Balancing 3.x

[koz]

No, NativeJovian, it is insulting, but not to the players, but the poor overworked DM, who has to constantly run rules-tangential, relativistic calculations of every character compared to every other character, every character compared to the monsters, and the party as a whole compared to the monsters. And if that weren't enough, having to constantly modify stuff that's ALREADY PUBLISHED so that these calculations end up working.

That is insulting, particularly in a product you have had to pay money for, which DnD is. As a DM of some experience, I find this the most annoying thing about DnD - that I basically have to throw out half the content to make the other half work, and which half is which can change compositionally every play SESSION.

If you have things which are CLAIMED to be at the same level of power, but are actually at widely disparate ones, in the same system without labelling, it puts so much requirement of rules knowledge, rules awareness and time on the DM that I frankly think it is insulting.

[NativeJovian]

If you have things which are CLAIMED to be at the same level of power, but are actually at widely disparate ones, in the same system without labelling, it puts so much requirement of rules knowledge, rules awareness and time on the DM that I frankly think it is insulting.

Agreed 100%. It's complete and utter bullshit that a Fighter 15 is nowhere near the actual effectiveness of a Cleric 15. When different characters of the same level have vastly different capacity to contribute to challenges, the entire point of the level system is gone.

That said, this thread is about 3.X, where there are vast differences in capacity to contribute between characters of the same level. That said, is it really that much harder to throw a CR 6 encounter at your party instead of a CR 9?

[Avoraciopoctules]

New thread on competency balancing here:
http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=50252

[koz]

Agreed 100%. It's complete and utter bullshit that a Fighter 15 is nowhere near the actual effectiveness of a Cleric 15. When different characters of the same level have vastly different capacity to contribute to challenges, the entire point of the level system is gone.

That said, this thread is about 3.X, where there are vast differences in capacity to contribute between characters of the same level. That said, is it really that much harder to throw a CR 6 encounter at your party instead of a CR 9?

The thing is, this presumes that the DM has the competency to both know this and actually do it. It also presumes that CRs have internal consistency (which they don't), that the party members have internal contributive consistency (which they don't necessarily) and that variances in competency both vertically and horizontally in the party don't skew the encounter. Guess whose job all that is? Yes, the poor overworked DM.

It's not hard to shuffle around numbers. It IS hard to shuffle them around correctly and meaningfully, and it takes time and knowledge which not every DM can have, and quite frankly, raises the bar for competent DMing in both time and ability far higher than it should be.

[Roy]

What RC was saying is that it's not enough for the DM to run the entire world - PCs and direct supporting cast (cohort, animal companion, etc), he should be making the entire world warp around the PCs

The DM already does this. Unless you're running a module, the DM is already making up every situation the PCs find themselves in. It's seriously not hard to throw a CR 6 encounter at them instead of a CR 8.

Fail. Learn to pay attention. We've been over this. At which point they get half the XP and 60% of the gold. At which point they ask why they're getting such low rewards. You tell them the truth (well, you guys suck, so I'm having to use encounters half as strong to not annihilate you) and that's highly insulting or you lie to them which is also highly insulting. Or you give them full XP and gold anyways which is also highly insulting, not to mention encourages them to suck as much as possible with Epic Fail like 'Quick! Stab me again, so the kobold ahead will give level 8 awards!'

You are not only allowing incompetence at this point, you are justifying it. And if you're going to do that, go do it in traffic, that way the incompetence will be a short lived problem for us all.

The fact that an underpowered class can't compete against "level-appropriate" encounters is a failure of the class design, not the player playing that class. Punishing someone for playing an underpowered class is bad -- punishing an entire party who effectively agree to play underpowered classes is unforgivable.

It becomes a failure of the player the moment they ignore the advice of those telling them how they can play the character they want without sucking. And in many cases this advice is very short and simple, such as telling a Swashbuckler player to be a Rogue, or a Fighter player to be a Warblade. At this point if they are being 'punished' for anything it is their own willful ignorance, but since any problems that occur are entirely their fault and entirely brought on by themselves no 'punishment' is taking place. They aren't getting singled out, they don't even need to be. After all the D&D world is a great model for Natural Selection, which means incompetence is a short lived problem.

