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Zen Master
2008-09-01, 03:30 PM
I've been reading these boards for a long-ish while, and it seems to me there is a pattern many character builder threads that I don't understand.

Here is how it goes. When comparing two characters or builds, the arguments often take the form of 'character A would kick character B's ass'. Or the just as common 'why make character Z, when you could make character Y and get all the same things plus X'.

To clarify: A cleric is better than a fighter because a self-buffed cleric can kick the fighters behind six ways till sunday.

This is all very nice, but doesn't acknowledge even in passing that some people play in groups. A cleric buffed fighter can kick a clerics behind. A clerics spells and powers may - conceivably - be better spent healing party members rather than buffing himself. And not all encounters start off with all players buffed to the max - an unbuffed cleric is more or less a pushover.

I'm getting the impression that a majority of players here mainly PBP, or play some form of PVP. Am I completely mistaken, or?!

MeklorIlavator
2008-09-01, 03:33 PM
Well, often the best buff are self only, so a cleric can't use them on a fighter. Also, most of the arguments for the big 3(Wizard, Cleric, and Druid) say that they can fill class X's role in a group at least as well as a class X can, plus do other things on the side, so why have class x in the first place?

Thrud
2008-09-01, 03:36 PM
No. All these complaints are from people who create these mega optimised characters as thought exercises. I have never yet been in a game where any DM worth his screen allows anything like what these builds require. On the whole I tend to ignore them all, because whilst they are mildly interesting they don't actually have any basis in reality. They are doing the equivalent of saying 'if I had a long enough lever I could move the world.' Yeah, it is TECHNICALLY possible. But it is never going to happen.

All of these 'builds' don't actually take into account the problem of the DM who will start screwing with you if you start to play like that. At least I do, anyway.

:smallbiggrin:

Grynning
2008-09-01, 03:37 PM
@ the OP: You are mistaken. Most theorycraft/optimization builds ARE designed with a party in mind. It's just how well the build fulfills its intended role.

4th edition lays out the roles quite clearly, but 3rd doesn't. Here's basically what they consist of though.

Striker: Melee damage.

Divine Caster: Heals plus awesome buffing, can also be a striker.

Arcane Caster: Control, save or lose spells, utility (teleportation and such).

Skill Monkey: Trap finding, lockpicking, party face, Diplomancy, etc.

Most of the optimized builds you see will fall into one of these roles. They still depend on the others to function in an actual game. The PvP threads and such are mainly just used as examples to illustrate 3.x's huge balance problems.

nagora
2008-09-01, 03:43 PM
4th edition lays out the roles quite clearly, but 3rd doesn't.
Always remembering that "role" here just means "combat role" and not the type of role in "roleplaying" :smallfrown:

Jack_Simth
2008-09-01, 03:45 PM
I've been reading these boards for a long-ish while, and it seems to me there is a pattern many character builder threads that I don't understand.

Here is how it goes. When comparing two characters or builds, the arguments often take the form of 'character A would kick character B's ass'. Or the just as common 'why make character Z, when you could make character Y and get all the same things plus X'.

To clarify: A cleric is better than a fighter because a self-buffed cleric can kick the fighters behind six ways till sunday.

This is all very nice, but doesn't acknowledge even in passing that some people play in groups. A cleric buffed fighter can kick a clerics behind. A clerics spells and powers may - conceivably - be better spent healing party members rather than buffing himself. And not all encounters start off with all players buffed to the max - an unbuffed cleric is more or less a pushover.

I'm getting the impression that a majority of players here mainly PBP, or play some form of PVP. Am I completely mistaken, or?!
It's more that builds are generally made in isolation - that is, someone says "Hi, I need help with a melee build" and almost nobody asks "Okay, what can you reasonably beg off the party casters" - and if someone does, there's liable to be a comeback of "the party casters can do much more effective things with their combat actions" (which is often true - which is better: a 50/50 chance of ending the battle right now, or a mild boost to the fighter that'll last the duration of the battle?)

All a fighter has going for him is BAB, HP, a good Fort save, and fighter bonus feats. A Cleric's spells can give him BAB and HP, he's already got a good fort save, and quite a few of the cleric spells give better stuff than is available through Fighter Bonus Feats. In isolation, in a "generic" environment (spells and magic items work, there is room to maneuver, and so on), the Core 3.5 Cleric can make a better Fighter than the Core 3.5 Fighter, past a certain point (as can the Core 3.5 Druid). With noncore stuff added in, a Cleric gets lots of big nifites, but an ubercharger nonmagical melee build with key items sufficient that mobility isn't an issue can keep up with combat output of a buffed cleric (usually). Thus, in isolation (which is how most builds are made, and is how such questions are usually asked) this happens.

only1doug
2008-09-01, 03:48 PM
Long duration buffs that assist the melee classes are routinely offered in my group, Keeping meat shields alive preserves the casters tender skins.

Grynning
2008-09-01, 03:52 PM
Always remembering that "role" here just means "combat role" and not the type of role in "roleplaying" :smallfrown:

Role-playing does not depend on mechanics. I've already been over that a bunch today in this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=89673) thread.

JupiterPaladin
2008-09-01, 04:01 PM
Although Clerics are technically my favorite class in D&D, I have to call bullcrap on the whole "buffed Cleric > Fighter" argument. I don't care if you can end up with +8 BaB higher and a +13 damage adjust or whatever, because a properly built Fighter can be capable of much better even without ubercharger builds. That's also not counting that a Fighter normally has a much better weapon because that's his thing, the Cleric would spend his WBL on much better things. Even making a tank Cleric you would sink all your feats into combat stuff like Power Attack and stuff like that, then your casting would suffer. A properly built Cleric would not allow his casting to be nerfed to get a few melee bonuses. Now on damage alone, the Cleric can not even dream of comparing to the ubercharger. I keep seeing people post otherwise but have never seen valid proof.

Eldariel
2008-09-01, 04:02 PM
Basically, as has been said, most of the knowledge goes towards group optimization. The Batman Wizard-approach is popular specifically because it's the best group player you can imagine - it makes opponents weaker and less dangerous, works towards strategic party placing, ensures safe sleeping, works as the party mobility (teleports - never walk again) and so on while the others do the actual combat and talking and so on. Basically, a Wizard is the guy in the shrouds who really gets everything done without actually doing anything. And that's one of the most "popular" character archetypes, simply because it helps people to truly make the most out of a Wizard's spell list (it's the kind of help most players, especially those without the energy to go through all the spells, need).

As for the example you brought up, the Cleric's spells are not better spent healing. If he heals an ally instead of attacking, he probably undoes one turn's worth of damage. If he instead kills an opponent, he removes that opponent's damage from the combat for kingdom to come. Healing is almost always a waste of resources (save for the actual Heal-spell, which is powerful and versatile enough to cast in-combat - it can often heal more than a turn's damage or two, and fixes status too), so unless someone is actually about to die on your turn, the opponents still have a ton of HP left and that character would be more efficient in the combat than you, healing is suboptimal use of spells. The biggest problem is how little one spell slot actually heals. That means it's very taxing on your primary daily power to heal people with spells instead of Wands. You may end up burning 4-5 slots just to get the fighter up and running again, and that means you've got gas for two-three encounters less on the same day.

In other words, the Cure-line of spells gives you poor returns for how much effort it takes and generally you've got options that are both, less taxing on your resources and more effective towards minimizing damage to the party than healing in combat. This is why the slots are basically always better used towards buffing. Also, the reason Cleric-buffs are assumed is because of the Divine Metamagic: Persistent Spell, hour/level buffs (Extended if necessary - Greater Magic Weapon falls under this) or simple one-turn buff in the beginning of the fight (Divine Power > Quickened Divine Favor, for example and race into combat, casting another Quickened buff (maybe Righteous Might using Rod of Metamagic: Quicken) while at it). Either way, the idea is that Clerics don't need to spend much resources or time on buffing, and the gains from those resources mean that the party will suffer considerably less damage than it would have without Cleric buffed. Also, the Cleric doesn't burn much valuable time if he only burns one turn - generally the opposing melee spends that turn closing in (casters admittedly begin slinging spells - Cleric can of course use quickened offensive spells or such).

Toliudar
2008-09-01, 04:06 PM
At the risk of stating the obvious: as a DM, I'm usually out to create a mix of PC's that meet the following criteria:


The characters are distinct enough that, if I were reading a conversation between them, I'd know who was saying what even if speech wasn't attributed.

Everyone feels like there's something that they do exceptionally well, even if they don't get to do it in every fight or every situation.

In crisis situations, everyone contributes materially to the success and survival of the group.


In one long campaign, which started at level 4 and wrapped at level 13, it got difficult to maintain a balance between full casters and everyone else so that all are happy. With that one exception, as long as I and the group have kept an eye on those three basic criteria (some gentle nerfing of full casters, a little help in keeping the skillmonkey and the tank optimized), the rest has kind of worked itself out.

Chronos
2008-09-01, 04:14 PM
No. All these complaints are from people who create these mega optimised characters as thought exercises. I have never yet been in a game where any DM worth his screen allows anything like what these builds require.So, do you mean that your DM doesn't allow druids to have an animal companion, or just that they have to get their animal companions from a non-core book? Seriously, the way you optimize a druid is by taking "Class: Druid"-- That's about all there is to it. You automatically get an animal companion, and spellcasting, and wildshape, and even just a wolf (the obvious first choice of companion for someone who just picked up the class and isn't attempting to optimize at all) is already nearly a match for a fighter.

Frosty
2008-09-01, 04:23 PM
Well, a druid need TWO things to be optimized. The second thing is taking Feat: Natural Spell

Saph
2008-09-01, 04:58 PM
The reason the arguments go on forever is because there IS no universally accepted way to measure the power of a character. Everyone has different standards and different assumptions.

Some people assume DMless-hypercheesed-level-20 games, where everything that's RAW-legal is allowed and the character uses stuff from about 10 different books. Other people assume core-only level 1 games where no-one tries to play outside the classic roles and the DM would ban them if they tried anyway. Most of the arguments aren't due to one side or the other starting from faulty reasoning, but from the two sides using completely different assumptions.

So one person can say that Wizards are way stronger than Barbarians, and another person can say that Barbarians are way stronger than Wizards - and both can be right, depending on what baseline they're measuring from.

And since there's nothing geeks like better than arguing over game power tiers, there's no real motivation for anyone to stop. :)


I'm getting the impression that a majority of players here mainly PBP, or play some form of PVP. Am I completely mistaken, or?!

You're mostly mistaken. Most players here don't play mainly PBP, and almost no-one plays PVP. However, there's a small minority of posters who play a very specific game called "My D&D character can beat up your D&D character" and they're very vocal about it. :P

Thrud put it pretty well, too. A lot of the builds are purely theoretical, and basically do come down to "if I had a long enough lever, I could . . ." regardless of whether it's likely to happen. Often these are created more as mental exercises than for an actual game. The downside of this is that it gives a bit of a false impression.

- Saph

Starbuck_II
2008-09-01, 05:01 PM
I've been reading these boards for a long-ish while, and it seems to me there is a pattern many character builder threads that I don't understand.

Here is how it goes. When comparing two characters or builds, the arguments often take the form of 'character A would kick character B's ass'. Or the just as common 'why make character Z, when you could make character Y and get all the same things plus X'.

To clarify: A cleric is better than a fighter because a self-buffed cleric can kick the fighters behind six ways till sunday.

This is all very nice, but doesn't acknowledge even in passing that some people play in groups. A cleric buffed fighter can kick a clerics behind. A clerics spells and powers may - conceivably - be better spent healing party members rather than buffing himself. And not all encounters start off with all players buffed to the max - an unbuffed cleric is more or less a pushover.

I'm getting the impression that a majority of players here mainly PBP, or play some form of PVP. Am I completely mistaken, or?!

Divine power is personal...
As is Righteouds Might...
...

How does the Fighter get buffed by personal spells?! Personal means only on caster.

Thus a Cleric has to Divine Power and Righteous might himself: gaining full bab, Temp hp=caster lervel, +4 enchanment Str, +8 Size Str, DR, and + X (don't remember how much) Con.
Add in Divine Favor is feel like it (Quickened if smart): +1/3 or 4 levels bonus to hit (Insight?)

Fighter can't get any of that.

Any buff givable to Fighter can be given to Cleric (by himself mind you): aHowever, any spell given to Cleric may or may not even be castable on Fighter.

Thrud
2008-09-01, 05:10 PM
So, do you mean that your DM doesn't allow druids to have an animal companion, or just that they have to get their animal companions from a non-core book? Seriously, the way you optimize a druid is by taking "Class: Druid"-- That's about all there is to it. You automatically get an animal companion, and spellcasting, and wildshape, and even just a wolf (the obvious first choice of companion for someone who just picked up the class and isn't attempting to optimize at all) is already nearly a match for a fighter.

Yeah, except that this requires a player to have encyclopedic knowledge of all the critters they could wlidshape into which they blithely assume they have due to having a few ranks of 'knowledge:nature' and thus without even having seen one of the things they want to change into they assume that they can.

To which I, and every DM I have ever played with say 'no'.

Thus the lack of lever. Again, it is TECHNICALLY possible. But the DM is there to say things like 'why would you be able to wildshape into that? You have never heard of it, never seen it, and even if you had, why would you think of doing it in the first place?' But that is an argument about keeping player and character knowledge separate, and I don't want to get into it here, as it has been dealt with ad nauseum elsewhere.

CASTLEMIKE
2008-09-01, 05:12 PM
And since there's nothing geeks like better than arguing over game power tiers, there's no real motivation for anyone to stop. :)
- Saph

Obviously the other person is using the wrong ruler to measure PCs.:smile:




Thus the lack of lever. Again, it is TECHNICALLY possible. But the DM is there to say things like 'why would you be able to wildshape into that? You have never heard of it, never seen it, and even if you had, why would you think of doing it in the first place?' But that is an argument about keeping player and character knowledge separate, and I don't want to get into it here, as it has been dealt with ad nauseum elsewhere.

Isn't this what the various Knowledge checks do in game?

Emperor Tippy
2008-09-01, 05:18 PM
Yeah, except that this requires a player to have encyclopedic knowledge of all the critters they could wlidshape into which they blithely assume they have due to having a few ranks of 'knowledge:nature' and thus without even having seen one of the things they want to change into they assume that they can.

To which I, and every DM I have ever played with say 'no'.

Thus the lack of lever. Again, it is TECHNICALLY possible. But the DM is there to say things like 'why would you be able to wildshape into that? You have never heard of it, never seen it, and even if you had, why would you think of doing it in the first place?' But that is an argument about keeping player and character knowledge separate, and I don't want to get into it here, as it has been dealt with ad nauseum elsewhere.

A dire bear, or a dire tiger, or a regular brown bear, etc. The standard monsters are plenty for wildshape.

Talic
2008-09-01, 05:22 PM
OP, you are mistaken. A cleric can typically walk around with his buffs up all day long, if he chooses to build that way.

Further, if a cleric can outfight a fighter, then it stands to reason that a party with a fighter, a wizard, a cleric, and a rogue would be inferior to a party with a cleric optimized for fighting, a wizard, a cleric that can heal/buff/such, and a rogue.

EDIT: Yes, a DM can rule that you're not familiar with a creature. He can houserule that you're not considered "familiar" with a creature unless you've carried its children in your backpack through a trek of many months, fed them, and raised them on your own until they can fend for themselves.

But, IMO, that is CLEARLY against RAI, as if the wildshape was intended to be that restrictive, then it would have limited the amount of creatures you could turn into.

Most people would consider "familiar" to be "has either witnessed it personally or can make a knowledge check to garner 1-3 useful pieces of information about it (meet knowledge DC of 10+HD of creature, or beat it by 5 to 10, depending on restrictiveness). If you want to restrict it too much further, it's DM FIAT, and thus, has little place in an RAW discussion.

After all, if you, as a DM, are going to rule on a creature by creature basis what your PC druid can and can't do, based on your own personal opinions, then it's arbitrary. And arbitrary, changing descriptions, rules, and the like have no place in a fair game.

Thrud
2008-09-01, 05:48 PM
OP, you are mistaken. A cleric can typically walk around with his buffs up all day long, if he chooses to build that way.

Further, if a cleric can outfight a fighter, then it stands to reason that a party with a fighter, a wizard, a cleric, and a rogue would be inferior to a party with a cleric optimized for fighting, a wizard, a cleric that can heal/buff/such, and a rogue.

EDIT: Yes, a DM can rule that you're not familiar with a creature. He can houserule that you're not considered "familiar" with a creature unless you've carried its children in your backpack through a trek of many months, fed them, and raised them on your own until they can fend for themselves.

But, IMO, that is CLEARLY against RAI, as if the wildshape was intended to be that restrictive, then it would have limited the amount of creatures you could turn into.

Most people would consider "familiar" to be "has either witnessed it personally or can make a knowledge check to garner 1-3 useful pieces of information about it (meet knowledge DC of 10+HD of creature, or beat it by 5 to 10, depending on restrictiveness). If you want to restrict it too much further, it's DM FIAT, and thus, has little place in an RAW discussion.

Yeah, but this sort of junk (wanted to use another word there, but what can you do.) doesn't really work for long. Buffs are fine and all, but if the group starts going around doing massively supernatural stuff all day long every day, then my Bad Guys will start hallowing areas with a dispel magic added, and every round everyone in the hallow gets hit by a dispel until all those wonderful buffs are gone, and now the player is just an ordinary cleric that doesn't even have many spells left because he spent then all on himself earlier. And that is only ONE of my MANY techniques for messing with people who think that they can make a character perfect in every way via using magic. And Hallow lasts for a year. It's not even all that high a level spell.

Mordencainens Disjunction can ruin a megabuffer's day too.

I also like to use Hallow on characters who think they will teleport in, mess with stuff, and teleport out. A Hallow with a tied in dimensional anchor can fix that right quick too. Heck, even guards and wards can make things trickier.

The simple answer here is that whenever someone thinks that magic is the answer to all problems, and that they can buff themselves to the point where they are indestructable, then just have NPC's realize that PCs will act that way, and find a way around it. If PCs get to know all possible combinations of magic and how they work, then why can't NPCs know how to deal with them?

That is why all of these examples are thought exercises and nothing more. If PCs start doing them all the time, NPCs will figure out ways around them all the time.

Shazzbaa
2008-09-01, 05:59 PM
To clarify: A cleric is better than a fighter because a self-buffed cleric can kick the fighters behind six ways till sunday.

This is all very nice, but doesn't acknowledge even in passing that some people play in groups. A cleric-buffed fighter can kick a cleric's behind. A cleric's spells and powers may - conceivably - be better spent healing party members rather than buffing himself.

Here's the problem: someone is playing the cleric.
Our high-level cleric has the option of healing the fighter and enabling him to keep fighting, or to cast some save-or-suck/die stuff and ending the battle then and there. Which does he do?
If he's particularly socially aware, or particularly worried about the fighter's player being sore, the cleric's player will choose to heal or buff or whatever the fighter. If he's looking solely at efficiency, or if he's being overly in-character, he'll want to do the thing that will end the battle faster or do the most immediate good, even if that means overshadowing the fighter.

Which is better, a cleric-buffed cleric, or a cleric-buffed fighter? This might be a valid question in terms of which option is mechanically best for the cleric to take, but in the end there's another question in the minds of some players... "Which would be cooler, buffing the fighter, or running out there myself?"

So, unless the cleric deciding to make himself awesome is significantly disadvantageous, it's going to be a problem worth addressing that the cleric overshadows the fighter in 3.x.

Akimbo
2008-09-01, 06:18 PM
Yeah, but this sort of junk (wanted to use another word there, but what can you do.) doesn't really work for long. Buffs are fine and all, but if the group starts going around doing massively supernatural stuff all day long every day, then my Bad Guys will start hallowing areas with a dispel magic added, and every round everyone in the hallow gets hit by a dispel until all those wonderful buffs are gone, and now the player is just an ordinary cleric that doesn't even have many spells left because he spent then all on himself earlier. And that is only ONE of my MANY techniques for messing with people who think that they can make a character perfect in every way via using magic. And Hallow lasts for a year. It's not even all that high a level spell.

If only that plan had more then a 0% chance of dispelling a single buff.

TeeEl
2008-09-01, 06:30 PM
There was a really good thread on the gleemax forums which addressed this very question, at least in terms of character class...here it is (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1045580). It's a thread about loosely ranking classes by effectiveness, which I know rubs some people the wrong way from the get-go, but it's very well thought out and in particular has an excellent definition of how to measure the power of a character.


The Tier System is not specifically ranking Power or Versitility (though those are what ends up being the big factors). It's ranking the ability of a class to achieve what you want in any given situation. Highly versitile classes will be more likely to efficiently apply what power they have to the situation, while very powerful classes will be able to REALLY help in specific situations. Classes that are both versitile and powerful will very easily get what they want by being very likely to have a very powerful solution to the current problem. This is what matters most for balance.

Thrud
2008-09-01, 06:41 PM
If only that plan had more then a 0% chance of dispelling a single buff.

Yes, and this is where you compare this single low level technique against someone who is much higher level, and has been to the magic mega mart to have the perfet magic items. Even then Hallow would work eventually since rolling an area dispell every round to everyone within the area of effect will eventually get rid of most spells and/or temporarily disable most magic items. Still, even if it doesn't work as I said, there are many ways to deal with this sort of idiocy in a game.

Also note that I don't play 3.5 so I am not really interested in 3.5 descriptions. I don't play it so I can't be involved in discussions of it. If I did play it, however, I am sure that I could find ways to deal with this sort of garbage. But since my players are generally more interested in playing a game to have fun than to play a game to break it, it is of mostly academic interest to me anyway.

Grynning
2008-09-01, 06:45 PM
Also note that I don't play 3.5 so I am not really interested in 3.5 descriptions. I don't play it so I can't be involved in discussions of it. If I did play it, however, I am sure that I could find ways to deal with this sort of garbage. But since my players are generally more interested in playing a game to have fun than to play a game to break it, it is of mostly academic interest to me anyway.

If you don't play 3.5, why did you say you "like to use" the Hallow tactic? That would imply that you are DM'ing it.

Tadanori Oyama
2008-09-01, 06:45 PM
I measure the "power" of a character one of my players is using by how often I can throw them off. A combative character forced off the track by skill problems and roleplaying isn't as powerful to me. I try to make combat a smaller part of my games so a build is normally only so useful in my groups.

Thrud
2008-09-01, 06:46 PM
If you don't play 3.5, why did you say you "like to use" the Hallow tactic? That would imply that you are DM'ing it.

