Warlock, 3rd Edition (okay, let's make TOME a complete game)

[...You Lost Me]

Most people won't do that, though. They'll come to TGD, look through the first 6 threads in IMHO and IMOI, and conclude "wow this is baseless and has nothing to do with actual D&D. Have they planned anything whatsoever?"

[Kaelik]

Well, technically anyone can use anything from it. He's just only using the name.

Technically, I could trademark Dr. Praetor, and create a game Called "Dr. Praetor's Warlock 3rd edition!" And make that game suck ass.

Technically, people can legally do lots of things that we all sort of expect them to not do.

In this case, I'm asking him to prove that his death would not be the salvation of the human race by willingly, of his own volition, with no threat from me legal or otherwise, changing the the title of this thread to not include Tome, and not claiming his game is in any way based on Tome.

In the alternative, I will have to begin Harsh Measures such as making fun of him on the internet, and shitting on his thread as hard as he is shitting on the Tomes by making suggestions in this thread like:

"Hey, maybe for classes, you could have classes like these: [copy paste every class from the Tomes]." Ect, as a general notice to him that he is butchering the Tomes.

"Hey maybe instead of all this gravity resistance, you could have stuff like: [copy paste the glossary from the SRD]."

[DrPraetor]

I'll outline the logic:
[*] Why don't you make TOME a complete game?
[*] TOME is a complete game - it's part of D&D 3rd ed.
[*] Well, okay - rewrite a PHB to be more like the stuff in TOME.
[*] That's a lot of work. If we're going to do that, it's going to be a significant rewrite, essentially an entirely new RPG, and this is only worth doing if you can fix a lot of stuff that isn't fixed in SRD+TOME.
[*] You should do it anyway.
[*] Okay, the major fundamental problems with D&D which would justify rewriting the whole game engine are...

Which then elicits the complaint that the entire rewrite is nothing like TOME.

It's true that there's no point in talking about most of the stuff that's in TOME. Tome has an alignment section which would become the alignment section, after a bit of cleanup. That's a no-brainer so there's no point in devoting verbiage to discussing it.

If you want to start another thread in which people congratulate each-other on how cool the TOME stuff is, you can do that. I'm sure it will be very productive.

[Lokathor]

Tome is a specific expansion over the 3e/3.5 material. It's 99% a superset of the existing material. Any printed material can be imported into a Tome game without any problems.

The game you're making isn't a Tome game, because you can't just import any 3e material you want into it.

So you should pick a new name (you did: "Warlock") and you should admit that you're not basing this on the Tome materials at all, you're just doing a fantasy heartbreaker like everyone else who's ever done a fantasy heartbreaker.

[Kaelik]

I'll outline the logic:
[*] Why don't you make TOME a complete game?
[*] TOME is a complete game - it's part of D&D 3rd ed.
[*] Well, okay - rewrite a PHB to be more like the stuff in TOME.
[*] That's a lot of work. If we're going to do that, it's going to be a significant rewrite, essentially an entirely new RPG, and this is only worth doing if you can fix a lot of stuff that isn't fixed in SRD+TOME.
[*] You should do it anyway.
[*] Okay, the major fundamental problems with D&D which would justify rewriting the whole game engine are...

Which then elicits the complaint that the entire rewrite is nothing like TOME.

It's true that there's no point in talking about most of the stuff that's in TOME. Tome has an alignment section which would become the alignment section, after a bit of cleanup. That's a no-brainer so there's no point in devoting verbiage to discussing it.

If you want to start another thread in which people congratulate each-other on how cool the TOME stuff is, you can do that. I'm sure it will be very productive.

If your game is an entirely different game, JUST DON'T CALL IT TOME!

You fucking dumbass. I don't make material or design a game and call it "Pathfinder" precisely because that's a dickish thing to do to people who want to play Pathfinder and are looking for Pathfinder shit.

You even have your own goddam name, you can just call it Warlock, like you are actually calling it, and since it's not the same game, you should.

So let's go over the sum total of all effects that you using Tome has:

1) Pisses off all the people who are looking for Tome material and find something that has nothing to do with the Tomes.
2) Confuses people about what the Tomes are.
3) Allows you to trick people into reading your shitty thread about your shitty Fantasy Heartbreaker.

