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Swordguy
2007-07-01, 09:14 PM
(Yes, I know it's a "hot-button" thread title. Got your attention, didn't it? :smallbiggrin: )

Discussion continued from this topic here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=49284).

For those of you new to the conversation:

There's an interesting and highly off-topic point I'd like to bring up regarding that. I have an uncle, Jon Pickens, who worked at TSR and WotC during the late 80's, 90's, and until just after 3.0 was released. I've asked him about play balance in 3.x several times, and he's got a great deal to say about it. The part of this that concerns us at this moment is this:

WOTC playtested D&D under their own preconcieved notions about what D&D should be. A fighter SHOULD run up and hit things. A cleric SHOULD stay in the back and heal, unless the fighter goes down, and a Wizard SHOULD primarily be a blaster. They did this because that's how they had been playing for years. The same thing happened with the DM: when the BBEG got run at by the fighter, who starting whaling on him with a sharp object, the BBEG did not immediately Dimension Door away and ignore the fighter - the DM ran the encounter in a particular style that predicated this from happening. The "balance" in D&D 3.x is only supposed to work when the players take on the party roles that the WotC playtesters assigned them. In short, if you don't play the game the way the playtesters did...it's not ever going to balance! They didn't playtest for Batman, or Pun-Pun, or CoDzilla. The ideas behind an arcane caster (and I quote uncle Jon on this) "Why would anyone NOT want to do lots of hitpoints of damage? That's what mages are for."

Play the paradigm that WotC developed, or don't. Just understand that if you don't, then the game isn't going to balance the way you think it should.

And further:

I wouldn't say WotC was made of idiots. I'd say that they aren't optimizers. When I explained CoDzilla, Jon seriously couldn't believe that it A) got through playtesting, and B) that people who wanted to hit things weren't playing Fighters.

Again, optimizers are playing D&D using a different perceptual paradigm than the playtesters were. To say in in a way that will tick a LOT of people off, optimizers really are (by the playtesters definition) "Playing D&D wrong".

Think about it - why would evokers lose 3 other schools while the rest only lose 2? Because the playtesters played almost exclusively blasters, and so weighted blasting magic more heavily in the game balance department. (There's SEVERAL examples of this - such as the animated shield problem. It's designed for casters, not fighters. MANY of the ways people put things together and interpret rules over the internet never occurred to the designers, again due to the "why would you want to supplant another classes party role?" mindset.)

THEY JUST AREN'T PLAYING THE GAME THE WAY YOU ARE.

Additionally, why did they playtest the game in the manner they did? I believe that it's simply from intellectual inertia. In short, because they've grown up always playing the game that way, that's the way in which they were conditioned to playtest the game.

Finally, it is my belief that WotC has recognized this happening and has (to a small degree) taken some steps to deal with the problem. However, that does not change the fact that, though prestige classes and FAQs come and go, the basic system was designed and playtested under a paradigm that is evidently "massively ignored" by the D&D players at large (or at least by the sample of gamers I've heard on this forum).

Discuss.

Douglas
2007-07-01, 09:20 PM
That sounds pretty accurate to me.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-01, 09:25 PM
WotC is still made up of a bunch of idiots then.

When you playtest anything you are supposed to make every effort to break it. Once you have attempted to break the system and the problems you found have been fixed you try again. You repeat this until the system isn't broken. Then you go and make sure the system works in normal play, fixing as needed.

You aren't ever supposed to assume a specific play style.

Gralamin
2007-07-01, 09:27 PM
I can definitely see how this works.

Now, I defiantly wouldn't call the play tester's idiots (Why would anyone?), But there is a problem with the way they are play testing.

When you market a game, you have to understand that the customers have many different ways of thinking. That is, to say, A wizard is supposed to be a blaster is a staple of roleplaying, however Batman is another take on the wizard.

Batman is only possible because the designers created mechanics to support him. This is also true of Clerics and Druids, and any other class. Invariably, someone out their is going to stare at what something is capable of, and find a good way to use some of the various abilities.

What I guess I'm saying is: There cannot be a wrong way to play D&D. The way that the designers and playtesters designed it has evolved and changed. It is not the game they started off producing, it is the game we have today. Because the game has evolved, the original "wrong" ways to play have become correct ways, and the games capabilities have increased.

Edit:
why would evokers lose 3 other schools while the rest only lose 2
They don't. Evokers still lose 2, Diviners only lose 1.

Starsinger
2007-07-01, 09:29 PM
Don't forget that Strength is an amazingly high value stat, such that Half-Orcs are balanced.

SadisticFishing
2007-07-01, 09:31 PM
I don't have a problem with people min/max'ing. Finding where it's not balanced is one of my favorite parts of the game - I love finding how I can make my characters really powerful.

That being said, this game has a DM for a reason. If my players start abusing Celerity and Timestop, I'll start abusing Celerity and Timestop, and seeing as I not only control some random NPCs, I control the world, they won't win.

Although "abusing" is a strong, vague term, I consider it abusing if it becomes less fun for anyone else.

For example - my players are about to go epic, and the first real fight I have planned for their epic days is Ksssht, a Thri-Kreen Warblade/Swordsage/Bloodclaw Master, has drunk a Girallon's blessing potion and a haste potion, and has a +5 inherent bonus to strength, on top of +6's all around (he's my world's Boba Fett - spends all his money on bounty hunting, so that he has more money to hunt better). In the first round of combat, he'll have 21 attacks, at 1d4+25 or so, and 42 attacks in his second round, at more damage... I may be min/max'ing rediculously, but it's not in a way that makes people bored - just very tense :P

SadisticFishing
2007-07-01, 09:33 PM
Oh, I forgot my point. All together, the game is FAR too massive to test everything, and as such, I don't think the playtesters made any big mistakes. Unlike a video game, or Magic: The Gathering, you can do basically... well, anything!

So balance is hard. Yeah.

Dhavaer
2007-07-01, 09:35 PM
They don't. Evokers still lose 2, Diviners only lose 1.

Things were different (and more complicated) back in 3.0. Evocation, Transmutation and Conjuration were worth two schools, Abjuration, Enchantment and Illusion were worth one school and Divination and Necromancy were worth half a school. It was very weird.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-01, 09:37 PM
No.

When I can come up with a dozen broken combinations within 10 minutes of finishing reading the core books the first time, the game has not been playtested correctly.

As for your big baddie, an epic wizard could drop it easily.

It takes a fair bit of effort to fix the broken parts of the game but noticing the brokenness is trivial.

Gralamin
2007-07-01, 09:38 PM
Things were different (and more complicated) back in 3.0. Evocation, Transmutation and Conjuration were worth two schools, Abjuration, Enchantment and Illusion were worth one school and Divination and Necromancy were worth half a school. It was very weird.

:smallconfused: Why would anyone design a system like that? 2/1/0.5? That is weird...

Dhavaer
2007-07-01, 09:40 PM
:smallconfused: Why would anyone design a system like that? 2/1/0.5? That is weird...

Because they thought that some schools were much more powerful/weak than others.

SadisticFishing
2007-07-01, 09:40 PM
No.

When I can come up with a dozen broken combinations within 10 minutes of finishing reading the core books the first time, the game has not been playtested correctly.

As for your big baddie, an epic wizard could drop it easily.

It takes a fair bit of effort to fix the broken parts of the game but noticing the brokenness is trivial.


Have you ever playtested a game before? (honest question)

Seffbasilisk
2007-07-01, 09:44 PM
Oh, I forgot my point. All together, the game is FAR too massive to test everything, and as such, I don't think the playtesters made any big mistakes. Unlike a video game, or Magic: The Gathering, you can do basically... well, anything!

So balance is hard. Yeah.

Delusions of Grandeur, Delusions of Grandeur, Donate, Donate, Tranquility.

Aximili
2007-07-01, 09:47 PM
Because they thought that some schools were much more powerful/weak than others.
Well, at least they got it right with Transmutation.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-01, 09:48 PM
Have you ever playtested a game before? (honest question)

Yes.

Numerous videogames in both the Alpha and Beta stages and 2 different pen and paper RPG's.

The NDA's are still in effect on both of the games. 1 went back for extensive and the other should be coming out within a year or 2.

SadisticFishing
2007-07-01, 09:48 PM
Delusions of Grandeur, Delusions of Grandeur, Donate, Donate, Tranquility.

Of all the possible combos you could have posted... Too slow to be effective. Donate? In response, Disenchant.

Started with something like "Arcbound Ravager." or "Tolarian Academy.". Thing is, all of these things (well, except Ravager, that along with Skullclamp WAS a mistake) actually make the game more interesting, because of type rotations and such.

Reinboom
2007-07-01, 09:59 PM
Have you ever playtested a game before? (honest question)

I question the validity of this question. In reference, I go to a school that specializes in the areas of video game design and video game programming, among other joint degrees (all either bachelors or majors in arts or computer sciences, depending on the specific degrees). The largest club in this school is a club built around role playing games, D&D, WoD, Deadlands, BESM, Scion, homebrew material, etc. Also, there is a lot of design and development time, testing time, and even entire classes dedicated to things such as playtesting games and reviewing highly successful games structures (such as MtG).
If I want someone to playtest an idea I have, to find the most broken and most blatantly glaring issue... I turn to bassetking or a personal friend first. Really. The personal friend has a major in photography.


Anyways; closer to (OP) topic. I will agree towards small bits of previous issues. Wizards, for D&D material, really needs to get people such as Zvi Mowshowitz into D&D to playtest; among other specific people.
I will not exactly call the WotC playtesters "idiots". I will say they very badly, glaringly, and disturbingly almost realize to not look through the most blatant problems or demographics. Though I guess, sometimes, the most well hidden issues are those hiding right in front of you. This shouldn't be true for a major company and product line though. :smalleek:

--edit--
To the side of the recent combo issues shown (MtG), a more easily blatant thing: Skullclamp. Or: Urza's block.
Mistakes happen. They are already done. Wizards has learned from these mistakes however... they seam to be doing less for D&D :smalleek:

SadisticFishing
2007-07-01, 10:02 PM
If I want someone to playtest an idea I have, to find the most broken and most blatantly glaring issue... I turn to bassetking or a personal friend first. Really. The personal friend has a major in photography.

This is part of my point - the people least qualified to do testing are most likely to find the mistakes.

But really, how is any of this a real problem?

Jannex
2007-07-01, 10:02 PM
In the first round of combat, he'll have 21 attacks, at 1d4+25 or so, and 42 attacks in his second round, at more damage... I may be min/max'ing rediculously, but it's not in a way that makes people bored - just very tense :P

That depends on how long it takes you to roll those 42 attacks... :smallwink:

Regarding the OP, don't video game developers bring in people not directly affiliated with the company to beta-test their games? It doesn't strike me as a terribly useful idea for the D&D developers to playtest their work exclusively in-house. This seems fairly basic to me; I think most people who have ever written a paper in college have, at some point, handed off an essay to their roommate and said, "here, read this and see if it makes sense." It's easier to see the flaws in someone else's work than in your own, and you'll never find out if a type of build is broken if it doesn't occur to you to try it.

