Pathfinder: the Lowdown

[User]

Or you could throw your sword. Or you could get in cover until it came closer, i.e behind your tower shield. Or, being a melee specialist, you could team up with bob the archer, a ranged specialist (hey, look at that, a reason for the characters to be part of a party). Flying is by far the stupidest option. unless your genre is wuxia. Which D&D isn't.

Also, fuck that character concept. It's like wanting to make a mage who uses only fire spells and then whining when some things are immune to fire. If you trade off versatility for specialization then expect to be screwed in some situations; that's the tradeoff you made.

[MGuy]

I understand your concern but once again it was just a toss up, off the top of my head, the brim of my hat, the tip of my tongue. Please do not take it as canon because its not. It was a point in the direction I'm heading in with my thinking. In either case I do believe there would need to be a feat or expenditure of some sort to get that. Some characters might not have an interest in going in that direction say if the fighter is ranged they don't have as much need to use that ability.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I don't see what's the big deal about certain concepts just becoming obsolete after a certain level.

Non-flying melee-only monsters stop having any threat level at all at around level 12 or so. So unless the game designer is a dumbass there shouldn't be any of these monsters above this level.

Same for the Dumbass Melee Fighter. After a certain level he should be forced to become a Flying Magic Fighter or a Macguyver Fighter. If he doesn't want to adapt then the DM or setting-builder should either end the game right there or kick the fighter out.

[User]

And so the obvious solution is to make melee continue to be relevant, both for monsters and players, not to give everyone flying. Suppose instead that after a certain level all monsters became immune to magic. Would your solution to that be to give all mages mastery with melee weapons at level 12? In other words, why should the game be designed to make the non-magical fighter concept take a right angle and not the mage concept? Why not support the non-magical fighter concept all the way, since it is a staple of fantasy literature?

[Kaelik]

1) You are dumb and you should feel dumb? Again thank you for misreading my words. I mentioned that in looking at the MM you'll find that the common monster doesn't have the VERSATILITY (spell selection) of a similarly leveled caster and that we should USE THE MONSTERS as a guide to what character's should and shouldn't have. I have never said that flight wasn't FUCKING necessary I said that they should get it from another source outside of their FUCKING class. GET MY WORDS RIGHT! For GODS SAKE YOU QUOTED ME and STILL FUCKED IT UP! How can you even manage to do that repeatedly?!

YOU ARE FUCKING RETARDED! Hey look, I can use caps too! How about this, you didn't say versitality, you said spell selection. Monsters do have the spell selection. Versitality has nothing to do with the discussion at hand. You are whining about how Fighters shouldn't be able to Divine the Future, or teleport, or fly. It doesn't matter that Wizards can target all three saves and cast no save spells and are very versatile. What matters is that Monsters can teleport and fly and divine the future and cast spells that attack shit.

And yes, that's the point. We should use the Monsters to determine what a Fighter needs. And in order to be a level 10 character with a to hit +20, he needs to be able to teleport or fly. Because every Monster in the MM who has only a +20 to hit can teleport or fly or cast detect thoughts.

2) For the sake of your immortal soul READ what I put. I not only give what I mean by the words AND draw a line as clear as I can with what I mean but the definitions are in your PHB.

Once again, the definitions in the PHB say, "Something is supernatural if it has the (Su) tag, and Extraordinary if it has the (Ex) tag." And you have been very clear that you consider flight and teleporting and doing backflips, and being useful to be (Su) abilities. And that's the problem. If you say both:

a) flying is a supernatural ability.
and
b) Fighters shouldn't be allowed to have supernatural abilities from their class
then you are actually saying:
c) The fighter class fails against half the monster manual.

A)PCs 10th level + have God Like abilities. I shouldn't need to point them out but for argument's sake Scry, Detect Thoughts, Detect Life, Power Words, Limited and Full Wish.

Wow you are retarded. When I said that earlier in the post, I was just mocking your Caps, but now I really mean it.

Scrying and Detecting Thoughts and detecting life and Power Words and Wishes are not God like abilities.

There are two definitions of God like abilities:

1) Anything any conception of a God could do. (In which case, breathing is a god like ability and we all laugh at you).
or
2) A God like ability is something ironically associated only with gods, and it would seem weird if non divine creatures had that.

So let's look at that list: Scrying. Scrying isn't even something gods do, it's something ancient Celtic Druids did, and Warlocks in tales, and people sitting in shitty pink rooms looking at crystal balls. Scrying is not God like, it's fucking Wizard like. It's like first on the list of shit Wizards do.

Detect Thoughts, fuck, if only there were some kind of monster that had detecting thoughts as it's stick. It would probably be called a Doppleganger or something for finding people and reading their minds and replacing them. Or maybe some tales of Wizards that read minds. Oh wait. Detecting Thoughts is not Godlike.

And detect life? Is that a joke? It allows you to figure out things are alive? I can fucking do that too.

Wishes. If only their were fantasy stories about non Gods who granted wishes. They probably be contained in some sort of lamp like object. Hmm.

Seriously, none of those are God like abilities, and if you think they are, you need to get the hell out of D&D right now, because that's stuff that's supposed to happen every fucking day.

B)Wrong Plot? Plots that take into consideration the Power level? That sounds like a very real limit to the plots that you can use to me. There being the existence of good plots that can be wrong just because you have God like abilities you can toss around whenever is bad to me.

