Balancing 3.x

Murtak · Post by **Murtak** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 2:28 pm

Point taken: Knowing about x not the same as using x. Mind you, I still think it is fine to play fighters (in a party of comparable power), even if it is worthwhile to know how and why clerics are superior. And while it would be preferable to have fighters at the power level of a cleric the issue is not fighter power vs CR - that is easily taken care of. It is fighter power vs cleric power.

Murtak · Post by **Murtak** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 2:35 pm

Roy wrote:Yes, a Swordsage is inferior to full spellcasters. So is almost everything else. Thank you Sherlock Holmes for that brilliant discussion.

You proposed to have people play swordsages instead of monks to keep up with other characters. Swordsages do not keep up, with monsters of their CR or with full casters. Ergo: your supposed fix doesn't work.

More generally speaking there is no easy fix for every class. Even if there was, some players are weaker than others. You are basically advocating to drive every newbie ever away from the game by killing them a dozen times in a row for no reason at all. And on the other hand you are advocating easy rides for everyone who understands the game or happens to stumble across an overpowered feat or class or heavens forbid, abuses one of the dozens of ways to break the game.

Murtak · Post by **Murtak** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 2:42 pm

MGuy wrote: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.

While Roy is being a jackass he does have a point here.

The name of the class is just a label. It does not appear in-game at all. Fighter, Paladin, Warrior, Warblade and the Tome Knight can all be used to represent the same character (a stalwart protector of the weak) - with wildly varying power. There is no connection to roleplaying at all, and your character does not know what class he has levels in. All he knows is his abilities. Depending on your GM he may know that he is exceptionally strong-willed or that goblins are no threat to him at all. But your class does not matter at all except for picking up those stats and abilities.

And thus staying in fighter to be a fighter is not good roleplaying. Arguably it is even bad roleplaying (your character is after all less like your description of him if he keeps picking up empty levels).

So telling someone to play a warblade instead of a fighter is entirely reasonable if the fighter is weaker than the rest of the party. It just isn't reasonable when the party includes a fighter, a monk, a healer and a marshal.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 3:06 pm

Except that it's fighter power vs enemy power. The fact his buddies are also far better is nice, but ultimately irrelevant or at least secondary to the DM having an increasingly hard time finding anything that won't utterly annihilate him even if he were to try.

Intelligent casters are right out. Invis, fly, and Mirror Image in case Invis is broken or thwarted, while throwing Win spells. That's a level 5 encounter, and the Fighters have no chance unless they're 10 or higher.

Even if they just stand nicely on the ground and blast for piddly shit with Fireball and Scorching Ray, it's still extremely likely one or more of them drop dead.

Humanoid beatsticks? Even basic rage + charge + PA fucks them up, and we aren't talking about an actual charger here with Leap Attack/Shock Trooper/mounted lance... none of that. Just those three things, nothing else. And if humanoid beatsticks are too good, monster ones are right out.

What is left again to throw at the gimps that won't mulch them?

Use characters that are actually competent and they might be able to deal with one, and two and three are no problem.

Edit: And why don't they? Since you're so sure of it, break down why they don't. They're certainly on the weaker end of competence, but then killing things with bare hands is an inferior archetype (else, why buy weapons) so taking that into consideration I think they did well.

Also, why isn't it reasonable? Because everyone else is being molested by the monsters as well? That if anything would be even more reason to get it together, since you aren't the only one who stands to suffer from incompetence. I would fully expect anyone who just got the fucking shit beat out of them to review why they got the fucking shit beat out of them and then enact steps to stop getting the fucking shit beat out of them. That might mean avoiding such conflicts in the future, at which point the character retires for his own safety. That might mean learning how to better deal with those encounters, as in taking levels in classes that give them the ability to do that.

And when your buddies are in the same scenario as you? Time to encourage each other to get it together and/or do it for their sake.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 3:15 pm

I agree tags are not important but I was not referring to the tag in my statements but to the classes themselves. please read this statement:

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.

In which I very clearly state I am talking about the classes themselves not their fighting styles. I'm not talking about fighty types or unarmed fighty types I was talking about people who actually want to play those (non Tome) classes.

In either case that STILL isn't the point I was making. But I do have to thank you for showing me you have no argument against my actual point.