I'm speaking as a player who isn't really interested in optimization, and who never plays full-prepared-casters or high-Str THFers. If the game developers want to encourage people to play in the "traditional" way that they expect, then they need to make sure that way is the most attractive way to play. You'd never know that they wanted people to play blaster wizards and healbot clerics, since Batman and CoDzilla are so dramatically much more advantageous. That's just basic.

So yeah. Thinking outside the box in playtesting is good. They need to TEST the system, not just put it through its paces--look for the weak links, for the unexpected broken builds, as Emperor Tippy says.

SadisticFishing
2007-07-01, 10:03 PM
I mentioned both those things (MTG :P)

But yeah, any game that starts with "D&D is a world. You can do basically anything," is not going to be a balanced game

Gavin Sage
2007-07-01, 10:23 PM
Finally, it is my belief that WotC has recognized this happening and has (to a small degree) taken some steps to deal with the problem. However, that does not change the fact that, though prestige classes and FAQs come and go, the basic system was designed and playtested under a paradigm that is evidently "massively ignored" by the D&D players at large (or at least by the sample of gamers I've heard on this forum).

The last few words in parenthesis are key here. This forum is a relatively small and tends toward optimizing. Not simply making good builds but in squeezing everything one can out of as many books as one needs. There are plenty of more casual D&D players out there that go straight for what WoTC thinks they do. They might have just the PHB, or just even a borrow it from a friend. These aren't the sort of people that will go online and look at how to maximize their characters out using X, Y, Z combo etc. I never enountered a Batman-Wizard before coming to this board. Also how many 'broken' ways of playing have been possible before 3.5, so took people awhile to think up.

I don't think the game as a whole is broken. In need of some maintence perhaps, but this is so for a lot of things. I don't think some areas like when a person mixes two alternate base classes with three prestige classes, as well as being able to buy any item in the books, can be tested for. Especially with different sources in play made by different people. And if so how do you correct it? Especially when most of your customer base is working from just the books, and isn't going to just stop using the ones they have nessecarily.

I always wonder what would be the simplest things you could do to adjust the game without reworking it entirely. Make a Druid pick between Animal Companion and Wildshape (and ban Natural Spell) then cut their BAB down to poor? Make casting longer on most spells, so casters can get whacked more?

ByeLindgren
2007-07-01, 10:41 PM
I think I get the OP's point; playtesters were playing a different game, and that different game is balanced.

But why, if wizards are blasters and clerics are healers, do they even have spells like Divine Power, Righteous Might, or Forcecage? They made personal-ranged melee buffs for the cleric, assuming what, the cleric just wouldn't use them? They made all those powerful save-or-X's, no-save spells, and no-SR spells. If their version of DnD was Cleric=healer/party buffer and Wizard=blaster, why does the majority of the wizard spell list have nothing to do with damage and a large part of the clerical spell list have nothing to do with healing/party buffs?

In order to play their 'right' game of DnD, you either have to want to play one of their archetypes or willfully ignore the abuses just like they did.

MeklorIlavator
2007-07-01, 10:44 PM
In order to play their 'right' game of DnD, you either have to want to play one of their archetypes or willfully ignore the abuses just like they did.
That, I believe, is exactly the point of the OP. Namely, they ignored it, which is why the game is so unbalanced.

Knight_Of_Twilight
2007-07-01, 10:50 PM
I agree that the game is designed to give people the option to make whatever you like, and I applaud that. However, that within itself is a double edged sword- the more options you have, the more ways to break the game.

I also agree that the players and DM have a resbonsibility to the rest of the group. You just need to find one where your style of play works.

Ashdate
2007-07-01, 10:53 PM
Of all the possible combos you could have posted... Too slow to be effective. Donate? In response, Disenchant.

Started with something like "Arcbound Ravager." or "Tolarian Academy.". Thing is, all of these things (well, except Ravager, that along with Skullclamp WAS a mistake) actually make the game more interesting, because of type rotations and such.

Actually, while he did mess up the combo (it's really just Illusions of Grander + Donate) Disenchant probably would have been countered.

Both versions of the deck could easily play around disenchant. It was Seal of Cleansing that was the bigger problem.

Regardless, Illusions + Donate is probably the most successful (from a tournament perspective) combo in Magic History, so I wouldn't knock it.

- Eddie

Swordguy
2007-07-01, 10:55 PM
I think I get the OP's point; playtesters were playing a different game, and that different game is balanced.

But why, if wizards are blasters and clerics are healers, do they even have spells like Divine Power, Righteous Might, or Forcecage? They made personal-ranged melee buffs for the cleric, assuming what, the cleric just wouldn't use them? They made all those powerful save-or-X's, no-save spells, and no-SR spells. If their version of DnD was Cleric=healer/party buffer and Wizard=blaster, why does the majority of the wizard spell list have nothing to do with damage and a large part of the clerical spell list have nothing to do with healing/party buffs?

In order to play their 'right' game of DnD, you either have to (just so happen to) desire playing one of their archetypes or willfully ignore the abuses they did.

This is a very good point. From what I understand, the plethora of save-or-die (etc.) stuff was intended to play a backup role to the direct-damage spells in combat. it was so you've have lots of options to support your casting of direct damage, not ignore it completely. The rationale with the cleric and druid abilities I don't know, as our conversation centered around the "Batman" wizard I kept hearing about.

And yes, you are correct in that in order to play a balanced game of D&D, you must adhere (in general) to their archetypes. That is NOT to say you can't play in another style - but it won't balance as well (if at all). That's the deal you get when you buy the product. In an analogy: if I buy a Mac, I can run Windows on it - but it won't work nearly so well as whatever the hell a Mac's normal OS may be.* They can't control how I use the product after I've bought it, but if I'm not using the product in the manner in which it was designed to be used, that isn't the companies fault.


*Please don't pour on the hate re: Windows v Macs. It was a very, very basic analogy that I could think of quickly.

Caduceus
2007-07-01, 10:57 PM
Personally, my group doesn't focus so much on optimization. They don't really feel like they need to, since I DM most of the games and don't usually try for TPK. Hell, the one time I managed to kill them all was a complete accident.

The players in my group are more like what the WotC playtesters expected, because all of them, myself aside, played earlier versions of the game first. The two brothers were brought up on 1E by their dad, and Rinku and John used to play 2E with another group. The current wizard's player has five favorite spells: Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Fly, Greater Invisibility, and Fireball again. The party fighter dishes out the most damage every round even with only one attack/round. The only deviation is that the cleric doubles as ranged support with a bow.

I, however, started on who-knows-what version, having never read the rules for that version (the DM just told us what we were capable of, I assume it was ADnD). Several years later, I bought the 3.0 PHB and just spent my spare time playing around with the character builder demo that came with it. I have a tough time, myself, with optimizing things, but I'm a little more prone to it than my players.

Anyway, my point is that the playtesters were generally correct in their assumptions of party roles. You want to hit things, be a fighter or barbarian. You want to support teammates, be a cleric or druid, or better yet a bard. You want to use skills, be a rogue or bard. You want to cast the spells that make the people fall down, be a wizard or sorcerer. Those are the assumed, and most common, party roles in my personal experience.

ByeLindgren
2007-07-01, 10:59 PM
That, I believe, is exactly the point of the OP. Namely, they ignored it, which is why the game is so unbalanced.But they couldn't have ignored it completely if they wrote the spell. They at least could have saved a lot of time by thinking "Oh, in my kind of DnD, [this spellcaster] cannot/does not do that, so why would they have that kind of spell? *wipe*"


From what I understand, the plethora of save-or-die (etc.) stuff was intended to play a backup role to the direct-damage spells in combat. it was so you've have lots of options to support your casting of direct damage, not ignore it completely.That leads me to believe the good spells were intended for use, if not at such a high rate, which means they were playtested. Not only that, but the guys got to compare the effectiveness of the powerful spells and the blaster spells. They had the opportunity to notice how those 'backup spells' worked much more efficiently than their mainstays (even though that should normally be backwards), and they either looked the other way or simply didn't playtest enough.

Bosh
2007-07-01, 11:02 PM
I mentioned both those things (MTG :P)

But yeah, any game that starts with "D&D is a world. You can do basically anything," is not going to be a balanced game

Yes, but there's a few things that are just "wtf were they thinking" stupidly broken. Like seriously, how could anyone playtest D&D 3.5 edition and think that druids were balanced? And then they keep on putting things like this in like giving barbarians the option of ditching fast movement for pounce, that's just idiotic.

Also I absolutely refuse to play D&D much past 10th level since any balance it has at low levels goes completely down the ****ter and keeping track of all of the modifiers make playing more an exercise in statistics than storytelling.

SadisticFishing
2007-07-01, 11:05 PM
Haha, Heartbeat won Canadian nats, and the P9 deck (crap I don't even remember what it's called, the type 1 one...), and I'm a big fan of Solidarity... But I didn't actually play back in the donate days :P

If Clerics could only heal, they'd be extremely boring. Not just that, healing is underpowered in the D&D game.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-01, 11:09 PM
This is a very good point. From what I understand, the plethora of save-or-die (etc.) stuff was intended to play a backup role to the direct-damage spells in combat. it was so you've have lots of options to support your casting of direct damage, not ignore it completely.
Then why are there so few direct damage spells? There are 23 spells that deal direct damage as there primary effect. A few more spells are battle-field control spells that happen to deal some damage in certain circumstances.

Most of the rest of the wizard spell list is utility and battle field control spells.


The rationale with the cleric and druid abilities I don't know, as our conversation centered around the "Batman" wizard I kept hearing about.

Clerics were powered up so people would want to play them instead of just being the band aid box. WotC just made them a bit to powerful.


And yes, you are correct in that in order to play a balanced game of D&D, you must adhere (in general) to their archetypes. That is NOT to say you can't play in another style - but it won't balance as well (if at all). That's the deal you get when you buy the product.

If WotC sells a game and bills it as one where you can do pretty much anything then it is reasonable to expect the game to be balanced, at least in most cases. If WotC had said "These are the archetypes we have the game balanced for, you can do some other stuff but we make no promises about balance" then they may have an excuse.

I mean, you can balance core magic fairly easily by tweaking various spells. I can understand not being able to balance everything with 80+ books out but core could at least be balanced.


In an analogy: if I buy a Mac, I can run Windows on it - but it won't work nearly so well as whatever the hell a Mac's normal OS may be.* They can't control how I use the product after I've bought it, but if I'm not using the product in the manner in which it was designed to be used, that isn't the companies fault.


*Please don't pour on the hate re: Windows v Macs. It was a very, very basic analogy that I could think of quickly.

Actually, on the new mac's windows works better than on most PC's. And OS X still works as well.

Jannex
2007-07-01, 11:14 PM
Then why are there so few direct damage spells? There are 23 spells that deal direct damage as there primary effect. A few more spells are battle-field control spells that happen to deal some damage in certain circumstances.

Most of the rest of the wizard spell list is utility and battle field control spells.

