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View Full Version : What's Wrong with D&D (Read first post please.)



Darkxarth
2007-10-30, 02:50 PM
This is a statement, not a question.

Now, I love D&D, don't get me wrong, but there have been and still are a LOT of complaints here, on the Wizards boards, and on my beloved CBG (http://thecbg.org) about Wizards and D&D.

The main problems I see people having are:
1. The classes are not balanced against each other.
2. The rules can be convoluted.
3. Wizards treats their consumer base like children.

Well, here are my explanations (not necessarily excuses) for these problems.

1. The classes are not balanced against each other: To my knowledge, D&D was never intended to be a player vs. player game, not mainly anyway. Obviously you're going to get people who want to fight each other, but that's not the point of the game system. The system was designed to allow a group of players (or a group of characters anyway) to adventure in a fictional world with the help of the DM. So, if a lv 20 Wizard can kill a lv 20 Fighter, why are people complaining? If your Wiz can handle any situation that's thrown at him/her, it's not just Wizard's fault, your DM should keep a close eye on all the characters and create appropriate challenges for the whole party.

2. The rules can be convoluted: True, particularly grappling and attack of opportunity rules. The problem is that D&D is a complex game, and is full of surprising actions by the players. Wizards tries to be prepared for most actions, but in order to do so they need to set out more rules. And those rules create more situations that need more rules, and so on and so forth. The only solution I can see to this problem is to either continue creating rules and adding errata, or simply make combat simpler and let the DM improvise in certain situations.

3. Wizards treats their consumer base like children: Wizards consumer base includes LOTS of children. There are a lot of 7th, 8th, and 9th grade players out there who simply have trouble sometimes. Now, obviously there are plenty of younger players who have no problem understanding rules, but there are still pleny who do (and it's not just younger players who can have trouble with rules, anyone can get confused). So, whether we like it or not, Wizards is helping those who have difficulty with the game. The problem is, that those who don't see this as insulting. You can't have it both ways, and this way Wizards can sell to younger audiences who will grow up and keep buying.


So, in conclusion I guess, my theory is that the problem with D&D and Wizards is that they interfere too much. Too many rules, too many explanations, too much errata.

If you're a DM, it is your responsibility to explain things to your players, to improvise in unique situations, and to keep things as balanced as possible. If your players want to fight, explain that the fight may not be at all fair since one of them is a Monk and the other is a freshly awakened Sorcerer. If someone wants to stab the ogre in the eye, add a few points to the AC and add some extra damage if they hit, or make the Ogre take an attack penalty from then on. You get the idea.

While Wizards is responsible for making D&D playable, they cannot be responsible for everything, or we get 15 pages of grapple rules, dozens of megabytes of errata, and dumbed-down books.

DISCLAIMER: I am not a Wizards representative, nor have I ever worked for Wizards, or spoken to a Wizards representative. The above is just my opinion and is subject to being wrong. If you disagree, please say so in a friendly manner and point out where you think I am wrong. Also, since I wrote this rather quickly there may simply be some stupid errors.

Thanks for reading.

- Darkxarth

Catch
2007-10-30, 03:07 PM
I'm pretty sure that 4E will solve #1 and #2 on your list by implementing #3 more. You'll get a game that's easier to play and doesn't have nearly as many balance issues.

It also might be Candyland.

Fax Celestis
2007-10-30, 03:11 PM
In a game fueled largely by your imagination, there's absolutely nothing wrong with simplicity.

Matthew
2007-10-30, 03:12 PM
Okay, well this isn't the first time I have seen this response and here are the typical counter points:

1) It's not PvP, it's relative contribution. If Spell Casters generally make Non Spell Casters irrelevant at Level X, it's not likely fun and the game rules are to blame.

2) The rules themselves are just guidelines. It's up to the DM to use the ones he wants and improvise the rest. However, the creation of so many rules actively inhibits the impulse to improvise. Some Players like X (clear and detailed rules for as much as possible), some like Y (basic rules, plenty of improvisation), it's a matter of preference. The former, though, tends to be a lot of work for the DM.

3) Children generally don't like to be treated like children. I know what attracted me to D&D as a child was that it appeared to be an adult passtime/game.

Crow
2007-10-30, 03:12 PM
1. As everyone always says, the problem is when the contribution of the fighter and the wizard are not congruent. However, these situations almost always become PvP arguments. PvP is actually a viable way to play the game, if your group wants to. Really though, the flavor is what should define which class a person chooses to play. The problem with this is when everybody is already using a similar mechanic for everything, it makes it more difficult to differentiate the classes. Not everyone is a good roleplayer. If everything works the same and is perfectly balanced, what is the difference between firing an arrow and doing 6 points of damage, and firing a ray of magical energy for 6 points of damage?

2. I've never found the attack of opportunity rules to be confusing in the least. Maybe a little nonsensical, but definately not confusing. Grappling was not that difficult either.

3. Can't say much on this, except that with regards to all the eratta, explanations, and rules, I agree. You don't need a rule for everything. I cannot afford every book, and I don't have the time to memorize every obscure rule, so I rule on the fly every once in a while.

I will say that I have made use of the "DM's Best Friend" many times. You would be suprised how often this can solve situations that arise in game, or when a player wants to do something that you don't have the rules in front of you for.

Jasdoif
2007-10-30, 03:15 PM
1. The classes are not balanced against each other: To my knowledge, D&D was never intended to be a player vs. player game, not mainly anyway. Obviously you're going to get people who want to fight each other, but that's not the point of the game system. The system was designed to allow a group of players (or a group of characters anyway) to adventure in a fictional world with the help of the DM. So, if a lv 20 Wizard can kill a lv 20 Fighter, why are people complaining? If your Wiz can handle any situation that's thrown at him/her, it's not just Wizard's fault, your DM should keep a close eye on all the characters and create appropriate challenges for the whole party.You're missing the real point there. At higher levels, anything that can challenge the wizard will likely outright kill the fighter. And anything that can challenge the fighter can likely be outright killed by the wizard. It's not a matter of Wizard 20 killing Fighter 20, it's a matter of the player of Fighter 20 feeling useless because the character can't contribute reliably.

That's what it's really about: Classes should be sufficiently balanced so that players aren't punished solely for their choice of class.

Sure, the DM in question can put in place a ton of changes/circumstances to allow everyone to still be useful...however, anything that steadfastly relies on DM adjudication to be workable detracts from the DM's primary role: making and maintaining the environment for the players to play in.

Yakk
2007-10-30, 03:28 PM
There is a way to make Fighters shine and Wizards be poor: an anti-magic field containing the entire encounter.

So if the only way for the Fighter to have fun is that the Wizard doesn't have any fun, and the only way for the Wizard to have fun is that the Fighter doesn't have any fun...

You have a problem. Now, one way of expressing this is "in order for the Wizard to be able to do almost anything, the Wizard ends up dominating the balance of power in nearly every challenge". Ie, there is a balance of power problem.

Finding the spot where the Wizard and the Fighter are both equally useful in a situation is very very difficult -- a problem of balance -- and finding that spot is not easy under the D&D rules. It is very easy for changes in character design results in ... the balance point being lost.

Ie, D&D ... lacks balance.

In a balanced game, it would be relatively easy to find a challenge for which all parties could have fun encountering and defeating. The Wizard would shine sometimes and the Fighter would shine sometimes, and it wouldn't be forced, and people wouldn't be bored, and you wouldn't have to walk a tight-rope in order to pull it off.

It isn't that a Wizard can be unbalanced -- it is that once the Wizard looks at the spell list and grabs the "save or suck", "suck", "save or lose" and "lose" spells, together with a smattering of "counter enemy attacks", the Wizard very quickly ends up bowling over the Fighter.

Meanwhile, the Fighter who goes all-out pure tweaking ... doesn't quite rival the Wizard.

And that's poor balance.

Stam
2007-10-30, 03:30 PM
1. Currently playing a full-BAB noncaster in a 12th-level campaign, I can fully say that it is no fun at all when I need a 16 or better (or 14+ with flanking) to be able to hit the BBEG at all. It's even less fun when one good solid FRA from it will one-shot me in a round. And it's just plain frustration-material when the cleric and druid standing on either side of me can not only take the hits better, but are also kicking the dragon's butt in melee as well as with spells.

Now, that's a non-twinked build. But it's a decent build with a +18 to hit, two-handed weapon and all. I'm not of the opinion that a build should have to be twinked in order to survive; I prefer a generally-good-all-round PC to one that's a one-specialty-only.

So, yeah. As above, at a certain level the Fighter-type is going to be not only completely outshone by the full spellcaster, he's also going to be bored stiff while he hides at the back of the party and prays nothing gets a FRA-shred on him.

Temp
2007-10-30, 03:48 PM
1. The classes are not balanced against each other: To my knowledge, D&D was never intended to be a player vs. player game, not mainly anyway. Obviously you're going to get people who want to fight each other, but that's not the point of the game system. The system was designed to allow a group of players (or a group of characters anyway) to adventure in a fictional world with the help of the DM. So, if a lv 20 Wizard can kill a lv 20 Fighter, why are people complaining? If your Wiz can handle any situation that's thrown at him/her, it's not just Wizard's fault, your DM should keep a close eye on all the characters and create appropriate challenges for the whole party.

The problem here is that the Fighter becomes obscelete at higher levels in party play. The Wizard has the abilities to completely destroy other enemies or groups of enemies in less time than the Fighter.
A (crude and over-simplified, admittedly, but probably a good starting point) potential fix--

1. Reduce Wizards' instant death/disablement spells to a single target.

2. For multiple-target offensive spells, Wizards only do damage.

The main problem now is that the Fighter's [single-target] damage and the Wizard's [multiple-target] spells don't stack. So--because Wizard spells are more effective than Fighter attacks as far as effect/round is concerned--the Fighter's damage often does absolutely nothing to impact high-level battles.

Counterspin
2007-10-30, 03:50 PM
1) This is a drastic misunderstanding of why people are interested in balance. As noted, people want to be able to contribute equally to the party.

