Introducing 'rarity' to 3.5

[Godskook]

Ok, so I've been doing a lot of drafts and the more friendly fat-pack draft-duels in MtG lately, and it got me thinking about how in MtG, things can be 'worth' the same cost, both in card costs and mana costs, and yet one is clearly better than the other, and this is ok. One of the many reasons for this is rarity. Its accepted that commons are considered 'worthless' next to their most comparable rares. The gears spun in my head, and I wondered about introducing such a mechanic into D&D, and how that would help game balance.

To flesh out, there'd be 'levels' of rarity, and once you hit a certain level, certain rarities become available for direct XP purchase, while certain rarities never get offered that way. Feats gained via feat slots that are now available via xp can be 'retrained' to free up the feat slot for a higher rarity feat.

"Common" feats become trainable at L4, and could include things like Skill Focus, Weapon Focus, and the +2 to 2 skills feats. Training them might cost 1k xp to 2k xp, to throw out a number.

So, thoughts on how well this might work?

(And yes, I'm aware that xp is a river)

[PId6]

Overall, this seems unnecessarily complex for not much gain. First of all, you'd have to rank every feat on their rarity, mostly in order to force people to purchase bad feats. Don't really see much point to this. You're also preventing people from playing builds that they want to play, and widening the gulf between feat-starved classes (most martial classes) with the less feat-starved ones (often casters).

Its accepted that commons are considered 'worthless' next to their most comparable rares.

Nitpick: Not true; there often are tournament-worthy commons printed, Lightning Bolt being a clear example. The main difference between commons/uncommons and rares is that commons/uncommons are more often meant for limited and so many of them are not tournament-worthy; however, that certainly doesn't mean that all commons are worthless, nor even that the best playable cards are rares (recent trend in mythics notwithstanding).

[Maerok]

Commons aren't entirely useless. What would you do without lands?

I haven't checked back on Magic in a while but I assume they still use lands. Or at least, haven't feature creeped their way past needing mana at all...

[Eurus]

Commons aren't entirely useless. What would you do without lands?

I haven't checked back on Magic in a while but I assume they still used lands. Or at least, haven't feature creeped their way past needing mana at all...

Give it a few more sets, they're working on it.

[PId6]

If commons are useless, what would you do without lands?

I haven't checked back on Magic in a while but I assume they still used lands. Or at least, haven't feature creeped their way past needing mana at all...

Well, to be fair, many tournament decks use expensive dual lands in place of basics, especially in older formats like Extended and Legacy. Basics are still used in fewer-color decks, but there are a lot of decks that don't use any basics at all (any kind of Zoo, for example).

[chiasaur11]

Commons aren't entirely useless. What would you do without lands?

I haven't checked back on Magic in a while but I assume they still use lands. Or at least, haven't feature creeped their way past needing mana at all...

No, lands are still useful, at least since they banned the lotuses.

And, if I recall, some commons are really handy for a lot of stuff.

Rares are just fancier.

[Godskook]

Overall, this seems unnecessarily complex for not much gain. First of all, you'd have to rank every feat on their rarity, mostly in order to force people to purchase bad feats. Don't really see much point to this. You're also preventing people from playing builds that they want to play, and widening the gulf between feat-starved classes (most martial classes) with the less feat-starved ones (often casters).

Now you see, I'm not sure you see what I'm driving at here. And it wasn't meant to be just feats. Spells, too, would suffer. Specifically, Fireball would be a 'common' spell, available just about everywhere, while Orb of X would be rare.

And yes, I realize that I'm biting off one really big monkey of a task when thinking about this, but I think it would make things more balanced in the end if blaster wizards were 'cheap' to build while god-wizards cost a near fortune in rares.

Nitpick: Not true; there often are tournament-worthy commons printed, Lightning Bolt being a clear example. The main difference between commons/uncommons and rares is that commons/uncommons are more often meant for limited and so many of them are not tournament-worthy; however, that certainly doesn't mean that all commons are worthless, nor even that the best playable cards are rares (recent trend in mythics notwithstanding).

Lightning Bolt has no comparable rare nor uncommon that I could find.

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On the subject of lands, I wouldn't really call basic lands 'commons', in so much as when you open a booster pack, basic lands don't count against the number of commons you get in the pack.

[Mystic Muse]

On the subject of lands, I wouldn't really call basic lands 'commons', in so much as when you open a booster pack, basic lands don't count against the number of commons you get in the pack yet.

Fixed it for you.

[PId6]

Now you see, I'm not sure you see what I'm driving at here. And it wasn't meant to be just feats. Spells, too, would suffer. Specifically, Fireball would be a 'common' spell, available just about everywhere, while Orb of X would be rare.

And yes, I realize that I'm biting off one really big monkey of a task when thinking about this, but I think it would make things more balanced in the end if blaster wizards were 'cheap' to build while god-wizards cost a near fortune in rares.

