Well, Mike Mearls got promoted. Any hope for 5e?

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Jul 30, 2011 5:51 am

Maxus wrote:
CapnTthePirateG wrote:
Chamomile wrote:And Psychic beats everything.
The Dark-type would like a word with you.
Steel-type can slug it out with them, too.

And then there's ghosts.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sat Jul 30, 2011 7:06 am

In Gen 1, Ghosts are all Poison/Ghost, so Psychic is still super-effective against them.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Jul 30, 2011 7:14 am

In gens 2-5, there are pure ghosts and ghosts with second types that aren't liabilities against psychics, including some dark/ghosts. So ghosts still beat 'em.

CapnTthePirateG · Post by **CapnTthePirateG** » Sat Jul 30, 2011 7:42 am

Koumei wrote:In Gen 1, Ghosts are all Poison/Ghost, so Psychic is still super-effective against them.

Plus the awesome glitch where psychics were immune to ghost moves (which, outside lick, didn't really exist. Night shade does not count).

quanta · Post by **quanta** » Sat Jul 30, 2011 9:15 am

When I talk about the 5 minute work day, I'm using it a bit differently than it's normally used, and I apologize for that. I don't want my PCs deciding to rest, or being forced to rest for 5 minutes, or x minutes or whatever after every combat, be it to regain hp, powers or anything else so important that it would be stupid not to take 5 minutes after every single thing that happens.

So... basically you want nothing resembling any D&D ever. I'm cool with that. Combo meters, time limits, limit breaks whatever.

Or you could reduce weapon potency, or increase other defenses like making armor provide both AC and DR or you could change the HP system. Increasing HP isn't the only, nor the best way, to increase survivability at low levels. It's just a quick way. So, no the only way isn't to go more HP like 4e.

True, it's the ratio of HP to damage that matters, but unless you want to remove crits or change the damage mechanics drastically you have to up HP from 3e levels (although not across the board).

An unoptimized wizard with 12 con will go down to an enemy in 3e who does 1d4+1 damage 25% of the time. You could scale damage dice down more or something, but raising HP is the more practical choice in a d20-like system.

I disagree. I specifically don't want everything to be the same class with the serial number filed off. It's extremely boring and monotonous, and 4e has done a pretty good job of showing that. I don't view ease as favorable in the design/balancing process as opposed to doing it right. If they system can't be balanced in an appropriate amount of time, or if the system can be balanced by essentially looking off a 1 page table, I think you're much, much better off scrapping the system all together.

So... are you arguing that the cleric and wizard of 3e are the same class with the serial number filed off because they are both vancian spellcasters with the same resource management scheme?

Yeah. I'm not buying it.

Yes anyone could do it in an hour. Grab excel, slap the relevant numbers in, sort by cr and the find the median. Ta-da instant chart for cr appropriate Saves, AC and BAB. The only long part is actually looking up and entering the numbers. The rest takes less than a minute.

Creating actual abilities is where balancing gets hard and charts just do not work. How much cr is being able to turn a 10'x10' section of floor into lava worth? It depends on a number of factors. Again this is where we need actual guides, not idiotic charts on average saves/ac or BAB. Those are simplistic to generate for anyone, don't actually do much when designing monsters and in my experience leads to homogenization of creatures.

If I have to boot up excel to play a game, fuck it. Just fuck it. Not everyone has excel or knows how to use it. And that's ignoring the fact the median or average of monster damage is not necessarily the number a DM should make a new monster around. What if the monster damage distribution is roughly bimodal with a low dip inbetween the two modes because monsters tend to be either high or low damage types? Using the median for a custom monster wouldn't fit with the monster design in that case. So yeah, you're wrong.

The chart will take designers like 2 extra fucking minutes to put in. They better have one anyways. And I already said I wanted guides for more shit anyways. We're agreed on that point.

Everyone of those is internally consistent with their formatting. Since that's what we're talking about unless you can point out examples where those addon subsystems are not constantly formatted, you have no point. The point was about formatting, not a fascist 1 system for everything from melee attacks, to spell casting, to knocking over boxes, to jumping, to using magic items because that flat out does not work.

