Threads that make us Laugh, Cry, or Both, Continued

[JonSetanta]

The skill Craft should emulate magical item creation feats that spellcasters would otherwise have a monopoly over, but that's another matter.

When your Craft ranks reach near-epic and the checks allow you to make a Swiss watch in mere minutes out, there really should be some leniency for noncasters to make their own magical level-appropriate loot.
... except Wish items.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

Frank is point out the easy way to break everything:
Step 1 - buy something to Summon a monster that can cast Wish.
Step 2 - Use it to Wish for a Staff of Wishes (at no XP cost, because of Su ability).
Step 3 - Repeat ad nauseum (PS - you win!)
Step 4 - Do any spell in the game, all day, for free (you win!)
Step 5 - Make any item you can dream of, all day, for free (you win!)

[Captain_Bleach]

1197408500[/unixtime]]

1197406780[/unixtime]]It seems that either way, the staff of Wishes is too expensive to get with a Wish.

Only under my rules. The PHB rules provide a hard cap for the value of nonmagical goods, but the value of magical goods is uncapped. The limit instead is that the XP cost of the spell goes up when the projected magic item costs more. Which is why the XP cost to wish for a staff of wishes is stupid high.

But the game includes several ways to not have to pay that cost at all, at which point it's just like there was no limit and it didn't cost anything.

-Username17

UNCAPPED?! And why was Wish not made an Epic spell with the release of the Epic Level Handbook?! By the RAW, it is better than any other spell, period!

[Username17]

In its defense, it had a hard cap in 3rd edition and Andy Collins felt that was "boring" so he took it out in the conversion to 3.5 in favor of a system in which the XP cost of the spell would simply increase linearly as the value of the item increased.

-Username17

[Captain_Bleach]

How is a capped wish boring?
If he thinks that a primary spellcaster is boring for having restricted power, he should have bumped up the power and usefulness of the classes that aren't a Cleric, Druid, or Wizard.

[RandomCasualty]

1197412275[/unixtime]]How is a capped wish boring?

Who knows. It's one of Andy Collin's theories, so all we can be reasonably sure about is that logic doesn't factor in anywhere in the explanation.

[Username17]

1197412275[/unixtime]]How is a capped wish boring?
If he thinks that a primary spellcaster is boring for having restricted power, he should have bumped up the power and usefulness of the classes that aren't a Cleric, Druid, or Wizard.

I don't know.

By the way, Leress you completely and horribly over estimated the chances of that hobo Runelord. Shadows? They have an attack bonus and that jackass only has a Touch AC of 19. They average landing a blow every turn. He's going down really fast.

-Username17

[MrWaeseL]

1197395455[/unixtime]]Shapechange Overpowered?
Some serious debate going on here as to whether or not it is.

Still didnt explain why people says that Shapechange is totally broken everytime.

If you change to Titan, well a fighter of same level can bring you down like you are nothing if he have descent gear.
=/

[Surgo]

http://bb.bbboy.net/thegamingden-viewth ... hread=1188

[Captain_Bleach]

1197426312[/unixtime]]http://bb.bbboy.net/thegamingden-viewth ... hread=1188

I meant to put it in MPSIMS. Know how to move the thread there?

[Draco_Argentum]

1197377610[/unixtime]]That was pretty tame. And you seemed way too intent on pressing the issue just to show how cool you are, or something.

Looks to me like hes trying to get a response from the DM that makes sense. What hes getting amounts to the DM saying "I'll just yell objection really loud when I don't like what you wish for."

[Voss]

Some gems hidden in the later pages of the Shapechange thread:

Druids most powerful? lol
Their heals are higher lvl them cleric ones, so its alot harder to quicken.
Clerics have alot better spell list and 1 extra slot of every level from domains.
The only druid advantage is Shapeshift, that is now crap, since you didnt change your HP. A Full buffed cleric is alot more powerful them a full buffed druid shapeshifted, and the cleric have better spells to quicken, and DIVINE METAMAGIC to quicken full heals if necessary. =/

Because... clerics can heal better. Thats why druids suck.




And Leress, you made the Runelord guy cry. While he'll accept lavish praise with no criticism at all, negative criticism is unwelcome.

[Username17]

Apparently. It's actually gotten way funnier. He still has no idea how worthless giving half your AC bonus to someone is when your AC bonus doesn't work for people wearing armor or carrying shields.

