Oh the Dandiwiki [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

roko10

2014-01-20, 09:42 AM

.....So, can anybody explain why the D&D Wiki's Homebrew sucks? I never ventured to the site expect to check the SRD, so why is it considered so horrible?

PS: Sorry if this thread is in the worng board.

Chronos

2014-01-20, 09:55 AM

It's mostly just a matter of Sturgeon's Law, combined with a lack of productive selection, and also possibly a touch of perverse selection.

Sturgeon's Law was originally applied to science fiction, and stated "Of course 90% of science fiction is crap. This is because 90% of everything is crap.". Or in this case, 90% of homebrew is crap.

Now, in a forum like this here, this is still true... But the 10% that isn't crap tends to be what gets bumped and commented on by others, while the 90% just falls into the depths of Page 20. But on dandwiki, this doesn't happen: Everything that ever gets posted, including the 90%, stays just as visible as the day it was produced.

And there may also be some perverse selection, that drives it over the usual 90%. A really bad homebrewer, who keeps getting a little criticism and then gets ignored on a place like this, might decide to move on to another corner of the Web where (he perceives) his work will be better-received. And a good homebrewer is going to look at most of the things on dandwiki and recognize how bad most of it is, and not want to have anything to do with the site.

Karnith

2014-01-20, 09:56 AM

One of the big annoyances is that homebrew on the D&D wikis (I think there are 3?) is that it's frequently unmarked - people not familiar with the rules often confuse homebrew for actual rules. Another irritant (at least for me) is that the homebrew is usually at or near the top of Google results whenever you're looking for information on anything 3.5-related.

The homebrew itself is generally of poor quality, as anyone can put up whatever they want. Abilities are often poorly-thought-out, poorly-worded, and/or extremely unbalanced (in either direction), and there is very little in the way of quality control. There is a good deal of usable content on the wiki, as well, but the crap vastly outnumbers the salvageable material, and gets all of the attention. There have been several (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=251550) threads (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=211238) documenting (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=238938) silly (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=228992) things (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=227249) found on the wikis, if you're looking for specific examples, though it seems that a number of the worst examples have been taken down (probably because of said threads).

EDIT: Oh, and Morph Bark has done some amusing (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13498079#post13498079) analyses (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13499885#post13499885) of some dandwiki material.

Maginomicon

2014-01-20, 10:13 AM

Fax Celestis

2014-01-20, 10:22 AM

Did that "GitP homebrew wiki" that's mentioned a few times in those threads ever get off the ground? If not, I'm pretty sure I can create a wiki on a website I run. We can make it as quality-controlled as we like.

Aside from mine (http://wiki.faxcelestis.net), which is mostly my stuff and a few things that other people have decided to put up? No.

The problem with DandDWiki, in addition to what Chronos said above, is that there's no vetting process: once something goes up, that's it, it's done. But putting it up here or any number of other forum-type deals, where communication is promoted and isn't incidental (the way wiki talk pages are) tends to end with better finished products because the reader gets to voice their opinions and--most of the time, anyway--the original poster goes back and makes edits.

EDIT: PS, anybody who wants a wiki login on my wiki should PM me here: I have it locked down to to admins being able to create accounts only to prevent spam.

Brookshw

2014-01-20, 10:41 AM

To be fair I rather like this (http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/100_Far_Realm_Occurrences_(3.5e_Other)) piece of far realm home brew they did.

Yawgmoth

2014-01-20, 11:37 AM

To be fair I rather like this (http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/100_Far_Realm_Occurrences_(3.5e_Other)) piece of far realm home brew they did. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

RFLS

2014-01-20, 11:39 AM

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

And in the military, it's only right once!

Gemini476

2014-01-20, 12:04 PM

XionUnborn01

2014-01-20, 12:09 PM

One thing about the wiki is that there are so many classes that are almost decent classes. When I was more heavily into brewing I loved going on there and taking a class I found that was actually total crap but had a good idea and then making what I felt was an acceptable class out of it.

But you can't forget that there's no way to tell which brew is actually good, or just ranked well because one person gave it a five and no one else voted.

Invader

2014-01-20, 12:10 PM

My hate for d&d wiki stems from the fact that I have to sift through all their garbage whoever I do a search for anything D&D related.

Big Fau

2014-01-20, 12:25 PM

A large number of their homebrew is also open for anyone to edit, meaning more than one person contributes to an idea that may not necessarily be a good one.

Kazyan

2014-01-20, 12:31 PM

Brookshw

2014-01-20, 12:32 PM

And in the military, it's only right once!

ROFL, well played sir!

DarkEternal

2014-01-20, 01:41 PM

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Battousai_%283.5e_Class%29

Just pulled a random homebrew class. Read it. Weep. Laugh.

Totema

2014-01-20, 01:46 PM

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Battousai_%283.5e_Class%29

Just pulled a random homebrew class. Read it. Weep. Laugh.

I think I'd rather just weep... So at 3rd level they get a movement bonus that surpasses that of an epic level monk? YOU KNOW, BALANCE!

Zweisteine

2014-01-20, 01:57 PM

I ventured to the site to check the SRD.Use the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/) if you want to check the SRD.

Dr. Azkur

2014-01-20, 02:09 PM

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Dancer_(3.5e_Class)

Just look at that Sneak Attack progression.

Urpriest

2014-01-20, 02:26 PM

To be fair I rather like this (http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/100_Far_Realm_Occurrences_(3.5e_Other)) piece of far realm home brew they did.

That's a different site, actually. dnd-wiki is a bit better quality.

Averis Vol

2014-01-20, 02:26 PM

It's too dandy.
Oh god, that pun hurt.

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Battousai_%283.5e_Class%29

Just pulled a random homebrew class. Read it. Weep. Laugh.

Man, that is terrible. Whoever made that has such an ignorant view of swordsmanship I venture to guess he's never had any training. I bet he thinks katanas slice through other swords like paper. My god, the katana fandom is getting ridiculous.

EDIT: Yup. 18th level. Guess I should have finished reading the whole thing first.

DarkEternal

2014-01-20, 02:33 PM

Check the questions-answers thing. His reasoning why he gets such good saves is that it takes 15 years to master this while a monk can become a monk after one year.

Oh, oh, and oh. The kicker? Monks is awfully overpowered so that is his reasoning.

Gemini476

2014-01-20, 02:34 PM

Oh god, that pun hurt.

Man, that is terrible. Whoever made that has such an ignorant view of swordsmanship I venture to guess he's never had any training. I bet he thinks katanas slice through other swords like paper. My god, the katana fandom is getting ridiculous.

[QUOTE]
That's it. I'm sick of all this "Masterwork Bastard Sword" bull**** that's going on in the d20 system right now. Katanas deserve much better than that. Much, much better than that.

I should know what I'm talking about. I myself commissioned a genuine katana in Japan for 2,400,000 Yen (that's about $20,000) and have been practicing with it for almost 2 years now. I can even cut slabs of solid steel with my katana.

Japanese smiths spend years working on a single katana and fold it up to a million times to produce the finest blades known to mankind.

Katanas are thrice as sharp as European swords and thrice as hard for that matter too. Anything a longsword can cut through, a katana can cut through better. I'm pretty sure a katana could easily bisect a knight wearing full plate with a simple vertical slash.

Ever wonder why medieval Europe never bothered conquering Japan? That's right, they were too scared to fight the disciplined Samurai and their katanas of destruction. Even in World War II, American soldiers targeted the men with the katanas first because their killing power was feared and respected.

So what am I saying? Katanas are simply the best sword that the world has ever seen, and thus, require better stats in the d20 system. Here is the stat block I propose for Katanas:

(One-Handed Exotic Weapon)
1d12 Damage
19-20 x4 Crit
+2 to hit and damage
Counts as Masterwork

(Two-Handed Exotic Weapon)
2d10 Damage
17-20 x4 Crit
+5 to hit and damage
Counts as Masterwork

Now that seems a lot more representative of the cutting power of Katanas in real life, don't you think?

tl;dr = Katanas need to do more damage in d20, see my new stat block.

Kazyan

2014-01-20, 02:37 PM

Averis Vol

2014-01-20, 02:38 PM

That's it. I'm sick of all this "Masterwork Bastard Sword" bull**** that's going on in the d20 system right now. Katanas deserve much better than that. Much, much better than that.

I should know what I'm talking about. I myself commissioned a genuine katana in Japan for 2,400,000 Yen (that's about $20,000) and have been practicing with it for almost 2 years now. I can even cut slabs of solid steel with my katana.

Japanese smiths spend years working on a single katana and fold it up to a million times to produce the finest blades known to mankind.

Katanas are thrice as sharp as European swords and thrice as hard for that matter too. Anything a longsword can cut through, a katana can cut through better. I'm pretty sure a katana could easily bisect a knight wearing full plate with a simple vertical slash.

Ever wonder why medieval Europe never bothered conquering Japan? That's right, they were too scared to fight the disciplined Samurai and their katanas of destruction. Even in World War II, American soldiers targeted the men with the katanas first because their killing power was feared and respected.

So what am I saying? Katanas are simply the best sword that the world has ever seen, and thus, require better stats in the d20 system. Here is the stat block I propose for Katanas:

(One-Handed Exotic Weapon)
1d12 Damage
19-20 x4 Crit
+2 to hit and damage
Counts as Masterwork

(Two-Handed Exotic Weapon)
2d10 Damage
17-20 x4 Crit
+5 to hit and damage
Counts as Masterwork

Now that seems a lot more representative of the cutting power of Katanas in real life, don't you think?

tl;dr = Katanas need to do more damage in d20, see my new stat block.

Oh yea, I remember that guy.... I nearly blacked out from the laughter :smallbiggrin:

But yea, that's the kind of stuff that gets my hackles up. at the end of the day, the katana is just another bar of sharpened steel. it isn't magic :smallannoyed:

DarkEternal

2014-01-20, 02:54 PM

Aegis013

2014-01-20, 02:55 PM

Oh yea, I remember that guy.... I nearly blacked out from the laughter :smallbiggrin:

But yea, that's the kind of stuff that gets my hackles up. at the end of the day, the katana is just another bar of sharpened steel. it isn't magic :smallannoyed:

It is if it's a +1 Katana. :smallwink:

The Glyphstone

2014-01-20, 03:04 PM

Also, one more I found when I was searching for a fire themed wizard for a campaign I was DM'ing. Thought a homebrew class could work.

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Fire_Mage_%283.5e_Class%29

It is so hilarious that to this day whenever we speak of homebrew FIRE MAGE!!!(in caps) comes to mind first.

Went with sorcerer instead and loaded her with fire themed spells. Worked like a charm.

That one is beautiful. It stops after 15 levels, but when you can climb to a mountaintop and set small countries on fire at will, you don't need any more levels.:smallbiggrin:

XionUnborn01

2014-01-20, 03:05 PM

That one is beautiful. It stops after 15 levels, but when you can climb to a mountaintop and set small countries on fire at will, you don't need any more levels.:smallbiggrin:

I wonder if they only had d6 at their table or what? d6 for everything!

DustyBottoms

2014-01-20, 03:22 PM

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Battousai_%283.5e_Class%29

Just pulled a random homebrew class. Read it. Weep. Laugh.

This specific class is a rip off of an anime character, quite specifically. A main character who never loses in sword combat, at that. (Rurouni Kenshin)

Nonetheless, this is a prime example.

icefractal

2014-01-20, 04:59 PM

Although actually, while the Battousai has nonstandard ... everything (save DCs, save bonuses, skill points) for no good reason, and the editing is sorely lacking, it actually doesn't look particularly OP (probably, the activation time on certain abilities is unclear).

I mean, up to 9th level, they're just a melee type with good mobility and some minor tricks; a Barbarian could kick their ass no problem. The at-will SoD at 10th might be a bit much, but OTOH, a caster of that level has enough SoD for several fights, and many other things besides. If it's meant to be 3x a round as a free action though, then no, that is silly. After that, peak, nothing really goes higher. I mean, yes, ****ed up DC on the 14th level ability, but w/e, it's once a day and it's against 7th level spells.

