The Official "4e Critique and Rebuttal" Thread

[Gralamin]

1. Fragile system: play like the devs or break the game. - This was true in 3.5, now while it is still to a degree true, its much less so. In 3.5, if you wanted a balanced game, you literally had to play either classes of Tier 3 or below, or played like WoTC, IE: Tank Fighter, Healing Cleric, Skill Monkey Rogue, Evoker Wizard / Sorcerer. So, 4e is a step of progress to eliminating this, its still there, orbizards and a few other builds still have the problem, but overall if your going to fault a system for this, at least note that 3.5 the game it succeeded had it much worse.

I find it dreary and painful to read much of your 4e apologetics post, but I'll start with this one.

Because trying to have intelligent discourse means I'm trying to apologize for 4e?

You are barking up the wrong tree. This forum is filled with people who play high power games of D&D that work and work well. Some concepts weren't really available until Tome material, IE Fighter who does anything but charge, Monk at all, but in general nothing stopped us from playing Druid, Cleric, Wizard, Flask Rogue against CR appropriate challenges played intelligently instead of like morons.

So what your saying is you either A) Homebrew problems so they are gone (Fallacy), or B) Use the high tier of power and then consider that your opponents are being played intelligently, and the only reason you can face them is because you are using the exploits inherit in the system, and so are your opponents? (I'm trying to make sure I understand what your playstyle is.)

CR is generally a lot harder then people think when you start playing the way they should be. It starts with Dragons, and then everyone whines that Dragons are OPed, then you use Outsiders, and everyone complains that OUtsiders are OPed, then you use Aboleths and Intelligent NPCs exploiting the same tricks as the PCs, and it's just because there are some strong creatures and it's the tricks themselves that are the problem.

CR is a broken system which overall has a range of different possible things which should be of equivalent strengths which are unable to stand up against each other.
As for exploiting tricks, what do you mean in the context of 3.5? Do you mean drowning rules, do you mean Incantrix, do you mean Pun-Pun? What Level of Exploitation are you going to?

Then you end up with Monks and a third of the monster Manual, and suddenly everything is easy and every Wizard/Druid/Cleric is broken.

Except for the fact that Casters are clearly more powerful then other classes and broken.

If you actually play with the good parts of the monster manual, which is generally most of it, then you need high powered characters, and playing like the designers intended without similarly crippling monsters gets people TPKed.

Funny Fact: if you assume Exploits in the system are the norm, your going to raise everything's power, possibly to TPK level. If you merely play things intelligently, without relying on Exploits, then you can make it hard without requiring Wizard/Druid/Cleric in order to win. Arguing that you can't use parts of the monster manual without exploiting abilities or else playing them like morons, is frankly, insane.

1. Fragile system: play like the devs or break the game. - This was true in 3.5, now while it is still to a degree true, its much less so. In 3.5, if you wanted a balanced game, you literally had to play either classes of Tier 3 or below, or played like WoTC, IE: Tank Fighter, Healing Cleric, Skill Monkey Rogue, Evoker Wizard / Sorcerer. So, 4e is a step of progress to eliminating this, its still there, orbizards and a few other builds still have the problem, but overall if your going to fault a system for this, at least note that 3.5 the game it succeeded had it much worse.

The "play like the devs" bit refers to having parties with mixed roles and tactics. By simply picking a single build and having every player copy it, the 4e encounter system is broken in twain. It doesn't even matter which build you replicate.

That's failure in the utmost, because it is a failure to meet their stated design criterion of rewarding and encouraging party diversity.

I'd like to see this. I've never seen PCs all choose the same thing, probably because its boring to be the exact same. Just like how its boring to play all Batman/God Wizards. In addition, copying the same build is going to leave a lot of situations in the game that the build can't fix. Skill challenges (if they worked) are supposed to accommodate that position, as are traps.

Edit:

This forum is filled with people who play high power games of D&D that work and work well.

Not really.

By "work". you mean having a piles of house rules to make the game not completely implode, and another pile of house rules to allow classes other than primary spellcasters to not totally suck.

A RAW high level 3.5 game is a complete disaster.

Exactly.

[Kaelik]

This forum is filled with people who play high power games of D&D that work and work well.

Not really.

By "work". you mean having a piles of house rules to make the game not completely implode, and another pile of house rules to allow classes other than primary spellcasters to not totally suck.

A RAW high level 3.5 game is a complete disaster.

No RC. I don't. And I know this will never get through your thick skull, but I have played, am currently DMing, and will play many 3.5 none Tome games that have the following houserule: "I kill your family if I hear the words Wish or Gate." That's it. All. Fucking Serious. Go smoke a crack pipe and come back but don't you ever fucking tell me again that I play with a shitton of houserules because "blah blah I RC can't fucking shut up about how much I hate 3.5."

