Why Do People Think That Core is Balanced?

[Cosi]

I'm sorry you feel that way about them, but clearly plenty of others are happy with the product as it currently is over a decade in, or using most of it and only making minor tweaks. Still, I can't argue with preferences.

This is a stupid argument. People played 2e happily, and played AD&D happily before that. Before AD&D (or whatever you want to claim was the first RPG) people happily didn't play RPGs. Was it wrong to publish 3e in the first place?


Any player with the system mastery needed to break the game knows what is needed to avoid doing that. Choosing not to anyway is what makes a jerk.

Expecting players to magically divine which of the multitudinous balance points you intend without being told is being a jerk.


Shining South is a 3.0 book; the GM is obliged to make modifications to its content before allowing it, by RAW.

Oh cool, so the game includes this feat:

Obviously Broken Crap
Benefit: Gain wish at will as a free action SLA. And really big bonuses to your stats. Also if a player calls you a powergamer, you get to take his car.

Because I can put it in the game, right? If the designers don't have to answer for things because DMs can fix them, they do have to answer for anything DMs can break. Can't have your cake and eat it too.


You seem to make arguments about the design of this game without understanding that control by the DM is the linchpin of the design.

As has been mentioned, Oberoni. If you're going to ask me to make a bunch of modifications to your game so it isn't broken, why do I need to pay you money for your game at all?

[Florian]

Using it breaks the campaign. Why does it exist in the first place?

Do you know how me and my players play the game at our table? Yes? No? Then who are you to tell me that we are or are not having BadWrongFun?

@Cosi:

It was wrong to suggest that 3E was a "complete game" and "player empowerment" makes the gm into an accessory that will not cause any trouble with arbitrary rulings and such, which got removed as unnecessary in 3E.

[Tainted_Scholar]

"Some people just want to watch the world burn."

And they included an option for that.

Except it was unintentional. They accidentally included a way to destroy their product. How would you feel if your car could be destroyed by pumping the brake three times and then honking the horn twice? You'd probably be unhappy that such a glaring the design flaw made it into the finished product.

[ColorBlindNinja]

"Some people just want to watch the world burn."

And they included an option for that.

It seems more like you'd try to take over the Planescape; that seems more Lawful Evil to me.

Also, it's not just a Death Star in the park; several Star Destroyers are hiding there too. Any one of which can cause a host of problems.

Oh, and all of this is accidental.

Edit:


Do you know how me and my players play the game at our table? Yes? No? Then who are you to tell me that we are or are not having BadWrongFun?

Come up with campaign that can function with Pun Pun in it. Part of me think that sounds like fun, most people would just conclude it's futile.

[The_Jette]

It seems more like you'd try to take over the Planescape; that seems more Lawful Evil to me.

Also, it's not just a Death Star in the park; several Star Destroyers are hiding there too. Any one of which can cause a host of problems.

Oh, and all of this is accidental.

Edit:



Come up with campaign that can function with Pun Pun in it. Part of me think that sounds like fun, most people would just conclude it's futile.

Have you ever watched tengen toppa gurren lagann? :smallbiggrin:

[Grod_The_Giant]

I wouldn't say nothing. The fact that you can abuse SLA wish matters, because it means you have to close that hole somehow if people want to actually use SLA wish. Given that SLA wish is how Genies work, that seems like something that will come up at least occasionally. Incidentally, this is part of what makes D&D's abuses so problematic. polymorph and planar binding are things that people want to do because they are iconic magical feats. If, say, globe of invulnerability was broken somehow, it would be much easier to ignore the problem.

Yes, the fact that casting cloudkill is just better than anything a Fighter can do at anywhere close to that level is a much bigger problem (and the fact that Fighters are strictly worse than Clerics is bigger still), but the existence of infinite loops and other cheese also matters.

Also, complexity is another big issue. To evaluate polymorph (and similar spells) requires analysis of something like a dozen different sources, and even after you've done that still involves debates that aren't cleanly settled by the rules.
Oh, I very much agree with you that things like "shapeshifting is almost consistently clunky and overpowered" is a significant flaw of the system. When the game stutters doing things you're expected to do, like binding a spirit to your service or turning into a beast to fight, you've got a major issue. Those are the sorts of things I'd point to as evidence that the system is broken. Wish not having a cap on magic items is another issue, albeit a lesser one-- it's a single high-level spell with an easily-fixed flaw, which is bad but less so than, say, Wild Shape. Wishing for more wishes is not a significant issue, because the consequences are so obvious and I think about 99.9% of groups will disallow it one way or another. It's the structural issues, the ones that creep up on you, where the system really shows its flaws.

[Tainted_Scholar]

Have you ever watched tengen toppa gurren lagann? :smallbiggrin:

Started to, but never finished.

[Hackulator]

Except it shouldn't exist, and fact that it does is just sheer incompetence. It's still an option to ruin everyone's fun and that shouldn't exist. They didn't mean for it to exist, but they're incompetence allowed it to.

I have to ask, have you ever actually worked in game design?

Also, since the point of a game to to get people to play it and have fun, and you are clearly playing it and either having fun or you have the equivalent of battered woman syndrome but with a game, as are thousands of other people, saying it is poorly designed when it is doing an amazing job at its intention is ridiculous.

You argument is like saying a kitchen is a bad kitchen because it's pantry includes ingredients that don't go in every dish.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Have you ever watched tengen toppa gurren lagann? :smallbiggrin:

No. I've heard it's pretty over the top, though.

Edit:


I have to ask, have you ever actually worked in game design?

I've a passing interest in video game design.


Also, since the point of a game to to get people to play it and have fun, and you are clearly playing it and either having fun or you have the equivalent of battered woman syndrome but with a game, as are thousands of other people, saying it is poorly designed when it is doing an amazing job at its intention is ridiculous.

Ad populum. People enjoy things of dubious quality all the time. Being popular doesn't make it good. I enjoy 3.5 in spite of (and occasionally because of) its flaws, but that's beside the point.


You argument is like saying a kitchen is a bad kitchen because it's pantry includes ingredients that don't go in every dish.

More like the presence of a big red button that blows up the house if you press it. Then being told that it's fine as long as you don't press the big red button. :smallsigh:

[Tainted_Scholar]

Also, since the point of a game to to get people to play it and have fun, and you are clearly playing it and either having fun or you have the equivalent of battered woman syndrome but with a game, as are thousands of other people, saying it is poorly designed when it is doing an amazing job at its intention is ridiculous.

You argument is like saying a kitchen is a bad kitchen because it's pantry includes ingredients that don't go in every dish.

A more apt analogy is saying it's a bad kitchen because it can catch fire if you mess with the settings on the fridge.

[Hackulator]

A more apt analogy is saying it's a bad kitchen because it can catch fire if you mess with the settings on the fridge.

I disagree, yet you have an infinitely powerful fire extinguisher, so its still fine.

[Zanos]

It´s noteworthy as it _is_ one of the defining elements that make a RPG a RPG and not a board game or a video game. Trying to act as it could work without is pretty insane or ...

@Zanos:

Oh, it has to do with it. The logical chain is that you use raw, run it by the gm and get the final result, modified to fit the scene/situation/game you´re in. Both things can happen, it can be broken before and fixed during that process, or the gm itself can take something perfectly functioning and break it.
People tend to forget how that progress works and feel entitled to directly translate their version of what they see as RAW into the game.
You should actually go read the original post, because what you're discussing is completely off base:


This my my take on the issue.

Let's say Bob the board member makes the assertion: "There is an inconsistency/loophole/mechanics issue with Rule X."

Several correct replies can be given:

"I agree, there is an inconsistency/loophole/mechanics issue with Rule X."
"I agree, and it is easily solvable by changing the following part of Rule X."
"I disagree, you've merely misinterpreted part of Rule X. If you reread this part of Rule X, you will see there is no inconsistency/loophole/mechanics issue."
Okay, I hope you're with me so far. There is, however, an incorrect reply:

"There is no inconsistency/loophole/mechanics issue with Rule X, because you can always Rule 0 the inconsistency/loophole/mechanics issue."
Now, this incorrect reply does not in truth agree with or dispute the original statement in any way, shape, or form.

It actually contradicts itself--the first part of the statement says there is no problem, while the last part proposes a generic fix to the "non-problem."

It doesn't follow the rules of debate and discussion, and thus should never be used.

Simple enough.


They're not saying that Rule 0 fixes anything broken. They're saying that there are games where DM's allow certain interactions between spells, and interpretations as spells, that make a more powerful game; and, games where the DM says "that's obviously not what that spell was designed to do, and I won't let the designers' vague wording turn a rather powerful but not broken spell into a broken one."

So, the Oberoni Fallacy (never heard of that before, btw. thanks for the info) doesn't actually apply here.
I'm fine with it not applying, it's just being misrepresented and twisted to mean something it doesn't.

[ColorBlindNinja]

I disagree, yet you have an infinitely powerful fire extinguisher, so its still fine.

If you know it's inside a hidden compartment, behind that painting on the wall.

[Hackulator]

If you know it's inside a hidden compartment, behind that painting on the wall.

No, it's one of the magic powers of the head chef, who is always present. I'll admit that all kitchens are bad if they have a bad head chef.

[Tainted_Scholar]

I disagree, yet you have an infinitely powerful fire extinguisher, so its still fine.

No it isn't fine. Because it shouldn't have caught fire in the first place. Including a way to repair of avoid a products flaws doesn't make the flaws go away.

[ColorBlindNinja]

No, it's one of the magic powers of the head chef, who is always present. I'll admit that all kitchens are bad if they have a bad head chef.

What if you don't know there's a fire in the first place until after the whole building's up in flames?

[Tainted_Scholar]

No, it's one of the magic powers of the head chef, who is always present. I'll admit that all kitchens are bad if they have a bad head chef.

So, knowing that bad head chefs exist, maybe they should have put more effort in making the sure the kitchen doesn't spontaneously combust.

[Schattenbach]

To sum up my last post about the problem with Wish ... it seems more like a problem that was created due to greater player empowerment combined with excessive player entitlement and the eagerness to twist rules to further one's "wishes".


I disagree, yet you have an infinitely powerful fire extinguisher, so its still fine.

Using infinitely powerful fire extinguishers to deal with a burning fridge is more likely to blow the planet (or universe) up than it is to deal the problem in question. It's infinitely powerful, so what do you expect?

[Hackulator]

So, knowing that bad head chefs exist, maybe they should have put more effort in making the sure the kitchen doesn't spontaneously combust.

It doesn't spontaneously combust. If someone turns on the burner without lighting it, pours oil all over the place and then lights a match, it combusts. Can't really protect against that.

[ColorBlindNinja]

It doesn't spontaneously combust. If someone turns on the burner without lighting it, pours oil all over the place and then lights a match, it combusts. Can't really protect against that.

No. It's entirely possible to break 3.5 by accident. It's like the self-destruct button I mentioned before. All it takes is for someone (maliciously or not) to press it.

[Tainted_Scholar]

It doesn't spontaneously combust. If someone turns on the burner without lighting it, pours oil all over the place and then lights a match, it combusts. Can't really protect against that.

Actually you can, because you can make it against the rules to do so.

Besides it's incredibly easy to break 3.5 by accident.

EDIT; What you described is more akin to a player trying to destroy the game through conventional means (Killing the party, attacking the king, mooning a god) rather than a flaw in the system.

[Bebbit]

It doesn't spontaneously combust. If someone turns on the burner without lighting it, pours oil all over the place and then lights a match, it combusts. Can't really protect against that.

Yes you can. The Head Chef is there to smack him.

Now if it's a bad Chef then yes you might have problems, but that's not really a game design flaw.

[johnbragg]

Analogies have gotten away from us. I suspect people are arguing past each other, because there are two separate problem sets:
1. game-breaking exploits that a reasonable DM would disallow, so it's at most a theoretical problem (Pun Pun and friends)
2. caster-mundane balance issues, which are deeply embedded in the structure of 3X.

Could people specify which one they're talking about when using analogies?

[ColorBlindNinja]

Analogies have gotten away from us. I suspect people are arguing past each other, because there are two separate problem sets:
1. game-breaking exploits that a reasonable DM would disallow, so it's at most a theoretical problem (Pun Pun and friends)
2. caster-mundane balance issues, which are deeply embedded in the structure of 3X.

Could people specify which one they're talking about when using analogies?

I'm talking about both.

[Lord Raziere]

I'm glad someone agrees with me on this point.

Edit: Unless you were joking?

No. I'm not joking I really do think that way.

DnD 3.5 is someone taking the bomb swords as canon and somehow making the game about bomb swords on a massive scale. why people think this is desirable is beyond me.

[ColorBlindNinja]

No. I'm not joking I really do think that way.

Sorry, it's sometimes hard to discern tone over the internet.


DnD 3.5 is someone taking the bomb swords as canon and somehow making the game about bomb swords on a massive scale. why people think this is desirable is beyond me.

It can be fun, but I doubt it's what most people are looking for in a fantasy game.

[Zanos]

No. I'm not joking I really do think that way.

DnD 3.5 is someone taking the bomb swords as canon and somehow making the game about bomb swords on a massive scale. why people think this is desirable is beyond me.
Eh, while I agree with you I think there's also a misconception about what certain levels in 3.5 are supposed to do. Level 17 parties aren't wandering adventurers trying to make a quick buck anymore, even though I still to this day see GMs who are convinced that level 20 = Legolas and Aragorn.

So yeah you should fix exploding swords, you also should keep in mind what the game is actually supposed to be doing.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Eh, while I agree with you I think there's also a misconception about what certain levels in 3.5 are supposed to do. Level 17 parties aren't wandering adventurers trying to make a quick buck anymore, even though I still to this day see GMs who are convinced that level 20 = Legolas and Aragorn.

So yeah you should fix exploding swords, you also should keep in mind what the game is actually supposed to be doing.

Agreed. The whole concept behind E6 was to cater to that sort of mindset, if I'm not mistaken.

[Calthropstu]

That really doesn't matter. At best, you have to wait a few levels to become all-powerful.

Edit:



I believe I already said as much in this very thread.



I realize that, but it doesn't mean the game isn't broken.




I'm here to talk about why people think that core is balanced.

Rule zero is core. Rule zero fixes anything you want. Ergo, wwhile some aspects of the game may very well be broken, rule zero fixes it. You can break anything hou want, the gm can say "nope." Hell, the GM can do the whole fancy rewrite some of you seem to want.
Your arguments fall flat to rule zero, because anything you feel is "broken" can be flat out ignored, removed, be altered or otherwise dealt with at gm discression.
Rule zero is why D&D works. It is why the game is still so popular after 20 years. It is why we are having this discussion at all. Yeah, raw there are some serious discrepencies all throughout D&D, including core. If you have a real problem with something, talk with your gm and see about fixing it.

But I don't think that's the reason for you in this thread. I think you have a GM that said "core only" and you're upset because he won't allow some fancy stuff you want. And he gave the reason as "it's more balanced."

[ColorBlindNinja]

Rule zero is core. Rule zero fixes anything you want. Ergo, wwhile some aspects of the game may very well be broken, rule zero fixes it. You can break anything hou want, the gm can say "nope." Hell, the GM can do the whole fancy rewrite some of you seem to want.
Your arguments fall flat to rule zero, because anything you feel is "broken" can be flat out ignored, removed, be altered or otherwise dealt with at gm discression.

No, this is the very definition of the Oberoni fallacy.


Rule zero is why D&D works.

3.5 works because it's a flexible system that can do practically anything.


It is why the game is still so popular after 20 years. It is why we are having this discussion at all. Yeah, raw there are some serious discrepencies all throughout D&D, including core. If you have a real problem with something, talk with your gm and see about fixing it.

1. That doesn't change the fact that it's broken.

2. You have to know that it's broken in the first place.


But I don't think that's the reason for this thread. I think you have a GM that said "core only" and you're upset because he won't allow some fancy stuff you want. And he gave the reason as "it's more balanced."

:smallsigh: That's really disingenuous of you. Core is one of the most unbalanced parts of 3.5. Later books were, more often than not, more balanced, not less.

[Tainted_Scholar]

But I don't think that's the reason for you in this thread. I think you have a GM that said "core only" and you're upset because he won't allow some fancy stuff you want. And he gave the reason as "it's more balanced."

I have played a core only game exactly once, and the end result was DM saying that he wished he hadn't made it core only because it restricted the game too much.

The reason I made this thread is because core isn't balanced, yet alot of people think it is and I wanted to know why.

[The_Jette]

But I don't think that's the reason for you in this thread. I think you have a GM that said "core only" and you're upset because he won't allow some fancy stuff you want. And he gave the reason as "it's more balanced."

This seems like a stretch of the imagination, and a bit personal. You should probably try to limit your statements on what people are actually saying instead of implying that they're throwing a fit because they can't have what they want in real life.

[ColorBlindNinja]

This seems like a stretch of the imagination, and a bit personal. You should probably try to limit your statements on what people are actually saying instead of implying that they're throwing a fit because they can't have what they want in real life.

Thanks, I appreciate that. :smallsmile:

[emeraldstreak]

You seem to make arguments about the design of this game without understanding that control by the DM is the linchpin of the design.

If anything, 3.0's lynchpin was limiting DM's control compared to earlier editions.

[Tainted_Scholar]

If anything, 3.0's lynchpin was limiting DM's control compared to earlier editions.

Yes, that's the point of the in-depth and complicated rules. The DM has less control because the rules decide alot of things instead of the DM.

[Lord Raziere]

The argument is that, contextually, "an ability" is not the same as "any ability", and the alterations made by Manipulate Form are limited to ones similar to those listed as examples. I'm not totally convinced by the argument, but it is something that people have advanced. For a more detailed (and much angrier) explanation, see this thread (http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=54081).