The point is that standardized formatting means fucking jack if you have to memorize or print couple hundred pages for it to be usable by humans. 3e stat blocks are fucking annoying to read.

The reason 4e doesn't have you memorizing a bunch of spells is because 4e monsters don't actually cast spells. Instead they have a couple 'powers' like Evil Eye which there are 4 or 5 completely different version of, so they had to print everything out and make the 'powers' really simple to fit everything. Otherwise you'd have to memorize 5 different versions of Evil Eye and 400 other silly abilities. So the only reason 4e even seems better is because of how simplistic it has to be to work, which directly cuts down on it's ability to both create interesting encounters and interesting mechanics without it just becoming magical tea party.

Yes, ignoring the fact that outside of caster monsters, most 3e monsters don't do much more than 4e ones, 4e monsters are simpler...

THIS IS A GOOD THING. The DM needs to manage lots of monsters. Players manage one character. Only BBEGs and important monsters should have fullcasting like a PC plus a slew of other abilities. And the fact monsters can use 20 different options doesn't mean jack if 5 of those are what's used 90% of the time because most monsters don't last that many rounds.

I'm suggesting that monsters shouldn't just rush past fighters because 'lol he only does 2d6+4 damage.' I'm saying that when you've killed 8 kobolds yourself without taking a scratch that last kobold isn't going to fight to the death with you. I'm saying that mechanics and rules have no place dictating the actions of monsters as long as there is a DM.

Josh_Kablack has it right. But notice that none of what he's suggested is actually a taunt or outright damage attraction ability. The monster choosing to attack the PC would be a side effect of having a good ability that was useful/dangerous as opposed to having one to specifically be an MMO tank.

How the fuck is the kobold stabbing example relevant to marking? And marking doesn't resemble an aggro mechanic in implementation; it just shares a purpose. The DM can attack whoever the fuck he wants. Also interesting how that's not all Josh said

Josh_Kablack wrote:Yeah, the rough idea of PC's having taunt or damage attraction abilities is fine.

And if, you scaled Marked up to be equivalent to Blind (-5) or Daze or Prone+Push, something where it actually has meaningful penalties and can prevent attacks in some circumstances then it would be worthwhile. At least provided you also streamlined duration tracking to something sane.

Increasing your str by 4 points in the middle of combat is essentially a +2 modifier to anything that's based on str. You don't have to go through and recalculate everything, generally just add 2 when you do anything that's modified by str. I don't have to sit down, recalculate all my attacks and damage, my carrying capacity and my skills just because my str went up. Temporary stat mods are just like any other temporary bonus in that respect.

No. It's annoying in 4e, it's annoying in 3e and less transparent to boot.

Well written bonus stacking rules wouldn't get more complicated with more types of bonuses. 3.5 rules were actually decent, it's was just that number of types, and the size of bonuses wasn't kept in check. 4e suffers the same problems of number of and size of bonuses not being keep in check, it's just better hidden because everything is so same that it all runs together until you start paying attention.

What? The number of bonus types in 4e is drastically smaller than 3e. You've got enhancement, power, item, someotherthing I'm forgetting, and untyped. 3e has... enhancement, morale, sacred, profane, perfection, competence, luck. And for AC there's deflection, dodge, natural, armor, and probably some more I'm forgetting.

It really is harder in 4e to get huge bonuses. If I want a giant stack of bonuses in 3e I cast bite of the werewhatever or polymorph into a hydra or whatever. In 4e, somebody has to playing a warlord. Or you devote like 50% of your build to cranking up your attack bonus.

Buffing routines didn't happen much in 3.5 because buffs either lasted long enough that they ran all the time, or if they didn't, buffing was a waste of time compared to actually doing something else in combat. There's no need to cap numerical bonuses if you don't do stupid stuff with adding huge amounts of, or large bonuses which both 3.5 and 4e fail at. There might be some benefit in capping the number of buffs a player can have, but I suspect it would be more pointless bookkeeping and lead to more dumpster diving than actually designing good buffs in the first place and not capping them.