I'm guessing this happened because really, there are only so many variations on "Xd6 [type] damage" that you can come up with before you start scraping the bottom of the barrel. So once they had those variations, they started "filling in the gaps" of the other basic things that arcane casters might want to do, like fly, turn invisible, etc... and got ridiculously carried away. But since they had this mental block in place that "wizards are going to focus primarily on direct damage spells," they didn't realize this would become a problem. *headdesk*

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-01, 11:24 PM
So they were idiots? :smallwink:

Swordguy
2007-07-01, 11:31 PM
Then why are there so few direct damage spells? There are 23 spells that deal direct damage as there primary effect. A few more spells are battle-field control spells that happen to deal some damage in certain circumstances.

Most of the rest of the wizard spell list is utility and battle field control spells.
...
If WotC sells a game and bills it as one where you can do pretty much anything then it is reasonable to expect the game to be balanced, at least in most cases. If WotC had said "These are the archetypes we have the game balanced for, you can do some other stuff but we make no promises about balance" then they may have an excuse.


Dude, I'm not arguing with that. I'm just communicating some of the rationale behind the way WotC did what they did. Whether that's "good" game design isn't my area of expertise.

One of the wizards used in playtesting had the following "favorite spells" list:

Mage Armor, True Strike, Magic Missile, Melf's Acid Arrow, Glitterdust Invisibility, Lightning Bolt, Fireball, Dispel magic, Suggestion, Tongues, Hold Person, Haste, Minor Globe of Invulnerability, Ice Storm, Improved Invisbility, Rainbow Pattern, Dismissal, Feeblemind, Cone of Cold, Teleport, Globe of Invulnerability, Greater Dispelling, Analyze Dweomer, Legend Lore, True Seeing, Chain Lightning, Disintegrate, Banishment, Spell Turning, PW: Stun, Delayed Blast Fireball, Prismatic Spray, Finger of Death, Plane Shift, Teleport w/o Error, Prismatic Wall, Protection from Spells, Polymorph any Object, Prismatic Sphere, PW: Kill, Meteor Swarm, Wish

Now honestly, how many of the spells on that list are the ones we identify as being hideously broken (PAO aside)? There's not a huge number of save-or-lose spells, especially at the low levels - and there's a definite focus on blasting. There's also pretty much none of the spells that render Rogues pointless.



Actually, on the new mac's windows works better than on most PC's. And OS X still works as well.

I knew...knew, knew, KNEW that as soon as I posted that SOMEBODY was going to come up with something to counter that. You knew what I meant...

Demented
2007-07-01, 11:37 PM
"If Clerics could only heal, they'd be extremely boring. Not just that, healing is underpowered in the D&D game."

Unless you're a fighter, in which case it's your lifeblood, literally.

But I have to wonder... D&D isn't meant to be a competitive game. All the players are on the same side. How hard is it to imagine that game balance wouldn't have been immediately considered? Or that players would be expected to roleplay (wrong word to use, actually; sorry) play out their actions in a more moderate sense, rather than look for rules-abuse/exploit methods of dealing with their problems... Not that it wouldn't be hilarious to see a BBEG obsessed with taking over the world using Gate-Titans.
After all, the whole point of taking over the world is finding a loophole like that and exploiting the dickens out of it, right? So naturally, the heroes should be opposed to that...

Likewise, with all the monsters available, it might not have occurred to anyone that a level 15 Human Druid (PK-oriented, of course) is more dangerous and interesting to fight than a CR 15 whatchemecallit.

Jannex
2007-07-01, 11:42 PM
So they were idiots? :smallwink:

At the very least, woefully shortsighted. :smallwink:

Demented
2007-07-01, 11:48 PM
I'd prefer to say they're woefully inadequate.

Quality Assurance is not loved... Most people are satisfied with hearing that their stuff works... They aren't willing to pay for enough testers to learn about every little thing wrong with what they made.

After all, you can get criticism for FREE in the homebrew forum, and people still complain if you don't treat their creations with kid gloves. (That doesn't really apply to these forums; everyone is nice here. But in other forums, whew!)

HidaTsuzua
2007-07-01, 11:48 PM
Sometimes I really wonder about playtesting in RPGs especially D&D and White Wolf. I've playtested and designed RPGs. It can be hard. Sometimes you miss things (we just caught the Unicorn school not to long ago in our rework of L5R). On the other hand, it seems like they didn't even try!

One of the most glaring I can call off the top of my head is Werewolf the Forsaken for Manes (or whatever they call their source of magic jo-jo in it I don't have the book). Manes are an reserve of magic that grow a little bit that werewolves come draw from. However, it has a reserve and if the reserve is drained, the mane weakens so that it grows slower. There are two rules for draining manes. One requires a lot of work and fundamentally changing the landscape around the manes, the other is keep on draining it. A werewolf can drain a manes in mere minutes. Why bother with the first strategy (some manes are evil so werewolves like to get rid of those)? Even worst, both methods were on the same page! The rule for going berserk (in that frenzied berserker kind of way) have it you can go berserk with a critical hit. Yes, critical hit. Consider how easy it can to do that (based on how the nWOD combat system works), werewolves go berserk for being good! There's some other issues as well like there are no vampires in Washington DC.

Honestly, I think the cause of this is over reliance on rule 0. Since a common response to bad rules is "Rule 0 it," people grow to ignore the rules made. Game designers can then not care about the rules or playtesting and more bad rules are made. People use the rule 0 defense more often since there are more bad rules. It's become a vicious circle. Rule 0 is a fundamental aspect of roleplaying, but if you need it to keep the game together for things the rules should cover, something's wrong.

SadisticFishing
2007-07-01, 11:58 PM
Heh, there's no way you can except a cleric to heal through any damage at all, from what I've seen unless you have a "Heal" spell ready, you can't even come close to outhealing the damage of someone who's focus-fire-ing.

illyrus
2007-07-02, 12:05 AM
I'll make a simple comparison to World of Warcraft. The game has been out for a few years and has had a score of patches as well as thousands of playtesters. Yet with pretty much each revision there is some broken combination or series of them that remains or is introduced. This is with a game with more limited choices than D&D and built from the ground up (as opposed to pulling from equally broken older editions).

The advantage of a MMORPG is you have people paying you money monthly to make the game "perfect". With D&D whether they overhaul the druid class or "fix" this or that spell combo, they're just as likely to lose customers for further products ticked off at the changes as gain them.

Maybe I'm wrong, but if they suddenly "fixed" polymorph I'm not going to go out and buy another 3.5 PHB. Nor am I less likely to buy D&D 4.0 if they wait and sell me all the changes in another book.

I think one of the big issues you would face in balancing a game like D&D is that you would have to remove choices to maintain balance. Personally I'd rather have the imbalance and leave it up to a GM's approval than remove choices and turn it into WoW without a computer to roll my dice for me.

Bosh
2007-07-02, 12:06 AM
Heh, there's no way you can except a cleric to heal through any damage at all, from what I've seen unless you have a "Heal" spell ready, you can't even come close to outhealing the damage of someone who's focus-fire-ing.
Generally having clerics cast healing speals is a tactically poor decision in D&D. People didn't want to play heal bots so they made clerics so good at other stuff to convince people to play heal bots which results in people playing clerics that aren't heal bots. Doh!


But I have to wonder... D&D isn't meant to be a competitive game. All the players are on the same side. How hard is it to imagine that game balance wouldn't have been immediately considered?

Its not a competitive game but when someone can compete with you in you own area of expertise and then have another whole area of expertise that you can't even begin to compete with then you feel a bit useless. Its a real problem when CODzilla can be in the same ballpark melee-wise as fighters and druids and wizards can often out-rogue rogues.

Tellah
2007-07-02, 12:27 AM
But I have to wonder... D&D isn't meant to be a competitive game. All the players are on the same side. How hard is it to imagine that game balance wouldn't have been immediately considered?

The very existence of the CR system in 3.X indicates that they put some thought into balancing monsters and NPCs against one another. Unfortunately, NPCs use the same rules as PCs, with the exception of WBL guidelines. It's pretty uncontroversial that a level 15 Druid wipes the floor with a level 15 Fighter, but somehow this escaped the designers' attention. I imagine they'd have had fights against all kinds of high-level NPCs--especially since there are so few core monsters at higher CRs--and I can't see how they'd miss the fact that the BBEG Druid's animal companion was nearly as tough as the BBEG Fighter.

I'd think they'd have noticed that a Will-o-the-Wisp is outstandingly tough for its CR, too, but that's for another thread...

horseboy
2007-07-02, 12:35 AM
I've said it before, because it's true. The ONLY thing that's not broken in d20 are the stats. CLEARLY they never play tested anything other than the very remedial basics. I mean I could understand it if you had to go to some far, far obscure books. But no! The core classes in the core rule books are are all broken. Need some proof?

Look at what they had to do to clerics of Weejas in LG this year. A CORE class, can no longer use it's CORE abilities in a CORE setting without the player loosing control of their character. This occurred because a friend of mine took his to convention and used rebuke undead as it was written and completely broke a mod in half an hour.

I built a trip fighter with a gusarme, and hold the line. It's going to take something like a beholder that I can't trip before it's a danger to me.

At seventh level (35% of the way though the levels of the game) you have to put the group against something that's half demon, 1/4 orc and 1/4 troll before it's considered a challenge. Does that really sound "balanced" to you?

Jayabalard
2007-07-02, 12:36 AM
Have you ever playtested a game before? (honest question)Yes; my names in the QA credits of around 10 games (console and PC), and I was involved in some way in several others (I'm not sure whether I made the credits in those or not).

From the problems that exist in the game balance, it certainly seems to me that the people who playtested D&D spent too much time playing the game as it should be and didn't spend enough time trying to break the game. So it does seem likely, at least to me, that it wasn't the intent of the designers to have people min-maxing the way that so many people on this board advocate.


I question the validity of this question. In reference, I go to a school that specializes in the areas of video game design and video game programming, among other joint degrees (all either bachelors or majors in arts or computer sciences, depending on the specific degrees).I can think of one particular school like that off the top of my head in Orlando; the graduates of that school who wound up testing video games at the same company I did were nothing special. Quite the contrary, they tended to be not nearly as good of testers as the testers who hadn't gone to that school.

The question certainly has at least some validity... most of the people who spout off about how poorly the test team for game X did have little to no idea what's involved in QA or the realities that are involved in that industry.


Yes.

Numerous videogames in both the Alpha and Beta stages and 2 different pen and paper RPG's.

The NDA's are still in effect on both of the games. 1 went back for extensive and the other should be coming out within a year or 2.So, no milestone testing?

Demented
2007-07-02, 01:15 AM
The very existence of the CR system in 3.X indicates that they put some thought into balancing monsters and NPCs against one another.

Actually, they apparently only put some thought into balancing monsters and NPCs against ONE very-specific team.

A Fighter, a skillmonkey Rogue, a blasty Wizard, and a healbot Cleric.
(Notice that the fighter doesn't get an adjective? Hmm.)

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-02, 02:11 AM
So, no milestone testing?

For the computer games? Only on Guildwars and Guildwars: Factions. Regression testing Factions was a bitch.

My name will be in the credits for the PnP RPG that will be released in a year or 2. As for the other tabletop game, after testing they had to go and rework the whole base system of the game because of some very serious balance issues and the project was put on an indefinite hold.