Seriously, some players want to play a character that hits people to death with a sword and that's it, not one that casts spells. Not even one that casts spells to make them awesome and then hits people to death with a sword. Is there something wrong with that, just because the designers made it so that sword-hitter classes can't compete with spell-caster classes? You dismiss the entire notion as "basket-weaving", but some people legitimately care more about "I'm playing a knight with heavy armor and a greatsword!" than "I'm playing a level 12 who can win CR 15 encounters singlehandedly!". And that's fine, they're allowed to do that if that's what they want, as long as the rest of the party is cool with that (ie they're not the only Fighter in a group of CoDzillas).

Warblade using Iron Heart (pure skill), Stone Dragon (nothing magic here either), some of the Diamond Mind stuff (call it Bushido or whatever suits) and I forget the other name of the mundane school. Easy. See how that only took a few lines to say, and leaves plenty of variance open for different viable sorts of 'hits fucker with sword'? Anyone who is too lazy to follow three lines of advice at most but expects the DM who has a world - 5-10 people to also warp the whole world around them because of their laziness can fuck right off, as all they do is ruin games by being there.

It's not "insulting" to face encounters that are well-balanced for your power level. It's not "insulting" when the DM tailors the encounters to the PCs. It's far more insulting to run up against encounters way over your head and then have the DM yell at you for sucking because he's insistent on relying on an arbitrary measure of how powerful you "should" instead of looking at how powerful you actually are.

It's insulting when you're stuck in Easy Mode because you suck. It's also annoying to the DM, as it takes more time to devise an encounter that won't annihilate you as a gimp than a normal encounter, and even longer than one that would pose a credible threat to a fully optimized party, so that straw man can fuck right off as well.

It is also insulting to be stuck getting low rewards because you can't handle the enemies that give Nice Things.

It is also insulting to get the good rewards off gimp mobs. Use of word mobs intentional here.

Now. If the player is so lazy they cannot even take three lines of advice, what makes you think they are willing to put any effort into your game at all? You might as well run them as a damn NPC - it would take the same or less effort on your part, and save you some headaches. This also gives you a good reason to boot the problematic player.

The fact that you and your players are playing the powergaming version of D&D is fine. The fact that other people don't play that version, and actually have fun playing in a party of fighters and monks and bards, is fine too. If they enjoy it, who cares? It's a bloody game, not a test to see how well you can manipulate the system.

Straw man. Basic competence is not powergaming D&D, and any groups I have that do in fact powergame D&D are still not the same as actually being tall enough to play it.

And if they enjoy getting gibbed over and over by routine encounters... fine, I can do that. Thing is, barring the idiots too attached to metagame tags despite supposedly being roleplayers, the fighter players really just want to stab a fucker in the face with a sword and not suck, and the monk players really just want to give a fucker a boot to da head and not suck. They got fixated on the first class they could find that did that, but in reality just pointing them at one that does it and doesn't suck (again, Warblade, and also Swordsage) is going to result in any reasonable player being happy and the unreasonable ones are filtered out at this point.

Funny how barring that one scenario where I took over a gimp party, every single time this has came up the problem stopped before it started when I told the player that that wasn't a good class and told them the simplest and most straightforward way to do what they wanted and not suck and they then went and did that.

Anyways, MS is also Smiting Imbeciles here, and said Imbeciles just keep repeating the same disproven drivel. So I'll leave them to their delusions that they're supah spechul ahsome because their level 15 characters can finally handle Fire Giant (singular).

[Murtak]

Fail. Learn to pay attention. We've been over this. At which point they get half the XP and 60% of the gold. At which point they ask why they're getting such low rewards. You tell them the truth (well, you guys suck, so I'm having to use encounters half as strong to not annihilate you) and that's highly insulting or you lie to them which is also highly insulting. Or you give them full XP and gold anyways which is also highly insulting, not to mention encourages them to suck as much as possible with Epic Fail like 'Quick! Stab me again, so the kobold ahead will give level 8 awards!'

