Threads that make us Laugh, Cry, or Both

[NineInchNall]

*grumble* *bitch* *moan*

I hate people so much.

[User3]

1177881102[/unixtime]]hahahaha, best quote from that thread goes to:

"I run a low-epic campaign and I asked kindly to my barbarian/fighter (out of game) to avoid taking the fast healing epic feat. He also agrees that it's quite disruptive, as any at-will effects."

Things you can do and keep doing are brokenzed!211eleventyone!!!1!

That's right, the ability to *swing a sword* is broken, because its an at-will effect.

Its not even worth reasoning with such morons.

[RandomCasualty]

1177886442[/unixtime]]

1177881102[/unixtime]]hahahaha, best quote from that thread goes to:

"I run a low-epic campaign and I asked kindly to my barbarian/fighter (out of game) to avoid taking the fast healing epic feat. He also agrees that it's quite disruptive, as any at-will effects."

Things you can do and keep doing are brokenzed!211eleventyone!!!1!

That's right, the ability to *swing a sword* is broken, because its an at-will effect.

Its not even worth reasoning with such morons.

Yeah, I absolutely love the guys who say the warlock is broken because he has at-will effects.

[NineInchNall]

The only effects for which the frequency matters are those that have cumulative effects and durations. For example, fireball at will is just an attack that does xd6 damage. Get something that creates a replenishing armoy, however, like gate, and the frequency starts to matter.

[Neeek]

Painfully misguided fallacies make me want to make a list of things like:

The Viagra Fallacy: Fighters can go all day long.
False because they are constrained quite heavily by their hit points.

The Three Kinds of Mathematicians Fallacy: Statistics don't matter to determine power.
False on its face.

The Company Man Fallacy: Character with a single class or a single core class and single PrC are more "pure", from a role-playing perspective.
False because characters who can do what their concept says they are supposed to do are clearly better mechanical representations of the related fluff than ones that determine their path based on the constraints of a class progression.

[RandomCasualty]

Limited frequency is generally not a great balance mechanic to begin with. I mean for some things it works marginally okay, but eh, it heavily favors NPCs over PCs, it's circumvented on many occasions by having wands, scrolls and potions. To make matters worse, it all hinges on highly controlled adventure pacing. Try to run anything in which the PCs can pace the adventure, and it completely falls apart.

Really, I think D&D should get away from slots per day and get more on a system similar to the ToB, where you get slots per encounter.

[Cielingcat]

I prefer a system where you either have something or you don't; i.e. at will or not at all. The way I look at it, if something isn't balanced to be used whenever, its not balanced at all.

[the_taken]

1177897488[/unixtime]]I prefer a system where you either have something or you don't; i.e. at will or not at all. The way I look at it, if something isn't balanced to be used whenever, its not balanced at all.

Oooh! I'm so doing that right now with my Avatar d20 system. Everything is going to be based apon it being OK doing it all the time. Subject to endurance tests, like running.

The hype! It grows!

[Cielingcat]

I'm doing the exact same thing with Magic d20, but I haven't worked on that in a while. Maybe I should just leave the skill system until later.

[MrWaeseL]

The Company Man Fallacy: Character with a single class or a single core class and single PrC are more "pure", from a role-playing perspective.
False because characters who can do what their concept says they are supposed to do are clearly better mechanical representations of the related fluff than ones that determine their path based on the constraints of a class progression.

THIS IS SO FUCKING TRUE

[Catharz]

Limited resources are great story-wise and gameplay-wise. The only balance issue is when different characters have different relative quantities of limited and unlimited resources.

A skilled DM can (in some cases) use such differences to keep players balanced relative to each other, in a similar manner to the cash & karma system of SR. Unfortunately, it's a lot tougher to do in D&D than in SR, especially when certain characters have the option to switch out their limited resources for unlimited resources.

My suggestion for an attempt at a balanced game is to make sure that all PCs have equal (between characters) access to limited and unlimited resources. Avoiding potions and spells entirely would work, but it would remove an interesting dimension of strategy.

[RandomCasualty]

1177905894[/unixtime]]Limited resources are great story-wise and gameplay-wise. The only balance issue is when different characters have different relative quantities of limited and unlimited resources.

I disagree. Limited resources tend to be a clunky video game mechanic that don't translate well to pencil and paper RPGs.

Limited resources work on a resource depletion model where you have a bunch of smaller encounters per day and gradually your hit points and spells get expended to the point where you've got to go back and rest. It was contingent on having a bunch of small nuisance encounters that gradually drained you.

It's the basic model that was the entire premise behind old school computer RPGs like Wizardry and The Bard's Tale. And it worked for those games. Primarily because you could only rest back at town, and not in the middle of the dungeon and because you fought a potentially infinite number of foes. You couldn't beat a game like Wizardry by running Werdna out of monsters, it just didn't happen. So basically you had to expose yourself to deeper dangers and risks, and constantly had to worry if you were overextending your resources with every deep foray into the dungeons. Fighters were balanced not by their actual ability to do damage, but rather by their efficiency. They took less damage than wizards would in the front lines and could swing their swords all day long, thus dealing with trivial encounters and saving spells.

