Lago's Kickass D&D-Book Marketing Strategy!

[souran]

So. Fucking. What? Even with the rapier getting extra damage on the same roll that let's the axe barely hit the axe can still do more damage on the same roll.

True. However, it can also do less damage than the rapier even if it rolled maximum damage on the damage roll.

So. Fucking. What? You know this in advance. You can still make the damage gap as large as you like, even with the rapier getting extra damage quite often. You can very well have a rapier with +3 precision and a battleaxe with +30 damage and no one is going to mistake getting hit by the axe with getting hit by the rapier.

I was trying to make a point about this as well. If you make your weapons really disperate. Have really large values of accuracy or bonus damage players will reverse engineer the weapons and figure out which ones are on the good part of the performance curve. Not that this does not happen to a degree anyway, however, if accuracy increases damage players will seek accuracy benefits to boost damage.

Yes you know about it, but just knowing about it doesn't make it easy from going stupid shit wild. Especially for players who are not really on the RNG anymore (like in D&D), that extra accuracy is damage.

As has been pointed out numerous times, NO ONE IS ARGUING FOR STRAIGHT 1-TO-1 TRADEOFF. No one except you that is. And no one is arguing it, because a 1-to-1 tradeoff is idiotic. How much higher the tradeoff has to be is debatable, but you do need to get more than 1 damage in exchange for 1 precision.

If you let final damage float you will get weapons that have properties that we can see if they are basically an increase or decrease in average damage/max damage for a user. However, these weapons don't really become a choice between similar users but a weapon for each of a number of different users. Players will cluster to weapons that compiment existing strengths. I.E. no fighters with rapiers unless you consistantly make them fight things they can only hit on a 20 with a rapier.

[Roog]

...players will reverse engineer the weapons and figure out which ones are on the good part of the performance curve.

Is there any system where that won't happen?

[Murtak]

What, you mean we might end up with a system where dragons get attacked with battleaxes because rapiers don't damage them and pixies get attacked with rapiers because battleaxes don't hit them? Shocking.

Sheesh, that's the entire point of the system.

[Lago PARANOIA]

So anyway, I was looking through old D&D modules at HPB and I have a few questions to ask about the D&D marketing strategy.

I guess the first one I should ask is why they don't have some 'introduction to D&D' softcover books like they did for AD&D. Not a whole bunch of stuff, just about 3 40 or so page books that have enough material for people to get to level 3 to 4 on doing standard adventure stuff. There's enough stuff in there for some basic combat things and a campaign or two. Sell some dice to go with it and you can have people playing D&D for about 20 dollars. If they like it they'll purchase the hardcover book.

I'm basically talking about the Introduction to AD&D boxed sets I saw. Why doesn't WotC do something like that anymore?


My second thing is modules. I think that they should come back. But instead of the old way, D&D basically does tiers of fan-created modules. A module creates a pre-done map(s) that can be printed out, monster/treasure/NPC cards, and adventure notes. Basically you have an adventure that you can just Plug N' Play into your campaign when the DM is in a rush or feeling lazy.

But while the WotC or whoever stores dozens/hundreds of modules for people to download, the more popular ones get kicked upstairs and they start charging people some money for it. Not a lot, but something like 2.50 dollars an adventure. But when it gets kicked upstairs it gets embellished with artwork and enhanced tiles and whatnot. Eventually if someone publishes enough adventures that people like they get a job offer or at least a payment for writing D&D some adventures. This way D&D can draw its new talent pool.

So why would people pay money for these adventures when someone could just get one of the fan-created modules for free? You're basically paying for the promise of quality control and the embellishments. Also people are paying money to get products from D&D celebrities like Rich Berlew and the Penny Arcade guys. I think that there is a non-zero number of people who would pay money to play a module designed by, say, the guy who wrote DM of the Rings.

This means the part where a fan stops creating modules for free after D&D thinks that their work is good enough to repackage and sell is intentional; when D&D does this they are basically telling the fan 'look, you have a proven record; if you give us a module that's just as good we'll pay you like 300 dollars for the next one'. So the fan works with WotC to creates another module and this time directly sends it to WotC. And if that one is good, too, then they get hit up for more work. If not, no harm no foul.

And I know I asked this earlier, but seriously, D&D should be paying a lot more than it does for artwork. Artwork is relatively cheap and it really boosts the quality of the book. I always thought that one of the things that gave D&D an edge over other RPGs was its colored artwork. 1E D&D looks kind of chintzy and bland. 2E D&D looks pretty damn slick, especially compared to other RPGs it competed against.