Bosh
2007-07-02, 04:04 AM
The question certainly has at least some validity... most of the people who spout off about how poorly the test team for game X did have little to no idea what's involved in QA or the realities that are involved in that industry.
Would I be especially good at QA? Probably not. But then I'd be a horrible movie director and I can tell which movies are good and which are bombs.

But mostly its just seeing what happens to every new D&D product on the charmax boards on the wizards forums. Within a week of release pretty much every bit of cheese and every possible broken combo that can be done with the new materiel is spotted and some of them are pretty horrific and some of them even someone with no real expertise can spot within five minutes of flipping through the book. Some of the resident charop board geeks seem to know D&D rules better than anyone employed by WotC. Why WotC don't use some of them as beta testers is beyond me, it would improve the quality of their product by leaps and bounds.

Demented
2007-07-02, 04:56 AM
All you have to ask is whether they were aware of this and considered it an issue by 3rd edition. (Not 3.5)

Sir Giacomo
2007-07-02, 05:17 AM
Hi everyone,

imo it is difficult to gauge what the designer's "intent" was, although clearly there were many notions like those posted by the OP, I guess. Likely in creating the DD3.0, the designers tried some way to preserve a lot of the "classic ADD stuff" and combining it with many new aspects.

In my view, they did a great job (including the transition to 3.5, but 99% of the work was already done in 3.0). There are even core so many possibilities which still a balanced solution coming out ontop that I'm amazed that may of the posters here say that the designers are "idiots" or did not playtest it "right".

There are some exceptions to the rule, like diplomancers, or free robbing blind someone with DC 40 checks, or some of the spells which are written in a way to make jumping to completely broken solutions quite understandable. But even there, with a little effort from the side of the DM, a slightly different interpretation can immediately stop abuse or infinite chains that would logically end the campaign before the characters are even born.

Still, tactics like batman etc. all can be countered if "optimisers" really get into opposing tactics as well. So I guess that for any level of "optimising" ability, the game provides quite balanced solutions.
A game for the "classic" 4-character stereotypes (tank, scout, blaster, healer) works out great.
An optimised uber core game (batman, CodZilla, AMF non-caster fighter, skillmonkey) also works in a remarkably balanced way. And seriously, I doubt that "reading the rules for 10 minutes and then come up with a broken solution" really is what happened. It took probably a bit longer, for instance, to come up with something excellent like the logicninja guide (which still is full of counter possibilities, though).:smallcool:

- Giacomo

JackMage666
2007-07-02, 05:30 AM
If you ask me, it's a problem of personal playing styles and the medium presented on.

The playing style is the obvious problem. Not everyone plays the same, and that can cause balance issues if you don't work against it. You have to play for other people, too, when you playtest, not just for yourself.

The medium is another problem. If something in a computer game is found to be broken, a patch is released, and it's fixed. It's not as easy with books. The errata's are released, yeah, but they're not put directly into the book. Some people won't bother to look at them, ect. Plain and simple, it's not so easy to fix.
And how often have you seen a computer game without a patch?
Diablo 2 had, what, 10 patchs? I doubt you'd want to buy 10 players handbooks.

Roderick_BR
2007-07-02, 06:32 AM
It just proves what I already knew: TSR's playtesters and designers didn't look for possible different games.
They went "Well, let's try it that way. Done. See ya later." As a computer programmer, I know that a designer need to look different ways a user can use a system, and while one can't find all the design flaws, at least the obvious ones should be noticed.
I mean, as people pointed, a fighter can deal more damage than a blaster, and a simply Fly spell will keep a wizard immune to 80% of the game's danger.
Cleric's Divine Power is another example of spell that was made without any thought in roles. You practically become the group's fighter. The original wizard version was not half as good (you didn't get weapon proficiencies, and have no armor), and was mainly a last resort effect when your blasting doesn't work.
The problem is not optimization in itself, but the rules leave too much possibilities for abuse.

Sir Giacomo
2007-07-02, 06:52 AM
Cleric's Divine Power is another example of spell that was made without any thought in roles. You practically become the group's fighter.

Truth to tell, he becomes a sub-par fighter (less hp, less feats, less weapon proficiency) for 1rnd/level. Plus, he loses a standard action and may be inhibited casting it (except if quickening the spell with an expensive item or 9th level spell slot).
The CoDzilla needs more ressources than just one simple spell. In the cleric example, he'll need more spells, plus choose his feats and tactics accordingly. It is an outcome of a full-scale optimisation process which, even if successful, has enough weaknesses left.
Once again, the core system is not so easily breakable.

- Giacomo

EDIT: sorry, not intending to trigger a balance discussion here - just trying to convey the idea that the designers did not put the core system full of stupid mistakes. It takes quite some time to find the hidden abusal treasure...and EVEN then more delving will readily yield more countertactics imo...

Dan_Hemmens
2007-07-02, 06:54 AM
I'm actually going to go out on a limb here and defend the developers and playtesters.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with designing a game with a view towards its being played in a particular way.

D&D is designed to be played with a Fighter for fighting, a Wizard for blasting, a Cleric for healing and a Rogue for locks. And it works if you play it like that.

Complaining that it doesn't work if you play it differently is rather like complaining that Dogs in the Vineyard doesn't work if you just try to loot the towns, or that Vampire doesn't work if you don't care about losing Humanity.

The basic problem is that D&D bought into its own "Endless Adventure, Unlimited Possibilities" marketing.

Ikkitosen
2007-07-02, 07:20 AM
It just proves what I already knew: TSR's playtesters and designers didn't look for possible different games.
They went "Well, let's try it that way. Done. See ya later." As a computer programmer, I know that a computer games designer need to look different ways a user can use a system, and while one can't find all the design flaws, at least the obvious ones should be noticed...

Fixed that for you. I agree that computer games need to be foolproof, since they lack a DM. Even something as expansive as WoW has fewer options than D&D, because D&D has infinite options.

Now I think that Wizards had some ok playtesters, but that once the game was released the public essentially playtested it to death, putting in man-hours much greater than WotC ever did or could have, within a few weeks. I accept that the game has many exploitable flaws, but we all know that if you play within the spirit of a fun RPG then it's a great game. Would we play (or care) if this weren't true?

Matthew
2007-07-02, 07:28 AM
The basic problem is that D&D bought into its own "Endless Adventure, Unlimited Possibilities" marketing.
Huh? What do you mean?

Dan_Hemmens
2007-07-02, 08:44 AM
Huh? What do you mean?

I mean that the game was clearly designed to work within a very limited framework: fighters for fighting, rogues for sneaking, clerics for healing, wizards for blasting.

But that was too limited to have a broad appeal, so they expanded the system to allow other options: Clerics who fight, wizards who sneak, and so on.

The problem is that they designed all these other options with the unspoken assumption that they would be "flavour" overlays on top of the basic party roles. Even if you played a Cleric of the God Of Smashing Things Up Real Good With Hammers, you were still expected to play party healer.

Similarly with all the spell options. The reason there's only a couple of dozen direct damage spells, and a huge slew of others, is because they wanted to include all the things that a Wizard could, in theory, do. But they ultimately expected him to remain a mobile weapons platform.

They tried to create a game in which you could do "anything", but which only worked if you did certain specific things.

Matthew
2007-07-02, 08:50 AM
No, you have it backwards, I think. The original tag line was 'only limited by your imagination' and it was part of the 'you're supposed to make up your own rules' mandate.

The tagline for 3.x was just 'your key to endless adventure'. followed up with 'everything you need to create your ideal Dungeons & Dragons Character'.

There are obvious limitations in those statements. They did try to create tightly rules orientated customability with 3.x, but I don't think they 'bought into their own marketing'. Even so, it remains true that any real limitations in the game are of imagination, as you are still expected to modify the rules to your own tastes.

Peregrine
2007-07-02, 12:10 PM
Things were different (and more complicated) back in 3.0. Evocation, Transmutation and Conjuration were worth two schools, Abjuration, Enchantment and Illusion were worth one school and Divination and Necromancy were worth half a school. It was very weird.

I actually sat down once and figured out exactly how the system worked.

Tier I: Conjuration, Evocation, Transmutation. Lose one Tier I, two Tier II, or any three.
Tier II: Abjuration, Enchantment, Illusion. Lose one Tier I, one Tier II, or two (i.e. all) Tier III.
Tier III: Divination, Necromancy. Lose any one.

Or put even simpler: Lose one of this tier (or above), two of the next tier down (or above*), or three of the next lower again (or above).

* It doesn't actually say you can do this. But that's because losing one of the next tier down and one of this or a higher tier is pointless, when the latter itself satisfies the first criterion.


The last few words in parenthesis are key here. This forum is a relatively small and tends toward optimizing. Not simply making good builds but in squeezing everything one can out of as many books as one needs. There are plenty of more casual D&D players out there that go straight for what WoTC thinks they do.

I think you've got a good point. I'm not entirely in agreement, but I've seen the basic principles of your argument in action.

This board as a whole isn't really all that focused on optimising, compared to some. But there is a lot of interest in and respect for good optimisation builds, and for arguments about power. I'd say the board here isn't hardcore optimisation, but it is intelligent optimisation.

In the wider world, I've found a lot of people really do buy into what this thread paints as the playtesters' mindset. A friend told me that Mystic Theurge sucks because you don't get fireball until level 8. And then last night at my weekly game... hoo boy.

A bunch of players, including at least one who likes sneaking in cheesed-up characters, were discussing D&D, differing editions, and power. They believe that rogues are the most powerful class (I've never found out why). I think they listed clerics and... and one other, as being almost as good. (I don't think it was fighter, but they have no problem with fighter power, it seems.) Arcane casters, in their opinion, suck. They're just nerfed, they said. Their main reasons seem to be that they just can't deal direct damage all that well, especially compared to 2e. (They say that a lot of the 3e spells were imported wholesale, damage caps and all, from an edition where hit points were a lot lower. I can't comment on the accuracy of this.)

Honestly, I was sorely tempted to get my rogue killed off, and bring in a wizard. A diviner, with banned evocation. They will laugh. Why on earth would a wizard gimp himself more by losing evocation? :smalltongue: (My rogue has been only a minor contributor to most fights so far -- mostly it's the druid who deals the damage, first with his great big sword, now in wildshape -- although I did take out two ogres myself, thanks to some flanks from summons last night. I really don't get how they think rogues rock the game.)

This board is intelligent optimisation. Lots of people like to find cheesy combinations and argue about balance, but forums like this one promote the intelligent discussion and dissection of those arguments.


I'm guessing this happened because really, there are only so many variations on "Xd6 [type] damage" that you can come up with before you start scraping the bottom of the barrel. So once they had those variations, they started "filling in the gaps" of the other basic things that arcane casters might want to do, like fly, turn invisible, etc... and got ridiculously carried away. But since they had this mental block in place that "wizards are going to focus primarily on direct damage spells," they didn't realize this would become a problem. *headdesk*

You've hit the nail on the head, I think. Blasting was the focus. They just kept filling corners, and filling corners, and filling corners... I mean, if they made too many direct damage spells, people would have complained about not being able to take them all (especially as a sorcerer). But people aren't going to want the non-damage spells so badly, right? So it doesn't matter if there's so many they can only take a smattering (and then only as wizards). :smalltongue:

Citizen Joe
2007-07-02, 12:41 PM
I thought the solution was rule 0: the DM has final say on what is and isn't allowed.

