[Pathfinder] Just to kick a man when he's down.

[Fuchs]

I don't really care if the system as written works well or not, as long as my particular campaign with the specific characters and builds being used works out. I customize the campaign so the player characters are viable and fun.

[Roy]

And now people are either just feigning retardation to try to annoy me, or it isn't an act. Being dismissed with 'meme bullshit' means your idea has no merit whatsoever. Do I have to fucking spell and define those words? It means you need to go back to the drawing board, you fucking fucker.

You did define words. You defined Turtle Fail as any time ever that someone ever give up even a single bit of offense for defense.

So answer the question, not with a meme, not with Turtle Fail, not by calling the speaker retarded. Just answer the question.

Should a caster ever, for any reason, prepare or cast Greater Mirror Image?

If the answer is yes, Then your definition of Turtle Fail is stupid and wrong, and needs to be revised.

Learn to fucking read.

What's more, all the effective means of boosting your defense do not require nerfing your offense so even if all of the above were not true and therefore turtling would otherwise be worthwhile, the fact you don't have to fucking do that to be protected still means it is turtle fail.

Fail.

Their target markets are "3.5-ish players" (I don't see why hating 4e is a requirement) and, to a much lesser extent "non-3.5 players who like their products as reading material".

Their whole reason for starting this is because they didn't like 4.0. So I'd say hating it is a requirement.

What happens to someone who plays both 4.0 and 3.5 and who buys a Paizo product? Does his head explode? Do the police arrest him?

Yes. Also, both 4.0's and the Paizils flail all over them.

I can only imagine 4e qualifying as a "quick, easy-to-run" game if you're playing with 3e veterans.

And not even then, if for no other reason than you have to read the exact words of an entire paragraph after every action to avoid being confused by the blandifaction bullshit of everything looking the same.

In other words, Evil Eye for the loss.

[Username17]

What's more, all the effective means of boosting your defense do not require nerfing your offense

The problem is that this statement of yours is objectively false.

We're going into the Tripstar fighter (one of the very few viable fighter builds) in a moment, but first of all let's go into the incredibly easy examples: web and stinking cloud. Yes, you give the enemy an AC bonus. And yes, it's fucking worth it because they don't get any attacks for several turns. Action denial is at is core a defensive action. And in D&D it works incredibly well. Even when the enemy gets some sort of defense boost while they are unable to effectively fight back.

Now let's get to the Tripstar. His job is to walk over to enemies and push them over. Seriously, that's it. He just puts enemies on lockdown where they can't get to the other PCs. He takes stuff like Spring Attack and Elusive Target because he wants to survive in an environment where he closes to melee range with leopards and trolls. And he's making touch attacks on the only things that matter, so taking Combat Expertise and using it for +/-5 is actually perfectly acceptable. Actual enemy killing is done by archery rogues or conjurers in such a party. His entire job is just action denial. And that's fine, because action denial is fucking awesome.

Which is the basic problem with your line of hyperbole. You come out and say "Offense for Defense is always a bad trade." and then people take exception because there legitimately are times when trading offense away for defense is a good idea. And if you just shrugged and admitted that you were using hyperbole to underscore how ludicrous it was for someone to expertise while two weapon fighting (or whatever), people would laugh with you and move the fuck on.

But you don't do that. You refuse to back down from your hyperbole even when people are talking about the edge cases and exceptions. What the fuck? If someone talks about the times that carrying a shield and a one-handed weapon is a good deal (lancers, Tripstars, darkfire clerics, etc.) it is perfectly acceptable to say "Those are marginal cases and don't really impact my larger point." but it is totally unacceptable to just flippantly call those people retarded, spout some bullshit memes, and rant on as if nothing had happened.

-Username17

[Iron Mongler]

And not even then, if for no other reason than you have to read the exact words of an entire paragraph after every action to avoid being confused by the blandifaction bullshit of everything looking the same.

I haven't had any problems running or playing in it in terms of things taking too long or being too complicated (assuming you use power cards). There is also a large difference between many powers when you use them in-play.

[Roy]

And not even then, if for no other reason than you have to read the exact words of an entire paragraph after every action to avoid being confused by the blandifaction bullshit of everything looking the same.

I haven't had any problems running or playing in it in terms of things taking too long or being too complicated (assuming you use power cards). There is also a large difference between many powers when you use them in-play.

I find this hilarious.

And since Frank apparently can't understand how rendering enemies effectively dead for several rounds is not something that qualifies at all here, I'm ignoring his laughable statements.

[Iron Mongler]

I find this hilarious.

Are you that easily amused?

