Balancing bad mechanics [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

jedipotter

2014-06-11, 10:44 PM

Saying "hey, can I take 30 seconds of RL time/3 hours of in-game time to go gather components" is being a problem player? Seriously?

I swear, the number of times I've seen arguments like this... you know what, I'm proposing a new fallacy, right here and now. Call it Grod's Fallacy: You cannot and should not balance bad mechanics by making them annoying to use. When you do:

The disruptive munchkin ignores it, argues it, or forces the rest of the group to suffer through it. His power remains the same, and he gets more annoying to play with.
The inappropriate powergamer figures out how to circumvent the restriction. His power remains the same.
The reasonable player either figures out how to circumvent the restriction (rendering it mood), avoids the class (turning it into a ban) or suffers through it. His power remains the same and/or his enjoyment goes down.
The new player avoids the class or suffers through it. His enjoyment goes down.

Notice how the problem players feel the least impact?

And yeah, you can yell and fiat at your players all you want to stop them from "cheating" the system, but that only works if you have a reasonable group to start with-- ie, one that's not going to disrupt the game through munchkinry.

So, the idea is: Balancing spells and spellcasters by enforcing material components. With the basic rules of:

The spellcasters must keep track of each individual material component and it's use. So if it says ''a pinch'' of dust, they would keep track of ''25 pinches'' of dust.
The game has Old School flavor, so a character can stock up on material components, but they can't go crazy and have like 1,000 hawk feathers. And their are no extra-deminsional bags of cheating.
The player can restock, but only if it is not disruptive to the game.
Material components from creatures other then vermin or animals, have a gold cost of more then one.

So then you get.....Grod's Fallacy: You cannot and should not balance bad mechanics by making them annoying to use.

Well, sure the player can argue, but they can't ignore it. They are told the house rule before the game, and if they come to play, then they agree to the rule. And even if they were annoying and pretended to go along and then ignored it in the game: the DM can just rule on anything they do.
There is the easy way: The Feat, but it has the ''feat tax'' and does not cover everything
I do try to only game with the reasonable players.
New players don't even know what is going on...

So balance of bad mechanics.......what say you all?

Slipperychicken

2014-06-11, 11:01 PM

WhamBamSam

2014-06-11, 11:23 PM

How is taking a few hours trip off to Ye Olde Magick Shoppe for anything you might possibly need every month or so abusive? It really seems like the sort of thing that would be standard procedure for every Wizard ever. All this rule does is introduce more bookkeeping. Bookkeeping is annoying, but doesn't actually inhibit you from doing broken things in any significant way.

I think Grod was pretty on point. Making casters do a bunch of extra busywork is just an antagonistic attack on the player's fun, not the character's power. Hell, it might actually encourage the wizard to be more devious and destructive toward your campaign in turn by forcing the player to do more detailed planning and preparation, or just by making them decide that the natural response to you deliberately annoying them, is to deliberately annoy you.

Also, calling it 'Grod's fallacy' reeks of ad hominem.

Grod_The_Giant

2014-06-11, 11:39 PM

Let me begin by saying that the idea wasn't meant to be a personal attack on anyone, and I apologize if I offended.

Well, sure the player can argue, but they can't ignore it. They are told the house rule before the game, and if they come to play, then they agree to the rule. And even if they were annoying and pretended to go along and then ignored it in the game: the DM can just rule on anything they do.
The DM has ultimate authority, sure, but because it's authority derived from social contract, rather than, oh, a big stick, it decays a little bit every time you use it. Every time you have to tell someone "shut up or get out," you're losing moral authority and creating an antagonistic atmosphere. But the real issue isn't winning arguments, it's the fact that you're having them to begin with. It's a waste of time, energy, and fun.

New players don't even know what is going on...
Which is a huge problem. A new player won't expect to have to comb the spell list looking for spells with easily-accessible material components. A new player won't expect that playing a sorcerer means keeping track of an extra spreadsheet of components. He just wants to shoot lightning bolts. And our houserules should make that easier, not harder.

In this specific set of houserules... I'd love the old-school feeling of, say, Metamagic Components (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/metamagicComponents.htm). For something like that, it's a work-for-reward. For a spell component pouch, it's a work-to-play. And... no offense, but your proposals seem to be full of fiat and inconsistency.

The game has Old School flavor, so a character can stock up on material components, but they can't go crazy and have like 1,000 hawk feathers. And their are no extra-deminsional bags of cheating.
Why? Do you know how many feathers one hawk has? Do you know how many I can cram in one bag? An awful lot. And I've got absolutely no in-game reason not to. Zero. Zippo. Metagame knowledge is absolutely aligned with in-game knowledge ("I need this component to cast my favorite spell, better make sure I've got a lot of it on hand. I've got a good source right here-- Regdar, grab a sack off the horse, would you?")

The player can restock, but only if it is not disruptive to the game.
Seems like it only becomes "disruptive" when the DM makes it disruptive. By, say, telling the wizard that he can't pay some kids to collect feathers for him while the party does its shopping.

Also, calling it 'Grod's fallacy' reeks of ad hominem.
I called it that first. Arrogant, perhaps, but not meant to be an attack on anyone. (Unless my name's got some connotation I don't know, in which case... oops)

jedipotter

2014-06-12, 12:23 AM

If you want to fix 3.5 magic (a system broken at its core), you'd have to fix the spells. It's an infeasible task, but there's no way around it. People make quick fixes which are full of holes or don't address the issues, and large fixes which are a pain to implement (and usually full of subtler holes themselves).

The issue is not really My magic fix, it's more ''can you balance bad mechanics with rules?'' I have fixed magic and all the spells.

The DM has ultimate authority, sure, but because it's authority derived from social contract, rather than, oh, a big stick, it decays a little bit every time you use it. Every time you have to tell someone "shut up or get out," you're losing moral authority and creating an antagonistic atmosphere. But the real issue isn't winning arguments, it's the fact that you're having them to begin with. It's a waste of time, energy, and fun.

I don't get this at all. The DM should just roll over and let the players walk all over them? That makes no sense to me.....

I'm a big stick kind of guy...big sticks are good. I see it like this: The DM is the host and is the one running the game. As a player you agree to go by the DM's rules. Period. If you don't like what the DM does, you don't have to play the game. No one is forced to play. But if your sitting at the table, you agree to the DM's rules.

Which is a huge problem. A new player won't expect to have to comb the spell list looking for spells with easily-accessible material components. A new player won't expect that playing a sorcerer means keeping track of an extra spreadsheet of components. He just wants to shoot lightning bolts. And our houserules should make that easier, not harder.

Most new players know little about the game. Telling them to keep track of things is not such a burden. And if the new player is really the type that ''just wants to shoot lightning bolts'' they would be better off playing 4E, a game that I will never run, so they can ''pew pew'' for five hours or so and have fun.

Why? Do you know how many feathers one hawk has? Do you know how many I can cram in one bag? An awful lot. And I've got absolutely no in-game reason not to. Zero. Zippo. Metagame knowledge is absolutely aligned with in-game knowledge ("I need this component to cast my favorite spell, better make sure I've got a lot of it on hand. I've got a good source right here-- Regdar, grab a sack off the horse, would you?")

And there is no reason you can't have a lot of common, light weight things. But with a limit. You can't just ''pluck five hawks for 500 feathers'' and then ''ignore'' the rule. That is just cheating. I'd say things like hawk feathers must be in good condition to be used, so a mangled one from your bag of 1,000 is no good.

Seems like it only becomes "disruptive" when the DM makes it disruptive. By, say, telling the wizard that he can't pay some kids to collect feathers for him while the party does its shopping.

I see one of the DM's jobs as keeping the game on track. Shopping in down time is fine, or having kids(?) buy stuff works for me. By disruptive I'm talking about where four players are ready to attack a dragon, but player five ''wanders off on his own mini-adventure''. But then I hate solo stuff in group games anyway.

I called it that first. Arrogant, perhaps, but not meant to be an attack on anyone. (Unless my name's got some connotation I don't know, in which case... oops)

eggynack

2014-06-12, 12:33 AM

I don't get this at all. The DM should just roll over and let the players walk all over them? That makes no sense to me.....
No, the point is that the DM should choose their battles. If your ideas aren't good, then you shouldn't use them, even if you technically have the right to.

Most new players know little about the game. Telling them to keep track of things is not such a burden. And if the new player is really the type that ''just wants to shoot lightning bolts'' they would be better off playing 4E, a game that I will never run, so they can ''pew pew'' for five hours or so and have fun.
Being asked to keep track of things can be a pretty big burden, especially on a caster, for whom keeping track of stuff is already a full time job. You're taking one of the most complicated things in the game, magic, and making it significantly more complicated, apparently requiring players to learn the relevant material components available in each section of the map, and separately keep track of how that matches up to the total list of material components, which is about as long as the list of spells. Complexity is a resource, to be used in the places you need it the most, and you're squandering it in an ill conceived attempt at balance.

And there is no reason you can't have a lot of common, light weight things. But with a limit. You can't just ''pluck five hawks for 500 feathers'' and then ''ignore'' the rule. That is just cheating. I'd say things like hawk feathers must be in good condition to be used, so a mangled one from your bag of 1,000 is no good.

So, now in addition to tracking all of that stuff mentioned above, players are also expected to keep track of the quality of all of their material components constantly, lest they lose access to a spell mid-combat? That's just silly. Taking as much of a resource as you can get your hands on isn't cheating. It's pragmatism.

I see one of the DM's jobs as keeping the game on track. Shopping in down time is fine, or having kids(?) buy stuff works for me. By disruptive I'm talking about where four players are ready to attack a dragon, but player five ''wanders off on his own mini-adventure''. But then I hate solo stuff in group games anyway.
But you're failing at your job, by actively incentivizing the exact behavior you hate. Travelling forth without a full compliment of material components to take on a dragon just seems reckless, and likely out of character for a lot of characters, and yet you seem to expect them to just arbitrarily take the hit because of an inconvenience to the party that you introduced in the first place. It just seems silly.

Jeff the Green

2014-06-12, 12:38 AM

And there is no reason you can't have a lot of common, light weight things. But with a limit. You can't just ''pluck five hawks for 500 feathers'' and then ''ignore'' the rule. That is just cheating. I'd say things like hawk feathers must be in good condition to be used, so a mangled one from your bag of 1,000 is no good.

This is moving the goalposts. There is nothing—nothing—to suggest that material components must be in good shape. In fact, there are cases (e.g. pies) where it'd be nearly impossible for them to be so. You are changing the rules every time someone suggests a way to make them not a pain in the ass (note that I do not say "every time someone finds a way to circumvent them").

Also, you've clearly never worked with birds before. The flight feathers might be damaged by being stuffed in a bag, but the shorter down and body contour feathers will be absolutely fine.

I see one of the DM's jobs as keeping the game on track. Shopping in down time is fine, or having kids(?) buy stuff works for me. By disruptive I'm talking about where four players are ready to attack a dragon, but player five ''wanders off on his own mini-adventure''. But then I hate solo stuff in group games anyway.

Honestly, if I'm playing a barbarian and the wizard/cleric/druid informs me that he is running low on components hell yes we're going on the mini-adventure. (Also, I can't think of any non-costly spell components that would require a mini-adventure to find.)

In the end, the problem with spells is not how many you can cast or how many you have available or even how much of your resources you have to put into them. The problem is that the effects are so much more potent than anything a mundane character can bring to the table. Your proposed solution does literally nothing to fix casting.

Alex12

2014-06-12, 12:38 AM

Honestly, I've always felt that powergaming/munchkinry is something best handled OOC. For example, in our last campaign (which admittedly collapsed, but for unrelated reasons), I was playing a Dread Necromancer. Now, I'm the one with the best system mastery in our group. That's not bragging, that's fact. The DM asked all of us to keep minions to a minimum: Leadership and similar abilities are banned, he asked us to avoid combat use of animal companions, etc. Now, Dread Necromancers and minionmancy go together like chocolate and peanut butter, and we both knew that, short of just banning every possible way I could get minions, he couldn't really stop me from assembling an undead army using only ingame resources. So he talked to me outside the game, and we came to a reasonable compromise. D&D is supposed to be fun. It's a collaborative effort between the DM and all the players.

For the spell component pouch thing, what's preventing spellcasters from just picking up Eschew Materials?
One idea I once saw, I think in some third-party splatbook, was to give spell component pouches a limited number of uses (IIRC, it was 50). Each time you cast a spell with a material component, that counts as one use. Once your pouch runs out, it's just a small bag. But nothing's preventing you from picking up multiple pouches.

WhamBamSam

2014-06-12, 12:42 AM

I called it that first. Arrogant, perhaps, but not meant to be an attack on anyone. (Unless my name's got some connotation I don't know, in which case... oops)Derp. That's my bad. I thought that was jedipotter saying it was a fallacy on your part to suggest that balancing bad mechanics through annoyance was a bad thing. Naming a fallacy you disagree with after yourself is standard practice, which I'm totally cool with.

Jeff the Green

2014-06-12, 12:46 AM

Honestly, I've always felt that powergaming/munchkinry is something best handled OOC. For example, in our last campaign (which admittedly collapsed, but for unrelated reasons), I was playing a Dread Necromancer. Now, I'm the one with the best system mastery in our group. That's not bragging, that's fact. The DM asked all of us to keep minions to a minimum: Leadership and similar abilities are banned, he asked us to avoid combat use of animal companions, etc. Now, Dread Necromancers and minionmancy go together like chocolate and peanut butter, and we both knew that, short of just banning every possible way I could get minions, he couldn't really stop me from assembling an undead army using only ingame resources. So he talked to me outside the game, and we came to a reasonable compromise. D&D is supposed to be fun. It's a collaborative effort between the DM and all the players.

Agreed. I've played casters in parties of all mundanes, and because I used party-friendly spells and deliberately avoided those that stepped on the other characters' toes (e.g. summoning) or won encounters without input from the mundanes (e.g. save or die) it hasn't been a problem. Honestly where the imbalance comes into play is a team composed largely of newbies where the druid stumbles over fleshrakers and wildshaping into cats and Greenbound Summoning or the wizard stumbles over shivering touch or power word pain, but no fix will address this because newbies tend not to implement fixes.

For the spell component pouch thing, what's preventing spellcasters from just picking up Eschew Materials?

Nothing. In fact, I pick it up on occasion and I particularly appreciate classes that give it for free. However, this house rule effectively makes Eschew Materials mandatory just for casters to get back to baseline competence.

VoxRationis

2014-06-12, 12:54 AM

It's not that much bookkeeping. It's already considered a duty of a wizard's player to know the details of the spells they cast, so they don't have to stop in the middle of combat to read a half-page's worth of rules on how dispel magic works. While they're reading the spell descriptions, it isn't too much to ask that they make note of which components their spells require and whether they could realistically be said to have those components.
As for hawk feathers, yes, you can get a lot of them (though I would be skeptical of any "hawk" feathers brought to me by local street urchins for a few copper pieces). I think part of the point is more to deal with things like "ounces of flesh from an undead creature" or "the eye of a roc." How many of those do you really expect to have on your person? Carrying a lot of post-zombie flesh is going to make you really unpopular unless you invest heavily in gentle repose spells, and rocs aren't exactly dime-a-dozen foes.
Lastly, mundane characters are naturally subject to numerous logistical challenges regarding equipment weight, ammunition, etc., and it isn't terribly unfair to subject others to the same standard.

eggynack

2014-06-12, 01:06 AM

It's not that much bookkeeping. It's already considered a duty of a wizard's player to know the details of the spells they cast, so they don't have to stop in the middle of combat to read a half-page's worth of rules on how dispel magic works. While they're reading the spell descriptions, it isn't too much to ask that they make note of which components their spells require and whether they could realistically be said to have those components.
There's a pretty big difference between keeping track of how a spell works, and keeping track of their spell components. For instance, without even looking, I can tell you that a fog cloud is going to make a cloud of fog, and from the spell level, as opposed to obscuring mist, I can tell you that it's not personal targeted. It's really easy to remember based on the name. That's true for most spells out there, that I can give a pretty solid approximation of the effects, often down to the exact effects, without even looking.

By contrast, I would guess offhand that the component is something like dry ice, but looking at it, it turns out that the spell lacks components of any kind. I would never have guessed that. I can tell you a few components without looking, fireball is famous, stone shape is obvious, and detect thoughts has a joke as a component (seems to be a Twilight Zone reference, in particular), but for most of these, I've got nothing. I could keep track, maybe even memorize some of them, but it's a lot of brain space. Casters have more complexity contained in a single spell than some classes have in the entirety of their existence, and compounding the problem doesn't make much sense to me.

Larkas

2014-06-12, 01:09 AM

Lastly, mundane characters are naturally subject to numerous logistical challenges regarding equipment weight, ammunition, etc., and it isn't terribly unfair to subject others to the same standard.

The problem is that you're not keeping track of one thing (say, arrows), but several. If there was a standardized material component used by every single spell (for example, small crystal shards called "mana shards"), that might be workable (even if less inspiring). Even a few different resources could be doable ("elemental mana shards"), but not the myriad materials we have in 3.X.

That's all in my opinion, of course.

EDIT: Hmmm, six flavors of mana shards along with the metamagic components presented by Grod might just do the trick.

Jeff the Green

2014-06-12, 01:26 AM

mundane characters are naturally subject to numerous logistical challenges regarding equipment weight, ammunition, etc., and it isn't terribly unfair to subject others to the same standard.

Not a lot are, actually; at least, no more so than most casters. Strength-based mundanes can benchpress elephants. Dexterity-based mundanes typically have light equipment to begin with (and sundries they can carry in extradimensional storage). Moreover, they don't have to keep a list of upwards of a hundred consumables, including how much they have on their person and how much they have in the bag of holding/saddlebags/hoard gullet.

And I've had a lot of DMs who didn't have us track mundane ammunition.

I think part of the point is more to deal with things like "ounces of flesh from an undead creature" or "the eye of a roc." How many of those do you really expect to have on your person? Carrying a lot of post-zombie flesh is going to make you really unpopular unless you invest heavily in gentle repose spells, and rocs aren't exactly dime-a-dozen foes.

The roc eye isn't a great example because you can also use the eye of a hawk or eagle for scrying. For other things that don't have a price listed, though, you have to remember that designers were not using them as a balance point because they knew that unless they listed a price* every caster had access to it without specifically buying it (except in cases where their component pouch was sundered or taken, but that would certainly happen in the proposed changes too). This means that they put in thematic components that are either absurdly rare, if still valueless, or even might not even exist in a campaign world (e.g. a bit of a suit of armor worn by a 15th-level fighter) for fairly pedestrian spells.

*Incidentally, some of the ones that seem unlisted actually are. Off the top of my head, there are several spells in the BoVD that require body parts, the prices of which are described in a previous section. So you can't use Eschew Materials and absorb mind to learn someone's thoughts without first extracting their brain. (Well, aside from the fact that it's improperly listed as a focus.)

GoodbyeSoberDay

2014-06-12, 01:32 AM

House-ruling material components as a way to balance casters reeks of passive aggression. I'll echo the sentiment of treating this whole thing like a feat tax - take Eschew Materials and avoid this headache entirely.

Perhaps a good way to balance bad mechanics is to tell your players not to unbalance the party, like Alex12 suggested. Besides, if you just focus on nerfing particular classes (in a lame way or otherwise) you're missing the fact that the player is often more important than the class.

Gabe the Bard

2014-06-12, 01:53 AM

Balance is an illusion. There's no way to be perfectly balanced unless all the players play the same class with the exact same build, and that would be utterly boring. It's the DM's job to give each player the feeling that they are powerful in their own way in different circumstances, and that means custom tailoring the adventures to each player's character. Even if a spell has a powerful effect on paper, it can seem pretty underwhelming if the monsters simply make their saving throws or even if the DM just skims over the description. "You cast a fireball at a bunch of mooks. Next, Brad the fighter valiantly charges forth and cleaves the scowling head off a savage foe with a mighty swing of his battle axe." I think focusing on the mechanics won't necessarily solve a balance issue if the adventures and challenges themselves are heavily skewed in favor of one player's character over another.

Jeff the Green

2014-06-12, 02:03 AM

Besides, if you just focus on nerfing particular classes (in a lame way or otherwise) you're missing the fact that the player is often more important than the class.

This reminds me: You're not just hitting Tier-1 and -2 classes with this. You're also hitting the sweet spot of Tier 3 (Bard, Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Duskblade, Mystic/Wildshape Ranger and Shugenja), the mediocre Tier 4 (Warmage, Ranger, Adept, Spellthief, and Hexblade), and the absolutely-does-not-need-to-be-nerfed Tier 5 (Paladin and Healer). Plus you're leaving untouched one Tier-1 class (Erudite) and three Tier-2 classes (Ardent, Psion, and Binder), and barely touching another Tier-1 class (Artificer). Compare this to the only eight Tier-1 and -2 classes you're hitting to show just how scattershot such a proposed fix would be.

Grod_The_Giant

2014-06-12, 10:43 AM

Other people have responded to major points, but this?

And there is no reason you can't have a lot of common, light weight things. But with a limit. You can't just ''pluck five hawks for 500 feathers'' and then ''ignore'' the rule. That is just cheating.
How is that cheating? How is acting entirely in accordance to your houserule cheating? You set the terms, your hypothetical player acted within them. How is a superhumanly intelligent wizard stocking up on a standard resource "cheating?"

I'd say things like hawk feathers must be in good condition to be used, so a mangled one from your bag of 1,000 is no good.
Oh. Because you're moving the goalposts.

"Cheating" means breaking the rules. Say, by lying about what spell components you've collected. Playing intelligently isn't cheating. (And moreover, isn't that "clever play, not clever mechanics" thinking exactly the sort of thing old-school rules are supposed to encourage?)

I see one of the DM's jobs as keeping the game on track. Shopping in down time is fine, or having kids(?) buy stuff works for me. By disruptive I'm talking about where four players are ready to attack a dragon, but player five ''wanders off on his own mini-adventure''. But then I hate solo stuff in group games anyway.
Y'know, as DM, it is entirely up to you if "I go collect bat guano from a nearby cave" is a mini-adventure or something to be glossed over. The player has no way of knowing whether his actions can happen off-screen or not until you give feedback.

aleucard

2014-06-12, 11:10 AM

I believe that I speak for players the world over that, if my DM were to spring this crap on me, I'd want to make them eat their own DMG. Wizards and the like have FAR more than enough busywork to function as-is, all this does is fractalize it with absolutely no change in power whatsoever (or make Eschew Materials near-mandatory for relevant classes). People should NOT be punished for trying to play a game. If you want to throttle down classes like Wizard, this is one of the worst ways to do so that I have ever heard of. May your players have mercy upon you. Rule Zero doesn't work so well when your players are to the point where they either vacate en mass or break your face in then leave. Bulls#@$ like this pushes any group to that point.

NichG

2014-06-12, 12:07 PM

This kind of approach says that more than not understanding how games or mechanics work, you don't understand how players work. That's a big problem.

Any person at the table can make life miserable for everyone else at the table. The only way the game works is when everyone works together to keep it fun. If one person does something that makes it look like they're not going to work together, the natural response of everyone else is to also stop cooperating, dig in, and make life miserable for the defector as well - essentially, marginalizing behavior that is bad for the game as a whole. If the person making others miserable is a player, this response can work - that player gets fed up and leaves the game, and the game returns to a state of functionality. Its not ideal, but roughly thats the sort of underlying dynamic that causes this behavior to be instinctual.

When the person making players miserable is the DM, though, its a problem. The players can dig in and make life miserable for the DM, but the DM isn't going away (at least, not without ending the game for everyone). So you end up getting escalation.