[hogarth]

I'm basically talking about the Introduction to AD&D boxed sets I saw. Why doesn't WotC do something like that anymore?

I always assumed they didn't sell very well. Note that they had a beginner's boxed set for 3E, too.

[Lago PARANOIA]

So, what do you guys think of D&D: Tiny Adventures?

I think it's a rather slick marketting trick. I approve of it. The only thing I don't agree with is the idea that it should take like ten minutes between turns. It should be three or four minutes. That way people who actually are into grinding can do so.


But anyway, back to marketting. Personally, I think that 5th Edition should fully embrace what 4E was trying to do and make it able to be run entirely by a computerized DM. But that kind of thing will be an 'optional mode', done solely for grinding and a quick fix.

What I mean is that, okay, take the Charm Person spell. A staple of stories, doesn't work so well for 4E which is why there is no equivalent to it. Fair enough. So spells like Charm Person will actually have two parts to it--the first one will be what you're using if you have a living, breathing DM at tabletop, like in 3E. The second one will be what you're using against a simple computer program and will have some effect like 'is dazed and you dictate its actions for one round'.

Ultimately the goal is to make it so that three people can play 5th Edition on their iPhone for some quick grinding but if they get face-to-face (or just talk on said phones) they can still be playing D&D the traditional way.

[ggroy]

[Lago PARANOIA]

So, classes for new edition.

Generalist classes suck, but so do narrowly focused ones (like the Fighter and the Sorcerer). So... what classes do you think should be written up for 4th Edition? Here are my candidates.

Beguiler: Same as 3E version. Might want to call it Warlock or Sorcerer depending on how much fans whine.
Fighter: Pastiche of the Warlord, Fighter, and 4E Ranger. I know calling the Fighter 'fighter' has myriad conceptual problems, but, they have squatter's rights. If I had my druthers, the class would be called Veteran or Hero or Warblade or Warlord or even Barbarian. But you know how fans are.
Ranger: Pastiche of the Barbarian and 4E Warden.
Druid: Same as the 4E druid.
True Necromancer: Same as 3E version.
Cleric: Pastiche of the 4E Paladin and Cleric
Bard: Same as 4E version, seriously.
Psion: Telepath + Psychokinetic
Monk: Polymorphing schtick of druid and 4E warden + 3E Monk
Artificer: But less ass than the 3E and 4E versions.
Wizard: Warmage + Summoner
Rogue: 3E Rogue + 4E Assassin
Swordmage: Will be a combination of the Blackguard, Hexblade, and 4E Swordmage. Might call this the paladin/crusader and make some of their powers shiny depending on how much people whine.

But anyway, this should solve a lot of the thematic problems we've had with D&D while also minimizing complaints from the fanbase about their favorite class not being supported.

[Username17]

So, classes for new edition.

Generalist classes suck, but so do narrowly focused ones (like the Fighter and the Sorcerer). So... what classes do you think should be written up for 4th Edition? Here are my candidates.

By 4th, you mean 5th? I'm down.

Beguiler: Same as 3E version. Might want to call it Warlock or Sorcerer depending on how much fans whine.

Good call. Call it The Bard. Your spells are arbitrarily spellsongs and spelldances.

Fighter: Pastiche of the Warlord, Fighter, and 4E Ranger. I know calling the Fighter 'fighter' has myriad conceptual problems, but, they have squatter's rights. If I had my druthers, the class would be called Veteran or Hero or Warblade or Warlord or even Barbarian. But you know how fans are.

Fighting Man is the oldest class, but if it could handle being renamed to Fighter, it can handle being renamed again. I point out that in the Dungeon boardgame, the class was called Hero. You don't want to call it, or any other class anything with the word sword, or blade, or any other weapon name in it. Because you don't want to cockslap people who have a character concept that uses an axe, hammer, or spear.

Ranger: Pastiche of the Barbarian and 4E Warden.

Sounds good.

Druid: Same as the 4E druid.

O... K. I find the 4e Druid kind of scattershot an incoherent. I would tighten it way down into something that was just about animals and plants maybe.

True Necromancer: Same as 3E version.

By which you mean "Dread Necromancer" because True Necromancers suck my asshole. Of course, I'd just call it the Necromancer. People don't really want character classes to have more than one word in them. Just as they aren't really happen if Paragon Paths or Prestige Classes are basically just one word.