NO YOU DUMBASS! YOU LYING IN ORDER TO ACCOMPLISH 3 DOES NOT JUSTIFY 1 and 2!

[DrPraetor]

Look, Kaelik - I believe I tried to nominate you dictator the most recent time that you asked for Tome to be expanded into a full product line like Path Finder or something.

You said you didn't want to do it, fine. Nothing is stopping you still. You might even persuade K to join such a project - K is a lot more terse than Frank, so while I know he doesn't want to write any more TOME material, I couldn't really tell you why.

So if you can actually launch such a thing, more power to you. I'll rename the thread at that time, since I know Frank doesn't care.

In the interim, this is a thread about transitioning TOME to a full game. That requires a critical consideration of which parts of TOME need to be fleshed out, or would be modified in a baseline rewrite, in order to make that happen. It doesn't require any mutual congratulation on which parts of TOME are already up to snuff. But it is a critical discussion of which parts of TOME could be improved with changes to the basic engine, which is absolutely a discussion of TOME.

It may not be a discussion that TOME fanboys wish to have (apparently it isn't), but it's a discussion that the people who wrote TOME seem at least willing to entertain. To be quite frank, if neither Frank nor K want to produce any more TOME material, that's the end of it as far as I'm concerned. I'm not particularly interested in writing TOME material, I'd rather write Assymetric Threat stuff instead. But, if you want to convince Frank to write more TOME material, you can't just start a thread in which you announce you want more TOME material - you have to read what Frank has written, consider what he considers desirable features of a D20-like game, and address the substance of his comments.

Also you can yell in red, I'm sure that'll help.

[erik]

Also you can yell in red, I'm sure that'll help.

It helped me. I laughed, but then had to explain this thread to my wife.

[Kaelik]

Look, Kaelik - I believe I tried to nominate you dictator the most recent time that you asked for Tome to be expanded into a full product line like Path Finder or something.

No you idiot, you offered to nominate me Dictator when some new poster who wasn't me asked for Tome to be assembled into a product for sale.

Not expanded by the way.

So if you can actually launch such a thing, more power to you. I'll rename the thread at that time, since I know Frank doesn't care.

No, you should rename the thread now, not when other people make a thread doing something, because Tome is already a thing, and so you claiming that your completely different totally unrelated thing is Tome creates confusion about what that makes all the other shit that exists and is incompatible with your shit.

It is not incumbent on me to create a thread that completely changes the Tome that already exists to prevent you from changing it, because the point is that you shouldn't claim authority to just randomly make X that is incompatible with Y, and therefore X can no longer exist in it's current state.

Also, Fuck You I Made the Thread Over Two Years Ago.

So as promised, change your fucking thread title.

In the interim, this is a thread about transitioning TOME to a full game.

No, Tome is a full game, this thread is about you making a completely different game that isn't Tome, and calling it Tome because you know that no one gives a shit about what you have to say about Fantasy Heartbreaker #12345

That requires a critical consideration of which parts of TOME need to be fleshed out, or would be modified in a baseline rewrite, in order to make that happen.

No, that would require this being a Tome thing. But here's the thing, this clearly isn't. Anything which has Gravity resistance is not a Tome thing. Tome is a series of spot fixes to 3e D&D, it is not a Fantasy Heartbreaker that is completely separate from 3e D&D. If you are going to baseline rewrite out all of 3e D&D, then it's not the Tomes. It's Fantasy Heartbreak #12345

It doesn't require any mutual congratulation on which parts of TOME are already up to snuff. But it is a critical discussion of which parts of TOME could be improved with changes to the basic engine, which is absolutely a discussion of TOME.

No it's not. The only possible basic engine for Tome is 3e D&D with spot fixes. Because Tome is 3e D&D with spot fixes. That's what it was conceived as, has been, is, and always will be.

No one is asking you to mutually congratulate any damn thing. I am asking you to call your Fantasy Heartbreaker "Fantasy Heartbreaker" exactly like the New York Giants ask high school football teams to not call themselves "The New York Giants."