Which is not to say that I'd actually play one! Just that it's funny how sometimes two wrongs (some people's desire to make katanas teh best ever, and the generally underpowered nature of melee in 3E) combine to make an almost-right.

icefractal

2014-01-20, 05:04 PM

Ansem

2014-01-20, 05:50 PM

Dont use that garbage site, it doesn't even have the OGL content correct half the time.
You use d20srd.org for the core books and dndtools.eu for everything else.

Irk

2014-01-20, 06:03 PM

The Glyphstone

2014-01-20, 06:18 PM

Speaking of Fire Mage, that page is a little misleading - it doesn't stop getting features after 15 levels, it only has 15 levels - you're not intended to play one in a 16th+ level game.

The reasoning was that setting everything you can see on fire is pretty much the thematic peak of fire-magic, and even that doesn't cut it in the 16th-20th level environment. Which, considering what Tippy gets up to there, seems pretty accurate.

Which makes the table at the top, showing its BAB and saves progressing out to level 20, indeed very misleading. And poorly edited.

Although actually, while the Battousai has nonstandard ... everything (save DCs, save bonuses, skill points) for no good reason, and the editing is sorely lacking, it actually doesn't look particularly OP (probably, the activation time on certain abilities is unclear).

I mean, up to 9th level, they're just a melee type with good mobility and some minor tricks; a Barbarian could kick their ass no problem. The at-will SoD at 10th might be a bit much, but OTOH, a caster of that level has enough SoD for several fights, and many other things besides. If it's meant to be 3x a round as a free action though, then no, that is silly. After that, peak, nothing really goes higher. I mean, yes, ****ed up DC on the 14th level ability, but w/e, it's once a day and it's against 7th level spells.

Which is not to say that I'd actually play one! Just that it's funny how sometimes two wrongs (some people's desire to make katanas teh best ever, and the generally underpowered nature of melee in 3E) combine to make an almost-right.

I like how the Heavenly Step ability is (Ex) and lacks a defined activation action, making it a Standard action by default. So you can spend Standard actions to move slower than your default ground speed until level 15, unless you can reliably take multiple Standards in a round.

Ziegander

2014-01-20, 09:11 PM

AuraTwilight

2014-01-20, 09:22 PM

But Ziegander, people are just gonna PrC out anyway. Why bother incentivizing them otherwise at all, ever?

Kennisiou

2014-01-20, 10:29 PM

I actually hate the d and d wiki for the critique of Pun Pun (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Talk:Pun-Pun_(3.5e_Optimized_Character_Build)#Debunked_Pun_ Pun)that is so completely wring in every conceivable way. Read it, it made me really mad that someone could claim to know so much yet no so undeniably little. Also a lot of the optimized character builds just don't work. As for the homebrew, they di have some reasonable flaws, but they've also got this (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Clinically_Depressed_Robot_(3.5e_Flaw)),this (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Compulsive_Maniacal_Laughter_(3.5e_Flaw)), andthis (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Quadrimurfractiphobia_(3.5e_Flaw)), which are both tremendously fantastic and massively stupid. I do kind of like the gray elf paragon (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Gray_Elf_Paragon_(3.5e_Racial_Paragon_Class)), and of course there is the heavy metal bard (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Heavy_Metal_Bard_(3.5e_Class)).

Overall though, not a fan.

The review of Grey Elf Paragon at power 2/5 made me twitchy. It's no incantatrix, but it's basically strictly better Wizard. 3/5 or 4/5 prestige easily. For real, even if it doesn't gain the 2 spells known on level that Wizard does (I was under the impression any class that gave "+1 existing class" to spells per day also gave +1 for spells known, meaning 2 spells for wizard, appropriate spells known for sorc, etc), even if it didn't, eclectic knowledge > 2 spells any day! I can grab spells on my usual list from scrolls, but spells off of the wizard list generally require runestaffs, which are waaaay more expensive.

Deophaun

2014-01-20, 11:19 PM

Yeah, there was a time when classes like Fire Mage were considered by many to be the pinnacle of D&D 3.5 class design. It goes to 15 because they couldn't think of anything to design past that. And that was considered avant garde and edgy and totally how classes should be made.
I really like how Hand of Fire works with Ignite and Piercing Flames. Good way to commit suicide.

Just to Browse

2014-01-21, 12:49 AM

Yeah, there was a time when classes like Fire Mage were considered by many to be the pinnacle of D&D 3.5 class design. It goes to 15 because they couldn't think of anything to design past that.

Actually, I believe F&K already addressed the less-than-20-levels point. It's that after certain levels, some classes just don't have any more thematic room to expend. Being a Fire Mage is not a 16th level concept; you need to be a Volcano Mage or a Hellfire Mage and so on. The knight (http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Knight,_Tome_(3.5e_Class)) is a great example of this, explicitly spelling out the higher-level knightly concepts. One could say that not including levels is a sign of lacking creativity, but one could also say that adding high-level features is just padding for the sake of padding.

.....So, can anybody explain why the D&D Wiki's Homebrew sucks? I never ventured to the site expect to check the SRD, so why is it considered so horrible?

PS: Sorry if this thread is in the worng board.Because the original D&D Wiki site www.dandwiki.com had (and still has?) bad moderation, low quality-control, a semi-toxic community, and the homebrew tags on articles weren't explicit enough. It also subject to Sturgeon's Law a lot more heavily than stuff on homebrew forums, because everything is equally-viewable on a wiki.

If you want a good D&D Wiki, go to the new one (http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Main_Page).

purpenflurb

2014-01-21, 01:41 AM

CRtwenty

2014-01-21, 02:23 AM

Ziegander

2014-01-21, 02:24 AM

Actually, I believe F&K already addressed the less-than-20-levels point. It's that after certain levels, some classes just don't have any more thematic room to expend. Being a Fire Mage is not a 16th level concept; you need to be a Volcano Mage or a Hellfire Mage and so on. The knight (http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Knight,_Tome_(3.5e_Class)) is a great example of this, explicitly spelling out the higher-level knightly concepts. One could say that not including levels is a sign of lacking creativity, but one could also say that adding high-level features is just padding for the sake of padding.

You're right, that's how they addressed it. I just don't buy it. If Hellfire Mage or Volcano Mage is a 16th+ level concept, then why exactly isn't Fire Mage? How are those not natural evolutions of the Fire Mage concept and then included in its standard level progression? Why are knightly orders not simply a list of options tacked on to the last 10 levels of Knight instead of a series of PrCs (if they exist at all)?

Sir Chuckles

2014-01-21, 04:29 AM

[QUOTE]
That's it. I'm sick of all this "Masterwork Bastard Sword" bull**** that's going on in the d20 system right now. Katanas deserve much better than that. Much, much better than that.

I should know what I'm talking about. I myself commissioned a genuine katana in Japan for 2,400,000 Yen (that's about $20,000) and have been practicing with it for almost 2 years now. I can even cut slabs of solid steel with my katana.

Japanese smiths spend years working on a single katana and fold it up to a million times to produce the finest blades known to mankind.

Katanas are thrice as sharp as European swords and thrice as hard for that matter too. Anything a longsword can cut through, a katana can cut through better. I'm pretty sure a katana could easily bisect a knight wearing full plate with a simple vertical slash.

Ever wonder why medieval Europe never bothered conquering Japan? That's right, they were too scared to fight the disciplined Samurai and their katanas of destruction. Even in World War II, American soldiers targeted the men with the katanas first because their killing power was feared and respected.

So what am I saying? Katanas are simply the best sword that the world has ever seen, and thus, require better stats in the d20 system. Here is the stat block I propose for Katanas:

(One-Handed Exotic Weapon)
1d12 Damage
19-20 x4 Crit
+2 to hit and damage
Counts as Masterwork

(Two-Handed Exotic Weapon)
2d10 Damage
17-20 x4 Crit
+5 to hit and damage
Counts as Masterwork

Now that seems a lot more representative of the cutting power of Katanas in real life, don't you think?

tl;dr = Katanas need to do more damage in d20, see my new stat block.

I really, really want to tear into this like a youtube comment section. :smallmad:
No idea how badly the history and weaponry buff inside me is screaming. (With some backup from the D&D weapon designer)

But I digress.
Instead I will point out that the Wikis have some wonderful joke classes. I'm partial to the Hobo (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Hobo_(3.5e_Class)) myself.

icefractal

2014-01-21, 04:30 AM

You're right, that's how they addressed it. I just don't buy it. If Hellfire Mage or Volcano Mage is a 16th+ level concept, then why exactly isn't Fire Mage? How are those not natural evolutions of the Fire Mage concept and then included in its standard level progression?
Because they're not the direct evolution of the concept. They're a single path that said concept could go down, which might not fit with the character prior to that point.

Ok, first off - I don't think "Volcano Mage" is a suitable 16th level concept either. You're not just in the Tippyverse by that point, you're running the Tippyverse - or at least you would be, if you were a Wizard. So that's the kind of thing you have to get on the same page as. Moar dakka just isn't going to be enough.

So - here are some possible paths:
* Hellfire Mage - Sure, works great. Burn people through sympathetic connections, command devils, burn holes in reality and walk through them - it could play with the big boys. But - it's pretty specific. What if said Fire Mage is good-aligned and not really planar-oriented?
* Promethean - Use fire to spark life. Create new creatures, living spells, inventions, social movements. Also viable. And also specific - if you're a "burn everything to the ground while laughing maniacally" type, this doesn't really fit you.

And so forth. The point is that at high-enough level, you need to change your concept, there are different paths you might want to take in doing so, and those paths are outside the purview of the basic Fire Mage class.

Besides, it's not like all the core classes are 20 levels. The Fighter, for instance, is a 6 level class followed by 14 levels of cruel joke.

Hytheter

2014-01-21, 05:03 AM

As for the homebrew, they di have some reasonable flaws, but they've also got this (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Clinically_Depressed_Robot_(3.5e_Flaw)),this (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Compulsive_Maniacal_Laughter_(3.5e_Flaw)), andthis (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Quadrimurfractiphobia_(3.5e_Flaw)), which are both tremendously fantastic and massively stupid.

These are just

beautiful

BeerMug Paladin

2014-01-21, 09:08 AM

I actually like dandwiki. Not because I think it's any good, but because I usually find something massively funny whenever I look at it. Like the links everyone is posting now.

I'm sure if I posted some of my 3.5 homebrew, it would wind up looking just as bad. Like the octopus-like replacement-halflings race, or the sorcerer-replacement class with at-will spell like abilities based around a single arcane spell as a theme (which you choose at first level, and each one has to be made individually, I only made 3 variants to show to players, and said they could make a custom request.)

Probably the things wind up massively bad mostly because they're being put forward by people who don't want to hear criticism. And quite frankly, there's also the fact that homebrew settings where some of these things might exist could be better fits for such a thing than the generic base fantasy setting.

Snowbluff

2014-01-21, 09:11 AM

[QUOTE=Gemini476;16829744]

I really, really want to tear into this like a youtube comment section. :smallmad:
No idea how badly the history and weaponry buff inside me is screaming. (With some backup from the D&D weapon designer)

But I digress.
Instead I will point out that the Wikis have some wonderful joke classes. I'm partial to the Hobo (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Hobo_(3.5e_Class)) myself.

It's a DnD meme. There are posts like this for all sorts of things.

Phaederkiel

2014-01-21, 09:21 AM

This is one of my main beefs with it. The homebrew isn't clearly marked well as homebrew and is easy to confuse with official content if you're not familiar with the site. It doesn't help that some of the contributors for it like to add their homebrew "fixes" of official content without labeling it as such. I've had players in my games bring dandwiki material to the table thinking it was official stuff just beause it shared the same name.

aye, same thing with me. One of my players brought a katana (what chance...) to the table which sported a 18-20 x3 Critrange. Which would probably make it one of the best damage dealing weapons d&d has to offer. Even that stupid 19-20 x4 hammer is not as bad, because the crit range is more important as the multiplier.
Long story short, that thing was homebrew, and was absolutely NOT labeled as such. And it was the first thing that came up when googling "dnd Katana". So this is, in a nutshell, the problem with that site.

