Weapon Styles, Basket Weaving, and Concept Obsolesence

[Chamomile]

Iron Man made his own stuff!
Luke Skywalker made his own lightsabers!
Batman hires people to make his stuff!

And I am not opposed to having "builds his own stuff" as a class feature of any given martial class, but it means that not only will they not be using whatever comes along, but they'll be using whatever they want, which means if they want a fire sword and the random treasure is an ice hammer, they will make the fire sword. This is not what Frank wants. He's arguing for characters to actually use whatever weapons get dropped.

[RadiantPhoenix]

And I am not opposed to having "builds his own stuff" as a class feature of any given martial class, but it means that not only will they not be using whatever comes along, but they'll be using whatever they want, which means if they want a fire sword and the random treasure is an ice hammer, they will make the fire sword. This is not what Frank wants. He's arguing for characters to actually use whatever weapons get dropped.

It is perfectly OK for a character to simply have a magic katana that levels with him or for a character to be allowed to forge a succession of bad ass katanas over the course of the game. Both of these are reasonable.

Do you even read what Frank actually says before disagreeing with it, or do you just skim?

[Seerow]

Iron Man is still using repulsor rays and the uni-beam despite decades of suit modifications, and every one of Luke's new lightsbaers were still lightsabers. Batman is actually famous for having a staggering number of gadgets on him at all times, and yet batarangs and grappling hooks are still his staples. He modifies his batsuit to do a lot of different things, but it's always a batsuit. And typically when a long-running hero gets a suit upgrade, it's not long before they revert back (Spider-Man does this for both the symbiote suit and the cosmic Spider-Man arc, although it's worth noting that the cosmic Spider-Man arc was stupid). And within a year, Wonder Woman is going to look like this again (if she doesn't already), because she always has and always will.

Iron Man made his own stuff!
Luke Skywalker made his own lightsabers!
Batman hires people to make his stuff!

And if part of the game is "All characters can make their own magical stuff" with some mumbo-jumbo attached to justify it, then that's totally cool.

The trouble comes when you start dropping an assorted array of items that have powerful magical properties and you expect the players to wear it.

While everyone hates MMOs, let's make a comparison to WoW: Until you hit endgame and get a tier set, there's a very high probability you're running around in a bunch of mismatched gear, because you're taking the best stuff you can find stat-wise. You'll have a couple quest rewards a few dungeon drops, and a couple of things you bought off the AH or crafted yourself. These characters universally look stupid. You can pretty much point out the people who are using new/low level characters by the fact that their gear looks so mismatched.

But the actual set pieces are all designed to look good together, and work. You don't mind upgrading from tier 10 to tier 11, because Tier 11 looks pretty badass in its own right.

Now in a D&D game, you don't have items that are dropping as a part of a set. You have items dropping based on what the enemy thought looked cool. Or based on something the enemy picked up that somebody else thought looked cool. So you could easily end up with a half dozen different magic items that look pretty terrible together. When I refer to walking around in a clown suit, I pretty much refer to this. The character, rather than having a defined aesthetic has a conglomeration of random shit that looks really stupid together.

Sure, the character never changing clothes ever is bad. The character changing clothes constantly and looking like he rolled around in a dragon's horde and kept what stuck to him is just as bad. There are certain characters that this works for, because that's their thing. They like being able to point to those bracers and tell the tale of the guy they killed to get them, even though it makes no sense wearing those wooden bracers when he has a fur hat, high heel boots, and chainmail armor. But most characters aren't going to want to look like that, they'd rather have an aesthetic they're happy with, but don't get that choice because they need those magic item effects.



Yes, this is somewhat separate from the magic sword vs magic axe issue, but it is all a part of the same overarching problem with not letting characters have any control over what kind of gear they get.


edit:

Do you even read what Frank actually says before disagreeing with it, or do you just skim?