Goddamnit, learn to think. Or in your words: Epic fail. This may be news to you, but some people are technically speaking bad gamers (note: this includes newbies) and are also fine with having easier encounters than "by the book". Some people in Mexico getting easier encounters does not ruin the game. In fact it may allow people whom you would TPK again and again until they vow never to touch the game again to learn how the game works. At that point you may want to go back to by-the-book-CRs again. Similarly I often game with people who enjoy to min-max characters. Throwing by-the-book-CRs at them results in laughably onesided slaughtering of all opposition. So I take higher CRs. Where you to GM for them they would quit out of boredom.

The fact that an underpowered class can't compete against "level-appropriate" encounters is a failure of the class design, not the player playing that class. Punishing someone for playing an underpowered class is bad -- punishing an entire party who effectively agree to play underpowered classes is unforgivable.

It becomes a failure of the player the moment they ignore the advice of those telling them how they can play the character they want without sucking. And in many cases this advice is very short and simple, such as telling a Swashbuckler player to be a Rogue, or a Fighter player to be a Warblade.

Learn to read. The very example you quoted (apparently without reading) states that the entire fucking party wants to play such characters. Why do you feel the need to punish them for that? The party already got together, did all of the work for you by deciding on a single power level and you want to waste that work - why? Out of spite? Because you can't be bothered to use kobolds instead of orcs?

Seriously, some players want to play a character that hits people to death with a sword and that's it, not one that casts spells. Not even one that casts spells to make them awesome and then hits people to death with a sword. Is there something wrong with that, just because the designers made it so that sword-hitter classes can't compete with spell-caster classes?.

Warblade using Iron Heart (pure skill), Stone Dragon (nothing magic here either), some of the Diamond Mind stuff (call it Bushido or whatever suits) and I forget the other name of the mundane school. Easy.
You are either on drugs or a lying fucktard if you compare a fucking Warblade to a full caster. Warblades are great, I like them. But they will not stand up to a wizard, druid, cleric or artificer. And you know it.

It's insulting when you're stuck in Easy Mode because you suck.

By that argument your style of GMing stucks. You stick everyone into average mode. For some players that equates to hard, for some it is laughable easy.

It's also annoying to the DM, as it takes more time to devise an encounter that won't annihilate you as a gimp than a normal encounter, and even longer than one that would pose a credible threat to a fully optimized party, so that straw man can fuck right off as well.

The examples in this thread all say to simply use a different CR and be done with it. If picking a 6 or 9 instead of an 8 is hard and annoying you need to play easier games.

just pointing them at one that does it and doesn't suck (again, Warblade, and also Swordsage) is going to result in any reasonable player being happy and the unreasonable ones are filtered out at this point.

Are you delusional? Swordsage, a class that can keep up with CRs, let alone full casters?

Anyways, MS is also Smiting Imbeciles here, and said Imbeciles just keep repeating the same disproven drivel.

Fine, you do that. Go back to "smiting imbeciles" or whatever you meme of the day for "attacking stuff I don't like instead of using my brain" is. In your words: Epic troll fails. Or whatever.

[Anguirus]

Something tells me that Roy is the sort of asshole that takes miniature golf really really seriously.

[RandomCasualty2]

It's not hard to shuffle around numbers. It IS hard to shuffle them around correctly and meaningfully, and it takes time and knowledge which not every DM can have, and quite frankly, raises the bar for competent DMing in both time and ability far higher than it should be.

It's not really all that hard to get something better than the norm. You take your PCs and you subtract 1-3 levels and treat them like that. Then you use the EL/CR system as normal.

If your PCs are weak, then this is going to almost certainly be better than running by the book, and requires minimal math or number skills.

@Roy:

Your argument is ridiculous, because it's entirely based on a subjective arbitrary placement of "the right difficulty."

You happen to be insulted because people don't give you encounters based off the immutable word of the holy Bible of Monte Cook. Honestly, I don't give a shit and neither do most players.

And speaking of easy mode, the DM is already playing easy mode with PCs. If the game were adversarial and his goal was just to blow them the fuck out of the water, he could. But this isn't an adversarial game, and you don't seem to get that.

D&D isn't adversarial, but even people who play adversarial games don't always want to play them ridiculously cutthroat. A newbie just learning how to play Magic: the Gathering doesn't want to play against some killer tournament deck when he's just starting out. He just wants to have fun. Video games have difficulty settings for a reason.

