Dark Sun returns

[mandrake]

Not only that, but I wasn't implying that a wizard could or could not use them together, only that it would be easy to have them. Why does a wizard need a +3 orb anyway? Why couldn't that wizard have a +3 wand or +3 staff or even a +3 tome?

Stop being such a worthless troll. Stop making bullshit disingenuous arguments. If you don't have anything to add - and you don't - just stop posting altogether.

I'm still waiting on that page number I asked for. I assume you can't find it because you misremembered what it said or outright made up the information you were posting as fact?

[Username17]

Lago, that means fuck all. The suggestion was that the character use an orb and a cunning longsword. It was demonstrated that two uses of a ritual would deprive you of enough WBL to not be able to afford the off hand weapon.

Mandrake's reply was that you could just have the cunning longsword as your primary weapon. But of course that intentionally obfucates the fact that you still aren't using the longsword and orb properties together.

Kaelik: If you lose that much wealth, you can't afford the +2 Cunning Longsword to go with your orb.

Mandrake: But if you replaced your orb with a Cunning Longsword, you could still afford it! Problem solved!

Frank: You stupid piece of shit. If you replace the orb with a longsword, you still don't have a longsword to go with your Orb.

-Username17

[Username17]

I'm still waiting on that page number I asked for.

What page number? The rules have a lot of page numbers. You aren't making any sense at all.

-Username17

[mandrake]

Lago, that means fuck all. The suggestion was that the character use an orb and a cunning longsword. It was demonstrated that two uses of a ritual would deprive you of enough WBL to not be able to afford the off hand weapon.

Mandrake's reply was that you could just have the cunning longsword as your primary weapon. But of course that intentionally obfucates the fact that you still aren't using the longsword and orb properties together.

Kaelik: If you lose that much wealth, you can't afford the +2 Cunning Longsword to go with your orb.

Mandrake: But if you replaced your orb with a Cunning Longsword, you could still afford it! Problem solved!

Frank: You stupid piece of shit. If you replace the orb with a longsword, you still don't have a longsword to go with your Orb.

-Username17

What conversation is this? No one here had this conversation. I certainly never made a claim that a wizard could use a cunning longsword in any capacity, only that with treasure parcels being what they are, should he want one, one could have been available as many as 5 levels ago.

Frank, I asked you a question about where the RAW explicitly said never to reimburse a character the cost of a ritual.

[Morzas]

I believe he's looking for something that validates this statement you made earlier, Frank:

it gives permanent wealth penalties for anyone who attempts to direct the story with rituals every time they do anything.

Which, of course, can be proven just by looking at how the PC wealth system works. The party gets magic items and gold, and the PCs can spend it however they wish. PCs that spend gold on Rituals of Booger-Flinging instead of +2 Skullfucking Polearms suffer a wealth penalty.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Not only that, but I wasn't implying that a wizard could or could not use them together, only that it would be easy to have them. Why does a wizard need a +3 orb anyway? Why couldn't that wizard have a +3 wand or +3 staff or even a +3 tome?

Because they all cost the same money.

If you can't afford a +3 orb, how are you going to get any of that other crap?

Frank, I asked you a question about where the RAW explicitly said never to reimburse a character the cost of a ritual.

Wealth-by-level is 3E thinking. It doesn't work like that anymore. You get money out of a treasure parcel. If you run out of money for whatever reason you don't get extra money on your next payday. The treasure rewards are fixed regardless of how much or how little money you have.

[mandrake]

You clearly have no concept of what kind of wealth a level 13 character should have, so I will enlighten you. It would be very easy for a level 13 character to have 2 +3 weapons, without even making a major sacrifice in other gear.

[Username17]

Frank, I asked you a question about where the RAW explicitly said never to reimburse a character the cost of a ritual.

Seriously?

OK, page number: DMG, page 51. Of the 3.5 Dungeon Master's Guide! That's where it talks about reimbursing players for their expenditures if you drain their resources by using up costly spell components and lots of potions and shit. That rule is conspicuously absent in 4e, so to give you the page number it's not on I would have to give you the sum total of page numbers.

4e deleted that rule. And you're asking me to tell you the page number the deletion is on? What the fuck is wrong with you? Do you have no idea where burden of proof lies in these matters?