Oh, and a word to the katana debate:
Katana were folded so many times because they were made of quite inferior steel. Japanese smithes had to develop such high level technique to make a sword of this length at all feasible.
Also, the katana was obviously not used against heavily armored opponents. Its curved edge shows it is made for cutting, as opposed to a straight edge, which is made for hacking and can thus penetrate maille much easier.

here a last blow from a (admittedly superficial) german tv show:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVCaJdYZmCU

Rogue Shadows

2014-01-21, 10:14 AM

Oh, and a word to the katana debate:

There is no katana debate. What was posted was a fairly well-known joke. (http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Katanas_are_Underpowered_in_d20)

Some variations include:

That's it. I'm sick of all this "Masterwork Bastard Sword" bull**** that's going on in the d20 system right now. Katanas deserve much worse than that. Much, much worse than that.

I should know what I'm talking about. I myself commissioned a genuine katana in Japan for 120 Yen (that's about $1) and have been practicing with it for almost 2 years now. I can't even cut wooden boards with my katana.

Japanese smiths spend years working on a single katana and fold it up to a million times to produce some of the biggest pieces of **** known to mankind.

Katanas are barely half as sharp as European swords and half as hard for that matter too. Anything a longsword can cut through, a katana can't cut through at all. I'm pretty sure a katana would break trying to cut a knight wearing full plate with any kind of slash.

Ever wonder why feudal Japan never bothered conquering Europe? That's right, they were too scared to fight the disciplined Knights and their Oakeshott types X through XXII of destruction. Even in World War II, Japanese soldiers targeted the men with the mamelukes first because their killing power was feared and respected.

So what am I saying? Katanas are simply the worst sword that the world has ever seen, and thus, require worse stats in the d20 system. Here is the stat block I propose for Katanas:

(One-Handed Exotic Weapon)
1d4 Damage
x2 Crit
-2 to hit and damage
Can never count as Masterwork

(Two-Handed Exotic Weapon)
1d6 Damage
x2 Crit
-1 to hit and damage
Can never count as Masterwork

Now that seems a lot more representative of the cutting power of Katanas in real life, don't you think?

tl;dr = Katanas need to do much less in d20, see my new stat block.
That's it. I'm sick of all this "Masterwork Transformer" bull**** that's going on in the d20 system right now. Optimus Prime deserves much better than that. Much, much better than that.

I should know what I'm talking about. I myself commissioned a genuine copy of every episode of Transformers in Japan for 2,400,000 Yen (that's about $20,000) and have been watching them for almost 2 years now. I can even cut fanboys of solid fat with my Transformers knowledge.

Japanese smiths spend years working on a single Optimus Prime toy and fold it up to a million times to produce the finest toy known to mankind.

Optimus Prime is thrice as sharp as other Transformers and thrice as hard for that matter too. Anything Megatron can cut through, Optimus Prime can cut through better. I'm pretty sure Optimus Prime could easily bisect a Decepticon wearing full plate with a simple vertical slash.

Ever wonder why the Decepticons never bothered conquering Earth? That's right, they were too scared to fight the disciplined Autobots and their Optimus Prime of destruction. Even in World War II, Megatron targeted Optimus Prime first because his killing power was feared and respected.

So what am I saying? Optimus Prime is simply the best Transformer that the world has ever seen, and thus, requires better stats in the d20 system. Here is the stat block I propose for Optimus Prime:

(One-Handed Transformer) 1d12 Damage 19-20 x4 Crit +2 to hit and damage Counts as Masterwork

(Two-Handed Transformer) 2d10 Damage 17-20 x4 Crit +5 to hit and damage Counts as Masterwork

Now that seems a lot more representative of the cutting power of Optimus Prime in the show, don't you think?

tl;dr = Optimus Prime needs to do more damage in d20, see my new stat block.
That's it. I'm sick of all this "Dungeons & Dragons: Fourth Edition" bull**** that's going on in the D&D fanbase right now. 3.5e deserve much better than that. Much, much better than that.

I should know what I'm talking about. I myself commissioned a genuine copy of the Player's Handbook from Wizards of the Coast for $34.95 (that's about $35) and have been practicing with it for almost 2 years now. I can kill tarrasques while flying high enough with my Wizard.

WOTC spend years working on a single edition and play test it up to a million times to produce the finest RPGs known to man.

3.5e is thrice as fun as 4e and thrice as balanced for that matter too. Anything game a 4e player can play, a 3.5e player can enjoy better. I'm pretty sure 3.5e could easily bisect a knight wearing full plate with a simple vertical slash.

Ever wonder why 4e players never bothered defending their edition? That's right, they were too scared to fight the disciplined 3.5e players and their Edition of destruction. Even in 2008, 4e players targeted the 3.5e players with their cookie-cutter powers that do 1[W] + Ability Modifier damage and slide or apply effects first because the 3.5e Druid's killing power was so respected.

So what am I saying? 3.5e is simply the best Edition that Dungeons & Dragons has ever seen, and thus, require better stats in the d20 system. Here is the stat block I propose for 3.5e:

(One-Handed Exotic Edition) 1d12 Damage 19-20 x4 Crit +2 to hit and damage Counts as Masterwork

(Two-Handed Exotic Edition) 2d10 Damage 17-20 x4 Crit +5 to hit and damage Counts as Masterwork

Now that seems a lot more representative of Dungeons & Dragons 3.5e in real life, don't you think?

tl;dr = 3.5e needs more players in D&D, see my new stat block.

Chronos

2014-01-21, 10:15 AM

When will I learn not to read YouTube comments? Even in the comments for that video, we still see katana fanboys claiming that they can cut through any other steel, and so on.

roko10

2014-01-21, 10:35 AM

Okay, are there reverse katana fanboys? Those who claim that a katana cannot cut through paper?

Morph Bark

2014-01-21, 10:37 AM

I once dug through Dandwiki looking for balanced classes.

This (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13498079#post13498079) was the result. (With a part 2 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13499885#post13499885).)

I'm reasonably certain that most of the other homebrew there is of similar quality and balance.

Fax Celestis

2014-01-21, 10:37 AM

Okay, are there reverse katana fanboys? Those who claim that a katana cannot cut through paper?

I own an antique katana, and lemme tell you what: it can't.

Snowbluff

2014-01-21, 10:50 AM

Okay, are there reverse katana fanboys? Those who claim that a katana cannot cut through paper?

Katanas are not very popular with some fighters. I've heard pretty much everything about them is pointless or overdone. They're too heavy, the curve isn't effective, and the blades aren't very resilient (they are harder than western swords). Katanas in reality are just eastern longswords in terms of use, albeit slightly sharper.

manyslayer

2014-01-21, 01:39 PM

I own an antique katana, and lemme tell you what: it can't {cut through paper}.

But, if you let one fall onto the leather ottoman it will put a nice slice right through the leather right before your buddy's dad gets home.:smallfrown:

Fax Celestis

2014-01-21, 01:42 PM

But, if you let one fall onto the leather ottoman it will put a nice slice right through the leather right before your buddy's dad gets home.:smallfrown:

To be perfectly fair, the katana in question was brought home by my grandfather from WW-II, so it has definitely seen some use. I don't know how antique it actually is, just that it's at least 100 years old.

CRtwenty

2014-01-21, 01:45 PM

I own an antique katana, and lemme tell you what: it can't.

But can it still cut a tomato?

Venger

2014-01-21, 01:55 PM

But can it still cut a tomato?

Sure can (http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kyzeqanvam1qaozja.jpg)

Averis Vol

2014-01-21, 03:50 PM

Katanas are not very popular with some fighters. I've heard pretty much everything about them is pointless or overdone. They're too heavy, the curve isn't effective, and the blades aren't very resilient (they are harder than western swords). Katanas in reality are just eastern longswords in terms of use, albeit slightly sharper.

Depends who you talk to. I have friends who do HEMA and they tell me that while the current katanas (Not the old ones with the crappy steel) aren't terrible weapons, they prefer a longsword to it because the longsword has better reach, as katanas are fairly short for a two handed blade, two edges which increase versatility, and a handguard that you can actually rely on.

There's also the point that Katanas were never a samurais first choice of weapon; they were normally old relics passed down through the generations that required you to get dangerously close to an opponent who was most likely using some form of naginata or bow. It's only because of hollywood and the misinterpretation of old fables like musashi as well as sayings like the katana being the samurais soul, that these, at least in my opinion, inferior weapons became immortalised as some super magical blade.

EDIT: also, they are far from the best cutting blade out there, because the curve is subtle to make up for their length. With weapons like the killij, shamshir and tulwar about, hell, even the cossack saber, it can't hold a candle in cutting regards.

/end rant

Gemini476

2014-01-21, 04:35 PM

There is no katana debate. What was posted was a fairly well-known joke. (http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Katanas_are_Underpowered_in_d20)

Some variations include:

That's it. I'm sick of all this "Masterwork Bastard Sword" bull**** that's going on in the d20 system right now. Katanas deserve much worse than that. Much, much worse than that.

I should know what I'm talking about. I myself commissioned a genuine katana in Japan for 120 Yen (that's about $1) and have been practicing with it for almost 2 years now. I can't even cut wooden boards with my katana.

Japanese smiths spend years working on a single katana and fold it up to a million times to produce some of the biggest pieces of **** known to mankind.

Katanas are barely half as sharp as European swords and half as hard for that matter too. Anything a longsword can cut through, a katana can't cut through at all. I'm pretty sure a katana would break trying to cut a knight wearing full plate with any kind of slash.

Ever wonder why feudal Japan never bothered conquering Europe? That's right, they were too scared to fight the disciplined Knights and their Oakeshott types X through XXII of destruction. Even in World War II, Japanese soldiers targeted the men with the mamelukes first because their killing power was feared and respected.

So what am I saying? Katanas are simply the worst sword that the world has ever seen, and thus, require worse stats in the d20 system. Here is the stat block I propose for Katanas:

(One-Handed Exotic Weapon)
1d4 Damage
x2 Crit
-2 to hit and damage
Can never count as Masterwork

(Two-Handed Exotic Weapon)
1d6 Damage
x2 Crit
-1 to hit and damage
Can never count as Masterwork

Now that seems a lot more representative of the cutting power of Katanas in real life, don't you think?

tl;dr = Katanas need to do much less in d20, see my new stat block.
That's it. I'm sick of all this "Masterwork Transformer" bull**** that's going on in the d20 system right now. Optimus Prime deserves much better than that. Much, much better than that.

I should know what I'm talking about. I myself commissioned a genuine copy of every episode of Transformers in Japan for 2,400,000 Yen (that's about $20,000) and have been watching them for almost 2 years now. I can even cut fanboys of solid fat with my Transformers knowledge.

Japanese smiths spend years working on a single Optimus Prime toy and fold it up to a million times to produce the finest toy known to mankind.

Optimus Prime is thrice as sharp as other Transformers and thrice as hard for that matter too. Anything Megatron can cut through, Optimus Prime can cut through better. I'm pretty sure Optimus Prime could easily bisect a Decepticon wearing full plate with a simple vertical slash.

Ever wonder why the Decepticons never bothered conquering Earth? That's right, they were too scared to fight the disciplined Autobots and their Optimus Prime of destruction. Even in World War II, Megatron targeted Optimus Prime first because his killing power was feared and respected.

So what am I saying? Optimus Prime is simply the best Transformer that the world has ever seen, and thus, requires better stats in the d20 system. Here is the stat block I propose for Optimus Prime:

(One-Handed Transformer) 1d12 Damage 19-20 x4 Crit +2 to hit and damage Counts as Masterwork

(Two-Handed Transformer) 2d10 Damage 17-20 x4 Crit +5 to hit and damage Counts as Masterwork

Now that seems a lot more representative of the cutting power of Optimus Prime in the show, don't you think?

tl;dr = Optimus Prime needs to do more damage in d20, see my new stat block.
That's it. I'm sick of all this "Dungeons & Dragons: Fourth Edition" bull**** that's going on in the D&D fanbase right now. 3.5e deserve much better than that. Much, much better than that.