It may not be a discussion that TOME fanboys wish to have (apparently it isn't), but it's a discussion that the people who wrote TOME seem at least willing to entertain.

No it's not. K straight up told you to make a different game that isn't Tome, and despite what your crazy goggles tell you, he didn't tell you to call it Tome. He told you to make your own goddam Fantasy Heartbreaker. Frank commented on what you should do in making your own Fantasy Heartbreaker. I am telling you to call your Fantasy Heartbreaker a Fantasy Heartbreaker.

To be quite frank, if neither Frank nor K want to produce any more TOME material, that's the end of it as far as I'm concerned.

Great news. Change the fucking thread title. Both of them have said at multiple points that they don't want to keep making the Tomes. The reason they have both given is because it's easier to make a completely new Fantasy Heartbreaker that is in no way related to the Tomes than to keep making the Tomes.

Now change the fucking thread title.

But, if you want to convince Frank to write more TOME material, you can't just start a thread in which you announce you want more TOME material - you have to read what Frank has written, consider what he considers desirable features of a D20-like game, and address the substance of his comments.

Hey dumbass, I am not trying to convince Frank to write more Tome material. I didn't make a thread in which I announced I want more Tome material. I have read what Frank has written about what he considers desirable features of a d20 like game.

And what Frank desires in a d20 like game is a completely new Fantasy Heartbreaker with no ties to D&D. IE Frank desires not the Tomes.

But here's the thing. Richard Dawkins once invented a concept called the meme (he might have stolen it from someone, I don't care, someone invented it, and this applies regardless). He gave a definition of it and everything. If Richard Dawkins told everyone tomorrow that he would now prefer if meme meant "pile of shit" that would not change the definition of meme.

Likewise, since the original definition of Tome was a series of spot fixes to D&D, whatever Frank desires now, it doesn't make things that are not spot fixes to D&D into the Tomes.

Now, Frank, and for that matter you, can continue making Fantasy Heartbreakers to your hearts content. And I will look at them, and I might even like them. I once tried to make a Fantasy Heartbreaker myself.

But I didn't call mine Tome. And Frank doesn't call his Tome. So stop calling yours Tome you sack of shit.

Change the thread title.

[Korwin]

I agree with Kaelik for once.
If this where the Tomes you would not need new classes, there are enough in the Tomes.
If this where the Tomes you would need to finish the unfinished things (like Tome magic items).

This as presented at this point has nothing to do with the Tomes.

[Username17]

First off, it is literally incomprehensible to me that people would yell at each other over the word "Tome". K and I didn't even consciously name our series "The Tomes", that was a term other people applied to it. And they did that because our first two books had the word "Tome" in the name. Of course, the majority of the books in the series don't, and the longest books in the series also don't. The name "Tome" is actually ripped off from the D&D classic book "Tome of Magic", which at the time of writing had not yet been appropriated for one of 3.5's stupid "throw shit at the wall and see what gets good enough ratings that we can claim it is inspiration for 4e" books. The Tome of Necromancy and Tome of Fiends were both modest enterprises, each tackling a part of magic that we felt had gotten short shrift from the basic rules.

If someone wanted to say that they were running a "Tome Game" because they were using Tome of Battle and Tome of Magic, that would be totally reasonable. Just as reasonable and for the same reasons as calling your game a "Tome Game" because of Tomes of Necromancy and Fiends.

As K and I wrote that material, we found that to address each new fundamental problem required the writing of more and more material. We had gone after low hanging fruit and now it was time to address fundamental issues like character advancement and multiclassing. That's the primary reason we stopped where we did. But if someone did want to rewrite the entire game and make a new Kitchen Sink Fantasy project, that could be totally in keeping with the spirit of the Tomes. K and I certainly found ourselves staring at having to do exactly that if we wanted to uproot some of the more intrinsic problems (like the way skill accumulation affects Diplomancy and Use Magic Device or the way multiclassing Fighter and Wizard will never ever be good).

Saying that your planned expansions include books that will be called The Dungeonomicon and Book of Gears gives you exactly as much right to call your game a "Tome Game" as having the first books called Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual gives you to call your game "Dungeons & Dragons".