- The DM thinks one guy's caster is broken, so uses a punitive device to make playing a caster unpleasant, inconvenient, or tedious.
- The player feels they're being targeted (and in fact they are), so they spend an exaggerated amount of time in game playing the DM's demand to the hilt, detracting from everyone's enjoyment since the game becomes 'watch Bob go shopping'. Or they switch to another build that is even more broken but doesn't run afoul of the DM's rule.
- In either case, other players feel like now the DM and this one player are making their lives miserable. So their instinct will be to degrade the game as well - maybe they gripe and moan all the time, or get involved in side-discussions, or whatever. They may also feel that they cannot trust the other player or the DM to make the game fun for everyone, which means a sharp increase in the amount of rules-lawyering, objections, cross-checking of characters, interplayer complaints, trying to hold the DM to 'balancing rules' like CR/WBL, etc.
- Eventually no one is having fun and no one trusts each other, which means that the basic structure of the game has broken down. The DM can't do anything out of the ordinary without players jumping down his throat about it, because the players fundamentally distrust the DM to have their best interests in mind (since the DM has shown that he will 'defect' and attack a player in the power struggle that has previously occurred in the group).
- More mature players in this circumstance will likely hold back, but they will recognize that the game is in a downward spiral and may choose to leave to avoid the inevitable explosion. Similarly, if the initial targeted player is more mature, he will simply leave the game at the onset of this cycle.

This particular pattern may stop at various points due to people leaving, people discussing it OOC and trying to resolve it, etc, but in general this is what happens when you try to use player misery as a tool to balance the game. If you feel free to use player misery as a DMing tool, then the corollary is that your players will have no compunctions about making you miserable in order to get what they want out of the experience.

Furthermore, the players who have been in a group like this will carry that mistrust with them when they go to new groups. The result is that in general, DMing becomes a little harder for everyone and 'problem players' are created.

Larkas

2014-06-12, 12:20 PM

I'm a big stick kind of guy...big sticks are good. I see it like this: The DM is the host and is the one running the game. As a player you agree to go by the DM's rules. Period. If you don't like what the DM does, you don't have to play the game. No one is forced to play. But if your sitting at the table, you agree to the DM's rules.

Wow. Your rules and your game are more important than people to you? Yeah... Good luck with that.

Zirconia

2014-06-12, 12:41 PM

Requiring actual mini-adventures for spell components reminds me of when a newbie GM I knew first started running a Vampire the Masquerade game, when it first came out. Her idea was to make the every day or two vampiric feedings we did into their own little scenarios, to "add flavor". The problem is, if we were trying to get through a week of game time in a session, with four players, each of whom fed three times during that week, she had to come up with and resolve twelve mini-adventures in a session in ADDITION to the actual plot she wanted to run.

It ended up taking away from the stories she wanted to tell, and forcing a lot of "the group sits around while one person plays solo", neither of which was fun, and she dropped it fairly quickly. I could see that kind of thing becoming a problem with strict material component tracking, either;

1. It is all offstage, and just sucks up a lot of time of the player of the magic PC, along with a little DM time, or
2. The player and DM need to have a lot of "side time" to run solo mini-adventures focused around this, which sucks up an equal amount of time for each with a little extra for the DM to come up with the mini-adventures, or
3. Everything happens during regular sessions, and the mundane players have to sit around twiddling their thumbs while the mini-adventures take place.

None of those seem like very fun solutions to the imbalance issue. My groups have had better experience with just player/DM discussions about how to keep the group balanced. I've actually been deputized by a DM to design "signature" magic items for everyone in the group in a campaign, because I was better than he was at balancing the group by giving the low-op player an overpowered item and myself a rather weak one. :)

Person_Man

2014-06-12, 01:01 PM

Though I agree with the sentiment, I wouldn't call it a fallacy. Its just a characteristic of elegant game design. Every rule in the game should make the game more fun. If balance or realism makes the game more fun, then it should be done in a way that is intuitive and cannot be circumvented, rather then just requiring more book keeping or workarounds.

But when people talk about "balance" what they're really talking about is fairness. Player 1 shouldn't get more stuff then Player 2 when they're both on the same team together, and the DM should use the rules to create a fun game rather then using the rules to artificially constrain the players' choices.

And when people talk about realism, what they're really talking about is verisimilitude, the internal believability of the narrative and rules (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicAIsMagicA).

3.0/3.5.PF is filled with fiddly little rules that exist for the purpose of creating balance or realism, but really just create a hassle. Consider something as simple as weapons. Do we really need slightly different statistics for 10+ different polearms?

jedipotter

2014-06-12, 01:20 PM

How is that cheating? How is acting entirely in accordance to your houserule cheating? You set the terms, your hypothetical player acted within them. How is a superhumanly intelligent wizard stocking up on a standard resource "cheating?"

Again, you can stock up, but going to far is cheating. Some things are fine, you can stock up on dirt all you want. Other things have reasonable limits.

Oh. Because you're moving the goalposts.
Not really, it's in the houserules.

"Cheating" means breaking the rules. Say, by lying about what spell components you've collected. Playing intelligently isn't cheating. (And moreover, isn't that "clever play, not clever mechanics" thinking exactly the sort of thing old-school rules are supposed to encourage?)

Playing to circumvent a rule is cheating.

Y'know, as DM, it is entirely up to you if "I go collect bat guano from a nearby cave" is a mini-adventure or something to be glossed over. The player has no way of knowing whether his actions can happen off-screen or not until you give feedback.

They know. House Rule #7: You have chosen to play a group game of D&D, and that means you must stay with the group at all times. There will be no solo adventures mid game.

This kind of approach says that more than not understanding how games or mechanics work, you don't understand how players work. That's a big problem.

It is not a problem at all. The kind of player your talking about would almost never join my game, and if they did might not last more then an hour or two. But some players just get misled or brainwashed by the bad/problem players....and they can be helped. A couple of strict rules and they become good players.

At the end of the day: everyone wants to have fun. My rules allow for a unique type of fun, that is not ''standard 3X how much can I stack, optimize or cheat''. Some players like it, some hate it, and some are in the middle. But my games are fun....why else would people come back?

NichG

2014-06-12, 01:35 PM

It is not a problem at all. The kind of player your talking about would almost never join my game, and if they did might not last more then an hour or two. But some players just get misled or brainwashed by the bad/problem players....and they can be helped. A couple of strict rules and they become good players.

And yet, your posts suggest that you've had a lot of problems with bad players or players who are clearly wanting to play a different style of game than you're willing to run. Given the amount of work and mental effort you put into avoiding player entitlement, brokenness, etc, I find hard to believe that you don't actually end up having to deal with this stuff fairly regularly.

Being punitive or engaging in power struggles with your players is what creates these 'bad players' in the first place. Either the ones who leave your game after a few hours and go elsewhere, or ones coming from other DMs who do the same kind of stuff. If DMs run their games like a bootcamp, its no surprise that we end up with a population of players who have been so burnt by bad gaming experiences that they act out in all sorts of ways.

At the end of the day: everyone wants to have fun. My rules allow for a unique type of fun, that is not ''standard 3X how much can I stack, optimize or cheat''. Some players like it, some hate it, and some are in the middle. But my games are fun....why else would people come back?

If your players are on the same page as you, then you shouldn't actually need the punitive balance measures you're talking about. If your players like tracking material components and such, then the purpose of having that in the game isn't to make magic unpleasant to use, its to give the players what they've actually requested or what they enjoy. I can believe that some players would enjoy that level of detail just fine; what seems incoherent is that you're suggesting that their lack of enjoyment of it is a balance factor.

So the question is, which is it? Do they enjoy it, in which case the spell components are just adding more RP of a sort that they like and won't actually prevent people from doing the same stuff with magic that has you concerned? Or do they dislike it, in which case you're actively making your game less fun for your players?

eggynack

2014-06-12, 01:36 PM

Again, you can stock up, but going to far is cheating. Some things are fine, you can stock up on dirt all you want. Other things have reasonable limits.
Going too far isn't cheating unless there's a fundamental rule against it. It's the same way that using a weapon with the best damage dice isn't cheating, while secretly rolling higher dice than you're supposed to is.

Playing to circumvent a rule is cheating.
No, it's optimization/intelligent play/pragmatism. Breaking a rule is cheating. For example, casting freedom of movement is circumventing the grapple rules. Does that make it cheating?

They know. House Rule #7: You have chosen to play a group game of D&D, and that means you must stay with the group at all times. There will be no solo adventures mid game.
The point is that you don't have to impose a solo adventure. It can still be a perfectly well run group game, except one of the players can say, "I collect material components in this region, with particular attention paid to this thing," you can say, "You find this many thingamajigs," and they can say, "Cool." What you're forcing here is pretty ridiculous, for the reasons noted above by many folks, including myself.

thethird

2014-06-12, 01:42 PM

Sir Chuckles

2014-06-12, 01:46 PM

Personally I don't care much about the spell component thing. Were it me I would just walk away of that table laughing pretty hard because that is a Bad IdeaTM.

I would probably not post in this thread, but something picked my interest.

I await earnestly to see your magic fix Jedipotter.

I was pretty keen on not posting myself, but you do raise a good point. If he has actually fixed all magic and all the spells, we'd just need to coax it out of him and we'd have instantly cleared one of the biggest hurdles in remaking the system.

Aside from that, I will add in that many things being said by OP are sounding dangerously close to a cheesy movie villain lines. Also...

It is not a problem at all. The kind of player your talking about would almost never join my game, and if they did might not last more then an hour or two. But some players just get misled or brainwashed by the bad/problem players....and they can be helped. A couple of strict rules and they become good players.
Perhaps the reason they don't last long is because of the last line in NichG's list. As in, they don't last an hour because they an see the inevitable crash.

Svata

2014-06-12, 01:55 PM

Everyone has made good points, but I'd like to point out a couple things no one has mentioned yet.

The game has Old School flavor, so a character can stock up on material components, but they can't go crazy and have like 1,000 hawk feathers. And their are no extra-deminsional bags of cheating.(Bolded for emphasis)

What. Just WHAT? Extradimensional storage, which everyone and their mother has, is cheating?! Of all the things on this list, I find this the most egregiously bad. I have not ever had a character over fifth level without at least a Handy Haversack. Having one of the defining items of D&D, a Bag of Holding, is cheating. What.

[LIST] Material components from creatures other then vermin or animals, have a gold cost of more then one.

Why? Some magical beasts are just as common, as are many monstrous humanoids and humanoids. So why do they cost more?

Dorian Gray

2014-06-12, 01:56 PM

Playing to circumvent a rule is cheating.

But now the rule is "You have to put in a lot of effort and be smart, OOC, to use magic. But, you know, not too smart, because if you think of literally anything that the DM hasn't thought of that could potentially make this albatross slightly less heavy, you are cheating, and deserve to be sent out of the session."

Just think of the repercussions of this rule:

1) A player tries to be smart and use bags of holding/magic to stockpile components. By what you have said, this is cheating. You punish him somehow, and he finds the game less enjoyable.
2) A player tries to go along with the rules and takes time to collect components. You can either:
A) Just let him get what he wants with a skill check, and the rule is pointless, as it just makes the player roll one more time
B) Force the player to play out getting the component. If this happens, you either:
a) Force the game to stall while the player says "I collect another cobweb" ten thousand times. The group doesn't like it.
b) Force the player to leave the game. This is the option you have said you prefer. The player doesn't like it, and if I was playing in that situation, I would never come back.

Would you do this for a different class? If a paladin lost his holy symbol and wanted to whittle another one out of wood, would you say, "Screw you, you selfish cheating bastard! Leave the group for the time it takes you to make a new symbol!" Would you make the rogue roleplay buying more rope? Does your fighter have to leave the room every session to sharpen his sword and polish his armor?

And you can't even make the argument that the pally would have a spare holy symbol, because by your logic, that is circumventing the rules- you aren't supposed to cast spells without a holy symbol, just like you need components to cast spells, and you can't stockpile large numbers of components.

Red Fel

2014-06-12, 01:58 PM

So, the idea is: Balancing spells and spellcasters by enforcing material components. With the basic rules of:

The spellcasters must keep track of each individual material component and it's use. So if it says ''a pinch'' of dust, they would keep track of ''25 pinches'' of dust.
The game has Old School flavor, so a character can stock up on material components, but they can't go crazy and have like 1,000 hawk feathers. And their are no extra-deminsional bags of cheating.
The player can restock, but only if it is not disruptive to the game.
Material components from creatures other then vermin or animals, have a gold cost of more then one.

This list is contradictory. Here, in a nutshell, is why: You have specifically required that spellcasters must stock up on and track their material components, but cannot store excessive amounts of them, and must generally pay substantial amounts of money for them. You have also specifically required that this detailed tracking, which therefore also requires extensive shopping and accounting for the cost of each item, cannot be disruptive to the game.
That leaves you with several possible results. A player does not play a spellcaster. Consider the class effectively banned. A player plays a spellcaster but does not track material components. He is in violation of the tracking requirement. A player plays a spellcaster and tracks his components, but stocks them in excessive amounts via extradimensional storage as a matter of convenience. He is in violation of the excessive storage preclusion. A player plays a spellcaster, tracks his components, and only stocks up on finite amounts of each. Each time he is in town, he spends time going over his list of components to determine how many of each he will need, as well as the cost of each. He has to spend time on this, because this is a time-consuming activity. He is in violation of the non-disruptive requirement. A player plays a spellcaster, tracks his components, stocks up on finite amounts of each, and is proactive enough to provide a list of required components and costs immediately upon arrival in town. He is rewarded for adhering to the rules with a bill, requiring a not-insubstantial dent to be made in his coffers. A player throws up his hands in frustration and plays a non-caster. Consider the class effectively banned.
Please tell me which of these players is being unreasonable. Your position - that you only game with reasonable players, and that reasonable players would adhere to the rules you've set out - assumes that anyone who responds in a manner described above is being unreasonable.

I agree that the ones who violate the first two rules - not tracking components when it's required, using extradimensional storage when it's banned - are being unreasonable. But what about the one who has to take time to buy things? You've told him he has to shop, and simultaneously told him he cannot take the time to do so. And what about the one who adheres to all of the rules? How is it reasonable that he meets this high bar and is taxed for his efforts?

Grod's rule is sensible, although I might suggest working on the title a bit better. (How do you intend to sell copies?) Basically, you will scare away the reasonable players and encourage the unreasonable ones to try to find a work-around. And if, as you say, you don't play with unreasonable players, that leaves you with nobody willing to play a caster. In an attempt to balance the mechanics, you have rendered them sufficiently undesirable and onerous as to deter people from spellcasting altogether.

eggynack

2014-06-12, 02:04 PM

Grod's rule is sensible, although I might suggest working on the title a bit better.
I actually kinda like it as Grod's rule, or perhaps Grod's law, to call in vaguely religious connotations, or at least vaguely Adventure Time religious connotations. It's a thing that makes less sense as a fallacy, as it's kinda its own idea, rather than a refutation of a commonly used argument that is incorrect. I mean, sure, I bet folks balance stuff by making it annoying all the time, but they probably don't usually actively think about it in that way.

Curmudgeon

2014-06-12, 02:09 PM

The purpose of this rule change is to address a problem: spellcasters deal with most every problem with a single standard action. Material components are supposed to restrict spellcasting in some cases, but in practice they do not.

Here's one alternative way to go about this:

Spell component pouches do not exist.
Eschew Materials becomes a +1 level metamagic feat, applied to each spell exactly like Silent Spell and Still Spell.
The result of this would be that spellcasters either have to pay the +1 level metamagic cost, or they need as many move actions to retrieve stored items as there are components listed for the spell. So Endure Elements (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/endureElements.htm) (no material components) would be unchanged; Fireball (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/fireball.htm) (1 component) would require an extra move action to cast; and Flaming Sphere (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/flamingSphere.htm)'s components ("a bit of tallow, a pinch of brimstone, and a dusting of powdered iron") would add 3 move actions before the casting can begin.

We can keep the assumption that spellcasters gather their components "off screen" and have what they need (unless kidnapped and stripped of their gear); the bookkeeping of individual components really doesn't add any fun to the game. But if we've already got components written into individual spells, just counting them and using that as spell overhead will drop spellcasting power down a notch by hitting casters where it matters: in the action economy.

Grod_The_Giant

2014-06-12, 02:17 PM

I actually kinda like it as Grod's rule, or perhaps Grod's law, to call in vaguely religious connotations, or at least vaguely Adventure Time religious connotations. It's a thing that makes less sense as a fallacy, as it's kinda its own idea, rather than a refutation of a commonly used argument that is incorrect. I mean, sure, I bet folks balance stuff by making it annoying all the time, but they probably don't usually actively think about it in that way.
I'll accept Grod's Law.

eggynack

2014-06-12, 02:18 PM

flare'90

2014-06-12, 02:23 PM

Brookshw

2014-06-12, 02:24 PM

Ya know, I really didn't take jedi's comment regarding the extradimensional bag cheating literally, more that he's just referencing the infinite ammo spell pouch in a coy way.

Interesting thoughts by curmudgeon though I'd suggest components be in "spell ammo" packets so its one move per spell.

Can't say an ammo limit is that bad personally, didn't bother me as a player in older editions.

It doesn't really balance things much though.

Curmudgeon

2014-06-12, 02:37 PM

Also, isn't simpler to say that retrieving any number of stored material components is a move action and be done with it, rather than count how many material components are needed?
It is simpler. It's further away from the OP's goal of keeping track of individual components, but I'd prefer the simpler approach myself.

Brookshw

2014-06-12, 02:49 PM

So how about quick draw?

eggynack

2014-06-12, 02:52 PM

Curmudgeon

2014-06-12, 02:53 PM

So how about quick draw?

Benefit: You can draw a weapon as a free action instead of as a move action. If the spell component happens to be a weapon, Quick Draw applies.

squiggit

2014-06-12, 03:05 PM

Lastly, mundane characters are naturally subject to numerous logistical challenges regarding equipment weight, ammunition, etc., and it isn't terribly unfair to subject others to the same standard.

That seems more like a good argument for not making characters track mundane ammunition and other such trivialities than giving spellcasters a spreadsheet/one less feat too.

flare'90

2014-06-12, 03:11 PM

If the spell component happens to be a weapon, Quick Draw applies.

On top of my mind this would work for Ring of Blades, which require a dagger. If a component could be treated as an improvised weapon you could quick draw it.

Brookshw

2014-06-12, 03:13 PM

If the spell component happens to be a weapon, Quick Draw applies.

The quick draw rules were written under the assumption drawing spell components was not a move action. Should that be reconsidered and extended to spell components if we were to go this route?

Boci

2014-06-12, 03:44 PM

Why don't the people who advocate this more realistic take on spell components post their system, or PM it to a couple of us? They keep saying "its not much effort" "its worth it" "its a good edition to the game". Well then show us the product.

jedipotter

2014-06-12, 03:46 PM

So the question is, which is it? Do they enjoy it, in which case the spell components are just adding more RP of a sort that they like and won't actually prevent people from doing the same stuff with magic that has you concerned? Or do they dislike it, in which case you're actively making your game less fun for your players?

Both and neither? I have two set permanent groups going back years. Group 1 loves my ''1E feel'' and Group 2 has grown to like it. No problems there. I get a bit of infamy, as people talk about my games. They will tell the story of how they fought a single black dragon for five hours, were down to like two hit points each, and just barely managed to kill it. Then they will talk to others where the characters took on whole mountains full of dragons in like twenty minutes. All the players in my game had a fun time, even ''Dragonbait'' Andy who had his character killed six times by the dragon. The players of the million dragon slaughter had some fun, but it does not seem to be as much as my game....and they will ask ''why was one dragon so hard? My warblade necroplitain ninja-wizard of Ill Omen killed like 12 dragons a round?'' I'll explain my game is different. They will keep slaughtering all the monsters from A to Z, and keep hearing crazy fun stories from my game. Then they might ask for me to run a game for them, that is where ''new'' players come from....

What. Just WHAT? Extradimensional storage, which everyone and their mother has, is cheating?! Of all the things on this list, I find this the most egregiously bad. I have not ever had a character over fifth level without at least a Handy Haversack. Having one of the defining items of D&D, a Bag of Holding, is cheating. What.

Yep, no storage. They do not exist.

Why? Some magical beasts are just as common, as are many monstrous humanoids and humanoids. So why do they cost more?

So you can't overcome them with a single feat , obviously. The rules here are a bit bad. A humanoid brain, gorgon's blood, and an oni eyelash are all ''free'' components as the writers could not bother to put a cost by them. I fix that. I get a laugh thinking someone plays the game with a spell component pouch full of humanoid brains...lol

Boci

2014-06-12, 03:51 PM

So can we see the full write up?

TheIronGolem

2014-06-12, 03:55 PM

Yep, no storage. They do not exist.

He didn't ask you to confirm whether or not they exist in your game, which he obviously already understood they don't.

He asked you if you really consider them to be cheating. And do remember that this is a context where you implied that it's "cheating" in any game, not just yours where you ruled them out.

Synar

2014-06-12, 03:55 PM

I'll accept Grod's Law.

Well, when I reference it, I will call it Grod's rule anyway:smalltongue:

eggynack

2014-06-12, 04:00 PM

He asked you if you really consider them to be cheating. And do remember that this is a context where you implied that it's "cheating" in any game, not just yours where you ruled them out.
It pretty much implies any context just through the use of the term "Cheating". In particular, it's not so much cheating to use an item that doesn't exist as it is a non-object. The idea of this being cheating doesn't even make sense. I'm pretty sure that jedipotter just doesn't know what cheating means, because it doesn't seem like he's used the term correctly once. I guess that in his universe, it just means, "Things I don't like."

TheIronGolem

2014-06-12, 04:03 PM

It pretty much implies any context just through the use of the term "Cheating". In particular, it's not so much cheating to use an item that doesn't exist as it is a non-object. The idea of this being cheating doesn't even make sense. I'm pretty sure that jedipotter just doesn't know what cheating means, because it doesn't seem like he's used the term correctly once. I guess that it his universe, it just means, "Things I don't like."

I suspect so, yes. It would certainly be consistent with his usage of the term that I've seen in the past.

Curmudgeon

2014-06-12, 04:03 PM

If a component could be treated as an improvised weapon you could quick draw it.
No, I don't think so. A random item only becomes an improvised weapon when you use it as such in combat.
Improvised Weapons

Sometimes objects not crafted to be weapons nonetheless see use in combat. When you're just retrieving an item, it's either an actual weapon and Quick Draw applies or it's not and QD doesn't apply. Otherwise you could claim that anything is a (potentially) improvised weapon, like a pinch of <whatever> could be tossed into someone's eyes. The rules require use in combat; "could be" doesn't count.

AuraTwilight

2014-06-12, 04:09 PM

Both and neither? I have two set permanent groups going back years. Group 1 loves my ''1E feel'' and Group 2 has grown to like it. No problems there. I get a bit of infamy, as people talk about my games. They will tell the story of how they fought a single black dragon for five hours, were down to like two hit points each, and just barely managed to kill it. Then they will talk to others where the characters took on whole mountains full of dragons in like twenty minutes. All the players in my game had a fun time, even ''Dragonbait'' Andy who had his character killed six times by the dragon. The players of the million dragon slaughter had some fun, but it does not seem to be as much as my game....and they will ask ''why was one dragon so hard? My warblade necroplitain ninja-wizard of Ill Omen killed like 12 dragons a round?'' I'll explain my game is different. They will keep slaughtering all the monsters from A to Z, and keep hearing crazy fun stories from my game. Then they might ask for me to run a game for them, that is where ''new'' players come from....

I'm pretty sure you're engaging in hyperbole to establish contrast, but I think everyone can agree that any game that involves killing 12 dragons every 6 seconds is an outlier that doesn't really represent 3.x games in a statistically meaningful way.

It's like you honestly believe there is no middle ground between people digging in the dirt for a breadcrumb of power Hackmaster-style and super-omnipotent Mega-Godmode Optimizing.

Brookshw

2014-06-12, 04:14 PM

No, I don't think so. A random item only becomes an improvised weapon when you use it as such in combat. When you're just retrieving an item, it's either an actual weapon and Quick Draw applies or it's not and QD doesn't apply. Otherwise you could claim that anything is a (potentially) improvised weapon, like a pinch of <whatever> could be tossed into someone's eyes. The rules require use in combat; "could be" doesn't count.

