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gourdcaptain
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Post by gourdcaptain »

Schwarzkopf wrote:It's really not germane to the discussion so I'll just make one final comment: the Wiz 15 has access to much better divination spells and more spell slots per day. Therefore he is more likely to know that the 20 Wiz 5s are coming for him and to be properly prepared than the 20 Wiz 5s are to know that they're going to be up against the Wiz 15 and to have leveraged whatever 3rd, 2nd, and 1st level spells could make a difference against him. I could research specific examples of how a 15th level Wizard has much, much, much better preparedness/readiness potential than a gaggle of Wiz 5s, but it's kind of self-evident.
If nothing else, Globe of Invulnerability would kinda make that fight hilariously one-sided.
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Post by RadiantPhoenix »

Aren't all characters 'supposed to' grow exponentially in power with level?
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Post by Stahlseele »

RadiantPhoenix wrote:Aren't all characters 'supposed to' grow exponentially in power with level?
Yeah, but fighters got the short sword.
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Post by Aryxbez »

Stahlseele wrote: Yeah, but fighters got the short sword.
and therefore, Wizards must now be punished for their sins! No more will you rule in your tower of scry & die, no more will end encounters in the blink of a water drop, and no longer will you be held as the high level standard!

But seriously though, I would like to see Spellcasters going down a peg, rather than 3rd edition rocket tag, Tome style optimized super jank, since we already have a game (mostly) for that. Although in a somewhat joking manner, it'd be interesting to see Wizards going Harry Potter, while the fighter types are rocking it up like Asura's Wrath and more. Could be useful to getting people to accept that fighters should have nice things, instead of their very limited view of Fantasy (which seems to be in the range of things like Skyrim, and Lord of the Rings).

I'd otherwise would like RadiantPhoenix is saying, having everyone in equal ranges of power for their respective level.
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Post by souran »

Spell casters can be both depowered while still remaining interesting.

WOT (rpg) spellcasting is both more interesting than standard spellcasting while at the same time being substantially weaker.

That magic system is both still fun, nobody would say that the initiates/wilders in that system are "fake" spellcasters but their powers are not so un approachable that they destroy the game.

Similarly, although the words of power system for pathfinder has a number of issues, it actually hands out spell effects in a substantially more level appropriate way than the existing vancian system.

Interestingly, these are both mix & match effect type systems. Which seems to be about the only way to prevent spells from going completely crazy.

While losing spells like black tentacicles, or gripping hands or things like that would be bad and those effects need to be reconsidered and lowered to fit a new system.

Spell systems that don't come with D&Ds totally prepackaged "spell units" that include all the scaling and a wide array of effects in a single daily replaceable ability are going to be easier to keep under control.
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Post by ModelCitizen »

souran wrote: Interestingly, these are both mix & match effect type systems. Which seems to be about the only way to prevent spells from going completely crazy.

While losing spells like black tentacicles, or gripping hands or things like that would be bad and those effects need to be reconsidered and lowered to fit a new system.

Spell systems that don't come with D&Ds totally prepackaged "spell units" that include all the scaling and a wide array of effects in a single daily replaceable ability are going to be easier to keep under control.
In a spell system like D&D if you write N spells there are N options. A mix and match system with two components has about 1/4 * N^2 options (assuming equal number of "nouns" and "verbs"). More options should in theory mean more broken options. I think what you're seeing is the writer getting so afraid of writing broken combinations that he lowballs and makes the individual components very weak. I don't know WoTRPG but that seems to be what happened with Words of Power.

Maybe sometimes it works out that mix-n-match casters are weaker, but mix-n-match doesn't prescribe that that will happen. Ars Magica mages use noun-verb and those guys could win D&D forever. OWoD changelings use noun-verb with a really narrow "noun" list, and they could keep up with 3e wizards until Wish/Gate.
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Post by Midnight_v »

This is kind of what's so tiresome about the fact that this discussion keeps coming up again and again and again forever and ever and ever ad nauseum is that it is a problem that Frank & K have already fixed at least to their satisfaction.

