Where the hell was that quote?

[Psychic Robot]

Credit where credit is due--I believe that Roy used the term before I did.

[Bigode]

And Frank before (though you could claim referring to wall of thorns isn't the same sense).

[Username17]

So he can't use a bow because you'd have to edit the memory to get him to use it? (Meaning that you don't know his attack bonus or damage because 4e monsters are made of Arbitrarium?)

Right. When you kill that medusa archer she doesn't actually leave a bow behind. Her arrow attacks poison people in a vaguely useful manner, but there's no indication as to whether she is using poison arrows, a magic bow, or just personally enchanting each shot. And there doesn't need to be, because you can't get her arrows or her bow after the battle. Her bow is part of her sprite, and it Vanishes with Her Body when she Runs out of Hit Points.

Now, the Medusa is part of an encounter. And encounters have treasure parcels. And it is possible to have treasure parcels pop out of the vanishing corpses Diablo style. She may in fact have a bow pop out of her corpse. The fun part comes when you actually use that bow, because she's part of an 11th level encounter, so if she drops a bow it will be a +2 or +3 bow that in player character hands does significantly more damage than she did with it. Because NPCs in this game do less damage and have more hit points than PCs across the board.

-Username17

[Psychic Robot]

To appropriately quote Lago: what a bunch of bullfuck.

[Koumei]

Damn you Frank, I wasted hours looking at tvtropes because of you. If that site gets added to the Australian Government Blacklist of Censorship then my productivity will increase.

Seriously, I'm theoretically supposed to be figuring out the math involved in titration and here I am looking at articles on Flying Under the Radar, Gurren Lagann and all kinds of stuff.

[Roy]

And I just made the thread Fucking Epic.

More about 4.Fail: Are there any rituals at all that are actually worth a shit (as opposed to being solvable sooner and for free some other way)?
Corollary: Aside from the obvious, what are the hilarious Fail rituals?

How many Fail Traps are there in 4.0? I'm guessing over 9,000.

Also, 1:9 is worse odds than 2:5.

[Username17]

More about 4.Fail: Are there any rituals at all that are actually worth a shit (as opposed to being solvable sooner and for free some other way)?

How about Rust Milking? That's a wealth creation scheme. The only wealth creation scheme in the game. It requires someone to have Hal and Arcana as tag skills, to own a Ritual Ring, and to sacrifice and raise a rust monster every day. It transforms one stick you found outside into a pile of fairy dust that can be converted into thousands of gp worth of magic items.

Also, 1:9 is worse odds than 2:5.

That depends entirely on whether you are the 1 or the 9. Since n this case you are the one fighting with a bow, I would say invalidating 8 out of 9 enemies is better than invalidating 3 out of 5.

-Username17

[Psychic Robot]

Are there any rituals at all that are actually worth a shit (as opposed to being solvable sooner and for free some other way)?

Raise dead?

How many Fail Traps are there in 4.0? I'm guessing over 9,000.

The main "fail trap" is character creation. 4e lies to you about all characters being viable, that you don't need a 20 in a stat. Mearls and Co. screwed the pooch, though, so you can't function if you're working with a 14.

[Roy]

Ok, so that's one. Mainly because you aren't going to have some super strict time limit when using such a thing, and because it took about that long before anyways and required a good bit of cash as well... so not so much of a change really. Any others?

As for the dog raping, that's a good way to put it. Just say 'all of it' and call it a day.

[Psychic Robot]

I know that scrying is useless. Let me check the PHB...

Well, animal messenger is always fun. Endure elements is nifty, and it lasts for 24 hours. Drawmij's instant summons is useful (summon a weapon to you instantly).

Enchant magic item is sucknuts because of the new magic item system. (An hour to create anything? FUCK YOU, MEARLS.)

The illusion rituals suck ass. Remember before when you could conjure an entire fucking city? (Slight exaggeration.) Now you can eat dick and die for trying to do something cool.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

EDIT: Holy shit, I forgot how much ENWorld fails.

I wouldn't want to play a ranged Ranger in any campaign where I would risk running out of ammo. Because running out of ammo equates to huge nerf that other classes or builds simply never have to face.

Put otherwise, I do not for a second believe ammo requirements to be a parameter that went into the ranged Ranger build design process. (Besides, if it was, it would have been incredibly bad design).

So my belief is that the archer who always has an extra arrow is working at the intended level of power. Any archer that runs out is badly nerfed, with no corresponding counterpart for other classes.

My conclusion is that while the DMG seems to require you to keep track of ammo usage, it doesn't seriously expect you to ever run out.

