[Pathfinder] Just to kick a man when he's down.

[Lago PARANOIA]

If you're going less than four stats, though, you might as well get rid of the whole attribute system altogether. I don't really have a problem with that personally, since the only thing 3E really uses them for is for checks that don't conform to a certain skill.

[Username17]

If you're going less than four stats, though, you might as well get rid of the whole attribute system altogether. I don't really have a problem with that personally, since the only thing 3E really uses them for is for checks that don't conform to a certain skill.

Tristat has its problems, but the concept is not unworkable. Attributes divide potential character strengths into synergy groups. There is nothing inherently wrong with having 2 or 3 any more than there is something inherently wrong with having 6 or 8.

Having just two or three synergy groups can lead to your synergies becoming cluttered and confusing (See Tunnels and Trolls "Strength"). Having 8 or 10 synergy groups can leave some feeling extraneous and weak (see White Wolf "Strength").

-Username17

[CatharzGodfoot]

If you're going less than four stats, though, you might as well get rid of the whole attribute system altogether. I don't really have a problem with that personally, since the only thing 3E really uses them for is for checks that don't conform to a certain skill.

Or you could use the 4e system of Mind/Agility/Body.

[Starmaker]

Late for the party, as always.

Oh god... that just reminds me of the bullshit thing my friend said when I stated the OotS characters aren't optimized...
"Well you can't optimize in real life"

Except you totally can. "Roll stats and choose a character class based on whatever you rolled" is fucking annoying in a game, but that's what real life is, in a way. I won't be an artist or a world-class athlete, ever, because I don't have the stats. But there's a selection of optimal jobs for everyone. (There might not be a selection of either theoretical or actual openings, and enjoying the job is not guaranteed either.)

Seriously, the brain rewards humans with a release of endorphins for succeeding at difficult tasks so that we would specialize in doing the hardest (correlates with "most useful") thing we can reliably do.

So in order to simulate real life, roll stats, then add some freebie points on top, then choose a build that would work best with whatever you rolled. That's still bullshit for anthropocentric reasons, but better that "I'm playing a character with INT 26 who's really into bashing stuff with his head because I'm a real roleplayer".

[NineInchNall]

See, there you go again: confusing the issue with your logic.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Order of the Stick has a lot more problems than unoptimized characters, though. In fact, the reason why this doesn't become a problem is because of bigger problems with the writing.

[FatR]

I rather enjoy reading OotS despite the recent grudge monste... plotline. What are the problems with the writing you're talking about?

[Psychic Robot]

Wall of text and plot stagnation.

[Roy]

Wall of text and plot stagnation.

You forgot excessive author wank.

[virgil]

Specifics? I haven't touched the comic in awhile (out of accident, more than anything), and I don't remember it having had stagnation/wank.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Following the fall of Azure City, the party has been split up, and nothing I really care about has happened. All sorts of things have happened, but I don't care about any of them. Belkar's uncursed now. Haley got a haircut.

I think it was supposed to be a rest after the climactic battle where the characters could have some characterization and individual moments, but it has just fallen completely flat and killed the momentum of the story.

The wall of text mostly has to do with the extensive exposition in Vaarsuvius' plotline, as the premise and solution were laboriously told (rather than shown) to us.

[hogarth]

How is that different from the 3.5 version?

According to a later clarification from Jason, it'll last more than one round.

[Roy]

Specifics? I haven't touched the comic in awhile (out of accident, more than anything), and I don't remember it having had stagnation/wank.

Well for starters, there's the whole Screw the Rules, I Have Plot bits. Forcecage does NOT work that way. Neither does AMF. This is made all the more galling by the fact there was a perfectly legitimate and MORE efficient way to have the wizard shown up by the dragon. It's called 'dragon teleports out'.

It's exactly the same sort of Fail that makes the novels fall flat. Either you base it on D&D and actually play it as such, or you stage and play it as whatever generic fantasy you want. Choose one.