Every Plot ever in the universe has a fucking real limit to where you can use it.

You can't do any plots about the Blood War, or about fucking fucking Ghosts at level 1. You can't do any plots about Wizard towers or ancient dead gods either.

What you said is that all good plots are negated by the powers of the PCs. I pointed out that I can think of lots of good plots that aren't negated by the PCs powers, and if you can't it's because you aren't capable of thinking at a higher level.

The fact that you are pretending there aren't plots that can only be done with powerful PCs just means you have never even comprehended a level of power at D&D level 10, so you can't imagine any plot more complex than: Explore the X and kill the bad guys.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Why not support the non-magical fighter concept all the way, since it is a staple of fantasy literature?

Because the non-magical fighter is a staple of low-power fantasy literature, not of fantasy literature in general.

Read some comics or watch some shows about characters who do some crazy shit like destroy cities or fight off alien invasions single-handedly. Non-magical fighters are not supported at all when it comes to combat; even badasses like Usopp and Batman rely on so much on super-special equipment that it really isn't them doing the fighting, it's their souped-up equipment.

[Heath Robinson]

Or you could throw your sword. Or you could get in cover until it came closer, i.e behind your tower shield. Or, being a melee specialist, you could team up with bob the archer, a ranged specialist (hey, look at that, a reason for the characters to be part of a party). Flying is by far the stupidest option. unless your genre is wuxia. Which D&D isn't.

Also, fuck that character concept. It's like wanting to make a mage who uses only fire spells and then whining when some things are immune to fire. If you trade off versatility for specialization then expect to be screwed in some situations; that's the tradeoff you made.

I believe that all of your stated options are ineffective. A sword is a single-use ranged weapon, and they're generally pretty expensive (level-appropriate ones are, at least). We're specifically talking about fliers with ranged weapons that do not pointlessly close to hit you in combat - thus the "sit still behind a big piece of metal" option is both boring and has little to no benefit from your perspective. Letting the Ranged Specialist do his business is perfectly acceptable in real life, but not at a gaming table where boredom isn't offset by an appreciation of the reduced risk.

We play games to be entertained, and if we aren't having fun we will seriously go off and play Super Smash Bros for a while until we can take actions that have any effect on the game. The argument that Fighters should pull out a bow himself and plink means not being all that effective since your limited resources have been invested in being awesome with a Sword - again more boredom and increased likelihood of playing something else because you're not having much of an impact on this game.

What about the other enemies untouchable by non-mystic means? Ethereal enemies, for example.


Flying and Ethereal enemies are cool, and the idea that we just shouldn't have them in games smells bad to me. The idea that someone who did not pick a character concept with any specific "[awesome]" tag/subtype (NB: "awesome" should be wordfiltered to anything you care to) should just put up with playing second fiddle some of the time is not practical because people seriously go off and do other stuff. A game that you are nominally playing, but not really playing is not a good game by most definitions.

Fantasy literature is not what D&D is and shoehorning the game into fantasy literature tropes is not a sustainable plan for keeping the game in a state that is recognisably D&D. In D&D land Dragons soar through the skies and beholders float. That alone invalidates the idea that we should let parties go without flight.

[MGuy]

1) You are dumb and you should feel dumb? Again thank you for misreading my words. I mentioned that in looking at the MM you'll find that the common monster doesn't have the VERSATILITY (spell selection) of a similarly leveled caster and that we should USE THE MONSTERS as a guide to what character's should and shouldn't have. I have never said that flight wasn't FUCKING necessary I said that they should get it from another source outside of their FUCKING class. GET MY WORDS RIGHT! For GODS SAKE YOU QUOTED ME and STILL FUCKED IT UP! How can you even manage to do that repeatedly?!

YOU ARE FUCKING RETARDED! Hey look, I can use caps too! How about this, you didn't say versitality, you said spell selection. Monsters do have the spell selection. Versitality has nothing to do with the discussion at hand. You are whining about how Fighters shouldn't be able to Divine the Future, or teleport, or fly. It doesn't matter that Wizards can target all three saves and cast no save spells and are very versatile. What matters is that Monsters can teleport and fly and divine the future and cast spells that attack shit.

And yes, that's the point. We should use the Monsters to determine what a Fighter needs. And in order to be a level 10 character with a to hit +20, he needs to be able to teleport or fly. Because every Monster in the MM who has only a +20 to hit can teleport or fly or cast detect thoughts.

2) For the sake of your immortal soul READ what I put. I not only give what I mean by the words AND draw a line as clear as I can with what I mean but the definitions are in your PHB.

Once again, the definitions in the PHB say, "Something is supernatural if it has the (Su) tag, and Extraordinary if it has the (Ex) tag." And you have been very clear that you consider flight and teleporting and doing backflips, and being useful to be (Su) abilities. And that's the problem. If you say both:

a) flying is a supernatural ability.
and
b) Fighters shouldn't be allowed to have supernatural abilities from their class
then you are actually saying:
c) The fighter class fails against half the monster manual.

A)PCs 10th level + have God Like abilities. I shouldn't need to point them out but for argument's sake Scry, Detect Thoughts, Detect Life, Power Words, Limited and Full Wish.

Wow you are retarded. When I said that earlier in the post, I was just mocking your Caps, but now I really mean it.