Defenses are weaker than offenses because you don't get to choose to use them. Having abilities that are based on exceptions to normal rules rather than having abilities which are part of a coherent plan of a fighting style and an outcome will create classes that just have a pile of useless crap almost every single time.

-Username17

[Catharz]

1197449220[/unixtime]]Apparently. It's actually gotten way funnier. He still has no idea how worthless giving half your AC bonus to someone is when your AC bonus doesn't work for people wearing armor or carrying shields.

Eh, it could be an O.K. cohort for a lazy wizard.

[Captain_Bleach]

For the record, I won't respond well to anyone coming in here and telling me that all the work I've done is completely worthless without giving me any suggestions on how to make it better. I dunno, maybe that makes me a bad person.

That is what most RPG fans want. If their class does not perform well, then they want your help to make it better. When you do not offer advice to make it better, they get offended. Let's face it, there's a reason Simon Cowell is hated by many; Americans in particular do not like to be offended when they make a product/idea and get the response of "you're horrible."
And seeing on how WotC is a primarily English-speaking site, most of its members on the boards are probably those who are a.) fluent in English as a second language or b.) have English as their native tongue, which is mostly America, Great Britain, and Australia. Tell me if I am forgetting any other countries.

[the_taken]

1197497391[/unixtime]]

For the record, I won't respond well to anyone coming in here and telling me that all the work I've done is completely worthless without giving me any suggestions on how to make it better. I dunno, maybe that makes me a bad person.

That is what most RPG fans want. If their class does not perform well, then they want your help to make it better. When you do not offer advice to make it better, they get offended. Let's face it, there's a reason Simon Cowell is hated by many; Americans in particular do not like to be offended when they make a product/idea and get the response of "you're horrible."
And seeing on how WotC is a primarily English-speaking site, most of its members on the boards are probably those who are a.) fluent in English as a second language or b.) have English as their native tongue, which is mostly America, Great Britain, and Australia. Tell me if I am forgetting any other countries.

Canada. Not to speak for everyone, but we can take criticism without getting angry.

[Captain_Bleach]

I don't know much about how successful the market for D&D is in Canada, but the WotC forum-goers have an unwritten rule that is basically "be nicey-nicey, no cussing," which, as I learned the hard way, combined with the Internet, is ultimate failure. The fact that many Americans are like this, combined with their high population and widespread English, means that there are many American gamers on D&D-related message boards that have an "English" option.
Let's look at an example post:

Steal Spell is flawed in its write-up. Okay. That's fair. I get it. Thanks for pointing that out, Frank, whoever you are (Frank and K's Fighter fix? So a bunch of people read your posts, that doesn't give you any right to be less than civil). Apparently you get a kick out of insulting the intelligence of someone you've never spoken to before and who has never said a word about you before. It may be flawed, but it certainly isn't impossible to fix. I'll fix it. I'll make sure to read the Spellthief's ability more closely to see if their's actually works right, and see what I can do with that.

Now, the fan game designers are put in a spot on WotC; no harsh criticism is allowed if it involves saying "your class is horrible." It leaves the mental fortitude and skin to be unprepared for critics (I will tell you why your class sucks, but with numbers and logic), passionate haters (your class sucks and you deserve to die!), and the occasional random encounter with an Internet Troll. In essence, any gaming judge like Simon Cowell will become the black sheep of WotC, and will be wholly unprepared for the horrors of the Internet; I know; my first message board that I joined was WotC.

[Crissa]

Wait, Frank can't post on WotC Boards... Who is this guy talking to?

-Crissa

[the_taken]

1197500010[/unixtime]]Wait, Frank can't post on WotC Boards... Who is this guy talking to?

-Crissa

Leress exported a quote.

I feel awesome, so I'm going to try and edumacate this guy.

[Captain_Bleach]

1197500318[/unixtime]]

1197500010[/unixtime]]Wait, Frank can't post on WotC Boards... Who is this guy talking to?

-Crissa

Leress exported a quote.

I feel awesome, so I'm going to try and edumacate this guy.

Until his skin thickens against the verbal barbs forged in the fires of the Internet, I don't think that you can do anything for him/her.

[Koumei]

Here in Australia it is actually required by law to be rude to people at every given opportunity.

Especially your friends. And your enemies. The people in between, not so much.

[Captain_Bleach]

1197502307[/unixtime]]Here in Australia it is actually required by law to be rude to people at every given opportunity.

Especially your friends. And your enemies. The people in between, not so much.