[Kaelik]

Because trying to have intelligent discourse means I'm trying to apologize for 4e?

Apologetics does not mean what you think it means. Admittedly it's connotation has been ruined by association with religious retards.

So what your saying is you either A) Homebrew problems so they are gone (Fallacy), or B) Use the high tier of power and then consider that your opponents are being played intelligently, and the only reason you can face them is because you are using the exploits inherit in the system, and so are your opponents? (I'm trying to make sure I understand what your playstyle is.)

Thank you for not paying attention. 1) I specifically said no homebrew. 2) Yes, both sides playing intelligently results in CR and the good PC classes being on about equal footing.

As for exploiting tricks, what do you mean in the context of 3.5? Do you mean drowning rules, do you mean Incantrix, do you mean Pun-Pun? What Level of Exploitation are you going to?

Pun Pun requires a book that neither I nor anyone I know owns. Incantatrix as well, but would be fine in some of my more high powered games.

I am talking about the fact that a Level 6 Cleric can have an undead posse, but so can the NPCs.

Except for the fact that Casters are clearly more powerful then other classes and broken.

Except the fact that casters and some specific non casters are clearly more powerful than Fighters and Monks, and CR appropriate opposition is clearly more powerful than Fighters and Monks, and therefore it's not the casters that are broken, it's the Fighters and Monks.

Funny Fact: if you assume Exploits in the system are the norm, your going to raise everything's power, possibly to TPK level. If you merely play things intelligently, without relying on Exploits, then you can make it hard without requiring Wizard/Druid/Cleric in order to win. Arguing that you can't use parts of the monster manual without exploiting abilities or else playing them like morons, is frankly, insane.

This just demonstrates that you paid no attention to anything I said. Of course it requires good characters to win, that's the fucking point. It requires good characters to win in every other game I play, why should this one be any different.

[Gralamin]

This forum is filled with people who play high power games of D&D that work and work well.

Not really.

By "work". you mean having a piles of house rules to make the game not completely implode, and another pile of house rules to allow classes other than primary spellcasters to not totally suck.

A RAW high level 3.5 game is a complete disaster.

No RC. I don't. And I know this will never get through your thick skull, but I have played, am currently DMing, and will play many 3.5 none Tome games that have the following houserule: "I kill your family if I hear the words Wish or Gate." That's it. All. Fucking Serious. Go smoke a crack pipe and come back but don't you ever fucking tell me again that I play with a shitton of houserules because "blah blah I RC can't fucking shut up about how much I hate 3.5."

So, your allowing Astral Projection, Genesis, Celerity, Foresight, and a host of other spells that grossly overpower casters, as long as they can't use two other high level spells. So You'd agree those two spells are overpowered, and a house rule is needed for balance. Meaning that you can't actually play high power 3.5 without house rules, and thus are in fact, not actually playing high power 3.5, but your own version ofit.

[Kaelik]

So, your allowing Astral Projection, Genesis, Celerity, Foresight, and a host of other spells that grossly overpower casters, as long as they can't use two other high level spells. So You'd agree those two spells are overpowered, and a house rule is needed for balance. Meaning that you can't actually play high power 3.5 without house rules, and thus are in fact, not actually playing high power 3.5, but your own version ofit.

Yes, I am allowing Astral Projection (from level 9, thank you Nightmare) Genesis, Celerity, and Foresight. Celerity stuns you after you use it, and Foresight isn't that badass for a 9th level spell. Astral Projection is really good at not forcing me to charge them money for a TPK, and creates it's own drawbacks.

But thank you for being a tireless jackass who thinks the banning of two spells is exactly equivalent to not playing 3.5. You are just as bad as any religious apologetic in that your preordained conclusion (3.5 is crap wah wah wah) blinds you to the fact that my statement of how I play 3.5 directly and explicitly contradicts your false claim in your first point of your first post, and now you are just trying to score imaginary points about how bad 3.5 is because I have to ban two 9th level spells.

[DragonChild]

5. Various broken abilities that demonstrate a lack of playtesting and/or willful disregard for legitimate concerns (Orbizard, Demigod epic destiny, rangers soloing Orcus, and so on). - Orbizard is a problem, as I've noted. Demigod is only really a problem at level 30, which isn't so bad as your supposed to stop playing pretty soon after reaching it. This is much much more common in 3.5 though, where, you know, Casters win.

How about the fact that in PHB 2 there's a multiclass feat that gives you +2 damage with all attacks for one encounter, 1/day, when other multiclass feats give you +1d6 damage with one attack MAYBE 1/encounter.

Or Martial Power's horrible obvious lack of playtesting. How did Guileful Switch (nicknamed "Godawful Switch" by my group) get through?

Hell. Power creep, in general, seems to be a major problem.

