Still more Threads that make us Laugh, Cry, or Both

[Leress]

Heck, I once made a character for a guy that was a griffin-riding Rogue who stacked his sneak damage with his lance damage. He played it for a session before he made a new character because it "didn't feel like a warrior" despite the fact that he was causing guys to explode by hitting them with a lance.

Can I see that build, it sounds like fun.

[Psychic Robot]

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?t=235478

Paladin class design fails.

To be honest, your way lies madness.

Essentially, and you see this in PVP, there's absolutely no reason not to play a Striker if that's the methodology that is being employed by the DM. Otherwise you have to overpower the tanks as they overpowered Clerics in the last edition and then, being people, you'll find nobody plays a Striker, they all play a Paladin, who is now a SUPER-Striker, because you've beefed him up to the point where the incentives are so strong you create a whole new issue. (In 3E they pumped the clerics, to try and let them heal AND play, to the point that my last campaign was entirely multi-classed clerics.)

So, sure, you can find a 'magic number' that the GM decides means the monsters focus on the paladin, but then everybody is going to want to play a paladin so that the uber-damage falls to them. Because the 'magic number' is, "The Paladin Can DPS Better Than The DPS".

WoW handles this with itemization, talents, and alternate abilities. The PVE Tank Warrior is, essentially, a whole other class than the PVP DPS Warrior. They use different gear, different talents, different stances and hotbars of abilities.

D&D is ALL PVE, though. But your GM is making it PVP. And the Paladin is a PVE Tank. Every class is one thing, and if you make the PVE Tank into PVE Tank + PVP DPS, then he's suddenly got two suites of output compared to everybody else.

The best way would be to pin even more damage on the Challenge, such that the UBERDAMAGE only triggers on the enemy hitting somebody else, but then you'll already be into the realm of being so attractive it's worth it to try and get multiple paladins in the party such that they play round-robin Markathalons with the enemy to force that DPS spike.

--fje

[Talisman]

Yes, the player is a jackass. However, I don't think that paladins should have to wear heavy armor and stand at the front line.

Blasphemer!

But seriously, I'm currently playing a rogue/pally who wears a mithral shirt and tumbles around the battlefield in order to sneak attack people. My tagline: "I'm not that kind of a paladin."

And yet, no one questions my being a paladin...

[Absentminded_Wizard]

If it was just the dagger-wielding paladin *or* the refusal to heal, I could see the case that he's just being a "roleplayer." But if you don't want to do one single thing that paladins do, you have to wonder why you took it as a class. In 3.x, a person who wore heavy armor but cowered behind less tough characters would be viewed pretty harshly too.

I'm sure he is healing... he probably is just healing himself.

Class roles are lame at the end of the day. The 3e cleric archer actively pisses people off despite being more effective than the vast majority of fighting classes. People hear "cleric" and assume that you'll spend all your class features making them awesome instead of yourself.

I thought the problem with the cleric archer was that it was better at archery than a fighter who takes every archery feat he can find. Though I'm sure the "walking band-aid" image had something to do with it. People in 4e reviews actually talk about clerics using their slots only for healing spells. Heck, I was definitely not much of an optimizer in the 3.0 days, but I never prepared a cure spell ever with spontaneous casting in the game.

But really, I don't know whether it's class roles that are weak or pigeonholing particular classes into particular roles. 4e might have been a more interesting game if each role offered appropriate powers for each class archetype that would help them play the role they chose. Such a system would probably be more flexible than what passes for multiclassing in 4e.

Heck, I once made a character for a guy that was a griffin-riding Rogue who stacked his sneak damage with his lance damage. He played it for a session before he made a new character because it "didn't feel like a warrior" despite the fact that he was causing guys to explode by hitting them with a lance.

Sounds awesome. Reminds me of the ancient video game Joust. Oddly enough, your argument echoes some of the posters in the EN World thread who wondered why the player didn't just play a rogue who worshippe(probably because multiclassing is so weak in 4ed the Raven Queen. But I really think 4e's going to have a lot of this problem of people confusing combat role for character role. It doesn't help that people who get their powers from gods in the initial 4e core have to be either a leader or a defender.

At the end of the day, helping other characters should be a choice and not a role. If a bard doesn't want to learn a Cure spell, he shouldn't have to and the game should make that at least a neutral choice.

So how would you do this? You could make healing surges free actions, but that makes the decision to heal a non-tactical one. I like this concept, but I'm not sure how it would be done.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?t=235478

Paladin class design fails.

To be honest, your way lies madness.

