The Pursuit of Equality and Balance in Game Design

Vnonymous · Post by **Vnonymous** » Wed Mar 16, 2011 10:38 am

I had someone play a tome monk in a real life game myself, and it was their first time playing dnd. They did really well and did a whole bunch of crazy shit using their styles. Jumping off cliffs while on fire in an attempt to hurt people and survive a giant fall and succeeding, etc etc. A monk who deals insane damage to the head of the ninja clan they were fighting is a story you can't tell in 4e because monks are multi target strikers or some shit. The only person who had trouble in that game was the thief acrobat, because thief acrobats don't really do anything. The war mage didn't dominate the game at all(the Tome Fighter Archer smashed through everything, including the illusionist wizard encounter, and was the most productive member of the group).

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Wed Mar 16, 2011 3:01 pm

Plebian wrote:Frank's Tome Fighter is just a clumsy attempt at making Fighters operate on the same level as casters but it's still a lost cause because spells are just way too powerful because of the spell-for-any-situation mechanic prevalent in 3e

also here you go again with subjective->objective statements, yeah it's more fun for you because you have a boner for 3e. and yeah considering the attitude of "never mention any houserules improving 4e because then we will spout another dozen lines of retarded text about why houserules don't make a good game

Wait.

Whoa.

You said... what?

You're..... good lord. I don't even know how to define the stupidity of that statement.

It's like... you can't even perform basic arithmetic, let alone remotely complicated stuff like multiplication or area or vectors (like multiplying a radius against Pi, calculating movement in a straight line).

Seriously, read the class again, then tell me how it's objectively weaker than any spellcaster.

Right now, this board's consensus is that the RoW fighter is too powerful, which is why Frank wrote up the Soldier.

I honestly don't know how stupid you really are, but if you can't seem to realize that an optimized RoW fighter simply murders motherfucking Dragons higher than its own CR (sometimes by as many as 4 CRs above itself) you know, while the rest of the party sits down, and has a wine and cheese tasting, during the encounter with the dragon.

Each and every time I've made a "mostly" fighter build it's been "more overpowered" than it should be, either being more Character Optimized than is needed for a "Character Optimization Challenge Campaign" or consistently exceeding the "damage cap" (per creature, per round) that the DM placed (srsly, building a Fighter that can deal over 200 pts of damage with 3 attacks on every creature in a dungeon room is not difficult).

Quite literally everything you can ever say is impossible to believe, simply because you don't seem to realize that the RoW "Fighter" is not much different than a PHB "Wizard"; except one uses weapons and armour, and the other uses spellbooks and spell components. Even moderately well played, they "win" the campaign.

Now, mind you, this is coming from someone biased towards the inclusion of Fighters. If I'm telling you they're OP, you seriously will have your eyes blown out of your skull if an actual person who objectively hates the RoW fighter outlines their problems. Some people here could just skull-fuck your statement until your brain went off like melting nuclear pile. I'm not really one of them though.

Plebian · Post by **Plebian** » Wed Mar 16, 2011 3:56 pm

yeah, they sure are great at murdering things they can reach, awesome, casters would still bend them over and have a fine time while the fighter frothed ineffectually because he couldn't do shit.

seriously you could give a Fighter all the toys in the world to let him take down an ancient wyrm without a sweat and those toys would work only so long as the ancient wyrm didn't start casting spells. so it's nice to do tons of damage, it's not so nice to still be completely ineffectual against a mage with a similar level of system mastery.

which is the problem with any 3e or 2e caster; they already have everything at their disposal so it's really not possible to make everyone balanced against them without making everyone a caster; the best you can do is try to make everyone so ridiculously overpowered that they feel like they're as good as a caster, even if they're not. and all this'll do is give DMs a headache; how do you plan around a level 20 Assassin doing a base 20d6 of extra damage per hit? can you tell me how to easily balance something that does 1d8+20d6 against his monk buddy who is doing 1d8+5d6, tops?

so you want everyone to perform at the same level as casters but you're so damned inept at the concept of balance that some classes do, most don't and end up being gotcha classes, and you think this is an acceptable design goal.

if you ever design a tabletop system with dead-end classes you are a bad designer.

Vnonymous · Post by **Vnonymous** » Wed Mar 16, 2011 4:41 pm

Somebody hasn't read the RoW fighter or in fact any tome class at all.

Seriously, take a level 15 tome fighter and pit them against a level 15 wizard/sorcerer/psion.

Tome fighters are the strongest class in the entire game by a fucking shit-ton.

DragonChild · Post by **DragonChild** » Wed Mar 16, 2011 4:46 pm

how do you plan around a level 20 Assassin doing a base 20d6 of extra damage per hit? can you tell me how to easily balance something that does 1d8+20d6 against his monk buddy who is doing 1d8+5d6, tops?

I don't... the assassin takes TWO ROUNDS for every full attack he takes, so the monk benefits *twice* as much from magical items, strength, and other stuff, which can easily be another +15 flat, not counting a few more dice, in addition to the monk getting save or dies on every punch.

