Some history for you fvckers

[Username17]

OK, since some of the things on the level design thread have gotten half-way interesting, and I don't want to clutter it up wiht more garbage about diminishing returns, I've decided to move all my rantings about diminishing returns here. And to start things off, I'm going to give you fvckers a history lesson, because we've already been through some of the diminishing returns fiascos before, and it looks like some people are trying to repeat things.

History repeats itself. The first time as tragedy, the second time as farce

Right. So here's how things used to work back in AD&D:

You chose a class, or maybe you chose several classes. Either way, you divided up our XP evenly into every class you had. Each class would give out the next level at a specific amount of XP, and that amount was a lot more than the amont the last level was handed out at.

The net result, of course, was that someone who had two classes, or even four, wouldn't be many levels behind someone who had only one. And when you got to 10th level in two clases and your friend was 12th level in just one, you weren't a 20th level character, you were a 10th level character. And this was maintained by the fact that every aspect of your character (attack bonus, saves, whatever) didn't add between classes. Each class had its own damn chart, and you looked up what value that class gave for each level - and if you had more than one class you used the best value out of the classes you had.

---

And what's so very important about that? Well, it's exactly the fvcking same as the diminishing returns systems some people are jabbering about now. And it can be made to work. And it is neither new nor innovative.

What's really interesting about it, however, is the twin pulls on it: a multiclass character ends up being worse at his best trick, but has other tricks that he has at all (which are themselves worse than if those had been his best trick instead). So you really have a couple of problems generated: first of all, you've got to make sure that someone who multiclasses is getting an ability that matters; and of course you have to make sure that the cost matters as well.

So you can make that work. You just adjust the level point in which having more things in your toolbox is worth having less things in your toolbox. That's entirely plausible. But that's not compatible with the modern idea of free multiclassing.

Why not? Because in free multiclasisng, even if you institute a scaling specialization cost (either in XP or in actual levels, it matters not at all) you don't know how much strength they are giving up for diversity. That is, since people aren't necessarily splitting things evenly, you can't know in advance what ratios of levels people will actually have.

So you can't just say "having magic and swords is worth being -3 in each" - because people won't necessarily do that. People will both be trying to game the system and trying to express weird character concepts that your system doesn't support very well.

The problem is inherently intractible as soon as you don't divide up the XP evenly, because the costs of diversification are no longer fixed. Therefore it becomes impossible to make sure that none of the PCs get power for nothing or spend power on new abilties that they can't actually use.

Not difficult, impossible. Whatever you set the mystic theurge point to, people will nonetheless take more and/or less levels of the second class and end up outside your balance point.

-Username17

[User3]

1096429767[/unixtime]]
Why not? Because in free multiclasisng, even if you institute a scaling specialization cost (either in XP or in actual levels, it matters not at all) you don't know how much strength they are giving up for diversity. That is, since people aren't necessarily splitting things evenly, you can't know in advance what ratios of levels people will actually have.

Granted, the more levels of different stuff you take, the worse off you'll be, but that's unavoidable. If we can allow 2 or 3 way multiclasses, that's good enough. I really don't need to allow someone to be a fighter/rogue/wizard/cleric.

Now, how it works is that the guy who takes more rogue levels ends up with better rogue skills and the guy who buys more fighter levels ends up a better fighter, the way it should be. Nobody should ever be able to take something and suddenly stop practicing it, and expect to remain good. When fighter composes half your levels, that's pretty significant and should be treated as such, when it's 5% of your levels, by then you just haven't devoted the proper amount of time into fighting.

The goal of diminishing returns is to shift the emphasis from the linear amount to the percentage. Thus it shouldnt' be significant that "you're behind 10 levels of fighter." Linear value becomes less important than relative value, because those 10 levels shrink up the more total levels you've got.
And the bonus of 5/10 versus 10/10 isnt' much different from 10/20 versus 20/20.

So you can't just say "having magic and swords is worth being -3 in each" - because people won't necessarily do that. People will both be trying to game the system and trying to express weird character concepts that your system doesn't support very well.

You'll always have concepts that don't translate well regardless of what system you use. Sooner or later some PC is going to want something that you cant' accomodate, regardless of what you do. So long as you are able to deal with most archetypes then so what?

The problem is inherently intractible as soon as you don't divide up the XP evenly, because the costs of diversification are no longer fixed. Therefore it becomes impossible to make sure that none of the PCs get power for nothing or spend power on new abilties that they can't actually use.

No, you're wrong here. So long as the costs of diversification are fixed, and the costs of specilization are fixed, there's no conceivable way to encourage diversification.