Likewise, everyone has the option to not play. If someone is abusing the game to the extent that it isn't fun any more, then take your ball and go home.

DM: "Oh my, you are teh ubar awesome! Yes, you're right nobody could resist your might. Congratulations you win!"
<shakes optimized player's hand>
DM to rest of the group: "OK, we're starting over without Mr. Uber over there. Got your character concepts?"

Draz74
2007-07-02, 12:46 PM
I'd think they'd have noticed that a Will-o-the-Wisp is outstandingly tough for its CR, too, but that's for another thread...

Ahh, but you're forgetting -- every arcane caster's favorite spell was Magic Missile in their tests!


A Fighter, a skillmonkey Rogue, a blasty Wizard, and a healbot Cleric.
(Notice that the fighter doesn't get an adjective? Hmm.)

How 'bout "Sword-and-Board Fighter"? That does seem to be the default assumption about Fighters (as well as taking as many Weapon Specialization-type feats as possible). Hence the way they didn't notice that 2H Power Attackers (while they don't break the game as a whole) push all other warriors into near-obsolete status.

Matthew
2007-07-02, 01:06 PM
They're just nerfed, they said. Their main reasons seem to be that they just can't deal direct damage all that well, especially compared to 2e. (They say that a lot of the 3e spells were imported wholesale, damage caps and all, from an edition where hit points were a lot lower. I can't comment on the accuracy of this.)

Yeah, they are being quite accurate here. A Fireball in (A)D&D 1.x is more or less identical to a Fireball in D&D 3.x (with some changes). The Damage Cap has always been 1D6/per Level up to 10D6. I think MrNexx was the first person I heard point out that this does impact their relative power levels. Elsewhere I have seen it demonstrated more clearly by showing how the average Hit Points of an Ogre have increased over editions, but Fireball remains the same. Of course, that's not the case for Orcs, who still die just the same. Maximised Damage also makes a bit of a difference, but it's still only 60 Damage.

Dan_Hemmens
2007-07-02, 01:14 PM
Yeah, they are being quite accurate here. A Fireball in (A)D&D 1.x is more or less identical to a Fireball in D&D 3.x (with some changes). The Damage Cap has always been 1D6/per Level up to 10D6. I think MrNexx was the first person I heard point out that this does impact their relative power levels. Elsewhere I have seen it demonstrated more clearly by showing how the average Hit Points of an Ogre have increased over editions, but Fireball remains the same. Of course, that's not the case for Orcs, who still die just the same. Maximised Damage also makes a bit of a difference, but it's still only 60 Damage.

Empowered does better, strangely, because it allows you to beat the dice cap and go up to an effective 15D6 damage.

Tellah
2007-07-02, 01:58 PM
I thought the solution was rule 0: the DM has final say on what is and isn't allowed.

Likewise, everyone has the option to not play. If someone is abusing the game to the extent that it isn't fun any more, then take your ball and go home.

DM: "Oh my, you are teh ubar awesome! Yes, you're right nobody could resist your might. Congratulations you win!"
<shakes optimized player's hand>
DM to rest of the group: "OK, we're starting over without Mr. Uber over there. Got your character concepts?"

For the umpteenth time, the ongoing argument about rules balance is not whether the system can be modified by a diligent DM toward balance. What upsets those of us who see imbalance in the game is that we necessarily have to alter the system to make it playable. I'd like Wizards to playtest more thoroughly so I don't have to outright ban things in my gaming group.

MeklorIlavator
2007-07-02, 02:06 PM
What upsets those of us who see imbalance in the game is that we necessarily have to alter the system to make it playable. I'd like Wizards to playtest more thoroughly so I don't have to outright ban things in my gaming group.
Well said, Tellah. I especially don't like banning things because players aren't always nice about DM's using rule zero, no matter how much they say on forums that they support it. I had a player basically telling me that by making clerics cloistered, I was condemning them all to death, and that my ruling was completely unfair. I don't need the players actively resenting me before the campaign starts, and exercising rule zero to the extent that I believe is necessary does that(I don't do much, just mandating cloistered cleric, PHB2 druid, and Fax's rebalanced Paladin).

horseboy
2007-07-02, 04:23 PM
Not to be inflammatory, but for those that thing d20 is a perfectly wonderful game system being abused by horrible players, how many of you have played a non-d20 game? I can certainly understand it if, having never played a non-broken system, you can't see just how badly broken it is.

Yes, if you understand the core game mechanics before hand (like having played a prior edition) and you're reading to find out the fine points you can see within 10-20 minutes (depending on your reading speed) huge flaws in the game.

WAY back when (think it was either in the expert or companion box set, can't remember now) there actually was a rule from TSR. They said that no spell should ever cause instant death. Massive damage, yes, save or die, no. They strayed from that very sound idea. It's not all Hasbro's fault, no, but they've not "fixed" errors from the past. They've compounded the problem by just putting "death ward" as an enchantment on your armour rather than just removing them wholesale. I can not think of any other game system where they have this problem, because nobody is foolish enough to let it get started.

It's not a matter of building to optimizing and the game is broke. It's broke at third level when the mage gets glittercheese and ray of enfeeblement.

Sure, I could TRY and remove everything that's broken from the system, but all that would leave would be, well, nothing.

D&D has always had a problem in gaming circles about becoming a Monty Haul Hack-and-slash. At it's core, that's all 3.x was written to be. With rules like "Don't give xp to players until they've killed something" and charts for building custom magic weapons simply to funnel off excess gold.

Is it balanced? Well, the first time I read the 3.5 rulebook my first thought was "Dear God, they've turned it into Everquest." I really don't see how CR is in any way shape, manner or form balanced. All it does is push you faster over the brink of reality into just some of the most convoluted, bass ackwards, far fetchedness.

Droodle
2007-07-02, 04:28 PM
Truth to tell, he becomes a sub-par fighter (less hp, less feats, less weapon proficiency) for 1rnd/level. Plus, he loses a standard action and may be inhibited casting it (except if quickening the spell with an expensive item or 9th level spell slot).
The CoDzilla needs more ressources than just one simple spell. In the cleric example, he'll need more spells, plus choose his feats and tactics accordingly. It is an outcome of a full-scale optimisation process which, even if successful, has enough weaknesses left.
Once again, the core system is not so easily breakable.Sub-Par? Let's look at this. First of all, the spell doesn't stop the Cleric from casting other spells or buffs. The Cleric gains 6 additional points to his strength score and 1 additional hit-point per level. So, he gets a warrior's BAB, a 6 point strength bonus, enough additional hit-points to bring him on par with a fighter......and the ability to still cast spells like a cleric. The fact that he has to stick with weapons that carry less than a *2 critical multiplier or a lower threat range doesn't make him sub-par. The heavy mace, morningstar, spear, and longspear all spring to mind as very good weapon choices. This guy isn't sub-par. And let's not forget about Righteous might. Cod-Zilla takes absolutely no effort to build in core.

Jack_Simth
2007-07-02, 04:33 PM
Empowered does better, strangely, because it allows you to beat the dice cap and go up to an effective 15D6 damage.

Well, potentially.

For a +2 spell level adjustment, Empower changes 1d6/level to 1d6*1.5 per level. Assuming you have enough dice that you can use the average, the 1d6 (average 3.5) becomes 5.25 (again, on average, with lots of dice). D&D rounding reduces this slightly, though - an Empowered roll of 1 is 1 (1.5 rounds down). An Empowered roll of 2 is 3, an Empowered roll of 3 is 4, an Empowered roll of 4 is 6, and Empowered roll of 5 is 7, and an Empowered roll of 6 is 9. So the average ([1+3+4+6+7+9]/6) is 5, rather than 5.25.

For a +3 spell level adjustment, Maximize changed 1d6/level to 6 per level.

Now, if you roll lucky, that d6 can roll a 6 - in which case, the Empowered version of it is a 9. On average, though, Maximize will do better on something that's a flat Xd6 per Y levels.

This doesn't always apply to other die types, however.

The 1d4+1 Magic Missile, for instance, averages the same with Empower than Maximize. 1d4+1 averages 3.5 (same as a d6), but has a maximum of 5. An Empowered Magic Missile ([1d4+1]*1.5; base rolls 2, 3, 4, 5, Empower to 3, 4, 6, 7 for an average of 5) does an average of exactly 5 damage per missile. - equal to Maximize, but at one spell level lower.

At caster level 10, the 1d6+1/two caster levels from Ray of Enfeeblement does much better with Empower than Maximize. A Maximized Ray of Enfeeblement applies a strength penalty of 11. An Empowered Ray of Enfeeblement applies a strength penalty of (1d6+5)*1.5 - which averages ([1+5]*1.5 +[2+5]*1.5 +[3+5]*1.5 +[4+5]*1.5 +[5+5]*1.5 +[6+5]*1.5)/6 = (9 +10 +12 +13 +15 +16)/6=12.5.

In general, if you've got non-variable pluses at the end of a variable, you'll do better with Empower. If you've got lots of variables (normal d6's), you'll do better with Maximize. But Maximize costs more resources.

Jayabalard
2007-07-02, 04:33 PM
I'd like Wizards to playtest more thoroughly so I don't have to outright ban things in my gaming group.And other people would prefer that the rules stay loose and leave it up to the individual gaming groups to decide exactly what sort of balance of power they want: what needs to be banned, what needs to be changed, etc.

talsine
2007-07-02, 04:34 PM
Not to be inflammatory, but for those that thing d20 is a perfectly wonderful game system being abused by horrible players, how many of you have played a non-d20 game? I can certainly understand it if, having never played a non-broken system, you can't see just how badly broken it is.

Yes, if you understand the core game mechanics before hand (like having played a prior edition) and you're reading to find out the fine points you can see within 10-20 minutes (depending on your reading speed) huge flaws in the game.

WAY back when (think it was either in the expert or companion box set, can't remember now) there actually was a rule from TSR. They said that no spell should ever cause instant death. Massive damage, yes, save or die, no. They strayed from that very sound idea. It's not all Hasbro's fault, no, but they've not "fixed" errors from the past. They've compounded the problem by just putting "death ward" as an enchantment on your armour rather than just removing them wholesale. I can not think of any other game system where they have this problem, because nobody is foolish enough to let it get started.

It's not a matter of building to optimizing and the game is broke. It's broke at third level when the mage gets glittercheese and ray of enfeeblement.

Sure, I could TRY and remove everything that's broken from the system, but all that would leave would be, well, nothing.

D&D has always had a problem in gaming circles about becoming a Monty Haul Hack-and-slash. At it's core, that's all 3.x was written to be. With rules like "Don't give xp to players until they've killed something" and charts for building custom magic weapons simply to funnel off excess gold.

Is it balanced? Well, the first time I read the 3.5 rulebook my first thought was "Dear God, they've turned it into Everquest." I really don't see how CR is in any way shape, manner or form balanced. All it does is push you faster over the brink of reality into just some of the most convoluted, bass ackwards, far fetchedness.

