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Ilmryn
2010-06-20, 11:08 AM
I recently read a book on the history of dnd. It said that in the old AD&D, each supplement offering options more powerful than the earlier ones, to the point where a supplement-using character was way more powerful than a core character. In your opinion, is this problem presnt in dnd 3.5?

Yuki Akuma
2010-06-20, 11:10 AM
For most classes? Yes.

For Wizards, Clerics and (arguably) Druids? The best material is almost all in the PHB.

Gnaeus
2010-06-20, 11:12 AM
Are the strongest characters stronger? Not appreciably. Wizard, Cleric, Druid are not appreciably stronger with 10 books than they are in core. They can break the game either way.

Do the weakest characters have more options? Yes. A fighter with ToB is way better than one without. A paladin with complete champion is way better than one without. The new classes that perform the melee role are much better balanced (meaning stronger, more able to live in a party with a moderately optimized caster without feeling like a hireling) than their core counterparts.

Ernir
2010-06-20, 11:15 AM
Is it there? Obviously. One might argue that increasing the number of options inherently increases the power level.

Is this a problem? In my opinion, not really.

Irreverent Fool
2010-06-20, 11:22 AM
I have to agree with Gnaeus' assessment of the situation. While the supplements can have the effect of turning the whole game into "rocket tag", without the supplements, it's still a game of rocket tag but only the full-casters are armed.

Also remember that every new option for the player is a new option for a canny DM.

If you really want to mess things up, try some third-party books. I have one with a 1st-level spell that attracts all mindless undead within miles/level to a point determined by the caster for days.

Volthawk
2010-06-20, 01:29 PM
If you really want to mess things up, try some third-party books. I have one with a 1st-level spell that attracts all mindless undead within miles/level to a point determined by the caster for days.

I quite like Tome of Horrors, myself.

Greenish
2010-06-20, 01:37 PM
Is there a power spiral in 3.5? Absolutely!

Allow me to demonstrate.

Core fighter:http://www.thecommentfactory.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/earthquake-300x300.jpg

ToB warblade:http://linottes.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/kamina.jpg

Zeta Kai
2010-06-20, 01:52 PM
If you really want to mess things up, try some third-party books. I have one with a 1st-level spell that attracts all mindless undead within miles/level to a point determined by the caster for days.

It's broken-ness like this that gives third-party a bad name. Then again, it's broken-ness like the Sarrukh, the Incantatrix, & celerity that gives first-party a bad name. And it's broken-ness like Natural Spell, disjunction, & Diplomacy-as-RAW that gives Core a bad name.

Also, as Greenish cleverly illustrated, the power spiral is not always a bad thing. It can make a goofy thing awesome.

Akal Saris
2010-06-20, 03:17 PM
Honestly, that hairy muscle-man looks like a more fun character to play than the anime weirdo in the cape.

Anyhow, I think yes, there's an obvious power spiral, which varies from class to class (and character to character). Sometimes this can have a negative effect, like giving wizard even more broken spells like celerity and metamagic reducers that makes piling 3 or more metamagics on a spell do-able, or giving clerics divine metamagic.

But a lot of other times I think the power spiral is actually a good thing. Bards are quite a bit more interesting and fun with all the non-core feats and abilities, ditto for rangers and rogue-types. Non-core also makes some options like theurge-type classes and gishes much more viable than core only.

Greenish
2010-06-20, 03:20 PM
Honestly, that hairy muscle-man looks like a more fun character to play than the anime weirdo in the cape.The point is that the guy in the cape has more spiral power. :smallcool:

Frosty
2010-06-20, 04:17 PM
The point is that the guy in the cape has more spiral power. :smallcool:

Please do not add to the misconception that ToB = Anime, whatever the hell that means.

Greenish
2010-06-20, 04:19 PM
Please do not add to the misconception that ToB = Anime, whatever the hell that means.But… but spiral power! :smallfrown:

oxybe
2010-06-20, 04:22 PM
if you don't believe Greenish, believe in me, who believes in him!

Yuki Akuma
2010-06-20, 04:29 PM
Please do not add to the misconception that ToB = Anime, whatever the hell that means.

What?

It's a pun.

Lycanthromancer
2010-06-20, 04:34 PM
MYSTIK SPIRAL!

http://www.outpost-daria.com/images/mystik_spiral.gif

Gametime
2010-06-20, 04:43 PM
But… but spiral power! :smallfrown:

If it helps, I saw what you did there. :smallbiggrin:

And I'm disappointed I got to this thread too late to make the joke myself. :smallfrown:

At any rate, a character with access to all books can be built more powerfully than a character with access to only Core books. For full casters, the increase in power is most definitely appreciable, although not as radical as for the classes that can't rewrite reality in under 6 seconds several times a day.

Having access to Celerity, Craft Contingent Spell, Superior Invisibility, Mindsight, and a few other choice selections does make a wizard harder to deal with than he would have been otherwise, and Divine Metamagic takes the cleric from "better than a fighter in every meaningful way" to "better than every fighting class in every way ever."

herrhauptmann
2010-06-20, 05:11 PM
I quite like Tome of Horrors, myself.

Tomb of Horrors perhaps?

Using 3rd party stuff as the DM is okay, so long as you tell the party at character creation that certain 3rd party books are good.
I did it for circle and ritual magic from Arcana Unearthed (not Unearthed Arcana), and told the party that I was going to use some 3rd party stuff, but specified which ones.
I also specified which first party stuff I wasn't going to allow, like Murky Eyed flaw, or Feral Template, the sarrukh did not exist (when I said that, one guy shifted from playing kobold to goblin)
And which ones I was going to houserule, like a form of halfogre that's LA+1 becomes +2.

