Monte Cook left WOTC

[Malachei]

In his blog, Monte Cook announced that he's left WOTC, coincidentally just as playtesting begins.

He'd like to avoid drama and not go into details, but explicitly expresses his respect for his co-designers.

How do you think this will affect the design of D&D Next?

How do you think this will affect its commercial success?

Do you think Monte will be working with Paizo on Pathfinder, soon?

[GutterFace]

Maybe even his own D20 spin off?

[Anxe]

I'd give a non-compete contract to someone as big as him. I doubt he'll be working for Paizo.

[gbprime]

I'd give a non-compete contract to someone as big as him. I doubt he'll be working for Paizo.

And I wouldn't sign one of those if I were him. He makes his living doing roleplaying design and related activities. A cleverly worded non-compete could prevent him from ever earning that living again.

Non-disclosure agreement, absolutely. Non-compete, heck no.

[Malachei]

And I wouldn't sign one of those if I were him. He makes his living doing roleplaying design and related activities. A cleverly worded non-compete could prevent him from ever earning that living again.

Non-disclosure agreement, absolutely. Non-compete, heck no.

Especially since there are only a handful of employers in his field of expertise. Actually, probably less.

[Shadowknight12]

I am so happy. Judging from the things I've read (things that he himself has said), that man stubbornly believes that he knows what his audience wants, is impervious to criticism and doesn't bother doing thorough research on what the problems with D&D's editions have been. This bodes well for 5e.

If he wants to compete with D&D, that's fine. I have ignored PF ever since it first appeared (and I learnt of it back in its infancy) and I can easily ignore whatever system he creates.

[Malachei]

I am so happy. Judging from the things I've read (things that he himself has said), that man stubbornly believes that he knows what his audience wants, is impervious to criticism and doesn't bother doing thorough research on what the problems with D&D's editions have been. This bodes well for 5e.

If he wants to compete with D&D, that's fine. I have ignored PF ever since it first appeared (and I learnt of it back in its infancy) and I can easily ignore whatever system he creates.

Interesting. I respect him for bringing us 3rd edition together with the design team. I was not aware of statements such as the above, and I'd be interested in reading those. Do you have links/sources for me?

[Solaris]

Don't they do this with every edition change?
... It's bad that I can ask this. It doesn't really bother me, honestly, 'cause I'm not getting into 4E and probably won't spend the money on 5E either. WotC wants me to come back, they can start printing up material for my game.

Or Monte can. I liked a lot of the stuff he made, particularly the Arcana Unearthed/Arcana Evolved setting.

[bokodasu]

A cleverly worded non-compete could prevent him from ever earning that living again.

IANAL, but I did do time studying employment law, and the most interesting thing I learned is that non-compete clauses are very rarely enforcable, for just that reason. (Depends on the state how easy they are to break.) They're more for intimidation than anything else - if you go to court, you'll probably win, but most people don't want to go to court.

Anyway. I think this is one of those cases where we have SO little information, there's not even anything really interesting to speculate on. I'm guessing the next version will probably end up somewhat less 3rd-ed-like, but predicting anything else would be absolutely random.

[Shadowknight12]

Interesting. I respect him for bringing us 3rd edition together with the design team. I was not aware of statements such as the above, and I'd be interested in reading those. Do you have links/sources for me?

Yeah, lemme see what a google search will turn up (I haven't kept the links).

First Link. In this link, he tries to explain 3e's failures as "rewarding system mastery." That is, he says that they did not make mistakes designing the system (as any group of humans would understandably make), but that everything that was underpowered or insultingly useless was done on purpose to trick newbies and make experienced players feel better about not taking. Instead of saying "Hey guys, we screwed up, we'll do better next time," he goes "We did not commit a single mistake. It was all on purpose, you see. All part of our clever plan." His example with Toughness is just laughable, insisting that there are situations where it's more useful than virtually anything else a fighter could take. In the specific case he mentions, since the fighter will not be around for long, it's actually even MORE important to ensure that you pick better feats, as you won't have time to play your character for long, so you should get as many "flashy" feats as you can (like Power Attack, Improved Trip and so on).

Second Link. He has no idea what he's talking about (look at the spells he points out as overpowered: Harm is just broken, huh? HARM?! Goodness mine, he doesn't even mention the Polymorph line), though he gets SOME points for even considering to admit that maybe some of the overpoweredness of spells were due to mistakes and oversight. Having said that, he still has no clue what is overpowered and what isn't. And there, he says something that makes the next link awful, that whatever he creates for Arcana Unearthed is meant to have backwards compatibility with 3e and other d20 systems.

Third Link. Just look at that spell template. Just look at it. Look at the unearthly brokenness of that (keep in mind this is meant to be backwards compatible with 3e core). My goodness, I have never seen such a concentrated amount of contempt for game balance in my life. That man has no idea what he's doing, probably has no idea what a tier system is, and likely thinks a fighter can beat up a wizard because the fighter has more BAB and HP. He has no idea what the problems with 3e's mechanics are and does not care to do proper research.