Cleric: Pastiche of the 4E Paladin and Cleric

I'd call it the Paladin and ditch Clerics altogether. That's not a joke, for a big part of 2nd edition we didn't have Clerics because they were officially banned and renamed Priests in the Priest's handbook. It was a fascinating book, which allowed you to make your own character class on a point system based on the god you worked for, so it was totally fucking broken. Nevertheless, the old PHB Clerics were considered way too good and you had to buy a much more specialized list of spells unless you dumped most of the martial crap. So if you wanted to use any of the kits and special priest rules at all (and you did), then there was no Cleric class any more. True story: D&D survives without Clerics just fine.

Bard: Same as 4E version, seriously.

Why Bard and not just name the Beguiler "Bard"? Serious question.

Psion: Telepath + Psychokinetic

Fair. Everyone loves Alakazam.

Monk: Polymorphing schtick of druid and 4E warden + 3E Monk

What the fuck? I thought people played Monks because they didn't want to transform into Gorillas. What the fuck? I'd go with the Tome Monk, where you were sort of a melee-juggle master. But I could see the argument for Monks going more of an AD&D route and being more like Machoke: bullshit defenses but hits so fucking hard that things explode all around him.

Artificer: But less ass than the 3E and 4E versions.

Seems workable.

Wizard: Warmage + Summoner

Somewhat overextended even so. The Warmage and Summoner seem to function fine on their own. Especially if you upgrade the Warmage to "Elementalist". Also, you could call the Summoner a Warlock and make everyone happy.

Rogue: 3E Rogue + 4E Assassin

Sounds workable.

Swordmage: Will be a combination of the Blackguard, Hexblade, and 4E Swordmage. Might call this the paladin/crusader and make some of their powers shiny depending on how much people whine.

The Gish concept needs to be in the game. However, my suggestion would be to stop fucking around, make the Githyanki a PHB race, and call the class Gish.

But anyway, this should solve a lot of the thematic problems we've had with D&D while also minimizing complaints from the fanbase about their favorite class not being supported.

It's a good start. You of course want to have an iconic character of each race as a class to get some good stereotyping going. My suggestions:

• Elf Bard
• Hobgoblin Hero
• Orc Ranger
• Goblin Druid
• Drow Necromancer
• Dwarf Paladin
• Kobold Psion
• Warforged Monk
• Gnome Artifcer
• Human Elementalist
• Tiefling Warlock
• Halfling Rogue
• Githyanki Gish

Then you got 6 Alliance Races, 6 Horde Races, and Warforged, who were nominally made by both teams. And you set it in a post Allience/Horde conflict period, so that all the iconic PCs can be on both teams.

You make the Psionics be dragon crystal shit, like from the Assassin's Apprentice series. And you have Tieflings and Drow to be your "Sexy" horde races, and your Humans, Elves, and Gith to be your "Sexy" alliance races. You make sure that you have a hottie for your iconic Drow Necromancer and your iconic Gith Gish. That shit is important.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

Let's call the Fighter the Hero class, then. While hero with a small h brings to mind many concepts, a Hero (capital H) implies a melee badass who kills dragons with bare hands, skins hydras and wears their head as a hat, and takes on hordes of orcs.

The 5E druid I just imagined as placing down chaff on the battlefield and changing into an animal to fit its idiom of whatever they threw down.

For example, if you wanted to turn the battlefield to a desert with poisoned cacti and tiny scorpions, you'd have to transform into a vulture first. Your vulture might get some bullshit ability like being able to swoop and attack, but for the most part the animal transformations are just flavor. The actual people who primarily turn into B-movie monsters and attack are the ranger and the monk.

You're right, there's no reason to keep a cleric once we have a class that talks to divine creatures and sprouts angel wings and all that. I do not actually want to call the class the paladin because they have too much baggage from bullshit of previous editions--people to this day are still having discussions about alignment and paladins and all that and I don't want to hear anything about it ever again. I just want to use the name 'cleric' to stop the whining.

I gave the wizard the trick of blasting and summoning because, in my opinion, blasting isn't enough of a trick to keep a character interesting after the first few levels. While there is a definite thematic difference between summoning a wolf to a salamander to a hydra, going from magic missile to fireball to acid fog is a lot more prosaic. Hell, a lot of higher-level summons have some kind of blasting trick to begin with.