9mm
2010-06-20, 06:10 PM
Honestly, that hairy muscle-man looks like a more fun character to play than the anime weirdo in the cape.

John "Earthquake" Tenta was awesome... even if he did squash Jake "The Snake" Robert's snake, though his feud with Hogan was made of win. for WWF 80's professional wrestling anyway.

PId6
2010-06-20, 06:19 PM
The point is that the guy in the cape has more spiral power. :smallcool:
That is awesome. :smallcool:

Zombieboots
2010-06-20, 06:29 PM
I recently read a book on the history of dnd. It said that in the old AD&D, each supplement offering options more powerful than the earlier ones, to the point where a supplement-using character was way more powerful than a core character. In your opinion, is this problem presnt in dnd 3.5?

Welcome to Marketing.
Yes it's the same problem and no it will never go away. However some good things have come it too (ToB). Just shows you, keep an open mind, but don't be afraid to slam that 'disallowed' hammer.

"It's only a problem if it's a problem."

Draxar
2010-06-20, 07:39 PM
I'd say that while, yeah, a lot of the most powerful options are in the PHB, there are a fair few 'combine X with Y with Z' outside of it, and for people who aren't top notch optimisers, but are optimising, more books does equal more powerful characters.

Yuki Akuma
2010-06-20, 07:41 PM
So basically, while the maximum went up by, say, two points, the average went up by fifty?

Sounds about right.

Irreverent Fool
2010-06-20, 10:23 PM
Honestly, that hairy muscle-man looks like a more fun character to play than the anime weirdo in the cape.

I played a diamond-mind focused mongrelfolk warblade with a Charisma of 6. He was very much the hairy muscle-man.

Runestar
2010-06-20, 10:28 PM
Yes in a good sense, as the splatbooks help in bridging the gap between melee and casters. :smallbiggrin:

Ormagoden
2010-06-20, 10:53 PM
Is there a power spiral in 3.5? Absolutely!

Allow me to demonstrate.

Core fighter:http://www.thecommentfactory.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/earthquake-300x300.jpg

ToB warblade:http://linottes.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/kamina.jpg

You leave earthquake alone greenish!!!





Where is tugboat by the way?

Milskidasith
2010-06-20, 11:04 PM
There's no possible way to release supplements without increasing the potential power of the classes, unless everything in the supplements is exactly like something in core, but worse.

Reluctance
2010-06-20, 11:46 PM
Every book will give people more options should they feel the need, and every book will have a couple that somebody really wasn't paying attention to. So in an absolute sense, more splat does equal more power.

What I think you're talking about is power creep, where the company deliberately makes stuff in new releases more powerful to entice buyers. (At which point the next book needs even more powerful stuff, and so on.) 3.x was actually very good about keeping tabs on this. Sure, they did release stuff like Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil, but stuff in the next book didn't assume that everybody was playing one and using that as the new baseline.

sonofzeal
2010-06-21, 12:13 AM
Every book will give people more options should they feel the need, and every book will have a couple that somebody really wasn't paying attention to. So in an absolute sense, more splat does equal more power.

What I think you're talking about is power creep, where the company deliberately makes stuff in new releases more powerful to entice buyers. (At which point the next book needs even more powerful stuff, and so on.) 3.x was actually very good about keeping tabs on this. Sure, they did release stuff like Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil, but stuff in the next book didn't assume that everybody was playing one and using that as the new baseline.
Very true, but only for PCs really. I've noticed a definite power creep in monsters though. Later monsters are usually rather more dangerous for their CR than MM1 ones are, even ignoring the occasional That Damn Crab or similar unbalanced one. It's subtle, but I think there's definitely been a pattern there towards more and more powerful monsters in later books, for the same CR levels.

PId6
2010-06-21, 12:20 AM
Very true, but only for PCs really. I've noticed a definite power creep in monsters though. Later monsters are usually rather more dangerous for their CR than MM1 ones are, even ignoring the occasional That Damn Crab or similar unbalanced one. It's subtle, but I think there's definitely been a pattern there towards more and more powerful monsters in later books, for the same CR levels.
I think that's probably due to the expectation of optimization going up as the game progresses. MM1 creatures tend to be not much of a challenge for optimized parties, with a few specific exceptions (*cough*Allip*cough*, *cough*Planetar*cough*). Later books have monsters that are more appropriate for optimized parties and are actually a challenge.

Gametime
2010-06-21, 12:22 AM
Very true, but only for PCs really. I've noticed a definite power creep in monsters though. Later monsters are usually rather more dangerous for their CR than MM1 ones are, even ignoring the occasional That Damn Crab or similar unbalanced one. It's subtle, but I think there's definitely been a pattern there towards more and more powerful monsters in later books, for the same CR levels.

Which is sometimes understandable (the later Monster Manuals demonstrate an improved grasp on design principles) and sometimes perplexing. I seem to recall one monster from Libris Mortis who had spent all its feats on Toughness, despite that being a book whose very purpose was to give undead more options in the form of things like feats.

How more balanced monsters ever came about in the face of such design, I have no idea, but they managed it eventually.

Volthawk
2010-06-21, 12:52 AM
Tomb of Horrors perhaps?


No. Tome of Horrors. It's a book that has loads of monsters that weren't officially updated to 3.x in it, updated by them.

Irreverent Fool
2010-06-21, 05:56 AM
No. Tome of Horrors. It's a book that has loads of monsters that weren't officially updated to 3.x in it, updated by them.