Scrying and Detecting Thoughts and detecting life and Power Words and Wishes are not God like abilities.

There are two definitions of God like abilities:

1) Anything any conception of a God could do. (In which case, breathing is a god like ability and we all laugh at you).
or
2) A God like ability is something ironically associated only with gods, and it would seem weird if non divine creatures had that.

So let's look at that list: Scrying. Scrying isn't even something gods do, it's something ancient Celtic Druids did, and Warlocks in tales, and people sitting in shitty pink rooms looking at crystal balls. Scrying is not God like, it's fucking Wizard like. It's like first on the list of shit Wizards do.

Detect Thoughts, fuck, if only there were some kind of monster that had detecting thoughts as it's stick. It would probably be called a Doppleganger or something for finding people and reading their minds and replacing them. Or maybe some tales of Wizards that read minds. Oh wait. Detecting Thoughts is not Godlike.

And detect life? Is that a joke? It allows you to figure out things are alive? I can fucking do that too.

Wishes. If only their were fantasy stories about non Gods who granted wishes. They probably be contained in some sort of lamp like object. Hmm.

Seriously, none of those are God like abilities, and if you think they are, you need to get the hell out of D&D right now, because that's stuff that's supposed to happen every fucking day.

B)Wrong Plot? Plots that take into consideration the Power level? That sounds like a very real limit to the plots that you can use to me. There being the existence of good plots that can be wrong just because you have God like abilities you can toss around whenever is bad to me.

Every Plot ever in the universe has a fucking real limit to where you can use it.

You can't do any plots about the Blood War, or about fucking fucking Ghosts at level 1. You can't do any plots about Wizard towers or ancient dead gods either.

What you said is that all good plots are negated by the powers of the PCs. I pointed out that I can think of lots of good plots that aren't negated by the PCs powers, and if you can't it's because you aren't capable of thinking at a higher level.

The fact that you are pretending there aren't plots that can only be done with powerful PCs just means you have never even comprehended a level of power at D&D level 10, so you can't imagine any plot more complex than: Explore the X and kill the bad guys.

You know I think I get what you're doing Kaelik. this is all a mental exercise. I'm not supposed to take your words as seriously as I had been. You are merely trying to make me explain to every minute detail of each and every small statement I make. Ok I'll play along but this time I shall take it less seriously.

1) No I didn't say versatility in the first iteration I said spell selection. Oh look! There are parentheses right there next to versatility that acknowledge that! *audible gasp* I wonder if you missed that or just chose to ignore it.. However I am wondering exactly who you're arguing with about fighters needing flight to keep up. I most certainly didn't say they didn't need it. I merely said they should not get it from their class abilities. Whats more Monsters and what not can teleport and fly at will... Not even a Wizard can do it with out first casting the spell of which he has limited use of it. Oh wait! A wizard can make a magic item and use it instead of casting the spell you say? My gorsh I wish a fighter could use a... wait a minute! THEY CAN! yay! *claps*

2) ... I... I jokingly said you would some how warp the words in the PHB with your eyes... I didn't imagine it would be this true...

Extraordinary Ability (Ex): A non magical special ability
Spell-Like Ability (Sp): A special ability with effects that remble those of a spell. In most cases a spell-like ability works just the same as a spell of the same name.
Supernatural Ability (Su): A magical power that produces a particular effect, as opposed to a natural, extraordinary, or spell-like ability. Using a supernatural ability generally does not provoke an attack of opportunity. Supernatural abilities are not subject to dispelling, disruption, or spell resistance. However they do not function in areas where magic is suppressed or negated, such as an antimagic field.

I am sure even with me posting it here you will manage to misread it but I made the effort anyway.

I'm not even going to acknowledge the other points here.

3) I see very funny. Taking what I said about your ability to read and how you neatly juxtapose your thoughts next to something that proves you wrong. Very funny, very funny.

Both your definitions for what god-like might mean just serve to support my point. You say that those spells aren't god like then RIGHT after that you give a definition that says that simple things like breathing is god like and in your second definition you say it would be weird for non divine creatures to have (this second one being loaded with holes) then you go ON to point out mystical powers that non divine creatures shouldn't have. Neither of these actual refute that the spells are god like just that there are things beyond the spells I mentioned that would fit your criteria of god-like.

Again no point in going over the rest here.

4) I can't do a plot about ghosts and the Blood War at level one?! BAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

I have run campaigns centered around BOTH starting AT level one. HAHAHAAH. Are you really serious saying shit like this? A better example would have been: You can't make a plot about fighting Gods or something but even that can be started at 1st level. Hell you can start just about anything at 1st level but having it hold together after the wizard figures out he can scry and port in on anyone and anything just by knowing it exists creates major problems for most plots.

I honestly am not able to connect with you on any level here. I can't follow your train of thought because its too derailed. You post one thing than argue over something I did not say. Like this last bit:

"What you said is that all good plots are negated by the powers of the PCs. I pointed out that I can think of lots of good plots that aren't negated by the PCs powers, and if you can't it's because you aren't capable of thinking at a higher level.

The fact that you are pretending there aren't plots that can only be done with powerful PCs just means you have never even comprehended a level of power at D&D level 10, so you can't imagine any plot more complex than: Explore the X and kill the bad guys."