This seems like just another way to soft-ban powerful archetypes. There are easier ways to nerf casters without introducing something as time-consuming and complex as this. If you want casters to be blasters for example, just ban all of them besides warmage. Job complete.

Besides, if you carry this through with feats as well as spells, you're going to nerf non-casters just as much. Forcing barbarians to take Weapon Focus or rogues to take Skill Focus hits them with the nerf-bat just as hard as forcing wizards to take Fireball. In the end, all you're going to end up is players not having money for the good rares (i.e. not being able to play the characters that they want).

Lightning Bolt has no comparable rare nor uncommon that I could find.

Char comes pretty close for a rare. There are a bunch of worse uncommons like Chain of Plasma or Strafe, not to mention numerous cards that aren't strictly worse... but you're not going to be seeing them at tournaments alongside Lightning Bolt either. Other examples are Wild Nacatl and Putrid Leech. As one and two drops, very few creatures are better than these, regardless of rarity (and Wild Nacatl is arguably the best one drop creature in the game).

[Reinboom]

Fixed it for you.

That's... not a very accurate "fix".

They actually moved to being a free card overtime. They started out in common slots (and even in uncommon! - yay 1994's Revised!).

You can get plenty of free basic lands at Wizards events. They sell special packs that flood you with extra basic lands just in case.
Most of the people here really seem to get Wizard's marketing backwards in these cases. =P

They have made it a goal to make basic lands available and have reduced set sizes and adjusted rarity slots in order to make certain staples more common.
Why?
Because then more people can buy magic decks for cheaper. In turn, this causes more people who can afford to play - and eventually become addicted.





That aside, I am fascinated by the idea of drafting builds. Getting "packs" of pieces. You get X number of level slots and you draft for class levels, feats, and other similar concepts.
This lets the DM really really control what is available while still providing a unique choice for the players.


I want to play this now. =P

[Bayar]

Druid, want to trade 3 Shock Trooper and 2 Leap Attack with any uncommon or rare dinosaur wildshape cards !

[PId6]

That aside, I am fascinated by the idea of drafting builds. Getting "packs" of pieces. You get X number of level slots and you draft for class levels, feats, and other similar concepts.
This lets the DM really really control what is available while still providing a unique choice for the players.


I want to play this now. =P

That... actually sounds incredibly fun! The mechanics will be incredibly wonky, but I kinda wanna play it too.

Druid, want to trade 3 Shock Trooper and 2 Leap Attack with any uncommon or rare dinosaur wildshape cards !

No way! My Fleshraker Wildshape card is worth at least a full playset of both Shock Trooper and Leap Attack. Would you take this Planar Shepard 2 card instead?

[averagejoe]

I thought the idea of prerequisites basically already covered this concept. Typically you have to spend resources to get certain abilities, and the more resources you have to spend the more powerful the ability. (At least, that's the idea. It works only arguably in implementation.) If you want to do something like this simply toughen feat prerequisites/increase spell material and xp component costs and you get basically the same thing without so much work, using systems already in place. And you probably don't have to do it to every spell, feat, or ability, just the problematic ones, or the ones favored by people you know.

Commons aren't entirely useless. What would you do without lands?

I haven't checked back on Magic in a while but I assume they still use lands. Or at least, haven't feature creeped their way past needing mana at all...

I thought they did that back in Alpha.

[Bayar]

No way! My Fleshraker Wildshape card is worth at least a full playset of both Shock Trooper and Leap Attack. Would you take this Planar Shepard 2 card instead?

If you can throw a Mabar, the Endless Night plane card with that...

[Reinboom]

That... actually sounds incredibly fun! The mechanics will be incredibly wonky, but I kinda wanna play it too.

No way! My Fleshraker Wildshape card is worth at least a full playset of both Shock Trooper and Leap Attack. Would you take this Planar Shepard 2 card instead?

*hides Worship the Dream Plane card*

Uh... if he doesn't want it... I'd.. I'd be willing to trade for it. I hope I have enough though.
*leans over*




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I doubt trading would be allowed with such a format. =P

[TheFirstStraw]

I think it would be more interesting if there were common, uncommon, and rare versions of the same spell. Common versions could be researched in your local library, but uncommon and rare versions would come from special circumstances.

These versions of the spell would use up the same spell slot but have some sort of added or increased effect.

That's cool.

I've played campaigns that do things sort of like that.

[Jair Barik]

Give it a few more sets, they're working on it.

Actually at least one deck can win with a no land hand, turn one, going second, during the opponents first turn. Yeahhhhhhhh.......

[Coidzor]

So... What is actually the good here?

What is actually gained?

Because I'm not seeing much other than establishing XP costs for retraining. And possibly XP costs for taking feats in the first place.

