New OOTS products from CafePress
New OOTS t-shirts, ornaments, mugs, bags, and more
Page 2 of 2 FirstFirst 12
Results 31 to 59 of 59
  1. - Top - End - #31
    Troll in the Playground
     
    SangoProduction's Avatar

    Join Date
    Aug 2014
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Most Useless Ink?

    Quote Originally Posted by Falontani View Post
    didn't that druid specifically twf with scimitars as well? Like seriously, how do you mess up the most powerful class that badly.
    Probably multiple ways:
    1) Seeing most of the abilities as essentially RP fluff.
    2) Not being knowledgeable / motivated to be mechanically powerful.
    3) Not even knowing that there are mathematically less good ways to play the game than others. I highly doubt the first thing you did when you popped open a rule book was to plug in combinations of stuff into a spreadsheet.

  2. - Top - End - #32
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    ezekielraiden's Avatar

    Join Date
    Jul 2018

    Default Re: Most Useless Ink?

    Quote Originally Posted by SangoProduction View Post
    Probably multiple ways:
    1) Seeing most of the abilities as essentially RP fluff.
    2) Not being knowledgeable / motivated to be mechanically powerful.
    3) Not even knowing that there are mathematically less good ways to play the game than others. I highly doubt the first thing you did when you popped open a rule book was to plug in combinations of stuff into a spreadsheet.
    Really, we can sum up all three in a single point: Not knowing how to playtest a game.

    Playtesting is not for having fun and enjoying a good gaming experience. Playtesting is for sniffing out all the places the game breaks down, doing what you can to identify them, and reporting that to the designers so they can address them. It requires an active interest in doing your damnedest to find the best (and worst) ways to play, regardless of fluff or flavor.

    In short, playtesting looks an awful lot like optimization, except it also allows for intentionally trying to mess up to see just how bad you can get as well as seeing just how good you can get. Going into the playtesting process and expecting a normal TTRPG process, where you have a DM that will compensate for things and players that can be reasoned with or talked down, where the point is to have the most fun regardless of what specific stuff is played, is doomed to failure.

    It's one of the reasons why I've soured so much on public playtest stuff. I find 90% of the time it's just a publicity stunt, yet designers repeatedly present it as far more.

  3. - Top - End - #33
    Troll in the Playground
     
    SangoProduction's Avatar

    Join Date
    Aug 2014
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Most Useless Ink?

    Quote Originally Posted by ezekielraiden View Post
    Really, we can sum up all three in a single point: Not knowing how to playtest a game.

    Playtesting is not for having fun and enjoying a good gaming experience. Playtesting is for sniffing out all the places the game breaks down, doing what you can to identify them, and reporting that to the designers so they can address them. It requires an active interest in doing your damnedest to find the best (and worst) ways to play, regardless of fluff or flavor.

    In short, playtesting looks an awful lot like optimization, except it also allows for intentionally trying to mess up to see just how bad you can get as well as seeing just how good you can get. Going into the playtesting process and expecting a normal TTRPG process, where you have a DM that will compensate for things and players that can be reasoned with or talked down, where the point is to have the most fun regardless of what specific stuff is played, is doomed to failure.

    It's one of the reasons why I've soured so much on public playtest stuff. I find 90% of the time it's just a publicity stunt, yet designers repeatedly present it as far more.
    Do realize that D&D 3e wasn't released to the public until the year 2000. Back then, "game design" wasn't a proper profession. Hell, the number one stressful issue of the day was the fact that digital memory space was so strict that the 2 extra digits for storing the date was skipped to save on it. (Now we've got literal terrabytes of space on USB drives.)
    "Playtesting," was not what it is today.

  4. - Top - End - #34
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    Planetar

    Join Date
    Feb 2009

    Default Re: Most Useless Ink?

    Quote Originally Posted by Luccan View Post
    Presumably for old school play, where how long it takes to get somewhere could matter (supplies, getting a res in low level play)... which by my understanding was kind of out of style even before 3.0
    As a DM, I see the appeal of these rules - they have the potential to add a bit of realism and immersiveness. If there were a way to use them without the game devolving into Supplies&Logistics too much, that would be great.

    On topic:
    I think for similar reasons, I didn't use many of the more fiddly rules - I usually handwave vision and light rules, as well as tactical aerial movement (figuring out forward speads, turn degrees, etc.), because they just take too long to adjudicate.

  5. - Top - End - #35
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    DwarfClericGuy

    Join Date
    Nov 2013
    Location
    Pennsylvania, USA
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Most Useless Ink?