No, DMing in 3.0, not 3.5

Akimbo
2008-09-01, 06:48 PM
Yes, and this is where you compare this single low level technique against someone who is much higher level, and has been to the magic mega mart to have the perfet magic items. Even then Hallow would work eventually since rolling an area dispell every round to everyone within the area of effect will eventually get rid of most spells and/or temporarily disable most magic items. Still, even if it doesn't work as I said, there are many ways to deal with this sort of idiocy in a game.

No, this is where I point out that a level 9 Cleric can easily have a CL of 18 without even trying for any decent cheese, and as such you would need a 19 or 20 on a CL 10 Dispel Magic to break a spell, and then can kill you in one round and then leave. And this costs them 8000gp. Seriously, 8000gp. A level 3 character could have these things (at the expense of things he actually needs, but whatever).

Talic
2008-09-01, 06:51 PM
Yeah, but this sort of junk (wanted to use another word there, but what can you do.) doesn't really work for long. Buffs are fine and all, but if the group starts going around doing massively supernatural stuff all day long every day, then my Bad Guys will start hallowing areas with a dispel magic added, and every round everyone in the hallow gets hit by a dispel until all those wonderful buffs are gone, and now the player is just an ordinary cleric that doesn't even have many spells left because he spent then all on himself earlier. And that is only ONE of my MANY techniques for messing with people who think that they can make a character perfect in every way via using magic. And Hallow lasts for a year. It's not even all that high a level spell.So... What you're saying, is that the "Bad guys" will now hire cadres of level 9 clerics to go around setting these up in random areas? And what say the players can't just as easily dispel the hallow with minimal loss?

Mordencainens Disjunction can ruin a megabuffer's day too.Mutual Destruction Pact. Though Clerics have, with Good will, and High wisdom, the best chance out of any class of passing this 9th level spell's WILL SAVE. Sigh.

I also like to use Hallow on characters who think they will teleport in, mess with stuff, and teleport out. A Hallow with a tied in dimensional anchor can fix that right quick too. Heck, even guards and wards can make things trickier.And now, you're using level 9-17 tactics against something a cleric can do at LEVEL 1.

The simple answer here is that whenever someone thinks that magic is the answer to all problems, and that they can buff themselves to the point where they are indestructable, then just have NPC's realize that PCs will act that way, and find a way around it. If PCs get to know all possible combinations of magic and how they work, then why can't NPCs know how to deal with them?Because not everyone has an army of level 17 clerics and wizards around to set everything up? Verisimilatude, perhaps?

That is why all of these examples are thought exercises and nothing more. If PCs start doing them all the time, NPCs will figure out ways around them all the time.None of the above are valid for anything that doesn't have the following criteria:

1) Deific backing by a
2) Deity that has a top priority hit on you personally throughout his entire order.

Thrud
2008-09-01, 06:52 PM
No, this is where I point out that a level 9 Cleric can easily have a CL of 18 without even trying for any decent cheese, and as such you would need a 19 or 20 on a CL 10 Dispel Magic to break a spell, and then can kill you in one round and then leave. And this costs them 8000gp. Seriously, 8000gp. A level 3 character could have these things (at the expense of things he actually needs, but whatever).

Yeah. a 19 or 20 on a spell that is cast on you EVERY SINGLE ROUND as long as you are in the hallow. Yeah, coz that isn't going to work at all.

It may not be instantaneous, but it IS inevitable.

Talic
2008-09-01, 06:54 PM
Yeah. a 19 or 20 on a spell that is cast on you EVERY SINGLE ROUND as long as you are in the hallow. Yeah, coz that isn't going to work at all.

It may not be instantaneous, but it IS inevitable.

Until... Um... They walk out of the hallow area?

I mean, really, that Hallow spell ain't exactly gonna chase em down.

Thrud
2008-09-01, 07:05 PM
Until... Um... They walk out of the hallow area?

I mean, really, that Hallow spell ain't exactly gonna chase em down.

Yeah. And then the party doesn't get whatever they wanted to have that was in the area.

Look, this is really pointless. In my about 30 years of experience DMing I have not yet come across a PC who can always find a way to break the game that I can't deal with. You disagree. Whatever. It has yet to happen to me, so I don't really care.

I should also say, that if I have a player who continuosly tries to break the game to prove that they are superior in every respect to every other PC, I often don't have to do anything to them, because the other players usually ask me not to invite him back.

Now someone will tell me that because it is possible in the rules, it is not breaking the game. Again. I just don't really care. I usually try to stay out of this argument because it is made by people who are not in my game, so it just doesn't matter. I tried to answer the OPs post, and got jumped on for it.

So I now bow out of this discussion that I have absolutely no interest in continuing. Congratulations, you broke the game. You win. We are all very impressed.

Jerthanis
2008-09-01, 07:36 PM
My personal way of judging the power of a PC is to judge the amount of impact they can have on the narrative. A powerful swordsman can hold a pass against innumerable odds long enough for the wizard to complete his ritual. That's narrative control... he wasn't bowled over and the wizard killed.

This is the fundamental reason why I buy into the idea of 3rd edition spellcasters being overpowered... they have way too much control over the story. "We have a week to cross the country and deliver this sensitive message to high command!" "I just cast a spell that delivered it immediately..." "Oh..." or, "The ancient kings of yore have slept encased in stone for millenia until they are needed once again." "I cast Stone to Flesh." "Oh..." and so on.

A fighter isn't underpowered because he'd lose to a cleric in a straight fight, he's underpowered because a cleric controls the narrative in a way the fighter could hardly dream of.

I've played Fighters I'd describe as overpowered... but the only reason I'd say that is because the story conformed around me.

Akimbo
2008-09-01, 07:46 PM
Yeah. And then the party doesn't get whatever they wanted to have that was in the area.

Or you know, Cleric walks in, Full attacks, kills everything there, walks out, someone else gets whatever they wanted.


Look, this is really pointless. In my about 30 years of experience DMing I have not yet come across a PC who can always find a way to break the game that I can't deal with. You disagree. Whatever. It has yet to happen to me, so I don't really care.

No one is breaking the game. They are just being better Fighters then Fighters, which is good because you have to be if you want to contribute.


I should also say, that if I have a player who continuosly tries to break the game to prove that they are superior in every respect to every other PC, I often don't have to do anything to them, because the other players usually ask me not to invite him back.

They aren't proving themselves better then everyone else, because everyone else was smart and choose a good PC, like Druid/Wizard/Rogue/Factotum/Cleric/Beguiler/Sorcerer/any number of other classes. Just not Fighter/Barbarian/Monk.

But thank you for telling us all that if anyone proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that one specific build was better then every other character in the game you would kick them out of your group and then come to this message board and tell us that the build you had to remove the player for isn't stronger then Fighter 20.


So I now bow out of this discussion that I have absolutely no interest in continuing. Congratulations, you broke the game. You win. We are all very impressed.

Once again, we didn't break it, we just played on the level that actually exists, which doesn't involve the NPC class fighter.

Talic
2008-09-01, 08:03 PM
Yeah. And then the party doesn't get whatever they wanted to have that was in the area.

Look, this is really pointless. In my about 30 years of experience DMing I have not yet come across a PC who can always find a way to break the game that I can't deal with. You disagree. Whatever. It has yet to happen to me, so I don't really care.No. I say that DM FIAT and OBERONI are not valid arguments. If a DM has to DEAL WITH IT, it wasn't balanced to begin with. And thus, it's more powerful. Thus, it is a VALID measurement of a character's power to do it without DM fiat and Oberoni, and NOT a valid measurement when you do.

Whether what you say is or isn't true, it's IRRELEVANT.


I should also say, that if I have a player who continuosly tries to break the game to prove that they are superior in every respect to every other PC, I often don't have to do anything to them, because the other players usually ask me not to invite him back.Oberoni from the players? Hm.

Now someone will tell me that because it is possible in the rules, it is not breaking the game. Again. I just don't really care. I usually try to stay out of this argument because it is made by people who are not in my game, so it just doesn't matter. I tried to answer the OPs post, and got jumped on for it.You disagreed with me when you were in the wrong. I don't know why anyone else is talking to you. But I'm stating my case. Just by saying "I can deal with that more powerful character" doesn't change the fact that the character in question is, indeed, more powerful. In fact, it admits the very point I'm making.

So I now bow out of this discussion that I have absolutely no interest in continuing. Congratulations, you broke the game. You win. We are all very impressed.I really do hate when people try to take the "moral high road" and be non-argumentative right after they finish arguing a point for a dozen posts or so. It's like if I went out and had a steak dinner, then went to a vegan rally.

Chronos
2008-09-01, 08:19 PM
OK, here's a challenge. Suppose I'm playing a druid, and my buddy is playing a fighter. I don't want to break the game, and I don't want to steal the scene. My goal is for both me and my friend to have fun. I do, however, want to make at least some use of my class features (spells, animal companion, and if I'm high enough level, wildshape), or I wouldn't have chosen to play a druid in the first place. We have any set of rulebooks you choose, and we're any level you choose. I won't even take Natural Spell. Tell me, how do I avoid stealing the fighter's thunder?

Tormsskull
2008-09-01, 08:21 PM
Now someone will tell me that because it is possible in the rules, it is not breaking the game. Again. I just don't really care. I usually try to stay out of this argument because it is made by people who are not in my game, so it just doesn't matter. I tried to answer the OPs post, and got jumped on for it.


Yup, 100% agree. There's always a more powerful NPC in the world than the most powerful PC. And if a PC is starting to bend the world around their will, that person is probably going to be upset and set em straight.

Anyhow, you and I have had pretty much the same experience (though I haven't been DMing as long as you). IME, I run the game the way it makes sense to me, the players have loads of fun, so what's the problem? If I had some douche show up to one of my games and start trying to get them to use tricks, or optimize in this or that way to squeeze every bit of power out of a 'build', they'd get the boot.

Jerthanis
2008-09-01, 10:03 PM
OK, here's a challenge. Suppose I'm playing a druid, and my buddy is playing a fighter. I don't want to break the game, and I don't want to steal the scene. My goal is for both me and my friend to have fun. I do, however, want to make at least some use of my class features (spells, animal companion, and if I'm high enough level, wildshape), or I wouldn't have chosen to play a druid in the first place. We have any set of rulebooks you choose, and we're any level you choose. I won't even take Natural Spell. Tell me, how do I avoid stealing the fighter's thunder?

Cast Produce Flame and Cure Light as most of your 1st level spells instead of entangle, cast Barkskin on the whole party with your 2nd level spells, cast Call Lightning at 3rd instead of Poison, pick a mostly flavor animal like an eagle or a snake for your animal companion (Not a wolf or lion) and shapeshift on the first round of combat (instead of before combat) into something that can't pounce and also can't wear your own magic gear. And don't do a lot of summoning.

There; I'd be surprised if the Druid could keep up with the Fighter doing stuff like that.

I feel like people mistake "Spellcasters contribute more more of the time" for, "Spellcasters rock your face 100% of the time and can't help doing so, no matter what" and that's where a lot of these threads come from. Spellcasters ARE ludicrously powerful, but it's child's play to let Fighters keep their spotlight when they want it. The fact that Spellcasters can shape the story as levels go on while Fighters have zero capability to do so written into their class that's the problem. The fact that a Dire Lion is a better front liner than the Tank is a problem that is solved by not summoning Dire Lions. The problem is that it's a night's rest and 18 seconds of a spellcaster's time to solve an outbreak of a deadly disease.

At least, in my opinion it is.

Thrud
2008-09-01, 10:32 PM
TOberoni from the players?

O.K. I am not going to get drawn into a debate over this, as I said earlier, because we are coming from fundamenatally different viewpoints here.

HOWEVER, I just can't allow a comment that points the so called 'Oberoni fallacy' at me go.

The Oberoni Fallacy does not exist. It is a creation by a geek on a board who thought that he was being very clever. There is only one problem with it. It is tautology. Rule 0 states that the DM may change the rules any time they want to. The oberoni states that you cannot change written rules and have them still be written rules. This is obviously true. And Tautological. And therfore meaningless.

It is not possible to have a game that is perfect in every way. Every game designer who has a brain understands this point. Thus the ability to change things on the fly, which is covered under rule 0.

Anyone who states the Oberoni fallacy as a reason for anything is actually commiting a modified Nirvana Fallacy themselves, stating that since the solution is not perfect it is meaningless.

It is not.

Please, don't use some kind of idiot online Logical tautology as reasoning for something when what it is used for is in and of itself a fallacy.

Zen Master
2008-09-02, 03:13 AM
OP, you are mistaken. A cleric can typically walk around with his buffs up all day long, if he chooses to build that way.

I'm not at all mistaken. But you're assuming a level where that is an option. In all likelyhood, unless I'm mistaken, one of those persistent buffs you automatically assume is a level 5 spell.

Those of you who apparently feel the need to explain to me the workings of the game - please don't. Other than not using or reading books I disagree with, you may assume I understand how the game plays pretty much as well as you do.

Let me try to give a different example.

It is possible to build an ubercharger that can one-shot pretty much anything alive. In my view, doing so only serves to push the game into a place where it no longer works. One way of saying it would be: Who ever wins initiative and/or has the highest number of uberchargers, wins all combats. All combats last one round.

Obviously - that's stupid. Like I said - not working. But it is an obvious consequence of building for optimum personal powerlevel. And in all the threads I've read here, I can't recall a single post about tactics from a point of view of positioning, party-synergy, using the terrain to your advantage, doing whatever *as a team*.

Which is the reason for this thread. Quite simply, I wonder if I'm the only one here who plays that way :)

Eldariel
2008-09-02, 03:34 AM
Except that there are many ways to protect yourself from chargers. On higher levels, you'll want other protections beyond AC and HP. Miss chance, Elusive Target, Mirror Images, terrain, flight, Contingencies, Counter Charge, etc. mean you've got plenty of ways to survive an übercharger and since überchargers are pretty much one-trick ponies, surviving their charge is all it takes to beat one. I wouldn't ever say überchargers are broken nor play one if I intend on surviving. One-trick ponies never were any good.

Really, high level game is very lethal and it is possible to one-shot opponents (just like on low levels!). However, the amount of tools and methods high level characters have to protect themselves is so much higher than the low-level equivalent that while the HP barrier isn't much bigger, the other kinds of defenses can easily push the fights into 9-10 rounds after which they end unresolved as one party teleports out.

In fact, building up to optimum basically ensures that fights last long.

Zen Master
2008-09-02, 03:42 AM
Really, high level game is very lethal and it is possible to one-shot opponents (just like on low levels!).

Two things.

Thing one: Why assume high level? In my experience, almost all games are played between say, levels 3 and 13. Give or take a bit at both ends, but I'd say 90% of ALL games everywhere fall somewhere in or close to that range.

Thing two:Lethality, and one-shotting. I honestly cannot imagine a better way to make the game totally uninteresting than if PC's and NPC's can one-shot each other. As my previous example was intended to show.

Also: All your defences can be overcome, if by nothing else, then by having a sufficient number of uberchargers.

Also please understand that the uberchargers are an example. It could just as well be druids, or some entertaining monster(s), or a combination. Whatever.

Eldariel
2008-09-02, 03:47 AM
Talking about übercharger assumes high level since they don't really work on a low level. And no, überchargers cannot overcome all forms of defense. Yes, all defenses can be overcome, but what's your point? That billion Level X characters can beat 1 Level X character? I totally didn't see that one coming!

bosssmiley
2008-09-02, 04:00 AM
To respond to the OP's question, I know the guys over at the Gaming Den, and some of the Char Op mob, used a system of CR-appropriate challenges (trapped hallways, hydras or wyverns, undead, trolls, dragons, undead, giants, classed NPCs, etc.) to determine if a character measured up to what they were supposed to be at their level.

The idea was that a character of x level = CR x and that, if level appropriate, they'd have a 50% chance of beating an equal CR challenge, and a 50% chance of losing to it.

The subject of the test would be thrown up against 7-9 CR-appropriate threats and then assessed on how it coped with them. Equal wins to losses was the ideal, this serving to reinforce the need for a party to fill in on tactical roles one character couldn't fill. Anything that didn't measure up to the standard (ie: consistently got sent home crying) was underpowered for its CR; anything that overwhelmed the standard threats (all wins, all the time) was obviously, measurably overendowed in the kick-ass dept.

Talic
2008-09-02, 04:10 AM
O.K. I am not going to get drawn into a debate over this, as I said earlier, because we are coming from fundamenatally different viewpoints here.

HOWEVER, I just can't allow a comment that points the so called 'Oberoni fallacy' at me go.

The Oberoni Fallacy does not exist. It is a creation by a geek on a board who thought that he was being very clever. There is only one problem with it. It is tautology. Rule 0 states that the DM may change the rules any time they want to. The oberoni states that you cannot change written rules and have them still be written rules. This is obviously true. And Tautological. And therfore meaningless.

It is not possible to have a game that is perfect in every way. Every game designer who has a brain understands this point. Thus the ability to change things on the fly, which is covered under rule 0.

Anyone who states the Oberoni fallacy as a reason for anything is actually commiting a modified Nirvana Fallacy themselves, stating that since the solution is not perfect it is meaningless.

It is not.

Please, don't use some kind of idiot online Logical tautology as reasoning for something when what it is used for is in and of itself a fallacy.

LAWL. Wow. Just... Wow. So, what you're saying, is that all classes are perfectly balanced, as is the game, as is everything else about the game, because you, the DM, can wave a wand and fix it.

Let's make a couple points clear.

Yes, Rule 0 exists. It exists to allow players of the game to adjust the game to fit their own needs.

It also has no bearing whatsoever in inter-game discussions. This is because each group has a different idea of what changes are needed. As such, we must default to the rules that are in place. When you modify them, you deviate from the universal base line that all players in the game have in common.

Say you have 5 objects in a room. A squash, a pea, a green bean, an avocado, and an ear of corn. Now, all these things could discuss the common traits of vegetables, and they'd all have common ground. Once one starts screaming, "squash", and another yells, "corn", that's when communication breaks down.

Be a vegetable. Not an avocado. Keep your discussions limited to common ground. Because, as long as we invoke Rule 0, I can always say that fighters are more powerful because they can reflect any attack made at them to its original source. When you say that no, they can't.... Well, nope, because in MY games, we rule 0 that in. Because we have the power to change that. So we do.

Never mind the fact that it has absolutely no bearing or relevance to anyone else's point of view, and is thus completely pointless.

Much like your argument.

Talic
2008-09-02, 04:18 AM
I'm not at all mistaken. But you're assuming a level where that is an option. In all likelyhood, unless I'm mistaken, one of those persistent buffs you automatically assume is a level 5 spell.Actually, level 4. Available from a modest level 7 onward. I guess you're mistaken there.

Those of you who apparently feel the need to explain to me the workings of the game - please don't. Other than not using or reading books I disagree with, you may assume I understand how the game plays pretty much as well as you do.But I won't assume that. I'll assume that there are massive gaping holes in your rules comprehension from the complete ignoring of any concept you disagree with, as you just posted.

Let me try to give a different example.

It is possible to build an ubercharger that can one-shot pretty much anything alive. In my view, doing so only serves to push the game into a place where it no longer works. One way of saying it would be: Who ever wins initiative and/or has the highest number of uberchargers, wins all combats. All combats last one round.Incorrect. Charge has many limitations, and all can be planned for. Heck, rocky ground prevents ubercharging. Any sort of terrain at all, really, or movement, or readied actions. Charging can be effective, but there are mundane options available to a level 1 commoner that will completely negate a level 20 ubercharger's build.

Obviously - that's stupid. Like I said - not working. But it is an obvious consequence of building for optimum personal powerlevel. And in all the threads I've read here, I can't recall a single post about tactics from a point of view of positioning, party-synergy, using the terrain to your advantage, doing whatever *as a team*. That said, party synergy is what a good caster's all about. You have grease for the rogue, buffs for the fighter, Combat control to mitigate damage for the cleric. A combat cleric essentially fills the fighter's task of hurting things, but does it better. Doing it better ensures things die faster, which helps the party overall, in less healing needed, etc. Synergy in action.

Which is the reason for this thread. Quite simply, I wonder if I'm the only one here who plays that way :)No, you just don't accept that other people do, unless they share your views on optimization.

Saph
2008-09-02, 07:25 AM
OK, here's a challenge. Suppose I'm playing a druid, and my buddy is playing a fighter. I don't want to break the game, and I don't want to steal the scene. My goal is for both me and my friend to have fun. I do, however, want to make at least some use of my class features (spells, animal companion, and if I'm high enough level, wildshape), or I wouldn't have chosen to play a druid in the first place. We have any set of rulebooks you choose, and we're any level you choose. I won't even take Natural Spell. Tell me, how do I avoid stealing the fighter's thunder?

I've actually been dealing with this in a real game. I've got a druid who's climbed from level 3 to level 14, and over the past year and a half I've had two different fighters, two different paladins, and a barbarian as companions. So this is something I have a lot of experience with.

There are several possible solutions:

Option 1: Boost the fighter. Give the player advice on good and bad feat choices, and make sure he knows which ones are effective. Bring in your copy of Tome of Battle and give him a look at the Warblade class.

Potential problems: Something the optimisation nuts always forget is that optimising characters bores many D&D players out of their minds. Not everyone wants to mine splatbooks and learn new rules.

Option 2: Tone down your own power. Stick to core stuff and pick some stuff for fun rather than power. If the rest of the party are all about equivalent to the Fighter in strength, this is probably the only effective choice - you'll stand out too much otherwise.

Potential problems: Can be frustrating. Also runs the risk that PCs will get killed because you aren't doing enough to win the battles for them.

Option 3: Buff the fighter up a little. Druids don't have an amazing selection of buff spells, but the ones they do have are pretty good. Stuff like Lesser Vigour, Bull's Strength, Barkskin, Resist Energy, and at higher levels Superior Resistance and Stoneskin will help keep the fighter alive.

Potential problems: None, really. Worth doing if he needs the help, since buff spells are usually a very effective use of resources.

Option 4: Just live with it.

It's my experience that most players aren't really bothered by one character being stronger than another, as long as it's not too extreme. The other players will accept the Druid being 2x as strong as the Fighter, but not 10x. So you can use the Vigour line and and Dire Lions and Dire Bears and Animal Growth and even the dreaded Bite of the Carebear, but not Fleshrakers or Venomfire.

What matters isn't that each character is exactly balanced against the others (which is impossible anyway) - what matters is that each character can contribute in some significant way. As long as the Fighter gets to do some cool stuff and can feel like he's part of the team, he's unlikely to mind that you could take him in a fight. If it bothers him, go back to option 1.

So, that's my experience. If you're curious, in my game I've been using a mixture of Option 1 and 4, with a bit of 3.