2) The problem with grapple is not corner cases, it's the normal case. The section on grapple in the PHB is poorly written and unclear. There should be a table that explains which type of grapple maneuvers are equivalent to which types of actions. GM adjudication in grapple is generally very easy compared to the basic rules of the maneuver. Decide if it can be done, decide if there's a penalty to the grapple check should be about all that's really needed.

tainsouvra
2007-10-30, 04:01 PM
To my knowledge, D&D was never intended to be a player vs. player game, not mainly anyway. Obviously you're going to get people who want to fight each other, but that's not the point of the game system. The system was designed to allow a group of players (or a group of characters anyway) to adventure in a fictional world with the help of the DM. The PvP issue is a red herring. Yes, arcane casters can do well in PvP, but it's the effect on the average campaign that's a problem. I think you hit on that problem with your next statement...
If your Wiz can handle any situation that's thrown at him/her, it's not just Wizard's fault, your DM should keep a close eye on all the characters and create appropriate challenges for the whole party. In other words, challenges have to constantly be specially made to stymie the wizard, much more so than any other class? That is the inevitable conclusion of your train of thought.

Congratulations, you just hit on the crux of the balance problem:
If you don't specifically and consistently weaken the wizard, he runs away with your campaign. The only way to keep balance is to kick one of your players in the knees on a daily basis. Enjoy.

Fax Celestis
2007-10-30, 04:03 PM
Congratulations, you just hit on the crux of the balance problem: If you don't specifically and consistently weaken the wizard, he runs away with your campaign. The only way to keep balance is to kick one of your players in the knees on a daily basis. Enjoy.

I'm certain there are better targets than the knees to inflict excruciating pain and suffering on one of your players.

elliott20
2007-10-30, 04:07 PM
A (crude and over-simplified) potential fix--

1. Reduce Wizards' instant death/disablement spells to a single target.

2. For multiple-target offensive spells, Wizards only do damage.

I'm of the opinion that wizards just don't pay a steep enough price for their power. Right now, the way we look at it, a wizard changes the laws of the universe daily, with little to no reprecussions on himself. Oh yeah, sure, he can't do it more say, 7 times a day. But then all he needs to do is lie down for a couple hours, and BOOM, 7 more times of leveling city with a wave of his hand.

THAT, I think is the problem. Magic is too EASY and too focused on instant combat value of it. So basically, the terrible and secret arcane knowledge is like having a silo full of nukes at your disposal. Except nukes in real life actually cost money where as spells in this case are FREE FREE FREE except maybe some titular monetary cost. (Really, 1500 gp is not THAT much for a level 20 character)

The way I see it, magic should never be this simple. Casting something as powerful and as fail proof as Force Cage or Time Stop should be a taxing ordeal, something that takes preparation / stamina / risk / all three.

If such a system exists, the effects are quite dramatic. Think about it. Okay, so the wizards can still do AMAZING things with their wizard and duplicate effects that can render everyone in the party obsolete. the problem is, doing so would prove to be extremely expensive/dangerous/costly/wasteful to them and their talents. so yeah, go ahead and time stop if you want. But that time stop is going to cost you dearly.

Like V said, his magic comes at a price. This is something that D&D does NOT support very well. In fact, magic is pretty much free, barring a couple monetary items.

Hell, think about it. In the movie Excalibur, Merlin summoned the dragon's breath to allow Uther to ride over a lake and take on the guise of the Duke Cornwall, and it nearly KILLED him. It's a friggin' water walking spell with some illusion thrown in!! Think about that for a second.

Indon
2007-10-30, 04:25 PM
I'm certain there are better targets than the knees to inflict excruciating pain and suffering on one of your players.

Spellbooks.

But, on-topic, one easy way I've seen for balancing save-or-die vs. damage is to use the damage save system.

Now dealing damage is also save-or-die!

However, being balanced does not make it good, because it just makes combat that much faster and anti-climactic. Save-or-dies are just bad, in terms of fun, and it doesn't matter how many people do or don't have them.

Edit: Here's an example! (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0456.html)

Ulzgoroth
2007-10-30, 04:43 PM
Making all magic use 'expensive' will mean that:
-The wizard still 1-shots the BBEG. And any other really major opponent...if they aren't worth it, who is?
-In every other combat, the wizard sits out. Sure, he could help out against the CR-1 (or even CR+2) bandits, but it's cheaper to let the blunt instrument deal with it alone than toss a haste. Or a magic missle, even.

This doesn't make anything better, except distributing the bad experience more evenly. Maybe you could make it get cheaper to use your lower-level magics as you advance, so that the wizard can afford to contribute some minor power in non-critical situations. Regardless, it makes the rest of the party into a convoy to deliver the essentially useless wizard to the BBEG, where he goes nova and smashes the foe immediately. Then the party gets to carry the comatose/crippled/drained wizard home to recover. This does remind me of a fair number of fantasy plots, but doesn't really provide the desired fix.

tainsouvra
2007-10-30, 04:46 PM
Indeed, it might make a dramatic story to read, but actually playing it out is a mix of boredom and frustration.

AslanCross
2007-10-30, 04:56 PM
Wizards are powerful enough to cause the DM to metagame. I'm living in dread fear of the day my player wizard gains the ability to cast forcecage. Thus I've sworn that all my high-level bosses will have the ability to break through it.

And the only way to break through a forcecage is by using the Wizard's own arsenal.

Wrong on so many levels.

Dausuul
2007-10-30, 04:58 PM
I'm of the opinion that wizards just don't pay a steep enough price for their power. Right now, the way we look at it, a wizard changes the laws of the universe daily, with little to no reprecussions on himself. Oh yeah, sure, he can't do it more say, 7 times a day. But then all he needs to do is lie down for a couple hours, and BOOM, 7 more times of leveling city with a wave of his hand.

THAT, I think is the problem. Magic is too EASY and too focused on instant combat value of it. So basically, the terrible and secret arcane knowledge is like having a silo full of nukes at your disposal. Except nukes in real life actually cost money where as spells in this case are FREE FREE FREE except maybe some titular monetary cost. (Really, 1500 gp is not THAT much for a level 20 character)

Amen to that. D&D's problem is that the vast majority of spells have no cost to speak of. There are some spells that have expensive material components, which are a minor burden, and others that have an XP cost, which can be a major burden, but those are few and far between.

IMO, the really big bad magic should require a lengthy ritual to perform (which is to say, it's not something you can do in combat), and cost some non-renewable, hard-to-come-by resource. Lesser magic should be usable freely, as it is now, but it should be--well, lesser; a high-level wizard should be a formidable combatant, but not more so than an equally high-level fighter, and indeed perhaps a bit less, since the wizard has more out-of-combat utility.

Darkxarth
2007-10-30, 05:51 PM
Ok, so there seems (by lack of argument) to be a unanimous agreement on 3, except that Matthew pointed out that even children don't like being treated like children. This is true, but perhaps the resulting simplicity will be good for the system.

2 also seems to be a less argumentative point. A couple of people have said that they haven't had a lot of trouble with grapple/AoO/etc. rules. I haven't had much personally, but I watched as a friend DM of mine and my little brother struggled through a relatively simple grapple check. They're both 16 and both pretty intelligent, but here they are baffled at how this works. I even got mixed up myself. If the AoO against the Werebear's grapple check works, can the Polar Bear make a Grapple check in return? And if it does work, can the Polar Bear escape next round and start a grapple of its own? Anyway, I don't need these questions answered, I was just pointing out a couple of places where the grapple rules are complicated and take quite a while to sort through and find the answers.

On the first question, I seem to have been a little mistaken. I really didn't think I had too many balance issues myself, because my games tend not to last too long. But I once ran a high-level game and had a number of high-level encounters thwarted by 2 or 3 spells. So I guess it really is a problem. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a very viable solution to making full casters balanced against straight warriors. If anyone finds has a good one, feel free to post it here and have folks tear a hole in it.

Jasdoif
2007-10-30, 05:57 PM
Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a very viable solution to making full casters balanced against straight warriors. If anyone finds has a good one, feel free to post it here and have folks tear a hole in it....and now you've identified "What's Wrong with D&D". :smalltongue:

Fax Celestis
2007-10-30, 06:11 PM
Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a very viable solution to making full casters balanced against straight warriors. If anyone finds has a good one, feel free to post it here and have folks tear a hole in it.

Remove metamagic, increase all casting times one step (standard becomes full-round, for instance), remove Natural Spell, make ASF apply to all spells regardless of source, and increase Concentration DCs to 15+(2*spell level).

Mr. Friendly
2007-10-30, 06:26 PM
I'm hoping 4th fixes many of these problems via the purported reduction of magical power and increase of everyone elses abilities.

I will reiterate what others have said, there is 0 balance between spellcasters and non-spellcasters. The fighter will die of boredom after 10th level.

I think in a way fighters as they exist now could be fixed somewhat via a greater amount of skill points and the ability to use certain feats and skills better/differently than others. For example, a fighter could use intimidate or bluff (which should be class along with sense motive) to force an enemy to his attention on the fighter and attack him. (Keeping agro, taunting for you MMO players)

I think that's part of the reason wizards are always kicking the dookie out of stuff. Fighters and other warrior types cannot keep the monsters interested in them. Wizards most likely *would* be more content to use area of effect weakening(de-buff) effects and party enhancers, but the wizard starts slinging mojo and all the monsters charge him because they *know* he's only getting a d4 HP per level. So as a result the wizard is forced to utterly destroy everything that comes along, as quickly as possible, to avoid his own (inevitable) death.

The rules do have a lot of holes in them. Wizards needs to hire these things called 'playtesters'; they do wonders. And not just "Steve and Ted from marketing" I mean people like Tleilaxu_Ghola (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=680285) from over on the CharOp boards or Fax_Celestis from this board.

Fax Celestis
2007-10-30, 06:28 PM
The rules do have a lot of holes in them. Wizards needs to hire these things called 'playtesters'; they do wonders. And not just "Steve and Ted from marketing" I mean people like Tleilaxu_Ghola (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=680285) from over on the CharOp boards or Fax_Celestis from this board.