.....That thread is both educational and completely hilarious. I'm going to have remember this.

@ ColorBlindNina:
which is exactly the problem. Sure the whole "optimized tier 1 and tippyverse" things are not inherently bad by themselves, I'm sure they'd be interesting things to explore if there was an rpg dedicated to those things with official fluff and campaign ideas.

but DnD isn't that game. as evidenced by the fact that the two editions after 3.5 explicitly went away from that. its meant to be a fantasy that most people actually want to play. and this whole thing about wizards and tier 1s is just too different from that.

[Tainted_Scholar]

@ ColorBlindNina:
which is exactly the problem. Sure the whole "optimized tier 1 and tippyverse" things are not inherently bad by themselves, I'm sure they'd be interesting things to explore if there was an rpg dedicated to those things with official fluff and campaign ideas.

but DnD isn't that game. as evidenced by the fact that the two editions after 3.5 explicitly went away from that. its meant to be a fantasy that most people actually want to play. and this whole thing about wizards and tier 1s is just too different from that.

Ultimately that's more evidence of 3.5's poor design, the crunch completely contradicts the fluff. This shows that the finished product was far different than what the Designers meant to create.

[ColorBlindNinja]

@ ColorBlindNina:
which is exactly the problem. Sure the whole "optimized tier 1 and tippyverse" things are not inherently bad by themselves, I'm sure they'd be interesting things to explore if there was an rpg dedicated to those things with official fluff and campaign ideas.

but DnD isn't that game. as evidenced by the fact that the two editions after 3.5 explicitly went away from that. its meant to be a fantasy that most people actually want to play. and this whole thing about wizards and tier 1s is just too different from that.

I'd agree with that assessment. It'd be fine if that's what they were going for, but it wasn't.

[Calthropstu]

No, this is the very definition of the Oberoni fallacy.



3.5 works because it's a flexible system that can do practically anything.



1. That doesn't change the fact that it's broken.

2. You have to know that it's broken in the first place.



:smallsigh: That's really disingenuous of you. Core is one of the most unbalanced parts of 3.5. Later books were, more often than not, more balanced, not less.

I call the Oberoni Fallacy a fallacy in and of itself. To discount rule zero as an effective fix is simply stupid.
Rule zero is the core of 3.5's ultimate flexibility.

As for your points 1 & 2, sure. Knowing what is/can be broken is as important as knowing what fixes are available. The game is both infinitely breakable and infinitely fixable. In fact, the game is easier to fix than to break. All it takes is for the gm to say "NO." Problem solved... at least in most cases.

If I was wrong on my assessment then sorry... that's the vibe I was getting. You seem severely attached to this convo, as if it caused a personal affront.

[The_Jette]

Yes, that's the point of the in-depth and complicated rules. The DM has less control because the rules decide alot of things instead of the DM.

The DM has no less control now than ever. Rule 0, aka GM adjudication, is just as much a part of 3rd/3.5 as any game. Players just have more options for them to have to judge. If a DM decides that grappling isn't going to be a thing in their game, or called shots are going to be a thing, then they can still make that ruling. It may be a stupid ruling, but as long as the players are willing to play that's all that matters.

[Luccan]

Because they were spawned from the darkest pit, obviously.

But really, I think it's been answered as well as can be, at this point in the thread. For many people, there's an expectation that the game is completely balanced out of the box. Combine this with not everyone playing all 20 levels, believing Fireball=Ultimate Power, having an expectation
that no caster could ever match a Fighter in combat (I mean, the game tells you this sort of thing in every book) and a general lack of intentional rules abuse on the part of many and you get "core is balanced". I recall someone's signature quote "A little RAW is a dangerous thing", so even when people who believe this first come on a forum more aware of the imbalances, they see the builds that abuse the more powerful stuff from other books and assume those are unbalanced. Then, faced with people who tell them core is unbalanced, they reject it, as it goes against what they believe. Either they continue to deny that core is flawed or eventually, come to accept it. Plato had an allegory about this, so maybe I shouldn't have the first sentence in blue.

That being said, I'll never fault anyone for playing core-only. It's literally the only necessary part of the game, everything else is always optional.

[ColorBlindNinja]

I call the Oberoni Fallacy a fallacy in and of itself.

How is it fallacious?


To discount rule zero as an effective fix is simply stupid.

No, because it's not a true fix.


Rule zero is the core of 3.5's ultimate flexibility.

That's an interesting claim. Care to back it up?


As for your points 1 & 2, sure. Knowing what is/can be broken is as important as knowing what fixes are available. The game is both infinitely breakable and infinitely fixable. In fact, the game is easier to fix than to break.

:smallconfused: You should check out the stupid house rules thread.


All it takes is for the gm to say "NO." Problem solved... at least in most cases

That won't fly in many cases. Besides, the DM still has to identify the problem.


If I was wrong on my assessment then sorry... that's the vibe I was getting. You seem severely attached to this convo, as if it caused a personal affront.

Apology accepted.

[Tainted_Scholar]

I call the Oberoni Fallacy a fallacy in and of itself. To discount rule zero as an effective fix is simply stupid.
Rule zero is the core of 3.5's ultimate flexibility.

Except it's not a acceptable fix, it's making the consumers fix the product rather than producers. How would you like it if your house had a button that made it explode, and said button was included accidentally. Yes you can take care of it yourself, but the construction team is still at fault for being incompetent and including it in the first place.

[Zanos]

I call the Oberoni Fallacy a fallacy in and of itself. To discount rule zero as an effective fix is simply stupid.
Rule zero is the core of 3.5's ultimate flexibility.
The Oberoni Fallacy does not discount rule 0 as a fix. It says that saying that you can fix a rule with rule zero does not mean that the rule you had to fix to begin with was not broken. If you're fixing a rule, it must be broken, and declaring that it isn't broken because it can be fixed is stupid.

[Calthropstu]

The Oberoni Fallacy does not discount rule 0 as a fix. It says that saying that you can fix a rule with rule zero does not mean that the rule you had to fix to begin with was not broken. If you're fixing a rule, it must be broken, and declaring that it isn't broken because it can be fixed is stupid.

I am not saying rules aren't broken. I am saying the GAME itself is not broken.

[ColorBlindNinja]

I am not saying rules aren't broken. I am saying the GAME itself is not broken.

The game is made up of broken rules, how can the game itself not be broken?

[Tainted_Scholar]

I am not saying rules aren't broken. I am saying the GAME itself is not broken.

The game is just a collection of rules.

[Florian]

The "game" has rules for how to run the "game" and a set of very complicated rules that you use during the "game". You can´t run a RPG with the CRB, as it is missing the actual rules how you play it. Simple as that.

[The_Jette]

For clarity, what "rules" are broken? I see a number of potentially broken spells, and classes that are stronger than others. But, I don't exactly see any broken rules.

[ColorBlindNinja]

For clarity, what "rules" are broken? I see a number of potentially broken spells, and classes that are stronger than others. But, I don't exactly see any broken rules.

I'm mostly using broken to mean really OP.

[Tainted_Scholar]

For clarity, what "rules" are broken? I see a number of potentially broken spells, and classes that are stronger than others. But, I don't exactly see any broken rules.

Spells, class features, feats, etc. are part of the rules.

[Hackulator]

For clarity, what "rules" are broken? I see a number of potentially broken spells, and classes that are stronger than others. But, I don't exactly see any broken rules.

Broken is one of the many words and concepts people tend to use incorrectly here.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Broken is one of the many words and concepts people tend to use incorrectly here.

If you want "broken" as in does not work, look no further than the Truenamer.

[Psyren]

It's really more like TaintedScholar's example. Or leaving a Death Star hidden in the park and hoping no one finds it.

Nah, I'm with The_Jette.


Player 1: "I want to be a Fighter."

Player 2: " I want to be a Druid."

You can probably guess where this is going.

I can guess a very wide range of outcomes from a beginning that generic actually. How experienced are the players? How experienced is the DM? What kind of campaign is it? What kind of enemies are they facing? What are their character concepts? What are their attitudes to optimization? Etc etc.



A Wizard takes Polymorph because it sounds cool and uses it. The game can be broken by accident.

You can counter polymorph without hurting the Fighter if you need to.



That's irrelevant, 3.0 books that weren't updated are fair game for 3.5. What alterations DMs make to RAW don't change that RAW is insane.

I find it fairly amusing that so few people who cite this ever cite the whole thing. Here I'll help you, DMG pg. 4:

"This revision is compatible with existing products, and these products can be used with the revision with only minor adjustments."

Now, we can (and likely will) quibble about the definition of "minor" - but the "adjustments" part is black and white. If you feel 3e material is too strong, as it seems you do, fix it.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Nah, I'm with The_Jette.

... Whatever, I'm not going to argue with you about that.


I can guess a very wide range of outcomes from a beginning that generic actually. How experienced are the players? How experienced is the DM? What kind of campaign is it? What kind of enemies are they facing? What are their character concepts? What are their attitudes to optimization? Etc etc.

The mostly likely outcome here is that Druid turns into an bear and outshines the Fighter in melee. If the Fighter picks a good build, he can do a ton of damage, but if the Druid is similarly optimized, the problem persists.


You can counter polymorph without hurting the Fighter if you need to.

How would you go about doing that? Also, if the Wizard is smart, he'll cast the spell on the Fighter. The Fighter's player might not care, but the DM might be tearing his hair out.


I find it fairly amusing that so few people who cite this ever cite the whole thing. Here I'll help you, DMG pg. 4:

"This revision is compatible with existing products, and these products can be used with the revision with only minor adjustments."

I'm aware of the full quote.


Now, we can (and likely will) quibble about the definition of "minor" - but the "adjustments" part is black and white. If you feel 3e material is too strong, as it seems you do, fix it.

I'm pretty sure "adjustments" qualify as conversion from 3.0 to 3.5. Not that it matters, as that's once again relying on the DM to fix things. By now, you know how I feel about that.

[Hackulator]

Honestly, if you really have a problem with the fact that the system is based and balanced around DM control, D&D 3.5 is probably just not the game for you.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Honestly, if you really have a problem with the fact that the system is based and balanced around DM control, D&D 3.5 is probably just not the game for you.

What I have a problem with, is that's not an excuse for bad design.

[Zanos]

I am not saying rules aren't broken. I am saying the GAME itself is not broken.
The Oberoni Fallacy doesn't say anything about a games as a whole.


Honestly, if you really have a problem with the fact that the system is based and balanced around DM control, D&D 3.5 is probably just not the game for you.
If you're going to argue that the game intentionally contains inappropriate options compared to the rest of it because the DM can always fix it, I present The Sage, the FAQ, The Rules Compendium, and every Errata document as a counter argument.

They were trying to make a game that at the very least appeared balanced and failed. This isn't some master stroke of game design.

[Tainted_Scholar]

Honestly, if you really have a problem with the fact that the system is based and balanced around DM control, D&D 3.5 is probably just not the game for you.

It's not based and balanced around DM control. If it were the wouldn't be rules for getting drunk. The rules are incredibly specific and rarely require DM input. Rule Zero exists because the system is aware that people like houserules, but it is by no means balanced around DM control. If anything, Rule Zero feels like more of an afterthought.

[ColorBlindNinja]

They were trying to make a game that at the very least appeared balanced and failed. This isn't some master stroke of game design.

Agreed. Maybe it's because I have a passing interest in game design, but I really take issue with poorly put together games.

[Hackulator]

If you're going to argue that the game intentionally continues inappropriate options compared to the rest of it because the DM can always fix it, I present The Sage, the FAQ, The Rules Compendium, and every Errata document as a counter argument.



What I am saying is all those things you listed are designed to make the DMs job easier. Of course they want rules that are easier to use and more balanced on their own because this provides a framework for the DM. That does not change the underlying fact that D&D is run by the DM and that's on purpose. There are plenty of procedurally generated RPGs with simpler rules you can play if you don't like the way D&D works. The idea that a game as complex as D&D could ever be balanced with purely a hard interpretation of written rules silly.

Edit: also the reason they include COMPLETELY silly and overpowered **** sometimes is just to sell books...

[Jormengand]

I feel this is relevant to the Rule 0 discussion:


The "patch"... is often the belief that the DM should apply circumstance penalties as he sees fit. My problem with this is without any guide as to what those penalties should be, it basically boils down to the DM thinking, "Do I want to give them such a huge penalty that they can't succeed, or not?" But I rarely have a preference. I don't decide whether I want someone to be persuadable, I want a rule system that lets me determine it randomly.

In short, I want tools to use in the game, not a blank check to do what I want. I can already do what I want.

Rule zero should be used to make the game your own, not to patch glaring problems in the way that the game is designed.

[Zanos]

What I am saying is all those things you listed are designed to make the DMs job easier. Of course they want rules that are easier to use and more balanced on their own because this provides a framework for the DM.
Oh, so better games have balanced, easy to use rules as frameworks for the DM?

How interesting.


The idea that a game as complex as D&D could ever be balanced with purely a hard interpretation of written rules silly.
Magic the Gathering, a game by the same company, is probably about as complex and is balanced by hard unambiguous rules interpretation. When it isn't the company fixes it, not the local judges.

[Morty]

As far as GM control over the rules go, 3.5 is really on the lighter side. Both old-school D&D and 5e have a lot more GM control baked into their rules. To say nothing about other games altogether.

[Tainted_Scholar]

What I am saying is all those things you listed are designed to make the DMs job easier. Of course they want rules that are easier to use and more balanced on their own because this provides a framework for the DM. That does not change the underlying fact that D&D is run by the DM and that's on purpose. There are plenty of procedurally generated RPGs with simpler rules you can play if you don't like the way D&D works. The idea that a game as complex as D&D could ever be balanced with purely a hard interpretation of written rules silly.

D&D was clearly not designed around the DM. The only evidence you can support for that idea is Rule Zero. Whereas in contrast it's possibly to play the game with just the rules. A DM is still required to control enemies and the like, but other than that the game really doesn't need a DM.

[The_Jette]

D&D was clearly not designed around the DM. The only evidence you can support for that idea is Rule Zero. Whereas in contrast it's possibly to play the game with just the rules. A DM is still required to control enemies and the like, but other than that the game really doesn't need a DM.

So, outside of combat, what would a game without a DM look like?

[Hackulator]

Oh, so better games have balanced, easy to use rules as frameworks for the DM?

How interesting.


Magic the Gathering, a game by the same company, is probably about as complex and is balanced by hard unambiguous rules interpretation. When it isn't the company fixes it, not the local judges.

Better is very difficult to define. A game might have a more easy to use rules framework but be worse in other ways. Yes, if D&D had a perfectly balanced rules system that could, without any DM interpretation, resolve all disputes in a way that would make everyone happy and cause everyone to have more fun, that would be better. However, that's not anything that could ever exist.

Honestly, the suggestion that MtG is anywhere near as complex as D&D is so insanely far off base that I don't even know where to go from here in this conversation. It reveals a deep lack of understanding that I don't have any idea how to bridge.


So, outside of combat, what would a game without a DM look like?

I think these people think D&D is actually just a combat simulator, maybe?

[Tainted_Scholar]

So, outside of combat, what would a game without a DM look like?

Buying stuff, disarming traps, etc. Social encounters can all be handled with dice rolls. Yeah, it wouldn't be very interesting, but it would still function.

EDIT; My main point is that the DM isn't required for Rulings.

[The_Jette]

Buying stuff, disarming traps, etc. Social encounters can all be handled with dice rolls. Yeah, it wouldn't be very interesting, but it would still function.

EDIT; My main point is that the DM isn't required for Rulings.

By that argument, players aren't required for combat. DMPCs can be created, and played through the scenarios by the DM. Doesn't make for a very fun game, though you completely bypass the problems of "broken" rules when there's someone adjudicating them constantly.

[Tainted_Scholar]

By that argument, players aren't required for combat. DMPCs can be created, and played through the scenarios by the DM. Doesn't make for a very fun game, though you completely bypass the problems of "broken" rules when there's someone adjudicating them constantly.

Look, my point is that 3.5 can function without the DM making any rulings. Both DM and Players can stick to the Rules completely and still play the game. Things like Rule Zero and other DM required passages (such as custom items and spells) can be cut and the game still works. This shows that 3.5 wasn't designed around the DM.

[ColorBlindNinja]

3.5 is rules heavy enough that you could replace the DM with a computer program that has all the rules coded into it.

It would be exceedingly difficult to code, but it could work.

Now I really want a D&D 3.5 video game... I've heard Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil was faithful to the ruleset.

[johnbragg]

Rule zero is core. Rule zero fixes anything you want. Ergo, wwhile some aspects of the game may very well be broken, rule zero fixes it. You can break anything hou want, the gm can say "nope." Hell, the GM can do the whole fancy rewrite some of you seem to want.

But if it needs Rule Zero to fix it, that means it's broken. Rule Zero was justified back in the day because mechanics didn't cover everything, so the DM makes something up. Rule Zero is supposed to govern things the mechanics don't, and to provide a final authority on interpretation of the mechanics.

If you're using Rule Zero, you had a problem that needed fixing. In my opinion, Pun Pun is a minor problem, so it's not a BIG problem if you have to invoke Rule Zero to banish Pun Pun.

It IS a big problem that you have to Rule Zero the gap in power between Tier 1 and Tier 5 character classes which are presented in the book as equally valid options.


But I don't think that's the reason for you in this thread. I think you have a GM that said "core only" and you're upset because he won't allow some fancy stuff you want. And he gave the reason as "it's more balanced."

If he gave that reason, his reason is wrong.

[Morty]

Honestly, the suggestion that MtG is anywhere near as complex as D&D is so insanely far off base that I don't even know where to go from here in this conversation. It reveals a deep lack of understanding that I don't have any idea how to bridge.

