How would you fix Sacred Geometry? [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Necroticplague

2016-04-04, 09:19 AM

Sacred Geometry feat, for those not familiar: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/sacred-geometry

As has been discussed before, it is bad game design in like every way possible.

If you wanted to make a feat that was worthwhile but not overpowered, that allowed you to improve magic in an interesting way via a Knowledge (Engineering) check, and was easy to use, how would you go about it?

Step 1: Make the reward more minor. Free metamagic, especially in the quantities it can get you, is never going to be an appropriate reward for anything as minor as a feat and a few rolls. My gut says "boost to CL".
Step 2: Make it a simple skill check. Simply roll K(engineering) vs. some DC.

SO, I think a fix should look something like this:

Sacred Geometry
Your knowledge of structures extends to arcane ones, allowing you to optimize outputs slightly.
Benefit: When you cast a spell, you may elect to increase it's casting time by one step. If you do, you may make a Knowledge (engineering) check, DC (10+5*spell level). If you pass this check, your CL is increased for the spell by one. For every 5 points you beat the DC by, you increase the bonus CL by one.

Obviously, exact numbers could be tweaked, and this is still a pretty dang good feat, but it's not quiet as incredibly strong as before, and it's much easier to use.

Snowbluff

2016-04-04, 09:22 AM

Uh, actually that's already a feat from that book. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/arithmancy)

So make a feat that is Sacred Geometry. :l

Using your method, I would say roll engineering to reduce the level cost of the application of a metamagic feat (either when prepared or spontaneously) by 1, or more with an extraordinary result.

Metamagic is weak without reduction in general.

Kurald Galain

2016-04-04, 09:27 AM

Snowbluff

2016-04-04, 09:29 AM

When preparing spells, you may pick a spell level that you can cast. Make a single knowledge (engineering) check at DC 10 + twice that spell level; if you succeed, you gain an extra spell slot of that level until you next prepare spells.

This is more broken. I could already bootstrap the regular feat. Now I can cast spells of a level I couldn't before.

Telonius

2016-04-04, 10:04 AM

stack

2016-04-04, 10:12 AM

Roll a d20, perform a prime factorization on the result, and count the number of factors. (Count primes as having one factor). You may decrease the cost of a single metamagic feat by the result.

For example, if you roll a 16, the factorization is 2*2*2*2, four digits. You may reduce the metamagic cost of a Quickened Spell to +0. Rolling a 17 (a prime number), you would be able to reduce the cost to +3.

You would fix it by making it a universal metamagic reducer? A feat to lower the cost of all metamagic by one, even without a chance for higher reductions, is too strong compared to other options.

I would fix it with fire and a ban hammer.

Psyren

2016-04-04, 10:16 AM

I agree that free metamagic is the big problem, which is unfortunately the whole point of this thing, so I'm not sure what to do to it besides banning entirely. About the only thing I can think of would be to restrict the metamagics you can apply with it to the less disruptive ones. So things like Still, Silent, Logical and Intuitive would be in, while things like Quicken, Heighten, Empower, Maximize, Toppling etc. would be out.

This is more broken. I could already bootstrap the regular feat. Now I can cast spells of a level I couldn't before.

Didn't he say "of a spell level you can cast?" So you can't pick a spell level you didn't already have access to.

Telonius

2016-04-04, 10:27 AM

Ah, keep forgetting that Pathfinder's metamagic tends to cap at +3, except for Quicken. (I was imagining applying Sacred Geometry to a 3.5 Persistent spell...)

OldTrees1

2016-04-04, 10:39 AM

Once per spell, roll 1d20. Factor it into its prime factors. If you can use +-*/ to make those numbers result in a prime number greater than 20(10 if you are generous), then you may reduce the cost of the metamagic for a spell by 1(to a minimum of +0)

Snowbluff

2016-04-04, 11:15 AM

Didn't he say "of a spell level you can cast?" So you can't pick a spell level you didn't already have access to.

Unless you reduce the cost of Heighten with another method, like the traits. Then you prepare a heightened spell in that new slot. Voila. :0

icefractal

2016-04-04, 12:20 PM

I'd say that power-level-wise, it's ok if limited to the level of spells you can actually cast (ie. not boosted further with the Heighten+trait trick). Although giving two metamagic feats and the reduction is overkill - it should give one at most.

However, the whole "do a separate mini-game before each turn you take" thing is a bad fit in most groups. I would change it to either:
A) No check required, you just need SL*2 ranks in Knowledge(engineering).
B) A Concentration check, since those usually stay on the RNG enough to be meaningful.
C) You do the dice math minigame once, at the start of the fight, and that gives you a number of times you can use it during that fight.

Note that depending how restrictive B or C is, the "two virtual metamagic feats" thing could become reasonable.

Elder_Basilisk

2016-04-04, 12:31 PM

1. Burn it to the ground
2. Salt the earth
3. Scatter the stones

Or to be less metaphorical, the feat is bad game design in every way possible. If you eliminated the bad game design parts of the feat, there would be nothing left. It can't be fixed. It can only be banned.

gadren

2016-04-04, 12:34 PM

Psyren

2016-04-04, 01:10 PM

There's still the concept.

The concept is "use math skills to be better at magic." Arithmancy does that in a much less broken way. I think that it's a lot of hoops to jump through for +1 CL even if you automate it to auto-success, so I'd probably let you get up to +3 out of it (with a corresponding -3 for failure), but conceptually, increasing CL is a sufficiently desirable goal to be worth a feat without it being the free-for-all that free metamagic quickly becomes.

Now, if you want something a bit "sexier" than a flat CL increase, I would suggest letting you use it to alter ongoing spells with options into another option (without changing the spell's duration.) For example, you could use it to hack your summon monster spell into a new creature, hack your Polymorph into a new shape, hack your Shadow Conjuration into another choice, or even hack your Protection from Evil into Protection from Law or something.

gadren

2016-04-04, 03:08 PM

The concept is "use math skills to be better at magic." Arithmancy does that in a much less broken way. I think that it's a lot of hoops to jump through for +1 CL even if you automate it to auto-success, so I'd probably let you get up to +3 out of it (with a corresponding -3 for failure), but conceptually, increasing CL is a sufficiently desirable goal to be worth a feat without it being the free-for-all that free metamagic quickly becomes.

Now, if you want something a bit "sexier" than a flat CL increase, I would suggest letting you use it to alter ongoing spells with options into another option (without changing the spell's duration.) For example, you could use it to hack your summon monster spell into a new creature, hack your Polymorph into a new shape, hack your Shadow Conjuration into another choice, or even hack your Protection from Evil into Protection from Law or something.
I wasn't even aware of Arithmancy, but looking it up now it appears to have the same main problem as SG: it requires the player to do a lot of unnecessary math and the GM to check it, and it has a high potential of confusing either and bogging down the game, and even if both are highly competent in the math, you basically have game mechanics that are benefitting more from player ability than character ability.

Do you guys think a flat Knowledge check in place of the "mini-game" would work? How would you calculate the DC?

Psyren

2016-04-04, 03:44 PM

Do you guys think a flat Knowledge check in place of the "mini-game" would work? How would you calculate the DC?

My thought is that the point of these feats was so that you (the player) are actually roleplaying your character doing the math game, by doing the math game yourself. In short, feeling like an arithmancer, rather than just playing one. So an abstract knowledge check, or even a series of checks, would be defeating the purpose. You wouldn't even need a specific Occult-flavored book for that, you could just stick it in Ultimate Magic 2 or something.

tadkins

2016-04-04, 04:20 PM

As someone who sucks at math, that feat scares the hell out of me. xD

OldTrees1

2016-04-04, 04:27 PM

As someone who sucks at math, that feat scares the hell out of me. xD

Have you seen the thread that rigorously proved the minimum ranks to always succeed? I think it was roughly 1 rank per spell level was enough.

tadkins

2016-04-04, 04:42 PM

Have you seen the thread that rigorously proved the minimum ranks to always succeed? I think it was roughly 1 rank per spell level was enough.

I don't think so, this is the first I'm hearing of this feat. I can only imagine what a fustercluck that thread was though.

Godskook

2016-04-04, 05:04 PM

Ugh...why is it harder to extend an 8th level spell than it is to Twin+Maximize a 1st level spell?

Anyway, my overall thoughts, which guide my suggestion:

1.This feat primarily uses the flavor to make the benefit weirder and harder to use, not better. I can't see a single reason to keep most of the flavor-based mechanics.

2.This feat is wildly variable in power, and in a way that punishes feat-choices. It also doesn't scale past 9th effective-spell-level, which is weird on the high end.

3.The math involved is ridiculous and kidzy. I'd want the math involved in a "advanced math" feat to cater to Mathematicians.

Fourier Spell Power

Prerequisite(s): 1 metamagic feat, +2 BAB, +3 Will Save, Caster Level 5, 8 spells known/learned, Int 13, 21 ranks aggregate in Knowledge(Engineering, Arcana, Geography), 34 HP

Benefit(s): Your study of mathematics and efficiency allow you to get more power out of your spells. When casting a spell, make a Knowledge(Engineering) check, DC 20 + twice the spell slot used for the spell. If successful, you may add +1 spell level worth of metamagics to the spell you're casting as a free action. For each additional 10 you beat this DC, you may add an additional +1(max +2). You must know the metamagic feat you apply.

Special: You may take this feat more than once. For each additional time you take this feat, add +2 to the max metamagic increase, and you receive a +5 bonus on the check.

Kurald Galain

2016-04-04, 05:09 PM

Prerequisite(s): 1 metamagic feat, +2 BAB, +3 Will Save, Caster Level 5, 8 spells known/learned, Int 13, 21 ranks aggregate in Knowledge(Engineering, Arcana, Geography), 34 HP
And a partridge in a pear tree.

gadren

2016-04-04, 05:41 PM

And a partridge in a pear tree.
The numbers of the various prerequisite he listed are part of use Fibonacci sequence.

Cosi

2016-04-04, 05:41 PM

The feat has problems on almost every level I can imagine.

1. Free metamagic is too good. Incidentally, paying for metmagic is too weak, but that's not really relevant here.
2. Skill check based abilities are broken. The difference from levels is too small (an additional marginal rank is a 5% shift), but the benefit from optimization is too large (a +10 item is a 50% shift).
3. Doing that much math is annoying. It's not terribly difficult, but finding the prime factors of 135, or if you can make 91 with 6, 5, 5, 4, 2, and 1, or the digital root of "magic missile" slows down the game for no reason. Unless you just cite someone else's work, in which case what was the point of having the text? The idea that doing so is part of the feat's "flavor" is also stupid. You don't have to work out how to make an explosion with bat guano to cast fireball, there's no reason to suddenly decide you have to find digital roots if your character uses them.

When you strip all that away, you basically have a mandate to make a feat that uses "magic" and "geometry" (or "numerology") to make "better magic". So here are some attempts to do that:

Sacred Geometry
You understand the shapes of magic really well. For some reason, this allows you to turn those shapes into other shapes.
Prerequisites: Sculpt Spell, 13 ranks in Knowledge (Architecture and Engineering) [The intention is that you get it at 10th level, IDK how PF tracks skills]
Benefits: Sculpt Spell has metamagic adjustment of +0 for you. When you use Sculpt Spell, you can sculpt the spell's effects into other shapes. Concentric circles, alphanumeric characters, triangles, MTG expansion symbols. Whatever. Pick around five that fit a plausible theme (like "sides of platonic solids" or "vowels").

Holy Geometry, Batman
You can shape magic however you want.
Prerequisites: Sacred Geometry, 18 ranks in Knowledge (Architecture and Engineering)
Benefits: When you use Sculpt Spell, you can shape the spell into any shape, as long as the total number of effected squares is no greater than the number of squares that spell normally effects.

Sacred Geometry
Numbers are magic. Seven and three are the most magic.
Prerequisites: Able to cast 9th level spells, 20 ranks in Knowledge (Architecture and Engineering)
Benefits: When you cast a 7th level spell, you may also cast a 3rd level spell you know (and have prepared if you prepare spells). This does not take an action or a spell slot (like you were using arcane fusion).

Sacred Geometry
Seriously, seven and three are, like, super magic.
Prerequisites: Able to cast 7th level spells, 17 ranks in Knowledge (Architecture and Engineering).
Benefits: When you cast a 7th level spell, you regain a 3rd level spell slot you have expended today.

Obviously, when you use those feats, your spells have special effects involving geometry and runes. Using any of the above feats requires a DC 20 Knowledge (Architecture and Engineering) check.

Coidzor

2016-04-04, 06:09 PM

Unless you reduce the cost of Heighten with another method, like the traits. Then you prepare a heightened spell in that new slot. Voila. :0

If all you have is 6th level spell slots and lower, getting an extra 6th level slot won't allow a 7th level spell to be prepared in it.

Not in and of itself, anyway. Either you can already prepare 7th level spells in your 6th level slots, meaning the source is elsewhere... Or you can't.

There's still the concept.

There's other ways to play a freemason in Pathfinder. Such as by joining the Pathfinders.

My thought is that the point of these feats was so that you (the player) are actually roleplaying your character doing the math game, by doing the math game yourself. In short, feeling like an arithmancer, rather than just playing one. So an abstract knowledge check, or even a series of checks, would be defeating the purpose. You wouldn't even need a specific Occult-flavored book for that, you could just stick it in Ultimate Magic 2 or something.

Indeed. That purpose is deeply problematic at best, though, in the d20 context, even if the execution was greatly improved.

Godskook

2016-04-04, 06:47 PM

2. Skill check based abilities are broken. The difference from levels is too small (an additional marginal rank is a 5% shift), but the benefit from optimization is too large (a +10 item is a 50% shift).