Of course, if you have spent any length of time on GitP, none of this should surprise you as this brand of fail is their standard operating procedure.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Combination of two piss-awful arcs and one fairly stupid one. I should probably save this for another thread, but:

Thieves' Guild Arc: It's a good idea in theory - Haley infiltrates her evil home city in order to resurrect Roy, get Belkar healed, and teach Celia some badassery. But it's completely fucked-up from the start because the whole thing came about because of Celia's rampant stupidity and naivety -- traits that she has never shown before save that amulet thing. Of course, Haley never adequately explained WHY she didn't want to go in the first place otherwise this dumbass plot wouldn't have been forced. Other stupid thing, people treating the Thieves' Guild as some huge, vague, menacing threat and Durzon or whatever the hell he's called trying to be painted as some kind of savvy, cutthroat mob boss -- when everything we've seen has been to the contrary. Ends with Celia being stupid again. No, wait, it ends with Haley killing someone in an extremely disturbing and random manner. Now, I don't have a problem with heroes killing foes, but Crystal has been portrayed as a ditz, her villainy harmlessly amusing, and her threats more like an extended catfight. This would be like Superman busting into Toyman's apartment while he was playing with LEGOs and lasering his head off.

Crazy Island Arc: Unlike the other two arcs, there's no way this could've been seen as a good idea. I mean, hasn't this guy seen Pirates of the Carribean? Completely pointless arc that put the plot on hold for no reason whatsoever. Nothing came out of this and the only remotely interesting element (Kubuto, heavy emphasis on remotely) got completely negated at the end. And that doesn't tick me off so much as the fact that this resolution was used to force the next arc.

One More Day arc: Because heroes making deals with the devil that the story gleefully goes out of its way to negate the reason for the deal and the sacrifice won't cause readers to chuck their computer out of the window. Ask Spider-Man. Again, this could've been a really good idea and I think that Rich Burlew has the talent to handle this kind of arc. When it got kicked off by V calling his teammates out for caring more about little side-distractions like the aforementioned arc than saving the world it was off to a promising start. And when the black dragon showed up and presented a realistic consequence to what happens to people in V's profession I had a lot of hope for the arc. Then the devils showed up. I still didn't have a problem with it until the very end, when the story presented an alternative way for V to deal with his problem that didn't involve selling his soul to the devils.

That's when I went 'WTF'? Since then that arc became... I don't want to talk about it too much. Let me just say that I am perversely impressed by the story's ability to railroad the plot despite the massive train wreck going on.

I still read Order of the Stick, though, because I know Rich Burlew is much better than this. The conversation between O'Chul and the monster and his pwning of Redcloak shows what he's capable of when he doesn't go off on weird tangents or author wank. I mean, I don't mind author wank, but when it forces characters to act stupid or out-of-character or contradicts previous elements of the story such as the internal morals or the setting I get a little ticked.

It's not nearly enough to make the hurting of the deal with the devil plotline stop, but I'm patient. I stuck with Naruto for four years after it got apparent that all of its redeeming factors got kicked out of the window and it has consistently disappointed me since then with a few exceptions.

[Lago PARANOIA]

But anyway, like Roy said, the story's third-biggest problem is that the author randomly changes rules to force the plotline he wanted; what's worse is that there are easier solutions lying around the corner. For example, he didn't need to have Varsuuvius HAVE TROUBLE HITTING AN IMP WITH 7TH LEVEL SPELLS just so V can be caught pantsless by the dragon. Something wrong with having an epic battle first? Or hell, why even bother with all that? Just say that V didn't prepare any transportation spells because they were locked up in research.

Xykon's inconsistent power level is another symptom of this problem. Let's just say that there's something very stupid about this character, who got his ass handed to him by Roy in the early strips, fighting toe-to-toe with someone who has epic-level spellcasting. And since the entire story (at one point, before all of the stupid sidetracks) was dependent on Xykon's power level this creates some bigass problems. For example, why and how does a sorcerer get a spell that completely blankets the city with a teleport/scry blocker spell?

