enjoying a game dispite it's flaws?

[Koumei]

If a hole in the bridge can't be seen, it's probably too small to step in, which sort of does help Prak's theory here, in a way:

Some problems aren't as bad as the whole Wish thing, or Rogues with Epic Spellcasting, or whatever. Those ones, if ignored, aren't likely to cause any real problems. It's only when the problems are as big as the ones mentioned above (generally, the ones covered in the Tomes (along with those mentioned in teasers for future Tomes), which makes sense) that you can't ignore them. Those are the ones that, if ignored, will eventually be noticed by *someone* and cause everything to crash to the ground.

And yes, if *no-one* in a given game realises what can happen with those problems, then for that game and that group, there isn't a problem. But that doesn't mean it isn't there for others.

[Crissa]

And yet this happened... http://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/upl ... 788270.jpg

[Cielingcat]

The Rogues getting Epic feats and efreet binding stuff isn't the stuff that makes D&D unplayable. The problem is that a full 6 out of 11 base classes require fucking artifact swords with arbitrary powers to even play 75% of the goddamn game, and a 7th requires you to know the ins and the outs of the whole ruleset. The problem is that you need a goddamn gentlemen's agreement not to break the game with things like Wish or even the item pricing in the PHB to make it anything more than "I win, roll new characters."

The problem is that the rules don't work on any level.

[Username17]

you're not getting what I'm saying...

Actually, I do get what you are saying. What you are saying is wrong.

I'm saying you can safely turn a blind eye to game flaws because if you don't see the flawed rule, you can't use it and thus it can't become a problem.

And this is not true. You'll use rules whether you know that they are broken or not. Nine times out of ten a named power-loop is actually just a formalized proof that a particular rule is broken when used normally. Sure there's crap like Pun-Pun which is not interesting because it requires helpful DM fiat and has no bearing on the rest of the game at all; but the vast majority of these things expose much more prominent problems that will actually come up again and again in normal play whether you "notice them" or not.

Consider:

Chain Binding allows a 9th level Wizard to get up in the morning and have a pile of wishes before he goes to bed. That's alarming, but the reason it's possible is because lesser planar binding and friends have a tangential relationship at best to creature power in the limits for what you can conjure. Picking monsters at random or because "they are cool" will lead to many instances of bound monsters that suck ass and waste our time, but it will also pull out a substantial number of monsters that individually exceed the powers and abilities of one or more of the party members. And while you can just pretend that didnt happen, the fact is that it did. The Wizard player used binding in perfectly good faith without thinking about it and the Fighter is no longer a contributing character. Maybe the Cleric and the Rogue too.

Balor Mining is a method to get infinite wealth out of shapechange. But the reason it's possible is because shapechange allows you to reset your creature type every round which lays bare the fact that the creatures in the Monsster Manual don't have a consistent ability use limitation rubric. Just normally using shapechange allows you to vary yourself from one creature to another, using each critter's signature alphastrike in turn. It doesn't have to be Zodar wishes or Phoenix explosions (thouh of course, it can be), just using a limited use breath weapon every turn gives you more AoE save-or-dies than anything else in the game. Just picking your monsters by how cool they sound and keeping the ones which seem to work out for the next battle will rapidly cause you to evolve into a Wizard or Druid who simply does not need the other players to be at the table.

The Free Vacation Is a method to get arbitrary XP and defeat major enemies without rolling dice or taking risks. That's ridiculous, but it actuallly centers around the fact that the explicit guidelines for what you can and cannot pull out with gate have nothing whatever to do with what would be helpful in your situation let alone what wouldn't break the game. Fuck, it provides very low limits when you pull in a couple of monsters (with a gate you can get like 4 Dretches!) - and the limits are very high when you pull out a single whup-ass monster (only the Tarrasque is off limits out of the basic monster manual). That's exactly the opposite of anything that makes any sense based upon the relative power of small groups of weak monsters vs. individual top-end monsters. Again, just flipping through the book and gating in stuff at random will quickly leave you ambivalent to the presence of other players at the table for purposes of quest completing.

-Username17

[Koumei]

Wait, what's the Free Vacation?

Also, I have to agree with CeilingCat on the biggest problem. I don't consider "I'm a Wizard, I can cast Win the Game on a regular basis" to be the biggest problem. I consider "I'm one of half a dozen classes who has the feature Suck for all Eternity" to be the biggest problem.

[Voss]

But if you didn't have the 'Win the Game' classes, the other classes would (largely) be fine. Well, apart from the inherent problems of the CR system, but thats a different bag o' crap.