This is only a problem for things not designed around the eventuality of auto-pass skill modifiers. For things that are designed with that eventuality in mind, the skill check represents an additional avenue of investment for the PC, while the auto-pass case is treated as the standard balance point at higher levels.

An example of this is the Diamond Mind save-replacement maneuvers. A concentration check on a save DC is trivial to pass for anyone maxing concentration, but the player can choose to run the risk of a low investment. Eitherway, the additional action-gating and charge-gating means that the maneuver remains well balanced even in the face of absurd skill modifiers.

PraxisVetli

2016-04-04, 07:56 PM

Do you have to roll ALL the dice?
When you have 18 ranks in it, how do you roll all that plus any dice involved with the spell without radically slowing down combat?

Tvtyrant

2016-04-04, 07:59 PM

Why not keep it free metamagic, and just make it awkward instead of difficult.

"You may cast a spell with one metamagic feat you know applied without raising its spell level if its spell level is equal to the number of spells you have cast that day, including the aforementioned spell."

This forces the player to cast spells in ascending order of power to get use out of them, maxing out at level 9. If the caster wants to skip straight to getting a free metamagic on a 9th level spell they have to waste 8 spell slots to do so, and can only do it once. Quite powerful, but awkward without being complicated.

OldTrees1

2016-04-04, 08:42 PM

Do you have to roll ALL the dice?
When you have 18 ranks in it, how do you roll all that plus any dice involved with the spell without radically slowing down combat?

Yes, but (N-N)*(A+B+C+D...)=0 so as long as you have 5 or more excess dice, you have 0 excess dice.

martixy

2016-04-04, 08:56 PM

Sacred Geometry feat, for those not familiar: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/sacred-geometry

As has been discussed before, it is bad game design in like every way possible.

If you wanted to make a feat that was worthwhile but not overpowered, that allowed you to improve magic in an interesting way via a Knowledge (Engineering) check, and was easy to use, how would you go about it?

What are you talking about? I love that feat.

But if you must fix it:

0: Nuts to "easy to use".
1. Use only addition.
2. Roll d100, your target is the nth prime, where n=10+roll.
3. If I as a DM can create a sum with less terms, where each term can be any of the lower primes, then you fail. If that number is equal, you succeed.

And when the player solves this one, continue applying step 0, say by adding operations.
Who knows, maybe the desire for free metamatic will solve P=NP.

On that note, if any of you guys have easy to appropriate problems like the one above, feel free to share.

Snowbluff

2016-04-05, 11:23 AM

What are you talking about? I love that feat.

Hahah, me to.

How about this.

"You can use your mathematical prowess to add metamagic effects to your spells without using a higher-level spell slot.

Prerequisite(s): Int 13, Knowledge (engineering) 2 ranks

Benefit(s): As a standard action, you may add any other metamagic feats you have to a spell slot. Doing this is a standard action. A spell slot with a metamagic feat applied to it may only be used to cast or prepare spells that are valid subjects of the metamagic feat, but is treated as if it was cast using that metamagic effect with out the adjusted spell level. Spell slots modified this way remain so for 24 hours, or until they are expended.

When preparing a spell slot using Sacred Geometry, first determine the effective spell level of the modified spell of a spell that would be cast from that slot (calculated as normal for a spell of that slot's level modified by metamagic feats). You can apply any number of metamagic effects to a single spell, provided the spells cast out of that slot are not off a higher level than your highest level spell slot.

Refer to the Prime Constants table to determine the prime constants that can be used to cast a spell of the desired effective spell level. Then roll a number of d6s equal to the number of ranks you possess in Knowledge (engineering). Perform some combination of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division upon the numbers rolled that gives rise to one of the relevant prime constants. If you can produce one of the relevant prime constants, the spell slot successfully has the metamagic effect prepared in it. If you are unsuccessful, the spell slot is considered expended for that day. The DC of any concentration check to cast a spell affected by this feat uses the effective spell level used to determine the prime constants, even though a successful casting of the spell does not expend a higher-level spell slot."

Basically, you do all of the rolling and math a head of time, and if you use it in combat you have a turn to sort it out. It makes it more about wizardry based planning ahead. This kind of makes it weaker, since you can't apply MM entirely spontaneously in combat.

gadren

2016-04-05, 11:47 AM

0: Nuts to "easy to use".

Why? Why would you want any game mechanic to be difficult to use.

Both your and Snowblind's suggestions seem to be geared at giving the character a benefit because the player is better at math than others, even going so far in one suggestion of making it a competition between the player's math skills and the DM's.

Maybe there should be a feat that caters to people like me who are skilled in archery. Every time I use the feat, the DM and I take a shot at an actual archery target outside, and I get a bonus to damage equal to the number of centimeters I am closer to the center than him.

Snowbluff

2016-04-05, 12:39 PM

Excuse me, sir. I am Snowbluff. I figured Snowblind would be taken the decade or so ago when I assumed this moniker. :smalltongue:

My way means you don't have to be good at math. It's simple arithmetic, and you don't have to do it on the fly. You can do all of it ahead of time if it takes you too much to do so in a fight. :smallwink:

Psyren

2016-04-05, 12:40 PM

Why? Why would you want any game mechanic to be difficult to use.

Both your and Snowblind's suggestions seem to be geared at giving the character a benefit because the player is better at math than others, even going so far in one suggestion of making it a competition between the player's math skills and the DM's.

Maybe there should be a feat that caters to people like me who are skilled in archery. Every time I use the feat, the DM and I take a shot at an actual archery target outside, and I get a bonus to damage equal to the number of centimeters I am closer to the center than him.

I'd say the thought process was more like: "Let's mechanically incentivize players who want to get into all this occult numerology crap. And then when the other players at the table boggle and say 'how the hells did you pull that off with your spell', that confusion will be exactly like their characters boggling and saying 'how the hells did you pull that off with your spell.' Immersion all around! Taste the flavor! Brilliant!" And along with that immersion: "We can then sell them more occult numerology crap later!"

What they failed to realize was that:

1) Spreadsheets exist, removing what shred of balance (wasted actions) this might have had. And banning them makes it even worse, because now the caster's turn takes 5 times as long unless his player is Rain Man.

2) The GM also has to be into this occult numerology crap, since s/he needs to adjudicate/audit it. Oh, and all the other players need to be at least somewhat into it too, so that they're willing to wait around for your turn to resolve while you excitedly scribble in the margins or punch values into your spreadsheet.

3) The reward was too powerful (costless metamagic is bad enough, but costless metamagic where you don't even have to take the feats is even worse) even for the expected potential drawback, much less a drawback that can be mitigated to zero in practice.

Vogie

2016-04-05, 03:12 PM

What they failed to realize was that:

1) Spreadsheets exist, removing what shred of balance (wasted actions) this might have had. And banning them makes it even worse, because now the caster's turn takes 5 times as long unless his player is Rain Man.

That's not entirely true... any player who wants this feat undoubtedly has enchanted their personal communications mirror (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.clucasprojects.sacredgeometry&hl=en) to run the calculations for them (As long as said mirror was enchanted by the Prismatic Golem rather than the ... I don't know, Fruit Elemental).

Psyren

2016-04-05, 03:58 PM

That's not entirely true... any player who wants this feat undoubtedly has enchanted their personal communications mirror (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.clucasprojects.sacredgeometry&hl=en) to run the calculations for them (As long as said mirror was enchanted by the Prismatic Golem rather than the ... I don't know, Fruit Elemental).

I was using "banning spreadsheets" as shorthand for "banning any computerized assistance with performing the calculations." But I suppose I should have been as pedantic as possible given the subject matter of this thread.

gadren

2016-04-05, 04:30 PM

I think it should be safe to say that any feat that is complex enough to merit an app or program being written to handle the calculations needed to use it is in fact too complex.

Snowbluff

2016-04-05, 04:35 PM

I can do it in like 20 seconds. It barely qualifies as math.

If you need to keep track, keep track with the dice.

For example, put them some into a group of 10, then put the die you are multiplying that ten next to them.

gadren

2016-04-05, 04:40 PM

I can do it in like 20 seconds. It barely qualifies as math.

That's nice. You are not the norm, though.

Jack_Simth

2016-04-05, 04:58 PM

Sacred Geometry feat, for those not familiar: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/sacred-geometry

As has been discussed before, it is bad game design in like every way possible.

If you wanted to make a feat that was worthwhile but not overpowered, that allowed you to improve magic in an interesting way via a Knowledge (Engineering) check, and was easy to use, how would you go about it?
Step 1: BURN IT TO THE GROUND.
Step 2: ????
Step 3: Profit!

Not quite what you wanted, though.
Umm...
OK, here's what we do:

When you take this feat, select two metamagic feats that you already posess.
Once per day, when you cast a spell, you may pick one of those two metamagic feats (provided that you have a spell slot currently available sufficient to cast the spell with the metamagic applied without the use of meta magic mitigation methods of any sort) and choose to attempt a Knowledge(Engineering) check as part of the casting vs a DC of 10 + double spell level + double metamagic adjustment. If you succeed, the metamagic feat is applied to the spell without changing the casting time or spell slot used. If you fail, the spell is lost.

Snowbluff

2016-04-05, 05:21 PM

That's nice. You are not the norm, though.

Well, I can calculate a 3.5 character's BAB and base saves in my head, but that's why I made it so my version of the feat lets you do it out of combat. You can get the benefit by taking your time.

martixy

2016-04-05, 08:59 PM

WHOOOSH...

But I don't blame you.

I think it should be safe to say that any feat that is complex enough to merit an app or program being written to handle the calculations needed to use it is in fact too complex.
You see, this is exactly correct.

For example what I proposed is known as the coin-changing problem. It is not trivial to solve on paper, especially under the parameters I posed.
You'll note that when I specified the constraints I did not mention the opportunity for the player to do better than the GM, the definition was explicitly "he succeeds if he performs as good as the DM".
This is because the problem has an optimal solution. Which requires knowledge of a non-trivial programming technique called Dynamic Programming.
And because it is solvable, I mentioned you'll need new problems eventually.
Though I can't think of any off the top of my head right now. Maybe something involving Goldbach.

Obviously it was tongue in cheek and only ever appropriate in very narrow circumstances(such as my group where 90% of us are programmers). I do love the idea.

P.S. If any of that piques someone's interest, here's a site you might wanna spend some time on: https://projecteuler.net.

Godskook

2016-04-05, 11:03 PM

@martixy, Snowbluff

Instead of offering "solutions" that seem(to me at least) to ignore the otherwise common perception within the thread of what's wrong with this feat, could you guys offer up arguments as to why you think the perceived failings are actually virtues?

The list of perceived failings, as I see them:
1.A DM shouldn't have to do math homework just to apply a feat.
2.The original feat has too much power in the hands of the ideal player. Feats, as a standard, are meant to have a more discreet level of power(even if that level scales with some additional normally constant variable, such as Str or level).
3.It punishes otherwise good feat investments with antisynergy. Antisynergy among a rare resource that's meant to be used together is, imho, bad.(Snowbluff covered this)
4.The feat's optimal use-case is grossly non-obvious.

Snowbluff

2016-04-05, 11:29 PM

martixy

2016-04-06, 12:45 PM

In addition to the Snowbuff Axiom (:smalltongue:), which I agree with, I have my own axiom: D&D is not easy.

The ability to easily do the bit of math that Snowbluff refers to is implicit in the other requirements for playing the game.

What I mean to say is, if you have a person who can't trivially do that small bit of mental gymnastics, he is likely the source of other, more serious problems to the table.

My version just appropriates the feat for my group as a joke.

So:
1. Non-issue, if you can't easily do that, you have bigger problems. (martixy's axiom)
2. Addressed.
3. What anti-synergy are you referring to?
4. Non-issue, doesn't have to be. (Snowbluff's axiom)

Psyren

2016-04-06, 03:58 PM

And to answer all of them, Snowbluff Axiom. Not every feat is for every table. Some feats should be more powerful than others, not to trap people, but to make stronger characters to fight stronger challenges. Personally, I find most feats anemic. I like strong feats that seriously take the game, bend it over, and hammer it into a piece of metal tubing more suitable for the corner I'm trying to get the wiring through.

And is this making any sense because I am not feeling well and I should get some sleep.

While I agree with this, Grod's Law applies too. This feat could be made a lot weaker (e.g. some of the suggestions here, like restricting it to the less powerful metamagic feats) and it would still be useful, which is a clear indicator that it's too good now. That they "balanced it" by making it appear byzantine to the average player is not a point in its favor. So while I agree with the "axiom" in that (a) powerful feats should exist and (b) not every feat is intended for every game, even by that metric I do not think this thing should have ever seen print. And that seems to be the majority opinion both on these board's and Paizo's as well.

137beth

2016-04-06, 04:23 PM

All items, feats, abilities, or any other game effects which reduce the cost of metamagic no longer reduce the cost of metamagic, with the sole exception of the rods in the DMG. Game elements which have multiple effects, one of which reduces the cost of metamagic, retain their other abilities. For example, the Incantatrix gets to keep a bunch of its class features, but loses those that eliminate or reduce the metamagic level costs as their only function. Game elements whose only function is to reduce the cost of metamagic (e.g., Divine Metamagic) are banned.
So right off the bat, I would BAN (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2rzk5?Your-Ban-List) Sacred Geometry.

As a potential fix, rather than have it decrease the cost of metamagic, I'd make it give you a boost to CL for that casting. I'd probably keep the way it is used the same.

Psyren

2016-04-06, 04:54 PM

So right off the bat, I would BAN (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2rzk5?Your-Ban-List) Sacred Geometry.

As a potential fix, rather than have it decrease the cost of metamagic, I'd make it give you a boost to CL for that casting. I'd probably keep the way it is used the same.