(I've been thinking a lot lately about the Tome material, and it's a pretty interesting approach to fixing the problem of overpowered, cheesed out wizards by making everything else equally overpowered, and therefore "balance" by way of "everyone is a god now" and making cheese irrelevant by putting all of the cheese right up-front and making it super obvious rather than making it dependent on your level of system mastery. As a matter of fact, anything Tome plus applied cheese is kind of horrifying because the BASELINE POWER of any Tome class is already ridiculously high.

However, I have issues with it, like its complete incompatibility with everything WotC ever published (imagine a game in which one person wants to play a Tome Fighter and another one for whatever reason REALLY wants to play a core Ranger or whatever? ugh, or I don't know, the fact that you really cannot mix and match Tome feats with non-Tome feats meaning if any feats you like weren't covered in Tome you need to either not use them or rewrite them to work like Tome feats). Using Tome if you want everyone on even footing means basically never using anything non-Tome, which actually leaves you with a lot less options.

More fundamentally than that, that it's built on a lot of assumptions, a LOT of very extreme assumptions, that don't in my experience actually apply to the way that I or anyone I know actually plays D&D. Like it is built on the assumption of chain-binding and a "wish economy" and everyone always exploting every rules loophole to the fullest of what the RAW allows, and in every D&D group I've actually seen or played, every single participant would in practice fully agree that the correct "answer" to those rules issues is fully supporting the DM when the DM says "no you fucking can't" if anyone tries any of that ill thought out bullshit and that's that. Basically the D&D the authors of Tome have been playing is nothing like any D&D I've ever played or ever seen anyone play, and that's fine, but Tome is a comprehensive solution to problems that, for me, never ever actually manifest due to unspoken gentleman's agreements. I mean only one person (who was for unrelated reasons kind of a dick) that I ever played D&D with even optimized at all and at the time I knew so very sadly little about D&D at the time that I couldn't really even engage with his optimization at all.)

Still though, it is at least A SOLUTION to the fighters/wizards problem even if it's not an optimal solution, so I'm not sure why, like Pinky and the Brain, every day we have to try to take over the world talk fighters/wizards to death. It's not like I'm opposed to any discussion of it, just that it might be nice to see a little less.
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I wanted to throw in that I pretty much totally disagree with you in this post concerning the tomes, their purpose, and effect.
The argument "I've NEVER seen play that way!" is fucking stupid, because something doesn't effect your limited existence, or experience that doesn't mean its not needed or valid.
I have a LOT to talk about to people when it comes to this, but I'm hella busy right now and will I suppose deconstruct this fully more tonight when I'm off...
...but alot of your ideas up above about everyone getting on the same page is needed and the very thought of "I don't play that way" is pretty much in line with all those people who ONLY play D&D levels 1-5 and think things are okay with the whole game.
The view is too small, and stupid. . . here's a thread where many people are debating basically "How fighters should totally suck compared to "Magic" cause its magic and they dont' care if its unfair.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=232729
Which is something that need to not exist in ANY game, especially team based coopereative games that are supposed to facillitate group story telling.

The thing that works for me so much about the tome series is that it at many points shows "Making shit that works isn't even fucking hard, if you have a baseline comparison of what level a certain power should come online. Elothar of Bladereach for instance.
Problem seems to be NO one agrees when/what that is.

The tome isn't full of shit, like pathfinder is with the backwards compatability, its supposed to overlap and push aside the base classes and feats with the same name/similar themes... just like the tome of battle is...

I digress because I'm groggy but you, and peopel who bitch about what the tome has done seem either: selfish "Its not a perfect soultion to ME!" or blind "There's no REASON a Samurai should be able to CLEAVE MAGIC, at high levels!" + "I don't see that happening ever in a game".

Its not supposed to be the same its a game that is supposed to be a way more "COHERENT" game of D&D.
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Post by tussock »

In recognising that D&D is about action denial, one can simply allow what the Fighter does (small amounts of damage and standing next to enemies) to be a form of action denial again. The Tomes do this by having Fighters kill everything in one round, which is fine.

Alternately, one might have adjacent enemies limit (rather than tax) any movement actions, and cause randomised spell failure automatically. You don't want Fighters stopping Fighters, because that's an initiative-check death spiral, but if they just stop casters that can lead to interesting dynamics in fights. Let the Fighter be relevant by letting ordinary Fighter things deny actions.


