sword), then randomly end up with a powerful Great Axe and no Bastard Sword.

Of course, if you are still deciding to buy your feats extra, you could just buy your Weapon Focus (Great Axe), but you are still going with a melee concept. Great Cleave doesn't work with your +5 Icying Longbow of Death, even if the concept seems neat at first.


Problem #4: How do you tell which spell is Rare, Uncommon, or Common?

Yeah, I know, I already mentioned it. But this is so big, I think it needs to be mentioned again. I mean, it should be easy enough to decide on how rare a spell is by its versatility or how much it "breaks" the game, right? Except that certain people might not agree because they don't consider these things. A novice player might not think of all the ways a fly spell can be used, but they understand fireball just fine.

A fireball is useful for hurting or even killing a large number of opponents. It can be used creatively against snow and ice, marauding trees, and as a distraction, but it's primary and best function is to do damage to a lot of opponents. A fly is more useful because it allows more control over the battlefield, as well as helps defeats a number of traps, ruins certain enemy plans, and helps stop some suicidal tendencies.

Should the player's novice ability hamper them from learning how to play a wizard because they picked their spells based on experience point cost? Thinking "I don't know what I'm doing so I'll only take the cheap ones" don't lead itself to experimentation (and learning), nor does "That's the most expensive spell, so it's got to be good! I'll just buy it and figure it out later." The wizard gets a lot of his ability by his ability to learn spells and try them out. Taking away that aspect, even limiting it, limits a lot of the essence of the wizard.

And to do the same for the fighter, when feats are much rarer? Killer.

Problem #5: It does not solve the problem of how the various classes are designed.

Let's fact it - the wizard class sucks EXCEPT for the fact that it gets to cast spells. d4 hp per level? 1 Good Save (Will)? No Armor Proficiencies? Look at the class features? Starting out with Scribe Feat and getting a new feat every fifth level - that can only be for Megamagic? Better than nothing, but look how many class features the fighter gets!

Yeah, right. We all know that class features alone do not a class make. Everything has to be considered. Some classes, like the druid and the monk, get a lot of class features, fixed class features at that. Is it fair to tell the druid that his chosen animal form is picked at random? Or does the monk's features suddenly go random as well?

Conclusion: Even though the idea seems like a good one, to make this idea work would require an extensive and impractical remake of the system.

Godskook
2010-06-05, 07:16 PM
Problem #1: This will make it more likely to balance wizards or other spell-casters with each other. It will not help balance out the wizard and the fighter.

1.I wasn't expecting it to be 'enough' to balance wizard and fighter to the same tier. Wasn't even expecting huge changes at the class level at all.

2.I was expecting it to make selection within the categories more balanced, somehow, such as "feats" and "spells".


Problem #2: Rarity should not be based on experience points - so how will you insure that you have a fair distribution of feats? Or worse, spells?

This idea is supplemental, not replacing. It doesn't remove guarenteed options already available for gaining feats, it just adds a new one that is based on how useful the feat might be.


Problem #3: WBL

1.I'm not suggesting introducing a randomizing mechanic into builds.

2.Assuming you understood that, I'm not sure what your point here is.


Problem #4: How do you tell which spell is Rare, Uncommon, or Common?

Lots and lots of effort. And wizards would still have the 2 spells per level available to them which wouldn't necessarily be limited by any sort of rarity.


And to do the same for the fighter, when feats are much rarer more common? Killer.

Fixed that for you.


Problem #5: It does not solve the problem of how the various classes are designed.

Wasn't trying to. This is a "Feat" and "Spell" level idea. Its not meant to solve problems introduced on the 'class' level.


Conclusion: Even though the idea seems like a good one, to make this idea work would require an extensive and impractical remake of the system.

Extensive, I was expecting, and Impractical I was evaluating by posting this.

Amphetryon
2010-06-05, 07:36 PM
Originally Posted by Another_Poet
And to do the same for the fighter, when feats are much rarer more common? Killer.
Fixed that for you.I'm pretty sure feats, even for a Fighter, are rarer than spells are for a Wizard. Probably even rarer than they are for a Sorcerer.

Kallisti
2010-06-05, 08:09 PM
So, I'm not sure people are quite understanding your idea, people in this case including me. Let me see if I have this right.