Yet another reason to love third-party. Confusing names! Of course, WoTC is guilty of that, too. I frequently grab my Planar Handbook when reaching for the Player's Handbook.

And don't get me started on Unearthed Arcana and Arcana Unearthed.

Killer Angel
2010-06-21, 07:18 AM
For most classes? Yes.
For Wizards, Clerics and (arguably) Druids? The best material is almost all in the PHB.


Yes in a good sense, as the splatbooks help in bridging the gap between melee and casters. :smallbiggrin:

I'm not sure I agree with this.
yes: casters in core are broken.
yes: splatbooks gives more power and variety to meleers.
no: the gap isn't bridged, and casters still receive a LOT outside core.

In core, a caster can break the game... so did he need more power?
Core only, very often, all a caster needs, is to win initiative (very easy, once you reach Moment of prescience, but before that moment, it's not certain). Now he has celerity, hummingbirds familiar, etc.
Core only, it's very difficult to damage a caster, but it's possible, if you find the weak points. Now, with craft contingency spell, etc, it's near impossible.
In Core, a caster can break the action economy (apart with the use of summoned creatures) only with feats, that come with a cost in term of levels of the spell (or rods, that come with a gp cost). Outside core, we have metamagic reducers: all the advantages but without cost. And then, you begin to stack the persisted spells.

Imo the gap is the same, but the meleers are more fun to play, so you don't notice too much.
Eventually, I admit that it's easier to make a powerful meleer (all you need is ToB), while to exploit a caster outside Core, you had to pick various options from various sources, so it's more difficult.

Runestar
2010-06-21, 07:30 AM
I'm not sure I agree with this.
yes: casters in core are broken.
yes: splatbooks gives more power and variety to meleers.
no: the gap isn't bridged, and casters still receive a LOT outside core.

Casters do gain, but a lot less than melee. In the very least, it can help lessen the disparity.

Given that casters can already break the game in core, giving them more ways of breaking the game doesn't really do much to make them more powerful. It is like you can already deal 1000 damage per hit, and splatbooks now let you deal 10,000 damage on each hit, except that no monster has more than 1000hp, so the extra damage is redundant.

At least splatbooks gave us dungeon-crasher, frenzied berserker and warshaper, which let melee do things it couldn't even dream of in core.:smallbiggrin:

Eldan
2010-06-21, 07:34 AM
Casters also get a lot of stuff which helps them short of outright breakage on the level of tippy-style infinite gate-loops.
Especially metamagic-reducers make a wizard's job much, much easier, and then there are spells like the Celerity-line, which utterly break the action economy.

Optimystik
2010-06-21, 07:49 AM
You leave earthquake alone greenish!!!

He looks more like Raiden (of KoF fame.)

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20081013005521/snk/images/thumb/3/3c/Raiden_kofXII.jpg/435px-Raiden_kofXII.jpg

9mm
2010-06-21, 10:57 AM
He looks more like Raiden (of KoF fame.)


Guess who Raiden/Bear was based on? Earthquake.

Akal Saris
2010-06-21, 11:40 AM
Yet another reason to love third-party. Confusing names! Of course, WoTC is guilty of that, too. I frequently grab my Planar Handbook when reaching for the Player's Handbook.

And don't get me started on Unearthed Arcana and Arcana Unearthed.

I always confuse my Planar Handbook and Manual of the Planes.

Tome
2010-06-21, 02:47 PM
Is there a power spiral in 3.5? Absolutely!

Allow me to demonstrate.

Core fighter:http://www.thecommentfactory.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/earthquake-300x300.jpg

ToB warblade:http://linottes.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/kamina.jpg

Objection! Kamina is a Crusader, not a Warblade. Warblades have positive Int modifiers and can dump Cha.

That aside, I'm gonna agree with the 'Core casters are broken, splatbooks make them a bit more powerful but not as much as they do melee, which needs it' consensus that there seems to be.

Lans
2010-06-21, 06:18 PM
The casters biggest boosts were immediate actions, and expanded list of possible swift actions.
Examples- Conjurer varint abrujt jaunt, celerity, heart of X spells

Flickerdart
2010-06-21, 06:21 PM
The casters biggest boosts were immediate actions, and expanded list of possible swift actions.
Examples- Conjurer varint abrujt jaunt, celerity, heart of X spells
That just means that they would sometimes not use a Quickened spell in addition to a regular spell. Melee benefits much more from those actions, since it lets them do something and also full attack.

Gametime
2010-06-21, 07:52 PM
That just means that they would sometimes not use a Quickened spell in addition to a regular spell. Melee benefits much more from those actions, since it lets them do something and also full attack.

Or, rather, ToB classes benefit much more from those actions, since they're some of the only classes to get any appreciable love in the swift/immediate action department. (Well, them and Incarnum, but they're a weird sort of melee anyway.)

There's no contest with immediate actions, especially; casters get save-or-sucks as immediate actions without even cracking open Celerity, while the best melee get is the ability to negate a single full attack. :smallmad:

Lans
2010-06-21, 10:25 PM
That just means that they would sometimes not use a Quickened spell in addition to a regular spell. Melee benefits much more from those actions, since it lets them do something and also full attack.

It added more access to quickened spells, instead of it being a sometimes thing at higher levels, and the immediate action. Taking your turn in the middle of another persons turn is a dynamic that was mostly limited to AoO, and feather fall before splat

Zieu
2010-06-21, 10:35 PM
But… but spiral power! :smallfrown:

I understand the reference :) It's all about the fighting spirit.

sonofzeal
2010-06-21, 10:58 PM
I understand the reference :) It's all about the fighting spirit.
Kick off with momentum and surpass the impossible!