One also needs to introduce ways to stop spellcasters. Be it magic resistance that works, saves that work, useful immunities, common anti-spell spells for all, difficult recovery, or casting disruption. All of the above works well because Wizards have ways of ignoring most of it when they try.

Spells are rightfully awesome against armies and such, but big dragons, demon lords, and high level PCs shouldn't really need to worry about that.
"There's no REASON a Samurai should be able to CLEAVE MAGIC, at high levels!"
That's true too, as long as they can save on a 2+ (which you can picture however you like), and all those newer no save, no SR spells get thrown in the idiot designer bin where they belong. Fighters don't need to do magical things if their ordinary abilities produce similar outcomes to an anti-magic field.

To fix the problem, you first have to recognise what the problem really is. Fighters stand around and hit things, Wizards win. Standing and hitting must matter, and winning shouldn't be unstoppable.

If nothing else, Globe of Invulnerability would kinda make that fight hilariously one-sided.
You can do that for every possible situation a high level Wizard might face. IME, Wizards do not have perfect spell selection, nor always know which spell is the best to cast, nor which needs saved for later. That they have perfect solutions for everything is not in itself a problem, because they don't have all of them all of the time.
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Post by hyzmarca »

tussock wrote:
If nothing else, Globe of Invulnerability would kinda make that fight hilariously one-sided.
You can do that for every possible situation a high level Wizard might face. IME, Wizards do not have perfect spell selection, nor always know which spell is the best to cast, nor which needs saved for later. That they have perfect solutions for everything is not in itself a problem, because they don't have all of them all of the time.
No, but they do have Foresight, Time Stop, Contengency up the ass, and probably a personal fast-time demi-plane that they can retreat to an fully rest between turns.
No there isn't. Seriously. If that's all you've concluded you've been doing it wrong.

20 (flying invisible) 5th level Wizards attack a Wiz 15, the big guy dies in 1 round, pretty much every time, depending on paranoia assumptions.
A Wiz 15 has Contingency and Planeshift. If he's rightly paranoid then he literally can't be harmed by anyone who can't planeshift after him.

He's also fully capable of binding an efferet and Wishing for a Scroll of Genesis, meaning that he's relaxing on his personal demi-plane surrounded by buxom bee-women clothed in bikinis made of honey-flavored jello offering him martinis and rubbing tanning oil into his body while the Wiz 5's are throwing fireballs at empty space.
Last edited by hyzmarca on Fri Feb 24, 2012 6:28 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by Neurosis »

Midnight_v wrote:
This is kind of what's so tiresome about the fact that this discussion keeps coming up again and again and again forever and ever and ever ad nauseum is that it is a problem that Frank & K have already fixed at least to their satisfaction.

(I've been thinking a lot lately about the Tome material, and it's a pretty interesting approach to fixing the problem of overpowered, cheesed out wizards by making everything else equally overpowered, and therefore "balance" by way of "everyone is a god now" and making cheese irrelevant by putting all of the cheese right up-front and making it super obvious rather than making it dependent on your level of system mastery. As a matter of fact, anything Tome plus applied cheese is kind of horrifying because the BASELINE POWER of any Tome class is already ridiculously high.

However, I have issues with it, like its complete incompatibility with everything WotC ever published (imagine a game in which one person wants to play a Tome Fighter and another one for whatever reason REALLY wants to play a core Ranger or whatever? ugh, or I don't know, the fact that you really cannot mix and match Tome feats with non-Tome feats meaning if any feats you like weren't covered in Tome you need to either not use them or rewrite them to work like Tome feats). Using Tome if you want everyone on even footing means basically never using anything non-Tome, which actually leaves you with a lot less options.

More fundamentally than that, that it's built on a lot of assumptions, a LOT of very extreme assumptions, that don't in my experience actually apply to the way that I or anyone I know actually plays D&D. Like it is built on the assumption of chain-binding and a "wish economy" and everyone always exploting every rules loophole to the fullest of what the RAW allows, and in every D&D group I've actually seen or played, every single participant would in practice fully agree that the correct "answer" to those rules issues is fully supporting the DM when the DM says "no you fucking can't" if anyone tries any of that ill thought out bullshit and that's that. Basically the D&D the authors of Tome have been playing is nothing like any D&D I've ever played or ever seen anyone play, and that's fine, but Tome is a comprehensive solution to problems that, for me, never ever actually manifest due to unspoken gentleman's agreements. I mean only one person (who was for unrelated reasons kind of a dick) that I ever played D&D with even optimized at all and at the time I knew so very sadly little about D&D at the time that I couldn't really even engage with his optimization at all.)