Does the name 'Gish' mean anything to people who aren't aware of its history? Even so, I don't find it particularly clever. Swordmage is evocative even if silly, gish is a grognard term. I'm not going to object too hard to our sword + magic class being called a Gish, but I can think of better titles: Samurai, Shinigami, Blackguard, Templar, Ranger, Geohound, etc..

I have the same problems with some of your choices for iconic races. To a casual observer, Hobgoblins and orcs are practically the same thing; do you have some stereotyping ace-in-the-hole to differentiate the two races enough? I mean, gnomes have weirdass engineering crap as their trump card for accusations against being a halfling clone.

Have you read much One Piece? I think that Fishmen should be substituted for Hobgoblins. Fishmen have all of the good traits we expect out of Hobgoblins (honorable culture, really strong, has a grudge and an inferiority against some other race for slavery) and occupies a couple of other niches. And they don't have the rubber forehead alien problem, since they actually look weird despite being mammals.

Same for gith. Their personality always seemed kind of halfassed to me, their stoicism neatly riding the middle of the continuity between dwarf and elf. Why not keep the personality and culture but copypaste them ontop of minotaurs or dragonborn or dopplegangers or something else?

[Username17]

For example, if you wanted to turn the battlefield to a desert with poisoned cacti and tiny scorpions, you'd have to transform into a vulture first. Your vulture might get some bullshit ability like being able to swoop and attack, but for the most part the animal transformations are just flavor. The actual people who primarily turn into B-movie monsters and attack are the ranger and the monk.

If you have Rangers or Monks turning into beasts to do skull smashing, there's absolutely no reason to have Druids turn into anything at all. They can just run around with their animal companion making grass grow and snow fall. The iconic Goblin Druid is a Goblin on a Worg who uses Entangling magic. Primary battle tactic is rooting + pet attacks. Sensible concept you can explain thematically and tactically in forty seconds.

At the point where your character is playing Final Fantasy X2 style pretty princess dressup in order to unlock terrain based powers in order to change your tactical role, your character concept is too fucking complicated for an ensemble cast.

You're right, there's no reason to keep a cleric once we have a class that talks to divine creatures and sprouts angel wings and all that. I do not actually want to call the class the paladin because they have too much baggage from bullshit of previous editions--people to this day are still having discussions about alignment and paladins and all that and I don't want to hear anything about it ever again. I just want to use the name 'cleric' to stop the whining.

Your D&D myopia is showing. Paladins work fine on both sides without getting shit for it in Final Fantasy Tactics and World of Warcraft. In fact, outside of perennial Lawful Stupid arguments, no one has a problem with Paladins. The word "Cleric" is however, a huge fucking problem. Because to basically everyone in the whole fucking world it conjures up the image of Ayatollah Khamenei. The fact that there is a class called "Cleric" is seriously one of the biggest things holding D&D back. Putting things called "Paladin" into the game doesn't cause a problem. Putting things in named "Cleric" totally fucking does.

Does the name 'Gish' mean anything to people who aren't aware of its history? Even so, I don't find it particularly clever.

Who gives a shit? I would rather a class gave no first impressions at all than to give bad or false ones. If you call it Bladesinger, or Swordmage, or Hexblade or any of that shit you poison the game. Because people will assume that your character is playing "wrong" if he has a hammer or a spear. Seriously. If your character has sword or blade in their fucking class name, people will be hurt in the pants if your character doesn't actually use one. And names like Shinigami basically don't mean anything to anyone. So, you're back to square one.

The fact is that there isn't a one-word title that accurately expressed the Gish concept in an exclusive manner that would distinguish it from the other classes. But the word Gish is totally in the game canon. It's totally arbitrary, but it is there. And that's good enough. Because "arbitrary word" is the best you are going to do for that concept.

I have the same problems with some of your choices for iconic races. To a casual observer, Hobgoblins and orcs are practically the same thing; do you have some stereotyping ace-in-the-hole to differentiate the two races enough?

Meh. To a casual observer all fantasy races are the same. For goodness sakes, Elf and Dwarf appear in the definitions of each other in the fucking dictionary. The only difference between fantasy races is what you bring to the description. Now personally, I'd go with calling the Hobgoblins "Hobs" or maybe renaming Goblins to Gremlins. Probably the first one though if you want to keep the Goblinoid mythos going (which you probably do).