1. Exception-based design wanking, plus shit like the four different "evil eye" variations. Includes ability interaction and "How the hell do I adjudicate this?" - Example? Because this really hasn't been a problem that I've seen or heard of before.

Evil eye is your example. There are multiple evil eye powers, over multiple monsters, and they all do different things, despite all being named "Evil Eye". This makes system mastery very hard - the DM cannot as easily remember what does what - AND makes the world make less sense. So the cyclops yesterday used his one eye to daze us, but the cyclops today uses it to... make more accurate ranged attacks?

8. Swathes of poorly-written and vaguely-worded mechanics. - Like what? Very few mechanics are poorly worded that I've seen, and sure, Death may or may not still do anything, but at least we don't have Drowning or such anymore.

What happens when an ooze or other monster attempts to pull a dwarf into its square, with no number listed? What if he's doing it at melee? What if he's doing it at reach 2?

How, exactly, does the wizard spellbook work? The Q&A answer here was very stupid.


And for what it's worth, I play and run 4e, and am generally considered a "4e defender" on the chat I frequent. Yet I'm starting to hate it more and more.

[RandomCasualty2]

No RC. I don't. And I know this will never get through your thick skull, but I have played, am currently DMing, and will play many 3.5 none Tome games that have the following houserule: "I kill your family if I hear the words Wish or Gate." That's it. All. Fucking Serious. Go smoke a crack pipe and come back but don't you ever fucking tell me again that I play with a shitton of houserules because "blah blah I RC can't fucking shut up about how much I hate 3.5."

So what stops fabricate infinite wealth loops and people using polymorph any object and shapechange to totally wreck the game? What about people just endlessly spamming planar bindings? Plane shift to timeless planes where you can infiniteyl rest?
Even w/o gate and wish, there's still plenty of ways to break 3.5

Ice assassin, simulacrum, disjunction... I mean you name it... Just drop your money on buying a scroll of a 9th level spell and you can basically cause the game to implode. Not to mention the obvious problem that like most of the classes are totally unplayable.

But forget that other shit. Epic diplomacy = total win.

Seriously, don't try to sell a game like that as functional.

High level 4E sucks, don't get me wrong. It's an awful boring grind. But high level 3E literally implodes. Someone casts one of many spells and the game ceases to even be about adventuring. It's just some guy sitting in a lead box astrally projecting and mass binding. Or at the very worst, a guy with epic diplomacy running around turning every enemy he meets into part of his army, until his army gets so big the DM just says "You win" and gives up. 4E at the very least can continue until the DM and PCs become so bored with the grind they move on.

[Gralamin]

Because trying to have intelligent discourse means I'm trying to apologize for 4e?

Apologetics does not mean what you think it means. Admittedly it's connotation has been ruined by association with religious retards.

apologetic - Having the character of apology; regretfully excusing; Defending by words or arguments; said or written in defense
It seems you mean the last two definitions, but the word has a lot of other meanings and you really didn't attempt to clarify which you meant.

So what your saying is you either A) Homebrew problems so they are gone (Fallacy), or B) Use the high tier of power and then consider that your opponents are being played intelligently, and the only reason you can face them is because you are using the exploits inherit in the system, and so are your opponents? (I'm trying to make sure I understand what your playstyle is.)

Thank you for not paying attention. 1) I specifically said no homebrew. 2) Yes, both sides playing intelligently results in CR and the good PC classes being on about equal footing.

1) Tomes are Homebrew, as are house rules.
2) Exploit based style, got it.

As for exploiting tricks, what do you mean in the context of 3.5? Do you mean drowning rules, do you mean Incantrix, do you mean Pun-Pun? What Level of Exploitation are you going to?

Pun Pun requires a book that neither I nor anyone I know owns. Incantatrix as well, but would be fine in some of my more high powered games.

I am talking about the fact that a Level 6 Cleric can have an undead posse, but so can the NPCs.

Alright.

Except for the fact that Casters are clearly more powerful then other classes and broken.

Except the fact that casters and some specific non casters are clearly more powerful than Fighters and Monks, and CR appropriate opposition is clearly more powerful than Fighters and Monks, and therefore it's not the casters that are broken, it's the Fighters and Monks.

Except that Casters are also clearly stronger then oh, most of the classes. In fact, I remember CharOp coming out with a chart of the strongest classes in 3.5 that went:
wizard, archivist, artificer, druid, cleric, psion, sorcerer, erudite, beguiler, wu jen, spirit shaman, favored soul, dread necromancer, ardent, warblade, crusader, swordsage, wilder, shugenja, dragonfire adept, duskblade, psychic warrior, warlock, factotum, binder, totemist, rogue, bard, warmage, scout, shadowcaster, barbarian, ranger, incarnate, lurk, dragon shaman, knight, swashbuckler, paladin, soulborn, ninja, fighter, hexblade, divine mind, marshal, adept, monk, healer, spellthief, truenamer, expert, soulknife, samurai, warrior, aristocrat, commoner

At what point is the line crossed where you'd say that things under it are broken, and not the casters?