    Quote Originally Posted by Luccan View Post
    Presumably for old school play, where how long it takes to get somewhere could matter (supplies, getting a res in low level play)... which by my understanding was kind of out of style even before 3.0
    You use the overland travel rules for hexploration campaigns quite heavily. Kingmaker is the archetypical example that everyone knows nowadays thanks to the PC game, but it's hardly the first or only.
    Last edited by AnonymousPepper; 2021-01-08 at 05:19 AM.

  6. - Top - End - #36
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    unseenmage's Avatar

    Join Date
    Apr 2013
    Location
    Middle of nowhere USA.
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Most Useless Ink?

    Quote Originally Posted by Thurbane View Post
    In addition to what's been listed: spells.

    The spell bloat in 3.X is staggering. Especially when you consider that only about 10-20% of published spells will ever see gameplay. And so many spells are double ups of existing spells, just with slight cosmetic changes.

    Don't get me wrong: it's nice to have a lot of spells to chose from, but the bloat is real.
    My IRL group's reasoning for spells not being a bigger offender is that a cleric can swap out their whole spell selection every day. And a wizard could literally learn nearly every spell WBL permitting.

    Additionally spells can be meaningfully encountered on both sides of the GM screen in a multitude of ways.

    Feats on the other hand have very very few ways to.even be present at the fights. Especially with feat taxes and feat chains.

    The Feats In Magic Items sidebar in Arms and Equipment could have helped this but they're fairly overpriced and it moves the burden of allowing feats to be present for your character from feat slots to your WBL which has it's own troubles with expected equipment bonuses and immunities by level.

    Magic items made our cut because of how formulaic they are. For my money magic items have far more useless members printed than spells even when considering loot tables.

    Our group pointed out that magic items being formulaic also makes them super easy to use to fill space in a book.

    Also, as mentioned earlier, there's a certain amount of a character's WBL that is expected to be spent on remaining relevant in combat so the amount of wealth left over for shenaniganery style items isnt always a lot.
    Last edited by unseenmage; 2021-01-08 at 10:00 AM.

  7. - Top - End - #37
    Banned
     
    GreenSorcererElf

    Join Date
    Jul 2016

    Default Re: Most Useless Ink?

    Monsters. I have played at literally hundreds of tables, but only seen 5% of monsters. It's why I incorporated so many different kinds in my campaign world.

  8. - Top - End - #38
    Orc in the Playground
    Join Date
    Sep 2017
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Most Useless Ink?

    Quote Originally Posted by Calthropstu View Post
    Monsters. I have played at literally hundreds of tables, but only seen 5% of monsters. It's why I incorporated so many different kinds in my campaign world.
    This is a really good point. I have thrown weird 1 off monsters at a party before and it shut them down. People are so used to seeing the standard monsters that make up only 25% of the game, that the other 75% can really be head scratchers. Major swaths of the MM2+ books are practically unused.

  9. - Top - End - #39
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    DwarfClericGuy

    Join Date
    Nov 2013
    Location
    Pennsylvania, USA
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Most Useless Ink?

    Quote Originally Posted by unseenmage View Post
    The Feats In Magic Items sidebar in Arms and Equipment could have helped this but they're fairly overpriced and it moves the burden of allowing feats to be present for your character from feat slots to your WBL which has it's own troubles with expected equipment bonuses and immunities by level.
    This sidebar was one of the biggest mistakes in 3e, wym? Anyone with even a basic investment into item crafting could snap the game in half with this more so than perhaps any other rule set. Like. Even with my most wacky artificers, I avoided these things. They're cheese, pure and simple. Without any feat investment besides craft wondrous, you can get them down to <30% market price...

  10. - Top - End - #40
    Troll in the Playground
     
    SangoProduction's Avatar

    Join Date
    Aug 2014
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Most Useless Ink?

    Quote Originally Posted by Calthropstu View Post
    Monsters. I have played at literally hundreds of tables, but only seen 5% of monsters. It's why I incorporated so many different kinds in my campaign world.
    The Pareto Principle, named after esteemed economist Vilfredo Pareto, specifies that 80% of consequences come from 20% of the causes, asserting an unequal relationship between inputs and outputs.

    Actually learned of it in my comp sci classes, where 80% of your errors come from 20% of your code. And 20% of your code runs 80% of the time. Although it applies to basically everything from linguistics to people to ... monsters.

    It's an almost inevitable observation. But without a vast swathe of unused monsters, you'd get an excessively small number of used ones.

  11. - Top - End - #41
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    MaxiDuRaritry's Avatar

    Join Date
    Dec 2015
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Most Useless Ink?