I dont agree with the evidence you've provided. Used in combat does not equal used as part of an attack. A healing potion drank in combat is still used in combat.

Curmudgeon

2014-06-12, 04:22 PM

I dont agree with the evidence you've provided. Used in combat does not equal used as part of an attack. A healing potion drank in combat is still used in combat.
Use in combat as a weapon is what's required for something to qualify. Quaffing a potion isn't using it as a weapon.

Boci

2014-06-12, 04:27 PM

Use in combat as a weapon is what's required for something to qualify. Quaffing a potion isn't using it as a weapon.

But using a potion as an improvised weapon means it qualifies. So just have a craft contingency programmed amnesia that triggers when you QD the potion makes you forget to attack with with it, and then you can draw it as a free action, forget to attack, shrug, drink it.

Curmudgeon

2014-06-12, 04:29 PM

But using a potion as an improvised weapon means it qualifies.
It qualifies as a weapon upon use as such in combat, as per the rules. It doesn't start qualifying before then.

Boci

2014-06-12, 04:30 PM

It qualifies as a weapon upon use as such in combat, as per the rules. It doesn't start qualifying before then.

Fair enough.

eggynack

2014-06-12, 04:31 PM

It qualifies as a weapon upon use as such in combat, as per the rules. It doesn't start qualifying before then.
That doesn't really make sense unless you're arguing that no improvised weapon can ever qualify for quick draw.

Elderand

2014-06-12, 04:33 PM

That doesn't really make sense unless you're arguing that no improvised weapon can ever qualify for quick draw.

Which is exactly what he is doing.

eggynack

2014-06-12, 04:37 PM

Which is exactly what he is doing.
I was assuming that he was arguing that improvised weapons are only able to be quick drawn if they're actually going to be used as weapons. I suppose this way makes sense also.

Elderand

2014-06-12, 04:40 PM

I was assuming that he was arguing that improvised weapons are only able to be quick drawn if they're actually going to be used as weapons. I suppose this way makes sense also.

No, he is clearly arguing that you cannot quickdraw an improvised weapon because it's not a weapon until it's used in an attack. Intent don't matter.

Curmudgeon

2014-06-12, 04:43 PM

That doesn't really make sense unless you're arguing that no improvised weapon can ever qualify for quick draw.
Almost; Elderand is nearly right. You can draw a longsword with Quick Draw, because it is a (melee) weapon. You could then use it as an improvised thrown weapon (necessarily improvised, because it has "—" listed as its range increment and you would instead need the 10' range increment provided to improvised thrown weapons; your DM would then need to decide what damage such an improvised weapon deals, because you're not using it as a longsword).

Brookshw

2014-06-12, 04:45 PM

It qualifies as a weapon upon use as such in combat, as per the rules. It doesn't start qualifying before then.

That's RAI, not RAW.

Improvised Weapons

Sometimes objects not crafted to be weapons nonetheless see use in combat.
It does not say used as a weapon, just used in combat.

This is rather an academic distinction really, my earlier proposition was whether we should consider drawing spell components to be covered by quick draw as a change to the feat, not an analysis of the current RAW.

NichG

2014-06-12, 06:10 PM

I'm pretty sure you're engaging in hyperbole to establish contrast, but I think everyone can agree that any game that involves killing 12 dragons every 6 seconds is an outlier that doesn't really represent 3.x games in a statistically meaningful way.

For the record, the quote in this post was jedipotter's, not mine.

dascarletm

2014-06-12, 06:32 PM

This

Improvised Weapons

Sometimes objects not crafted to be weapons nonetheless see use in combat.
Is not the same thing as saying

Improvised Weapons

Objects not intended for use as weapons, only qualify as such when used in combat.

I'm not seeing anything in the SRD Quote saying anything about when an object changes it's classification.

Red Fel

2014-06-12, 06:52 PM

The problem is as follows.

Let us start with the assumption that any object can qualify as an improvised weapon. If we assume that improvised weapons qualify as weapons for the Quick Draw feat, the following logic emerges: Quick Draw allows you to draw a weapon as a free action rather than as a move action. This is based upon the RAW of the feat. Any object is an improved weapon. This is one of our two assumptions. An improvised weapon counts as a weapon for purposes of Quick Draw. This is another of our assumptions. Therefore, any object counts as an improvised weapon for purposes of Quick Draw. This is the conclusion we arrive at by combining our two assumptions. Therefore, Quick Draw allows us to draw any object as a free action rather than as a move action. This is the conclusion we arrive at by combining the RAW of the feat with our assumptions.
The conclusion, while based upon sound logic, is nonetheless invalid because Quick Draw was not designed to allow you to draw any object as a free action. If it was, it would have said "you can remove any object from a storage container you have on hand as a move action." It does not; it specifically applies to drawing a weapon. Note also that, unlike drawing a weapon (which is generally a move action), removing an object from a container is not always a move action, depending on the container and the object.

Because our conclusion is invalid, we know that one of our two assumptions (or both) must be untrue. Either not every object can qualify as an improvised weapon, or improvised weapons do not qualify for Quick Draw, or both.

Boci

2014-06-12, 07:09 PM

Because our conclusion is invalid, we know that one of our two assumptions (or both) must be untrue. Either not every object can qualify as an improvised weapon, or improvised weapons do not qualify for Quick Draw, or both.

Or third option: The intention of an ability and the actual ability based on its wording, because 1,000+ geeks on the internet over the course of several years have more brainpower than any type of game testing WotC could possibly have put together.

Necroticplague

2014-06-12, 07:22 PM

The conclusion, while based upon sound logic, is nonetheless invalid because Quick Draw was not designed to allow you to draw any object as a free action. If it was, it would have said "you can remove any object from a storage container you have on hand as a move action." It does not; it specifically applies to drawing a weapon. Note also that, unlike drawing a weapon (which is generally a move action), removing an object from a container is not always a move action, depending on the container and the object.

Because our conclusion is invalid, we know that one of our two assumptions (or both) must be untrue. Either not every object can qualify as an improvised weapon, or improvised weapons do not qualify for Quick Draw, or both.

It may not have been intended to allow it, but that doesn't preclude it from doing so, because intention is not RAW and who gives a **** what a bunch of designers intended. You are assuming that our conclusion is invalid without any real backing. The RAW is that you can draw a weapon, an improvised weapon can still be drawn (because an improvised weapon is still a weapon, qualifying for quick draw), and they weren't very specific about what can and can't be used as an improvised weapon.

AuraTwilight

2014-06-12, 07:41 PM

For the record, the quote in this post was jedipotter's, not mine.

I even knew that! Sorry, some weird copypaste error on my part, it's fixed.

Alex12

2014-06-12, 07:42 PM

It may not have been intended to allow it, but that doesn't preclude it from doing so, because intention is not RAW and who gives a **** what a bunch of designers intended. You are assuming that our conclusion is invalid without any real backing. The RAW is that you can draw a weapon, an improvised weapon can still be drawn (because an improvised weapon is still a weapon, qualifying for quick draw), and they weren't very specific about what can and can't be used as an improvised weapon.

The RAW also says that you can draw spell components as free actions, and that spell component pouches exist and mitigate the entire issue. Quick Draw wasn't designed with spell components in mind because, in the environment it was developed in, that was unnecessary.

Larkas

2014-06-12, 07:45 PM

Y'know, I actually think the magic component crystal method of doing this might be enough to maintain the integrity of this rule set without being horribly insane. You have eight separate varieties of magic crystals, each of which can be commonly and easily found in some regions of the world. Maybe tie it to the environment, with maybe deserts providing illusion (cause mirages), and maybe beach regions providing transmutation (cause tides mean a constant state of flux), and so on. You impose the arbitrary limit on crystals you can keep in one place, because having enough crystals of one type near you when you use magic will cause them to explode, cause magic. Let's set the limit at 99, or maybe 49, cause it has a classy RPG feel, but other setups will work as well. You could also have several varieties of crystal in some locations, or maybe in all locations, but presumably not all of them.

I think that solves most of the problems with the mechanic. You don't need to keep track of every component for every spell, cause there's only eight of them to keep track of, and notably, even less for something like a beguiler or focused specialist (this might be a little imbalancing, but meh, crazy elven generalist domain wizard is probably better anyway), which helps with the nerfing crap casters problem. The lower your spell versatility, the easier this is. There is no solo questing required, because these crystals flow like water wherever they're available. The arbitrary limit is a bit less arbitrary, owing to how arbitrary magic is already. Overall, I think that you'd be able to get a reasonably unannoying material component system out of the deal, and if you tweak it some, you'd probably get something like marginally increased balance.

Wow, I must really be getting invisible. I posted something along these lines on the first page (though your post was admittedly more comprehensive) :smallsigh:

It may not have been intended to allow it, but that doesn't preclude it from doing so, because intention is not RAW and who gives a **** what a bunch of designers intended. You are assuming that our conclusion is invalid without any real backing. The RAW is that you can draw a weapon, an improvised weapon can still be drawn (because an improvised weapon is still a weapon, qualifying for quick draw), and they weren't very specific about what can and can't be used as an improvised weapon.

This is running dangerously close to the reasoning of "if this ability doesn't say I can't do something, I can do that thing". Think of it this way: does it make sense to quick draw a feather as an improvised weapon? Does it have the kind of handle you'd expect from a weapon. The weight? I mean, I could see quick drawing a cooking pan (it's not that different from quick drawing an axe, I think), but a feather? A lizard's tongue? Some guano? (Aaaand now I run dangerously close to killing cat girls. Oh well.)

Brookshw

2014-06-12, 07:46 PM

eggynack

2014-06-12, 08:09 PM

Wow, I must really be getting invisible. I posted something along these lines on the first page (though your post was admittedly more comprehensive) :smallsigh:

Nah, I remembered it. Hence referring to it as the magic component crystal method, instead of being all like, "Hey, check out this completely new thing." I just thought the merits could use some elaboration. Also, I vaguely like coming up with environments that could support 'em. Like, maybe mountains for abjurations, cause they stand in the way of junk, and maybe freshwater regions for divination, cause scrying is so intimately connected with pools of fresh water.

Gemini476

2014-06-12, 09:00 PM

Nah, I remembered it. Hence referring to it as the magic component crystal method, instead of being all like, "Hey, check out this completely new thing." I just thought the merits could use some elaboration. Also, I vaguely like coming up with environments that could support 'em. Like, maybe mountains for abjurations, cause they stand in the way of junk, and maybe freshwater regions for divination, cause scrying is so intimately connected with pools of fresh water.

Well, the eight basic terrain types in the Prime Material as presented in the DMG and MM might be a good place to look in that place. (Note that other supplements added more later.)
Aquatic, Desert, Hill, Forest, Marsh, Mountain, Plain, Underground.

Here's a tentative suggestion:
Aquatic => Divination
Desert => Illusion
Hill => Conjuration
Forest => Transmutation
Marsh => Necromancy
Mountain => Abjuration
Plain => Evocation
Underground => Enchantment

Not the best, but eh. They also come in Cold/Temperate/Warm varieties, by the way, except for Underground which never really got that kind of expansion. It's just generally Dungeons/the Underdark.

I'm thinking that you could combine this with some kind of maximum crystal capacity and just replace the vancian system altogether. I'm feeling like this could be a good homebrew for replacing the generalist wizard with something else. I'm thinking full list caster with spell points split into eight pools. Have them be able to spend an hour to get up to their class level in appropriate crystals with a maximum limit of... 49 or 99 or something, to follow the earlier suggestion. That way you can have this guy who knows a whole lot of spells and can cast any of them spontaneously but is really limited by where he is. In a dungeon? Hope you like Enchantment!

Yeah, I think that might work.

Red Fel

2014-06-12, 09:29 PM

Or third option: The intention of an ability and the actual ability based on its wording, because 1,000+ geeks on the internet over the course of several years have more brainpower than any type of game testing WotC could possibly have put together.

We're deriving intention from wording, not examining it in a vacuum. The wording itself says "weapon." It could have said "any object," it did not. From the deliberate wording choice, we can infer that the ability applies to weapons, and not to anything I have in my pocket. The question then becomes which items in your pocket constitute a weapon; if they all do, there is no point in distinguishing weapons from any other object in the wording.

There is a logical theory that states that if a person lists certain features of a thing, or certain elements of a list, and does not list others, he is excluding them by implication. For example, "Pets permitted in this apartment include cats, dogs, fish, and guinea pigs." The failure to list lizards implies that the list excludes lizards. The argument "But he didn't say we couldn't have lizards" will generally not be seen as effective. In this case, the ability says "weapon." This implies that there are some objects, which are not "weapons," to which the ability does not apply.

It may not have been intended to allow it, but that doesn't preclude it from doing so, because intention is not RAW and who gives a **** what a bunch of designers intended. You are assuming that our conclusion is invalid without any real backing. The RAW is that you can draw a weapon, an improvised weapon can still be drawn (because an improvised weapon is still a weapon, qualifying for quick draw), and they weren't very specific about what can and can't be used as an improvised weapon.

We're not talking about what can and cannot be used as an improvised weapon. That's part of the exercise. If we assume that any object can be used as an improvised weapon, and that an improvised weapon qualifies for Quick Draw, we reach the conclusion that Quick Draw applies to every possible object you can store in a container on your person. Since that is clearly incorrect, one of our assumptions - that any object can be used as an improvised weapon, or that an improvised weapon qualifies for Quick Draw - must be false.

We're not looking at what was intended. We're looking at RAW. The RAW is that you can draw a weapon. The assumptions are that you can draw an improvised weapon, and that any object can constitute an improvised weapon. We are determining whether these assumptions are accurate. Again, you're arguing for lizards, as above. Stop that.

The problem is that you ignored your point three in deciding its invalid. Your not drawing "any object", your drawing something which would be classified as a weapon.

Of course its still purely academic as no ones really proposing this.

Correction. We are following logic. If we assume that any object can be used as an improvised weapon, and that an improvised weapon qualifies for Quick Draw, then what we draw is irrelevant - it all qualifies. I use the term "any object" because if an improvised weapon can be composed of anything, then anything should be able to qualify for Quick Draw, if and only if our two assumptions are true.

The question, therefore, is which assumption, if not both, is false?

Can any object qualify as an improvised weapon? Does anybody have RAW on this point? If any object can qualify as an improvised weapon, then the only falsifiable assumption is that improvised weapons qualify for Quick Draw.

I think the argument hinges, however, upon the second assumption: Whether an improvised weapon can qualify for Quick Draw. If it can, we are limited only by the definition of "improvised weapon." If it cannot, however, the entire logical sequence collapses, which frankly makes more sense to me.

Boci

2014-06-12, 09:35 PM

We're deriving intention from wording, not examining it in a vacuum. The wording itself says "weapon." It could have said "any object," it did not. From the deliberate wording choice, we can infer that the ability applies to weapons, and not to anything I have in my pocket. The question then becomes which items in your pocket constitute a weapon; if they all do, there is no point in distinguishing weapons from any other object in the wording.

There is a logical theory that states that if a person lists certain features of a thing, or certain elements of a list, and does not list others, he is excluding them by implication. For example, "Pets permitted in this apartment include cats, dogs, fish, and guinea pigs." The failure to list lizards implies that the list excludes lizards. The argument "But he didn't say we couldn't have lizards" will generally not be seen as effective. In this case, the ability says "weapon." This implies that there are some objects, which are not "weapons," to which the ability does not apply.

Or maybe it was worded that way because of the Ivory Tower game design, which was totally a deliberate effort.

eggynack

2014-06-12, 09:49 PM

We're not talking about what can and cannot be used as an improvised weapon. That's part of the exercise. If we assume that any object can be used as an improvised weapon, and that an improvised weapon qualifies for Quick Draw, we reach the conclusion that Quick Draw applies to every possible object you can store in a container on your person. Since that is clearly incorrect, one of our assumptions - that any object can be used as an improvised weapon, or that an improvised weapon qualifies for Quick Draw - must be false.

It doesn't work this way. You're trying to assert some variety of reductio ad absurdum, except the conclusion that you're claiming is absurd, and therefore necessarily wrong, is the same conclusion that is being claimed as correct by your opponents. We've reached the conclusion, based on your premises, that quick draw applies to every object that you can store in a container on your person. You say that this is "clearly incorrect". Why is that so? What evidence do you have that this conclusion is necessarily an incorrect one to reach. It's a silly conclusion, perhaps, but it could easily be the correct one. This is where your RAI lies, because there's certainly nothing in the RAW that says that quick draw can't work on material components.

I suppose the core issue, then, is the one you claim later, of whether anything can be used as an improvised weapon. I'm really not sure why anything wouldn't be able to be an improvised weapon, as the only requirement is that it can see use in combat. Some such objects might be really bad at the job, but at the same time, that seems to be rather the point of an improvised weapon.

Edit: Basically, on the first point, there's nothing in the rules that says that any distinction made must have some particular meaning, or that it mustn't be an attribute shared by all objects. It's a bit of an absurd result, granted, but as above, it may be the correct one.

Necroticplague

2014-06-12, 09:54 PM

Well, as to what can be used as an improvised weapon, the last pages of CW have these lines relating to improvised weapons.

If an object weighs up to 2 pounds, a Medium Character can treat it as a light weapon. Objects weighing between 2 and 10 pounds are one-handed weapons for Medium characters, and objects weighing 11 to 50 pounds are two-handed weapons. Halve these numbers for every size category below Meedium, and double them for every size category above Medium

Not sure how much it helps, and I think I'm too entrenched in my position to contribute meaningfully, but it seems like it could be of use.

eggynack

2014-06-12, 09:59 PM

Well, as to what can be used as an improvised weapon, the last pages of CW have these lines relating to improvised weapons.

Not sure how much it helps, and I think I'm too entrenched in my position to contribute meaningfully, but it seems like it could be of use.
That does seem like it could be useful, though that "up to" is tricky. Is a speck of dust "up to" 2 pounds? I'm unsure.

Red Fel

2014-06-12, 10:04 PM

It doesn't work this way. You're trying to assert some variety of reductio ad absurdum, except the conclusion that you're claiming is absurd, and therefore necessarily wrong, is the same conclusion that is being claimed as correct by your opponents. We've reached the conclusion, based on your premises, that quick draw applies to every object that you can store in a container on your person. You say that this is "clearly incorrect". Why is that so? What evidence do you have that this conclusion is necessarily an incorrect one to reach. It's a silly conclusion, perhaps, but it could easily be the correct one. This is where your RAI lies, because there's certainly nothing in the RAW that says that quick draw can't work on material components.

I suppose the core issue, then, is the one you claim later, of whether anything can be used as an improvised weapon. I'm really not sure why anything wouldn't be able to be an improvised weapon, as the only requirement is that it can see use in combat. Some such objects might be really bad at the job, but at the same time, that seems to be rather the point of an improvised weapon.

Edit: Basically, on the first point, there's nothing in the rules that says that any distinction made must have some particular meaning, or that it mustn't be an attribute shared by all objects. It's a bit of an absurd result, granted, but as above, it may be the correct one.

The reason that the conclusion (Any object can qualify for Quick Draw) must be incorrect is that it conflicts with the exclusive language of Quick Draw itself. Quick Draw applies to weapons, by RAW. If any object could qualify for Quick Draw, it would have used more general language, rather than the specific "weapon." Therefore, there most be some non-"weapon" group of objects that do not qualify for Quick Draw.

That is how we can recognize the conclusion as being false. The conclusion flows logically from the assumptions. If any object can be an improvised weapon, and improvised weapons qualify for Quick Draw, then any object can qualify for Quick Draw. The language of Quick Draw precludes that conclusion; ergo, one of our assumptions must be in error.

Yes, we could assume that the word "weapons" is the result of sloppy or lazy writing. However, as soon as we accept that the writers did not intend what they wrote, we start bringing the entire notion of RAW into question. If we construe the RAW strictly, we must accept that use of the specific "weapons" precludes the more general "objects."

Well, as to what can be used as an improvised weapon, the last pages of CW have these lines relating to improvised weapons.

Not sure how much it helps, and I think I'm too entrenched in my position to contribute meaningfully, but it seems like it could be of use.

Actually, this helps substantially. This means that an object's utility as an improvised weapon is dependent upon the size of the wielder. For example, a Medium creature cannot use an object heavier than 50 pounds as an improvised weapon; thus, in the hands of a Medium creature, a 51 pound object cannot qualify for Quick Draw.

Admittedly, this does not set a lower threshold, which is problematic. In theory, a Medium creature could use an object that weighs 0.001 ounces as an improvised weapon. So there remains some question. But this information does narrow our definition, at least somewhat, which is very helpful!

Interestingly, and somewhat sadly, this precludes the use of some corpses as improvised weapons. I'm reasonably certain many people on this board have probably attempted this at some point or another. (Really? I'm the only one?)

eggynack

2014-06-12, 10:15 PM

The reason that the conclusion (Any object can qualify for Quick Draw) must be incorrect is that it conflicts with the exclusive language of Quick Draw itself. Quick Draw applies to weapons, by RAW. If any object could qualify for Quick Draw, it would have used more general language, rather than the specific "weapon." Therefore, there most be some non-"weapon" group of objects that do not qualify for Quick Draw.

That is how we can recognize the conclusion as being false. The conclusion flows logically from the assumptions. If any object can be an improvised weapon, and improvised weapons qualify for Quick Draw, then any object can qualify for Quick Draw. The language of Quick Draw precludes that conclusion; ergo, one of our assumptions must be in error.
No, if any object could qualify for quick draw, they could have used more general language. There's no absolute onus for them to do so, and the fact that they used terminology that you've deemed specific doesn't necessarily make the term non-inclusive with respect to all objects. The fact that there are some actual limits set on improvised weapons actually supports my argument, as the moon presumably cannot be quick drawn, as it is too large to be used as a weapon, despite being an object.

Incidentally, I would actually figure a significantly higher limit here than the 50 pounds that you've noted. An object need only be capable of being used as an improvised weapon to be an improvised weapon, and it may not matter that the current user cannot use the weapon. After all, a medium creature presumably can quick draw a gargantuan greatsword, as there is no stated limit on that in the feat. Thus taking the improvised weapon rules to their natural conclusion, as a colossal creature can use an 800 pound whatever as an improvised weapon, such is the max weight that can be quick drawn.

Boci

2014-06-12, 10:16 PM

Yes, we could assume that the word "weapons" is the result of sloppy or lazy writing. However, as soon as we accept that the writers did not intend what they wrote, we start bringing the entire notion of RAW into question. If we construe the RAW strictly, we must accept that use of the specific "weapons" precludes the more general "objects."

No, that's the opposite of RAW.

RAW: you can quick draw any weapon. Also RAW: almost any item can be considered an improvised weapon. Ergo: You can quick draw almost any items.

What you are advocating is RASM: The writers said "weapon" and not "object", therefor they could not have intended QD to work on non-weapon objects.

OracleofWuffing

2014-06-12, 10:45 PM

It pretty much implies any context just through the use of the term "Cheating". In particular, it's not so much cheating to use an item that doesn't exist as it is a non-object. The idea of this being cheating doesn't even make sense. I'm pretty sure that jedipotter just doesn't know what cheating means, because it doesn't seem like he's used the term correctly once. I guess that in his universe, it just means, "Things I don't like."
On the plus side, no bags of holdings mean Floating Disks for everyone.

Or ten thousand pack mules per party, but it doesn't smell as good. :smalltongue:

jedipotter

2014-06-12, 10:46 PM

He asked you if you really consider them to be cheating. And do remember that this is a context where you implied that it's "cheating" in any game, not just yours where you ruled them out.

Yes, I think using a bag of holding(and all the rest) is cheating. But so what? It is just my view. I see it cheating in the same way you would not keep track of a characters encumbrance or just do the old ''oh he had that in a pocket all along''. Extra space is just way to open to abuse, so it is just better not to have it.

