Mask_De_H wrote:ubernoob wrote:Kaelik wrote:Bottom line, like I apparently have to say every fucking day to someone:
What problem are you trying to fucking solve? And if you are trying to solve multiple different problems, you need to separate the solutions and make sure you don't at any point implement a solution to one problem that compounds with a solution to another problem.
Because frankly, it sounds to me like anyone who plays a caster at all in your system is dumb as a box of rocks and will regret that decision.
Mask, I want you to read this ten times before replying. Thank you.
At this point, I'm really starting to question if I'm the sole reason we are having a failure to communicate here. But sure, what the fuck.
Problem 1: Playing to twenty levels isn't normally done due to time constraints.
In the context of what level 20 actually means in 3E D&D, that's not actually a problem. That's a Feature. You have a whole bunch of distinct power levels to tell different kinds of stories with, and your story doesn't explode because Robin turned into Superman over three sessions. This is literally not a problem. If you want a system that does not have this feature, go play a different game like 4E. This is the system working as intended.
Solution 1: Compress the game space or advance advancement speed.
You already control the advancement speed. I'm not even joking. This is not a problem.
Problem 2: Many class abilities never get their time in the spotlight because they are placed too far out and are overshadowed by high level spells.
AGAIN. CITATION NEEDED. Show me a single ability where this is true.
Solution 2: Compress advancement for characters or move the abilities to a different level. For casters, whose only notable class features are their spells, some other abilities will have to be granted. Working in Pathfinder helps cut down on the mental work of coming up with meaningless bullshit.
Pathfinder is stupid in the first place. And nobody is stopping you from writing classes that don't suck. You can go write classes on the In My Own Invention board and we will be glad to help you balance them.
Problem 3: The E6 game, in my personal opinion, misses the real fun parts of the High Fantasy game. The life of a level 1 character is cheap.
The life of a level 2 character is cheap. The life of a level 3 character is cheap. This is because level 3 and less characters are basically normal people you could represent from the real world. Yes, you and I would get eaten by demons. This is a good feature for telling stories. It means that when you want to kill off the entire town, the rules let you do that (Dance of Ruin, Blasphemy, circle of death, shit even fireballs will kill off hordes of mooks).
If you want to run a High Fantasy game, just start at level 7. You can just do that.
Solution 3: Allow the game to progress past level 6. Start the game after level 1.
The only one who controls what level the game starts and ends at is the DM (for starting) and the players (for how long everyone keeps playing together). The rules are not stopping you from starting your game at level 4 and saying "you level when I say you level"
No one is stopping you. I promise.
Problem 4: The game falls apart by level 15 at the latest and level 12 at the earliest. This can be laid at the feet of martial classes becoming wholly unable to interact meaningfully with the game space and sixth level and higher spells fundamentally altering the game space beyond the comprehension of players.
No, the game falls apart at level 1 at the earliest. If a player really wants to explode the game, he can do Pun Pun at level 1. The game continues because the players and DM work together to craft a story that they want to tell. This means that if they want to keep playing into high levels, the players either agree not to Polymorph Any Object crazyness or the DM says go for it and just throws hordes of Balors at them to challenge their cheese.
The game gets harder to run at high levels, but high levels are where you can tell stories beyond "go into that dungeon and fight that guy."
If you suck at telling stories/communicating/having nonshitty relationships with your players and need to play a simpler game... you can play the game at level 7.
There is nothing stopping you from saying "I like playing the game at these levels, and we are just not going to play at these other levels"
If you want to tell stories at that power level, you can. Because the system lets you do that. We are not stopping you. I promise.
Solution 4: Put the end-point of the game at the level it starts to break down. For purposes of this discussion, ECL 12. Throttle access to game space altering spells and allow rationed distribution of said spells to any and all players at the level it would be relevant.
D&D is not World of Warcraft. There is no Final Boss. It is an engine to tell cooperative stories. You start and end those stories at whatever you cooperatively agree would be fun for everyone.