Jack the wizard and Bruce the fighter are in a party. They just finished a session where they killed, among other things, and ogre mage. The Dm says "Great session, guys, everyone gets 5,000 xp." They were 1,00 xp short of Level 9. Now they level up to 9, Jack gets to delight in his shiny new spell level while Bruce gets the hang of his new toy Leap Attack, and they realize they're 4,000 xp above where they need to be. Rather than save up that XP for Level 10, they decide to spend it. Bruce wants Weapon Focus (Ranseur) to use the magic ranseur they looted off that cultist last week, so he buys it. It's a Common feat, so he gets it cheap, and has XP left over to buy Point Blank Shot, because flying enemies are the bane of his existance in his heavy armor that keeps him from flying, plus some for another Toughness or two, and a little left over to reach level 10 and get his fighter bonus feat, because he wants a Rare feat and doesn't want to spend all that XP, and ah hell with it I could use Iron Will, too. Jack buys Feeblemind. It's a Rare spell, so he's broke again.

Am I getting the gist of it?

Godskook
2010-06-05, 08:45 PM
Jack buys Feeblemind. It's a Rare spell, so he's broke again.

Nope. For several reasons:

1.Above a certain rarity, it just simply not available for direct xp training.

2.While I was thinking about adding rarity to spells, I wasn't thinking to add direct xp training for them. Rarity would just affect how easily scrolls of that variety were to find for whatever IC logic worked for your campaign.

3.Feeblemind is a 5th level spell. That's "cream of the crop" in his world, and more comparable to ShockTrooper than Weapon Focus. Even if points #1 and #2 weren't true, you'd still not be able to train 'level appropriate' spells. A better spell to reference might be Lesser Orb of Force, or Magic Missle.


Am I getting the gist of it?

For the fighter, mostly. For the wizard, see above, so no.

Kallisti
2010-06-05, 09:14 PM
So you're not proposing anything mechanically for spell rarity? Just ranking spells, similarly to the class tier system, so DMs have a rough guide for restricting spell availability?

Godskook
2010-06-05, 09:25 PM
So you're not proposing anything mechanically for spell rarity? Just ranking spells, similarly to the class tier system, so DMs have a rough guide for restricting spell availability?

Not yet. I was kinda spitballing it, and the feat-side was more fleshed out since I've thought about similar things in that regard before, as well as the similarities to E6's design scheme.

Riffington
2010-06-06, 02:43 AM
MtG does rarity "wrong". I mean, they do it right for the purpose of making money, which is obviously not wrong per se. But a player-focused game has the commons be the powerful cards, while making rare cards do more cool/unusual things. That way people who spend less can still have good decks - they just can't do certain weird decks.
In D&D, this makes even more sense. First, your goal is not to extract lots of money from your players (I assume). Second, one imagines that if a spell is universally desirable (say, Glitterdust or Web), then lots of wizards will have transcribed it. On the other hand, Phantom Trap could be rare. It's not a spell the average wizard would want to buy even if they could, and it's actually kind of cooler if nobody else has it.

As to how to make a rarity system work: you don't want to charge XP for rarer spells. You want to make characters spend a little time/effort tracking down a wizard who both has such a spell and is willing to allow you access to her spellbook.

Umael
2010-06-06, 07:12 AM
1.I wasn't expecting it to be 'enough' to balance wizard and fighter to the same tier. Wasn't even expecting huge changes at the class level at all.

I missed that. Possibly I mentally filled in a gap where there was none.

Again that greatly eliminates most of my points - I was operating under the conclusion that you were replacing an existing system on character class design with your own.

But because it is supplemental...

*thinks*

Maybe there is still a power here, but it isn't with the whole Fighter versus Wizard. I might, yes, a Fighter who spends XP on more Feats doesn't level up as fast as a Wizard. Which means the Wizard levels up sooner... but the Fighter gets very little for leveling up except the Feats (hit points, BAB, a few skill points, maybe a small increase in Saves).

So why not just the xp to get a few more Feats. Don't need that much BAB once you are high enough. Since...

*blink*
*blink*

Houston? I think I just noticed something. Don't know if it is good or bad yet.

Okay, so let's say you are 11th level, about to hit 12th - like 1,000 shy. You get into a big fight, get yourself about 9,000 experience points. Instead of leveling up like everyone else, you spend it on... Toughness Feats.