Funny Fact: if you assume Exploits in the system are the norm, your going to raise everything's power, possibly to TPK level. If you merely play things intelligently, without relying on Exploits, then you can make it hard without requiring Wizard/Druid/Cleric in order to win. Arguing that you can't use parts of the monster manual without exploiting abilities or else playing them like morons, is frankly, insane.

This just demonstrates that you paid no attention to anything I said. Of course it requires good characters to win, that's the fucking point. It requires good characters to win in every other game I play, why should this one be any different.

"Good" is much different then Exploit using. Besides, Role playing games are not about winning last time I checked, so yes, it should be different. Also, assuming people pay no attention to what you say just because they don't immediately echo your thoughts shows a special level of ignorance. I quite clearly read everything you typed, perhaps you meant to include things that aren't there. Perhaps you didn't give background thats necessary. Whatever the reason, what you said, and what you think you said seem to be different.

So, your allowing Astral Projection, Genesis, Celerity, Foresight, and a host of other spells that grossly overpower casters, as long as they can't use two other high level spells. So You'd agree those two spells are overpowered, and a house rule is needed for balance. Meaning that you can't actually play high power 3.5 without house rules, and thus are in fact, not actually playing high power 3.5, but your own version ofit.

Yes, I am allowing Astral Projection (from level 9, thank you Nightmare) Genesis, Celerity, and Foresight. Celerity stuns you after you use it, and Foresight isn't that badass for a 9th level spell. Astral Projection is really good at not forcing me to charge them money for a TPK, and creates it's own drawbacks.

But thank you for being a tireless jackass who thinks the banning of two spells is exactly equivalent to not playing 3.5. You are just as bad as any religious apologetic in that your preordained conclusion (3.5 is crap wah wah wah) blinds you to the fact that my statement of how I play 3.5 directly and explicitly contradicts your false claim in your first point of your first post, and now you are just trying to score imaginary points about how bad 3.5 is because I have to ban two 9th level spells.

Except you seem to be arguing that 3.5 is playable in such a way without being a disaster. In which case, any house rules mean you point at it and say "I need this house rule in order for it not to be a disaster." Attacking the weak points of an argument is just how one argues.

5. Various broken abilities that demonstrate a lack of playtesting and/or willful disregard for legitimate concerns (Orbizard, Demigod epic destiny, rangers soloing Orcus, and so on). - Orbizard is a problem, as I've noted. Demigod is only really a problem at level 30, which isn't so bad as your supposed to stop playing pretty soon after reaching it. This is much much more common in 3.5 though, where, you know, Casters win.

How about the fact that in PHB 2 there's a multiclass feat that gives you +2 damage with all attacks for one encounter, 1/day, when other multiclass feats give you +1d6 damage with one attack MAYBE 1/encounter.

The Barbarian Multiclass is as you noted daily. In general 4e makes daily powers stronger.

Or Martial Power's horrible obvious lack of playtesting. How did Guileful Switch (nicknamed "Godawful Switch" by my group) get through?

Probably by not actually understanding the full power of something you make, which is easy to do. It was notably errata'd, though it should of been quite a while ago.

Hell. Power creep, in general, seems to be a major problem.

1. Exception-based design wanking, plus shit like the four different "evil eye" variations. Includes ability interaction and "How the hell do I adjudicate this?" - Example? Because this really hasn't been a problem that I've seen or heard of before.

Evil eye is your example. There are multiple evil eye powers, over multiple monsters, and they all do different things, despite all being named "Evil Eye". This makes system mastery very hard - the DM cannot as easily remember what does what - AND makes the world make less sense. So the cyclops yesterday used his one eye to daze us, but the cyclops today uses it to... make more accurate ranged attacks?

Different creatures, different powers, that should honestly have different names even if it was something like "Evil Eye of accuracy." But, and this might just be me, the DM tends to have the stablocks in front of them, and the power descriptions are pretty short and easy to read, unlike say, the Essence Reaver from Secrets of Sarlona, whose main power takes up almost a full page of text. And really, if all it takes to break your view of the world is a few abilities that a specific creature type share with the same name, then isn't that a bit to easy to break?

8. Swathes of poorly-written and vaguely-worded mechanics. - Like what? Very few mechanics are poorly worded that I've seen, and sure, Death may or may not still do anything, but at least we don't have Drowning or such anymore.

What happens when an ooze or other monster attempts to pull a dwarf into its square, with no number listed? What if he's doing it at melee? What if he's doing it at reach 2?

The Dwarf is pulled into the square, as no number is given. It is like how, say, the Eladrin Ring of Passage increases how far you can teleport, but doesn't change how far Swordsage Aegis may teleport.