I think it is bad enough that most players see the extra space items as a ''must have''. It is worse when they load them up with everything plus a kitchen sink. And it is cheating when they fill it with endless magic items, like scrolls. It's a great example of a broken thing: The rules let spellcasters make tons of magic items, and the extra space items let them carry around all the items. I fix both in my game, and eliminate the extra space items all together.

Cheating is the getting of reward for ability by dishonest means or finding an easy way out of an unpleasant situation. It is generally used for the breaking of rules to gain unfair advantage in a competitive situation. Another type of cheat would be an exploit cheat where an advantage is gained through an unintended game exploit, such as skipping a weapon reload timer by quickly switching weapons back and forth without actually reloading the weapons.

I'm pretty sure you're engaging in hyperbole to establish contrast, but I think everyone can agree that any game that involves killing 12 dragons every 6 seconds is an outlier that doesn't really represent 3.x games in a statistically meaningful way.

It's like you honestly believe there is no middle ground between people digging in the dirt for a breadcrumb of power Hackmaster-style and super-omnipotent Mega-Godmode Optimizing.

I've sat in on the ''dragon kill a minute'' type games....they do exist. There are lots of weak ''player DMs'' out there that let the players walk all over them. But if that is how they like to have fun, who cares?

My point is my game is more ''nitty gritty'', where five characters with a wooden spoon must defeat a lich(Oh, the Spoon of Doom...good memories). My world is a real meat grinder. Chances are your character will never be at 100%. This is 180 degrees from a lot of games where the characters are ''near 100%'' at all times, where the characters rest all the time or have rules like max hit points per level.

So can we see the full write up?

Sure, I'm Out of Town right now, heading to ''The Worlds Biggest Yard Sale'' for the next two days.....so next week....

Larkas

2014-06-12, 10:47 PM

eggynack

2014-06-12, 11:04 PM

Yes, I think using a bag of holding(and all the rest) is cheating. But so what? It is just my view. I see it cheating in the same way you would not keep track of a characters encumbrance or just do the old ''oh he had that in a pocket all along''. Extra space is just way to open to abuse, so it is just better not to have it.
That's not what cheating is. I don't think you should use the word cheating, as you seem to not know what it means. Either that, or you're just intentionally misusing the term.

I think it is bad enough that most players see the extra space items as a ''must have''. It is worse when they load them up with everything plus a kitchen sink. And it is cheating when they fill it with endless magic items, like scrolls. It's a great example of a broken thing: The rules let spellcasters make tons of magic items, and the extra space items let them carry around all the items. I fix both in my game, and eliminate the extra space items all together.
That's... not really broken at all. It's pretty much just a convenience, enabling you to skip the boring book keeping that most people hate. Your response to that is, apparently, "Hey, that thing you hate? Here's massive piles of it. That'll make the game better."

Cheating is the getting of reward for ability by dishonest means or finding an easy way out of an unpleasant situation. It is generally used for the breaking of rules to gain unfair advantage in a competitive situation. Another type of cheat would be an exploit cheat where an advantage is gained through an unintended game exploit, such as skipping a weapon reload timer by quickly switching weapons back and forth without actually reloading the weapons.
Gaining something through dishonest means? Sure, maybe, if you mean specifically out of game. Finding an easy way out of an unpleasant situation? No way in hell. That's just frigging smartness, man. You apply your brain right to the problem, and you get a cool solution. It's also sometimes called tactics.

Even so, one crystal per terrain type seems interesting. Maybe roll (easy) Survival to find them, so anyone could do it?
I figure that you need to harvest them from the atmosphere in some fashion, perhaps using magic, except it's pretty easy to use. Thus, perhaps you'd basically have infinite access to particular types of magic when in relevant areas. That sounds kinda cool, actually, as it'd inform preparation in certain areas, and maybe incentivize the use of worse schools of magic sometimes (when you have infinite conjuration, then you'd just do what you do normally).

Larkas

2014-06-12, 11:13 PM

I figure that you need to harvest them from the atmosphere in some fashion, perhaps using magic, except it's pretty easy to use. Thus, perhaps you'd basically have infinite access to particular types of magic when in relevant areas. That sounds kinda cool, actually, as it'd inform preparation in certain areas, and maybe incentivize the use of worse schools of magic sometimes (when you have infinite conjuration, then you'd just do what you do normally).

I also thought about "condensing" the stuff, but it'd be nice to have a market for the stuff. Maybe through some simple wondrous/alchemical item?That way, you could buy marsh crystals in a desert... But you'd have to pay a lot for it. How's that?

eggynack

2014-06-12, 11:21 PM

I also thought about "condensing" the stuff, but it'd be nice to have a market for the stuff. Maybe through some simple wondrous/alchemical item?That way, you could buy marsh crystals in a desert... But you'd have to pay a lot for it. How's that?
I suppose there are a few models that would support such a market. In the current model, presumably the entire market would be supported by transport price. You can't teleport them hyper-efficiently, because you can only move 99 crystal stacks at a time, and you'd probably be able to use teleportation for more money in different ways if the price is too low. Alternatively, you could apply some harvesting multiplier to each location, such that you can do this really fast in the right location, but really slow elsewhere, with possibly moderate speed in a third location. It's pretty tricky though, as I'd like these things to be basically free in the right place, to mimic the currently existent version.

Larkas

2014-06-12, 11:43 PM

I suppose there are a few models that would support such a market. In the current model, presumably the entire market would be supported by transport price. You can't teleport them hyper-efficiently, because you can only move 99 crystal stacks at a time, and you'd probably be able to use teleportation for more money in different ways if the price is too low. Alternatively, you could apply some harvesting multiplier to each location, such that you can do this really fast in the right location, but really slow elsewhere, with possibly moderate speed in a third location. It's pretty tricky though, as I'd like these things to be basically free in the right place, to mimic the currently existent version.

Hmmm, that might work. What if each spellcaster had to gather his own crystals (at this point, it might be simpler to just call it essence), and could do so at a fixed rate/hour while meditating, depending on the terrain? For example, while in a mountain peak, a wizard could gather 8 mountains essence/hour and 6 hills essence/hour, but only 2 plains essence/hour. Some "nodes" (I'm thinking of something along the lines of Exalted's manses here) might even multiply the relevant essence's availability: a monastery might be built around a spot in the aforementioned mountain peak that enables the gathering of 16 mountains essence/hour for those who meditate there (but regular quantities of other kinds).

You could even go so far as making nodes that drain some essences for increased gains of another essence. In the above example, maybe you'd have to pay 2 plains essence for each hour you spent meditating in that monastery, but in return you could gather as much as 24 mountains essence/hour!

Some spells or items could also probably interact with that. Maybe a mana drain-like spell could strip a caster from some of his essences, while a hard-to-make alchemical item could store a small amount of one type of essence (of course, make it non-stackable).

Ehm, did I go too far?

Jeff the Green

2014-06-12, 11:46 PM

I figure that you need to harvest them from the atmosphere in some fashion, perhaps using magic, except it's pretty easy to use. Thus, perhaps you'd basically have infinite access to particular types of magic when in relevant areas. That sounds kinda cool, actually, as it'd inform preparation in certain areas, and maybe incentivize the use of worse schools of magic sometimes (when you have infinite conjuration, then you'd just do what you do normally).

When doing this you need to be careful that you're not nerfing the classes that aren't a problem. The elven generalist might be forced to use sub-optimal tactics outside of hills or the forest, but the warmage would be screwed anywhere but the plains. You'd probably want to give Tier-3 and below casters free Eschew Material Components. Possibly Tier-2 and below, since psion and ardent don't have components for their powers.

Larkas

2014-06-12, 11:50 PM

When doing this you need to be careful that you're not nerfing the classes that aren't a problem. The elven generalist might be forced to use sub-optimal tactics outside of hills or the forest, but the warmage would be screwed anywhere but the plains. You'd probably want to give Tier-3 and below casters free Eschew Material Components. Possibly Tier-2 and below, since psion and ardent don't have components for their powers.

Hmmm, not necessarily, specially if the crystals/essences are not tied to a specific spell school. You could also give a class some multiplier for gathering the relevant materials. Is the Warmage is heavy on hills essence usage? Then give it a class feature that makes it so he can gather that essence at double the rate.

eggynack

2014-06-12, 11:58 PM

Stuff of kinds
Yeah, those seem like reasonably nifty mechanics. It'd probably cause a need for more than 8 terrain types, so you could make use of some of the more specific versions, which seems neat.

When doing this you need to be careful that you're not nerfing the classes that aren't a problem. The elven generalist might be forced to use sub-optimal tactics outside of hills or the forest, but the warmage would be screwed anywhere but the plains. You'd probably want to give Tier-3 and below casters free Eschew Material Components. Possibly Tier-2 and below, since psion and ardent don't have components for their powers.
Yeah, hadn't considered that one. Y'know, it'd actually make the game both more balanced in this sense, and possibly more robust overall, if we used a total crystal count instead of a count per crystal type. 500 is a reasonable starting number, set between the averages on the other two previous ones, though it's obviously open to change. You could even give classes more or less capacity as a balancing factor.

Svata

2014-06-13, 12:00 AM

So, preparedness is cheating, Jedipotter? Tell me, Mr. Conductor, when does the train stop?

DeadMech

2014-06-13, 01:07 AM

If I was playing a game where someone told me I'd have to spend a move action to grab each component in a spell one by one I'd probably just steal a bunch of napkins or handkerchiefs and spend some time at the inn measuring out and pre-packaging bundles for my prepared spells. Or maybe use some string to tie them off together then place them in whatever preferred positions for ease of access, if that was in my spell component pouch or not.

Or you know... I'd just assume that is what the typical wizard would do as a part of the regular rules concerning these things considering people have been casting arcane spells for... well however long people have been casting arcane spells.

avr

2014-06-13, 01:36 AM

Oh, right, AD&D 1e style spell components. No, they're a pain in the backside for no real gain in balance or otherwise. Been there, done that.

AuraTwilight

2014-06-13, 03:03 AM

Cheating is the getting of reward for ability by dishonest means or finding an easy way out of an unpleasant situation. It is generally used for the breaking of rules to gain unfair advantage in a competitive situation. Another type of cheat would be an exploit cheat where an advantage is gained through an unintended game exploit, such as skipping a weapon reload timer by quickly switching weapons back and forth without actually reloading the weapons.

Bags of Holding don't meet your own definition of cheating. They're not dishonest, they're not an exploit, they're not unintended, and 'easy' is extremely arguable because Bags of Holding have a set weight and have a less-than-perfect means of drawing items from them; at the very least you can't quick draw items out of it, iirc.

I've sat in on the ''dragon kill a minute'' type games....they do exist. There are lots of weak ''player DMs'' out there that let the players walk all over them. But if that is how they like to have fun, who cares?

My point is my game is more ''nitty gritty'', where five characters with a wooden spoon must defeat a lich(Oh, the Spoon of Doom...good memories). My world is a real meat grinder. Chances are your character will never be at 100%. This is 180 degrees from a lot of games where the characters are ''near 100%'' at all times, where the characters rest all the time or have rules like max hit points per level.

I never said they didn't exist. I'm just saying they're statistical outliers. Now, games where people can rest all the time or get max hit points per level are a bit more common, I'll give you, but you should've started with that example rather than the hyperbolic one.

My point is that you present the two game styles as a binary thing rather than the scaling spectrum that it really is. In your posts, you tend to treat anyone who isn't entirely happy with your type of game as a 'powergamer', or a 'problem player', or a 'munchkin'. There's a medium between the two extremes.

What about the Fighter who doesn't want to kill the final boss with a wooden spoon, but have just the one magic sword to his name ala Excalibur? What about the sorcerer who isn't interested in breaking the game but wants to play the archetype of the inherently magical magician, who doesn't need objects to cast spells but might be limited in some other way?

What about the players who are willing to fit your idea of balance but want to just get to the ADVENTURE without having to play Inventory Tetris all the time?

While you don't need to let players walk over you, you'll have a much more enjoyable time and have a much more stable roster of players if you were willing to compromise with them instead of constantly forcing them to take your way or the high way.

It's a life skill, not just a DM skill.

Coidzor

2014-06-13, 03:31 AM

So, the idea is: Balancing spells and spellcasters by enforcing material components. With the basic rules of:

The spellcasters must keep track of each individual material component and it's use. So if it says ''a pinch'' of dust, they would keep track of ''25 pinches'' of dust.
The game has Old School flavor, so a character can stock up on material components, but they can't go crazy and have like 1,000 hawk feathers. And their are no extra-deminsional bags of cheating.
The player can restock, but only if it is not disruptive to the game.
Material components from creatures other then vermin or animals, have a gold cost of more then one.

So then you get.....Grod's Fallacy: You cannot and should not balance bad mechanics by making them annoying to use.

Well, sure the player can argue, but they can't ignore it. They are told the house rule before the game, and if they come to play, then they agree to the rule. And even if they were annoying and pretended to go along and then ignored it in the game: the DM can just rule on anything they do.
There is the easy way: The Feat, but it has the ''feat tax'' and does not cover everything
I do try to only game with the reasonable players.
New players don't even know what is going on...

So balance of bad mechanics.......what say you all?

It doesn't add anything to the game nor does it take anything undesirable from the game. The only change is that now [you] get to feel like [you're] playing something more like a retroclone. :smallconfused:

So why not try out a retroclone?

The issue is not really My magic fix, it's more ''can you balance bad mechanics with rules?'' I have fixed magic and all the spells.

You can write rules that completely rewrite, alter, substitute, or change the existing bad mechanics. Or just replace the bad mechanics. So... technically yes at the very least.

Seems better to patch the problem or rewrite the buggy area than to write a framework of (hopefully good) rules around the bad ones.

That's kinda an odd way to do it, as I don't think spells are currently balanced around this factor. I mean, really, why would flaming sphere need three move actions to cast? It's pretty mediocre already. With this house rule, I'd think the best way to work it would be to alter the material components themselves, such that more powerful spells actually do have more components. I don't think that any rule that nerfs confusion more than polymorph (assuming the three nut shells count as separate items for this) is one that should be taken all that seriously.

Could be said to help demonstrate the argument that there's no quick fix without holes that would need to be patched. Though making it more comprehensive, such as by giving more powerful spells more components and less powerful spells less/no components may or may not also demonstrate the potentiality to introduce subtler foibles.

So how about quick draw?

It's a feat not spent on metamagic or craft: wondrous items or as a prerequisite(for most casting/gish PrCs anyway), so there's that, I suppose, assuming it worked at all.

It qualifies as a weapon upon use as such in combat, as per the rules. It doesn't start qualifying before then.

Does that mean that improvised weapons can't threaten or can't threaten until after they've been used to make an attack then?

Cheating is the getting of reward for ability by dishonest means or finding an easy way out of an unpleasant situation. It is generally used for the breaking of rules to gain unfair advantage in a competitive situation. Another type of cheat would be an exploit cheat where an advantage is gained through an unintended game exploit, such as skipping a weapon reload timer by quickly switching weapons back and forth without actually reloading the weapons.

So unless they really, really didn't enjoy doing so, anyone who does what you did, that is to say anyone who changes the game to suit themselves, is cheating. :smallconfused:

Interesting.

Though I can't fathom why you'd want to lump all homebrewers, from those who just make their own worlds to those who create new subsystems, with people who deliberately behave in a duplicitous manner.

bendking

2014-06-13, 06:01 AM

I'm gonna be a really HUGE whore right now, advertising my own thread, but I just made a thread about balancing some of the flaws:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?356482-Balancing-Flaws
I figured in this thread some people would care, since it has to do with balancing a very broken game mechanic.

Larkas

2014-06-13, 09:30 AM

Yeah, those seem like reasonably nifty mechanics. It'd probably cause a need for more than 8 terrain types, so you could make use of some of the more specific versions, which seems neat.

Yeah, hadn't considered that one. Y'know, it'd actually make the game both more balanced in this sense, and possibly more robust overall, if we used a total crystal count instead of a count per crystal type. 500 is a reasonable starting number, set between the averages on the other two previous ones, though it's obviously open to change. You could even give classes more or less capacity as a balancing factor.

Total crystal count, hmmm? I like that. Hmmmm, maybe we should start a new thread to discuss that?

Boci

2014-06-13, 09:41 AM

Sure, I'm Out of Town right now, heading to ''The Worlds Biggest Yard Sale'' for the next two days.....so next week....

Sounds good. That should allow for me in depth discussion than "Sound's like too much work" "Its not that much work".

Coidzor

2014-06-13, 11:02 AM

Total crystal count, hmmm? I like that. Hmmmm, maybe we should start a new thread to discuss that?

Sounds like a plan if it's going to go much further.

TheIronGolem

2014-06-13, 11:07 AM

Yes, I think using a bag of holding(and all the rest) is cheating. But so what? It is just my view.
Your view is objectively wrong. This isn't a matter of opinion. If the game explicitly and intentionally allows these things to exist, then simply having them -- by definition -- cannot ever be cheating.

I see it cheating in the same way you would not keep track of a characters encumbrance or just do the old ''oh he had that in a pocket all along''.
Well, it is cheating in the same way as this...that way being "not at all". Some groups don't like encumbrance, so they don't use it. Rules that are not in use cannot be broken, and therefore no cheating can arise from not following them. Again, this is not a matter of opinion.

I think it is bad enough that most players see the extra space items as a ''must have''. It is worse when they load them up with everything plus a kitchen sink. And it is cheating when they fill it with endless magic items, like scrolls.
It's not cheating. It's something that you don't like. These are not the same thing, although eggynack was clearly spot-on when he suggested that you think they are.

It's a great example of a broken thing: The rules let spellcasters make tons of magic items, and the extra space items let them carry around all the items. I fix both in my game, and eliminate the extra space items all together.
As a DM, banning those items is your prerogative. But that doesn't mean that everyone else is "cheating" by having them in their games.

Cheating is the getting of reward for ability by dishonest means or finding an easy way out of an unpleasant situation

This is blatantly wrong, and rather obviously the result of you resenting players for coming up with solutions you didn't consider to problems you thought would be more difficult than they actually were. Just because you forgot that the rogue can climb walls doesn't mean he's "cheating" when he just climbs his way out of your pit trap.

dascarletm

2014-06-13, 11:30 AM

Total crystal count, hmmm? I like that. Hmmmm, maybe we should start a new thread to discuss that?

If you do post a link, I'd be totally interested in that.

Talya

2014-06-13, 11:56 AM

aleucard

2014-06-13, 12:39 PM

By RAW, you are considered to have already gathered all components that have a less than 1gp value, for any spell you might cast, and be carrying them in your component pouch, at all times.

A DM is free to change that, but that DM is making the game NOT FUN and I wouldn't play with them, ever. It's a terrible house rule.

With, of course, the exception of Metamagic Material components. Depending on the spell and the metamagic, there's a lot of things that would be worth it.

Otherwise, yeah, I'd probably bail if my DM were to try and force this bulls#@$ down my throat.

eggynack

2014-06-13, 12:42 PM

With, of course, the exception of Metamagic Material components. Depending on the spell and the metamagic, there's a lot of things that would be worth it.
Those don't cost less than a GP, unless you're somehow referring to metamagic material components from the ones I'm thinking of.

Knaight

2014-06-13, 12:54 PM

It is not a problem at all. The kind of player your talking about would almost never join my game, and if they did might not last more then an hour or two. But some players just get misled or brainwashed by the bad/problem players....and they can be helped. A couple of strict rules and they become good players.

At the end of the day: everyone wants to have fun. My rules allow for a unique type of fun, that is not ''standard 3X how much can I stack, optimize or cheat''. Some players like it, some hate it, and some are in the middle. But my games are fun....why else would people come back?
Wow. So apparently people who dislike your games are bad/problem players who need to be helped.

Yes, I think using a bag of holding(and all the rest) is cheating. But so what? It is just my view. I see it cheating in the same way you would not keep track of a characters encumbrance or just do the old ''oh he had that in a pocket all along''. Extra space is just way to open to abuse, so it is just better not to have it.
It is explicitly a part of the rules. As are the other two in a great many other games, because they are seen

I've sat in on the ''dragon kill a minute'' type games....they do exist. There are lots of weak ''player DMs'' out there that let the players walk all over them. But if that is how they like to have fun, who cares?

My point is my game is more ''nitty gritty'', where five characters with a wooden spoon must defeat a lich(Oh, the Spoon of Doom...good memories). My world is a real meat grinder. Chances are your character will never be at 100%. This is 180 degrees from a lot of games where the characters are ''near 100%'' at all times, where the characters rest all the time or have rules like max hit points per level.
You're conflating multiple things here. The "dragon kill a minute" type games are reflective more of high action and high power than high player influence. I tend to have high player influence as a GM, and yet these never happen. It's almost like nobody at the table has any want for these, and the game reflects what the people want. Plus, I personally am more strongly against it than anyone for it, so even if there was no weighting on setting side (and there is heavy weighting plus a veto) it wouldn't happen.

Moreover, the nitpicking of things like spell tracking has absolutely nothing to do with how much of a "meat grinder" the world is. It has to do with what the game focuses on. If your game is about the logistics of dungeon exploration, it makes perfect sense. It makes just as much sense if it's about the logistics of dungeon exploration and it's a safe career as it does if it's about the logistics of dungeon exploration where it's extremely hazardous. If the game is about political intrigue it's completely ridiculous, even when political intrigue can get really, really dangerous.

Put simply - I don't care about how many arrows your character has in a political intrigue game. There's basically no way that this is actually going to be abused, and no number of arrows will protect you from getting poisoned by someone you thought was your friend.

Larkas

2014-06-13, 01:27 PM

Sounds like a plan if it's going to go much further.

If you do post a link, I'd be totally interested in that.

Here it is. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?356576)

icefractal

2014-06-13, 02:17 PM

The main problem with this - well, one main problem anyway - is that the components of a spell don't meaningfully correspond to the power of the spell. For example:
Has Components: Fireball, Lightning Bolt
No Components: Major Image, Shrink Item, Explosive Runes

So the Wizards who just want to blast things and not overshadow anyone get screwed. Meanwhile, the casters who are stockpiling an arsenal of doom and winning things are doing just fine.

jedipotter

2014-06-13, 08:48 PM

My point is that you present the two game styles as a binary thing rather than the scaling spectrum that it really is. In your posts, you tend to treat anyone who isn't entirely happy with your type of game as a 'powergamer', or a 'problem player', or a 'munchkin'. There's a medium between the two extremes.

I LOT of players tend to not have fun playing 3X/P ''by the book''. You can see tons of threads here about such things. ''My poor fighter is useless next to the wizards'' or ''our fights only last like three rounds'' and more. And there are lots of games...

I'm fine if your not happy with my game......I don't care. I'm not going to call people names just as they don't like my way. I'll describe the way people play the game their way, nothing wrong with that. When a DM says something like ''max hit points every level'' he is saying ''no one will die, HP means nothing'' and it is one of the hallmarks of a Storyteller DM. It's not ''calling names'' to say that.

While you don't need to let players walk over you, you'll have a much more enjoyable time and have a much more stable roster of players if you were willing to compromise with them instead of constantly forcing them to take your way or the high way.

It's a life skill, not just a DM skill.

Compromise is wrong. It is a bad idea that I avoid if at all possible. And so what if someone does not want to play in my game? There are other games ''out on the highway''.

My houserules are for me, and all the other players to have a good time. A lot of my houserules prevent the ''special snowflake'' type player, and people are fine with that.

Your view is objectively wrong. This isn't a matter of opinion. If the game explicitly and intentionally allows these things to exist, then simply having them -- by definition -- cannot ever be cheating.

See I don't share this view. ''The Rules'' are not some magical thing....they are just rules. You see rules as ''words from on high that must be obeyed'', I see them as ''suggestions''. Sure, some shortsighted dude made up the bag of holding and the magic item creation rules, and that person did not have the common sense to see the potential problem. Though sadly, ''that dude, and all the editors(if there were any..) were playing some anti-optimzation ''happy agreement'' 2E retro clone.

So I dump extra demensional things out of my game.....they join that Tome of Battle in the fire pit.....