Essentially, and you see this in PVP, there's absolutely no reason not to play a Striker if that's the methodology that is being employed by the DM. Otherwise you have to overpower the tanks as they overpowered Clerics in the last edition and then, being people, you'll find nobody plays a Striker, they all play a Paladin, who is now a SUPER-Striker, because you've beefed him up to the point where the incentives are so strong you create a whole new issue. (In 3E they pumped the clerics, to try and let them heal AND play, to the point that my last campaign was entirely multi-classed clerics.)

So, sure, you can find a 'magic number' that the GM decides means the monsters focus on the paladin, but then everybody is going to want to play a paladin so that the uber-damage falls to them. Because the 'magic number' is, "The Paladin Can DPS Better Than The DPS".

WoW handles this with itemization, talents, and alternate abilities. The PVE Tank Warrior is, essentially, a whole other class than the PVP DPS Warrior. They use different gear, different talents, different stances and hotbars of abilities.

D&D is ALL PVE, though. But your GM is making it PVP. And the Paladin is a PVE Tank. Every class is one thing, and if you make the PVE Tank into PVE Tank + PVP DPS, then he's suddenly got two suites of output compared to everybody else.

The best way would be to pin even more damage on the Challenge, such that the UBERDAMAGE only triggers on the enemy hitting somebody else, but then you'll already be into the realm of being so attractive it's worth it to try and get multiple paladins in the party such that they play round-robin Markathalons with the enemy to force that DPS spike.

--fje

Actually, it makes me wonder, if they weren't going to give Paladins AoO's against their marked targets, why not make the radiant damage repeat every time the target attacks somebody else. And make the mark only go away if the paladin marks another target.

[Harlune]

every single class should of had a 'striker' option and a 'far more useful group role ' option.

Putting in pure damage classes is a crappy thing to do in a class based game because it means that all the healers, tanks, and crowd control suddenly can't be allowed to do damage (or at least any meaningful amount of it) along with doing their shtick or else the damage class will feel small in the pants.

[Kaelik]

On the issue of Designers thinking people played like retards in 3.5, I was just skimming Drow of the underdark today and came across the "For PCs" section, where it talks about advice about how to deal with Drow. It features such winning statements as:

"Yes Fireball helps clear out a crowd, but because of Spell Resistance, perhaps it's better to use less often used spells like Evard's Black Tentacles, Acid Fog, and Cloud Kill."

Jee Willikers Batman, my Fireballs are useless, if only I had known we were facing Drow I would have prepared decent spells instead.

[Voss]

The other problem with the 'damage' classes* is the 'better damage' isn't really that much better. At level 30, its seriously an extra 40 points per round (if you build the class exactly right all the way up). The 1,420 HP tarrassaque *doesn't care*, especially since thats for the one round, or rather, one attack, you use your once per day 29th level power.

* as an aside, some of the 'damage class' builds seriously aren't. The fey warlock's damage is pretty damn low, to the point he's pretty bad at low levels. He can make himself invisible to an opponent and do all sorts of other things that make him a bad party member. He can do a bit of damage and avoid combat... and basically make it so the monsters attack the rest of party. Hurrah, teamwork. On the otherhand, when he hits the teens, his damage still isn't great, but suddenly he's stripping monsters of their standard actions, more or less permanently (because there are so many powers that do it). Suddenly he's playing in a whole different league, and actually making a difference (... by 4e standards, of course). But my rather more... accurate ... definition of terms, he's a controller not a striker.

And of course, it will never not be funny that the tiefling is good for a fey pact warlock, and absolute shit at infernal. You know you've got masterful game design when mechanics actively stomp out flavor.

And roles are confusing anyway, particularly to the designers it seems. Classed NPCs have a completely different role than Classed PCs with the same class! The NPC cleric is a controller, the wizard is artillery (which is somehow different from striker in a non-meaningful way. As well as skirmisher, which is what all the strikers apparently are). Exception based design, it seems, is actively stupid in the hands of the 4e team. Especially since classed PCs, classed NPCS, and class templates all work differently. Somehow. For some reason.

[Harlune]

On the issue of Designers thinking people played like retards in 3.5, I was just skimming Drow of the underdark today and came across the "For PCs" section, where it talks about advice about how to deal with Drow. It features such winning statements as:

"Yes Fireball helps clear out a crowd, but because of Spell Resistance, perhaps it's better to use less often used spells like Evard's Black Tentacles, Acid Fog, and Cloud Kill."

Jee Willikers Batman, my Fireballs are useless, if only I had known we were facing Drow I would have prepared decent spells instead.

Now, now they have to keep selling the idea to players that Blaster Wizards and AoE damage spells in general aren't the most worthless things in the entire game somehow

[K]

At the end of the day, helping other characters should be a choice and not a role. If a bard doesn't want to learn a Cure spell, he shouldn't have to and the game should make that at least a neutral choice.