Fourth Link. Rapid Shot. That's overpowered. Rapid. Shot. Not spells, no. Overpowered is attacking an extra time in a round. TRUE RESURRECTION?!?! Again! Not a mention of the polymorph line! OR GATE. ARGH! COOOOOOK! He makes me so frustrated. I have never met someone who believed himself to be so knowledgeable while consistently demonstrating they have no clue what they're talking about. I honestly wonder if he's really that self-deluded or if he frets daily about one day the world realising he's been fooling them for years.

So, in short, I hate that man's guts and I hope he stays far, far away from D&D.

[Malachei]

You're talking about a lead designer of D&D 3rd edition. These are the guys that brought us the game that invigorated D&D when it was in trouble. And you sound like he has poisoned your cat.

First Link: Did they screw up? They designed an incredibly successful game system, sales soared, and, ironically, they created a life insurance for the true spirit of D&D 3rd edition in the form of the OGL. I don't think they screwed up at all.

Second Link: Harm is just an example. He uses it to illustrate his point, and back in 3.0 days, there's been a lot of jokes about one-shotting dragons with harm (thanks to 3.5 for giving us shivering touch instead). Why should he give more than one example, or why should he give your favorite example?

Third Link: I guess Monte is low-OP. I like that about him, but I agree this is an unbalanced feat. Still, how can we judge him by a feat he's designed? And how does this make him harmful to the game?

Fourth Link: Again, these are examples. Some spells are harder to fix, and rapid shot serves to illustrate his point quickly.

Note that 3.5 did not fix the most important issues of 3.0: Polymorph is as broken as ever, Shapechange is more broken, and for Haste, we have all the funny swift-action and immediate-action spells.

IMO designing 3.0 from scratch was much harder than doing the 3.5 revision, and deserves a lot of praise.

Finally, I also think it is really great and honest of him to publicly present his learning process and that game designers understand they are fallible. I like that.

[Tyndmyr]

Yeah, lemme see what a google search will turn up (I haven't kept the links).

First Link. In this link, he tries to explain 3e's failures as "rewarding system mastery." That is, he says that they did not make mistakes designing the system (as any group of humans would understandably make), but that everything that was underpowered or insultingly useless was done on purpose to trick newbies and make experienced players feel better about not taking. Instead of saying "Hey guys, we screwed up, we'll do better next time," he goes "We did not commit a single mistake. It was all on purpose, you see. All part of our clever plan." His example with Toughness is just laughable, insisting that there are situations where it's more useful than virtually anything else a fighter could take. In the specific case he mentions, since the fighter will not be around for long, it's actually even MORE important to ensure that you pick better feats, as you won't have time to play your character for long, so you should get as many "flashy" feats as you can (like Power Attack, Improved Trip and so on).

Toughness is actually quite good on a first level elf wizard, his precise example. If retraining is allowed, that's a pretty solid early pick. Most mortality for wizards is early on, when spells are limited, people can still deal hp damage to you reasonably easily, and you have jack all for wealth to fix anything.

As he says, if you're playing a one shot with 1st level chars, toughness is a quite solid choice. There is no error here.

Second Link. He has no idea what he's talking about (look at the spells he points out as overpowered: Harm is just broken, huh? HARM?! Goodness mine, he doesn't even mention the Polymorph line), though he gets SOME points for even considering to admit that maybe some of the overpoweredness of spells were due to mistakes and oversight. Having said that, he still has no clue what is overpowered and what isn't. And there, he says something that makes the next link awful, that whatever he creates for Arcana Unearthed is meant to have backwards compatibility with 3e and other d20 systems.

It's not a perfect, complete analysis, but it's not meant to be. Haste IS a fantastic third level spell, and yeah, basically every wizard does have Mage Armor. Harm is probably not as good as he thinks, true, but it's not actually a bad spell. In fact, it's terrific in combination with sonic snap.

It's not quite perfect, but it's a decent acknowledgement of some of the flaws in the magic system.

Third Link. Just look at that spell template. Just look at it. Look at the unearthly brokenness of that (keep in mind this is meant to be backwards compatible with 3e core). My goodness, I have never seen such a concentrated amount of contempt for game balance in my life. That man has no idea what he's doing, probably has no idea what a tier system is, and likely thinks a fighter can beat up a wizard because the fighter has more BAB and HP. He has no idea what the problems with 3e's mechanics are and does not care to do proper research.

Well, metamagics mostly are not worth using without reducers, and with reducers, sometimes become ridiculous. Single target blasting spells are...not usually the most powerful of spells. Adding a 1 turn save or stun to them is useful, but not utterly insane.

Again, I don't think it's perfect, but it might be better than the metamagic system.

Fourth Link. Rapid Shot. That's overpowered. Rapid. Shot. Not spells, no. Overpowered is attacking an extra time in a round. TRUE RESURRECTION?!?! Again! Not a mention of the polymorph line! OR GATE. ARGH! COOOOOOK! He makes me so frustrated. I have never met someone who believed himself to be so knowledgeable while consistently demonstrating they have no clue what they're talking about. I honestly wonder if he's really that self-deluded or if he frets daily about one day the world realising he's been fooling them for years.