I'm just casually flipping through the PHB and finding powers with several different effects, especially those with different roles.

[Roy]

You said 4.0 abilities are different. If that doesn't make you roll on the floor laughing, you don't get the joke.

[Iron Mongler]

If that doesn't make you roll on the floor laughing, you don't get the joke.

Attack Roll Vs. [Defense] = Rider Effect + Damage (if you hit) or nothing (if you miss), except on a daily.

Hilarious! AHAHAHA OH WOW! WHAT A SHOW! I'M DYING INSIDE, LOLOLO!

...And then I look at Utility powers and Rituals (inb4 Knock bashing, yes Knock is a piece of shit) which is what really makes the game interesting for me.

[Kaelik]

In D&D all forms of turtling are turtle fail, because trading offense for defense makes the fight take longer and thus increases the chance you'll get an unlucky break and die.

Learn to fucking read. All forms of turtling are bad. Since by definition casting Wall of Stone to separate the enemies and only fighting half at a time is turtling.

You are fucking dumb as shit.

You did not say, "Lots of turtling ends up failing." You said, "All" All means all.

[Roy]

In D&D all forms of turtling are turtle fail, because trading offense for defense makes the fight take longer and thus increases the chance you'll get an unlucky break and die.

Hurk durk hurk, hurk durk hurk durk durk hurk.

...

[ubernoob]

Roy, stop with the rampant hyperbole.

[Maxus]

Roy has a point. Some forms of turtling are very easy to get around. Bigass armor, natural armor, deflection, shield bonus, a quiver full of Defending arrows?

"Ah, your AC is 70. Shame that your Reflex save sucks *BAM*"

Even if you focus on saves and don't attack, you're going to lose.

Eventually, you're going to have to break out some form of offense to win. Just taking attacks won't get you anywhere in DnD.

So how do you define Offense and Defense? If a shield is Defensive, what is Solid Fog?

It's debateable whether getting the enemy before they get you if defense, but whatever.

[Username17]

In D&D all forms of turtling are turtle fail, because trading offense for defense makes the fight take longer and thus increases the chance you'll get an unlucky break and die.

Hurk durk hurk, hurk durk hurk durk durk hurk.

...

This is not acceptable behavior. For anyone. At any time.

You are going into the Ignore pile.

-Username17

[Roy]

Roy has a point. Some forms of turtling are very easy to get around. Bigass armor, natural armor, deflection, shield bonus, a quiver full of Defending arrows?

"Ah, your AC is 70. Shame that your Reflex save sucks *BAM*"

Even if you focus on saves and don't attack, you're going to lose.

Eventually, you're going to have to break out some form of offense to win. Just taking attacks won't get you anywhere in DnD.

So how do you define Offense and Defense? If a shield is Defensive, what is Solid Fog?

It's debateable whether getting the enemy before they get you if defense, but whatever.

Yes. But what the whine squad really missed in their single minded desire to flail all over the place is the effective means of boosting defense do not impede the application of offense at all. Buffs are cast before combat for example. And even if you pull some twisted definition of save or lose effects being defensive, it still doesn't impede taking out the enemy, because you just fucking did.

For some reason Frank likes wanking about Stinking Cloud. But honestly, that isn't even that good of a save or lose effect because it is Fortitude based, and enemy Fort saves are higher than Will saves on average. More specifically, there are very few things with bad Fortitude saves you care about that are not immune to that status effect. About the closest is Rogues, but unless you're fighting a thieves' guild the chances you will encounter enough Rogues to care is basically nil, and in any case their Will saves are likely at least 1 point lower due to Con > Wis, making Glitterdust, Got Them All at least as effective. If not more so. And that's lower level, and what's more there are fewer other spells you care about at 2 than 3, therefore prepping Glitterdust has a lower opportunity cost.

As for shields, there is absolutely no reason to hold one. Like, ever. Even the turtles can use a floating shield.

But even if the turtling actually gave you viable defensive returns, it is definitionally cutting into your offense, giving the enemy fewer incentives to care about attacking you at all. And again, the effective means of boosting defense do NOT cut into offense. Thus, it is conceptually flawed, and will always be such in any game lacking an aggro mechanic to try to counter basic intelligent play. QED.

[Maxus]

Not quite QED.

There isn't an aggro mechanic, but there is a DM. People run games differently.

Someone might send the ogre to go try to put a dent in the Knight. I know when I'm running a game I try to see that everyone gets some action.

[name_here]

Or, say, the knight stands in the door between the archers and the monsters.

[Roy]

Or, say, the knight stands in the door between the archers and the monsters.