- Saph

JupiterPaladin
2008-09-02, 09:12 AM
Except that there are many ways to protect yourself from chargers. On higher levels, you'll want other protections beyond AC and HP. Miss chance, Elusive Target, Mirror Images, terrain, flight, Contingencies, Counter Charge, etc. mean you've got plenty of ways to survive an übercharger and since überchargers are pretty much one-trick ponies, surviving their charge is all it takes to beat one. I wouldn't ever say überchargers are broken nor play one if I intend on surviving. One-trick ponies never were any good.

I'm so tired of this arguement. The basic ubercharger is set up by level 6, so he has 14 more levels worth of feats to expand his arsenal. He is not a one-trick pony unless you're doing it wrong. The end-game Fighter 20 can have 3 mastered tactics. Yes more limited than casters, but 3 chosen well keep him from being useless. A decent INT score and a few cross-class skills never hurt either, but most people loathe the Fighter class so badly that they ignore that fact altogether. Cross-class skills don't mean he's trying not to be a Fighter, it means he's not your run of the mill Fighter. Most builds depend on multi-classing and PrCs anyway, so what's the real difference? None.

Zen Master
2008-09-02, 09:43 AM
Talking about übercharger assumes high level since they don't really work on a low level. And no, überchargers cannot overcome all forms of defense. Yes, all defenses can be overcome, but what's your point? That billion Level X characters can beat 1 Level X character? I totally didn't see that one coming!

The operative word in my post - the one you need to take note of - is the word example.

Eldariel
2008-09-02, 09:45 AM
But Fighter 20 isn't an übercharger. An übercharger is a character that truly milks every last bit of damage out of the charge (including Class, not just Feats). And that takes more than 6 levels. Yes, you can be a competent Shock Trooper by level 6, but you won't be one-shotting people even with Leap Attack thrown in. Fighter 20 is a fine, versatile character when correctly build (suboptimal, but playable in games without multiverse-spanning fights), but the one thing he's not is an übercharger.

EDIT: Arcomos, I did address your point. Basically, you're saying that high level optimized fights are decided by initiative and first blood, which is not the case. High level optimization includes large amounts of defenses too in addition to the offensive department. Yes, a high level character can be killed (duh, even Gods can die in this world), but being one-shotted by a character of equivalent level by a character who has lived that long (and thus isn't a one-trick pony)? Highly unlikely.

Zen Master
2008-09-02, 09:52 AM
No, you just don't accept that other people do, unless they share your views on optimization.

I'd say 'call the cettle black' - but whatever, I think the gulf is too wide to be bridged by mere mortals.

In fact - do you even know why I posted this thread? Cause you know, optimizing relates to it, but it's not what it's about.

Zen Master
2008-09-02, 10:12 AM
But Fighter 20 isn't an übercharger. An übercharger is a character that truly milks every last bit of damage out of the charge (including Class, not just Feats). And that takes more than 6 levels. Yes, you can be a competent Shock Trooper by level 6, but you won't be one-shotting people even with Leap Attack thrown in. Fighter 20 is a fine, versatile character when correctly build (suboptimal, but playable in games without multiverse-spanning fights), but the one thing he's not is an übercharger.

EDIT: Arcomos, I did address your point. Basically, you're saying that high level optimized fights are decided by initiative and first blood, which is not the case. High level optimization includes large amounts of defenses too in addition to the offensive department. Yes, a high level character can be killed (duh, even Gods can die in this world), but being one-shotted by a character of equivalent level by a character who has lived that long (and thus isn't a one-trick pony)? Highly unlikely.

Any level of preparation on the defenders part can more or less easily be overcome by equal levels of preparation on the attackers part.

If I'm allowed to plan an ambush, I can kill anything I'm up against - anything without exception - were that my intention. In one round. If that was the way I wanted to play. If the only thing that mattered was building characters or monsters, within the confines of the rules, to do that.

And honestly, I'm sure you know this to be true. In a certain style of play, everything boils down to: buff-teleport-kill everything in sight-loot-teleport-order mugs of ale for all.

I've encountered a basic assumption that any wizard of pretty much any level will at any and all times have a vast arsenal of scrolls on his person. Within the framework of the rules - that is possible. But it is in no way a given fact that the wizard in question will have the time and materials to hand when he needs them.

When playing this way, to my untrained eye (since I don't play that game) it looks like all you do is build levels of attacks and counters, and victory goes to the guy who read the most books. And even then, a sufficient amount of hard, physical damage will still kill anything that lives in one stroke. (of course that is also an effect of the whole hitpoint thing, but that is somewhat beside the point).

I'd say in most situations in the games I personally play, high ranks in relevant skills - knowledge or stuff like spot and listen - far outweighs the wizards ability to cast spells. On the other hand, maybe I'm just lucky not to have a super-optimizer to ruin the game.

Eldariel
2008-09-02, 10:32 AM
Any level of preparation on the defenders part can more or less easily be overcome by equal levels of preparation on the attackers part.

If I'm allowed to plan an ambush, I can kill anything I'm up against - anything without exception - were that my intention. In one round. If that was the way I wanted to play. If the only thing that mattered was building characters or monsters, within the confines of the rules, to do that.

Eh, there are things you can prepare for and things you can't prepare for. Generally, disarming someone's defensive magic takes a lot of time and effort and therefore means that it takes way longer to kill the target and thus he has time to defend himself. Further, ambushing people is really hard simply because on higher levels, all real movement happens through teleports, so it's really difficult to actually catch the to-be-ambushed target anywhere.

Even further, you cannot know what kind of defenses he has - what kinds of spells are active, what kind of magic items the target has with his person, what kinds of support/allies he has, whether he'll simply get revivified 6 seconds after his death, etc. The point is that the defenses don't come down to values like AC and saves at that point as much as they come to line of sight, line of effect, immediate action movement and different temporary magic wards.

Sure, as a DM you could kill anyone, but that's not saying much - level X character trying to kill level X Wizard is going to be a task of epic proportions. Overall, there's so much defense on the high levels that while it can all be brought down, it can't be brought down so fast that the other side wouldn't have a chance to act, especially without OoC knowledge. As I said before, highlevel game also involves immediate countermagic, movement-as-AoO, immediate teleportation, actionless effects, temporary invulnerability and so on. And movement happens through teleports and the characters always have basic flight-magic (Overland Flight) active.

Chronos
2008-09-02, 11:18 AM
Yes, it's possible to play a druid so he doesn't upstage the fighter. The thing is, though, ironically, it takes a lot of optimization skill. If you sit down with a new player and tell him that a druid gets a wild animal as a companion, he's going to say "Cool, so I can have a pet wolf?". The inexperienced player is likely to shy away from having a snake companion, because he's likely to think that picking the snake is powergaming (Whoa, it's got poison! That could kill someone in one bite!). And you can't even take summoning monsters off of the table as an option, since druids can cast those spontaneously.

The reason that druids are overpowered compared to fighters is not that, if you put a lot of effort into it, you can make a druid more powerful than any fighter (though that's true, too). The reason that druids are overpowered is that you can make a druid more powerful than any fighter accidentally, or even while actually trying to keep your power level down.

Areswargod139
2008-09-02, 04:55 PM
O.K. I am not going to get drawn into a debate over this, as I said earlier, because we are coming from fundamenatally different viewpoints here.

HOWEVER, I just can't allow a comment that points the so called 'Oberoni fallacy' at me go.

The Oberoni Fallacy does not exist. It is a creation by a geek on a board who thought that he was being very clever. There is only one problem with it. It is tautology. Rule 0 states that the DM may change the rules any time they want to. The oberoni states that you cannot change written rules and have them still be written rules. This is obviously true. And Tautological. And therfore meaningless.

It is not possible to have a game that is perfect in every way. Every game designer who has a brain understands this point. Thus the ability to change things on the fly, which is covered under rule 0.

Anyone who states the Oberoni fallacy as a reason for anything is actually commiting a modified Nirvana Fallacy themselves, stating that since the solution is not perfect it is meaningless.

It is not.

Please, don't use some kind of idiot online Logical tautology as reasoning for something when what it is used for is in and of itself a fallacy.

Awesome. I think every gamer over 25 just got up and applauded.
These new gamer rules of logic that were mostly created by the psionics board members on the old Wotc forums (and the optimization forums, but those were really the same people). Not that I'm bashing psionics, though.

However, when most people invent their own rules of logic to prove their own arguments, I tend to call foul. Psionics was a great system, but it was a little on the potent side at times. (not overpowered, but in the higher tier of classes). The justification that was given in those days was that this is okay because even at its worst Psions were no comparison to the abuses of the Wizard or the Codzilla. I didn't approve of this line of thinking because essentially people were comparing slightly potent classes--which should really have the caveat attached that they are not for everyone's game--are completely okay because they don't compare favorably to the WORST OFFENDERS IN THE GAME.
That's like saying a killer is acceptable to society because he/she isn't a genocidal maniac.
It was this kind of reverse thinking that caused a lot of power creep in further supplements in 3.5 ed. Gamers were clamoring for classes that could keep up to that nasty Batman and Codzilla. This is were we got ToB and other such sources. And while I appreciate that these things probably did help a few people's games, I feel it was a wrong move. In all my years of gaming, I've learned one universal value: power creep kills games. And power creep is what killed 3.5 a little sooner than it should have, thanks to these "thought experiments" on the optimization boards. I like 4th ed okay (it's not my game, but I could see why others like it) but I think it was a little soon.

Zen Master
2008-09-02, 05:08 PM
Eh, there are things you can prepare for and things you can't prepare for. Generally, disarming someone's defensive magic takes a lot of time and effort and therefore means that it takes way longer to kill the target and thus he has time to defend himself. Further, ambushing people is really hard simply because on higher levels, all real movement happens through teleports, so it's really difficult to actually catch the to-be-ambushed target anywhere.

Even further, you cannot know what kind of defenses he has - what kinds of spells are active, what kind of magic items the target has with his person, what kinds of support/allies he has, whether he'll simply get revivified 6 seconds after his death, etc. The point is that the defenses don't come down to values like AC and saves at that point as much as they come to line of sight, line of effect, immediate action movement and different temporary magic wards.

Sure, as a DM you could kill anyone, but that's not saying much - level X character trying to kill level X Wizard is going to be a task of epic proportions. Overall, there's so much defense on the high levels that while it can all be brought down, it can't be brought down so fast that the other side wouldn't have a chance to act, especially without OoC knowledge. As I said before, highlevel game also involves immediate countermagic, movement-as-AoO, immediate teleportation, actionless effects, temporary invulnerability and so on. And movement happens through teleports and the characters always have basic flight-magic (Overland Flight) active.

Yea ... whiz-bang solutions to anything. I just don't see the fun in it. Erect layers of shields, and see who gets through first. Hm.

Now - the point I set out to make was this: When reading these boards, I cannot point to a single post in which the group takes presedence over the character. It always boils down to 'this build is powerful (or not)', rather than 'this group/composition/combination of skills/classes/races/whatever is powerful (or not)'.

I'm not saying the posts aren't there - I just haven't seen any. Nor do I see anyone posting that 'this character is powerful because I can buff/heal/assist/whatever my group'.

I did notice someone trying to convince me healing in combat is useless - but really, that is only ever true you (again) assume the powerlevel of the game has been pushed to the point where healing simply cannot keep up. When you do hundreds of points of damage, cure critical wounds just wont do.

But thats just the point. By going that path, you eliminate whole swathes of the game - to my mind, the parts where you actually have fun with others - and just try to impress yourself with large numbers.

There have been a few posts on actual methods for measuring power of a character. The best one so far was about the characters ability to affect the story.

To my mind. for the game to work and for all playing to have fun, everyone needs to be of comparable powerlevel. Not necessarily in all things, but everyone should get their chance to shine.

In my games, the most powerful character is usually the most versatile - out of combat. That is, when I'm the GM.

Oslecamo
2008-09-02, 05:14 PM
Awesome. I think every gamer over 25 just got up and applauded.
These new gamer rules of logic that were mostly created by the psionics board members on the old Wotc forums (and the optimization forums, but those were really the same people). Not that I'm bashing psionics, though.

However, when most people invent their own rules of logic to prove their own arguments, I tend to call foul. Psionics was a great system, but it was a little on the potent side at times. (not overpowered, but in the higher tier of classes). The justification that was given in those days was that this is okay because even at its worst Psions were no comparison to the abuses of the Wizard or the Codzilla. I didn't approve of this line of thinking because essentially people were comparing slightly potent classes--which should really have the caveat attached that they are not for everyone's game--are completely okay because they don't compare favorably to the WORST OFFENDERS IN THE GAME.
That's like saying a killer is acceptable to society because he/she isn't a genocidal maniac.
It was this kind of reverse thinking that caused a lot of power creep in further supplements in 3.5 ed. Gamers were clamoring for classes that could keep up to that nasty Batman and Codzilla. This is were we got ToB and other such sources. And while I appreciate that these things probably did help a few people's games, I feel it was a wrong move. In all my years of gaming, I've learned one universal value: power creep kills games. And power creep is what killed 3.5 a little sooner than it should have, thanks to these "thought experiments" on the optimization boards. I like 4th ed okay (it's not my game, but I could see why others like it) but I think it was a little soon.

You sir renewed my faith in gaming kind. Last time I checked the Wotc forums, you couldn't make a reply whitout being acused of breaking a dozen invented fallacies that nobody ever bothered to properly explain anyway.

Anyway I also agree on the gaming coment. If there weren't some people out there who hadn't got anything better to do but spend all day diving trough the rulebooks looking for broken combinations probably they wouldn't have ever been finded in the first place.

For the OP:

Everybody has a diferent definiton of power, so really there isn't an easy answer.

Plus, several people insist on personal interpretation of the rules, like the knowledge skill being the ultimate scrying technique that instantly grants knowledge about everything in the universe. But just you're playing a caster.

So, I say the power of character is his ability to impact the world reliably. A caster can surely go nova, but there are a lot of "if"s by the middle, plus he's spending 99% of his time in a Magnificent mansion anyway and the world keeps spining while he's away, while the rogue keeps opening locks and the fighter keeps bashing stuff.

Eldariel
2008-09-02, 05:20 PM
Yea ... whiz-bang solutions to anything. I just don't see the fun in it. Erect layers of shields, and see who gets through first. Hm.

Now - the point I set out to make was this: When reading these boards, I cannot point to a single post in which the group takes presedence over the character. It always boils down to 'this build is powerful (or not)', rather than 'this group/composition/combination of skills/classes/races/whatever is powerful (or not)'.

I'm not saying the posts aren't there - I just haven't seen any. Nor do I see anyone posting that 'this character is powerful because I can buff/heal/assist/whatever my group'.

I did notice someone trying to convince me healing in combat is useless - but really, that is only ever true you (again) assume the powerlevel of the game has been pushed to the point where healing simply cannot keep up. When you do hundreds of points of damage, cure critical wounds just wont do.

But thats just the point. By going that path, you eliminate whole swathes of the game - to my mind, the parts where you actually have fun with others - and just try to impress yourself with large numbers.

There have been a few posts on actual methods for measuring power of a character. The best one so far was about the characters ability to affect the story.

To my mind. for the game to work and for all playing to have fun, everyone needs to be of comparable powerlevel. Not necessarily in all things, but everyone should get their chance to shine.

In my games, the most powerful character is usually the most versatile - out of combat. That is, when I'm the GM.

The reason for why people are given powerful characters is because people ask help with their characters. If you read the posts, the first question is invariably: "What are the other characters in the party?" It's simply a consequence of what people ask help with. Nobody likes being told what to play - therefore, asking for an entire party simply doesn't work as the other players want freedom to play what they want too.

Therefore we help people to patch up whatever the party lacks with their characters, using whichever path they want while giving the party what the party wants. And in "X vs Y"-threads, if the question is clearly about classes, there's really no point in bringing the party in, since that would tell about the power of the party, not the power of the individual character. If people ask about the power of an individiual character and their power disparity, that's what people answer to. It all boils down to the people asking the questions, not the people giving the answers.

If you don't see people posting about powerful support characters, you must've missed every single Bard-thread ever here along with the "healer"-threads and most Cleric- and even Wizard-threads too. Heck, the whole optimized Wizard-concept works around Wizard patching up what others can't do and letting others do what they do best - damage. Wizard spends his time disabling the opponents, keeping the party alive, giving the party mobility and so on. The whole idea of an optimized Wizard is to be the ultimate party player helping others do what they do better.


As far as healing goes, fact is that even a simple Fireball is going to deal more damage than your Cure-spells cure, so instead of trying to heal up the damage, you should go kill the guy tossing the Fireballs, then heal up the damage after the combat (unless someone is actually in death throes and is more likely to survive the combat after the cure spell than by going to attack the opponents). The fact is that Healing was purposefully made weaker than attacking to prevent fights from being postponed by healing being the optimal tactic and thus most combats devolving to who runs out of heal-spells first.

It's been clearly intentional - they could have given Cure-spells bigger numbers (comparable to those of the offensive spells at the very least) if they actually wanted them used in combat as a non-extreme-emergency tactic. Heal is the obvious exception since it's of such a high level, but they probably figured that people aren't willing to spend so many high level slots on healing that the fights would stall into eternity. So yea, Healing is ineffective in-combat and it's probably for the best of the game.

Tormsskull
2008-09-02, 05:27 PM
Awesome. I think every gamer over 25 just got up and applauded.
These new gamer rules of logic that were mostly created by the psionics board members on the old Wotc forums (and the optimization forums, but those were really the same people). Not that I'm bashing psionics, though.


Hehe. There was this guy back on the WotC boards who went off and created a new forum dedicated to gamers of a like mindset (typically older gamers, roleplaying over mechanics, optimiziers/munchkins not allowed, etc), we ended up sitting around agreeing with each other a lot.

I'm convinced that most people just like to argue/defend their points :smalltongue:

Talic
2008-09-02, 05:43 PM
I'd say 'call the cettle black' - but whatever, I think the gulf is too wide to be bridged by mere mortals.

In fact - do you even know why I posted this thread? Cause you know, optimizing relates to it, but it's not what it's about.

Well, if the initial post that is clearly visible is any indication, you believe the following:

Characters on the forum boards are going about optimization in a fashion you disagree with.

You assume that when a player optimizes a class such as cleric for combat, he is not using that class's spells to their best effect. Those spells would better be used to provide team synergy and support, rather than individual power.

While that may be 100% true, that doesn't change any of the following facts.

If you are designing a character to deal damage in melee combat, whether as part of a team or an individual character, that character will be more effective as a cleric than a fighter.

Thus, if you have a balanced team, with the following:
Melee Damage
Skills, Backup Ranged damage
Buffing and healing
Crowd control, magic damage, misc functions

The first role, Melee damage will be better filled by a cleric or druid than a fighter. The third role, which you are referring to with your cleric example in the first post (as the better use of abilities), can ALSO be filled with a Cleric, and the party will be more effective as a team than the fighter/cleric.

On top of that, the Buffing cleric fighter will still have some spells available for spontaneous curing in a pinch, resulting in MORE flexibility and team options.


See? I get what you're trying to say. I really do. I just disagree with it, that's all. I see you as trying to compare apples and oranges. You're saying that the Cleric class is better in role 3. I agree. But it's still one of the best two in role 1 (druid being the other). That is because role 3 is fundamentally more important than role 1. The standard concept of the D&D team is an unbalanced one. That is because some classes can only do 1 role. Some can do 2. A rare few can do 3, and I think one or 2 classes can do all 4 roles, depending on optimization.

This is why some classes are inherently more powerful than others. Their attempts to go into other roles and use their abilities sub-optimally STILL result in them being the absolute best class available in that role.

TeeEl
2008-09-02, 05:48 PM
Now - the point I set out to make was this: When reading these boards, I cannot point to a single post in which the group takes presedence over the character. It always boils down to 'this build is powerful (or not)', rather than 'this group/composition/combination of skills/classes/races/whatever is powerful (or not)'.

Yes and no. It's true that a lot of moderately good support classes are often unjustly maligned. Bards have a wealth of buff/debuff options for making their teammates perform better, as well as a handy toolkit of skills and utility spells that can sometimes solve an encounter outright, but because they usually have trouble taking out enemies solo they tend to get short shrift. Hexblades are a similar case; they don't have as many resources as bards do and aren't as versatile, so more of the criticism is warranted, but they still have some hugely effective debuffing options (at least with splatbook support) and a couple handy buffs as well.

That's just for buff/debuff-oriented classes, though (and even there, note that while such classes are often underrated they're still not among the best of the best). For most characters, their ability to contribute to a team is what people are getting at when they discuss "power". Like you said, the most powerful character is the most versatile, and in or out of combat that's usually going to end up being a full caster (after say level 5-7 or so). A really well-optimized fighter can stand up alongside typical casters in combat until the upper levels, but if you stick him with a problem that he can't solve by swinging his sword really hard he's out of luck. Fighters can basically do only one thing, and they're not really even the best at it. It's hard to make a case for them being an ideal option from a group perspective.

Oslecamo
2008-09-02, 05:56 PM
Hehe. There was this guy back on the WotC boards who went off and created a new forum dedicated to gamers of a like mindset (typically older gamers, roleplaying over mechanics, optimiziers/munchkins not allowed, etc), we ended up sitting around agreeing with each other a lot.

I'm convinced that most people just like to argue/defend their points :smalltongue:

The problem it's that you really can't call it arguing anymore when one of the sides decides that they can change the meaning of the english words themselves. With every post. Whitout explanations.

Of course they never admited defeat. Since their words didn't mean anything at all, they couldn't be wrong.

Tormsskull
2008-09-02, 06:04 PM
Of course they never admited defeat. Since their words didn't mean anything at all, they couldn't be wrong.

*is very lost*

Defeat? What are we talking about again?

Starbuck_II
2008-09-02, 06:44 PM
Awesome. I think every gamer over 25 just got up and applauded.
These new gamer rules of logic that were mostly created by the psionics board members on the old Wotc forums (and the optimization forums, but those were really the same people). Not that I'm bashing psionics, though.

However, when most people invent their own rules of logic to prove their own arguments, I tend to call foul. Psionics was a great system, but it was a little on the potent side at times. (not overpowered, but in the higher tier of classes). The justification that was given in those days was that this is okay because even at its worst Psions were no comparison to the abuses of the Wizard or the Codzilla. I didn't approve of this line of thinking because essentially people were comparing slightly potent classes--which should really have the caveat attached that they are not for everyone's game--are completely okay because they don't compare favorably to the WORST OFFENDERS IN THE GAME.
That's like saying a killer is acceptable to society because he/she isn't a genocidal maniac.
It was this kind of reverse thinking that caused a lot of power creep in further supplements in 3.5 ed. Gamers were clamoring for classes that could keep up to that nasty Batman and Codzilla. This is were we got ToB and other such sources. And while I appreciate that these things probably did help a few people's games, I feel it was a wrong move. In all my years of gaming, I've learned one universal value: power creep kills games. And power creep is what killed 3.5 a little sooner than it should have, thanks to these "thought experiments" on the optimization boards. I like 4th ed okay (it's not my game, but I could see why others like it) but I think it was a little soon.