-Username17

[MGuy]

You clearly have no concept of what kind of wealth a level 13 character should have, so I will enlighten you. It would be very easy for a level 13 character to have 2 +3 weapons, without even making a major sacrifice in other gear.

But what if they spent a significant portion of their wealth on rituals earlier in their career?

[mandrake]

OK, page number: DMG, page 51. Of the 3.5 Dungeon Master's Guide! That's where it talks about reimbursing players for their expenditures if you drain their resources by using up costly spell components and lots of potions and shit. That rule is conspicuously absent in 4e, so to give you the page number it's not on I would have to give you the sum total of page numbers.

4e deleted that rule. And you're asking me to tell you the page number the deletion is on? What the fuck is wrong with you? Do you have no idea where burden of proof lies in these matters?

-Username17

You do not understand the word explicit. I suggest a dictionary, or possibly thesaurus.

But what if they spent a significant portion of their wealth on rituals earlier in their career?

Then they'd be naked and completely unable to regain any equipment in any way.

[Lago PARANOIA]

You do not understand the word explicit. I suggest a dictionary, or possibly thesaurus.

You want Frank to prove a negative? Are you crazy?

Are you seriously trying to tell us that just because the rules don't say anything about reimbursement that doesn't mean that the rules don't tell you to reimburse PCs?

No, really, it doesn't. It can't support reimbursement. There is no chart saying how much wealth you are supposed to have. The closest thing that we have are rules for starting at great than first level, which people have interpreted towards a minimum equipment level. But that has fuck-all to do with reimbursement or wealth-by-level, considering that 4E uses an entirely different system to determine wealth once you actually start playing the game.

[Kaelik]

1) Yes, a level 13 Wizard would be giving up the equivalent of his Cunning Longsword offhand, or his Phrenic Crown, or any other item that is really useful and less than the cost of two rituals.

I have a level 14 Wizard in 4e. He has two Cunning Longswords, one is his primary, one is a +2 offhand. I also have a +1 Orb of making shit reroll their saves each time, and salves of power. I also have a Phrenic crown.

Now, as a level 14 Wizard, he totally just just casts /win and does a dance because that's -9 to saving throws on every spell without even using Orb of Imposition, and sometimes, when I feel like it, -7 but they have to roll twice and take the worse result.

If I had been stupid enough to ever use any ritual that wasn't disenchant and enchant magic items, I would be missing one of those items (or downgrade my Primary Cunning Sword) and would be a fundamentally worse character.

Let's take a quick look at an earlier statement:

"You are paying one form of power (wealth) for another (information or a tactical advantage)"

See, that's fucking hilarious, Every time I use Thunderwave I am using it to gain a tactical advantage. Should I pay cash money in order to use Thunderwave? Why are some tactical advantages bad, and others good?

There is no reason for rituals to cost permanent resources, and there is no reason for to use them at all since they do.

[erik]

Oh you silly people. It only took about 4 posts for me to see mandrake had no interest in actually debating anything and was just here to troll.

He won't acknowledge legitimate points, refuses any burden of proof, insults people while whining about anything that isn't a compliment showered upon him as an insult. Has he really said anything to date worth responding to? I'm seriously asking since I am not going to bother seeing his ignored messages until then.

[Morzas]

The way he got butthurt over people talking about anal rape and Russian Roulette is making me a bit suspicious, but outside of places like 4chan I try to give people the benefit of the doubt. He could, after all, just be very dense.

[Red_Rob]

Mandrake, I think the hostility you are experiencing here is a result of you failing to understand the way in which the board in general views certain things. Let me take a few of the things you have said earlier in the thread:

I don't think the rules are perfect but even if you need to change them around a bit, they give a good guideline to rewarding players for noncombat encounters, which D&D has lacked.

In this post you explicitly stated that you change around the rules to skill challenges.

What, exactly, am I doing differently?

You then later act surprised that people assume you are using house rules for skill challenges.

You then later make a whole series of posts stating that when a rule penalises the players for doing things in the way that creates the most fun in the game, this is fine and the rules do not need changing.