Dispel magic. Yeah. Recalculation was fucking annoying.

And how the fuck does capping the number of allowed buffs increase bookkeeping? It decreases it as long as your priority system of buff application isn't retarded. If the bonus system is simple and you can only have two buffs up in a given round (although really, preferably, most or all buffs will be encounter long deals), then tracking is simpler.

wotmaniac · Post by **wotmaniac** » Sat Jul 30, 2011 9:26 am

quanta wrote: What? The number of bonus types in 4e is drastically smaller than 3e. You've got enhancement, power, item, someotherthing I'm forgetting, and untyped. 3e has... enhancement, morale, sacred, profane, perfection, competence, luck. And for AC there's deflection, dodge, natural, armor, and probably some more I'm forgetting.

... size, racial, circumstance, insight, inherent, synergy, zippity-do-da, ..

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sat Jul 30, 2011 12:12 pm

wotmaniac wrote:
quanta wrote: What? The number of bonus types in 4e is drastically smaller than 3e. You've got enhancement, power, item, someotherthing I'm forgetting, and untyped. 3e has... enhancement, morale, sacred, profane, perfection, competence, luck. And for AC there's deflection, dodge, natural, armor, and probably some more I'm forgetting.
... size, racial, circumstance, insight, inherent, synergy, zippity-do-da, ..

And don't forget alchemical and good old Untyped.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sat Jul 30, 2011 3:14 pm

Apparently no one has broke down the damage of a moderately-optimized mid-level 4E melee character. There's seriously like 8 or 9 things in the damage expression. Seriously, here's an 11th level Swordmage that took the Lyrastrian Stormrider PP:

+2 Weapon Focus + 3 Enhancement + 5 Intelligence + 4 Constitution + 2 Shocking Flame + 5 Lasting Frost + 2 Light Blade Expertise + 2 Iron Armbands of Power + 2 Gloves of Ice + 1 Siberys Shard of Lasting Cold.

Most of it is untyped, but it sure as hell doesn't make it any more sane.

Swordslinger · Post by **Swordslinger** » Sat Jul 30, 2011 6:10 pm

wotmaniac wrote: a villain type is a villain type because it makes for a good antagonist.
PCs are supposed to be the protagonists.

The 2 are not necessarily interchangeable -- nor should they be.
yes, sometimes the 2 can be swapped; but that should be the exception, not the rule.

This is D&D and there are hundreds of different races, balancing them all as PCs is something that's just not going to happen.

PCs play a different game than NPCs and the rules for creating one should be kept separate. NPCs are a snapshot. A giant scorpion may be well balanced fro its given level, but there's no implied capability that you can take that scorpion all the way into epic and it's going to work. Due to the number of monsters in D&D, that's fine. You're expected to have hundreds of different monster species, and you just don't have the time to balance each as a 1-20 progression for each of the different PC classes.

When you set out to make a PC race, that's a special case, because it takes a lot more thinking than making a monster of the week. You have worry about how this race will interact with all your classes. 3E didn't do anyone any favors by making all monsters semi-playable. The DM got a ton of unnecessary work and PCs got monster races which sucked ass.

And honestly, I'd prefer the weird oddball races for people who know the game enough to make houserules to it. When you're first getting into the game, your first character shouldn't be some weird giant centipede or something. That way such characters have to get approved by the DM and aren't standard, because having a PC group of weirdos doesn't work in all settings.

Previn · Post by **Previn** » Sat Jul 30, 2011 6:10 pm

quanta wrote:True, it's the ratio of HP to damage that matters, but unless you want to remove crits or change the damage mechanics drastically you have to up HP from 3e levels (although not across the board).

An unoptimized wizard with 12 con will go down to an enemy in 3e who does 1d4+1 damage 25% of the time. You could scale damage dice down more or something, but raising HP is the more practical choice in a d20-like system.