As noted above, Arithmancy already boosts your CL, so you don't need to alter Sacred Geometry to do that.

137beth

2016-04-06, 05:02 PM

As noted above, Arithmancy already boosts your CL, so you don't need to alter Sacred Geometry to do that.

But Arithmancy works differently, so I'm not seeing the conflict:smallconfused:
I suppose instead you could make Sacred Geometry boost save DCs if you really object to having multiple CL-boosting feats.

Cosi

2016-04-06, 10:56 PM

Zanos

2016-04-06, 11:07 PM

Arithmancy is garbage because it costs two feats and a swift action. Spell Focus(Divination) isn't very useful, and using your swift action makes it basically unusable at higher levels.

Sacred Geometry is OP, yeah, but at least it doesn't let people use spells with effect levels higher than normal. It effectively just lets a caster do what they could already do out of lower level slots.

Cosi

2016-04-06, 11:15 PM

Arithmancy is garbage because it costs two feats and a swift action. Spell Focus(Divination) isn't very useful, and using your swift action makes it basically unusable at higher levels.

To be clear, I mean "worse for the game". It is obviously less powerful. I am of the personal opinion that if you are going to slow down the game to do some arithmetic, the result should be something I would spend a feat slot on if it came guaranteed, at minimum. Otherwise, it's like you took a crap feat like Dodge or Weapon Focus, except every time you use it I have to sit there for 30 seconds while you add numbers together.

Snowbluff

2016-04-06, 11:18 PM

It effectively just lets a caster do what they could already do out of lower level slots.

This. This so very hard. It's what I've been saying from the start.

Psyren

2016-04-07, 09:10 AM

I think Arithmancy is actually worse than Sacred Geometry. You do a bunch of math (more likely, you look up the solution to a bunch of math), roll a skill check, and then ... get +1 to your caster level. That's stupid and pointless. At least when you waste everyone's time with Sacred Geometry you get something you care about.

Agreed, it sucks. I would increase both the upside and downside CL provided by the feat - say, -3 to +3, and if the CL drops below the spell's minimum it is wasted.

I also think the Snowbluff Axiom is stupid. We have something for measuring the relative power of different characters: levels. Having some options be awesome and some options suck just makes designing monsters or adventurers harder and punishes people who like things in the "suck" pile. It was bad when it happened to the Fighter, and it would be bad if it happened here.

It's the best explanation we have so far about why the editions of D&D with the most widely differing potential power levels (3.5 and PF) also remain the most enduringly popular. Note that 5e moved close to that paradigm than 4e did and ended up much better-received too.

It might not seem logical, but humans rarely are.

gadren

2016-04-07, 10:33 AM

I'm not too hung up on the power level of these feats because I feel that is easy to adjust. My main issue has always been the needless complexity.

After some thought, here is the most elegant version I've thought of that rewards knowledge (eng) but doesn't require the player and GM to do a bunch of math:

Sacred Geometry
Prerequisite: 3 ranks in Knowledge (engineering)
Benefit: Choose any one metamagic feat with a spell level adjustment of +3 or less. You spend a move action doing arithmantic calculations to apply the effects of that metamagic feat to the next spell you cast before the end of your next turn, and the caster level for that spell is equal to your number of ranks in Knowledge (Engineering).
Special: You may take this feat more than once, each time choosing a new metamagic feat. However, if you wish to apply multiple metamagic benefits via Sacred Geometry, each benefit applied requires a separate move action.

Snowbluff

2016-04-07, 11:22 AM

Yeah, that could work. I'd still use it.

It's the best explanation we have so far about why the editions of D&D with the most widely differing potential power levels (3.5 and PF) also remain the most enduringly popular. Note that 5e moved close to that paradigm than 4e did and ended up much better-received too.

It might not seem logical,

It's true. It didn't make sense to me at first, but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. 3.5 was completely all over the place for balance. PF tries to be balanced, but all of my favorite stuff are things that don't fit into that paradigm and let me mess with things, like synthesist and vivisectionist.

I do think 4e gets a bit of a bad rap. As it went on, it got some crazy combinations and cool stuff going for it. The biggest problem was a weakest entry, and they kept nerfing all of the cool stuff (like teleport damage spam).

In the end, I feel like the power level being messed up in the d20 system games allows people to be creative in character creation and combat as they are with roleplaying, and at the same time make effective characters while doing so.

Psyren

2016-04-07, 11:32 AM

After some thought, here is the most elegant version I've thought of that rewards knowledge (eng) but doesn't require the player and GM to do a bunch of math:

Sacred Geometry
Prerequisite: 3 ranks in Knowledge (engineering)
Benefit: Choose any one metamagic feat with a spell level adjustment of +3 or less. You spend a move action doing arithmantic calculations to apply the effects of that metamagic feat to the next spell you cast before the end of your next turn, and the caster level for that spell is equal to your number of ranks in Knowledge (Engineering).
Special: You may take this feat more than once, each time choosing a new metamagic feat. However, if you wish to apply multiple metamagic benefits via Sacred Geometry, each benefit applied requires a separate move action.

So you still don't actually need to possess the metamagic feats whose effects you're applying? Wouldn't this one feat just replace every metamagic feat with a 3 or less adjustment then, effectively giving you 30+ bonus feats? Or allow you to apply metamagic whose prereqs you don't meet, such as using Thanatopic Spell or Solid Shadows without having Spell Focus?

It also lets you exceed your spell level cap. For example, a Wiz 3 could Maximize their Scorching Ray with this right at 3rd level for a guaranteed 24 damage RTA, or extend their Rope Trick to sleep all night in hostile territory right at level 4.

gadren

2016-04-07, 11:56 AM

So you still don't actually need to possess the metamagic feats whose effects you're applying? correct
Wouldn't this one feat just replace every metamagic feat with a 3 or less adjustment then, effectively giving you 30+ bonus feats? No? The feat only grants you the benefit of one specific metamagic feat, just instead of adjusting the level of the spell it eats up an action and skill points and possibly nerfs your caster level.
Or allow you to apply metamagic whose prereqs you don't meet, such as using Thanatopic Spell or Solid Shadows without having Spell Focus? I suppose I should put "that you meet the prerequisites for " in there

It also lets you exceed your spell level cap. For example, a Wiz 3 could Maximize their Scorching Ray with this right at 3rd level for a guaranteed 24 damage RTA, or extend their Rope Trick to sleep all night in hostile territory right at level 4. And? There are plenty of other tricks for that sort of thing, and neither of those examples are particularly problematic.

Psyren

2016-04-07, 12:32 PM

correct No? The feat only grants you the benefit of one specific metamagic feat, just instead of adjusting the level of the spell it eats up an action and skill points and possibly nerfs your caster level.

But you get to choose which one you want to apply each time. Hence, 30+ options/feats.

And? There are plenty of other tricks for that sort of thing, and neither of those examples are particularly problematic.

The only discounts in PF that I'm aware of do a maximum decrease of +1 each. Yours does up to +3 at a single stroke, and stacks with all the others.

gadren

2016-04-07, 12:48 PM

But you get to choose which one you want to apply each time. Hence, 30+ options
No, you don't. You choose one when you take the feat. That's the whole point of the "special" clause at the bottom.

Psyren

2016-04-07, 01:38 PM

No, you don't. You choose one when you take the feat. That's the whole point of the "special" clause at the bottom.

Then I missed that and apologize. Of course now, it's just effectively saying "choose a metamagic feat with up to 3 spell levels adjustment: you can now apply that metamagic feat without changing the cost of the spell." Could that work in PF, maybe; I'd personally prefer to let you do that to specific spells than across the board, but it's more a taste thing than a power concern at that point.

Cosi

2016-04-07, 06:49 PM

It's the best explanation we have so far about why the editions of D&D with the most widely differing potential power levels (3.5 and PF) also remain the most enduringly popular.

Except 4e is also imbalanced. Skill challenges do not work, there are classes that straight up do not support the builds they claim to have (IIRC, PHB Paladin), there are overpowered classes (Wizard, Ranger), underpowered classes (Warlock), and an immunity trick (the Yogi Hat Ranger) more absolute than anything short of Aleax + true mind switch which it might actually beat by virtue of context. In order for 4e to be less popular because it was more balanced, it would have to be more balanced and it isn't.

Also, the complaints about 4e aren't that it is "too balanced". People complained about classes having the same mechanics (orthogonal to balance), removing content like the Gnome and the Sorcerer (orthogonal to balance), and "feeling like a videogame" (orthogonal to balance). Not to mention the advertising campaign that insulted people who liked anything other than "exactly how the designers think you should play 4e".

Here's something to consider. Would 4e be better, worse, or the same if designers multiplied monster HP by five and multiplied damage values by a random integer between one and twenty-five? If you actually believe that people don't like balanced games, the answer is clearly better.

Ultimately, "people don't want balance" is just bad apologetics people use to justify not asking that game designers be good at game design. It's not true empirically either on a large scale (both 3.5 and PF advertised themselves as "fixing game balance") or a small scale (when a character sucks, either than character gets DM pity prizes or the player optimizes more).

In the end, I feel like the power level being messed up in the d20 system games allows people to be creative in character creation and combat as they are with roleplaying, and at the same time make effective characters while doing so.

If there are trap options, your creativity is by definition lessened. It's not "creative" to play a Wizard 4/Rogue 1/Fighter 7, it just sucks. For any given level of options, more balance means more creativity because you can do more things without compromising your character.

Sacred Geometry
Prerequisite: 3 ranks in Knowledge (engineering)
Benefit: Choose any one metamagic feat with a spell level adjustment of +3 or less. You spend a move action doing arithmantic calculations to apply the effects of that metamagic feat to the next spell you cast before the end of your next turn, and the caster level for that spell is equal to your number of ranks in Knowledge (Engineering).
Special: You may take this feat more than once, each time choosing a new metamagic feat. However, if you wish to apply multiple metamagic benefits via Sacred Geometry, each benefit applied requires a separate move action.

I would just have it work with any metamagic you know. It's not going to be more than one feat during combat (because each feat takes an action), and there aren't that many metamagics you want on downtime spells.

Snowbluff

2016-04-07, 07:34 PM

-4e stuff- Nah, the game is significantly different because of the way it was supported. Whole lists of stuff were nerfed purely to bring it in line. The objective of "making it balanced" is what brought it down.

Ultimately, "people don't want balance" is just bad apologetics people use to justify not asking that game designers be good at game design. It's not true empirically either on a large scale (both 3.5 and PF advertised themselves as "fixing game balance") or a small scale (when a character sucks, either than character gets DM pity prizes or the player optimizes more).

Oh no, people want balance. But people are fallible and often unread, and ask for things that people tell them are good, without understanding what they are trying to do, how it would be achieved, or what would happen if they got what they wanted.

If there are trap options, your creativity is by definition lessened. It's not "creative" to play a Wizard 4/Rogue 1/Fighter 7, it just sucks. For any given level of options, more balance means more creativity because you can do more things without compromising your character.
Nah, that's up to the game. There might be a place for a fighter who can turn invisible and can disarm traps. I wouldn't do it, but in general the stuff I'm talking about aren't PHB class stubs with no objective.

Cosi

2016-04-07, 07:45 PM

Nah, the game is significantly different because of the way it was supported. Whole lists of stuff were nerfed purely to bring it in line. The objective of "making it balanced" is what brought it down.

That's a load of bull. Being designed by bad designers brought it down. PF is a bad product, and its designers don't care about balance. But it's still bad, because they are bad designers. Similarly 5e Shadowrun sucks (or so I've been told), most White Wolf products are some combination of "poorly designed" and "actually offensive". Bad designers make games that suck, and they do it regardless of what the nominal goals of the game are. Because they are bad at making games. Blaming game design for the failures of Mike Mearls is just demanding that your games are worse twice over (because you don't want them to be balanced, and because you support Mike Mearls keeping his job).

Oh no, people want balance. But people are fallible and often unread, and ask for things that people tell them are good, without understanding what they are trying to do, how it would be achieved, or what would happen if they got what they wanted.

The game would be balanced? You're going to have to do some serious explaining as to what bad things you think happen if people balance the game.

Nah, that's up to the game. There might be a place for a fighter who can turn invisible and can disarm traps. I wouldn't do it, but in general the stuff I'm talking about aren't PHB class stubs with no objective.

Except you can do that better by playing a Wizard 11/Rogue 1 and using planar binding to whip out your own personal Fighter. It's a dominated option.

Snowbluff

2016-04-07, 08:16 PM

That's a load of bull. Being designed by bad designers brought it down. PF is a bad product, and its designers don't care about balance. But it's still bad, because they are bad designers. Similarly 5e Shadowrun sucks (or so I've been told), most White Wolf products are some combination of "poorly designed" and "actually offensive". Bad designers make games that suck, and they do it regardless of what the nominal goals of the game are. Because they are bad at making games. Blaming game design for the failures of Mike Mearls is just demanding that your games are worse twice over (because you don't want them to be balanced, and because you support Mike Mearls keeping his job).
Ppfftt hhahahah

I can tell you right now that most people don't really care about the nitpicky things in a game system. Sure, drowning is wonky as hell in 3.5. It doesn't really affect people's enjoyment of the game. I favor 3.5 over PF not because of it's "badness" in terms of minutia, but in how characters are generated and how people interact with the system.

Your argument is entirely beside the point.

The game would be balanced? You're going to have to do some serious explaining as to what bad things you think happen if people balance the game.
Well, to list a few problems with the premise of balance, as a whole, before I even answer a silly question. Which is stupid because I already gave you everything you needed.

1) "They don't understand what they want." Balance is a nebulous concept. Finding different costs in a attrition, limiting certain kind of stacking, affecting how people can combine certain effects in certain builds are all parts of game balance ingrained in a level based system. The problem is finding the objective. How do these work for the characters? What should the character be expected to be able to do? Should characters and enemies work the same way?