My bard can dominate a social skill challenge. If all we ever do for social skill challenges is have me talk through it and stand no chance of failing, that's not fun for anyone, so (and this is the key) we don't do that. We go around the table, and yeah, when it's my turn, we get a success. if we look like we're doing poorly, I might interject, but I don't do all the skill checks myself, because that's boring and not fun.

Every game to some degree encourages you to do something that's boring if mechanical advantage is all you want. Being the biggest baddest thing at the table isn't the best way of playing any game, if you have more than one player

On this board the default assumption is that the rules should be geared towards rewarding the most fun style of play and if it doesn't, its bad design.

Also, you have stated that its fine if you have a situation where, should everyone participate you will have a higher chance to fail:

The first concern in looking over what rules you might be exploiting is "what is more fun for the whole group?". As a group, everyone participating is more fun, so that's the optimal way to do it, even if we fail.

It's not punishing to have everyone participate. How... how is that punishing? Yes, I suppose you're more likely to fail, in that you then have a chance to fail. Having a chance to fail makes the game more fun. otherwise it's much more magical tea party in feeling.

Imagine the following scene:

DM: OK, you can trick your way past the dumb Orc guards easily, you're a Diplomancer, so you get to the throne room and surprise the Evil Wizard!

Fighter: No , wait, I want to join in too!

DM: Oh, OK then if the fighter wants to help you have to roll, he's so poor he might make you fail.

Fighter: *Rolls* Oh Dang, I failed.

DM: Well, then the Orcs raise the alarm and the Evil Wizard escapes. His huge horde of Orc and Troll guards swarm out to fight you.

Cleric, Mage and Thief: GODDAMN YOU FIGHTER!!!!!!

How does someone participating who's only effect is to change an automatic success into a possible failure make for a positive experience?

Finally, on this board saying "Oh the DM can fix it by ignoring the rules" Is tantamount to saying "Ignore me, I am a small child or at very best a mental retard who has no understanding of how rules should work" and is likely to be met with extreme derision. Posts like this one:

If D&D were in fact a computer game, in which there could be no increase or decrease in the amount of money given then it would be true. However, there's a DM. A human person who can adjust this.

Are basically saying that if a player is stupid enough to use the rules he is given the DM should then reward him with more treasure to compensate. Which basically says rituals shouldn't cost anything, at which point you area actually agreeing with people who are arguing against you whilst making noises like you are disagreeing. This is very confusing.

[Parthenon]

I think mandrake is asking about this on page 8 of the thread:

In 4e the explicit guidelines are to not replace the lost wealth.

So mandrake asking for page numbers is pretty reasonable.

As it is Frank's evidence of explicit rules is:

OK, page number: DMG, page 51. Of the 3.5 Dungeon Master's Guide! That's where it talks about reimbursing players for their expenditures if you drain their resources by using up costly spell components and lots of potions and shit. That rule is conspicuously absent in 4e, so to give you the page number it's not on I would have to give you the sum total of page numbers.

Unfortunately that is only really implicitly stating not to reimburse PCs, and is easier to understand as leaving it up to the DM. So, yeah, I think something more explicit is needed, even a design decision from one of the designers.

[RandomCasualty2]

On the topic of reimbursement, 4E uses a treasure parcel system which is different from the expected wealth per level of 3E. The treasure parcel system is just saying "here is what you get from level 3 to level 4." There's no talk of modifying the parcels to reimburse PCs, it's just a straight up amount that you distribute around. The parcels are just fixed amounts, and unless there is a specific rule somewhere stating that you should modify them for lost wealth, then the rule is that you use the parcels as written.

Thus there is no reimbursement system built into 4E.

[Username17]

There are explicit guidelines on producing wealth. They are to give out treasure parcels. They are on page 126 of the 4e DMG. That's the wealth rules. There is nothing about reimbursement. Mandrake is just being a fucktard.

-Username17

[Kaelik]

The problem is that the explicit decision to not reimburse is the entire wealth system.

You are explicitly told to give X and no more or less. You are explicitly told that at level Z they should have gained Y amount of gold and spent it on whatever they spend it on.

A page number is "Every page talking about wealth ever in 4e."

Yes they never say "You should not give extra money to characters who use their money shittily." But they also don't say "You should not give players untyped +30 bonuses to all attack rolls for no reason."