How, exactly, does the wizard spellbook work? The Q&A answer here was very stupid.

Without extended Spellbook, each time you would gain a daily or utility power, you choose two, and may prepare either each day. If you reach a level where you would retrain a power, you retrain both for the new powers, IE: At level 15 you may choose to retrain Web and Stinking Cloud into Prismatic Beams and Wall of Ice, or whichever powers you choose. At level 5, 11, 5, 21, and 25 you also gain some rituals.

With Expanded Spell book, its the same but with three daily powers instead of two.

[DragonChild]

The Barbarian Multiclass is as you noted daily. In general 4e makes daily powers stronger.

Obviously, daily should be stronger. But should one feat be outright better than another?

Without extended Spellbook, each time you would gain a daily or utility power, you choose two, and may prepare either each day. If you reach a level where you would retrain a power, you retrain both for the new powers, IE: At level 15 you may choose to retrain Web and Stinking Cloud into Prismatic Beams and Wall of Ice, or whichever powers you choose. At level 5, 11, 5, 21, and 25 you also gain some rituals.

Congrats. You just outright contradicted the WOTC Q&A on what's supposed to be an official ruling for a MAJOR core class feature.

Not confusing at all.

The Dwarf is pulled into the square, as no number is given. It is like how, say, the Eladrin Ring of Passage increases how far you can teleport, but doesn't change how far Swordsage Aegis may teleport.

Really? The dwarven racial says he may move "One less space than the effect specifies". Why doesn't it apply? There is a specified effect and a specified movement, even if it's non-numerical.

[Leress]

What's the point of bring up 3.5 in this discussion? We are talking about 4e, that's it. Bringing up another game system doesn't automatic make up for the problems with the discussed system.

[Gralamin]

The Barbarian Multiclass is as you noted daily. In general 4e makes daily powers stronger.

Obviously, daily should be stronger. But should one feat be outright better than another?

Eventually feats are going to be right out better. However, if your not a Strength based character, and are, say Dex instead, you may of just wasted your multiclass feat.

Without extended Spellbook, each time you would gain a daily or utility power, you choose two, and may prepare either each day. If you reach a level where you would retrain a power, you retrain both for the new powers, IE: At level 15 you may choose to retrain Web and Stinking Cloud into Prismatic Beams and Wall of Ice, or whichever powers you choose. At level 5, 11, 5, 21, and 25 you also gain some rituals.

Congrats. You just outright contradicted the WOTC Q&A on what's supposed to be an official ruling for a MAJOR core class feature.

Not confusing at all.

My only mistake was saying retraining instead of replacing, which clearly from context I meant. See:

How does retraining and multiclassing work with the spellbook?

If you retrain a daily or utility power you only retrain one of your two choices for that level, if you choose a lower level power while retraining it still occupies the same level. If you swap a power with a power from a different class through multiclassing you replace both spell choices with the new power. If you are replacing spells as you gain a level, like at 15th level when you replace a daily power, you replace the spells from one level with an equal number of spells from the new level.

http://wizards.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wiz ... faqid=1396

The Dwarf is pulled into the square, as no number is given. It is like how, say, the Eladrin Ring of Passage increases how far you can teleport, but doesn't change how far Swordsage Aegis may teleport.

Really? The dwarven racial says he may move "One less space than the effect specifies". Why doesn't it apply? There is a specified effect and a specified movement, even if it's non-numerical.

Incorrect. It sates "You can move 1 square less than the effect specifies". The effect does not specify a number of squares, and thus the effect cannot reduce it. Its a forced move To effect, not a forced Move # effect, if that helps explain it.

What's the point of bring up 3.5 in this discussion? We are talking about 4e, that's it. Bringing up another game system doesn't automatic make up for the problems with the discussed system.

The point in bringing 3.5 in is if you declare 4e a doomed and failed system for reasons that all or almost appear in 3.5, then shouldn't, logically, you have to say the same about 3.5?

Fixed quote tag, I think. --Z

[RandomCasualty2]

What's the point of bring up 3.5 in this discussion? We are talking about 4e, that's it. Bringing up another game system doesn't automatic make up for the problems with the discussed system.

It's generally inevitable since the most common argument agaisnt 4E is that it's ___________ than 3.5.

And you can put any number of things in that blank. Less interesting, Less playable, offer less character building options, etc.

Nobody ever really talks about 4E in a vacuum. And while I don't like 4E, I think it gets a bad rap a lot of the time because people tend to compare it to 3.5 with years of house rules, instead of 3.5 RAW.