2) Ergo, balance is complex and taxing. The more time spend on balance means each article takes more time to make. A "balanced game" is a smaller game in brass tacks.

3) Balance is counterproductive for a varied experience. Decisions made for a PHB core character in 3.5 are like this:

Race
Class
Feats
Skills
Spells (maybe)

Using other materials, it is this:

Race
Subrace
Templates
Class
Alternate Class Features
Prestige Classes
Skills
Skill tricks
Flaws
Feats, including:
-New supernatural abilities from feats
-Incarnum abilities
-Maneuvers from feats
-psionics from feats
Spells (maybe)
Maneuvers (maybe)
Vestiges (maybe)
invocations or shadow powers (maybe)
truenaming (maybe)

PF also has more options past the basic box.

In order for the game to be balanced, each of those must be balanced against each other. That would mean that some of these can't be options, or would have to be tweaked in a way that they are too similiar to the others.

What does balanced causing problems in a game look like:

1) character decisions do not improve capability. 4e had a huge issue with it not rewarding system mastery. At the end of the day, a well built character would mean just making the obvious decisions, and the character is not unique in any way. This is the "I deal [W]+10 unless I use one of the 5 abilities I get" syndrome.
2) Character decisions make characters worse. Some classes, like Paladin and Monk, would take away your powers or keep you from leveling that class if you multi-class them. In balancing terms, it uses the leveling system against the player in order to keep people from combining new abilities and make it OP.
3) Monsters are designed to be a balanced threat, to the point that they cater to the most anemic character builds. Nothing is a challenge, and the characters are in no danger. Blech.

Except you can do that better by playing a Wizard 11/Rogue 1 and using planar binding to whip out your own personal Fighter. It's a dominated option.
Dominant opinion*

Write a 30 page thesis on the Snowbluff Axiom. There are some implications you are missing here.

Cosi

2016-04-07, 09:04 PM

I can tell you right now that most people don't really care about the nitpicky things in a game system. Sure, drowning is wonky as hell in 3.5. It doesn't really affect people's enjoyment of the game. I favor 3.5 over PF not because of it's "badness" in terms of minutia, but in how characters are generated and how people interact with the system.

It's almost as if PF was worse designed than 3.5. Or, exactly what I said.

How do these work for the character?

"How should PCs work" is a game design question, not a game balance one.

What should the character be expected to be able to do?

Another game design question. The game balance question is "can the character do what they're expected to do?" And that's not actually a terribly difficult question to answer if you define "what people should be able to do". You can just, you know, test things.

Should characters and enemies work the same way?

Not 100% sure what you mean. On some level, it doesn't matter. The Vrock behaves the same if it has its abilities because it is picking off the Fiend and Kite lists for its level, or because it just arbitrarily has them. Having a monster generation system is useful but, again, not "game balance". Monster abilities should do the same thing as equivalent PC abilities (i.e. the Vrock's mirror image is the same as the Wizard's). But, yet again, not "game balance".

2) Ergo, balance is complex and taxing. The more time spend on balance means each article takes more time to make. A "balanced game" is a smaller game in brass tacks.

3e ran about one splat a month, at peak. And the books on that list that are the "crunchiest" are things like Complete Adventurer or Complete Arcane. If the testing on those things comes to less than a month, game balance does not meaningfully reduce size. So let's look at the numbers, assuming you test with something like the SGT (can you 50/50 ten CR = level encounters?).

1. Three base classes.

Figure a round of SGT testing takes about half an hour. More if you run numbers, less if you compare available options to defined solution sets (i.e. minor image is a solution to Golem, Trapfinding is a solution to Traps). That's ten hours per class, thirty per book. If you have five people on design, you can seriously do that in less than a day (though that assumes you divide individual classes between testers).

2. Around twenty PrCs.

Assuming ten level PrCs, this is five hours each, total of a hundred hours. Your five man team can crank that out in around three days. Now, comparing possible entries (i.e. Wizard/Mindbender vs. Sorcerer/Mindbender) takes more time, but there are also a bunch of PrCs you could cut if you just relaxed entry requirements. The game does not need Warshaper for non-casting shapechangers, Master of Many Forms for shapechangers with Wild Shape, and Master Transmogrifist for shapechangers with polymorph. You could just have one Shapechanger PrC and have it progress whatever your class brings to the table. I'd call it a wash

3. A bunch of feats and spells and whatever.

Broken spells and feats are super rare, and the ones that are broken are almost always in the same categories (i.e. Metamagic Reduction, Minions, polymorph). I'm not at all convinced you need to test these.

You could do balancing for Complete Incarnum in a week. Which is roughly a quarter the time you have between releasing Complete Vestige and Complete Incarnum. Frankly, if you did things in more space efficient ways (e.g. subclassing, paragon paths), you could produce more content with better balance. And add a bunch of cool fluff to your books about the history of vestiges or using incarnum in war.

EDIT: Also, people will totally test your stuff for free. As they do on this board. It is difficult for me to imagine a testing regime so rigorous it cannot be completed by the labor the internet will provide for free.

In order for the game to be balanced, each of those must be balanced against each other.

What are you talking about? "Is an Elf" doesn't need to be balanced against "is a Warlock", because you don't have to not be an Elf to be a Warlock. Being an Elf needs to be balanced against being a Dwarf, and being a Warlock needs to be balanced against being a Druid. Because those are the things they trade off with.

1) character decisions do not improve capability. 4e had a huge issue with it not rewarding system mastery. At the end of the day, a well built character would mean just making the obvious decisions, and the character is not unique in any way. This is the "I deal [W]+10 unless I use one of the 5 abilities I get" syndrome.

Rewarding system mastery is just punishing new players. You should reward player skill by making some classes more complex (and therefore better if you have more understanding the system or tactics), not by making some classes underpowered. That just ends up making people who want to use a sword or blast things suck for no reason.

3) Monsters are designed to be a balanced threat, to the point that they cater to the most anemic character builds. Nothing is a challenge, and the characters are in no danger. Blech.

There's no reason for this to be true. You should balance classes to the monsters, not the other way around.

Write a 30 page thesis on the Snowbluff Axiom. There are some implications you are missing here.

Maybe it's your job to explain those things? Seeing how it is, you know, your axiom. But yes, I should definitely make your argument for you.

Snowbluff

2016-04-07, 09:27 PM

Maybe it's your job to explain those things? Seeing how it is, you know, your axiom. But yes, I should definitely make your argument for you.

No, it's not my job. You're the one who is trying to poke holes in it. You'll need to either figure it out yourself an accept it, or find an overwhelming set of examples to the contrary to prove it wrong. I'm not even providing an argument, just giving example of actual things that have happened that you asked for. History is the judge of the Axiom in this case.

Psyren

2016-04-07, 09:29 PM

Except 4e is also imbalanced. Skill challenges do not work, there are classes that straight up do not support the builds they claim to have (IIRC, PHB Paladin), there are overpowered classes (Wizard, Ranger), underpowered classes (Warlock), and an immunity trick (the Yogi Hat Ranger) more absolute than anything short of Aleax + true mind switch which it might actually beat by virtue of context. In order for 4e to be less popular because it was more balanced, it would have to be more balanced and it isn't.

Nonsense, of course it is. There is nowhere near the tier disparity in 4e that exists in 3.5/PF. It does not have to be totally balanced to be "more balanced."

Ultimately, "people don't want balance" is just bad apologetics people use to justify not asking that game designers be good at game design. It's not true empirically either on a large scale (both 3.5 and PF advertised themselves as "fixing game balance") or a small scale (when a character sucks, either than character gets DM pity prizes or the player optimizes more).

I saw no such promises/advertisements, and every time I ask for specific citations people like you come up empty. At best you can say they aimed to rebalance certain individual elements (like the changes to polymorph), but nothing about "fixing game balance" in a macro sense.

If there are trap options, your creativity is by definition lessened.

Those "trap options" simply aren't for you. There's plenty of other viable combinations to choose from, more than you will ever be able to in your lifetime.

It's like water - 98% of it on this planet is undrinkable (salt water.) The 2% that's freshwater? Still far more water than you'll ever be able to consume. Yet you're complaining because you can't drink saltwater. It's odd, to say the least.

Snowbluff

2016-04-07, 09:37 PM

Those "trap options" simply aren't for you. There's plenty of other viable combinations to choose from, more than you will ever be able to in your lifetime.

It's like water - 98% of it on this planet is undrinkable (salt water.) The 2% that's freshwater? Still far more water than you'll ever be able to consume. Yet you're complaining because you can't drink saltwater. It's odd, to say the least.

Also, some people are salt water fish.

Cosi

2016-04-07, 10:03 PM

No, it's not my job. You're the one who is trying to poke holes in it. You'll need to either figure it out yourself an accept it, or find an overwhelming set of examples to the contrary to prove it wrong. I'm not even providing an argument, just giving example of actual things that have happened that you asked for. History is the judge of the Axiom in this case.

"Game balance is good."

You must accept this axiom now, because I have asserted it, and the burden of proof is on you.

Mockery aside, no I don't. Your defense of your position is that you are super sure that 4e failed because "game balance" is evil, and not because it was a bad game or because it insulted its playerbase or because it removed options people liked. Nope, it was totally "game balance".

And then, when asked to explain why game balance is bad, you come out swinging with claims like "it makes there be less content" and "you have to balance everything against everything else". Except balancing is faster than the release schedule of the game, and you're demand that the Elf be balanced with the Warlock is as meaningless as it is insane.

You have no evidence, no argument, no weight of history. Because you are wrong to such an obvious degree that it baffles me you are proud enough of your foolishness to attach it to everything you post.

Nonsense, of course it is. There is nowhere near the tier disparity in 4e that exists in 3.5/PF. It does not have to be totally balanced to be "more balanced."

Yes there is. It's just obfuscated by the fact that the largest sources of imbalance weren't transferred. When you compare the imbalance of 3e without planar binding/polymorph/other removed spells to the balance of 4e, 4e is as bad or worse. And no, those things were not removed for "game balance", they were removed because the designers are lazy. Seriously, Mearls doesn't finish things. It's chronic. Why should we believe that this screwup was because he was pursuing "game balance" and not because he is bad at game design?

I saw no such promises/advertisements, and every time I ask for specific citations people like you come up empty. At best you can say they aimed to rebalance certain individual elements (like the changes to polymorph), but nothing about "fixing game balance" in a macro sense.

"They never said they wanted the game to be balanced! Except all those times they balanced the game. And that time they printed a book to balance classes. And all those times they said things were balance. But that's just micro-balance. Everyone accepts micro-balance. It's macro-balance that's controversial."

Those "trap options" simply aren't for you. There's plenty of other viable combinations to choose from, more than you will ever be able to in your lifetime.

"It's not for you" is a bad excuse. I'm not complaining about trap options because I don't want to play them. I don't want to play a Psion. But I don't have any problem with Psions existing, because they are balanced. My problem is with options that are underpowered, because they punish people for having the "wrong" character concept.

Yet you're complaining because you can't drink saltwater. It's odd, to say the least.

So you'd be fine if your tapwater was 98% salt water? I'm not a doctor, but that seems like it wouldn't go super well.

squiggit

2016-04-07, 10:04 PM

Snowbluff axiom isn't a bad idea. Lots of optimization levels means more players with different tastes can play the same system, but I see it often used as an argument for class imbalance not being a bad thing and I think it's misappropriated there, because class imbalance just doesn't make the game better, period. All you can really argue with Snowbluff Axiom is that it's better to buff fighters than nerf wizards, but that's still not an argument in favor of systemic class imbalance.

It's the best explanation we have so far about why the editions of D&D with the most widely differing potential power levels (3.5 and PF) also remain the most enduringly popular.
I think it's a pretty disingenuous argument when most of the notable imbalances don't show up at low to mid optimization levels and the systems you're comparing it to are so functionally different.

The most common debate on Pathfinder forums isn't whether or not the imbalance is a good thing, it's whether it exists at all, so I don't see how you can make the argument that players prefer it when a big chunk of them don't even believe it exists.

Note that 5e moved close to that paradigm than 4e did and ended up much better-received too.
I'm not sure that's quite right either. 5e is pretty constrained, in terms of classes, optimization options and even levels. The whole name of the game is limiting what the player can do and 4e has a huge optimization gap between the upper and lower ends.

So shouldn't 4e be wildly popular because assassins are borderline nonfunctional and rangers can become unkillable gods that destroy enemies double their CR? Would 4e be more popular if assassins were even worse to increase said optimization gap?

Seems more likely that all the systemic changes combined with Hasbro's poor support and management for the system are more likely causes for its relative unpopularity.

gadren

2016-04-07, 10:35 PM

This thread is getting very off-topic, but there is one point I wanted to address:

It's like water - 98% of it on this planet is undrinkable (salt water.) The 2% that's freshwater? Still far more water than you'll ever be able to consume. Yet you're complaining because you can't drink saltwater. It's odd, to say the least.
Well, this was actually a major problem in 4e. There was so much garbage that optimization guides were nearly required for class building unless you wanted to sift through hundreds of crap feats, powers, or items for your character.
I know when I did my freelance work for WotC during 4e I pushed back very hard against the editors trying to turn the content I wrote into "salt water". There was this trend for them to err on the side of caution, often publishing options that were so weak that no one would even bother with out of fear of power creep.

Snowbluff

2016-04-07, 10:55 PM

Hi, squiggit. I read you thing, thanks for the input. :smallwink:

Well, this was actually a major problem in 4e. There was so much garbage that optimization guides were nearly required for class building unless you wanted to sift through hundreds of crap feats, powers, or items for your character.
I know when I did my freelance work for WotC during 4e I pushed back very hard against the editors trying to turn the content I wrote into "salt water". There was this trend for them to err on the side of caution, often publishing options that were so weak that no one would even bother with out of fear of power creep.