Overpowered is probably not accurate because of other limitations in archery...but yes, extra attacks ARE powerful, and it kind of is a feat tax for that style of combat. Identifying it as problematic is fair. Honestly, if a similar feat existed for melee, it would be a viable alternative to pounce, and would still be quite potent. Look at snap kick, which has an annoying prereq, has the exact same negative, and has poor damage. It's still considered solid.

Things that add attacks or otherwise alter the action economy are quite powerful, and it's something that they didn't address sufficiently in 3.5. Not perfect, but I wouldn't say he's wildly out of touch.

So, in short, I hate that man's guts and I hope he stays far, far away from D&D.

I suspect you might be overreacting just a bit. I'm a bit curious as to why he left, and as to what he'll be doing next. I'm not going to jump to conclusions yet...I just don't have enough info to honestly say what this means.

[Jeraa]

3.0 Harm was broken. And I assume he was meaning 3.0 Harm, as he is talking about Arcana Unearthed. as opposed to Arcana Evolved. Arcana Unearthed came out before 3.5 did, so Monte was talking about 3.0 Harm.

Harm charges a subject with negative energy that causes the loss of all but 1d4 hit points.

It didn't matter how many hit points you had, fail the fortitude save, and you only have 1-4 left.

[Ranos]

Take the man's love of wizards, his unapologetically bringing about caster edition, and this article. If I had to guess at the reasons for his departure, I wouldn't look very far.

[Malachei]

3.0 Harm was broken. And I assume he was meaning 3.0 Harm, as he is talking about Arcana Unearthed. as opposed to Arcana Evolved. Arcana Unearthed came out before 3.5 did, so Monte was talking about 3.0 Harm.



It didn't matter how many hit points you had, fail the fortitude save, and you only have 1-4 left.

Of course he is talking about 3.0 Harm.

Which, by the way, had no save.

Therefore it was the ideal dragon killer (often low touch AC, compared to standard AC). And hence, a very good example he gave.

[Tyndmyr]

3.0 Harm was broken. And I assume he was meaning 3.0 Harm, as he is talking about Arcana Unearthed. as opposed to Arcana Evolved. Arcana Unearthed came out before 3.5 did, so Monte was talking about 3.0 Harm.



It didn't matter how many hit points you had, fail the fortitude save, and you only have 1-4 left.

Yknow, that's an excellent point...I was thinking of 3.5 harm(as you can probably tell by my sonic snap reference), which is situationally quite good, but not quite that good. 3.0 harm was in fact quite broken, and an excellent example.

It's a perfectly apt example for him to use. 3.0 haste becomes an even better example, as well.

[Jeraa]

Of course he is talking about 3.0 Harm.

Which, by the way, had no save.

Therefore it was the ideal dragon killer (often low touch AC, compared to standard AC). And hence, a very good example he gave.

My 3.0 PHB (says its a 2nd printing, September 2000) says Harm does have a save. Fortitude negates.

The 3.0 SRD I have does save there is no save, however. As does my 1st printing 3.0 PHB. So it was errated.

[Malachei]

Take the man's love of wizards, his unapologetically bringing about caster edition, and this article. If I had to guess at the reasons for his departure, I wouldn't look very far.

From the article you linked (thanks!):

Too often in D&D, the high-level fighter is the flunky to a high-level wizard. It’s all too easy for combinations of spells to make the wizard a far more potent enemy or character, especially if a wizard can unleash his or her spells in rapid succession. A wizard might annihilate a small army of orcs with a volley of fireballs and cones of cold. The fighter does the same sword blow by sword blow, taking down waves of orcs each round. Balancing the classes at high levels is perhaps the highest priority for the fighter, and attaining balance is something that we must do to make D&D fit in with fantasy, myth, and legend. Even if a wizard unleashes every spell at his or her disposal at a fighter, the fighter absorbs the punishment, throws off the effects, and keeps on fighting.

= Iron Heart Suuuurge!


A few comments on that paragraph:

1. Yes, this may be the actual disagreement, because you do not have to be a fan of wizards to see that creating this kind of balance is a challenge.
2. If Mike Mearls means to completely balance the fighter and the wizard (i.e. also in terms of versatilty), this will change the D&D game in really profound ways. I'm not looking for overpowering wizards, but if I get handcrafted artificial balance-fu, I might pass on 5e.
3. It seems the fighter may look more like the warblade?

[Ranos]

If Mike Mearls means to completely balance the fighter and the wizard (i.e. also in terms of versatilty), this will change the D&D game in really profound ways. I'm not looking for overpowering wizards, but if I get handcrafted artificial balance-fu, I might pass on 5e.

2E had pretty good balance going between casters and noncasters. A wizard with prep-time and foreknowledge was always an extremely dangerous enemy, but in a straight fight the fighter was a juggernaut of destruction. Mostly because of long casting times, no easy concentration checks, and a different saving throw system that favored the noncaster classes a lot.
I could see some of those limitations to casters coming back for 5E without fundamentally changing D&D.