People play to have fun, not everyone treats D&D as such serious business that it's a blasphemous unspeakable crime if the letter of the DMG guidelines aren't followed. Yeah... guidelines. You're not even talking about real rules here.

[Roy]

And the dumbfuck squad comes out of the woodworks to whine and flail about me. Ironically, and amusingly only the original one is worth responding to. So here goes another Smite Imbecile.

Your argument is ridiculous, because it's entirely based on a subjective arbitrary placement of "the right difficulty."

Bzzt! Wrong.

You happen to be insulted because people don't give you encounters based off the immutable word of the holy Bible of Monte Cook. Honestly, I don't give a shit and neither do most players.

The insult comes when the DM is deliberately having to give you encounters half as strong to not annihilate you... when the default assumption of the game is already that you literally outclass the opposition in routine encounters by a factor of FOUR TO ONE, which means if you're getting 'TPKed all the time' to throw your straw man back at you, it doesn't just mean you are below par, it means you are MORE THAN FOUR TIMES WEAKER THAN YOU SHOULD BE. If the encounter difficulty has to be cut in half, it means you've made something MORE THAN EIGHT TIMES WEAKER THAN YOU SHOULD BE. And you are asking, nay demanding the DM justify and coddle that kind of Epic Fucking Fail. We are not even talking about Fighters and Monks anymore, we're talking deliberately anti optimized Fighters and Monks. And when someone deliberately anti optimizes, it means they have a death wish. Full fucking stop.

For the record, the challenge comes from those approximately... 1 encounters per level where you actually face something around your level, and not 4 level x whatevers gangbanging a single level x whatever. And these are the ones that punish gimps hard, because these are the fights you actually fucking care about.

And speaking of easy mode, the DM is already playing easy mode with PCs. If the game were adversarial and his goal was just to blow them the fuck out of the water, he could. But this isn't an adversarial game, and you don't seem to get that.

You are so full of strawmen I would not be surprised if you shit actual straw. Also, whatever it is you're smoking, kindly keep it the fuck away from me.

[virgil]

Roy, what is your opinion on a party that optimizes themselves so as to fight at an effectively higher level?

[MGuy]

Roy that's plain retarded. Anti optimize? you mean not be optimized? Why should you have to optimize yourself every time you wanna play the fucking game? There is no justification for why monks and fighters are so bad but there is justification enough to let a party who chooses to play those things have fucking fun. It's a god damn game. The DM is the person who helps make it fucking fun. The DM SHOULD under all circumstances cut every corner close every page change every rule that needs to be changed to make the game as FUN as they POSSIBLY can for THEIR group.

[Psychic Robot]

I will merely repeat myself from earlier:

D&D is a game. The primary purpose of a game is to have fun. If the party is dying every five minutes, the game is probably not fun. If the party is walking all over the boss fights, the game is probably not fun. The best way to make the game fun is to adjust the difficulty of the challenges that the party face.

Is this "coddling" the players? In some cases, yes. But I'd rather "coddle" the players and have a good game than have a giant TPK a half hour in and force everyone to roll up new characters.

[PhoneLobster]

The primary purpose of a game is to have fun. If the party is dying every five minutes, the game is probably not fun.

This is on the wrong thread.

But mostly it is just stupid. You are placing blame with the players and heaping the responsibility to fix it on the shoulders of the GM.

Yet almost inevitably in practice this kind of thing is a problem with the rules and the person who should fix it is the game designer.

Trap options are not the players responsibility to avoid or the GMs responsibility to accommodate. They outright should not be in the rules at all.

[RandomCasualty2]

The insult comes when the DM is deliberately having to give you encounters half as strong to not annihilate you...

Half as strong as what? Some arbitrary guideline? And if so... so what?

I don't know why you assume that newbies are going to care. Maybe you'll care, but the DM won't have to do that to you. For you, if anything he's going to be jacking up the difficulty, not gearing it down.

And you are asking, nay demanding the DM justify and coddle that kind of Epic Fucking Fail.