Thank you for the vote of confidence.

Snooder
2007-10-30, 07:48 PM
Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a very viable solution to making full casters balanced against straight warriors. If anyone finds has a good one, feel free to post it here and have folks tear a hole in it.

Actually, that's not as hard as it seems. The problem is reconciling whatever balance you make with preconceived notions of the nature of magic and the spellcasting classes.

For example. Lets say we restrict all spells to purely evocation spells. This would allow us by purely number crunching to decide how much damage a spell should have. Simply figure out how much average monster hp is at that level. Then divide by 10. That's how much damage a single target spell should do. Then you just make sure fighter damage is about the same as single target spells of the same level. For area of effect spells, lower the individual damage relative to the size of the affect area. So if it has an area of 5 squares, divide the damage in half.

Play testing here is integral to figuring out just what the numbers are. Maybe dividing monster hp by 15 is more balanced, maybe by 5. Maybe half damage in 5 squares is too much and needs to be 1/3 damage. A few months of playtesting in radically different campaigns should get pretty close to balance.

Save or die is only available as capstone spells, aka 9th lvl spells. All other classes also get capstone abilities, like a deathstrike for rogues or the ToB 9th lvl maneuvers for fighters.

As far as the rest of the spells, they are non-combat use only. Buffs/debuffs can only be cast prior to combat, and each class gets his/her own area of buffs and debuffs. Rogues can make themselves invisible, fighters can get an equivalent of bull's strength, e.t.c.

The best way to make this work is to give everyone a mechanic similar to ToB's maneuver system. Every gets X powers per encounter. For casters these powers are spells, for fighter's they are manuvers/stances, for rogues they might be called skill tricks, and maybe bards' get called songs. Keeping teh underlying mechanic the same lets you balance out the power of each class ability better than the current system where the balance of Weapon Focus/Spec vs Rage vs Sneak Attack is very fuzzy and hard to figure out.

Of course, the final and integral idea to the plan is to define certain main roles for each class. Probably, since this is D&D, we want to start with the original 4 class categories, Warrior, Priest, Mage, Thief.

Warrior - primary melee damage dealer and tank
Priest - primary healer
Mage - battlefield controller, thinker, strategist, aoe damage
Thief - skills. Trapfinding, lock-picking, sneaking, finding out info in town


Then, we come up with a ranking system from 1(poor) to 20(good) for each class. Every class in the game would be ranked on this system so that the numbers for all classes are exactly the same. For instance a Fighter or Barbarian would be a Warrior20. A Paladin would be a Warrior16/Priest4. A Cleric is a Priest18/Warrior2. A Bard is a Warrior5/Priest5/Mage5/Thief5. You can see where this is going. Then, you just make sure that the abilities given to each class foster this ratio of strength/weakness. For example, the Cleric in this scheme would not have Divine Power or martial weapon proficiency from his god. The armor proficiency and simple weapon proficiency models a Warrior2 well enough. This allows us to have classes that fill multiple roles without stepping on each other's toes.

As you can tell, while balanced, this raises questions about what people think of each class. People who are used to casters being the primary damage dealers will be disappointed. People who like Save or Lose will be peeved. People who play rogues only for the sneak attack will also be peeved.

Riffington
2007-10-30, 07:54 PM
Snooder: 2 big problems as I see it
1. Should an Evoker's damage equal a fighter's? Surely, if a fighter has more hp and can attack every turn, a wizard with a limited number of spells and fewer hp should do more damage as "artillery". But how much more? Totally unclear.

2. If an ability typifies a class, shouldn't it be available throughout the campaign, not just at theoretical levels like 20?

horseboy
2007-10-30, 07:58 PM
Yes, for the love of God, please hire some playtesters. My 9 year old nephew could do a better job playtesting than those futzes.

As to point two, I would like to point out how it's competition is judged (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveller_%28role-playing_game%29#Marc_Miller.27s_Traveller).



Marc Miller's Traveller

Marc Miller's Traveller (1996-1998) was published by Imperium Games after GDW dissolved and the rights to Traveller reverted to Marc Miller, the creator of the original game. It returned to a heavily modified version of the original rules and was set in the early days of the Third Imperium (Milieu 0). It is often referred to as "T4". The publication of this edition suffered from notoriously poor writing and editing, which required the subsequent printing of 25 pages worth of errata.
Any game system other than D&D that has over a 25 page FAQ is considered badly written. D&D's errata is over 100 pages! Even given the short bus nature of D&D, that's just inexcusable.

Are you considering in part three also about how D&D demands stereotype adherence? I know it's one of the things I hate about it. And Heaven forbid you choose the wrong stereotype.

Azerian Kelimon
2007-10-30, 08:01 PM
I might also add to 1):

Playing a melee class is largely boring unless it's the spellcasty (And have this in mind, I love that book, crave it and adore it) ToB classes, because your options are:

1) I full attack it again. Sigh.

2) I go back and charge again. Sigh

3) I grapple it. Sigh.

4) I use a skill. Not that sigh at all.

Snooder
2007-10-30, 08:15 PM
Snooder: 2 big problems as I see it
1. Should an Evoker's damage equal a fighter's? Surely, if a fighter has more hp and can attack every turn, a wizard with a limited number of spells and fewer hp should do more damage as "artillery". But how much more? Totally unclear.


Wizard gets more out of combat utility and area of effect attacks out of his less hp and lack of armor. Part of the balance I have is that the Wizard isn't artillery. Making him artillery is one the things that ruins balance. You can't say that a siege gun and a single soldier are of equal worth. Doesn't work even if you compare the siege gun to a tank.

Way I see the system working out is with every class getting X abilities per encounter. So the wizard has just as many spells as the fighter has attacks. Makes the difference between classes less mechanical, but I did say it would require a paradigm shift in thinking about the game.



2. If an ability typifies a class, shouldn't it be available throughout the campaign, not just at theoretical levels like 20?

You'd have different abilities at different levels, but the killer ability, the one that makes you want to take that class for 20 levels, has to come at lvl 20. Just like 9th lvl spells are the reason for casters to keep slugging through at low level, there should be a light at the end of the rainbow for everyone.

The main reason I advocate leaving Save or Die to high levels is because they are inherently unbalancing at low levels. One casting of Sleep pretty much ends an encounter. It's hard to balance that with other classes' abilities and also keep monsters from being outclassed. Better to just remove it to when it's expected that everyone will end encounters really quickly.

elliott20
2007-10-30, 08:37 PM
Making all magic use 'expensive' will mean that:
-The wizard still 1-shots the BBEG. And any other really major opponent...if they aren't worth it, who is?
-In every other combat, the wizard sits out. Sure, he could help out against the CR-1 (or even CR+2) bandits, but it's cheaper to let the blunt instrument deal with it alone than toss a haste. Or a magic missle, even.

This doesn't make anything better, except distributing the bad experience more evenly. Maybe you could make it get cheaper to use your lower-level magics as you advance, so that the wizard can afford to contribute some minor power in non-critical situations. Regardless, it makes the rest of the party into a convoy to deliver the essentially useless wizard to the BBEG, where he goes nova and smashes the foe immediately. Then the party gets to carry the comatose/crippled/drained wizard home to recover. This does remind me of a fair number of fantasy plots, but doesn't really provide the desired fix.
well, yeah, as a quick fix, it will not really change gameplay all that much.

This is where power vs investment comes into play though.

Wizards SHOULD still be able to participate in the game and in encounters in meaningful ways. But these meaningful ways should scale the same way that a fighter advances. The way the current spell progresses, the difference between a level 4 spell and a level 5 spell can be tremendous. That is where a lot of the problem comes from: the design philosophy behind spells is that for wizards, their spell potency is an exponential growth, not a linear one.

The wizard, however, SHOULD have a linear growth of some kind so they still contribute in more mundane encounters. Does this mean we should stop them from producing effects that are truly earth shattering? no. of course not. However, it shouldn't be easy for them either.

To illustrate this better, I'm going to use mana, a measure of how much magical energy is needed to perform a magical task.

So, let's a caster can only channel an amount of mana equal to his own caster level every turn or every standard action. So, if Forcecage is a 80 mana spell, a lvl 20 caster will take four rounds to channel enough mana to get it off the ground. Sounds simple enough yes? But wait, that means the guy will have to literally be sitting out for 4 rounds to do it. That's not fun! Well, yeah, it's not. But then who says he has to do it all from scratch? Maybe he can spend some XP to create an item with the spell already cast. This means every time he wants to cast it fast, it'll cost him. Or he can take his time.

Another thing that I think that can be utilized that never was is preparation time. this has the potential to be a GREAT mechanic that was never used. Do not forget, investment doesn't have to mean experience points. it could also mean time. time before adventures, time in between adventures, time in between rests. A good GM will make sure that these things to become factors.

Let's consider the previous mechanic. Say a wizard decides he's going to perform rituals that will allow him to fill up on magical energy for this forcecage spell. He's going to also open channels within his body that allows him to channel more energy so he can get it off faster. Perhaps this is more than what is considered safe to most magical practitioners. But you know what, he's preparing for a big fight, he's going all the way on it. So instead of just spending an hour preparing for his spells, he spends several weeks or even months in his tower drinking from a magic well and performing rituals that will allow him to cast his super-awesome-kill-in-one-shot spell. And he'll get to save it until he uses it and it's gone. (or maybe if the magical energy is too much and kills him) then he can overcome the fact that a forcecage spell might normally require 4 rounds to cast.

So, if there is a mission that is rather urgent, the players will not have the luxury to sit around waiting for the wizard to charge up. The wizard will have to learn to charge up for stuff, and when what to recharge. Low level spells can in this way, be easily replaceable by just being extra cheap. hell, we can even apply metamagic feats to this sort of thing. And in this way, we can even work out ritual magic and how long ritual spells take to cast. (And work in non-combat spells into the game in a meaningful way other than GM fiat)

but of course, this could all just be a pipe dream.

jjpickar
2007-10-30, 08:43 PM
1. I think balanced against each other in terms of contribution is better. Each class should equally contribute to each game session in a meaningful way. Part of this responsibility lays with the DM in his planning of encounters and challenges but it would be easier if certain classes could contribute more and other certain classes stopped beating the game by themselves.