Toughness is like a Common, right? 1,000 xp? Why go up to 12th when you can drop all 9,000 xp into 27 hp. Instead of leveling? Sure, why not. What's 12th going to get you? 2 more feats, 1d10+Con mod highpoints, a few skill points you don't need because the skill monkey is blowing right past you since level kindergarten so you never bothered, and +1 to all your Saves and your BAB. Going by WBL, you might never need level again.

Assume 24 Con with items. That's +7 mod, say 12 hp per level. That's 4 Toughness Feats. Skill Focus gives you +2 for 2 skills, that's more than enough to cover the skill points per level. 12th level gains 2, so the total is 7 Common Feats effectively used, 2 to go to cover +1 to all Saves and +1 BAB.

Why bother? Stay 11th for a while longer and just spend the experience points on Feats. And that was for going up to 12th level, one of the sweet spots. What do you gain for going from12th to 13th? Even less.

What happens when the barbarian decides to burn the experience points going from 12th to 13th? Won't the barbarian start to overshadow the fighter?

Even more concerning, what if the barbarian stays a level or two lower than the rest of the party, getting more and more experience points? Is it possible for the Barbarian to duplicate the Fighter?

Godskook
2010-06-06, 08:22 AM
Toughness is like a Common, right? 1,000 xp?

Toughness would not be a common. 1.O-Chul would kill me, and 2.Its just a little too good to be trainable as many times as you want for a flat XP cost in any system where XP is a river. Likewise with Open Minded. Note the feats I referenced as being common: Skill Focus and Weapon Focus. Niether gives synergistic bonuses for having more than one of them, despite you being able to take more than one of them. Sure, you can have 2 weapon foci to enable a peculiar fighting style, but that only 'catches' you up to the guy who's just using duplicates of the same weapon for his TWFing.

Another_Poet
2010-06-06, 12:21 PM
First, I want to point out that Godskook incorrectly attributed a number of Umael's points to me when quoting above.

Second, I want to apologize if my post missed the point of what you were getting at. I was trying to offer a detailed analysis of why the idea as explained in your OP would not help game balance between the classes. If you don't care about that, my bad.

Third, to answer your question, the reason it's a problem not to correlate XP cost of feats to XP cost of leveling is that it makes it hard for players to know which choices are good choices.

For instance, if you created a new magic item for PCs to use, and put the price in gold pieces, players can compare the cost of the new item to the cost of a +1 sword and decide which one is a better buy. On the other hand, if you put the price in, say, Uranium Rubels, then players will need a UR to GP exchange rate to know which one is a better buy.

Likewise, feats are currently only gained by getting levels. You're offering feats in a different currency, XP. If you can't correlate XP cost of feats to XP cost of levels, then the players have no reliable way of predicting which is a better investment at any given point in their character's career. They have to go with a guess or a gut feeling.

ap

Godskook
2010-06-06, 03:41 PM
First, I want to point out that Godskook incorrectly attributed a number of Umael's points to me when quoting above.

:smalleek:


Second, I want to apologize if my post missed the point of what you were getting at. I was trying to offer a detailed analysis of why the idea as explained in your OP would not help game balance between the classes. If you don't care about that, my bad.

I *do* care, quite a bit, about inter-class balance. Its just that this mechanic wasn't intended to 'fix' that. Try looking at my signature for what I think is required to help balance fighters up to wizards.


Third, to answer your question, the reason it's a problem not to correlate XP cost of feats to XP cost of leveling is that it makes it hard for players to know which choices are good choices.

For instance, if you created a new magic item for PCs to use, and put the price in gold pieces, players can compare the cost of the new item to the cost of a +1 sword and decide which one is a better buy. On the other hand, if you put the price in, say, Uranium Rubels, then players will need a UR to GP exchange rate to know which one is a better buy.

Likewise, feats are currently only gained by getting levels. You're offering feats in a different currency, XP. If you can't correlate XP cost of feats to XP cost of levels, then the players have no reliable way of predicting which is a better investment at any given point in their character's career. They have to go with a guess or a gut feeling.

???

I'm confused.

Why should anything in a game be a "predictably better investment"? In my opinion, having a variety of all-valid choices makes a game more fun and playable.

And then there's the point that this proposal has only short-term penalties. If its a 'bad choice', its not one that'll cost you forever. Just for a session or two. If the player chooses not to take the option, he's exactly as if this rule wasn't implemented, so he suffers no 'new' issues.