Again, you seem to think that just because your small ind can only think of 1 thing, that that's the only other option. Heck, go look up the Armor as DR or Wound/Vitality systems in d20srd. Raising HP isn't the most practical choice, in fact raising hp has very stupid consequences which 4e has already show when combat with 1 solo creature drags on for 40 rounds.

So... are you arguing that the cleric and wizard of 3e are the same class with the serial number filed off because they are both vancian spellcasters with the same resource management scheme?

Yes, I am. The only real difference is what spells they use, and if you want to you can swap the spell lists back and forth anyways through a number of means.

"I cast spell X that does 2d6 damage to my opponent." Was that a wizard or a cleric spell?

If I have to boot up excel to play a game, fuck it. Just fuck it. Not everyone has excel or knows how to use it. And that's ignoring the fact the median or average of monster damage is not necessarily the number a DM should make a new monster around. What if the monster damage distribution is roughly bimodal with a low dip inbetween the two modes because monsters tend to be either high or low damage types? Using the median for a custom monster wouldn't fit with the monster design in that case. So yeah, you're wrong.

YOU CAN MAKE THE CHART AND HAVE IT ALWAYS AVAILABLE IN LESS THAN AN HOUR. You never had to do anything with excel ever again once you print it out. Everything else in the entire paragrah was straw man and diarrhea of the mouth.

The point is that standardized formatting means fucking jack if you have to memorize or print couple hundred pages for it to be usable by humans. 3e stat blocks are fucking annoying to read.

No one has ever had to print a 'couple hundred pages' to a use stat blocks. Seriously, the entire PHB is only 317 pages. The 4e ones have all the exact same stuff in them, just in retard or condensed form.

Yes, ignoring the fact that outside of caster monsters, most 3e monsters don't do much more than 4e ones, 4e monsters are simpler...

A 4e succubus compared to a 3.x succubus shows how stupid that statement is. A 3.x succubus can escape if combat is going badly, it can drain levels, summon other demons and turn multiple people against the party, all of it's abilities also make a succubus work outside of combat to do the things you expect a succubus to do.

The 4e succubus can... use it's action to dominate someone for 1 round if it hits... and control a PC's aggro.

What? The number of bonus types in 4e is drastically smaller than 3e. You've got enhancement, power, item, someotherthing I'm forgetting, and untyped. 3e has... enhancement, morale, sacred, profane, perfection, competence, luck. And for AC there's deflection, dodge, natural, armor, and probably some more I'm forgetting.

4e has the problem in that there are fewer sources of bonuses, but it just lumped all the odd bonuses (luck, divine, blue whatever) under untyped and let them all stack. That's where it fails in the number of bonuses. That the math for 4e is so rigidly defined as 'you will be at this number at this level' is takes smaller bonuses to completely jump the track and get into auto hit or automiss land.

Dispel magic. Yeah. Recalculation was fucking annoying.

No, because you then just stop adding 2. If you're being a total fuckwit and demanding to know your new carry capacity in the middle of combat, then yes, it's going to suck, because you're going out of your way to make it suck.

And how the fuck does capping the number of allowed buffs increase bookkeeping? It decreases it as long as your priority system of buff application isn't retarded. If the bonus system is simple and you can only have two buffs up in a given round (although really, preferably, most or all buffs will be encounter long deals), then tracking is simpler.

Which 2 buffs can I have up in a round? I'm going to have to classify all the buffs now, and as new books come out I'm going to have add those in and check how they work. And because I can only have 2 buffs at a time, I'm going to need to have a lot more buffs on hand and ready to go based on what I need at the moment. You're just forcing dumpster diving for buffs.

You don't get some very basic and very simple concepts and clearly haven't actually compared 3.x and 4e, and I don't have the time or desire to school you over and over. I'm done, think whatever you whatever you want and let us know when 4e starts selling better than 3.5 which has been out of print for like 4 years or Pathfinder stops spanking it on sales as well.

So, whatever.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Sat Jul 30, 2011 6:33 pm

fectin wrote:That said, how is a 1E-style game better in ways that board games/warhammer aren't?