That's totally awesome, and definitely worth doing... but in terms of 'schtick', we should be talking mechanics, not just flavour. In strict D&D terms, different sorts of casters should have different class features, not just different spell lists.

The thing is: for a caster class the spell list is the class feature list. Yes, different casting classes can and should have different resource management systems and different non-spell actions and different skill lists and whatever, but that's really all window dressing.

Ideally, we'd want different casting methods, as well... though it's hard to balance when everything's as different as spells, psionics, and incarna. Accordingly, the resource system should not be grossly different between classes.

The difficulty of writing multiple resource management systems is generally grossly overstated by people. The Fighter and the Rogue are on the same resource management system and vary wildly in power. The Sorcerer and the Favored Soul are on the same resource management system and vary wildly in power.

I fucking hate Mana points and can prove with charts that they don't actually do the things that people say they want them for. But the reality is that people do like them, and for that reason a mana points class (or several) should be included. It's basically just a system where you get unlimited low level bullshit and strict charge limits on your higher level shit, after all. It's actually fairly trivial to balance such a system against a more traditional charge caster once you can manage the much more Herculean task of balancing the effects of the actual spells being used.

I continue to think that you're better off with two degrees of freedom. So the "Cthonic Elementalist" is a geomancer, the "Elder Elementalist" is a pyromancer, and so forth.

I definitely don't agree. Procedurally generating classes like that is good for the parts of our soul that like to categorize things, but it's not particularly good at building classes people actually want to play. A class should be made because you have a concept for it and some mechanics you want to use for it and such. Not because you happen to need a class to fill in square A4 on the class chart - that's video game thinking.

There is much to recommend the use of procedural class/subclass combinations for the development of playtest strategies, there's no benefit at all to attempting to procedurally generate class concepts. Those should be based on actual inspiration and creative energies. Which since they can be found in "just making shit up", are basically just a couple of bathtub journeys away from filling each book.

-Username17

[Korwin]

Warlock, 3rd Edition (okay, let's make TOME a complete game)

First off, it is literally incomprehensible to me that people would yell at each other over the word "Tome". K and I didn't even consciously name our series "The Tomes", that was a term other people applied to it. -Username17

The tread title suggest that it will build on your an K's former work. It doesnt do that.
It's a misleading thread title.

So somebody else gave an nick name to your work, it sticked and now a (small?) subset of D&D 3.x players use it this way and for those its confusing.

How about:

Warlock, 3rd Edition (okay, let's make TOME V.2)

[Midnight_v]

Seriously, fuck those dudes, engaging in argument over what you call a derivative work is actually counter productive. It isn't worth the time to actually change the title to appease any asshole so tunnel-visioned about the project.

Moving on. . . The pyromancer is a well loved class.
Seriously though, do we really need things like "The SnowScaper" I can't help but look at shit like that and think: These things should all be 1 class: Elementalist, and each elementalist gets a different class feature or two and does it damage in the chosen type.
Give the "Elementalist" a similar structure to the pyromancer and let people have the ability to choose cold powers instead.
I mean isn't that better than having a large number of aribtrarily powered base Mage classes?

[Korwin]

So you do the Pathfinder thing?
Its a Tome game? I'll play the Tome fighter...
(lets make Tome an complete game...)

I'll shut up now, thread is cluttered enough.

Edit: well the backward compatibility worked for Pathfinder as a marketing tool...

[Midnight_v]

So you do the Pathfinder thing?
Its a Tome game? I'll play the Tome fighter...
(lets make Tome an complete game...)

I'll shut up now, thread is cluttered enough.

Edit: well the backward compatibility worked for Pathfinder as a marketing tool...

How is that the pathfinder thing? You mean its "Non-backwards-compatible" etc?

[DrPraetor]

Personally, I'd like to see a game that was better than Pathfinder (like, actually fixed things), but broke backwards compatibility as little as possible.

Which would still be a lot, b/c you have a game where the two fundamental character types are just broken.