I should know what I'm talking about. I myself commissioned a genuine copy of the Player's Handbook from Wizards of the Coast for $34.95 (that's about $35) and have been practicing with it for almost 2 years now. I can kill tarrasques while flying high enough with my Wizard.

WOTC spend years working on a single edition and play test it up to a million times to produce the finest RPGs known to man.

3.5e is thrice as fun as 4e and thrice as balanced for that matter too. Anything game a 4e player can play, a 3.5e player can enjoy better. I'm pretty sure 3.5e could easily bisect a knight wearing full plate with a simple vertical slash.

Ever wonder why 4e players never bothered defending their edition? That's right, they were too scared to fight the disciplined 3.5e players and their Edition of destruction. Even in 2008, 4e players targeted the 3.5e players with their cookie-cutter powers that do 1[W] + Ability Modifier damage and slide or apply effects first because the 3.5e Druid's killing power was so respected.

So what am I saying? 3.5e is simply the best Edition that Dungeons & Dragons has ever seen, and thus, require better stats in the d20 system. Here is the stat block I propose for 3.5e:

(One-Handed Exotic Edition) 1d12 Damage 19-20 x4 Crit +2 to hit and damage Counts as Masterwork

(Two-Handed Exotic Edition) 2d10 Damage 17-20 x4 Crit +5 to hit and damage Counts as Masterwork

Now that seems a lot more representative of Dungeons & Dragons 3.5e in real life, don't you think?

tl;dr = 3.5e needs more players in D&D, see my new stat block.
That's it. I'm sick of all this "1/4 CR Kobold" bull**** that's going on in the d20 system right now. Kobolds deserve much worse than that. Much, much worse than that. I should know what I'm talking about. I myself commissioned a genuine kobold tribe in The East Hills for 1 very shiny cp (that's about $1 DM bribe) and they have been following me for almost 2 years now. Even slabs of solid steel can easily cleave my kobolds. Kobolds spend years working on being useless and fold their bedcloths up to a million times to produce the most useless creature known to mankind. Kobolds are thrice as weak as European people and thrice as soft for that matter too. Anything that has any edge or solidity, a kobold can die from better. I'm pretty sure a kobold army could easily be bisected by a knight wearing full plate with a simple vertical slash. Ever wonder why medieval Europe never bothered conquering Kobold tribes? That's right, the kobolds were too useless to fight off the disciplined soldiers and their scary objects of cleaving. Even in World War II, American soldiers didn't target the kobolds because they were considered a waste of ammunition and their fodderism was unfeared and unrespected.

So what am I saying? Kobolds are simply the most useless creature the world has ever seen, and thus, require worse stats in the d20 system. Here is the stat block I propose for kobolds:

CR: 1/8 Hit die: 1d4(2 hp) Initiative: +1 Speed: 20 ft. Armor Class: 12 Base Attack/Grapple: -2/-6 Attack: Stick -1 melee (1d3) or rock +0 ranged (1d3)

Now that seems a lot more representative of the failing power of Kobolds in real life, don't you think?

tl;dr = Kobolds need to do less damage in d20, see my new stat block.

aye, same thing with me. One of my players brought a katana (what chance...) to the table which sported a 18-20 x3 Critrange. Which would probably make it one of the best damage dealing weapons d&d has to offer. Even that stupid 19-20 x4 hammer is not as bad, because the crit range is more important as the multiplier.
Long story short, that thing was homebrew, and was absolutely NOT labeled as such. And it was the first thing that came up when googling "dnd Katana". So this is, in a nutshell, the problem with that site.
You do know that a 18-20 x3 weapon is pretty much equal to an 19-20 x4 weapon when it comes to damage, right? It's just when you start adding in effects that only occur on critical hits that a higher crit rate is better than a multiplier.

TypoNinja

2014-01-21, 04:40 PM

The biggest annoyance I have had with the wiki is this http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Artificer. Found it first time I was looking for the class after hearing some references to it (and when I was newer to the game), confused me immensely.

This is my problem with the wiki. I'm one of the more experienced players in my group when it comes to rules mastery, I have no problem going on the Wiki and looking at stuff spotting homebrew, or just plain wrong content. Or double checking the source when something seems off to (but with that much effort I might as well just use a source I trust. If I'm going to have to pull out the book anyway...)

But I can't send somebody who has a low level of system mastery there for information. They don't always recognize the homebrew, its poorly labeled, sometimes even the OGL/SRD content they have is wrong.

So in the end its far easier for me to tell people "No, dndwiki bad!" and say "d20srd or bust".

Venusaur

2014-01-21, 05:02 PM

That one is beautiful. It stops after 15 levels, but when you can climb to a mountaintop and set small countries on fire at will, you don't need any more levels.:smallbiggrin:

My favorite part was actually mindfire. Confusion at will that lasts for 6 minutes at level 6 has some serious potential to be hilarious.

Sith_Happens

2014-01-21, 05:43 PM

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Fire_Mage_%283.5e_Class%29

http://static1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120922113945/adventuretimewithfinnandjake/images/1/14/Boy-that-escalated-quickly.jpg

Ravens_cry

2014-01-21, 05:50 PM

Hmm, the thread title brings to mind a song I wrote.

Roncorps

2014-01-21, 06:36 PM

Everyone here should do good deed and take one thing from Dandiwiki and turn it into gold. After a year, no more problem hehe

MeiLeTeng

2014-01-21, 10:15 PM

While we're on the subject of dandwiki, I'll just leave this here. (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Dwelf_(3.5e_Race))

Ziegander

2014-01-21, 10:27 PM

Everyone here should do good deed and take one thing from Dandiwiki and turn it into gold. After a year, no more problem hehe

Okay, you twisted my arm. What should I rewrite?

nedz

2014-01-21, 10:47 PM

While we're on the subject of dandwiki, I'll just leave this here. (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Dwelf_(3.5e_Race))

Oh wow, is there a Gnobbit too ? :smallbiggrin:

Snowbluff

2014-01-21, 11:19 PM

Everyone here should do good deed and take one thing from Dandiwiki and turn it into gold. After a year, no more problem hehe

I'm interested, too.

Ziegander

2014-01-21, 11:27 PM

AuraTwilight

2014-01-21, 11:29 PM

I call this (http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Andellion_Warrior_%283.5e_Class%29).

Wrong wiki, bro.

Ziegander

2014-01-21, 11:30 PM

Wrong wiki, bro.

It's on the other one, too, I just couldn't get it to load for some reason.

EDIT: There (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Andellion_Warrior_%283.5e_Class%29).

HaikenEdge

2014-01-21, 11:47 PM

Everyone here should do good deed and take one thing from Dandiwiki and turn it into gold. After a year, no more problem hehe

Could be fun; you've piqued my interest as well.

XionUnborn01

2014-01-22, 12:00 AM

I call this (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Andellion_Warrior_%283.5e_Class%29). It's supposed to be a "Wizard-level" fighter class (as designated by Frank Trollman; "Wizard-level" decidedly does NOT mean Tier 1 as designated by JaronK), but it is... maybe on par with a Barbarian... I would like to make it much more powerful and much more versatile.

I will say that class is one of the few that I would actually not be scared to play. It seems like it would actually function at least fairly well in a low-mid op levels.

Just to Browse

2014-01-22, 12:05 AM

Ziegander

2014-01-22, 01:23 AM

Edensword
This homebrew was inspired by the Andellion Warrior (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Andellion_Warrior_%283.5e_Class%29) class found at dandwiki.com. Unlike that class, the Edensword attempts to live up more suitably to the following Author's Note: "This class was developed for extremely powerful and difficult campaigns. As such, it increases in power exponentially rather than in the standard intervals common to many melee classes such as the SRD:Fighter. This class is designed to remain highly competitive at all levels of play but can quickly overshadow any classes not designed for exponential growth such as Wizard Optimization's. Use at your own discretion."
http://i.imgur.com/7vWSfwp.png%3F1%3F9275

Alignment: Any
Hit Die: 1d12

Class Skills: An Edensword's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Balance (Dex), Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Listen (Wis), Knowledge (Religion) (Int), Knowledge (The Planes), Sense Motive (Wis), Spellcraft (Int), Spot (Wis), Swim (Str), and Tumble (Dex).
Skill Points at 1st Level: (4 + Int modifier) × 4
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 4 + Int modifier

{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special

1st|+1|+2|+0|+0|Defy Gravity, Feather Armor

2nd|+2|+3|+0|+0|Climhazzard, Strength of Faith

3rd|+3|+3|+1|+1|Eden's Grace

4th|+4|+4|+1|+1|Dark Matter

5th|+5|+4|+1|+1|Blitz Ace

6th|+6/+1|+5|+2|+2|Combo Breaker

7th|+7/+2|+5|+2|+2|Sable Swiftness +1/+10

8th|+8/+3|+6|+2|+2|Aerial Smash

9th|+9/+4|+6|+3|+3|Gravity

10th|+10/+5|+7|+3|+3|Sable Swiftness +2/+20

11th|+11/+6/+1|+7|+3|+3|Blade Beam

12th|+12/+7/+2|+8|+4|+4|Star-Blessed Freedom

13th|+13/+8/+3|+8|+4|+4|Sable Swiftness +3/+30

14th|+14/+9/+4|+9|+4|+4|Shockwave

15th|+15/+10/+5|+9|+5|+5|Inevitable Doom

16th|+16/+11/+6/+1|+10|+5|+5|Sable Swiftness +4/+40

17th|+17/+12/+7/+2|+10|+5|+5|Force Spike

18th|+18/+13/+8/+3|+11|+6|+6|Jet-Black Battle Blessing

19th|+19/+14/+9/+4|+11|+6|+6|Sable Swiftness +5/+50

20th|+20/+15/+10/+5|+12|+6|+6|Midnight Gate[/table]

Class Features
All of the following are class features of the Edensword.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency
An Edensword is proficient with all simple and martial weapons and with all armor (heavy, medium, and light) and shields (including tower shields).

Defy Gravity (Su): A 1st level Edensword gains a +30 enhancement bonus to Jump checks. When she makes a high jump check, the DC is the same as it would be for a long jump. Finally, as a DC 50 Jump check, the Edensword may ignore all falling damage. This costs her an immediate action.

Feather Armor (Ex): An Edensword reduces her total armor check penalty from worn armors and shields by her Strength modifier and moves at her normal speed when wearing medium or heavy armor.

Climhazzard (Ex): Starting at 2nd level, when an Edensword uses a melee weapon to attack an opponent by jumping or falling toward it, she adds double her Strength modifier to any damage rolls she makes.

Strength of Faith (Su): A 2nd level Edensword gains an enhancement bonus to her Strength score equal to her class level.

Eden's Grace (Su): At 3rd level, an Edensword adds her Strength modifier as a sacred bonus to her AC and to all saving throws.

Dark Matter (Su): Starting at 4th level, as long as the Edensword wears heavy armor, any damage dealt to her is reduced by her Strength modifier. If this reduces the damage to 0, then any other effects of the damaging attack, spell, or ability are ignored by the Edensword.

Blitz Ace (Su): At 5th level, the Edensword gains a "blitz speed," which allows her to move up to her speed (or up to double if she charges) in any direction through non-solid materials as long as she either ends her movement on a solid surface that can support her weight, or she ends her movement attacking a foe with a melee weapon. She may take 10 on any Jump skill checks she makes while "blitzing," and when she does so, she does not need a 20ft running start to avoid doubling her Jump DCs. Any movement made using her "blitz speed" is considered jumping for the Edensword's Climhazzard and other abilities.

Combo Breaker (Ex): Starting at 6th level, an Edensword may make a full attack as a standard action, at the end of a charge, or in place of any attack of opportunity. Whenever she makes a full attack, for each attack that hits, her next attacks in that action gain a cumulative +5 bonus to attack rolls.