Which means you're relying on a 5 foot square being in the right place. All the more silly when you consider the prevalence of creatures larger than Medium size. If they live in the dungeon, the doors will accommodate them.

Assuming blatant stupidity (attacking the guy who isn't a threat because he's turtling) is invalid.

[FatR]

But even if the turtling actually gave you viable defensive returns, it is definitionally cutting into your offense, giving the enemy fewer incentives to care about attacking you at all. And again, the effective means of boosting defense do NOT cut into offense. Thus, it is conceptually flawed, and will always be such in any game lacking an aggro mechanic to try to counter basic intelligent play. QED.

This is just factually wrong. For example the best tactic ever in Exalted 2E, incidentally named Celestial Turtling (making your reserve magical juice into your effective HPs by spamming perfect defences against all threatening attacks) does cut into your offense. A whole lot. Not only you spend considerable resources on enabling it, you simply cannot combine it with any offensive powers for which you haven't spent even more resources to make them work with the Celestial Turtle suite. Moreover, this tactic also makes you spend magical juice that can be used to power your offense for your defense. Except you don't fucking care, because your combat endurance just went from 3 unenhanced/1 magical-enhanced hit, to, like, 30 hits of any sort, and you totally bitchslap people who are stupid enough to invest entirely in offense, because you unerringly deflect their attack of arbitrarily high accuracy, power and cost for small, flat cost, then punch them in their glass jaws.

[MartinHarper]

In a game like 4e with no aggro mechanic, it's worth sacrificing a little offence for a lot of defence in one of (at least) four cases:
* The party may be targeted by AoE effects.
* Attackers don't always magically know and target the PC has the lowest defences.
* Positioning and such sometimes prevent attackers targeting the PC with the lowest defences.
* Your defences would otherwise be the lowest in the party.

Leather Armour Proficiency is thus a good feat for a level one Wizard, even though this sacrifices the offensive boost from, say, Burning Blizzard.

[name_here]

Also, battlefield control lets you arbitrarily create whatever defensive positions you damn well feel like, thus meaning you can in fact force them to target the turtle while you rain fire on them.

[Roy]

You guys are funny. Seriously. Obvious Troll is Obvious.

[Iron Mongler]

Leather Armour Proficiency is thus a good feat for a level one Wizard, even though this sacrifices the offensive boost from, say, Burning Blizzard.

The only time I'd feel really inclined to do that is as a Staff Wizard, really. If I'm going with a Gnome Illusionist, I'm going to go with the Gnome Phantasimist feat instead of a just plain armor bonus.

Not to mention sticking with Cloth armor can net you Shimmering Armor which is just fucking boss.

[RandomCasualty2]

Which means you're relying on a 5 foot square being in the right place. All the more silly when you consider the prevalence of creatures larger than Medium size. If they live in the dungeon, the doors will accommodate them.

Counting on finding doors or corridors in a dungeon isn't that much of a stretch.

Not to mention any good turtle is going to be using a trip weapon (which is easy to connect with anyway) and tripping with his AoOs. Even if they try to squeeze by him, he'll probably still bring them down.

The turtle is actually good in that circumstance, since he costs them actions. Either actions trying to squeeze past him, or actions spent trying to take him down. In either case, he's slowed the enemy advance in a meaningful way. It's true, he's not going to get many kills himself, but you can still contribute without getting kills.

The turtle isn't terrible in some dungeon situations, but there are going to be situations where the turtle won't work well, like outdoor battles, or in places where the enemies come from multiple sides. But that doesn't necessarily mean all turtling is a waste of time. That just means that turtling can't be your only schtick.

But it doesn't mean something like combat expertise or defensive combat magic can't be useful in some situations.

[Roy]

Again, read. Defensive magic (aka, the only type of defense boosting that doesn't cut into offense) does not in fact cut into offense. See, there's these neat things called spell durations...

As for the dungeon, once again I say again, read. In order for a 5 foot square to even be in the right place, you're looking at a complex designed for medium sized creatures or smaller - because if it's bigger, they can move around in there. And as creatures larger than medium size are the ones that standing in the right 5 foot square might do something against due to them being melee, but said creatures can just walk around... Not only do you need highly specific circumstances for your one and only trick to work at all, but it doesn't work on anything you care about in any case... And it is your only trick, because that's how beatsticks operate. You either are or are not a turtle, and this defines your entire existence. So having your entire existence be defined by Turtle Fail is in fact Fail.

QED.

[Caedrus]

You guys are funny. Seriously. Obvious Troll is Obvious.

To everyone but you, apparently...