Why is it that you keep on saying that I act as if no high level plots exist? I have not said such a thing once. I said that to keep good plots alive you have to limit your PCs and that the only other good plots that survive to high levels without tinkering are few and far between.

Do you even read what you quote?

"B)Wrong Plot? Plots that take into consideration the Power level? That sounds like a very real limit to the plots that you can use to me. There being the existence of good plots that can be wrong just because you have God like abilities you can toss around whenever is bad to me."

Where in that do you see me say "There are no good plots at high levels"?

Please learn to read.

[Parthenon]

Here are some basic points with a tiny stub of explanation for each. Put together it helps explain why having physical based characters having fewer and less effective options than magical types is bad.

• Relying on magic items is a bad thing for balance. It is too easy to go off the wealth by level, physical types need a huge amount more equipment than magical types and too often basic magic items don't do enough. Also, some DMs won't allow PCs access to needed magic items.
• If one or more characters is completely or even mostly useless against one or more challenges it is a bad thing. Self-explanatory.
• All the PCs should be able to able to deal with at least some of the monsters and challenges of their level. If they can't then they won't be able to help the party and so will be useless. The Gaming Den generally suggests that they should be able to deal with 50% of level appropriate challenges.
• There are various abilities such as flight, etherealness or plane hopping that are needed to meet challenges and defeat monsters at higher levels. Examples can be provided if necessary.

"Magic" based PCs can currently do most or all of these abilities necessary at high level as well as abilities necessary at low level whereas 'Physical" based PCs can't.

Physical types should be able to use abilities such as flight or etherealness because they are needed at higher levels or they will be useless. Magic items should not and can't be relied upon.

Four basic points. Simple reasoning. The main thing that is arguable is how much PCs should be able to deal with of their level.

Physical based PCs should be able to do cool things. It doesn't matter how, just that they can.

[Ganbare Gincun]

Physical types should be able to use abilities such as flight or etherealness because they are needed at higher levels or they will be useless. Magic items should not and can't be relied upon.

QFT. The only "melee characters" that can really compete at high levels in D&D without having to critically rely on magical equipment are Gish. But once you play a Gish, you have to ask yourself if it was really worth it to spend so much time and class levels learning how to bonk things on the head instead of just taking 20 levels of a caster class.

[Kaelik]

Not even a Wizard can do it with out first casting the spell of which he has limited use of it. Oh wait! A wizard can make a magic item and use it instead of casting the spell you say? My gorsh I wish a fighter could use a... wait a minute! THEY CAN! yay! *claps*

Spell duration: 24 hours. Time to reprepare spells: 9 hours. Hmm. My math is telling me something about limited flight, I don't know what it is.

Extraordinary Ability (Ex): A non magical special ability
Spell-Like Ability (Sp): A special ability with effects that remble those of a spell. In most cases a spell-like ability works just the same as a spell of the same name.
Supernatural Ability (Su): A magical power that produces a particular effect, as opposed to a natural, extraordinary, or spell-like ability. Using a supernatural ability generally does not provoke an attack of opportunity. Supernatural abilities are not subject to dispelling, disruption, or spell resistance. However they do not function in areas where magic is suppressed or negated, such as an antimagic field.

Once again. Where the fuck does it define what constitutes a magical ability?

Let's take an example: Haste (Su)
Haste (Ex)

Both of these exist in the game. One of them is a class feature of a PrC, the other is Monster ability.

What is different about the Haste that makes it change from Su to Ex? Nothing, it's identical in both cases. The only change is that the designers labeled it differently. How the fuck you can't understand that "Extraordinary abilities are special abilities that creatures have" and "Supernatural abilities are special abilities that creatures have that are magical" doesn't tell you whether anything is actually magical or not, is beyond me.

3) I see very funny. Taking what I said about your ability to read and how you neatly juxtapose your thoughts next to something that proves you wrong. Very funny, very funny.

I see that you don't understand the idea of two separate definitions, only one of which can be true. Fuck you are retarded.

in your second definition you say it would be weird for non divine creatures to have (this second one being loaded with holes) then you go ON to point out mystical powers that non divine creatures shouldn't have.

Dude. Stop being retarded. Those were examples of what non-divine creatures should and do have. Do you really think that genies shouldn't be allowed to grant wishes? That Demons shouldn't be able to teleport? That Dopplegangers shouldn't be able to read minds?

WTF! That's the definition of those creatures. A Genie that can't grant wishes isn't a genie, it's a cloud guy in a bottle. A Doppleganger that can't read minds is just a guy who shapeshifts.

Those are essential and required functions of those creatures. I'm sure you'll misread this somehow, because you obviously don't understand English at all. But fuck man, two year olds would understand this.

Again no point in going over the rest here.

Yes, you need to avoid actually talking about points, because you have nothing to say about them because they completely demolish your argument.

I can't do a plot about ghosts and the Blood War at level one?! BAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

I have run campaigns centered around BOTH starting AT level one. HAHAHAAH. Are you really serious saying shit like this? A better example would have been: You can't make a plot about fighting Gods or something but even that can be started at 1st level. Hell you can start just about anything at 1st level but having it hold together after the wizard figures out he can scry and port in on anyone and anything just by knowing it exists creates major problems for most plots.