The costs themselves have to change to encourage one choice over another. If learning your first few ranks in lockpicking isn't cheaper than increasing your already super powerful diplomacy skill, then why would anyone ever diversify? You're going to get the "I'm either a master at the skill or I know nothing." attitude.

Diminishing returns is the only reasonable way to try to dismantle that attitude.

When costs go up, sooner or later people decide they'd rather try to learn something else. Anyone can tell you that 1 rank of a skill you don't know versus 1 rank of a skil you do know is an obvious choice. Improve the one you have. But what about 4 ranks of something you don't know versus 1 rank of something you do. That's a much harder choice and one where a PC could go either way.

And that's the heart of diminishing returns, player choices.

Not difficult, impossible. Whatever you set the mystic theurge point to, people will nonetheless take more and/or less levels of the second class and end up outside your balance point.

So what? So one guy decides he wants to be more wizard than cleric? Big deal... so he's a better wizard caster and a worse cleric caster. The game should let him do that.

[Username17]

Granted, the more levels of different stuff you take, the worse off you'll be, but that's unavoidable.

If you have that attitude, then get the fvck out of game design. Do us all a favor right now.

There are two ways to avoid that problem:

1> Restrict people to level combinations that your system is prepared to have be balanced.

2> Uncouple ability power from class level and simply have every class level grant new abilities and every character level grant new power in all of your abilties.

Either work. If you are too fvcking lazy to implement one of them, you shouldn't be designing things. Don't give people "options" that you know aren't balanced, because people will take them.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1096481281[/unixtime]]
Either work. If you are too fvcking lazy to implement one of them, you shouldn't be designing things. Don't give people "options" that you know aren't balanced, because people will take them.

Look, whenever you offer choices of some kind, you have the possibility of having a somewhat inferior choice. That's unavoidable, regardless of what system you use. In your own system you are going to have some "abilities" that are better than others. The thing with abilities is that's tougher to quantify so you can go around saying their balanced and it's tougher to quantifiably prove they're not balanced. But that makes them somewhat worse from a game design point of view, becuase it's hard to actually put a value on them.

What's flying worth? What about incorporeality? Or the ability to do fire damage instead of straight physical? What's the ability to hide worth? Or the ability to use diplomacy?

But just because it's hard to prove doesn't mean you don't have imbalances, or that some abilities aren't better than others. It's just tougher to prove it.

The things you care about with choices isn't so much if they're neccessarily imbalanced, but by how much and what the drawbacks are. Whenever you're better at X you should be worse at Y.

If the margin of imbalance isn't that big, then you dont' care much.

You can't ever expect to get an RPG design balance down perfectly, and there are always going to be ways to screw up the system.

Now, if you take 5 different classes and want to be a jack of all trades,. you can do it in diminishing returns. It'll suck pretty bad, but you can still do it. You'll get your basic design concept and be able to implement it in game, you just won't be all that good at it. Now you'll be significantly better at it than in a game w/o diminishing returns, but that's not to say your character will be especially useful.

But your usefulness is really a consequence of the game environment, not on the rules.

In a game with multiple PCs and teamwork, your'e better off getting your own niche and handling it. Trying to do everything sucks because you've got someone else who can do what you're doing better. But if you were playing solo, then dipping into a bunch of disciplines might actually be reasonably useful.

So when I say "you'll suck" I mean "you'll suck in a party environment" and that's true, and there's nothing you can really do about it.

[Essence]

Really, Frank, even if we do as you're suggesting and totally divorce the power of each individual ability from class level, you still have a massive balancing act to do: making sure that the ability to shoot bolts of fire from huge distances is balanced character-level by character-level against the ability to make the ladies swoon and give you all of their money, underwear, and sweet loving and the ability to conjure piles of healing salves from your butt.

Even if each of those abilities is made character-level-dependant, there's no guaranty that they'll be balanced against each other -- in fact, there's almost certainly going to be an imbalance in any given game, as the power and efficacy of each ability will change depending on lots of factors outside the designer's control.

[Username17]

Yep. The best you can do is provide guidelines. For example, a campaign "against the Niefel Lords" would almost certainly find that the Pyromancer Level was horribly overpowered compared to just about everything. Even though the guidelines are set up to encourage the production of balanced over-all encounter types in order to highlight the different items in different characters' toolboxes, you can't actually stop DMs from just not following them.

But to an extent, isn't that just another way of saying "if someone uses Rule Zero on your rules they won't work the way you designed them"? Yeah, DMs can forcibly alter encounter frequencies in such a manner as benefits some ability packages over others - and quite often we encourage that.