The only epic fail I'm seeing is TPKing your party and not letting them have fun because they didn't live up to arbitrary guidelines. You want to talk about epic fail... that's epic fail.

You're TPKing your group over fucking guidelines.

You talk about how it's harder to run for those groups... but it's really not. When you're building your encounters you just build them as though the group was 2 levels lower or whatever. And it's seriously easier and faster to design lower level encounters. So doing this sort of balancing actually should make it easier to prepare.

Seriously instead of looking for 4 CR 10 creatures you're looking for 4 CR 8. Big fuckin' deal.

Why is this worth killing your group over?

[Draco_Argentum]

Roy, why are you being such a tool about this? The solution to monks sucking isn't to TPK parties with monk level characters. Either fix the monk or use easier encounters. Your passive aggressive slaughter them until they guess the problem is Gygaxian crap.

[violence in the media]

Roy, why are you being such a tool about this? The solution to monks sucking isn't to TPK parties with monk level characters. Either fix the monk or use easier encounters. Your passive aggressive slaughter them until they guess the problem is Gygaxian crap.

In fairness to Roy, he has said that he will work with people on building better characters and tell them exactly what classes and powers they need to take to fit their vision/character concept.

Now, conjecturing a little bit on my part here, but I imagine that this would extend to explaining how a party of only monks and fighters can't handle an encounter with, say, shadows, at the level the game expects them to. Roy's real resistance seems directed towards the players that stubbornly refuse to do what is necessary, because their character concept demands that their fighter has no more than a 12 STR or whatever.

I can agree with this stance, as my old group operated under the maxim that when character concept and game play were at odds, character concept usually took a back seat. This was generally assumed to mean that you took and re-fluffed classes that mechanically did what you wanted your character to be able to do. ("I can't take levels in Rogue, that would make me a thief!" "No it won't, call it something else and max your UMD like you wanted to.")

[Roy]

Roy, what is your opinion on a party that optimizes themselves so as to fight at an effectively higher level?

First of all, you should know I don't give opinions by now, as that's the same as saying 'You have no reason to give a fuck about anything I'm about to say' on the Internet. And if it's obvious from the start the other person has no reason to care, why say it?

Second, if they do that they're making my job easier. I can use anything that's level appropriate without having to worry about annihilating the party so I can just focus on whatever is story appropriate, instead of having to find a 'I can't believe it's not Mind Flayer!' Even getting into optimizing the opponents, it's still easier to make opponents capable of doing something meaningful for 1 or 2 rounds than finding level appropriate enemies that will not annihilate characters that are at least four times weaker than they are supposed to be.

Third, on the extremely unlikely instance I actually misjudge the difficulty of the encounter, Team Optimizer gets to be even more badass by trouncing it anyways, whereas any other group has to be humiliated by either getting annihilated, or worse getting saved by contrived bullshit like SUPER NPC TO THE RESCUE. This last point is more important for less skilled DMs as they are significantly more likely to make something that's stronger than they think it is and that will therefore directly lead to this problem.

Roy that's plain retarded. Anti optimize? you mean not be optimized? Why should you have to optimize yourself every time you wanna play the fucking game? There is no justification for why monks and fighters are so bad but there is justification enough to let a party who chooses to play those things have fucking fun. It's a god damn game. The DM is the person who helps make it fucking fun. The DM SHOULD under all circumstances cut every corner close every page change every rule that needs to be changed to make the game as FUN as they POSSIBLY can for THEIR group.

No you idiot. Anti optimize is not the same as not optimizing. See, there are THREE states of being. Doing something, not doing something, and actively moving away from doing something. And the second and third are very different.

Also, stop wanking to metagame tags for classes. A Fighter is a guy who primarily fights with a sword or whatthefuck ever. A Monk is a guy who primarily flips out and kills people with his hands. As there are other classes that do both of those things and not suck, there is no reason to justify those classes' existence as the concepts - the only thing that fucking matters here are all quite intact.

Ignoring the rest of your lying drivel.

Half as strong as what? Some arbitrary guideline? And if so... so what?

Level - 2 = half as strong. Put another way, cohorts. Or half your numbers. Four of you to equal two worthwhile party members... Yeah, you suck.

Ignoring the rest of your strawman lies and blameshifting incompetence justifying Fail.