The problem is, Frank still wants random magic items to drop, and likely still wants to see them used. Either you can craft everything you need, and don't need those random drops, in which case why bother with the random drops, or the random drops are stuff you can't make (either because they're better than what you can make at level X, or they do stuff that you can't recreate yourself), which takes you back to the original problem.

[Chamomile]

Do you?

And once you've agreed that you are eventually going to have to stop indulging the katana fetishist's petulant demands for katanas

It's just quibbling over whether they intend to distort the campaign to sate the player's addiction to katana drops for a longer or shorter time.

Bugger, just look at what he immediately followed up your quote with:

What is not reasonable is to have characters take the magic items of the world and tear them apart with crowbars in order to get the power crystals and then weld those power crystals onto other weapons.

Making magic items is okay, but remaking them isn't? If Frank's answer to "I want katanas" was "fine, make yourself a katana," why hasn't he said that? Why is he going on for pages and pages about how katana-guy should be trading his katana in for the Red Reaper's scythe?

So, yeah, Frank's argument is, in addition to being stupid, self-contradictory. So what?

[RadiantPhoenix]

Making magic items is okay, but remaking them isn't? If Frank's answer to "I want katanas" was "fine, make yourself a katana," why hasn't he said that? Why is he going on for pages and pages about how katana-guy should be trading his katana in for the Red Reaper's scythe?

So, yeah, Frank's argument is, in addition to being stupid, self-contradictory. So what?

"I want to receive a katana"
"I want to have a katana"

There is a difference between these two statements, and "I want a katana" is ambiguous as to whether it means one or the other.

[Chamomile]

If that's true, why is Frank bothering with arguments about how its genre-appropriate to change your weapons (which it isn't) when he could just say "make your own weapons, problem solved?" The vast majority of his arguments hinge upon the concept that most players will be using the weapons that drop, whether they want to or not. If forging your own weapons is an option, why is Frank making these arguments at all?

[hyzmarca]

The problem is, Frank still wants random magic items to drop, and likely still wants to see them used. Either you can craft everything you need, and don't need those random drops, in which case why bother with the random drops, or the random drops are stuff you can't make (either because they're better than what you can make at level X, or they do stuff that you can't recreate yourself), which takes you back to the original problem.

Ideally, the random drops will be things that the players wouldn't think to make or wouldn't care to, but are still useful.

No player is going to spend valuable resources on a Ring of Water Walking (unless its a vital part of the character concept, and even then it probably won't last long). It just isn't useful enough to justify the expenditure. But if a player just gets one for free, there's no reason not to put it back for when it would be useful, and it is almost inevitable that a eventually situation comes up involving bodies of water that must be crossed or fought on or something.

Some items are always good. Some items can be awesome, but only in limited circumstances.

When a Paladin tricks the 200-foot-tall giant demon into wading neck deep into a lake of boiling blood and then runs on its surface to stab the demon in the face with his holy sword, that's awesome. And that's something that really can't happen without item drops.

Item drops give players tools with which to improvise interesting solutions.

[Seerow]

What about something like weapons and armor are typically character specific. With the exception of artifacts, weapons and armor pieces are crafted either by or for a specific character/creature. This item's magic is basically fueled by the essence/energy/whatever of that creature, and it grows as they grow. If you decide you want a magic sword, you need to forge one or find someone who can, specifically for you.

Non-weapon/armor, typically low key accessories like rings and amulets, or things that don't need to be worn or wielded, but just held to be activated (like a horn of blasting or whatever), are capable of being made to be useful universally through some quirk or another. These tend to be harder to craft or from an ancient age or some shit, so you can't just get them, but they will work for anybody.

That way you can have your randomly rolled magic effects that do things the players typically wouldn't buy themselves if given the choice, but players still make their own weapons/armor, so they choose the aesthetic of what their character looks like. You could even make some epic or near epic ability that turns your weapon or armor into an artifact, so that it can become a part of the living game world after the fact.