See, no matter how finely tuned the system is, some people are just better at it. Chess is perfectly balanced, and yet the good players win against me 100% of the time. The DM can artificially favor characters who for whatever reason aren't doing well. A few adventures sporking Niefel Jarls will make the resident Pyromancer feel pretty good about things, despite the fact that he's a generally weaker player than the Paladin, the Valkyrie, or the Weather Wizard who are also in your party.

But because we put this table based balance tool into the hands of DMs, we are taking a risk. If the DMs aren't good at recognizing problems or don't understand the characters of their players, you could easily see a situation where DMs end up tossing soft balls right over the plate to characters who are already hogging the spotlight.

That's unfortunate. And there's not a damn thing you can do about it except to warn people up front "please don't be a jackass".

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

And also let me point out that your stance on various issues changes all the time.

At one time you're all for a total divorcing of combat and non-combat abilities and handing them out separately to ensure everyone has both. Now you're basically letting people choose between a level of combat OR non-combat abilities, which is putting them in the same pile.

Also, I'm not quite sure why you consider abilities inherently more balanced than bonuses. A bonus is something you can give out gradually and in a controlled setting like +1 BAB per fighter level or something. An ability is all or nothing and thus very dangerous.

[Username17]

And also let me point out that your stance on various issues changes all the time.

If by "point out" you mean "make shit up", go for it. Furthermore, allow me to "point out" that you evidently can't read.

At one time you're all for a total divorcing of combat and non-combat abilities and handing them out separately to ensure everyone has both. Now you're basically letting people choose between a level of combat OR non-combat abilities, which is putting them in the same pile.

Whoa there space cowboy, I never said that people should get a level of non-combat abilities instead of a level of combat abilities. The person who mentioned comparing long range fire bolts to sweet lovin was Essence, not me. If you want to play gotcha, you have to catch me at things that I actually do - not made up shit.

"You quoted that text incorrectly!" is an appropriate gotcha. "I can't Read! Gotcha!" just doesn't make any sense. You don't get to say that my position is changing based on things other people say - that's not even my position.

And you really don't get to try to play gotcha over the fact that my statements don't match up to the things you say about my ideas - that's just puzzling.

-Username17

[MrWaeseL]

Hm. I've always found the White Queen to be pretty broken

[fbmf]

[TGFBS]
Just a general reminder to keep it friendly, my fellow posters.
[/TGFBS]

[RandomCasualty]

Anyway, back on topic for diminishing returns...

The game starts at moderate bonus gaps. A fighter has a +1 BaB versus a wizard's +0, and his strength adds perhaps a +4 bonus to that.. so you're looking at a +5 gap. So the fighter fighters 25% better than the wizard, and that's well and good.

5 levels later, the figther has +5 BaB, a +2 sword, weapon focus and gauntlets of +2 str. The wizard has only his normal +2 BaB and hasn't gained much strength at all.

Now the bonus differential is +8, so now the fighter fights 40% better than the wizard. Uh oh...

And we can easily see a pattern forming here. Eventually it gets to a point where the wizard simply sucks in combat, and that's what happens to multiclassers, and they simply have no hope of catching up.

Diminishing returns is built to counteract the gradual overwhelming bonus levels. It says "ok, a +4 was significant at 1st level, but at 20th level it just can't be as significant, because a single magic item could give more than that."

If you don't counteract the bonus growth, eventually the gap just gets too big to handle. And the same is true of spellcasters. We all know how bad it is to be 6 spellcaster levels behind. Your character just ouright sucks.

Now, I realize your system tries to deal with that through keeping everything measured to character level, however your system does have some flaws which diminishing returns will handle better.

First, it's rather inflexible. Everyone is either awesome at an ability or sucks at it. You have no way of measuring inbetweens. You can't be a master swordsman, a good lockpick, a moderately good swimmer and know the basics of alchemy. If you're a master swordsman, you're also a master lockpick, swimmer or alchemist. And that's limiting as far as concepts go. You either suck or you're a master. That's not the way the world should work.

Also, certain classes, the rogue being the main one, are based upon having a collection of abilities early. Under your system a rogue character would be accumulating his skills very slowly. A 1st level rogue could only hide or pick locks, and you'd have to wait till about 5th level before you're even a "full" thief. And that rather hurts concepts that base themselves on diversity, because you've got to wait until level 5+ before you can even do all the things you wanted to do, and for a rogue or swashbuckler type character, that sucks.

Then when you actually get up higher in level you may actually run out of shit to do. Your concept is eventually at one point going to be fulfilled, and then you're going to be forced to search for meaningless filler abilities.

[Username17]

The game starts at moderate bonus gaps. A fighter has a +1 BaB versus a wizard's +0, and his strength adds perhaps a +4 bonus to that.. so you're looking at a +5 gap. So the fighter fighters 25% better than the wizard, and that's well and good.