I play a lot of non-d20 games (nWod, WoD, GURPS, Cyberpunk, Shadowrun, etc) and they all have balance issues. Why? Because no game company ahs the time, money or man power to test a game the way players with forum access do. All that asside 3.X has some glaring issues that, while easy to Rule 0, shouldn't need to be. I mean, you can tell from reading Complete Mages "How to play a caster" sections that they really do seem to see Wiz/Sor as just blasters. blows my mind since i've never played a straight blaaster. even back in 2nd Ed.

horseboy
2007-07-02, 04:54 PM
I play a lot of non-d20 games (nWod, WoD, GURPS, Cyberpunk, Shadowrun, etc) and they all have balance issues. Why? Because no game company ahs the time, money or man power to test a game the way players with forum access do. All that asside 3.X has some glaring issues that, while easy to Rule 0, shouldn't need to be. I mean, you can tell from reading Complete Mages "How to play a caster" sections that they really do seem to see Wiz/Sor as just blasters. blows my mind since i've never played a straight blaaster. even back in 2nd Ed.

I was a really big fan of Shadowrun (until FASA went under) I never really had the game breaking errors come up where I'd just have to close a module while we were in the middle of it and say "That's it. Nothing else in here even stands a chance." This has happened every time I have been made to play d20.

Dan_Hemmens
2007-07-02, 05:02 PM
I was a really big fan of Shadowrun (until FASA went under) I never really had the game breaking errors come up where I'd just have to close a module while we were in the middle of it and say "That's it. Nothing else in here even stands a chance." This has happened every time I have been made to play d20.

The difference is that Shadowrun isn't a challenge-based game. Fights aren't expected to be fair, and parties are expected to use skills and diplomacy more.

D&D isn't less balanced than any other game, it just *requires* greater balance, because it's designed around "challenges".

Matthew
2007-07-02, 05:13 PM
Hang on. Why isn't Shadow Run a challenge based game? In what sense do you mean 'challenge based'?

Pronounceable
2007-07-02, 05:18 PM
Here's the main beef with DnD: It claims to be universally useable with any flavor AND balanced among all player choices. WITHOUT any tinkering. While it is clearly not.

DnD is a niche-filling system. The game was playtested and balanced for the traditional fighter, rogue, cleric, wizard party (all fulfilling their own roles and nothing else) going on fragfests to acquire loot and XP. Occasionally they interact with the odd goblin or the dwarven smith. Rescuing virgins from dragons, stopping mad liches, thwarting cults of Elder Gods... All in a day's work for the cocky adventurers. Such a game is precisely the niche it was meant by the playtesters to fill.

When the rules aren't used to play in precisely this fasion, system breaks down. Then it's Rule 0s all around to fix it.

This is a actually marketing problem. (off topic: What isn't?)


Then there's the folly of playtesters. It seems they didn't "playtest" the system so much as "test" it. They saw that it filled its niche nicely and called it a day. While they should've tried their best to break it. When the game is released to the public, all kinds of players tried it. Many played the game it was meant to play. It is a success in this sense.

Then there are savvy people, who saw things like Batman and CoDzilla. Which are recognizable when one looks at the rules in a certain mindset. Around that time WotC needed more products to profit, so splatbooks appeared. Then along came mathematically inclined people aka optimizers (they could've appeared before that though). Terms like cheese, broken, underpowered and the most dreadful of all, Pun Pun became common use.


Here's MY main beef with DnD: 3.x is snobby. "I'm perfectly fine tuned!" it screams, "I contain balanced rules to quantify everything! EVERYTHING! Every single thing you can imagine, I can simulate (with enough errata of course)." But you see something not erratad and it shrieks: "Don't tweak, you're gonna break me! GET YOUR HANDS OFF!"
And don't get me started on minis.

Whereas ADnD used to say: "Look pal, I got this stuff. Mostly abstract, but some numbers here and there. Don't like it? I also got these stuff. It's got more numbers. Still don't like it? Bugger off then! Let's see YOU make it better wiseass!" It gave you incentive to tweak. It actually challanged you, DARED you to think, to improve it. I LIKED that.


I see that I have rambled enough. I'll stop now.

Dan_Hemmens
2007-07-02, 05:22 PM
Hang on. Why isn't Shadow Run a challenge based game? In what sense do you mean 'challenge based'?

I would define a "challenge based" game as one in which you are presented with a sequence of relatively set IC challenges, which you are expected to overcome primarily through manipulation of the game system.

D&D 3.5 is quite explicitly set up like this. You are supposed to have four encounters per day, your encounters are supposed to be 50% equal to your CR, whatever-percent one higher, and so on.

Shadowrun, however, is mission-based. Rather than being presented with a dungeon full of rooms, each one detailed as a distinct encounter, you are more likely to have a building with a general set of security measures, which you are expected to circumvent by IC means.

If a first level D&D party encounters a Balor, they're entitled to cry foul: it's too big a challenge for them. If a newly created group of Shadowrunners is asked to break into a building with a top-of-the-range security system, those are just the breaks.

Matthew
2007-07-02, 05:26 PM
Here's the main beef with DnD: It claims to be universally useable with any flavor AND balanced among all player choices. WITHOUT any tinkering. While it is clearly not.

I dunno about that. I agree with the sentiment, more or less, but what D&D 3.x really says is 'Play the game this way and it will be balanced; you can play it other ways, but it will probably be unbalanced.' As it turned out, they were wrong, the game isn't as balanced as they thought it was. So, basically, it's in the same situation as (A)D&D, but now with an embarassing claim about play balance.
Roll on Fourth Edition. I expect a repeat performance, probably with a greater emphasis on Miniatures.

[Edit]
Dan; okay, I thought you must be using it that way. I never really get that idea, as it really is just the most basic of guidelines. I don't know what the new Adventures are like, but the Free Adventures on the Wizards Website don't seem to work that way at all (though I haven't looked at them all either). I think the mechanical guidelines, like many rules in D&D 3.x, lock people into a certain way of thinking, but it's all an illusion. Challenge Ratings are quite variable. Dumping a Balor on a First Level Party is okay, so long as there's a way out or method of overcoming him.

Citizen Joe
2007-07-02, 05:46 PM
Dumping a Balor on a First Level Party is okay, so long as there's a way out or method of overcoming him.
I need to try this some day just to see how long it takes for someone to say "SCREW THIS! I disbelieve!"

horseboy
2007-07-02, 05:55 PM
I need to try this some day just to see how long it takes for someone to say "SCREW THIS! I disbelieve!"

That would be my first response. :smallconfused:

Matthew
2007-07-02, 06:05 PM
I need to try this some day just to see how long it takes for someone to say "SCREW THIS! I disbelieve!"
Heh, I more or less did it once, after reading about one of the designers doing something very similar. Party was Level 2 or 3, if I recall correctly.

Basically, the set up was that the Adventure Location already had more than enough treasure in it, but there was one door that was sealed with a Talking Stone Face. The only thing the Face knew was that there was 'great evil' behind the door and communicated that to the group. Of course, the party decided that smashing their way in was the best thing to do. So, after a brief combat with the Door (which through use of a Shout Spell decimated their Hirelings), they finally broke their way in.

Out comes a hard core Demon/Balor thingy. Dwarf Cleric drops to his knees in supplication to avoid death and the rest of the party runs away, all except for the NPC Knight (Fighter), who yells 'I'll hold it off" and bars the Demon's way.

Amusingly, the Demon rolls a 1 on his Attack and the Knight survives one round, then the next round comes by and the Knight is laid out. Demon ignores the Dwarf and stalks off to deal with his own affairs (becoming one of the Campaign Villains), ignoring the rest of the party, who have scattered to the four winds.

There were other ways to survive this encounter, but nobody cried foul or complained. They thought it was awesome. Of course, this was (A)D&D, but I don't think it would have made a difference.

Mike_G
2007-07-02, 06:42 PM
I think the original playtesters were just old D&D grognards.

My group has played for over twenty years, and we just assumed that 3e was the same game with the many, many, many mechanical stupidities and inconsistencies of the older editions fixed.

We played Fighters to smack stuff, Casters to blast, Rogues to sneak. These were the best roles for the classes back in 1st and 2nd edition, so we assumed it would be the same in 3rd.

We didn't play Clerics, since Clerics are boring, band aid box support characters, right? We made up a perpetual NPC Cleric to keep us healed up. We even named him Kormun, a play on "Corpsman" a Navy medic. It never, in our wildest dreams occured to us that he would be a better fighter than a Fighter.

After a few years, our player who loved Wizards decided to try a Transmutation specialist and ban Evocation, just as an experiment. We all assumed he'd be a weak caster and be abandonned.

Now, as we got higher in level, the "weak, experimental" Wizard and the NPC Cleric nobody wanted to be bogged down with wound up dominating encounters, and surpirsed the hell out of us. Most of the non casters got disgusted and started hating playing past 12th level.

So, I think the game was initially balanced by and for people used to AD&D, and it still does work in that context. We aren't powergamers or optimizers the way many on this board are.

We will optimize as in "I want the best TWF Swashbuckler/Rogue I can get, so what feats should help that?" kind of optimization, but never the "Screw that, just take a 2HF Power Attack/Shock Trooper Duskblade/Cleric instead! His average damage is 25.736 points higher on a full attack after a charge" kind of optimization

So, yeah, I think by playing Olde School we avoid a lot of the balance issues, but they certainly are there, and the system is much easier to exploit than it ever occured to us to try.

Flawless
2007-07-02, 08:20 PM
@ Mike_G: Yeah I know exactly what you mean. First when we started playing 3e I played evokers in the first two camaign (both ended at level 14). For my next character I wanted to try something different and played a wizard heavily focused on enchantment and necromancy spells just for fluff reasons. Everyone thought I'd suck but after 9th level my wizard really started to kick ass and everyone else (especially the DM) told me I was a powergamer and should start a new, more balancd character...

Swordguy
2007-07-02, 08:30 PM
I think the original playtesters were just old D&D grognards.


This is completely accurate, IIRC.

Damionte
2007-07-02, 08:46 PM
What's a grognard. My current DM is definately a grognard. Always bitching about the game balance, and how difficult it is to play/GM post lvl 10.

We have a few grognards at our table. What's the actual definition though and where did the word coem from?

For the record I don't really see the system as horribly broken. I see things that are exploitable if your DM is a dipstick. I have never had any problem with liberal use of rule zero. as long as I keep the flavor in the right place the players don't have any terouble with it either.

The only place I ever see any of these imbalance issues turn into "problems" is in theeory discussions on the board. In real life most of this stuff never sees the light of day.

Then again, I also play with adults. They're pretty much self balancing.

horseboy
2007-07-02, 09:15 PM
I have never had any problem with liberal use of rule zero.

There's the problem. When you rule zero something you're saying that that is broken and not allowed.
In my many, many, many, many years of gaming I've never rule 0'ed anything (Note I've never ran d20). The closest thing to a rule 0 (In this boards sense) I've had to deal with as a player was a Rolemaster GM who wouldn't allow anything past companion 1.

