The Pursuit of Equality and Balance in Game Design

[Roy]

Not just that. I wasn't summarizing his argument. I was quoting it. Verbatim.

That word doesn't mean what you think it means.

Hi Welcome

Scry locates a single person who fails their save. If they don`t have detect scrying, or non-detection or nindblank, then you`ve found one person who you already knew anyway, and they can still be in an illusory terrain, or a dark featureless room, or just move next round.

Discern location comes online at the saame level as minblank, I don`t even know why you are worried about it.

What does it add to the game to have this arms race, instead of just having a setting where PCs have to use skills and roleplaying to find mysterious people and places?

Aside from that, a spell that allows you to contact mysterious entities to petition for information is more evocative than casting Know Thing and knowing a thing, IMO, but to each his own.

Not everyone wants to play a video game. And that means high level characters are not just lower level characters with bigger numbers. They actually have new abilities, and actually can just easily defeat low level plots with mid and high level abilities. That's how it's supposed to work.

Anyways, high level plots. The most important thing is for the guy running the show to keep himself hidden. Yes, you heard me right. As others have pointed out, most divinations only work on those you have seen before. So unless this guy has Mind Blank, having him be seen before he fights the party is the same as having him kill himself.

Forget site based locations. That's low level stuff. The PCs are already Murdering Hobos. Always have been. If the enemies are not as well by now, they need to be.

And whatever you do, don't field beatsticks. You're wasting everyone's time if you do.

[violence in the media]

People talk about making appropriate high level plots a lot in these discussions. What would be some good examples of level 16+ plots and how high level NPCs would protect themselves thoroughly against Scry and Die tactics or other high level means of assault?

For the low-low price of 5000 gp and 2500 xp, you could have a 6 story, 21,600 square foot structure encased in a permanent Private Sanctum and Forbiddance effect (+password damage bypass). No scrying, no detecting thoughts, no teleporting, dimension dooring, astral travelling, plane shifting, or summoning.

None of this will stop Discern Location--or that mythical Know Thing Plot Coupon spell HJ keeps going on about--but the information granted (Skeletor is in Castle No-Scrying You Jerkface or Can't Find Him He's Mindblanked) is of dubious utility.

Also, what Roy said.

I agree that D&D could use better rules for quickly and fairly resolving the efficacy of PC-directed minion duties. Though, it's nice to be on the other side of the quest/mission equation from time to time. Just because you're telling some lowbies to go handle somthing that you're too busy to deal with doesn't mean that you don't have things to do yourself. Maybe I played too much Suikoden in the past, but I enjoy that aspect of assigning NPCs to go do things.

You can do that, but it's entirely DM fiat, and therefore it's a roleplaying thing, not actually something that should be an ability. When you decide to send your minions on a quest, the DM decides if they succeed or what happens.

That's why I said this sort of thing needs better rules, to eliminate the fiat/MTP aspect of it. I once played in a game where these minions were the party's alternate characters, and when we sent them out to do stuff, the MC ran a mini-adventure of it (half-to full-session length) and that was how success or failure happened. Granted, that was back in college when we all had the free time to blow game sessions on things like that.

The other party responsible for this failure though is the game/module designers who don't take abilities into account when writing the world. Every location, badguy, and plot that those guys write out should have detailed information about how they're warded or protected from various things that other people in the world can demonstrably do.

So, every bad guy needs a way to nullify the checklist of plot breakers, so the DM ends up just wasting time thinking of ways for him to beat them. And if you forget one, well flush your adventure down the toilet.

Fuck you novice DM, you never considered how your castle of death would beat a misdirection + greater invisibility + flight combo!

Of course, then DMs just said "fuck it" and dynamically adjusted the world to compensate for the stuff they forgot. In the end just leading to a bunch of powers regulated by DM fiat. The end result of this situation is players don't even bother taking those powers anymore, because they can't count on them. Alternately your DM just says fuck it and starts over at low level again. Is there any surprise how it's hard to find a DM for a high level 3.5 game?

It's better to hand out sane powers you expect people to use as intended rather than powers that ruin the game unless they're countered. I'd rather take weaker powers that I can at least count on.

A couple of things.