    Quote Originally Posted by SangoProduction View Post
    The Pareto Principle, named after esteemed economist Vilfredo Pareto, specifies that 80% of consequences come from 20% of the causes, asserting an unequal relationship between inputs and outputs.

    Actually learned of it in my comp sci classes, where 80% of your errors come from 20% of your code. And 20% of your code runs 80% of the time. Although it applies to basically everything from linguistics to people to ... monsters.

    It's an almost inevitable observation. But without a vast swathe of unused monsters, you'd get an excessively small number of used ones.
    I wonder how this is related to Sturgeon's Law -- "90% of everything is garbage."
    Last edited by MaxiDuRaritry; 2021-01-08 at 02:42 PM.

  12. - Top - End - #42
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    OrcBarbarianGuy

    Join Date
    May 2018
    Location
    Colorado
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Most Useless Ink?

    I am going with setting a weapon against a charge, it is a great rule in theory but I have never seen nor heard of anyone using it.

  13. - Top - End - #43
    Troll in the Playground
     
    Flumph

    Join Date
    Oct 2007

    Default Re: Most Useless Ink?

    Feat or Spell bloat is a tricky one, because while it's true that probably 90% go unused, I don't think the good 10% would exist without the rest. Based on PF2 and 4E/5E, a lot of the stuff I enjoy in 3.x was put in there by mistake, and if WotC or Paizo had been able to precision-tune every feat and spell it would likely have been (for me) not as good a game.

    So I'm probably going with multiclass XP penalties, for not only being seldom used but having mostly negative consequences when it does get used.

    Incidentally, I think Living Greyhawk used those rules. I played a Monk 2 / Barbarian 1 / Fighter 2 / Ranger 1 - no XP penalty there! But at least I wasn't trying to play some cheesy nonsense like a Barbarian 4 / Ranger 2.
    Last edited by icefractal; 2021-01-08 at 03:24 PM.

  14. - Top - End - #44
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    unseenmage's Avatar

    Join Date
    Apr 2013
    Location
    Middle of nowhere USA.
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Most Useless Ink?

    Quote Originally Posted by AnonymousPepper View Post
    This sidebar was one of the biggest mistakes in 3e, wym? Anyone with even a basic investment into item crafting could snap the game in half with this more so than perhaps any other rule set. Like. Even with my most wacky artificers, I avoided these things. They're cheese, pure and simple. Without any feat investment besides craft wondrous, you can get them down to <30% market price...
    That is more a problem with 3.x feats than with the guidelines presented by the sidebar. Put the same mechanism into PF where feats dont grant magical superpowers and you just wind up with metamagic rods by any other name.

  15. - Top - End - #45
    Banned
     
    GreenSorcererElf

    Join Date
    Jul 2016

    Default Re: Most Useless Ink?

    Quote Originally Posted by liquidformat View Post
    I am going with setting a weapon against a charge, it is a great rule in theory but I have never seen nor heard of anyone using it.
    I have a friend who literally TRIES to use it. Many times he has done it, set his weapon for a charge. EVERY SINGLE TIME the GM has made the enemy NOT charge. It has been multiple GMs who have done this, on a regular basis. Pisses him off to no end. To be fair, it DOES at least remove the +2 they get from charging.

  16. - Top - End - #46
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    MaxiDuRaritry's Avatar

    Join Date
    Dec 2015
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Most Useless Ink?

    Quote Originally Posted by Calthropstu View Post
    I have a friend who literally TRIES to use it. Many times he has done it, set his weapon for a charge. EVERY SINGLE TIME the GM has made the enemy NOT charge. It has been multiple GMs who have done this, on a regular basis. Pisses him off to no end. To be fair, it DOES at least remove the +2 they get from charging.
    It does make sense. Would you run right into getting stabbed if you see someone readying themselves to do so?

  17. - Top - End - #47
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Maat Mons's Avatar

    Join Date
    May 2018

    Default Re: Most Useless Ink?

    Readying actions is pretty useless in general.

    Especially if your DMs make sure enemies never take the action the actions you're readied against. Then it's just a convoluted way of skipping your turn.

    But even if the DM doesn't change enemy behavior based on your readied actions, you're still betting your entire turn on the idea that you know what your enemy is going to do.

  18. - Top - End - #48
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    unseenmage's Avatar

    Join Date
    Apr 2013
    Location
    Middle of nowhere USA.
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Most Useless Ink?

    Quote Originally Posted by Maat Mons View Post
    Readying actions is pretty useless in general.

    Especially if your DMs make sure enemies never take the action the actions you're readied against. Then it's just a convoluted way of skipping your turn.