Having to rule 0 stuff in the core rule set because they were too lazy to play test is just a sign of inferior product. I could understand it if this were some small print company, but, let's face it, d20 is a market dominating force. It should hold itself to a higher standard than that. It reminds me of the old adage "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public"

Bosh
2007-07-02, 09:21 PM
Because no game company ahs the time, money or man power to test a game the way players with forum access do.
Hmmm game companies cannot test their games as well as a forum full of players since they can't afford the man-hours. Then why the hell don't they do what computer game companies do and beta test their games with a hundred or so players? Having just a dozen or so of the most dedicated of the CharOp board geeks just read through their books before they're published would do wonders for their quality even if they don't have time to do playtesting.

Basically playing a PnP RPG is a lot like playing an unpatched computer game, but in a lot of cases they're like playing computer games that are just hitting Beta because they only really have in-house testing in many cases. Sure DMs can rule 0 stuff but then you either have to play a game with a DM who's enough of a CharOp geek to be able to spot cheese. That really cuts down on the number of people who can DM.

Citizen Joe
2007-07-02, 09:29 PM
I like to think of the splat books much like email spam. I filter IN instead of filter out. My assumption is that everything is spam unless they title it with a specific password. As that applies to added rules, I'd have to go through each possible added rule and opt it specifically into the ruleset. Seeing as how I'm lazy, that generally involves just blindly banning extra sourcebooks.

13_CBS
2007-07-02, 09:34 PM
I wonder why, then, if forum goes are so good at breaking games, RPG makers don't actually consult forum goers for play testing. Surely if a game maker posted a thread about a voluntary playtesting program plenty of people would join, especially if asked worldwide? Or are they afraid of Copyright issues?

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-02, 09:45 PM
I wonder why, then, if forum goes are so good at breaking games, RPG makers don't actually consult forum goers for play testing. Surely if a game maker posted a thread about a voluntary playtesting program plenty of people would join, especially if asked worldwide? Or are they afraid of Copyright issues?

The Rules Compendium was reviewed by members of the CharOp's board before it went to final print. The Logic Ninja was one of those reviewing it.

Who knows, maybe WotC is learning.

But then they go and put out Complete Cheese. I mean did they even look at half the crap they put in that book?

Cruiser1
2007-07-02, 09:47 PM
Actually, they apparently only put some thought into balancing monsters and NPCs against ONE very-specific team.

A Fighter, a skillmonkey Rogue, a blasty Wizard, and a healbot Cleric.
(Notice that the fighter doesn't get an adjective? Hmm.)
The fighter's adjective is "meatshieldy". :smallyuk:

Concerning game balance, remember that the function of a game company isn't to balance their game. It's to make money by selling copies of their game. 98% of players (i.e. everybody except the 2% that read these boards) will never be aware of or play a "Batman" or a "CoDzilla". But they will still buy the books, which equals $ for WoTC. For that matter, the 2% of people here, even though we're aware of the balance issues, have already bought most of the books, so in a sense we're not important anymore.

Beyond that, I dare say optimizing builds and finding cool broken combos is one of the most fun parts of D&D! Just look at the attention this thread and others like it gets. If D&D were totally balanced in all ways, there'd be nothing to do but play in session (as opposed to optimize and discuss things out of session) and we'd quickly lose interest. I firmly believe there was a shrewd someone in WoTC headquarters who was aware ahead of time of all the potential exploits, and intentionally shipped D&D with them, instead of balancing the game, to create this interest. :smallwink:

User modifications and character optimizations are again one of the most fun parts of the game. It's addictive and like playing the lottery, since you might discover the next Pun-Pun. Games like DOOM and Quake were very popular because you didn't just play the game, but had the whole modification and custom levels community to play with. D&D is very similar with the whole optimization community. :smallsmile:

horseboy
2007-07-02, 09:48 PM
Hmmm game companies cannot test their games as well as a forum full of players since they can't afford the man-hours. Then why the hell don't they do what computer game companies do and beta test their games with a hundred or so players? Having just a dozen or so of the most dedicated of the CharOp board geeks just read through their books before they're published would do wonders for their quality even if they don't have time to do playtesting.

Basically playing a PnP RPG is a lot like playing an unpatched computer game, but in a lot of cases they're like playing computer games that are just hitting Beta because they only really have in-house testing in many cases. Sure DMs can rule 0 stuff but then you either have to play a game with a DM who's enough of a CharOp geek to be able to spot cheese. That really cuts down on the number of people who can DM.

Exactly! Take the 10 worst "offenders" in the "Living" systems. They already know who these guys are. Give them all plane tickets ($2000). Put them up in double occupancy rooms for a week. ($1500) Feed them ($2100 they're gamers, they can eat). Give them one day to read over the rules. Then spend the next 5 days playing. Do new character concepts each day, no one can play a character concept already played) Boom! Hasbro is out $5,600. They've not got a system that's not nearly as abusive. How exactly would $6000 be "too much" to spend to make a system that actually works?

Damionte
2007-07-02, 10:56 PM
Actually what I mean when I mention rule zero is more of the daddy button. When I am GMing my interpretation of said rule is they way it is because "I said so."

Even then the bigger point I was making is that this really doesn't coem up often. The thing I need to rule zero are mainly things that the rules don't take into account. Occasionally I have to put my foot down about something but it's rarely anythign big. something like, ok this game we're not using any character races with a +1 LA or above. A player says why, I say because I said so. We're not arguing thwe why on that one.

Hmm that may not be a good example.

Here's a better example.

Teleport special effects:

This came up in our game from this past week. I wasn't GM this week, just a player, thus I was only able to toss in opinion on it, not make a ruling. We were falling from about a mile up. One of the players had the idea to slow himself by teleporting up a certain distance as he approached the ground.

I didn't feel this would work. They figured you'd just reverse your direction. I dissagreed. Now in the end it didn't matter as the fighter hit the ground anyway.

Had I been GMing though I wuoldn't have let them do it. A dimension door, maybe but not teleport. had I been GM at the table I could have said "It doesn't work, and this is why." and boom that would be the end of it.

Emperor Tippy
2007-07-02, 11:33 PM
Teleportation effects don't negate current momentum.

If your falling at terminal velocity and then teleport to an inch above the ground you hit the ground at terminal velocity.

At least according to Customer Service and any ruling that even halfway makes sense if you assume an earth like world.

Jayabalard
2007-07-03, 12:03 AM
Teleportation effects don't negate current momentum.

If your falling at terminal velocity and then teleport to an inch above the ground you hit the ground at terminal velocity.

At least according to Customer Service and any ruling that even halfway makes sense if you assume an earth like world.If the world generally works like our world does, being able to teleport safely requires the ability to alter your momentum so that you can ignore planetary motion.

just as an obvious example,
1. Assume you are standing on the equator; the planet is rotating; you're moving with a tangential speed of 1000mph (give or take) in direction X
2. assume that you teleport to the opposite side of the planet (still on the equator) and while teleporting you preserve your momentum.*
3. The ground on the far side is moving at 1000mph in direction -X (the opposite direction of the starting side);
4. Since you preserved your momentum you're moving at 1000mph in direction X, your speed in relation to the ground is 2000mph.... until you hit a tree/house/wall/whatever

*This same idea applies to smaller jumps, but is easiest to see when jumping from one side of the planet to the other.

Cruiser1
2007-07-03, 12:10 AM
Teleportation effects don't negate current momentum.

If your falling at terminal velocity and then teleport to an inch above the ground you hit the ground at terminal velocity.
The problem with preserving current momentum, is current momentum relative to what? Momentum only exists with respect to a particular reference frame.

If you're falling at terminal velocity over the north pole, then teleport to the opposite side of the world over the south pole, are you suddenly moving at terminal velocity in the other direction?

The Earth rotates at about 1000 miles per hour at the equator. If you teleport to the other side of the world, do you suddenly fly westward and smash into the nearest tree at 1000 miles per hour? Don't forget the Earth is moving around the Sun at about 67000 miles per hour, which raises all kinds of potentials.

If you teleport onto a ship moving forward at 20 knots, do you go flying overboard? If you teleport off a running racehorse, do you trip and skid across the ground at running speed?

It makes sense that teleportation effects would set your momentum so you're stationary relative to your destination surroundings. Hence teleporting to any spot on the Earth ends with you standing still (regardless of what you were doing before), and you can teleport to and from ships and such. Besides, using teleport to save yourself from a bad fall is creative thinking, which as a DM I'd want to reward.

The_Werebear
2007-07-03, 12:23 AM
This really makes perfect sense as to why DnD has so many balance problems.

First time I played DnD, it seemed so different. Archers and monks dominated. All wizards could do was throw fireballs around. The cleric was filled with healing spells and didn't bother with a weapon. Psionics were so broken that the DM swore to break the nose of anyone who even hinted at wanting to play one.

Then, I started looking closely through the books and reading the boards. A year later, and suddenly everything was different. Evocation was a waste of spell slots, and buffing the party was much more efficient. Clerics shouldn't bother to heal until the end of battle, because they are busy tanking. Psionics weren't horrible for everyone...

It really is interesting how perspective shifts once you change out of the standard party setup. The only problem is that now I have a problem playing characters that aren't even a little optimized, which sometimes leads to friction. There is little worse than half a party trying to optimize while the other half wants to stick in traditional roles. Everyone ends up pissed off, either because some characters are stealing the spotlight, the monsters that should have been hard are getting waxed, or some members aren't pulling equal weight. It won't hold very long.

AtomicKitKat
2007-07-03, 01:17 AM
If teleportation preserves momentum, so be it. I'll just orient myself so I'm facing away from the ground. Now I'm flying upwards instead!:smallbiggrin:

Bosh
2007-07-03, 01:25 AM
It really is interesting how perspective shifts once you change out of the standard party setup. The only problem is that now I have a problem playing characters that aren't even a little optimized, which sometimes leads to friction. There is little worse than half a party trying to optimize while the other half wants to stick in traditional roles.
What's a good idea in that case is taking a horrifically unoptimized starting idea (halfling barbarian/sorcerer gish) and then optimizing the hell out of it to get back to par of whatever your group is. However all it takes is one person making a character that's too powerful by accident or one person consciously making a character that's more powerful than the rest of the part to suck a lot of the fun out of the game.

In order to play a fun game of D&D (at least in my experience) you need either:
1. A group of players who all know how CharOp works and consciously avoid making overly-powerful characters.
2. A group of players who follow traditional roles.
3. A group of players who try to make powerful character but suck at it (see: monkey grip).
4. A mix of 1, 2 and/or 2.
5. A D&D who know the rules inside out and doesn't have any wierd/wrong ideas about what is balanced or not and rules 0's everything.

The problem with this is that unless ALL of the party follows roles 1-3 (and nobody plays a druid) the group gets screwed up since you just need one character that's way above par power-wise to screw up a whole party (the existance of the internet and forums like these make 2's and 3's rare) and the field of DMs who both try to and are good at rule 0-ing things until they're balanced is relatively limited. Probably the worst side effect of the rampant imbalances in third edition D&D is a lot of DMs figure out that the game is imbalanced (which is easy) but not enough to rule-zero the imbalance away, hence the perennial threads on the WotC forums about DMs nerfing warlocks etc.