1. Yes, it would be better if some of the powers were more sensibly written, both to provide more consistent implementation and to avoid the wrath of the banhammer.

2. Having a badguy or adventure get totally rolled is something that happens. You really can't throw a fit when it does.

3. Conversely, if counters exist, it's not unreasonable to assume that enemies make use of them when they're capable of it. I mean, do people get pissed off if the king has a poison taster?

4. If the MC would a little time from his busy plot-writing and adventure-crafting schedule and ask himself some rational questions from the POV of a badguy (They have swords. I don't want to be stabbed. How do I stop swords?) then some of these problems would solve themselves. Am I missing something, are novice DMs somehow incapable of learning?

[Ferret]

For the low-low price of 5000 gp and 2500 xp, you could have a 6 story, 21,600 square foot structure encased in a permanent Private Sanctum and Forbiddance effect (+password damage bypass). No scrying, no detecting thoughts, no teleporting, dimension dooring, astral travelling, plane shifting, or summoning.

Break this out? I'm just about ready to build a stronghold in my 3.5 game

[violence in the media]

For the low-low price of 5000 gp and 2500 xp, you could have a 6 story, 21,600 square foot structure encased in a permanent Private Sanctum and Forbiddance effect (+password damage bypass). No scrying, no detecting thoughts, no teleporting, dimension dooring, astral travelling, plane shifting, or summoning.

Break this out? I'm just about ready to build a stronghold in my 3.5 game

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/forbiddance.htm

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/magesP ... anctum.htm

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/permanency.htm

I find mapping things in Excel helpful. Set your rows and columns to 24 pixels each for 1/4" squares.

Go nuts.

edited to add for reference: A single, 12th level casting of Forbiddance is roughly enough to cover the entire arena area of the Roman Colosseum to a height of 60'.

[Halloween Jack]

So the villain isn't seen by the PCs unless he's fighting them, and spends the rest of his time either holed up in his wizard treehouse or remembering to fill out his checklist of Eldritch Gotchas. Sounds like a really intriguing and immersive story arc!

It is a lie to claim that scry is the spell "Know Things" either that, or you are attempting the "I'm so retarded, I didn't know it was wrong" defense. Which is weird.

I will refrain from trying to reason you out of a delusion you weren't reasoned into.

[Kaelik]

So the villain isn't seen by the PCs unless he's fighting them, and spends the rest of his time either holed up in his wizard treehouse or remembering to fill out his checklist of Eldritch Gotchas. Sounds like a really intriguing and immersive story arc!

No, he can do anything he wants anywhere he wants. Why do you insist on lying about "List of Eldritch Gatchas" when no such things exist. Just because every time PCs employ their abilities, you immediately throw a hissy fit and attempt to negate them doesn't mean they are actually game breaking.

Here are some examples:

1: The PCs discover that their favorite crafting Wizard was murdered in his study and robbed. They pick up the arrow that did him in and cast Discern Location on the owner:

You, the whiny 4e MC who hates player agency: "No! He's Mindblanked! What are you trying to do? Ruin my campaign! GRGRGRG!"

Good MC: Okay, the owner is called X and is in city Z.
PCs: Okay, we cast Commune and ask a bunch of questions to narrow search, then we teleport there and probably have to look even more.

2: PCs use Wall of Stone to seal tunnel.

You, whiny 4e MC: "No! They burrow through the wall in a second even though they don't have that ability! What are you trying to do? Ruin my campaign!"

Good MC: Okay, they spend several rounds carving, you escape, they report to their master, and then you guys have to play cat and mouse with him.

3: The PCs fight a battle with an enemy, who escapes. Then they cast Scry.

You: "He's Mindblanked! All the Time! And his will save is +200! What are you trying to ruin campaign?"

Good MC: Roll saves/SR. Oh, you guys see him standing in a room, through a window, you see the King's throne room.

PCs: we teleport there and attack through the window.
MC: Bad news nothing there.

[Turns out, the bad guy has Permanent Images in all his Windows.]

4: A Dragon flies overhead, with a rider using a bow, shooting arrows at the party, and the Dragon breathing on them.

You: The Dragon lands right next to the party, and lets them melee it to death.

Good Players: Cast Windwall, then Earthbind, or Wall of X, or move to cover, carve a hole, or use their own ranged attacks.

ect.

I will refrain from trying to reason you out of a delusion you weren't reasoned into.

You are well on track, since you have so far employed reason exactly zero times in this thread. But sure complain about how unfair it is for me to be right that your characterization of the scry spell is incorrect.

[Josh_Kablack]

So, every bad guy needs a way to nullify the checklist of plot breakers, so the DM ends up just wasting time thinking of ways for him to beat them. And if you forget one, well flush your adventure down the toilet.

There's no fucking reason the game authors can't tag each and every "plot breaker" at the time it's written so that DMs are more aware such are part of the game. See Champions "!" and "Magnifying Glass" notations for an example of this sort if thing.

People who seriously make Roleplaying vs. Rollplaying arguments go on ignore and don't come off. It saves time.

You're being too forgiving. I stand by my prior assertion that a registration date within Feb 2011 is sufficient cause for ignoring.



On a tangent, 4e fighters are very slightly less gimped at range than you think - they'll eventually pick up a +1 javelin or something else with Heavy Thrown so they can at least make Str-based basic attacks at reduced enhancement bonuses against opponents who aren't that far away. So the Wicked Witch of the Midwest needs to train her flying monkeys to maintain a minimum altitude as well as to use bows to render the 4e fighter totally useless.

[Novembermike]

Discern location comes online at the saame level as minblank, I don`t even know why you are worried about it.

No, he can do anything he wants anywhere he wants. Why do you insist on lying about "List of Eldritch Gatchas" when no such things exist. Just because every time PCs employ their abilities, you immediately throw a hissy fit and attempt to negate them doesn't mean they are actually game breaking.

So are we supposed to nullify player abilities or not? If we shouldn't worry about discern location because mindblank counters it, and we don't have to worry about scry because the DM can make up intentionally misleading information? I'm honestly trying to figure out a consistent argument here, but it seems to be that you are both arguing against negating player powers but also metagaming the player powers so they don't work (lie to the players). Is this correct?

The problem in general with a lot of these abilities is that they give inexperienced DMs rope to hang themselves. With scry, the options are to give them information they would have gotten another way, nullify the power ("fuck you he's got mind blank"), lie to the players or fuck up because you hadn't planned for divination magic and give the player too much info or something that's just incorrect.

The same holds true for flight and wall of stone and any number of plot powers. I'm a fan of systems that give players the ability to influence the plot (the FATE system is interesting, for example), but that tends to work best if it's in explicit ways. DnD 3 tends to have situations where the wizard added a spell to his page long list that might trivialize something you have planned, and while there are ways to negate that stuff I don't really enjoy it when I have to say No to something that is a non-abusive use of the rules or when the DM does that to me.

[Kaelik]

So are we supposed to nullify player abilities or not? If we shouldn't worry about discern location because mindblank counters it, and we don't have to worry about scry because the DM can make up intentionally misleading information? I'm honestly trying to figure out a consistent argument here, but it seems to be that you are both arguing against negating player powers but also metagaming the player powers so they don't work (lie to the players). Is this correct?

If the player abilities can be nullified, and would be, then they are, but if they wouldn't be, they are nor.

Sometimes the BBEG has Minblank, sometimes he has elaborate mundane protections against Discern Location, and sometimes he just moves around a lot, and sometimes he just doesn't let 15th level enemies pick an object that he owns, and know that he owns it, and then Discern Location. And when he slips up, and does so, then the PCs get to raid his base, and he has to run away and find another one, or just end up dead, and Horror of Horrors the PCs win.

The problem in general with a lot of these abilities is that they give inexperienced DMs rope to hang themselves. With scry, the options are to give them information they would have gotten another way, nullify the power ("fuck you he's got mind blank"), lie to the players or fuck up because you hadn't planned for divination magic and give the player too much info or something that's just incorrect.

Actually, the problem with these powers is that stupid people think they give more information than they do.

Read the spell. If you cast it, there is literally no plot in the universe that can be ruined by it. It tells you "So and so is in this city." Well great. That's useful information. But it's not going to end any campaign arcs against anyone menacing enough to pose an actual threat to level 15 characters.

The same holds true for flight and wall of stone and any number of plot powers. I'm a fan of systems that give players the ability to influence the plot (the FATE system is interesting, for example), but that tends to work best if it's in explicit ways. DnD 3 tends to have situations where the wizard added a spell to his page long list that might trivialize something you have planned, and while there are ways to negate that stuff I don't really enjoy it when I have to say No to something that is a non-abusive use of the rules or when the DM does that to me.

I'm confused. You want explicit stuff? Fate stuff is very much not explicit. Wall of Stone is the most explicit stuff in the world.

In actual practice, the correct solution with 99 out of 100 plot breaking powers is to actually let the PCs use them exactly as they are, and discover the crazy fact that they don't actually break plots.

[Novembermike]

I'm confused. You want explicit stuff? Fate stuff is very much not explicit. Wall of Stone is the most explicit stuff in the world.

Sorry, an explicit part of the system. Wall of Stone is random ability X and it's not necessarily something you have to keep in mind when designing an encounter (and with DnD you have to be aware of not only X but Y, Z and everything up to Wish and Miracle). The Fate stuff is something you have to always be aware of so any reasonably prepared MC should be ready to deal with it.

[violence in the media]

I'm confused. You want explicit stuff? Fate stuff is very much not explicit. Wall of Stone is the most explicit stuff in the world.

Sorry, an explicit part of the system. Wall of Stone is random ability X and it's not necessarily something you have to keep in mind when designing an encounter (and with DnD you have to be aware of not only X but Y, Z and everything up to Wish and Miracle). The Fate stuff is something you have to always be aware of so any reasonably prepared MC should be ready to deal with it.

This is why I was saying that module, setting, and campaign designers need to include this stuff in their write ups. The Hallow and Unhallow spells exist, and are actually kind of useful from both a mechanical and roleplaying standpoint, but when was the last time you saw something call out that location X was under one of those effects, along with rider spell Y?

Just putting one of those spells on a temple in your game gives you a reason for a ceremony that the priests conduct once a year, complete with incense, chanting, and interpretive dance. That can't be a bad thing.

[Roy]

ITT: 4rries can't tell the difference between actual abilities that counter actual abilities to form some actual depth and strategy, and BAW but the high level PCs can ruin my level 1 plot, WE CAN'T BE HAVING WITH THIS!

[Novembermike]

ITT: 4rries can't tell the difference between actual abilities that counter actual abilities to form some actual depth and strategy, and BAW but the high level PCs can ruin my level 1 plot, WE CAN'T BE HAVING WITH THIS!

You do realize that I'm not even a fan of 4E, right? I'm a fan of GURPS, Burning Wheel, Fate and a few other systems, but not particularly big on DnD. Coming from a more generic role playing background though, 4E makes a lot more sense than 3E than the fact that it actually has a niche as a fantasy miniature simulator (much like the original) unlike 3E which isn't even good at that.

Also, you may not realize this but just insulting people makes you look like an idiot. I can respect Kaelik, his arguments are pretty well thought out even though I disagree with some of the founding ideas, and I feel the same way towards Violence in the Media and a few other posters. You just seem like you have no idea what you're talking about and you try to cover it up (poorly) by bullying (which tends to be pretty ineffective over message boards).

[Kaelik]

You just seem like you have no idea what you're talking about and you try to cover it up (poorly) by bullying (which tends to be pretty ineffective over message boards).

It's just as ineffective here, if not more so. Welcome to TGD, that's Roy in the corner, we had to get wood floors because he kept peeing on the carpet.

[FatR]

Rhialto and his fellow arch-wizards are the only fantasy wizards I can think of who approach in power the high-level 3.5 wizard,

Then you clearly aren't really familiar with fantasy, because I, who is not well-read in the genre, can name many more wizards who are at least in the same league as them. Even counting only main characters of their stories, and even discounting those who have plot fiat magic, we have people like Maal Dweb and Namirrha, Marika, Merlin of Amber, Pug and Rand al'Thor, who will make nearly all non loophole-exploiting DnD spellcasters feel small in the pants. The last three aren't even from obscure books. I can add a lot more examples from non-English novels (although most of them admittedly will be wank characters).

[Novembermike]

Rhialto and his fellow arch-wizards are the only fantasy wizards I can think of who approach in power the high-level 3.5 wizard,

Then you clearly aren't really familiar with fantasy, because I, who is not well-read in the genre, can name many more wizards who are at least in the same league as them. Even counting only main characters of their stories, and even discounting those who have plot fiat magic, we have people like Maal Dweb and Namirrha, Marika, Merlin of Amber, Pug and Rand al'Thor, who will make nearly all non loophole-exploiting DnD spellcasters feel small in the pants. The last three aren't even from obscure books. I can add a lot more examples from non-English novels (although most of them admittedly will be wank characters).

Wasn't the major point that the magic was fairly painless and that the wizard is a protagonist? Maal Dweb was a godlike antagonist (I think, could be thinking of someone else but this is the guy with the labrynth right), Namirha was making deals with devils, I have no idea who Marika is, same for Merlin of Amber, Feist constantly had to reign in Pug's magical power because otherwise his stories would be nonsensical and Rand is literally going insane because of his magic.

I don't think anyone would argue that powerful wizards exist in literature, but they tend to either be antagonists (or absent allies of the protagonist), going against a higher power (in which case they're going to get smacked down) it's basically gods fighting gods which doesn't fit the DnD theme very well or something similar. I mean, some characters in "The Magicians" could probably rip apart a high level DnD wizard but the entire point of that novel was that having unlimited power didn't really solve any problems.

EDIT: And I can't imagine too many of those characters beating something like time-stop -> finger of death -> finger of death -> finger of death either.

[LR]

3: The PCs fight a battle with an enemy, who escapes. Then they cast Scry.

You: "He's Mindblanked! All the Time! And his will save is +200! What are you trying to ruin campaign?"

Good MC: Roll saves/SR. Oh, you guys see him standing in a room, through a window, you see the King's throne room.

PCs: we teleport there and attack through the window.
MC: Bad news nothing there.

[Turns out, the bad guy has Permanent Images in all his Windows.]

Scrying is limited to a 10' square around the target, so it's even more limited than that, barring Darkvision and Mirrors tricks.

Coming from a more generic role playing background though, 4E makes a lot more sense than 3E than the fact that it actually has a niche as a fantasy miniature simulator (much like the original) unlike 3E which isn't even good at that.

4e does not have a better combat minigame. The numbers don't add up without stealth buffs and feat taxes, the marking, saving, and interrupt mechanics are super fiddly, and above all, everything is just so soul-crushingly boring. Playing 4e is a fucking chore, and my attempts to play it have done nothing but convinced me that 4e players either have unlimited patience or that the true 4e fans have a secret PHB with rules that were not written in the eternal monotony of the Gray Wastes.

[Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp]

For those interested. I posted an identical thread here: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=565083

[LR]

For those interested. I posted an identical thread here: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=565083

The post saying that Speak with Dead ruins mysteries is really amazing. A murder victim who can speak is just another witness. Witness testimony is the weakest form of evidence.

[Novembermike]

Coming from a more generic role playing background though, 4E makes a lot more sense than 3E than the fact that it actually has a niche as a fantasy miniature simulator (much like the original) unlike 3E which isn't even good at that.

4e does not have a better combat minigame. The numbers don't add up without stealth buffs and feat taxes, the marking, saving, and interrupt mechanics are super fiddly, and above all, everything is just so soul-crushingly boring. Playing 4e is a fucking chore, and my attempts to play it have done nothing but convinced me that 4e players either have unlimited patience or that the true 4e fans have a secret PHB with rules that were not written in the eternal monotony of the Gray Wastes.

3e was a terrible combat game. Try playing against high level encounters at +el without primary spellcasters. There are plenty of systems where it's possible to fuck yourself over by making a deliberately bad character (going all the way down the archery tree and then trying to dual wield katanas for example), but 3e was one of the few I've seen where not choosing one of maybe 4 or 5 core classes seriously gimped you. Also, have your rogue fight a zombie. It tended to have arbitrary decisions that made certain players nearly useless if they made the wrong choices.

[Novembermike]

For those interested. I posted an identical thread here: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=565083

The post saying that Speak with Dead ruins mysteries is really amazing. A murder victim who can speak is just another witness. Witness testimony is the weakest form of evidence.

He actually has a decent point with that. As soon as the players can cast speak with dead the murderer has to take precautions against it, usually either ripping the mouth off or doing the whole ninja thing so that the corpse can't say who did it. The fact is, though, that a murder mystery in DnD isn't a particularly good idea most of the time. Diplomacy is messed up (you usually have a single face character and the rest took charisma as a dump stat), the level system unnecessarily rules out a number of possibilities and how you go about it can vary hugely depending on what classes are available.

[Kaelik]

3e was a terrible combat game. Try playing against high level encounters at +el without primary spellcasters. There are plenty of systems where it's possible to fuck yourself over by making a deliberately bad character (going all the way down the archery tree and then trying to dual wield katanas for example), but 3e was one of the few I've seen where not choosing one of maybe 4 or 5 core classes seriously gimped you. Also, have your rogue fight a zombie. It tended to have arbitrary decisions that made certain players nearly useless if they made the wrong choices.

Is that a joke post or something?

In a party based game focused around bringing different effects to bear that specifically recommends bringing at least one Cleric and one Wizard to the game you are complaining about how only 6 out of 11 classes in the core rules are worth playing, so therefore the entire game sucks? I'm pretty sure GURPS has more than half of it's options as trap options.

The fact that some options suck does not mean the game sucks. Choosing Commoner as your class is terrible, that doesn't mean the game is terrible. Once you accept that depending on level, 3-5 classes are not worth playing, you can just play the game with the other 6-8, and have a much better combat engine than 4e ever will.

As for Rogue vs Zombie, yeah, probably why literally every single book published since then had a fix.

MiC: Rogues SA zombies.
SpC: Rogues SA zombies.
Complete Adventurer: Rogues SA zombies.
Complete Scoundrel: Rogues SA zombies.
Dungeonscape: Rogues SA zombies.

Ect.

[Username17]

I don't think anyone would argue that powerful wizards exist in literature, but they tend to either be antagonists (or absent allies of the protagonist), going against a higher power (in which case they're going to get smacked down) it's basically gods fighting gods which doesn't fit the DnD theme very well or something similar.

If you're going to make arguments, try to phrase them in ways that don't make you look like a moron.

Saying that high level D&D is not about gods fighting gods is just blatant ignorance of the subject matter.

-Username17

[LR]

He actually has a decent point with that. As soon as the players can cast speak with dead the murderer has to take precautions against it, usually either ripping the mouth off or doing the whole ninja thing so that the corpse can't say who did it. The fact is, though, that a murder mystery in DnD isn't a particularly good idea most of the time. Diplomacy is messed up (you usually have a single face character and the rest took charisma as a dump stat), the level system unnecessarily rules out a number of possibilities and how you go about it can vary hugely depending on what classes are available.

It just means that detectives (the PCs) can interrogate the victim. Crimes with living victims go unsolved every day in the real world. Even if a suspect is implicated by the dying words of the deceased, that only really gives the PCs a reason to investigate him further unless they want to be vigilantes and lose the approval of the Court of Saint Cuthbert. Also, I don't really have problems with culprits taking spectral evidence into account in worlds with real spectral evidence. Expecting criminals to ignore detective techniques is kind of silly.

I do agree that D&D isn't a good system for detective stories, but it can model them if absolutely necessary, even with all of the magic

[talozin]

There are plenty of systems where it's possible to fuck yourself over by making a deliberately bad character (going all the way down the archery tree and then trying to dual wield katanas for example), but 3e was one of the few I've seen where not choosing one of maybe 4 or 5 core classes seriously gimped you.

There were basically two ways to go to balance a successor to 3E, because it was severely not balanced in many ways (hardly a shock, none of the previous editions had been, either). You could settle on a balance point of one of the primary caster classes, and bring the other classes up to that point; or you could settle on a balance point of one of the noncaster classes, and bring other classes down to that point. What I've seen of this board has been more oriented toward the former than the latter. It's perhaps not terribly surprising, thus, that it's hostile to 4E.