Hyperbole is certainly a very common way of avoiding having to prove your point. But of course, if you claim that MtG doesn't have hundreds of cards that interact with each other in a myriad delicately-balanced ways... you kind of do need to actually back it up somehow.

[The_Jette]

3.5 is rules heavy enough that you could replace the DM with a computer program that has all the rules coded into it.

It would be exceedingly difficult to code, but it could work.

Now I really want a D&D 3.5 video game... I've heard Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil was faithful to the ruleset.

Temple of Elemental Evil was terrible. The options available were extremely limited. And, I still managed to accidentally beat it quickly by not just walking in the front door, but doing some searching of the outside of the temple. Took me a couple hours to get to the temple, then ten minutes to beat the game. I was very disappointed. Neverwinter Nights is a better example of a 3rd edition game. Ice Wind Dale 2 is the best example, imo.

[Florian]

Buying stuff, disarming traps, etc. Social encounters can all be handled with dice rolls. Yeah, it wouldn't be very interesting, but it would still function.

You´re joking, right? Or you´re one of those that came into the hobby with NWN.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Temple of Elemental Evil was terrible. The options available were extremely limited. And, I still managed to accidentally beat it quickly by not just walking in the front door, but doing some searching of the outside of the temple. Took me a couple hours to get to the temple, then ten minutes to beat the game. I was very disappointed. Neverwinter Nights is a better example of a 3rd edition game. Ice Wind Dale 2 is the best example, imo.

I never said that it was supposed to be good, just a faithful recreation of 3.5's ruleset...

[Tainted_Scholar]

You´re joking, right? Or you´re one of those that came into the hobby with NWN.

I never said I'd like to play a game like that, just that it's possible. I was illustrating the fact that DM control isn't integral to 3.5.

Also, I have never played NWN.

[The_Jette]

I never said I'd like to play a game like that, just that it's possible. I was illustrating the fact that DM control isn't integral to 3.5.

Also, I have never played NWN.

Your point is a little false, since you need a DM in order for it to be fun. Since the very beginning of the game, the DM has had an integral role in the game. They build the adventure, pass out the treasure, and ensure that the encounters are fun. That wasn't changed for 3.5, nor have I ever seen anything that would indicate otherwise. In the beginning of the DMG it says that any rule is subject to the DM's decision. Actually it might be the PHB that says that, I can't remember exactly.

Edit: Also, NWN was a lot of fun. It's very hard to play through as a Rogue, though, because of the sheer amount of undead enemies.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Your point is a little false, since you need a DM in order for it to be fun. Since the very beginning of the game, the DM has had an integral role in the game. They build the adventure, pass out the treasure, and ensure that the encounters are fun. That wasn't changed for 3.5, nor have I ever seen anything that would indicate otherwise. In the beginning of the DMG it says that any rule is subject to the DM's decision. Actually it might be the PHB that says that, I can't remember exactly.

The point is that you can follow the rules to the letter with very little DM interference (probably not the best word) and still have the game function.


Edit: Also, NWN was a lot of fun. It's very hard to play through as a Rogue, though, because of the sheer amount of undead enemies.

That's why Grave Strike was printed. :smallwink:

[Tainted_Scholar]

Your point is a little false, since you need a DM in order for it to be fun. Since the very beginning of the game, the DM has had an integral role in the game. They build the adventure, pass out the treasure, and ensure that the encounters are fun. That wasn't changed for 3.5, nor have I ever seen anything that would indicate otherwise. In the beginning of the DMG it says that any rule is subject to the DM's decision. Actually it might be the PHB that says that, I can't remember exactly.

Did you actually read my posts?:smallannoyed:

I said that if Rule Zero, and rules like it (Such as custom spell creation) were removed, the game would still be functional. This shows that the rules don't require a DM, playing a game requires a DM to do things such as control NPCs and give descriptions, but the Rules operate just fine without the DM. Somebody claimed that 3.5 was built around the DM's control of rules, but that's not true because you can play D&D without any DM rulings.

Also it is possible to cut him entirely, though it will be less fun than if the DM was there. It'd still function though.

[Morty]

Let's run a bit of a thought exercise. We have a level 6 party, core only:

A fighter who uses two weapons, because their player thinks it's cool. I'd say they also picked Weapon Finesse, but that'd just be cruel.

A druid, who picked Natural Spell, because why wouldn't you? It lets you cast while wildshaped.

A rogue, who got into D&D via OotS and wants to make a character like Haley. So, they use a bow. I'd say a crossbow, but that'd be just like Weapon Finesse.

A wizard who uses transmutation and conjuration spells because they figured out it's more effective.

A sorcerer whose player did not figure it out, and they focus on evocation blasting.

Questions for you, as the hypothetical GM (edited for clarity):

How do you prevent the fighter from being inept at their one and only job? Their choice of weapon style hinders them greatly, and the druid can outshine them in crucial battles via wildshape. Even without wildshape, limited as it is, they contribute another melee combatant through their animal companion. Which is not quite on the level of a PC fighter... but the fighter is using a weak fighting style, so it's closer than it could be.

How do you make sure the rogue can contribute to combat, with their Sneak Attack being very hard to use at range?

How do you make sure the sorcerer isn't outpaced by the wizard, given that a well-placed crowd control or buff spell is more effective than direct damage?

If you want, you can replace either the wizard or the sorcerer with a barbarian, who uses a two-handed axe. Then tell me how you prevent them from being strictly superior to the fighter at their job. In addition to having more skills.

[Zanos]

How do you prevent the fighter from being inept at their one and only job? Their choice of weapon style hinders them greatly, and the druid can outshine them in crucial battles via wildshape.
The wizard prepared the "more effective" transmutation and conjuration spells, which are used to buff the fighter.


How do you make sure the rogue can contribute to combat, with their Sneak Attack being very hard to use at range?
The wizard uses their conjuration spells to make targets flat-footed.


How do you make sure the sorcerer isn't outpaced by the wizard, given that a well-placed crowd control or buff spell is more effective than direct damage?
It doesn't matter that the wizard is technically more integral to the group's success, he isn't putting out big numbers so the Sorcerer gets to feel good about throwing a fireball that kills all the guys that the BFC grouped up.

BFC wizard is partially considered effective because it allows your team to succeed without invalidating them and turns them into a force multiplier for your spells instead of dead weight.



If you want, you can replace either the wizard or the sorcerer with a barbarian, who uses a two-handed axe. Then tell me how you prevent from being strictly superior to the fighter at their jobs.
That one is much harder. I give all my monsters improved disarm and disarm the fighter's offhand weapon.

[The_Jette]

Did you actually read my posts?:smallannoyed:

I said that if Rule Zero, and rules like it (Such as custom spell creation) were removed, the game would still be functional. This shows that the rules don't require a DM, playing a game requires a DM to do things such as control NPCs and give descriptions, but the Rules operate just fine without the DM. Somebody claimed that 3.5 was built around the DM's control of rules, but that's not true because you can play D&D without any DM rulings.

Also it is possible to cut him entirely, though it will be less fun than if the DM was there. It'd still function though.

Yes, I read your posts. You've been insisting that the rules are broken. If the game functions without a DM, then they must work just fine. If they work even better with a DM, then they definitely function as they were intended.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Yes, I read your posts. You've been insisting that the rules are broken. If the game functions without a DM, then they must work just fine. If they work even better with a DM, then they definitely function as they were intended.

"Function" is being used in the most basic sense here. You could run a "functional" game without DM rulings, but it could (and likely would) be broken.

[Morty]

Right, I should've specified that that it was a question about how the GM would ensure all that. Since the discussion is about GM adjudication being the solution.

The more powerful party members helping out the less fortunate ones is a way, but it wouldn't be necessary if their chosen combat methods weren't penalized by the rules. My usage of a dual-wielding fighter and archer rogue was meant to compare them to others of their class, more so than spellcasters.

[Tainted_Scholar]

Yes, I read your posts. You've been insisting that the rules are broken. If the game functions without a DM, then they must work just fine. If they work even better with a DM, then they definitely function as they were intended.

Oh yes the rules function without a DM, but they certainly don't work as intended (Unless you mean to say that Monks make great mage-slayers), and they're less balanced than a really unbalanced thing.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Oh yes the rules function without a DM, but they certainly don't work as intended (Unless you mean to say that Monks make great mage-slayers), and they're less balanced than a really unbalanced thing.

:smallconfused: I couldn't make hide or hair of any of that.

[Tainted_Scholar]

:smallconfused: I couldn't make hide or hair of any of that.

The Rules function, but they're unbalanced and they don't work the way the Game Designers intended (Case in point being Monks, They were intended to be mage slayers but they can't actually kill a mage).

[The_Jette]

"Function" is being used in the most basic sense here. You could run a "functional" game without DM rulings, but it could (and likely would) be broken.

In the end, can you run the game and have fun? Yes? Then the game isn't broken. Can someone comb through the rules to find mechanics that work together in just such a way as to make all challenges meaningless? Yes. Does that make the game broken? Not in my opinion.

And, yes, I'm aware that a lot of the base spells that are used are core. But, they're used in ways that weren't intended. Wish has always been explicitly limited by the DM. In earlier editions it was literally written in the spell to screw over players (not in those words). Polymorph is only over powered when you search through monster manuals to find particularly powerful monsters to turn into that have awesome EX attacks, since that's all you get from it other than physical stats, RAW. Genesis isn't core.

[The_Jette]

The Rules function, but they're unbalanced and they don't work the way the Game Designers intended (Case in point being Monks, They were intended to be mage slayers but they can't actually kill a mage).

The classes are unbalanced. Yes. Nobody said they weren't.

I have, however, built a mage-slaying Monk, and he was awesome. But, he never got above level 12, and the DM was the most stingy DM I've ever played with. If he'd ever seen the ToB I'm sure he'd have burned it for heresy.

[Tainted_Scholar]

In the end, can you run the game and have fun? Yes? Then the game isn't broken. Can someone comb through the rules to find mechanics that work together in just such a way as to make all challenges meaningless? Yes. Does that make the game broken? Not in my opinion.

And, yes, I'm aware that a lot of the base spells that are used are core. But, they're used in ways that weren't intended. Wish has always been explicitly limited by the DM. In earlier editions it was literally written in the spell to screw over players (not in those words). Polymorph is only over powered when you search through monster manuals to find particularly powerful monsters to turn into that have awesome EX attacks, since that's all you get from it other than physical stats, RAW. Genesis isn't core.

It's broken because it's unbalanced and doesn't work as intended. It doesn't matter with some system mastery is required to break it, that still shows that the Game was poorly designed.

[ColorBlindNinja]

In the end, can you run the game and have fun? Yes? Then the game isn't broken. Can someone comb through the rules to find mechanics that work together in just such a way as to make all challenges meaningless? Yes. Does that make the game broken? Not in my opinion.

The game ceases to function in that last instance. How is that not broken?


And, yes, I'm aware that a lot of the base spells that are used are core. But, they're used in ways that weren't intended.

Shapechange lets you transform into power monsters, just as intended.

Simulacrum lets you create obedient minions, just as intended.

Planar Binding/Gate let you call Outsiders and control them, just as intended.

I can go on, if needed.


Wish has always been explicitly limited by the DM. In earlier editions it was literally written in the spell to screw over players (not in those words).

3.5 Wish has plenty of safe effects that can be abused.


Polymorph is only over powered when you search through monster manuals to find particularly powerful monsters to turn into that have awesome EX attacks, since that's all you get from it other than physical stats, RAW.

You have to read the Monster Manuals to use Polymorph at all. Even in core, Treants and Hydras are amazing combat forms.


Genesis isn't core.

How is that relevant?

[Psyren]

The mostly likely outcome here is that Druid turns into an bear and outshines the Fighter in melee. If the Fighter picks a good build, he can do a ton of damage, but if the Druid is similarly optimized, the problem persists.

"Most likely outcome" based on what? Got any statistics? Surveys?


How would you go about doing that? Also, if the Wizard is smart, he'll cast the spell on the Fighter. The Fighter's player might not care, but the DM might be tearing his hair out.

Why on earth would the DM dislike that scenario? Everyone is contributing that way.


I'm aware of the full quote.

...

I'm pretty sure "adjustments" qualify as conversion from 3.0 to 3.5. Not that it matters, as that's once again relying on the DM to fix things. By now, you know how I feel about that.

Adjustment means "alteration." If you're not altering anything, how is it an adjustment?

[Tainted_Scholar]

Adjustment means "alteration." If you're not altering anything, how is it an adjustment?

It still has to be adjusted to work with the new 3.5 rules. Things like DR and other crap have to be changed, you don't just start randomly changing things.

Also if it works just fine with the new 3.5 rules, then it's already adjusted for 3.5.

[ColorBlindNinja]

"Most likely outcome" based on what? Got any statistics? Surveys?

Nothing so formal, more like a gut feeling. I also hear people talk about Druid > Fighter quite a bit.


Why on earth would the DM dislike that scenario? Everyone is contributing that way.

Some DMs might have a tough time building encounters for a Fighter Treant.


Adjustment means "alteration." If you're not altering anything, how is it an adjustment?

So you adjust it from 3.0 to 3.5.

[Nifft]

Nothing so formal, more like a gut feeling. I also hear people talk about Druid > Fighter quite a bit.

Check out "JaronK's Tier list" and Person_Man's niche ranking system (which I happen to have here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?314701-Person_Man-s-Niche-Ranking-System)). Also look up the "Same Game Test".

They're not perfect, none of them are, but they'll give you a better framework to discuss this sort of thing.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Check out "JaronK's Tier list" and Person_Man's niche ranking system (which I happen to have here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?314701-Person_Man-s-Niche-Ranking-System)). Also look up the "Same Game Test".

They're not perfect, none of them are, but they'll give you a better framework to discuss this sort of thing.

I'm familiar with the Tier System and I've casually read Person_Man's Niche Ranking System, I just don't have any polls or surveys for Psyren's question.

Druid > Fighter is pretty well known, and I think that 90% of the time the Druid will outperform the Fighter in the party.

[Tainted_Scholar]

Person_Man's niche ranking system (which I happen to have here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?314701-Person_Man-s-Niche-Ranking-System)).

That's very interesting, I've seen the tier list before but never that.

[Luccan]

I'm familiar with the Tier System and I've casually read Person_Man's Niche Ranking System, I just don't have any polls or surveys for Psyren's question.

Druid > Fighter is pretty well known, and I think that 90% of the time the Druid will outperform the Fighter in the party.

Seriously. Look up the stats of what Druids can turn into (plenty of combat forms that at least rival a fighter), realize casting spells while transformed is a feat away, those same spells can summon better/equal fighters, and you can get a better/equal fighter as a class feature. Plus every other spell on the Druid list.

[Nifft]

Druid > Fighter is pretty well known, and I think that 90% of the time the Druid will outperform the Fighter in the party.
That's probably true.

However, IMHO you should have better arguments at your disposal than "my gut feeling" or "online popularity poll".


That's very interesting, I've seen the tier list before but never that.
It's an interesting way to analyze classes, and additionally it's one tool I use to evaluate party composition.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Seriously. Look up the stats of what Druids can turn into (plenty of combat forms that at least rival a fighter), realize casting spells while transformed is a feat away, those same spells can summon better/equal fighters, and you can get a better/equal fighter as a class feature. Plus every other spell on the Druid list.

I've played Druids before, I know how good Wild Shape is. What Psyren was asking was what percentage of Druids would overshadow their Fighter allies.

Edit:


However, IMHO you should have better arguments at your disposal than "my gut feeling" or "online popularity poll".

I agree with you, but Psyren was actually the one who wanted a poll/survey.

Any Druid who actually uses Wild Shape remotely effectively will likely overshadow most Fighter builds. I'm pretty confident this can be proven mathematically.

[Luccan]

I've played Druids before, I know how good Wild Shape is. What Psyren was asking was what percentage of Druids would overshadow their Fighter allies.


Sorry, I just meant for proof in general, not you specifically.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Sorry, I just meant for proof in general, not you specifically.

That's alright. Thanks for the suggestions.

[lord_khaine]

Seriously. Look up the stats of what Druids can turn into (plenty of combat forms that at least rival a fighter), realize casting spells while transformed is a feat away, those same spells can summon better/equal fighters, and you can get a better/equal fighter as a class feature. Plus every other spell on the Druid list.

All those things does add up to a greater whole, but no. The basic combat forms like black bear or brown bear are inferior to a fighter. The lower level summons are not quite as strong. The animal companion is not nearly as strong.

[ColorBlindNinja]

All those things does add up to a greater whole, but no. The basic combat forms like black bear or brown bear are inferior to a fighter. The lower level summons are not quite as strong. The animal companion is not nearly as strong.

Not in core, but Fleshraker and Greenbound Summoning disagree with you.

Edit:

Plus, if that Fighter is poorly built, I suspect that the bears are better. So are Riding Dogs at level 1.

[Psyren]

Nothing so formal, more like a gut feeling. I also hear people talk about Druid > Fighter quite a bit.

Sure they do, just like you hear about Pun-pun and the Mailman quite a bit. Forum chatter always trends towards focusing on class potential. But when you read about actual games, there are just as many stories of the Fighter saving the day and the Barbarian being OP.

For the record, I'm not at all denying that Druids are stronger than Fighters. But people feeling as overshadowed as you think, happens a lot less frequently in actual games than forums would have you believe.



Some DMs might have a tough time building encounters for a Fighter Treant.

I don't see how, that's easy.


So you adjust it from 3.0 to 3.5.

You changed the edition, not the ability.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Sure they do, just like you hear about Pun-pun and the Mailman quite a bit. Forum chatter always trends towards focusing on class potential. But when you read about actual games, there are just as many stories of the Fighter saving the day and the Barbarian being OP.

All the Druid has to do is use Wild Shape and they're likely better than the Fighter.