[ubernoob]

In fact, I remember CharOp coming out with a chart of the strongest classes in 3.5 that went:
wizard, archivist, artificer, druid, cleric, psion, sorcerer, erudite, beguiler, wu jen, spirit shaman, favored soul, dread necromancer, ardent, warblade, crusader, swordsage, wilder, shugenja, dragonfire adept, duskblade, psychic warrior, warlock, factotum, binder, totemist, rogue, bard, warmage, scout, shadowcaster, barbarian, ranger, incarnate, lurk, dragon shaman, knight, swashbuckler, paladin, soulborn, ninja, fighter, hexblade, divine mind, marshal, adept, monk, healer, spellthief, truenamer, expert, soulknife, samurai, warrior, aristocrat, commoner

I made that thread just to mock someone. It has no validity in this argument because I was doing it specifically just to see how many people would buy it (almost everyone). The class rankings are largely accurate, but there are quite a few things in there that are flat out deliberate misplacements to see who would notice (nobody).

So yeah, just ignore that thread. The tier threads I made were *also* just to mock someone stupid.

[Gralamin]

In fact, I remember CharOp coming out with a chart of the strongest classes in 3.5 that went:
wizard, archivist, artificer, druid, cleric, psion, sorcerer, erudite, beguiler, wu jen, spirit shaman, favored soul, dread necromancer, ardent, warblade, crusader, swordsage, wilder, shugenja, dragonfire adept, duskblade, psychic warrior, warlock, factotum, binder, totemist, rogue, bard, warmage, scout, shadowcaster, barbarian, ranger, incarnate, lurk, dragon shaman, knight, swashbuckler, paladin, soulborn, ninja, fighter, hexblade, divine mind, marshal, adept, monk, healer, spellthief, truenamer, expert, soulknife, samurai, warrior, aristocrat, commoner

I made that thread just to mock someone. It has no validity in this argument because I was doing it specifically just to see how many people would buy it (almost everyone). The class rankings are largely accurate, but there are quite a few things in there that are flat out deliberate misplacements to see who would notice (nobody).

So yeah, just ignore that thread. The tier threads I made were *also* just to mock someone stupid.

I was unaware it was you, who did it, as honestly, I got the resulting table from a different source then CharOp since I couldn't find it there. It still leaves the question, which of the classes are broken and which aren't as a legitimate question, and having a list of every class is, at least, useful.

[RandomCasualty2]

I made that thread just to mock someone. It has no validity in this argument because I was doing it specifically just to see how many people would buy it (almost everyone). The class rankings are largely accurate, but there are quite a few things in there that are flat out deliberate misplacements to see who would notice (nobody).

Well, I noticed a few things were a little off to what I'd consider, but then, in 3.5 there's so much variance of house rules and DM interpretation, that's to be expected. Bard and Rogue for instance go up in power a lot depending on if your DM nerfs diplomacy or not, or if he allows them to have swift action casting time wands.

[NineInchNall]

God damn it. Who broke the thread?

[NineInchNall]

1. Fragile system: play like the devs or break the game. - This was true in 3.5, now while it is still to a degree true, its much less so. In 3.5, if you wanted a balanced game, you literally had to play either classes of Tier 3 or below, or played like WoTC, IE: Tank Fighter, Healing Cleric, Skill Monkey Rogue, Evoker Wizard / Sorcerer. So, 4e is a step of progress to eliminating this, its still there, orbizards and a few other builds still have the problem, but overall if your going to fault a system for this, at least note that 3.5 the game it succeeded had it much worse.

The "play like the devs" bit refers to having parties with mixed roles and tactics. By simply picking a single build and having every player copy it, the 4e encounter system is broken in twain. It doesn't even matter which build you replicate.

That's failure in the utmost, because it is a failure to meet their stated design criterion of rewarding and encouraging party diversity.

I'd like to see this. I've never seen PCs all choose the same thing, probably because its boring to be the exact same. Just like how its boring to play all Batman/God Wizards. In addition, copying the same build is going to leave a lot of situations in the game that the build can't fix. Skill challenges (if they worked) are supposed to accommodate that position, as are traps.

And to answer, since I would rather play with my 3-way SLI rig than type out a long response:

Well, 4E assumes that you're going to be playing with a casual party, which includes some melee and some ranged. Ray of Frost is actually pretty terrible in a party like that simply because the fighters are up close anyway, and you rarely even have an opportunity to stay out of range.

RoF is just really powerful if you have an all ranged party or something.

Pretty much. 4e has no melee/ranged synergy to speak of. In fact, those effects are largely anti-synergistic. Every character who is aspected to melee reduces the amount of people able to provide escape routes for the archery characters and every character aspected to archery reduces the amount of melee characters that damage is being divided amongst.

In short: the two best parties are the "melee party" which is composed of Fighters and Clerics, and the "ranged party" which is composed of Rangers and Wizards. When you mix parties together you either decide that the melee guys are not resilient enough to be pulling their weight getting smacked in the face or you decide that the ranged guys are not pulling their weight in DPS.