Warmage, Shugenja, Rogue, Barbarian has far fewer problems than
Wizard, Druid, Rogue, Barbarian.

The warmage is essentially playing (beyond a couple save or lose spells) the same game as the rogue or Barbarian- buckets o' damage.
And the Shugenja doesn't have multiple class features (and spells) that replace the Barbarian outright along side his full casting capability.

[Neeek]

1190222328[/unixtime]]But if you didn't have the 'Win the Game' classes, the other classes would (largely) be fine. Well, apart from the inherent problems of the CR system, but thats a different bag o' crap.

Unfortunately, you cannot really divorce the two problems: The weaker classes are a problem because they are weaker than the monsters of their CR, not because they are weaker than the other classes.

[Manxome]

It is to some extent true that any particular flaw in a game won't be a problem for a given gaming group if they just don't care about its effects. But game balance tends to affect things like whether your character survives and the extent to which you get to impact the game's story, which almost everyone cares about if they're playing the game in the first place.

And while the effects of many problems are more contained if no one is specifically trying to abuse them, it seems like what you're actually asking for is for no player to do anything until they've fully considered the ramifications of that action and concluded that it's not broken--which is paying attention to the balance problems, it's merely doing it on a just-in-time basis rather than an all-in-advance basis, and the wisdom of that is highly suspect.

Telling people not to drag the broken monsters out into the daylight cannot conceivably work unless players already know which monsters are broken and which are not, or unless you eliminate all monsters from the game (and taking that strategy in general is the same as not playing). The candle of invocation might not be a problem if you don't know it exists, but that's like saying that nothing in the game is a problem if you don't know that the game exists. You're playing the game; anything printed in the rulebook is in the game by default, so any problem there is threatening your game until you specifically fix it. You can get lucky and happen not to run into it, but there is no sense in which that approach is "safe."

[Voss]

1190223155[/unixtime]]

1190222328[/unixtime]]But if you didn't have the 'Win the Game' classes, the other classes would (largely) be fine. Well, apart from the inherent problems of the CR system, but thats a different bag o' crap.

Unfortunately, you cannot really divorce the two problems: The weaker classes are a problem because they are weaker than the monsters of their CR, not because they are weaker than the other classes.

Well... they're weaker than some monsters of their CR. Some monsters are just rated wrong. Some are just bad match ups for a particular party (and/or players). And, of course, it depends on how a player builds his character. A rogue with no UMD capacity is going to suck donkey balls against undead, constructs and elementals all day, all the time. Spell selection can play in, too.

Really though, CR isn't the big issue when it comes to weak classes vs. strong classes. It needs to be tweaked, and it should, ideally, take the party into account, but player ingenuity and the power skew toward the players works in their favor more often than not. The fact that a Druid can stand in for 2 warrior-types and a full spellcaster, based on class features and core feats alone... now that is a problem. The same is true to a lesser extent with a cleric or wizard. It doesn't matter that a rogue sucks ass against enemies that can't be sneak attacked, when the cleric and wizard have class abilities or spells that just make them go away. But then it becomes the game for the player of the druid/cleric/wizard, and not everyone else.

[Crissa]

And Voss, those are gigantic holes in the bridge that someone can drive into blindly, and then the game comes to a complete halt.

-Crissa

[Neeek]

1190226958[/unixtime]]
Well... they're weaker than some monsters of their CR. Some monsters are just rated wrong. Some are just bad match ups for a particular party (and/or players). And, of course, it depends on how a player builds his character. A rogue with no UMD capacity is going to suck donkey balls against undead, constructs and elementals all day, all the time. Spell selection can play in, too.

If they were just weaker than some monsters of their CR, and stronger than others, that would be fine. The problem is that some classes are just unable to contribute against most monsters of their CR in a useful way. Like Monks at most levels and nearly all non-casters at high levels.

The fact that a Druid can stand in for 2 warrior-types and a full spellcaster, based on class features and core feats alone... now that is a problem. The same is true to a lesser extent with a cleric or wizard. It doesn't matter that a rogue sucks ass against enemies that can't be sneak attacked, when the cleric and wizard have class abilities or spells that just make them go away. But then it becomes the game for the player of the druid/cleric/wizard, and not everyone else.