The argument (and this is mostly a left brain / right brain thing) is that chart based games are easier and more "in character" than math based games. Math may seem easy but it does requie a context switch in the brain, for a brief moment you are no longer paying the game, you are doing math. Table lookup, on the other hand, can take place in the other side of the brain leaving you still in game mode context.

I think that is one of the reasons why chart based war games lasted so long even though the average math for a war game is less complex than the math for the 4E game. In addition all charts are easy, even when the underlying math behind it isn't.

Besides, they look damn cool. The classic visualization of a D&D game has always been people seated around the table with the DM at the end of the table behind screens. Those screens were there because it was easier to stand all those damn tables up as opposed to laying them flat. That's the only reason why the DM screen came into existance.

Swordslinger · Post by **Swordslinger** » Sat Jul 30, 2011 6:43 pm

Previn wrote: No, because you then just stop adding 2. If you're being a total fuckwit and demanding to know your new carry capacity in the middle of combat, then yes, it's going to suck, because you're going out of your way to make it suck.

Anything that changed ability scores was a huge deal as far as remembering the buffs you had.

Consider what happens when you get a temporary bonus to strength and con. First you have to figure out what your new bonus is from the change in ability score. Then you have the following changes:

[*] Your melee damage with one handed weapons increases.
[*] Your melee damage with two handed weapons increases by 1.5x of your one handed damage.
[*] Your melee damage with offhand weapons increases by 1/2 your one handed damage.
[*] Your bonus to attack with melee changes.
[*] Your maximum and current hp change.
[*] Your fortitude save changes.
[*] A bunch of skills change.
[*] Your carrying capacity changes.
[*] Your strength checks increase.
[*] Your con checks increase.
[*] The DCs of strength or con based abilities increases.

That's a lot of shit and that's just a couple buffed ability scores. When they get dispelled you have go and totally recalculate them again. When you get ability score penalties you have to recalculate that again.

Changing ability scores seems good on paper, but it's way too much work in practice.

wotmaniac · Post by **wotmaniac** » Sat Jul 30, 2011 8:46 pm

the thing is, if you have temporary buffs, it's usually going to be the same couple of buffs that you keep using over and over -- it's pretty simple to just annotate that shit on your character sheet. your permanent buffs are already going to be figured in.
once had a barbarian/frenzy berzerker with a belt of growth -- that's 3 different temp buffs. I had my base stats, plus a column for all those stacked up, and then each bonus written in the margins ...... it was fairly easy.

Previn · Post by **Previn** » Sat Jul 30, 2011 9:55 pm

Consider what happens when you get a temporary bonus to hit. You have the following changes:

[*] Your to hit with unarmed strikes changes.
[*] Your to hit with natural attacks changes.
[*] Your to hit with two weapons changes.
[*] Your to hit with two handed weapons changes.
[*] Your to hit with ranged weapons changes.
[*] Your to hit with touch attacks changes.
[*] Your to hit with ranged touch attacks changes.
[*] Your to hit for opposed attack rolls changes.

That's a lot of shit and that's just a +1 to hit. When it gets dispelled you have go and totally recalculate them again. When you get to hit penalties you have to recalculate that again.

Bonuses to hit seems good on paper, but it's way too much work in practice.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Sat Jul 30, 2011 10:17 pm

That's a lot of shit and that's just a +1 to hit. When it gets dispelled you have go and totally recalculate them again. When you get to hit penalties you have to recalculate that again.

Bonuses to hit seems good on paper, but it's way too much work in practice.

wow that's completely the same as a stat bonus that has a bunch of different formulas derived from it oh wait fuck you 4rry

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Sat Jul 30, 2011 10:18 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:So in May, Slavicsek got his termination notice.

Best thing that could have happened to RPGs, now finally Alternity can die and he will realize his continued attempts to incorporate it in parts or whole to other games is futile.

wotmaniac · Post by **wotmaniac** » Sat Jul 30, 2011 11:47 pm

Previn wrote:Consider what happens when you get a temporary bonus to hit. You have the following changes:

[*] Your to hit with unarmed strikes changes.
[*] Your to hit with natural attacks changes.
[*] Your to hit with two weapons changes.
[*] Your to hit with two handed weapons changes.
[*] Your to hit with ranged weapons changes.
[*] Your to hit with touch attacks changes.
[*] Your to hit with ranged touch attacks changes.
[*] Your to hit for opposed attack rolls changes.