But the logic holds, if Codzilla is allowed who is proven broken; why restrict the new classes which are weaker (someone tell me Healer is stronger than Cleric with a Staight face).
If the new class is weaker: than adding it to choices cannot imbalance the game.
That is called Logic I think.

Areswargod139
2008-09-02, 07:08 PM
But the logic holds, if Codzilla is allowed who is proven broken; why restrict the new classes which are weaker (someone tell me Healer is stronger than Cleric with a Staight face).
If the new class is weaker: than adding it to choices cannot imbalance the game.
That is called Logic I think.

Oh, my I quite agree. But that's not what we're saying here. See, when polymorph was broken, Wotc eventually got rid of it. Codzilla and Wizard was a problem, and Wotc never addressed it but by creating even more powerful classes here and there that weren't neccessarily broken, but were more potent so that it could deal with the raised power level of the game. the warlock, favored soul and ToB classes are not extremely powerful when compared to the Batman/Codzilla, they were still a little much compared to the more "baseline" classes: sorc, bard, fighter, monk, paladin...uh all the other core classes. As for classes like the healer, this just proves that not all "splatbook" classes were designed to be "potent" classes, some of them were just there like the monk, for *poo* and giggles, I guess.

As for the logicinistas of the old 3e Wotc boards, I'm surprised so many people were annoyed by them, I thought that at the time I was the silent minority. Heh, I guess now that the regime is over, we can all clear out of our hidey-holes and enjoy the sun again :smallcool:.

Dhavaer
2008-09-02, 07:24 PM
the warlock, favored soul and ToB classes are not extremely powerful when compared to the Batman/Codzilla, they were still a little much compared to the more "baseline" classes: sorc, bard, fighter, monk, paladin...uh all the other core classes.

I'd disagree with calling the sorcerer, fighter, monk and paladin 'baseline' classes. The classes usually considered to be around the mid-tier in core are the bard, ranger and rogue, which are powerful enough to contribute without cheese but not powerful enough to dominated (without cheese). The warlock is in the same tier, the favoured soul is a full caster on par with the sorcerer, so it's just below the archivist/cleric/druid/wizard quartet, and the martial adepts are closer in power to the ranger than the sorcerer.

ericgrau
2008-09-02, 07:25 PM
Yeah. And then the party doesn't get whatever they wanted to have that was in the area.

Look, this is really pointless. In my about 30 years of experience DMing I have not yet come across a PC who can always find a way to break the game that I can't deal with. You disagree. Whatever. It has yet to happen to me, so I don't really care.

I should also say, that if I have a player who continuosly tries to break the game to prove that they are superior in every respect to every other PC, I often don't have to do anything to them, because the other players usually ask me not to invite him back.

Now someone will tell me that because it is possible in the rules, it is not breaking the game. Again. I just don't really care. I usually try to stay out of this argument because it is made by people who are not in my game, so it just doesn't matter. I tried to answer the OPs post, and got jumped on for it.

So I now bow out of this discussion that I have absolutely no interest in continuing. Congratulations, you broke the game. You win. We are all very impressed.

I think this is THE answer to all these kinds of discussions.

Specifically, these discussions are pure theory and the only reason it's so "one sided" is because the theorists hammer at anyone who dares disagree with them. And those that disagree just don't care enough to stick around posting all day, unlike their opposition. To them it is everything. D&D isn't their game, posting is, and they must "win". Moral of the story: Some people just have too much time on their hands, so don't believe something simply because it's been posted 10,000 times and "everybody knows it".

After a detailed look at the various classes in d&d, IMO they are apples and oranges to eachother. Even if some really were a bit more powerful - without doing things that 95% of DM's disallow - and not just a little stronger, you still need a mix of classes to get everything you need. It's like saying, "Who's the strongest member of Ocean's 11?" Probably that one guy or maybe that other guy. But who friggin' cares??

Areswargod139
2008-09-02, 07:34 PM
I'd disagree with calling the sorcerer, fighter, monk and paladin 'baseline' classes. The classes usually considered to be around the mid-tier in core are the bard, ranger and rogue, which are powerful enough to contribute without cheese but not powerful enough to dominated (without cheese). The warlock is in the same tier, the favoured soul is a full caster on par with the sorcerer, so it's just below the archivist/cleric/druid/wizard quartet, and the martial adepts are closer in power to the ranger than the sorcerer.

That's what the "council of Nice'" agreed to on the Wotc boards, but really all that amounts to is that people are putting all the skill monkey classes somewhere else on a shelf somewhere while putting the "potent but not broken" classes like the warlock and the favored soul there with them. It creates a dynamic of decent classes, broken classes, and trash classes. I disagree with the idea of a "trash" class as below the baseline because those supposed trash classes make up the literal majority of classes! Therefore it would be logical to label those classes as the "baseline" or common denominator, hence the nature of my statements. the Wotc board experiment was a good idea, but it was still too elitist for my taste, as it featured power creep, which kills games fast. You're mileage may vary of course. :smallsmile:

Dhavaer
2008-09-02, 07:36 PM
Even if some really were much more powerful, and not just a little stronger, you still need a mix of classes to get everything you need.

I think you're misreading the arguements. It's not that the druid is so much better at druiding than the fighter is at fighting, but that the druid is better at fighting than the fighter, and can still do druiding.

Dhavaer
2008-09-02, 07:42 PM
I disagree with the idea of a "trash" class as below the baseline because those supposed trash classes make up the literal majority of classes!

Do they? Just looking at core, you have four overpowered classes (cleric, druid, sorcerer and wizard), four decent classes (barbarian, bard, ranger and rogue) and three 'trash' classes, as you call them (fighter, monk and paladin).


I disagree with the idea of a "trash" class as below the baseline because those supposed trash classes make up the literal majority of classes!

Do they? Just looking at core, you have four overpowered classes (cleric, druid, sorcerer and wizard), four decent classes (barbarian, bard, ranger and rogue) and three 'trash' classes, as you call them (fighter, monk and paladin).

Areswargod139
2008-09-02, 07:44 PM
I think you're misreading the arguements. It's not that the druid is so much better at druiding than the fighter is at fighting, but that the druid is better at fighting than the fighter, and can still do druiding.

I think everyone gets that, they just don't get why the fighter must evolve into a duskblade or ToB in order to make it okay for other people to play that Druid.

Areswargod139
2008-09-02, 07:47 PM
Do they? Just looking at core, you have four overpowered classes (cleric, druid, sorcerer and wizard), four decent classes (barbarian, bard, ranger and rogue) and three 'trash' classes, as you call them (fighter, monk and paladin).



Do they? Just looking at core, you have four overpowered classes (cleric, druid, sorcerer and wizard), four decent classes (barbarian, bard, ranger and rogue) and three 'trash' classes, as you call them (fighter, monk and paladin).

Ah, you forget the splatbooks that you were referencing not so long ago: healer, samurai, spirit shaman, ect. Putting all the "trash" classes together creates a baseline. Increasing this baseline rather than diversifying the power structure is power creep. Power creep kills games.
And I call them trash as the optimizer crowd considers them that way.

Chronos
2008-09-02, 07:58 PM
OK, so if three of the five super-broken classes are core, and most of the splatbook classes fall into the class sometimes referred to as "trash", then where's this power creep you're complaining about?

ericgrau
2008-09-02, 08:00 PM
I think you're misreading the arguements. It's not that the druid is so much better at druiding than the fighter is at fighting, but that the druid is better at fighting than the fighter, and can still do druiding.

No, I've heard that 10,000 times before and it still isn't true. And IMO no one ever misses the overused and overheard points out there. Ever. Really that's just a way to dismiss an argument without responding to it, which works out conveniently when the other guy has gone home and the guy with more time to waste talks longer.

I've compared stats, ran mock battles, etc. and the druid can only be better with illegal or nigh-illegal gear. And I just don't see any real games were players find and buy bear-sized magic full plate (and other magic stuff) to be put on after shapechanging to work around the rules that are supposed to prevent that sort of thing. Or getting it to work via X splatbook enchantment or w/e. Maybe it's in some group of powergamers out there somewhere, though I'm betting it's more in theory. Ditto for the rest of the cliches. Worst case scenario I have seen near-gearless (noob) fighters that are a little worse than the gear-hampered-by-shapechanging-rules druids.

Like others, I gotta go home now and do something more fun. Probably video games. So I just hope people will make their decisions via thoughtful reasoning on ideas not via how much people say X and who has more free time to keep making responses... which may be reasonable or not reasonable. You can't know just b/c it's said; you gotta work and decipher and parse it out yourself everybody.

Dhavaer
2008-09-02, 08:04 PM
Ah, you forget the splatbooks that you were referencing not so long ago: healer, samurai, spirit shaman, ect. Putting all the "trash" classes together creates a baseline. Increasing this baseline rather than diversifying the power structure is power creep. Power creep kills games.
And I call them trash as the optimizer crowd considers them that way.

I never mentioned anything from the books those classes are from; the only non-core class I mentioned was archivist.

If you're looking at the completes you have 2 'trash' classes (swashbuckler and samurai) and 1 decent class (hexblade) in Warrior, 2 decent classes (scout and spellthief) and 1 debateably trashy or decent class (ninja) in Adventurer, 3 decent classes in Arcane, 1 overpowered class (favoured soul) and 2 I know nothing about in Divine. Assuming that the spirit shaman and shugenja are trashy, that's 1 overpowered class, 6.5 decent classes and 4.5 trashy classes (treating the ninja as half decent and trashy). Still hardly a majority.

Starbuck_II
2008-09-02, 08:12 PM
I never mentioned anything from the books those classes are from; the only non-core class I mentioned was archivist.

If you're looking at the completes you have 2 'trash' classes (swashbuckler and samurai) and 1 decent class (hexblade) in Warrior, 2 decent classes (scout and spellthief) and 1 debateably trashy or decent class (ninja) in Adventurer, 3 decent classes in Arcane, 1 overpowered class (favoured soul) and 2 I know nothing about in Divine. Assuming that the spirit shaman and shugenja are trashy, that's 1 overpowered class, 6.5 decent classes and 4.5 trashy classes (treating the ninja as half decent and trashy). Still hardly a majority.

He may he means the spells in the new books? They do make Core casters stronger.
Strangely, the non-core gets boosted less by their own book... illogical...

Dhavaer
2008-09-02, 08:15 PM
He may he means the spells in the new books? They do make Core casters stronger.
Strangely, the non-core gets boosted less by their own book... illogical...

The Spell Compendium, at least, pulls paladins up into the decent classes as well.

Areswargod139
2008-09-02, 08:26 PM
OK, so if three of the five super-broken classes are core, and most of the splatbook classes fall into the class sometimes referred to as "trash", then where's this power creep you're complaining about?

At that top 1% of the classes. Much "trash" that is not played is not greater than a few broken classes that everybody plays. This is a very strange assumption you seem to have. That a lot of unplayed classes (unplayed because they are not "optimal") somehow makes a dent in the influence of a few overpowered classes that are played exclusively, or any of the more potent classes created to fill the gap between the two groups (sub-optimal vs. overpowered).

Frosty
2008-09-02, 08:30 PM
So who are the 5 most broken classes? Wizard, Cleric, Druid, Archivist, and Artificer? And toss in Sorcerer for 6th?

Areswargod139
2008-09-02, 08:36 PM
I never mentioned anything from the books those classes are from; the only non-core class I mentioned was archivist.

If you're looking at the completes you have 2 'trash' classes (swashbuckler and samurai) and 1 decent class (hexblade) in Warrior, 2 decent classes (scout and spellthief) and 1 debateably trashy or decent class (ninja) in Adventurer, 3 decent classes in Arcane, 1 overpowered class (favoured soul) and 2 I know nothing about in Divine. Assuming that the spirit shaman and shugenja are trashy, that's 1 overpowered class, 6.5 decent classes and 4.5 trashy classes (treating the ninja as half decent and trashy). Still hardly a majority.

I won't quibble on your ideas on what is decent or not, but I will point out that Arcane had one overpowered (really just Potent, so don't flame me), warlock, and then the rest were trash. You're also forgetting the archivist. so 2 overpowered, and 5-7 trash classes (remember, optimizers conscider a class either optimized or not. Though this is not the same as overpowered vs. underpowered, it is veeeeery similar.

But these designations we're using are mostly subjective anyway. If you don't really agree, then that's fine, but I think you're just nitpicking. I think you get what the crux of the argument is, and if you think everything is dandy in the world of DnD then I'd like to point you the corpse of 3e.

See, the basic point is that power creep kills games. Rather than solve the issues that 3e had, Wotc decided to up the ante on power level rather than scale back (save for the polymorph controversy).

Frosty
2008-09-02, 08:39 PM
I've got a friend who is complaining how 4e went too far with the nerf stick. you can't please everyone I guess.

Areswargod139
2008-09-02, 08:44 PM
I've got a friend who is complaining how 4e went too far with the nerf stick. you can't please everyone I guess.

Too true, fellow poster, too true. 4e was a reactionary stance due to the damage the optimization board guys did to the game.

A good "compromise" game, one that allows for the customization of 3e and the balance of 4e is Star Wars Saga edition, so you could always try that.

Frosty
2008-09-02, 08:46 PM
Currently I am sticking with 3.5 as a DM because
1) I know it well and
2) I can introduce my houserules to try to balance things (like offering my Paladins full Crusader progression to help keep up with Batman and Cleric McDivinePersist)

I could nerf the spells, and I *do* ban some spells. I don't mind having a tougher PC team. It means I can throw more monsters at them to have that epic feel.

MeklorIlavator
2008-09-02, 08:46 PM
I won't quibble on your ideas on what is decent or not, but I will point out that Arcane had one overpowered (really just Potent, so don't flame me), warlock, and then the rest were trash. You're also forgetting the archivist. so 2 overpowered, and 5-7 trash classes (remember, optimizers conscider a class either optimized or not. Though this is not the same as overpowered vs. underpowered, it is veeeeery similar.

Warlcok is hardly overpowered. they're about as effective as a rogue, so I don't see the big problem with them. Also, Wu Gen are probably on the same level as a sorcerer power wise: not as good as a wizard, but can still pack some punch.

(remember, optimizers conscider a class either optimized or not. Though this is not the same as overpowered vs. underpowered, it is veeeeery similar.
This is extremely misleading. If you only use that definition, then only clerics, Wizards, Druids, and Archivists are optimal, so in that case the your argument doesn't really make that much sense. On the other hand, if you use a tier or gradual system, then you get a much more useful comparison.


But these designations we're using are mostly subjective anyway. If you don't really agree, then that's fine, but I think you're just nitpicking. I think you get what the crux of the argument is, and if you think everything is dandy in the world of DnD then I'd like to point you the corpse of 3e. Not really sure what you're saying here.


See, the basic point is that power creep kills games. Rather than solve the issues that 3e had, Wotc decided to up the ante on power level rather than scale back (save for the polymorph controversy).
Its not really power creep if you make things that are less powerful than stuff you already printed. It's more like power equalization: as time when on the average power level got closer and closer together.

Dhavaer
2008-09-02, 08:56 PM
Also, Wu Gen are probably on the same level as a sorcerer power wise: not as good as a wizard, but can still pack some punch.

I'd disagree about the wu jen, the power of the wizard is mostly in their enormous spell list, and wu jen have very, very few of the wizard's best spells.

Areswargod139
2008-09-02, 09:07 PM
Warlcok is hardly overpowered. they're about as effective as a rogue, so I don't see the big problem with them. Also, Wu Gen are probably on the same level as a sorcerer power wise: not as good as a wizard, but can still pack some punch.
We're not disagreeing here. Warlock, however is higher than the "trash" baseline, and Wu Gen are at the same baseline as the sorc, ie. lower than the overpowered wizard. Whether you would put them in the middle ground or trash is up to you, they could go either way.


This is extremely misleading. If you only use that definition, then only clerics, Wizards, Druids, and Archivists are optimal, so in that case the your argument doesn't really make that much sense. On the other hand, if you use a tier or gradual system, then you get a much more useful comparison.
I counter your accusation with the same! Misleading! You're creating arbitrary standards for my (and other old grognards') opinions! And besides, what's wrong with saying that the top 1% of the classes are overpowered? If those are the only classes that are being played, then they're still breaking the game.


Not really sure what you're saying here.
What I'm saying is that it was Mr. Power Creep in the library wielding the Optimization Board that killed Mrs. 3e. That's it. Feel free to disagree, my country tis of thee....:smallsmile:


Its not really power creep if you make things that are less powerful than stuff you already printed. It's more like power equalization: as time when on the average power level got closer and closer together.
I appreciate your point, but I think that we're having a quantity over quality disconnect here. If most classes are suboptimal and a few are overpowered and make the game system cry like a fat prom date, and everyone wants to play the game "right" by taking only those overpowered classes while ignoring the trash classes, then you still have a power creep problem.

Knaight
2008-09-02, 09:07 PM
Well yes. The top teir is pretty much wizard, cleric, druid, archivist. Then we have psion, wilder, sorcerer, wu jen, then after them warlock, rogue, ranger, barbarian, psychic warrior, ToB classes, ToM classes, optimized fighter, optimized bard, etc. Then we have unoptimized fighter, unoptimized bard, monk, swashbuckler, and a few others. Then rounding out the bottom is the CW samurai and soulknife. However the thing is the top tier is just so far ahead of anything else, the third tier, fourth tier, fifth tier, and sixth tier are all pretty close to each other.

Areswargod139
2008-09-02, 09:08 PM
I'd disagree about the wu jen, the power of the wizard is mostly in their enormous spell list, and wu jen have very, very few of the wizard's best spells.

That and enough metamagic to choke a wide-breathed animal. But I've always found the Wu Jen to be a wonderful alternative to the wizard for lower power games.

Tormsskull
2008-09-02, 09:10 PM
Warlcok is hardly overpowered.

Are warlocks the ones that can spam a 'spell' over and over without any recourse?

Areswargod139
2008-09-02, 09:10 PM
Well yes. The top teir is pretty much wizard, cleric, druid, archivist. Then we have psion, wilder, sorcerer, wu jen, then after them warlock, rogue, ranger, barbarian, psychic warrior, ToB classes, ToM classes, optimized fighter, optimized bard, etc. Then we have unoptimized fighter, unoptimized bard, monk, swashbuckler, and a few others. Then rounding out the bottom is the CW samurai and soulknife. However the thing is the top tier is just so far ahead of anything else, the third tier, fourth tier, fifth tier, and sixth tier are all pretty close to each other.

We can quibble about tierage all the live long day...but we can come together join hands and sing Coombya about what all brings us together....the CW Samurai kind of stinks. I think of most "trash" classes as unfairly maligned by overpowered classes, 'cept that one. oy.

Areswargod139
2008-09-02, 09:13 PM
Are warlocks the ones that can spam a 'spell' over and over without any recourse?

Yes, but many players swear on a stack of Bibles that he kind of peeters out at high levels. Also the nerf stick happy 4e team found him core-worthy, so that aint too bad. I find him in the middle "potent" category, one of those classes that was made to make companion space for the optimized Wizard, cleric, druid, and two-weapon finessed rogues to hang out with. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just a systemic sign of power creep. Which kills games dead. I have mentioned that, right?:smallsmile:

TeeEl
2008-09-02, 09:15 PM
Specifically, these discussions are pure theory and the only reason it's so "one sided" is because the theorists hammer at anyone who dares disagree with them. And those that disagree just don't care enough to stick around posting all day, unlike their opposition. To them it is everything. D&D isn't their game, posting is, and they must "win".

Oddly enough, the theorists seem to show up on both sides of the debate, and behave pretty much the same either way. Or have you ever actually seen a table that runs every dungeon coated in antimagic fields and tosses a few Disjunctions at the party per session, as the "casters aren't broken" lobby typically suggests as a reasonable fix?

Eldariel
2008-09-02, 09:18 PM
Are warlocks the ones that can spam a 'spell' over and over without any recourse?

They can do a ranged attack over and over again with few utility abilities. They're hardly anything more than decorated archers with damage independent of their equipment (which is a good thing in regards of equipment dependancy and a bad thing in regards of actually improving your damage output). They're quite identical to the Rogue - they deal a bunch of d6s worth of damage, have secondary magic abilities (Rogue uses UMD, Warlock complements it with UMD) and Rogue has a ton of skills instead of those invocations. They're very much the same in terms of power.

Tormsskull
2008-09-02, 09:18 PM
Yes, but many players swear on a stack of Bibles that he kind of peeters out at high levels.

I am very adversed to at-will spells. I like to run the occasional resources-are-tight scenario, and you just can't do that with an at-will caster. Plus, there's usually a lot of additional detrimental side effects to at-will casters.

I'd have to read them in depth to be sure, but if my memory serves, thats the deal.

Edit:


They can do a ranged attack over and over again with few utility abilities. They're hardly anything more than decorated archers...


Yeah, but archers can run out of arrows. Also, is their ranged attack considered magic, say for overcoming damage reduction? Or hardness? Or does it do anything odd like that, that a regular arrow can't do?

Areswargod139
2008-09-02, 09:24 PM
Oddly enough, the theorists seem to show up on both sides of the debate, and behave pretty much the same either way. Or have you ever actually seen a table that runs every dungeon coated in antimagic fields and tosses a few Disjunctions at the party per session, as the "casters aren't broken" lobby typically suggests as a reasonable fix?

Lol, that's a good point. But don't think that just because a gamer wants a low powered game doesn't mean they're in the "all classes are fine" camp. If you weren't making that point, then I'll just bugger off.

MeklorIlavator
2008-09-02, 09:25 PM
Okay, thank you for the clarification.



::snip::
I counter your accusation with the same! Misleading! You're creating arbitrary standards for my (and other old grognards') opinions! And besides, what's wrong with saying that the top 1% of the classes are overpowered? If those are the only classes that are being played, then they're still breaking the game.
Oh, I agree with you on that the top is overpowered, I just disagree about the the either/or statement. I think that there are levels of power, but I think I understand your point here.