[Shadowknight12]

You're talking about a lead designer of D&D 3rd edition. These are the guys that brought us the game that invigorated D&D when it was in trouble. And you sound like he has poisoned your cat.

I do not think someone deserves respect simply because they created something I enjoyed. I gave them my money, that's a fair trade. I do not owe them any more than that. I respect someone because of how they are, not because of what they do.

First Link: Did they screw up? They designed an incredibly successful game system, sales soared, and, ironically, they created a life insurance for the true spirit of D&D 3rd edition in the form of the OGL. I don't think they screwed up at all.

They made mistakes. They are human. Admitting and owning up to them is what makes me respect someone. Someone who acts as if they are immune to mistakes instantly gets my suspicion, distrust and loses my respect.

Second Link: Harm is just an example. He uses it to illustrate his point, and back in 3.0 days, there's been a lot of jokes about one-shotting dragons with harm (thanks to 3.5 for giving us shivering touch instead). Why should he give more than one example, or why should he give your favorite example?

3.0e Harm? Yes, that's broken. I assumed he meant 3.5e Harm, which pales in comparison to Planar Ally or Polymorph (or Baleful Polymorph). Yes, 3.0e Harm was broken. 3.0 Haste as well. Having said that, the fact that he doesn't seem to recognise that Calling and polymorphing effects deserve mention in the "broken spells" category indicates that he clearly has no idea what's broken or not. I would not be surprised if he had been told by fellow designers that Harm and Haste were overpowered, rather than realising that on his own.

Third Link: I guess Monte is low-OP. I like that about him, but I agree this is an unbalanced feat. Still, how can we judge him by a feat he's designed? And how does this make him harmful to the game?

See below for my reply to Tyndmyr.

Fourth Link: Again, these are examples. Some spells are harder to fix, and rapid shot serves to illustrate his point quickly.

I'm not judging him about the feat. I'm judging that he's complaining about an unbalanced feat for non-spellcasters when he fails to realise that non-spellcaster balance is meaningless when we take spellcasting into consideration. See below, he's complaining about catching a flu while devoured by flesh-eating bacteria.

Note that 3.5 did not fix the most important issues of 3.0: Polymorph is as broken as ever, Shapechange is more broken, and for Haste, we have all the funny swift-action and immediate-action spells.

This is exactly my point. Polymorph was broken back in 3.0 too, as were all Calling spells. The fact that he seems unaware of this means he is not as knowledgeable about game balance as he thinks he is.

IMO designing 3.0 from scratch was much harder than doing the 3.5 revision, and deserves a lot of praise.

Finally, I also think it is really great and honest of him to publicly present his learning process and that game designers understand they are fallible. I like that.

No, that's the thing. He does not understand that they are fallible. He sweeps his own mistakes under the rug when he has to own up to them and only brings them up when he's trying to sell his own system. He's basically trying to sell you Arcana Unearthed by saying he's solved all the problems with 3e and keeping all the things you like. He's not documenting his learning process, he's presenting teasers of his system to get sales.

Toughness is actually quite good on a first level elf wizard, his precise example. If retraining is allowed, that's a pretty solid early pick. Most mortality for wizards is early on, when spells are limited, people can still deal hp damage to you reasonably easily, and you have jack all for wealth to fix anything.

As he says, if you're playing a one shot with 1st level chars, toughness is a quite solid choice. There is no error here.

No. No. No, just no. No. There are immensely better feats to pick at first level, for any class. Even if we restrict things to core only and even if it's a one-shot adventure. Off the top of my head, there is Spell Focus (and if the character is a human instead of an elf, Spell Focus(Conjuration) and Augment Summoning), Improved Counterspelling (if the adventure is caster-heavy), Improved Familiar (if they expect to reach 3rd level soonish, the wizard can put off binding a familiar until that time, or just dismiss his current one and rebind it at that time, freeing up his 3rd level feat for something more useful), Dodge (awful feat, but a +1 to AC is statistically better than a +3 to HP) and oh right, Improved Initiative. And this is assuming the wizard will remain a pure wizard. If the character is planning on gishing, acquiring combat feats early is, in many cases, quite vital.

It's not a perfect, complete analysis, but it's not meant to be. Haste IS a fantastic third level spell, and yeah, basically every wizard does have Mage Armor. Harm is probably not as good as he thinks, true, but it's not actually a bad spell. In fact, it's terrific in combination with sonic snap.

It's not quite perfect, but it's a decent acknowledgement of some of the flaws in the magic system.

The fact that he values Invisibility over Web or Glitterdust as the king of 2nd level spells is ridiculous. Grease, a 1st level spell, is better than Invisibility. And if he hadn't said "attack spell" when he was lauding the virtues of Magic Missile, he would've been dead wrong. Yes, Magic Missile is the best 1st level attack spell in core. It is not, however, better than Grease.

Well, metamagics mostly are not worth using without reducers, and with reducers, sometimes become ridiculous. Single target blasting spells are...not usually the most powerful of spells. Adding a 1 turn save or stun to them is useful, but not utterly insane.

Again, I don't think it's perfect, but it might be better than the metamagic system.