History isn't on my side, they said. People don't taste good with tomatoes, they said...

Cosi, if you want to make an axiom, you need to make one that has a point and some evidence.

Cosi

2016-04-07, 11:06 PM

Snowbluff axiom isn't a bad idea. Lots of optimization levels means more players with different tastes can play the same system,

I've bolded a word that should reveal the obvious problem with your idea. The game has a mechanism for supporting diverse levels of power: levels. The Snowbluff Axiom is akin to saying that you need feats to provide a wide variety of abilities to support different archetypes, because you don't understand what classes do.

History isn't on my side, they said. People don't taste good with tomatoes, then said...

Boy, you are bad at this. gadren says that 4e's designers wanted to make the abilities he proposed weaker. This would have increased imbalance, making the game better according to your axiom. If imbalance is good, changing the power of abilities is always good design unless you change them to the exact power of all other abilities.

Own Goal!

Cosi, if you want to make an axiom, you need to make one that has a point and some evidence.

It's nice to see you've taken the words of whatever philosopher said "hold others to a higher standard than yourself" to heart.

Snowbluff

2016-04-07, 11:16 PM

Boy, you are bad at this. gadren says that 4e's designers wanted to make the abilities he proposed weaker. This would have increased imbalance, making the game better according to your axiom. If imbalance is good, changing the power of abilities is always good design unless you change them to the exact power of all other abilities.

Own Goal!
They were avoiding power creep my making the new options awful. I've had the same problem in game development.

It's nice to see you've taken the words of whatever philosopher said "hold others to a higher standard than yourself" to heart.

Psyren

2016-04-07, 11:26 PM

The most common debate on Pathfinder forums isn't whether or not the imbalance is a good thing, it's whether it exists at all, so I don't see how you can make the argument that players prefer it when a big chunk of them don't even believe it exists.

What is that assertion ("most common debate") based on? Did you conduct a survey? Datamine the forums? Are there statistics about this I'm unaware of that you can link me to?

If you're just going off selective memory, I can assure you that what I've seen is the former, not the latter. That's how I can make the argument I do. Hopefully that helps.

Yes there is. It's just obfuscated by the fact that the largest sources of imbalance weren't transferred. When you compare the imbalance of 3e without planar binding/polymorph/other removed spells to the balance of 4e, 4e is as bad or worse. And no, those things were not removed for "game balance", they were removed because the designers are lazy. Seriously, Mearls doesn't finish things. It's chronic. Why should we believe that this screwup was because he was pursuing "game balance" and not because he is bad at game design?

The proof is in the pudding, and 5e's clear success is that proof. 4e failed due to its philosophy, not one man.

And all those times they said things were balance.

Still waiting for that citation by the way.

"It's not for you" is a bad excuse. I'm not complaining about trap options because I don't want to play them. I don't want to play a Psion. But I don't have any problem with Psions existing, because they are balanced. My problem is with options that are underpowered, because they punish people for having the "wrong" character concept.

Unless your concept is intentional incompetence, you can realize just about any PC class with PC wealth and have it hold its own against printed challenges.

So you'd be fine if your tapwater was 98% salt water? I'm not a doctor, but that seems like it wouldn't go super well.

If I was blind and unable to distinguish the easily visible city supply from the ocean, then I agree, that would be a problem.

Cosi

2016-04-07, 11:40 PM

If you're just going off selective memory, I can assure you that what I've seen is the former, not the latter. That's how I can make the argument I do. Hopefully that helps.

So he needs statistics, but your point is true with anecdotes?

[QUOTE]The proof is in the pudding, and 5e's clear success is that proof. 4e failed due to its philosophy, not one man.

Hahaha. 5e is vaporware and barely a game. Calling it a "success" by an measure is basically insane. It died faster than 4e did.

Still waiting for that citation by the way.

That would be the description of Unchained, which literally claims that it makes the classes in it "more balanced", but I suppose that's just "micro-balance" and doesn't count.

Unless your concept is intentional incompetence, you can realize just about any PC class with PC wealth and have it hold its own against printed challenges.

Dude, we've done this. Quick review:

1. People talk about the SGT and using CR = level encounters to test game balance.
2. You insist that that can't possibly count, because monsters using their abilities doubles their CR.
3. People explain that you are wrong.
4. You ignore them, but change your language to EL (despite the person who made that complaint being someone you explicitly claimed to be ignoring).
5. The only guy even willing to talk about testing insisted on getting to play a quantum character that switched builds between encounters.

But yes, you can totally run a 15th level Fighter through the level 15 SGT without problems. Why don't you try it now? Here's the link (http://dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/Dungeons_and_Dragons_Wiki:The_Same_Game_Test).

Prediction: You will loudly claim that it is unfair to expect you to be actual monsters using actual tactics, abandon the debate, and then make the same claims in a few months and pretend you haven't been wrong literally every time you've said this. Like you did last time.

If I was blind and unable to distinguish the easily visible city supply from the ocean, then I agree, that would be a problem.

That's not an argument for trap options, that's just a reason they're less bad.

squiggit

2016-04-08, 04:59 AM

What is that assertion ("most common debate") based on? Did you conduct a survey? Datamine the forums? Are there statistics about this I'm unaware of that you can link me to?

If you're just going off selective memory, I can assure you that what I've seen is the former, not the latter. That's how I can make the argument I do. Hopefully that helps.
I mean, I can try to gather up all the threads I can find about gunslingers and tetori and eidolon attack routines and barbarians being overpowered and ruining the game, but yeah, it's anecdote.

The proof is in the pudding, and 5e's clear success is that proof. 4e failed due to its philosophy, not one man.
No it's not.

What we have are two statements: Of the four systems mentioned, 4e is the least successful. 4e is the most balanced of the four systems.

Now even if we take both statements to be true I'm not sure how we can prove any correlation between them. All you can really do with those statements is argue that balance isn't a top priority, or that balance at the expense of other things is not a good tradeoff.

But this statement is also true: Of the four systems mentioned, 4e is the only one in which the Bard is not a core class.

So can we then declare that 4e is unpopular because Bards aren't core? It doesn't seem any less arbitrary than the previous statement and it has more to back it up than the previous assertion at least, since 4e's balance is questionable, while 4e's exclusion of the Bard from the PHB is simply a fact.

And of course, you still have to deal with balance concerns not even being relevant at a large number of tables and 4e being atrociously balanced.

Psyren

2016-04-08, 09:51 AM

I mean, I can try to gather up all the threads I can find about gunslingers and tetori and eidolon attack routines and barbarians being overpowered and ruining the game, but yeah, it's anecdote.

Tetori? Really? I've seen maybe one complaint about it, and the guy was running his AP wrong :smallconfused:

Putting aside that Eidolons are part of a T2 class and so don't count, the rest deal entirely with attack power/DPR. But even in 3.5, the Fighter had great attack power; that fact has nothing to do with tiers or game balance, they were still T5.

The classes I see the most complaints about are summoners, magi and witches - all spellcasters.

But this statement is also true: Of the four systems mentioned, 4e is the only one in which the Bard is not a core class.

So can we then declare that 4e is unpopular because Bards aren't core? It doesn't seem any less arbitrary than the previous statement and it has more to back it up than the previous assertion at least, since 4e's balance is questionable, while 4e's exclusion of the Bard from the PHB is simply a fact.

It seems plenty more arbitrary to me. Now, I could go out and find far more reviews and forum posts complaining about the sameness between classes than I could the lack of a bard in core, but let's move away from anecdotes and look at what the actual designers (the folks with real data to back up their opinions) though was wrong and why they decided it was time for 5e.

(when asked where he thought 4e "missed the mark")

I think the classes overlapped both in what they can do and how they acquire abilities.

(In an essay that was referenced by Mike Mearls, Justin Clouse, Alexander Macris etc.)

Four years ago, in an effort to understand why I found so many of the design decisions in the 4th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons antithetical to what I wanted from a roleplaying game, I wrote an essay about “Dissociated Mechanics”. At the time, I was still struggling to both define and come to grips with what that concept meant. I was also, simultaneously, quantifying and explaining my reaction to 4th Edition (which had just been released).
Ultimately, I hit on something that rang true. I had found the definition of something that was deeply problematic for a lot of people. The term “dissociated mechanic” caught on and became widely used.

The key is that when you look back at how D&D has gone forward; no one at Wizards ever woke up one day and said "Let's get rid of all our fans and replace them," that was never the intent. With 4th Edition, there were good intentions. The game is very solid, there are a lot of people who play it and enjoy it, but you do get those people that say "hey, this feels like an MMO, this feels like a board game."

That last one was his words, not mine.

Now, you can continue to bring up spurious and irrelevant examples like "4e bards aren't core, so we can't prove that wasn't the problem!" But my guess is that even you know for a fact that this was not the issue. Or at the very least, if it was an issue, it was not one worthy of comment by the folks who had actual data as far as what people were really complaining about, which was the abstracted mechanics and the sameness and the MMO-ness of it all. The stuff that was so pervasive even the guys trying to sell you more of the thing realized was a problem and needed to be addressed.

I consider that to be just a bit more persuasive than bards.

squiggit

2016-04-08, 11:41 AM

OldTrees1

2016-04-08, 12:18 PM

Write a 30 page thesis on the Snowbluff Axiom. There are some implications you are missing here.

Frankly if you are this bad at explaining your own axiom, I wonder if you understand it nearly as well as those you told about it.

At its core your axiom is founded on the premise that different people can have different preferences. From there you can note that people have both objective and relative preferences. Building on that you can point out that for more complex systems there are multiple different things within that system that someone can have preferences about. Here you could then give preferences about power in D&D as examples. You would note both the objective and relative preferences for Barbarians being strong(objective preference about Str) and stronger than the norm(relative preference about Str vs Str). So now you have established that preferences vary and that there are a lot of potential relevant areas of preference about power in D&D. Now, with that context, you could go into why you think increased balance in a system would lockdown more of those potentially relevant areas for the same volume of content.

Now, while that last step is accurate, I am drastically compressing that last step. However if you made it to that step then the "well just use different levels" argument would have been put to rest via the context (because the support for your axiom is founded on the "use different levels OR one of the various other imbalances if one of them is more precise for your goal").

And this is all from a 3rd hand perspective.

Snowbluff

2016-04-08, 12:27 PM

Frankly if you are this bad at explaining your own axiom, I wonder if you understand it nearly as well as those you told about it.

Nah, he just doesn't understand. I'm not under any obligation to waste hours of my time pointing out things that have been already stated on numerous occasions or made immediately obvious. Frankly, I don't have the time, nor the energy, to argue intensively this week.

Finally, "use different levels" for balance in this case is flawed (and not referenced in the Axiom or the original context) for two reasons:

1) At the same level, there are various levels of power available. (Hence, "made immediately obvious.")
2) The game has an experience and level up system, and is written and built for long term games. Relying on the level to solve balance problems means you'll just run into the same problems as always.

Finally, I'm not in the mood to be questioned about my understanding of game mechanics and logic. I've been playing games my whole life, and theory crafting 3rd edition for over a decade. Just don't. :l

Kurald Galain

2016-04-08, 12:38 PM

So shouldn't 4e be wildly popular because assassins are borderline nonfunctional and rangers can become unkillable gods that destroy enemies double their CR? Would 4e be more popular if assassins were even worse to increase said optimization gap?

The notion that most players don't care about balance doesn't mean they want things to be deliberately unbalanced. It means they literally don't care either way.

You'll note that neither WOTC nor Paizo has marketed any of their games as "the balanced RPG". Oh sure, they'll mention the word "balance" somewhere in the fine print or in the middle of a blogpost or whatnot, but basically the only people who make a big deal out of balance are optimizers on RPG forums. While there's nothing wrong with optimizing on forums, please realize this is very much a minority of RPG players.

Psyren

2016-04-08, 12:46 PM

Those quotes refer to homogenization, dissociated mechanics and how the game plays though. None of those really have anything to do with the game's balance. At least not directly.

I don't think anyone will argue that 4e doesn't have some messy mechanics, overly conservative design choices and an overemphasis on certain aspects of the game (along with math problems and class identity problems and poor product management), but that's not a balance problem.

That's exactly the point - those design choices were made because balancing the classes was the primary goal (at the expense of nearly everything else.) Here's Rob Heinsoo, lead designer for 4e:

I hated the fact that once you started playing level 11+ in 3E, the non-spellcasting character classes didn't matter as much as the spellcasters. There was fun to be had as a fighter, or as a monk (mostly through roleplaying), but the truth was that adventures usually depended on the abilities of the wizard and cleric—where a missing wizard or cleric got some high-level 3E games I was in rescheduled. Did 3E games get rescheduled if the fighter was missing? Only if the character was central to the storyline of that session, not because the group actually depended on the fighter for survival while the wizard and the cleric were around.

The fact was that in the 3E world, wizards were the most powerful characters, heirs to a fantasy tradition from Dying Earth, Lord of the Rings, and Forgotten Realms in which the earth-shakingly powerful characters were usually wizards.

We had to change that for our game world. From the start we wanted to put 4E's character classes on more even footing. We hoped that more equal characters would help groups play games together longer instead of having 3E's problem of high-level campaigns breaking down without being certain why, when some of the players stopped having as much fun as the other players.

Of course there are places where it's OK to have uber-powerful spellcasters—from the perspective of a fantasy novelist, it can be hugely useful to have one or two character types that happen to be more powerful than all of the other characters in the world. But D&D isn't a fantasy novel, it's a shared world roleplaying game. When you're playing a cooperative game with friends, it's better if the baseline is that every character class has roughly equal potential for kicking butt and using powerful abilities that shape the game.