Seriously. You need to seek professional help. You game isn't about the Blood War because the Blood war is where fucking Pit Fiends lead armies of Gelugons and Osyluths against Balors and Glabrezus.

Level 1 PCs have exactly zero influence on this. Yes you can start a level 1 game about grinding NPC warriors who give plot exposition about the Blood War when they die. No you can't actually do anything involving the actual blood war. Just like a level 1 party can't do anything to hurt a ghost at all.

Why is it that you keep on saying that I act as if no high level plots exist? I have not said such a thing once. I said that to keep good plots alive you have to limit your PCs and that the only other good plots that survive to high levels without tinkering are few and far between.

Do you even read what you quote?

Where in that do you see me say "There are no good plots at high levels"?

Please learn to read.

Please learn to remember what you said five posts ago:
"I don't like number 1 because that turns everything into mush at levels higher than 6. Everything becomes incoherent and inconsistent that any decent plot will suffer under the PC's ability to be able to do anything.

...

A: Many good plots aren't functional in a game with God PCs unless you invent ways to impede them."

[MGuy]

I will address the points individually:

1) Relying on magic items is a bad thing for balance: Well it is the idea that the physical characters not have to rely on "much" magic. Hopefully with the addition of decent extraordinary abilities and a better selection of feats the reliance on magic will be lessened.

2) If one or more characters is completely or even mostly useless against one or more challenges it is a bad thing: At times this is nigh unavoidable especially at low levels. At higher levels this can be mitigated by giving warriors the power boost they need and a few magic items here and there.

3) All the PCs should be able to able to deal with at least some of the monsters and challenges of their level: The idea is to make warriors able to do this.

4) There are various abilities such as flight, etherealness or plane hopping that are needed to meet challenges and defeat monsters at higher levels: flight indeed is necessary here and there luckily that is only a single minor magic item away at higher levels. one generally doesn't need to be ethereal to fight ethereal creatures. They just need to be able to see them and have a ghost touched weapon/armor to stand against them. Plane hopping isn't really a necessity to fight. It is a necessity to chase/get to the fight. Few creatures out of the MM can push you into another plane. If you really need to go to another plane it doesn't cost much to pay an npc to give you the means.

As for the rest I just disagree. Let me just explain my reasons why and maybe that will get my point across.

I don't think that having every Tom, Dick and Harry able to all do the same things with the essentially the same method produces a good game. Everyone having carbon copy abilities that everyone else has under a different tag is actually one of my major complaints about 4e. Going by that method makes everything bland and unsatisfying because really no matter how you start you're going to end up being the same as anyone else. I want my Sword Slasher Mc Stabby to be significantly different from Mrs Spellslinger McCastington. Otherwise there is no distinction between Physical classes and Mystical ones. If we do that then we should just get rid of the class system all together and just make everyone unclassed. Then allow everyone to just build what they want in each level. Everyone having a spell and feat progression they can choose at leisure. I don't want that.

I'm not promoting keeping the classes as is. So when I say fighter or barbarian I don't mean as they are written now. If you want an example of what I mean we have it on this board with the Tome versions of these classes which actually is a prime example of the improvements I'm talking about. They get abilities that are agreeable and consistent without handing out supernatural abilities or spells left and right.

[MGuy]

Not even a Wizard can do it with out first casting the spell of which he has limited use of it. Oh wait! A wizard can make a magic item and use it instead of casting the spell you say? My gorsh I wish a fighter could use a... wait a minute! THEY CAN! yay! *claps*

Spell duration: 24 hours. Time to reprepare spells: 9 hours. Hmm. My math is telling me something about limited flight, I don't know what it is.

Extraordinary Ability (Ex): A non magical special ability
Spell-Like Ability (Sp): A special ability with effects that remble those of a spell. In most cases a spell-like ability works just the same as a spell of the same name.
Supernatural Ability (Su): A magical power that produces a particular effect, as opposed to a natural, extraordinary, or spell-like ability. Using a supernatural ability generally does not provoke an attack of opportunity. Supernatural abilities are not subject to dispelling, disruption, or spell resistance. However they do not function in areas where magic is suppressed or negated, such as an antimagic field.

Once again. Where the fuck does it define what constitutes a magical ability?

Let's take an example: Haste (Su)
Haste (Ex)

Both of these exist in the game. One of them is a class feature of a PrC, the other is Monster ability.

What is different about the Haste that makes it change from Su to Ex? Nothing, it's identical in both cases. The only change is that the designers labeled it differently. How the fuck you can't understand that "Extraordinary abilities are special abilities that creatures have" and "Supernatural abilities are special abilities that creatures have that are magical" doesn't tell you whether anything is actually magical or not, is beyond me.

3) I see very funny. Taking what I said about your ability to read and how you neatly juxtapose your thoughts next to something that proves you wrong. Very funny, very funny.

I see that you don't understand the idea of two separate definitions, only one of which can be true. Fuck you are retarded.

in your second definition you say it would be weird for non divine creatures to have (this second one being loaded with holes) then you go ON to point out mystical powers that non divine creatures shouldn't have.

Dude. Stop being retarded. Those were examples of what non-divine creatures should and do have. Do you really think that genies shouldn't be allowed to grant wishes? That Demons shouldn't be able to teleport? That Dopplegangers shouldn't be able to read minds?