That's a lot of shit and that's just a +1 to hit. When it gets dispelled you have go and totally recalculate them again. When you get to hit penalties you have to recalculate that again.

Bonuses to hit seems good on paper, but it's way too much work in practice.

right, but the #'s are so small, it's not an issue to just do it in your head.
and if you have more than 2-3 of these at a time (temporary ones, that is), you probably have too much stuff going on anyway.

Previn · Post by **Previn** » Sat Jul 30, 2011 11:59 pm

Psychic Robot wrote:
That's a lot of shit and that's just a +1 to hit. When it gets dispelled you have go and totally recalculate them again. When you get to hit penalties you have to recalculate that again.

Bonuses to hit seems good on paper, but it's way too much work in practice.
wow that's completely the same as a stat bonus that has a bunch of different formulas derived from it oh wait fuck you 4rry

And I can see the point went right over your head. I'm also not a fan of 4e if that hasn't be blatantly obvious by now.

You don't calculate everything that the stat effects for a temp buff, you only figure out the bonus which is stat bonus/2 if your stat is even or stat bonus/2+1 if odd and then you only apply it when it comes up. If it's a long term buff it should be on your sheet anyways, and if it's short term you just keep the mod in mind.

I really don't need to figure out both my 2 weapon fighting damage increases and my 2 handed weapon fighting increases because barring a double weapon (lol) I'm only every going to be using 1 style. I don't need to recalculated my con check because I'm not in the middle of drowning or whatever 1 or 2 things are actually going to make you do a con check in 3.x.

I could have gone with a bard's inspire courage that's +1 to hit, and +1 to damage and a bonus to saves vs fear, and I could have then gone through and recalculate every little thing that it could possibly effect, wasting everyone's time, or I could just apply it as I go like every non-idiot should be able to do. No one cares if you can now carry 400 lbs as opposed to 310 as a light load in the middle of combat.

Seriously, this isn't a difficult concept. You don't have to calculate 40 different things when you're going to use maybe 4 or 5 of them. Now if you want to argue that the 4e idiocy of having 40 different modifiers in combat is stupid, I agree it is. But that's not the same as what I'm talking about.

wotmaniac wrote:right, but the #'s are so small, it's not an issue to just do it in your head.
and if you have more than 2-3 of these at a time (temporary ones, that is), you probably have too much stuff going on anyway.

That's exactly my point. Stat mods are actually really simple even though they effect a lot of things, because you don't use more than 3 or 4 anyways.

A Man In Black · Post by **A Man In Black** » Sun Jul 31, 2011 1:23 am

Previn wrote:Seriously, this isn't a difficult concept. You don't have to calculate 40 different things when you're going to use maybe 4 or 5 of them.

Four or five things to recalculate because of a temporary buff is still a lot.

wotmaniac · Post by **wotmaniac** » Sun Jul 31, 2011 1:26 am

A Man In Black wrote:
Previn wrote:Seriously, this isn't a difficult concept. You don't have to calculate 40 different things when you're going to use maybe 4 or 5 of them.
Four or five things to recalculate because of a temporary buff is still a lot.

but you're doing it on the fly .... and it's Barney-simple.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Sun Jul 31, 2011 1:45 am

wotmaniac wrote:
A Man In Black wrote:
Previn wrote:Seriously, this isn't a difficult concept. You don't have to calculate 40 different things when you're going to use maybe 4 or 5 of them.
Four or five things to recalculate because of a temporary buff is still a lot.
but you're doing it on the fly .... and it's Barney-simple.

if by simple you mean monotonous, time-wasting, drudgery..then yes.

if you are in the middle of something like combat and have to constantly adjust numbers even by small amounts, then that is excessive...and a cause for combats dragging out, getting boring, or becoming tedious.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 12:19 am

shut up shadzar

Swordslinger · Post by **Swordslinger** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 12:41 am

Previn wrote: That's exactly my point. Stat mods are actually really simple even though they effect a lot of things, because you don't use more than 3 or 4 anyways.