I shouldn't act like this was a simple decision to make or carry out. There are a lot of people who don't want to let go of the idea that the wizard should be the most powerful class. The first Player's Handbook teetered back and forth between design drafts and development drafts, and sometimes the wizard had been deliberately bumped up to be slightly better than all the other classes. I wasn't comfortable with that, and the final version of the wizard is, if anything, possibly on the slightly weak side; the wizard was all alone as the first practitioner of the controller role and we stayed cautious knowing that we could improve the class later if we needed to.

They acknowledged they were taking a gamble, because they knew a lot of players didn't share their sentiments (second bold.) That gamble ultimately did not pay off, and Rob left WotC. So in 5e, spellcasters once again have capabilities that mundanes cannot match, the only difference now is that (a) self-buffing is much harder due to concentration, so you may as well buff the fighter instead, (b) non-cantrips are sharply limited in supply, so you have to rely on cantrips more to avoid running dry before a long rest, and (c) the spells themselves require much more GM adjudication, giving the GM a much stronger thumb to place on the scales and keep the casters in line. But on their face, spells are more powerful in varied in 5e than they were in 4th.

A very important additional point is that Mearls does not agree with Rob's philosophy; he's much more okay with spellcasters having a higher ceiling that mundanes. Certainly he didn't hate the idea that casters start to pull ahead past a certain level (or that some of them, notably the druid, can take on martial or casting roles as they see fit) - and 5e reflects that, albeit to a much lesser degree than 3e did. Thus, when Mearls took over for 5e, we saw the return of some spells that simply told mundanes no without even a saving throw, like Forcecage and Maze. But it's more balanced in the sense that these caster win buttons have a high opportunity cost (no bonus spells, no wands etc.) and so the caster must be judicious with their use and rely on their teammates much more.

squiggit

2016-04-08, 12:47 PM

The notion that most players don't care about balance doesn't mean they want things to be deliberately unbalanced. It means they literally don't care either way.

I know that, the idea that balance isn't really relevant has been part of my argument from the very beginning. That was a largely facetious statement because I don't really buy the argument that 4e's supposedly improved balance is the driving reason for the system's failure.

That's exactly the point - those design choices were made because balancing the classes was the primary goal (at the expense of nearly everything else.) Here's Rob Heinsoo, lead designer for 4e:

Some of them, yes, but that's still not an intrinsic correlation between balance and failure, it's a correlation between how they tried to accomplish their goals and failure at best. Me not liking AEDU does not mean I actively dislike balance, it means I don't like AEDU. I mean, there are systems that run tactical small group combat similar to 4e that are both more or less balanced than that system and there are wildly different systems that are more balanced.

You keep bringing up 5e, but 5e is drastically better balanced than 4e. That 5e manages to do so while still leaning on a fairly familiar core design seems to completely fly in the face of that point. That 5e manages to do so without being unsuccessful also seems to fly in the face of said point.

Psyren

2016-04-08, 12:51 PM

squiggit

2016-04-08, 12:53 PM

I actually agree with you that it's not. Rather, it's what they did trying to chase that ideal balance that was a big factor. (Certainly moreso than not including bards in core, and they know it.)

Well then I guess we're more in agreement than I thought. I just think it's a bit erroneous to place the blame entirely on balance when the problem is the methods, not the goal.

Kurald Galain

2016-04-08, 01:14 PM

I know that, the idea that balance isn't really relevant has been part of my argument from the very beginning. That was a largely facetious statement because I don't really buy the argument that 4e's supposedly improved balance is the driving reason for the system's failure.

Yes, I agree.

While as Rob Heinsoo writes, balance was clearly a design goal for 4E, it was (obviously) not the only design goal. As it turns out, a lot of players didn't like those other design goals. And, well, to a player who wants "a system that does X", it doesn't matter if 4E is "a system without X" or "a system without X but balanced"; that player is still going to look for other games instead.

Conversely, it strikes me that balance was not a design goal for 3E, or PF, or 5E; or at least, not an important one; although of course 3.5 is explicitly a rebalanced version of 3.0. Sacred Geometry would be an example of that. On the one hand, its author clearly wasn't thinking of game balance, but of doing something cool. On the other hand, the main complaint against it is not so much "it's unbalanced", but "it's too complicated" and "it takes too much time".

Segev

2016-04-08, 04:38 PM

4e did some good things. I liked the change of "saves" to "defenses." I think merging "touch AC" into the Reflex Defense was a good idea. The guiding philosophy of allowing people to apply one of two stats to various bonuses was a neat idea, as well, though I didn't study the overall implementation enough to see if they got a good rotation of those such that having (say) Strength, Dex, and Int high was distinct but just as good as (say) Con, Wis, and Cha high.

Unfortunately, the most important part of any D&D game is where 4e failed utterly: class design. The classes were homogenized into all being, essentially, martial adepts in terms of mechanics. The unique flavor of the various subsystems for playing truly different kinds of characters was lost. And that sin made it just...not right for the name "D&D." It probably was a nicely balanced fantasy combat simulator, but it was almost (but not quite) entirely unlike D&D in terms of how it played and "felt."

As to Sacred Geometry, I sympathize with the notion that it's fun to roll some d6s and try to finagle through arithmetic games some specific number to gain a particular bonus. I would suggest that the feat would be better served by either divorcing it completely from spellcasting, or at least making there be a specific list of metamagic feats which correspond to the various "prime" numeric values they're discussing.

If they divorce it completely, using the feat would enable the character to perform some sort of sacred geometric ritual to get his choice of outcome from the table...if he can forge the target number from his dice roll. If they leave it associated, he picks the metamagic he applies from the list of ones he can access via his dice roll manipulation.

dascarletm

2016-04-08, 05:04 PM

You don't need perfect balance when the game is adjudicated by conscious sentient beings.

You more options to play in this way, even if there is another option that accomplishes your goals easier. This is a problem for "gamist" players, not so much for "simulationists" or "storytellers."

Godskook

2016-04-08, 10:00 PM

1) It's elementary math. Not really a problem, just a small math puzzle. Some people who play this game are not so good at math, so I made the feat usable in a way that doesn't slow down a game.

As is, it's a non-issue once you learn the tricks to handle it quickly. If you are actually that bad at math, resolving your turn with the math normally in the game is taking a while.

I have a Bachelors in Science in Mathematics. Can you stop with the insults? When I say the amount of math expected is a problem, and you say that its not because its easy and anyone who is "that bad" at math has bigger problems, that's you insulting me passive aggressively. Now, I'm going to assume you're doing it by accident, but there's really no way around the interpretation that you're doing it. I'm certified "good at math" and I wouldn't allow this at MY table because I don't want to that much math homework. And no, I don't struggle with resolving the normal math of the game efficiently.

2) I actually nerfed this in my alteration. I don't think it really matters either way. I've seldom few things to do with my feats in pathfinder, so actually taking MM feats isn't so bad.

Uhm. I think you misunderstood me. #2 was about how variable the feat's power was on the dimension of "familiarity of using this particular feat". Most feats are very consistent power with minor amounts of variation based on optimal use cases. You know what you're getting from Empower or Power Attack. You don't know what you're getting here.

3) I don't know how I covered this. Ironic, since I thought I addressed the rest of these with my tweaks. :smalltongue:

Let me explain. You fixed it by requiring that the caster actually have the feats to use them with this feat. I think you got confused by my previous point by thinking that one was talking about this.

4) ... Uh, should it be? Are you referring to my trick, or just "use good metamagic with it." To the former, I say "it's a cheap trick, the feat doesn't need it," and for the latter, "it's metamagic. Nothing about how any of these feats should be used effectively is obvious. They're underpowered for the most part, and hard to use."

I'm referring to the fact that you can get +8 levels of free metamagic out of this feat on a 1st level spell, or +1 on an 8th level spell. It makes the feat grossly difficult to balance because even after reading it, I'm still not sure where the largest amount of power is. Your version too.

And to answer all of them, Snowbluff Axiom. Not every feat is for every table. Some feats should be more powerful than others, not to trap people, but to make stronger characters to fight stronger challenges. Personally, I find most feats anemic. I like strong feats that seriously take the game, bend it over, and hammer it into a piece of metal tubing more suitable for the corner I'm trying to get the wiring through.

1.Feats should not be significantly more powerful than each other. Feats can be reletively stronger for certain builds(Str-based fighters don't want Weapon Finesse), but "a feat" should be, roughly speaking, a unit of power.

2.You don't need grossly imbalanced feats to make stronger characters.

3.The kind of feats you say you like is basically a description of Pun Pun. That's not even close to the design space feats usually occupy.

The ability to easily do the bit of math that Snowbluff refers to is implicit in the other requirements for playing the game.

No, it isn't.

What I mean to say is, if you have a person who can't trivially do that small bit of mental gymnastics, he is likely the source of other, more serious problems to the table.

I have a Bachelors in Science in Mathematics. I can't do this math trivially, but yet I don't have more serious problems at the table. Everything I said above to Snowbluff about passive aggressive insults applies here too.

2. Addressed.

No, you just changed who the ideal player is. You didn't address the disparity.

3. What anti-synergy are you referring to?

I'm referring to the fact that the feat originally discourages you from taking metamagic feats with it because any feat you use regularly with it is a wasted feat. Requiring you to actually take those other metamagic feats both serves to reduce the power of this one and to make it more synergistic.

4. Non-issue, doesn't have to be. (Snowbluff's axiom)

So your martixy response to 3/4 points in my request for arguments to show your side of things is "non-issue/adressed" without any actual argument to back those statements up.......yeah, you could've said "no" and not wasted my time with the pretense.

Snowbluff

2016-04-08, 10:18 PM

I have a Bachelors in Science in Mathematics. Can you stop with the insults? When I say the amount of math expected is a problem, and you say that its not because its easy and anyone who is "that bad" at math has bigger problems, that's you insulting me passive aggressively. Now, I'm going to assume you're doing it by accident, but there's really no way around the interpretation that you're doing it. I'm certified "good at math" and I wouldn't allow this at MY table because I don't want to that much math homework. And no, I don't struggle with resolving the normal math of the game efficiently.

It's a hypothetical and general "if you're bad at math." You are not the subject. My statement is true. It's just a little flavorful busy work, not unlike crafty or consumable management.

Not really invested with the rest of the stuff, just saying I don't bear you ill will, so I'll do the rest.

2) If one is confused as to what it does, when it specifies what feats you need to use with it, then Style, Tactician, and many other feat types are apparently untenable as well. Every spell is different in the first place, so not every metamagic to going to work, which is how metamagic works in the first place.

Power Attack is a bad example, and so is empower. Those are much stronger (nay, only useful at all) when combined with other effects or unorthodox uses. That's how the game works. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

3) Oh okay. To make 2 easier to handle, it should require a metamagic feat. IDR if I changed it.

4) First level spells suck in pathfinder. I can't recall a combination of metamagic feats, which would require 2 rounds to put +8 of metamagic on with the original feat, that would break the game with a first level spell, and certainly not at level 17. On an 8th level spell, the penultimate level of power, you can add... dazzle to a spell. Or cast it underwater.

I think the take away is that you can't do anything that your spellcasting couldn't do in the first place, and if that's not true, you can't combine the metamagic in a way that you couldn't normal because it's capped at your highest level spell (without my exploit, ofc).

gadren

2016-04-09, 02:00 AM

It's a hypothetical and general "if you're bad at math." You are not the subject. My statement is true. It's just a little flavorful busy work, not unlike crafty or consumable management.

You know this still comes across as really insulting, right? You are basically saying if one feels the math is too much in this onerously-written feat, they are just bad at math?

Snowbluff

2016-04-09, 07:14 PM

You know this still comes across as really insulting, right? You are basically saying if one feels the math is too much in this onerously-written feat, they are just bad at math?

I'm more worried about the time consumption, which is referred to in the original post. So, no, it's not what I'm saying. :smallcool:

MilleniaAntares

2016-04-09, 09:19 PM

Jack_Simth

2016-04-09, 11:31 PM

I found an interesting proposal from 4chan. The cleaned up summary is:

1) Remove the two free metamagic feats. Instead require two metamagic feats to take the feat.

2) Roll Knowledge (Engineering).

3) If the result is divisible by the metamagic-adjusted spell level of the resulting spell, then the ability goes off. If not, then you wasted your action and spell slot.

Main issue is probably any ability that allows you to take 10... so just remove that compatibility.
That's going to be a pretty low-value feat, actually.

Oh, you get one free level of metamagic on all your cantrips, but, umm...
If the final metamagic-adjusted level would be 2, it doesn't much matter what your Kn(Engineering) modifier is, you've got a 50/50 chance (evens or odds).

If the final metamagic-adjusted level would be 3, it matters only slightly what your Kn(Engineering) modifier is; you've either got a 6 in 20 or 7 in 20 chance of success.

If the final metamagic-adjusted level would be 4, it again doesn't matter what your Kn(Engineering) modifier is; if it's above 3, you've got a flat 1 in 4 chance of success (5 in 20, specifically).

And so on. If you actually run an analysis, this is a "burn it to the ground" option.

But then, you did say you found it on 4chan....

Psyren

2016-04-10, 03:29 PM

I think Millennia is on to something though. "Can this divide cleanly" still feels sufficiently "math-y" to make the player feel like he's an Arithmancer (which was clearly one of the goals of this feat), without slowing everything down to a crawl or requiring spreadsheets and dragons. Knowing a times table up to 10-12 should be within most people's reach to do quickly, and a high check result improves your chances without making things automatic.

Cosi

2016-04-10, 09:31 PM

At its core your axiom is founded on the premise that different people can have different preferences.