You don't want to give any of the standard races any powers or limitations that would demand that they be or bar them from a specific class. And that means that you're basically limited to forehead aliens between 25 and 125 kilos. The most interesting thing about them is going to be the clothes they are dressed in for the PHB group shot. And I am dead fucking serious about that. The fact that the Goblin is going to be dressed up in some frickin wolf pelt with a tooth necklace and a rabbit foot hanging from a chain off the end of a gnarled staff? That's going to make way more impact in how people (and how much people) think about Goblins than any descriptions about how long they live or how many children an average goblin mother gives. I mean sure, you'll have the occasional rant on a message board about what the fucking hell it means that most Goblin characters are only 13 years younger than their moms, but really the vast majority of people will take the picture of the iconic spazzing Goblin Wolf Druid home as their central prejudice for the entire race.

And in that line, a single good picture of the iconic Hob Hero in full Samurai armor taking off a metal "calm person" face mask to reveal a tusked oni-face underneath will seriously tell you more about that race and why people want to play it than any race got in 3rd or 4th edition. Full stop.

Same for gith. Their personality always seemed kind of halfassed to me, their stoicism neatly riding the middle of the continuity between dwarf and elf. Why not keep the personality and culture but copypaste them ontop of minotaurs or dragonborn or dopplegangers or something else?

Ask people to tell you, without looking it up, what was on the cover of 1st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons books. Chances are they can remember the Efreet on the cover of the DMG, the temple sacking on the cover of the PHB, and the Githyanki on the cover of the Fiend Folio. The Gith look fucking awesome. The fact that they were also represented as a well received character in Planescape Torment is pure gravy. Remember, Tieflings got into the Lexicon on Annah alone. No one gave a fuck about them or Aasimar before then. And people still don't give a fuck about Aasimar. The fact that Dakkon was Gith is basically all you need as an explanation for why Gith should be a playable race.

-Username17

[DragonChild]

Bumping this because I like this idea, and had been thinking similiar things class-wise. Iron Heroes, while really a shitty system in some ways, ought to be looked at for inspiration - dividing fighters up into "really tough tank guy", "really ragey naked guy", and "really fast stabby guy" is a decent idea.

Anyway, I was curious - how do you plan on handing out class features? Like 3e, 4e, or what?

I've been thinking of d20 class design recently, and in particular how to do character customization and stuff. I think it's important to keep the classes relatively modular - you can see how 3.5 started to go this way with alternate class features, and 4e obviously embraced this. So...

-Should classes be relatively non-versatile (like Frank's fire mage), and just use feats for versatility?
-Should you have extreme versatility, like the Dungeonomicon Monk, or just a little less, like 3.5 core rogue?
-Should classes give you a large selection of pre-picked abilities, and then you get a minor "package", which gives you 3-5 different class abilities spread out through it?
-What the heck should a feat, be, anyway? It's my opinion that feats either need to be actual abilities in their own right, usable on their own, or just plain not exist. I can't seem to come up with a good design for them, though, or any decent examples on what a feat should be as compared to a class feature. I'd much rather do stuff like Frank did on his FFd20, with each feat giving about 3 smaller abilities that work together.

[DragonChild]

Also, I totally didn't mention WHY I think modular design is good. I hope it's clear what I mean by it, though - basically, stuff you can snap on to existing classes easily, without having to write an entirely new class. If for the Barbarian class you get to pick a "Totem" that lets you do something different (bears shapeshift and grapple, wolves run fast and trip, etc) and in my campaign setting I want a tribe of barbarians who can use wind magic, then I can easily write a "Wind Totem" to just fit on there. I think this is far better a way to go to help classes fit in different campaign settings easier.

[Draco_Argentum]

Bumping this because I like this idea, and had been thinking similiar things class-wise. Iron Heroes, while really a shitty system in some ways, ought to be looked at for inspiration - dividing fighters up into "really tough tank guy", "really ragey naked guy", and "really fast stabby guy" is a decent idea.

I don't like the idea of segregating by armour type. Fullplate guy is ass on a stealth mission and ass without his armour. People should be able to play wearing different pants sometimes without sucking.

[Username17]

I think the word Feat has been broken and robbed of all meaning and that it should be abandoned altogether. At the point where a "feat" is defined in 4e terms of being +1 at something you were already doing, that's not a thing that should even exist.