But that's just the problem. You're probably not going to remember everything it mods, because you're keeping track of it in your head. Nobody is actually going to go and change every value and skill check on their character sheet, so the entire mechanic relies on you remembering that you lost wisdom so your sense motive skill takes a penalty.

And due to how the ability score system is written, it's a very obscure method. Beacuse -4 wisdom isn't -4 to wisdom based skills, it's a -2 to wisdom based skills. -3 wisdom is sometimes a -2 and sometimes a -1 depending on your base. And that's bad because we don't think in terms of recalculating everything, we think in terms of bonus penalties.

You're much better off writing it as a -2 to wisdom based skills and attack rolls, but then as you consider the mechanic, you realize you probably don't need it anyway.

quanta · Post by **quanta** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 1:54 am

Again, you seem to think that just because your small ind can only think of 1 thing, that that's the only other option. Heck, go look up the Armor as DR or Wound/Vitality systems in d20srd. Raising HP isn't the most practical choice, in fact raising hp has very stupid consequences which 4e has already show when combat with 1 solo creature drags on for 40 rounds.

Did you seriously just suggest a good replacement system (vitality and wound points) was the one where a crit instagibs everyone? You do realize that aside from that and annoying "make more saving throws in certain cases which will rapidly cease to matter", it's basically a complicated way of having a bigger HP right? And woo, armor as DR. 1d4+1 damage is still all you need to fuck up a lv.1 12 con wizard a significant amount of time. And light armor gives like 1 DR; heavy armor gives 3.

Regardless, moving towards making DR highly significant (which is to say much more than 3 in most d20 like systems) or a wounds and soak rolls system is drastic change. It's almost like I said something to this effect

me in the post you responded to wrote:True, it's the ratio of HP to damage that matters, but unless you want to remove crits or change the damage mechanics drastically you have to up HP from 3e levels (although not across the board).

Man, it's like I psychically anticipated the stupid shit you were gonna say.

Also, have you ever played 4e? Solos get shafted really fucking easy. They are really broken in a way that favors PCs. I can't remember a single combat with a solo I've had that's lasted more than 5 rounds.

Yes, I am. The only real difference is what spells they use, and if you want to you can swap the spell lists back and forth anyways through a number of means.

"I cast spell X that does 2d6 damage to my opponent." Was that a wizard or a cleric spell?

Who the fuck casts a damage spell for 2d6? Characters between levels 1-3 maybe? At that level, I can't find any SRD cleric spells besides inflict wounds which do only damage. And notably, a melee touch attack spell for damage is distinguishable even from ray of frost.

The fact that dumpster diving 3e makes all spell lists super large and almost interchangeable is not terribly relevant. A wizard is largely distinguishable from a cleric if you're using the core or SRD. Moreover, there are more than enough spells in 3e that in a more restricted vancian system, characters would be easily distinguishable.

YOU CAN MAKE THE CHART AND HAVE IT ALWAYS AVAILABLE IN LESS THAN AN HOUR. You never had to do anything with excel ever again once you print it out. Everything else in the entire paragrah was straw man and diarrhea of the mouth.

The fact that you don't understand why the distribution itself is important and not just the median of it is not helping your point. And it would takes the designer two fucking minutes to put in the chart. He'll already have it anyways from when he did design. You're arguing that it's better to make people do an additional hour of tedious bullshit work (probably minimum) than for the designer to spend 1/4 of a page and 2 minutes doing the work for you. If you can't see how fucking dumb that is, that blows my mind.

No one has ever had to print a 'couple hundred pages' to a use stat blocks. Seriously, the entire PHB is only 317 pages. The 4e ones have all the exact same stuff in them, just in retard or condensed form.