That's the argument against imbalance. If I want to play a Barbarian, but Barbarians suck, I am punished for doing what I want. That doesn't happen in a balanced system. From the perspective of "preferences", you want a system where things are balanced and different levels have sharply defined niches in terms of what sorts of story exist there. So you have 1 - 8 for Conan, 9 - 15 for Dresden, and 16+ for Urza.

But Snowbluff can't accept that argument, because he doesn't want a good game. He wants a game where he gets more power because he reads more books. And that goal is worth less than the paper it would be written on if he bothered to write it down.

Finally, "use different levels" for balance in this case is flawed (and not referenced in the Axiom or the original context) for two reasons:

Are you reading my posts? I assume not, given the content of yours, but a reminder you should seems prudent. You remember the second part of your axiom (the reason we're supposed to not just tolerate, but desire broken games)? It says: "This allows for a wide variety of power levels for games for different levels of players." Having different power levels are what levels are for. I never said that you should balance things by having class X suck at 1 - 10 and class Y suck at level 11 - 20. I said you should have balance at each level, and use different levels for different levels of power. Like is literally the entire point of having a level system.

I find your claim that you are "super good" at theory-crafting dubious at best if you don't understand why levels exist. It's like a Supreme Court nominee who doesn't know what a law is.

The notion that most players don't care about balance doesn't mean they want things to be deliberately unbalanced. It means they literally don't care either way.

Close, but not quite. Players don't notice. For a whole bunch of reasons (people don't try to break the game, the DM adjust things behind the scenes, bias against acknowledging problems). Very few people, when confronted with the reality that the Cleric can do everything the Fighter does and still see the future, raise the dead, and summon angels, are happy about it. But people genuinely take a long time to notice that. The Cleric Archer was formulated in 2001, but it was still the better part of a decade before the idea that CoDzilla existed became accepted in even the frankly insular environment of "internet forums where people talk about D&D".

I think Millennia is on to something though. "Can this divide cleanly" still feels sufficiently "math-y" to make the player feel like he's an Arithmancer (which was clearly one of the goals of this feat), without slowing everything down to a crawl or requiring spreadsheets and dragons. Knowing a times table up to 10-12 should be within most people's reach to do quickly, and a high check result improves your chances without making things automatic.

"Does this feel math-y" is a stupid standard. No one wants casting spells to make you feel like a Wizard, or using Power Attack to test your skill at swordsmanship. Why should this feat be different?

Anlashok

2016-04-10, 10:46 PM

Maybe we'll get a feat that gives fighters a bonus to damage rolls based on the number of pushups they can do.

dascarletm

2016-04-11, 10:13 AM

"Does this feel math-y" is a stupid standard. No one wants casting spells to make you feel like a Wizard, or using Power Attack to test your skill at swordsmanship. Why should this feat be different?
I play for a moderate amount of escapism, having the mechanics aid in this is something that I personally like. I am sure there are others like me.

OldTrees1

2016-04-11, 10:34 AM

That's the argument against imbalance. If I want to play a Barbarian, but Barbarians suck, I am punished for doing what I want. That doesn't happen in a balanced system. From the perspective of "preferences", you want a system where things are balanced and different levels have sharply defined niches in terms of what sorts of story exist there. So you have 1 - 8 for Conan, 9 - 15 for Dresden, and 16+ for Urza.

But Snowbluff can't accept that argument, because he doesn't want a good game. He wants a game where he gets more power because he reads more books. And that goal is worth less than the paper it would be written on if he bothered to write it down.

No, it is the argument for correctly designed variable imbalance. You and I both like martial characters so I think I can use that as an example.

How many pieces is a barbarian?
We have the various ability scores
We have the feature/level density and the utility/feature value
We have the feat/level density and the power/feat value
We have the skill/level density (I am oversimplifying but I think it is acceptable for this example)
We also have the level of course

How many pieces is a fighter?
We have the various ability scores
We have the feature/level density and the utility/feature value
We have the feat/level density and the power/feat value
We have the skill/level density (I am oversimplifying but I think it is acceptable for this example)
We also have the level of course

Well we also have encounters right? Encounters have all the same areas but with one addition
PC power/Monster power ratio.

Now if you are practiced in the art of balance(I presume you are) you know that merely making every individual thing equal is boring and undesirable. However if you want something balanced you want each interchangeable clump to be balanced within the tolerances you are using. So you set each of those pieces to some amount and you have 2 martial classes that are balanced against each other. You also have set a specific PC/Monster power ratio for a given PC level an monster. This is basic, and you already know it, so I apologize for boring you with the wall of text. :smallredface:

Now you and I are different people and can have different preferences. I will examine 2 of those potential preference differences:
1) We differ on the preferred PC power/Monster power ratio. This is the easy case that jumps to your mind. The trivial solution is to have us use different PC levels but the same monsters.
2) We differ on the preferred number of features but both want to fight the same monsters at the same PC power/Monster power ratio. This cannot be solved by altering the PC level to reach a desired number of features because that change also changes the PC power/Monster power ratio for a given monster.
So due to case #2, different preferences can result in a balanced system being not ideally calibrated for one group. This concludes the strongest part of Snowbluff's position.

As a designer, if you know that the stricter your tolerances when calibrating your balance will result in your product being ideal for fewer people, how do you maximize the value provided? Having looser tolerances would reach more groups, but the balance will be shakier for each group. Having tighter tolerances would reach fewer groups, but the balance would be tight for those groups. Now if the system you are providing is large enough compared to the fraction used per group, then you can get away with have looser tolerances with the balance for what each group uses being tighter than the overall system(like having your cake and eating it too but requires lots more material to be made).

Cosi

2016-04-11, 10:57 AM

You and I both like martial characters so I think I can use that as an example.

I actually don't particularly, it's just that the both suck in the game and have structural problems. The Warmage doesn't have the abilities he needs to matter in a high level game, but he totally could. Conversely, the Fighter has basically nowhere to go in terms of doing anything either outside combat or beyond human ability.

1) We differ on the preferred PC power/Monster power ratio. This is the easy case that jumps to your mind. The trivial solution is to have us use different PC levels but the same monsters.

I'd note that this is also an argument for balanced systems. If PC power is variable, it's difficult to properly adjust the relative power of monsters.

2) We differ on the preferred feature/level density but both want to fight the same monsters at the same PC power/Monster power ratio. This cannot be solved by altering the PC level to reach a desired feature/level density because that change also changes the PC power/Monster power ratio for a given monster.

I'm not 100% sure what this is saying, but it sounds like an argument about character complexity. Some people want lots of options, some people want less options. And there are two axis of that: how complex something is to build, and how complex it is so play. Some examples:

Fighters are simple to play (charge monster, kill monster), but complex to build (find every book with a damage multiplier in it).

Druids are complex to play (what spell to prepare, what spell to cast, what to wild shape into), but relatively simply to build (take Natural Spell).

Wizards are complex to play (like a Druid without Wild Shape) and complex to build (what spells to learn, what feats to take, what PrC).

But you can balance all those things. Druids and Wizards are already pretty balanced, and if you gave the Fighter the ability to select some defensive buffs and/or utility powers, he'd be fairly close as well.

Having looser tolerances would reach more groups, but the balance will be shakier for each group. Having tighter tolerances would reach fewer groups, but the balance would be tight for those groups.

That's a false dichotomy. I haven't yet seen a compelling argument that imbalance expands design space, rather than causing you to simply sell people useless material.

OldTrees1

2016-04-11, 11:30 AM

I actually don't particularly, it's just that the both suck in the game and have structural problems. The Warmage doesn't have the abilities he needs to matter in a high level game, but he totally could. Conversely, the Fighter has basically nowhere to go in terms of doing anything either outside combat or beyond human ability.

I'd note that this is also an argument for balanced systems. If PC power is variable, it's difficult to properly adjust the relative power of monsters.

I'm not 100% sure what this is saying, but it sounds like an argument about character complexity. Some people want lots of options, some people want less options. And there are two axis of that: how complex something is to build, and how complex it is so play. Some examples:

Fighters are simple to play (charge monster, kill monster), but complex to build (find every book with a damage multiplier in it).

Druids are complex to play (what spell to prepare, what spell to cast, what to wild shape into), but relatively simply to build (take Natural Spell).

Wizards are complex to play (like a Druid without Wild Shape) and complex to build (what spells to learn, what feats to take, what PrC).

But you can balance all those things. Druids and Wizards are already pretty balanced, and if you gave the Fighter the ability to select some defensive buffs and/or utility powers, he'd be fairly close as well.

That's a false dichotomy. I haven't yet seen a compelling argument that imbalance expands design space, rather than causing you to simply sell people useless material.
I noticed that when I said people might differ on how many features they want their Fighter to have by X level, your solution was to play something else(namely Druid or Wizard). I found that a funny misdirection.

Your other suggestion was to give the Fighter some more abilities.Changing the rules of a game indicates the current calibration was not ideal for your group. Given that for any design for Fighter, 2 people can differ, it follows that tight calibration will not be calibrated to be ideal to both groups. If the calibration used looser tolerances then the range of people that land inside the calibration is larger (at the cost of the fit being worse for each than if it was specifically calibrated for their use only).

Think about it this way: I can either make a single size wristband for a watch, or I can use an elastic wrist band. The single size is perfectly calibrated for 1 person out there. The elastic band is not as well calibrated per person but works for a much larger range of people.

Now expanding the range of people that your game fits, does come at the cost of printing what you called "useless material" because the barbarian you would like would be useless material to me just as the barbarian I would like would be useless material to you (some hyperbole used since our actual preferences are probably closer).

Does this excuse 3.5? That is harder to judge. Personally I see lots of redundant/wasted imbalance that does not serve to expand the fit range (even prior to calculating correct fit based on something like range length*average quality of fit).

Cosi

2016-04-11, 01:46 PM

I noticed that when I said people might differ on how many features they want their Fighter to have by X level, your solution was to play something else(namely Druid or Wizard). I found that a funny misdirection.

Those are examples. You could obviously have classes that use swords at any point on the chart. For example (not existing classes, but concepts you could make work in a new game):

Easy build/Easy play: The Barbarian gets a rage which gives him reasonable combat numbers, and some ancestor spirits that give him guidance or information. In combat, he hits things with a sword.

Easy build/Complex play: The Warblade picks a couple of disciplines, each of which gives him three or four maneuvers every level (in the sense of spell levels).

Complex build/Easy play: The Fighter in 3.5. Probably not a necessary niche in a new game, as most people who want easy to play classes want easy to build classes, and most people who want complex to build classes want complex to play classes.

Complex build/Complex play: The Marshal has a bunch of individually selected minions, and must prepare a set of stratagems each day. He also has a bunch of auras he can shuffle around.

Obviously, only one class will literally be called "Fighter", but that's inevitable. You can write a class for "guy with a sword" for whatever set of preferences people happen to have. You can make classes in any niche that do any level of complexity. For example, if the Marshal's Aura was pre-picked and his minions were all level X Warriors, he'd probably be E/E (maybe E/C if the minions are complicated). You could even double dip by calling one of those guys a "Marshal" and the other one a "Warlord". Also, those are sliding scales. You can have a character with one option (ubercharge), half-a-dozen options (mid-level Sorcerer), or dozens of options (Beguiler with expanded spell list).

OldTrees1

2016-04-11, 02:49 PM

Those are examples. You could obviously have classes that use swords at any point on the chart. For example (not existing classes, but concepts you could make work in a new game):

Easy build/Easy play: The Barbarian gets a rage which gives him reasonable combat numbers, and some ancestor spirits that give him guidance or information. In combat, he hits things with a sword.

Easy build/Complex play: The Warblade picks a couple of disciplines, each of which gives him three or four maneuvers every level (in the sense of spell levels).

Complex build/Easy play: The Fighter in 3.5. Probably not a necessary niche in a new game, as most people who want easy to play classes want easy to build classes, and most people who want complex to build classes want complex to play classes.

Complex build/Complex play: The Marshal has a bunch of individually selected minions, and must prepare a set of stratagems each day. He also has a bunch of auras he can shuffle around.

Obviously, only one class will literally be called "Fighter", but that's inevitable. You can write a class for "guy with a sword" for whatever set of preferences people happen to have. You can make classes in any niche that do any level of complexity. For example, if the Marshal's Aura was pre-picked and his minions were all level X Warriors, he'd probably be E/E (maybe E/C if the minions are complicated). You could even double dip by calling one of those guys a "Marshal" and the other one a "Warlord". Also, those are sliding scales. You can have a character with one option (ubercharge), half-a-dozen options (mid-level Sorcerer), or dozens of options (Beguiler with expanded spell list).

Would you have the game designer this for all the variables upon which different people have different preferences? If so then we are near the same page.

What about different preferences for character power per level? (and its various more concrete children like character power per HD acquired by levels or character power per base save bonus acquired by levels)

The nuanced position is not that balance is bad, but that imbalance exists by design and for purpose in the ideal game that designed for all relevant variables in the manner that you just described for complex in build & complexity in play. (There is another nuanced position that takes this idealism and squeezes it through realism. If I had to bet, that would be Snowbluff's position)

Cosi

2016-04-11, 03:05 PM

What about different preferences for character power per level? (and its various more concrete children like character power per HD acquired by levels or character power per base save bonus acquired by levels)

I don't think anyone has strong preferences about power/HD or power/save bonus.

That said, "power per level" is sort of misleading. It's not about how strong you get at each level, it's about how finely you divide power. In 3e, there are two power levels a Wizard can be when he has 3rd, but not 4th, level spells: 5th and 6th. If you want a Wizard who is more powerful than a 6th level Wizard, but can't cast 4th level spells, that's impossible (assuming equal optimization, and ignoring options like "put a 13 in INT"). Power in D&D is, relatively speaking, "discrete". Conversely, in a point-based system (like Shadowrun), power is "continuous". You can actually have one character who is "100 points worth of Mage" and another who is "101 points of Mage" and have that be distinct. You can't really do that in D&D.