2. The rules are complicated but I'm not sure that thats the real problem. The real problem is that too many of them are poorly edited (i.e. poorly written, editing is as much a part of writing as drinking and eating are to living). They can have as many rules as they like. I just want them to work all the time and be easy to understand.

3. I could care less how WotC treats me, I just buy the products I like and play them any way I want. I could care less what they have to say to me or anyone else.

Hawriel
2007-10-30, 10:38 PM
WOTC really changed the magic system alot when they changed the spell and initiative mechanics. I was looking at the spell Call Lightning in both second and third edition. To keep this short I'll just give the main differencess. Casting time 2nd one turn, one bolt per turn. Out doors only. weather must be appropriat. 3rd ed catsting time one round, one bolt per turn. can cast any whare but underwater. weather give bigger dice. I looked through the 3rd ed spell list. Most of the casting time for spells are one standard action. The ones that are longer are cast out of combat Ie commune with nature. Time does not matter because most DMs will just deal with the cast, result then move on. Also most of thoughs spells are cast when the characters are in ideal conditions. Casting time is moot. Spell components are almost non existant. S and V thats it. Druids can cast in animal for so that makes components meaningless. In second edition all the spells had a time that effected initiative.

My last D&D campain ended with us just shy of 20th level. Once the mage got prasmatic spray it was all over for the rest of us. She was one shotting demons, old dragons, giants you name it. It took the rest of the party several to lay down one enemy in the time it took her to kill 3. This speaks to what alot of you said already balance is about every party member having an equal value to the party. I do disagree with PVP in one aspect. It doesnt matter if your fighter can be out classed by his wizard team mate it matters when he goes against an NPC that is a wizard. My party doesnt only fight giants and dragons but evil humans and orcs with character levels.

For rules being convoluted. they are because their writers suck. WOTC has the worst writing ive ever seen in a game. This is not just D&D Im also talking about D&D and Star wars mini games, as well as Axis and Allies. The rules are written half assed with one sentence some times contracticting the previos one. I find it very odd that alot of you defend poor writing with the excuse that the DM should be able to fix the rules at his wim if he doesnt like it. If thats the attitude of WOTC and some players why are you trying to sell the game if your argument is make it up the rules if we cant write them simply and clear. Third edition came out wile I was taking composition classes in collage, I couldnt believe the disparity in what I was being taught and what some one was publishing somthing suposidly well written.

Kompera
2007-10-30, 11:05 PM
The main problems I see people having are:
1. The classes are not balanced against each other:Many have set the record straight on this point. It's not balance vs each other, it's balance vs the environment. Casters simply have too many options, too many spells, for any melee type who is still pretty much limited to swinging a sword or shooting a bow to be able to compete with. Were the number of spells cut down by about 75% balance might begin to be restored.


2. The rules can be convoluted:
The core rules are fairly easy to learn, and can be mastered with a small amount of repetitive play. The convolutions come with the addition of additional splatbook after splatbook. The additional spells, feats, classes, races, etc, etc, which each of these introduces are more and more likely to be able to be combined in ways which can be game breaking. Each DM must keep a strict control on the sourcebooks allowed to the players if this is to be avoided.


3. Wizards treats their consumer base like children:I'd answer this with a question. Does a large amount of the player base actually contact WotC for questions on the rules? I've yet to see a need for this kind of contact, and I don't anticipate such a need in the future. I'd suggest that those who do find it necessary to consult with a higher authority on how a fantasy roleplaying game should be run or played may need to be communicated with very carefully by the WotC employees. So carefully that it may be perceived as condescension.

Dausuul
2007-10-30, 11:10 PM
Yes, for the love of God, please hire some playtesters. My 9 year old nephew could do a better job playtesting than those futzes.

Mmm-hmm. Lots of people say this. Funnily, it doesn't seem to pan out that way in practice. Setting up playtesters and getting useful information from them isn't as easy as people seem to think.


Any game system other than D&D that has over a 25 page FAQ is considered badly written. D&D's errata is over 100 pages! Even given the short bus nature of D&D, that's just inexcusable.

That's 100 pages across twenty-four books. Those 25 pages of Traveller errata are all for one book. Per book, Traveller has six times the errata D&D does.

Say what you will about WotC, their books are fairly professional. In most other RPGs of my experience, the editing has been far more slipshod than in any D&D book (the exception being GURPS).


Are you considering in part three also about how D&D demands stereotype adherence? I know it's one of the things I hate about it. And Heaven forbid you choose the wrong stereotype.

With this part I'll agree. Some of that is inevitable in a class-based system, but D&D takes it way too far--though much of the stereotyping is a legacy from previous editions, so with any luck it'll be much reduced in 4E.

ArmorArmadillo
2007-10-30, 11:18 PM
I'm sorry, but there is nothing to the claim that clarifications on rules are either "treating readers like children" or "dumbing down the game."

It's wonderful if they don't have a problem with the rules on grappling, but WotC legitimately clarifying rules with legitimately confusing implications is just helpful to determining the workings of the game.


Furthermore, no amount of clarification of rules can actively change or alter the game in a negative way.

Bad rules are an issue, excessive clarifications are not.

horseboy
2007-10-31, 02:12 AM
Mmm-hmm. Lots of people say this. Funnily, it doesn't seem to pan out that way in practice. Setting up playtesters and getting useful information from them isn't as easy as people seem to think.
Well, if they'd actually TEST encounters instead of just saying "OOhh, the DM product placed this so well, we're not going to bother...."



That's 100 pages across twenty-four books. Those 25 pages of Traveller errata are all for one book. Per book, Traveller has six times the errata D&D does.

Say what you will about WotC, their books are fairly professional. In most other RPGs of my experience, the editing has been far more slipshod than in any D&D book (the exception being GURPS).

That's silly, why just the other day I had to scroll down through 86 pages to find out that I'm thinking about the FAQ, and not the errata, aren't I? Okay, you've got me on that one. :smalltongue:

Edit: You wanna know what I think (at quarter till 3 in the morning) is the core problem with D&D? It wants to be too many things to too many people. It really needs to pick something and run with it. Does it want to be a miniatures combat game, a generic host system, a beer and pretzels fest, fantasy, high fantasy, an honest to goodness real role-playing game? What does it want to do? It just sort of meanders aimlessly around trying to capitalize on as much as it can instead of picking something and being good at it. Ultimately it spreads itself WAY too thin and convolutes around in all kind of awkward positions that really just doesn't satisfy anyone but the most hard up. Wow, I think I should go to sleep now.

TheGreatJabu
2007-10-31, 03:13 AM
Apart from the class balance complaint, I think one of the things that's been pushing me away from D&D in recent months is the overwhelmingly abstract nature it has. Almost everything is all-or-nothing (isn't that sentence a fun little paradox?)

Margin of Success: With the exception of a few skill types of skill checks, your margin of success or failure is completely inconsequential in D&D. Hitting a goblin with an attack roll of 35 and hitting it with a 13 has the exact same effect, yet D&D uses "improved accuracy" as an excuse to give extra damage from Sneak Attack and the like. It seems like an attack that barely hits should qualify as a glancing blow and do less damage, with damage increasing with accuracy. Similar problem with saving throws - if the Reflex DC of a Fireball is 18, and you save for 17, you fail just as badly as someone who had a save of 2.

Hit points: Unless you're playing a variant, all allies and enemies can operate at 100% efficiency despite all wounds until the second you die. From what I hear this won't be as much an issue in 4th, at least.

Vorpal weapons: pretty obvious. Disruption weapons are similar, but that's more of a rehashing of my beef with saving throws.

Spellcasting: Why should the spell always either cast perfectly or fail completely? Although there is a variant that requires a d20 roll to determine the saving throw of your spells, I think that only really deals with half of the issue.If there was some type of check to determine the potency/effectiveness of a given spell, it would make those Instant-win spells of high level wizards at least have a chance of failure. If this type of system was used, Concentration could actually be removed and replaced with penalties or bonuses to this spell potency check if you preferred. Getting a low result could result in anything from a simple spell failure to non-standard or random spell effects, all the way to a magical backlash on the caster. The idea reminds me of wild magic from 2nd edition - which I think would be a really fun way to make ALL magic work. Not nearly as unstable, obviously, but having that random element would make magic feel more dangerous and fantastic - two feelings that I think magic is missings in the clear-cut rules of D&D. D&D makes the mystical and intangible a common, predictable occurence.

Edit: Heh. I agree with horseboy's edit that he snuck in while I was typing. Can't blame Wizards - it's impossible to make EVERYONE happy.

Kompera
2007-10-31, 03:50 AM
Apart from the class balance complaint, I think one of the things that's been pushing me away from D&D in recent months is the overwhelmingly abstract nature it has. Almost everything is all-or-nothing (isn't that sentence a fun little paradox?)

Margin of Success

Critical hits approach what you're looking for, without forcing the game to break down into a chart fest. I'd far rather either hit or miss, do my damage or not, and have a 5% (or whatever0 chance to threaten a critical, than play in a system where I need to ask the GM how well I hit. "Gee, well, you needed a (checks NPC sheet) 14, but you rolled a 17, so you're on the (checks chart) + 1 hard hit chart. That means you get (checks chart) an extra D4. Roll damage"


Hit points: Unless you're playing a variant, all allies and enemies are 100% until the second you die.For HP, yes. But there are spells, poisons, diseases, and many other special attacks which can degrade a character or monsters fighting abilities prior to death. HP is an abstraction, yes, but I prefer the current system to the possible alternatives. "Gee, you've been hit for 15 damage. What % of your total is that (does some math)? I think you're at (checks chart) -2 to all actions. Oh, now the Cleric heals you for 6. Re-calculate your % wounds so we can see if your action penalty has changed."
-or-
"Gee, you've been wounded in the leg. You have a -5 move speed, and -5 on all Jump, Tumble, and Acrobatics rolls. Added to your earlier chest wound, you've got -2 on all attack rolls, you bleed 1 HP per round until healed, and you have to make a DC 15 concentration roll at -4 to cast a spell."
-or-
"Gee, you hit him in the left arm. Was that the arm with the half-chain, or the brigantine (checks NPC sheet)? Ah, it was the half-chain. So, that's a (checks chart) -3 damage reduction. Roll your damage. Is your weapon piercing, bashing, or slicing? (cross-indexes damage type against armor defense). Your second hit was against the helm. That was (checks) plate, so -5 damage. I'll roll to see if you get a stun for the head shot."