That's hilarious. No, seriously, it really is. Any decent spellcaster worth his salt can pump his DC sky high, guaranteeing any enemy who gets caught by the spell gets stunned. So what if it costs 30 GP per casting? Take Energy Admixture [Electricity] for a spell like Fireball or just drop a Scintillating Sphere (or a cleverly aimed Lightning Bolt, if we're doing core only) and voilà, an entire group of enemies stunned for two rounds (and damaged, on top of that). Any decent team needs only three rounds to mop up an enemy cluster. It's got all the brokenness of Web and Grease without any of its mild inconveniences (like having to pelt the enemies from a distance or enemies) and the extra damage is the cherry on top.

Overpowered is probably not accurate because of other limitations in archery...but yes, extra attacks ARE powerful, and it kind of is a feat tax for that style of combat. Identifying it as problematic is fair. Honestly, if a similar feat existed for melee, it would be a viable alternative to pounce, and would still be quite potent. Look at snap kick, which has an annoying prereq, has the exact same negative, and has poor damage. It's still considered solid.

Things that add attacks or otherwise alter the action economy are quite powerful, and it's something that they didn't address sufficiently in 3.5. Not perfect, but I wouldn't say he's wildly out of touch.

The problem here is that, while he might be talking with some manner of sense about the specific topic he's discussing (non-spellcasters and feats), he is ignoring the bloated, cankerous tumour in 3e's balance, which is spells. Him talking about the brokenness of Rapid Shot while blissfully unaware of the abominations in the Spells section of the PHB is much like a patient complaining about catching a flu while a flesh-eating bacteria eats him alive.

I suspect you might be overreacting just a bit. I'm a bit curious as to why he left, and as to what he'll be doing next. I'm not going to jump to conclusions yet...I just don't have enough info to honestly say what this means.

Of course I'm over-reacting. The man is largely irrelevant, especially now that he's gone. The anger is tongue-in-cheek (though perhaps that wasn't transmitted well over the written medium).

[Tyndmyr]

No. No. No, just no. No. There are immensely better feats to pick at first level, for any class. Even if we restrict things to core only and even if it's a one-shot adventure. Off the top of my head, there is Spell Focus (and if the character is a human instead of an elf, Spell Focus(Conjuration) and Augment Summoning), Improved Counterspelling (if the adventure is caster-heavy), Improved Familiar (if they expect to reach 3rd level soonish, the wizard can put off binding a familiar until that time, or just dismiss his current one and rebind it at that time, freeing up his 3rd level feat for something more useful), Dodge (awful feat, but a +1 to AC is statistically better than a +3 to HP) and oh right, Improved Initiative. And this is assuming the wizard will remain a pure wizard. If the character is planning on gishing, acquiring combat feats early is, in many cases, quite vital.

As a trivial example, please show how +1 AC is better than +3 to HP at first level. As per Monte Cook's example, use an elf wizard with 3 hp normally.

Then, remember that dodge only works against ONE person, and is situationally not helping at all. No, dodge is a vastly worse feat.

As for your improved familiar bit...he was talking about a one shot at level 1. Level 3 will never happen, and is irrelevant. Improved Familiar is not relevant to the example he proposed and which you criticized. Summoning is terrible at level one, so Augment summoning also is.

At level one, your spell loadout is minimal. Counterspelling is not yet a very viable tactic.

Spell Focus is reasonable, but your loadout of spells is, again, low. You will probably spend the majority of your combat rounds doing something other than casting.

If you are level one, have no hp, and are playing a one shot, toughness is reasonable.

The fact that he values Invisibility over Web or Glitterdust as the king of 2nd level spells is ridiculous. Grease, a 1st level spell, is better than Invisibility.

Invisibility is a great spell. It's arguably a lot better than those two. For one thing, it has much greater out of combat potential.

And if he hadn't said "attack spell" when he was lauding the virtues of Magic Missile, he would've been dead wrong. Yes, Magic Missile is the best 1st level attack spell in core. It is not, however, better than Grease.

So...he's correct.

That's hilarious. No, seriously, it really is. Any decent spellcaster worth his salt can pump his DC sky high, guaranteeing any enemy who gets caught by the spell gets stunned. So what if it costs 30 GP per casting? Take Energy Admixture [Electricity] for a spell like Fireball or just drop a Scintillating Sphere (or a cleverly aimed Lightning Bolt, if we're doing core only) and voilà, an entire group of enemies stunned for two rounds (and damaged, on top of that). Any decent team needs only three rounds to mop up an enemy cluster. It's got all the brokenness of Web and Grease without any of its mild inconveniences (like having to pelt the enemies from a distance or enemies) and the extra damage is the cherry on top.

I agree that the 30 gp is irrelevant. The point is that the metamagic system just doesn't work well. The templates idea might be a bit better, if still not perfect. Note also that he says "target" in the template, implying that it's a single target effect.

Also note that it replaces metamagics, so using metamagics to break it is kind of...wrong.