[hyzmarca]

What about something like weapons and armor are typically character specific. With the exception of artifacts, weapons and armor pieces are crafted either by or for a specific character/creature. This item's magic is basically fueled by the essence/energy/whatever of that creature, and it grows as they grow. If you decide you want a magic sword, you need to forge one or find someone who can, specifically for you.

It would be preferable if you had both.

Mickey the Swordsman gets the Sword of Mickey, which levels up with him, gets the powers he wants it to have, and makes him so fine that he blows my mind. If he gives it away or loses it then it stops leveling up but still works.

Mickey can also pick up the +3 Spear of Unnamed Noble Salamander #7 and shove it in his magic sack for safe keeping just in case he fights a frost giant or something.

Thus you have a primary weapon that you use all the time and then the stuff in your golf bag that you use in special circumstances. The stuff in your golf bag can and does get replaced as better stuff with the same effects are dropped. Your primary weapon stays with you.

[Fuchs]

Yeah, all that drivel about you could not stick to katanas, and suddenly we hear "if you make them (or, presumably, have someone make them) or if they level with you it's a-ok?

Whatever, all that counts is that for Frank too, the katana-user that sticks to katanas as their preferred weapon is an allowed concept as long as they get their weapon through other sources than loot drops. "Problem" solved.

[Username17]

4th edition D&D has the worst magic item acquisition system ever made, and that's an achievement. But don't forget that 3e's magic item system was also a bunch of failed design. In the run up to 4th edition, they basically admitted it. And while they totally failed to fix the problems in a way so spectacular that I previously had not even thought it possible, the problems with 3e are nonetheless real. There are many things that people rage at, but it basically comes down to these two facts:

• Selling all your boots of water walking and gloves of storing for an additional ring of protection or amulet of slight bonus to-hit is neither interesting nor fun.
• Any item that can be bought off a rack is by definition not an achievement to own.

Any system for magic items that is made in the future that does not have a real answer for those problems is going to be bullshit. Moving forward, you must have an answer for those core problems or your system is going to be shit and I am uninterested in hearing about it.

Any character type who can hold the game hostage to get his way in potential challenges and sidequests is a fun-stealing extortionist and cannot be allowed. If a character needs some sort of specific item, he'd better be able to get that item under his own power. The days of Druids throwing a temper tantrum until they can get the party to go the jungle so that they can get a tiger army should be behind us. If that requires Druids to teleport in tigers or some shit, so be it.

Weapon specialists who rely on acquiring magical versions of their favorite weapon from the graces of the DM are not acceptable. Nor should anyone accept them.

-Username17

[Fuchs]

Weapon specialists who rely on acquiring magical versions of their favorite weapon from the graces of the DM are not acceptable. Nor should anyone accept them.

-Username17

As we just found out: As long as they can get their weapons made, make it themselves, or get a weapon that levels with them - which is likely a subsection of mking it themsleves - weapon specialists are a-ok.

As far as magic items go: what about dropping the pretense that magic itmes are special? The current generation grew up with MMOs. Magic loot is nothing special. It's just gear with a bit better options than crafted mundane stuff.

How about we simply drop the idea that magic items need to be special if it's not possible to make them special without crippling character concepts that have a lot more traction than the idea that every magic weapon should be an achievement?

I know I'd happily sacrifice the idea some gear should be special if it lets me play the character I want instead of McClown the dire flail user.

Limit the special items to plot devices and you're fine.

[Fuchs]

Any character type who can hold the game hostage to get his way in potential challenges and sidequests is a fun-stealing extortionist and cannot be allowed. If a character needs some sort of specific item, he'd better be able to get that item under his own power. The days of Druids throwing a temper tantrum until they can get the party to go the jungle so that they can get a tiger army should be behind us. If that requires Druids to teleport in tigers or some shit, so be it.

-Username17

On the other hand, many GMs are glad to have adventure hooks the party (or at least one of them) wants to go on. Some groups are rather passive. You might call it "holding the party hostage", for others it might be "finally a quest they want to do".