Sable Swiftness (Su): At 7th level, an Edensword gains a benefit similar to the Haste spell. She may make an additional attack when she makes a full attack, but unlike the spell this attack is made at her lowest attack bonus. Like the spell, she gains a +1 bonus on attack rolls, and a +1 dodge bonus to AC and Reflex saves. These bonuses increase by +1 at every third level after 7th (10th, 13th, 16th, and 19th to a maximum of +5). Finally, unlike the spell, instead of a 30ft enhancement bonus to her speed, she gains a 10ft enhancement bonus which increases by 10ft at every third level after 7th.

Aerial Smash (Ex): Starting at 8th level, the second time an Edensword hits her opponent with a melee attack during a full attack she launches her opponent into the air. She and her opponent make opposed Strength checks to which her opponent may not add Size bonuses (but does suffer any Size penalties as are appropriate). For every point by which the Edensword wins this check, her opponent is hurled 10ft vertically (+10ft for every Size category her opponent is smaller than her; -10ft for every Size category her opponent is larger than her). If she has further attacks left in her full attack action, she may follow her opponent and finish her full attack using her blitz speed as long as the creature is no further from her than her base speed.

Gravity (Su): At 9th level, the Edensword's mass grows so dense that she exerts a gravitational pull on creatures around her. Hostile creatures within Close range (25ft + 5ft/two class levels) of her suffer a penalty to attacks and to AC and Reflex saves equal to the bonus she receives from her Sable Swiftness ability and must succeed on a Will save (DC 10 + ½ the Edensword's level + her Strength modifier) when attempting to move away from her. Even on a successful save, the creature moves at half speed until the start of its next turn.

Blade Beam (Su): At 11th level, an Edensword may make a ranged attack roll against either a single opponent out to Long range (400ft + 40ft/class level), or all opponents in a 60ft cone, using a melee weapon. Treat the attack as a melee attack for all other purposes other than range or area. She does not throw her weapon at her foe, rather, she unleashes a powerful wave of pure force dealing 1d6 force damage per class level. Any creatures she hits within a cone effect are entitled to a Reflex save (DC 10 + ½ the Edensword's level + her Strength modifier) to halve this damage. Blade Beam may be used on its own as a standard action, or as a single attack as part of a full attack action. Either way, an Edensword cannot use Blade Beam until she has hit a single opponent three times with a single full attack action, and after using it she must wait to use it again until the next time she has done so.

Star-Blessed Freedom (Su): Starting at 12th level, an Edensword receives the constant benefits of the Avoid Planar Effects, Endure Elements, and Freedom of Movement spells. As an immediate action she may transport herself and no more than a heavy load to any location she has previously been to as if via a Greater Teleport or Greater Plane Shift spell.

Shockwave (Su): Starting at 14th level, the fourth time an Edensword hits her opponent with with a melee attack during a full attack she triggers a special effect depending on if that creature is airborne or if it is prone:

If the creature is airborne, it and each other hostile airborne creature within Medium range (100ft + 10ft/class level) must succeed on a Fortitude save (DC 10 + ½ the Edensword's level + her Strength modifier) or begin to plummet to the ground, its Fly speed (if any) reduced to 0, and any spells or other abilities that would keep the creature safely aloft cease to function for 1d4 rounds.

If the creature is prone, it and each other hostile creature on the ground within Medium range (100ft + 10ft/class level) must succeed on a Fortitude save (DC 10 + ½ the Edensword's level + her Strength modifier). Each creature that fails is knocked prone and for the next 1d4 rounds loses its move action.

Even on a successful save, affected creatures suffer 1d8 untyped damage per four class levels.

Inevitable Doom (Su): Starting at 15th level, an Edensword's dark mass has nearly collapsed into a black hole. Whenever a creature fails its saving throw to move away from the Edensword, instead that creature suffers 1d12 untyped damage, moves 10ft toward her in the path of her choosing, and gains 1 negative level.

Force Spike (Ex): Starting at 17th level, the fifth time an Edensword hits her opponent with with a melee attack during a full attack, if that creature is at or below 50% of its maximum hit points, then the creature is utterly consumed in a blast of force, killing or destroying it (Fort negates; DC 10 + ½ the Edensword's level + her Strength modifier). Regardless, her attack is treated as a force effect and deals double damage. If the creature is killed this way, its body is annihilated without a trace and the creature cannot be raised from the dead by any means short of the direct intervention of the gods (not True Resurrection nor even Miracle or Wish).

Jet-Black Battle Blessing (Su): Starting at 18th level, once per day as an immediate action, the Edensword may cast Mass Heal as a supernatural ability. Beneficiaries of this effect gain an enhancement bonus to their Strength scores equal to the Edensword's class level for 1d6×10 minutes thereafter.

Midnight Gate (Su): Edenswords of 20th level are capable of this devastating attack only after working up a legendary frenzy in battle. If the Edensword hits an opponent a sixth time during a full attack she may forcibly tear open a massive Gate to the Far Realm in a spherical radius centered on her attack's target of 1 mile per point of the Edensword's Strength modifier. This instantly kills the unfortunate victim and has horrific consequences to the affected area as well:

All spaces in the affected area are rendered difficult terrain.

All structures and unattended objects in the area are dealt 2d6 force damage per class level. Structures and objects reduced to 0 hit points in this way are disintegrated as the spell.

All creatures within the affected area other than the Edensword become Pseudonatural creatures (http://www.realmshelps.net/monsters/templates/pseudonatural.shtml) and suffer from insanity as the spell. The Edensword must succeed on a Will saving throw (DC 30) to avoid the same fate.

Dozens of aberrations pour out from the rift to plague the area and eagerly spill into surrounding areas. Each mile of affected area is plagued by 1d20×10 randomly-generated aberrations. The Edensword may control a number of these aberrations whose total HD does not exceed her twice her class level for a number of rounds equal to her Wisdom score, but after that they become unruly, breaking free of her control, and becoming Hostile to her.

The duration of this effect is instantaneous. Note that the Edensword need not activate this ability any time she hits an opponent six times in a single full attack and need only do so when she wants to.

roko10

2014-01-22, 10:16 AM

Ziegander, were you inspired by Soul Calibur when writing that class?

Also, I think I should make that challange into a thread.

Roncorps

2014-01-22, 10:21 AM

Yeah, we should probably do a thread like ''Fixing the near-impossible : Dandiwiki''

Fax Celestis

2014-01-22, 10:34 AM

Because there are multiple paths the classes can take, and writing "Super Knight (Ex/Su/Sp): Pick one of the 10 abilities based on the one you picked at level 10" is really inconvenient when your spoilers for every level are the size of a PrC themselves.

If a class has no conceptual room to grow without branching into new themes, cut it down in level. The concepts of "Fire magic", "more knightly", and "is a mind flayer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7947714&postcount=13)" are inherently not suited to level 15 characters, so the fire mage, knight, and mind flayer should not go to level 15.

There's no reason, on the other hand, that you can't build those path concepts into the class. It's a very straightforward thing to do.

ganresorc

2014-01-22, 10:37 AM

Fax Celestis

2014-01-22, 10:52 AM

ganresorc

2014-01-22, 10:58 AM

That is part of the problem with Dandywiki: there is no mechanism for peer review. Talk pages are largely ignored, even by their authors.

True, but so are the pages, so if the person doesn't care or won't execute the change, make it for them. The biggest gripe I have after almost 6 years on the site is IP editing. Random people come in and power creep something that was not really balanced to begin with. If I could remove one thing from dndwiki to make it a better place, that would be it.

Fax Celestis

2014-01-22, 11:00 AM

True, but so are the pages, so if the person doesn't care or won't execute the change, make it for them. The biggest gripe I have after almost 6 years on the site is IP editing. Random people come in and power creep something that was not really balanced to begin with. If I could remove one thing from dndwiki to make it a better place, that would be it.

If it is supposed to be static, then why is it a wiki?

Ziegander

2014-01-22, 11:51 AM

Ziegander, were you inspired by Soul Calibur when writing that class?

Well, mostly I was inspired by the original material, but I also borrowed concepts from Final Fantasy and Devil May Cry (of all things).

Also, I think I should make that challange into a thread.

Did you make it yet? I would imagine it should go in the homebrew section.

Yeah, we should probably do a thread like ''Fixing the near-impossible : Dandiwiki''

Good title. :)

There's no reason, on the other hand, that you can't build those path concepts into the class. It's a very straightforward thing to do.

And then they didn't even provide paths for such concepts as PrCs or anything at all. The Knightly Orders for the Knight class don't exist in the source material (if they exist anywhere on the internet). Thus, my conclusion that they just stopped writing classes when they ran out of ideas for said classes.

Just to Browse

2014-01-22, 11:57 AM

There's no reason, on the other hand, that you can't build those path concepts into the class. It's a very straightforward thing to do.

Because there are multiple paths the classes can take, and writing "Super Knight (Ex/Su/Sp): Pick one of the 10 abilities based on the one you picked at level 10" is really inconvenient when your spoilers for every level are the size of a PrC themselves.

More importantly, I am a strong advocate of fixing and recycling homebrew. If there isn't already a thread for fixing bad D&D Wiki pages, there should be.

Ziegander

2014-01-22, 12:15 PM

More importantly, I am a strong advocate of fixing and recycling homebrew. If there isn't already a thread for fixing bad D&D Wiki pages, there should be.

I took the liberty of creating the thread, here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=327020).

Deophaun

2014-01-22, 12:25 PM

They wouldn't be (as) bad if good editors helped rather than just jeered from other places</rant>
This is a bit like saying people should edit bad Harry Potter fan-fiction if they are annoyed that it occupies the top spot whenever they google the series.

Morph Bark

2014-01-22, 01:37 PM

To go back to the original point, dndwiki's tend to be bad because most people are in fact bad. This is true. However, they are also bad because people who are not bad think it's more fun to poke fun than be the change you want to see. tl;dr: They wouldn't be (as) bad if good editors helped rather than just jeered from other places</rant>

This is largely because brewers who start on Dandwiki with their brew don't get better points of reference for balance and well-made abilities due to there not being much good on the wiki (like, less than 5%), and brewers who start elsewhere and get better at balance and making abilities who want to go to wikis at all go post them on DnD-wiki instead.

nedz

2014-01-22, 03:57 PM

True, but so are the pages, so if the person doesn't care or won't execute the change, make it for them. The biggest gripe I have after almost 6 years on the site is IP editing. Random people come in and power creep something that was not really balanced to begin with. If I could remove one thing from dndwiki to make it a better place, that would be it.

Munchkin Player

Finds an OP Class on DandyWiky
Edits it to make it weaker
Shows to DM who looks at it and says "OK"
Revokes Edit, maybe adds another feature too

Phaederkiel

2014-01-22, 06:56 PM

Okay, are there reverse katana fanboys? Those who claim that a katana cannot cut through paper?

its just an Off-Topic afterthought, but as someone who trains and teaches medieval fencing, I can assure you that I would not use a sword without a crossguard if i could help it.

A curved blade is a bit difficult to handle and not as good against armor as a straight blade, but has some advantages, too. Modern steel makes the brittleness of japanese steel a non-factor. (And removes a big part of the reasons for kenjutsus weird quirks).

But no crossguard means about 50% of all high lvl defending maneuvers are impossible. Brr. No wonder that they considered themselve dead when they went and used their swords...

tarkisflux

2014-01-23, 03:33 PM

Full disclosure - I'm a bureaucrat (admin who runs the joint) at dnd-wiki.org. I'm trying to keep that from biasing the following, and I apologize in advance if I don't succeed.

Why Are There 3 Wikis?
Internet history time!

Back in 08 or 09 (it was before my wiki time and forever ago by any internet measure anyway), the only homebrew wiki was dandwiki.com. There were a bunch of admins and regulars there who were tired of arguments over balance, tired of unfinished cruft, and generally wanted to clean up the wiki. They began discussing instituting a quality control and review board (in retrospect the review board was a terrible idea on a volunteer board, but that's a story for later) and came up with a plan for doing that. Since there was general wiki agreement and no actual wiki opposition they went ahead with the changes one night and updated policies and whatnot (I'm not actually sure if the majority of the discussion occurred off wiki in an irc chat, which would have been bad form and partially responsible for the next part).