--DrP

[Username17]

Moving on. . . The pyromancer is a well loved class.
Seriously though, do we really need things like "The SnowScaper" I can't help but look at shit like that and think: These things should all be 1 class: Elementalist, and each elementalist gets a different class feature or two and does it damage in the chosen type.
Give the "Elementalist" a similar structure to the pyromancer and let people have the ability to choose cold powers instead.
I mean isn't that better than having a large number of aribtrarily powered base Mage classes?

While it is possible to have the Pyromancer and the Snowscaper be the same class (Elementalist with "Fire" or "Ice" spec instead of "Generalist" spec, I guess), there doesn't seem to be any real advantage to doing that. The Pyromancer burns things: he's heavy on direct damage and his non-combat abilities involve things like fire viewings and fire sendings to scry and communicate. The Snowscaper is mostly a wall-o-mancer: ice and snow form natural obstacles and difficult terrain. And his non-combat stuff involves building stuff for the most part. You could do a thing where Air and Fire elementalists were in one class and Ice and Earth elementalists were in another, but again: Why would you do that?

-Username17

[Kaelik]

Personally, I'd like to see a game that was better than Pathfinder (like, actually fixed things), but broke backwards compatibility as little as possible.

Which would still be a lot, b/c you have a game where the two fundamental character types are just broken.

--DrP

So you thought you'd do that by completely changing the ways classes work, the way skills work, the way HP works, the way class abilities work, the way people recover from effects active on them, the way social systems work, inventing 45 new damage types with accompanying resistances and therefore fundamentally changing how people expect enemies to react to their attacks, and invent 40 new keywords.

But it's totally backwards compatible because you intend to copy paste the fluff section about necromancy, even though it won't make any sense once you remove the Dread Necromancer/Cleric/Wizard classes.

[Endovior]

That's totally awesome, and definitely worth doing... but in terms of 'schtick', we should be talking mechanics, not just flavour. In strict D&D terms, different sorts of casters should have different class features, not just different spell lists.

The thing is: for a caster class the spell list is the class feature list. Yes, different casting classes can and should have different resource management systems and different non-spell actions and different skill lists and whatever, but that's really all window dressing.

Disagree strongly. Since at least half of the classes are going to be doing some kind of magic, magic is going to be a BIG DEAL in the setting. If all the mages cast in exactly the same way, and have no distinctions apart from slightly different spell lists, you don't have different kinds of mages, you've just got a bunch of specialist wizards, with different favoured and revoked schools.

Pretty much the entirety of the distinction between, say, a Druid and a Pyromancer is in the other stuff they can do besides cast spells. Sure, since their both primarily casters, they both primarily do magic, and most of their utility comes from the magic they have. But a Druid, being essentially a hermit, also requires all kinds of non-magical wilderness skills; and should be able to find food for the party or track a manticore back to it's lair or whatever without needing to use magic. Similarly, a Pyromancer, being primarily a battlemage, essentially doubles as a military officer when not on the battlefield, and as such should automatically be familiar with all kinds of military procedures, and have the ability to plan out logistics, coordinate scouting efforts, and orchestrate siegecraft.

Now, if you've got a robust enough skill system, a lot of this comes with it. But the skill system probably doesn't cover everything, so there'll wind up being little extras tacked onto the classes... so the Druid still gets wild empathy or whatnot, and the Pyromancer winds up getting leadership... without requiring the players to spend extra discretionary resources on things that should come with the concept.

EDIT: On second thought, I just realized we've been talking past each other here. I was referring to what makes the classes feel different, and you were talking about what makes the classes actually different. It is, of course, the biggest difference between the classes that the Druid spends his combats summoning things and laying down difficult terrain, while the Pyromancer spends it dealing damage both directly and over time; my point was that they don't feel all that different if they both spend their whole combats casting spells via the same magic system. We both agree that different classes should have different magical focus, as well as different nonmagical utility backing that up; you were emphasizing the substantive differences in role, while I was emphasizing the background details.

Ideally, we'd want different casting methods, as well... though it's hard to balance when everything's as different as spells, psionics, and incarna. Accordingly, the resource system should not be grossly different between classes.