But I still say that the biggest thing wrong with this strip lately is an increasing reliance on people doing something idiotic to move the plot along. Celia and Varsuuvius are the biggest victims of this for reasons I've talked about before, but they aren't the only ones. Related to this is that so many goddamn problems in this strip is caused by poor communication. For example, if Varsuuvius had just spend one minute asking Elan why he had the daimyo tied up this plot wouldn't have gotten all stupid. If Varsuuvius's spouse (the constant use of the word 'mate' and stilted conversation to preserve a running gag is really fucking irritating at this point, by the way) would've given V just 45 seconds to explain this bullshit could've been cleared up. If Haley had been more upfront about her past and why they were avoiding her town in the first place an entire arc would've never happened.

[FatR]

"The world hates Vaarsuvius" arc was the only one that actually pissed me off. By obvious railroading. Deal with the Devil/Fall to the Dark Side stories just don't work when the character in question is put in a real (as opposed to imagined) lose/lose situation. Otherwise, I suppose I just aren't emotionally invested enough in OotS to care.

(P.S. As a (now former) fellow reader of "Naruto", I feel your pain.)

[Psychic Robot]

To summarize Lago's post: Burlew ran out of interesting ideas awhile ago and is pulling shit out of his ass in a feeble attempt to profit off of the coattails of the earlier strips.

[Lago PARANOIA]

That's not a summarization of what I said at all.

I never claimed that Burlew was out of ideas or that he was coasting on his old work -- otherwise the strip would look very different than how it looks now. The problems with OotS have to do with characterization and railroading.

[Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp]

Depends. Usually a designer doesn't get paid by the product or by the year, but by the word. So you'd get paid for the writing itself, and it's only a few cents a word. Making game design incredibly poorly paid.

But Jason is on staff. He gets money no matter what he does, so whatever he does or doesn't do doesn't cost them a dime more or less than they were already in for. The real cost is publishing. They're going to have to sell a lot of copies to break even on that.

-Username17

I'm curious cause 4e seems to be emphasizing crunch over fluff. So would 4e's writers still get paid by the word?

--Bill

[Psychic Robot]

4e's writers shouldn't be paid at all.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

I think it's the freelancers who get paid by the word. The first 4e core books were designed and written by WotC staff, who presumably get a fixed salary. Not sure about how much of which supplements are freelance, though, since I don't collect 4e stuff.

[Username17]

4e is a weird case, because they actually created a format that is really fast to write and uses up incredible amounts of page space to cover basic concepts. In short, it looks to me like a ruleset that was designed by and for freelancers who knew they were going to be paid by the word (or possibly the page).

Consider "Rule of Order" - the 20th level Champion of Order attacks.

Rule of Order Rule of Order Champion of Order Attack 20
You invoke order through your weapon, causing it to glow as you
deliver a punishing blow against an enemy.
Daily ✦ Divine, Radiant, Weapon
Standard Action Melee weapon
Target: One creature
Attack: Strength vs. Fortitude
Special: If the target has scored a critical hit against you or
your allies in this encounter, your attack gains a +2 power
bonus and deals +2d10 radiant damage.
Hit: 4[W] + Strength modifier damage, and you push the
target 1 square. The target is weakened (save ends).
Miss: 1[W] + Strength modifier damage, and the target is
weakened (save ends).

Do you notice how many of those aren't cut-n-pastes? Like 15-30. The power itself is 107 words long. Someone got paid 4-8 dollars to write that power. It probably took like five minutes. That's a writing career you could live on.

-Username17

[Thymos]

On OotS:

While I agree that lately it hasn't been as good, Mr. Stiffy has been awesome. I just like this one new character a lot (even though I can't remember his name).



On wordcount: To be honest, Spells in 3.x seem like that with the template and everything. It just seems that good spells in 3.x are harder to invent, because 4e powers are all damage + minor effect, and don't seem to vary much from that paradigm.

[Mr. Bane]

Hell, I could make a ruby script to work that faster.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

Why stop there? Just generate all of the powers from a script. Seriously, there are a limited number of effects, and a limited number of actions (ranged/melee/spell), and they all do damage as per level. You could seriously script them and name them (naming is a separate task, which may or may not involve another script).