Shitty character concepts need to die

[OgreBattle]

If prestige classes are shared like that it seems like the "Multiclassing & power schedule" problem would come up

[Username17]

If prestige classes are shared like that it seems like the "Multiclassing & power schedule" problem would come up

It absolutely would. But just like the discussions about subclassing, it's a solvable problem. It actually has several additional solutions available because it happens simultaneously with a tier shift.

• No Combat Maneuvers. In this version, becoming an Archmage or an Angel Knight or a Black Doge or whatever simply doesn't give you new combat actions at all. It comes with movement, defense, investigative, and mass-battle abilities that keep you relevant in the paragonal environment, but you still use your Hero Feats or your Paladin Prayers as normal.
• Extremely Limited Use Supermoves. in this version, when you become a Thunder Lord or a Fist of Hell you get access to supermoves that are used so rarely that the underlying equation of what proportion your superior and inferior moves are used doesn't effectively change.
• Paragon Abilities Replace Heroic Tier Abilities. In this version, you absolutely don't worry about whether the Paragon Tier classes "synergize" with the Heroic Tier classes or not, because the expectation is that the abilities you get from being a Word Bearer or War Mind are so dramatically superior to anything you could buy with Fury or Psionic Power Points that the expectation is that you simply won't use the Heroic Tier abilities.
• Paragon Abilities All Use Same Resource System. In this version, whether you're a Winter Bringer or a Gaea's Avenger you still get the same resource management system for your Paragon Tier Combat abilities. And then each base class transitions the same way every time, and so becomes an incredibly tractable balance problem. If you can manage the transition of Necromancer to Demigod, you'll have managed the transition of Necromancer to Shadow Master at the same time.

And then again, you could jolly well have the Paragon and Heroic powers running simultaneously on different power schedules and just accept that a lot of combinations would be markedly better or worse than the norm. It's late in the campaign almost by definition, so you expect a fair amount of Elothar-style spot fixes for characters to be being employed.

-Username17

[crizh]

I'd like to point that even taking the your prejudices and lack of imagination in mind, a simple reading of Discworld will show a world where the power of being a plucky hero is readily recognized by everyone (it's how the barbarian heros get going). There's no roleplaying/rollplaying dissonance there. A guy in a loincloth with a sword is as dangerous as a wizard, and everybody knows that.

Sorry to parachute in so late but I saw this in my semi-regular lurking and felt compelled to reply.

You just used a satire/parody of everything that is wrong in the fantasy genre as an example of how your opinion is valid.

Epic fail, just sayin'.

[Foxwarrior]

crizh: If you want the non-parody version of that exact mechanism, it's called Ta'veren. Or Destiny, I guess.

[NineInchNall]

To make this thread a somewhat different than its many ancestors, I'll ask the following question: How can we give people the non-magical heroes they want to play so much.... while dodging all the problems that come with it?

Do people really want non-magical as in "hits things with sword, no flashy effects" to be indefinitely viable? That seems so ... incoherent.

I mean, since I'm totally fine with relativizing the meaning of "magical" to the game/world in which I'm playing, I'm also totally fine with a hadouken or kamehameha being non-"magical". Hell, I've played in settings where flight is a non-magical ability. For people without wings. Or planes.

Apparently, I'm in the minority on that, though.

[Torko]

With all the shit that happens in fantasy, I refuse to believe that anyone would actually object to a big muscly hero strangling a balrog or bending open a force cage.

[icyshadowlord]

Yet people still do so and Fighters still suck.

[Mistborn]

crizh: If you want the non-parody version of that exact mechanism, it's called Ta'veren. Or Destiny, I guess.

No no it's fucking not. Being Ta'veren does not make fighting a channeler even remotely fair. WoT does not make any pretentions about people being able to compete without pletobium. Unless you can counter weaves with your own or are immune:weaves via artifact sword amulet then you just fuck off and die like all the other nameless mooks who can't counter overpowered death-weaves.

[ishy]

If everyone can bypass a forcecage then the spell is useless

[name_here]

I'm pretty sure most of the people who want vanilla action heroes would permit Mat to count.

[Mistborn]

I'm pretty sure most of the people who want vanilla action heroes would permit Mat to count.

Mat isn't a VAH though he's a general. That's the reason he's actually important to the plot he's really good at leading his tiny men to victory. His ability to actually kick ass and be personally badass is infinitesimal in comparison to any second string channeler.

[Kaelik]

I'm pretty sure most of the people who want vanilla action heroes would permit Mat to count.

I'm pretty sure that most people would be upset when the first time they left a pile of channellers who exist to protect him that someone just gates it, picks up a big rock, and breaks his head in. And that is after the Amulet. Mat only lives as long as he does because the Shadow has a specific preference to not kill any of these people at all until the end.

[Foxwarrior]

That doesn't sound very lucky at all, Kaelik.

[Kaelik]

That doesn't sound very lucky at all, Kaelik.

Except we have clear parameters for what the luck does and does not do, and it does not magically gentle people, or prevent rocks the size of large houses from falling on him.

It allows him to win at dice. You can totally beat the Balor at dice. But you know what you can't do? Luck the Balor into not dropping a fucking rock on your head.

[Foxwarrior]

You can luck the Balor into teleporting up to you before you abandon your magic bodyguards, or when you happen to be near other friendly mages. You can luck the Balor into not being close enough to a big rock to get to it before you strangle it to death. You can luck the Balor into teleporting up to you onto unstable footing, so he trips and falls onto something painful.

The Balor can deal with any of those by Scrying first, though. But you can luck the Balor into guessing the wrong person to scry on, thereby wasting his time, because you're also immune to magic. This simultaneously reveals his position to that detect scrying mage, which he might not want.