Those statements are directly equivalent.

They do tell you what someones actual Attack bonus is, and they do tell you exactly how you should give out wealth. The attack bonus rules explicitly state what your Attack bonus is, and it has no place for a +30 in it. And the wealth rules explicitly tell you how to give out wealth and it does not have any place for reimbursement of shitty playing.

[Parthenon]

Ah, that makes a whole lot more sense than the comparison to 3.5.

But, well, thats retarded. Even computer games are trying to rebalance resources as you go, such as Resident Evil 4 & 5 giving out more or less ammo depending on how much you use it.

I thought that rituals were bad because they were mostly just a waste of time, but permanently screwing yourself over?

[Lago PARANOIA]

No, really, it's a permanent screwjob.

Expected amount of money you're supposed to get from a 15th level treasure parcel for your level: 42,000 gold pieces. Which means that your share of the treasure in a 5-man party is 8,400 gold pieces.

Cost of a level 14 ritual with no foci: 800 gp to use the ritual, 4,200 gp to actually acquire it.

Now certain classes like the wizard get new rituals at every new tier and midpoint. So a total of 10 rituals. The DDI compendium lists over a 150 rituals.

Yeah.

[Titanium Dragon]

Good thing there aren't any of those in 4e, right?

Morzas, I'm sure you don't really know anything about me.

I'm quite active on the errata boards on WotC (and, really, the Orb of Imposition is only a part of the problem). The fundamental issue is that they simply did not pay attention to static saving throw penalties, which are inherently broken. Yes, the Orb of Imposition is broken.

That said, one of your points regarding your campaign involving the Necromancer related how boring it was for the Necro to have 6 extra monsters to control (and thus more actions). I know 4e regards this as a capital sin, Thou Shalt Not Have More Than One Set of Actions Per Player, but it is seriously ok. If we're complaining about taking up game time, aren't inexperienced or indecisive players worse about that?

Not really, no. Experienced players gain experience and go faster. The necromancer is always going to take way too long.

As a revolutionary idea, why not divvy control of the horde amongst the other players for at least a passing attempt at keeping everyone involved? Sure, the other players are splitting their time between Prettyelf McPrincess and Pestilence the Ghoul, but that's better than sitting there while the Necro player does it all. You could do the same sort of thing with Summoners and Enchanters as well.

Of course, far better is not to have it happen at all.

1) Again. You can claim that 4e appeals to most of the 3e audience, and yet, all indications are that it does not, because apparently about half the people who played 3e did it because it was a fantasy game, and not a dungeon crawl with shitty combat simulation.

Ah, nothing like magical, made up numbers pulled out of your ass.

2) What part of skill challenges are ass but their are better out of combat systems is so hard to understand?

The "their". Though, presumably, you meant "there".

In 3e, you cast spells. These spells do things. Sometimes you have abilities. These abilities do things. Having abilities that effect out of combat is better than bullshit skill challenges.

As it turns out, there are abilities you can use out of combat in 4th edition as well.

Out of combat "challenges" in 3.5 probably didn't need to involve the entire party, and that's a good thing. If you run into a cliff and the Wizard casts mass fly, it suck that fighters still have to jump. The point is that if all the characters have abilities they can do out of combat, then when out of combat things come up, they can do stuff. This is different from picking the color with your highest AB and rolling it against the AC the DM decided.

Its actually a good thing to make it so that spells cannot solve every problem. I know this is difficult for some people to get a handle on, but it is so.

Damn right! Skill challenges explicitly encourage you to do things that are boring and not fun. So, why the fvck you continue to defend them?

All of 3.x encourages you to do things that are boring on unfun. So why do you defend it?

Quit being stupid. 4th edition is not perfect. It is better than 3.x. These are not mutually exclusive statements.

If you are looking only for flawless games, you're not going to be playing RPGs.

But here's the deal: that's exactly the reasoning that made 4e such an incredibly shitty game. The fact that this reasoning is allowed into the design theater at all is why 4e is a game I don't want to play.

So basically, you don't want to play a game where fighters are legitimate characters.

Yes, I know you think you didn't say that, but it is precisely what you said. You said "every character has to be a spellcaster."