::snip::
I appreciate your point, but I think that we're having a quantity over quality disconnect here. If most classes are suboptimal and a few are overpowered and make the game system cry like a fat prom date, and everyone wants to play the game "right" by taking only those overpowered classes while ignoring the trash classes, then you still have a power creep problem.
I'm just saying that if the most powerful stuff is in the first book, then its not power creep. Power creep would be if Wizards released more powerful things as time went on, but in general(barring the Archivist(Divine Wizard) and Artificer(Ultimate Crafter)) the most powerful things were released in the first set of books. Heck, the most powerful spells were released then too: Polymorph, POA, and Shapechange.

On the other hand, as they have released more books they have been releasing things that are not as powerful as the Big 3, but not as weak either.


Are warlocks the ones that can spam a 'spell' over and over without any recourse?
Yes, but they don't get any really good spells. Plus, their main attack doesn't really do that much damage compared to the better damage dealers.



Yeah, but archers can run out of arrows. Also, is their ranged attack considered magic, say for overcoming damage reduction? Or hardness? Or does it do anything odd like that, that a regular arrow can't do?
They ignore DR, but not hardness. Plus, you can't really add much damage to it, and its a standard action, so damage per turn is very low.

Areswargod139
2008-09-02, 09:27 PM
I am very adversed to at-will spells. I like to run the occasional resources-are-tight scenario, and you just can't do that with an at-will caster. Plus, there's usually a lot of additional detrimental side effects to at-will casters.

I'd have to read them in depth to be sure, but if my memory serves, thats the deal.

Edit:


Yeah, but archers can run out of arrows. Also, is their ranged attack considered magic, say for overcoming damage reduction? Or hardness? Or does it do anything odd like that, that a regular arrow can't do?

Again, they're that middling class that was an attempt at making peers for the Codzilla and Batman. If you run a high powered game, they're absolutely fine, nothing broken about them, Batman and the Codzilla still rule the day. But if you run a low powered game, say Dragonlance or something, then they're going to be uber. In the long run this averages out to be in the "potent but not broken" category, but only when compared to the worst offenders.

Eldariel
2008-09-02, 09:31 PM
Yeah, but archers can run out of arrows. Also, is their ranged attack considered magic, say for overcoming damage reduction? Or hardness? Or does it do anything odd like that, that a regular arrow can't do?

Well, with D&D character wealth, running out of arrows is a practical impossibility. Your level 1 Archer can stack up a few hundred arrows for a dozen gps and a level 2 can already afford thousands (although he better have a high str to carry all those - still, you can usually manage it through some means).

But yea, there are of course some small nuance differences (Eldritch Blast is more limited in range, considered Magic so unavailable in AMF, attacks touch AC and is affected by Spell Resistance, can be altered with status effects and such, isn't affected by DR (purely magical energy), etc.), but a Warlock's role is the same as that of an Archer - ranged support.

A Rogue/Swift Hunter archer is really the best comparison - they do more attacks per round but hit less (touch AC vs. iteratives+Rapid Shot+all that), deal a bunch of d6s in addition to their weapon damage, skirt the edge of the combat, but still stay close enough to deal their precision damage, etc. So basically, a Warlock is an archer who hits better, has lower base damage, but more versatility and has to deal with magic-related issues (AMFs, Spell Resistance, Magic Immunity, etc.). They're best not considered casters since while they're flavoured as such, from a mechanical standpoint, just the fact that their abilities are At Will makes them more like martial characters, and the fact that they don't have anything resembling casterish versatility further drives the point. They're a fun class to play and safe to allow in most games unless everyone else is literally playing a Soulknife or an NPC class.

MeklorIlavator
2008-09-02, 09:32 PM
Again, they're that middling class that was an attempt at making peers for the Codzilla and Batman. If you run a high powered game, they're absolutely fine, nothing broken about them, Batman and the Codzilla still rule the day. But if you run a low powered game, say Dragonlance or something, then they're going to be uber. In the long run this averages out to be in the "potent but not broken" category, but only when compared to the worst offenders.

Not sure their that uber is the right word(though I agree that they aren't the right class for every setting, but that goes without saying). What class would you say they're comparable to? Rogues? Sorcerers? Rangers?

Areswargod139
2008-09-02, 09:35 PM
Okay, thank you for the clarification.


Oh, I agree with you on that the top is overpowered, I just disagree about the the either/or statement. I think that there are levels of power, but I think I understand your point here.
Indeed, we'll just have to politely agree to disagree. I don't think I've set up a dichotomy, but whatever.



I'm just saying that if the most powerful stuff is in the first book, then its not power creep. Power creep would be if Wizards released more powerful things as time went on, but in general(barring the Archivist(Divine Wizard) and Artificer(Ultimate Crafter)) the most powerful things were released in the first set of books. Heck, the most powerful spells were released then too: Polymorph, POA, and Shapechange.

On the other hand, as they have released more books they have been releasing things that are not as powerful as the Big 3, but not as weak either.
Your Honor, permission to treat the witness as hostile? Heh, joking, but they took polymorph out near the end. So just because something came in the first book doesn't mean it cannot be considered broken or at least in need of significant revision. And remember we're also counting the middle of the ground "potent" classes like the warlocke, since even though they weren't out and out broken, they were only not so [broken, I mean] when compared to the worst offenders of the first book: Batman and the Codzilla.


Yes, but they don't get any really good spells. Plus, their main attack doesn't really do that much damage compared to the better damage dealers.
I think I've already addressed that stuff. Again, the Warlocke is just that middle of the road class that was apart of the power bloat of the latter days of 3e, but it wasn't the worst offender so I can't say it's overpowered. I will say that classes like it helped account for the power creep, though.
Middle of the road classes like the Favored Soul, ToB ect.

Tormsskull
2008-09-02, 09:48 PM
But yea, there are of course some small nuance differences (Eldritch Blast is more limited in range, considered Magic so unavailable in AMF, attacks touch AC and is affected by Spell Resistance, can be altered with status effects and such, isn't affected by DR (purely magical energy), etc.), but a Warlock's role is the same as that of an Archer - ranged support.


I'm not so worried about their role in combat as I am about their ability to devastate an environment by firing off magical energy every 6 seconds. Take for example, Ice. It has 0 hardness and 3 HP/inch of thickness. If there was a wall of ice between a warlock and wherever he wanted to go, he could simply shoot as many times as is needed (rather quickly too) and make a hole through the ice. Heck, he could destroy all the ice if he wanted too.

Same with bridges, buildings, doors, etc.

Eldariel
2008-09-02, 09:51 PM
E. Blast deals half damage to objects. That said, yes you could break many kinds of things by blasting them long enough. Not as efficient as using a Hammer with Power Attack though.

Akimbo
2008-09-02, 09:53 PM
I'm not so worried about their role in combat as I am about their ability to devastate an environment by firing off magical energy every 6 seconds. Take for example, Ice. It has 0 hardness and 3 HP/inch of thickness. If there was a wall of ice between a warlock and wherever he wanted to go, he could simply shoot as many times as is needed (rather quickly too) and make a hole through the ice. Heck, he could destroy all the ice if he wanted too.

Same with bridges, buildings, doors, etc.

And any Fighter six levels lower with Power attack can do more damage faster to anything that a Warlock can.

MeklorIlavator
2008-09-02, 09:56 PM
Indeed, we'll just have to politely agree to disagree. I don't think I've set up a dichotomy, but whatever.

What else would you call this:

(remember, optimizers conscider a class either optimized or not. Though this is not the same as overpowered vs. underpowered, it is veeeeery similar.
Bolding is mine
That's clearly and either/or statement (it even has the words).

Plus, you have to have some sort of tier system, otherwise you're equating a sorcerer to a monk or fighter, and that clearly isn't the case.



Your Honor, permission to treat the witness as hostile? Heh, joking, but they took polymorph out near the end. So just because something came in the first book doesn't mean it cannot be considered broken or at least in need of significant revision. And remember we're also counting the middle of the ground "potent" classes like the warlocke, since even though they weren't out and out broken, they were only not so [broken, I mean] when compared to the worst offenders of the first book: Batman and the Codzilla.
Not sure what you mean here. I'm saying that most of the stuff released since core is less powerful than the big three, and those that aren't weaker are on the same level. Thus it isn't really power creep, as that implies that the stuff they released is stronger than the previous stuff, when in fact most of it was one a similar level as the mid-level PHB classes.


I think I've already addressed that stuff. Again, the Warlocke is just that middle of the road class that was apart of the power bloat of the latter days of 3e, but it wasn't the worst offender so I can't say it's overpowered. I will say that classes like it helped account for the power creep, though.
Middle of the road classes like the Favored Soul, ToB ect.

Interesting. Any particular reasons why? Personally, I would rank them at about the level of rogues and Barbarians.

Akimbo
2008-09-02, 09:57 PM
No, I've heard that 10,000 times before and it still isn't true. And IMO no one ever misses the overused and overheard points out there. Ever. Really that's just a way to dismiss an argument without responding to it, which works out conveniently when the other guy has gone home and the guy with more time to waste talks longer.

I've compared stats, ran mock battles, etc. and the druid can only be better with illegal or nigh-illegal gear. And I just don't see any real games were players find and buy bear-sized magic full plate (and other magic stuff) to be put on after shapechanging to work around the rules that are supposed to prevent that sort of thing. Or getting it to work via X splatbook enchantment or w/e. Maybe it's in some group of powergamers out there somewhere, though I'm betting it's more in theory. Ditto for the rest of the cliches. Worst case scenario I have seen near-gearless (noob) fighters that are a little worse than the gear-hampered-by-shapechanging-rules druids.

Like others, I gotta go home now and do something more fun. Probably video games. So I just hope people will make their decisions via thoughtful reasoning on ideas not via how much people say X and who has more free time to keep making responses... which may be reasonable or not reasonable. You can't know just b/c it's said; you gotta work and decipher and parse it out yourself everybody.

Please stop this. Build a Core Fighter, I will trounce you and any CR whatever challenge with a Core Druid. Or you can admit that other books exist and I'll use Complete Adventurer to make a Druid that wears armor that is 100% legal stop calling everyone who knows more then you a cheater.

Make your Core Fighter who is so awesome and I will trounce you. Make a Non-Core fighter and you open the floodgates to the animal companion that can solo you, the spells that give me double your attacks, or the items that work when Wildshaped.

JupiterPaladin
2008-09-02, 10:03 PM
But Fighter 20 isn't an übercharger. An übercharger is a character that truly milks every last bit of damage out of the charge (including Class, not just Feats). And that takes more than 6 levels. Yes, you can be a competent Shock Trooper by level 6, but you won't be one-shotting people even with Leap Attack thrown in. Fighter 20 is a fine, versatile character when correctly build (suboptimal, but playable in games without multiverse-spanning fights), but the one thing he's not is an übercharger.

I disagree with everything except that Fighter 20 is not the ubercharger, it's Fighter 18 / Lion Totem Barbarian 1 / Frenzied Berserker 1. 2 level dips do not take any credit from the Fighter. And yes as soon as level 6 you can be an ubercharger. I had a Fighter 4 / Lion Totem Barbarian 1 / Frenzied Berserker 1 human character that one-shotted 2 creatures of 10+ HD in a single round. They were meant to scare us into running and I made the DM really mad, but smack-smack and 2 monsters way over what I should have killed were toast. That character remained an integral damage-dealer and was never overshadowed by the DMM meta-cheesed Cleric (that I even helped optimize into CoDzilla). The game went epic and I still never experienced that useless feeling I keep seeing people post about. You can spout off anything you want about numbers and statistics and general view of the class, in actual play it's never been an issue for me or my group.

Tormsskull
2008-09-02, 10:10 PM
E. Blast deals half damage to objects. That said, yes you could break many kinds of things by blasting them long enough. Not as efficient as using a Hammer with Power Attack though.

Hmm. True, but E. Blast is ranged, which is huge if you don't want to be right next to the thing you're trying to destroy (say a brigde).

Secondly, is there any kind of sign that the warlock is casting? Does it make any sound? That's a possible advantage over a fighter whacking away at a building.

Thirdly, while its not a rule, I would assume logic would come in at some place and say the a fighter swinging a huge hammer 6 hours straight is going to be incredibly tired, exhausted, probably lost HP if we assume HP represents general endurance instead of physical wounds.

Of course, you might be able to apply the same logic to the warlock, does it say anything about using his E. blast to be taxing on him or anything like that?

Again, I'd have to see the specfics. Can he augment his blast in ways and still do them constantly? Are there any other tricks that he could pull using E. blast?

Thrud
2008-09-02, 10:18 PM
LAWL. Wow. Just... Wow. So, what you're saying, is that all classes are perfectly balanced, as is the game, as is everything else about the game, because you, the DM, can wave a wand and fix it.

Let's make a couple points clear.

Yes, Rule 0 exists. It exists to allow players of the game to adjust the game to fit their own needs.

It also has no bearing whatsoever in inter-game discussions. This is because each group has a different idea of what changes are needed. As such, we must default to the rules that are in place. When you modify them, you deviate from the universal base line that all players in the game have in common.

Say you have 5 objects in a room. A squash, a pea, a green bean, an avocado, and an ear of corn. Now, all these things could discuss the common traits of vegetables, and they'd all have common ground. Once one starts screaming, "squash", and another yells, "corn", that's when communication breaks down.

Be a vegetable. Not an avocado. Keep your discussions limited to common ground. Because, as long as we invoke Rule 0, I can always say that fighters are more powerful because they can reflect any attack made at them to its original source. When you say that no, they can't.... Well, nope, because in MY games, we rule 0 that in. Because we have the power to change that. So we do.

Never mind the fact that it has absolutely no bearing or relevance to anyone else's point of view, and is thus completely pointless.

Much like your argument.

Umm, I hate to point this out since you managed to muster such righteous indignation there kid, but you brought up the oberoni fallacy. To which I replied. However, from your reply it is obvious that you don't even have a clue what a logical fallacy is, since I merely pointed out that the one YOU quoted is a pile of steaming dog poop, and that its use actually constitutes a logical fallacy in and of itself. I was in fact no longer involved in the discussion. However, as a logician I wish that everyone would STOP committing the 'Oberoni Fallacy' Fallcy. Because every time you use the 'Oberoni' you are committing a fallacy yourself. And it annoys me.

Since your post wasn't even remotly directed to what I actually said, I suggest you stop referencing the 'Oberoni' until you have had the necessary philosopy background to at least attempt to back up your premise logically. And since you actually committed 2 blatant logical fallacies in your comments to me, that might be a long time.

To sum up, just because you find something on the internet, it does not make it worthwhile.

JupiterPaladin
2008-09-02, 10:21 PM
I'm just saying that if the most powerful stuff is in the first book, then its not power creep. Power creep would be if Wizards released more powerful things as time went on, but in general(barring the Archivist(Divine Wizard) and Artificer(Ultimate Crafter)) the most powerful things were released in the first set of books. Heck, the most powerful spells were released then too: Polymorph, POA, and Shapechange.

How can one denounce power creep in 3.5? The main caster classes are only as bad as the spells they can cast. Yes a lot of really bad ones are in core, but the vast majority of the spells in 3.5 are non-core. So many extra options that make everything a viable option for the caster. Just look at the Celerity line... it's just as bad as the core spells you speak of. What about other PrCs for casters? All of the good ones except Archmage are non-core... Planar Shepard, Incanatrix, Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil... all 3 more powerful than the base classes in core. Power creep still exists.

mabriss lethe
2008-09-02, 10:21 PM
.... I can't belive I just wasted the time to read through 4 pages of this.

really....and formulate even this much of a reply.

Talic
2008-09-02, 10:31 PM
Umm, I hate to point this out since you managed to muster such righteous indignation there kid, but you brought up the oberoni fallacy. To which I replied. However, from your reply it is obvious that you don't even have a clue what a logical fallacy is, since I merely pointed out that the one YOU quoted is a pile of steaming dog poop, and that its use actually constitutes a logical fallacy in and of itself. I was in fact no longer involved in the discussion. However, as a logician I wish that everyone would STOP committing the 'Oberoni Fallacy' Fallcy. Because every time you use the 'Oberoni' you are committing a fallacy yourself. And it annoys me.

Since your post wasn't even remotly directed to what I actually said, I suggest you stop referencing the 'Oberoni' until you have had the necessary philosopy background to at least attempt to back up your premise logically. And since you actually committed 2 blatant logical fallacies in your comments to me, that might be a long time.

To sum up, just because you find something on the internet, it does not make it worthwhile.

Obviously. Your entire argument can be summed up as, "No, You."

What wisdom and depth, I find in those two words.

So, let's get the facts straight.

I criticize your argument, and state that a common ground must be had to have any form of meaningful discussion, and that when you invoke rule 0 in your argument, you destroy that common ground. I go on to state that RAW is the common ground that is used to discuss the game, and bringing subjective game-to-game changes into the discussion destroys any attempt at an objective answering to the question.

You make personal attacks, and say, "No, you," but not before aggrandizing your status as a "logician". Keep pumpin yourself up, guy. I'm done with you. I've seen the quality of the work you post, and I'm not impressed.

On a side note, I'd like to refer you to the posting rules (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/announcement.php?f=30&a=1), as I feel you may be skirting a bit close to flaming, and regardless of how I feel about the content you provide, I'd rather not see warnings and the like start flying.

Thrud
2008-09-02, 10:34 PM
Obviously. Your entire argument can be summed up as, "No, You."

What wisdom and depth, I find in those two words.

So, let's get the facts straight.

I criticize your argument, and state that a common ground must be had to have any form of meaningful discussion, and that when you invoke rule 0 in your argument, you destroy that common ground. I go on to state that RAW is the common ground that is used to discuss the game.

You make personal attacks, and say, "No, you," but not before aggrandizing your status as a "logician". Keep pumpin yourself up, guy. I'm done with you. I've seen the quality of the work you post, and I'm not impressed.


No. Again. All I took issue with was the fact that you used the oberoni. That is all. The rest of the stuff doesn't interest me at all. I made that pretty clear in my first post. I am just sick of people holding up the so called 'Oberoni Fallacy' as having any sort of meaning. Because it doesn't. It is tautological, and its use constitutes a fallacy in and of itself. That is all. I didn't in any way shape or form continue the 'argument' used in the thread.

MeklorIlavator
2008-09-02, 10:35 PM
Hmm. True, but E. Blast is ranged, which is huge if you don't want to be right next to the thing you're trying to destroy (say a brigde).

You still have to be 60 ft away(unless you take a certain invocation).


Secondly, is there any kind of sign that the warlock is casting? Does it make any sound? That's a possible advantage over a fighter whacking away at a building.

There are somatic components, but there are no verbal components made by the warlcok as a part of using, but its not unreasonable to assume that the blast itself makes some sound. Plus, the blast is often shown as a line/balls of colored energy coming from the warlcok and striking the target, so there are visible signs as well.


Thirdly, while its not a rule, I would assume logic would come in at some place and say the a fighter swinging a huge hammer 6 hours straight is going to be incredibly tired, exhausted, probably lost HP if we assume HP represents general endurance instead of physical wounds.

Of course, you might be able to apply the same logic to the warlock, does it say anything about using his E. blast to be taxing on him or anything like that?[/QUOTE]
It mentions warlocks getting tired just as much as the core books mention fighters getting tired. That being said, if you were gonna institute that rule for mundane classes, I would probably carry it on to Warlocks as well. Plus, the flavor is of the "drawing on dark energies", possibly with drawing energy from their soul or other things, so making it taxing to do so for extended periods wouldn't be much of an issue



Again, I'd have to see the specfics. Can he augment his blast in ways and still do them constantly? Are there any other tricks that he could pull using E. blast?
Yes. The blast does a mediocre amount of damage, but can be enhanced in the same way as spell-like abilities can. Plus, the Warlock also gains invocations. Invocations come in three main flavors: blast shape, blast essense, and invocations. The first two modify the eldritch blast in some way. Shape changes the shape, such as allowing it to go father, making it into a cone, etc., while essence allows it to do other things, like ignore hardness, do elemental damage, or deal negative levels. Note that one can only apply one essence and one shape to your blast at at time, and that the side effects of the essences force a save. The third category are the infamous spells-at-will, and most function like a spell, but most of them are available later than the spell they mimic. Also, you can only have a total of 12 (divided up between blast, shape, and essence).

Talic
2008-09-02, 10:39 PM
No. Again. All I took issue with was the fact that you used the oberoni. That is all. The rest of the stuff doesn't interest me at all. I made that pretty clear in my first post. I am just sick of people holding up the so called 'Oberoni Fallacy' as having any sort of meaning. Because it doesn't. It is tautological, and its use constitutes a fallacy in and of itself. That is all. I didn't in any way shape or form continue the 'argument' used in the thread.

Then, in the future, please do it without calling people (read: me) children and implying that they don't have the intellectual/philosophical capacity to understand what it means to be a "logician". It's rather insulting, to be frank. Especially since you have no way of determining what my background/training/level of knowledge is. Nor do I particularly care to tell you, after your last tirade.

EDIT: Oh, and when you say that everyone who calls oberoni is wrong, and they are the ones committing a fallacy, then YES, that is essentially a "no, you" argument.

Kyeudo
2008-09-02, 10:45 PM
Well, I haven't seen my particular take on character power wedged somewhere between the standard "Wizard/Cleric/Druid vs. Fighter" stuff, so I'll add it here.

Character power comes down to versatility, frequency, and magnitude. In other words, what can he do, how often can he do it, and how well does he do it?

For a limited number of encounters, magnitude trumps frequency. It doesn't matter how long you can do something if someone else can do it better for a shorter period. The more encounters a character has to go before replenishing power, the less magnitude matters and the more frequency does. That's the core of a character's power.

Versatility is a good measure of the scale of that power. In how many situations can he bring his best stuff to bear? Being good at a variety of situations tends to be better than being the best at only one.

Combined, this leads to things like the Factotum being generally considered stronger than the Rogue, as the Factotum can be just as good as the Rogue at anything in particular for a short time and can sometimes be better. However, the longer the Factotum needs to perform in odd rolls, his ability to perform goes down slightly, which lets the Rogue pull ahead at the end of a long day.

Frosty
2008-09-02, 10:46 PM
We're not disagreeing here. Warlock, however is higher than the "trash" baseline, and Wu Gen are at the same baseline as the sorc, ie. lower than the overpowered wizard. Whether you would put them in the middle ground or trash is up to you, they could go either way.


I counter your accusation with the same! Misleading! You're creating arbitrary standards for my (and other old grognards') opinions! And besides, what's wrong with saying that the top 1% of the classes are overpowered? If those are the only classes that are being played, then they're still breaking the game.