The difficulty of writing multiple resource management systems is generally grossly overstated by people. The Fighter and the Rogue are on the same resource management system and vary wildly in power. The Sorcerer and the Favored Soul are on the same resource management system and vary wildly in power.

I fucking hate Mana points and can prove with charts that they don't actually do the things that people say they want them for. But the reality is that people do like them, and for that reason a mana points class (or several) should be included. It's basically just a system where you get unlimited low level bullshit and strict charge limits on your higher level shit, after all. It's actually fairly trivial to balance such a system against a more traditional charge caster once you can manage the much more Herculean task of balancing the effects of the actual spells being used.

I agree; it's quite easy to write up several resource management systems. That said, I don't at all believe it's possible to have a game system that uses more then one resource system and yet remains balanced. As you just pointed out, more often than not, even classes using the same resource system wind up being imbalanced. The best-case scenario for game balance would assume that everyone uses the same resource system (say, everyone is a mage... or better yet, no one is) and has exactly the same amount of power available per day, just different things to spend it on. Even that winds up being a huge task, so I don't even believe you when you say you can do the same thing with classes that use different spells powered by different resource schemes. You're seriously saying that it's trivial to balance multiple resource systems along an advancement curve without something becoming totally dominant or useless at any point of the curve. Now, I suppose if you assume that you've already gone through the spell list and balanced that out, then it's not as much of a task... but the problem is, the two problems cannot be decoupled. It's one thing to talk about mana points against spell levels, and arrive at a semblance of balance under the assumption that the MP caster is always going to spend all his MP on the biggest scariest spells he can drop... but on the other hand, you can't balance the effects of soulmelds against spells without knowing how many of each you get on each side and how often you can use them. And each time you add another resource type to the game, the problem gets exponentially worse. Since, presumably, you're already trying to balance out mages and non-mages, the implication is that you already have two resource systems. If you have a different flavour of magic resource, that's three. Accordingly, if you want MP for whatever reason, you need a really overwhelming reason to include it. Really, the same thing goes for Vancian casting; if MP is the only magic system, that would work just as well. If, on the other hand, you want to have Vancian casters and MP casters and at-will invokers and guys with slotted soulmelds or pact bonds or whatever else you happened to pull out of a hat when designing your class list, your system is automatically fucked by default.

[Blicero]

Personally, I'd like to see a game that was better than Pathfinder (like, actually fixed things), but broke backwards compatibility as little as possible.

Which would still be a lot, b/c you have a game where the two fundamental character types are just broken.

--DrP

So you thought you'd do that by completely changing the ways classes work, the way skills work, the way HP works, the way class abilities work, the way people recover from effects active on them, the way social systems work, inventing 45 new damage types with accompanying resistances and therefore fundamentally changing how people expect enemies to react to their attacks, and invent 40 new keywords.

But it's totally backwards compatible because you intend to copy paste the fluff section about necromancy, even though it won't make any sense once you remove the Dread Necromancer/Cleric/Wizard classes.

I'm with Kaelik here. Dr. Praetor, this project seems to be edging more and more toward Distinct Heartbreaker status. Which is not a bad thing, but calling it TOME is just begging confusion, given the connotation that Tome has acquired over the past 6-7 years on this board and elsewhere. You could say that your Heartbreaker is "Inspired by Tome," and that'd be cool. You could probably crib a lot of the mechanics from Tome classes and feats, and that'd be neat-o. But every bit of actual design you've posted here is rather distinct from the vast majority of Tome classes written.


Now, you could instead make Tome into a cohesive entity. Crib many of the Fire Mage or Snowscaper-style classes that exist, write another 5 or 10, normalize the Feat power level and add in some of the community scaling feats, and voila! you'd be done. It'd be like what Kaelik and Koumei (and presumably a lot of other posters) have already done.

But pick one and adjust your design goals accordingly.

[ishy]

If there are any differences between players there will be an imbalanced. For fucks sake, chess is imbalanced because white starts first.

You don't care about perfect balance, because nobody does. As long as things are close enough for the game to remain fun. And you need some good solid design so you hit those targets, unless you can easily patch things.