And with that, I see no reason not to drop any ammo tracking requirements (for mundane ammunition).

Simple as that.

I wondered if I was the only person to notice that 1) The PHB has tons of "dual-use" ranger powers, and 2) A ranger with an average strength score can easily pack tons of arrows without worrying about encumbrance.

[Roy]

Epic Fail is Epic.

This, and the post above it.

And now the question: Refutations? I'm not going to bother posting there, since one of the mods is wanking off to nonexistent edition wars and is looking for reasons to pull a GitP on me again, I just want to see if the 4edtards actually have any merit to their arguments, or are they pulling a religion defense (defined as fingers in ears, head up ass, lalala).

[RandomCasualty2]

The illusion rituals suck ass. Remember before when you could conjure an entire fucking city? (Slight exaggeration.) Now you can eat dick and die for trying to do something cool.

Well I mean, you don't need to have super complex illusions, but you do need to cast them fast, and have them be subtle. The very fact that you're burning a ton of time chanting a 10 minute ritual just makes the illusions pointless, because it means that to be useful you have to set them up in advance. Unfortunately the monsters very rarely come to you, you go to them.

[Lago PARANOIA]

And now the question: Refutations? I'm not going to bother posting there, since one of the mods is wanking off to nonexistent edition wars and is looking for reasons to pull a GitP on me again, I just want to see if the 4edtards actually have any merit to their arguments, or are they pulling a religion defense (defined as fingers in ears, head up ass, lalala).

I'm not sure what you're getting at.

I play 4E, but more as an excuse to hang out with people than because I actually enjoy the system. What arguments do you need bolstered or confirmed and I'll talk about them for you.

The whole unequal role thing was brought up by people before me and much better. But here's my two cents on the issue:

The 'controller' role does not work well at low level, especially with wizards. This is partially because the effects don't scale as well as damage but mostly because controllers don't have enough encounter and daily spell slots before they go back to spamming Cloud of Daggers. And if you're at the point where you're using Cloud of Daggers three times in combat then you're going to question why you didn't pick up a ranger and get to do some REAL damage.

Every controller except for high-level rogues are all ranged. This inherently produces a lack of synergy with the melee classes. Wizards and warlocks are beyond awesome in an all-ranged party. Not so much in the kinds of party 4E encourages you to play. This means in these parties until wizards get to the point where they can regularly start dropping effects you really care about (which happens a bit into paragon) you're going to wonder why you didn't pick a wizard.

Finally, the classes are mislabeled mostly because people don't have a fucking clue what do to with the roles or how to balance them. Rogues, especially at paragon tier and beyond, are much more effective as 'controllers' than 'strikers'. Warlocks are not 'strikers', they don't do as much damage as any of the melee classes. They get some passable 'controller' effects. Fighters have the second-best damage in the game, only barely edged out by rangers and later by half-elf avengers. Warlords are great leaders but you can also build them as fairly competent strikers, too. And so on.

[Roy]

The claims being made by the (zerging) 4.0s are:

You will not Epic Fail if you don't optimize, which as this is a follow up on race discussion means putting your 18 and your +2 in the right stat, and jacking it up every chance you get. Specifically they are claiming that if you do not do this, you do not fall off the RNG. Of course, I'm quite certain you fall off the RNG no matter what but fall harder if you don't grub around and max optimize for every little +1. I'm just giving them the benefit of the doubt they might actually know what they're talking about instead of regurgitating dogma at me. Therefore, my claim that you will Epic Fail is not in fact Epic Fail, as one of the trolls is claiming.

The system reads differently than it plays (in a way that would actually be relevant to this discussion, aka races and stats). And just for the hell of it, list the ways that aren't relevant to this discussion, if applicable.

That with very limited optimization, you are 95% maxed out, such that you can stick to concept and still be relevant. Pretty sure this one is blatantly false, as I can think of quite a few concepts that just flat out Epic Fail in 4.0 (starting with any that try to leave the narrow little role tracks). And that's not counting the ones the system as a whole cannot handle, just covering some of the builds they give you like 'Artful Dodger' or whatever the Fail Rogue path was.

[Lago PARANOIA]

You will not Epic Fail if you don't optimize, which as this is a follow up on race discussion means putting your 18 and your +2 in the right stat, and jacking it up every chance you get. Specifically they are claiming that if you do not do this, you do not fall off the RNG. Of course, I'm quite certain you fall off the RNG no matter what but fall harder if you don't grub around and max optimize for every little +1. I'm just giving them the benefit of the doubt they might actually know what they're talking about instead of regurgitating dogma at me. Therefore, my claim that you will Epic Fail is not in fact Epic Fail, as one of the trolls is claiming.