The owner of dandwiki.com, who goes by the handle of Green Dragon there, wasn't as on-board with the changes as it had appeared, and sort of flipped out. What followed was a policy edit war and a whole bunch of bans handed out by the owner to his admins for their trying to update the policy over his reverts. And then an admin banned the owner, who unbanned himself and banned/demoted every admin on the site. It took a couple of days to cool off, during which time the admins and regulars involved decided to just leave. Everyone who migrated took their material and reposted it to a new wiki, dungeons.wikia.com.

I came on board shortly after the fork to Dungeons @ Wikia, and did enough stuff for the site in the background and policies that I was made an admin. About a year after we started there Wikia decided that they wanted to embrace casual and mobile in a very direct way and drastically change their look (anyone who was with wikia 3 years ago may remember this change; it's when the WoW Wiki forked as well). That meant discontinuing support for our preferred wiki skin and a bunch of features that we were making quite a bit of use of, and also locking article width to a pixel maximum. Which pretty much killed it for us, because it meant a massive rethink of the layout of our nav and everything with a large table on it (classes) and everything with an author box on it (almost everything at all) and we had just finished getting it to work and rebuilt from the first move. One of the bureaucrats volunteered to get some server space and admin the technical bits of it, and so we moved again.

The new, new place was dnd-wiki.org (which is annoying because of confusion with the dandwiki), and has been working out for the last 3+ years now. About a year and a half ago the owner of the dndwiki.com domain offered to point it at our servers, and so we got a second domain name. I prefer the .org address because we have more direct control over it, but they're both fine.

So yea, 3 homebrew wikis out there. To summarize:

dandwiki.com is the original DnD homebrew wiki.
dungeons.wikia.com is a fork of that, and has been largely abandoned (also, they never did fix their navigation).
dnd-wiki.org and dndwiki.com point to the same homebrew wiki, which is separate from dandwiki.

-----

Ok, history out of the way, there are some rather serious differences between dandwiki and dnd-wiki.

On IP Edits
dandwiki.com decided a long time ago (or the owner decided for them, I'm not actually clear on that) that they wanted to be a "wikipedia like wiki". Which meant incremental updates to all of the articles by whoever wanted to make them, as well as retaining incomplete pages that still had potential future value. In order to make that easier they went and removed their author displays and protections, so the only way you can see who wrote an article is to check the page history. And if you want your article to remain as you wrote it (or at least vet any potential changes), you have to use the 'notify on change' wiki feature. There is no policy about respecting authorial intent, since the stated goal is incremental improvement.

dnd-wiki.org also allows IP edits, but did not remove the author displays or protections. One of the fields in the author display is a set of editing rules, that indicate which sorts of edits are allowed (generally only grammar and clarity, but individual authors can specify whatever they want). It is specifically against policy to edit in violation of those guidelines, and other policies are designed to respect the intent of the original author at all times. There is an active group of editors who enforce that policy, and revert edits from IPs or registered users that violate these rules, and repeated offenses can result in bans. It's a wiki though, and things can slip through.

On Marking Homebrew
There was a thread here a while back about how it wasn't well marked, and it applied to both wikis to some degree.

Since dandwiki removed their author displays, there wasn't anything separating a homebrew article from an SRD article or a OGL article. Milo_v3 was working on getting it displayed, and and had a text header on some pages for a while. I'm not sure it was ever added more broadly.

Dnd-wiki.org had author displays on all of the homebrew pages, but decided that it wasn't sufficiently obviousl. They made a graphic for it and added it to their author display. It now shows on every page that is homebrew, right above author information. It looks like this:

http://dnd-wiki.org/w/images/7/73/Homebrew.png

On Quality Control
Whether you agree with and follow the Tiers or not, I don't think anyone here would really dispute that there are different things against which you could balance your material. It's really hard to talk about article quality with respect to balance when you don't specify a desired balance though.

You do not specify one on dandwiki.com. They have a "not balanced" tag, and balance is part of the article rating that they have, but the guidelines aren't very granular. There are user ratings that you can place on the talk page, but they don't appear on the article page unless manually added (the rating system has been in discussions for revision as recently as a year ago, and might be removed entirely in the future). Additionally, there is no cost or benefit to having a low or high rating, except perhaps getting into the single (and infrequently updated) featured article slot on the main page. This pairs with the owner's position of wanting to improve incomplete articles rather than remove them to create a sea of articles with different intended balance and degrees of completion.

dnd-wiki.org requires a declared balance goal on most article pages, so you can tell if an article is supposed to be over- or under-powered for games that you would want to use it in. There are user ratings as well, which can be added from the article page and a summary of them appears on the article page under the author information. Actual ratings text is restricted to the talk page. An article must have a certain number of positive ratings to be eligible for rotation in the community favorites slots on the main page (there are several articles in random rotation), and a certain number of negative ratings will cause the article to be removed from navigation until identified concerns are addressed. Older articles, like the Andelion Warrior that Ziegander worked on, are less likely to have these ratings because they're a newer system. dnd-wiki.org also deletes incomplete articles if not finished or actively worked on for a period of time (as well as complete articles on author request).

-----

Hopefully this text wall has been helpful and answers the op a bit. I think the two active wikis have pretty different goals and serve populations at this point. There's also an access concern since some users, like Milo_v3, claim that they can only access dandwiki.com. I'd rather they had access to one than none.

Milo v3

2014-01-23, 06:27 PM

Milo_v3 was working on getting it displayed, and and had a text header on some pages for a while. I'm not sure it was ever added more broadly.

I am sad to say that Green Dragon deleted the template not only from the pages it was added to, but also deleted the template itself without even discussing it.

This happened after it was all said to be fine. :smallfrown:

TypoNinja

2014-01-23, 06:35 PM

Milo v3

2014-01-23, 06:42 PM

So from what I've learned in this thread, we can add terrible admins to the problems with the wikis.

The current functioning admin Marasmusine is fine... actually going around deleting pages that are too horrible and commending me on attempting to make it better with the homebrew disclaimer.

..... Green Dragon on the other hand :smallannoyed:

TypoNinja

2014-01-23, 06:45 PM

The current functioning admin Marasmusine is fine... actually going around deleting pages that are too horrible and commending me on attempting to make it better with the homebrew disclaimer.

..... Green Dragon on the other hand :smallannoyed:

I like the homebrew disclaimer, its a great idea. I was thinking that each page just needed a nice big "HOMEBREW!" header that you can't miss so you know at a glace what you are looking at. (long as it looked decent anyway).

The biggest problem I've had with the wiki with my gaming group is dividing the homebrew out of the official stuff, so something so obvious even a novice to the game couldn't get mixed up would basically take away my problem with the site.

Sith_Happens

2014-01-23, 06:51 PM

The biggest problem I've had with the wiki with my gaming group is dividing the homebrew out of the official stuff, so something so obvious even a novice to the game couldn't get mixed up would basically take away my problem with the site.

Last I checked, all of the SRD material has "SRD:" at the start of the title.

Milo v3

2014-01-23, 06:58 PM

Last I checked, all of the SRD material has "SRD:" at the start of the title.

This is true, but new players apparently often still make the mistake.

tarkisflux

2014-01-23, 07:04 PM

I am sad to say that Green Dragon deleted the template not only from the pages it was added to, but also deleted the template itself without even discussing it.

This happened after it was all said to be fine. :smallfrown:
That really sucks. It's not surprising because he's done similar things before, but it's still really disappointing.

So from what I've learned in this thread, we can add terrible admins to the problems with the wikis.
I don't think the use of plurals is fair here. As Milo notes, dandwiki has a decent admin just a frustrating owner (I won't call him terrible, he just wants something very different from what I want). Dungeons @ wikia doesn't really have any active admins to be terrible. And I think the admins of dnd-wiki.org are pretty good over all and have a history of responding to concerns and updating policy (since I'm in that group, I may be biased here).

Last I checked, all of the SRD material has "SRD:" at the start of the title.
All of the wikis have this at the start of the page name. And I forgot to mention that both wikis have an OGL footer at the bottom or SRD pages that indicate it's not homebrew. But if you don't know about that or don't look for it (and it's really easy to miss the absence of a thing), it's easy to confuse homebrew pages with other stuff. That's why we added the banner to dnd-wiki.org - to be extra clear.

TuggyNE

2014-01-23, 07:05 PM

Last I checked, all of the SRD material has "SRD:" at the start of the title.

And all the non-SRD material has…?

Sorry, but that's just not good enough from a UX perspective, any more than "oh we totally show a lock icon in some obscure corner of the screen if you're in SSL" is good enough for browsers. You have to either a) establish a very clear expectation on the part of the user, through education and careful maintenance of consistency, that there will be a given UI element in a particular spot iff it's official, or b) clearly mark all non-official pages as well as all official pages. The first has not been done, given the lack of education, and the second was not chosen. That's a failure of web design, end of story.

TypoNinja

2014-01-23, 07:35 PM

Last I checked, all of the SRD material has "SRD:" at the start of the title.

And sit in an SRD/OGL catagory usually. The information is there if you know to look for it, I do. My problem is that people new to D&D, or even just D&D's online resources lack this insight.

Chronos

2014-01-23, 10:18 PM

I will say that the dnd-wiki homebrew banner works well. Earlier, before I saw tarkisflux's post, I was searching for something else, saw a page on that site, and very quickly noticed the banner and realized it wasn't what I was looking for.

Ziegander

2014-01-23, 10:47 PM

Zale

2014-01-23, 11:47 PM

Fun fact: That curved sword class that got posted?

One person in the talk said it was too powerful because it didn't have downsides to make up for being more powerful than a fighter.

Totema

2014-01-23, 11:51 PM

Fun fact: That curved sword class that got posted?

One person in the talk said it was too powerful because it didn't have downsides to make up for being more powerful than a fighter.

Because mundanes don't deserve nice things!

Not sure if I would call that "nice" though...

Xar Zarath

2014-01-24, 12:22 AM

That one is beautiful. It stops after 15 levels, but when you can climb to a mountaintop and set small countries on fire at will, you don't need any more levels.:smallbiggrin:

Glyphstone, with your permission may I sig this?:smallredface:

Xar Zarath

2014-01-24, 12:25 AM

A long time ago, I was desperate enough to *almost* try these out...

Necromancer:http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Necromancer_(3.5e_Class)

Master Necromancer:http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Master_Necromancer_(3.5e_Prestige_Class)

and

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Master_of_the_Seven_Necromantic_Mysteries_(3.5e_Pr estige_Class)

tarkisflux

2014-01-24, 12:31 AM

Hurnn

2014-01-24, 01:05 AM

While we're on the subject of dandwiki, I'll just leave this here. (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Dwelf_(3.5e_Race))

I kinda like the Dwelf...

As to the katanas thing they should have done longsword damage and not be masterwork bastardswords. The D&D guys have always been more than a little bit Samuri are super awesome sauce fanboys. If you have any doubts as to this read first ed OA and cringe at fighters who can gain 2 temp hd, at lvl 1.....

MeiLeTeng

2014-01-24, 01:25 AM

I kinda like the Dwelf...

As to the katanas thing they should have done longsword damage and not be masterwork bastardswords. The D&D guys have always been more than a little bit Samuri are super awesome sauce fanboys. If you have any doubts as to this read first ed OA and cringe at fighters who can gain 2 temp hd, at lvl 1.....

I'll let you deal with the math for its move speed in heavy armor then.

Hytheter

2014-01-24, 01:26 AM

Hurnn

2014-01-24, 01:42 AM

I'll let you deal with the math for its move speed in heavy armor then.

17.5 done... or maybe 20, or 22.5

BeerMug Paladin

2014-01-24, 01:47 AM

The way it's worded, I think the move speed penalty for dwelves in heavy armor is supposed to be 5, making the final move speed in heavy armor 20.

It's a simple result of elves usually have a penalty of 10 feet, and dwarves have none, so the obvious crossbreed would have the average penalty. At least, that seems to be the reasoning. They're just halfway between each! That seems to be how they decided their move speed should work too. And some of their other racial features.