So how would you do this? You could make healing surges free actions, but that makes the decision to heal a non-tactical one. I like this concept, but I'm not sure how it would be done.

I think all characters should have a healing schtick. Mages could have potions, clerics their spells, rogues could have stolen scrolls, and warriors could have personal regeneration.

[Psychic Robot]

That would be giving the players unique and useful options.

[Talisman]

And of course, it will never not be funny that the tiefling is good for a fey pact warlock, and absolute shit at infernal. You know you've got masterful game design when mechanics actively stomp out flavor.

I never get tired of that.

The NPC cleric is a controller, the wizard is artillery (which is somehow different from striker in a non-meaningful way. As well as skirmisher, which is what all the strikers apparently are). Exception based design, it seems, is actively stupid in the hands of the 4e team. Especially since classed PCs, classed NPCS, and class templates all work differently. Somehow. For some reason.

I believe "artillery" = "ranged striker" (not to be confused with the warlock, who is a striker with ranged attacks). Yeah...

As for the rest...[crickets chirping]

[Voss]

So how would you do this? You could make healing surges free actions, but that makes the decision to heal a non-tactical one. I like this concept, but I'm not sure how it would be done.

A minor action and limited times/encounter keeps it pretty tactical, especially if you have uses for that minor action. The standard action pretty much kills it- you effectively have to take yourself out of the fight for a round to heal a decent chunk of damage. Taking yourself out a fight gives the enemy a round where he doesn't have to make any effort to do the exact same thing- you've effectively dazed yourself without the enemy having to expend a power.

[Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp]

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread ... ost4376695

I had to respond to this one. The stupidity of the premise demanded a rebuttal.

Edit: Looks like this guy posted it somewhere else and it has more responses there http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?t=235459

[Psychic Robot]

Man, I got tempbanned from WotC's forums for linking to the SA review.

[Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp]

Man, I got tempbanned from WotC's forums for linking to the SA review.

Man, that's interesting. Another person could probably get away with it if they worded it differently and did not have your username_handle.

This is probably part of the same reason why in this thread that you made http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1059664 that people are arguing more against you than they are what you're saying.

Moreso in the fact that they don't understand what being a jerk means and are quick to call others that.

[Psychic Robot]

Heh. More than a few posters there have an anti-P_R fetish. I think they achieve sexual gratification by bitching about my alleged trolling.

[JonSetanta]

Man, I got tempbanned from WotC's forums for linking to the SA review.

I've given up on WOTC forums. They fucked up everything.

[Username17]

Heh. More than a few posters there have an anti-P_R fetish. I think they achieve sexual gratification by bitching about my alleged trolling.

Welcome to my world.

-Username17

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I wish I had such notoriety. Although by my count, there have been three threads started in the meta-board complaining about something I said.

[Psychic Robot]

You don't want any such thing. All it leads to is retards screaming "troll!" every five seconds and having them dismiss any cogent argument you put forth because you're a big, stupid doo-doo head who dared to insult them and/or their gods. (By which, of course, I mean 4e.)

[Psychic Robot]

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?t=235402

Sigh.

[Tydanosaurus]

[quote="Voss]On the otherhand, when he hits the teens, his damage still isn't great, but suddenly he's stripping monsters of their standard actions, more or less permanently (because there are so many powers that do it). Suddenly he's playing in a whole different league, and actually making a difference (... by 4e standards, of course). But my rather more... accurate ... definition of terms, he's a controller not a striker.[/quote]

Technically, debuff, theoretically a healing function. Stripping a standard action=removing an attack=proactive healing. 4E also suffers from confusing "control" w/ "debuffing," which makes its whole "you play a role" thing hard to figure out. Like the fact that "Strikers" do marginally more damage than other classes, everybody has "control" powers about as good as a Wizards, and so on.

I think all characters should have a healing schtick. Mages could have potions, clerics their spells, rogues could have stolen scrolls, and warriors could have personal regeneration.

Unless Clerics and Warlords get much better buffing than 4E gives them (which would be fine, a 5% to hit buff kinda sucks), I wouldn't want to give to much healing to other classes.

[Tydanosaurus]

Man, I got tempbanned from WotC's forums for linking to the SA review.

Humor is in the 4E PHBIII. Until then, all references to it will be banned.

[Voss]

The major thing they seem to confuse control with is area damage.
But I'd say that kind of debuff is more 'control' than healing. You're really dictating what they can and can't do (and some of the powers allow you to force them to attack their friends as well).

But yeah, the roles really aren't. It looks like a two blade ranger would be much better to have in the line than a paladin. And just having a dragonborn makes the area effects of the wizard pretty much redundant.