No, thank you. I've played in a good many systems which used hit locations, mixed armor types, and the like. They are more gritty, you'll see more characters with one eye and a missing arm, for example. But they play very slowly in combat and tend to erode the heroic feel of a game. And they are far more easily broken than an abstracted system. The BBEG isn't so B or B when both eyes have been put out, for example, even if the damage inflicted was minimal. So you'll have players who are deadly eye shots but otherwise useless in combat, or whatever.



Spellcasting: Why should the spell always either cast perfectly or fail completely?The cast is perfect, but there is a saving throw to avoid some or all of the effects in most cases. And a roll to hit with rays. Again, this could be made more "realistic" (for some value of), but at a high cost in playability.

TheGreatJabu
2007-10-31, 04:03 AM
For HP, yes. But there are spells, poisons, diseases, and many other special attacks which can degrade a character or monsters fighting abilities prior to death. HP is an abstraction, yes, but I prefer the current system to the possible alternatives. "Gee, you've been hit for 15 damage. What % of your total is that (does some math)? I think you're at (checks chart) -2 to all actions. Oh, now the Cleric heals you for 6. Re-calculate your % wounds so we can see if your action penalty has changed."
-or-
"Gee, you've been wounded in the leg. You have a -5 move speed, and -5 on all Jump, Tumble, and Acrobatics rolls. Added to your earlier chest wound, you've got -2 on all attack rolls, you bleed 1 HP per round until healed, and you have to make a DC 15 concentration roll at -4 to cast a spell."
-or-
"Gee, you hit him in the left arm. Was that the arm with the half-chain, or the brigantine (checks NPC sheet)? Ah, it was the half-chain. So, that's a (checks chart) -3 damage reduction. Roll your damage. Is your weapon piercing, bashing, or slicing? (cross-indexes damage type against armor defense). Your second hit was against the helm. That was (checks) plate, so -5 damage. I'll roll to see if you get a stun for the head shot."

No, thank you. I've played in a good many systems which used hit locations, mixed armor types, and the like. They are more gritty, you'll see more characters with one eye and a missing arm, for example. But they play very slowly in combat and tend to erode the heroic feel of a game. And they are far more easily broken than an abstracted system. The BBEG isn't so B or B when both eyes have been put out, for example, even if the damage inflicted was minimal. So you'll have players who are deadly eye shots but otherwise useless in combat, or whatever.

Does sound awfully rough. Glad I didn't say anything about hit locations. I was referring to something more akin to Star Wars Saga Edition's Condition Track. If you get hurt "this" much, you take a -1 to everything. Get hurt "this" much again, you get -2. "This" much again, -5 and no running/charges. "This" much one more time, -10 and half your move speed. No charts required. It's all based off of your character's Star Wars equivalent of their Fortitude Save. It's a pretty simple addition that makes your injuries actually seem to MATTER. As for feeling heroic, come on: name one fantasy movie where the hero doesn't get some kind of wound in the big fight, their performance noticably decreases, yet they still struggle on despite their injuries and succeed?

Tormsskull
2007-10-31, 06:23 AM
1. The classes are not balanced against each other.


They are not, and have never been intended to be. If your group is regularly running into problems of one party member drastically overwhelming monsters and relegating the other PCs into the role of sidekick, then you have a poor DM on your hands.

Any trick that a spellcaster can come up with you can make a defense for. Any spell that you think is too powerful you can easily tone down. If a melee character in the group is ruining the fun for everyone else because he regularly dishes out huge damage, you can easily fix that as well.

The probelm occurs when people reading the books assume the game can be played "as is". Anyone who as any experience with gaming systems in general will know if you compare one class with very limited options to another class who has nearly endless options, the one with the plethora of options will always have the potential to be more powerful than the one with few.



2. The rules can be convoluted.


They sure can be.



3. Wizards treats their consumer base like children.


I agree with you here on the fact that WotC's fanbase is made up of mostly children.


One of the main problems with D&D is that the way it is designed now clashes strongly with the way it was designed in the past. In the past TSR really pushed the "Anything the DM says goes" angle. 3.x has splat books, design articles on their website, and the like, that tell players to convince their DMs to allow whatever material in the game.

They even had someone write in a question to one of the designers that said something like "My DM won't allow me to play an ExampleRace. What should I do?" And the guy responding to the article said something like "Show your DM this, and this, or that, and that, which will prove to him/her that this race is not anymore powerful than OtherExampleRace."

If you want D&D to work, get a good DM. If you want D&D to work out of the box (or with a bad DM), I think you're SOL.

Ossian
2007-10-31, 06:52 AM
Well, it's D&D, the story of dungeons and dragons. It's not meant to be balanced because the narrative base is that of the epic "hard" fantasy. Wherever in "fantasy" you go, there are versatile types, and types that can do well just a few things. If one wanted a system where all classes had the same range of options and effectiveness, he should have picked the "Justice League" rpg. There, if you are Thor you smash with hammers, if you are "Crazypants Archer" you shoot them with arrows, if you are "Superpointyhat" you blast them, and if you are Mandrake you ipnotoze them. D&D isn't designed after the average group of manga teenage heroes, with the 16 years old wizard, warrior, rogue and cleric that can actually do exactly the same stuff while they go througfh flashbacks and get their sexual priorities straight. It's (originally) the story of King Arthur, who ruled over britain but was ruled by merlin the wizard, of Beowulf, who was basically a warrior that feared the enchantments, of Cu Culhain and of the Fianna, of Queen Maeve and her tricky geas.

Conan is based on the power gap between magic users (divine or arcane) and figheters. Before just starting to play, you should understand which kind of cut you want to give to the campaign, and balance the classes accordingly, perhaps banning a few of them.

Besides, I really enjoy a good spear and shield fight, and a honest grapple with an orc, while I find a bit confusing, boring and ultimately difficult to have to go through all the wizard stuff. My friend is exactly the other way around. All magic and study and no melee.

It's also quite well balance, despite what I just said, until level 7 or 9. Point is, after that ask yourself why does your character still go adventuring? If you are able to stop time, raze building to the ground with a finger snap, mesmerize Archangel Gabriel and call an airstraike from the Devas, you really need to ask yourself why don't you just lock yourself in a castlke and enjoy the fruits of (supposedly) years of adventuring. Sure, if you got to level 10 when you were 25 years old...but that's another problem.

Perhaps fighters have a longer "narrative" lifespan. It's always possible to challenge them, and to give them a good fight. Rogues will always have a place which they won't be able to sneak into, or a target they can't assassin, and so on. Maybe some reasonable multiclassing and a good strory line can give your powerful magic user a little more life. Maybe world war hits "Fantāsia" and your 12 lvl wiz/5th level fighter is called into battle for the next 5 years against the hordes of "Captain Skull", but that's really it.

Take Yoda. He's 20th level, 900 years old, and sits on his a** at the Temple, and has done the same for over a 100 years. Ok, the War of the Clones kicks in, time for the little frog to resume his pocket saber. Palpatine? 19th-20th level. the most powerful sith lord ever (or at least the most cunning and foresighted). He' around 60 y.o. and plots and schemes.Definitely not a dungeon crawler.

O.

Mr. Friendly
2007-10-31, 06:57 AM
They are not, and have never been intended to be. If your group is regularly running into problems of one party member drastically overwhelming monsters and relegating the other PCs into the role of sidekick, then you have a poor DM on your hands.

Any trick that a spellcaster can come up with you can make a defense for. Any spell that you think is too powerful you can easily tone down. If a melee character in the group is ruining the fun for everyone else because he regularly dishes out huge damage, you can easily fix that as well.

The probelm occurs when people reading the books assume the game can be played "as is". Anyone who as any experience with gaming systems in general will know if you compare one class with very limited options to another class who has nearly endless options, the one with the plethora of options will always have the potential to be more powerful than the one with few.



They sure can be.



I agree with you here on the fact that WotC's fanbase is made up of mostly children.


One of the main problems with D&D is that the way it is designed now clashes strongly with the way it was designed in the past. In the past TSR really pushed the "Anything the DM says goes" angle. 3.x has splat books, design articles on their website, and the like, that tell players to convince their DMs to allow whatever material in the game.

They even had someone write in a question to one of the designers that said something like "My DM won't allow me to play an ExampleRace. What should I do?" And the guy responding to the article said something like "Show your DM this, and this, or that, and that, which will prove to him/her that this race is not anymore powerful than OtherExampleRace."

If you want D&D to work, get a good DM. If you want D&D to work out of the box (or with a bad DM), I think you're SOL.

Nice answer. I think I could shorten in down for you a little bit:

"D&D is fine as long as your DM runs it like reading a novel and denies you the opportunity to put in any input."

The reason they moved away from the infinite DM fiat aspect of D&D is because of crappy DMs who are just sadists on power trips. If you enjoy doing nothing for hours, only to fail at whatever task you have, then you are enabling your DMs problems.

The reason they have splatbooks is so the players have more opportunities to do what they want to do.

Your perspective is just fine if the gaming group is a bunch of 10 year olds. However, when your group is all over 20, it becomes really degrading to have to go to your DM and beg him on bended knee to allow you the right to go buy a book with your money that you earned from your job, only to have said DM decide that he doen't like it. Not for any game balance reasons mind you, let's say he is simply a jerk. "Hey DM I bought the Tome of Battle. These classes are all so much better than fighter... I want to make a Crusader!... DM: No. I won't allow anime in my game. Player: Wha?"