Well, it is cheating in the same way as this...that way being "not at all". Some groups don't like encumbrance, so they don't use it. Rules that are not in use cannot be broken, and therefore no cheating can arise from not following them. Again, this is not a matter of opinion.

If you do something to make the game too easy for your character: that is cheating. It is my opinion, so there.

As a DM, banning those items is your prerogative. But that doesn't mean that everyone else is "cheating" by having them in their games.

Did I say ''if you use a hag of holding in THE game, your a cheater''? I'll call you a cheater in my game sure, but why would I care what anyone else does?

So unless they really, really didn't enjoy doing so, anyone who does what you did, that is to say anyone who changes the game to suit themselves, is cheating. :smallconfused:

Though I can't fathom why you'd want to lump all homebrewers, from those who just make their own worlds to those who create new subsystems, with people who deliberately behave in a duplicitous manner.

If any DM wants to change things for their game, I don't care and won't call them anything. I only care about my game. Homebrew is fine, though most player made homebrew is just cheating (but really, who cares?) Cheating homwbrew would be another thread...

I'll attempt to explain the Bag of Holding(or worse that sack of cheating): A spellcaster can make scrolls, potions and other items cheap and easy in the rules. And there is nothing in the rules to stop them from making tons and tons of stuff. There are rules for how much you can carry, but the extra space items just throw them rules out the window. I have seen characters with 1,000's of scrolls, potions, wands, and magic items in a extra space item. Then, no matter what happens, they are ready for it. I'm sure some people think this is ''being smart'' or ''planning ahead'', but I don't see it that way. It's cheating. Your abusing the rules to get an unfair advantage. It is like having a character walk around with an Easy Button. They encounter anything at all...and click the button and solve it. That is cheating.

eggynack

2014-06-13, 09:00 PM

I'm fine if your not happy with my game......I don't care. I'm not going to call people names just as they don't like my way. I'll describe the way people play the game their way, nothing wrong with that. When a DM says something like ''max hit points every level'' he is saying ''no one will die, HP means nothing'' and it is one of the hallmarks of a Storyteller DM. It's not ''calling names'' to say that.
No, he is saying, "max hit points every level." No more, and no less. Maybe it means reduced lethality, or maybe it means they're going against some hulking brutes, or hell, maybe he wants more HP to come from HD, and wants animal companions and summons to be behind the curve.

Compromise is wrong. It is a bad idea that I avoid if at all possible. And so what if someone does not want to play in my game? There are other games ''out on the highway''.
That's silly. Compromise is how you get to a solution that is most equitable for everyone, and you occasionally come to a place that's better than the one you had planned. Not everything needs to come down to crazy arguments, but listening to your players and actually understanding the game they want to play doesn't seem like a bad idea to me.

See I don't share this view. ''The Rules'' are not some magical thing....they are just rules. You see rules as ''words from on high that must be obeyed'', I see them as ''suggestions''. Sure, some shortsighted dude made up the bag of holding and the magic item creation rules, and that person did not have the common sense to see the potential problem. Though sadly, ''that dude, and all the editors(if there were any..) were playing some anti-optimzation ''happy agreement'' 2E retro clone.
Cheating means using dishonest means. That's it. Are people being dishonest by using a bag of holding? Do you think that a lot of players say to their DM's, "Surprise, I have a bag of holding,"? Is that what you're talking about? Cause otherwise, seriously, words mean things.

So I dump extra demensional things out of my game.....they join that Tome of Battle in the fire pit.....
Such is your prerogative, but know that it is a silly prerogative.

If you do something to make the game too easy for your character: that is cheating. It is my opinion, so there.
That's not... that's not how opinions work. You can't just opinion your way out of definitions. It's like me saying, "In my opinion, I'm typing this post on a banana." It's just not what's happening.

Did I say ''if you use a hag of holding in THE game, your a cheater''? I'll call you a cheater in my game sure, but why would I care what anyone else does?
The problem is, as I noted, the term cheating really cannot apply here unless you're somehow judging other people's games. I mean, do you have bags of holding, but just hate people who use it? That seems kinda passive aggressive to me.

I'll attempt to explain the Bag of Holding(or worse that sack of cheating): A spellcaster can make scrolls, potions and other items cheap and easy in the rules. And there is nothing in the rules to stop them from making tons and tons of stuff. There are rules for how much you can carry, but the extra space items just throw them rules out the window. I have seen characters with 1,000's of scrolls, potions, wands, and magic items in a extra space item. Then, no matter what happens, they are ready for it. I'm sure some people think this is ''being smart'' or ''planning ahead'', but I don't see it that way. It's cheating. Your abusing the rules to get an unfair advantage. It is like having a character walk around with an Easy Button. They encounter anything at all...and click the button and solve it. That is cheating.
That doesn't really sound like the bag's fault. Wizards can get by with dozens of disposable items just fine, and picking up as many as you've cited likely actually puts you behind, cause permanent items are neat. You'd basically just be burning money to do that, money that could be spent on something like a metamagic rod. Those are neat.

Sir Chuckles

2014-06-13, 09:02 PM

Alright, now it just sounds like you're going out of your way to specifically piss off people.

If you do something to make the game too easy for your character: that is cheating. It is my opinion, so there.

If any DM wants to change things for their game, I don't care and won't call them anything. I only care about my game. Homebrew is fine, though most player made homebrew is just cheating (but really, who cares?) Cheating homwbrew would be another thread...

I'll attempt to explain the Bag of Holding(or worse that sack of cheating): A spellcaster can make scrolls, potions and other items cheap and easy in the rules. And there is nothing in the rules to stop them from making tons and tons of stuff. There are rules for how much you can carry, but the extra space items just throw them rules out the window. I have seen characters with 1,000's of scrolls, potions, wands, and magic items in a extra space item. Then, no matter what happens, they are ready for it. I'm sure some people think this is ''being smart'' or ''planning ahead'', but I don't see it that way. It's cheating. Your abusing the rules to get an unfair advantage. It is like having a character walk around with an Easy Button. They encounter anything at all...and click the button and solve it. That is cheating.

That is not cheating. Cheating is a word in the English language with a specific definition. Doing something to make the game too easy is not cheating, it's overstepping the optimization. While I can agree that there are times when a player can trivialize things in a way that makes it unfair, it is not cheating. Call it cheating sounds like something a child would say on an elementary school playground when they're losing at kickball. You opinion on what is cheat does not change that your definition is objectively wrong.

They are not abusing the rules, they're using the rules as presented. Abusing the rules would be using a RAW loophole, such as drowning to heal. It's not an unfair advantage, as anyone else could using a bag of holding. In the example you provided, there's very simple ways of countering it, and, again, it is not cheating. It is easily within the rules, but I can agree that thousands is very extreme. However, you have to realize that even a bag of holding has a weight and size limit.

Furthermore, casters have to pay experience point to craft items, in addition to the time spent to create them. A single potion takes a full day, Sribe Scroll 1 day per 1,000gp, which can add up very quickly.

Forrestfire

2014-06-13, 09:04 PM

Compromise is wrong. It is a bad idea that I avoid if at all possible. And so what if someone does not want to play in my game? There are other games ''out on the highway''.

Compromise is wrong. It is a bad idea that I avoid if at all possible.

Compromise is wrong.

:eek::frown::sigh:

So if I'm getting this right, you view DMing as a position of power and authority, instead of as another player enjoying the game at the table. In addition, you consider people acting smarter than you want them to (even when it makes perfect sense for a super-smart wizard to stock up on resources) to be cheating.

I am honestly astonished and appalled that your opinion on playing D&D is "Compromise is wrong." D&D is a fun game for playing with friends. You do play with friends with a mutual goal of enjoying the game, right?

Brookshw

2014-06-13, 09:14 PM

Jedi, I feel for you, I really do. I've played games like your describing and they were fun. The way you've presented the mindset however is very antagonistic.

Bag of holding etc = cheating, no, just no. This item has survived numerous editions and editors, its not some single edition bad thought.

Compromise? Well, that's the dms call, personally I draw lines in some places and am willing to compromise in others. To each there own I suppose.

aleucard

2014-06-13, 10:26 PM

I am beginning to get the impression that this guy is trolling us. Nobody sane would be this hard-up about these points of view. The "Compromise is wrong" thing is just the cherry on top.

Arkhaic

2014-06-13, 10:50 PM

Jedipotter, you are the Sean K Reynolds of hourserules. How you take that is completely up to you.

Turalisj

2014-06-13, 10:51 PM

Jedi, I'm just wondering... are you the only other DM around? What's your experience as a player like? How do you play in games, if you do at all?

Brookshw

2014-06-13, 11:19 PM

I am beginning to get the impression that this guy is trolling us. Nobody sane would be this hard-up about these points of view. The "Compromise is wrong" thing is just the cherry on top.

Nah, this is pretty standard for jedi, its not trolling.

TheIronGolem

2014-06-14, 12:25 AM

When a DM says something like ''max hit points every level'' he is saying ''no one will die, HP means nothing'' and it is one of the hallmarks of a Storyteller DM. It's not ''calling names'' to say that.
"Max hit points every level" does not in any way imply "no one will die" or "HP means nothing". And frankly, I'm confident that you already know that.

I for one use this rule, for the reason that I do not want randomness in character creation or advancement.

See I don't share this view. ''The Rules'' are not some magical thing....they are just rules. You see rules as ''words from on high that must be obeyed''...
Nothing I have ever said has ever even remotely implied that I hold such a view. Not in this thread, not in this forum or any other, not anywhere or at any time. I have in fact expressed the exact opposite view a great many times over. You are putting forth a strawman, which indicates that you are unwilling or unable to argue this point on honest terms.

Sure, some shortsighted dude made up the bag of holding and the magic item creation rules, and that person did not have the common sense to see the potential problem. Though sadly, ''that dude, and all the editors(if there were any..) were playing some anti-optimzation ''happy agreement'' 2E retro clone.
First, Bags of Holding and their cousins have been in the game since 1st Edition, so "that dude" is either Gary Gygax or Dave Arneson. Therefore, accusing them of making a "2E retroclone" is...not helping your argument, to say the least.

Second, the "problem" you refer to can only be a problem if (and only if) you want logistics to be a major focus of the game. And not wanting such a focus does not make one a "storygamer", "special snowflake", or any similarly childish term. You're acting exactly like the sort of snobbish gamer who insists that you're not a "real roleplayer" if your game includes anything other than diplomacy and political intrigue.

If you do something to make the game too easy for your character: that is cheating. It is my opinion, so there.
And as before, your opinion is objectively wrong. "Cheating" is a word with a specific definition, and "making it easy" is not it. Your opinion means nothing in this matter, because it's not a matter of opinion.

Did I say ''if you use a hag of holding in THE game, your a cheater''?

Well...

He asked you if you really consider [storage items] to be cheating. And do remember that this is a context where you implied that it's "cheating" in any game, not just yours where you ruled them out.

Yes, I think using a bag of holding(and all the rest) is cheating.
The question was clearly and explicitly framed in the context of D&D in general and not your specific game. And you answered in the affirmative. So yes, you did in fact say that.

I'll call you a cheater in my game sure, but why would I care what anyone else does?
I don't know, why would you? Because your passive-aggressive sniping and use of loaded terms on the subject shows that you clearly do.

Homebrew is fine, though most player made homebrew is just cheating (but really, who cares?) Cheating homwbrew would be another thread...
Also factually wrong, and "it's my opinion" still cannot save you. Also, note that this contradicts your earlier stance about how you see the rules as mere suggestions.

I'll attempt to explain the Bag of Holding(or worse that sack of cheating): A spellcaster can make scrolls, potions and other items cheap and easy in the rules. And there is nothing in the rules to stop them from making tons and tons of stuff. There are rules for how much you can carry, but the extra space items just throw them rules out the window. I have seen characters with 1,000's of scrolls, potions, wands, and magic items in a extra space item. Then, no matter what happens, they are ready for it. I'm sure some people think this is ''being smart'' or ''planning ahead'', but I don't see it that way. It's cheating. Your abusing the rules to get an unfair advantage. It is like having a character walk around with an Easy Button. They encounter anything at all...and click the button and solve it. That is cheating.

No, it's not abusing the rules. It's using the rules exactly as they were intended. Bags of Holding and their cousins were specifically meant to allow characters to store lots of things. Using them to store lots of things, therefore, isn't some kind of rules-lawyer shenanigans that subverts a loophole in the rules to get an unintended effect; it's doing exactly what the item was made for. It violates neither the letter nor the spirit of the rules. If using a BoH is cheating, then so is using a spell, or a weapon, or literally any equipment at all.

If a player makes the game "too easy" by using the rules as written and intended, then that might mean the rules should change, but it does not and cannot mean that the player is cheating. Most of the time, in fact, it means that you screwed up.

AuraTwilight

2014-06-14, 01:04 AM

I LOT of players tend to not have fun playing 3X/P ''by the book''. You can see tons of threads here about such things. ''My poor fighter is useless next to the wizards'' or ''our fights only last like three rounds'' and more. And there are lots of games...

I'm fine if your not happy with my game......I don't care. I'm not going to call people names just as they don't like my way. I'll describe the way people play the game their way, nothing wrong with that. When a DM says something like ''max hit points every level'' he is saying ''no one will die, HP means nothing'' and it is one of the hallmarks of a Storyteller DM. It's not ''calling names'' to say that.

Yes, it is. You're stereotyping someone based on a single thing without any more context. Maybe rolling HP goes poorly in that group because by pure luck of the dice the meatshield Fighter keeps having less HP than the wizard, who also has magical protections out the behind.

I mean, honestly, max HP each level isn't even that significant. In the higher levels, you're not even taking people out primarily through HP damage anyway.

Compromise is wrong. It is a bad idea that I avoid if at all possible. And so what if someone does not want to play in my game? There are other games ''out on the highway''.

My houserules are for me, and all the other players to have a good time. A lot of my houserules prevent the ''special snowflake'' type player, and people are fine with that.

...Are you screwing with us? I don't want to accuse you of being a troll or anything but considering the reactions of everyone else here I have to assume that at the very least, in the BEST case scenario, you GM exclusively for statistical outliers with the exact same tastes as yourself, and there's no proof you're even being entirely honest about that.

Your attitude heavily suggests that if a player doesn't like your game style, you'll basically insult them, victim-blame them, and kick them out. Since you're apparently the only half-competent DM in your area according to your anecdotes, I doubt the sincerity of "all my players love my wildly outrageous houserules without complaint!" It sounds like stockholm syndrome.

That you can't compromise with people indicates strong anti-social behavior.

See I don't share this view. ''The Rules'' are not some magical thing....they are just rules. You see rules as ''words from on high that must be obeyed''

See, this is that thing I mentioned, where you tell people what their positions are for them. It's dishonest and indicative of a person who is unwilling to understand what other people think, feel, or need. It's an indication of a self-centered person who considers being 'right' more important than achieving their original goal.

Considering that you think outsmarting the GM is cheating, this is a bad sign all around.

Sure, some shortsighted dude made up the bag of holding and the magic item creation rules, and that person did not have the common sense to see the potential problem. Though sadly, ''that dude, and all the editors(if there were any..) were playing some anti-optimzation ''happy agreement'' 2E retro clone.

His name is Gary Gygax. The person who invented D&D. The person who's playstyle you seem very eager to emulate (since you describe your games as 'old-school 1E-style grindhouse').

He used Bags of Holding and the like liberally in his games, because he thought earning the right to ignore inventory management with the use of a magic item was a suitable reward for players who lived long enough to demonstrate it didn't pose an obstacle to them.

This is a thing games do, in general. Like, ALL games. Old challenges fall to the wayside to allow for bigger ones.

I'll attempt to explain the Bag of Holding(or worse that sack of cheating): A spellcaster can make scrolls, potions and other items cheap and easy in the rules. And there is nothing in the rules to stop them from making tons and tons of stuff. There are rules for how much you can carry, but the extra space items just throw them rules out the window. I have seen characters with 1,000's of scrolls, potions, wands, and magic items in a extra space item. Then, no matter what happens, they are ready for it. I'm sure some people think this is ''being smart'' or ''planning ahead'', but I don't see it that way. It's cheating. Your abusing the rules to get an unfair advantage. It is like having a character walk around with an Easy Button. They encounter anything at all...and click the button and solve it. That is cheating.

But that's exactly what Bags of Holding are for, and this is exactly how Wizard-type characters are meant to be played in Gary Gygax's original conception of them (starting out dreadfully weak and then becoming nearly godlike near the end of the game due to smart play and magical power).

If characters doing things in the rules makes your game too easy, maybe you're just doing a bad job at challenging them. Maybe you should play a different game that fits your gaming tastes rather than taking a blunt instrument to D&D with houserules until it becomes what you want it to be.

XionUnborn01

2014-06-14, 01:16 AM

By your own rules, it means that every character class is cheating because they employ items which help them find an easy way out of an unpleasant situation. The mundanes get their weapons and armor, while the casters get their spells, with rogues/bards using skills. So effectively, every class is now cheating.

When everyone is cheating, no one is cheating.

http://x2.fjcdn.com/comments/And+when+everyone+s+super...+No+_e62ef5cc2a215cb6a f42733250220ec7.jpg

On a related note, this is now how I'll think Jedipotter looks.

jedipotter

2014-06-14, 12:48 PM

are not abusing the rules, they're using the rules as presented. Abusing the rules would be using a RAW loophole, such as drowning to heal. It's not an unfair advantage, as anyone else could using a bag of holding. In the example you provided, there's very simple ways of countering it, and, again, it is not cheating. It is easily within the rules, but I can agree that thousands is very extreme. However, you have to realize that even a bag of holding has a weight and size limit.

D&D is a game where you as a player create a character that then has to over come challenges placed in front of you by a DM. Simple right? So if you do something that automatically overcomes every challenge, your just an awesome player? Though it is no fun for the DM or the other players to sit back and watch you ruin their fun with your portable hole. But as the most awesome player ever, it is ok to do that? And the most awesome player ever is a coward and just hides behind a rule book and says ''oh page 133 lets me do that.''

No, it is cheating. Doing something to auto win, is cheating. It is like putting a video game on ''god mode'' and then completing all ten levels. You could say you ''beat'' the game....but you did not, you cheated. And I don't care if it is in a book somewhere. Why does everyone act like that is so important? The D&D Rules are just some things made up by some guys. They were not gods or perfect beings or such. They were just guys. They can and are wrong about lots of things. They are human and make mistakes.

I'm not really talking about bags of holding.....the real cheater item is the Enveloping Pit. It was made as a kobold relic, but sloppy editing or lazy writing or just a crazy writer made it ''by the rules'' available to everyone. So you have an item, bigger and better and cheaper then a portable hole. There is no way that is not an error, by the rule people are just gonna say ''page 33 says I can have it''. In my game, it is a relic. Period.

Boci

2014-06-14, 12:51 PM

D&D is a game where you as a player create a character that then has to over come challenges placed in front of you by a DM. Simple right? So if you do something that automatically overcomes every challenge, your just an awesome player? Though it is no fun for the DM or the other players to sit back and watch you ruin their fun with your portable hole. But as the most awesome player ever, it is ok to do that? And the most awesome player ever is a coward and just hides behind a rule book and says ''oh page 133 lets me do that.''

No, it is cheating. Doing something to auto win, is cheating. It is like putting a video game on ''god mode'' and then completing all ten levels. You could say you ''beat'' the game....but you did not, you cheated. And I don't care if it is in a book somewhere. Why does everyone act like that is so important? The D&D Rules are just some things made up by some guys. They were not gods or perfect beings or such. They were just guys. They can and are wrong about lots of things. They are human and make mistakes.

I'm not really talking about bags of holding.....the real cheater item is the Enveloping Pit. It was made as a kobold relic, but sloppy editing or lazy writing or just a crazy writer made it ''by the rules'' available to everyone. So you have an item, bigger and better and cheaper then a portable hole. There is no way that is not an error, by the rule people are just gonna say ''page 33 says I can have it''. In my game, it is a relic. Period.

So you spoke with the designers and they said it was an error? If not, you cannot be sure it is. Also, how does enveloping pit "automatically overcomes every challenge"? Seems like you could still easily challenge a party with one.

eggynack

2014-06-14, 12:54 PM

D&D is a game where you as a player create a character that then has to over come challenges placed in front of you by a DM. Simple right? So if you do something that automatically overcomes every challenge, your just an awesome player? Though it is no fun for the DM or the other players to sit back and watch you ruin their fun with your portable hole. But as the most awesome player ever, it is ok to do that? And the most awesome player ever is a coward and just hides behind a rule book and says ''oh page 133 lets me do that.''

No, it is cheating. Doing something to auto win, is cheating. It is like putting a video game on ''god mode'' and then completing all ten levels. You could say you ''beat'' the game....but you did not, you cheated. And I don't care if it is in a book somewhere. Why does everyone act like that is so important? The D&D Rules are just some things made up by some guys. They were not gods or perfect beings or such. They were just guys. They can and are wrong about lots of things. They are human and make mistakes.
Seriously? Any challenge you create can be automatically won through the use of a bag of holding/enveloping pit? Seriously? This is your god mode? You're acting like carrying lots of stuff is pun-pun. If every challenge the DM comes up with is trivially overcome by the player, then the DM needs harder challenges, or the player needs to optimize less. And it might be so that he needs to optimize less. You can do some pretty powerful things in this game. However, at no step is this cheating. There is no cheating here.

Brookshw

2014-06-14, 01:03 PM

Eggy beat me to the punch...

But anyway, Jedi, sounds like this might be an encounter design issue. To try and understand this better would you mind outlining three challenges/encounters you've used recently and how they were overcome? Also how you believe they might have been overcome without your house rules?

Necroticplague

2014-06-14, 01:04 PM

I'm not really talking about bags of holding.....the real cheater item is the Enveloping Pit. It was made as a kobold relic, but sloppy editing or lazy writing or just a crazy writer made it ''by the rules'' available to everyone. So you have an item, bigger and better and cheaper then a portable hole. There is no way that is not an error, by the rule people are just gonna say ''page 33 says I can have it''. In my game, it is a relic. Period.
Really? Anybody can use it?

If you are
lawful evil, lawful neutral, or neutral evil,
an enveloping pit functions like a portable
hole, except that it is 50 feet deep.

Last I checked, 1/3rd of people (assuming even alignment alignment distribution) is not remotely close to "everybody". It's not even bordering on "half the people". And it doesn't help you overcome challenges directly. Sure, it helps you store items. But you can do that by making something, then having a mule carry it. Sure, you can have the mule killed, but you can similarly have the pit stolen.

jedipotter

2014-06-14, 01:40 PM

So you spoke with the designers and they said it was an error? If not, you cannot be sure it is. Also, how does enveloping pit "automatically overcomes every challenge"? Seems like you could still easily challenge a party with one.

I don't see how an item that is better then another similar item, but cheaper, is not an error. But then this is why I'm a DM and other people are players(see below).

Seriously? Any challenge you create can be automatically won through the use of a bag of holding/enveloping pit? Seriously? This is your god mode? You're acting like carrying lots of stuff is pun-pun. If every challenge the DM comes up with is trivially overcome by the player, then the DM needs harder challenges, or the player needs to optimize less. And it might be so that he needs to optimize less. You can do some pretty powerful things in this game. However, at no step is this cheating. There is no cheating here.

Ok, maybe you don't run into this type of player...as I don't see how your not understanding the problem(but, see below). When a player has an item of thousands of scrolls, potions, wands, and other items it is cheating and ruins the game. No matter what happens, the character has a counter to it. The game is not ''how will this group of people solve this problem'' to becomes ''how long will it take Fred to find the fix on his stack of papers.'' That game is boring and no fun, for everyone but Fred. Fred thinks he is the greatest player in the world when he finds 100 dragon bane weapons on page seven of his pit of cheating.

Maybe I've had the only bad players in the world and every other player everywhere is a saint?

So if I'm getting this right, you view DMing as a position of power and authority, instead of as another player enjoying the game at the table. In addition, you consider people acting smarter than you want them to (even when it makes perfect sense for a super-smart wizard to stock up on resources) to be cheating.