For the record, I'm not at all denying that Druids are stronger than Fighters. But people feeling as overshadowed as you think, happens a lot less frequently in actual games than forums would have you believe.

Kinda hard to determine that, though, without some more concrete data.


I don't see how, that's easy.

You're not a noob DM.


You changed the edition, not the ability.

Changing editions sometimes necessitates changing the ability. For example, partial actions don't exist in 3.5, you have to update them to standard actions.

[Calthropstu]

What I have a problem with, is that's not an excuse for bad design.

If it's bad design, if you think this game is so broken why play? You are arguing over minor issues imho. And 20 years of gaming as one of the top played game rulesets seems to indicate the game is neither badly designed nor broken. You can argue a particular rule or ability can be abused... it only breaks the game if the gm allows it to do so.
Go ahead and try making punpun work in an actual game... bet it doesn't fly. Sure, polymorph can be abused... boom, gm rulechanges in PF version. The game is not broken. And if you have a problem with gm fixes, find a different game to play that doesn't allow them. I hear HeroQuest and Descent are nice...

[Zanos]

If it's bad design, if you think this game is so broken why play? You are arguing over minor issues imho. And 20 years of gaming as one of the top played game rulesets seems to indicate the game is neither badly designed nor broken. You can argue a particular rule or ability can be abused... it only breaks the game if the gm allows it to do so.
Go ahead and try making punpun work in an actual game... bet it doesn't fly. Sure, polymorph can be abused... boom, gm rulechanges in PF version. The game is not broken. And if you have a problem with gm fixes, find a different game to play that doesn't allow them. I hear HeroQuest and Descent are nice...
The people who enjoy something are in the best position to criticize it, as they understand the material extensively. Not everything I enjoy is a 10/10 and completely devoid of flaws, and I will point out those flaws.

[ColorBlindNinja]

If it's bad design, if you think this game is so broken why play?

It's possible to like something while examining its flaws.


You are arguing over minor issues imho.

The fact that the game can be broken and the massive imbalance between casters and marital classes are minor issues?


And 20 years of gaming as one of the top played game rulesets seems to indicate the game is neither badly designed nor broken.

No, this is just a variant of Ad Populum.


You can argue a particular rule or ability can be abused... it only breaks the game if the gm allows it to do so.

Just because the DM can fix it, doesn't mean it isn't broken.


Go ahead and try making punpun work in an actual game... bet it doesn't fly.

The fact that Pun Pun is a thing at all is appallingly bad design.


Sure, polymorph can be abused... boom, gm rulechanges in PF version.

We're talking about 3.5, not PF, and that fix doesn't work for Simulacrum.


The game is not broken.

You have yet to prove this.


And if you have a problem with gm fixes, find a different game to play that doesn't allow them.

I don't have a problem with the DM fixing things in an actual game. But that's not a valid argument against 3.5 being broken.

[Tainted_Scholar]

If it's bad design, if you think this game is so broken why play? You are arguing over minor issues imho. And 20 years of gaming as one of the top played game rulesets seems to indicate the game is neither badly designed nor broken. You can argue a particular rule or ability can be abused... it only breaks the game if the gm allows it to do so.
Go ahead and try making punpun work in an actual game... bet it doesn't fly. Sure, polymorph can be abused... boom, gm rulechanges in PF version. The game is not broken. And if you have a problem with gm fixes, find a different game to play that doesn't allow them. I hear HeroQuest and Descent are nice...

I play because I like the game, but it's still broken. You can't claim that it isn't, when balance is practically nonexistent and the game doesn't function as intended. It doesn't matter how enjoyable of an experience it is, it's still horribly designed.

It's like Pokémon Red&Blue, they're fun games but their terribly programmed. Glitches are abound and they failed to make sure major mechanics work. I still enjoy playing it, but I'm not going to delude myself into claiming that it was well made.

Also will you stop with the Oberoni Fallacy!?

[ColorBlindNinja]

It's like Pokémon Red&Blue, they're fun games but their terribly programmed. Glitches are abound and they failed to make sure major mechanics work. I still enjoy playing it, but I'm not going to delude myself into claiming that it was well made.

Pokemon Red/Green are even worse in the glitch department.

[Psyren]

The people who enjoy something are in the best position to criticize it, as they understand the material extensively. Not everything I enjoy is a 10/10 and completely devoid of flaws, and I will point out those flaws.

I get that. But there is no specific flaw being discussed here, nor any practical/actionable solutions being proposed for said flaw - just "the game is unbalanced." (Brilliant deduction there, Watson.) I have to wonder, are we still going to be making threads about 3.5 balance in 2027, while everyone else is playing 6e/7e? I guess I just can't fathom the mindset and never will. And even if we all were to sit around the table and nod our heads at each other in agreement, this same thread will reappear in a week, or a month, or a year with its same banal conclusions.

Nothing against 4e, but I'm honestly glad it was underwhelming, if for no other reason than it proved attempting to meet "fans" halfway and chase the "balance" unicorn serves no purpose. (Not the only mistake they made,but still.) Might as well just make the game you want to make, and shut the messageboards off completely. I could at least respect Legend, because those guys were trying to solve what they saw as the problem instead of going in endless circles about it.

[Zanos]

I get that. But there is no specific flaw being discussed here, nor any practical/actionable solutions being proposed for said flaw - just "the game is unbalanced." (Brilliant deduction there, Watson.) I have to wonder, are we still going to be making threads about 3.5 balance in 2027, while everyone else is playing 6e/7e? I guess I just can't fathom the mindset and never will. And even if we all were to sit around the table and nod our heads at each other in agreement, this same thread will reappear in a week, or a month, or a year with its same banal conclusions.
You have to address that a flaw exists before you can address it specifically. In general, 3.5 has balance problems. Apparently some people disagree with that assessment. I agree these arguments are banal and cyclical, but I am bored and people are wrong on the internet. Nobodies here for anything constructive, really.


Nothing against 4e, but I'm honestly glad it was underwhelming, if for no other reason than it proved attempting to meet "fans" halfway and chase the "balance" unicorn serves no purpose. (Not the only mistake they made,but still.) Might as well just make the game you want to make, and shut the messageboards off completely. I could at least respect Legend, because those guys were trying to solve what they saw as the problem instead of going in endless circles about it.
Whether or not balance is desirable is a good point.

[Psyren]

You have to address that a flaw exists before you can address it specifically. In general, 3.5 has balance problems.

I did exactly that. First post in this thread:


It's not [balanced], but at the same time, "balance" doesn't matter nearly as much as forums think it does.

Next question.


I agree these arguments are banal and cyclical, but I am bored and people are wrong on the internet. Nobodies here for anything constructive, really.


I have a constructive purpose - telling people to combine the best bits of PF, 3.5, and third-party to solve most of their problems.

That, or go and play 4e if balance is their primary concern, that works too.

[ColorBlindNinja]

I have a constructive purpose - telling people to combine the best bits of PF, 3.5, and third-party to solve most of their problems.

That, or go and play 4e if balance is their primary concern, that works too.

We're discussing why people have misconceptions about Core being balanced, not how to fix it.

[Psyren]

We're discussing why people have misconceptions about Core being balanced, not how to fix it.

Is it? Because the impression I'm getting is that this thread believes everyone who enjoys the game despite it being unbalanced is somehow blissfully unaware that it is unbalanced, rather than knowing and simply not caring.

I mean, I'm sure there certainly are people out there who don't realize 3.5 is unbalanced, just like I'm sure there are people out there who think leaving their fridge open all day will cool down their house when the AC is busted, or that there are people who think bulls hate the color red. I generally don't make threads about those people, but they exist.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Is it? Because the impression I'm getting is that this thread believes everyone who enjoys the game despite it being unbalanced is somehow blissfully unaware that it is unbalanced, rather than knowing and simply not caring.

No, but I disagree with the posters who maintain that the game isn't unbalanced/broken.


I mean, I'm sure there certainly are people out there who don't realize 3.5 is unbalanced, just like I'm sure there are people out there who think leaving their fridge open all day will cool down their house when the AC is busted, or that there are people who think bulls hate the color red. I generally don't make threads about those people, but they exist.

I've heard of some stupid people, but is there anyone who seriously thinks using their refrigerator open to cool their house is a good idea?

Edit:

Please say no, or else I may lose what little faith I have in humanity. :smallfrown:

[Tainted_Scholar]

Is it? Because the impression I'm getting is that this thread believes everyone who enjoys the game despite it being unbalanced is somehow blissfully unaware that it is unbalanced, rather than knowing and simply not caring.

I have stated multiple times on this thread that I enjoy 3.5 despite it being horribly designed.


I mean, I'm sure there certainly are people out there who don't realize 3.5 is unbalanced, just like I'm sure there are people out there who think leaving their fridge open all day will cool down their house when the AC is busted, or that there are people who think bulls hate the color red. I generally don't make threads about those people, but they exist.

Yes, but that's because we're not Bull enthusiasts, this isn't a Bull forum, and those people will probably believe you if you tell them they're wrong and drop the subject.

[Zanos]

I have stated multiple times on this thread that I enjoy 3.5 despite it being horribly designed.
Same here.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Yes, but that's because we're not Bull enthusiasts, this isn't a Bull forum, and those people will probably believe you if you tell them they're wrong.

Now I'm imagining a cowboy convention where people talk about bulls.

[Jormengand]

I've heard of some stupid people, but is there anyone who seriously thinks using their refrigerator open to cool their house is a good idea?

It's not actually that stupid a belief if you don't actually understand how refrigerators work. If you think they actually reduce heat rather than moving heat (and why would you think anything else if you didn't know?) then assuming they would work to cool your house isn't necessarily stupid.

Also, technically they can cool your house if placed right.

Also also, whether or not they actually cool your house overall is kinda outside the point - fans warm up your house too, but they can cool you specifically down. This is also practically the fundamental operating principle of a fridge (make certain areas cold even if heating up area overall), which is why using the fridge to cool your house (or at least the bits of your house with you in them) actually temporarily works.

So it's not as overtly stupid an idea as you might think.

[ColorBlindNinja]

It's not actually that stupid a belief if you don't actually understand how refrigerators work. If you think they actually reduce heat rather than moving heat (and why would you think anything else if you didn't know?) then assuming they would work to cool your house isn't necessarily stupid.

Also, technically they can cool your house if placed right.

Also also, whether or not they actually cool your house overall is kinda outside the point - fans warm up your house too, but they can cool you specifically down. This is also practically the fundamental operating principle of a fridge (make certain areas cold even if heating up area overall), which is why using the fridge to cool your house (or at least the bits of your house with you in them) actually temporarily works.

So it's not as overtly stupid an idea as you might think.

Until you get the electric bill...

[Jormengand]

Until you get the electric bill...

Ugh, now I have to drag out all of the convection equations which I've never used before. Fiiiiine.

The fridge is ultimately cooling all the air inside it, which will flow out of it because that's how convection works. There's a bunch of equations relating to how fast that happens, which boil down to Q=hAΔT, which means that the energy transferred per second is equal to the coefficient of heat transfer, which is a number relating to how well air convects (which is about 50, apparently), times the surface area (which is probably about two square metres for a small fridge), times the temperature difference (which is probably about 30 degrees C), so we're saying that every second you're transferring 3000J of energy, which is 0.00083(333...) KWH. That many KWHs-1 is pretty much exactly 3 KW, which is apparently about £0.36H-1, or 36 pence (47 US cents) per hour.

So it's not exactly cheap, but given that my calculation ignores facts like "It's not actually doing the work to cool down the stuff inside, just moving the heat which is easier" and "It will lower ΔT by cooling the air in front of it" it's probably cheaper than the number I came up with just then.

...

Let's talk about 3.5 some more.

[Psyren]

I have stated multiple times on this thread that I enjoy 3.5 despite it being horribly designed.


Same here.

And this is why you have a 13-page thread. Because "acknowledge that 3.5 is flawed" is not your agenda. Your agenda is to **** on the game by saying it is "horribly/terribly designed." I would posit that any game capable of becoming an enduring institution like this one can't possibly be "horrible." Flawed, absolutely, but your hyperbole has no basis in reality.

[Lord Raziere]

And this is why you have a 13-page thread. Because "acknowledge that 3.5 is flawed" is not your agenda. Your agenda is to **** on the game by saying it is "horribly/terribly designed." I would posit that any game capable of becoming an enduring institution like this one can't possibly be "horrible." Flawed, absolutely, but your hyperbole has no basis in reality.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAAAA........

thats appeal to tradition. just because something has a long history, doesn't mean its good.

y'know what other game is popular in its small niche market? Warhammer 40,000. Its been around around to since 1987. the reason its still around is not because its a good game, its horrible, some Codexes get new shiny updates that make the already powerful Space Marines even more powerful, while others haven't been updated for years- Dark Eldar? once gone without an update for 12 years. Adepta Sororitas are still waiting for theirs. its basically the most if not the entire wargaming miniature market, and people play it not because its good, but because its the only one in town.

basically, not all that different from DnD really: they're both the most popular game in their niche market, and they both pile on unnecessary updates to things that are already popular so that their core thing that they sell everyone on in the first gets more stuff, while the other stuff that requires more barrier to entry gets neglected because the space marines rules are so good that no one plays anything else, when do try to play anything else they find it harder because of the different strategies, thus the company doesn't produce as much for them, because the company doesn't produce much for them, people don't play them as much, leading to a vicious cycle where one part of the game gets expanded more and more while another part is left to dry.

And now you know why there are so many books about wizards: WotC accidentally made them better than everything else, then mindlessly produced books for to expand on that. the whole thing is a self-fulfilling prophecy: if a company doesn't think something will sell they won't put as much effort into selling it, and if the fans don't prove them wrong and say their bad and ignore such things, they will continue to be ignored and left out to dry.

thus is the way of things. randomly choose something to be better because of your preconceptions and it will be because of your self-fulfilling prophecy. thus will it be fulfilled through your own actions and reactions to someone reacting to that action. say wizards are better, and people will make them better. why do think elves and drow are so numerous? because people loved them, were sold by what they were, and thus the self-fulfilling prophecy of "elves are awesome" made them more and more awesome as time went by. then when some people started getting sick of it and saying "elves are NOT awesome!" we now get things like Dragon age elves and such because of that self-fulfilling prophecy.

see? its not good. wizards just have a very strong self-fulfilling prophecy through being a memetic nerd god.

[Psyren]

thats appeal to tradition. just because something has a long history, doesn't mean its good.

Fallacy fallacy. Doesn't mean it's bad either.

I agree with you on Warhammer.


if a company doesn't think something will sell they won't put as much effort into selling it, and if the fans don't prove them wrong and say their bad and ignore such things, they will continue to be ignored and left out to dry.

Shouldn't your issue be with the fans then? It's our fault for having fun and spending money, after all.

[Lord Raziere]

Shouldn't your issue be with the fans then? It's our fault for having fun and spending money, after all.

Yet, you wouldn't start having fun if they didn't design it that way and make you have the most fun with wizards wouldn't they? if they designed fighters to the most fun class, and gave wizards the bad treatment, the situation would be reversed. the fact that you arbitrary place the wizard as most fun and the fighter as lower tier, is a trick of perception, a self-fulfilling prophecy started by the game mechanics, nothing more.

This is not about you or your personal issues on how much you had with the game. this is about principles of design. a bad system that turns out to be fun on accident is still a bad system,t hat doesn't change that you had fun.

lots of people also have fun watching bad movies by making fun of them and spinning an alternative narrative makes more sense to them than the actual movie as well, but if was a good movie, they would not have to make the effort.

[Cosi]

Wishing for more wishes is not a significant issue, because the consequences are so obvious and I think about 99.9% of groups will disallow it one way or another. It's the structural issues, the ones that creep up on you, where the system really shows its flaws.

I disagree, because I don't think this is something you discover by just looking at the rules. Sometimes that happens, and when that happens its a good thing, but what happens more often is that the break shows up incrementally, and then finally prompts an overwhelming response that is, if not worse, pretty bad. Someone casts planar binding and summons something to fight, or heal, or scout or whatever. And then eventually it occurs to them to summon an Efreet. And maybe they do that for a while in a way that's pretty fair. But then eventually it occurs to them that hey, they can get this guy to summon three more Efreet, and then things spiral. And this probably happens during the game, in response to some big challenge, and the game either grinds to a halt in the middle of a climax to figure out a fix that works well and is minimally intrusive, or the DM makes a ruling that has side effects he hasn't thought of.

For an example of this, recall a long-ago thread about wish on these forums where Psyren argued that you couldn't get a free wish from an ice assassin Efreet because the overwhelming desire of the ice assassin to kill its target overrode the mental control the spell gave you. That's really, really, really stupid, but it's the kind of thing you get if you allow problems -- even obvious problems no sane group would allow -- to fester.


.....That thread is both educational and completely hilarious. I'm going to have remember this.

The Gaming Den as a whole is pretty great for that. If you can get past the somewhat ... abrasive tone a lot of posters have there, it contains an incredible amount of information about game design (including several actual games people there made for fun). There are a lot of in depth discussions about various game design issues (for example, there was an interesting thread about the resource management mechanics that best fit Avatar: The Last Airbender). Unfortunately, the actual forum is kind of dead at this point.


Magic the Gathering, a game by the same company, is probably about as complex and is balanced by hard unambiguous rules interpretation. When it isn't the company fixes it, not the local judges.

Magic The Gathering is basically everything people claim D&D can't be, and it's made by the exact same company. It's really weird to hear people argue that you can't make a game that's complicated, balanced, and dynamic when Magic is sitting right there being all of those things. Like, even the meta-design framework Magic uses is better than D&D, because the head designer sits down every year and writes an article that makes a (fairly) reasonable and honest accounting of the game's failures. Take a look at the latest article in the series (http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/state-design-2016-2016-08-29). Look at it! It talks about what worked, what didn't, and what they plan to do differently in the future to address things. Is D&D doing this somewhere I don't hear about it? Because the designers of D&D should absolutely do this instead of saying things like "lol try and make books run ur game u powergamer".