What I'm saying is that it was Mr. Power Creep in the library wielding the Optimization Board that killed Mrs. 3e. That's it. Feel free to disagree, my country tis of thee....:smallsmile:


I appreciate your point, but I think that we're having a quantity over quality disconnect here. If most classes are suboptimal and a few are overpowered and make the game system cry like a fat prom date, and everyone wants to play the game "right" by taking only those overpowered classes while ignoring the trash classes, then you still have a power creep problem.

Umm...there is power creep...but it is power creep I APPROVE of. This is how I see it: In the beginning, there were the core classes, and many of them had very low power in the sub-1000 while the Cleric, Druid, and Wizard had OVER NINE THOUSAND power rating. That is bad. I like my game closer to the 7000 rating, for example.

Then, splat-books came along. Barring a few STUPID classes like Planar shepherd and Incantatrix, it only raised the power of the Big Three by a bit...maybe 2000 power more. And as Harry Dresden says, it doesn't matter if the monsters can juggle fridges or cars. At some point it just doesn't matter anymore because they can kill me just the same. The same Splat-books raised the power of the underpowered classes closer to rating of 5000. Yes, this is Power Creep. And it's GOOD because it brings the game closer to the level of play where I want it to be.

Then PHB2 and Tome of Battle came along and melee classes *are* at the 7000 level. Cool, so all I have to do as DM is consciously ban some spells and give less wealth to the overpowered casters, and I can bring their power levels down to where I want it. Bringing the power of a few classes down is much easier than custom-raising the power of every other class up. The Power Creep brings the stupidly bad classes up to where I want them.


Well yes. The top teir is pretty much wizard, cleric, druid, archivist. Then we have psion, wilder, sorcerer, wu jen, then after them warlock, rogue, ranger, barbarian, psychic warrior, ToB classes, ToM classes, optimized fighter, optimized bard, etc. Then we have unoptimized fighter, unoptimized bard, monk, swashbuckler, and a few others. Then rounding out the bottom is the CW samurai and soulknife. However the thing is the top tier is just so far ahead of anything else, the third tier, fourth tier, fifth tier, and sixth tier are all pretty close to each other.

Hey, you forgot the Duskblade, Knight, Dragon Shaman, and Beguiler! :smallannoyed:

Frosty
2008-09-02, 10:48 PM
Combined, this leads to things like the Factotum being generally considered stronger than the Rogue, as the Factotum can be just as good as the Rogue at anything in particular for a short time and can sometimes be better. However, the longer the Factotum needs to perform in odd rolls, his ability to perform goes down slightly, which lets the Rogue pull ahead at the end of a long day.

Well, Factotums replenish all of their Inspiration points at the end of each encounter, so they can go on ALL day long. Well, they are slightly weakened by their Spell-like-abilities being limited, but still...

Kyeudo
2008-09-03, 12:09 AM
Well, Factotums replenish all of their Inspiration points at the end of each encounter, so they can go on ALL day long. Well, they are slightly weakened by their Spell-like-abilities being limited, but still...

A lot more than those have per day limits. You can only boost a skill once per skill per day, you have a limitted number of heals per day, etc.

Kompera
2008-09-03, 02:55 AM
If only that plan had more then a 0% chance of dispelling a single buff.Or was in any way more or less effective than the same countermeasures taken against the group after they took a few rounds to buff themselves the "old fashioned way".

Kurald Galain
2008-09-03, 03:15 AM
Yes, but many players swear on a stack of Bibles that he kind of peeters out at high levels. Also the nerf stick happy 4e team found him core-worthy, so that aint too bad.

Well, they nerfed him a lot for 4E, first.

A problem with the 3E warlock is that it can all too easily become a one-trick pony: there is only so long you can go around shattering stuff before DMs will start making things shatterproof.

tyckspoon
2008-09-03, 03:19 AM
Well, they nerfed him a lot for 4E, first.

A problem with the 3E warlock is that it can all too easily become a one-trick pony: there is only so long you can go around shattering stuff before DMs will start making things shatterproof.

Or until the normal progression of the game gets to the point where almost anything you might want to shatter is magical, which is more or less the same thing.

Eldariel
2008-09-03, 05:44 AM
I disagree with everything except that Fighter 20 is not the ubercharger, it's Fighter 18 / Lion Totem Barbarian 1 / Frenzied Berserker 1. 2 level dips do not take any credit from the Fighter. And yes as soon as level 6 you can be an ubercharger. I had a Fighter 4 / Lion Totem Barbarian 1 / Frenzied Berserker 1 human character that one-shotted 2 creatures of 10+ HD in a single round. They were meant to scare us into running and I made the DM really mad, but smack-smack and 2 monsters way over what I should have killed were toast. That character remained an integral damage-dealer and was never overshadowed by the DMM meta-cheesed Cleric (that I even helped optimize into CoDzilla). The game went epic and I still never experienced that useless feeling I keep seeing people post about. You can spout off anything you want about numbers and statistics and general view of the class, in actual play it's never been an issue for me or my group.

Good that it's never been an issue. I suppose your DM doesn't like dimension-encompassing fights. That said, you cannot really be considered an übercharger before you've reached the Supreme Power Attack from Frenzied Berserker (and arguably the whole Spirited Charge/Lance-line, but that's neither now nor here). I mean, the whole term is derived from basically milking the charge-cow for every bit it's worth. Chargers are one thing and überchargers are, as the name would suggest, their more powerful, more singleminded brother.


Hmm. True, but E. Blast is ranged, which is huge if you don't want to be right next to the thing you're trying to destroy (say a brigde).

Secondly, is there any kind of sign that the warlock is casting? Does it make any sound? That's a possible advantage over a fighter whacking away at a building.

Thirdly, while its not a rule, I would assume logic would come in at some place and say the a fighter swinging a huge hammer 6 hours straight is going to be incredibly tired, exhausted, probably lost HP if we assume HP represents general endurance instead of physical wounds.

Of course, you might be able to apply the same logic to the warlock, does it say anything about using his E. blast to be taxing on him or anything like that?

Again, I'd have to see the specfics. Can he augment his blast in ways and still do them constantly? Are there any other tricks that he could pull using E. blast?

Well, it's like fighter attacking, there are no rules regarding the repeated attacking over a long period of time, but I don't see a reason you couldn't make up those rules as they clearly belong. Both, a Fighter and a Warlock are expending energy to get things done, so they'd both tire.

A Warlock can augment his blast in many ways and do them constantly (basically, the blast is composed of a "blast shape invocation", which determines which form the blast takes (there's a longer range version, a cleaving version, etc.), and "blast effect invocation", which adds to what it does - damage and save vs. some inconvenience or just little extra damage or such), but if he picks up "Metamagic" for his Blast (basically the monstrous feats such as "Maximize Spell-Like Ability" and all that), he's limited to 3 'Metamagicked' uses per day (for each meta).

The Warlock's hands basically produce flame, I'm sure you could associate some manner of "whoosh" with all that. Also, a fighter Power Throwing a Returning Hammer all the time can achieve the same result at a range as far as breaking things goes.

Areswargod139
2008-09-03, 09:38 AM
What else would you call this:

Bolding is mine
That's clearly and either/or statement (it even has the words).

Plus, you have to have some sort of tier system, otherwise you're equating a sorcerer to a monk or fighter, and that clearly isn't the case.

To you. Which is fine. But we'll just have to agree to disagree. And I haven't so much set up the dichotomy, as the optimization board members have.



Not sure what you mean here. I'm saying that most of the stuff released since core is less powerful than the big three, and those that aren't weaker are on the same level. Thus it isn't really power creep, as that implies that the stuff they released is stronger than the previous stuff, when in fact most of it was one a similar level as the mid-level PHB classes.


Interesting. Any particular reasons why? Personally, I would rank them at about the level of rogues and Barbarians.

See, this *is* power creep. Rather than admit these classes were a mistake (like they did with the polymorph spells) and do something about them, they instead effectively replaced the other weaker core classes with more powerful ones that could adventure with the big boys. *Emphasis******And it was mentality that eventually broke the game so badly it was mercy-killed and replaced with 4e IMHO.
And I would rank them in the "potent but not necessarily broken when compared to Batman/Codzilla" group, which places them squarely with classes like Favored Soul and ToB. And one could consider the Sorc to be baseline or average based on whether or not he gets the Dragon splatbooks. I don't use the Dragon books so for me its a baseline class.


Umm...there is power creep...but it is power creep I APPROVE of. This is how I see it: In the beginning, there were the core classes, and many of them had very low power in the sub-1000 while the Cleric, Druid, and Wizard had OVER NINE THOUSAND power rating. That is bad. I like my game closer to the 7000 rating, for example.

Then, splat-books came along. Barring a few STUPID classes like Planar shepherd and Incantatrix, it only raised the power of the Big Three by a bit...maybe 2000 power more. And as Harry Dresden says, it doesn't matter if the monsters can juggle fridges or cars. At some point it just doesn't matter anymore because they can kill me just the same. The same Splat-books raised the power of the underpowered classes closer to rating of 5000. Yes, this is Power Creep. And it's GOOD because it brings the game closer to the level of play where I want it to be.

Then PHB2 and Tome of Battle came along and melee classes *are* at the 7000 level. Cool, so all I have to do as DM is consciously ban some spells and give less wealth to the overpowered casters, and I can bring their power levels down to where I want it. Bringing the power of a few classes down is much easier than custom-raising the power of every other class up. The Power Creep brings the stupidly bad classes up to where I want them.
And on the same token, you could run a "1000" level game banning the Wizard and the Cleric/Druid, and instead use, oh I don't know, how about the Wu Jen, the Shugenja, and the Spirit Shaman? Or any other "1000" level classes.
See, this way you can still run a regular campaign with regular monsters and challenges. With the 7000 or 9000 campaign, you've got characters that require much tougher challenges to....uh....challenge:smallwink:, causing a lot more work for the DM cuz now the CR system has been German suplexed into the concrete.

Your way of doing things is perfectly valid, however, so that's fine. It's just that I'm arguing that is was this kind of 7000 and 9000 mentality is what killed the game off a little too soon. That's it. That's all I'm really arguing. Basically that--now stop me if I haven't said this before--power creep kills games. Dead.

Eldariel
2008-09-03, 09:43 AM
Just one thing:
-The game isn't dead. Knock that **** off.

Areswargod139
2008-09-03, 09:46 AM
Just one thing:
-The game isn't dead. Knock that **** off.
That's true, it's called Pathfinder now, I believe. :smallwink:

Frosty
2008-09-03, 10:25 AM
And on the same token, you could run a "1000" level game banning the Wizard and the Cleric/Druid, and instead use, oh I don't know, how about the Wu Jen, the Shugenja, and the Spirit Shaman? Or any other "1000" level classes.
See, this way you can still run a regular campaign with regular monsters and challenges. With the 7000 or 9000 campaign, you've got characters that require much tougher challenges to....uh....challenge:smallwink:, causing a lot more work for the DM cuz now the CR system has been German suplexed into the concrete.

Your way of doing things is perfectly valid, however, so that's fine. It's just that I'm arguing that is was this kind of 7000 and 9000 mentality is what killed the game off a little too soon. That's it. That's all I'm really arguing. Basically that--now stop me if I haven't said this before--power creep kills games. Dead.

The game isn't dead for me or my group, at the very least. And Wu Jen is clearly in the 7000 range. It's a full caster. By default it's got at least 7000. The reason why playing at 7000 instead of 9000 is good is becuase of options. Classes at 1000 suck usually because they lack options...that is very boring. The boring classes get more options to become not boring, and the 7000 power is almost incidental, even. This is also why even though the Warmage is pretty good on the power level scale, our group usually doesn't play one (because it's BORING).

THE CR system has always been broken, even before power creep.

Areswargod139
2008-09-03, 10:46 AM
The game isn't dead for me or my group, at the very least. And Wu Jen is clearly in the 7000 range. It's a full caster. By default it's got at least 7000. The reason why playing at 7000 instead of 9000 is good is becuase of options. Classes at 1000 suck usually because they lack options...that is very boring. The boring classes get more options to become not boring, and the 7000 power is almost incidental, even. This is also why even though the Warmage is pretty good on the power level scale, our group usually doesn't play one (because it's BORING).

THE CR system has always been broken, even before power creep.
I think that you're saying that wu jen is a middle class and so is the Warmage. I think I'm just going to politely disagree with you here (and then silently judge you! :smallbiggrin:).
The CR system had problems, but the higher power level game eradicates it completly--that's a huge difference.
And any class in 3e had lots of options, that's what the feat system was designed for.

MeklorIlavator
2008-09-03, 10:58 AM
To you. Which is fine. But we'll just have to agree to disagree. And I haven't so much set up the dichotomy, as the optimization board members have.
So do you or do you not think that the monk, rogue and sorcerer are on the same power level? Because if they aren't, then you are using a tier system, and if you don't then you clearly don't know much about powerlevels.



See, this *is* power creep. Rather than admit these classes were a mistake (like they did with the polymorph spells) and do something about them, they instead effectively replaced the other weaker core classes with more powerful ones that could adventure with the big boys. *Emphasis******And it was mentality that eventually broke the game so badly it was mercy-killed and replaced with 4e IMHO.
And I would rank them in the "potent but not necessarily broken when compared to Batman/Codzilla" group, which places them squarely with classes like Favored Soul and ToB.
Can you explain a couple things:
A) Why is bringing things up to a higher powerlevel worse than bringing things down to a lower(or the opposite).

B) Why you think the system was mercy killed. Wizards has pretty much tapped out ideas that work within the 3.5 systems, so they decided to launch a new systems so that they could keep the brand alive and make money( they're a company. They need to make money).



And one could consider the Sorc to be baseline or average based on whether or not he gets the Dragon splatbooks. I don't use the Dragon books so for me its a baseline class.
Uhh, why exactly is a sorcerer so bad? A core-only sorcerer would probably be the 4th most powerful class(big 3, then sorcerer). If that's the powerscale you're using then, then ToB and the Favored Soul is either a bit below or a bit above (a tiny but in any case) that power level. Heck, what do you mean by the Dragon splatbooks, and what exacly do they give the Sorcerer?



And on the same token, you could run a "1000" level game banning the Wizard and the Cleric/Druid, and instead use, oh I don't know, how about the Wu Jen, the Shugenja, and the Spirit Shaman? Or any other "1000" level classes.
Again, I would say that the Wu Jen, the Shugenja, and the Spirit Shaman are on about the same level as ToB. Real 1000 level classes would be the Monk, the Samurai, and the Core-Fighter.


See, this way you can still run a regular campaign with regular monsters and challenges. With the 7000 or 9000 campaign, you've got characters that require much tougher challenges to....uh....challenge:smallwink:, causing a lot more work for the DM cuz now the CR system has been German suplexed into the concrete.
You mean really obscure stuff, like Intelligent Dragons, Mindflayers, things using tatics, right? Because those things will do fine against most parties unless they are extremely optimized. Besides, the Cr systems was that way from day one(I haven't seen threads talking about this for a while, but when I joined I saw alot of thread where a Dm was either bemoaning that his players had walked all over a challenge or that the Players had been walked all over in a supposed cake walk). Furthermore, unless you play the monsters in a much easier fashion(no tactics, don't use abilities, just stand around and wail on the tank), then the lower tiers can't really do much against upper tier stuff.


Your way of doing things is perfectly valid, however, so that's fine. It's just that I'm arguing that is was this kind of 7000 and 9000 mentality is what killed the game off a little too soon. That's it. That's all I'm really arguing. Basically that--now stop me if I haven't said this before--power creep kills games. Dead.
A) Why would this kill off the game?
and
B) Is the game even dead? Why would you say that?



I think that you're saying that wu jen is a middle class and so is the Warmage. I think I'm just going to politely disagree with you here (and then silently judge you! :smallbiggrin:).
Uh, Wu Jen Have save and suck/dies and utility spells, unlike the Warmage, giving it alot more power. I've played both, and the Warmage is more like an archer, but the Wu Gen is like a slightly less powerful wizard.



The CR system had problems, but the higher power level game eradicates it completly--that's a huge difference.
Right. At Higher Cr's the low-powered are Obliterated, the High-powered Oliterate, and the Mid-tiered can do either depending on the situation. So what't the point?


And any class in 3e had lots of options, that's what the feat system was designed for.
The feat system tried to give players options, but the options it gave aren't really relevant. Unless you splat-book dive you pretty much need spells and magic to really give you useful options.

Frosty
2008-09-03, 11:00 AM
I'm sorry, but Mr Barbarian with his 6 or 7 feats isn't going to have that many options. He can bash things pretty well, but that's about it. Even Fighters have more options than Barbarians.

Warmage is the middle-of-the-road class. Wu Jen is somewhat above the middle. Warmage is about where things should be, but less boring. The Beguiler is a pretty good example of good design. Has obvious deficiencies so will be of limited use in some situations, but has enough tricks that they're almost never completely useless. Absolutely brilliant in certain situations like those requiring stealth and guile and even battlefield control.

Frosty
2008-09-03, 11:03 AM
Again, I would say that the Wu Jen, the Shugenja, and the Spirit Shaman are on about the same level as ToB. Real 1000 level classes would be the Monk, the Samurai, and the Core-Fighter.

Quoted for truth. No one should have tio play at the level of the Monk or the Samurai. Just...eww. 1000 is unplayable. 7000 is fun without breaking the game. 9000 and over makes the DM cry and throw Batmen back at the party, in which case the 1000s through 5000s feel useless.

Areswargod139
2008-09-03, 11:25 AM
Eh, this is going nowhere. Look, I'm arguing that power creep kills games, there are those who don't even agree with what "power creep" is or what constitutes a dead game. That seems highly ridiculous to me, but if people want to hide in infinite subjectivity, they are more than welcome to.

And yes, there is a tierage system here. However at this point it seems that no one (re: the only four people left in this thread) can agree on just exactly what those basic values are. So instead of me feeling like I'm on the stand, how about we reverse it, how would the rest of you define a dead game? or power creep? Or zebras?

But seriously, I get the impression from the last page or so that if I claimed the sky was blue somebody would call me out on it. We have to get some common ground for discussion or this is just going to just be the same repeated posts for a while (like what's been going on for the last two pages).

And Meklor, I don't even think that you and I are on even remotely comparable wavelengths, we both agree that the Wu Jen is a weaker version of the wizard and yet we're bouncing back and forth on whether he's low powered or at the same level as ToB characters.

In all, we need to get some common ground.
The sky is blue. C'mon, I dare you all:smallamused:.

Xenogears
2008-09-03, 11:28 AM
Quoted for truth. No one should have tio play at the level of the Monk or the Samurai. Just...eww. 1000 is unplayable. 7000 is fun without breaking the game. 9000 and over makes the DM cry and throw Batmen back at the party, in which case the 1000s through 5000s feel useless.

Personally I really like playing the Monk. And if you are the only player that bothers to optimize the character in the slightest (as in getting items to increase AC for a monk rather than having a Wizard get a giant CHA so he can be pretty) then even the Monk can leave the other characters in the dust. Also most games stop at or around lvl 10. So clearly most people enjoy playing at low levels. A ton of games don't go beyond level 5. Casters are not that good at those early levels. So in most games a caster isn't going to be the most powerful character.

SleepingOrange
2008-09-03, 11:31 AM
AresWarGod: During tornado season, the sky is frequently orange, thank you so much.

Areswargod139
2008-09-03, 11:41 AM
AresWarGod: During tornado season, the sky is frequently orange, thank you so much.

You can just call me Ares.
And it turns blue again. Don't pick your nits, they might become infected.:smallcool:

Frosty
2008-09-03, 11:42 AM
Eh, this is going nowhere. Look, I'm arguing that power creep kills games, there are those who don't even agree with what "power creep" is or what constitutes a dead game. That seems highly ridiculous to me, but if people want to hide in infinite subjectivity, they are more than welcome to.

And yes, there is a tierage system here. However at this point it seems that no one (re: the only four people left in this thread) can agree on just exactly what those basic values are. So instead of me feeling like I'm on the stand, how about we reverse it, how would the rest of you define a dead game? or power creep? Or zebras?

But seriously, I get the impression from the last page or so that if I claimed the sky was blue somebody would call me out on it. We have to get some common ground for discussion or this is just going to just be the same repeated posts for a while (like what's been going on for the last two pages).

And Meklor, I don't even think that you and I are on even remotely comparable wavelengths, we both agree that the Wu Jen is a weaker version of the wizard and yet we're bouncing back and forth on whether he's low powered or at the same level as ToB characters.

In all, we need to get some common ground.
The sky is blue. C'mon, I dare you all:smallamused:.

To me, a dead game would not have such a vibrant community WILLING to participate in threads such as this. People still ask 3.5 questions all the time. There are plenty of 3.5 game threads (more than 4e ones) on these boards and on other PBP boards. And of course, my friends and I enjoy 3.5 IRL a whole bunch (after applying houserules). To me, 3.5 is perfectly alive.

I agree that too much power creep kills games. But MOST splatbooks in 3.5 did not venture that far. MOST of the creep was good, and has increased the enjoyment of 3.5 for me and my friends. Increased, not decreased. Yeah a few stupid things here and there decrease enjoyment, and we ban those things (like Shivering touch), but by and large, my friends and I enjoy what splatbooks have offered.

As for the tiering system, shall we start a enw thread to try to find a concensus on how to set up a tier system and where the most fun can be had?


Personally I really like playing the Monk. And if you are the only player that bothers to optimize the character in the slightest (as in getting items to increase AC for a monk rather than having a Wizard get a giant CHA so he can be pretty) then even the Monk can leave the other characters in the dust. Also most games stop at or around lvl 10. So clearly most people enjoy playing at low levels. A ton of games don't go beyond level 5. Casters are not that good at those early levels. So in most games a caster isn't going to be the most powerful character.

And you can enjoy playing the monk. I personalyl do not like the monk as it is presented int he PHB. Flavor is cool. Execution, not so much.

MeklorIlavator
2008-09-03, 12:00 PM
Eh, this is going nowhere. Look, I'm arguing that power creep kills games, there are those who don't even agree with what "power creep" is or what constitutes a dead game. That seems highly ridiculous to me, but if people want to hide in infinite subjectivity, they are more than welcome to.
Well, the thing is, you keep saying the game is dead, but I still play 3.5 pretty much exclusively (don't want to buy the 4ed books, and have only played a single one shot in the system). So why is it dead besides the fact that official DnD content had stoped?

Also, looking back, I think our positions on power creep are the same, I just use a more restrictive definition, and thus use a different term. For me, power creep would only happen if splatbooks cosistently made classes that were on or above the big-3's power, and what I see is that the general trend is to make classes that have a power range that's narrower. On the other hand, you discount the big 3 and consider all other core classes less powerful, thus there has been a power increase, thus power creep is the right word. To reduce confusion, I'll start using your definition for this discussion.