[Roy]

Roy, why are you being such a tool about this? The solution to monks sucking isn't to TPK parties with monk level characters. Either fix the monk or use easier encounters. Your passive aggressive slaughter them until they guess the problem is Gygaxian crap.

Why are you being such a dumbfuck about this? Learn to read the fucking post, then you will understand what is actually going on, instead of joining RC in a circle jerk session over some strawmen.

The only part of that remotely worth responding to is they aren't 'passive aggressive guessing the problem' since I'm telling them exactly what the problem is and how to fix it before the game even starts, the moment I see their character.

Now RC is too fucking stupid to understand how a scenario like this could be anything other than me being a meanieface DM, mostly because he's a terrible player who makes worse characters that need a coddling DM just to visit the tavern without being soloed by a housecat. At level 10.

But in actuality the scenario is like this:

Bob sees Jake working on a deck. Jake is clutching a nail in his palm and is about to drive it in, which would clearly cause him to quite regularly hit his hand, and have a hard time securing the planks in place.

Bob: Stop. *waits for Jake to stop, and pay attention* Hey Jake, you should hold the nails between your thumb and forefinger, that way you can hold the nails steady without hitting yourself and once they're in most of the way you can let go and drive them in the rest of the way.

If Jake is a reasonable and intelligent person he will immediately stop and hear Bob out then immediately recognize the merits of actually being able to build a deck, and not smacking his hand with a hammer repeatedly. He will thank Bob for his advice, try it, and immediately recognize the better results at which point he will hold nails properly when hammering them in in the future.

RC seems to think Jake should ignore this advice, beat the fuck out of his hand with a hammer, then blame Bob for his broken hand as if it were somehow Bob's fault Jake did it wrong. And maybe it would have been if Bob didn't say anything and just stood there watching while he hurt himself, but he did. Bob is the good guy here.

Jake is also the good guy, unless he's played by a dumbfuck like RC. At which point everything, even basic rules of the universe like 'Don't hit yourself with a hammer, you fucking fucker' are all someone else's fault.

VitM gets it, so why don't you? Of course, given that I've said it at least half a dozen times by now, the fact he's the only one here admitting to having gotten it reflects poorly on the dumbfuck squad who persistently attacks me over that straw man.

[RobbyPants]

But in actuality the scenario is like this:

Bob sees Jake working on a deck. Jake is clutching a nail in his palm and is about to drive it in, which would clearly cause him to quite regularly hit his hand, and have a hard time securing the planks in place.

Bob: Stop. *waits for Jake to stop, and pay attention* Hey Jake, you should hold the nails between your thumb and forefinger, that way you can hold the nails steady without hitting yourself and once they're in most of the way you can let go and drive them in the rest of the way.

If Jake is a reasonable and intelligent person he will immediately stop and hear Bob out then immediately recognize the merits of actually being able to build a deck, and not smacking his hand with a hammer repeatedly. He will thank Bob for his advice, try it, and immediately recognize the better results at which point he will hold nails properly when hammering them in in the future.

RC seems to think Jake should ignore this advice, beat the fuck out of his hand with a hammer, then blame Bob for his broken hand as if it were somehow Bob's fault Jake did it wrong. And maybe it would have been if Bob didn't say anything and just stood there watching while he hurt himself, but he did. Bob is the good guy here.

First of all, I do agree with your stance if you warn, and help, the players up front.

Although, in your analogy, as the DM, you have 100% control over how hard Jake is smacking himself in the hand with the hammer. Of course, in a game with three Bobs and one Jake, Jake had better get on board and start holding the nail correctly. In a game with four Jakes, the problem could be fixed on either end.

Personally, I try a hybrid approach. None of my players are particularly good at optimizing. I'll give them pointers at character creating and when leveling which they may or may not take. Luckily for me, they all end up on a pretty similar power level. From that point on, I design encounters around their characters, and not some arbitrarily chosen level of difficulty.

[violence in the media]

Here's another thought for the pile, if you're not going to teach a player to play the game better, why are you going to bother to teach them to play at all? Is showing someone how to make a more effective character somehow wrong, in comparison to teaching them to calculate their saves, attack bonus, and skill points?