And it makes stupid more money than D&D does, so any complaints about how those things would run the gravy train are pretty clearly bunk.


Honestly, the suggestion that MtG is anywhere near as complex as D&D is so insanely far off base that I don't even know where to go from here in this conversation. It reveals a deep lack of understanding that I don't have any idea how to bridge.

The comprehensive rules of Magic are over 200 pages long, and include none of the filler that D&D rule books do (like fluff, or monster stats). It seems to me that the burden is clearly on you to show Magic is less complex than D&D.


How do you prevent the fighter from being inept at their one and only job? Their choice of weapon style hinders them greatly, and the druid can outshine them in crucial battles via wildshape. Even without wildshape, limited as it is, they contribute another melee combatant through their animal companion. Which is not quite on the level of a PC fighter... but the fighter is using a weak fighting style, so it's closer than it could be.

How do you make sure the rogue can contribute to combat, with their Sneak Attack being very hard to use at range?

How do you make sure the sorcerer isn't outpaced by the wizard, given that a well-placed crowd control or buff spell is more effective than direct damage?

Well the first answer is that you don't let this happen, because you play with a subset of D&D that doesn't include both Fighters and Wizards at the same time, and you have players talk and help eachother when building characters.

But if you are given this party ex nihilo the answer is that you give the people who are underperforming magic items that compensate, probably with rules ripped from Weapons of Legacy. Give the Fighter dual swords that give him totally arbitrary damage and mobility bonuses. Give the Rogue a crossbow that lets them snipe at max range. Give the Sorcerer a staff that buffs blasting. Maybe give the Wizard and Druid some non-combat bonuses.


Nothing against 4e, but I'm honestly glad it was underwhelming, if for no other reason than it proved attempting to meet "fans" halfway and chase the "balance" unicorn serves no purpose. (Not the only mistake they made,but still.) Might as well just make the game you want to make, and shut the messageboards off completely. I could at least respect Legend, because those guys were trying to solve what they saw as the problem instead of going in endless circles about it.

4e changed a lot of things, and pointing to any one thing as the reason for its failure is, to some degree, stupid. 4e removed Sorcerers from core. I'm sure Lord Drako could explain at length why this was the root of 4e's failure. 4e changed the level cap. 4e added skill challenges. 4e made monster's stats less obviously derivable. 4e made combat take longer. 4e made everyone use the same resource management system. 4e removed Gnomes, Barbarians, and Bards from the PHB. 4e added Warlocks and Warlords to the PHB. 4e added Paragon Paths. 4e removed PrCs. 4e made even more changes than I can possibly list, and saying that "make the game balanced" was, to the exclusion of all others, the reason it failed is at best unlikely.

But all that is a fundamentally defensive argument. It challenges the narrative Psyren is pushing to fuel his "Fighters need to suck" agenda, but it doesn't propose a different one. So why did 4e fail (assuming the reason is some fundamental choice 4e made and not something simpler like "the people making it were incompetent")? 4e wasn't underwhelming because it was balanced. 4e was underwhelming because it removed the ability of characters like Wizards and Clerics to control the advancement of the plot. The failure of 4e was that the designers listened to people like you who want the game to be a sandbox the DM creates where players are occasionally allowed to choose between paths he created for them.

If you wanted to test this, you could imagine two games. One is like 4e, except half the classes have been randomly given a power progression that is twice what the game has now. The other is like 4e, except that each character gains a non-combat spell (with some scaling level cap) from 3e 1/day/tier every level. Which game seems like it would be better? Which game is more balanced?


And this is why you have a 13-page thread. Because "acknowledge that 3.5 is flawed" is not your agenda. Your agenda is to **** on the game by saying it is "horribly/terribly designed." I would posit that any game capable of becoming an enduring institution like this one can't possibly be "horrible." Flawed, absolutely, but your hyperbole has no basis in reality.

My agenda is to cause there to be better games. And an important part of that is examining the flaws of games. What they are, where they come from, and how they effect play. Just saying "it works good enough" abdicates the possibility of ever making anything better. If the games of 20 years from now don't make it obvious that 3e is horrible, game design as an industry will have failed horribly.

Remember, you could have made these arguments in favor of any edition of D&D before 3e too. Should we not have released 3e because 2e was "clearly good enough" to last? Was going from OD&D to AD&D a mistake?

[Psyren]

Yet, you wouldn't start having fun if they didn't design it that way and make you have the most fun with wizards wouldn't they? if they designed fighters to the most fun class, and gave wizards the bad treatment, the situation would be reversed. the fact that you arbitrary place the wizard as most fun and the fighter as lower tier, is a trick of perception, a self-fulfilling prophecy started by the game mechanics, nothing more.

I don't actually see wizards as most fun. In fact, I enjoy playing "weak" martial classes and defeating challenges with them. The fact that it's an uphill battle (and logically so, since you're not a spellcaster yourself) has strong appeal.

When I do play magic users, it's almost never to their full potential. I'm well aware of chain-gating solars and ice assassins and all the rest of it. I just... don't.



This is not about you or your personal issues on how much you had with the game. this is about principles of design. a bad system that turns out to be fun on accident is still a bad system,t hat doesn't change that you had fun.

lots of people also have fun watching bad movies by making fun of them and spinning an alternative narrative makes more sense to them than the actual movie as well, but if was a good movie, they would not have to make the effort.

My objection is that I think your connotations are too harsh. When you use terms like "horrible" and "bad", it erases all nuance from the discussion and invalidates any good qualities the system may have. It's like going out with someone and then calling them ugly - it doesn't really matter what else you have to say about them at that point, like how good their table manners or conversation were, it's clear that it's just not going to work out. I find that unfair.

There's also the issue that it presents your own opinion of the system as unassailable fact, but that's endemic around here anyway.

[Florian]

Wow, I begin to understand why the old "Forge" discussions were met with such resentment, nay, hatred, by parts of the D&D community.

The stubborn belief that there´s any way to turn D&D into a self-contained game that can cover each and every situation by itself, based on rules not gm adjuration, is childish, especially while still using the same amount of discreet, partially self-contained rules-elements instead of switching over to the abstract level (see Fate).

It´s even more amusing that the systems that went that way, like 4E and partly 5E, get so much flak, as they removed the points that cannot, under any circumstances, work in the way part of the community sees as broken and in need of a change, while at the same time wanting things to stay ho they are.

[Lord Raziere]

I don't actually see wizards as most fun. In fact, I enjoy playing "weak" martial classes and defeating challenges with them. The fact that it's an uphill battle (and logically so, since you're not a spellcaster yourself) has strong appeal.

When I do play magic users, it's almost never to their full potential. I'm well aware of chain-gating solars and ice assassins and all the rest of it. I just... don't.

My objection is that I think your connotations are too harsh. When you use terms like "horrible" and "bad", it erases all nuance from the discussion and invalidates any good qualities the system may have. It's like going out with someone and then calling them ugly - it doesn't really matter what else you have to say about them at that point, like how good their table manners or conversation were, it's clear that it's just not going to work out. I find that unfair.

There's also the issue that it presents your own opinion of the system as unassailable fact, but that's endemic around here anyway.

1. Good for you! This isn't about that. This isn't about your experiences. This isn't about you. You don't speak for everyone. A farmer can kill people with a scythe, and a lot of medieval farmers had scythes and probably used them as weapons. Not because the scythe is a good weapon, its not. Its because like DnD 3.5 its all they had when started getting into war, and sure some farmers were probably content with using the scythe to kill people as is no matter how hard and some smart people managed to modify into an actually good weapon called the war scythe which is basically just making it into a weird kind of spear, but it doesn't change the fact that better weapons existed. Like an actual spear or a sword. and given the choice, one would kill somebody with a spear, something actually designed for what its supposed to do. Sure your a scythe wielder who has probably killed a lot of people with your scythe because you gotten used to wielding that scythe and know all those scythe-based tactics no one else bothered to learn because of how awkward it is fight with a scythe, but your still wielding a scythe at the end of the day and a spear is simply a better weapon that can be more easily taught to fight with because of its simplicity. because that is simply good principles of war.

much like how making the system so that everyone doesn't have these wildly conflicting styles of play that cause these problems is simply good game design. good game design should not be designed around people that can have fun with anything. Because you can have fun with ANYTHING. you don't need those principles. good game design is about figuring out the problems of people who can't and mitigating them so that they can have fun without experiencing the problems that your okay with. thats why so many rpgs outside DnD 3.5 take steps to streamline the process- not everyone is a good roleplayer like you, not everyone can take a complicated awkward jigsaw puzzle of a system and pull a working game out of that. not everyone wants the challenge, wants to make the effort nor does everyone want to read a book so long, or care to memorize all that you have. they just want to sit down. and PLAY. without worrying about whether or not they made the right choice of character for this encounter. without worrying and constantly working for their warrior just to be useful. some people just want usefulness as a given so they can have fun, and not worry about the out of character uphill battle of a class vs. class that serves no point. just because you don't see the point of these things, doesn't mean other people don't need them. the rules quite simply should be a safety net and support for those people to keep them from falling down into unfun. and I'm sure you've introduced a new player and was easy for you to make it work from scratch and on individual level but unless you propose to clone yourself to give lessons on how to roleplay effectively for all time to all roleplayers ever so that they're just as competent as you at roleplaying and 3.5 mechanics, I'm afraid some changes will have to be made.

So keep talking about how much fun you have with 3.5, it has nothing to do with system quality. Because hey, you know what you can also have fun with? making sculptures out of wrecked pieces of junk. I'm serious, you could probably have so much fun just putting random junk together into some work of art, lord knows the dadaists did. Doesn't change the fact that many artists still use high quality clay their sculptures instead. because clay surprisingly is much easier to sculpt for most people and therefore more fun than a bunch of broken wood and scrap iron. Your subjective experiences has nothing to do with objective system quality. Much like how no matter whatever cool thing you make out of random junk because its more challenging or whatever, clay is an objectively better material to sculpt with.

2. responding to tone then. that has nothing to do with my argument and isn't really rational at all. so its not really valid criticism.

[emeraldstreak]

I don't actually see wizards as most fun. In fact, I enjoy playing "weak" martial classes and defeating challenges with them. The fact that it's an uphill battle (and logically so, since you're not a spellcaster yourself) has strong appeal.

When I do play magic users, it's almost never to their full potential. I'm well aware of chain-gating solars and ice assassins and all the rest of it. I just... don't.


Oddly, people of low mechanical skill often put great deal of importance in how "powerful" their characters are, and feel inferior when they're shown wrong.


Meanwhile, people of high mechanical skill often put little importance in the power of characters they play in actual games.

[Psyren]

This isn't about you. You don't speak for everyone.

I never claimed to :smallconfused:
All I'm doing is pointing out that you don't speak for everyone when you say the game is horrible and bad.

It might be because I haven't had my coffee yet, but I can't parse the rambling scythe analogy at all.


Good game design should not be designed around people that can have fun with anything. Because you can have fun with ANYTHING. you don't need those principles. good game design is about figuring out the problems of people who can't and mitigating them so that they can have fun without experiencing the problems that your okay with.

Do you honestly think 3.X's enduring popularity is due to people that can "have fun with anything?" Implying then that all the normal people who can't do so are being left out in the cold?



thats why so many rpgs outside DnD 3.5 take steps to streamline the process- not everyone is a good roleplayer like you, not everyone can take a complicated awkward jigsaw puzzle of a system and pull a working game out of that. not everyone wants the challenge, wants to make the effort nor does everyone want to read a book so long, or care to memorize all that you have. they just want to sit down. and PLAY. without worrying about whether or not they made the right choice of character for this encounter. without worrying and constantly working for their warrior just to be useful. some people just want usefulness as a given so they can have fun, and not worry about the out of character uphill battle of a class vs. class that serves no point. just because you don't see the point of these things, doesn't mean other people don't need them. the rules quite simply should be a safety net and support for those people to keep them from falling down into unfun. and I'm sure you've introduced a new player and was easy for you to make it work from scratch and on individual level but unless you propose to clone yourself to give lessons on how to roleplay effectively for all time to all roleplayers ever so that they're just as competent as you at roleplaying and 3.5 mechanics, I'm afraid some changes will have to be made.

As we've discussed before, you can't change 3.5 (except at your own table, via houserules). Your choices are to either do that, or play something else - that's it. And while I can think of a number of ways to improve 3.5, uprooting the rules-heavy underpinnings of the entire game is not one of them.


2. responding to tone then. that has nothing to do with my argument and isn't really rational at all. so its not really valid criticism.

Words mean things, and tone is part of meaning. So yes, it is in fact rational to point out that your word choice may be at odds with your message. And if it is not, and you truly mean to say things like "horrible" rather than "flawed", then see first response.

[Zanos]

y'know what other game is popular in its small niche market? Warhammer 40,000. Its been around around to since 1987. the reason its still around is not because its a good game, its horrible, some Codexes get new shiny updates that make the already powerful Space Marines even more powerful, while others haven't been updated for years- Dark Eldar? once gone without an update for 12 years. Adepta Sororitas are still waiting for theirs. its basically the most if not the entire wargaming miniature market, and people play it not because its good, but because its the only one in town.
The broken codexes were almost always a result of GW getting some fanboy of that faction to write the codex for some insane reason. 40k, by far, has the best lore of any tabletop wargame I can think of, which is really important when you put so much work into painting an army of your dudes. 40k has also never been close to as unbalanced as D&D is, there were broken models but GW usually fixed them after it got really bad, and they usually had some niche counters.

Dark Eldar are dumb anyway.

8th looks really good so far, in any case. Can't wait to one shot Knights with my Necron pylons and bust out mah Stompas loaded wit dakka.


Magic The Gathering is basically everything people claim D&D can't be, and it's made by the exact same company. It's really weird to hear people argue that you can't make a game that's complicated, balanced, and dynamic when Magic is sitting right there being all of those things. Like, even the meta-design framework Magic uses is better than D&D, because the head designer sits down every year and writes an article that makes a (fairly) reasonable and honest accounting of the game's failures. Take a look at the latest article in the series (http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/state-design-2016-2016-08-29). Look at it! It talks about what worked, what didn't, and what they plan to do differently in the future to address things. Is D&D doing this somewhere I don't hear about it? Because the designers of D&D should absolutely do this instead of saying things like "lol try and make books run ur game u powergamer".

And it makes stupid more money than D&D does, so any complaints about how those things would run the gravy train are pretty clearly bunk.
I don't want to draw too much of an equivalency because Magic is a highly competitive game with tournaments all the time with actual money on the line, and D&D is a cooperative RPG mostly about killing monsters and drinking beer. I just reject the claim that it's impossible to have a game that's both complex and balanced.

[ColorBlindNinja]

And this is why you have a 13-page thread. Because "acknowledge that 3.5 is flawed" is not your agenda. Your agenda is to **** on the game by saying it is "horribly/terribly designed." I would posit that any game capable of becoming an enduring institution like this one can't possibly be "horrible." Flawed, absolutely, but your hyperbole has no basis in reality.

No basis in reality... Really? In a game with such massive imbalances between classes? 3.5 is poorly designed; I take issue with the people who claim otherwise.


I disagree, because I don't think this is something you discover by just looking at the rules. Sometimes that happens, and when that happens its a good thing, but what happens more often is that the break shows up incrementally, and then finally prompts an overwhelming response that is, if not worse, pretty bad. Someone casts planar binding and summons something to fight, or heal, or scout or whatever. And then eventually it occurs to them to summon an Efreet. And maybe they do that for a while in a way that's pretty fair. But then eventually it occurs to them that hey, they can get this guy to summon three more Efreet, and then things spiral. And this probably happens during the game, in response to some big challenge, and the game either grinds to a halt in the middle of a climax to figure out a fix that works well and is minimally intrusive, or the DM makes a ruling that has side effects he hasn't thought of.

This is more or less what I meant when I said the game can break by accident.


For an example of this, recall a long-ago thread about wish on these forums where Psyren argued that you couldn't get a free wish from an ice assassin Efreet because the overwhelming desire of the ice assassin to kill its target overrode the mental control the spell gave you. That's really, really, really stupid, but it's the kind of thing you get if you allow problems -- even obvious problems no sane group would allow -- to fester.

This is a bit off topic, but Ice Assassin explicitly states that you have absolute control over it; it will follow your orders without question. :smallsigh: I just had to get that out there.

[Tainted_Scholar]

And this is why you have a 13-page thread. Because "acknowledge that 3.5 is flawed" is not your agenda. Your agenda is to **** on the game by saying it is "horribly/terribly designed." I would posit that any game capable of becoming an enduring institution like this one can't possibly be "horrible." Flawed, absolutely, but your hyperbole has no basis in reality.

Why do you think you know what my agenda is?:smallannoyed: If I seem harsh or angry, it's because I'm purposefully highlighting the game's flaws. People were claiming that 3.5 wasn't poorly designed, so I felt the need to show it's problems. I wasn't exaggerating or using hyperbole, but at the same time I was annoyed, so I was being harsher than normal. Ultimately though, everything I said was true.

[Psyren]

Magic works because there is absolutely no subjectivity. The rules text on the cards are effectively pseudocode that tells you exactly what will happen in every situation. And on the rare occasion when something is unclear, they issue errata immediately because tournament and collector money are on the line. They can afford to do this because Magic is a competitive game that pays for all this extra development easily.