Now, the remaining question is whether or not the this power creep is good, neutral, or bad. Now, since I still use the Big 3, I would consider that the power creep is good as by-and-large the power gap was lessened. Can you explain how this was harmful to the game or how going the opposite direction (making the classes less powerful) would have been better?


And yes, there is a tierage system here. However at this point it seems that no one (re: the only four people left in this thread) can agree on just exactly what those basic values are. So instead of me feeling like I'm on the stand, how about we reverse it, how would the rest of you define a dead game? or power creep? Or zebras?
Not really sure about zebra's, but I'll do my best on the others:smallbiggrin:.

A dead game for me would be one that doesn't have a following any more, and thus is devoid of new content or discussion.

I think I summed up my view on power creep, previously, but to sum it up, power creep would only come into play if things are released that are in general better than things that came before. This means that most of the content must be better than or equal to the previous content. I feel that in 3.5 we have seen that in general most of the content has been below the level of the big 3 and instead only the occasional item is equal to or more powerful than them.


But seriously, I get the impression from the last page or so that if I claimed the sky was blue somebody would call me out on it. We have to get some common ground for discussion or this is just going to just be the same repeated posts for a while (like what's been going on for the last two pages).
Very true. I think I've been trying to make a common ground, but its never easy.


And Meklor, I don't even think that you and I are on even remotely comparable wavelengths, we both agree that the Wu Jen is a weaker version of the wizard and yet we're bouncing back and forth on whether he's low powered or at the same level as ToB characters.

In all, we need to get some common ground.
The sky is blue. C'mon, I dare you all:smallamused:.
Can you give some reason's for this stance? Unless you give some I can't really give counter points, and I think I've been reasonably clear about my own stance(it has save and dies and utility spells, a significan portion of the wizards power).


Edit: Personally, I like this (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1045580) tier system as I feel it does pretty well at categorizing the general versatility and power of a class.

Frosty
2008-09-03, 12:05 PM
I can't access the gleemax forums right now. Can you summarize, or perhaps we can discuss in a new thread?

Eldariel
2008-09-03, 12:09 PM
It's also here (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=1002.0) on Brilliant Gameologists-boards, if those are easier for you to read.

Frosty
2008-09-03, 12:13 PM
That site is blocked for me at work as well :smalltongue:

Eldariel
2008-09-03, 12:15 PM
It's quite short, so I'll just copy-paste the tier listing itself for your convenience then:
Tier 1: Capable of doing absolutely everything, often better than classes that specialize in that thing. Often capable of solving encounters with a single mechanical ability and little thought from the player. Has world changing powers at high levels. These guys, if played well, can break a campaign and can be very hard to challenge without extreme DM fiat, especially if Tier 3s and below are in the party.

Examples: Wizard, Cleric, Druid, Archivist, Artificer.

Tier 2: Has as much raw power as the Tier 1 classes, but can't pull off nearly as many tricks, and while the class itself is capable of anything, no one build can actually do nearly as much as the Tier 1 classes. Still potencially campaign smashers by using the right abilities, but at the same time are more predictable and can't always have the right tool for the job. If the Tier 1 classes are countries with 10,000 nuclear weapons in their arsenal, these guys are countries with 10 nukes. Still dangerous and world shattering, but not in quite so many ways.

Examples: Sorcerer, Favoured Soul, Psion, Binder (with access to online vestiges)

Tier 3: Capable of doing one thing quite well, while still being useful when that one thing is inappropriate, or capable of doing all things, but not as well as classes that specialize in that area. Occasionally has a mechanical ability that can solve an encounter, but this is relatively rare and easy to deal with. Challenging such a character takes some thought from the DM, but isn't too difficult. Will outshine any Tier 5s in the party much of the time.

Examples: Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Crusader, Bard, Swordsage, Binder (without access to the summon monster vestige), Wildshape Varient Ranger, Duskblade, Factorum, Warblade

Tier 4: Capable of doing one thing quite well, but often useless when encounters require other areas of expertise, or capable of doing many things to a reasonable degree of competance without truly shining. Rarely has any abilities that can outright handle an encounter. DMs may sometimes need to work to make sure Tier 4s can contribue to an encounter, as their abilities may sometimes leave them useless. Won't outshine anyone except Tier 6s except in specific circumstances that play to their strengths. Cannot compete effectively with Tier 1s that are played well.

Examples: Rogue, Barbarian, Warlock, Warmage, Scout, Ranger, Hexblade, Adept, Spellthief, Marshal, Fighter (Dungeoncrasher Varient), Psionic Warrior

Tier 5: Capable of doing only one thing, and not necessarily all that well, or so unfocused that they have trouble mastering anything, and in many types of encounters the character cannot contribute. In some cases, can do one thing very well, but that one thing is very often not needed. Has trouble shining in any encounter. DMs may have to work to avoid the player feeling that their character is worthless unless the entire party is Tier 4 and below. Characters in this tier will often feel like one trick ponies if they do well, or just feel like they have no tricks at all if they build the class poorly.

Examples: Fighter, Monk, CA Ninja, Healer, Swashbuckler, Rokugan Ninja, Soulknife, Expert

Tier 6: Not even capable of shining in their own area of expertise. DMs will need to work hard to make encounters that this sort of character can contribute in with their mechanical abilities. Will often feel worthless unless the character is seriously powergamed beyond belief, and even then won't be terribly impressive. Needs to fight enemies of lower than normal CR. Class is often completely unsynergized or with almost no abilities of merit. Avoid allowing PCs to play these characters.

Examples: CW Samurai, Aristocrat, Warrior, Commoner

And then there's the Truenamer, which is just broken (as in, the class was improperly made and doesn't function appropriately).

Now, obviously these rankings only apply when mechanical abilities are being used... in a more social oriented game where talking is the main way of solving things (without using diplomacy checks), any character can shine. However, when the mechanical abilities of the classes in question are being used, it's a bad idea to have parties with more than two tiers of difference.

It is interesting to note the disparity between the core classes... one of the reasons core has so many problems. If two players want to play a nature oriented shapeshifter and a general sword weilder, you're stuck with two very different tiered guys in the party (Fighter and Druid). Outside of core, it's possible to do it while staying on close Tiers... Wild Shape Varient Ranger and Warblade, for example.

Frosty
2008-09-03, 12:20 PM
Wow...Adepts are tier 4?

heh, tier 6 has 3 NPC classes and then the Samurai. And the Expert is apparently stronger than the Samurai (which is sad).

Time to create another thread to not derailt his one as much.

Eldariel
2008-09-03, 12:29 PM
Adepts have a few sweet spells. With even one of them removed, they'll immediately drop, but they're pretty versatile having some offensive and defensive magic and an access to some of the best spells in the game, albeit limited (Sleep, Cause Fear, Command, Protections, Invisibility, Web, Mirror Image, Animate Dead, Polymorph, Restoration, Baleful Polymorph, Heal, Wall of Stone). I wouldn't necessary place them above Tier 5, but they could hang along in a melee party really well if played by a careful player and really milked for what they can do.

Also, Adepts get Familiar so they can pick an Improved Familiar for fighting, UMD and all that. Finally, their skill list is quite ok with Spellcraft/Concentration, Survival, all Knowledges and Handle Animal. I wouldn't actually mind playing one in some game provided that I'm not denied any of those spells (since there's very little depth to the spell selection so an Adept really needs to be able to use all its spells).

Areswargod139
2008-09-03, 12:40 PM
It's quite short, so I'll just copy-paste the tier listing itself for your convenience then:
Tier 1: Capable of doing absolutely everything, often better than classes that specialize in that thing. Often capable of solving encounters with a single mechanical ability and little thought from the player. Has world changing powers at high levels. These guys, if played well, can break a campaign and can be very hard to challenge without extreme DM fiat, especially if Tier 3s and below are in the party.

Examples: Wizard, Cleric, Druid, Archivist, Artificer.

Tier 2: Has as much raw power as the Tier 1 classes, but can't pull off nearly as many tricks, and while the class itself is capable of anything, no one build can actually do nearly as much as the Tier 1 classes. Still potencially campaign smashers by using the right abilities, but at the same time are more predictable and can't always have the right tool for the job. If the Tier 1 classes are countries with 10,000 nuclear weapons in their arsenal, these guys are countries with 10 nukes. Still dangerous and world shattering, but not in quite so many ways.

Examples: Sorcerer, Favoured Soul, Psion, Binder (with access to online vestiges)

Tier 3: Capable of doing one thing quite well, while still being useful when that one thing is inappropriate, or capable of doing all things, but not as well as classes that specialize in that area. Occasionally has a mechanical ability that can solve an encounter, but this is relatively rare and easy to deal with. Challenging such a character takes some thought from the DM, but isn't too difficult. Will outshine any Tier 5s in the party much of the time.

Examples: Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Crusader, Bard, Swordsage, Binder (without access to the summon monster vestige), Wildshape Varient Ranger, Duskblade, Factorum, Warblade

Tier 4: Capable of doing one thing quite well, but often useless when encounters require other areas of expertise, or capable of doing many things to a reasonable degree of competance without truly shining. Rarely has any abilities that can outright handle an encounter. DMs may sometimes need to work to make sure Tier 4s can contribue to an encounter, as their abilities may sometimes leave them useless. Won't outshine anyone except Tier 6s except in specific circumstances that play to their strengths. Cannot compete effectively with Tier 1s that are played well.

Examples: Rogue, Barbarian, Warlock, Warmage, Scout, Ranger, Hexblade, Adept, Spellthief, Marshal, Fighter (Dungeoncrasher Varient), Psionic Warrior

Tier 5: Capable of doing only one thing, and not necessarily all that well, or so unfocused that they have trouble mastering anything, and in many types of encounters the character cannot contribute. In some cases, can do one thing very well, but that one thing is very often not needed. Has trouble shining in any encounter. DMs may have to work to avoid the player feeling that their character is worthless unless the entire party is Tier 4 and below. Characters in this tier will often feel like one trick ponies if they do well, or just feel like they have no tricks at all if they build the class poorly.

Examples: Fighter, Monk, CA Ninja, Healer, Swashbuckler, Rokugan Ninja, Soulknife, Expert

Tier 6: Not even capable of shining in their own area of expertise. DMs will need to work hard to make encounters that this sort of character can contribute in with their mechanical abilities. Will often feel worthless unless the character is seriously powergamed beyond belief, and even then won't be terribly impressive. Needs to fight enemies of lower than normal CR. Class is often completely unsynergized or with almost no abilities of merit. Avoid allowing PCs to play these characters.

Examples: CW Samurai, Aristocrat, Warrior, Commoner

And then there's the Truenamer, which is just broken (as in, the class was improperly made and doesn't function appropriately).

Now, obviously these rankings only apply when mechanical abilities are being used... in a more social oriented game where talking is the main way of solving things (without using diplomacy checks), any character can shine. However, when the mechanical abilities of the classes in question are being used, it's a bad idea to have parties with more than two tiers of difference.

It is interesting to note the disparity between the core classes... one of the reasons core has so many problems. If two players want to play a nature oriented shapeshifter and a general sword weilder, you're stuck with two very different tiered guys in the party (Fighter and Druid). Outside of core, it's possible to do it while staying on close Tiers... Wild Shape Varient Ranger and Warblade, for example.

This list isn't too bad, I just don't split as many hairs. I have in this thread listed roughly three tiers: Uber, Potent, and baseline. Since I've argued that the general majority of classes are at mostly or at least *significantly* baseline-level, as well as that I believe that the game was originally designed around this level of class power (after all, it certainly wasn't designed around Codzilla and Pun-pun exploits, and most of the "potent" classes hadn't even been invented back in 2000--except for, arguably, the sorc).

Since I believe that Power Creep kills yadda yadda, then it's best to take a conservative action and take exploitative matters away (like what happened to polymorph), rather than begin to whip out the potent classes like there's no tomorrow. I think this qualifies as power creep because even if most of the classes in the game are baseline or potent, it still doesn't stop the few worst offenders from representing the game. How many here didn't allow a Cleric, Druid, or wizard in their party? See...exactly. A few bad apples spoil the bunch, it doesn't matter how many healthy ones you throw on top.

This however is just my opinion, if people want to play a middle of the road "potent" game, then that is also a perfectly reasonable way to go, I just doesn't fly with me.

As for the Wu Jen, he's kind of like a reverse Warlock, in that he seems at the Potent level only on paper (whereas the Warlock only seems overpowered on paper...n' stuff).
the Wu Jen is missing vital defensive spells. Look at his spell list. I believe you'll find that he's missing the flying and levitating spells that make other mages so excellent at low levels. This takes the Wu Jen back to being the old fashioned "squishy mage" that has to hide behind the tanks. It is spells like levitation that allow a low level mage to defend (or really, mostly ignore) most low level threats.
Not to mention a much more restrictive summon powers as well.

Areswargod139
2008-09-03, 12:42 PM
Wow...Adepts are tier 4?

heh, tier 6 has 3 NPC classes and then the Samurai. And the Expert is apparently stronger than the Samurai (which is sad).

Time to create another thread to not derailt his one as much.

Well, this thread is about how to determine the power of a character, so I think we're still good.

Frosty
2008-09-03, 12:51 PM
I think splitting hairs ARE important at this point. Under the 3-tier system, I think baseline is very un-fun to play. Under the 6 tier system, I can say that I want a game with only tiers 3 and 4, for example, which is where the fun is had without uber breakage.

The designers made mistakes...BIG mistakes when they designed baseline classes. The more potent classes (and the variants, updates, alternative class features, and even some homebrews) are *fixes* to the sad mistakes that is the core Paladin, Fighter, Monk, etc.

The fact that, I, as DM, have to give the Fighter twice as much giold as everyone else just so he isn't KILLED in some level-appropriate encounters says something.

EDIT: This is why I approved of some of the Power Creep. I see it as FIXES to problems that badly needed fixing in order for the fun to multiple.

MeklorIlavator
2008-09-03, 12:55 PM
Can you at least give the breakdown for your model in core? That would help greatly in comparison.

Frosty
2008-09-03, 12:58 PM
I believe its:

Uber: Cleric, Druid, Wizard
Potent: Sorcerer
Baseline: Everyone else

MeklorIlavator
2008-09-03, 01:01 PM
I believe its:

Uber: Cleric, Druid, Wizard
Potent: Sorcerer
Baseline: Everyone else

I seem to remember him saying that without the dragon books the Sorcerer is only baseline. I think what I really want is and explanation why the classes fit into this catagory. For instance, in the other tier system, he gives short blurb for each tier that generally outlines what they can and cannot do.

Edit: Also, another problem with this Ares's system is that the grouping are too broard. I mean, the rouge and monk are on very different power levels. Heck, the Fighter and monk are on different power levels, and the fighter is generally weaker than a rogue!

Frosty
2008-09-03, 01:03 PM
Sorcerer is in no way baseline. They're ALMOST as powerful as the almighty Wizard.

Areswargod139
2008-09-03, 01:16 PM
I think splitting hairs ARE important at this point. Under the 3-tier system, I think baseline is very un-fun to play. Under the 6 tier system, I can say that I want a game with only tiers 3 and 4, for example, which is where the fun is had without uber breakage.

The designers made mistakes...BIG mistakes when they designed baseline classes. The more potent classes (and the variants, updates, alternative class features, and even some homebrews) are *fixes* to the sad mistakes that is the core Paladin, Fighter, Monk, etc.

The fact that, I, as DM, have to give the Fighter twice as much giold as everyone else just so he isn't KILLED in some level-appropriate encounters says something.

EDIT: This is why I approved of some of the Power Creep. I see it as FIXES to problems that badly needed fixing in order for the fun to multiple.

And if that's the direction you want to go to fix the game, then fine. Go for it. I'm just saying that power cree--ah forget it.:smallfurious:
It's better to remove the abuses and keep the baseline rather than tell most of the classes to blankety-blank off. But your way is valid to, I'm not arguing against it, I'm just saying that it leads to game END. In the end it's a choice between a conservative solution and a liberal solution. Though don't confuse this as my IRL political beliefs, but in gaming I err towards the conservative.

Uber: Batman and Codzilla.
Potent: ToB, Psion, Favoured Soul, Warlock, I can't think of any more off the top of my head, but I think you get the message.
Baseline: oy, that's a lot.....Sorc (w/out Dragon Races, Dragon Magic), Fighter, Ninja, OA Samurai, Wu Jen, DL mystic, DL Noble, DL Master, hell anything in DL, again, having a bit of class forgetfulness here, but more or less it matches the list above, except that I don't split as many hairs with different levels of tiers. I just simply didn't put this up as a WotC board thought experiment, since as we discussed early in this thread, those do more harm than good. My list is just what I've experienced while playing the game.

Areswargod139
2008-09-03, 01:17 PM
Sorcerer is in no way baseline. They're ALMOST as powerful as the almighty Wizard.

That's the old WotC message board of "full caster=WIN". I think it's a gross simplification.

Frosty
2008-09-03, 01:20 PM
And if that's the direction you want to go to fix the game, then fine. Go for it. I'm just saying that power cree--ah forget it.:smallfurious:
It's better to remove the abuses and keep the baseline rather than tell most of the classes to blankety-blank off. But your way is valid to, I'm not arguing against it, I'm just saying that it leads to game END. In the end it's a choice between a conservative solution and a liberal solution. Though don't confuse this as my IRL political beliefs, but in gaming I err towards the conservative.

And who says I *don't* remove abuses? I remove a hell of lot of abuses in my games. And it obviously hasn't made the game end for ME, or a lot of people playing 3.5 right on these very boards. Why keep the baseline when it *doesn't work*? I'm not wanting power creep for power creep's sake. I'm saying that Baseline DOESN'T WORK, and keeping it there would END the game for me and my friends, and perhaps a lot of other people as well.

Frosty
2008-09-03, 01:22 PM
That's the old WotC message board of "full caster=WIN". I think it's a gross simplification.

Let a Sorcerer properly optimize even without Dragon magazine and Dragon books, and he'll contribute more than any Tome of Battle character will.

Look, I agree that TOO MUCH power creep ends games. I just don't think 3.5 has reaches that point, with the exception of a few very stupid things which I remove from my games.

TiaC
2008-09-03, 01:23 PM
The sky is blue. C'mon, I dare you all:smallamused:.
It's actually purple but our eyes are optimized for blue light.:smalltongue:

MeklorIlavator
2008-09-03, 01:27 PM
The Favored Soul and Sorcerer are pretty much on the same level, so I think that one of those classifications is mistaken. Also, Warlocks are less powerful than a sorcerer, probably around the level of a rogue. Also, what exactly does a sorcerer get from Dragon Magic that is OMG awesome?

Areswargod139
2008-09-03, 01:29 PM
Let a Sorcerer properly optimize even without Dragon magazine and Dragon books, and he'll contribute more than any Tome of Battle character will.

Look, I agree that TOO MUCH power creep ends games. I just don't think 3.5 has reaches that point, with the exception of a few very stupid things which I remove from my games.

Well, I can't say much more to you other than, "4th ed doesn't agree with you".
And stop setting up dichotomies. You said that you cater to the middle of the road classes. Good for you. Have fun, at that is a perfectly valid way of solving the Codzilla problem in your game. However, I am saying that it was *that* mentality, rather than remove the problematic classes, that constituted the power creep-based breakdown of the game. Which is true. It's why all the 4e classes look fairly homogenized.

Basically what I'm saying here is that rather than a more horizontal shift in gaming, a creep up the graph of power resulted in the final end of publications of this particular edition.
i.e. Power Creep kills games.
This reminds me of a Simpsons ep..."This town is a part of us all...a part of us all...I repeat this so that you'll remember it".

Frosty
2008-09-03, 01:32 PM
Well, I can't say much more to you other than, "4th ed doesn't agree with you".
And stop setting up dichotomies. You said that you cater to the middle of the road classes. Good for you. Have fun, at that is a perfectly valid way of solving the Codzilla problem in your game. However, I am saying that it was *that* mentality, rather than remove the problematic classes, that constituted the power creep-based breakdown of the game. Which is true. It's why all the 4e classes look fairly homogenized.

Basically what I'm saying here is that rather than a more horizontal shift in gaming, a creep up the graph of power resulted in the final end of publications of this particular edition.
i.e. Power Creep kills games.
This reminds me of a Simpsons ep..."This town is a part of us all...a part of us all...I repeat this so that you'll remember it".

Stopping of publication does not equal death of a game. As long as people play it in significant numbers, the game is alive. I can enjoy both 4e and 3.5 you know. And in fact I do. And what do you mean by "power creep-based breakdown?" I do not see any breakdowns in my games.

Areswargod139
2008-09-03, 01:35 PM
The Favored Soul and Sorcerer are pretty much on the same level, so I think that one of those classifications is mistaken. Also, Warlocks are less powerful than a sorcerer, probably around the level of a rogue. Also, what exactly does a sorcerer get from Dragon Magic that is OMG awesome?
Well, I said before that I don't own the book and I'm still sticking with that. I did however, play in a campaign as a Sorc that utilized those books. I don't remember the exact P's and Q's, but I had a lot of Archmage-like abilities at low levels, I could sacrifice a spell slots to gain several special abilities. Beyond that, I'll level with you: I don't remember except that the character gave me the impression of "wow, with enough splatbooks I can even make the sorcerer near broken". The idea was that the build relied on the supposed draconic ancestry sorcs have.
Favored Soul has a few more class abilities than it's Cha casting counterpart the Sorc, as well as three good saves to the Sorc's one.
As for the Warlock? Again I see the school of thought that says "full caster=WIN" Not that there isn't merit to the argument, but I find it to be a bit of a simplification.

SleepingOrange
2008-09-03, 01:35 PM
[S]top setting up dichotomies.

If you dislike the lack of balance in the classes, then why do your comments about 4thEd's homogenization sound so negative? And if power creep kills games, why to people still play Magic: the Gathering?

Frosty
2008-09-03, 01:37 PM
Wotc wanted to make more MONEY. Fresh systems sell more books. 4e comes.

Eldariel
2008-09-03, 01:40 PM
And if power creep kills games, why to people still play Magic: the Gathering?

Because the power level is actually lower than it's been in aeons with broken cards restricted even in Vintage and new cards being approximately on the same level (save for few slips like Tarmogoyf and Umezawa's Jitte). Seriously, the most broken cards were printed in Alpha (just like the most spells are printed in Core - what a surprising correlation) along with Urza's Saga. Since then, there's been a very low amount of really broken stuff and most of those can be blamed on last minute cost changes during development on the cards in question.