[Roy]

First of all, I do agree with your stance if you warn, and help, the players up front.

Although, in your analogy, as the DM, you have 100% control over how hard Jake is smacking himself in the hand with the hammer. Of course, in a game with three Bobs and one Jake, Jake had better get on board and start holding the nail correctly. In a game with four Jakes, the problem could be fixed on either end.

Personally, I try a hybrid approach. None of my players are particularly good at optimizing. I'll give them pointers at character creating and when leveling which they may or may not take. Luckily for me, they all end up on a pretty similar power level. From that point on, I design encounters around their characters, and not some arbitrarily chosen level of difficulty.

Bob is busy building the entire rest of the house. And every other house in the neighborhood. Including their decks. And while Bob is willing to teach Jake how to build a deck in spite of all that, the reason why Jake is there is to 'participate in the construction of a neighborhood'. Which means if Bob ends up having to build the deck for him because Jake keeps hitting his hand like a dumbfuck, there is no reason for Jake to be there, and Bob should get someone else to join in that can follow basic instructions. Even if the mistake were less painful, being proven incapable of following basic instructions indicates there will be a number of problems stemming from failed reading/listening comprehension in the future, and that this person will have a hard time understanding anything you say. And it's not as if they have a legitimate reason for this like being hard of hearing or still learning English. They're just being difficult.

What makes people dumbfucks is when they say that being difficult is not only acceptable, but encouraged. And then try to displace it by claiming I/Bob/Giant Frog is actually the difficult one.

Just general advice is enough to ensure competence. You don't have to walk Jake through building a deck, just teach him how to hold the nail right. You don't have to walk your player through a full optimization class, just tell them what classes do what they want and don't suck.

Yes, a Swordsage is inferior to full spellcasters. So is almost everything else. Thank you Sherlock Holmes for that brilliant discussion. However they are a class that flips out and kills people with their hands and works considerably better than Monks and are considerably more straightforward to design and play than some sort of power dipped build (that still sucks, but has a narrow niche in which it does not suck). It's also more clearly defined than something like a Kung Fu Bear where they take one level of Monk and the rest Druid as they may not in fact have had BEARS WITH LASERS in mind when they came up with that idea, just as the best way to build a melee is to be a caster but they may not have had that in mind either. Anyways. At most this would take 5 minutes, if the player has never used ToB before and isn't sure what maneuvers would suit what they want to do.

Similar lines can easily be drawn for Swashbuckler vs Rogue and Fighter vs Warblade, among other examples. All of these classes are able to actually play the damn game without needing constant coddling and fit the concepts as well or better than their inferior brethen. The only reason not to do it is if you are attached to metagame tags (which by the way, means you aren't really a roleplayer or a ROLEplayer, so put the basket away) or just being difficult. See earlier comments regarding what being difficult means.

I'm not sure who VitM is talking to. It sure isn't me.

[Murtak]

Here's another thought for the pile, if you're not going to teach a player to play the game better, why are you going to bother to teach them to play at all? Is showing someone how to make a more effective character somehow wrong, in comparison to teaching them to calculate their saves, attack bonus, and skill points?

If you think that thought to its logical conclusion anyone not abusing polymorph layering, planeshifting to accelerated time planes and stacking multiple contigencies is simply wrong and needs to learn how to play. But clearly this is bullshit.

What is important is firstly and most importantly that the power of the player's characters be roughly equal and secondly that the challenge the encounters pose are appropriate to the party and thirdly that the listed CR of the monsters is appropriate to parties of that level.

Note that "lets visit hell" need not be a challenge as such. If you think it is ridiculous to attempt this at level 3 you are not obligated to only use CR 1 to 5 monsters. "Hell" is off-limits at that level and that is fine. However if you decide a campaign in hell is a good idea you should not repeatedly kill your party. Similarly town guards need not be level 10 just because the heroes are. But if you want to run a thieves guild campaign some of their opponents better have an appropriate challenge rating.