This is actually a result of the classes being far more powerful than the monsters of their CR. Well, except for the Druid, who has severe issues, such as no weaknesses, absorbs other classes' roles completely, and uses completely insane rule set as a basic class feature. The cleric and the wizard need restructuring of their spells, and what level they get those spells at, but otherwise aren't a huge problem. Bring them down to an appropriate power level would solve their problems fairly quickly. This is a lot of work, but doesn't require a fundamental change in the class. The druid, on the other hand, needs a complete overhaul, including a rewrite on wildshape and the introduction of a glaring weakness of some kind.

[the_taken]

The Druid seams to me as a megazord of several ideas combined.

A nature loving priest, which should just be a cleric with a radical spell list.

A shape shifting warrior, who's closest approximation is a psychic warrior.

Also, the animal companion should just be an option of the Leadership feat. "You have a big cat with huge teeth as a cohort."

You don't need a retarded weakness (see paladins) to make up for super powers. (I know paladins are a bad example.)

[JonSetanta]

Rather than Prak is outright WRONG I'll state that he hasn't come to the same opinion as most of us, which may or may not change given time and information.
True the facts are there that game imbalances can be ignored but it's like a small town taking LSD all at once to become oblivious to a war going around them; oh it'll still be there, but they see it in a changed perspective, and at the cost of rendering themselves ineffective for daily functioning. They seperate into their own microcosms on personal opinion and cease to work as a group.
OK it's a weird example, but that's how I see mass conflict on interpretation with any group that depends on sharing perception and execution of shared rules/expectations.

With any RPG group, ignoring game flaws is like taking hallucinogens; you've essentially blinded yourself to the shared reality that everyone else has within your group. When everyone involved ignores the same thing, it will still have an effect on you, but your perception of it will change.
... Like being hit by a car while thinking it to be a large animal; you were still injured, but you'll never really know what caused it.

I find it's best to open myself to many possibilities, then close the ones that don't work for me. I was open to Frank n K material when I first learned of it, and only recently have I begun to find my own qualms with it, but even then.. there's very few problems to be had, while traditional d20 still 'gets my goat'.

But then there's my theory that a person's opinion can't be changed unless they are inclined to change, in which case they will on their own with enough time.
Prak might see things differently later but for now it's no use throwing facts at him, regardless of how fascinating/mindfucking Frank's argument tends to be.

[PhoneLobster]

regardless of how fascinating/mindfucking Frank's argument tends to be.

Mindfucking?

He isn't presenting Sir Hugo Rune's mathematical disproof of the 40 hour working week here.

He is doing what he so often does, clearly and concisely stating the blindingly obvious.

Mind you I think he may as well have just written a bullshit esoteric camel metaphor because someone pulling the "If I close my eyes you can't see me" argument just isn't ready to face actual facts.

[the_taken]

1190251689[/unixtime]]Mind you I think he may as well have just written a bullshit esoteric camel metaphor because someone pulling the "If I close my eyes you can't see me" argument just isn't ready to face actual facts.

Ahh, but how entertaining it is to watch. Especially when the reaction is "Yeah. He's definitely a top notch secret agent."

[Prak]

1190212081[/unixtime]]

you're not getting what I'm saying...

Actually, I do get what you are saying. What you are saying is wrong.

I'm saying you can safely turn a blind eye to game flaws because if you don't see the flawed rule, you can't use it and thus it can't become a problem.

And this is not true. You'll use rules whether you know that they are broken or not. Nine times out of ten a named power-loop is actually just a formalized proof that a particular rule is broken when used normally. Sure there's crap like Pun-Pun which is not interesting because it requires helpful DM fiat and has no bearing on the rest of the game at all; but the vast majority of these things expose much more prominent problems that will actually come up again and again in normal play whether you "notice them" or not.

except broken things happen, usually, when people know about them, it's hard to abuse gate when you don't know what it's capable of...

Consider:

Chain Binding allows a 9th level Wizard to get up in the morning and have a pile of wishes before he goes to bed. That's alarming, but the reason it's possible is because lesser planar binding and friends have a tangential relationship at best to creature power in the limits for what you can conjure. Picking monsters at random or because "they are cool" will lead to many instances of bound monsters that suck ass and waste our time, but it will also pull out a substantial number of monsters that individually exceed the powers and abilities of one or more of the party members. And while you can just pretend that didnt happen, the fact is that it did. The Wizard player used binding in perfectly good faith without thinking about it and the Fighter is no longer a contributing character. Maybe the Cleric and the Rogue too.