MeiLeTeng

2014-01-24, 01:49 AM

17.5 done... or maybe 20, or 22.5

Anything not divisible by 5 is going to give you a bad day.

Either way, whatever the "penalty" to 25ft move speed is in heavy armor it's reduced by another half.

Whoever made that thing did not consider what they were doing with math remotely.

T.G. Oskar

2014-01-24, 02:23 AM

So yesterday, I reviewed the Myrmidon saying that it is substantially weaker than the SRD Fighter. The admin of dandwiki apparently took this personally, asking me how exactly it is substantially weaker. So I pointed out that all it gets are terrible, terrible feats as class features. It's like the CW Samurai. Only worse.

*facepalm*

*facepalm*

I feel your pain. I saw it, and it feels like having promise, but it suffers from the "build as class" problem the CW Samurai has. Though, some of the class features aren't feats; some are "X Stat to Y Skill" thing, but without a defining aspect.

The Fighter, at least, has several feat chains that give it a hint of distinction; you can make several builds out of it, but not all of them will be successful as a Warblade could. The Warblade itself usually lends to a few builds, but the remaining stances and maneuvers pad out some of the choices; sure, when you want to deal damage, nothing like Punishing Stance at first and then rack it up with Stormguard Warrior, Avalanche of Blades/Time Stands Still + Raging Mongoose/Girallon Windmill Flesh Rip, but when damage isn't the thing, you're still glad to have Hearing the Air or Hunter's Stance or Sudden Leap to do something out of battle at least. And they STILL get enough feats to complete one feat chain, so if you're going for something like Shock Trooper Leap Attack PA, you can; you just happen to have Sudden Leap to make a full attack out of it, or Pouncing Charge + Raging Mongoose to add even more attacks to it. The Fighter only gets the core chain, and has to invest in other stats to get something close to what Warblades get.

To say that the Myrmidon can reach the flexibility of a Warblade or a Fighter would be folly, so the argument is pretty sound. About the only choice you get is the free Exotic Weapon Proficiency feat, which *could* make a decent tripper build if you focus on Intelligence, since you get a few abilities that use your Int, meaning you can get Combat Expertise and then Improved Trip, net a Spiked Chain or Drow Scorpion Chain for free, and attempt to do at least something decent. That forces two feat slots out of your entire build, while the Fighter would only spend two bonus feat slots and a Monk, of all things, could get them for free without spending for Int, exactly what you need to spend on Monk (unless you like the 6th level bonus feat as well and potentially the fighting style bonus). But, if you want...say, a TWF master, can you pull it off with a Myrmidon? The build is heavily against it, and the only advantage is the ability to get stuff like Orc Double Axe or Two-Bladed Sword for free, which isn't that much of an advantage when the only extra damage you get to make TWF matter is the +4 to damage rolls almost at 20th level.

Just saying "the Myrmidon has almost as many dead levels than the Fighter" should be enough. Just looking at the Talk page shows me something else: it's apparently meant to be a translation of the Myrmidon from Fire Emblem, and the preferred balance point of the Wiki seems to be Low; the commentators seem to like the damage potential of the Myrmidon in comparison with the Fighter (free Weapon Spec., Greater Weapon Spec., a +4 to damage and also applying Wisdom or Intelligence to damage). The only unique things are the +4 to damage and the Wis/Int to damage, which unless you have a high Wis/Int score means you can get at most +1/+2 to it, and I'm pretty sure Melee Weapon Mastery shortens the range even further without losing that many bonus feats. What's worse, it apparently lost heavy armor/tower shield proficiency and DR because...it was too strong?

And this class is supposed to be a front-line combatant...*sigh*. What makes it worse is that the capstone is just dandy; with a good Fort save, you can remain alive pretty much permanently (you can pretty much auto-survive any damage below 12 + your Con modifier, and survive any damage below 22 + Con modiifer with a 50% probability, without adding any other bonus but base saves and Con modifier), and it seems to work against any kind of death effect, including Disintegrate. It just doesn't merit the 19 levels to get it, when you can get it earlier (Immortal Fortitude nets you that at 17th level). It also doesn't include ways to exploit that, if any (hey, how about Martial Stance to reduce the Fort save DC for the ability? While at it, why not tackle that with Revitalizing Strike for when the DC is too risky?).

Anyways, I noticed that their class balance paradigm seems to be the Class Construction Engine. Doesn't come much, but it has a full page whereas the other balance paradigms are barely mentioned; There's only one reference to the Tier System, and Balance Points are only mentioned because one of the posters from dnd-wiki.org diplomatically mentioned the difference. I got wind of this because one of the commentators mentions the Myrmidon is too powerful as it exceeds the amount of "Class Points" alloted to Base Classes intended to be in parity with published Base Classes, which to me is a cause of alert because I don't ascribe to that paradigm (the way it handles spells treats the Wizard as balanced in equal terms to the Fighter, something that qualitatively can be proven false, and then attempts to determine balance through quantity, rather than quality). If the CCE is their balance standard, it can explain a LOT of things.

So, in the interest of discussion: through the lens of the CCE, and speaking only of completed homebrew, what are your thoughts? Incomplete homebrew is another problem entirely, but given that the Playground usually subscribes to the Tier system as its balance paradigm, this might lead to the wildly different notions of class balance between posters here and there.

Averis Vol

2014-01-24, 03:40 AM

Aren't Katanas closer to sabres than longswords? Curved Single Edge vs Straight Double Edged
In DnD terms I think a Katana should be to a Scimitar as a Bastard Sword is to a longsword. So something like
Exotic One-Handed Melee 1d8, 18-20/2x. Counts as a Martial Weapon when held in two hands

Katanas are bulkier than a large number of sabers, they have a less defined curve than a scimitar, they're shorter than a longsword (Slightly larger than an arming sword) as well as not being centered which makes them poor for thrusting. In all if I had to change up the stats, they would be something like 1d8 damage 19-20/x2 and meant to be used in two hands. while similar, I want to point out that while curved, it is no where near the enhanced degree of a scimitar or tulwar or any other number of true curved blades. It's more like a giant, unwieldy cleaver.

Hytheter

2014-01-24, 04:52 AM

PersonMan

2014-01-24, 06:12 AM

aye, same thing with me. One of my players brought a katana (what chance...) to the table which sported a 18-20 x3 Critrange. [...]
Long story short, that thing was homebrew, and was absolutely NOT labeled as such. And it was the first thing that came up when googling "dnd Katana". So this is, in a nutshell, the problem with that site.

I dunno, I feel like "Please note, this is not an SRD weapon and you should ask your DM's permission before attempting to use this very overpowered version of the Katana." is pretty clearly labeling it as homebrew.

And the issue is that he had something you saw as too strong, not that it was homebrew. Unless you'd have said "well it's strong but ok I guess" if it was posted by Wizards? Unmarked homebrew isn't an issue if the DM is making sure that things are at the level of balance the group wants (especially if the players do so as well), except in the case of miscommunicaiton (i.e. homebrew class with the same name as a published one).

lunar2

2014-01-24, 12:58 PM

Katanas are bulkier than a large number of sabers, they have a less defined curve than a scimitar, they're shorter than a longsword (Slightly larger than an arming sword) as well as not being centered which makes them poor for thrusting. In all if I had to change up the stats, they would be something like 1d8 damage 19-20/x2 and meant to be used in two hands. while similar, I want to point out that while curved, it is no where near the enhanced degree of a scimitar or tulwar or any other number of true curved blades. It's more like a giant, unwieldy cleaver.

well, to balance it against other weapons, maybe it should be 2d4 damage, 19-20 x3 crit, martial 2 handed, exotic 1 handed. since it's bulkier than other swords, that's why i went with 2d4 damage instead of 1d8 (it's heavier, so it hits harder). swords generally have a 19-20 crit range, so there's that. but comparing it to a cleaver, cleavers in most games are treated as axes, not swords, and axes have a x3 crit. so now it is roughly balanced against other weapons (by WotC standards, anyway), but it fills a more unique niche with its criticals.

PersonMan

2014-01-24, 01:28 PM

I've always found the martial two handed | exotic one handed divide really silly, seeing as the first is stronger anyways, so there's no reason for the one-handed one to be additionally penalized by requiring a feat to use properly.

If we were going to make that difference, I'd make it martial one-handed and exotic two-handed. Potentially give it something special to make it worth a feat, 'cause most exotic weapons just suck.

Togo

2014-01-24, 01:45 PM

That seems like a good place to put it. I'd say the katana is used much like a lighter, faster bastard sword, so giving it less damage and more crit seems like a good place for it.

Seerow

2014-01-24, 01:53 PM

That seems like a good place to put it. I'd say the katana is used much like a lighter, faster bastard sword, so giving it less damage and more crit seems like a good place for it.

Honestly, the Bastard Sword is underpowered because the developers misjudged the benefit of a weapon being usable 1 handed. Making an underpowered Katana to match it doesn't help anyone.

Modifying them so you have Bastard Sword as a 2d6 19-20x2 and Katana as a 1d10 18-20x2 weapon. Picking up exotic proficiency makes them usable 1 handed, makes them finessible, and gains a +2 bonus on critical confirmation rolls.

Averis Vol

2014-01-24, 02:22 PM

Well, I only said scimitar because there isn't, as far as I know, a sabre weapon in the game. I just meant that in DnD, the curved swords seem to be weaker but have a higher crit range than their equivelants. See Kukri vs Shortsword, Scimitar vs Longsword, Falchion vs Greatsword. The Katana is a two handed weapon that can (especially in fiction) be wielded one hand, like a Bastard sword, but is curved like those above, if not to the same extent so it makes "sense" to put it as a combination of the two. And when I say sense, I mean sense according to the logic of DnD's weapon mechanics, rather than real-life fact.

What you've proposed is just a longsword that you can't wield in one hand. If you're going to have stats for different weapons they might as well be appreciably different.

Except it isn't appreciatively different weapon than most other. It's edge isn't too keen and theres only one of them. it doesn't have the mass of a bigger blade nor the reaching power. You can't want better stats from a weapon that doesn't deserve it if we're talking about it's realistic counterpart. For all intents and purposes it actually is just a single edged arming sword meant to be used in two hands.

Also, forgotten realms has a sabre which is basically a longsword that gets +1 to attack while mounted. it's unspectacular to say the least.

EDIT:
well, to balance it against other weapons, maybe it should be 2d4 damage, 19-20 x3 crit, martial 2 handed, exotic 1 handed. since it's bulkier than other swords, that's why i went with 2d4 damage instead of 1d8 (it's heavier, so it hits harder). swords generally have a 19-20 crit range, so there's that. but comparing it to a cleaver, cleavers in most games are treated as axes, not swords, and axes have a x3 crit. so now it is roughly balanced against other weapons (by WotC standards, anyway), but it fills a more unique niche with its criticals.

Except while it handles like a clever, it weighs no more then 3 lbs and has a long striking surface. axes have the higher crit multiplier because all the force is placed at one point on the striking area. you give the katana more credit then it deserves. If you have to simulate it's "Super cutting ability" give it a +2 to confirm crits and keep it at x2 like bladed weapons.

lunar2

2014-01-24, 03:29 PM

Except it isn't appreciatively different weapon than most other. It's edge isn't too keen and theres only one of them. it doesn't have the mass of a bigger blade nor the reaching power. You can't want better stats from a weapon that doesn't deserve it if we're talking about it's realistic counterpart. For all intents and purposes it actually is just a single edged arming sword meant to be used in two hands.

Also, forgotten realms has a sabre which is basically a longsword that gets +1 to attack while mounted. it's unspectacular to say the least.