I am honestly astonished and appalled that your opinion on playing D&D is "Compromise is wrong." D&D is a fun game for playing with friends. You do play with friends with a mutual goal of enjoying the game, right?

Yes, the DM is a power and authority over the players. The DM is NOT a player.

The problem is the players have a stake in the game, and can not be counted on to be objective. Ask the players of five 20th level wizards if they think that the spell gate needs any type of fix. At least three will say the spell just just fine, but not because they believe it, but because they can't wait to use (and abuse) the rule in the game. They can't wait for the game to start so they can gate in all sorts of Epic level things. They can not be trusted to vote the right way. It is like asking someone named Kevin, ''Do you think everyone with a name that starts with the letter 'K' should get a million dollars?'' Gosh, I'll bet Kevin would say ''yes''......

Then a lot of players just don't understand. I lot of players are casual gamers, at best. They don't know the ins and outs of the rules. They know just enough to play their character. So if you ask them to vote on something, they can do little more then guess.

It is not a problem with friends, but we don't always game with friends. And not everyone is the same ''level'' of friend. Josh is one of my good friends, his brother is not...as I only know him through Josh and we have little in common, but both are players in my game.

A lot of people need boundaries, they want to be told what to do. They want someone else to take charge, but if they are in charge they will abuse their power. And why not abuse their power, there is no rule to stop them. So they feel free to do whatever they want, but as soon as someone in authority says something, they will settle down and act normal.

The DM is very often the only one who cares about all the players having fun. It is rare for each player to care about the fun of each other player. If you doubt this is true, just check the boards. On any given day you will see something like ''the poor fighter player feel useless in the game next to the wizards, how can I help him''. Ever wonder why the other players of the wizards don't voluntarily tone in down? Don't they care that one player is not having fun? Or do they only care about their own fun?

And way, way, way too many players play the game for ''their own personal fun'', not anything else.....

eggynack

2014-06-14, 01:44 PM

Ok, maybe you don't run into this type of player...as I don't see how your not understanding the problem(but, see below). When a player has an item of thousands of scrolls, potions, wands, and other items it is cheating and ruins the game. No matter what happens, the character has a counter to it. The game is not ''how will this group of people solve this problem'' to becomes ''how long will it take Fred to find the fix on his stack of papers.'' That game is boring and no fun, for everyone but Fred. Fred thinks he is the greatest player in the world when he finds 100 dragon bane weapons on page seven of his pit of cheating.

Maybe I've had the only bad players in the world and every other player everywhere is a saint?
That really has more to do with the fact that you gave him the time and resources to create/purchase a crapton of stuff than it does with the fact that he has an item that can carry it. You could get a roughly comparable effect with a mule and a sack, cause a mule with a sack can carry a lot of scrolls.

Boci

2014-06-14, 01:45 PM

I don't see how an item that is better then another similar item, but cheaper, is not an error.

And how do you know the more expensive item wasn't the error? Still waiting on how this item lets you auto win D&D btw. Thousands of scrolls may be powerful, but those scrolls cost money. The pit doesn't make them any cheaper.

But then this is why I'm a DM and other people are players(see below).

No, no it isn't. There is no requirement that a DM be smarter/more rule knowledgeable/have a greater grasp on mechanics than the players, its a plus but not a requirement. And that's before we consider that your skill in the second two areas may not be nearly as high as you imagine it to be.

jaydubs

2014-06-14, 01:55 PM

It seems like we just have a fundamentally different notion of what it means to cheat.

For most of us, "cheating" means purposefully breaking the rules (official or homebrew) of the game in order to gain an advantage.

Jedipotter seams to be using the term "cheating" as any time a player acts in a way that makes an obstacle designed by the DM (him, in this case) less challenging than intended.

To give an example, imagine that there is a Macguffin inside a pit. The pit is covered in the bones of previous adventurers who tried to obtain the Macguffin. When the Macguffin is lifted from its pedastal, the corpses animate, attack the players, and try to return the Macguffin to its place.

Instead, having seen Indiana Jones and having a bit of genre savvy, the players choose not to go that route. The rogue climbs down sneakily, ties a rope around the Macguffin, and climbs back out. Then the players fill the pit with lamp oil (either from a bag of holding, a mule, or just a high strength character). They pull the Macguffin out while simultaneously lighting the pit on fire. Most of the undead fry. The few undead that manage to climb the walls get finished off without issue.

By using creativity and some tools at hand, the players make a very challenging encounter into something with very little risk. Most of us would consider this the actions of a group of clever adventurers, using their brains rather than their muscles (really stats and rolls). But from his posts, I gather Jedipotter would consider this a form of cheating, since it makes the encounter an "auto win."

D&D is a game where you as a player create a character that then has to over come challenges placed in front of you by a DM. Simple right? So if you do something that automatically overcomes every challenge, your just an awesome player?

<snip>

No, it is cheating. Doing something to auto win, is cheating. It is like putting a video game on ''god mode'' and then completing all ten levels.

<snip>

He's mentioned similar viewpoints before. He considers it cheating when players try to reduce the chance of failing skill checks to near zero, for instance, so it can't be just about balancing (unless rogues are overpowered). Essentially, whenever players gain enough control over the situation to succeed without good rolls, they are engaging in cheating. It just so happens that magic allows spellcasters to do that more often than other classes.

NichG

2014-06-14, 02:18 PM

Maybe I've had the only bad players in the world and every other player everywhere is a saint?

Ever wonder why the other players of the wizards don't voluntarily tone in down? Don't they care that one player is not having fun? Or do they only care about their own fun?

And way, way, way too many players play the game for ''their own personal fun'', not anything else.....

Nah, but there are other ways to deal with that than the 'big stick' approach, and they work well on a wider range of players than your DM comfort zone. For example, by being explicit about this - tell the players that you expect them to care about eachother's fun, and regardless of what the rules say or 'what their character would do', actions which make the game suck for everyone at the table aren't acceptable. In other words, solve OOC problems with OOC solutions rather than trying to do it with mechanics.

The thing with mechanics is that if you say 'the rule is X' then anyone can try to rules-lawyer around the specific phrasing of it. No rules system is perfect, so there are always loopholes and unintended consequences and such. On the other hand, if you just say 'the underlying reason is what's important, and lets all agree not to mess with that reason' then the players can understand not just 'what' you want them to do (and therefore can easily misinterpret it as a challenge or power struggle or an invitation to twist the rules or whatever), but also 'why'. And if everyone at the table has to agree to the basic principles of the game (a social contract) then its more likely to be clear to not just you but to everyone when someone is being a jerk and violating it for their own enjoyment.

So basically, your method might work with the 10% of players you've filtered and adapted to your style. But there are methods that work much more broadly and can make 80% of players into 'good players'.

Necroticplague

2014-06-14, 02:32 PM

I don't see how an item that is better then another similar item, but cheaper, is not an error. But then this is why I'm a DM and other people are players(see below).

Because, as I pointed out, it has alignment restrictions. And its a bit hard to use, as you need 10 feet of space to unfold it onto, then you need to reach the item in the pit. Which, given how its 50 feet deep, is quiet a challenge reaching anything. So at absolute best, it takes two move actions (one manipulate item action to unfold, one item to draw an item, assuming you can reach it), and would likely take more (unfold, climb down, pick up from ground, and climb up, each separate move actions, one of which would require a Climb check, which a low STR character is probably gonna fail). So essentially, its cheaper because its a pain to use, if you can use it.

Talya

2014-06-14, 02:32 PM

D&D is a game where you as a player create a character that then has to over come challenges placed in front of you by a DM. Simple right? So if you do something that automatically overcomes every challenge, your just an awesome player?

If you view the overcoming of challenges as the goal/measure of good playing, then yes. By definition, anything you can do that helps you overcome those challenges is "playing well."

You overcome challenges through strategy and tactics. Tactics are things you think up on the fly, as they happen. Strategy is planning ahead, trying to be ready. Character build and equipment are part of strategy. (Incidentally, Strategy also enables tactics.)

Without either of these things, you might as well just assign the players their odds of beating your encounter and roll percentile dice without interaction. You are saying "Players have to overcome challenges placed in front of them by the dm, but anything they do to overcome those challenges is cheating." Making challenges easier, even trivializing them, is part of overcoming them, If you roll five twenties in a row, you've just trivialized an encounter. If you choose to kill the glass cannon instead of focusing on the indestructible but unthreatening tank, you've just trivialized the encounter. Why is this different than any other means of doing so?

You are trying to "have your cake and eat it to." If the goal is to overcome challenges, then doing things to improve your odds of overcoming those challenges is automatically playing well. It's not cheating. Just like it's not cheating in sports to play defensively when protecting a lead late in the game. Or like it's not "cheating in war" (if there was such a thing) to use bigger guns than the other guys have when they are available to you. Or like it's not "cheating at a video game" to save your powerups for the boss fights. It's just smart play.

I generally play RPGs like the challenges are just things I want to get past so I can get to the meat of the RPG - the social interactions...the actual roleplaying. And you know what, that doesn't change the above at all, either. YES, I want to trivialize those encounters, because they're irritations that are in the way of getting to what I want to be doing.

ahenobarbi

2014-06-14, 02:55 PM

SThe game has Old School flavor, so a character can stock up on material components, but they can't go crazy and have like 1,000 hawk feathers. And their are no extra-deminsional bags of cheating.

A humming bird has 1000 feathers (and their number goes up with size). Just buy a hawk , kill it and carefuly package its feathers (since apparently you houseruled that they have to be in a good condition).

jedipotter

2014-06-14, 04:09 PM

That really has more to do with the fact that you gave him the time and resources to create/purchase a crapton of stuff than it does with the fact that he has an item that can carry it. You could get a roughly comparable effect with a mule and a sack, cause a mule with a sack can carry a lot of scrolls.

I love mules, they fit in just fine. The character can't take them everywhere, and they are a huge liability. They fit in my game just fine.

No, no it isn't. There is no requirement that a DM be smarter/more rule knowledgeable/have a greater grasp on mechanics than the players, its a plus but not a requirement. And that's before we consider that your skill in the second two areas may not be nearly as high as you imagine it to be.

I guess you can say there is no requirement to be a DM and that anyone can do it. But this is just not true. I lot like everything else, everyone ''thinks'' they can do it......but only a few can do it when they try. A Dm that does not have a firm grasp on the rules is not going to run a good game. How can they when they can't even answer a simple question? It would only be worse if the players knew more then the DM...think of the nightmare: DM''You see a dragon'' Player one:''We shoot the dragonbane arrow at it and it dies'' DM:''It does?" Player 2''Yup, dragonbane equals auto death with no save!'' DM''Oh, thanks for telling me'' Player 3''The dragon has one million gold coins and five artifacts in it's horde'' DM''It does?'' Player 3''yup, I know this for a fact.''

For most of us, "cheating" means purposefully breaking the rules (official or homebrew) of the game in order to gain an advantage.

Jedipotter seams to be using the term "cheating" as any time a player acts in a way that makes an obstacle designed by the DM (him, in this case) less challenging than intended.

So most people have no problem with the spell Gate? It's fine to get infinite wishes using gate? The RAW allow this to be done, so it is ok and not cheating. And all the DM can do is ask the players not to do that?

I'll do the definition for the type of cheating I'm talking about: ''When a player knowing, willing and with great malice does something beyond all reason to make the challenge of the game pointless. ''

Mundane things like the bag of oil are bad enough, but it just goes beyond the pale with thousands of spells, magic items and other things.

Spellcasters have a limit as to how many spells they can cast a day. This is in the rules for balance. The game would be pointless if a spellcaster could cast an infinite number of spells a day. There is a limit to the amount of items a character can carry around. This is in the rules for balance. If a character could carry around a ton of stuff the game gets pointless. And if you allow both, infinite spells and items, why even play the game?

Is everyone really so obsessed with carrying around everything including the kitchen sink? Or is this just video game playing where you can carry tons of things? Everyone wants the game to be like video games where you can carry around like two .50 cal's and ammo, plus several rifles, machine guns, hand guns, and other things like a radio.

I guess I just have to hope that everyone is just against the idea is joking. As I can't see how they would play in a game with a extra space item of where a player had filled it beyond all reason with items.

Grod_The_Giant

2014-06-14, 04:32 PM

Brookshw

2014-06-14, 04:39 PM

[QUOTE=jedipotter;17627550.

I guess I just have to hope that everyone is just against the idea is joking. As I can't see how they would play in a game with a extra space item of where a player had filled it beyond all reason with items.[/QUOTE]

We're really not though. Generally its just easier to discuss you're cheese tolerance with your players. You're example dm who has zero knowledge of the rules AND players who will abuse this is so contrived I can't begin to take it seriously.

You're basically arguing TO has no place in a game and then using that to conclude PO has no place in a game. Assuming the party has finite resources is pretty common, that bag ain't stuffed with unlimited gear, its stocked with finite gear they obtain.

You still haven't replied to my request for examples.

AuraTwilight

2014-06-14, 04:46 PM

eggynack

2014-06-14, 04:51 PM

I guess I just have to hope that everyone is just against the idea is joking. As I can't see how they would play in a game with a extra space item of where a player had filled it beyond all reason with items.
As I noted, you do much better by limiting how much of this stuff a player can make or buy. Scrolls, potions and wands are frigging expensive, and they take a lot of time to make, so just don't have infinite downtime, and if you're not sticking around wealth by level, do so. As is, the reason people like extra space items is because they're convenient. They reduce the complexity of a part of the game that doesn't appeal to a lot of people. Some people like games about beating up monsters, going on an epic quest, or delving into diplomacy and intrigue, and do not like games about inventory management.

Svata

2014-06-14, 05:05 PM

So most people have no problem with the spell Gate? It's fine to get infinite wishes using gate? The RAW allow this to be done, so it is ok and not cheating. And all the DM can do is ask the players not to do that?
No. This is where you *gasp* compromise with them, and agree that they won't abuse gate, and you won't send the infinite hordes of The Abyss after them.

Spellcasters have a limit as to how many spells they can cast a day. This is in the rules for balance. The game would be pointless if a spellcaster could cast an infinite number of spells a day. There is a limit to the amount of items a character can carry around. This is in the rules for balance. If a character could carry around a ton of stuff the game gets pointless. And if you allow both, infinite spells and items, why even play the game?

But items are limited. By WBL and item availability.

Red Fel

2014-06-14, 05:05 PM

I guess you can say there is no requirement to be a DM and that anyone can do it. But this is just not true. I lot like everything else, everyone ''thinks'' they can do it......but only a few can do it when they try.

That's one of the most arrogant attitudes I've seen on this board, honestly. Look, I get that there are bad DMs, but what you're suggesting borders on eugenics. It's seriously distressing.

Being a DM is not like being some kind of super-expert, born to lead the feeble masses. In fact, that kind of attitude ("Only the great can become DMs, and they are the rare few") makes for a bad DM, in my mind. If only a few are capable of DMing, then only they have the understanding necessary for DMing. Because understanding is necessary in order to critique a DM, only a good DM could critique another good DM. As good DMs are so rare, it seems likely that no mere player would ever have reason or justification to question his DM. The repercussions are frankly disheartening.

A Dm that does not have a firm grasp on the rules is not going to run a good game.

Perfectly valid point, with which I generally agree.

How can they when they can't even answer a simple question? It would only be worse if the players knew more then the DM...think of the nightmare: DM''You see a dragon'' Player one:''We shoot the dragonbane arrow at it and it dies'' DM:''It does?" Player 2''Yup, dragonbane equals auto death with no save!'' DM''Oh, thanks for telling me'' Player 3''The dragon has one million gold coins and five artifacts in it's horde'' DM''It does?'' Player 3''yup, I know this for a fact.''

Hello, false dichotomy.

You're suggesting that the demarcation is either people who are like you, have a very specific grasp of what the rules should be and will tolerate no cleverness or ingenuity by the players, and idiots who don't read the books and swallow any tripe the players offer.

I assure you, there is a middle-ground. In my experience, flexible DMs who have altered expectations and rules, who listen to players and allow clever plans to work, have produced some of the most awesome gaming scenarios. It does work. It's not one or the other, tyrant or twit, sovereign or stupid. I assure you, there is a middle-ground.

Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?

Necroticplague

2014-06-14, 05:07 PM

I love mules, they fit in just fine. The character can't take them everywhere, and they are a huge liability. They fit in my game just fine.

And how are they any different from the Pit? Both are useful devices that allow you to get around weight restrictions on what you can carry, and both have upsides and downsides. Mules can be slain and need fed, enveloping pits can be screwed by alignment changes and need a lot of actions to use and have a magic aura that can be seen. Both can be stolen or replaced by sufficiently beefy party members.

So most people have no problem with the spell Gate? It's fine to get infinite wishes using gate? The RAW allow this to be done, so it is ok and not cheating. And all the DM can do is ask the players not to do that?

No, it's not cheating. "Things you shouldn't do" and "cheating" are not the same thing. They can do more things than merely ask them not to do so, though that should be the first thing. Like have higher powers (or the djinni you summoned) come take revenge.

I'll do the definition for the type of cheating I'm talking about: ''When a player knowing, willing and with great malice does something beyond all reason to make the challenge of the game pointless. ''

Where is that anywhere the definition of cheating? Besides, it runs into several problems due to descriptors. For example, your theoretical paranoid wizard isn't acting with any malice, much less great malice, he's just trying to be prepared.

Spellcasters have a limit as to how many spells they can cast a day. This is in the rules for balance. The game would be pointless if a spellcaster could cast an infinite number of spells a day. There is a limit to the amount of items a character can carry around. This is in the rules for balance. If a character could carry around a ton of stuff the game gets pointless. And if you allow both, infinite spells and items, why even play the game?
No, even if spellcasters did have infinite spells, you could still challenge them by simply giving them situations that spells can't simply solve. Even if a character can carry around a very large amount of items, it first requires them to acquire said objects.

Is everyone really so obsessed with carrying around everything including the kitchen sink? Or is this just video game playing where you can carry tons of things? Everyone wants the game to be like video games where you can carry around like two .50 cal's and ammo, plus several rifles, machine guns, hand guns, and other things like a radio.
Well, the origin of the discussion was how increasing bookeeping doesn't do anything but take up a lot of time, you essentially said that measures that decrease are cheating (which carries the implication that those who do so are cheaters).

I guess I just have to hope that everyone is just against the idea is joking. As I can't see how they would play in a game with a extra space item of where a player had filled it beyond all reason with items.
They can play with extra space items because thanks to restrictions on availability of items (WBL at chargen, only giving out so much treasure during play), giving them the ability to carry what they want never becomes "beyond all reason".

Boci

2014-06-14, 05:18 PM

Is everyone really so obsessed with carrying around everything including the kitchen sink?

Yes, because its fun. Its not about effectiveness necessarily.
Its also about style: "Hey we need to make a tent, preferable one that inspires martial process. I knew the half a tone of dragon bones was going to come in handy"
Creating interesting dialogue options with NPCs "The high priest we like is building a temple. Let's give her the shimmering marble from the dwarven mines we cleared. That should make a nice headpiece for the alter"
Going good. "We are going to be gone soon, and the bandits will return. The villagers do not have the weapons to fight them off. Here, take 200 crossbows and 400 spears we looted from the battlefield after the Gruntag Battle"
Having good props for the story you tell "And then we went to X and got this, killed Y and looted this..."

It is also about effectiveness. "Oh cool, I knew keeping that ooze bane weapon was a good idea" But is not about auto winning, because most items are balanced. If the item allows you to auto win, that's the items problem, not the ting allowing you to carry it.

WhamBamSam

2014-06-14, 05:22 PM

I guess you can say there is no requirement to be a DM and that anyone can do it. But this is just not true. I lot like everything else, everyone ''thinks'' they can do it......but only a few can do it when they try. A Dm that does not have a firm grasp on the rules is not going to run a good game. How can they when they can't even answer a simple question? It would only be worse if the players knew more then the DM...think of the nightmare: DM''You see a dragon'' Player one:''We shoot the dragonbane arrow at it and it dies'' DM:''It does?" Player 2''Yup, dragonbane equals auto death with no save!'' DM''Oh, thanks for telling me'' Player 3''The dragon has one million gold coins and five artifacts in it's horde'' DM''It does?'' Player 3''yup, I know this for a fact.''I don't know if you're constructing a strawman or making a slippery slope fallacy, but either way, that's asinine. The DM can be less knowledgeable than the players and still be pretty knowledgeable and not cartoonishly gullible. Also, the DM should be keeping track of what the players are carrying around, and have looked up what it does ahead of time.

So most people have no problem with the spell Gate? It's fine to get infinite wishes using gate? The RAW allow this to be done, so it is ok and not cheating. And all the DM can do is ask the players not to do that? Not as such, but there's a vast gulf between Gate and just about everything else except Shapechange. Is it cheating to use Freedom of Movement in exactly the way it was intended, or to consistently prepare a bunch of them/start making scrolls for the rogue if the party needs to deal with an infestation of Colossal Monstrous Scorpions or a Black Blood Cultist group?

The DM can tell the players not do that by Rule 0. Or anything really, but there are plenty of things the DM should let the players do that I can only assume you wouldn't. If I'm going for a meat grinder campaign, I expect the players not to pull punches with their optimization, because I'm certainly not going to. There will be no Pun-Pun-esque shenanigans, and I might enforce some tier restriction (which might be "no tier 1-2," but might also be "tier 1 only, you'll need it"), but not much more than that. If they don't do things you'd probably consider cheating, they'll die.

You want to play a Binder and use Naberius to fast heal ability damage? Cool. You want to buy a handy haversack/bag of holding/portable hole full of vials of Aboleth Mucus and liquid ice and marbles and scrolls and wands and whatever else you might think you'll need? Great. You want to play a Warforged or a Necropolitan who can stand guard all night while the party sleeps? Be my guest. You've got some means to heal vile damage? Wonderful. Hope it's enough.

Also, I would much, much, much rather play at Tippy's table than yours. So I guess you could say that I have fewer problems with Gate Wish-loops than I do with your gaming philosophy and houserules.

I'll do the definition for the type of cheating I'm talking about: ''When a player knowing, willing and with great malice does something beyond all reason to make the challenge of the game pointless. ''

Mundane things like the bag of oil are bad enough, but it just goes beyond the pale with thousands of spells, magic items and other things.

Spellcasters have a limit as to how many spells they can cast a day. This is in the rules for balance. The game would be pointless if a spellcaster could cast an infinite number of spells a day. There is a limit to the amount of items a character can carry around. This is in the rules for balance. If a character could carry around a ton of stuff the game gets pointless. And if you allow both, infinite spells and items, why even play the game?

Is everyone really so obsessed with carrying around everything including the kitchen sink? Or is this just video game playing where you can carry tons of things? Everyone wants the game to be like video games where you can carry around like two .50 cal's and ammo, plus several rifles, machine guns, hand guns, and other things like a radio.

I guess I just have to hope that everyone is just against the idea is joking. As I can't see how they would play in a game with a extra space item of where a player had filled it beyond all reason with items.Items are limited by the money you have, the availability of the items, and time. Weight isn't a very good balancing factor. At first blush having to actually use carrying capacity rather than extra-dimensional space might seem to favor the poor fighter because of his high Str, but he has to carry heavier things than the casters do, doesn't have an animal companion, undead minions, or the like to carry things for him, and even has fewer skill points for the building and repair of carts for mule-based alternatives.

And I don't consider it malicious to be carrying around a bag of holding with stuff in it so long as I haven't broken WBL to get the bag or the stuff within. Or to do a lot of other things you wouldn't allow, like, say, play a straight single classed Warblade. I don't want my Warblade and his magic bag to remove the challenge from your game. I want your game to challenge my Warblade and his magic bag.

NichG

2014-06-14, 05:23 PM

Well, the counter to that is, if jedipotter is very interested in the emergent gameplay that comes from very strict inventory management, then putting aside all polemics about 'cheating' it makes sense for him to make sure the players are restricted in what they can do to get around inventory management as a serious problem.