And you know what? That's fine. But that's not D&D.

Role Playing is a cooperative storytelling game. The experience, indeed the purpose of showing up to the table at all is merely to contribute to the story. To add my perspective and my ideas to the direction the story takes. If I'm not doing that, there's no reason for me to sit down at the table. I can just... stay home and hear the highlights from someone else.

So if your design paradigm is telling me that constantly contributing to the story is a problem, then seriously fuck your design! 4e gives out mechanical advantages for not attempting to affect the story. It gives out benefits for people to sit out of skill challenges, it gives permanent wealth penalties for anyone who attempts to direct the story with rituals every time they do anything. The game wants me to b a passive observer in 80% of the skill challenges and it wants me to be a passive observer 100% of the rest of the time.

No, that's not what I said. That's what you said.

Here's reality. Here's why you suck at game design:

All people must be capable of contributing equally. When you make it so one character can solve 80% of the problems by themselves, the game sucks. And that is 3.x. That is why 3.x is a bad game.

I never said that you cannot contribute to the game.

Your problem seems to be that you can no longer be the wizard and lord your magical penis over the rest of the table. Getting rid of the ability of wizards to duplicate skill checks is a good thing. Period. Same with any number of other things.

The key to a good party based game is for everyone to have a sigificant and distinct domain they are best at and a sigificant and distinct way to contribute to the game.

The reason roles exist is exactly this. This is why classes exist as well.

Now, you may say "but there are classless games!" And this is true. And yet, I've found that oftentimes you end up falling into the archetypes anyway, and when you don't, one person tends to dominate. And that sucks.

That's horrible. That's... not even worth playing. You shouldn't be trying to prevent me from "spamming action" you should be trying to get me to contribute more. Every past edition of D&D has suggested giving out small amounts of XP as an incentive for people to get involved. 4e is the first edition that has given out specific and large incentives to shut the fuck up.

Here's reality. There is a finite amount of spotlight time in any given game, because there is a finite amount of time in any given game. You do not understand this very basic concept.

Now, you can increase the amount of fun time by decreasing the amount of time spent doing boring crap (like looking shit up in books or doing calculations). This is a good thing. But even if you optimize this, there is a maximum of X amount of time doing fun shit, where X is the total amount of time you're playing. No matter what you do, there won't be more than X amount of time.

So no, you don't actually want some classes (especially full casters) contributing MORE. Why is this? The answer is blazingly obvious: there is only X amount of time. The optimal distribution of X is evenly across the group, so X/N. The wizard and other full casters in 3.x already occupy more than X/N time, where N is the number of players. Therefore, the ONLY way for other classes to contribute more is for those who contribute more than X/N to contribute LESS than they were previously.

Now, if you are an asshole, you complain because your share is much closer to X/N now, rather than 2X/N like it was before. But you know what? Fuck you. You are the reason that 3.x was garbage.

You have to understand this fundamental principle. There is a finite amount of time in the game, and it should be as close to X/N per player as possible. When members of one class get 2X/N time, that necessarily decreases everyone else's share of time at the table.

So no, they don't want you to be contributing more, because that means everyone else is contributing less.

It was entirely necessary for them to decrease what wizards could do, because that was the only way to increase what other people could do - recutting the pie.

I might also add that giving variable XP to players is a terrible, terrible idea because it results in even more inequity. The players who are contributing the least can contribute even less because they're lower level and thus are even more overshadowed.

That's nice, but it seems that Frank is trying to criticize the rules as they are written. As they are written, they penalize the player who takes the flavorful but useless Ritual of Booger-Flinging over the player who takes the equally costed and boring +2 Ass-Raping Skullfucking Polearm. Saying "but the DM can fix that" does not change the fact that the system discourages intelligent players from spending their limited wealth on a ritual which only aids them in the corner case that is Booger-Flinging over the very common situation where a Polearm of Ass-Raping Skullfucking is required handy.

If you are using rituals constantly then you are being a moron. You aren't supposed to use them all the time. The entire point of giving them a cost is to make it so you don't use them all the time.

Given that consumables are basically written to be more powerful than normal stuff, neither of these options is particularly balanced. In one, you're basically being penalized forever, in the other you're basically not paying any cost at all.