Kamina totally had Iron Heart Surge. =P

deuxhero
2010-06-21, 11:18 PM
There's no possible way to release supplements without increasing the potential power of the classes, unless everything in the supplements is exactly like something in core, but worse.

So... complete psionic bar ardent?

Salbazier
2010-06-21, 11:25 PM
What is wrong with CP anyway?

Fax Celestis
2010-06-21, 11:29 PM
That just means that they would sometimes not use a Quickened spell in addition to a regular spell. Melee benefits much more from those actions, since it lets them do something and also full attack.

This is one of the biggest problems in disparity between casters and noncasters: simply by merit of being a spellcaster, you gain something to do with your swift actions. Find me something for a noncaster (so no gishes, sorry guys) to do with his swift action outside of ToB that is nominally relevant. I can guarantee you'll be left wanting.

Gametime
2010-06-21, 11:39 PM
So... complete psionic bar ardent?

And Practiced Manifester!

Tinydwarfman
2010-06-21, 11:48 PM
What is wrong with CP anyway?

VERY bad editing, wildly fluctuating powerlevels between things, and people hating on psionics have given it a bad rep. It's not as bad as some people make it out to be, but pretty much everything good in it is free online so... yeah...

tonberrian
2010-06-21, 11:52 PM
This is one of the biggest problems in disparity between casters and noncasters: simply by merit of being a spellcaster, you gain something to do with your swift actions. Find me something for a noncaster (so no gishes, sorry guys) to do with his swift action outside of ToB that is nominally relevant. I can guarantee you'll be left wanting.

Belts of Battle. :smalltongue:

Flickerdart
2010-06-21, 11:52 PM
This is one of the biggest problems in disparity between casters and noncasters: simply by merit of being a spellcaster, you gain something to do with your swift actions. Find me something for a noncaster (so no gishes, sorry guys) to do with his swift action outside of ToB that is nominally relevant. I can guarantee you'll be left wanting.
Travel Devotion? Healing Belt? Invisible Blade's Feint? The benefits are sparse, but without them, casters would basically get another action melee never had access to.

PId6
2010-06-21, 11:53 PM
Travel Devotion? Healing Belt? Invisible Blade's Feint? The benefits are sparse, but without them, casters would basically get another action melee never had access to.
Travel Devotion's swift, but Healing Belt's standard and Invisible Blade's Feint is free (though 1/round).

Flickerdart
2010-06-21, 11:56 PM
Travel Devotion's swift, but Healing Belt's standard and Invisible Blade's Feint is free (though 1/round).
Healing Belt is Standard? I could have sworn it (or something like it) was swift.

tonberrian
2010-06-21, 11:57 PM
Healing Belt is Standard? I could have sworn it (or something like it) was swift.

Maybe you were thinking Belt of Battle?

PId6
2010-06-21, 11:59 PM
Healing Belt is Standard? I could have sworn it (or something like it) was swift.
Nope. Unfortunately not that good.

Fax Celestis
2010-06-22, 12:01 AM
Travel Devotion? Healing Belt? Invisible Blade's Feint? The benefits are sparse, but without them, casters would basically get another action melee never had access to.

Two of those three are from late-release books, and the third is free, not swift. There is literally nothing for a martial character to do with their swift action in Complete Adventurer, and probably not within Complete Warrior, Divine, or Arcane either. Complete Scoundrel and Champion had stuff, but those were really late releases. Magic of Incarnum does, but it's a sleeper hit side system. Tome of Battle does, but it's also specifically designed to make fighters on par with casters and it's a late release.

How difficult would it have been to make Dodge into a swift-action use? Or Rapid Shot? Or Rapid Reload? Or Improved Feint? Cleave? Even Two-Weapon Fighting could have been folded into a swift action burner. But no, swift actions are the domain of casters up until almost the last legs of the 3.5 book releases.

tonberrian
2010-06-22, 12:09 AM
How difficult would it have been to make Dodge into a swift-action use? Or Rapid Shot? Or Rapid Reload? Or Improved Feint? Cleave? Even Two-Weapon Fighting could have been folded into a swift action burner. But no, swift actions are the domain of casters up until almost the last legs of the 3.5 book releases.

To be fair, swift actions weren't introduced until Miniature's Handbook, so all the basic combat tactics were already encoded - requiring everybody to relearn them using Swift actions would have been bad marketing. (I am curious to see what you would do to make these use swift actions - they're all pretty solid, or at least using swift actions isn't the obvious fix.)

But yes, the lack of swift-action support for martial characters is appalling.

Lans
2010-06-22, 03:32 AM
The only two that I can think of is the Fighters Swift Action Demorilize and immediate action Will save boost, and the Summon Natures Ally Z for being part of a group.

Indon
2010-06-22, 07:19 AM
Any game system which supports synergy with character build options is going to, on average, produce more powerful characters as the number of character build options increase, even if those options are all balanced in and of themselves. (which in 3.x, they aren't)

And 3.5 is a very mechanically engaging system with a lot of opportunities for synergy, making the power spiral potentially very strong.

But as noted previously, the power differential in core is greater than the system's power creep, in terms of theoretical magnitude.

Runestar
2010-06-22, 07:30 AM
How difficult would it have been to make Dodge into a swift-action use? Or Rapid Shot? Or Rapid Reload? Or Improved Feint? Cleave? Even Two-Weapon Fighting could have been folded into a swift action burner. But no, swift actions are the domain of casters up until almost the last legs of the 3.5 book releases.