    But even if the DM doesn't change enemy behavior based on your readied actions, you're still betting your entire turn on the idea that you know what your enemy is going to do.
    A GM once allowed me to use Spellfire in an Eberron module. When that GM quit and one of the players took over we found that exactly none of the enemies would have ever cast spells at me.

    Spellfire requires a readied action to use. :(

  19. - Top - End - #49
    Ettin in the Playground
    Join Date
    Jun 2015

    Default Re: Most Useless Ink?

    Quote Originally Posted by unseenmage View Post
    A GM once allowed me to use Spellfire in an Eberron module. When that GM quit and one of the players took over we found that exactly none of the enemies would have ever cast spells at me.

    Spellfire requires a readied action to use. :(
    You get magic immunity but only from opponents(and not from allies) for free basically?
    If yes it means you spent a feat in a not too bad way (technically you could have picked more cheese for prcs and general opness instead but it is bad for many tables because most players does not wants 100% cheese characters)
    Last edited by noob; 2021-01-08 at 06:17 PM.

  20. - Top - End - #50
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Kelb_Panthera's Avatar

    Join Date
    Oct 2009

    Default Re: Most Useless Ink?

    Quote Originally Posted by Maat Mons View Post
    Readying actions is pretty useless in general.

    Especially if your DMs make sure enemies never take the action the actions you're readied against. Then it's just a convoluted way of skipping your turn.

    But even if the DM doesn't change enemy behavior based on your readied actions, you're still betting your entire turn on the idea that you know what your enemy is going to do.
    One thing we do at my table is to scratch down the readied action on a scrap of paper instead saying it out loud to the GM and only actually say "I ready an action." If one of the NPCs triggers the action, you pass the note to the GM with a big cheshire grin. Harder to do on roll 20 though.
    I am not seaweed. That's a B.

    Praise I've received
    Spoiler
    Show
    Quote Originally Posted by ThiagoMartell View Post
    Kelb, recently it looks like you're the Avatar of Reason in these forums, man.
    Quote Originally Posted by LTwerewolf View Post
    [...] bringing Kelb in on your side in a rules fight is like bringing Mike Tyson in on your side to fight a toddler. You can, but it's such massive overkill.
    A quick outline on building a homebrew campaign

    Avatar by Tiffanie Lirle

  21. - Top - End - #51
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Telok's Avatar

    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    61.2° N, 149.9° W
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Most Useless Ink?

    I believe that the "ready vs charge" was an attempt to replicate in th 3e action economy the "set to receive charge" from AD&D. Which is a great tactic when you can cram 8 followers into a 10' hall with 15' & 20' pikes and get 8 free double damage attacks on every charger. Recalling as well that PCs & henchies getting over +6 to damage rolls was rare untill higher levels.

  22. - Top - End - #52
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    Lizardfolk

    Join Date
    Jul 2013

    Default Re: Most Useless Ink?

    Quote Originally Posted by Kelb_Panthera View Post
    One thing we do at my table is to scratch down the readied action on a scrap of paper instead saying it out loud to the GM and only actually say "I ready an action." If one of the NPCs triggers the action, you pass the note to the GM with a big cheshire grin. Harder to do on roll 20 though.
    This is BRILLIANT and I'm stealing it!
    Quote Originally Posted by Red Fel View Post
    What legacy do we leave, after all, but those quotes that others have sigged?
    Quote Originally Posted by Jergmo View Post
    What do you do when you fight an undead that turns into a spider that's filled with spiders that turns into spiders after trapping you in magical webbing? You scream, and you never stop.
    'Prax' is fine.

    Take your forklift safety seriously, kids. You'll lose, every time.

  23. - Top - End - #53
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    Malphegor's Avatar

    Join Date
    May 2018

    Default Re: Most Useless Ink?

    spells for sure. A lot of arcane and divine spells should have been condensed ala Psionics where you spend more power somehow to cast higher ranked versions.

    Multiple versions of summon monster is just ridiculous
    OI YOU! Join this one Discord where people talk 3.5 stuff! Also chicken infested related things! It’s pretty rad! https://discord.gg/6HmgXhUZ

  24. - Top - End - #54
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    DwarfBarbarianGuy

    Join Date
    Apr 2016
    Location
    No Longer The Frostfell

    Default Re: Most Useless Ink?

    Quote Originally Posted by Kelb_Panthera View Post
    One thing we do at my table is to scratch down the readied action on a scrap of paper instead saying it out loud to the GM and only actually say "I ready an action." If one of the NPCs triggers the action, you pass the note to the GM with a big cheshire grin. Harder to do on roll 20 though.
    I've rolled the ready action option in somewhat with the delay action option. If you delay your action, you are ticking down in the initiative count and you will always reside there. If you ready an action, you forego your movement in order to prepare yourself to react to your surroundings. Then, at any point before your next turn, you may take your standard action however you see fit, basically like an immediate standard action. If you act first in the initiative, it gives you lots of flexibility to react on the battlefield. This reflects that better than trying to predict what the enemy is going to do and makes things like brace against charges and counterspelling much more viable from the start.