Balor Mining is a method to get infinite wealth out of shapechange. But the reason it's possible is because shapechange allows you to reset your creature type every round which lays bare the fact that the creatures in the Monsster Manual don't have a consistent ability use limitation rubric. Just normally using shapechange allows you to vary yourself from one creature to another, using each critter's signature alphastrike in turn. It doesn't have to be Zodar wishes or Phoenix explosions (thouh of course, it can be), just using a limited use breath weapon every turn gives you more AoE save-or-dies than anything else in the game. Just picking your monsters by how cool they sound and keeping the ones which seem to work out for the next battle will rapidly cause you to evolve into a Wizard or Druid who simply does not need the other players to be at the table.

The Free Vacation Is a method to get arbitrary XP and defeat major enemies without rolling dice or taking risks. That's ridiculous, but it actuallly centers around the fact that the explicit guidelines for what you can and cannot pull out with gate have nothing whatever to do with what would be helpful in your situation let alone what wouldn't break the game. Fuck, it provides very low limits when you pull in a couple of monsters (with a gate you can get like 4 Dretches!) - and the limits are very high when you pull out a single whup-ass monster (only the Tarrasque is off limits out of the basic monster manual). That's exactly the opposite of anything that makes any sense based upon the relative power of small groups of weak monsters vs. individual top-end monsters. Again, just flipping through the book and gating in stuff at random will quickly leave you ambivalent to the presence of other players at the table for purposes of quest completing.

-Username17

Consider:
That there are likely many people out there that never knew about these possibilities until someone like you mentioned them.

You can get lucky and happen not to run into it, but there is no sense in which that approach is "safe."

sure there is, it's called dumb luck.

look, there seem to be a number of shots being taken at me, but my point is, if your group couldn't care less about what broken things they can do with wish, and would really just like to deal in big flashy damage spells like fireball and heightened fireball and that shit, then the fucked up stuff you can do with wish doesn't matter for that group, now does it? I'm not saying there aren't flaws, I'm saying that sometimes the flaws don't fucking matter.

[RandomCasualty]

1190267551[/unixtime]]
except broken things happen, usually, when people know about them, it's hard to abuse gate when you don't know what it's capable of...

Clearly, the best solution is to never open the PHB.

[Voss]

1190238631[/unixtime]]And Voss, those are gigantic holes in the bridge that someone can drive into blindly, and then the game comes to a complete halt.

-Crissa

Why tell me? I'm well aware of the flaws. Koumei's the one with the small hole fetish.

@Prak, you're being way oversensitive. People could be be flaying the metaphorical flesh from your bones over some of the sillier crap you're posting, rather than just taking shots at the poor ideas your posting.

You're dismissing the extreme examples, but that isn't really the point. You're also overlooking the simple stuff thats just broken. Like the fact that a 9th cleric, just in PHB, can be reasonably expected (through a grand total of 3 spells- divine favor, divine power and righteous might) to be at +9 to hit and +10 to damage over a 9th level fighter, barbarian, ranger or paladin (and the monk is frankly somewhere else, showing off his mad sprinting skillz), plus have some natural armor and damage reduction on top. Thats crazy messed up, even for one fight per day (Which it doesn't have to be). Throw in the Complete Arcane and Divine, and he can be in the state all damn day.

That doesn't even get into really esoteric crap. Its basic stuff, that gets highlighted by the obvious combination of the War & Strength Domains. (Though admittedly the two don't combine with the core gods, they do in Eberron and FR, and its the obvious two domains a beatstick (Kord) cleric is at least going to look at).

Same with the Druid. A fvcking bear form plus the second level buffs (strength, endurance, natural armor) + greater magic fang puts the damn hippie on a different level.

So, the reason your getting flack is that your argument that the broken stuff is somehow hidden and hard to find is complete and utter crap. Its in the damn core classes and the core spells. Shit like the artificer is an advanced lesson for another day.

[Neeek]

1190267551[/unixtime]]
look, there seem to be a number of shots being taken at me,

I would like you to know that not only are we not taking shots at you, we are restraining ourselves to a degree that strikes me as shocking in order to be polite to you. Your basic premise is just plain stupid. You are advocating taking the Ravenous Bug-blatter Beast Of Trall approach to things. That no one has engaged in a series of personal attacks upon you is really freaking surprising.

but my point is, if your group couldn't care less about what broken things they can do with wish, and would really just like to deal in big flashy damage spells like fireball and heightened fireball and that shit, then the fucked up stuff you can do with wish doesn't matter for that group, now does it? I'm not saying there aren't flaws, I'm saying that sometimes the flaws don't fucking matter.