Since when the fuck were we talking about PHB only? I named like half a dozen subsystems with probably several hundred abilities between them spread across several books. You're either printing a fuckton of pages, lugging your books everywhere, or carrying around a computer with a bunch of .pdf's.

4e has the problem in that there are fewer sources of bonuses, but it just lumped all the odd bonuses (luck, divine, blue whatever) under untyped and let them all stack. That's where it fails in the number of bonuses. That the math for 4e is so rigidly defined as 'you will be at this number at this level' is takes smaller bonuses to completely jump the track and get into auto hit or automiss land.

As opposed to 3e, where jumping the track to killing everything on a charge at level 10 is doable? Not seeing how that's better. Sirchargesalot is either gonna instagib the enemy or die miserably.

No, because you then just stop adding 2. If you're being a total fuckwit and demanding to know your new carry capacity in the middle of combat, then yes, it's going to suck, because you're going out of your way to make it suck.

Are you fucking serious? Does it not occur to you that you can have many, many buffs up? And that long-lasting spells CAN STILL BE DISPELLED?

dispelfuckingmagic wrote:One object, creature, or spell is the target of the dispel magic spell. You make a dispel check (1d20 + your caster level, maximum +10) against the spell or against each ongoing spell currently in effect on the object or creature. The DC for this dispel check is 11 + the spell’s caster level. If you succeed on a particular check, that spell is dispelled; if you fail, that spell remains in effect.

Say you're a cleric with persistent divine power, persistent righteous might, magic circle against evil, greater magic weapon, and magic vestment up. You get hit by dispel magic. Yeah. There are a lot of ways that could make you do some recalculation. God forbid someone hits you with a dispel magic followed by a quickened ray of enfeeblement. You might actually have to recalculate your carrying capacity to see if your speed dropped if both your strength buffs get stripped and then the ray hits you.

Which 2 buffs can I have up in a round? I'm going to have to classify all the buffs now, and as new books come out I'm going to have add those in and check how they work. And because I can only have 2 buffs at a time, I'm going to need to have a lot more buffs on hand and ready to go based on what I need at the moment. You're just forcing dumpster diving for buffs.

You can have 2 buffs up. No more. Not hard to figure out. What the fuck classification is there that has to be done?

And why the fuck would only being able to have 2 buffs up at any given moment force more dumpster diving than being able to have as many buffs as you want up at once? It wouldn't. In fact dumpster diving for huge lists of buffs becomes less worth doing than if an uncapped number of buffs allowed if the system is vancian, because every time you cast new buffs you've blown spell slots used for the previous buff you overwrote. And given how many buffs are combat buffs, you'd also be forced to trade away actions to switch buffs if you're focused on combat buffs (unless you always get the jump on the enemy, which is a bullshit assumption). Buffs become a lot less useful if you can't walk around with 5 or 10 of them up, and are forced to either cast combat buffs in combat or stick to a particular two.

You don't get some very basic and very simple concepts and clearly haven't actually compared 3.x and 4e, and I don't have the time or desire to school you over and over. I'm done, think whatever you whatever you want and let us know when 4e starts selling better than 3.5 which has been out of print for like 4 years or Pathfinder stops spanking it on sales as well.

So, whatever.

Coming from someone who doesn't understand why the median or mean alone is not a sufficiently good description of a distribution, this is hilarious.

Also, why would I care how 4e or Pathfinder is selling? It's not like I work for either one or something. Or like I own stock in either (not that 4e sales are going to have any meaningful effect on Hasbro's stock price). You may as well ask me how Lady Blackbird or After Sundown or Big Macs are selling. Respectively: it's not sold, apparently enough to recoup some costs, and a lot.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 2:09 am

quanta wrote: Also, have you ever played 4e? Solos get shafted really fucking easy.

Solos got 'fixed' in the Monster Manual 3 by basically allowing them to take a piss on all established rules and giving them extra rounds during a turn inc. more saving throws for no reason. But it's an extremely asymmetric fix; effects that last until the start or end of the player's next turn are now a lot more powerful than effects that last until a monster's saving throw? WTF?