5 levels later, the figther has +5 BaB, a +2 sword, weapon focus and gauntlets of +2 str. The wizard has only his normal +2 BaB and hasn't gained much strength at all.

Now the bonus differential is +8, so now the fighter fights 40% better than the wizard. Uh oh...

And we can easily see a pattern forming here. Eventually it gets to a point where the wizard simply sucks in combat, and that's what happens to multiclassers, and they simply have no hope of catching up.

But the worst part isn't even mentioned here. The worst part is that in order to justify his existence as he continues in this vein, he needs to pick up more bonuses. Forever.


Instead of new options, he's getting "bonuses". So those bonuses have to be over and above the size gain of casting the new spells at the higher caster level. And that has to be true for each new option the Wizard gets that the Fighter still isn't getting. Sure, you can slap diminishing returns on the level gains across the board - which means that the Wizard is going up more levels before he sees new options and the Fighter is seeing more levels before he sees new bonuses.

But that doesn't make any difference! That cancels out of the equation. The actual problem is that eventually the Fighter is going to have to either:

* Be Shafted
or
* Acrue so many bonuses that he is no longer on the same random number generator as option boy.

Every time the Wizard gets a new option, the Fighter's bonuses have to rise relatively to that, or he's not getting anything in exchange for the options he's not getting. So slapping diminishing returns on this doesn't do a god damned thing, because it just means that more levels (or XP, or whatever the hell is diminishing) pass. But the game explodes after a certain number of options pass - and diminishing returns doesn't assist in any way.

Woo frickin hoo! You just made the "level number" bigger. What exactly is that supposed to accomplish? People still want to play the wizard with the seven demon bag, and by the time they are playing that - regardless of what "level" that actually is - the Fighter either has to have been getting nothing or the Wizard has been completely eclipsed by the fact that the Fighter has caught enough bonuses that he no longer is competing against monsters which are capable of losing tests to the Wizard.

Diminishing Returns unbalance stats, and don't balance a trade between options and bonuses. They can't.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1096822632[/unixtime]]
Instead of new options, he's getting "bonuses". So those bonuses have to be over and above the size gain of casting the new spells at the higher caster level. And that has to be true for each new option the Wizard gets that the Fighter still isn't getting. Sure, you can slap diminishing returns on the level gains across the board - which means that the Wizard is going up more levels before he sees new options and the Fighter is seeing more levels before he sees new bonuses.

Well, I'm not saying you abolish feats and skills to make this, so he's still gaining some new options. He is still a class based around bonuses though.

But that doesn't make any difference! That cancels out of the equation. The actual problem is that eventually the Fighter is going to have to either:

* Be Shafted
or
* Acrue so many bonuses that he is no longer on the same random number generator as option boy.

Actually no, not in diminishing returns. That fixes the problem because you're still going to be ahead of the wizard in overall bonuses, but you won't blow him away. So you are neither shafted nor on a different RNG. Basically the goal is to keep a +4 or +5 advantage as a +4 or +5 advantage throughout the entire game. The only time you start to lose that advantage is if you start to take levels that aren't fighter levels. Then it may only be a +3 or whatever.

Every time the Wizard gets a new option, the Fighter's bonuses have to rise relatively to that, or he's not getting anything in exchange for the options he's not getting. So slapping diminishing returns on this doesn't do a god damned thing, because it just means that more levels (or XP, or whatever the hell is diminishing) pass. But the game explodes after a certain number of options pass - and diminishing returns doesn't assist in any way.

Options aren't necessarily that powerful. So long as the attack action is good against most enemies, you really don't care much about his lack of options in a combat setting. He can of course pick up a few wizard levels if he really wants a bunch of options.

Mainly however in my system I'd envisioning taking away a lot of the super powerful tactical options that give us problems anyway. So you wouldn't have no save screw spells like forcecage. Under my paradigm, I'd eliminate "fighter hoser" spells.

Woo frickin hoo! You just made the "level number" bigger. What exactly is that supposed to accomplish? People still want to play the wizard with the seven demon bag, and by the time they are playing that - regardless of what "level" that actually is - the Fighter either has to have been getting nothing or the Wizard has been completely eclipsed by the fact that the Fighter has caught enough bonuses that he no longer is competing against monsters which are capable of losing tests to the Wizard.

Huh? Well aside from not knowing what a "seven demon bag" is... .I'll say that the wizard won't get eclipsed because diminisihing returns keep those numbers down. IN fact it makes everyone competetive. Now the only real paradigm shift occurs with respect to level in a diminishing returns system.