Murtak · Post by **Murtak** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 5:12 pm

MGuy wrote:In which I very clearly state I am talking about the classes themselves not their fighting styles. I'm not talking about fighty types or unarmed fighty types I was talking about people who actually want to play those (non Tome) classes.

That is exactly where you go wrong. No one should want to play "a fighter" (the class). The should want to play a guy in heavy armor who knows a lot of tricks with polearms and is a grizzled veteran.

You don't hear anyone going "I want to be a BA-4-certified University of Pongdong Course 13 member when I grow up", do you? No, you hear "I want to be an astronaut/physician/programmer/football star". Studying at Pongdong University may give you the skills required for that, but if Pingding University is cheaper, better, faster and also saves the planet you would not stick with Pongdong, would you?

Murtak · Post by **Murtak** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 5:13 pm

Roy wrote:Except that it's fighter power vs enemy power. The fact his buddies are also far better is nice, but ultimately irrelevant or at least secondary to the DM having an increasingly hard time finding anything that won't utterly annihilate him even if he were to try.

If you are incapable of simply picking your encounters from a lower CR you are correct. Also I feel sorry for you.

Roy wrote:What is left again to throw at the gimps that won't mulch them?

As has stated before about two dozen times: Lower CRs. Yes, it is entirely conceivable that if your players are brainless zombies they will fail to defeat a level 3 wizard at level 10. Actual humans won't.

Roy wrote:I would fully expect anyone who just got the fucking shit beat out of them to review why they got the fucking shit beat out of them and then enact steps to stop getting the fucking shit beat out of them.

Let me give you a different example. You play a fighting game. Your friend has already beaten the computer tons of times, so it is set to ultra-hard. It knows 99% of the combos, evades most regular attacks entirely and blocks the rest. To even go 50-50 against the game you have to play at a level most tournament players don't reach. So you get crushed. Utterly. Repeatedly. After you lose twenty times in a row you ask your friend for help. He tells you to suck it up and learn to play. He tells you to counter throws, to reverse the computer's attack, to not get hit by power moves.

Are you seriously telling me that is the way to approach games?

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 5:28 pm

Murtak:

1) Swordsages do keep up with Monsters of their CR.

2)

Murtak wrote:Let me give you a different example. You play a fighting game. Your friend has already beaten the computer tons of times, so it is set to ultra-hard. It knows 99% of the combos, evades most regular attacks entirely and blocks the rest. To even go 50-50 against the game you have to play at a level most tournament players don't reach. So you get crushed. Utterly. Repeatedly. After you lose twenty times in a row you ask your friend for help. He tells you to suck it up and learn to play. He tells you to counter throws, to reverse the computer's attack, to not get hit by power moves.

That's dumb. No fighting game on any difficulty is even close to the lowest tournament level play. Name a fighting game, anyone who has ever played that game in a tournament not held in someone's basement can beat the computer on hardest with 90% or greater success rate.

Murtak · Post by **Murtak** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 6:02 pm

Kaelik wrote:Swordsages do keep up with Monsters of their CR.

News to me. Oh, I am sure you can build a specific character that can go 50-50 on a gauntlet run. But you can do that with fighters and monks too. And the vast majority of swordsage abilities just plain suck. If you don't carefully pick and plan your maneuvres and select feats and equipment to match your swordsage will suck.

Kaelik wrote:That's dumb. No fighting game on any difficulty is even close to the lowest tournament level play.

Fine, then substitute "tournament-caliber-player" for "game on tournament setting". Feel free to substitute "TCG" for "fighting game" too.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 6:48 pm

Actually yes. I have had people say they want to play the core fighter or the core monk. Especially people who think that there is nothing wrong with them. When I first started out DMing no one complained for a second about being those classes. Any time I noticed that I might start over killing the party I pulled a monster's punches. Everyone being newbs at the time were none the wiser. It worked out. Saying that no one wants to play what's in the book would be like saying there aren't people who think the rules are fine as is.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 7:04 pm

MGuy wrote:Actually yes. I have had people say they want to play the core fighter or the core monk. Especially people who think that there is nothing wrong with them. When I first started out DMing no one complained for a second about being those classes. Any time I noticed that I might start over killing the party I pulled a monster's punches. Everyone being newbs at the time were none the wiser. It worked out. Saying that no one wants to play what's in the book would be like saying there aren't people who think the rules are fine as is.

Except all you've proved is that stupid people are stupid.