It defeats the purpose if you introduce swift actions just for the sake of eating up the player's swift actions without any benefit. Why make cleave require a swift/immediate action when it wasn't even an action before? Rapid reload was a free action (even better than swift). All this serves is to prevent the fighter from getting to use swift action abilities which actually do something. :smallconfused:

Gnaeus
2010-06-22, 08:02 AM
Find me something for a noncaster (so no gishes, sorry guys) to do with his swift action outside of ToB that is nominally relevant. I can guarantee you'll be left wanting.

Amulet of Tears.

Activate a swift action spell from a wand in a wand chamber in your weapon with UMD.

Any of the Devotions except Knowledge. Travel may be best, but Law, Protection, Chaos, etc are all better than core feats.

Runestar
2010-06-22, 08:18 AM
DMG2 also has this series of ____ surge weapon properties, which let you spend a swift action to trigger a benefit when you hit with said weapon. Kinda useless at later lvs when monsters get energy resistance, but fairly cheap if you happen to pump cha or con.

PHB2 also has the counterstrike fighter ACF.

Fax Celestis
2010-06-22, 09:50 AM
To be fair, swift actions weren't introduced until Miniature's Handbook, so all the basic combat tactics were already encoded - requiring everybody to relearn them using Swift actions would have been bad marketing. (I am curious to see what you would do to make these use swift actions - they're all pretty solid, or at least using swift actions isn't the obvious fix.)

But yes, the lack of swift-action support for martial characters is appalling.
That certainly didn't stop them from going back and changing Quicken Spell.

As for an example? Look no further..

It defeats the purpose if you introduce swift actions just for the sake of eating up the player's swift actions without any benefit. Why make cleave require a swift/immediate action when it wasn't even an action before? Rapid reload was a free action (even better than swift). All this serves is to prevent the fighter from getting to use swift action abilities which actually do something. :smallconfused:

My point is that, by virtue of being a spellcaster, you intrinsically have access to a whole new action type. And we all know that D&D's action economy is precariously balanced. IF fighter-types had basic feats focused around swift-action usage, then we would have seen advanced feats focused around swift-action usage a lot sooner than CScn/CCham.

Gnaeus
2010-06-22, 10:00 AM
That certainly didn't stop them from going back and changing Quicken Spell.

But that change was essentially a small nerf. They didn't make Quicken spell work any differently, or any better. The only thing that the Quicken spell change did was to essentially say "This handful of items and abilities that use this new mechanic? You can't use any of them on the same round in which you quicken a spell." Casters were using swift actions before there were swift actions. The "power spiral" in MIC, ToB, CChamp, and Rules Compendium merely let non casters and semi-casters do what the casters were doing already.

Fax Celestis
2010-06-22, 10:49 AM
But that change was essentially a small nerf. They didn't make Quicken spell work any differently, or any better. The only thing that the Quicken spell change did was to essentially say "This handful of items and abilities that use this new mechanic? You can't use any of them on the same round in which you quicken a spell." Casters were using swift actions before there were swift actions. The "power spiral" in MIC, ToB, CChamp, and Rules Compendium merely let non casters and semi-casters do what the casters were doing already.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying what those books did were bad things, I'm just saying that it was a completely untapped potential prior to those books. If core martial feats had been altered to work with swift actions the way magic was (with Quicken and with a couple spells like feather fall), it probably would have happened a lot sooner.

Lans
2010-06-22, 12:32 PM
It defeats the purpose if you introduce swift actions just for the sake of eating up the player's swift actions without any benefit. Why make cleave require a swift/immediate action when it wasn't even an action before? Rapid reload was a free action (even better than swift). All this serves is to prevent the fighter from getting to use swift action abilities which actually do something. :smallconfused:

These could have been standard options to use in a round as opposed to feats.

DragoonWraith
2010-06-22, 12:59 PM
I kinda like the idea of this:

Two-Weapon Fighting
Requirements
Dex 15.
Benefit
You must declare your intent to use this feat before making any attacks in a round. As a Swift action, you gain the right to pair an offhand-attack with any attacks you make this round with your main weapon at the same attack bonus as the attack that the offhand attack is paired with, but all attacks for this round come at a -2 penalty.
Normal
You may only pair a single offhand attack with your first main attack as a Swift action, and your primary hand takes a -6 penalty and the offhand attack takes a -10 penalty, or a -4 penalty to the main attack and a -8 penalty to the offhand attack if the offhand weapon is a Light weapon.
Special
A 2nd-level ranger who has chosen the two-weapon combat style is treated as having Two-Weapon Fighting, even if he does not have the prerequisite for it, but only when he is wearing light or no armor.

A fighter may select Two-Weapon Fighting as one of his fighter bonus feats.

Greenish
2010-06-22, 01:09 PM
I kinda like the idea of this:

Two-Weapon Fighting
Requirements
Dex 15.Could drop that to 13 to be in line with Power Attack, Combat Expertise and so forth.

DragoonWraith
2010-06-22, 01:21 PM
I just matched the original TWF on that, but I think you're right, personally.

tonberrian
2010-06-22, 01:53 PM
I kinda like the idea of this:

Two-Weapon Fighting

I don't like it. It doesn't interact well (that is, at all) with all the nifty boosts in ToB. I'd honestly rather have the orginal TWF chain instead of using my Swift action here. And this means that if I was forced to use an immediate action after my last action, I couldn't fight with two weapons this round effectively, which I don't think makes sense.

I like Fax's Flick of the Wrist, though, because it means I'm using it to do something, rather than letting me do something competently. I'm not sure I'm getting the difference across, though.