As far as game balance being based solely upon DM fiat .... that is utter dragon fodder.

How many times can a fight take place in an anti-magic field? How many times will the monsters be armed with this or that magic item/spell/ability. There are only a limited number of ways to shut down wizards without pure DM cheese.

I could go over the long... long.... loooooong list of really craptacular DMs I have had in my years of playing D&D, with the bad outnumbering the good roughly 5:1. My point I suppose is there are a vast many bad DMs and a few good DMs; the system should be designed around protecting players from one of those two groups and I think you can guess which one.

Tormsskull
2007-10-31, 07:11 AM
"D&D is fine as long as your DM runs it like reading a novel and denies you the opportunity to put in any input."


Nah, players have a lot of input under my way, its just that the DM has the final say. Players definitely don't bring books to the table assuming that since they bought it with their hard-earned money that the DM is obligated to allow its use.



The reason they moved away from the infinite DM fiat aspect of D&D is because of crappy DMs who are just sadists on power trips. If you enjoy doing nothing for hours, only to fail at whatever task you have, then you are enabling your DMs problems.


DMs always have infinite power, its just that WotC doesn't make it as apparent as it was before. Plain and simple if the DM says "No", then the answer is No. You can choose to not play anymore, but I can't imagine the DM would miss a player like that.



The reason they have splatbooks is so the players have more opportunities to do what they want to do.


The reason they have splatbooks is because they want to make more money, plain and simple. This is not an evil desire, as every business' objective is to make money. But don't think they are being altruistic either.



Your perspective is just fine if the gaming group is a bunch of 10 year olds. However, when your group is all over 20, it becomes really degrading to have to go to your DM and beg him on bended knee to allow you the right to go buy a book with your money that you earned from your job, only to have said DM decide that he doen't like it. Not for any game balance reasons mind you, let's say he is simply a jerk. "Hey DM I bought the Tome of Battle. These classes are all so much better than fighter... I want to make a Crusader!... DM: No. I won't allow anime in my game. Player: Wha?"


Actually, I find it is quite the opposite. I game exclusively with players who are 22-30 or so, and they don't have any problems with the style.

Also, we can assume that everytime the DM doesn't give you what you want he is a jerk, because that sure makes your point have more merit, but it rarely works that way.

As well, the money that you earned from your job and decided to purchase a book most likely pales in comparison the the amount of money that the DM spent to purchase all of the books that he has, mapping paper, character sheets if needed, the time that he spent making the adventure, etc, etc. So you won't get any sympathy from me about that.



As far as game balance being based solely upon DM fiat .... that is utter dragon fodder.

How many times can a fight take place in an anti-magic field? How many times will the monsters be armed with this or that magic item/spell/ability. There are only a limited number of ways to shut down wizards without pure DM cheese.


There's no such thing as DM cheese. Wizard's can be shut down very effectively with a "This culture doesn't like wizards. If they see you casting a spell they'll probably turn you over to the Inquisition."



I could go over the long... long.... loooooong list of really craptacular DMs I have had in my years of playing D&D, with the bad outnumbering the good roughly 5:1. My point I suppose is there are a vast many bad DMs and a few good DMs; the system should be designed around protecting players from one of those two groups and I think you can guess which one.

Once again, a very poor attitude of D&D in general, but one I see the younger players espousing frequently. "The rules are my defense against the evil DM who only spent his time putting this adventure together so he can feel all high and mighty in his DM chair."

Mr. Friendly
2007-10-31, 07:33 AM
Oddly enough, I play D&D to have fun. Not to be emotionally battered by some egomaniac.

Apparently you have found all of the good DMs and they used their infinite powers only for good; others of us have not been so lucky and have no desire to go on letting DMs bully us because they had a bad day at work.

You see D&D as a narrative told by the DM. I see D&D as a game with a collective story-telling element to it.

Please note that I never said everytime a DM denies something it is simply to be a jerk.

I also have yet to meet a DM who did not collectively buy books with the group (e.g. I'm playing a Mage, so I will buy Complete Arcane, Doug is playing a Fighter so he will buy Complete Warrior, etc.) because not all of us can just afford to buy every book. Some people have cars, mortgages, children and lives outside of D&D.

And how awesome is your answer of "this culture doesn't like wizards". Wow. Bravo. I mean really. What a great solution. Aside from a) Not working and b) being a complete cop out it really doesn't change the inherant flaws of the system. While the wizard hating culture thing is fine every once in a while, week after week would get really boring, really fast.

Thanks for being such a reasonable person who thoughtfully considered my arguements before deciding I was a little kid who needed to be scolded. You remind me very much of many DMs I have known in the past....

Saph
2007-10-31, 07:44 AM
Oddly enough, I play D&D to have fun. Not to be emotionally battered by some egomaniac.

Apparently you have found all of the good DMs and they used their infinite powers only for good; others of us have not been so lucky and have no desire to go on letting DMs bully us because they had a bad day at work.

You're being a bit unfair to Tormsskull. I think you're also missing his point: the DM always has infinite power. If he says something happens, it happens. It's just a matter of whether he uses that power well or badly.

- Saph

Winterwind
2007-10-31, 08:03 AM
It may well be that I'm spoiled myself - but why would anyone play with a DM/any other people, with whom they would not want to spend time otherwise? RPGs are, for me at least, a way to have a fun time with friends, and I don't see why anyone would play with an egomaniac power-hungry jerk?

This said, I agree that it's not up to the DM to decide what is allowed and what is not. The DM is just one player amongst the others, and balance issues and house-rules should best be agreed upon with the entire group.

Tormsskull
2007-10-31, 08:04 AM
Oddly enough, I play D&D to have fun. Not to be emotionally battered by some egomaniac.


You allow your DM to emotionally batter you? I'd just leave if that happened to me.



Apparently you have found all of the good DMs and they used their infinite powers only for good; others of us have not been so lucky and have no desire to go on letting DMs bully us because they had a bad day at work.


So to prevent that you and the other players developed a system of checks and balances on the DM's powers? Or what?



You see D&D as a narrative told by the DM.


Also a frequent misconception to a pro-DM POV.



I also have yet to meet a DM who did not collectively buy books with the group (e.g. I'm playing a Mage, so I will buy Complete Arcane, Doug is playing a Fighter so he will buy Complete Warrior, etc.) because not all of us can just afford to buy every book. Some people have cars, mortgages, children and lives outside of D&D.


You're telling me. That's one of the main reasons I stay Core-only + homebrew, its much cheaper that way.



And how awesome is your answer of "this culture doesn't like wizards". Wow. Bravo. I mean really. What a great solution. Aside from a) Not working and b) being a complete cop out it really doesn't change the inherant flaws of the system. While the wizard hating culture thing is fine every once in a while, week after week would get really boring, really fast.


I'm confused. It doesn't work, and its a cop out, but its fine everyone once in a while, but gets boring?

Plain and simple, the DM is in the best position to try to foster an evironment that is fun for all. If 1 character ends up causing the other players to not have so much fun, we can A.) Moan and complain that D&D is a sucktastic game and the designers are horrible blah, blah B.) Have the DM level the playing field.



Thanks for being such a reasonable person who thoughtfully considered my arguements...

Quid pro quo.

Matthew
2007-10-31, 08:19 AM
This said, I agree that it's not up to the DM to decide what is allowed and what is not. The DM is just one player amongst the others, and balance issues and house-rules should best be agreed upon with the entire group.

Hmmnn. Not sure I agree with this. The DM always makes the final decision where disputes arise. It's preferable that everybody in the group agress that X is good and Y is bad, but it doesn't always work out that way.


Oddly enough, I play D&D to have fun. Not to be emotionally battered by some egomaniac.

Apparently you have found all of the good DMs and they used their infinite powers only for good; others of us have not been so lucky and have no desire to go on letting DMs bully us because they had a bad day at work.

What? You should leave if you ever have an experience like that. There's only one thing that enables a bad DM to continue being a bad DM and that's Players turning up to his game.

Winterwind
2007-10-31, 08:36 AM
Hmmnn. Not sure I agree with this. The DM always makes the final decision where disputes arise. It's preferable that everybody in the group agress that X is good and Y is bad, but it doesn't always work out that way.See, my stance on this is as follows.

In the game, whatever the gamemaster says goes. The players may point out if they feel the gamemaster is making a mistake, but if after them pointing it out the gamemaster insists on following through with his initial orders ("orders" is too strong a word, but I can't think of a better one), that's what has to be done. The reason for this is that there may be some circumstances the players don't know about. Maybe that check the GM asked for does not relate to what the players think at all? Maybe there is some mighty spell or curse lying on that place or person, and therefore their own magic/skills/whatever does not work exactly as it is supposed to? And since the GM can't reveal such secrets to the players, the players just have to trust the GM that (s)he knows what (s)he's doing. And everyone is fine with that. Besides, everyone wants to play instead of waste time discussing rules and letting the atmosphere and suspense fade away.

On the other hand, outside of the game, discussing balance issues or alike, the GM is in no way more competent or privileged than the other players. The GM thinks shotguns are overpowered? Well, maybe, but who is (s)he to decide that? That player who plays with that shotgun is equally competent to make a statement about it, and likewise is every other player at the table. Just because (s)he is the current GM that person does not possess superior knowledge of the rules and can pass supreme judgements concerning what is fine, what is not, and how to amend it best.

The goal is for everyone to have fun; and hence, everyone should have an equal right to vote under which rules the group is supposed to play.

Matthew
2007-10-31, 08:56 AM
That sounds reasonable to me, but it does rather rely on being able to prove something is true one way or another when in many cases it is a matter of preference. I suspect that a lot depends on how the group was put together and how often it games together.