And what this all means is this: We can not fix monster CR. There are too many of them by far. Thankfully they are mostly still usable. The first thing to do is to get the entire party to a similar level of power. That may include tutoring, telling them to pick appropriate classes, powering up classes on the fly, handing out artifacts or even telling players to pick weaker classes, especially if they are stronger players. Armed with a somewhat predictable measurement of difficulty (CR) and party power you then pick out encounters. If you want to you can then teach your group how to play "better" during the course of an actual game. But that step is entirely optional.

By the way, if the players like "playing on easy mode" that equates to the DM "playing on hard mode" and vice versa. If one is unacceptable, why isn't the other?

[violence in the media]

Here's another thought for the pile, if you're not going to teach a player to play the game better, why are you going to bother to teach them to play at all? Is showing someone how to make a more effective character somehow wrong, in comparison to teaching them to calculate their saves, attack bonus, and skill points?

If you think that thought to its logical conclusion anyone not abusing polymorph layering, planeshifting to accelerated time planes and stacking multiple contigencies is simply wrong and needs to learn how to play. But clearly this is bullshit.

Is it? Just because you acquire the ability to recognize the issues doesn't mean you have to use and abuse them. Sure, a gentleman's agreement of power level is worse than the game being designed in a way that such things aren't necessary, but I'd rather have an entire table of people who could go off the walls, rule-bendingly nuts than not. That demonstrates a greater awareness of the mechanics of the game and will contribute to higher quality houserules for that group.

Again, my contention is not that everyone should employ "abusing polymorph layering, planeshifting to accelerated time planes and stacking multiple contigencies" in their games. Rather, as an ultimate progression of their abilities, they should learn how and why those things exist (via rule interactions), how to identify them and potential similar problems, and how to deal with them (houserule-wise).

Hell, most of this forum is my argument taken to your logical conclusion, in knowledge if not actual game implementation, and we're all better for it. I know I've learned a lot since I've joined this place.

@Roy--Yeah, I wasn't talking to you with that last post. My question found its mark.

[MGuy]

Wanking off metagame tags? Those are the NAMES OF THE CLASSES. What better way to refer to the NAME OF THE CLASS I'm referring to than to use its FUCKING NAME. And just by CHOOSING to play those classes people will fall under your new "anti optimization" tag. What is more while complaining about the smaller details you just so happen to skip over my main point labeling it as all "lies". So let me highlight it here once again.

IT'S A GOD DAMN GAME! THE OBJECT OF PLAYING A GAME IS TO HAVE FUN! DM SHOULD BE MAKING FUN HAPPEN EVEN IF HE HAS TO CHANGE THE RULES!

IF adjusting the game (and I mean in any way, even beyond this trite CR adjustment conversation) enhances the FUN for the group then who gives a fuck?! Mechanically, yes adjusting the game isn't sound. If this game was 100% mechanics like playing magic or hammering a nail I would totally be agreeing with you. However its not. It's a cooperative story telling game. A game in which you play a role. Players pllay their characters and DM handles everything else. That's the responsibility anyone who sits behind the screen takes on.

Now let me take the time to try and prevent twisting of my words by telling you what I'm not saying.

1) You don't have to do this. Usage of Rule 0 is a personal fucking choice. No one is shoving it down your throat and saying DO THIS OR DIE. You don't want to do it? Fine don't.

2) I'm not arguing over just this CR adjustment crap. I'm making a blanket statement that ANY adjustment in your personal game is fine if it enhances the collective fun of playing the game.

3) This IS NOT an argument over mechanics. This isn't homebrew ruling people are arguing over. This is usage of Rule 0. This isn't an exact science RC is talking about. so your shouting of half as strong 4 times as strong arbitrarium does not apply. Fun is subjective and thusly I'm talking about individual changes for individual groups which is what RC is promoting.

4) You're lying. Those are lies. Stop lying. Is not an argument unless you can back it up with facts. So please stop being stupid and relying on that to tip toe your way past explaining yourself.

Personally I don't think there is any gain in poking around in 0 level rulings. This thread should be headed down the road of fixing what needs to be fixed, not fixating on personal styles of play.

[Roy]

And much whining, flailing, and nerd raging is had. HUZZAH!

But seriously. Yes they fucking are metagame tags. Learn to read the fucking posts, as I will not explain to the dumbfuck squad yet again why this is so.