Right now 1 level = 1 CR. In diminishing returns that probably won't be true, that is the one consequence of diminishing returns is that it mucks up the relation to level to CR. But I always envisioned switcing to a goal/RP oriented XP system anyway, so that to me isn't a big drawback.

Diminishing Returns unbalance stats, and don't balance a trade between options and bonuses. They can't.

Huh? Diminishing returns actually is the only system that can balance this.

Look, an "option" is essentially a bonus of some kind in this system. Every option inherently basically comes with a bonus to tell you how well you do it. So picking up a new option is basically picking up a small bonus.

Now diminishing returns encourages you to pick up small bonuses. A lot. Because they're dirt cheap compared to your main bonuses.

Now of course, your main bonuses won't totally suck if you decide you want options, but they won't be the best they can be either.

So if you wanted some kind of flaming sword ability, you could do it, but those are points that aren't being used to raise your main attack skill.

[Catharz_Godsfoot]

1096822632[/unixtime]]

Every time the Wizard gets a new option, the Fighter's bonuses have to rise relatively to that, or he's not getting anything in exchange for the options he's not getting.

Maybe every time the Wizard gets a new option, the Fighter needs to get a new option. Fighters getting nothing but bonuses is a pretty lame paradigm anyway.

1096825337[/unixtime]]
So if you wanted some kind of flaming sword ability, you could do it, but those are points that aren't being used to raise your main attack skill.

Flaming sword (as I know it now) isn't a new option, its a buff. And most buffs inherently break any diminishing returns system.
Just look at how the way magic item pricing works now: Rathing then going with the diminishing returns for AC, people get a natural armor bonus, a deflection bonus, and insight bonus, and a competence bonus. Same deal with skills.
So, a fighter with points in flaming sword, sword, and ki weapon attack will be overpowered relative to a guy with just points in Sword. Unless yo're very careful.

[RandomCasualty]

1096868109[/unixtime]]
Flaming sword (as I know it now) isn't a new option, its a buff. And most buffs inherently break any diminishing returns system.
Just look at how the way magic item pricing works now: Rathing then going with the diminishing returns for AC, people get a natural armor bonus, a deflection bonus, and insight bonus, and a competence bonus. Same deal with skills.
So, a fighter with points in flaming sword, sword, and ki weapon attack will be overpowered relative to a guy with just points in Sword. Unless yo're very careful.

But see that's where my diminihsing returns system would differ. Basically everything goes into a combined pool, and is then diminished. So for instance, your magic items, regardless of bonus type all go into the same pool. If you have two rings of protection +1, and an amulet of natural armor +3, that's a +5 bonus total, and basically the items would cost the same as though you had one item of +5 or 5 +1 items. The diminishing aspect doesn't occur on the item cost level but rather later.

You'd then add up all your bonuses, from wherever and you'd get a big bonus, say +23, you'd then put that bonus into the diminishing returns table, and get the bonus you actually add to your die rolls.

Now at early levels, a +5 bonus may actualyl be a +5 bonus, but at later levels, a +10 bonus may only really be a +8. And this applies to everything, buffs, magic items, class bonuses, everything. So it is thus impossible to avoid or circumvent since the diminishing takes place against the total and not the subtotals.

The only static bonuses would be purely circumstantial ones like flanking. Every other kind of non-tactical bonus would be dealt with by adding it to all other bonuses then diminishing it.

[Catharz_Godsfoot]

1096870376[/unixtime]]
But see that's where my diminihsing returns system would differ. Basically everything goes into a combined pool, and is then diminished. So for instance, your magic items, regardless of bonus type all go into the same pool. If you have two rings of protection +1, and an amulet of natural armor +3, that's a +5 bonus total, and basically the items would cost the same as though you had one item of +5 or 5 +1 items. The diminishing aspect doesn't occur on the item cost level but rather later.

You'd then add up all your bonuses, from wherever and you'd get a big bonus, say +23, you'd then put that bonus into the diminishing returns table, and get the bonus you actually add to your die rolls.

Now at early levels, a +5 bonus may actualyl be a +5 bonus, but at later levels, a +10 bonus may only really be a +8. And this applies to everything, buffs, magic items, class bonuses, everything. So it is thus impossible to avoid or circumvent since the diminishing takes place against the total and not the subtotals.

The only static bonuses would be purely circumstantial ones like flanking. Every other kind of non-tactical bonus would be dealt with by adding it to all other bonuses then diminishing it.

That isn't any different from your cap idea, except it has a semi-variable cap.