You are correct in observing that the system is specifically designed to make you fail. Defenses scale faster than attacks and hit points scale faster than damage. You figure it out.

The Epic Fail comes into play when you realize not that it's possible to fall off of the RNG completely (because you'd have to be deliberately sabotaging your character to do that), but when you realize that there ARE characters out there that somehow break out of the small and weak limitations the system tries to force on you.

For example, a Battle Captain + 4 Orb Wizard / Wizards of the Spiral Tower / Demigods will completely rape every encounter even when most parties will take 10+ rounds to take down the tarrasque. You can build a ranger or a fighter who can one-shot Orcus on his lonesome while that encounter would be a TPK for most groups. And so on.

4E has the exact same problem of a bunch of character concepts being obsoleted by the system. If anything, it's worse. It used to be that only certain classes could say in the game, now it's only certain character builds that stay in the game.

[Lago PARANOIA]

The ENTIRETY of Rituals are nothing but complete and epic failure.

The first thing is the casting time. You know, the fact that they made every ritual take at least 10 minutes to cast means that things like Speak with Dead and Hold Portal are already useless from an adventure building standpoint. I understand if they make raising people from the dead or turning people into a vampire take that amount of time, but creating a fucking image of a tree? What the fuck?

The second is the component cost time. Whatever rituals were not made worthless by the above are certainly made worthless now. Characters get a lot less money in 4E than they did in 3rd Edition. A 10th level character can't afford to use any level-appropriate ritual more than two or three times, because he can't fucking afford it!

The third is just the scope. You can't do anything interesting with rituals in 4E. Controlling the weather is a 14th level ritual that costs 1,800 gold pieces, only has a two-mile radius, and doesn't even last the whole day! And that's one of the more interesting ones! Scrying an unprotected creature for 4 rounds costs a fucking 100,000 gold pieces just to get the scroll and another 30,000 gold pieces to cast it. So on.

[Roy]

Would 'deliberate sabotage' be things like 'trying to main a 14 or 16', or is it worse than that?

How about the other two points?

[Amra]

Protection from Evil is highly abuseable: http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=55572

[Lago PARANOIA]

Would 'deliberate sabotage' be things like 'trying to main a 14 or 16', or is it worse than that?

How about the other two points?

You can main a 16 with some characters. Rogues can get away with it (although there is the question of why they would WANT to, since they don't have much use for their secondary stat), Avengers can get away with it, Eldarin Tactical warlords are still the best ones of their kind, and Half-Elf Dual/Twin Strike monkeys exult in it. High-level Stormwarden rangers used to dish out more damage by having a 16 STR/20 DEX than a 20 or 18 STR build until static bonuses caught up with a vengeance.

But basically, yeah. Now some classes will suck a lot harder if you pick powers at random than others. Fighters have a ton of 'dud' powers, it's really hard to go wrong with cleric powers, so on. But as long as you maintain a modest amount of sense and do what the game tells you to do you'll keep up. Mind, your characters will become bigger bunnypants relative to the opposition as you gain levels but it won't reach a point where players are like 'why are you even here?'

I still don't know what you mean about the other two points.

[NineInchNall]

Epic Fail is Epic.

This, and the post above it.

Yay, I got the last word.

[Psychic Robot]

Man, that thread sucked.

[Roy]

Would 'deliberate sabotage' be things like 'trying to main a 14 or 16', or is it worse than that?

How about the other two points?

You can main a 16 with some characters. Rogues can get away with it (although there is the question of why they would WANT to, since they don't have much use for their secondary stat), Avengers can get away with it, Eldarin Tactical warlords are still the best ones of their kind, and Half-Elf Dual/Twin Strike monkeys exult in it. High-level Stormwarden rangers used to dish out more damage by having a 16 STR/20 DEX than a 20 or 18 STR build until static bonuses caught up with a vengeance.

But basically, yeah. Now some classes will suck a lot harder if you pick powers at random than others. Fighters have a ton of 'dud' powers, it's really hard to go wrong with cleric powers, so on. But as long as you maintain a modest amount of sense and do what the game tells you to do you'll keep up. Mind, your characters will become bigger bunnypants relative to the opposition as you gain levels but it won't reach a point where players are like 'why are you even here?'

I still don't know what you mean about the other two points.