Do you ban the "Save the knight's sister" and "Support the rogue's orphanage" side quests too, if those are "I have to do this, will you help me" character hooks?

In other words, do you ban all character hooks that make them want or even need to do some side quests, if teh GM so desires?

[DrPraetor]

Do you ban the "Save the knight's sister" and "Support the rogue's orphanage" side quests too, if those are "I have to do this, will you help me" character hooks?

Does the "sister rescuer" character have Feats that give him extra spell levels for each sister he rescues? This is not acceptable if so.

Does the charitable character get extra backstab dice based on the extent of his charity? This is not acceptable if so.

So, no, neither of those is an unacceptable character option - although you wouldn't give them game mechanical bonuses for their cosmetic preference about how to quest. If you have a character concept that must crusade against evil every day, thus preventing the other characters from going on a side jaunt to get the lost treasure of pirate X from whatever island, that would be unacceptable and you'd be holding people hostage.

The issue with the Katana specialist is that they get game mechanical benefits for the, in dungeons and dragons, almost entirely cosmetic decision to wield a Katana.

This was actually okay in D&D 1st edition! Everything was random drops, so if you were the Fighter Long Sword specialist you agreed to let someone else (the Paladin) have the 50% of random weapon drops which weren't long swords. Specializing in any other weapon was stupid.

So in a pure random-drop situation, cosmetic weapon fetishists are acceptable, but you have to be straight with them from the beginning:

• Weapons come from realistic opposition and from random drops, so the best weapons are probably not going to fit your fetish.
• The party is going to find something equivalent to Gram. Gram is not a Katana, so the weapon-agnostic hero guy is going to fight with Gram and you're going to be stuck with a +2 Katana.
• The bonuses you get for being a Katana specialist factor in the fact that your weapon is not the best one anyone in the party has, you do not get to whine about this.

Even then, I tend to agree with Frank that this is going to be an invitation for powergamers to bitch and moan about how they've been screwed over because you rolled 774 and got Gram instead of 784 to get the Masamune.

Alternatively, if you are going to placate the Katana specialist and give him whatever Katana he wants - which is also acceptable even if it tends to break SoD somewhat - why does he get some bonus for fighting with a Katana?

[Seerow]

The issue with the Katana specialist is that they get game mechanical benefits for the, in dungeons and dragons, almost entirely cosmetic decision to wield a Katana.

Throughout the thread the majority of us have been saying that mechanical benefits for weapon specialization need to go, but the ability to cosmetically say you have a Katana or whatever needs to stay. So your entire post is basically worthless.

[Lago PARANOIA]

As far as magic items go: what about dropping the pretense that magic itmes are special? The current generation grew up with MMOs. Magic loot is nothing special. It's just gear with a bit better options than crafted mundane stuff.

Because that's actually what we don't like about MMORPGs. We hate the treadmill. We hate acquisition of abilities, gears, and achievements that only amount to a marginal improvement. The fact that it's just a copy of a copy and has no effect on the game world is beyond the pale--even without those things, advancement tokens that you can barely tell what they are is utter bullshit. They're even worse in a TTRPG, because you don't have a computer cataloguing and autoadding all of the various bullshit bonuses in it. After your character sheet reaches a certain length you just plain start forgetting about stuff unless you organize it into some kind of weird array like Persistent Spell lists or 5MoD Ranger Power Use combos.

As we just found out: As long as they can get their weapons made, make it themselves, or get a weapon that levels with them - which is likely a subsection of mking it themsleves - weapon specialists are a-ok.

Now we're getting into totally new territory. If we're playing Romance of the Three Kingdoms or Three Musketeers or Ivanhoe then yes, the idea of a weapon specialist can be balanced and also be tactically interesting. When the difference between an elite knight and a peasant is stark enough that you can fit four discrete levels of advancement in it without exploding the word count then having classes like Polearm Master or Fencer are totally plausible and possible to have. If the level of supernatural advancement stops firmly at the 'Daredevil' or 'Iron Fist' power level then you can even have several classes in it where they forge and wank over several magical items and have that be balanced and tactically interesting.