Frank Trollman, if he is like anything like he is on the Internet, would be right at home.

[Username17]

That is what most RPG fans want. If their class does not perform well, then they want your help to make it better.

That's what they say that they want. But in reality if you tell them why their class doesn't perform well or how their class doesn't perform well or you know help them evaluate and design their fucking useless class, then they get all pissed off.

What they actually want is for people to tell them that their class is great! or for people to tell them that their class is wonderful but it needs more unicorns and rainbows! If you bust out the numbers and show the failure points of the class, that would in any objective sense be a completely required portion of class evaluation and design. But they don't want to hear that, and they will get really hacked off when it happens.

So the stress points of his class were:

• The character never gets any offensive ability worth mentioning, meaning that without the rest of the party he can't meaningfully contribute to any combat.
  
  
• His only meaningful contribution past the level 1-3 gimmes is in providing defensive bonuses for his friends. But he doesn't provide enough defensive bonuses to actually keep friends alive longer enough to compensate for essentially losing a character's worth of attacks since before the beginning of the battle.
  
  
• His abilities don't do what he thinks they do and aren't really useful at any level.
  
  
• For a mage harrier character, he doesn't actually interfere with spellcasters in any significant fashion.

And that's damning. To really do something with the class you'd have to scrap it and give him something to... do in combat. Chasing around after the party Wizard so that you can provide a +2 AC bonus to him and his familiar is kind of insulting. And when you can only "pull" one monster at a time, you're only doing the party a favor if you actually take less damage than other characters.

So yeah. What do you tell a guy like that?

"Your idea didn't work. It didn't work because it wasn't based on a solid base of observation. It was, in short, a completely random hypothesis. The fact that it falsifies rather trivially when placed against the harsh light of testing is unsurprising. Out of the infinite possible completely random hypotheses you could have made, a substantial proportion of them would return the same result. And if you keep putting together essentially random collections of exceptions to the basic rules in this manner you will only ever make something playable in the manner in which monkeys with typewriters will eventually write Hamlet. Your methodology is flawed and doomed to failure.

Take a step back. Don't create whole classes from scratch and hope they do something cool. While there is a chance that can work it is the creative equivalent of purchasing lottery tickets. Use the tools that science has shown us. Start with an idea of what you want them to be doing at each level in combat. Then write abilities that seem like they would actually reward that behavior. Don't give +1 bonuses at 2nd level because that looks like a 2nd level ability. Don't give any mind to what the abilities look like. Give a mind to what the character as a whole is capable of. If they are supposed to scare mages, consider the kinds of save bonuses they would actually need just to survive a color spray thrown by a spell focused Gnome at 1st level (DC 16 for the kids at home).

Look at the opposition. Look at the D&D tactical map. consider what options your fourth or fifth man would be using to influence the table to the benefit of the player characters. It's fine to make a defensive character or a teamwork oriented character. But run the numbers on what kind of attacks you are being defended from. Run the numbers on what kind of force multiplier the team would get from just having an extra man on the front lines with a riding dog and a lance.

Remember that any defensive abilities and any teamwork oriented abilities are inherently limited. Before you get all hung up on taking half damage from cold monsters, ask yourself how much you'd care about an attack power that made you do double damage against just cold monsters. Also remember that while in the duel situation taking half damage yourself is logically equivalent to dishing out double damage, in the case where you have 3 compatriots taking full damage it's really really not (since you won't see the extra damage dividends from your greater survivability until your allies have dealt with the problem or been ground to dust beneath the problem's heels)."

Do you honestly think this yokel is mature enough to get told that and not throw a fucking temper tantrum?

I don't.

-Username17

[Captain_Bleach]

So, Frank, since you're very good at writing classes, could you write a way to play a Mind Flayer/design a monster class for it? I was running a Tome game, and one player wanted to be a Mind Flayer.

Do you honestly think this yokel is mature enough to get told that and not throw a fucking temper tantrum?

I don't.

No, but it's only slightly less mature than getting your panties in a twist over game designers making stupid mistakes. Welcome to the Internet.

[Username17]

So, Frank, since you're very good at writing classes, could you write a way to play a Mind Flayer/design a monster class for it? I was running a Tome game, and one player wanted to be a Mind Flayer.

Yes. Required information:

• Does the player want to be a literal mindflayer, or just to be a character who uses Mindflayer powers?
  
  
• What level range is the character supposed to be playable in?
  
  
• What role is the player supposed to fill?

-Username17