This is actually false due to the exponential nature of wealth and the fact that you're expected to spend some amount on consumables in order to survive. You aren't being punished if the expectation of you spending money on consumables is built into the game rules. Yes, you're punished for using too many consumables, but that's fine and the disadvantage is temporary - in five levels, you have so much gold in comparison to what you spent its really not a lasting disadvantage.

The casting times on most of the rituals are ridiculously egregious. Except for the handful that can work when you're sitting alone in your house, they are either laughable or disturbingly sad. Any social or vaguely dangerous situation is made ridiculous by calling for a 10 minute or an hour time out.

Yeah, guess what? They're not supposed to be generally useful. Silence is useful for avoiding being easedropped on under specific circumstances; its not supposed to be useful for not being overheard in a tavern.

Incidentally, I suspect the reason why the time taken is so long is so that it is twice as long as a short rest, to discourage people from using rituals every time they take one.

No, really, it's a permanent screwjob.

Expected amount of money you're supposed to get from a 15th level treasure parcel for your level: 42,000 gold pieces. Which means that your share of the treasure in a 5-man party is 8,400 gold pieces.

Cost of a level 14 ritual with no foci: 800 gp to use the ritual, 4,200 gp to actually acquire it.

Now certain classes like the wizard get new rituals at every new tier and midpoint. So a total of 10 rituals. The DDI compendium lists over a 150 rituals.

Yeah.

And you can sometimes find them for free, too.

But irrelevant anyway. If you're making the wizard alone pay for the rituals that the entire party needs/uses, you're being a dick - and also not doing what the game tells you to do about such things.

Besides, you aren't getting 8,400 gp each. Consider that you also got a 16th level magic item, a 17th level magic item, an 18th level magic item, and a 19th level magic item. So splitting up the gold 8,400 gp each is obviously bullshit, and isn't what you are supposed to do. Really, you're supposed to pool your gold as a group, and/or give the poor sod who didn't get a magic item that level a disproportionate amount of the treasure.

[Kaelik]

Here's why you suck at game design:

All people must be capable of contributing equally.

HAHAHAHAHA

Let's try this one more time VD:

You aren't arguing with the evil 3.5 fanbois who are mean to you on WotC their arguments are not our arguments. Try to pay attention to what we actually say. (Not that you've given any indication that you listened to what they actually said either, for all we know from how little you understand what we say, they could have been well reasoned intelligent people who you strawman as much as you do us).

No one is claiming that only spellcaster can have abilities that affect stuff outside combat. No one is claiming that all abilities must be spells, and no one is claiming that everyone must be a spellcaster.

Of the many examples presented of out of combat abilities, the only specific example I've seen Frank present is "character that has black market connections" You'll notice that's not casting a spell to get black market connections.

Seriously, wtf is your will save +3 or something? I didn't even notice anyone cast Silent Image, but all you can manage to argue against is figments.

We have said that rolling bullshit Blue ranks vs AC X several times is fucking retarded. We've told you that people should be able to do lasting important things out of combat. No one has said Wizard's only, spells on, Final Destination.

Other characters can have these weird "class abilities" things that make them able to do shit outside of combat. It totally happens, just read any single example Black Forest character.

Yes in 3.5 "casters" are the only people who matter outside of combat, and are mostly the only people who matter in combat. Though a well built skill monkey can actually do a decentish job out of combat, and various non casting builds work in combat depending on what type of game you are playing.

But guess what, that means that half of the characters in 3.5 matter out of combat. That's better than the zero in 4e. Yes if you want to play 3.5 with a Fighter that is actually a valuable contributing member to the team, you'll have to wrihe a fighter class that doesn't suck. That also already happened! Frank Trollman wrote it!

You need to pay attention to what people are actually saying, not what you wish they were saying. People need to be able to influence the story. None of them being able to is not better than half of them. It is worse. It is terrible. The solution to some classes being fun and others being shit is not to make all of them shit and redefine shit as fun.

[Spaghetti Western]

what is black forest? I Googled black forest + rpg but came up with nothing

[Kaelik]

what is black forest? I Googled black forest + rpg but came up with nothing

Black Forest