EDIT:

Except while it handles like a clever, it weighs no more then 3 lbs and has a long striking surface. axes have the higher crit multiplier because all the force is placed at one point on the striking area. you give the katana more credit then it deserves. If you have to simulate it's "Super cutting ability" give it a +2 to confirm crits and keep it at x2 like bladed weapons.

i don't even know about super cutting ability. i was simply going by what was said in the thread, and balancing it against other printed weapons. and yes, i know WotC weapon balancing can be iffy, but it is an easy metric to figure out, so that's what i went by.

this reminds me of a weapon i brewed up back when i used to play. the DM let us invent our own weapons, if we had the skills to justify it and craft ourselves. i invented what i called the "bear claw". the base was a gauntlet, with 3 short sword blades on the end. so it did 3d6 damage as a medium weapon. also, i convinced the DM that each of the 3 blades should get 1/2 strength, since the force was split among the 3 of them, so this one handed weapon was doing 3d6+ strength and a half, with a 19-20x2 crit. but that was only half the weapon. the other half was the two spring powered chambers that fired like a heavy crossbow when i pulled the trigger (for 2 shots per attack at the same target) with a revolver action that automatically set the next bolts, and a clip that held twenty bolts, before needing to be reloaded (as a move action if switching to a different clip, free action with rapid reload. it took a full minute to actually reload a spent clip, since each spring needed to be manually reset). i also convinced him that the heavy duty springs i used should add a +4 bonus to damage, just like high strength with a composite bow. of course, that meant it took an 18 strength to reload the clips, but i had a 22 at the time, so i was fine with that. anyway, the whole contraption was so heavy that the dm ruled i took a -2 on melee attacks with it, and a -4 on ranged attacks because of the kick of those heavy springs. i didn't care, though. i made two of them and went two weapon fighting, with the weapons enchanted with speed, so the attack penalties were washed out by sheer number of attacks, especially with the ranged option, where i was making 18 attacks per round. oh, and best of all, since they were mounted on a gauntlet, they couldn't be disarmed, and they left my hands free. i loved my bear claws, but i knew even then they weren't even remotely balanced as a weapon. i was essentially wielding 6 weapons for the price of 2.

Hytheter

2014-01-24, 06:17 PM

Honestly, the Bastard Sword is underpowered because the developers misjudged the benefit of a weapon being usable 1 handed. Making an underpowered Katana to match it doesn't help anyone.

Modifying them so you have Bastard Sword as a 2d6 19-20x2 and Katana as a 1d10 18-20x2 weapon. Picking up exotic proficiency makes them usable 1 handed, makes them finessible, and gains a +2 bonus on critical confirmation rolls.

That doesn't make any sense at all! It's well established that exotic weapons are supposed to suck and never be worth the feat.

:)

(that's actually a good idea)

Deophaun

2014-01-24, 06:37 PM

this reminds me of a weapon i brewed up back when i used to play. the DM let us invent our own weapons, if we had the skills to justify it and craft ourselves. i invented what i called the "bear claw". the base was a gauntlet, with 3 short sword blades on the end. so it did 3d6 damage as a medium weapon.
Man. It's a good thing no one in your group ever got the idea to lay on a bed of nails. :smallwink:

Xuldarinar

2014-01-24, 08:10 PM

Prime32

2014-01-24, 08:30 PM

Honestly, the Bastard Sword is underpowered because the developers misjudged the benefit of a weapon being usable 1 handed. Making an underpowered Katana to match it doesn't help anyone.

Modifying them so you have Bastard Sword as a 2d6 19-20x2 and Katana as a 1d10 18-20x2 weapon. Picking up exotic proficiency makes them usable 1 handed, makes them finessible, and gains a +2 bonus on critical confirmation rolls.Or you could do what DDO did, and make bastard-sword-type weapons still gain all the benefits of two-handing even while wielded in one hand.

TuggyNE

2014-01-24, 08:48 PM

Or you could do what DDO did, and make bastard-sword-type weapons still gain all the benefits of two-handing even while wielded in one hand.

DDO is an odd hodgepodge of ridiculously good ideas and ridiculously non-d20-compatible ideas *coughspellpowercough*. Good source of inspiration, but not really practical to borrow from wholesale.

Hmm, I wonder if it might be useful to start a thread about cool (sub)system ideas to borrow. Stuff like vorpal as a family of similarly-triggered weapon specials, hand-and-a-half weapons acting as two-handed in one hand with proficiency, etc. *wanders off mumbling*

Prime32

2014-01-24, 09:11 PM

Way ahead of you. (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=8833) :smalltongue:

Ziegander

2014-01-25, 02:24 AM

Since my original thread got scrubbed and locked by a moderator here for "violating copyright policy," I have taken the liberty of reposting the important material for the "fixing the impossible" dandwiki protect on my blog.

Come take a look and help me out! (http://lorewardenlair.tumblr.com/post/74464864131/fixing-the-dandwiki-1-the-edensword)

Sith_Happens

2014-01-25, 07:13 AM

Milo v3

2014-01-25, 07:42 AM

Isn't dandwiki under the GNU FDL?:smallconfused:

Yes it is.

TuggyNE

2014-01-25, 07:45 AM

Isn't dandwiki under the GNU FDL?:smallconfused:

All of the ellipses. :smalleek:

Chronos

2014-01-25, 12:35 PM

It doesn't actually make sense to use a D&D 3.x bastard sword two-handed at all, since if you're going to do that, you might as well just use a greatsword for all the same advantages and more damage. The bastard sword's only reason for existence, with the way it's statted out, is to be a one-handed weapon that does a little more damage than a longsword.

tarkisflux

2014-01-25, 05:11 PM

One thing I like about this site over others, like Dandwiki, is that the process homebrew naturally goes through here.

Someone gets an idea. They post it in the most developed form they can manage. Then it either sinks to the bottom right away, or it gets comments to help develop it further, sinking once attention has fallen from it, usually in better condition than it would have otherwise been. We have a refinement process. The great homebrews stick in people's minds, spending more time towards the top before they sink and knowledge of them is spread so they may be found. Is it perfect? No, but its far better than what Dandwiki has.

Dandwiki actually has a rating system that can help things sink or float a bit before they disappear into the sea of navigation lists. On all of the class pages I've looked at there's a "rate this class" link on the upper right in a sub-window. If you click it it will open a new section on the talk page where you can fill some stuff in to help others get an impression of the class. And then you can edit the main article page to update the infobox with your numbers, so that when people open the class page they get a favorable or unfavorable impression of it. Nothing really happens to the article if it gets a bunch of negative ratings, but it's a thing you can do.

dnd-wiki also has a rating system that's a bit easier to interact with, but I'll leave it in spoilers since it's sort of off topic.
In the author box of every page is a "rate this article" link, which opens a javascript box to fill in on the page. It will automatically add the rating to the talk page and add the count to the article page (though the updating takes up to 24 hours). If an article gets enough really negative ratings, it gets flagged for removal from navigation. If it gets enough really positive ratings, it gets flagged for inclusion in the favored articles rotation. The rating averages (after an article gets 4+) are also shown on the navigation pages so people can avoid the poorly reviewed stuff unless they're realyl curious. It's a bit more sink or swim than dandwiki.

If anyone in the thread is interested in rating stuff, you just need an account (you can rate as an IP, but you have to add to the talk page manually). It bypasses the normal capcha so you don't need to supply an email account unless you want to be contacted. Here's a random page that might not actually be a homebrew article (http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Special:Random) in case you were interested.

All of the ellipses. :smalleek:
I'm not sure why there's 'all of the ellipses' here, but I can think of a couple of possible reasons.

1) The license is not the OGL.
You can reuse the SRD material under the OGL and have some responsibility to release modifications of it under that licenses, but you don't have to release your own original but compatible work under that license. While lots of 3rd party publishers did that, they didn't need to and could have licensed it under any (or no) license if they didn't want it reprinted or modified. So it's not really a big deal. Dnd-wiki uses the CC-BY-SA 3.0 for homebrew material.

2) The license is old and/or sucky.
Green Dragon really wants to be a wikipedia like wiki, so he used the same license at the time of wiki creation. He elected to not update it when wikipedia and everyone else moved over to the CC-BY-SA 3.0 because he has a very... unique... stance on copyright laws (it's also very likely wrong, but I am not a lawyer and am not qualified to say for sure).

TuggyNE

2014-01-25, 07:08 PM

I'm not sure why there's 'all of the ellipses' here, but I can think of a couple of possible reasons.

1) The license is not the OGL.
You can reuse the SRD material under the OGL and have some responsibility to release modifications of it under that licenses, but you don't have to release your own original but compatible work under that license. While lots of 3rd party publishers did that, they didn't need to and could have licensed it under any (or no) license if they didn't want it reprinted or modified. So it's not really a big deal. Dnd-wiki uses the CC-BY-SA 3.0 for homebrew material.

2) The license is old and/or sucky.
Green Dragon really wants to be a wikipedia like wiki, so he used the same license at the time of wiki creation. He elected to not update it when wikipedia and everyone else moved over to the CC-BY-SA 3.0 because he has a very... unique... stance on copyright laws (it's also very likely wrong, but I am not a lawyer and am not qualified to say for sure).

Neither; the GFDL, while not particularly suitable for non-documentation, is a copyleft license and expressly designed to allow reuse. So under the circumstances, it should be perfectly workable to remix in various other places, assuming the GFDL's stipulations are followed. Shutting down the reuse is the part I don't get.

(I voted on the WP license change issue back a few years, actually, and have been following F/L/OSS work and principles for a long time, so these considerations are not new to me.)

tarkisflux

2014-01-26, 01:04 AM

Neither; the GFDL, while not particularly suitable for non-documentation, is a copyleft license and expressly designed to allow reuse. So under the circumstances, it should be perfectly workable to remix in various other places, assuming the GFDL's stipulations are followed. Shutting down the reuse is the part I don't get.

Well, the GFDL does require that reuse also be released under the GFDL, and I'm not sure if the forums here use that license (or what license they do use, if any). Ziegander should have specified that he was releasing it under that license to remain in compliance with it (assuming he used more than just inspiration and needed to be in compliance in the first place), but I don't think it was a bad call to just scrub and lock it instead of worrying about compliance. Licensing is annoying.

Ziegander

2014-01-26, 01:19 AM

Well, the GFDL does require that reuse also be released under the GFDL, and I'm not sure if the forums here use that license (or what license they do use, if any). Ziegander should have specified that he was releasing it under that license to remain in compliance with it (assuming he used more than just inspiration and needed to be in compliance in the first place), but I don't think it was a bad call to just scrub and lock it instead of worrying about compliance. Licensing is annoying.

Is it really only a matter of me declaring that I release my content under X license to avoid all legal ramifications? I'm continuing the project on my blog, and so I'd like to at least be as legitimate as I can be about it.

Sith_Happens

2014-01-26, 01:37 AM

Is it really only a matter of me declaring that I release my content under X license to avoid all legal ramifications? I'm continuing the project on my blog, and so I'd like to at least be as legitimate as I can be about it.

I think so, but we should probably stop discussing it here before this thread gets locked too (my bad for starting the whole thing).

tarkisflux

2014-01-26, 02:06 AM

It occurs to me that the scrubbing is also in line with the relatively recent image use policy changes. So yeah, scrubbing really isn't surprising.

Is it really only a matter of me declaring that I release my content under X license to avoid all legal ramifications? I'm continuing the project on my blog, and so I'd like to at least be as legitimate as I can be about it.
Mostly. You're also supposed to include the license text; a link to the text is generally sufficient for web work (you can link to dandwiki's license page here (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentation_License_1.3)). You need to include a list of primary authors, but that's probably covered by your attribution link back to the original article with its intact history so you should be ok there. I'm pretty sure there's nothing else that applies in this case, but you can read the license text in the above link if you want to be double extra sure.

Your use in this capacity is explicitly allowed under the license though, so as long as you dot your t's and cross your i's you should be good.

TuggyNE

2014-01-26, 02:15 AM

Is it really only a matter of me declaring that I release my content under X license to avoid all legal ramifications? I'm continuing the project on my blog, and so I'd like to at least be as legitimate as I can be about it.

Well, I strongly suggest reading the license (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.html) in question, possibly several times over (the Free Software Foundation licenses are all longwinded, even for EULAs, but at least if you read them thoroughly, you'll be able to retain that knowledge for future works with the same licenses), and then go from there.

EternalZiggurat

2014-01-26, 02:37 AM

if you can put in the time, the dandwiki has some great gems buried in the sahara desert.