The problem here is that, while he might be talking with some manner of sense about the specific topic he's discussing (non-spellcasters and feats), he is ignoring the bloated, cankerous tumour in 3e's balance, which is spells. Him talking about the brokenness of Rapid Shot while blissfully unaware of the abominations in the Spells section of the PHB is much like a patient complaining about catching a flu while a flesh-eating bacteria eats him alive.

He's not talking about that. He's using an example that is correct, and that easily illustrates what he wants to talk about. You want an entirely different topic. There's no particular reason why he should only talk about the thing you happen to feel is most important.

[Ravens_cry]

It didn't matter how many hit points you had, fail the fortitude save, and you only have 1-4 left.

Correction: There wasn't even a save, only SR could save your hide.

[Fatebreaker]

In the "First Link" that Shadowknight12 gave us, to me the damning bit is how Cook defends the 3.x system with the Timmy Card concept and gets it wrong.

The Magic team is metaphorically (and maybe literally?) right across the hall from him. This is not someone from Fantasy Flight or White Wolf who doesn't work with those concepts. It's not someone from outside the industry -- it's a concept used by his own company and he still didn't understand it. They even have links on their website which explain the idea in detail.

Trap options are, in my eyes, a terrible way to design a game. But y'know what, I can see having a reasonable debate with someone on the subject who disagrees with me.

But claiming you intentionally built trap options into your game in accordance with a design policy from an entirely different kind of game when the design policy in question is nothing like what you think it is even though it was devised and codified by your coworkers, all as an excuse for why your game is not balanced?

In the immortal words of the internet, "What is this I don't even."

[Shadowknight12]

As a trivial example, please show how +1 AC is better than +3 to HP at first level. As per Monte Cook's example, use an elf wizard with 3 hp normally.

Then, remember that dodge only works against ONE person, and is situationally not helping at all. No, dodge is a vastly worse feat.

If you're only attacked by a single person per round (and let's face it, at level 1, playing an elf wizard, no feat will save you if you're being gangbanged), then this post helps explain how AC increases your effective HP. Toughness is better than a +1 to AC only if the wizard's AC is very low. If the wizard pumps his AC (as he should), a +1 increase to AC ends up giving him a very large increase in his Effective HP, far outclassing Toughness even at level 1. I am not saying Dodge is a good feat. It is an awful, awful feat. But Toughness is (slightly) worse.

As for your improved familiar bit...he was talking about a one shot at level 1. Level 3 will never happen, and is irrelevant. Improved Familiar is not relevant to the example he proposed and which you criticized. Summoning is terrible at level one, so Augment summoning also is.

There are various ways to interpret "One shot adventure." It's not unreasonable a one-shot adventure might take characters from level 1 to level 3, 4 or 5 by time it ends, especially with generous XP rewards. Having said that, summoning, even if it lasts only for a round, can be made to work precisely because of Augment Summoning, giving it a +2 to attack and damage rolls, which is enough to make that one full-attack it can do before it disappears count in a battle. It's still a poor choice, but far better than Toughness.

At level one, your spell loadout is minimal. Counterspelling is not yet a very viable tactic.

A specialist with a high intelligence begs to differ. And besides, Counterspelling is not about quantity, it's about quality. You are not supposed to counterspell every spell you see, you're supposed to counterspell the spells that could cause a TPK or neutralise a bad guy's main shtick, such as an adventure that hinges on a spellcaster summoning a monster or raising undead. Counterspell that one single spell and suddenly you've made the encounter a whole lot easier.

Spell Focus is reasonable, but your loadout of spells is, again, low. You will probably spend the majority of your combat rounds doing something other than casting.

Yes, but if you specialise in save or suck spells, Spell Focus is invaluable. Who cares if you only cast one spell per encounter and then spend the rest of it shooting a crossbow? The spell you cast, thanks to Spell Focus, kept the enemies away from you (Grease, for example) and was far better than Toughness at keeping you alive.

If you are level one, have no hp, and are playing a one shot, toughness is reasonable.

As I said above, only if you are being silly and keeping your AC low. And if that's the case, then yes, you're going to get hit a lot, so by all means, take Toughness.

Invisibility is a great spell. It's arguably a lot better than those two. For one thing, it has much greater out of combat potential.

Out of combat? Debatable. In some situations (such as infiltrating, escaping or spying) then yes, you may be right. In combat? Invisibility is next to useless except as an emergency escaping mechanism (or if your wizard is going to be a rogue gish).

I agree that the 30 gp is irrelevant. The point is that the metamagic system just doesn't work well. The templates idea might be a bit better, if still not perfect. Note also that he says "target" in the template, implying that it's a single target effect.

Also note that it replaces metamagics, so using metamagics to break it is kind of...wrong.

"Implies" means nothing. As written, I can use that spell to lockdown entire groups of mooks with a damaging AOE spell. And even if we make it strictly single-target, it's still an awful idea, because single-target damage spells typically have high-damage outputs to compensate for the lack of spread and may have secondary effects (like the Orb line), so yeah, it's even worse. It can completely lock down big creatures meant to be encountered alone (like dragons, bigger undead and outsiders and the like), reducing them to a cakewalk. It doesn't matter if the metamagic system was wrong. This is just poor design. If you tell me that A) He explicitly intends no backwards compatibility with 3e (something that's automatically false because of his own intentions) and B) He has rebalanced the entire magic system in his new setting, then it's still too powerful, but at least it's not hilariously overpowered as it is if you combine it with 3e's spell list.