D&D is nothing like that; in addition to being far less profitable, there's all kinds of subjectivity, especially in the latest version that they're trying to push to the exclusion of all others as they usually do where almost none of the DCs are static and the GM has to decide. There's also no caster/martial disparity because in Magic, every color is casters. (I mean come on, it's right there in the name.) And lastly, Magic is geared around the duel as the basic unit of encounter. You don't have to worry about things like social skills and exploration in Magic, and even combat is simplified to very basic math. It's not even apples to oranges, it's apples to assault rifles.


No basis in reality... Really? In a game with such massive imbalances between classes? 3.5 is poorly designed; I take issue with the people who claim otherwise.

I'm not claiming otherwise. 3.5 is flawed. 3.5 is flawed. 3.5 is flawed. Clear enough?

I'm taking issue with loaded, hyperbolic terms like "horrible."



This is a bit off topic, but Ice Assassin explicitly states that you have absolute control over it; it will follow your orders without question. :smallsigh: I just had to get that out there.

There's a forum rule against baggage between threads so I'm not letting either of you drag me there.

[Tainted_Scholar]

I'm not claiming otherwise. 3.5 is flawed. 3.5 is flawed. 3.5 is flawed. Clear enough?

I'm taking issue with loaded, hyperbolic terms like "horrible."

It's not a horrible game, but it is a horribly designed game. I never said the game itself was terrible.

[Psyren]

It's not a horrible game, but it is a horribly designed game. I never said the game itself was terrible.

Very well, we can agree to disagree. I don't speak for you, you don't speak for me, great, let's move on.

[Shark Uppercut]

Some of these pages have been the most pedantic things I've seen in Gitp, and they can all be summed up as describing how 3.5 is bad, maybe even bad, but not really bad.

To answer the OP, I'd say people think core is balanced for the same reason that people back Kickstarter video games that end up being horribly mediocre, as Mighty 9 apparently was. For the same reason that people buy buggy games for the pre-order bonus, for the same reason people see movies without reading any fan reviews first.

There is a social contract that implies a company that provides an entertainment option for sale, has made sure the entertainment is of a certain quality. Movies with no stupid plotlines. Books with no propaganda. Tabletop games with no Ice Assassins.
Nothing enforces this social contract, so it is constantly broken. The only way to interact with it is the choice of whether or not you buy the product.

As a side note, the Oberani fallacy applied to literature would sound like, "It's ok to write bad literature because the fans will just fix it with fanfiction." Or for video games, "The entire game is open-source, so the fans will fix any bugs." No company would try that, because there wouldn't be enough sales. Role-playing games seem to have lower standards if we accept 'bad' game design this easily.

[Calthropstu]

No, but I disagree with the posters who maintain that the game isn't unbalanced/broken.



I've heard of some stupid people, but is there anyone who seriously thinks using their refrigerator open to cool their house is a good idea?

Edit:

Please say no, or else I may lose what little faith I have in humanity. :smallfrown:

I maintain that the game is unbalanced but not broken.

As for the so called "Oberoni Fallacy", Shark's analogy is WOEFULLY inaccurate. It's more akin to saying in a software package "Here is some code. The code can be altered as you wish. If you find bugs in the code, you may remove them. If you wish to repurpose the code, feel free." It's actually the premise behind open source software; and it happens quite frequently... a user has an improvement, finds a glitch or otherwise alters the code and can use it and distribute the alteration.
The Oberoni Fallacy is not actually a fallacy, and whoever coined it is retarded.

[Lord Raziere]

I never claimed to :smallconfused:
All I'm doing is pointing out that you don't speak for everyone when you say the game is horrible and bad.

It might be because I haven't had my coffee yet, but I can't parse the rambling scythe analogy at all.



Do you honestly think 3.X's enduring popularity is due to people that can "have fun with anything?" Implying then that all the normal people who can't do so are being left out in the cold?



As we've discussed before, you can't change 3.5 (except at your own table, via houserules). Your choices are to either do that, or play something else - that's it. And while I can think of a number of ways to improve 3.5, uprooting the rules-heavy underpinnings of the entire game is not one of them.



Words mean things, and tone is part of meaning. So yes, it is in fact rational to point out that your word choice may be at odds with your message. And if it is not, and you truly mean to say things like "horrible" rather than "flawed", then see first response.

1. so? I'm not either.

2. That seems to be argument your side of the argument is making yes: "I had fun with this! I had fun with this messy system, because I worked hard to have this fun by spending hours to find that next +1 in a book, how dare you try to take that away from me and say all my fun was worthless, and anyone who can't have fun with it clearly never tried hard enough and clearly doesn't know what they're talking about! why can't they just learn to the system to have fun like me?"
Ignoring the fact that even if I was able to make a new edition to fix all this, its not as if I could go to your house and burn all your 3.5 books and force you to play my new edition. As well as the fact that anything is fun no matter how bad as long as you have friends to share the activity with, because y'know its friends, the fact I've played 3.5 in real life and while I had fun, it wasn't because of the system, it was because I interacted with the group and those interactions made for some good moments and some of the best moments had no real mechanical basis in the system at all-such as when my rogue character invented the zeppelin on accident, used that zeppelin to throw two bombs down on an enemy army then accidentally threw the fighter out. good times. however 3.5 is still a horrible system that needs fixing and improving upon though. thats true even if I find the most tier 1 tippyverse game ever and a find a way to have fun with it.

also ignoring the fact that your the one constantly twisting my words to make it sound like I'm out to hate on you and all 3.5 gamers. I'm not. your the one digging your own grave by constantly assuming I'm just being a jerk to you, when I'm just trying to explain that 3.5 is an awkward system, nor is it simple or ideal for good principles of game design, and before you talk about the "perfect imbalance" misapplication you guys have cribbed from Extra Credits, the concept is supposed to keep the game FRESH and EVER-CHANGING. not the stagnant solved metagame that is 3.5 where there is no way for the fighter to win and the wizard just wins at everything. perfect imbalance is about keeping the game balanced in a way so that people constantly have to come up with new strategies to defeat other strategies: Fighter starts out as good, someone uses an Archer to kill from range as a counter, a Rogue uses stealth so that the Archer doesn't see him and kills him by slitting his throat as a counter to that, then a Pyromancer sets everything on fire so that no matter where the rogue hides he dies to the flame, a hydromancer puts out the flames and drowns the pyormancer, then a plant mage uses vines to drink all the water and strangle the hydromancer, then a Fighter easily cuts through all the vines and kills the plant mage because they don't have armor or any protection to stand up to steel weaponry. THATS the intention of perfect imbalance.

3.5 is just the bad imbalance where one option trumps all and no one really cares about the other options, which is bad because if your going to only have one option be good, why did you bother to include the other options at all? if you were going to make a hard mode class, why make so many with such schizophrenic design choices? if the game is just about choosing how hard you want it, why is the paladin right beside the fighter and include roleplaying rules thus making it much narrower in concept, when if you want to play a lower tier class just choose the fighter and you can just start roleplaying him as having a paladin code? Why even the Samurai? the answer? the developers didn't design it with tiers, hard modes or the fighters having a challenge against higher tiers at all. they designed it just to match the fluff they think those features represent without regarding power. thats right. the system you play, the one you all talk about every day in optimization terms......was designed by stormwind fallacy users. the kind of people that take a useless feat just because "its fits my characters fluff" the kind of person that legitimately thinks evocation is the strongest school, because its blows things up and thats awesome. the kind of person who wouldn't even think to start consciously optimizing and just put in whatever they want for what they want without bothering with consistency so that the fluff is represented. pretty ironic that a game designed by stormwind fallacy users would give birth to a community that hates the fallacy and invented the fallacy yet uses a system built entirely upon stormwind fallacy eh?

3. ok, whatever. thats your opinion.

4. so you can't handle it then just because I'm not using the "right tone"? I'm not here to baby you and say things softer just because you don't like the words I'm using. again, not a valid criticism.

[Hackulator]

Ok, I think the base issue is how people view the game.

Some people view the game like a video game. If it's glitchy or falls apart, it's a bad game.

Some people view the game like a set of legos. Some of the parts don't fit together, some of the parts are downright stupid, and if you make a mistake your whole creation can fall apart. That doesn't make legos a bad toy.

[Tainted_Scholar]

I maintain that the game is unbalanced but not broken.

As for the so called "Oberoni Fallacy", Shark's analogy is WOEFULLY inaccurate. It's more akin to saying in a software package "Here is some code. The code can be altered as you wish. If you find bugs in the code, you may remove them. If you wish to repurpose the code, feel free." It's actually the premise behind open source software; and it happens quite frequently... a user has an improvement, finds a glitch or otherwise alters the code and can use it and distribute the alteration.

Except D&D is suppose to be a finished product. It's not a set of guidelines for creating your own game, it's suppose to be a completed game ready for use out of the package.


The Oberoni Fallacy is not actually a fallacy, and whoever coined it is retarded.

What the heck?! You can't call somebody retarded, that's not appropriate!

[ColorBlindNinja]

I maintain that the game is unbalanced but not broken.

Unless you can provide some evidence for that claim, you won't convince me.


As for the so called "Oberoni Fallacy", Shark's analogy is WOEFULLY inaccurate. It's more akin to saying in a software package "Here is some code. The code can be altered as you wish. If you find bugs in the code, you may remove them. If you wish to repurpose the code, feel free." It's actually the premise behind open source software; and it happens quite frequently... a user has an improvement, finds a glitch or otherwise alters the code and can use it and distribute the alteration.

How would you feel if that software was sold for $50?



The Oberoni Fallacy is not actually a fallacy, and whoever coined it is retarded.

The Oberoni Fallacy is simple; just because the DM can fix it doesn't mean the rules are broken. It also happens to be true.

Edit:


Some people view the game like a video game. If it's glitchy or falls apart, it's a bad game.

It's a poorly designed game. That has been my position all along.


Some people view the game like a set of legos. Some of the parts don't fit together, some of the parts are downright stupid, and if you make a mistake your whole creation can fall apart. That doesn't make legos a bad toy.

3.5 is more akin to getting a Lego kit with missing pieces.

[Hackulator]

Except D&D is suppose to be a finished product. It's not a set of guidelines for creating your own game, it's suppose to be a completed game ready for use out of the package.



What the heck?! You can't call somebody retarded, that's not appropriate!

That is EXACTLY what D&D is and I think your failure to understand that is part of the problem.

[Calthropstu]

1. so? I'm not either.

2. That seems to be argument your side of the argument is making yes: "I had fun with this! I had fun with this messy system, because I worked hard to have this fun by spending hours to find that next +1 in a book, how dare you try to take that away from me and say all my fun was worthless, and anyone who can't have fun with it clearly never tried hard enough and clearly doesn't know what they're talking about! why can't they just learn to the system to have fun like me?"
Ignoring the fact that even if I was able to make a new edition to fix all this, its not as if I could go to your house and burn all your 3.5 books and force you to play my new edition. As well as the fact that anything is fun no matter how bad as long as you have friends to share the activity with, because y'know its friends, the fact I've played 3.5 in real life and while I had fun, it wasn't because of the system, it was because I interacted with the group and those interactions made for some good moments and some of the best moments had no real mechanical basis in the system at all-such as when my rogue character invented the zeppelin on accident, used that zeppelin to throw two bombs down on an enemy army then accidentally threw the fighter out. good times. however 3.5 is still a horrible system that needs fixing and improving upon though. thats true even if I find the most tier 1 tippyverse game ever and a find a way to have fun with it.

also ignoring the fact that your the one constantly twisting my words to make it sound like I'm out to hate on you and all 3.5 gamers. I'm not. your the one digging your own grave by constantly assuming I'm just being a jerk to you, when I'm just trying to explain that 3.5 is an awkward system, nor is it simple or ideal for good principles of game design, and before you talk about the "perfect imbalance" misapplication you guys have cribbed from Extra Credits, the concept is supposed to keep the game FRESH and EVER-CHANGING. not the stagnant solved metagame that is 3.5 where there is no way for the fighter to win and the wizard just wins at everything. perfect imbalance is about keeping the game balanced in a way so that people constantly have to come up with new strategies to defeat other strategies: Fighter starts out as good, someone uses an Archer to kill from range as a counter, a Rogue uses stealth so that the Archer doesn't see him and kills him by slitting his throat as a counter to that, then a Pyromancer sets everything on fire so that no matter where the rogue hides he dies to the flame, a hydromancer puts out the flames and drowns the pyormancer, then a plant mage uses vines to drink all the water and strangle the hydromancer, then a Fighter easily cuts through all the vines and kills the plant mage because they don't have armor or any protection to stand up to steel weaponry. THATS the intention of perfect imbalance.

3.5 is just the bad imbalance where one option trumps all and no one really cares about the other options, which is bad because if your going to only have one option be good, why did you bother to include the other options at all? if you were going to make a hard mode class, why make so many with such schizophrenic design choices? if the game is just about choosing how hard you want it, why is the paladin right beside the fighter and include roleplaying rules thus making it much narrower in concept, when if you want to play a lower tier class just choose the fighter and you can just start roleplaying him as having a paladin code? Why even the Samurai? the answer? the developers didn't design it with tiers, hard modes or the fighters having a challenge against higher tiers at all. they designed it just to match the fluff they think those features represent without regarding power. thats right. the system you play, the one you all talk about every day in optimization terms......was designed by stormwind fallacy users. the kind of people that take a useless feat just because "its fits my characters fluff" the kind of person that legitimately thinks evocation is the strongest school, because its blows things up and thats awesome. the kind of person who wouldn't even think to start consciously optimizing and just put in whatever they want for what they want without bothering with consistency so that the fluff is represented. pretty ironic that a game designed by stormwind fallacy users would give birth to a community that hates the fallacy and invented the fallacy yet uses a system built entirely upon stormwind fallacy eh?

3. ok, whatever. thats your opinion.

4. so you can't handle it then just because I'm not using the "right tone"? I'm not here to baby you and say things softer just because you don't like the words I'm using. again, not a valid criticism.

Might I suggest switching to another system? Why are you here at all? Seriously... you are openly stating you only have fun because of the group you play with. Play a different game, one you more enjoy.

[The_Jette]

That is EXACTLY what D&D is and I think your failure to understand that is part of the problem.

Tainted_Scholar is incorrect in his assessment that it's not supposed to be a set of guidelines for creating your own game. That is exactly was it is supposed to be. They provide a number of different settings to play your game in, and a number of individual modules that you can run your players through. But, in the end, the game was built so that you could come up with your own adventures and play them. That's why there are dungeon building books, and books for building castles and keeps.

[Tainted_Scholar]

That is EXACTLY what D&D is and I think your failure to understand that is part of the problem.

No it's not. It's a preexisting game. You can create your own campaign and characters, but it's not a guideline for creating a completely new game. The D20 system is for creating your own games, 3.5 is not. 3.5 is suppose to be a finished product that uses the D20 system, not something that you change and alter to create your own product.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Tainted_Scholar is incorrect in his assessment that it's not supposed to be a set of guidelines for creating your own game. That is exactly was it is supposed to be. They provide a number of different settings to play your game in, and a number of individual modules that you can run your players through. But, in the end, the game was built so that you could come up with your own adventures and play them. That's why there are dungeon building books, and books for building castles and keeps.

Except many of the "guidelines" don't work. The customers who bought a product shouldn't have to redesign the game from the ground up.

That's a terrible idea, both from a design and business standpoint.

[Hackulator]

Except many of the "guidelines" don't work. The customers who bought a product shouldn't have to redesign the game from the ground up.

That's a terrible idea, both from a design and business standpoint.

I feel like you don't understand what that phrase means.

[The_Jette]

Except many of the "guidelines" don't work. The customers who bought a product shouldn't have to redesign the game from the ground up.

That's a terrible idea, both from a design and business standpoint.

At best, it's your opinion that the guidelines don't work. And, as seen, plenty of people think that the guidelines work just fine, even without every class being perfectly balanced to each other.

[Tainted_Scholar]

At best, it's your opinion that the guidelines don't work. And, as seen, plenty of people think that the guidelines work just fine, even without every class being perfectly balanced to each other.

3.5 is sold on false claims. It claims to be a balanced product that works as advertised right out of the box, but that's not true. The game is unbalanced and doesn't work as intended, making it poorly designed.

[ColorBlindNinja]

I feel like you don't understand what that phrase means.

I, in fact, do understand what "redesigning from the ground up" means. 3.5 is just easily broken.


At best, it's your opinion that the guidelines don't work. And, as seen, plenty of people think that the guidelines work just fine, even without every class being perfectly balanced to each other.

Prefect balance is virtually unobtainable. That's no excuse for player classes having gigantic gaps in power level.

[Psyren]

4. so you can't handle it then just because I'm not using the "right tone"? I'm not here to baby you and say things softer just because you don't like the words I'm using. again, not a valid criticism.

Well, it's true that I can't make you care that words mean things, but it makes communicating with you on this difficult enough that I don't feel the need to continue making the effort then.


I maintain that the game is unbalanced but not broken.

Exactly.



As for the so called "Oberoni Fallacy", Shark's analogy is WOEFULLY inaccurate. It's more akin to saying in a software package "Here is some code. The code can be altered as you wish. If you find bugs in the code, you may remove them. If you wish to repurpose the code, feel free." It's actually the premise behind open source software; and it happens quite frequently... a user has an improvement, finds a glitch or otherwise alters the code and can use it and distribute the alteration.
The Oberoni Fallacy is not actually a fallacy, and whoever coined it is retarded.

This too. This is the whole foundation of open source. Which the OGL more or less is.


Except many of the "guidelines" don't work. The customers who bought a product shouldn't have to redesign the game from the ground up.

That's a terrible idea, both from a design and business standpoint.

You can certainly have your opinions on the design, but you are provably wrong on the business standpoint. 3.5 was a smash hit, so much so that all a competitor had to do was continue it to become the second (and for a while the first) best-selling TTRPG in the entire market.