The question of how many levels to have is a totally open one. You could have three levels (peasant, demigod, deity) and a huge spread of power, or a dozen levels (split all the things a 1st level Sorcerer gets, including "1 0th level spell known" and "+2 Will" and such, to their own level) and a tiny spread. Or anything in between. Obviously at some point you'd want to switch over to point-based progression, but I don't know exactly where that point is. Probably around the point where you're waiting four or five levels for a new level (that terminology is stupid) of powers.

I also think that this is not something that most people care about. "It has thirty levels instead of twenty" did not seem to be common as a complaint about 4e, not was "it has twenty levels again" a strong selling point for 5e.

OldTrees1

2016-04-11, 03:23 PM

I don't think anyone has strong preferences about power/HD or power/save bonus.

That said, "power per level" is sort of misleading. It's not about how strong you get at each level, it's about how finely you divide power. In 3e, there are two power levels a Wizard can be when he has 3rd, but not 4th, level spells: 5th and 6th. If you want a Wizard who is more powerful than a 6th level Wizard, but can't cast 4th level spells, that's impossible (assuming equal optimization, and ignoring options like "put a 13 in INT"). Power in D&D is, relatively speaking, "discrete". Conversely, in a point-based system (like Shadowrun), power is "continuous". You can actually have one character who is "100 points worth of Mage" and another who is "101 points of Mage" and have that be distinct. You can't really do that in D&D.

The question of how many levels to have is a totally open one. You could have three levels (peasant, demigod, deity) and a huge spread of power, or a dozen levels (split all the things a 1st level Sorcerer gets, including "1 0th level spell known" and "+2 Will" and such, to their own level) and a tiny spread. Or anything in between. Obviously at some point you'd want to switch over to point-based progression, but I don't know exactly where that point is. Probably around the point where you're waiting four or five levels for a new level (that terminology is stupid) of powers.

I also think that this is not something that most people care about. "It has thirty levels instead of twenty" did not seem to be common as a complaint about 4e, not was "it has twenty levels again" a strong selling point for 5e.

The preferences related to power per level are normally called optimization level or power level or similar terms. There are people that like the terrible vanilla PHB Fighter 20 and people that want campaign breaking Wizard 5s (all power to them, my adjectives are my personal opinion not my opinion of their opinion). If it was mere preferences for power then they would have started at some other level rather than use optimization to change the power per level. IIRC it was in this context that Snowbluff first stated the position that this level of imbalance is filling this demonstrable range in desires.

Unfortunately this is the end of my explanatory ability. Reviewing what I said from inside a design perspective may yield additional information that a first read from such a perspective might have missed, but I have said the condensed* sum of the relevant information I had on the topic.

*Condensed because I did not want to bore you or otherwise insult your extrapolation abilities.

Cosi

2016-04-11, 03:43 PM

There are people that like the terrible vanilla PHB Fighter 20

There are people who think that it is balanced, but those people would presumably be happier if it actually was balanced.

and people that want campaign breaking Wizard 5s (all power to them, my adjectives are my personal opinion not my opinion of their opinion).

No, wanting a character that breaks the campaign is stupid. If the whole party wants to be more powerful than 5th level, they should play at a higher level. If they don't, demanding that you get to be more power because you want to is like showing up with a Shadowrun character after the group votes to play D&D.

If it was mere preferences for power then they would have started at some other level rather than use optimization to change the power per level.

There are two separate things going on there.

First, people like to optimize. You can satisfy that to some degree, by having classes like the Wizard (where you have a variety of powers that are more or less useful in specific circumstances), but it creates a barrier to entry for new players if you can't compete without optimizing.

Second, there isn't any consistent framework for how powerful characters are supposed to be. If you want to do a story that is "like The Second Apocalypse", or "like Prince of Thorns", or whatever, the only way to do that is to eyeball things by optimizing to that point. If you actually set things up so that people followed a clear progression from LotR to Conan to Second Apocalypse to Lord of Light to Codex Alera to Creatures of Light and Darkness, you could just use that to determine how powerful characters are going to be.

gadren

2016-04-12, 12:52 AM

Maybe we'll get a feat that gives fighters a bonus to damage rolls based on the number of pushups they can do.

Oooh, ooh! Can bards get a feat that improves their Bardic Performance if the player can play a number of chords on a guitar? Which chords they have to play of course will require consulting an obtuse 700-word feat, but that's okay because everyone knows that playing chords is easy.

Snowbluff

2016-04-12, 12:56 AM

Oooh, ooh! Can bards get a feat that improves their Bardic Performance if the player can play a number of chords on a guitar? Which chords they have to play of course will require consulting an obtuse 700-word feat, but that's okay because everyone knows that playing chords is easy.

I give bards bonuses when they sing. I had a DM that said she would give me bonuses for singing bawdy songs while using inspire courage. :3

gadren

2016-04-12, 12:59 AM

I give bards bonuses when they sing. I had a DM that said she would give me bonuses for singing bawdy songs while using inspire courage. :3

Last time I sang as part of my bard's "role playing" I got pegged in the head with a stainless steel d20.
I still have the scar.

Snowbluff

2016-04-12, 01:11 AM

Last time I sang as part of my bard's "role playing" I got pegged in the head with a stainless steel d20.
I still have the scar.

D':
That's horrible! I love singing! Serenade me, Garden!

Psyren

2016-04-12, 08:29 AM

I play for a moderate amount of escapism, having the mechanics aid in this is something that I personally like. I am sure there are others like me.

Exactly - the idea is to have the mechanics aid immersion/escapism. Instead of just rolling another skill check, you're doing some math along with it to feel more like an Arithmancer.

It's an interesting goal, but the execution as written was just horrible, and the feats are nearly universally reviled (on top of being banned in PFS, which I would hazard a guess is considered a failure for them - they don't want to be printing content only to tell people "don't bother buying this book, you can't use huge chunks of it in sanctioned play.")

gadren

2016-04-12, 08:39 AM

Psyren

2016-04-12, 08:47 AM

If you want to do extra stuff on the side to feel like your character that's great and all, but there should not be feats dependent on how good you are at that outside activity as a player.
I'm a fairly competent artist and writer, so for my last artificer I continually kept a Da-Vinci-like illustrated journal documenting all the stuff he worked on between sessions, because it immersed me in the character, not because I was looking to get a mechanical benefit out of it.

I fully agree, which is why I like Millennia's compromise - it ties the mechanics to the fluff in a way not far off from what the designers were shooting for, but is sufficiently easy that even people who aren't that good at math can resolve it quickly. Everyone can quickly divide a number that is highly unlikely to be more than 40, by a number that can't be more than 9, and even if they don't know the answer instantly they will know if there's going to be a remainder.

Best of all, there is a much bigger chance of failure to keep the feat from being too good. Simply maxing out your Engineering or Spellcraft or whatever it is, isn't enough to guarantee success, unless you restrict yourself to a cantrip with a +1 metamagic increase. Even going for a 1st-level spell with a +1 cuts your odds to 50/50. But rolling high is still good because you have a better chance of your number being a clean divisor for the increase you're going for. With this higher chance of failure, you can make the consequences much less severe - just a wasted action without even losing the spell for instance.

OldTrees1

2016-04-12, 08:53 AM

If you want to do extra stuff on the side to feel like your character that's great and all, but there should not be feats dependent on how good you are at that outside activity as a player.
I'm a fairly competent artist and writer, so for my last artificer I continually kept a Da-Vinci-like illustrated journal documenting all the stuff he worked on between sessions, because it immersed me in the character, not because I was looking to get a mechanical benefit out of it.

Perhaps this discussion could use some clarification of what the goal is? Sacred Geometry is a feat that gives the player an exercise, is math themed, reduces metamagic, and is OP. The most unique thing about the feat is the exercise, but you say that is not what you would want in the fixed version. The current version is OP, but I doubt you want that in the fixed version. So it sounds like you want a math themed feat and/or a metamagic reduction feat, but fluff is mutable* so any feat could be a math themed feat. So that leaves a metamagic reduction feat, but many metamagic reduction feats exist. I notice I am confused, this implies one of my premises is wrong. Would you help me out by clarifying what the goal is?

*True at the cost of elegance in design but usually the cost is negligible enough that the consensus is fluff is mutable. This would be less accepted if we were design cards for a CCG.

Psyren

2016-04-12, 09:09 AM

Perhaps this discussion could use some clarification of what the goal is? Sacred Geometry is a feat that gives the player an exercise, is math themed, reduces metamagic, and is OP. The most unique thing about the feat is the exercise, but you say that is not what you would want in the fixed version. The current version is OP, but I doubt you want that in the fixed version. So it sounds like you want a math themed feat and/or a metamagic reduction feat, but fluff is mutable* so any feat could be a math themed feat. So that leaves a metamagic reduction feat, but many metamagic reduction feats exist. I notice I am confused, this implies one of my premises is wrong. Would you help me out by clarifying what the goal is?

*True at the cost of elegance in design but usually the cost is negligible enough that the consensus is fluff is mutable. This would be less accepted if we were design cards for a CCG.

This is a good focusing question. I won't speak for gadren but I'll endeavor to answer for what I'd like to see:

My own goals for neo-SG are two-fold:

1) Sacred Geometry should be a metamagic reduction feat that has the potential to be more powerful than the existing ones (read: more than 1-2 levels of discount, and usable on a variety of spells instead of just one or one school of magic), but at the cost of having a fairly significant chance of wasting your action entirely. Thus there is a risk-reward element; if you "read the stars correctly" or whatever fluff designation you wish to apply, your magic gets a huge boost, but if you don't (or if Jupiter is out of phase or whatever) then you've spent your turn accomplishing nothing. Thus you'll only even try it if that huge boost is needed for a given situation.

2) Sacred Geometry should have a "mathematic feel," which will most likely involve a player exercise of some kind. Simply rolling a check and comparing to a static target number is not enough - I like Millennia's idea of a moving target that is at least somewhat in the player's control. So you can go for a big metamagic boost with a high failure chance, or you can play it safe and improve your chances with a smaller denominator, but the only ways to guarantee success are a +1 cantrip or a +0 1st-level spell, which are unlikely to be game-breaking.

The items that are still to be determined then are:
a) What are the consequences for failure? (Given Millennia's proposal - the failure rate seems fairly high, so I'd be okay with just a wasted action. But you can get all kinds of exotic here - spell fumbles, spellblights, applying conditions like a wild surge backlash etc.)

b) Do you need to actually possess the metamagic feats that you want to try to apply? I haven't decided this yet.

c) Do you need to qualify for the metamagic feats that you want to try to apply? (Obviously this would be yes if the preceding question is yes - barring edge cases like free metamagic - but if not, this becomes valid.)

d) Is there a cap on the metamagic you can apply, and if so, what will it be? (An easy answer here would be to cap the final adjusted level at your highest spell level, but I'd be more generous and let you go for highest-spell level +1. This would let you pull off spectacular feats like Silent Wish in a pinch.)

e) Can you combine this with other metamagic reducers? I'd also be inclined to point to yes here, but not to let the final adjusted spell level of a given spell ever go below its base level.

There's a lot of room for discussion around any of these points and what people would like to see.

OldTrees1

2016-04-12, 09:48 AM

This is a good focusing question. I won't speak for gadren but I'll endeavor to answer for what I'd like to see:

My own goals for neo-SG are two-fold:

1) Sacred Geometry should be a metamagic reduction feat that has the potential to be more powerful than the existing ones (read: more than 1-2 levels of discount, and usable on a variety of spells instead of just one or one school of magic), but at the cost of having a fairly significant chance of wasting your action entirely. Thus there is a risk-reward element; if you "read the stars correctly" or whatever fluff designation you wish to apply, your magic gets a huge boost, but if you don't (or if Jupiter is out of phase or whatever) then you've spent your turn accomplishing nothing. Thus you'll only even try it if that huge boost is needed for a given situation.

2) Sacred Geometry should have a "mathematic feel," which will most likely involve a player exercise of some kind. Simply rolling a check and comparing to a static target number is not enough - I like Millennia's idea of a moving target that is at least somewhat in the player's control. So you can go for a big metamagic boost with a high failure chance, or you can play it safe and improve your chances with a smaller denominator, but the only ways to guarantee success are a +1 cantrip or a +0 1st-level spell, which are unlikely to be game-breaking.

So metamagic reduction and an exercise(mechanics designed to or happen to create a "<field of knowledge> feel"*).
Millennia's "roll knowledge and check if divisible" is a great solution for your goals(as you have recognized already). Ooh, we can do math to it to see the break points :smallbiggrin:.

Everything is divisible by 1
There are always an equal number of ways to roll a d20 to reach something divisible by 2, 4, 5, or 10 (being factors of the range length)
11 and 12 can show up 1-2 times (1*11 + 1 <= 20 < 2*11)
7, 8, & 9 can show up 2-3 times (2*7 + 1 <= 20 < 3*7)
6 can show up 3-4 times (3*6 + 1 <= 20 < 4*6)
3 can show up 6-7 times (6*3+1 <= 20 < 7*3)
So there are 7 numbers that can receive a 5% better chance depending on where your range is situated. A range can be optimized for all of these(trivial example: Modifier+Nat 1 = Least common multiple of 3,6,7,8,9,11,&12 = 2*2*2*3*3*7*11 = 5544)
A much earlier time is Modifier+Nat 1 = 53.
Modifier+Nat 1 = 5/17 optimizes everything except divisible by 9/8 respectively.

*Creating a "____ feel" is one area where mechanics and thematics are joined at the hip. Sometimes this is a difficult fact to explain.