WTF! That's the definition of those creatures. A Genie that can't grant wishes isn't a genie, it's a cloud guy in a bottle. A Doppleganger that can't read minds is just a guy who shapeshifts.

Those are essential and required functions of those creatures. I'm sure you'll misread this somehow, because you obviously don't understand English at all. But fuck man, two year olds would understand this.

Again no point in going over the rest here.

Yes, you need to avoid actually talking about points, because you have nothing to say about them because they completely demolish your argument.

I can't do a plot about ghosts and the Blood War at level one?! BAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

I have run campaigns centered around BOTH starting AT level one. HAHAHAAH. Are you really serious saying shit like this? A better example would have been: You can't make a plot about fighting Gods or something but even that can be started at 1st level. Hell you can start just about anything at 1st level but having it hold together after the wizard figures out he can scry and port in on anyone and anything just by knowing it exists creates major problems for most plots.

Seriously. You need to seek professional help. You game isn't about the Blood War because the Blood war is where fucking Pit Fiends lead armies of Gelugons and Osyluths against Balors and Glabrezus.

Level 1 PCs have exactly zero influence on this. Yes you can start a level 1 game about grinding NPC warriors who give plot exposition about the Blood War when they die. No you can't actually do anything involving the actual blood war. Just like a level 1 party can't do anything to hurt a ghost at all.

Why is it that you keep on saying that I act as if no high level plots exist? I have not said such a thing once. I said that to keep good plots alive you have to limit your PCs and that the only other good plots that survive to high levels without tinkering are few and far between.

Do you even read what you quote?

Where in that do you see me say "There are no good plots at high levels"?

Please learn to read.

Please learn to remember what you said five posts ago:
"I don't like number 1 because that turns everything into mush at levels higher than 6. Everything becomes incoherent and inconsistent that any decent plot will suffer under the PC's ability to be able to do anything.

...

A: Many good plots aren't functional in a game with God PCs unless you invent ways to impede them."

Still more hilarity... Lets see what we got this time...

1) A random spell duration? Oh it says 24 hours! *audible gasp* Your math is indeed impressive... At least it would be if I actually saw any of it. However I'm going to venture a guess that this is a flight spell of some sort cast at high level. At the same high levels a wizard would've said fuck preparing this shit and made a minor magic item to let him so it so he wouldn't waste his time. That SAME magic item that any random hero can shove on and use. Wow your math really IS speaking to me.

2) Well darn I hoped that after seeing the text common sense would kick in. Well I suppose than I would understand your confusion. By a non magical ability I think you can safely assume it is an ability that involves no magic and doesn't imitate a magic spell. To explain a bit further you can have an Ex ability that gives you an inherent bonus to strength but not an enhancement bonus. Why? Because only spells give enhancement bonuses. Now spells on the other hand, they are wonderful in that they don't follow suit. Spells can imitate Ex abilities. Rage is an Ex ability. Druids have a spell that can produce an effect that is identical.

You have Haste labeled as an Su and an Ex *claps*. I have no idea what these are in reference to, I'm not gonna bother to guess which one belongs to which, and I'm not gonna go book diving to look them up. I've seen haste on a monster before as an Su so I'm gonna use my baseless guess that the ex Haste belongs to a PrC. To both of these I shrug my shoulders because I don't know the context they are taken from.

However I'll say this, Giving an extra standard action as an Ex ability does not fall into my "it doesn't belong on a fighter" category. So on this point I say... Meh

3) Now you have probably never seen a dictionary before. And I can understand how you might think that there is only one definition for everything having never been able to read one. However one word CAN have multiple definitions. Now I know this may shock you but you can visit your local library look in a dictionary and find all those wonderful words that have multiple definitions.

4) You're too far off the track for me to keep up with you here. You say in your definition that God-Like Power is something that would be weird for non divine creatures to have. I certainly hope you don't think casters and supernatural creatures are considered "normal". I certainly am hoping you don't consider high level PCs/Creatures to be the "nrom" in any setting. Heroes and super villains along with powerful creatures are most certainly rare. If they were everywhere you'd get a setting where low level people could scarcely survive and every other place where people did exist was filled to the brim with bad asses. So to say it would be "weird" to find fantastical creatures and people with those abilities out of the divine realm is certainly a supportable statement. If you're in disagreement with me its most likely because we disagree on what "weird" means. If that is the case you should define what you mean by it.

5) No point in saying anything about this one so moving on...

6) Again you say one thing then contradict yourself right after.

"Level 1 PCs have exactly zero influence on this. Yes you can start a level 1 game about grinding NPC warriors who give plot exposition about the Blood War when they die. No you can't actually do anything involving the actual blood war. Just like a level 1 party can't do anything to hurt a ghost at all. "

... I shouldn't have to point this out... but ummm if the underlying plot with mentioned npcs is related tTO the blood War and later leads TO the pcs getting involved in the Blood War how is the plot not aBOUT the blood War? And who said the PCs have to kill everything for it to be part of the plot? Hell I could have a haunted mansion where the PCs do nothing but run away from mentioned ghost until they find away to appease it and let it "move on"

7)Lol oh yes I DO remember what I said that many posts ago. Did you not see when I quoted myself and explained for your reading pleasure what might statements meant and how they are not saying that you can't have plot at high levels? No, I figure you don't remember so let ME quote myself.