Now, D&D doesn't quite work that way, because we're telling a story, rather than just setting up a dungeon crawl. Monsters aren't infinite, and you damn well can just run the evil warlord out of minions. So it's very possible to minimize the number of battles you face before resting, because a "day" in D&D is virtually meaningless, so you go through D&D dungeons one room at a time, one day at a time. Fighting a battle, and then egressing and gradually winning by attrition. Well, you do that if you're smart anyway.

Now, there are ways to make a day matter, by the DM implementing crazy time sensitive quests, but this is just part of the straitjacket imposed upon your creative process because we're trying to play with an antiquated video game RPG system that never quite worked well in a pencil and paper environment.

If we are to make limited ability uses mean anything, they should act in units we care about. Not days, but encounters, adventures or whatever. Saying you can use a hadoken once per day is a trivial restriction. It just means you rest more often. Saying you can use it once per adventure really forces you to ration your abilities.

[Catharz]

But, RC, does it matter if the players manage to avoid the limitations of their limited abilities when every one of them is getting the same benefit?

By giving limited abilities, you're giving the DM the option of creating scenarios where all the players benefit from good resource management. The DM doesn't have to use that option, but it's there.

Secondly, "limited resource" does not mean 'per-day ability.' It may be per day (which as you say can be fairly arbitrary), per encounter (an equally arbitrary criteria), per rounds, single-use, or some other arbitrary limit ('after 8 hours of rest'). In a system with fairly fixed day lengths, per-day can even be balanced and non-arbitrary.

[NineInchNall]

Arcane Strike is 4w3s0m3 at 3p1C

Come on, Kreselak and Squirreloid. Lend a hand!

[Nereas]

ENWorld + "Song" = The Munchkin Player Came Whining...

[Crissa]

Limited resources in pen and paper pre-existed computer games.

Also, the arguments 'you can go through a room a day' and 'it is a story' conflict.

-Crissa

[Draco_Argentum]

Limited rescources are fine for explaining why noncombat spell X can't be used to take over the world.

[User3]

RandomCasualty: no part of that invalidates per-encounter resources (and then people define "encounter" as until people rest for a specific amount of time). Also, it explains world inertia finely indeed.

[User3]

Cursed double-posting ...

NineInchNall, please smite this retard ... I could do it myself, but you remade the thing!

[MrWaeseL]

Yep... it can make some rather expensive containers... But thats what DM's are for ... Or the bulk rate which helps change the values a bit, I personally like mine at 50%. This is also why I limited certain items to certain size containers, Saffron for instance can only appear in the smallest barrel and crate.

Wotc_Mark on that generator thing.

What's the penalty for flaming Wotc employees again? Because good god this man is retarded.

[Leress]

1177966479[/unixtime]]

Yep... it can make some rather expensive containers... But thats what DM's are for ... Or the bulk rate which helps change the values a bit, I personally like mine at 50%. This is also why I limited certain items to certain size containers, Saffron for instance can only appear in the smallest barrel and crate.

Wotc_Mark on that generator thing.

What's the penalty for flaming Wotc employees again? Because good god this man is retarded.

None to my knowledge, just as long as you add the evidence to show that he is wrong.

[Leress]

1177914056[/unixtime]]Arcane Strike is 4w3s0m3 at 3p1C

Come on, Kreselak and Squirreloid. Lend a hand!

My god Shaka is horrible! This is right up there with a fully optimized fighter going against a tied up drugged up wizard...that's underwater.

[NineInchNall]

1177958385[/unixtime]]Cursed double-posting ...

NineInchNall, please smite this retard ... I could do it myself, but you remade the thing!

Oh, sweet juicy Jesus. You see, this is exactly the kind of person I'm always on about. It's nice to see the smart people come out of the woodworks, though.

I think getting and using the input of people on the CO board was good for more than one reason. Obviously, it improved the class, but more importantly, and more subtly, it allowed part of the community to feel empowered. A group of people is going to feel attached to the Swiftblade and be willing to come out and defend the changes to the class.

Heck, it may even get some people to shift their paradigms for balancing things.

Nah, that's just wishful thinking.

[User3]

Thanks for joining there - and for remaking the class, of course.

[TGFBS]
Irrelevant parts of post deleted.
[/TGFBS]

[PhoneLobster]

a fully optimized fighter going against a tied up drugged up wizard...that's underwater.

The wizard would win.

The fully optimized fighter didn't waste ranks on some conditional thing like swimming and was busy cross class skilling his limited supply for spot/listen/tumble. He also has a big giant swim penalty from his heavy armour and other heavy junk. He arguably sinks.

The wizard has water breathing at at least 10 hours duration from level 5. He cast it before being tied and drugged up. Some might complain at his casting it then, but he is prepared to forgo all actions during the "combat" in return.