  25. - Top - End - #55
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    Phhase's Avatar

    Join Date
    Sep 2010
    Location
    X/Z 12,550,821

    Default Re: Most Useless Ink?

    Unpopular opinion: I like that there's so many spells, even (or especially!) if some are redundant in some way. It makes things feel..more realistic? If I'm allowed to use that word in this context. It seems like a system designed by humans/sentients through trial and error would naturally have such foibles and quirks. People would come to the same conclusions from different angles, make things the same but just slightly different according to needs, etc. Even if some of the spells are truly, truly vestigial with no conceivable purpose whatsoever, I think that just makes one consider what actually makes the other choices so much more valuable. Now, despite that, I DO laud 5e's attempts to consolidate some of the more egregious redundancies through upcasting (Like Summon Monster), but I do think it went too far in some cases. But on the whole, I like seeing all of the odd variations that occur when things are just all over the place. You won't find things like Avascular Mass or Blood Star in 5e, I tell you hwat.
    Sometimes, I have strong opinions on seemingly inconsequential matters.
    Quote Originally Posted by Crisis21 View Post
    Phhase he played four
    He played nick nack on my door
    With a nick nack paddy whack
    Give a dog a bone
    Phhase came rolling home.
    Quote Originally Posted by Ventruenox View Post
    You found a way to backstab... with a ballista...

    I want to play at your table.
    Spoiler: How to have a Good Idea
    Show
    Quote Originally Posted by Yunru View Post
    Buy a lava lamp, it more than doubles the rate of good ideas :p
    Better yet, buy this lava lamp.

  26. - Top - End - #56
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    Bohandas's Avatar

    Join Date
    Feb 2016

    Default Re: Most Useless Ink?

    Quote Originally Posted by Ajustusdaniel View Post
    I fundamentally disagree with the premise that if a party cannot take all options, then some of those options are necessarily wasted. A different party may take them. If there were exactly enough feats for a player to use, character building would be a lot less interesting.
    I second this
    "If you want to understand biology don't think about vibrant throbbing gels and oozes, think about information technology" -Richard Dawkins

    Omegaupdate Forum

    WoTC Forums Archive + Indexing Projext

    PostImage, a free and sensible alternative to Photobucket

    Temple+ Modding Project for Atari's Temple of Elemental Evil

    Morrus' RPG Forum (EN World v2)

  27. - Top - End - #57
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    OrcBarbarianGuy

    Join Date
    May 2018
    Location
    Colorado
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Most Useless Ink?

    Quote Originally Posted by MaxiDuRaritry View Post
    It does make sense. Would you run right into getting stabbed if you see someone readying themselves to do so?
    Yeah the big issue is it is a tactic designed specifically for military use, literally the only time you would see it based on the way the game mechanics is when armies fight because the charging force doesn't have the option to not charge even though the apposing force has set their weapons for a charge.

  28. - Top - End - #58
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    MaxiDuRaritry's Avatar

    Join Date
    Dec 2015
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Most Useless Ink?

    The MIC's steadfast boots automatically ready your weapon against charges, so you don't waste time or energy on doing so. If everyone knows that you're automagically readied against any charge they make, and you deal significant damage on your hits, it's highly unlikely that they'll charge you while wearing them. This means (essentially) immunity to charge attacks.

  29. - Top - End - #59
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    RedKnightGirl

    Join Date
    Feb 2006
    Location
    California
    Gender
    Male

    d6 Re: Most Useless Ink?

    Quote Originally Posted by AnonymousPepper View Post
    This sidebar was one of the biggest mistakes in 3e, wym? Anyone with even a basic investment into item crafting could snap the game in half with this more so than perhaps any other rule set. Like. Even with my most wacky artificers, I avoided these things. They're cheese, pure and simple. Without any feat investment besides craft wondrous, you can get them down to <30% market price...

    So slight disagreement. You get the feat at 3rd level. There is very little you can make as far as magic items. At 7th you pick up a nice variety, however the party or your character must be idle in one location with a lab, forge and materials must be bought maintained then a skill check completed.

    You can not make rings without 12th level and another feat.

    I took the craft magic item feat at 3rd as a cleric most useless feat. Craft potions is slightly better.
    9 wisdom true neutral cleric you know you want me in your adventuring party


Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •