The Gaming Den

. http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... l/20131118 .

A Matter of Priorities
Mike Mearls

Classes > races > spells > backgrounds > feats

seems like a good foundation....

a rogue who takes stealth options within the class shouldn’t be overshadowed by the invisibility spell. A class trumps a spell.

seriously? still playing off the immature players that try to build wizards to outclass the rogue?

and really? magic can bring into being things that never before existed, and a human can hide better than pure magical invisibility? no. he may not have to worry about sound, because stealth is not the same as invisibility. only one sense is covered by invisibility and that is sight. STEALTH shouldn't even be mentioned in comparison because it involves 5 senses. an invisible pile of camel crap will still smell like camel crap.

you still really don't understand the concepts you are discussing or you would fucking know that these cannot be compared by anyone with common sense, or the 5 common senses...

what you are saying is that you think the invisibility spell should give less chance of going unseen, than a rogues stealth ability or feature. no! stealth just has ways built into it that also prevent detection via the other 4 senses as well. the smell, the taste on the air (smell basically), and sounds.

both hit a wall with the sense of touch, because then stealth and invisibility are pretty much broken. blind people can tell things are there even though everything to them is invisible, so no longer being able to see the statue, doesnt mean people wont run into it and from then on know it is there. the rogue gains the ability that if unseen and unheard, that someone touching them, they can move to not be in the same location.

don't fuck up anymore. just quit. also invisibility doesnt remove other qualities of things like say heat. an invisible creature could be seen via heat with infravision, or whatever it is called now. stealth would be something learned that a character using it would know more about.

stop comparing apples to oranges and think yourself prophetic!
i didnt even get into your lust for Legolas and the ranger shit because this trumps it in the article for the point your priority design is most likely to be fucked up!

while i am thinking about it, you even fucked up the priorities. i am sure that everyone even here on the Den would agree that feats should have a higher priority than backgrounds, and i don't even like the fucking concept of feats. but a background is where you came form and should STAY in the background. it has nothing to do with where you are going in mechanics terms. it is and should be ideas. the concept of backgrounds to give mechanics is a failure to begin with. stop misunderstanding the Secondary Skills from 2nd edition as they relate to the NWPs, and realize what their purpose was/is.

and a side side note.. spells are a part of and function of classes, so having them on the list at all, sort of fucks up the concept entirely. but this goes with your lust for rangers and is part of your problem.

still Mearls has never explained, other than player want it, why THE GAME needs a thief class in what everyone calls "murder hobos" since everyone is just a thief. but this touches on that non-combat thread already here and that a thief is nothing but a fighter with less fighting ability and nobody else gets to do his special wanking because some people want a special snowflake class that doesnt even make since to have in the game. EVERYONE IS A GODDAMN THIEF IN D&D! even the paladins share in treasure taken as do the poor folk he gives his wealth to as tithe or whatever.

Man, people don't build wizards with invisibility so they can explicitly shit on fellow players. They build wizards with invisibility because invisibility is a totally sweet ability both in theme and practice and they want it in their damn wizardly tool box irrespective of whether rogues can sneak or not. Fronting like people are wankers just for wanting an iconic illusion is bullshit.

invisibility doesnt remove other qualities of things like say heat. an invisible creature could be seen via heat with infravision

It's really weird, that the spell only removes visible spectre of light.

But to the point, what should be, is that rogues should have invisibility as a class feature, and it should be better than wizard's. Rogue should be able to camo himself like a Big Boss.

shadzar wrote: still Mearls has never explained, other than player want it, why THE GAME needs a thief class in what everyone calls "murder hobos" since everyone is just a thief.

Because he doesn't have to, at least not to most people. The grognards want rogues because rogues were always a class and they love their sacred cows. Most of the more open-minded people saw what they did with 4E and don't want to see any major changes. The 4E crowd really doesn't care much about stealth because every problem is solved on a battlemap for them or some skill challenge where you can use almost any skill.

When the primary focus of the edition is to "feel like D&D", innovation is out the window.

no, rogue were NOT always in the game, go back and read OD&D. you can purchase a copy for like $200 when WotC brings out the reprint version of it.

fighters, mages, and clerics was all there was. because items had the ability to be broken open when hit by a fighter or exploded by a wizard or cleric, or whatever.

the rogue came about during AD&D and when Holmes put it in, because they wanted something else. the lack of a working skill system in early D&D meant to have the (now known as) skill monkey, you had to have a class for it. doesn't D&D have some crappy skill system now? one of the good ideas, and probably the only one that i recall, from S&P was being able to build your own race/class from CPs. so with a skill system you don't need bad ideas like a skill monkey, if you give everyone skills to do those "out of combat" things. like i sai, this touches on the other thread very closely.

rogue is there for no reason once you have a skill system. fuckup #68894 by Gary was creating the rogue class.

Longes wrote:

invisibility doesnt remove other qualities of things like say heat. an invisible creature could be seen via heat with infravision

It's really weird, that the spell only removes visible spectre of light.

But to the point, what should be, is that rogues should have invisibility as a class feature, and it should be better than wizard's. Rogue should be able to camo himself like a Big Boss.

well not invisibility per say, but not having "move silently", "hide in shadows", etc that you have to mutate in some conflagration to get the desired effect is what a rogue would need, aside from the fact the game doesn't need them. invisibility spell is best for area affect not single targt, unless you are playing escort mission and don't have an item like the ONE RING to give to the damsel you are rescuing.

again in a decent evolution of the game, there would be no rogue or assassin as these concepts are not singular to a class, but ways to act for any of the classes.

a wizard couldn't be a rogue? couldnt be an assassin?

thus they may prioritize classes at the highest, but unlike gnomes being a PC race from the start, these classes serve no purpose.

evolve D&D into the 3 class system that allows for skills to augment to various other themes.

has there even been a thread here on that?

Longes wrote:

invisibility doesnt remove other qualities of things like say heat. an invisible creature could be seen via heat with infravision

It's really weird, that the spell only removes visible spectre of light.

But to the point, what should be, is that rogues should have invisibility as a class feature, and it should be better than wizard's. Rogue should be able to camo himself like a Big Boss.

What, couldn't find a way to reference Snake's Octo Camo which actually does conceal one from things like infrared.

darkmaster wrote:What, couldn't find a way to reference Snake's Octo Camo which actually does conceal one from things like infrared.

Octo cammo, shmocto camo. I want my camo with ducks on it!

Longes wrote:It's really weird, that the spell only removes visible spectre of light.

But to the point, what should be, is that rogues should have invisibility as a class feature, and it should be better than wizard's. Rogue should be able to camo himself like a Big Boss.

Invisibility is weird look at the 3.5 rules for example:

Light, however, never becomes invisible, although a source of light can become so (thus, the effect is that of a light with no visible source)p

I still don't understand why anyone thinks it is a good idea that nobody should be allowed to track unless they are a ranger or spent significant character resources.

because classes arent original ideas but stolen from somewhere, thus fighter was taken from Conan and such. wizard, we will say Gandalf, cleric...well it was a medieval game so derives from clergy...

someone wanted a character to emulate Aragorn and Legolas so the ranger class was born, and for some unknown reason, think it belongs in the game like the thief, when EVERYONE should be able to do it. was argument i had long ago regarding the commoners in D&D, that they have to be able to track wild game to eat, and commoners have no class. so everyone in theory should be able to do it. thus NWPs existed, but no skill system yet created for D&D has worked to compliment the class system. it always seems to try to trump it or outmode it. thus why i started the other thread about what is classes to get to the root of the problem. which things should a lass exist for (?) and what classes should just be part of a skill system to allow everyone to do it? (ranger, rogue, assassin, bard, etc?)

darkmaster wrote:What, couldn't find a way to reference Snake's Octo Camo which actually does conceal one from things like infrared.

so magic item + class feature > spell? that makes sense. but then you might have stacking issues later, thus i THINK their priority system is to remove the stacking and say the higher priority thing is the one to use, like AD&D saves.

i can see a reason for stacking bonuses, but i can also see conflicting magic etc. if i couldnt see that my SoD would break with Harry Potter where magic + mechanical doesn't mix, or in Lovecraft where magic + mechanical = greater power. both are plausible to me.

shadzar wrote:no, rogue were NOT always in the game, go back and read OD&D. you can purchase a copy for like $200 when WotC brings out the reprint version of it.

Most of the things shad says are crazy, but this is good for the quotebox.

More dead trees have been slaughtered to make room for peoples' stupid amateur physicist rantings about invisibility than is warranted by a huge amount. I mean, you had people ranting about how invisibility had to leave your eyes visible to let you see, people ranting about the effects of transparency on radiant heating and/or cooling, and all kinds of other shit. It's been stupid. Invisibility means people don't see you, that's really all it has to say. Everything else people add to that just makes it retarded.

-Username17

obviously, but how about Mearls lust for Legolas/rangers.. anything to say there?

shadzar wrote:no, rogue were NOT always in the game...
the rogue came about during AD&D and when Holmes put it in

Look, I get that you're old, and that neuroplasticity is a largely foregone fantasy, but you've been disabused of this notion recently enough that you should remember it, or should instead make a point of bowing out gracefully from conversations amongst people whom can form new memories.

Nebuchadnezzar wrote:God damn it.

The thief class was added in Supplement I: Greyhawk, in ~Feb 1975, printed at the same time as the 2nd printing of TSR 2002 (1974)(White Box, OD&D, whatever specific niggling term Shadzar is certain to correct subsequently). The book consisted of rules used in Gygax's home campaign, and a combat system so as to eliminate the need to own Chainmail.

Greyhawk page 5 wrote:Hobbits: Hobbits can be either fighters or thieves, and as thieves they have better chances at doing most things (see STATISTICS REGARDING CLASSES) and are not limited to how high in levels they can progress.

Note that hobbits had a fighter level limit of 4.

So Hobbits were meant as thieves, which was a role acknowledged in Gygax's home campaign, and when Shadzar says NEVER he actually means for a few months in 1974.

Thieves were literally the first thing added to the game. You can't pretend to be a 2e aficionado and simultaneously reject the first addition to OE. Go fuck yourself.

FrankTrollman wrote:More dead trees have been slaughtered to make room for peoples' stupid amateur physicist rantings

Oi! I take offense to that - I have a diploma!

But really, I wasn't talking about side-effects or anything. Just pointing out, that it's weird that invisibility spell only covers light spectre visible by humans, in the world where a lot of wizards (like drow) have natural infravision.

I'm still trying to figure out how it works where class features are supposed to be better than spells, but spellcasting is a class feature.

Nebuchadnezzar wrote:

shadzar wrote:no, rogue were NOT always in the game...
the rogue came about during AD&D and when Holmes put it in

The thief class was added in Supplement I: Greyhawk

Greyhawk page 5 wrote:Hobbits: Hobbits can be either fighters or thieves, and as thieves they have better chances at doing most things (see STATISTICS REGARDING CLASSES) and are not limited to how high in levels they can progress.

Thieves were literally the first thing added to the game. You can't pretend to be a 2e aficionado and simultaneously reject the first addition to OE. Go fuck yourself.

so you agree then they were not a always a part of the game.

i said rogues came about in AD&D and Holmes... the hobbit CLASS effectively was not what people consider rogues as of today.

assassin was a rogue class, so was thief.

where is assassin in OD&D?

maybe if you learn to read engrish then you will be able to comment on things other people say.

but since you dont speaka da engrish, you dont get shit anyone says.

added, does not mean, always contains.

the hobbit from SUPPLEMENT X was not core D&D.

you are trying to say Elmister was a part of the core of D&D always as well was Raistlin. sorry, you need to learn that supplements are jsut that, the same as WotC does.

FR and DL were product lines in the AD&D product line, but they are NOT AD&D itself.

Greyhawk and Blackmoor are NOT D&D, just the house rules the two creators made on their own for it as their constant world. D&D effectively is Middle Earth. (Nazgul, hobbits, Ents, etc)

you might as well be trying to say eBerron has always been in D&D since it too is an official published setting. sorry, but again you and WotC are both wrong.

yes sooner or later thives and rogue was added, but it didnt make it needed. how well does Greyhawk and Blackmoor play together? the Greyhawk supplement was the beginning of RPG bloat books.

Unearth Arcana many people consider core, but then many people consider that AD^D1.5 as it is NOT core to 1st since it changes things.

you might as well be saying 3.0 and 3.5 are identically compatible, or that 4th and 4E are likewise identically compatible. they are not, just as PO series and DM:HLC is NOT core 2nd edition, but 2.5.

the rogue/thief whatever is NOT needed.

i find it funny you note that it is Gygax's home campaign, yet hold it to be the end all be all. hobbit and thief didn't remove the need for chainmail.

hell just look at that thief "foils magical enclosures"

it is a nothing class, all because D&D didn't have a skill system because it was still a MINIATURE game, mostly a board game still at that time that required rulers on a table and a hex "map" for movement.

i am willing to bet that Gary typed up Greyhawk over a weekend and had someone print it to add when those initial 5000 copies od the white box set sold out to have more to sell by just sharing his stuff. well you can worship him until your hearts content, but Gary fucked up many things. the easiest is the 9 fiasco by having one set of alignments rather than 2 axis system.

still laughing that you even conflate "it was added" with "always being there". what about those players that still play with the 3 books and nevr use Greyhawk even? was it always there for them?

do you really not understand how the class itself is shit and excuse for a lack of some modular system to let people do things that werent in the original concept of fighting man, magic-user, and cleric?

hell the cleric and magic user had those things even, read the other books. then tell me why only thieves could listen to a door? why couldn't a magic-user "foil magical enclosures"?

its fucking stupid as the class always has been fucking stupid. they admit they fucked up, then put a band-aid on the grand canyon as a bridge.

hogarth wrote:I'm still trying to figure out how it works where class features are supposed to be better than spells, but spellcasting is a class feature.

i understand their attempt, but agree with you.

basically the example says it all.

a spell that makes someone hide should be bettr than a natural abiltiy to hide.

but this is stupid, because tracking is a class feature that lets you find things, so obviously scrying must be weaker, thought it can only ever be stronger even though it is a spell.

like i said it is trying to make sure a wizard cant outclass another class. people DO bitch about this still apparently.

so using older D&D, if a class has "use magic scroll" then that scroll would be stronger than the same spell cast by a wizard?

it is a failure of Mearls & Co.. want to add it to the list?

in a nutshell it all boils down to people bitching about a wizard being able to do things better than mundane class features, because magic > everything.

but, some people want magic to actually have power.

Longes wrote: But really, I wasn't talking about side-effects or anything. Just pointing out, that it's weird that invisibility spell only covers light spectre visible by humans, in the world where a lot of wizards (like drow) have natural infravision.

A memorable part of RA Salvatore's writing was how he described the way Drow did things with their infra vision. There's a part where a group of warriors are infiltrating an enemy house, their wizard casts a spell that causes their skin to drop to the same temperature as their surrounding environment. They felt the cold, but it meant they did not show up in infra vision.

In another raid, the warriors had patches of heated metal and leather on their armor to break up their body's outline.


Since 3e came out, RA Salvatore never mentioned infra vision anymore.

shadzar wrote:someone wanted a character to emulate Aragorn and Legolas so the ranger class was born, and for some unknown reason, think it belongs in the game like the thief, when EVERYONE should be able to do it. was argument i had long ago regarding the commoners in D&D, that they have to be able to track wild game to eat, and commoners have no class. so everyone in theory should be able to do it.

I imagine that if I were relying on your ability to track a wild animal in order to eat, I would be starving.

Everyone might be able to attempt something, but not everyone should be equally good at it.

I understand your issues with Thief Skills (sometimes the Thief bonus is LESS than an untrained bonus, so some people retconned that only Thieves could even ATTEMPT something). But on the other hand, I think having different abilities and/or different chances of success enhances the game.

Having some people [really] good at tracking is actually a good thing.

deaddmwalking wrote:

shadzar wrote:someone wanted a character to emulate Aragorn and Legolas so the ranger class was born, and for some unknown reason, think it belongs in the game like the thief, when EVERYONE should be able to do it. was argument i had long ago regarding the commoners in D&D, that they have to be able to track wild game to eat, and commoners have no class. so everyone in theory should be able to do it.

I imagine that if I were relying on your ability to track a wild animal in order to eat, I would be starving.

Everyone might be able to attempt something, but not everyone should be equally good at it.

I understand your issues with Thief Skills (sometimes the Thief bonus is LESS than an untrained bonus, so some people retconned that only Thieves could even ATTEMPT something). But on the other hand, I think having different abilities and/or different chances of success enhances the game.

Having some people [really] good at tracking is actually a good thing.

since it is you, i would have you plenty of scavenged material for such a vulture to chow on.

why does having a system require everyone to be equally good at it? you are putting shit out of your ass again. your anus is not a toy, stop sticking your hands in it and playing with it.

i said you don't need a class for "tracking". it is in no way a theme for a PC. that is what an NPC would do, and ALWAYS do better than a PC, since a PC must be good at a myriad of thing, while the local tracker only has to track things locally.

the different chances of things really helps the game in what way? like i just said a tracker that is only good at tracking will be the best. that is the duty of NPCs, not PCs. PCs are adventurers, they need rudimentary skills for many things, not be pigeonholed into only one task (see cleric = walking med-kit)

you act like the system exists to allow for what i am talking about, but obviously havent read where i said it has never existed. maybe that is what 3.x did was give this same chances stuff, or maybe 4th; whichever you lust after and think nothing came before it... but this isnt what i am talking about.

so you dont screw up again i will make it dirt simple. in 40 years D&D has NEVER had a decent skill system. Profession(basket-weaver) being possible means your adventure RPG skill system has failed.

shadzar wrote: why does having a system require everyone to be equally good at it? you are putting shit out of your ass again. your anus is not a toy, stop sticking your hands in it and playing with it.