[ColorBlindNinja]

You can certainly have your opinions on the design, but you are provably wrong on the business standpoint. 3.5 was a smash hit, so much so that all a competitor had to do was continue it to become the second (and for a while the first) best-selling TTRPG in the entire market.

That doesn't mean it's a good idea to release a broken product. Just because it sold well, doesn't mean that it was a good idea.

[Psyren]

That doesn't mean it's a good idea to release a broken product. Just because it sold well, doesn't mean that it was a good idea.

From a business standpoint (your words), clearly it does.

[Calthropstu]

Unless you can provide some evidence for that claim, you won't convince me.



How would you feel if that software was sold for $50?




The Oberoni Fallacy is simple; just because the DM can fix it doesn't mean the rules are broken. It also happens to be true.

Edit:



It's a poorly designed game. That has been my position all along.



3.5 is more akin to getting a Lego kit with missing pieces.

I believe nothing anyone says will convince you. And no, the Oberoni Fallacy is NOT true... it is actually a matter of opinion, which makes anyone who proclaims it as truth a person using the straw man and presumption fallacies.
YOU proclaim it to be "broken" because it doesn't work the way YOU think it should. You are presuming everyone else should also think it broken, that the game doesn't work. However, the game isn't broken. We have all the tools we need to make the game work for us. Thousands play this game every day with no trouble, and rule zero is a big part of that.
But YOU think it's broken so we should... what? Whine about it? Either use rule zero to make the game work for you or play a different game. There is pretty much nothing left to say on the matter.

[Tainted_Scholar]

This too. This is the whole foundation of open source. Which the OGL more or less is.

Except 3.5 was suppose to be a working product that doesn't need to be fixed.


You can certainly have your opinions on the design, but you are provably wrong on the business standpoint. 3.5 was a smash hit, so much so that all a competitor had to do was continue it to become the second (and for a while the first) best-selling TTRPG in the entire market.

Twilight and 50 Shades of Gray were smash hits, so by your logic they must literary masterpieces.

[Psyren]

Twilight and 50 Shades of Gray were smash hits, so by your logic they must literary masterpieces.

Do you know what "business standpoint" means?

[Tainted_Scholar]

I believe nothing anyone says will convince you. And no, the Oberoni Fallacy is NOT true... it is actually a matter of opinion, which makes anyone who proclaims it as truth a person using the straw man and presumption fallacies.

You have yet to show that it isn't true.


YOU proclaim it to be "broken" because it doesn't work the way YOU think it should.

No, it's broken because it doesn't work the way the Designers think it should.


However, the game isn't broken. We have all the tools we need to make the game work for us. Thousands play this game every day with no trouble, and rule zero is a big part of that.

Except 3.5 isn't sold as a Fixer Upper that you have to make work, it's sold as a working product out of the box.


But YOU think it's broken so we should... what? Whine about it? Either use rule zero to make the game work for you or play a different game. There is pretty much nothing left to say on the matter.

I'm not whining about it, I'm correcting YOU for claiming that it isn't broken.


Do you know what "business standpoint" means?

We're not discussing from a business standpoint, we're discussing from a design standpoint.

[ColorBlindNinja]

From a business standpoint (your words), clearly it does.

I wouldn't bet money on a flawed product selling well.


I believe nothing anyone says will convince you.

I think it's rather obvious that the game is broken. Provide some evidence to the contrary, and I'll change my mind.


And no, the Oberoni Fallacy is NOT true... it is actually a matter of opinion, which makes anyone who proclaims it as truth a person using the straw man and presumption fallacies.

You can assert otherwise, but DM fixes don't change the fact that the system is flawed.


YOU proclaim it to be "broken" because it doesn't work the way YOU think it should.

The designers failed to meet their goals. That's a failure by any reasonable definition of the word.


You are presuming everyone else should also think it broken, that the game doesn't work.

I disagree with people who claim 3.5 isn't badly designed.


However, the game isn't broken.

It would be nice if would back up that claim with some evidence.


We have all the tools we need to make the game work for us. Thousands play this game every day with no trouble, and rule zero is a big part of that.

Your argument seems to be that the system isn't broken because the DM can fix it. But if it's not broken, why would it need fixing in the first place?


But YOU think it's broken so we should... what? Whine about it?

It's hard to find a solution when you won't admit there's a problem.


Either use rule zero to make the game work for you or play a different game. There is pretty much nothing left to say on the matter.

I dislike using rule 0 because I think that's lazy. I would rather work around the issues in the system than flat out ban huge swaths of it.

Rule 0 should be used sparingly; otherwise by the 5th time or so the banhammer gets brought out, your players are going to ditch you.

[Hackulator]

In the end your options are :

Stop playing

or

Uselessly whine about it being broken

or

View it the way we view it which clearly results in far fewer negative feelings about something we enjoy

[ColorBlindNinja]

In the end your options are :

Stop playing

or

Uselessly whine about it being broken

or

View it the way we view it which clearly results in far fewer negative feelings about something we enjoy

How about, acknowledge that the game is broken and move on?

[Tainted_Scholar]

In the end your options are :

Stop playing

or

Uselessly whine about it being broken

or

View it the way we view it which clearly results in far fewer negative feelings about something we enjoy

Or admit that it's a terribly designed product and just go on enjoying it. Accepting reality isn't a bad thing.

[Hackulator]

How about, acknowledge that the game is broken and move on?

Clearly you're not doing that as evinced by your presence in this thread.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Clearly you're not doing that as evinced by your presence in this thread.

People keep telling me that the game isn't broken.

[Tainted_Scholar]

Clearly you're not doing that as evinced by your presence in this thread.

No, we've accepted that's it's broken, you're the one who refuses to admit it.

[Shark Uppercut]

As for the so called "Oberoni Fallacy", Shark's analogy is WOEFULLY inaccurate. It's more akin to saying in a software package "Here is some code. The code can be altered as you wish. If you find bugs in the code, you may remove them. If you wish to repurpose the code, feel free." It's actually the premise behind open source software.
Open source software is free.
If the SRD is provided for free, no one should be buying the rulebooks for $30 each, and it's disingenuous to try to sell them.



However, the game isn't broken. We have all the tools we need to make the game work for us. Thousands play this game every day with no trouble, and rule zero is a big part of that.

Would you rather buy Photoshop 10.2, or
Photoshop 10.3, in a buggy but still workable state. It comes bundled with free software tools that let you write your own patches for Photoshop 10.3?

It's nice that you can make D&D work for you. I can too. Everyone can. Everyone does make it work. We just wish we didn't have to, since it could be designed better.

[Psyren]

I wouldn't bet money on a flawed product selling well.

A flawed product did sell well. So...?


In the end your options are :

Stop playing

or

Uselessly whine about it being broken

or

View it the way we view it which clearly results in far fewer negative feelings about something we enjoy

Yep.

[Zanos]

I maintain that the game is unbalanced but not broken. As for the so called "Oberoni Fallacy", Shark's analogy is WOEFULLY inaccurate. It's more akin to saying in a software package "Here is some code. The code can be altered as you wish. If you find bugs in the code, you may remove them. If you wish to repurpose the code, feel free." It's actually the premise behind open source software; and it happens quite frequently... a user has an improvement, finds a glitch or otherwise alters the code and can use it and distribute the alteration. The Oberoni Fallacy is not actually a fallacy, and whoever coined it is retarded.
This is a bad analogy, because usually when an end-user creates a patch for an OSS project they have the option to commit the fix to the master repository with the permission of the owner. In general though, yeah, OSS software that was first developed with tons of bugs would be pretty useless. If every end user had to fix it themselves, it would suck.

[ColorBlindNinja]

A flawed product did sell well. So...?

And? Why would you think that selling a flawed product is a good idea? Even if it sells well, it could damage the reputation of your company.

[Psyren]

And? Why would you think that selling a flawed product is a good idea? Even if it sells well, it could damage the reputation of your company.

Clearly it didn't. So...?

[ColorBlindNinja]

Clearly it didn't. So...?

Just because that didn't happen in this instance, doesn't mean it's good for business to release flawed products.

[Tainted_Scholar]

Clearly it didn't. So...?

It didn't because D&D was already a major franchise by that point, as such they can pull crap like this and get away with it. I mean, just look at Ubisoft.

[Bebbit]

Just because that didn't happen in this instance, doesn't mean it's good for business to release flawed products.

Actually it is. Have you ever heard of DLCs and patches after games launch? People still buy the games, even knowing there is a chance for them to be unfinished.

In fact, that's the entire premise of Early Access games. They are released unfinished. for money. If that didn't work, you wouldn't see so many Early Access games flooding the market.

[Hackulator]

It didn't because D&D was already a major franchise by that point, as such they can pull crap like this and get away with it. I mean, just look at Ubisoft.

How many 3.5 books do you own?

[emeraldstreak]

It didn't because D&D was already a major franchise by that point, as such they can pull crap like this and get away with it. I mean, just look at Ubisoft.

Ummm...no.

3.0, 3.5, and PF are obviously a great success. Nothing in the history of ttrpg industry (except maybe WW best moment in the 90's) can compare to them.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Actually it is. Have you ever heard of DLCs and patches after games launch? People still buy the games, even knowing there is a chance for them to be unfinished.

I recall hearing more than a couple people complain about that sort of thing.


In fact, that's the entire premise of Early Access games. They are released unfinished. for money. If that didn't work, you wouldn't see so many Early Access games flooding the market.

3.5 was never labeled as early access, but was supposed to be a finished product.

[Tainted_Scholar]

How many 3.5 books do you own?

None, I stole mine from an old lady.

Either way, why does it matter?

[ColorBlindNinja]

None, I stole mine from an old lady.

So that's where Grandma's D&D collection disappeared to!

Shame on you good sir! :smallamused:

[Hackulator]

None, I stole mine from an old lady.

Either way, why does it matter?

Why would you rob an old lady?

[Tainted_Scholar]

Ummm...no.

3.0, 3.5, and PF are obviously a great success. Nothing in the history of ttrpg industry (except maybe WW best moment in the 90's) can compare to them.

It's entirely possible the internet had something to do with 3.5's success. But instead of playing business detective I'm going to bring up Twilight again, just because something sold doesn't mean it's a good business model. Otherwise writing crappy teen romance with horrible themes would be a surefire way to get rich.

[Bebbit]

3.5 was never labeled as early access, but was supposed to be a finished product.

Ok, and? In regards to your statement, it doesn't matter how it's labeled. Flawed or unfinished, both are continued to be sold today. If it was so bad for business like you're implying, that would have gone out of style with the first few games. Not flourished.

[Tainted_Scholar]

Why would you rob an old lady?

It was a joke, don't report me to the police.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Ok, and? In regards to your statement, it doesn't matter how it's labeled. Flawed or unfinished, both are continued to be sold today. If it was so bad for business like you're implying, that would have gone out of style with the first few games. Not flourished.

My point was that people are aware of games being early access when they buy them.

Also, 3.5 was never released again as a fixed product. No, Pathfinder doesn't count.

[Hackulator]

It was a joke, don't report me to the police.

I already called the FBI.

I asked because I'd be interested in knowing if you bought multiple books for a game you thought was broken.

[Psyren]

Just because that didn't happen in this instance, doesn't mean it's good for business to release flawed products.

Business is about tradeoffs. Every artist wants to be perfect. But at some point you do have to ship. It's easy to be an armchair critic, it's not so easy to be an actual designer. I'm happy with the tradeoffs they made, flawed as they are. Holding out for perfection will just leave you with disappointment.

[Tainted_Scholar]

I asked because I'd be interested in knowing if you bought multiple books for a game you thought was broken.

D&D is enjoyable in spite of (or maybe because of) its flaws. But it's a rare example, most broken products are just bad.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Business is about tradeoffs. Every artist wants to be perfect. But at some point you do have to ship. It's easy to be an armchair critic, it's not so easy to be an actual designer. I'm happy with the tradeoffs they made, flawed as they are. Holding out for perfection will just leave you with disappointment.

I don't demand perfection, but I do except a degree of competence from professionals.

[Hackulator]

Your crimes have been reported to the proper authorities tainted scholar

http://imgur.com/a/9oJac

[Lord Raziere]

You have yet to show that it isn't true.



No, it's broken because it doesn't work the way the Designers think it should.



Except 3.5 isn't sold as a Fixer Upper that you have to make work, it's sold as a working product out of the box.



I'm not whining about it, I'm correcting YOU for claiming that it isn't broken.



We're not discussing from a business standpoint, we're discussing from a design standpoint.

All this.

and I don't recall DnD ever being sold as a legos-like product either. especially in light of 4th and 5th editions, if 3.5 was truly what the designers intended, why did they release two editions to move away from that? with 4th being the more extreme one and the 5th being the one coming after the FANDOM complained about 4e? if they truly agreed that tier 1 wizards and tippyverse was the right idea, they would've either kept 3.5 edition or made 4e to expand upon it, to make official fluff to match the setting the rules built for.

[johnbragg]

Why would you rob an old lady?

Circumstance penalty to her Spot check.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Circumstance penalty to her Spot check.

Are you kidding? Old people get bonus to spot!

[The_Jette]

All this.

and I don't recall DnD ever being sold as a legos-like product either. especially in light of 4th and 5th editions, if 3.5 was truly what the designers intended, why did they release two editions to move away from that? with 4th being the more extreme one and the 5th being the one coming after the FANDOM complained about 4e? if they truly agreed that tier 1 wizards and tippyverse was the right idea, they would've either kept 3.5 edition or made 4e to expand upon it, to make official fluff to match the setting the rules built for.

New editions mean more money for the company. You can only release so many splat books.

[Lord Raziere]

New editions mean more money for the company. You can only release so many splat books.

A business decision you say? one that moved away from the previous business decision that was supposedly so profitable? Yet why would they do that, unless.....they didn't want that to be their business, hmm? because if they did, if they really wanted and intended what you wanted, why did they make the business decision, that moved away from that? if they really wanted what you got from 3.5 to be sold, then why wasn't 4e and 5e the "tippyverse everywhere all the time" editions with wizards being made even more awesome?

or are you admitting that tippyverse, optimized wizards and your preferences aren't profitable?

[Lord Raziere]

4th and 5th edition wizards being more powerful than 3.5 counterparts or having a larger gap between themselves and other classes would be news to me.

typo, revised.

[Zanos]

Oh, lol. I deleted my post because after I read your other one I assumed it was a typo.

RIP.

[Tainted_Scholar]

A business decision you say? one that moved away from the previous business decision that was supposedly so profitable? Yet why would they do that, unless.....they didn't want that to be their business, hmm? because if they did, if they really wanted and intended what you wanted, why did they make the business decision, that moved away from that? if they really wanted what you got from 3.5 to be sold, then why wasn't 4e and 5e the "tippyverse everywhere all the time" editions with wizards being made even more awesome?

or are you admitting that tippyverse, optimized wizards and your preferences aren't profitable?

I believe that 4e highlights all the problems with 3.5. WotC realised that 3.5 was horribly balanced and didn't work as intended so they wen't the exact opposite direction with 4e. If WotC had been satisfied with 3.5, then 4e wouldn't have been such a different game.

[ColorBlindNinja]

I believe that 4e highlights all the problems with 3.5. WotC realised that 3.5 was horribly balanced and didn't work as intended so they wen't the exact opposite direction with 4e. If WotC had been satisfied with 3.5, then 4e wouldn't have been such a different game.

Of course, the fan reaction to 4th is probably what resulted in the way 5th was designed.

[Tainted_Scholar]

Of course, the fan reaction to 4th is probably what resulted in the way 5th was designed.

Isn't 5th addition suppose to be very similar to 2nd? That might also show some discontent with 3.5.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Isn't 5th addition suppose to be very similar to 2nd? That might also show some discontent with 3.5.

I heard it was a lot like 3.5 and shared a lot the same issues. But I've never played, so I could be wrong.

[Jormengand]

5th is like 3.5, systematically drained of all the parts of it which made 3.5 interesting (or in the skill system's case, playable), and with some balance patches which make the combat characters competent at combat but don't actually fix the underlying problem that "Guy who swords people with swords" isn't a viable concept in a game which isn't just about murder.

[The_Jette]

I heard it was a lot like 3.5 and shared a lot the same issues. But I've never played, so I could be wrong.

It's very much like 2nd edition, with a few bits of 3.5 thrown in. The skills are similar to 3.5, and the Feats. But, the feats are optional, and need to be approved by the DM. But, the basic concept of roll your stat for most challenges is closer to 2nd, which as a system focused far more on stats and class abilities than anything else.

[emeraldstreak]

5th is like 3.5, systematically drained of all the parts of it which made 3.5 interesting (or in the skill system's case, playable), and with some balance patches which make the combat characters competent at combat but don't actually fix the underlying problem that "Guy who swords people with swords" isn't a viable concept in a game which isn't just about murder.

I feel very similarly about 5E. It's 3.5 Lite - better for newcomers to DnD, but not offering much to people who know their way around 3.5 and PF.

[ColorBlindNinja]

5th is like 3.5, systematically drained of all the parts of it which made 3.5 interesting (or in the skill system's case, playable), and with some balance patches which make the combat characters competent at combat but don't actually fix the underlying problem that "Guy who swords people with swords" isn't a viable concept in a game which isn't just about murder.


It's very much like 2nd edition, with a few bits of 3.5 thrown in. The skills are similar to 3.5, and the Feats. But, the feats are optional, and need to be approved by the DM. But, the basic concept of roll your stat for most challenges is closer to 2nd, which as a system focused far more on stats and class abilities than anything else.


I feel very similarly about 5E. It's 3.5 Lite - better for newcomers to DnD, but not offering much to people who know their way around 3.5 and PF.

Interesting, so it's trying to emulate it's predecessors. Is that in reaction to 4th's somewhat cool reception?

[The_Jette]

Interesting, so it's trying to emulate it's predecessors. Is that in reaction to 4th's somewhat cool reception?