Really if someone told me that they wanted to make a campaign that tested the players' ability to perform square roots in their head, I'd think it a bit weird but I'd say 'at least they know what they want out of this'.

The main problem I have is that jedipotter's approach towards creating the kind of game he seems to want is basically not a very efficient way of achieving it - e.g. using punitive measures to make players miserable until only a small core is left, as opposed to just explaining what he wants OOC to his players and then playing with the people who are still interested. It also seems somewhat impolite to all the players who end up wasting a lot of time on something destined to be a bad experience for them, when that waste could've been prevented with a little bit of communication.

jedipotter

2014-06-14, 05:28 PM

We're really not though. Generally its just easier to discuss you're cheese tolerance with your players. You're example dm who has zero knowledge of the rules AND players who will abuse this is so contrived I can't begin to take it seriously.

You're basically arguing TO has no place in a game and then using that to conclude PO has no place in a game. Assuming the party has finite resources is pretty common, that bag ain't stuffed with unlimited gear, its stocked with finite gear they obtain.

You still haven't replied to my request for examples.

I'm Out of Town at the Worlds Biggest Yard Sale (I got a $5 microwave and a near mint of She-Hulk #1 for 50 cents), using the free WI-fi at Hot Dog Heaven on my phone. What example did you want?

I'm not a fan of the group chat. Out of five players two might care, one sort of cares, and two don't care at all. But all the players agree that it is a huge waste of game time to ''talk'' about the game. It is worse when Player C goes off on a rant and says ''I can use ten nightsticks at the same time'' and does not want the game to start until everyone agrees to allow him to cheat. The chances of getting everyone to agree to even reasonable rules like ''no illusion can be more then 100% real'' is impossible.

Lies. A good GM, regardless of their grasp of the rules, will be self-consistent and do what's best for the narrative and the fun of the table, even if it means breaking every rule in the book.

What? If you do that then your playing free form, not D&D. Like : Player 1 "My dwarf jumps up on the dragons back and...rolls a 5 to hit!'' DM(making the most fun and breaking rules) -''your dwarf hits! Roll for damage, you get times two damage as your backstabbing the dragon!'' The other four players would be shocked: here they are playing D&D and trying to hit the dragon with the AC of 25, and the DM just lets the dwarf auto hit? The Dm did not even ask for a jump check or skill check, the dwarf just ''jumped on the dragon'' somehow. And when player 2 rolls a 30 to hit and the DM is like ''miss'', how is that fun? And when player 3 casts a spell at the dragon and the DM says ''oh the dragon's spell resistance is turned off so your spell works'', but when player 4 casts a spell ''oh, the dragon turned it back on after the last spell attack'' and so on and so on.

Rules is a good thing for a GM to know, but you're more than just the referee and the scenario-writer. You're also an author, and a director, and a performer, and a mediator, and an entertainer. You're the host of a party facilitating the optimal amount of fun. I would rather have a GM who doesn't know the rules but can roll with the punches to create an engaging adventure than a rules-encyclopedia GM with no sense of drama, storytelling, or meeting player expectations and needs

The DM has to know the rules, or your just playing a free form game. You can't have great plot and story, but then have no rules to back it up. Then it is not D&D. When the Imperial Guards have on Full Plate Mail, but the clueless DM says ''oh, AC of 11''..well they are not as tough as the Imperial guards should be. Or the DM that lets a fireball blow up a tower...sure it's a great story, but the spell fireball can't do that.

Though I'd admit the rule DM with no drama or story would be bad: ''Ok, you guys see Encounter #4 ahead, it is nine trolls, roll....."

eggynack

2014-06-14, 05:32 PM

I don't know if you're constructing a strawman or making a slippery slope fallacy, but either way, that's asinine. The DM can be less knowledgeable than the players and still be pretty knowledgeable and not cartoonishly gullible. Also, the DM should be keeping track of what the players are carrying around, and have looked up what it does ahead of time.
Yeah, I mean, just through arguing about this stuff all the time, I'm probably going to have more rules knowledge than most DM's out there. More often than not, that means that the conversation goes more like:

Unknowledgeable player: Hmm, I'm pretty sure that a dragonbane arrow just kills dragons instantly. Seems to make enough sense.

Reasonably knowledgeable DM: Well, that doesn't sound quite right, but I lack the ultimate system knowledge necessary to make a proper ruling in a fast fashion.

Me: Worry not, fair DM, for I've produced for you a handy rules citation (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicWeapons.htm#bane) that should resolve this problem readily.

Everyone in the universe: Huzzah!

Svata

2014-06-14, 05:50 PM

What? If you do that then your playing free form, not D&D. Like : Player 1 "My dwarf jumps up on the dragons back and...rolls a 5 to hit!'' DM(making the most fun and breaking rules) -''your dwarf hits! Roll for damage, you get times two damage as your backstabbing the dragon!'' The other four players would be shocked: here they are playing D&D and trying to hit the dragon with the AC of 25, and the DM just lets the dwarf auto hit? The Dm did not even ask for a jump check or skill check, the dwarf just ''jumped on the dragon'' somehow. And when player 2 rolls a 30 to hit and the DM is like ''miss'', how is that fun? And when player 3 casts a spell at the dragon and the DM says ''oh the dragon's spell resistance is turned off so your spell works'', but when player 4 casts a spell ''oh, the dragon turned it back on after the last spell attack'' and so on and so on.

You just completely ignored the bit where he said that it should still be internally consistent.

The DM has to know the rules, or your just playing a free form game. You can't have great plot and story, but then have no rules to back it up.

Ye, but he doesn't have to know them better than the players. And if something comes up where the DM doesn't know something, and a player does, the DM can just ask for him/her to provide a citation. Not that hard.

Brookshw

2014-06-14, 06:13 PM

I'm Out of Town at the Worlds Biggest Yard Sale (I got a $5 microwave and a near mint of She-Hulk #1 for 50 cents), using the free WI-fi at Hot Dog Heaven on my phone. What example did you want? nice finds.

Is like to know the last three encounters you ran, how they were overcome, and what you're concerned your players would have done to overcome them without your house rules.

I'm not a fan of the group chat. Out of five players two might care, one sort of cares, and two don't care at all. But all the players agree that it is a huge waste of game time to ''talk'' about the game. It is worse when Player C goes off on a rant and says ''I can use ten nightsticks at the same time'' and does not want the game to start until everyone agrees to allow him to cheat. The chances of getting everyone to agree to even reasonable rules like ''no illusion can be more then 100% real'' is impossible.

Yeah, discuss it outside of game time with those who care. I can get if something exceeds your cheese threshold saying no, but that doesn't mean you can't find some grounds here for compromise. Personally I don't dig nightstick stacking DMM but I'll won't ban nightsticks, I'll discuss it. We agreed one was fine for the record. I have to admit I've rarely seen the type of players you've described.

Coidzor

2014-06-14, 06:40 PM

I LOT of players tend to not have fun playing 3X/P ''by the book''. You can see tons of threads here about such things. ''My poor fighter is useless next to the wizards'' or ''our fights only last like three rounds'' and more. And there are lots of games...

"I LOT?" :smalltongue:

C'mon, be serious with us, dude. Don't claim that the only reason that anyone ever finds the Fighter lagging behind other classes is because they're either "doing it wrong" or "not playing by the actual rules."

Especially not since *you* wouldn't feel the need to change the rules to be extra draconian against spells with material components, even beyond oldschool D&D's level, unless you saw some problem with how the actual rules work for spellcasters. :smalltongue: If all you wanted was to make it more retroclone, you wouldn't have gone on about punishing people for actually gathering spell components and would have just said something like "I'm going to sub in the 1E/2E/whathaveyou rules for spell components and tracking them," or largely similar anyway.

I'm fine if your not happy with my game......I don't care. I'm not going to call people names just as they don't like my way.

That's good, but you should probably work on your technique because you just come off as Mr. Full of Himself/High and Mighty and doing precisely what you claim to not want to do.

When a DM says something like ''max hit points every level'' he is saying ''no one will die, HP means nothing'' and it is one of the hallmarks of a Storyteller DM. It's not ''calling names'' to say that.

*ahem* "lolno"

ICompromise is wrong.

Wrong. Compromise is compromise. It's rather important in a marriage or any other on-going human relationship. Though I suppose for humor's sake it'd be amusing to hear you argue what, exactly, is wrong with a gaming group saying what days they're free and coming to an agreement that works best for the lot of them.

See I don't share this view. ''The Rules'' are not some magical thing....they are just rules.

So why is changing the rules or getting rid of rules one doesn't like cheating if someone other than you does it? How is following them cheating? If you truly think they're just what they are, why the weird relationship with them?

ISo I dump extra demensional things out of my game.....they join that Tome of Battle in the fire pit.....

You wasted money buying Tome of Battle in order to burn it? Why would you waste money like that?

If you do something to make the game too easy for your character: that is cheating. It is my opinion, so there.

What is "too easy" what is "easy" what is "being competent at one's job in the party?" It's meaningless to say what you say here. So why do you go on and on about it even in face of people pointing out that you're just being pointless in saying it? :smallconfused:

IDid I say ''if you use a hag of holding in THE game, your a cheater''?

You did so indirectly yes, but you still did so.

II'll call you a cheater in my game sure, but why would I care what anyone else does?

That doesn't even make any sense. If bags of holding don't exist, no one can very well use them in your game cheating or not.

Why are you trying to use nonsensical statements to weasel out of positions you've taken? :smallconfused:

If any DM wants to change things for their game, I don't care and won't call them anything.

Except you kinda did.

I only care about my game.

Then why are you so obsessed with putting others down for not playing like you do and adopting an air of smug superiority with that whole ridiculous dragon a round story? :smallconfused: Your statements and your statements about your statements are not adding up very well at all. :/

IHomebrew is fine, though most player made homebrew is just cheating (but really, who cares?) Cheating homwbrew would be another thread...

So if a DM has ever played the game and been anything other than a player their homebrew is cheating by default, but you don't care, despite having enough of an opinion to say that it is cheating.

II'll attempt to explain the Bag of Holding(or worse that sack of cheating): A spellcaster can make scrolls, potions and other items cheap and easy in the rules. And there is nothing in the rules to stop them from making tons and tons of stuff. There are rules for how much you can carry, but the extra space items just throw them rules out the window. I have seen characters with 1,000's of scrolls, potions, wands, and magic items in a extra space item. Then, no matter what happens, they are ready for it. I'm sure some people think this is ''being smart'' or ''planning ahead'', but I don't see it that way. It's cheating. Your abusing the rules to get an unfair advantage. It is like having a character walk around with an Easy Button. They encounter anything at all...and click the button and solve it. That is cheating.

There's time and money, and that's about it, yes. That doesn't make it cheating though. Scrolls and potions are consumed and that money goes away forever unless the DM budgets in some level of cashflow just to replenish consumables, which may or may not be part of the assumptions of the system.

So you've seen characters who have wasted a lot of their money on a pile of scrolls and potions they'll never begin to use when they could have something more potent just so that they had an extra level of versatility rather than being caught with their pants around their ankles and you think it's an unfair advantage when the rest of the group could do so and, indeed, if they're doing it at least halfway right (and it's not a PvP game, where the point is to get or create any advantage one can get against the other players in order to kill their characters) then they're using this on the part of the other characters, so there's no advantage that they would have against anyone.

:smallconfused: Even having ready access to any single spell combo isn't going to solve every problem (especially not since it's a single-use per solution but problems never come up only once) they would run across in as trivial a manner as you say. Not without having to admit that you're not as good at DMing as you indicate that you think you are or demonstrating that you haven't realized the input that the DM had in the situations if you were there merely as an observer.

jedipotter

2014-06-14, 07:58 PM

"I LOT?" :smalltongue:

C'mon, be serious with us, dude. Don't claim that the only reason that anyone ever finds the Fighter lagging behind other classes is because they're either "doing it wrong" or "not playing by the actual rules."

I said people playing with the rules by-the-book often find fighters lagging behind spellcasters. It is not wrong to use the rules as written.

That's good, but you should probably work on your technique because you just come off as Mr. Full of Himself/High and Mighty and doing precisely what you claim to not want to do.

It's a curse I live under...

Wrong. Compromise is compromise. It's rather important in a marriage or any other on-going human relationship. Though I suppose for humor's sake it'd be amusing to hear you argue what, exactly, is wrong with a gaming group saying what days they're free and coming to an agreement that works best for the lot of them.

Compromise is wrong in relationships too, but that is for another thread on another board. Well, a compromise needs everyone to have a side and for everyone to give up a little and get a little. Or it's not a ''compromise''. If I want to game on Friday and players 1-5 want to game on Sunday, a compromise might be to switch every other week...so everyone 'wins' and ''looses''. But to have six people talk about ''when do we want to game'' won't be a compromise, it will be more a direct vote. And this is a huge pet peeve of mine, I could do a whole thread on when to game and such. Miss three games and your out, I don't care if little Billy had a game that you ''had'' to go to. And for the record it is more like-''Dave missed Billys last seven games (guess he did not ''have'' to go to them), but now he ''must'' go to game number eight(as he missed games one to seven). And game eight is on D&D game night. He knew this and could have, say gone to game seven(or six, or five) and skipped eight.....and what was he doing that he could not go to game seven, oh right the Ice Road Truckers marathon...

So why is changing the rules or getting rid of rules one doesn't like cheating if someone other than you does it? How is following them cheating? If you truly think they're just what they are, why the weird relationship with them?

I never posted that, maybe you were reading another thread? Yes, for a player to change the rules mid game is cheating....but a Dm can change any rule they want too. And a player can't ignore a rule mid game either, as that is cheating. Abusing the rules is cheating, your taking advantage of something for gain....that is cheating.

You wasted money buying Tome of Battle in order to burn it? Why would you waste money like that?

No, no, it was not mine. Once upon a time Greg, a Tome of Battle fanatic, made the statement ''The only way for a player to have fun with a martial character is to use a Tome of Battle class.'' I said that was not true. So came the challenge and the bet. Greg made a fighter and joined my game. He had tons and tons of fun, even more fun then he had with his warblade or whatever. He conceded and we had a great cook out and ceremony where we burned his Tome of Battle.

Why are you trying to use nonsensical statements to weasel out of positions you've taken? :smallconfused:

What? I think Items of extra space are cheating, so I removed them from my game.

Then why are you so obsessed with putting others down for not playing like you do and adopting an air of smug superiority with that whole ridiculous dragon a round story? :smallconfused: Your statements and your statements about your statements are not adding up very well at all. :/

The dragon a round story was true, I sat in on the game and watched.

So if a DM has ever played the game and been anything other than a player their homebrew is cheating by default, but you don't care, despite having enough of an opinion to say that it is cheating.

A lot of homebrew, made by players, is just cheating. They want to make a special rule to cheat, then tell themselves it is not cheating as they are just following the rule.

Alex12

2014-06-14, 08:00 PM

jedipotter, if using an item from Core in the way it's clearly intended to be used is enough to break your game, I'm really glad I'm not playing in one of your games. It would be different if your players were going to use bags of holding and portable holes to auto-win by building that arrow that shoves one into the other and drops everything around it into the Astral, or to use some item from a poorly edited issue of Dragon Magazine. But using items in the exact way they were intended to be used (such as using bags of holding to carry around more stuff) is pretty much the exact opposite of cheating.
In my current group, I've got slightly better system mastery than the DM in most instances. And that's okay. You know why? We talk. I talk with him on Skype, or via email, about things like "this is my planned build, this is the result based on the interaction between this and this. Is that too powerful for this?" or "I know you're playing a Dread Necromancer, one of the best minionmancy classes, but I don't want to have to deal with the bookkeeping for that, could you please keep the minionmancy to a minimum?" Communication is key, as is trust. See, I'm friends with the DM, and with the rest of the group. The goal of the game is to have fun, not to "win." And on game night, if a situation comes up where he doesn't know the relevant rules, I'll tell him. If there's any uncertainty (because gods know I don't have perfect system mastery or perfect memory), or he thinks I'm wrong, I'll look it up and show him the relevant citation. If the rules don't cover a situation, I'll find the closest analogous situation that the rules do cover, and we can extrapolate from there. The final decision is his, but providing input is always permitted. For example, we were trying to figure out a good save DC for eating badly-rotten fruit, which isn't covered in the rules. So I pulled up the list of poisons for comparison, and looked to find which ones were real-world poisons. Arsenic is DC 13, and rotten fruit is considerably less toxic than arsenic. So he set the DC at 7.

Now, that's not to say that I'm universally against banning stuff, even from Core. I DMed a game a while ago where Create Water and similar spells didn't work in the desert, there were no Decanters of Endless Water, and almost half the game world consisted of deserts. The in-game reason for this was that the god of summer was one of the two dominant gods in the setting (the other being the god of winter, and the two were fighting, with each having dominion over about half the world, with a narrow equatorial marsh region) and the god of summer disapproved of water-creation spells and blocked them. The players were made aware of these changes before starting, and informed that obtaining water in the desert would be harder. If you were to tell me beforehand that "the Wizard's Guild has determined that extradimensional storage space causes excess, potentially dangerous stress on reality, and so the creation and use of long-term extradimensional storage spaces like bags of holding is illegal on pain of pain" I would be willing to accept that. I'd try to work around it (item of permanent Tenser's Floating Disc, maybe?) but I'd accept it. The trick is to be reasonable, and give explanations, and calling using a Core item for its intended purpose cheating is not reasonable at all, as you can probably tell from the fact that nobody else in the thread agrees with you on this.

eggynack

2014-06-14, 08:04 PM

What? I think Items of extra space are cheating, so I removed them from my game.

Exactly. This sentence here is utterly nonsensical on every level. The definition of cheating you use is not akin to any actual definition of the term that I am aware of.

A lot of homebrew, made by players, is just cheating. They want to make a special rule to cheat, then tell themselves it is not cheating as they are just following the rule
This, also, is very much not cheating. If the DM doesn't agree to use the homebrew, then it's just not part of the game. If they do agree, then it is part of the game. Thus, there is no configuration in which there is cheating.

AuraTwilight

2014-06-14, 08:39 PM

Compromise is wrong in relationships too, but that is for another thread on another board. Well, a compromise needs everyone to have a side and for everyone to give up a little and get a little. Or it's not a ''compromise''. If I want to game on Friday and players 1-5 want to game on Sunday, a compromise might be to switch every other week...so everyone 'wins' and ''looses''. But to have six people talk about ''when do we want to game'' won't be a compromise, it will be more a direct vote. And this is a huge pet peeve of mine, I could do a whole thread on when to game and such. Miss three games and your out, I don't care if little Billy had a game that you ''had'' to go to. And for the record it is more like-''Dave missed Billys last seven games (guess he did not ''have'' to go to them), but now he ''must'' go to game number eight(as he missed games one to seven). And game eight is on D&D game night. He knew this and could have, say gone to game seven(or six, or five) and skipped eight.....and what was he doing that he could not go to game seven, oh right the Ice Road Truckers marathon...

1) Is English not your first language, Jedipotter? Because you say compromise and then describe your preferred scenario which is literally compromise.

2) Can you stop with your anecdotes? They don't convince anybody because even if we assume you're telling the truth all it would mean is that you're judging literally everyone and making generalizations based on a few personal bad experiences with a few jerks you met in your life.

No, no, it was not mine. Once upon a time Greg, a Tome of Battle fanatic, made the statement ''The only way for a player to have fun with a martial character is to use a Tome of Battle class.'' I said that was not true. So came the challenge and the bet. Greg made a fighter and joined my game. He had tons and tons of fun, even more fun then he had with his warblade or whatever. He conceded and we had a great cook out and ceremony where we burned his Tome of Battle.

That's pretty overdramatic, don't you think? You should've atleast sold it to someone who wanted it, those books can be pretty pricey nowadays.

I never posted that, maybe you were reading another thread? Yes, for a player to change the rules mid game is cheating....but a Dm can change any rule they want too. And a player can't ignore a rule mid game either, as that is cheating. Abusing the rules is cheating, your taking advantage of something for gain....that is cheating.

Are you implying you think a DM can change the rules midgame? Because no one is saying the DM can't change the rules when they start a campaign, as long as they're self-consistent about it.

Brookshw

2014-06-14, 09:37 PM

Compromise is wrong in relationships too

.....

..........

................

I'm done here.

Arkhaic

2014-06-14, 10:09 PM

Sir Chuckles

2014-06-14, 10:23 PM

SirChuckles' thread verdict:

Nobody will ever get anywhere with Jedipotter, as he genuinely believes himself to be a high authority, as shown here:

It's a curse I live under...

Combine that with a draconian mindset of "never compromise" and the further idea that the DM(s) is not a player, but some kind of plutocratic leader under divine right, and we reach a point where my earlier satirical comment on him sounding like a movie villain becomes very serious. We then discovered that his approach to a solution is a classic "nuke the mosquito from orbit" plan. Put that with his insistence on using extreme hyperbole to describe very mild, easily solvable problems, such as banning all bag of holding type items due to a single small example of the whole, we can come to this expanded conclusion:

Jedipotter is either a top-tier internet troll, or should be used as an example in a DM handbook of what not to do when you have a problem player or issue with rules abuse.

Personal note:
The idea that compromise is wrong is an idea that has led to disastrous blazing failures of ideas. In the example you gave us, lack of compromise would mean that nobody got to game that night. The idea you present was a bad compromise, which is why it would not work. A better one, and one that I have actually used due to TV, was to take a break during the game and watch the person's show. Also he's probably a Republican. Ooohh, gonna get modded for that one.

the_other_gm

2014-06-14, 11:24 PM

I have to ask Jedipotter: can I pick your mind for a ruling?

I don't know what your preferred gaming poison is, but my group is playing pathfinder so we'll use for this example.

Sorceror casts Aqueous Orb (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/a/aqueous-orb) and rolls it on top of boss enemy. Boss makes his save and on his turn moves out of it's area and does his thing.

On Sorceror's next turn he uses his action to cast Hideous Laughter (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/h/hideous-laughter). Boss enemy fails save and starts laughing his butt off.

Sorceror uses his move action to roll the ball of water on top of boss again.

What happens?

Synar

2014-06-15, 04:09 AM

WBL would like to have a word with you.
The problem is not that those guys can carry their loot, it is that they have so much loot in the first place. And that is a DM problem.

(If a DM gave you one thousand wands of each spell in the game at level 6, I fail to see how carrying them is cheating. How and why did the group gained so much loot is something only the DM can explain.)

(Oh, and by RAW, creating an item still cost half its price plus a bunch of XP, so you are still very limited by the loot your DM gave you, and creating too much items (but still far, far, far, far less than you described) makes your character actually less powerful because one or more level behind).

Synar

2014-06-15, 04:18 AM

I have a new question for Jedipotter. Are you the same person as Bloodtide, or do you play in his group? Your posting style and house rules are similar.

Bloodtide's house rules: http://realmofadventure.wikia.com/wiki/House_Rules

Bloodtide: http://realmofadventure.wikia.com/wiki/User:Bloodtide

Jedipotter: http://realmofadventure.wikia.com/wiki/User:Jedipotter

As you can see, there is significant overlap. (For those of you who don't remember, bloodtide was the guy that made a post about catching a wizard, and was later banned for talking about "taking a copy of Sandstorm and smashing it across the face of one of the cheating optimizing idiots... (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=13088513&postcount=69)")

Bloodtide's house rules seem perfectly fine to me. What exactly is the problem with them? (Yes, he spelled rogue rouge, but while it's not the best color for a rogue, it is not really a problematic house rule.)
Frthermore, there is nothing remotely similar between Jedipotter and Bloodtide house rules and mindset from what we can see of this page. I don't know what happened on this forum before, but making such accusations is rude.

the_other_gm

2014-06-15, 04:22 AM

as a side note, if one is making a wizard with a large focus and intent on making magic items in bog-standard 3.5, being one level behind the party is actually a bit of a boon: you lose out on one caster level and you'll gain spells at the basically same time as a sorcerer in the group but in the end you'll be getting more exp then the rest of the party due to how the XP chart works out (going by the books that is), so you can pump that extra XP into making more items.

sure you might not be able to make the absolute best items possible for your party's ECL, but if you focus on crafting your party as a whole will be much better equipped to offset the lost caster level.

rexx1888

2014-06-15, 08:56 AM

Hey Jedi, im gonna let you in on a secret that everyone seems to not want to say openly...