DragoonWraith
2010-06-22, 01:55 PM
I figure, though, that a Tome of Battle TWF-er is using _____ Mongoose and Wolf Fang Strike, and doesn't even need the feat...

Still, that is a good point.

JaronK
2010-06-22, 02:34 PM
The important thing to note here is that the character types that got the biggest boosts (melee types, for example, and to a lesser extent skill monkeys) were the weak classes to begin with. Wizards and such got minor boosts (though Celerity and Genesis are obviously really strong) while the weak guys got much larger boosts (ToB classes, Factotums, etc). The result was that overall the characters you can make aren't that much more powerful, but you're able to make more character types at higher power levels.

This is not the same as power creep, where every book makes people stronger. This was a slow, steady, and intentional rebalancing. By the end, you're capable of actually having a balanced party of a melee, a skillmonkey, a healer, and a blaster/arcanist, while in the beginning you really couldn't at higher levels.

JaronK

Runestar
2010-06-22, 06:04 PM
I see it more as though past a certain point, the designers felt 3.5 was unsalvageable. So they tried to sell as many books as possible by using power creep to reel players in, while secretly planning 4e.

It's like they wanted to ruin 3.5e to pave the way for 4e's ascension. :smallannoyed:

DragoonWraith
2010-06-22, 06:06 PM
I see it more as though past a certain point, the designers felt 3.5 was unsalvageable. So they tried to sell as many books as possible by using power creep to reel players in, while secretly planning 4e.

It's like they wanted to ruin 3.5e to pave the way for 4e's ascension. :smallannoyed:
I completely disagree. The later a book is printed, the better it seems to be, in my experience. Tome of Battle is an obvious example.

Oslecamo
2010-06-22, 06:17 PM
This is not the same as power creep, where every book makes people stronger. This was a slow, steady, and intentional rebalancing. By the end, you're capable of actually having a balanced party of a melee, a skillmonkey, a healer, and a blaster/arcanist, while in the beginning you really couldn't at higher levels.

JaronK

Core only:
Rogue
Fighter
Cleric
Wizard
Bard

Splatbook galore 1:
CW Samurai.
Planar Sheperd.
Incantrix of the 7 veils.
Ninja.
Healer

Splatbook galore 2:
Soulknive
Archivist
Truenamer
Artificer
Marshall

Dunno about you, but the first party seems actualy more balanced to me.:smalltongue:

Yes, there's some intentional rebalancing. But for every thing they get right there's ten that are either overpowered, underpowered, useless, broken, badly worded or worst (planar sheperd). There's only rebalancing if you take your time to pick out the rebalanced options out of everything else.

And mind you, you could do that in core. Evocation wizard and healbot cleric are more than balanced.

DragoonWraith
2010-06-22, 06:30 PM
But you picked the best and worst classes from several books, as opposed to the best and worst from just one, the PHB. None of the classes from the second set or the third set come from the same book, so in each case you're comparing the imbalance from a set of five books to just one.

And you didn't put the Monk in the Core party, which would have been appropriate if you're putting the Soulknife and Truenamer in the others.

Gametime
2010-06-22, 06:56 PM
Yes, there's some intentional rebalancing. But for every thing they get right there's ten that are either overpowered, underpowered, useless, broken, badly worded or worst (planar sheperd). There's only rebalancing if you take your time to pick out the rebalanced options out of everything else.

And mind you, you could do that in core. Evocation wizard and healbot cleric are more than balanced.

But the point is that if balanced options exist (as is the case with non-core) then the presence of unbalanced options, in either direction, is less of a huge deal. Core classes are almost are broad enough that it's difficult to make a diverse party of classes used to their potential without some of the players being overshadowed.

No one ever said every option from out of core was balanced, and if your only complaint is that there are a lot of traps (which, I'll admit, there are), well, that problem exists in Core too.

Also, you mean blaster wizards. Forcecage solves way more problems than a single spell should.

deuxhero
2010-06-23, 11:44 PM
VERY bad editing, wildly fluctuating powerlevels between things, and people hating on psionics have given it a bad rep. It's not as bad as some people make it out to be, but pretty much everything good in it is free online so... yeah...

Let's not forget the Mind Flayer heritage feats, which make 0 sense given their reproduction methods, the uneeded nerfs and a page of the feat "___ Mind Blade: You can make your mindblade into this weapon" instead of taking only part of that spaces with a feat like this "Additional mindblade form:Choose one weapon you are proficient with, you may shape your mindblade into the form of that weapon. Special:You can select this feat more than once blah blah blah".

Yeah, Soulbow (most useful part for normal play) is free in the excerpts part, while Ardent (most useful for game breaking) is in some odd preview article.

DragoonWraith
2010-06-23, 11:49 PM
The Ardent is a legitimately good and interesting class.

Runestar
2010-06-24, 08:03 AM
PHB2 seemed like a genuine attempt by the designers to both rebalance the core classes and fix some of the more problematic aspects of dnd.

Outside of that, quite a few questionable options arise. Is pounce available at 1st lv supposed to be a fix or sheer cheese? :smallannoyed:

Aquillion
2010-06-24, 08:24 AM
I read that as "is there a spiral power?" Which is a very different question. D&D needs some classes based around spiral power.

However, in terms of the actual question... yes and no. Obviously, any character will have more options when more sourcebooks are introduced, and if you use them all optimally, you'll get more powerful. But Druids, Wizards, and Clerics remain incredibly powerful with nothing but core, and I'd say a core character in any of those classes is still more powerful than a non-full-caster using every book.