[Endovior]

If there are any differences between players there will be an imbalanced. For fucks sake, chess is imbalanced because white starts first.

You don't care about perfect balance, because nobody does. As long as things are close enough for the game to remain fun. And you need some good solid design so you hit those targets, unless you can spot fix things.

This is readily apparent, of course. My point is that it's probably impossible to have five different resource management systems coexist in the same game over an advancement curve without at least one of them being fundamentally broken, either because someone's become omnipotent or irrelevant. Sure, Frank can argue that it's trivial to balance different resource management schemes once the spell lists are balanced, but the fact remains that nobody's managed to do either of those yet, ever.

[K]

If there are any differences between players there will be an imbalanced. For fucks sake, chess is imbalanced because white starts first.

You don't care about perfect balance, because nobody does. As long as things are close enough for the game to remain fun. And you need some good solid design so you hit those targets, unless you can spot fix things.

This is readily apparent, of course. My point is that it's probably impossible to have five different resource management systems coexist in the same game over an advancement curve without at least one of them being fundamentally broken, either because someone's beco ()me omnipotent or irrelevant. Sure, Frank can argue that it's trivial to balance different resource management schemes once the spell lists are balanced, but the fact remains that nobody's managed to do either of those yet, ever.

It's not that you can't balance different resource mechanics, but that they will always feel broken some of the time.

For example, Wizard casting feels broken when they prepare just the right spells for a challenge out of a list of a dozen per level, but Sorcerer casting feels broken when you unexpectedly need five castings of the same spell or a casting of a spell you'd rarely memorize.

In practice, they are pretty well balanced, but that doesn't stop them from feeling unbalanced.

[Username17]

If there are any differences between players there will be an imbalanced. For fucks sake, chess is imbalanced because white starts first.

You don't care about perfect balance, because nobody does. As long as things are close enough for the game to remain fun. And you need some good solid design so you hit those targets, unless you can spot fix things.

This is readily apparent, of course. My point is that it's probably impossible to have five different resource management systems coexist in the same game over an advancement curve without at least one of them being fundamentally broken, either because someone's become omnipotent or irrelevant. Sure, Frank can argue that it's trivial to balance different resource management schemes once the spell lists are balanced, but the fact remains that nobody's managed to do either of those yet, ever.

I don't think that's really true. If your party was a Rogue, a Psionic Warrior, a Warmage, and a Binder you wouldn't be doing that badly on the balance front. If your party was a Dungeonomicon Monk, a Wizard, a Beguiler, and a Druid you'd probably be doing OK as far as that went too. Now obviously mixing and matching those parties is going to be broken as fuck, especially at high level. But I genuinely don't believe that the different resource management systems are even a large contributor to that imbalance.

Resource management systems are important, and they affect balance. And different assumptions about how resources are going to be used can lead to classes being broken or useless when those assumptions turn out to not be accurate. But it really doesn't seem like an insurmountable problem. Indeed, compared to encounter balance or balancing conditional effects or balancing buffs and curses with attacks and heals, it really isn't even a big deal.

-Username17

[Orion]

Using diverget r esource systems probably does make it more difficult to check balance via mathhammer, but that's not how people actually balance things anyway. If you're testing outcomes somehow it doesn't really matter if resources are different.

[Endovior]

Uh... sure, you could cherry-pick some relatively meh classes, and there'll be a few levels where things are mostly stable. Eventually, though, the Warmage is going to pick up 9th level spells, while the Psychic Warrior's progression is going to peter out... both as he runs out of new power levels, and as his combat style becomes irrelevant. And most D&D classes aren't even that stable.

That said, my point was more intended on a system basis... no system that attempts to balance a bunch of diverse resource mechanics like that does a good job of it. Considering the matter further, though... in any particular case of such that comes to mind, I'm inclined to suspect that that could be argued as being the fault of different writers working at cross purposes. In the absence of an especially clever design dictator who's determined to maintain a level of balance, there will be balance issues, period. Divergent and broken resource systems, then, may just be a symptom of a confused rabble trying to blindly approximate balance without a metric, as a subpriority to implementing whatever cool idea they have at the moment.