D&D is not World of Warcraft. There is no "end"
The only reason Tome classes have capstone abilities is as a joke. It's one big joke because the only time level 20 characters get played is during internet fighter vs wizard masturbation contests.
Problem 5: Even with checks on the high end, by level 6 non-casters become increasingly more irrelevant. The abilities that render them irrelevant have been documented and are relatively flavor-agnostic for a fantasy world.
You are dumb. A level six DPS fighter is basically a walking save or die. All the time. The only things that invalidate fightan mans are when all the opposition has teleport spam/super flight speeds/etc to keep him out of stabbin range forever. That really does not happen for a long time. A stabbin man can keep stabbin for a long time. Now, there are spotlight hogging abilities that mages have that fightan mans don't. The easy solution to that is to just give the fightan man some spotlight hogging abilities.
Solution 5: Provide non-casters with abilities that allow them to use the abilities that relevant characters use or have the ability to counteract the abilities that relevant characters use.
Most of the Tome classes do this by default. You should look into them.
For example: the ability to affect incorporeal monsters would come online at ECL 3. The ability to become invisible and catch the invisible would come online at ECL 3 as well. The ability to fly in combat or negate flight in combat would come online at or around ECL 5. The ability to scry and detect scrying would come online at or around ECL 7. Teleportation and unmolested fast overworld travel on the Prime would come online at or around ECL 9. Planar travel and True Seeing effects would come online at ECL 9 or 10.
You are dumb. There is no reason to ever play a caster person ever under your system because you took away all their toys and gave them to fightan mans. Why not just make one class and give everyone every ability on it.
Problem 6: BAB is an unnecessary complication to attack math and multiclassing for something that nominally increases by level.
It is not that fucking hard. +1, +3/4. +1/2. And anyone that actually gives a fuck about BAB has full BAB anyways (maybe rogues being the exception, but I think the flasked avenger has enough attacks).
Solution 6: Make BAB a constant among all characters.
OK, so why don't you just write one class called HERO and have everyone play that. You get full BAB, all the utility spells, and all the story abilities from both Fightan Mans and Caster mans. Because that's what your fucking "solution" is right now. Take away everything you don't like from Caster Mans and give anything that remains to Fightan Mans, but without the spellcasting accounting/ASF/being a spellcaster.
Problem 7, which comes from Solution 6: Standardizing BAB robs certain martial characters of their only meaningful shtick.
You have never played a gish before. Having half BAB on your character sheet means nothing when you throw down divine power and draconic polymorph. No one cares about BAB. Seriously.
Solution 7: Reintroduce multiple attacks as a function of character class instead of BAB.
No one cares about BAB.
Problem 8: The multiple forms of casting advancement tables are unnecessary and unsatisfying.
Maybe to you, but to me having your big nuke spell DCs keep pace with monster saves is important. DCs for spells are 10 (this is the variance on the dice basically) + 1/2 level (the same scaling for a good save) + stat (they defend with a stat)
Solution 8: Standardize the advancement tables for casting.
Not a real problem.
Problem 9, which comes from Solution 8: Pure casters now have their main defining point cheapened.
Obviously.
Solution 9 *tentative*: Either allow pure spellcasters more spells per day, give them a superior form of casting as opposed to other casters (ex: pure casters prepare like Clerics, mixed characters have limited choices like Sorcerers) or give them class abilities to make up for the lost in mechanical niche.
HERO.
Problem 10, which stems from Solution 4: High-level creatures have abilities that would completely shut down players if the ECL is capped at a certain point (Word spells).
Solution 10-A: Merely disallow those creatures from being used.
Or just stop being retarded and don't play a high level game if you don't like the way high level games work. Blasphemy still gets beaten by silence.
Solution 10-B: Allow level-related metrics (HD, saves, BAB, CL) to advance at double speed for player characters.
My original complaint about fucking with the scaling for no reason.
TLDR: You are dumb. Your complaints are dumb. There is not "problem" that cannot be solved by just deciding to play the game as is at the levels you actually like it. There is no problem being fixed here.