Also, you mean blaster wizards. Forcecage solves way more problems than a single spell should.Forcecage also costs 1500 gp a pop, you know...

Tinydwarfman
2010-06-24, 08:39 AM
Forcecage also costs 1500 gp a pop, you know...

Pshh, 1500 at level 13 is chump change. You're not going to be using it on mooks, but it's not much of a restriction.

PId6
2010-06-24, 08:52 AM
Outside of that, quite a few questionable options arise. Is pounce available at 1st lv supposed to be a fix or sheer cheese? :smallannoyed:
Yes, it fixes the broken full attack mechanism, allowing melee to move and still perform their full function (like casters).

DragoonWraith
2010-06-24, 09:36 AM
Outside of that, quite a few questionable options arise. Is pounce available at 1st lv supposed to be a fix or sheer cheese? :smallannoyed:
Not even remotely questionable. Melee needs a way to move and full attack, and though Pounce is still more limited than it ought to be, it's definitely very much a step in the right direction.

Yuki Akuma
2010-06-24, 10:12 AM
Forcecage also costs 1500 gp a pop, you know...

By the time you can cast Forcecage you already have an infinite money spell (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/wallOfIron.htm).

tyckspoon
2010-06-24, 10:30 AM
By the time you can cast Forcecage you already have an infinite money spell (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/wallOfIron.htm).

You know the game is in a weird place when slapping around an Efreet for 75000gp worth of ruby dust is the less abusive option.

JaronK
2010-06-24, 10:34 AM
Core only:
Rogue
Fighter
Cleric
Wizard
Bard

Splatbook galore 1:
CW Samurai.
Planar Sheperd.
Incantrix of the 7 veils.
Ninja.
Healer

Splatbook galore 2:
Soulknive
Archivist
Truenamer
Artificer
Marshall

Dunno about you, but the first party seems actualy more balanced to me.:smalltongue:

That's because you were trying for it. Your first party is unbalanced as heck (the Fighter is leagues behind the Cleric and Wizard, and in core the Rogue is worthless against a huge number of opponents). Is there a way to make that party balanced without taking bizarre class combinations to weaken the big guys (like Sorcerer/Wizard) or playing the powerful guys stupidly? No. You can't have a hitty non caster type balance with a bookish intelligent spellcaster type in core if they're both being played with any amount of competence.

Now let's try for the exact same party from a role perspective, but using splat books. We'll leave the Rogue alone. Replace Fighter with Warblade. Replace Cleric with Crusader. Replace Wizard with Factotum (Knowledge Devotion based). Leave Bard alone. Now we have a party that functions in a similar way, but is far more balanced. You can't have that party in core. You can with splat books. Splat books add options, that's the point. Yes, you could do it stupidly, but you have the option of doing it right. You actually can't do that in core.

JaronK

Optimystik
2010-06-24, 10:41 AM
Forcecage also costs 1500 gp a pop, you know...

Erudites cast it for free :smalltongue:

Gametime
2010-06-24, 02:16 PM
Yes, it fixes the broken full attack mechanism, allowing melee to move and still perform their full function (like casters).

I'd say the implementation is still broken, if only because dipping Barbarian is one of the only convenient ways to get Pounce.

A 1-level dip in a specific variant class shouldn't be mandatory for nearly every melee build. If only it had been a feat, or at least available to more classes...

Kaiyanwang
2010-06-24, 02:26 PM
I'd say the implementation is still broken, if only because dipping Barbarian is one of the only convenient ways to get Pounce.


Moreover, maybe is secondary, but I could need a Lawful meleer. Can't I?

Greenish
2010-06-24, 02:39 PM
Moreover, maybe is secondary, but I could need a Lawful meleer. Can't I?ToB, Travel Devotion, Shadowpouncing.

PId6
2010-06-24, 04:24 PM
I'd say the implementation is still broken, if only because dipping Barbarian is one of the only convenient ways to get Pounce.

A 1-level dip in a specific variant class shouldn't be mandatory for nearly every melee build. If only it had been a feat, or at least available to more classes...
Yet I'd rather have it than not. It's also extremely easy to dip, and comes with other good things besides (Whirling Frenzy). Yes, melee dependence on a one level dip of a specific class is not the best option for a system, but it's better than not having that dip available. And there's certainly nothing cheesy or broken about it.

Kaiyanwang
2010-06-24, 04:30 PM
ToB, Travel Devotion, Shadowpouncing.

Of course. I didn't say you cannot go around it. But if that barbarian ACF was intended as a fix, was quite a retarded fix, if screws 1/3 of the possible characters.

PId6
2010-06-24, 04:40 PM
Of course. I didn't say you cannot go around it. But if that barbarian ACF was intended as a fix, was quite a retarded fix, if screws 1/3 of the possible characters.
Switching your alignment to lawful after taking it doesn't really lose you anything besides Rage, so it's doable even for the lawful types as long as your DM isn't too much of an ass about alignment.

Besides, alignment restrictions should be stuck full of sharp sticks and burned at the stake.

Lycanthromancer
2010-06-24, 05:01 PM
Switching your alignment to lawful after taking it doesn't really lose you anything besides Rage, so it's doable even for the lawful types as long as your DM isn't too much of an ass about alignment.

Besides, alignment restrictions should be stuck full of sharp sticks and burned at the stake.Getting sticks shove inside them is a class feature for the paladin.

oxybe
2010-06-24, 05:08 PM
Getting sticks shove inside them is a class feature for the paladin.

feature?

for some people, that's the draw.