Anyway, the multiclassing system has to be narrowed down before the classes are made. I will say that I don't think that the 3e system of turning each class into an ordered list and having people take some total number of items from each list (starting with number 1 for each) is a good plan. I mean, consider how multiclassing looks in the 4 level situation:

• Item 1, Item 2, Item 3, Item 4
• Item 1, Item 2, Item 3, Item 1
• Item 1, Item 2, Item 1, Item 2
• Item 1, Item 1, Item 2, Item 3
• Item 1, Item 2, Item 3, Item 4

The take home message should be that the later items on any particular list are basically never seen, which makes the game futile and boring. In addition to making it a virtually intractable balance problem. Of the multiclassed characters, all of them end up with Item 1, but almost none of them see Item 3, meaning that the book ends up full of abilities that are never used, never tested, and yet still take up space that could have been used for other things.

But be that as it may. You have to decide what it means to be a Ranger/Artificer, even before you can pin down what being a Ranger or being an Artificer means. Weird, but totally true. Here are some acceptable answers:

• You can't combine classes. You must be a Ranger or an Artificer. This works fine in Might & Magic, Original D&D, and Diablo. If you have enough classes, forcing everyone to pick one and get the fuck over it is an entirely acceptable solution, provided that you stick to that. You'll need some classes like the Gish (Hero/Elementalist) and Monk (Rogue/Paladin) who cover popular hybrid concepts, of course, but it can work.
• Everyone get a Sub Job. If you stick around in Ranger long enough, you get to start grabbing Artificer abilities on top of that. This works fine in Final Fantasy, Ultima, and to an extent even in Runequest (depending on how you handle skill advancement).
• Open Ability Gain. This is harder to explain. But for this to work, being a Ranger is something you decide after you grab all the powers and shit that you are allowed for being "an 8th level character" or whatever. If you select enough abilities with the [Ranger] or [Artificer] tag on them, you can then select the Ranger or Artificer package deal that comes with some extra unique schticks for having that "class."

It doesn't really matter which way you go, in that they all work fine and have real advantages and disadvantages. But you have to decide before you can write any classes at all. After all, consider three classes:

• Necromancer: Pets and Curses
• Druid: Pets and Battlefield Control
• Warlock: Pets and Direct Damage

Pets inherently synergize better with battlefield control or curses than they do with direct damage. Because if the enemy is losing actions (either to cocoons of thorns or slows), that acts as an action multiplier for every black hawk or skeleton thrown down by a Druid or Necromancer. While a fire blast simply linearly adds to the damage output of the Warlock's fire demon. As such, in a no-multiclass or limited-multiclass environment, you can seriously just give the Warlock a Fire Demon who is better than the skeletons or wolves that a Necromancer or Druid gets. In a free ability grab scenario that is much more complicated - you need some sort of point cost or ability tier system to cover that.

Or to put it another way: in Diablo II, the Amazon's Valkyrie doesn't break the game because the Amazon has it. If the Paladin or Necromancer could put points into Valkyrie, they would do that because it would be totally overpowered.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty2]

I don't like the idea of segregating by armour type. Fullplate guy is ass on a stealth mission and ass without his armour. People should be able to play wearing different pants sometimes without sucking.

Yeah absolutely. I hate that about D&D how you're stuck wearing one type of armor and that's it.

[erik]

I'm liking the sub job option for classes. Everyone is primarily their single class, but they can pick up some tricks in the other classes as well as they advance. While I think those 13 classes cover bases pretty damn well, having a little fudging where you can have some of another classes tricks without surpassing them would fill in the rest of the blanks. A hero who can do some telekinesis. A rogue who has a pet crow. A paladin who can do some stealthy trespassing. A druid that can call elementalist lightning bolts. That kinda jazz.

I've always liked characters who could dabble in something beyond their main schtick. However, I do not know how much of that preference is rooted in that I always tried to get some spell casting ability into any class I played... out of necessity and interest (as spells are better and more interesting than mundane crap).

So long as the classes are distinct, interesting and viable, then the sub job option won't be the abortion of interest that 4e classes (and multiclasses) hold for me in their attempt at that form of design.

[A Man In Black]

Pets inherently synergize better with battlefield control or curses than they do with direct damage. Because if the enemy is losing actions (either to cocoons of thorns or slows), that acts as an action multiplier for every black hawk or skeleton thrown down by a Druid or Necromancer. While a fire blast simply linearly adds to the damage output of the Warlock's fire demon. As such, in a no-multiclass or limited-multiclass environment, you can seriously just give the Warlock a Fire Demon who is better than the skeletons or wolves that a Necromancer or Druid gets. In a free ability grab scenario that is much more complicated - you need some sort of point cost or ability tier system to cover that.