HOWEVER the concept of weapon master being conceptually balanced and versatile, even magical weapon master, has a very limited lifespan to it. It doesn't even reach a third of the way into 3E D&D. It dies out well before Swashbuckler or Barbarian does at any rate. So even if you can find and create RPGs where the concept is balanced D&D is not one of them. And trying to force it into high-level D&D gives us bullshit like 4E D&D's Swordmage and Martial classes.

[Fuchs]

Again, Lago - we're not talking about limiting the powers to "really good with a sword". Please fucking read our posts. We are talking "this character uses a sword, not a fucking axe, when he uses a weapon."

That does not means "he can but use a weapon". That does not mean "he is a DMF". That doesnot mean "He can jsut hit stuff".

It simply means "When he hits stuff, he uses a sword". He could be a demon hunting magical knight, or a demi-god, or a wizard for all I care.

Get it now?

[Fuchs]

The issue with the Katana specialist is that they get game mechanical benefits for the, in dungeons and dragons, almost entirely cosmetic decision to wield a Katana.

Throughout the thread the majority of us have been saying that mechanical benefits for weapon specialization need to go, but the ability to cosmetically say you have a Katana or whatever needs to stay. So your entire post is basically worthless.

Yes. Again, for the dense ones: It's not about getting spcialist bonuses. It's simply a style question.

[Gx1080]

D&D is murdering hobo: The game. Your "style" is whatever you got from killing stuff that you can use.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

D&D is murdering hobo: The game. Your "style" is whatever you got from killing stuff that you can use.

Fuck that. I want to play a character I want to play.

[hogarth]

D&D is murdering hobo: The game. Your "style" is whatever you got from killing stuff that you can use.

In D&D, where some weapons are specifically better than others (e.g. a longbow +1 is way better than a blowgun +1), it would be stupid to not want a good weapon instead of a shitty one.

[shadzar]

As far as magic items go: what about dropping the pretense that magic itmes are special? The current generation grew up with MMOs. Magic loot is nothing special. It's just gear with a bit better options than crafted mundane stuff.

Bill Slavisek was FIRED by HASBRO, as well was Scott Rouse. They are no longer there.

MMO crap doesnt work in the TTRPG, so if you want an MMO then go back to them and get out of TTRPGs.

the people that play TTRPGs do so because they do NOT want to play the stupid nonsensical MMOs.

proven right here, Fuchs and that MMO generation needs babysitters. well you pay subscription fees for that MMO, so like i previously said, time to start paying your DM to babysit you such as the Sony or Blizzard servers babysit you.

[Winnah]

Not helping, but I thought I would share anyway.

Kensai with the Ancestral Weapon feat. Add Chameleon and Item Familliar for the luls. You have a character than can junk treasure to empower their favoured weapon, with a couple of seperate craft reserves.

Of course, this does not help the other 'weapon masters' in 3.5 without this kind of planned advancement. Still has issues with the DM providing the resources required for enchantment, with the added concern of significant character resources invested into a single piece of gear.

An edge case that does not accurately reflect the overall design philosphy of the last 5 editions of D&D.

[Seerow]

Not helping, but I thought I would share anyway.

Kensai with the Ancestral Weapon feat. Add Chameleon and Item Familliar for the luls. You have a character than can junk treasure to empower their favoured weapon, with a couple of seperate craft reserves.

The problem is that Frank doesn't want you destroying magic weapons you find to power up your weapon. So neither of those is any good.

You need something closer to the Soulknife, where you gain a on level weapon without any sacrifice at all. Except you need to be able to do that and have actual class features.

[BearsAreBrown]

@Fuchs, I think your and Lago's disagreement comes over the term specialist. The way you're using it makes it sound like "I'm a swordsman!" when what I think you're trying to convey is "I like swords more then axes!"