I don't think that a group of power gamers makes for a balanced group in and of itself since some people will be better at power gaming than others and some will give into more cheese than others. A group of powergamers needs either the same amount of restraint as a normal group or a DM who really knows the ruyles...

Tor the Fallen
2007-07-03, 01:40 AM
When you playtest anything you are supposed to make every effort to break it. Once you have attempted to break the system and the problems you found have been fixed you try again. You repeat this until the system isn't broken. Then you go and make sure the system works in normal play, fixing as needed.

Why bother to go to all the expense and time of playtesting when your target consumer is:
a) a compulsive buyer
b) has a large disposable income
c) has great brand loyalty
d) powergames

Seriously, when D&D went belly up (twice?), Hasbro finally picked them up. A big, profit driven corporation, with the know-how and years of experience in game marketing, research, and development.

Frankly, WotC doesn't need to play test the game that extensively, they just need a way to sell more modules. Game balance doesn't at all add to units sold when selling something to a niche crowd, like D&D consumers. Unlike videogames, where you can sell to a very wide consumer base, D&D sells much narrower, so must sell more to the same people.

It's like Magic. If you create a system where upgrades outdate previous material, or make some super awesome combo available. That way you create incentive for not only one or two people to buy the new stuff, but everyone at the table. "Gee, Chuck just got CD for his cleric, which really has him whooping ass. Maybe I should pick up a book for my wizard." Etc.

Sound cynical? Too conspiratorial? What do you think the marketing research department's for? Did you think that when Hasbro picked up D&D, they didn't have a plan to turn the company around?

The design intent is to get you to buy more books. Balance is cursory.

Kurald Galain
2007-07-03, 04:28 AM
Seriously, when D&D went belly up (twice?), Hasbro finally picked them up.
Why twice? Yes, TSR went down in flames and was picked up by WOTC. WOTC did not go down in any way whatsoever, its takeover was just regular business.

But yes, of course part of their marketing strategy is getting people to buy books. Such strategies tend to imply that the core books (or cards, for MTG) are balanced but the extras (splatbooks/expansion sets) aren't necessarily so; if the core is already unbalanced that makes people buy less splat.

It would seem that the playtesting was done for the "default" roles because such default roles were pretty much what most people did in Second Edition - in 2nd ed being a blaster mage makes a lot of sense because monsters had way less hit points, and so forth. Don't forget that the full audience once a game is released is several orders of magnitude bigger than the playtest group.

Fenix_of_Doom
2007-07-03, 06:07 AM
If the world generally works like our world does, being able to teleport safely requires the ability to alter your momentum so that you can ignore planetary motion.

just as an obvious example,
1. Assume you are standing on the equator; the planet is rotating; you're moving with a tangential speed of 1000mph (give or take) in direction X
2. assume that you teleport to the opposite side of the planet (still on the equator) and while teleporting you preserve your momentum.*
3. The ground on the far side is moving at 1000mph in direction -X (the opposite direction of the starting side);
4. Since you preserved your momentum you're moving at 1000mph in direction X, your speed in relation to the ground is 2000mph.... until you hit a tree/house/wall/whatever

*This same idea applies to smaller jumps, but is easiest to see when jumping from one side of the planet to the other.

Well in that case stopping all momentum doesn't work either because you'd still have a 1000 mph relative speed. So then teleport should be able to adjust perfectly so you move at the same speed as the ground you stand on. Of course a far easier explanation is that D&D worlds are flat and that there is no rotation.

personally, I'd say you'd have a angular momentum from the planets rotating speed and be done with it.

Tormsskull
2007-07-03, 06:58 AM
The design intent is to get you to buy more books. Balance is cursory.

I agree with this 100%.


"Balance" is such a hard thing to account for anyhow. When you have a game with unlimited options, there is no way someone can playtest all of the options. When someone write up a spell and thinks of all of the applications of it, they are generally not going to think of all of them unless the spells are very restricting (which negatively impacts creativity).

The choice come between having a game where almost anything is possible, to having a game where your choices are restricted to a short list of options. I would personally choose to have almost anything possible and utilize the DM as the arbiter rather than play a pen and paper computer game.

Starsinger
2007-07-03, 07:03 AM
My group has never had this big caster > everyone problems, mostly because I'm a terrible Sorcerer by board standards, I likes my evocations. But with a few moronic exceptions, our group realizes the potential for caster abuse is there. But we don't play "to win" so we don't run around casting save or sucks/die all the time. It's much better to be inefficient by playing a blaster than make the fighter commit suicide because the Cleric can take his job.

Infact, my one cousin insists that spell casters suck, and fighters are powerful because they get feats. Tome of Battle is over powered because they're better than fighters. D&D was designed for people like him, me thinks.

Dalboz of Gurth
2007-11-08, 11:36 AM
After reading all of this about play testing, I absolve all responsibility you require of me to prove that 3e sucks.

From now on if someone tries to defend 3e to me, they have the burden of proofe, and they are the ones who must explain to me why 3e doesn't suck.

Tengu
2007-11-08, 12:07 PM
You are right, unless you want to use it as a point in one of those "which edition is better?" flame wars debates. Because DND 3.x, while still sucking, does not do so even remotely as much as AD&D.

Oh, and...
http://www.hoerspiel-freunde.de/43eKru9ZamG/images/avatars/avatar-1037.jpg

Dalboz of Gurth
2007-11-08, 12:17 PM
You are right, unless you want to use it as a point in one of those "which edition is better?" flame wars debates. Because DND 3.x, while still sucking, does not do so even remotely as much as AD&D.


prove it.

So far all I see is 2nd ed was playtested and 3rd wasn't.

Thinker
2007-11-08, 12:48 PM
prove it.

So far all I see is 2nd ed was playtested and 3rd wasn't.

Where is your evidence that 2e was playtested any better? You're just some fan boy who thinks anyone different from you is automatically wrong. I have yet to see any reason why someone should value your opinion in any matters about gaming. All you do is come on here and give tirades about how 2e is far better, simply because that is what you are use to. Ravenloft may have been more of what you envisioned in 2e, but that doesn't make 2e the superior system. How about instead of ranting and raving all the time you try to give some constructive discussion? Instead all I see is you turning every thread into a discussion about your way versus the new way. You sound like an old man screaming at kids to get off your lawn, when its not yours anymore.

Azerian Kelimon
2007-11-08, 01:16 PM
Dart Fighters. 'Nuff said.


Know, the problem with balance is that, indeed, the traditional option are greatly subconsciously sponsored in the core books. It's not flagrant, but all the iconics cast fireballs, are healbots, take weapon specialization, etc.


I can offer an example of this: In a recent campaign, I has to play with a bunch of newb players, and an old friend who is very rules savvy. I pretty much have every splatbook out there that's not third party and then some, so the newbies had a lot of things to choose from. I decided not to participate with a char of my own (I usually play a DMPC, only the DMPC is more like a PC in this case), at least at first. Showing them the mass 'o splatbooks I had, I pointed them at the ones that were intended for the kind of characters they wanted to, CW and ToB for a warrior, CM and CA for a mage, etc, and of course PHBII for everyone. They were amazed, and thanked me with tears in their eyes for such a chance and such permisiveness for their first go (I had also explicitly said I was going to start them off against very weak enemies, and that they would soon grow quite tougher, which was the reason I didn't core my way through). I gave them two weeks to prepare, so they all took a few splatbooks and went their own merry ways while I had time to think a campaign.


The two weks were up, and the players appeared, with knowledge of the rules (I felt happy, the could remember how to do a grapple without checking books, which is big for a beginner). Here are their characters:


A Truenamer. I pointed out that he'll have a tough time with high level mobs. He insisted, so I made a mental note to increase the truenaming ammy's bonus to +15.

A CW Samurai. I showed the player OA, but he insisted on the CW samurai because it was "Way cooler, and can fight with two weps!". Took Toughness as a feat, along with Improved Toughness.


A Warlock. Slightly improved over the other two, but still a warlock. Fortunately for him, my Warlock have always done the damage of a hellfire warlock with eldritch blasts, over time, and without the penalties.


A Healer. The player dared to try and tell me that a cleric's job was to heal, so I let it be, sure that he would learn fast. I should have insisted more, but when he said he didn't care, I just went What the hell, Whatever.


A Savant, made by the savvy friend. No complaints on this one.


So, we started to play, against 3 warrior orcs wielding longswords, instead of falch's. A full wipeout ensured, except for the savant, who escaped. The players started crying foul, saying I had pitted them against CR 2 mobs, so I showed them the entry for orcs, and told them again that they hadn't picked powerful characters, and that they wanted to do with what they had. Long debate ensued, in the end I brought up my usual char, a swordsage.


First round of combat against the orcs: Swordsage runs up, and dazzles the orcs with a blistering flourish. The truenamer does something useless, the healer prepares an action for going to the samurai or me to heal us if we take damage, the samurai charges another orc. The orcs go, samurai is hit by the other two orcs, drops to -2, Warlock fires eldritch blast agains the charged orc, leaves him at 1, Savant stays away so that I can show the players a lesson.

Second round, I go for the other orc, hit 'im with a burning blade, is down.

Third one: The last orc is tried to run, I use Wind stride to catch up with him and a shadow blade tech drops him.



On the first fight, one part member dropped to negs, two did nothing, one DID contribute something. It all went downhill from there. After 5 battles, the players accused me of using rule 0 for tweaking a monk, and said they'd leave if I kept cheating. I pulled ToB out and showed it to them. Taught them a lesson about charop, definetely.


And this is more or less what happens when you pit a standard party against half decent characters (A Samurai is close to a fighter at first level, a warlock is like a better blasty mage at level 1, a Healer speak by itself, the Truenamer was the fifth wheel, and the Savant was the skillmonkey). WoTC did gross mistakes with 3.5, but at least they have got competent designers for 4th ed. I hope they also get good playtesters.


PS: Hmm, Rich has worked for WoTC. Would it be hard for him to point WoTC to us? We'd do a fine job at betaing 4th ed. But then again, that's just a dream.

Shishnarfne
2007-11-08, 01:20 PM
Alright, there's already been one post commenting that this thread had been dormant for four months already, let's start a new thread and link to this one if there's something to be said: thread necromancy is not our best friend.

tainsouvra
2007-11-08, 03:07 PM
prove it.

So far all I see is 2nd ed was playtested and 3rd wasn't. If you read that thread again, you'll note that they recycled much the same playtesting group and philosophy for third edition that they used in second edition. This is actually stated in the thread if you look at when the source worked for the company and where they got their ideas on what to test.

In other words, there is evidence 2E used the same flawed paradigm. The burden of proof is on you to refute that evidence and prove that 2E had a better testing philosophy.

Also, more than four months is one heck of a Raise Thread spell.

Kurald Galain
2007-11-08, 03:45 PM
From now on if someone tries to defend 3e to me, they have the burden of proofe, and they are the ones who must explain to me why 3e doesn't suck.


3rd Edition is, by and large, balanced out of the box. ... Well, I can't really be bothered to deal with disconnects from reality as severe as this.

I suggest you two have a nice long chat about this one.