Roy is taking the axiom 'being smart is better than being stupid.' If your argument is that stupidity is just as good as intelligence, your argument proves that stupid people do in fact want to do stupid things.

But since the point is that smart people don't want to do stupid things, that doesn't prove anything relative to this conversation.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 7:27 pm

I can see an intelligent person playing an SRD monk. For example, one might do it if one wanted to make the DM feel bad for designing challenges that wipe out the group/the PC.

One also might do it if the group plays multiple games in a single session and one wants more time for another game.

One also might do it if one was in a game where the outcomes of previous adventures changed the world and one wanted to make the world a darker and more unpleasant place (alternatively, if one was asked to play villains, one might do it to make the world less threatened).

EDIT: Also, one might partially cripple one's character to see if it could still win through careful tactics.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 7:46 pm

Just to be clear. I am pointing out what the actual arguments are. Roy's argument is that smart people won't play Monks.

I just get infuriated by off track arguments that don't address anything.

As for your list... hardly indicative of a counter to Roy's point, since half of them are based on the assumption that you pick a Monk only when you don't actually want to play in that game.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 7:55 pm

The reason you pick a monk is because the monk's ability set interests you for the character you want to roleplay. You probably wish he was better, but you want to play a mobile unarmed combatant. So there, you pick monk.

As an RPG, it's about telling stories. Sometimes people want to be Drizz't. And that means being a fighter/ranger with two weapons. Even though Two weapon fighting sucks ass, and fighters suck ass. But maybe that's your concept.

Now, if you in the guise of "helping" the player min/max his character basically tell him he has to turn his Drizz't character into friar tuck with a greatsword, then that is pretty much the worst kind of epic fail you can get.

This is a storytelling game, and killing someone's character concept because of shitty rules (and yes, the 3.5 rules are absolutely shitty) is very bad for the game. Now, I can understand people who say they're going to change the rules to make his character good, or write him a custom class or whatever. But people who say that they won't change the rules, and won't make encounters easier and rely totally on the player abandoning his character concept are doing their players a terrible disservice.

Keeping in mind that if you're one of these people that forces PCs to abandon character concepts solely because you refuse to lower the difficulty or rebuild their class, you're doing that solely so you can suck the cocks of the WotC design team because you want to treat their text LIKE THE FUCKING BIBLE.

Murtak · Post by **Murtak** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 8:08 pm

RandomCasualty2 wrote:The reason you pick a monk is because the monk's ability set interests you for the character you want to roleplay. You probably wish he was better, but you want to play a mobile unarmed combatant. So there, you pick monk.

As an RPG, it's about telling stories. Sometimes people want to be Drizz't. And that means being a fighter/ranger with two weapons. Even though Two weapon fighting sucks ass, and fighters suck ass. But maybe that's your concept.

Now, if you in the guise of "helping" the player min/max his character basically tell him he has to turn his Drizz't character into friar tuck with a greatsword, then that is pretty much the worst kind of epic fail you can get.

Agreed. But this isn't what anyone has been talking about. It isn't about replacing a two-weapon fighter/ranger with a greatsword fighter. It is about replacing a two-weapon fighter/ranger with a two-weapon ranger/rogue/insert-PrC-with-sneak-attack-and-full-BAB-here. The entire point of the exercise is to leave the character concept untouched.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 8:14 pm

Murtak wrote: Agreed. But this isn't what anyone has been talking about. It isn't about replacing a two-weapon fighter/ranger with a greatsword fighter. It is about replacing a two-weapon fighter/ranger with a two-weapon ranger/rogue/insert-PrC-with-sneak-attack-and-full-BAB-here. The entire point of the exercise is to leave the character concept untouched.

Well, going from fighter/ragner to ranger/rogue can often do a lot to the concept. As a rogue, you're basically no longer playing the honorable warrior who solos stuff and more of a guy who thrives at taking cheap shots. The fact is that now you're best while running around invisible or stabbing people in the back.

That's a pretty considerable conceptual difference if you ask me.

Often I find it's that the best tactics in 3.5 seem contrary to heroic fantasy concepts in general. Being greater invisible and shooting virtually helpless targets with a crossbow is something that fits well with the flavor of Shadowrun. It doesn't fit well with a game of heroic fantasy. Most people in heroic fantasy games want to play kick down the door Conan types. They're just not looking to play tactical cowards or wizards who toss rainbows instead of fireballs. Really, I blame the rules for making all the out-of-genre tactics (and therefore builds based around those tactics) the best.