You sure about that? After all, you're already down on the RNG by 5 points no matter how you spin it... -25% success, when you're starting around 50-60%, and what passes for hard mobs there lower it another 25% sounds like a recipe for Flurry of Fail to me... except the Flurry of Fail is in slo mo, so it takes multiple rounds.

So basically, a few builds might be ok, but you're still Failing unnecessarily and most builds will Cataclysm if you try.

As for the other two points, the claims there were basically that the rules are different than the books say they are, therefore the system reads differently than it plays and that someone who barely optimized will be so close to a maxed out character you won't even notice. In other words, an extension of RNG Fail. Also claiming that most builds in 4.0 work instead of some just flat out making others irrelevant due to the super narrow bullshit (see: Fighter damage vs most/all other classes, killing off an entire one of their bullshit roles).

[Lago PARANOIA]

You sure about that? After all, you're already down on the RNG by 5 points no matter how you spin it... -25% success, when you're starting around 50-60%, and what passes for hard mobs there lower it another 25% sounds like a recipe for Flurry of Fail to me... except the Flurry of Fail is in slo mo, so it takes multiple rounds.

Explanation of those builds:

Rogues could since a lot of their abilities target NADs and they get an attack bonus anyway. But they don't have a lot of use for their secondary stat so there's no reason why they wouldn't want to.

Avengers roll twice on all of their d20 attack rolls, so missing a +1 isn't as noticable. Their damage and effects, though, still SUCK so it doesn't matter.

Tactical Warlords get a lot more benefit from pumping their INT stat instead of their STR stat. While you don't want to exactly neglect their STR at by any means, the bonuses they hand out from INT are higher than the ones they get from STR. This and various stupid racial feats are why Eladrin tactical warlords manage to be slightly better than Genasi. They have two At-Wills that don't give a damn what their STR score is, for example, and can actually load up on powers that don't give a shit about their strength score at all--especially at high level. While an 8 STR / 20 INT Tactical Warlord of high level isn't optimal, it is very weirdly playable.

Half-Elves in the PHB2 get a feat that lets the power they pick with Dileannte become an At-Will instead of an Encounter power. Twin Strike/Dual strike by far and away does the most damage out of any of the At-Wills so even though Half-Elves get no STR bonus to help with these bonuses they're still the 'best' at this tactic for getting to mix and match class features and powers.

As far as the Elven Stormwarden thing goes, it's just a peculiarity of Twin Strike back when all we had was the PHB. With the Stormwarden class features and Scimitar Dance, every point of dexterity added 5 extra points of damage per round. Since static damage bonuses did not get above 10 for Twin Strike back then, this was a good trade-off.

But with Adventurer's Vault being released and damage bonuses of +30 being not only possible but common, elves lost the DPR war.

So basically, a few builds might be ok, but you're still Failing unnecessarily and most builds will Cataclysm if you try.

Dwarven battleragers are fine with a 16 STR/18 CON, too. Well, actually, their attack rolls blow rocks (+6 to hit at level 1) but they're so goddamn tough that they don't even really need to hit.

But yeah. Basically, unless you're doing some weird trick that benefits more from a secondary stat instead of a primary one or you're a paragon-level half-elf that is abusing their At-Will you want to have at least an 18. Especially if you're a frickin' light armor user.

As for the other two points, the claims there were basically that the rules are different than the books say they are, therefore the system reads differently than it plays and that someone who barely optimized will be so close to a maxed out character you won't even notice.

Now this is not true at all. At mid-paragon tier and beyond, you have a narrow selection of 'op' builds.

Spiral Tower Orb Wizards with Cunning Longswords.
Half-Elf Avenger or Barbarian Crit Fishers
Battlerager Vigor / Tempest Fighters / Polearm Momentum Sword and Board Fighters. It's easy to fuck up a fighter if you don't know what you're doing but if you do then you'll be fucking hax.
Archer and TWF Rangers. Beastmaster Rangers are a strange case, where they completely suck until you get into epic tier but then skyrocket in DPR and unkillability.
Battle Captain Warlords
Divine Oracles who have a bunch of 'Will' powers. I'm a fan of Divine Oracle Wizards because with Psychic Lock + Illusory Ambush they hand out a -4 penalty to attack rolls on At-Wills.
Ruthless Ruffian Rogue/Fighters who pick up nothing but incapacitation powers

Even sensible or mildly optimized builds like Blood Mage Wizards or Teleport Swordmages are so outshined by their buddies that it's not even funny. The gap between optimized and non-optimized characters in 4E is huge and it's increasing all of the damn time.