So the head cheeses have decided that the problem with their set up is that you don't want a Wizard spamming Ray of Frost because enemies tend to be able to close with the Fighter anyway and the RoF DPS is so low that you'd way rather have another Fighter on the front lines beating on things for more damage and sharing more of the counterattack damage so the team can spread out healing surge uses and fight more battles. That's a valid interpretation, but they could have just as easily decided that the problem with their set up is that the Wizards can lock down melee opponents indefinitely so there's no advantage in having a Fighter go put himself into harm's way at all when you could just put another controller on the back rank instead.

The problem is that they gave each character type self-synergy and didn't give any character type cross-synergy. If melee guys threw down slow effects so that the ranged attackers could stay safe and ranged guys through down melee de-buffs so that the front liners could cleave through them then you'd want both groups in some kind of ratio. But since it's the other way, you just want to grab one tactic and super specialize the entire party to do it super hard.

-Username17

[Psychic Robot]

Someone needs to fix his quote tags. And I'm going to update the first post with the following:

Here are some general fallacies that you need to avoid when discussing the system.

The system isn't broken because the DM can house rule it.

If avoiding broken aspects of the system involves the DM doing/not doing something specific (outside of being an asshole), then your argument is invalid.

B-b-but 3e did it, too!

I don't give a flying fuck about what 3e did. If your argument is that it's okay for 4e to suck because 3e sucked, then you fail at life.

That's just an opinion!

Wrong. If we can prove with math that something is true, it is not an opinion--it is a fact. To claim otherwise is a blatant lie.

If a rule doesn't exist, the DM can make it up.

Yeah, and if I wanted to play Magical Tea Party with a collection of my own house rules, I wouldn't be playing a published system.

You're just a rollplayer!

Fuck you.

[Crissa]

3.5 does have an advantage of not being exception based design. That means if you didn't like the rules for X, the rules were an amount of paper smaller than the rules for X in 4e.

-Crissa

[Kaelik]

1) Tomes are Homebrew, as are house rules.
2) Exploit based style, got it.

This is exactly what I am saying about you not paying attention. How many times do I have to explain that I do not fucking use the Tomes before you get the fact that I am not fucking using the Tomes? Is there any possible way someone with a brain could ever interpret what I said as me using the Tomes?

Except that Casters are also clearly stronger then oh, most of the classes. In fact, I remember CharOp coming out with a chart of the strongest classes in 3.5 that went:

Casters are most of the classes. There are more casting base classes than non casting ones.

It doesn't matter how many they are better than because the important thing is that they are on level with the monsters and all those other classes are below the monsters.

Have you ever played a fighting game? Do you whine about how the weakest character isn't up to par with the stronger and so every single character except the weakest is broken? No, you realize that having 4 good classes in core is good enough, especially since they added a lot more good ones later. Four classes at level with monsters is good enough to start going, and the extras just make that better.

At what point is the line crossed where you'd say that things under it are broken, and not the casters?

When they are weaker than monsters.

Besides, Role playing games are not about winning last time I checked, so yes, it should be different. Also, assuming people pay no attention to what you say just because they don't immediately echo your thoughts shows a special level of ignorance. I quite clearly read everything you typed, perhaps you meant to include things that aren't there. Perhaps you didn't give background thats necessary. Whatever the reason, what you said, and what you think you said seem to be different.

1) But you're a rollplayer! is not an argument.

2) I assume people are not paying attention when they say something that makes no sense in response to what I said.

I said, "I do X because it makes Y true. And Y is awesome." Your response was, "But if you do X it makes Y true!" I self evidently know this, since I just stated it. The fact that no on else is confused by this, not even RC, who loves being obtuse on purpose just to frustrated people means this is not a miscommunication, it is you ignoring what I said based on your preconceived notion that no one could ever like Y.

Except you seem to be arguing that 3.5 is playable in such a way without being a disaster. In which case, any house rules mean you point at it and say "I need this house rule in order for it not to be a disaster." Attacking the weak points of an argument is just how one argues.

Let's review. You said, "In 3.5, if you wanted a balanced game, you literally had to play either classes of Tier 3 or below, or played like WoTC, IE: Tank Fighter, Healing Cleric, Skill Monkey Rogue, Evoker Wizard / Sorcerer."

I responded, "Hey, check out this way of playing that lots of people, especially on the gaming den, have used that is not either of those things, and in fact, consists of playing a balanced game with 99.999% of all 3.5 material."

Your response is (provoked by RC who is a master at setting other people up to argue this for him), "But if you don't use the .001%, than the other 99.999 is all shit and you should kill yourself before you ever play that game!"

Excuse me while I continue to find myself not rebutted.

EDIT: Oh by the way, this whole page is fucked up because in your post (the last one aligned left instead of right) you have too many (/quote)s. Fix that.