Areswargod139
2008-09-03, 01:40 PM
Stopping of publication does not equal death of a game. As long as people play it in significant numbers, the game is alive. I can enjoy both 4e and 3.5 you know. And in fact I do. And what do you mean by "power creep-based breakdown?" I do not see any breakdowns in my games.

No, "death" means "ceased publication". See, that's like saying Sanford & Son is still alive because we see it on Nick-at-Night. But the shows over, see? The show has been canceled for years. It's finished, finito. You may not want to view things that way, but that's the way it is. You can enjoy 3e, but in a kind of "syndicated" sort of way.

As for Power Creep-based breakdown? That was a joke, see I was just saying "Power Creep kills games" but in a drawn out way, it's a bit of a running gag because I keep having to repeat most of my posts for whatever reason. As for breakdowns in your game, didn't you just say that you had to give double money to the fighter so that he doesn't go the way of the dodo in your games? That would be a bit of a breakdown, the system failing, if you will.

MeklorIlavator
2008-09-03, 01:42 PM
Uhh... the sorcerer can be broken just as easily as a wizard. Hell, a sorcerer can take most of the best spells a wizard can, its just that while a wizard can have the perfect spell for any situation and can generally be broken in completely different ways from one day to the next, a sorcerer can only be broken in a few ways, and those few ways stay constant.


No, "death" means "ceased publication". See, that's like saying Sanford & Son is still alive because we see it on Nick-at-Night. But the shows over, see? The show has been canceled for years. It's finished, finito. You may not want to view things that way, but that's the way it is. You can enjoy 3e, but in a kind of "syndicated" sort of way.
Well, that metaphor doesn't quite work, because while there will never be any more new episodes of Stanford and Son, there will be new campaigns for 3.5.


::snip::
As for breakdowns in your game, didn't you just say that you had to give double money to the fighter so that he doesn't go the way of the dodo in your games? That would be a bit of a breakdown, the system failing, if you will.
Yes, its a breakdown of the CR system that requires high amounts of magic to really function at high levels. Kinda like the stuff you see from the potent classes, and not at all from the baseline classes. Imagine that,

Eldariel
2008-09-03, 01:43 PM
No, "death" means "ceased publication". See, that's like saying Sanford & Son is still alive because we see it on Nick-at-Night. But the shows over, see? The show has been canceled for years. It's finished, finito. You may not want to view things that way, but that's the way it is. You can enjoy 3e, but in a kind of "syndicated" sort of way.

3rd party publishers are still working on it, so it's not dead even in this sense. Only WoTC publications end, and frankly, that may not be such a bad thing at the present.

Frosty
2008-09-03, 01:43 PM
No, "death" means "ceased publication". See, that's like saying Sanford & Son is still alive because we see it on Nick-at-Night. But the shows over, see? The show has been canceled for years. It's finished, finito. You may not want to view things that way, but that's the way it is. You can enjoy 3e, but in a kind of "syndicated" sort of way.

As for Power Creep-based breakdown? That was a joke, see I was just saying "Power Creep kills games" but in a drawn out way, it's a bit of a running gag because I keep having to repeat most of my posts for whatever reason. As for breakdowns in your game, didn't you just say that you had to give double money to the fighter so that he doesn't go the way of the dodo in your games? That would be a bit of a breakdown, the system failing, if you will.

Yeah. That's a HUGE FLAW in the fighter being UNDERPOWERED. This is not a power creep problem.

And fine, under your definition of death, 3.5 has died. Cool. So what? Plenty of people still enjoy the game, and there are still publishers of 3.5 content. That is *all* that matters.

Areswargod139
2008-09-03, 01:46 PM
If you dislike the lack of balance in the classes, then why do your comments about 4thEd's homogenization sound so negative? And if power creep kills games, why to people still play Magic: the Gathering?

How am I not making myself clear?

1) Power creep makes the 3e near uninhabitable save for a handful of splatbooks.
2) WotC decides that the system isn't working anymore, so they try their ideas on Star Wars Saga Edition. It works. Hurray.....
3) WotC takes their ideas on balancing out the game even further and creates 4e from those ideas. The result is arguably a somewhat bland game (I said *arguably*).

3) is a direct consequence of 1). If things hadn't been *so* bad with rules glut in 3e, things wouldn't be the way they are in 4e.

Areswargod139
2008-09-03, 01:50 PM
Yeah. That's a HUGE FLAW in the fighter being UNDERPOWERED. This is not a power creep problem.

And fine, under your definition of death, 3.5 has died. Cool. So what? Plenty of people still enjoy the game, and there are still publishers of 3.5 content. That is *all* that matters.

If you feel that way, then fine, I've said nothing to directly offend anybody, I've been pretty nice, actually. However, I've somehow PO'd you. Well, I wasn't attacking any rosy feelings anyone might have for 3e, I was just pointing out that it was this rules glut and power creep that ended the game.

And it's a huge flaw with game balance, because that fighter suddenly couldn't keep up with all those cool ToB folks and Warlocks that were in the party. See, that's a power creep problem. You've gotten a little emotional with this discussion, so it may be time to chill for a bit. No one is attacking anyone else's way of doing anything, we're just talking about how each of us views the way power is measured in each characters.

MeklorIlavator
2008-09-03, 01:51 PM
What do you mean by uninhabitable? I find that the other splatbooks gave many more choices and by and large made the game much more playable.


If you feel that way, then fine, I've said nothing to directly offend anybody, I've been pretty nice, actually. However, I've somehow PO'd you. Well, I wasn't attacking any rosy feelings anyone might have for 3e, I was just pointing out that it was this rules glut and power creep that ended the game.
This is a bit disingenuous. You might not have had any negative intentions, but your word choice definitely gives off a hostile vibe, with all the talk of death and insinuating that the supplements that other like are directly responsible for this.



And it's a huge flaw with game balance, because that fighter suddenly couldn't keep up with all those cool ToB folks and Warlocks that were in the party. See, that's a power creep problem. You've gotten a little emotional with this discussion, so it may be time to chill for a bit. No one is attacking anyone else's way of doing anything, we're just talking about how each of us views the way power is measured in each characters.
Again, this is disingenuous. The Fighter got loot not because he couldn't keep up with caster/ToB. He got loot because he couldn't keep up with the enemy creatures that he had to fight. Plus, a decently optimized Fighter could keep pace with most Warlocks. I'm still not sure why you think that their all that, especially when you disregard Rogues and Sorcerers from that list.

Frosty
2008-09-03, 01:52 PM
How am I not making myself clear?

1) Power creep makes the 3e near uninhabitable save for a handful of splatbooks.
2) WotC decides that the system isn't working anymore, so they try their ideas on Star Wars Saga Edition. It works. Hurray.....
3) WotC takes their ideas on balancing out the game even further and creates 4e from those ideas. The result is arguably a somewhat bland game (I said *arguably*).

3) is a direct consequence of 1). If things hadn't been *so* bad with rules glut in 3e, things wouldn't be the way they are in 4e.

On point 1: Umm no. Plenty of us inhabit 3e.
On point 2: Sure. They try a lot of things, including Tome of Battle.
On point 3: Yeah it's a bit bland. They should've stuck with 3.5 and made ToB versions of the magical classes and balanced that.

If things are so bad in 3e, why are there so many of us playing it still (albeit with houserules?)

SleepingOrange
2008-09-03, 01:53 PM
Because the power level is actually lower than it's been in aeons with broken cards restricted even in Vintage and new cards being approximately on the same level (save for few slips like Tarmogoyf and Umezawa's Jitte). Seriously, the most broken cards were printed in Alpha (just like the most spells are printed in Core - what a surprising correlation) along with Urza's Saga. Since then, there's been a very low amount of really broken stuff and most of those can be blamed on last minute cost changes during development on the cards in question.

This is the wrong place to address this concern, but (saving the first screw-ups of Alpha and its ilk) Magic is still creeping. A set wherein I can get a turn 5 infinite damage combo using only commons, a turn 4 arbitrarily-large creature, a turn 3 arbitrarily large creature plus infinite life, a turn 5 with four flying 5/4 tramplers, an overabundance of overpowered kithkin decks, and seventy-two ways to get infinite elves PLUS boardwipes AND infinite life is not not broken.

Frosty
2008-09-03, 01:55 PM
And it's a huge flaw with game balance, because that fighter suddenly couldn't keep up with all those cool ToB folks and Warlocks that were in the party. See, that's a power creep problem. You've gotten a little emotional with this discussion, so it may be time to chill for a bit. No one is attacking anyone else's way of doing anything, we're just talking about how each of us views the way power is measured in each characters.

Umm no. You're mistaken on the benchmarks. I'm not directly comparing Fighters to Warblades for example. I'm saying that, with the Fighter as-is, without splatbooks, they do not measure up against MONSTERS and ENEMIES that he might encoutner in his adventures. The basic Fighter does not fill the role of Front-line tank NOR the Striker very well at all without splatbooks.

Areswargod139
2008-09-03, 01:58 PM
Sigh, as this is devolved to a case of "the chicken or the egg", I think I'm just going to use the Wisdom of Solomon and bow out.

oh, and Power Creep kills games. Dead.:smallcool:

Frosty
2008-09-03, 02:01 PM
Unless they are fixed to underpowered, badly-designed classes. :smallwink:

Oslecamo
2008-09-03, 02:05 PM
Umm no. You're mistaken on the benchmarks. I'm not directly comparing Fighters to Warblades for example. I'm saying that, with the Fighter as-is, without splatbooks, they do not measure up against MONSTERS and ENEMIES that he might encoutner in his adventures. The basic Fighter does not fill the role of Front-line tank NOR the Striker very well at all without splatbooks.

By all means, prove it. Remember, fighters, like all other classes, have right to gear by level.

Frosty
2008-09-03, 02:18 PM
If you can build me a core-only Fighter that does the role of Defender *well*, please show me so that I may use it in my games. I am not the end-all-be-all optimizer like Tippy may be, but I know a few tricks.

For good damage, the only way I know is to go via the Spirited Charge method, and even then you'd need Leadership to get a decent mount.

Eldariel
2008-09-03, 02:36 PM
This is the wrong place to address this concern, but (saving the first screw-ups of Alpha and its ilk) Magic is still creeping. A set wherein I can get a turn 5 infinite damage combo using only commons, a turn 4 arbitrarily-large creature, a turn 3 arbitrarily large creature plus infinite life, a turn 5 with four flying 5/4 tramplers, an overabundance of overpowered kithkin decks, and seventy-two ways to get infinite elves PLUS boardwipes AND infinite life is not not broken.

I'm forced to say this: Combos aren't broken since they require multiple pieces and are relatively slow. Magic comes with removal basically every deck is capable of packing and thus, building a deck around those combos actually makes it worse than focusing on a strategic goal as the combo pieces are both weak alone, and opponent can remove either/or if they're about to come together, leaving you with a bunch of cards that are just plain weak.

The only power creep in Magic is that creatures are getting better. And that's a damn good thing, since back in the early days of Magic, there was really no reason to even play creatures as spells were just so much better for every single damn purpose and creatures were simply too easy to trivialize. So the overall powerlevel of Magic drops while the creatures grow stronger (and combos sprout into existence, but 99% of them aren't any good and only serve to make your deck suck more).

SleepingOrange
2008-09-03, 02:39 PM
I'm forced to say this: Combos aren't broken since they require multiple pieces and are relatively slow.

You don't play competitively, do you?

Eldariel
2008-09-03, 02:46 PM
Sleeping: I play competitively. In fact, I play competitively in Standard, Extended and Legacy, along with occasional Block (Vintage more rarely, but enough to keep up with it). The only combo-deck to make a splash in Standard as of late is Swans-combo and it's not broken by any stretch of imagination. Extended has TEPS, but life-combo, cephalid breakfast and company have all fallen flat on their faces, leaving the format with only one real combo-deck (that's invalidated post-rotation, although Dragonstorm and a new Desire-deck will probably take over).

Legacy is a different matter, but even in that cardpool, where combo is clearly enabled, it's not dominating - Fetchland Tendrils and TES may be Tier 1.5, but aggro/control is the dominant archetype. Ichorid is pretty big in Extended and Legacy, but fact is that it scoops to sufficient graveyard hate so it'll never truly be dominant. And in Vintage, every deck is effectively a combo-deck (except maybe the Rg- and Fish-hate decks). None of those formats showcases any two-card combo being even competitive, let alone dominant. The only playable combo-decks are decks that have the full 60 dedicated into a single engine. Painter's Stone may be an exception, but even its competitiveness is a matter of much debate.

SleepingOrange
2008-09-03, 02:53 PM
I don't find legacy of vintage worth playing; it's just a matter of buying cards and finding another equivalent of stuffy doll/guilty conscience. Standard and Block are a lot more fun, but between the Dorans, Kithkins, and crazy Unmaking black and white decks, things have gotten out of hand.

Besides, I only have to say two things: chameleon colossus and mutavault.

Frosty
2008-09-03, 02:57 PM
I'm glad I stopepd playing after 8th edition. I started saving so much money :smallbiggrin:

Eldariel
2008-09-03, 03:01 PM
Mutavault is actually a worse card than Mishra's Factory from the days of yore - no powercreep there (heck, Treetop Village is better). Chameleon Colossus is playable, but definitely not broken. It's a 4/4 for 4 with a handy ability - right in line with what green should get. Since it costs 4, it's very limited. It's only omnipresent in block because of the omnipresence of black removal (instead of the usual mix of black/white/red and blue Control Magic along with a sweeper or two). In Standard, it's far less played already.

Guilty Conscience/Stuffy Doll-decks are bad - good control-decks can just counter/bounce/whatever the combo pieces and aggro-decks can win faster than the combo can land. It was remotedly playable as a random win in UW Tron, but ultimately, UW Tron didn't win or lose because of the combo, but rather because of the mana engine and dominant spells. Beyond that, the combo wasn't even competitive.


Also, you're really not doing Legacy and Vintage justice. The formats are control-oriented, very much up to player skill and Legacy is the most open competitive format in existence, so if you're interested in deck construction, it's the format for you. It's not about broken combos since "fair" decks are better. The cards you need to buy, yes, but you could try the format online (for example, with Magic Workstation or Apprentice), reading up on it (try The Source (http://www.mtgthesource.com) for Legacy and The Mana Drain (http://www.themanadrain.com) for Vintage) and giving it a shot. You shouldn't just skip it before trying it.

I thought Legacy was dominated by fast combo until I actually tried it out. Nothing's further from the truth - there's very much player interaction and the best decks are very fair and very beatable. Also, the realistically usable cardpool is immense due to the relatively low overall powerlevel, so it really offers the most deck construction options. Vintage is faster, but it's not really that the games are shorter, it's just that there are many more turns played in the same time due to the acceleration available. Seriously, if you've never played competitive Legacy and built your own deck, you've missed a lot. Give it a shot, you'll love it.


And if money is an issue, play online for free. All the fun, none of the costs! That's what I'm doing right now and I'm having a blast. There are even leagues for online playing on Magic Workstation and Apprentice.

But this tangent has gone on long enough. Just, I hope you revise your opinions on the matters - you may find that you actually enjoy eternal magic if you give it a shot.

JupiterPaladin
2008-09-03, 09:11 PM
And if that's the direction you want to go to fix the game, then fine. Go for it. I'm just saying that power cree--ah forget it.:smallfurious:
It's better to remove the abuses and keep the baseline rather than tell most of the classes to blankety-blank off. But your way is valid to, I'm not arguing against it, I'm just saying that it leads to game END. In the end it's a choice between a conservative solution and a liberal solution. Though don't confuse this as my IRL political beliefs, but in gaming I err towards the conservative.

I made a quick chart to show D&D 3.5 before and after the power creep.

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z12/KoDT69/PowerCreep.jpg

Now if you look closely, the weaker classes are now closer to the more powerful ones. Even though the overall power went up, the gaps are now smaller. For the record, I do appreciate most of the weaker base classes more than most of the newer stuff, but others enjoy classes like Factotum and Beguiler and that's a good thing. Remember, the power can never be too high, because d20 has no cap on how high things can go. Look at the Epic Handbook, there's some crazy stuff in there! You are not required to include any splatbooks you dislike, it's your game! I allow anything at my table and only use against my players what they choose to use for their characters. It works for us :smallsmile:

Frosty
2008-09-03, 10:37 PM
Mostly accurate, except the highest point of series one is still lower than the lowest point of series 2 due to the fact that CORE is the most broken. The most optimized Monk can't hope to meet, let alone beat, the Big 3.

Akimbo
2008-09-03, 10:55 PM
Mostly accurate, except the highest point of series one is still lower than the lowest point of series 2 due to the fact that CORE is the most broken. The most optimized Monk can't hope to meet, let alone beat, the Big 3.

Not really. A wholly optimized Dragonwrought Kobold Sorcerer using the the web supplement for races of the dragon and every non-core spell and Incantatrix is going to be better then a Core only Wizard.

TheThan
2008-09-03, 10:56 PM
In any class and level based game, the measuring stick for determining a character’s overall power is their level. That’s the purpose behind a class and level system. Classes determine party roles and levels determine character power levels.

This allows the Dm to quickly, and easily determine appropriate encounters for his players. (IE: a CR 4 monster is an appropriate encounter for a 4th level party).

The problem with 3.x is that the classes are not balanced at all. Spellcasters turn out to be more powerful than the other classes. Why? There is a major design flaw of the system; that is why. This directly leads to the imbalance you see in 3.x.
Now most people consider the “broken” stuff in 3.x (wizards, clerics etc) to be the stuff that needs to be fixed. But they’re wrong. The problem is they are designed correctly and the other “less powerful” classes are not up to the same level of capability of the main culprits.


Oh and here’s why the system is broken
(Copy and paste job from a previous thread, to save time and my fingers, also edited to remove unrelated material)





Dungeon and Dragons uses a level based system. In level based systems each character is supposed to grow in power as they level up. The flaw in the system is that none of the other classes actually grow more powerful each time they level, other than the full spell casting classes. (exepting rogue sneek attack which increases every other level)


Well let’s take an example:

The 3.5 the barbarian’s main ability is the rage ability, it is what the class focuses on. However, he only gains one additional use of his rage ability every 4 levels (gaining the ability at 1st). Hmm, is rage too powerful? hardly, since it just grants extra damage and hit points, at the cost of becoming exhausted afterwards.

Compare that to a wizard.

A wizard gains “+1 additional spellcasting) each and every level. What does this mean? It means every single level the wizard’s spells become more powerful, he gains more spells and more spells per day. That’s an awful lot of power.



As you can plainly see, the wizard’s spell casting has a huge advantage over the barbarian’s rage. Simply because it increases every time your wizard levels. This is even without accounting for many of the spells that are simply too powerful to begin with.

Wizards of the coast tried to fix this by creating The Tome of Battle: the book of nine swords. Most people on these forums will agree that this book fixes this major flaw by introducing classes that do the above. Which is great, but Does 4.0 do either of these things? Its a new edition, did they learn from their mistakes? Honestly I don’t know. I haven’t read the rules or tried the new system out.




Now The side effect of all this is that people take what works correctly and run with it, “optimizing” characters that don’t really need it. Naturally the things that are broken are left behind in the dust.


A lot of people try to rank each class in some sort of convoluted system of their own design. Despite the simple fact that the classes are so drastically set apart in power that no comparison worth while can be drawn. If each class were balanced against each other per level (as in they grow at the same rate) then we wouldn’t have the class balance problems that 3.x suffers from.

I admit that no system is perfect, I’m sure the much lauded 4th edition has its flaws, they just haven’t been found. The difference is that 3.x suffers not from a mistake someone didn’t catch, but from a fundamental failure to understand the very system they were creating.

Frosty
2008-09-03, 11:30 PM
Not really. A wholly optimized Dragonwrought Kobold Sorcerer using the the web supplement for races of the dragon and every non-core spell and Incantatrix is going to be better then a Core only Wizard.

I don't count "Sorcerer" as a series 1 class. Sorcerer gets lumped into series 2 because he's almost as good as a wizard. what I mean is, for example, a Paladin or a Barbarian, no matter how cheesed, will not outperform a core Wizard.

Akimbo
2008-09-03, 11:39 PM
I don't count "Sorcerer" as a series 1 class. Sorcerer gets lumped into series 2 because he's almost as good as a wizard. what I mean is, for example, a Paladin or a Barbarian, no matter how cheesed, will not outperform a core Wizard.

I'm sorry, I though you were talking about Uber versus potent, not series one and two. I agree with you. I was saying that a "potent" class with all splats is better then a Core Wizard. So I actually agree with you, just a misunderstanding.

Except that a fully cheesed out Monk isn't better then a Core Wizard.

Frosty
2008-09-03, 11:42 PM
S'ok. Although barring a certain reading of Rainbow Servant or prestiging into Shadowcraft Mage, I'm not sure how a Potent class like a Beguiler would be able to outperform a wizard. There's only so much you cna do with a limited spell list.

Some "potent" clases can be cheesed out to hat level, but not all can. I don't think Warmage can either.

JupiterPaladin
2008-09-04, 12:18 AM
Except that a fully cheesed out Monk isn't better than a Core Wizard.

A fully cheesed Monk still couldn't outperform a non-optimized Adept, but hopefully we can avoid a Monk vs. Wizard thread... Dun dun duuunnnn :smalleek:

I find it easiest to reallocate the casters abilities than to try to upgrade the other 500 base classes and PrCs, but that's my preference to lower the overall power level. I use the spell point variant and make change the progression so that a 19th - 20th level full caster just get to 5th level spells. They keep the same spell points so they can cast many more spells. Caster lovers start groaning, but we all know the high level spells can ruin a game if left unchecked. They do gain some other nifty abilities too, but that's another story :smallbiggrin: Hey it works for me.

Akimbo
2008-09-04, 09:31 AM
A fully cheesed Monk still couldn't outperform a non-optimized Adept, but hopefully we can avoid a Monk vs. Wizard thread... Dun dun duuunnnn :smalleek:

A fully cheesed Monk does 5d100+str damage per attack. That's generally speaking enough damage to outdo an adept that relies on polymorph.

Starbuck_II
2008-09-04, 10:05 AM
A fully cheesed Monk does 5d100+str damage per attack. That's generally speaking enough damage to outdo an adept that relies on polymorph.

Of course that same Adept casts Heal and takes no damage after all.

Akimbo
2008-09-04, 10:19 AM
Of course that same Adept casts Heal and takes no damage after all.

um, 5d100 is enough to kill him in one shot. Especially since he gets several attacks in one round, so the high variance isn't even that big a deal.

Average damage per attack is 252.5 damage before static mods. That's enough to kill any Adept. And he will probably roll high on one of his attacks.

That's why things that are fully cheesed out are better then Core anything that doesn't caste Gate.