For me, there can be an outside discourse running parallel to the game as to how RPGs in general or in particular should run, but that need not impact the actual game at all. It's not fair on the DM if the Players all vote for a paradigm shift and he's not comfortable with running the game that way; he has to either 'get with the program' or withdraw from running the game. This is more of an issue if the DM is running a long term campaign.

For instance, I might say to a group of Players "Hey, I'm planning on starting up another 2e AD&D campaign." If they all decided they'd rather play 3e, I would prbably withdraw the offer of running a campaign (though, I would still happily run a 3e prefabricated adventure or two).

Of course, it's trust that is the most important factor. If the Players don't trust the DM to run a fair and fun game, there's not a lot of point in playing.

Indon
2007-10-31, 09:01 AM
You see D&D as a narrative told by the DM. I see D&D as a game with a collective story-telling element to it.

Please note that I never said everytime a DM denies something it is simply to be a jerk.


Personally, I think D&D is a Choose Your Own Adventure book.

But, hey, if someone wants to be more involved in the collective storytelling, awesome. They can think up their own thing... but if it doesn't fit in the mood of the campaign, or the setting of the campaign, both of which I made... it ain't happening. Period.

If you really want to tell your own story, you can DM a campaign yourself.

Also, emotional batter sounds delicious.

Tormsskull
2007-10-31, 09:03 AM
That sounds reasonable to me, but it does rather rely on being able to prove something is true one way or another. I suspect that a lot depends on how the group was put together and how often it games together.


Exactly. I had a thread a while back about the two main ways campaigns come together. The first being the DM puts together a campaign and then invites players to play, and the second being players get together, agree on rules, then nominate a DM. I imagine this is where a lot of the confusion comes from when a person used to a Type 2 campaign responds to someone who is talking about a Type 1 campaign.



Of course, it's trust that is the most important factor. If the Players don't trust the DM to run a fair and fun game, there's not a lot of point in playing.

I agree. Its the main issue that bothers me when people say that their DM cheated them, or that their DM is a dunce because he won't allow _____ material into the campaign, etc.

Winterwind
2007-10-31, 09:07 AM
That sounds reasonable to me, but it does rather rely on being able to prove something is true one way or another when in many cases it is a matter of preference. I suspect that a lot depends on how the group was put together and how often it games together.Groups I play with are composed entirely out of my friends or, occasionally, friends of my friends. And it doesn't hinge so much on the ability to prove something right or wrong as on reaching a compromise everyone is fine with, which has proven rather easy every single time so far.


For me, there can be an outside discourse running parallel to the game as to how RPGs in general or in particular should run, but that need not impact the actual game at all. It's not fair on the DM if the Players all vote for a paradigm shift and he's not comfortable with running the game that way; he has to either 'get with the program' or withdraw from running the game. This is more of an issue if the DM is running a long term campaign.That's why we usually decide what and how we want to play beforehand. Although it is common that the gamemaster asks after every session, especially when in a long term campaign (which has become more and more standard for us recently), whether the players were pleased with that session and whether they would prefer something to change, or if they have any specific wishes for the next session. It's not so much about the gamemaster being forced to run a game in a way (s)he doesn't want to, it's more about finding out where the sweet spot where the group will have maximum fun lies.


For instance, I might say to a group of Players "Hey, I'm planning on starting up another 2e AD&D campaign." If they all decided they'd rather play 3e, I would prbably withdraw the offer of running a campaign (though, I would still happily run a 3e prefabricated adventure or two).The way this would work in our group is quite a bit different. We usually have several campaigns running simultaneously and, whenever we meet, the first question is "So, what do we want to play today?", followed by a discussion which of the various systems who would prefer, and who wants to be a gamemaster and who does not. We always reach some consensus. So, it might be like "Hey, shall we continue that ShadowRun campaign from last time?" - "Nah, I don't feel like GMing SR right now. How about Call of Cthulhu?" - "Yeah, fine, but I don't want to GM. Will you?" - "Sure.". (For clarification, each GM has an own campaign, we usually don't take over the campaign of others - we want to have a storyline after all)

EDIT: Exactly what Tormsskull described in his post. We are a type 2 group, as much type 2 as could be.


Of course, it's trust that is the most important factor. If the Players don't trust the DM to run a fair and fun game, there's not a lot of point in playing.I could not agree more.

elliott20
2007-10-31, 09:11 AM
Well, it's D&D, the story of dungeons and dragons. It's not meant to be balanced because the narrative base is that of the epic "hard" fantasy. Wherever in "fantasy" you go, there are versatile types, and types that can do well just a few things.

a noted difference between these guys and a lot of D&D players though, is that these people are mostly playing sagely hermits whose job is really to help lead the protagonist onto the next phase of the story. Most of the time, they don't actually do all that much magic. If you will, you can almost argue that their magic comes in the form of knowledge and foresight, rather than garish display of power.

And like I said before, many of these wizards still do normal everyday things, supplimenting it with their magic to make it a little easier or a little deadlier, as opposed to just do some kind of "rocks fall, everyone dies" type magic.

The D&D wizard, however, is showy, technologically inclined, enterprised minded and wields far more power with far less knowledge. Or rather, they spend far less time fulfill the role of "plot device" and take center stage as the hero.

That's all well and good, but it DOES drastically change the way the game is played.

Magic is suddenly not mysterious and unknowing. Magi is not some kind of mystical art that drives people mad in it's pursuit. No, now we have magical colleges that function like some kind of polytech school, magical stores that churn out magical items like a goddamn 11-7, and basically, the only people who will ever become major players in the world are high level mages or people who through some method control mages. (you want to talk about the centralization of power? well, there is no greater symbol of that than a wizard)

Thinking in terms of economics, everything is about price and incentives. The price of magic in the D&D game system is negligible while the incentives are HUGE. So then question is this: Why WOULDN'T someone want to study magic, even if just to have at least passing knowledge as to how to deal with it? Hell, even just having the ability to cast some level 2 spells can be immensely helpful.

Freelance Henchman
2007-10-31, 09:11 AM
Wizards are powerful enough to cause the DM to metagame. I'm living in dread fear of the day my player wizard gains the ability to cast forcecage. Thus I've sworn that all my high-level bosses will have the ability to break through it.

And the only way to break through a forcecage is by using the Wizard's own arsenal.

Wrong on so many levels.

Couldn't you just outright ban it, or at least weaken it? That the GM actually lives in fear of this stupid spell seems to say it simply shouldn't BE.

Saph
2007-10-31, 09:29 AM
Couldn't you just outright ban it, or at least weaken it? That the GM actually lives in fear of this stupid spell seems to say it simply shouldn't BE.

You really don't need to ban it, it's overrated. There are a variety of ways to deal with Forcecage - see my earlier thread on "Why Forcecage+Cloudkill is Useless" (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=61295).

- Saph

Matthew
2007-10-31, 09:34 AM
Exactly. I had a thread a while back about the two main ways campaigns come together. The first being the DM puts together a campaign and then invites players to play, and the second being players get together, agree on rules, then nominate a DM. I imagine this is where a lot of the confusion comes from when a person used to a Type 2 campaign responds to someone who is talking about a Type 1 campaign.

I think that is a good assessment. I usually play Type 1 for long term campaigns and Type 2 for short campaigns.


Groups I play with are composed entirely out of my friends or, occasionally, friends of my friends. And it doesn't hinge so much on the ability to prove something right or wrong as on reaching a compromise everyone is fine with, which has proven rather easy every single time so far.

Yeah, I can see that.


That's why we usually decide what and how we want to play beforehand. Although it is common that the gamemaster asks after every session, especially when in a long term campaign (which has become more and more standard for us recently), whether the players were pleased with that session and whether they would prefer something to change, or if they have any specific wishes for the next session. It's not so much about the gamemaster being forced to run a game in a way (s)he doesn't want to, it's more about finding out where the sweet spot where the group will have maximum fun lies.

Sure, I usually ask for input after a session.


The way this would work in our group is quite a bit different. We usually have several campaigns running simultaneously and, whenever we meet, the first question is "So, what do we want to play today?", followed by a discussion which of the various systems who would prefer, and who wants to be a gamemaster and who does not. We always reach some consensus. So, it might be like "Hey, shall we continue that ShadowRun campaign from last time?" - "Nah, I don't feel like GMing SR right now. How about Call of Cthulhu?" - "Yeah, fine, but I don't want to GM. Will you?" - "Sure.". (For clarification, each GM has an own campaign, we usually don't take over the campaign of others - we want to have a storyline after all)

EDIT: Exactly what Tormsskull described in his post. We are a type 2 group, as much type 2 as could be.

I think this is where people do get confused as to how groups are set up. It's rare for us to get together and discuss what we would like to play as a group with regard to lengthy campaigns. For short games, we are more inclined to do this (when I'm talking about lengthy campaigns, I'm talking years or more than 60+ Sessions).

Force Majeure
2007-10-31, 09:44 AM
I've never really found balance an issue. I write all my own dungeons and have for the last 22 years. If you are having balance issues in your campaign, your DM should focus more on preparing games that give everyone something to do. A room full of moderate monsters that are too numerous for the fighters to effectively battle that allows the wizard to display his awesome powers and monster's with high magic resistance or total immunity to spells that force your toe to toe fighters to dismantle him for example. I also always try to mix in enough traps and mind puzzles to keep my overactive rogues busy as well. The problems you mention with the rules can be overlooked by remembering they are guidelines and your DM and playing groups can choose how to best interpret them for your campaigns. Waiting for a corporation to change something you can change yourself...well we all know how that turns out. Owning every monster manual and using them like toolboxes to fill your dungeons is the best way to balance your game. The other thing, if you are a player and having balance issues try DM'ing, unless he or she is a total control freak, I'd bet your DM would love to take a weekend off of running the game to focus on their own roleplaying.

elliott20
2007-10-31, 09:45 AM
having played several 3rd party independant games, D&D actually feels like a lot more work than other game systems when it comes to storyline and such. This is where a lot of the whole GM schooling is needed, since as a D&D GM, you're often required to write up the storyline, plot, encounters, etc, long before the players sit down for a game.

now games like say, Burning Wheel or Agon, the gameplay style a scene based narrative. The GM has only to do the minimal scripting and the rest of the time, he just plays out the story instead of trying to safeguard his campaign from player sabatoge at every corner.