Greenish
2010-06-24, 05:15 PM
But if that barbarian ACF was intended as a fix, was quite a retarded fix, if screws 1/3 of the possible characters.You honestly think they intended a barbarian AFC to be a fix for all melee? Why should it be?

No, that's just something they thought is cool. ToB is the melee fix.

Oslecamo
2010-06-24, 05:32 PM
That's because you were trying for it. Your first party is unbalanced as heck (the Fighter is leagues behind the Cleric and Wizard, and in core the Rogue is worthless against a huge number of opponents).

If the wizard/cleric are pimped to the max(like some people are claiming here with infinite money loops), then I could say that from pretty much every other class but the spell to power erudite, the artificer and the archivist. The ToB classes are still leagues behind, so even if you replaced fighter with warblade and rogue with swordsage the wish-chaining wizard still comes up leagues ahead.

Wait, the rogue at least gets UMD as class skill.



Is there a way to make that party balanced without taking bizarre class combinations to weaken the big guys (like Sorcerer/Wizard) or playing the powerful guys stupidly? No. You can't have a hitty non caster type balance with a bookish intelligent spellcaster type in core if they're both being played with any amount of competence.

Tell that to Saph and her awesome campaigns wehre rangers and fighters fight side by side with fully pimped archivists and ultimate magus.:smallamused:



Now let's try for the exact same party from a role perspective, but using splat books. We'll leave the Rogue alone. Replace Fighter with Warblade. Replace Cleric with Crusader. Replace Wizard with Factotum (Knowledge Devotion based). Leave Bard alone. Now we have a party that functions in a similar way, but is far more balanced.

Questionable. Bard needs a lot of work to get going properly. Factotum can still rape everybody else with spell combos, even if just once a day.



You can't have that party in core.

Paladin, ranger, fighter, rogue, bard. There's 11 classes in core and just 4 of them are fullcasters last time I checked. If you leave them out with splatbooks (and simply close your eyes to the archvist, erudie, artificer and pals) so can I in core.



You can with splat books. Splat books add options, that's the point. Yes, you could do it stupidly, but you have the option of doing it right. You actually can't do that in core.

What exactly do you consider "stupidly"? So your ToB party is balanced because you "smartly" close your eyes to the fullcasters and pretend they're not there?:smallconfused:

How's that diferent from asking the fullcaster players from not going overboard again? :smallsigh:

I can just as well close my eyes to the broken combos in core and play with the rest (wich is still plentyfull).

Basically, splatbooks add options...But those options are completely meaningless if you don't know what to do with them, and there's a lot of wrong options out there.

PId6
2010-06-24, 05:51 PM
Tell that to Saph and her awesome campaigns wehre rangers and fighters fight side by side with fully pimped archivists and ultimate magus.:smallamused:
As much as I loved Saph's campaign journal, I must say that this is not a very good example. The Archivist was essentially a healbot most of the time (well, revivebot at any rate), while the Ultimate Magus sucked (not hard with Theurges). The ranger was awesome mostly because they loaded her full of buffs most of the time, while the two most powerful members of the party were the Sorcerer and Druid, who were also the most effectively optimized and were Tier 2 and Tier 1.

ken-do-nim
2010-06-24, 08:34 PM
There's no possible way to release supplements without increasing the potential power of the classes, unless everything in the supplements is exactly like something in core, but worse.

The Spell Compendium is power creep at its absolute worst. Now compare it to a 3rd party book of new spells called Eldritch Sorcery (I think), which fits in with core perfectly.

Fax Celestis
2010-06-24, 08:38 PM
The Spell Compendium is power creep at its absolute worst. Now compare it to a 3rd party book of new spells called Eldritch Sorcery (I think), which fits in with core perfectly.

The Spell Compendium is literally no power creep at all, considering it doesn't introduce anything. All it does it present a bunch of spells in one place.

PId6
2010-06-24, 08:48 PM
The Spell Compendium is power creep at its absolute worst. Now compare it to a 3rd party book of new spells called Eldritch Sorcery (I think), which fits in with core perfectly.
Not true at all. The most powerful spells in SC don't hold a candle to most of the good Core spells. In fact, I can think of very few splatbook spells at all that compares to the likes of Polymorph, Shapechange, Time Stop, Planar Binding, Gate, Astral Projection, etc. There's Celerity, Shivering Touch, Venomfire, Streamers, and a few others, but they're few and far between.

If that book "fits in with core," then I'm definitely not buying/allowing it. Core has the vast majority of the most broken spells of the game.

Gametime
2010-06-24, 09:03 PM
The Spell Compendium is literally no power creep at all, considering it doesn't introduce anything. All it does it present a bunch of spells in one place.

You could, I suppose, argue that it facilitates the integration of power creep, since by buying one book you open up hundreds of new options for spellcasters and a given person is more likely to buy one book than the dozens needed to track down all those spells otherwise.

On the other hand, there aren't too many really problematic spells in the Spell Compendium and there are so many useful and basic utility spells that I think it sets a good example for what a book should offer. I'd like to see more compilations of material from different books instead of having to track them all down.

PId6
2010-06-24, 09:05 PM
I'd like to see more compilations of material from different books instead of having to track them all down.
I agree. A Feat Compendium would have been fantastic, especially if they rebalanced some bad/terrible feats like they did for items/spells in MIC/SpC.

Aquillion
2010-06-24, 09:52 PM
Moreover, maybe is secondary, but I could need a Lawful meleer. Can't I?You only have to be chaotic for one level. You can have your character start as troubled youth who got into a lot of brawls and stuff, but later found a more lawful philosophy.

(You lose your ability to rage, which is a pity, but it's not your main goal anyway.)