He's not talking about that. He's using an example that is correct, and that easily illustrates what he wants to talk about. You want an entirely different topic. There's no particular reason why he should only talk about the thing you happen to feel is most important.

He's talking about balance in general, first and foremost. That's what makes it so egregious. If he wasn't talking about balance in general (as he says it himself, "balance in the core rules"), then I wouldn't be up in arms about it. He can say "Yeah, magic is unbalanced, we all know that, but I'm here to talk about balance within the non-spellcaster options" and that would mean he knows what he's talking about. As is, he comes off as hilariously clueless.

[Jeraa]

Correction: There wasn't even a save, only SR could save your hide.

Correcting your correction: While in the first printing of the book (and the SRD) there was no save, in the 2nd printing of the 3.0 PHB there was a save.

[Ravens_cry]

Correcting your correction: While in the first printing of the book (and the SRD) there was no save, in the 2nd printing of the 3.0 PHB there was a save.

Well, I guess I got some first printings then.
This was also in earlier editions, but going up to cast a melee range spell was even more risky.

[Craft (Cheese)]

In the "First Link" that Shadowknight12 gave us, to me the damning bit is how Cook defends the 3.x system with the Timmy Card concept and gets it wrong.

The Magic team is metaphorically (and maybe literally?) right across the hall from him. This is not someone from Fantasy Flight or White Wolf who doesn't work with those concepts. It's not someone from outside the industry -- it's a concept used by his own company and he still didn't understand it. They even have links on their website which explain the idea in detail.

Trap options are, in my eyes, a terrible way to design a game. But y'know what, I can see having a reasonable debate with someone on the subject who disagrees with me.

But claiming you intentionally built trap options into your game in accordance with a design policy from an entirely different kind of game when the design policy in question is nothing like what you think it is even though it was devised and codified by your coworkers, all as an excuse for why your game is not balanced?

In the immortal words of the internet, "What is this I don't even."

Actually, pretty much this exact sentiment was expressed in a 2002 Magic article by Rosewater himself:

The next reason “bad” cards exist goes to the heart of what makes a trading card game tick. Trading card games, and Magic in particular, are very much about discovery. When you play Uno, for example, you don’t have to know that “Draw Four” is better than a blue 6. All the cards are shuffled together and you play what you get. But in Magic, you pick and choose which cards you use. That makes the ability to differentiate between cards very important. As you grow as a player, you get better at determining a card’s potential. This ongoing challenge is an important part of what keeps Magic fresh.

The best way to examine this quality is to think back to your own Magic history. Can you remember key times where you finally “got” some concept? When all of a sudden things just clicked and you realized why a card or a series of cards were better or worse than you originally thought? That is part of the thrill of playing Magic and R&D purposefully slopes the cards to allow a constant sense of discovery.

Still terrible game design, and he still misapplied the concept of Timmy cards, but I don't think he would have gotten any help by talking to the MtG guys.

[Fatebreaker]

Hey, I remember that article! I really liked it. Rosewater has some really good stuff to say.

I would like to think that, had Cook asked Rosewater to explain the Timmy Card vibe, Rosewater would have beaten the definition into Cook's brain. It's his baby, after all, and watching Cook misapply it cannot have been fun. That, and it shows Cook as having no clue what he's talking about, which is just bad for the company.

The difference, though, between Magic having "bad cards" and 3.x having "trap options" has a lot to do with the nature of the two games. Rosewater offers seven justifications for bad cards (spoiler'd for length):

Spoiler

Show

• All the Cards Cannot Be Good
  This is a fair point for any system. Any list of abilities (cards, classes, spells, feats, whatever) will naturally shake out a power structure. Some will be better, some will be worse. The ones near the bottom of the list will be "bad."
  
  
• Different Cards Appeal to Different Players
  This is also a fair point. Back when I was with Games Workshop, folks would ask me why [x] unit was even in the game. Sometimes, the answer really was "it's not for you."
  
  
• Diversity of Card Powers is Key to Discovery
  Still fair points for any diverse system. The more options you have, the more opportunities you have to find new ways to use them. Some of those only look like bad options until you find ways to make them good options.
  
  
• Power Levels are Relative
  This is where Magic and D&D3.x design theory start to diverge; the point here is that some bad cards combine really well with other cards to become game-winners. Cards that are "hard to instantly analyze" make for some surprising options that your opponent won't see coming. But D&D doesn't have an opponent. So while a diverse array of cards (or feats) does create opportunities to make interesting combination that aren't readily apparent, the concept of being unclear about the use of certain spells or abilities doesn't translate well to a cooperative game. It also doesn't translate well since your ability to change your deck is much easier than your ability to change your character.
  