The effect is the same: A +11 bonus isn't any better then a +10, so players won't go with the +11. It effectively says that an in-game benefit that a character allocated resources to actually dosen't exist.
It also adds in an absurdly clunky mechanic of calculating every bonus, adding them all together, and then consulting a table.
What if your character is hit by a curse that gives him -4 to swords? Well, he has to subtract the 4 and consult the table again. If he gets a corcumstance bonus for higher ground, guess what? He has to consult the table *again*. And the bonus might actually amount to nothing. Not almost nothing, nothing.
So, what a table-based system of diminishing returns does is adds another step to every calculation and robs characters of their rightful gains.

[RandomCasualty]

1096876635[/unixtime]]
What if your character is hit by a curse that gives him -4 to swords? Well, he has to subtract the 4 and consult the table again. If he gets a corcumstance bonus for higher ground, guess what? He has to consult the table *again*. And the bonus might actually amount to nothing. Not almost nothing, nothing.

Well, tactical bonuses like higher ground wouldn't reference the table and would just be static bonuses. Curses could be static penalties too.

Basically you wouldn't have to reference the table much. The most table referencing would be if you were a buff caster and constantly had to worry about your bonuses buffed or debuffed.

Yes, the table would add one step which you have to do whenever your bonuses change, though I think overall it's worth it.

And the bonus might actually amount to nothing. Not almost nothing, nothing.
So, what a table-based system of diminishing returns does is adds another step to every calculation and robs characters of their rightful gains.

Well, not really robs them, it just deals with fractional gains. And we already deal with fractional gains so I don't know what the big deal is. Nobody complains they're being "robbed of thier rightful gains" when they have a fortitude save of +3 1/2, and thus the 1/2 doesn't count for anything until next level. Nobody complains about that now... ever, so I don't see how a diminishing returns system would be any different. Sometimes you would end up with a situation where you'd have a half a bonus and it'd be dropped, but big deal.

I mean if you want to eliminate fractional bonuses you have to move to a d100 system or a 2d20 system or something with a wider range that makes a 2% or 1% bonus actualyl representable on the dice scale. In a d20 system you're going by 5% increments, so sometimes when a bonus is smaller than 5% it doesn't show up at all. It's a consequence of the small range of random numbers, and we make that trade for simplicity, becuase it's easier to add up 1d20+5 than 1d100+27.

And again, like I said I don't see why it's a big deal. Anyone who has played D&D has gained half-bonuses and 1/3 bonuses in their save progressions, and nobody has complained about it, so I don't get the idea people would have a huge problem with adapting to it in a diminishing returns system either.

[MrWaeseL]

If you're goign to add circumstantial modifiers on top of the cap, you might as well not have a cap at all.

Besides, does it make sense that the battle hardened peasant is better at swording than the noble knight, just because he's standing on a hill?

[Joy_Division]

Well I'd like to see what all the circumstantial modifiers are and how large they are before I make a judgement on what to say. I mean it's all well and good to say that "this" will work like "this".

That all depends on the spread in the numbers. When people have to choose when to diversify it depends not only on how little bonus they're getting on specializing but whether or not the can invest enough to diversify usefully and still improve their primary shtick.

What I don't like about dimishing returns is that you're setting up a cap for bonuses at every level ever. This makes everybody statistically similar at everything eventually. Of course that will happen in any system where you can improve your abilities to their caps (hard or soft) and still have leftover.
So the point of either system is still to balance options versus specialization.

I think the best thing to do is to first admit that anybody that cares about some abilities are going to have to be at you cap with their bonuses. It all depends on whether you want them to work constantly to be at the cap or just give them the cap and expect other things to matter instead of the bonuses.

[Username17]

Actually no, not in diminishing returns. That fixes the problem because you're still going to be ahead of the wizard in overall bonuses, but you won't blow him away

What?

Seriously, what the fvck is that supposed to mean?

The Fighter is "based on bonuses". The Wizard is "based on options". After the Fighter gives up a certain amount of relative options for relative bonuses, he's off the random number generator scale. If you have 19 points of relative bonuses, you don't exist on the scale as the rest of the people. A challenge for you cannot be attempted by them, a challenge for them cannot be failed by you.

Diminishing returns says "this will take longer to happen", because people get options (and compensatory bonuses) less often. But it still happens eventually. The basic problem is intact, it just arbitrarily happens "later". But you can start the campaign at any point. People start at 2nd level, people start at 20th level, and so on and so forth. No matter how late you put off this basic inequity, no matter how little you make each late level matter in an absolute sense, there will still be campaigns which start already driven off this cliff.