I should have taken Josh's advice. Plebian is flat out either PURPOSEFULLY trolling, or he's literally mentally retarded. I don't think we should continue talking to him in either case, maybe he'll go away.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Wed Mar 16, 2011 5:02 pm

Yeah, hia 4tard really shines through when he complains about how Monks can only do 1d8 + 5d6, as if they had no none damage effects (or as if they couldn`t have +16 fists and str and attack twice as much and do 2 con damage).

I`m officially done with this troll, I guess I`ll just have to accept that he is super commited to his troll, and he will just be shadazar of 4e. Putting him on ignore as soon as I am not posting from a phone. Which is good news, since I`ve been working for a while on the perfect rules for item aquisition.

Plebian · Post by **Plebian** » Wed Mar 16, 2011 5:13 pm

with any luck they'll be just as stupid as all your other 'perfect' rules!

also why does everyone here feel the need to announce that they're putting someone on ignore? you do realize it's a childish "well I got the last word" game that only proves you're not mature enough to either engage in conversation or just put someone on ignore?

edit: seriously, 'perfect' rules? well it's a good thing you're so humble otherwise I might have to point out that anyone who ever says they're devising a perfect anything has their head firmly wedged inside their large intestine

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Wed Mar 16, 2011 6:17 pm

We announce ignores, because this way, when I get home, and put you on ignore, people will no why I don`t respond to you stupid accusations and bullshit whining anymore, but still know that I can see what they have to say, if they have anything to say.

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Wed Mar 16, 2011 9:05 pm

The assassin does.... 20d6 per round? How you cheating, lying, shit?

The class has a long fucking discussion on how their Death Attack works in the description of Death Attack.

1) It's not Sneak Attack; so it does fuck up Undead, Constructs, Oozes, and other Critical Immune targets.

2) It takes a full round action to set up, and you have to deny your enemy their Dex mod to AC against your attacks, not just once, but in two different rounds.

I guess you can't read either, which makes sense, since that's been established.

Really, the assassin does... widely variable damage every round. One round they do no damage, the next round they might deal from Level D6+2d6 to (Level d6+2d6)*No. of Total Attacks (past level 7).

Honestly, if you can't figure out why the above happens, you really didn't read and understand the class. The "assassin" is the class that a rather proficient player can use without flailing every combat. It is not a damage dice throwing machine. It is a single-target eliminator.

The "monk" is... seriously hot shit every level it has, and people who have never seen the class ever in their lives can make very effective characters. I've had people who haven't played D&D in the last 9 years get into my 3.X game, read the monk, and then proceed to build a level 10 monk in about 45-60 minutes that kept on par with a RoW Barbarian, "Powerful Creatures" ruled Succubus, and Child Necromancer Stranger with the Burning Eyes (who used a troll as their form).

The monk seriously keeps on par with a Barbarian that can 1-round Fire Giants and a Wizard that casts Magic Jar at will.

Compared to every other shitty Monk PrC, the original 3.0/3.5 Monk classes, and every stupid statement that people made defending the shitty PHB monk, the Dungeonomicon monk is very, ver, balanced and effective at taking on On-Par enemies and succeeding.

Plebian · Post by **Plebian** » Wed Mar 16, 2011 11:16 pm

man you certainly are very angry about a shitty houserule base class in a shitty edition of a tabletop, maybe you should calm down and try out other games like L5R and learn that just because system idiocy has been a part of D&D since 1e it doesn't mean it always has to be part of all tabletops to make them "real" tabletops

Red_Rob · Post by **Red_Rob** » Wed Mar 16, 2011 11:50 pm

Fuck it, just lock the damn thread and maybe he'll go away.

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Wed Mar 16, 2011 11:50 pm

My mistake, you mistake facts for emotions.

The goals of most systems should be to maintain equality among player agency. While TGD has seriously written complete replacements for say, Necromunda/Inquisitor, Tactical Warhammer 40k, WoD; the bulk of the discussion here is how to build what we want in our fantasy heartbreaker.

Since the d20 3.X system is still so widely used, it's a good engine to fit modifications to, and on.

Collectively, I find that the Tomes or "Frank and Beans" D&D, as some people in my group have begun calling it, is a handy way to both simplify the game, and bring it to a more even playing field. Being able to throw out nearly every splat book is... awesome, only having to worry about the PHB for spells, DMG for (almost all of it); and then monster manuals and either maps or pre-written adventures is very liberating.

I can seriously carry all that I need to run a complete campaign with:

-PHB
-DMG
-MM1, 2, 3
-One 1" Binder (printed copy of the Tome)

Quite honestly, that's about as pared down and basic as any rules system could ever be, and it only takes 5 hardcover books and 1 binder.

Can 4e, or really, many other games, cover the scope of power levels (from dog catcher, to god killer) with the granularity that D&D can have, and require as few carried materials as it does?

Plebian · Post by **Plebian** » Thu Mar 17, 2011 12:55 am

yep, especially if you use the character builder in which case it's: your character sheets and dice, maybe the Rules Compendium. for the DM it's: your campaign notes, a few pages of monsters made with Adventure Tools, your dice, and the DMG and maybe the Rules Compendium as well.

so that's maybe one book for the players and maybe two books for the DM.