But that seems to assume that pets chiefly do damage. Why can't the warlock have a pet that offers battlefield controls or debuffs, while doing the damage himself?

So you could have the druid who casts entangle to keep foes in reach of the pet and a bear or a tiger to eat the entangled foes, the necromancer who keeps enemies from acting to take advantage of his four skeletons, and the warlock who has a tentacle demon who holds foes in place so the warlock can disintegrate them.

That way, classes not only have pets that feel different, but they also have less of an incentive to poach each others' pets. The warlock doesn't need a better fire demon, just a demon that lets him shoot things with fire.

[Lago PARANOIA]

In case you didn't notice, AMIB, you just made all of the classes some permutation of Battlefield Control + Damage. Which of COURSE is balanced, but you just stripped away all of the differences.

[A Man In Black]

In case you didn't notice, AMIB, you just made all of the classes some permutation of Battlefield Control + Damage. Which of COURSE is balanced, but you just stripped away all of the differences.

Well, the example necromancer and druid were identical: the master debuffs foes, a swarm of pets eats debuffed foes. I was just pointing out that there's design space for a warlock to get a pet that does something other than hit enemies, since the other two classes just had pets that hit enemies.

Necromancers, druids without wild shape, and warlocks are all classes who do damage and have battlefield control. It's their ecological niche in 3e and 4e both. Unless someone's suggesting that one or more classes belong in another role, then there's a need to make the three similar classes meaningfully different, while still making them a blend of battlefield control and daamage.

The druid specializes in battlefield control, and gets potent abilities to wrap people in thorns, spit in their eyes, turn their hands into paws and weapons into wood, and so on. The druid also gets a tiger or wolf or bear or something to wreck the befuddled and entangled foes. Some druids opt for a fast pet to ride or to concentrate on disabling foes, or a tough pet to concentrate on slowing or halting foes. If the druid summons a being of pure fire, it's a huge brute who punches enemies in the face with a fist of fire, and requires a lengthy ritual to replace if lost.

The warlock is a mix of WOW warlock, 4e warlock, and a little bit of wizard. He specializes in ending fools with fire and eldritch power. He's warmage-like in that he blasts you and something horrible happens to the enemy, and when he's not flinging fire at foes he's scaring them to death or destroying their minds with Darkspeech/revelations of the Far Realm. His pets are all tricky and make it harder for enemies to walk up and punch the warlock in his squishy face. So tentacle demons, tricky imps, demons who wrack enemies with pain, things like that. If the warlock summons a being of pure fire, it's a creature that tosses up rings of fire and creates walls of shimmering heat that distort vision, and the warlock wants it to be destroyed so he doesn't have to pay it for services.

The necromancer is a balance between the two and is a mix of Dread Necro and D2 Necromancer. He spams up the battlefield with skeletons, and that's a half-decent battlefield control strategy on its own (assuming you can write some sort of rules for him to play 6 skeletons without bogging down the game). His strategy involves making sure people stay in the skeleton field, being bogged down by and eaten by skeletons, and occasionally adding dramatic effects to skeletons or turning skeletons into dramatic effects. If the necromancer has a being a pure fire, it's probably a flaming skeleton, and it stands around and burns everyone around it to death, and possibly explodes.

Those aren't the same, but they all fit in the same niche.

[Username17]

What tactical niches exist and how hey are to be filled is a major policy concern that has to be thoroughly answered before classes, levels, or monsters can be outlined in any serious fashion. The primary source of failure as regards 4e role protection is that there seems to be no underlying understanding of what players are actually supposed to be doing at any particular level or in general. A one turn stunlock is available as a 1st level power and it's available as a 21st level power. And while the "epic" version does slightly more damage, the actually important part of a stunlock (where all four of your allies get to attack once and then it's your turn again and the enemy still hasn't gotten a turn) is essentially unchanged.

So you might say that proper stunlocks were simply not available at low levels, because low level enemies are fragile like low level 3e monsters and attacks from low levels just do damage. And then at higher levels you get stunlocks, that are essentially lethal at those levels because an extra round of beat downs will put the enemy away. And then at higher levels still you get powers that straight up blow people out of the combat. And so a medium level character can take a damage attack and not falter, while a high level character can get stunlocked, then take a bunch of attacks, and snap out of it without going down. In such a model, Burning Hands is a 1st level ability, Psionic Blast is a 7th level ability, and Wail of the Banshee is a 13th level ability. Or whatever.