You haven't solved anything, you've just shut your eyes and hoped that most people stop playing before they get to the problem. In that case, why not just put a hard limit on the levels before the problem happens? Then you'll have actually solved something instead of just pretending that you did.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1096913587[/unixtime]]
The Fighter is "based on bonuses". The Wizard is "based on options". After the Fighter gives up a certain amount of relative options for relative bonuses, he's off the random number generator scale. If you have 19 points of relative bonuses, you don't exist on the scale as the rest of the people. A challenge for you cannot be attempted by them, a challenge for them cannot be failed by you.

Well the number is never going to get as big as 19 in diminishing returns. That's the whole idea, is that bonuses don't get huge. And staying competetive is relatively cheap. The fighter's uber bonus is always going to be more expensive than your minor one, because he's got his to a higher level than yours so he's paying out the ass and you're paying not so much.

Lets use the magic item system as an example (discarding the crap about multiple bonuses from cheap items), lets say each bonus to AC costs a bonus*bonus*1000. Each character has 50,000 gp. Now one guy decides he wants to spend his gold fully on AC, the other guy decides he wants options and AC, so he splits half and half. MR AC can buy a +7 suit of armor. Mr. Diversity can buy a +5 suit of armor.

Now lets go to 500,000 gp using the same formula. Mr.AC can buy a +22 suit of armor. Mr. Diversity can buy a +15 suit. Now, Mr. AC does begin to pull ahead slightly at higher levels, but it's nowhere near "being on the same random number generator" and with 250,000 gp invested purely in "options" he can potentially easily make up for that. Normally in a linear system bonus*1000 for instance, you'd have one blowing the other away. In diminishing returns it is still close, even when you multiply the power level by 10.

Now, we might be able to find a better formula than bonus squared too to get a better diminishing returns. How exactly we do it is very important, but somewhere we can reach some kind of progression we think is ok, and then run with it.

Diminishing returns says "this will take longer to happen", because people get options (and compensatory bonuses) less often. But it still happens eventually. The basic problem is intact, it just arbitrarily happens "later". But you can start the campaign at any point. People start at 2nd level, people start at 20th level, and so on and so forth. No matter how late you put off this basic inequity, no matter how little you make each late level matter in an absolute sense, there will still be campaigns which start already driven off this cliff.

Somewhat yes... but this assumes you always keep taking options and never finish your character concept. Sooner or later you're going to have everything you want and just want to get better at the stuff you do. The Mr.option stated above is a rather extreme case. You probably won't keep being able to find a way to spend half your points on options every level. Unless you want to know the skills of a rogue, the skills of a mage, and so on.

And while yes, theoretically at some very high level things get unbalanced if the half and half progression continues against the full one, but who cares? Nobody is forcing the guy to continue his half and half progression either. If he wants he can start gaining "full bonuses", he can. Not to mention the super specialist guy probalby can't do anything else beyond his chosen specialty, so put him in a diplomatic game, or a stealth game or whatever, and he's screwed. Meanwhile the diverse guy can do lots of things well and even at 500,000 he'd still be a +22 versus a +15, that's only a 7 point gap and not at all bad for a guy who has spent a huge number of points on diversity.

Diminishing returns games are generally suited to a roleplaying & combat environment as opposed to a straight combat environment. But even if you run pure combat it won't get unbalanced at least not until some arbitrarily huge level where one guy tries to split his points between everything and the other guy is a totally pure straight out specialist. Neither of which is really likely to happen though because you've got players making the choices.

The point is that the system gives them maximum versatility possible. While it is possible to make a diminishing returns character that totally sucks, most people aren't looking for a crappy character, they're looking to represent a concept. And diminishing returns models all sorts of character concepts well. From full fighters, to fighter/mages, to full mages to clerics.

[Username17]

Well the number is never going to get as big as 19 in diminishing returns.

Yes it is. No matter how much the returns diminish, if the Fighter says "I don't want to learn magic, I'll just save up for the next bonus", and the Wizard says "I don't want some crappy bonus, I'm going to save up for the next option" enough times, eventually you reach the magic number and one or both of them get screwed.

There's no amount of diminishing returns that can dig you out of this hole, as long as you accept the choice of relative bonuses vs. relative options, you will reach the magic disparity sooner or later. And in "high level campaigns" you can start "later", so your "never" is in some games always going to be "right now".

Normally in a linear system bonus*1000 for instance, you'd have one blowing the other away. In diminishing returns it is still close, even when you multiply the power level by 10.

That seems to be one of your big misunderstandings. That's not multiplying the power level by 10. Multiplying the power level by ten is when bonus boy hits +70. Diminishing returns makes you wait to pick up more "points" before you reach the point where your power level has been multiplied by 10, but doesn't do a damn thing for oyu once you've already gotten there.