"I don't like number 1 because that turns everything into mush at levels higher than 6. Everything becomes incoherent and inconsistent that any decent plot will suffer under the PC's ability to be able to do anything.+


A: Many good plots aren't functional in a game with God PCs unless you invent ways to impede them."

Now you cut off the rest of the first statement (though It would be hard for me to believe you had the capacity to do it intentionally) where I said that to keep a good plot you have to impede the PCs. Now tell me. Where in either of these statements do you see "There are no good plots at high levels?" Seems to me I am saying "plot will suffer" and "many good plots aren't functional"

[ubernoob]

MGuy, take a chill pill. Take a week off and come back this thread later. You're arguing in circles right now.

[MGuy]

Possibly because I have to keep repeating myself. My point hasn't changed though.

[ubernoob]

Possibly because I have to keep repeating myself. My point hasn't changed though.

And your point is wrong. No one at TGD is going to agree with you (well, maybe RC). You're not going to convince us because TGD has already discussed these issues. Repeatedly.

[Username17]

Possibly because I have to keep repeating myself. My point hasn't changed though.

You don't have to keep repeating yourself. You are repeating yourself. There's a difference. We "get" your argument. It has been analyzed, discussed, and rejected. It's a bad argument. And you spazzing out with capital letters doesn't make it better, it makes us exasperated.

So I will tell you what I will do for you: I'm going to put you on Ignore for several days. And then I'm going to take you off Ignore to see if you've settled down into something vaguely approaching an acceptable level of signal to noise.

Your point is not a workable point. It has been shown to you with graphs why this is. Frankly, people are being super patient. And I'm being super patient too. That's why I'm just going to ignore you for a few days while you work out all your rage and hopefully spend some time looking at exponential growth curves or contemplating Justice League episodes. Because on the trajectory you're on now, you're just going to say a bunch of unforgivable crap and get permaignored by everyone anyhow.

-Username17

[Parthenon]

My first point was that relying on magic items at all is a bad idea. Apart from the fact that magic items are inherently unbalanced towards the magic users:

• If power is in the magic items then it is too easy for PCs to get magic items too powerful for the campaign.
• The DM may decide to run "low powered" campaign which has fewer magic items so the needed magic items aren't available.
• By sunder, plot, misadventure or idiocy it is way too easy to lose or not have the necessary magic items.

So, saying that Boots of Flying solves inability to fly doesn't really work. And other similar magic items don't really work either.

You are however right in a later point about hiring NPCs to cast spells. But that requires the DM letting you, you having enough time and resources, being close enough or convincing them to go to the right place and so on. Useful but not always reliable.

---

You seem to be pretty much fine with my next two points. They're a part of the argument.

---

For the fourth point you seem to miss the point. Some of the challenges in the campaign include roleplaying problems or travel problems or whatever.

The example abilities weren't an exhaustive list. Flight or being able to hit things in midair is necessary and should not be based on magic items because of point 1. Invisibility, trickery, mind control or similar is required for sneaking. Etherealness or other means of fighting ethereal creatures is necessary because having Ghost Touch weapons isn't always possible. And so on.

There are enough abilities required that each PC should reliably be able to have several of these abilities.

---

I get your point that if everyone gets everything then it gets boring. But its back to the Magic guy can A, B and C while Fighty guy can C. Its not being able to perform action A, its being able to deal or help with situation A.

So, whether its fly up or jump up and hang there hitting they need to deal with flying creatures. Whether its being so scary that noone questions your fake uniform or being invisible you need to be able to walk into an enemy base. If one Fighty guy can help with A and C and another help with B and C thats fine as long as they have the capability of doing all three. You seem to be fine with this up to a certain point.

Your problem from everything I've seen is that you have some limitations on physical abilities that stop them being able to do them all. Such as not liking the fighty guy being able to breathe underwater. Or being able to cut holes in reality with a rusty knife she's just taken from the cook. Or whatever.

Because they are Fighty guy actions you don't want them to be able to do some actions. However if they can't do these actions they become useless. One effectively gets a hard limit on what Fighty guys can do compared to Magicy guys. Which makes Fighty guys not get nice things.

Remember that some parties will be solely made up of Fighty guys. Whether by player choice or PC death or party splitting up or whatever, at some point in various games there will only be Fighty guys in the party. They need to be able to solve situations A and B which may involve things that seem supernatural to you and they can't rely on magic items. Fighty guys need to be able to be awegasmic.

[FatR]

And so the obvious solution is to make melee continue to be relevant, both for monsters and players, not to give everyone flying. Suppose instead that after a certain level all monsters became immune to magic. Would your solution to that be to give all mages mastery with melee weapons at level 12? In other words, why should the game be designed to make the non-magical fighter concept take a right angle and not the mage concept? Why not support the non-magical fighter concept all the way, since it is a staple of fantasy literature?

This cannot be achieved without changing DnD so much that it would no longer resemble DnD. (Unless by "non-magical fighter" you mean Zoro from One Piece and not Aragorn.) At mid-high levels you fight ridiculous things that would have reduced Benedict of Amber to red smear on the ground within six seconds, never mind any swordsman that tries to keep his abilities within realistic human limits. Take a humble stone giant, my favorite example: twice the height of an average man, and incomparably stronger, but also more agile and at least no less perceptive, his bare skin offers better protection from attacks than any nonmagical armor known to man (and he wears armor too), and he can withstand about an order of magnitude more hurt than an average human. And he's only CR 8.
On the other hand, certain problems of fighting classes are caused not by their weakness, but by poorly-written spells that give magic-users massive one-sided advantage. There is a number of effects that cannot be countered by anything, except other magic, period (Forcecage, Prismatic Sphere, etc). Even if all of his numbers are over 9000, a fighter still can't do anything to overcome them. These spells probably should be removed, instead of granting the fighter teleportation and crap as class abilities.