Murphy's law may not be unstoppable, but it is at least level-appropriate.

[Kaelik]

You can luck the Balor into teleporting up to you before you abandon your magic bodyguards, or when you happen to be near other friendly mages. You can luck the Balor into not being close enough to a big rock to get to it before you strangle it to death. You can luck the Balor into teleporting up to you onto unstable footing, so he trips and falls onto something painful.

No you can't, no you can't (and no you can't strangle it to death), no you can't (A) at all, and B) because it can fly).

That is the point. Mat Cauthon's luck is specifically limited to be luck that people could totally buy in the story, which is completely different from the kind of bullshit luck you are advocating, that would have everyone reading go... "Fucking bullshit!" every five seconds.

Murphy's law may not be unstoppable, but it is at least level-appropriate.

No it isn't.

[Foxwarrior]

Rolling dice has nothing whatsoever to do with true randomness, and cannot have anything to do with true randomness in any universe where the die result depends on essentially newtonian motion. I think that Mat has even made a die roll over in an extremely obvious way before. Clearly, his type of luck is more equivalent to having a team of well-meaning, intelligent, intangible, weak, and extremely shy poltergeists working together to help him out. They can nudge the Balor in the right direction by making gentle breezes or knocking over unstable stacks of items, so that he times and places his teleportation properly.

[Kaelik]

They can nudge the Balor in the right direction by making gentle breezes or knocking over unstable stacks of items, so that he times and places his teleportation properly.

That makes no fucking sense. Ignoring for the moment that your stupid poltergeist examples is a piece of shit, because the only thing his luck ever did that poltergeists could do is roll dice, whereas his luck also did crazy shit like insure important people were in a specific place and cause them to fall in love with him, which poltergeists can't fucking do, that still makes no sense.

The Balor teleports in 40ft away, why the fuck do you think some poltergeists could suddenly move him adjacent to Mat, even presuming Mat could fight a Balor without dying, which he fucking couldn't.

[Foxwarrior]

Okay, so what is so bullshit about my luck examples (especially the first one), then? Also, we must be trying to make Mat into a level 20 character in this argument, so of course he's gotten enough bodybuilding and combat training to be at the peak of humanly achievable fighting ability, and thus could potentially kill the Balor given an ideal opportunity.

If the Balor doesn't examine the battlefield in advance very closely, and make sure Mat is alone, what's stopping the Balor from "accidentally" picking the least optimal place and time to teleport from the set of all places and times to teleport that seem equally good to it?

Edit: Yeah, you're right, the poltergeists need mind control powers too. But really, the poltergeist hypothesis doesn't work very well. Can you think of a definition for Good Luck that's better than "If the narrative hasn't already declared a detail, that detail is(/may be) chosen to be favorable for the lucky person"?

[name_here]

Actually, causing people to miss with a teleported rock attack is well within the bullshit Mat's luck gets up to. I mean, Perrin has less in the luck department but it still totally saves him from a crossbow attack, Mat's luck lets him dodge melee attacks he didn't know were coming, and actually has demonstrated the capacity to foul teleporting by hundreds of miles. Actually, Rand was saved from a channeling strike by bullshit luck once, because he just happened to walk out the door seconds before the room exploded.

[Kaelik]

Edit: Yeah, you're right, the poltergeists need mind control powers too. But really, the poltergeist hypothesis doesn't work very well. Can you think of a definition for Good Luck that's better than "If the narrative hasn't already declared a detail, that detail is(/may be) chosen to be favorable for the lucky person"?

That Models Mat's Luck? Sure, the DM. Because it is completely fucking arbitrary story luck. One of the Lucky things that happened to Mat was he had a wall fall on him resulting in him being captured by the Seachan. That was lucky. The player wouldn't choose that, and that is not the kind of super bullshit "People near me spontaneously die of aneurysms when I want" crap that you are advocating, but that is exactly the kind of story luck where combined with several other lucky turns, 7 books down the line he can bring the Seachan over to the good guys.

[Foxwarrior]

Okay, Kaelik, I accept your model. Why on earth do you think that, under such a model, Mat can be killed (permanently)?

Edit: You're going to bring up a Brandon Sanderson book that I haven't read yet, huh.

[Kaelik]

Okay, Kaelik, I accept your model. Why on earth do you think that, under such a model, Mat can be killed (permanently)?

Edit: You're going to bring up a Brandon Sanderson book that I haven't read yet, huh.

He can't be killed (permanently) for the exact same reason that no protaginst in any story can be killed permanently before the author wants.

That doesn't fucking matter. It is incredibly unsatisfying to play such a character, and more importantly (to me) it is incredibly unsatisfying to play in a game with such a character.

I have played games with both complete assshit underperforming commoners and DM favorites both with and without the assshit underperforming commoner part.

I would rather play with some dumbshit useless pile of trash than a stupid DM favorite.

If someone says "I want to play [protagonist from story]" then I know right there that they are a piece of shit who is going to ruin the game. If they say [protagonist from story who is specifically known for everything in the story warping to their advantage] then I know they are trying to ruin the game.

Seriously, just name the class Mary Fucking Sue if that is what you want, and eat all the dicks.

[Foxwarrior]

Is there no definition of luck you can tolerate which allows for creating a level-appropriate lucky warrior/rogue character you don't hate with a passion?

[Kaelik]

Is there no definition of luck you can tolerate which allows for creating a level-appropriate lucky warrior/rogue character you don't hate with a passion?

No. Luck is directly contradictory to skill. If your character is not skilled at Adventuring, you should not want to play the character in an Adventuring game, and no one else should be forced to be in the same party with your character that is not skilled at Adventuring.