You are a TERRIBLE DUNGEON MASTER and Possibly a monster of a person

just thought you should know, since you seem to be incapable of rationally looking at your own behaviour in any functional way :\

on a completely seperate note, Good work folks on creating a cool replacement for material components, its pretty sweet :D

erikun

2014-06-15, 10:44 AM

I don't see a problem with the homebrew or modifications that Jedipotter has made to his game. Not everybody has convenient Bags of Holding in every game and not everybody wants to handwave away other inconveniences like wizardly material components. Some people enjoy playing a grittier game or one with more details and concerns floating about. People playing the game differently is not a bad thing. It is, in fact, the entire purpose of playing a changeable system like a RPG rather than a rigid computer game!

There is a bit of a problem if Jedipotter thinks that material components are some sort of balancing factor towards spellcasting. If he thinks the requirement of a single feat (Eschew Materials) somehow puts casters on the same level as non-casters, then it shows a fairly large misunderstanding of how the rules work. Jedipotter hasn't made that claim as to why he uses his material components rules, although the first post of the thread seems to imply it is the reason.

The big problem, though, has been Jedipotter's attitude throughout it all. Statements like "Playing the game in any way other than how I do it is cheating" (see: Bags of Holding) and "Compromise is wrong in a relationship" (literally that) are a pretty big cause for concern, at least for anyone wanting to enter into a direct relation with him.

TheIronGolem

2014-06-15, 01:40 PM

I don't see a problem with the homebrew or modifications that Jedipotter has made to his game. Not everybody has convenient Bags of Holding in every game and not everybody wants to handwave away other inconveniences like wizardly material components. Some people enjoy playing a grittier game or one with more details and concerns floating about. People playing the game differently is not a bad thing. It is, in fact, the entire purpose of playing a changeable system like a RPG rather than a rigid computer game!

I haven't seen anyone here objecting to the disallowing of Bags in and of itself (Jedipotter's own strawmen notwithstanding). If he had said "I don't allow Bags of Holding because extradimensional spaces are incompatible with the cosmology of my game world", or "I don't allow Bags of Holding because my campaign has a heavy focus on the logistical challenges of dungeoncrawling", or some such, he wouldn't have gotten this reaction. Nobody cares that he doesn't let his players have bags, it's that he calls us cheaters for having them in our games that sparked this.

XionUnborn01

2014-06-15, 02:16 PM

There is a bit of a problem if Jedipotter thinks that material components are some sort of balancing factor towards spellcasting. If he thinks the requirement of a single feat (Eschew Materials) somehow puts casters on the same level as non-casters, then it shows a fairly large misunderstanding of how the rules work. Jedipotter hasn't made that claim as to why he uses his material components rules, although the first post of the thread seems to imply it is the reason.

You must have missed when others brought up Eschew Materials. Jedipotter said that to 'fix' that feat, he seems to arbitrarily assign a gold cost to components. Here's the relevant quote.

Material components from creatures other then vermin or animals, have a gold cost of more then one.

the_other_gm

2014-06-17, 12:02 AM

I'm going to revive this thread just to ask Jedipotter again:

I have to ask Jedipotter: can I pick your mind for a ruling?

I don't know what your preferred gaming poison is, but my group is playing pathfinder so we'll use for this example.

Sorceror casts Aqueous Orb (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/a/aqueous-orb) and rolls it on top of boss enemy. Boss makes his save and on his turn moves out of it's area and does his thing.

On Sorceror's next turn he uses his action to cast Hideous Laughter (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/h/hideous-laughter). Boss enemy fails save and starts laughing his butt off.

Sorceror uses his move action to roll the ball of water on top of boss again.

What happens?

Boci

2014-06-18, 09:34 AM

Also in the vein asking Jedipotter again:

Sure, I'm Out of Town right now, heading to ''The Worlds Biggest Yard Sale'' for the next two days.....so next week....

Cab we see the full write up now? I am still intrigued.

Talya

2014-06-18, 10:00 AM

The more I think about this, the more this thread really highlights an erroneous view of the DM's job.

The DM is not there as an antagonist to the players. She is not their adversary. She is not there to ruin their enjoyment of the game. The DM is there as an enabler. Yes, she presents challenges. Those challenges themselves are there to enable players to make use of their character's abilities and enjoy the tactical gameplay. The DM is not there as a tyrant. The DM is not in charge. They are not the most important person at the table. It's a contract to have an enjoyable experience. The DM should really be discussing with the players what they want to play, what ideas they have, and figuring out how to make it fit into their campaign. The DM should be planning around the players. If a particular character is going to be problematic, for whatever reasons, they need to work out alternative arrangements.

Now, the DM does serve as a referee. They must adjudicate results, and they must try to do so fairly. But ultimately, the other 4-5 people at the table don't need her. They can always go play something else, or assign a different DM from the group if the current one is not working out.

When people sign up to play D&D, they generally assume they'll be playing the game as the rules dictate. Houserules are part of the contract described up front. If you're going to try to screw over the spellcasters, be sure you let them know, so they can plan ahead and make alternate arrangements if that is unworkable for them. This whole thread screams of a DM on a power-trip who wants to play dictator and tell the players how effective they are allowed to be. That's ugly. I wouldn't tolerate it at my table.

Svata

2014-06-19, 08:27 AM

Couldn't agree more, Talaya. And Jedipotter, I'm also interested in that writeup of those houserules.

thethird

2014-06-19, 09:22 AM

If we are waiting for stuff...

I await earnestly to see your magic fix Jedipotter.

NichG

2014-06-19, 11:25 AM

Now, the DM does serve as a referee. They must adjudicate results, and they must try to do so fairly. But ultimately, the other 4-5 people at the table don't need her. They can always go play something else, or assign a different DM from the group if the current one is not working out.

There is at least one other important thing about the DM. They serve as 'archive'. There is information about the world that the players cannot have possession of and still have the same quality gameplay experience - the precise layout of the dungeon and location of traps, the solutions to puzzles, the schemes of the BBEG and NPCs, cosmic truths to be uncovered, etc. If discovery, mystery, or subterfuge are to have any part in the gameplay, someone basically needs to hold onto that information and be responsible for checking facts and actions against that hidden information.

That can be a strong factor in why you can't just assign a different DM and still have the same campaign.

jedipotter

2014-06-20, 11:42 AM

The DM is not there as an antagonist to the players. She is not their adversary. She is not there to ruin their enjoyment of the game. The DM is there as an enabler. Yes, she presents challenges. Those challenges themselves are there to enable players to make use of their character's abilities and enjoy the tactical gameplay.

I guess it sounds very nice to say ''the DM is not the adversary'', and then have the DM turn around and be the adversary. As adversary, the DM is there to make sure everyone enjoys the game, not ruin it. I guess you can set up some cold, calculated challenges to enable players to enjoy themselves, but it sure is more fun if your not so detached.

The DM is not there as a tyrant. The DM is not in charge.
I can't see how the DM can't be in charge. Lots of games with the player DM don't last or work out well. Now sure, if your playing with your best friends in the world you have no problem, but a lot of the time most of us play with ''just'' friends or even ''people we know'' or even ''people whose name we know.'' And, sure some people game with real life paladin types, but a lot of the time most of us just play with ''normal people''. And ''normal people'' very often cheat to have fun and worse.

And that is why the game has a DM, a person that is not playing and is impartial and is in charge.

They are not the most important person at the table. It's a contract to have an enjoyable experience. The DM should really be discussing with the players what they want to play, what ideas they have, and figuring out how to make it fit into their campaign. The DM should be planning around the players. If a particular character is going to be problematic, for whatever reasons, they need to work out alternative arrangements.

Talk to the players sure, but not so much just automatically doing what ever they want. That just makes no sense.

Now, the DM does serve as a referee. They must adjudicate results, and they must try to do so fairly. But ultimately, the other 4-5 people at the table don't need her. They can always go play something else, or assign a different DM from the group if the current one is not working out.

Fair is just such and odd concept. Most people think randomness is fair. So if you give away money to a couple random people, it is fair.....right? And that makes dice rolls fair, right? So if a player makes a low roll it is fair, even if something bad happens. Though most DM's are quick to fix things if a roll goes bad, and fairness goes out the window.

Players need a DM, you can't play the game without one. And not everyone can DM, no matter what people say.

When people sign up to play D&D, they generally assume they'll be playing the game as the rules dictate. Houserules are part of the contract described up front. If you're going to try to screw over the spellcasters, be sure you let them know, so they can plan ahead and make alternate arrangements if that is unworkable for them. This whole thread screams of a DM on a power-trip who wants to play dictator and tell the players how effective they are allowed to be. That's ugly. I wouldn't tolerate it at my table.

Power trip is a bit much, it is more to make an over all fun game. D&D has lots of flaws. If you play ''by the book'' there is a very good chance that not everyone in the game will have fun. And that is where the DM steps in to fix things, so everyone has fun.

Red Fel

2014-06-20, 12:34 PM

I guess it sounds very nice to say ''the DM is not the adversary'', and then have the DM turn around and be the adversary. As adversary, the DM is there to make sure everyone enjoys the game, not ruin it. I guess you can set up some cold, calculated challenges to enable players to enjoy themselves, but it sure is more fun if your not so detached.

I don't understand the reasoning.

Why is it impossible to say "the DM is not the adversary" and then go on to have the DM not be the adversary? A DM's goal should be to provide an entertaining, challenging game world for the players, not to "get" them in some way.

I don't understand why the DM has to be the adversary, which it seems - unless I misunderstand you - is what you're describing.

I can't see how the DM can't be in charge. Lots of games with the player DM don't last or work out well. Now sure, if your playing with your best friends in the world you have no problem, but a lot of the time most of us play with ''just'' friends or even ''people we know'' or even ''people whose name we know.'' And, sure some people game with real life paladin types, but a lot of the time most of us just play with ''normal people''. And ''normal people'' very often cheat to have fun and worse.

There are different levels of "in charge." I see a DM as a sort of cross between referee and narrator. If you've ever watched a sporting event, you'll note that the referee does not actually tell the players what to do, what moves to perform on the field or what-have-you; he simply makes rulings. Yes, that point was valid; no, that was a foul; yes, you can have a time out. The DM does something like this.

And that is why the game has a DM, a person that is not playing and is impartial and is in charge.

Playing with cheaters isn't a reason to have a totalitarian DM. It's a reason to not play with cheaters .

Talk to the players sure, but not so much just automatically doing what ever they want. That just makes no sense.

Nobody is proposing that the players should always get their way. I agree; giving the players everything they ask for on a silver platter ruins the experience for everyone involved.

Rather, a DM should see the game as a collaboration with the players, rather than against them; if the goal is to produce a game the players enjoy, it helps to have input into what they like.

Fair is just such and odd concept. Most people think randomness is fair. So if you give away money to a couple random people, it is fair.....right? And that makes dice rolls fair, right? So if a player makes a low roll it is fair, even if something bad happens. Though most DM's are quick to fix things if a roll goes bad, and fairness goes out the window.

What does this even mean? Seriously, what are you trying to convey with this?

Players need a DM, you can't play the game without one. And not everyone can DM, no matter what people say.

Two corrections. First, players need a DM - but they don't need this DM. A bad DM can be replaced. Second, "not everyone can DM" is a conclusion, for which there is some support, but it is not as defined a conclusion as you seem to like.

Yes, I agree that there are bad DMs. But you seem to assume that the class of DMs is extraordinarily narrowly defined, and that simply isn't the case. In addition to the bad DMs, there are inexperienced DMs with potential to grow, awkward but fun DMs, DMs who weave a brilliant story but fail to grasp mechanics, DMs with an encyclopedic knowledge of the game but dull stories, and any combination thereof. And some DMs are better for some things than others; a gaming group could have one player who DMs their 3.5 games, and another who DMs Shadowrun, each being better as DM than the other in their respective domains.

And if one of them gets crappy? Chances are another player can learn. Good DMing is rarely hereditary; it tends to be a skill one acquires.

Power trip is a bit much, it is more to make an over all fun game. D&D has lots of flaws. If you play ''by the book'' there is a very good chance that not everyone in the game will have fun. And that is where the DM steps in to fix things, so everyone has fun.

I get that you're trying to accomplish... something. But you say the goal is to "make an over all fun game." I think it's important to step back and examine your standard of fun.

The proposed mechanics would be fun to the sort of person who enjoys a job in an accounting firm; they don't add to the game, but rather create a mechanical hurdle. Unless you are the sort of person who enjoys mechanical hurdles, the spellcaster to whom theses rules are applied would probably not find these rules to "make an over all fun game."

What about non-casters? Would this create fun for them? Well, if it discouraged people from playing casters, it would make non-casters less likely to be overshadowed. Which could be fun, provided they don't need artillery support. But if they played alongside casters using this rule? Either non-casters would be indifferent, because the rule does not impact them in any meaningful way, or they would be inconvenienced, because the casters would have to take time to resupply and recalculate their components. So, at best, the rule breaks even; at worst, it reduces fun.

Under what standard of fun are you "mak[ing] an over all fun game"?

Kazudo

2014-06-20, 02:40 PM

Oh man. This thread. I started reading it and it went from bad to worse, then suddenly it got revived and picked up right where it left off.

I don't have anything really to contribute to the thread other than a request of the houserules and fix for the whole magic system and each spell so that I can look over and evaluate it for use in my own stuff.

Though I hesitate to say that such houserules and fixes may count as homebrew, which may count as cheating. Not sure.

I wonder if Jedi has played Paranoia. It's obviously the superior choice in roleplaying for the domineering Dungeon Master.

Coidzor

2014-06-20, 09:04 PM

Killer Angel

2014-06-21, 04:43 AM

Talk to the players sure, but not so much just automatically doing what ever they want.

But your position is that compromise is a no-go, and that you tell your layers your rules, and if they don't agree, they don't play. So what? :smallannoyed:

SpawnOfMorbo

2014-06-21, 12:47 PM

Grod_The_Giant

2014-06-21, 01:37 PM

Limiting classes to two schools such as the Warmage, Beguiler, Bard, and Dread Necromancer fixes most problems with casters.
My Conjuerer/Transmuter says "hah." The trick is limiting them to a thematic list, like the Warmage, Beguiler, and Dread Necro. It's a lot more work (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?317861-Fixed-List-Caster-Project-%283-5%29&p=16545265#post16545265), but gives you better results.

ben-zayb

2014-06-21, 09:41 PM

My Conjuerer/Transmuter says "hah." The trick is limiting them to a thematic list, like the Warmage, Beguiler, and Dread Necro. It's a lot more work (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?317861-Fixed-List-Caster-Project-%283-5%29&p=16545265#post16545265), but gives you better results.For conjuration, splitting it into different Subschool(s) Classes and limiting the Calling spells (esp. Gate) is a good start. For a Transmuter, using the Giant's polymorph fix, nixing the Celerity line, splitting it into a mainly-self-buff and mainly-party-buff Class would be a good idea.

Grod_The_Giant

2014-06-21, 10:46 PM

For a Transmuter, using the Giant's polymorph fix, nixing the Celerity line, splitting it into a mainly-self-buff and mainly-party-buff Class would be a good idea.
Transmutation is kind of a weird school-- you got all the spells that are actually about transforming things (polymorph), spells that are about manipulating things without changing them (telekinesis), and a whole lot of random spells (haste).

MagnusExultatio

2014-06-23, 06:50 PM

It is not wrong to use the rules as written.

What? I think Items of extra space are cheating, so I removed them from my game.

Which is it? You can only have one of them, not both. Bags of Holding, Portable Holes, those weird devouring things, handy haversacks, those are all rules as written. Using them is RAW, their existence is RAW.

Being RAW items, and being items of storage, they cannot be inherently cheating. They also cannot be wrong, which "cheating" implies.

Juntao112

2014-06-23, 07:00 PM

Why do you persist in using the dictionary definition of cheating?

Eldaran

2014-06-23, 07:45 PM

Every time I see a Jedipotter thread I just know it's going to have some bizarre warped perception of the game and rules. Do you really play D&D like you say you do here, or is this just some elaborate trolling?

Oddman80

2014-06-24, 01:20 AM

Holy crap guys! We may have all been wrong... And jedipotter may have been right. I've been blasting him all over these forums for incorrectly calling people cheaters.... But get this - I just looked up the definition on the Merriam-Webster site, and this is what comes up:

cheat
verb \ˈchēt\

: to break a rule or law usually to gain an advantage at something

: to take something from (someone) by lying or breaking a rule

: to prevent (someone) from having something that he or she deserves or was expecting to get

Did you catch that last one? I suppose anyone - who solves an encounter in a way that is different from the way the dm expected when designing the encounter - is cheating, and that makes them cheaters.

Now, granted, it is idiotic for a dm to go into an encounter and fully expect the players to solve the problem in a single way that matches that dm's thought process, but no one (other than jedipotter) has said jedipotter seemed like a bright guy.

And, to be fair - with this definition, the cheaters are cheating the dm of something he expected to get (i.e. The players behaving in the exact way he wanted them to act)... But at no time are the players cheating "at the game"

In fact I suppose anyone who has managed to have a character escape an overpowered encounter would be a cheater, as that means that the character has "cheated death". Now that may just be a colloquialism, but if they cheated death that makes them cheaters (of death).

Then there is the baseball definition that refers to someone getting closer than expected to something (as in, he cheated towards second base). So I suppose any player who has accidentally invaded another players "personal space" is a cheater too.

We all are cheaters by definition. YAY words have no real meaning any more!!!!!

Juntao112

2014-06-24, 01:43 AM

Jeff the Green

2014-06-24, 02:43 AM

To be perfectly pedantic, that definition of 'cheat' requires a direct object, so you can't just say "he's cheating at D&D" and have it mean "he's cheating jedipotter out of a sense of omnipotence at D&D".

So even from a hyper-literal, dictionary-abusing, context-free point of view, jedipotter is still wrong about what cheating entails.

HammeredWharf

2014-06-24, 02:50 AM

I still want to hear how jedipotter's players would abuse the horrible Enveloping Pit. They have to spread it (a standard action), take an item from it (at least a standard action, but with "thousands" of items in the pit it could take a while) and then they probably get to cheat by using a scroll. Whoa. Game-breaking stuff right there. Of course, previously they wasted their WBL to buy all those magic items that they don't equip, but store in the pit in a brilliant attempt to... uh... for some reason... and their enemies sit around drinking tea while this game-breaking ceremony takes place.

the_other_gm

2014-06-24, 03:00 AM

Just because they're monsters doesn't mean they have to be monsters about it!

Oddman80

2014-06-24, 06:17 AM

Oddman80

2014-06-24, 06:38 AM

Oh- and as an aside to the line of conversation about QuickDraw and its applicability to material components. Since we are working in a world of ALTERED RAW, not 3.5 RAW for this discussion, then I would say yes, material components can be drawn using QuickDraw. And you know why?Because in the hands of a caster, material components ARE a weapon. They are no different than an unlit Molotov cocktail. They just require one last action (verbal, somatic, etc) and boom! Maybe you can argue that its an improvised weapon. But given that from the moment the object was purchased or otherwise acquired, the intended use was as a weapon in combat, than it isn't really all that improvised, is it. Its even harder to call the components improvised if as most people have stated, they assume the caster has spent off time prepackaging the components into spell ammunition pouches. Now you've got a magical bullet, and I don't see how that's really any different from drawing an arrow from a quiver.

dascarletm

2014-06-24, 11:05 AM

Your egregious (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/egregious?show=0&t=1403592136) comments are pompous (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pompous), awful (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/awful), and deserving of sanction (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sanction).

Is (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/is) this (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/this) how (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/how) we (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/you) talk (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/talk) now (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/now)? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Question_mark)

Juntao112

2014-06-24, 02:54 PM

Is (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/is) this (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/this) how (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/how) we (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/you) talk (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/talk) now (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/now)? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Question_mark)

That depends on what the definition of "is" is.

dascarletm

2014-06-24, 03:03 PM

That depends on what the definition of "is" is.

the abbr. for isle obviously

Sir Chuckles

2014-06-24, 03:06 PM

That depends on what the definition of "is" is.

Definitely (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/definitely) an (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/an) abbreviation (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abbreviation) for (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/for) " (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/quotation%20mark)island (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/island)" (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/quotation%20mark). (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/period)

Edit (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/edit): (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/colon) Ninja (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ninja)' (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/apostrophe)d (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/d)

enderlord99

2014-06-24, 05:37 PM

I wonder ifwhen jedipotter's going to be banned from the forum...

Necroticplague

2014-06-24, 06:09 PM

I wonder ifwhen jedipotter's going to be banned from the forum...

Why would he be banned? While he might be a bit conceited, he hasn't broken any rules that I can see, and he's a fair deal more polite than visigani was.

georgie_leech

2014-06-24, 06:16 PM

I wonder ifwhen jedipotter's going to be banned from the forum...

As frustrating as it may be to debate him, I'm not sure being anti-player and in complete disagreement with most of the sub-forum on DM etiquette is a good reason to ban. He doesn't appear to be directly attacking anyone, though his language certainly implies such (sidenote: Jedi, prefacing most of your statements with "In my games" or similar would do a great deal to avoid miscommunication; there can be no doubt that when you say "In my game, Bags of Holding are banned/cheating" you are referring to your games only, as oppose to "Bags of Holding are cheating," which implies a general statement of belief), and I don't think being an outlier of the community is a good reason to silence anyone; that just leads to smaller communities.

That said, Jedi, you should really consider actually posting your magic fix, as a properly balanced magic system is practically the Holy Grail of 3.5 discussion. I'm skeptical that you have an entirely balanced system, but if nothing else there's bound to be good ideas therein.

Vedhin

2014-06-24, 06:18 PM

"Bags of Holding are cheating," which implies a general statement of belief)

So you know, he's actually stated outright that they're cheating in any game.

ben-zayb

2014-06-24, 06:24 PM

Why would he be banned? While he might be a bit conceited, he hasn't broken any rules that I can see, and he's a fair deal more polite than visigani was.+1
No, I don't use blue text. No. Not even then.
Agreed. Aside from his overwhelming overestimation of a monk's capabilities, he's not really the type to resort to personal attacks.

georgie_leech

2014-06-24, 06:24 PM

So you know, he's actually stated outright that they're cheating in any game.

He's also said:

I say they are cheating in my game yes. But that is just my view. Anyone can play the game however they want, it does not bother me at all. And you can't really compare games.

Make of that as you will; I err on the side of him being abrasive and not communicating ideas very well (hence the frequent arguments about what cheating is), not necessarily toxic or a detriment to the forum.

NichG

2014-06-24, 06:52 PM

For the magic system fix, just because it seems more interesting to discuss than debating whether posters will be banned, I ran a campaign awhile ago where I basically gutted the spell list and replaced most of the spells in the game with new things designed to be a bit more narrow in focus. What I didn't do (and should have) was to also replace the spells from Lv1 to Lv3. But 4-9 is done.

The result was pretty balanced, to the extent that while the caster in the group had more versatility in general, he had to really stretch to achieve it and still ended up not taking the forefront in combat or other situations.

Anyhow, I might as well plug it and see how it holds up: http://gildedflask.wikispaces.com/file/view/gilded_flasks_phb.pdf

Note: jedipotter, this is a very different direction than you probably want to run since a large part of it is amping up what characters can do so that everyone can measure up to casters, not damping down casters. In forum parlance, the intent of this ruleset is to make everyone roughly Tier 2.

Also, caveat, the art included isn't mine so this isn't really for broader distribution or anything, but it was easier to just link to the campaign doc we used internally rather than make a stripped-clean version.