  
• Diversity of Power Rewards the More Skilled Player
  This relies heavily on the random nature of Magic. You get random cards from packs, and thanks to the shuffling vibe you get random cards in play. Rather, you randomly get specific cards, but not always when you want them or in the combinations necessary for them to function. A skilled Magic player both chooses better cards ahead of time and learns to make do with only a random assortment of his total potential options. D&D, however, lacks this random factor which encourages this mindset. And again, the cooperative nature of the game comes into play. The "more skilled player" is rewarded not by his teammates choosing trap-options, and the DM doesn't win by accidentally killing the party.
  
  
• People Like Finding "Hidden Gems"
  “R&D cannot make good cards that seem bad without making bad cards that are actually bad.” This is unnecessary in a roleplaying game. It may have a home in a collectible card game, but not a roleplaying game.
  
  
• R&D is Only Human
  This should have been Cook's line. "Hey, we screwed up." But it wasn't. It leaves us caught between the possibility that Cook and his crew are super secret design geniuses who lie to their playerbase or that they're just bad and also liars. That is not the kind of choice you want to present your customers with.

Short version:
#1) Magic is a very random game: you get random cards in your packs and you shuffle your decks during play. D&D is not. You have very clear information when building your character and when actually playing him. You know all your spells and your abilities. You can use any of them at any time (barring some weird temporary ailment). Skill-cards help keep Magic from being too random. In D&D, the dice serve as the means by which randomness is introduced -- character design is the reliable bit!

#2) D&D is a cooperative, not competitive, game. Trap options in D&D hurt the entire party. A variety of skill-cards helps reward Magic players who master the system in direct opposition against a hostile player.

Me, I think Rosewater would have been able to see how something that works in one type of game isn't necessarily good in another type of game. He strikes me as having a good head on his shoulders.

I'm gonna go back and reread the Rosewater archives. Man knows his stuff.

[Malachei]

He's talking about balance in general, first and foremost. That's what makes it so egregious. If he wasn't talking about balance in general (as he says it himself, "balance in the core rules"), then I wouldn't be up in arms about it. He can say "Yeah, magic is unbalanced, we all know that, but I'm here to talk about balance within the non-spellcaster options" and that would mean he knows what he's talking about. As is, he comes off as hilariously clueless.

So he doesn't argue they way you think he should, and that makes him silly?

I was quite surprised to see this thread derail. I didn't expect gamers to have hard feelings towards a particular game designer, especially since 3rd edition has such a huge fan base, and, like it or not, as a 3.X player, you can play the game in part thanks to Monte Cook.

But as someone on another board put it:

True WotC Fan on Monte joining: "Yay, Monte Cook, the legend, is on the team! This bodes so well for the game! Shows how open to new ideas WotC is!"

True WotC Fan on Monte leaving: "Meh, 3ed was a mess, Monte's kind of cranky, so glad to see him go!"

And back to the original questions:

1. How do you think this will affect the design of D&D Next?
2. How do you think this will affect its commercial success?
3. Do you think Monte will be working with Paizo on Pathfinder, soon?

[Fatebreaker]

I was quite surprised to see this thread derail. I didn't expect gamers to have hard feelings towards a particular game designer, especially since 3rd edition has such a huge fan base, and, like it or not, as a 3.X player, you can play the game in part thanks to Monte Cook.

3.x wasn't my first trip to the rodeo -- I don't owe the man anything.

I also don't believe that 3.x being a financial success excuses Cook's poor decisions. We can and should hold people accountable; this holds true even when examining the actions of individuals within a group.

A hockey team can still win even if their goalie is terrible.

And back to the original questions:

1. How do you think this will affect the design of D&D Next?
2. How do you think this will affect its commercial success?
3. Do you think Monte will be working with Paizo on Pathfinder, soon?

#1) I don't believe we've seen enough hard evidence of what D&D Next actually is to successfully make that prediction. How far along is it? How easy will it be to change? How fundamental was Cook's input? For all we know, the reason they let him go was that they realized he wasn't contributing anything positive to the team or the game -- so maybe nothing will change because he had given them nothing to later change. Or maybe they realized that he was putting all these negative elements into the game, so not they need to work overtime to undo the damage. Honestly, I've heard a lot of claims and not a lot of clarity on the hard rules of 5e, so I'm in no position to judge.

#2) I honestly don't believe Cook's involvement or lack thereof is going to be a big deal, financially. People are first and foremost going to play games that they can play with their friends (or, if they don't have friends, at least other people). If a group doesn't go 5e, then there's only so far the 5e-enthusiasts will go down that rabbit hole. And a lot of folks simply don't pay attention to individuals within a team -- for them, D&D is by Wizards of the Coast (if they even pay attention to that), not by Monte Cook. Remember, for everyone here who pays attention to those sorts of details and combs the internet for rumors and discusses the intricacies of game design, there are all sorts of folks whose hobby consists solely of what does or doesn't happen at their own table. They'll play 5e if it's fun, not because one guy's name is or isn't somewhere in the credits.

#3) I suppose that depends on whether or not Paizo feels like Cook has anything to offer them; they seem to be doing just fine on their own.