[Kaelik]

So what stops fabricate infinite wealth loops and people using polymorph any object and shapechange to totally wreck the game? What about people just endlessly spamming planar bindings? Plane shift to timeless planes where you can infiniteyl rest?

It takes a fuck ton of time to fabricate shit and sell it, time better spent adventuring, especially since someone might attack you while you do it.

Nothing stops anyone from PAO or Shapechanging except that it doesn't totally wreck the game. Yes I did have to make some assumptions because the actual rules make no sense and contradict themselves. That is one unfortunate problem. But then again, the same thing happens in 4e when you pick up a bow.

When the endlessly spam Planar Bindings they end up wasting a lot of time for a lot of services, and every once in a while one of them attacks them, which usually ends up using up some of the services they just purchased with their time. Of course, while you do that, all your possible competitors and opponents are either also planar binding, or doing something the consider more worthwhile than planar binding.

1) I know of no timeless planes, neither do my players, nor do their characters.

2) If there are any, some immortal creatures or civilizations probably already exist there, and might attack them or something.

3) If they wanted to do it at the end of the day instead of MMM, I'd fucking let them.

Ice assassin, simulacrum, disjunction... I mean you name it... Just drop your money on buying a scroll of a 9th level spell and you can basically cause the game to implode. Not to mention the obvious problem that like most of the classes are totally unplayable.

I've never seen Ice Assassin as an SLA outside of Manipulate Form, and the XP and Material Costs kinda suck the awesome out of it. Same for simulacrum. Disjunction doesn't matter, so they spend a bunch of money to blow up more money, I don't fucking care.

Also, again, 10-15 playable classes and no shitty ones? Good game. 10-15 playable classes and 4 billion shitty ones. Still a good game for anyone who can tell them apart.

But forget that other shit. Epic diplomacy = total win.

Don't own the Epic manual, cause I don't play Epic, so, anything in there to rob people of their free will or reduce the time to less than a full round action?

[koz]

Quote tags - fix them.

[RandomCasualty2]

It takes a fuck ton of time to fabricate shit and sell it, time better spent adventuring, especially since someone might attack you while you do it.

Well that's what the lead box is for. You just hide out there so they can't scry you and can't find you. And you're buried in some hole somewhere so you can do all the binding or scrying you want. As far as doing quests, why bother? you can make infinite gold by fabricate, and at that point doing a quest doesn't offer you much.

Nothing stops anyone from PAO or Shapechanging except that it doesn't totally wreck the game. Yes I did have to make some assumptions because the actual rules make no sense and contradict themselves. That is one unfortunate problem. But then again, the same thing happens in 4e when you pick up a bow.

Yeah, that's all I'm really trying to say. 3E and 4E are no different in that regard, only 4E's combat system breaks, in 3E, the entire world breaks.

1) I know of no timeless planes, neither do my players, nor do their characters.

Far realms are listed in one or two books. And a DC 40 knowledge (planes) cehck should easily be enough to find one.

2) If there are any, some immortal creatures or civilizations probably already exist there, and might attack them or something.

Sure, unfortunately planes are infinite and they wouldn't really be announcing themselves.

Don't own the Epic manual, cause I don't play Epic, so, anything in there to rob people of their free will or reduce the time to less than a full round action?

Well actually I wasn't actually talking about ELH diplomacy, which is even crazier, but just regular diplomacy with a huge bonus (easy enough to do), where you can make any group of enemies from hostile to helpful in one action, basically winning any encounter, and getting them to pretty much join you. If you go to epic level you have a step above that called fanatic, where they basically do absolutely anything you say. And there's no defense against it. It's just a no save screw over where they join your party.

[Psychic Robot]

RC2 is failing to differentiate between "so broken it won't actually show up in play" and "lol monster with a bow."

[Kaelik]

you can make infinite gold by fabricate, and at that point doing a quest doesn't offer you much.

Except purpose, motivation, XP, and anything you might want besides gold, like every item in the game, which you can buy, if you can find someone to make it for you or who has it, both of which require leaving the box.

Yeah, that's all I'm really trying to say. 3E and 4E are no different in that regard, only 4E's combat system breaks, in 3E, the entire world breaks.

No, RC. You are a fucking asshole retard terrible person. The fact that polymorph and some other things, but I'm hard pressed to think of any besides polymorph, have maybe a couple of contradictions, or require you to fill in the blanks, does not mean that 3.5 RAW "is a complete disaster" It means you need to be able to fill in a few implied statements, just like every other fucking thing in the entire fucking universe including every sentence any human being has ever uttered.

If you actually applied your complete disaster rubric to real life you would immediately discover that saying, "Hey, I want a glass of milk." is a "complete disaster" and that is why you personally RC are the most horrible person I have ever had the displeasure of responding to in a post.

And I fucking argued Monks with Giamoco.

Die in a fucking Fire, I'm not even reading the rest of your post or anything you ever post again.