But you also have to support whatever effects you make major parts of the game. If you make Forced Movement a major thing in the game, you have to make starting position a big deal. So you might make a Movement Action of "Aim" where you got a bonus to your attack if you didn't move. And you have terrain that is penalizing not just to move through or fight from, but to have started your turn in. And then have some sort of zone of controls that were strong and of variable size. So you could throw an enemy murder-pinball through a hedge of skeletons with spears and have that be a big deal. The thing where no one has "threatening reach" and People can just walk out of difficult terrain back into melee and strike again as if nothing had happened undermines the entire concept of caring about forced movement.

-Username17

[A Man In Black]

But you also have to support whatever effects you make major parts of the game. If you make Forced Movement a major thing in the game, you have to make starting position a big deal. So you might make a Movement Action of "Aim" where you got a bonus to your attack if you didn't move. And you have terrain that is penalizing not just to move through or fight from, but to have started your turn in. And then have some sort of zone of controls that were strong and of variable size. So you could throw an enemy murder-pinball through a hedge of skeletons with spears and have that be a big deal. The thing where no one has "threatening reach" and People can just walk out of difficult terrain back into melee and strike again as if nothing had happened undermines the entire concept of caring about forced movement.

This may only be a half-formed idea.

Something 4e does quite unintentionally is turning more-or-less useless effects into something you care about because of riders. Pushing foes is a good example of this: while pushing a foe is more or less useless on its own without murder pinball, Draconic Arrogance (extra damage on a push) and Polearm Momentum (knockdown on a push) make pushing something you want to as often as possible because you get an effect that matters. Similarly, while the penalty from being marked is crap, Fighters and Swordmages get to do special stuff when a marked foe does certain things.

If certain powers are expected to be career-long choices but characters are expected to produce different effects at different levels, then it may be worth creating focusing on generic effects that do nothing (or next to nothing) on their own, and hooking effects that actually matter up to them. In fact, it may be better to make these effects completely harmless on their own, and add all of the mojo in the riders.

[Username17]

There is really very little purpose in producing marking effects that you layer rider effects on. In general you could just skip the middle man and just have the rider effects be the primary effects. The only reason you'd want to do the rider effects method is if you wanted to encourage everyone to voltron their stuff together into mega-moves that they used over and over again.

The 4e writers were right that if you have a single attack that benefits from weapon focus and power attack and knockdown then it doesn't really feel like you're doing anything different from round to round and battle to battle. On the other hand, if you give the player a "Killing Blow" that does a bunch of damage and a "Knockdown" that pushes enemies on their ass, they will use one or the other depending on what situation they are in, and they'll feel more engaged. Even though this is literally and specifically less power and versatility than simply having Power Attack and Knockdown at the same time.

And yet, let's be real here: they printed Polearm Momentum anyway. Because the writers have no discipline and they have faith in their own design decisions.

-Username17

[DragonChild]

I don't like the idea of segregating by armour type. Fullplate guy is ass on a stealth mission and ass without his armour. People should be able to play wearing different pants sometimes without sucking.

I'll partially agree here. To be fair, the only one that NEEDS to be segregated by armor type I mentioned was the "ragey naked guy", in which the emphasis is more on "ragey" then naked.

I am very much reminded of suikoden 3, where one main character starts looking like this: http://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery-01 ... -chris.jpg , then has to go undercover and starts dressing like this: http://www.gamedepiction.com/media/s3-chris2.jpg . I certainly would like the first to be possible, and I don't think a setting where armor flat-out doesn't matter is a good thing. If nothing else, armor's stealth penalties can just be lowered/removed, or there can be armors with less stealth penalties, or whatever. I think the assumptions that "armor is bad at stealth" and "we want all characters to be able to be stealthy" haven't been set down yet.

I think the word Feat has been broken and robbed of all meaning and that it should be abandoned altogether. At the point where a "feat" is defined in 4e terms of being +1 at something you were already doing, that's not a thing that should even exist.

Seems fair enough.



Also, count me in for wanting to hear more about "Can't combine" and "everyone gets a sub job" ideas. I much preferred 3e's class design to 4e's.

[cthulhu]

There response to modifiers, as frank himself showed, is miniscule at best. A couple of points of damage over 20 attacks.

You said they were the same. If they are slightly different, this means they are not the same.

A <> A + 1 even if A is large