[Username17]

On the other hand, certain problems of fighting classes are caused not by their weakness, but by poorly-written spells that give magic-users massive one-sided advantage. There is a number of effects that cannot be countered by anything, except other magic, period (Forcecage, Prismatic Sphere, etc). Even if all of his numbers are over 9000, a fighter still can't do anything to overcome them. These spells probably should be removed, instead of granting the fighter teleportation and crap as class abilities.

Good luck with that. A lot of those effects aren't even spells, they are just direct results of the topography of the D&D multiverse. An Ethereal Filcher is just on the Ethereal Plane. The Broken Temple of the Great Mother is on the bottom of the fucking sea. The Castle of Cloud Giants is 3 miles in the air. The Elder Brain Pool is on a distant plane of existence and for that matter so is the City of Brass and everywhere else you can name with a Level 10 entry bar.

People don't have to be "doing stuff" to you for your lack of magic to make you automatically lose. If you can't pull crazy crap at mid level you cannot even get to the adventure.

-Username17

[User]

This cannot be achieved without changing DnD so much that it would no longer resemble DnD.

I know it can be achieved without changing D&D because RC works like this. In RC fighters with full options (DM allows weapons mastery) are generally considered the most powerful class. No, they don't fly.

[Draco_Argentum]

Possibly because I have to keep repeating myself. My point hasn't changed though.

I'm going to explain something that may not be obvious to you. You're arguing against people with years of experience conducting this exact same argument on various gaming messageboards. There were very similar threads on the WotC boards ten years ago. And thats just when I got there, those threads probably predate my arrival and some posters here probably also were doing this before me.

After seeing an argument for ten years, watching better and more thought out counters, observing the inability of your side to defeat the improving arguments against you I'm just not seeing how you can win. Ten years of considering anything brought up in defense of fighters being restricted and wizards not. I've thought about it and found no way that you can be right.

Thats why people are frustrated and thats why you feel like arguing with a brick wall. Most of us here have seen this all before and fully understand that you are wrong. You're doing the equivalent of claiming that the earth is flat in the eyes of the regulars here.

[Korwin]

This cannot be achieved without changing DnD so much that it would no longer resemble DnD.

I know it can be achieved without changing D&D because RC works like this. In RC fighters with full options (DM allows weapons mastery) are generally considered the most powerful class. No, they don't fly.

RC is what?

[FatR]

Good luck with that. A lot of those effects aren't even spells, they are just direct results of the topography of the D&D multiverse. An Ethereal Filcher is just on the Ethereal Plane. The Broken Temple of the Great Mother is on the bottom of the fucking sea. The Castle of Cloud Giants is 3 miles in the air. The Elder Brain Pool is on a distant plane of existence and for that matter so is the City of Brass and everywhere else you can name with a Level 10 entry bar.

People don't have to be "doing stuff" to you for your lack of magic to make you automatically lose. If you can't pull crazy crap at mid level you cannot even get to the adventure.

Wow. I must have hallucinated, oh, every DnD game I've ever run or played. Which, misteriously, either didn't have such problems at all (most of the cases), or, if PCs absolutely needed to get to a place that was unaccessible through their own power, handled them through plot devices. And, yeah, surely all of those published adventures for levels 10+ (which also don't have such problems, like, at all, or efforltlessly resolve them through localised applications of arbitrarium) are illusory as well. And providing plot tickets (like, oh, something as well-established in DnD cosmology as planar portals) so that everyone can get to the City of Brass is about one million times easier for GM and more comfortable for players than rewriting fighters into fucking planeswalkers.

[FatR]

Good luck with that. A lot of those effects aren't even spells, they are just direct results of the topography of the D&D multiverse. An Ethereal Filcher is just on the Ethereal Plane. The Broken Temple of the Great Mother is on the bottom of the fucking sea. The Castle of Cloud Giants is 3 miles in the air. The Elder Brain Pool is on a distant plane of existence and for that matter so is the City of Brass and everywhere else you can name with a Level 10 entry bar.

People don't have to be "doing stuff" to you for your lack of magic to make you automatically lose. If you can't pull crazy crap at mid level you cannot even get to the adventure.

Wow. I must have hallucinated, oh, every DnD game I've ever run or played. Which, misteriously, either didn't have such problems at all (most of the cases - although, granted, often that because few games ever go beyond 10th level), or, if PCs absolutely needed to get to a place that was unaccessible through their own power, handled them through plot devices. And, yeah, surely all of those published adventures for levels 10+ (which also don't have such problems, like, at all, or efforltlessly resolve them through localised applications of arbitrarium) are illusory as well. And providing plot tickets (like, oh, something as well-established in DnD cosmology as planar portals) so that everyone can get to the City of Brass is about one million times easier for GM and more comfortable for players than rewriting fighters into fucking planeswalkers.