Winterwind
2007-10-31, 09:49 AM
I think this is where people do get confused as to how groups are set up. It's rare for us to get together and discuss what we would like to play as a group with regard to lengthy campaigns. For short games, we are more inclined to do this (when I'm talking about lengthy campaigns, I'm talking years or more than 60+ Sessions).Alas, we don't meet often enough for applying such a standard. A lengthy campaign is more in the 15-25 sessions range for us. Although I got the impression that, when people talk about "campaigns" here, they mean that the characters used will be retired after that, whereas for me a campaign is merely a sequence of sessions related by one common plot - basically, one large story - and the characters can well be used again in the next campaign.


having played several 3rd party independant games, D&D actually feels like a lot more work than other game systems when it comes to storyline and such. This is where a lot of the whole GM schooling is needed, since as a D&D GM, you're often required to write up the storyline, plot, encounters, etc, long before the players sit down for a game.

now games like say, Burning Wheel or Agon, the gameplay style a scene based narrative. The GM has only to do the minimal scripting and the rest of the time, he just plays out the story instead of trying to safeguard his campaign from player sabatoge at every corner.I don't DM D&D, but in other games, I usually invest about 5-10 minutes before each session to set up the rough plot, and that's it.

Crazy_Uncle_Doug
2007-10-31, 10:03 AM
1. The classes are not balanced against each other:
As noted earlier, the class balance issue has been aggravated in 3.xe. Before the 20th level Magic-User had a distinct advantage. Now, the 20th level Sorcerer or Wizard consistently eclipses the rest of the part. It's to the point where, in the high-level campaign I'm playing, we all fear for our lives when the Wizard dies.


2. The rules can be convoluted:
This is a two-fold problem I see. The first seems to be WotC's need to adjudicate just about everything, sometimes to levels that seem a bit excessive in play. I say seem because my groups have found that with practice, things come naturally to us. However, the complexity of the rules means there's still rules arguments.

The second is just a natural progression for most RPGs I've played. Since these companies are producing RPGs to make money, they produce more than just core rulebooks over time. The new books tend to expand on rules and add features the core books would not or could not do. Each additional expansion adds levels of complexity to the game, though at varying degrees. Eventually, the amount of complexity becomes great enough that adding more just adds confusion or frustration. About then is when we get a new edition and the process begins again.


3. Wizards treats their consumer base like children:
Well, on one hand, I'd say that since they are marketing to people 10-100, it's necessary to speak at a level a good majority of the audience desired can understand. Since the youngest market is the most coveted (if you can get the youths enjoying this particular hobby now, you pretty much have them for a long time), they most likely will want to write so that this market can understand. On the other hand, there's no need to talk down to them. I was reading Gygax's flowery language (dwoemer, milieu, et al) back in High School and took to the dictionary when he got complicated.

Of course, I started on Basic DnD, which up until 3rd Edition was a separate product from Advanced DnD. Basic was written in simpler language and concepts than Advanced. It had quite a bit of material, that was well usable. I used to have several of the Gazetters for Basic DnD, which had several unique nations that were highly fascinating. In my opinion, the abandoning on the former meant the latter had to be adjust for the wider audience.

horseboy
2007-10-31, 10:33 AM
If you want D&D to work, get a good DM. If you want D&D to work out of the box (or with a bad DM), I think you're SOL.

And this is pretty much a crux of what I dislike about D&D. The weeks I'd have to spend making D&D playable is time that ultimately would be much better applied actually making the campaign than having to overhaul the vehicle I'm going to use to tell it.

Duke of URL
2007-10-31, 10:38 AM
The problem with class balance is inherent in the system. In the high magic fantasy setting D&D deals with, high-level encounters must ipso facto resort to high-level magic to be resolved.

The natural upshot of this is that a class with little to no magic does not fare well at high levels. The only way to change this is to change the nature of the game. On the other hand, at low levels, wizards and the like are particularly fragile. They may be able to pull off party-saving acts, but are limited as to how often they can do so.

There is some middle ground where the classes are somewhat balanced against each other. If you're concerned with balance, target your games to those level ranges. Otherwise, be prepared to accept that certain classes or class combinations are simply not going to be balanced with others.

There are some tricks a DM can use to make normally unbalanced situations more balanced, and well within the rules as written. Occasional use of anti-magic fields or zones make having some "muscle" along more helpful. Limit resting options in order to force more rationing of magic, etc.

In a setting where the default assumption is that the high-level caster is by far and away the biggest threat, it only makes sense that defenses that identify isolate, and target that threat will be paramount. This isn't nerfing the game or unfairly trying to "go after" spellcasters, it is simply acknowledging the reality that intelligent enemies will generally defend themselves to their best ability.

Morty
2007-10-31, 10:41 AM
And this is pretty much a crux of what I dislike about D&D. The weeks I'd have to spend making D&D playable is time that ultimately would be much better applied actually making the campaign than having to overhaul the vehicle I'm going to use to tell it.

And here I though it was normal when I started playing D&D without any prepearation at all and enjoyed it.:smalltongue:

streakster
2007-10-31, 10:49 AM
You want more balanced wizards?

Make them keep track of spell components.

Mr. Friendly
2007-10-31, 10:50 AM
.
On the other hand, at low levels, wizards and the like are particularly fragile. They may be able to pull off party-saving acts, but are limited as to how often they can do so.

I agreed with your post for the most part, except for this bit. A Wiz or Sor, right out of the box at first level is strong and gets stronger at every level. Color Spray, Sleep, Grease... that's just Core and just combat spells. The 1st level Wizard can get away with a lot of things out of combat too.. I would say they are as limited in how often they can save the party as the 1st fighter is limited in how often he can be hit by an orc with a battleaxe.

Indon
2007-10-31, 11:17 AM
You want more balanced wizards?

Make them keep track of spell components.

That's certainly a way to have less wizards.

It's also another way to make it easier to make the Wizard largely useless in some circumstances.

But the balance problem isn't in finding ways to make the Wizard useless; such ways already exist (spellbook, expensive components, and so on).

The problem is that the Wizard is an all-or-nothing class in usefulness; when he's useful, he's awesome. When he's neutralized, he's a commoner.

The "time in the spotlight" thing breaks down with the Wizard. You can have a 2-player campaign with a Fighter in which the Wizard solves 50% of the encounters, and that's 'balanced', but it's still bad.

Why? Because in the 50% in which the Wizard fixes the problem, the Fighter does nothing; he's negligable, and bored, and not having fun.

And in the 50% in which the Fighter solves the problem, the Wizard does nothing; he's negligable, bored, and not having fun.

Dausuul
2007-10-31, 11:51 AM
You want more balanced wizards?

Make them keep track of spell components.

That doesn't even remotely balance wizards, it just makes it tedious to play them.


Magic is suddenly not mysterious and unknowing. Magi is not some kind of mystical art that drives people mad in it's pursuit. No, now we have magical colleges that function like some kind of polytech school, magical stores that churn out magical items like a goddamn 11-7, and basically, the only people who will ever become major players in the world are high level mages or people who through some method control mages. (you want to talk about the centralization of power? well, there is no greater symbol of that than a wizard)

QFT. Although it's interesting to note that you can actually make an arcane caster class that fills a more traditional role; strip away the uber-magic (or make it difficult, time-consuming, and costly to use), nix the blasting, and arm the caster primarily with buff and debuff abilities and a small, strictly limited amount of utility magic.

The caster in this scenario becomes support for the fighter, instead of the other way around, while still having fun and interesting things to do both in and out of combat. I tried this in an Iron Heroes campaign and found it worked amazingly well.

I'm still trying to work out how to translate the mysterious-knowledge thing into game mechanics so that it actually produces that feel.

(Oh, also, it's "7-11," not "11-7." :smallsmile: )

elliott20
2007-10-31, 01:06 PM
The caster in this scenario becomes support for the fighter, instead of the other way around, while still having fun and interesting things to do both in and out of combat. I tried this in an Iron Heroes campaign and found it worked amazingly well.

I'm still trying to work out how to translate the mysterious-knowledge thing into game mechanics so that it actually produces that feel.
(Oh, also, it's "7-11," not "11-7." :smallsmile: )
You win again, need-for-sleep!!

The current system has a very streamlined and simplified way of doing mystical lore type things. Most of it just comes down to a single skill roll in the appropriate skill. (Which, in my opinion, is not always the best way to do things, but necessary for most games that are not knowledge intensive)

The way i see it though, divination spells can sometimes botch up the deal very quickly if you don't be careful with the legend lore type spells.

Temp
2007-10-31, 03:53 PM
The way i see it though, divination spells can sometimes botch up the deal very quickly if you don't be careful with the legend lore type spells.The problem is that Divination is one of the only things Wizards can do without directly stepping on someone else's toes. If they were reduced to Divination/Summoning/Teleportation/Buffs/Debuffs (not the game-winning "You're Blind/Stunned/Paralyzed/Dead"-type debuffs, but ones that allow the rest of the party to do their jobs more efficiently), it would be a major improvement to the game system.

The fact that Wizards can even be reduced to that many options is one of the main problems.

[Edit:]Scratch that last point. The problem is the amount of work it takes to bring non-casters up to that many options. Rogues are a good start, but Fighters need an easier time.

[Double Edit:]If it were all just broken down to two classes, Skillmonkey and Spellcaster, with "Grappling" "Swordplay," "Parry," "Archery," "Disarm," "Axe-guy-ing," and other Fighter-ish abilities as skills, the system might be a lot easier to balance without as much re-writing as other fixes.

[Triple Edit:]Maybe give a DR skill, making attack rolls compare to 11+Ranks+Con DC and reduce damage according to how well the things line up. This would allow Skill-monkeys to choose their own durability (like they can choose hit points by their class choice in the current system).