It generally just happens that you usually end up taking a heroic concept and powering it up by making it less heroic and more of a tactical coward.

Quantumboost · Post by **Quantumboost** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 9:00 pm

RandomCasualty2 wrote:
Murtak wrote: Agreed. But this isn't what anyone has been talking about. It isn't about replacing a two-weapon fighter/ranger with a greatsword fighter. It is about replacing a two-weapon fighter/ranger with a two-weapon ranger/rogue/insert-PrC-with-sneak-attack-and-full-BAB-here. The entire point of the exercise is to leave the character concept untouched.
Well, going from fighter/ragner to ranger/rogue can often do a lot to the concept. As a rogue, you're basically no longer playing the honorable warrior who solos stuff and more of a guy who thrives at taking cheap shots. The fact is that now you're best while running around invisible or stabbing people in the back.

As a rogue/ranger, you're playing someone who is quick and exploits openings in combat. You claiming that they only take "cheap shots" and "stabbing people in the back" is just dumb, especially since "exploits openings" includes such inherently cowardly tactics as "feinting".

Your arbitrary restriction of the rogue concept is a lack of flexibility and imagination on your part, not anything inherent to the class.

Additionally, since when is a concept mapped to fighter/ranger necessarily an "honorable warrior"? Especially since several of a ranger's key abilities include "sneaking around"?

Often I find it's that the best tactics in 3.5 seem contrary to heroic fantasy concepts in general. Being greater invisible and shooting virtually helpless targets with a crossbow is something that fits well with the flavor of Shadowrun. It doesn't fit well with a game of heroic fantasy. Most people in heroic fantasy games want to play kick down the door Conan types. They're just not looking to play tactical cowards or wizards who toss rainbows instead of fireballs. Really, I blame the rules for making all the out-of-genre tactics (and therefore builds based around those tactics) the best.

It generally just happens that you usually end up taking a heroic concept and powering it up by making it less heroic and more of a tactical coward.

Congratulations. You've just created a very good explanation of why D&D isn't a heroic fantasy game.

Archmage · Post by **Archmage** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 9:19 pm

Class levels are just a package of abilities. That's it. They're not inexorably tied to their flavor. Sneak attack is just extra damage when you have the upper hand on your opponent as defined by the given tactical/positioning modifiers. It doesn't require you to be a sneaky coward or a dirty fighter. It just means that when you have a solid opening, you take it.

A player who wants to do X should be guided to choices that produce result X, especially if the idea is to keep things somewhat even between players of different experience levels in a game requiring as much system mastery as 3.5e. If a player says they want to play a fighter, the smart thing to do as a GM is figure out what's attractive to that player about the fighter class. Then show them a way to do that without being strictly inferior to everyone in the party who picked levels in a class that's actually good.

Why is there even an argument about this? Is it because of the emotional attachment to class names like "fighter" or "monk" some people have?

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 10:00 pm

Quantumboost wrote: As a rogue/ranger, you're playing someone who is quick and exploits openings in combat. You claiming that they only take "cheap shots" and "stabbing people in the back" is just dumb, especially since "exploits openings" includes such inherently cowardly tactics as "feinting".

Yeah but feinting sucks as a mechanical tactic, so I basically remove it. If you were a feint master, that might actually be fine. But feinting just isn't worth it. We really know that to make a ranger/rogue good, you're going to end up getting your mage buddy to greater invis you, and then going to town against a bunch of guys who can't see you. Either that or you end up just flanking a ton of stuff.

So you're either great at doubleteaming and stabbing your foes in the back or you're good at going invisible and stabbing people who can't see you. That's seriously what this guy is gonna be doing in a real game.

Your arbitrary restriction of the rogue concept is a lack of flexibility and imagination on your part, not anything inherent to the class.

No, it's actually about what sneak attack does mechanically. Forget the flavor text.

Additionally, since when is a concept mapped to fighter/ranger necessarily an "honorable warrior"? Especially since several of a ranger's key abilities include "sneaking around"?

Well, "honorable" in this sense doesn't always mean kicking in the front door, but it generally means being good at solo combat. Because that's what a combat badass does and if the character was built to look like Drizz't, you better be able to do Drizz't stuff. Having it so that you're only actually competent when you ambush a foe or have your wizard make you invisible just isn't sticking to character concept. But we're not building Sam Fisher here, we're building Drizz't.