Yeah. We understand your argument. It's just bad. Believe it or not, we aren't idiots, and we've all actually considered that position before. It doesn't work.

You miss the entire point of what Frank was saying: It's not the stuff you do on purpose that causes problems, it's the stuff you don't even see coming. In the case of DnD that includes such basic stuff as "Playing a Druid and not being a tactical moron". Or even more fun: Taking Greenbound Summoning. There's a game that's just plain over by using the most obvious tactics suggested by the feat.

Game balance is valued here because ignoring it causes games to fall apart. And maybe I'm alone here, but I really would like a better product than I could do myself if I'm paying for it.

[Manxome]

1190267551[/unixtime]]

You can get lucky and happen not to run into it, but there is no sense in which that approach is "safe."

sure there is, it's called dumb luck.

Unless the definition of "safe" has changed recently without my knowledge, it implies a reliable protection, not merely the theoretical possibility that you might not get hurt.

1190267551[/unixtime]]my point is, if your group couldn't care less about what broken things they can do with wish, and would really just like to deal in big flashy damage spells like fireball and heightened fireball and that shit, then the fucked up stuff you can do with wish doesn't matter for that group, now does it? I'm not saying there aren't flaws, I'm saying that sometimes the flaws don't fucking matter.

That's actually entirely different from what you've been saying up until this point.

You have been saying that if you don't go looking for flaws, they won't bite you. That's complete BS, for a number of reasons already mentioned.

What this paragraph appears to be saying is that the flaws won't bite you if you don't use the flawed parts. That is correct, BUT the only way you can reasonably expect to avoid using them is if you specifically search them out and fix or ban them, an approach which is exactly the opposite of what you have been advocating.

[ckafrica]

In Prak's defense, it's amazing how many people aren't playing that way despite how blatantly obvious it can be. The guys I'm playing with are mainly throwing fireballs around and stabbing people rather than save or sucking/dieing. even at 18th level, and our fighters have been keeping up; in part because all the mages does is throw fireballs and in part because our kit has been madly over recommended since 10th. It is only my cleric who has started to do what you guys talk about and mostly just so I can swing my spear around and be the fighter I prefer to be until some starts moaning that I should heal them.

No this is undoubtably in part because the DM is not being as ruthless with the monster as he could but he also doesn't really want to be killing us off left right and center. Without trying we largely avoid most of the damage; whether intentionally or accidently its just not been a real issue. Now we break rules and house rule who we think they should work all the time which really means we aren't really playing dnd after but it has provided a continuous campaign that most happy (I've been the least content but mostly because I'm dealing with spell lists for the first time since 2nd ed. and they make my head hurt.)

And that is probably who most people play so damaged or not it is playable just we have played all the other broken games.

Sure it would be nice if we had a game that actually worked and I applaud the efforts of everyone here to contribute to that goal (I've been tinkering myself for years but I'm sure none of it would make the grade here) but we seem to have a good time with the broken ones as is.

[tzor]

OK, let me see if I can restate the “ignorance is bliss” argument. There are a number of ways in which things are broken, but if you don’t deliberately seek them out then you might never find them. Whole campaigns where no one has heard of the wish economy or problems with summoning or even when they were in force the old shape change cheese. A lot of breakage requires active parts on the players and DM.

Then when the occasional broken thing does happen, most of the time it is easy to slap a patch over the problem and agree not to do that again in the future. It’s like in basic math. Everyone knows that basic math is broken. People just all agree that you just don’t divide by zero and the problem is solved. Except sometimes you do it by accident and your program gets an error. But that doesn’t stop computers from doing basic math.

[Manxome]

That example seems to be saying the opposite of the rest of your post. Educators make a major point of stressing that you can't divide by zero to make sure everyone knows about it, and people who do a lot of math sometimes go to extraordinary lengths to make absolutely sure they don't accidentally divide by zero. I know I've written a lot of "if x != 0" guards in my programs. That's an example of searching out and attacking the problem as aggressively as you possibly can, not turning a blind eye to it and crossing your fingers.

[Sma]

Hi !

I resent you all for forcing information down my throat!!! Now I have to use broken combo's all the time!!!!

Have a good day.



Seriously, noone is stopping you from playing power attacking TWF monks. The only thing that's changed is that you know you wont be doing lots of damage ahead of time, instead of only finding out 3 sessions into the game.

Sma

[Voss]

I am stopping myself from playing a monk, PA + TWF or not.
I don't want to suck.