Having a system doesn't require that everyone be equally good. Quite the opposite. If you have a system, you can determine who is good at a particular task and who is not so good.

You have not proposed any system, but loudly decry those that do exist.

So, perhaps this is the part where you explain how Commoners should be able to track, but not well, and Rangers are able to track extremely well. Because if you have a skill system, it's very easy. If you don't have a system, it's very hard.

well then stop assuming the system i am talking about (which i have said has never existed) meant everyone was somehow equal, when i just said the local NPC tracker would be better than any PC for his area.

1. having a hard-on for Legolas does not mean a ranger class should exist.

2. the local TRACKER NPC, would know the indigenous creature in his area, better than a foreigner.

3. the commoner would know how to track normal wild game to sustain themselves. (PCs would have this level of skill unless further trained)

4. a trained PC with some kind of tracking skill, would know how to track thing he would need to know about for adventuring that goes beyond food or clothing needs, like dragons, skeletons, what the fuck ever.

4 doesnt cancel out 2 because the PCs will never know the location they travel to better than the locals. they may come close, and may learn from each other, but it still means that an NPC will always be better in their own backyard. remove that NPC form his backyard and the PC trumps him in skill.

this is what needs to be designed. as with fire-building everyone should damn well know how to make one, unless they are living in the time before Prometheus, and i don't see Neanderthal as a very good race choice for D&D, nor a good setting choice either. only total asshat DMs would require firebuilding or tracking to be able to sustain yourself, when it was skill required to survive in the times.

even a wizard has to know how to make a fire to make potions or other concoctions, and track things in order to find spell ingredients, so i will stop you before you even try to mention otherwise.

modern game, sure make fire-building hard since all the Paris Hilton's roaming around a post-apoc world (such as todays) would barely even know how to wipe their own asses.

shadzar wrote:well then stop assuming the system i am talking about (which i have said has never existed) meant everyone was somehow equal, when i just said the local NPC tracker would be better than any PC for his area.

1. having a hard-on for Legolas does not mean a ranger class should exist.

2. the local TRACKER NPC, would know the indigenous creature in his area, better than a foreigner.

3. the commoner would know how to track normal wild game to sustain themselves. (PCs would have this level of skill unless further trained)

4. a trained PC with some kind of tracking skill, would know how to track thing he would need to know about for adventuring that goes beyond food or clothing needs, like dragons, skeletons, what the fuck ever.

That's not a system.

Imagine, for a moment, that the PCs (who are skilled with woodcraft) are fleeing town, and are pursued by the local town tracker. For the purposes of this thought experiment, they're helping the duke's daughter escape from her upcoming arranged marriage to elope with her true love. The PCs are trying to make themselves difficult to track, and the local law enforcement are trying to track them.

Who wins?

Without a system, it's up to DM fiat. I prefer a system.

Uh, right. So Mearls is picking winners, fine.

classes > races > spells > backgrounds > feats

He's called it priority and then gone off on a weird tangent into a land where every spell must always be worse than every class feature in every case, and every race bonus too, and then feats have to be worse than everything else in the game.

That's Elves get +2 to spot so no spell can ever give more than +1, and feats can't give any bonus to spot at all. That's where your class feature is a house cat so spells can't summon anything bigger than a rat and backgrounds are limited to mice. And a racial pet has to be exactly larger than a rat and smaller than a cat, so a ferret.

I mean, I get priority. I do. It's bad when everything your character can do at high level is less than the effect of one mid-level spell. But not each little thing a class gives at all times. That's taking the concept too far.

That's saying a Dwarf's ability to notice new constructions has to be better than passwall and disintegrate for moving between rooms.

And really, spells >> feats? Still? Why? What possible purpose is there in making us choose all those feats and then have them be all worse than every possible cantrip? And why the fuck is my 1st level Background pick somehow more valuable than the feat choices I'm making at 15th level? Every background better than every possible feat at every level? But still worse than the worst spells, which are all worse than the worst racial features (which include, ... an extra feat ?) which are worse than when your class gives you something (which might be a spell, or a feat, and now it's an infinite loop of having to suck worse than itself).


Yay.

Good news! You won't be picking many (maybe not any) feats.
Though as they are currently designed, the feats are rather big, and change the game much more than backgrounds and a lot of spells, mostly because they let you jump off the RNG, particularly when it comes to AC, init and surprise.