Which raises the question of bothering with an XP cost for feats without allowing for feats to be bought freely with XP.

[Reinboom]

Actually at least one deck can win with a no land hand, turn one, going second, during the opponents first turn. Yeahhhhhhhh.......

Flash/Hulk

Vintage only. It's a format you play only if you have the money for it, and there are almost no major tournaments that use it - this is also the only official format to allow Black Lotus and the rest of the power.

Even in this format, the main piece (Flash) is restricted. And the format can handle it.
The other major piece that enables the going second play to win, Gemstone Caverns, is an otherwise terrible card.
You also need to have Protean Hulk AND a mana guide (Elvish Spirit Guide or Simian Spirit Guide) in order to do that.

...
And after all of that, Force of Will will still be able to counter it.

Also, the centerpiece (Flash) was printed in 1996.




...Sorry Godslook for this diversion.

[Azernak0]

So the Fighter actually loses experience for a class feature that is already considered sub par? The Druid who only takes 1 feat at level 6, even if it is 4,000 experience, is going to completely crush the Fighter while advancing in levels a lot faster.

I have seen something like this used in regards to spells. Certain spells, like Fireball, where very easy to find and sort of just fell out of the sky while "better" spells (Haste, Glitterdust) were more difficult to find. The idea was to help other classes at times because the more encounter ending spells were not available until higher level when the spell was less useful. What actually happened was that the group Sorcerer went into the Wizard's Guild and came back with enough gold to fuel a small army. The next time around, when the DM banned the Sorcerer from taking Scribe Scroll, the players just used every magic spell possible to locate areas where the harder to find spells were available. It stopped from being a DnD Campaign and became a Might and Magic game with a strategy book.

[Shpadoinkle]

Congratulations, you've made fighters even worse. Now they're entirely useless instead of mostly useless.

[Eldariel]

Vintage only. It's a format you play only if you have the money for it, and there are almost no major tournaments that use it - this is also the only official format to allow Black Lotus and the rest of the power.

This isn't precisely accurate. There's Vintage World Championships yearly along with the various SCG tournaments; they aren't GP-size but breaking 100 players without a sweat.

It's also worth noting that exempli gratia, Gush is a Common that breaks the game wide open. Frantic Search is restricted in Vintage and banned everywhere else, for a good reason. Tinker is a common. Channel is an unc IIRC. Rarity does not correspond to power in Magic. Indeed, Rares tend to form the "cool parts" or the gamebreakers of the deck while stuff like Counterspell, Lightning Bolt, etc. - utility á la D&D's stat boosters, Cloak of Resistance and company is common. Rares would rather correspond to stuff like Belt of Battle, Apparatus of the Crab, et cetera. Rares do interesting stuff but power is not linked to rarity. The specialty is what the rarity is about.

[CockroachTeaParty]

I haven't checked back on Magic in a while but I assume they still use lands. Or at least, haven't feature creeped their way past needing mana at all...

Then maybe I'd actually enjoy playing MtG...

[Tengu_temp]

WotC using Magic design philosophy is one of the reasons why DND 3.x is such a mess balance-wise (because what works for a CCG doesn't necessarily work for an RPG). Do we want to introduce even more of it?

[Vizzerdrix]

WTT Full Set of FOIL Toughness. For anything!

....

Maybe half a ham sammich? Anyone?

....

Hellooo....

[Eloi]

I believe in spells its called 'spell level', equipment 'gp cost' and in feats 'prerequisite', I could be wrong, but that just seems horribly redundant.

[The Glyphstone]

WTT Full Set of FOIL Toughness. For anything!

....

Maybe half a ham sammich? Anyone?

....

Hellooo....

That might be worth a Complete Warrior Samurai Greater Ki Shout...

[Vizzerdrix]

As a fan of the old Cube game Lost Kingdoms, I do like the idea of summons as cards.

[Godskook]

Congratulations, you've made fighters even worse. Now they're entirely useless instead of mostly useless.

Which is roughly the same problem, except now, hopefully people will either (A) realize the trap or (B) homebrew effective solutions. It *IS* possible to 'brew fighter-looking feats that are actually powerful enough to scare a wizard. And I also never mentioned fighter feats, in general, were going to be common. Only one I mentioned was weapon focus.

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And as far as Flash-Hulk goes, you're using gemstone caverns(a land, but also a rare), which is not technically required. 2 spirit guides and a manamorphose does the trick as well, but is less likely to be how its done.

...Sorry Godslook for this diversion.

Who are you apologizing to?

[Kylarra]

WTT Full Set of FOIL Toughness. For anything!

....

Maybe half a ham sammich? Anyone?

....

Hellooo....

If you can get 6, I'll trade you an improved toughness for the lot of them. I need to complete my Tarrasque set.