All you're actually doing is putting a bigger and bigger hairy eyeball on people who start games with that level of power - you aren't actually doing anything for them when they do.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1096934490[/unixtime]]
Yes it is. No matter how much the returns diminish, if the Fighter says "I don't want to learn magic, I'll just save up for the next bonus", and the Wizard says "I don't want some crappy bonus, I'm going to save up for the next option" enough times, eventually you reach the magic number and one or both of them get screwed.

But bonuses and magic can also be one in the same for a wizard. Suppose you have some kind of magic skill, that works much like the fighter's BaB. It is the skill taht determines a wizards save DCs and such. And the wizard needs a set amount of it to learn each spell. This forces wizards to constantly learn to cast better. And as a wizard you can make a perfectly great character without bonuses. Even if your spell DC sucks, you can still do so many things with your spell options and win.

There's no amount of diminishing returns that can dig you out of this hole, as long as you accept the choice of relative bonuses vs. relative options, you will reach the magic disparity sooner or later. And in "high level campaigns" you can start "later", so your "never" is in some games always going to be "right now".

Well, I don't forsee reaching the point ever in real play. Options are going to be a finite set, like feats. Eventually you can't get anymore or just don't see anymore that you like, in this case you're going to go 100% in gaining bonuses, becasue sooner or later you realize you just want to do what you already do and do it better. And so the level is much farther off than you'd actually think it might be. So far off that we might as well not even worry about it unless someone does something ridiculous like a level 5000 game, a level so high it could break ANY system. I mean there does get to be a point that is so high you cease to care about it, like +200 swords in D&D.

I mean if the question is "can you make a character suck numerically by deliberately spreading your points as thin as you can get and never taking bonuses?" Then the answer is obviously yes. You can always inverse min/max your character into total suckiness. You can take 20 levels of commoner if you want or be a wizard with 8 intelligence. If you want to sabotage yourself then you can... but why should we care if people do that? I mean they're obviously making a shitty character intentionally and that's what they want. You can make a character suck under any system so I'm not sure what's so remarkable about that.

That seems to be one of your big misunderstandings. That's not multiplying the power level by 10. Multiplying the power level by ten is when bonus boy hits +70. Diminishing returns makes you wait to pick up more "points" before you reach the point where your power level has been multiplied by 10, but doesn't do a damn thing for oyu once you've already gotten there.

Points are how you measure characters in diminishing returns, not the total bonus. A guy in diminishing returns could easily have a +5 bonus to 10 different skills, but this is going to be a character of lower points (read as "lower level") than a character with a single +50. In fact the guy with the +50 is going to be leagues higher in level, because his +50 bonus costs much more than the

It's like comparing a guy with a bunch of +5 items versus a guy with a single epic +50 item. The epic guy is obviously going to be much richer and have spent more for his item.

All you're actually doing is putting a bigger and bigger hairy eyeball on people who start games with that level of power - you aren't actually doing anything for them when they do.

You're not getting it. The problem doesn't occur at level 20, or even level 30. We're talking about level 100 or something, probably beyond. To a point that is so high we don't care about it. It's like talking about designing a new car and telling us about how you can't break the light speed barrier.

It's just a nonfactor.

[Username17]

But bonuses and magic can also be one in the same for a wizard. Suppose you have some kind of magic skill, that works much like the fighter's BaB.

This doesn't matter. The Fighter is consistently getting less new options, which means that either:

1. The Fighter's relative bonus is continuing to rise
or
2. The Fighter is getting less than nothing relatively and is being totally fvcked in this exchange.

So which is it? Are you suggesting that the Fighter should be trading away his options for nothing or are you suggesting that eventually the Fighter is going to hit the magic number?

There is no option three, so which is it?

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1096946157[/unixtime]]
So which is it? Are you suggesting that the Fighter should be trading away his options for nothing or are you suggesting that eventually the Fighter is going to hit the magic number?

Well, eventually he will hit the magic number, however it is so far down the road that it doesn't matter much. You'll never actually see it in a game unless you do some ridiculous game where you start at level 100 or something and are no longer playing heroes but instead playing gods.

However, it's unlikely to really play out this way, beacuse as I stated before, people are eventually going to stop gaining options and start improving their bonuses. Eventually a rogue is just going to want to hide better, or deal more damage off a sneak attack or what not. Eventually a wizard just wants to make his fire spells do more damage. The thing with options is that you don't necessarily want them all. Few people realy want to be archers, cavaliers, evokers, conjurers, clerics and rogues all in the same character. Sooner or later you've learned all the wizard tricks you want and you just want to be better at some of the basics, and it's cheaper for you to catch up to the fighter remember once you decide to devote yourself to your spell power.