So the whole idea that you're building a character that retains the original concept is lost. The guy just isn't good in straight duels anymore. He's a full stealth ambusher, and that's it.

Congratulations. You've just created a very good explanation of why D&D isn't a heroic fantasy game.

Only it's supposed to be a heroic fantasy game and people are going to make heroic fantasy concepts for it. It's just bad rules that reward people for doing nonheroic fantasy stuff.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 10:32 pm

RandomCasualty2 wrote:Only it's supposed to be a heroic fantasy game and people are going to make heroic fantasy concepts for it.

No it's not supposed to be a heroic fantasy game. Get over yourself.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 10:35 pm

Kaelik wrote:
RandomCasualty2 wrote:Only it's supposed to be a heroic fantasy game and people are going to make heroic fantasy concepts for it.
No it's not supposed to be a heroic fantasy game. Get over yourself.

Clearly we're not talking about the same game then...

Back cover of the D&D 3.5 PHB (first line of small print) wrote: Prepare to venture forth with your bold companions into a world of heroic fantasy.

Back Cover of the D&D 3.5 DMG wrote: Weave exciting tales of heroism filled with magic and monsters.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 10:41 pm

Your definition of heroic fantasy is very specific one with an itemized list of must haves.

WotC heroic fantasy is a buzzword. The fact that they have the Gate spell on it's own negates your definition of heroic fantasy.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 10:44 pm

Kaelik wrote:Your definition of heroic fantasy is very specific one with an itemized list of must haves.

WotC heroic fantasy is a buzzword. The fact that they have the Gate spell on it's own negates your definition of heroic fantasy.

Not really. No.

The fact that you can have bad mechanics that produce broken results doesn't change the intended theme of the game. The fact is that there were a lot of design goals that just weren't accomplished. They wanted all the classes to be balanced. That was horribly done, both in 4E and 3E. But that was still one of the design goals of the game. Similarly, the intended theme doesn't suddenly change because they did a poor job balancing spells.

That theme is heroic fantasy. You may not like it, but that's the theme. It says so on the back of both the PHB and the DMG.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 10:52 pm

RandomCasualty2 wrote:That theme is heroic fantasy. You may not like it, but that's the theme. It says so on the back of both the PHB and the DMG.

Heroic fantasy didn't mean anything specific in 2001. It sure as hell has never meant what you think it does.

You don't get to claim that every single level 5 spell and up is a poor design decision that doesn't meet the theme of 'heroic fantasy' because it says 'heroic fantasy' and not 'Heroic fantasy, as defined by RC that douche on a forum who thinks that people shouldn't be able to teleport long distance, or divine information, or gate in allies, or kill people with a single spell.'

You don't get to define what they meant by heroic fantasy, and the existence of various one hit kill spells, divinations, and utility spells like teleport and polymorph, as well as AoE affects like control winds and EBT clearly proves your definition of heroic fantasy, which would have none of those things, wrong.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 11:54 pm

Kaelik wrote: You don't get to claim that every single level 5 spell and up is a poor design decision that doesn't meet the theme of 'heroic fantasy' because it says 'heroic fantasy' and not 'Heroic fantasy, as defined by RC that douche on a forum who thinks that people shouldn't be able to teleport long distance, or divine information, or gate in allies, or kill people with a single spell.'

Actually, no none of that has anything to do with heroic fantasy. You can have high powered heroic fantasy. Slayers for instance is still heroic fantasy genre, regardless of the fact that they can blow up entire cities with one spell. The only thing that defines heroic fantasy is that its about being heroic. That means taking risks.

It's more a playstyle than anything else. Shadowrun for instance emphasises strategic over heroic play. You're not really looking to go in there and blow shit up like the Matrix. You don't want to do fancy stunts and look awesome. You're looking to get in there, make as little noise as possible adn get out, hopefully before you're detected and draw too mcuh fire.

Heroic style is all about big explosions, cool moves, and climactic confrontations.

Or to put it another way, the heroic style is like playing Doom 2 or even Gears of War. The strategic style is playing SWAT 4 or Splinter Cell.

Keep in mind that all of those are cool games. Just like Shadowrun is a cool game. It's just that D&D isn't Shadowrun.