Yes. Yes, it is.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Yes. Yes, it is.

Do people like 5th? I've heard mixed reactions to it.

[Nifft]

Why would you rob an old lady?

Perhaps she downloaded his car.


New editions mean more money for the company. You can only release so many splat books.

Setting books can also generate significant money.

Adventure modules seem to be the thing that doesn't sell.


Isn't 5th addition suppose to be very similar to 2nd? That might also show some discontent with 3.5.

5e is similar to 1e (single-class is default, Fighters are awesome), and 3e (stats go up as you level, feats exist, skills exist), and 4e (reduces distinction between spellcasters and "martials", like a Totem Barbarian can totally cast nature spells; every character has inherent healing which can be used during a Short Rest; distinction between "daily" and "encounter" resource pools; etc.), and probably 2e also.

5e is an edition which took good ideas from every previous edition.


I heard it was a lot like 3.5 and shared a lot the same issues. But I've never played, so I could be wrong.

In my experience, every single edition transition has been hated by at least a small group of loud, angry people.

3e was the first edition to happen after the Internet became widespread, so it's easier to track down angry reactions to 3e and 3.5e.

You can't google as easily for the angry letters from esteemed gamers like Voltaire and Tallyrand when 1e replaced OD&D, for example.

[Lord Raziere]

Interesting, so it's trying to emulate it's predecessors. Is that in reaction to 4th's somewhat cool reception?

yet even in its emulation, it doesn't allow the actual optimization chicanery of 3.5.

which means even in their attempt to be nostalgic, they don't want anything to do with char-op chicanery in their business.

[ColorBlindNinja]

yet even in its emulation, it doesn't allow the actual optimization chicanery of 3.5.

which means even in their attempt to be nostalgic, they don't want anything to do with char-op chicanery in their business.

That doesn't surprise me in the least.

[The_Jette]

Do people like 5th? I've heard mixed reactions to it.

In my opinion, those who dislike 5th edition haven't played enough of it to really get a feel for it. I have been playing almost since it came out, and still say Fortitude save instead of Constitution save. All the stats matter, which is great in my opinion. And, the balance between the classes are much closer. The Fighter has an archetype that includes magic, and gets pretty useful and fun abilities. The way the Bard is built is also fun and different. All in all, the archetypes and backgrounds that function at the core of the game seem like really fun ways to add unique flavors to every character. Archetypes give you something special that you can do. And, Backgrounds let you pick a couple of skills and extra abilities that help you in game. There are still some weak options, specifically the Ranger. And, it's already being affected by power creep. But, it's pretty solid.

[Tainted_Scholar]

yet even in its emulation, it doesn't allow the actual optimization chicanery of 3.5.

which means even in their attempt to be nostalgic, they don't want anything to do with char-op chicanery in their business.

The TO of 3.5 is akin to game glitches. It should have never existed, but it's still alot of fun to mess around with.

[Psyren]

I don't demand perfection, but I do except a degree of competence from professionals.

That benchmark is so subjective and nebulous as to be meaningless for discussion.


I believe that 4e highlights all the problems with 3.5. WotC realised that 3.5 was horribly balanced and didn't work as intended so they wen't the exact opposite direction with 4e. If WotC had been satisfied with 3.5, then 4e wouldn't have been such a different game.

But after 4e flopped, they went to 5e, which has greater martial/caster disparity than 4e did. (Though still less than 3.5 did.) So clearly they recognized that their base wants at least some of that. The key is striking the right balance.

[ColorBlindNinja]

That benchmark is so subjective and nebulous as to be meaningless for discussion.

3.5's designers failed to meet even the most generous definition for competence.


But after 4e flopped, they went to 5e, which has greater martial/caster disparity than 4e did. (Though still less than 3.5 did.) So clearly they recognized that their base wants at least some of that. The key is striking the right balance.

3.5 failed to strike anything that even remotely resembling balance.

[Zanos]

yet even in its emulation, it doesn't allow the actual optimization chicanery of 3.5.

which means even in their attempt to be nostalgic, they don't want anything to do with char-op chicanery in their business.
5e is one book in and you can already infinitely cast wish by creating simulacrums of yourself. Give it time.

[The_Jette]

But after 4e flopped, they went to 5e, which has greater martial/caster disparity than 4e did. (Though still less than 3.5 did.) So clearly they recognized that their base wants at least some of that. The key is striking the right balance.

They did go a long way in fixing it, though. For instance, it's extremely hard to abuse Wish now, since every time you use it in a way that it wasn't intended for you get extreme penalties, and risk a 33% chance that you can never cast Wish again.

Edit: Zanos and I just seem to keep completely disagreeing with each other...

[Florian]

I wouldn't bet money on a flawed product selling well.

Ok, hand over your money. No, stop, you already do that for flawed products, which are basically all of them. Makes me thinking that you don´t have the faintest clue about PR, advertisement, product design and how the business side of manufacturing/producing anything that´s worth it works.

[Psyren]

3.5's designers failed to meet even the most generous definition for competence.

Yours is nowhere near as generous as you think it is.


3.5 failed to strike anything that even remotely resembling balance.

4e did. Look how that turned out.

[Tainted_Scholar]

Ok, hand over your money. No, stop, you already do that for flawed products, which are basically all of them. Makes me thinking that you don´t have the faintest clue about PR, advertisement, product design and how the business side of manufacturing/producing anything that´s worth it works.

That can only get you so far, ultimately it is the product that makes the money. 3.5 is a rarity, it's incredibly flawed, but still fun. If it hadn't been fun however, it would have bombed.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Yours is nowhere near as generous as you think it is.

We can agree to disagree, I guess.


4e did. Look how that turned out.

I had to stab a guess as to why the fanbase wasn't overly pleased with 4th, I would say that it was because of how different it was. I doubt balance factored heavily into that.

[Lord Raziere]

4e did. Look how that turned out.

and how many people decided that they didn't like a new edition just because it was announced before they even read it because it was changing things, then read it and decided that their initial was assumption was right and that it was bad because it was change?

self-fulfilling prophecy.....

[The_Jette]

and how many people decided that they didn't like a new edition just because it was announced before they even read it because it was changing things, then read it and decided that their initial was assumption was right and that it was bad because it was change?

self-fulfilling prophecy.....

I can't confirm how many people did that. Personally, I read through the system and didn't like it, but realized that it might play different than I read it. I found out about a game going on, so I asked to join in. After picking up the book, I had built a character in an hour that was completely broken, and disgustingly powerful. I was soloing creatures that were a much higher CR than my level, while the rest of the group was struggling to damage it. I'm not even close to a top optimizer, as has been confirmed by this forum. So, if I can do it, that says a lot for how broken it is. And, all I did was take abilities that looked like they might be fun. In the end, the system played like an MMO, and I didn't like it. So, that's how I decided that 4th edition wasn't for me.

[Nifft]

At least part of what killed 4e was the decision to put all the juicy character-relevant book content -- including rules and prereqs and everything you'd need to play with that content -- in a very cheap per-month online app.

This killed their splat book sales.

D&D has had a terrible record with electronic helper products, which is vastly frustrating because character building is exactly the sort of thing that computer programs should be able to simplify & assist.

== == ==

Anyway, why do people think Core D&D is balanced?

Probably for the same reasons those massive imbalances made it through playtesting: because people assumed that things did what they claimed, and didn't try to invalidate their own assumptions.

[Psyren]

I had to stab a guess as to why the fanbase wasn't overly pleased with 4th, I would say that it was because of how different it was. I doubt balance factored heavily into that.


and how many people decided that they didn't like a new edition just because it was announced before they even read it because it was changing things, then read it and decided that their initial was assumption was right and that it was bad because it was change?

self-fulfilling prophecy.....

By this "logic" 5e should have cratered too. It's certainly vastly different from both 3rd and 4th. Yet it is as successful as Pathfinder if not more.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Anyway, why do people think Core D&D is balanced?

Probably for the same reasons those massive imbalances made it through playtesting: because people assumed that things did what they claimed, and didn't try to invalidate their own assumptions.

This is a good point. I heard that WotC's playtesters never had their Druid use Wild Shape. Because, clearly that's horrible because you lose your gear! :smallsigh:

[Nifft]

This is a good point. I heard that WotC's playtesters never had their Druid use Wild Shape. Because, clearly that's horrible because you lose your gear! :smallsigh:

You know there were multiple playtest groups and not just a single WotC "playtester", right?

[Tainted_Scholar]

By this "logic" 5e should have cratered too. It's certainly vastly different from both 3rd and 4th. Yet it is as successful as Pathfinder if not more.

It's different, but it's not the complete departure that 4e was.

[ColorBlindNinja]

You know there were multiple playtest groups and not just a single WotC "playtester", right?

Yes, I used the plural.

[emeraldstreak]

4e did. Look how that turned out.

I actually finally got to play 4E last year and this year; it doesn't have that many books and didn't take long to find the broken bits, some were fixed in the errata, some weren't. Still, "broken" there is a party that's immune to hit point damage, whereas broken in 3E is the multiverse sundered.

Overall, I enjoy 4E, but it is very different from 3E. I don't know how many of you read OotS, but for me the essence of 3E is the Three Fiends tempting V, and then saying "oh, but there is another way, one you just haven't thought of" - this scene highlights both the freewheeling interactions possible in this edition, and weaving them into a major character choice/plot point of the campaign.

[Psyren]

It's different, but it's not the complete departure that 4e was.

But that's exactly the problem. Any "perfectly balanced" version of 3e IS going to be a complete departure. I think 5th is as close as they can reasonably get.

[Florian]

But that's exactly the problem. Any "perfectly balanced" version of 3e IS going to be a complete departure. I think 5th is as close as they can reasonably get.

Exactly. The "fix" is that each option may be balanced, but at the cost of reduced options and synergy, ultimately killing what an "rig" should be and moving back to the wargaming roots as a result.

[Lord Raziere]

Overall, I enjoy 4E, but it is very different from 3E. I don't know how many of you read OotS, but for me the essence of 3E is the Three Fiends tempting V, and then saying "oh, but there is another way, one you just haven't thought of" - this scene highlights both the freewheeling interactions possible in this edition, and weaving them into a major character choice/plot point of the campaign.

Not for me.

to me that highlights the temptation of power and how ultimately despite how power Vaarsuvius got, it didn't really do or achieve much. there is no "soul splice" thing, so its not a function of actual 3.5 mechanics. that power is not everything after all and that ultimately such great power only leads to hubris and arrogance, corruption and eventual defeat, as Xykon, a tier 2 defeated a tier 1 class with two other tier 1s and tier 2 backing V up. the very opposite of the conceit that 3.5 wizards always win and one that I appreciate.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Not for me.

to me that highlights the temptation of power and how ultimately despite how power Vaarsuvius got, it didn't really do or achieve much. there is no "soul splice" thing, so its not a function of actual 3.5 mechanics. that power is not everything after all and that ultimately such great power only leads to hubris and arrogance, corruption and eventual defeat, as Xykon, a tier 2 defeated a tier 1 class with two other tier 1s and tier 2 backing V up. the very opposite of the conceit that 3.5 wizards always win and one that I appreciate.

In fairness, Xykon was epic.

[Tainted_Scholar]

When did this turn into a discussion about Oots?

[emeraldstreak]

Not for me.

to me that highlights the temptation of power and how ultimately despite how power Vaarsuvius got, it didn't really do or achieve much. there is no "soul splice" thing, so its not a function of actual 3.5 mechanics. that power is not everything after all and that ultimately such great power only leads to hubris and arrogance, corruption and eventual defeat, as Xykon, a tier 2 defeated a tier 1 class with two other tier 1s and tier 2 backing V up. the very opposite of the conceit that 3.5 wizards always win and one that I appreciate.

No, not the splices (a made up thing). The way out via decapitation, 50lb teleport, resurrection (that was available all along). And then V losing his good excuse to want power, but still craving it...

[Nifft]

I don't know how many of you read OotS, Isn't it required for forum registration? It should be.


but for me the essence of 3E is the Three Fiends tempting V, and then saying "oh, but there is another way, one you just haven't thought of" - this scene highlights both the freewheeling interactions possible in this edition, and weaving them into a major character choice/plot point of the campaign. To me, that scene highlighted that sometimes it's awesome to ignore the rules, or just make stuff up, so long as the rules-ignoring-thing is very temporary and doesn't do bad things to the plot, nor deprotagonize the PCs.

What the Three Fiends did was NOT an example of 3.x rules.

It was, however, an example of awesome.

[emeraldstreak]

What the Three Fiends did was NOT an example of 3.x rules.



Empowerment is certainly within the 3.x rules, Pun Pun being the ultimate testament to that.

In reality, theGiant handwaved the splices because it's a lot faster than selecting exactly how much RAW empowerment would be appropriate for V in this situation - and considering the epic level involved which allows making up epic spells, it wasn't even against the rules.

[Tainted_Scholar]

To me, that scene highlighted that sometimes it's awesome to ignore the rules, or just make stuff up, so long as the rules-ignoring-thing is very temporary and doesn't do bad things to the plot, nor deprotagonize the PCs.

What the Three Fiends did was NOT an example of 3.x rules.

It seemed more like homebrew than ignoring the rules.

[Nifft]

It seemed more like homebrew than ignoring the rules.

One might even say he was making stuff up.

[Calthropstu]

People keep telling me that the game isn't broken.
And you have yet to provide evidence it IS. You make claims that "it doesn't work the way the designers intended" when, for the millions who have played and enjoyed the game (and still do), it actually does.
You claim unbalance, but that has been around since 1st edition. Nothing new there. So I fail to see the problem.
To determine if the game is broken we must answer 4 questions:
Does the game provide a ruleset? Yes.
Is the ruleset understandable? To most who play, Yes. There are some exceptions.
Is there tools to prevent wholesale system abuse? Yes.
Does the game provide the RPG experience it advertises? Yes.

Millions have used this system to have adventures. Most likely enjoyed the experience. We get it, you don't like certain things, and no one will claim it is perfect. But just because YOU do not like things, it does not mean the game is broken. To be fair, whether something is broken or not is largely a matter of opinion so... you think kt broken, I do not. We will have to agree to disagree and move on.
To be fair, there isn't really an absolute right or wrong on this. It's not math, thefe's no grades... this is an argument of opinion.

[ColorBlindNinja]

And you have yet to provide evidence it IS. You make claims that "it doesn't work the way the designers intended" when, for the millions who have played and enjoyed the game (and still do), it actually does.
You claim unbalance, but that has been around since 1st edition. Nothing new there. So I fail to see the problem.

So, Pun Pun, massive player class imbalances, and the Hulking Hurler don't count?

[Tainted_Scholar]

And you have yet to provide evidence it IS. You make claims that "it doesn't work the way the designers intended" when, for the millions who have played and enjoyed the game (and still do), it actually does.
You claim unbalance, but that has been around since 1st edition. Nothing new there. So I fail to see the problem.

What kind of evidence do you want? What do you consider broken?

[Psyren]

So, Pun Pun, massive player class imbalances, and the Hulking Hurler don't count?

You keep bringing up TO as though it has any bearing on how the game is played by actual people.

What you're doing is like pointing at a glitch-speedrun of, say, Ocarina of Time (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijxmQfediEc), and saying that because that glitch exists, Ocarina of Time must therefore be a horrible game.

[Florian]

So, Pun Pun, massive player class imbalances, and the Hulking Hurler don't count?

We were at this point before: No. There´re tables that can work with "broken stuff", other tables just ban it. Broad spectrum here.

And now, do me the favor and tell me why your "one true vision of D&D" should interest me at all or even be compatible with my play style.

Edit: Take your time, do some research, compare some threads and think about why the TO-fetishizing only matters to those that still stick to 3,5E and is not part of the discussion culture in PF or 5E.

[Tainted_Scholar]

We were at this point before: No. There´re tables that can work with "broken stuff", other tables just ban it. Broad spectrum here.

Goodie, more Oberoni Fallacy. If the product has to be fixed by the customers, then it was sold broken.


And now, do me the favor and tell me why your "one true vision of D&D" should interest me at all or even be compatible with my play style.

I'm not sure what you're referring to right now.

[Tainted_Scholar]

You keep bringing up TO as though it has any bearing on how the game is played by actual people.

It matters because it's still part of the game, even if nobody uses it. Avoiding the problems doesn't mean they don't exist.


What you're doing is like pointing at a glitch-speedrun of, say, Ocarina of Time (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijxmQfediEc), and saying that because that glitch exists, Ocarina of Time must therefore be a horrible game.

So, you're comparing one minor glitch, to the ability to become omnipotent.

A far more apt analogy would be comparing D&D to Pokémon Red & Green, in which you can literally jailbreak the game and write your own code. At which point I would say, yes it is horribly coded.

Also you're still claiming that we think the game itself is horrible despite the fact that we've told you otherwise.:smallannoyed:

[Lord Raziere]

Again, personal enjoyment has nothing to do with good design.

just because something is good, doesn't mean you'll enjoy it, and just because you enjoy it, doesn't mean its good. those are two completely unrelated variables.

lets try this:
what is a badly designed game to you? how much do the mechanics have to fail for it be unacceptable to play? how do you define that failure? if a game gave you a setting then mechanics that completely contradict the setting, what would your reaction be? for a basic example, if the rpg was about a fire world, but your only given rules for an ice world, with no mention or attempt in the mechanics to model said fire world, and no mention in the fluff about ice even once.

[Florian]

Goodie, more Oberoni Fallacy. If the product has to be fixed by the customers, then it was sold broken.

I'm not sure what you're referring to right now.

Oh, you don´t?

Well, it´s simple: your main argument is, that the game should be able to run itself without needing a gm. So, you must have a very clear vision how that game should look, feel and play.