Still though, it is at least A SOLUTION to the fighters/wizards problem even if it's not an optimal solution, so I'm not sure why, like Pinky and the Brain, every day we have to try to take over the world talk fighters/wizards to death. It's not like I'm opposed to any discussion of it, just that it might be nice to see a little less.
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I wanted to throw in that I pretty much totally disagree with you in this post concerning the tomes, their purpose, and effect.
The argument "I've NEVER seen play that way!" is fucking stupid, because something doesn't effect your limited existence, or experience that doesn't mean its not needed or valid.
I have a LOT to talk about to people when it comes to this, but I'm hella busy right now and will I suppose deconstruct this fully more tonight when I'm off...
...but alot of your ideas up above about everyone getting on the same page is needed and the very thought of "I don't play that way" is pretty much in line with all those people who ONLY play D&D levels 1-5 and think things are okay with the whole game.
The view is too small, and stupid. . . here's a thread where many people are debating basically "How fighters should totally suck compared to "Magic" cause its magic and they dont' care if its unfair.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=232729
Which is something that need to not exist in ANY game, especially team based coopereative games that are supposed to facillitate group story telling.

The thing that works for me so much about the tome series is that it at many points shows "Making shit that works isn't even fucking hard, if you have a baseline comparison of what level a certain power should come online. Elothar of Bladereach for instance.
Problem seems to be NO one agrees when/what that is.

The tome isn't full of shit, like pathfinder is with the backwards compatability, its supposed to overlap and push aside the base classes and feats with the same name/similar themes... just like the tome of battle is...

I digress because I'm groggy but you, and peopel who bitch about what the tome has done seem either: selfish "Its not a perfect soultion to ME!" or blind "There's no REASON a Samurai should be able to CLEAVE MAGIC, at high levels!" + "I don't see that happening ever in a game".

Its not supposed to be the same its a game that is supposed to be a way more "COHERENT" game of D&D.
Just to be clear, the gist of my post was:

a) Tome may not be perfect but
b) It is A solution to the DMF problem that most denfolk agree is viable, therefore
c) Why is DMF still so talked-to-death here?
Last edited by Neurosis on Fri Feb 24, 2012 8:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Midnight_v »

Just to be clear, the gist of my post was:

a) Tome may not be perfect but
b) It is A solution to the DMF problem that most denfolk agree is viable, therefore
c) Why is DMF still so talked-to-death here?
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Post by virgil »

Schwarzkopf wrote:Just to be clear, the gist of my post was:
a) Tome may not be perfect but
b) It is A solution to the DMF problem that most denfolk agree is viable, therefore
c) Why is DMF still so talked-to-death here?
I suspect the continued dialogue is because outside of the Den, essentially, nobody acknowledges Tome. Some refuse Tome on a philosophical level, others refuse Tome because of its associations with Frank, and still others see the 1-on-1 murder of the Tome Fighter and refuse it on principle. Many will refuse it before touching it because it's an internet creation, using the same mindset that created the "Core only, no splatbooks, final destination". This is even assuming they have even heard of Tome. Unless you close yourself off to the rest of the gaming community, you will see the cancerous design meme that keeps the DMF going.
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Post by Neurosis »

Shouldn't the discussion then focus on getting more of the greater gaming community to consider Tome? Either by refining the way that it's promoted and discussed as an alternative, or by actually adjusting the content to make it more palatable to a broader audience? Instead what I see is...not even "let's reinvent the wheel" but a lot of "these square things don't work very well as wheels".

It seems that the discussion always seems to be trying to present the problem from new angles as though seeking a new solution (as though the Den itself believed that Tome was fundamentally inadequate, which it clearly doesn't) or seems to be coming from a place of pure, sheer frustration and nothing else (which I can certainly understand; I have quite a lot of rage too).

The reason this fascinates me is that this place is so completely obsessed with "solving the DMF problem" when it is the only place where most users are largely aware of ANY semi-viable solution to the DMF problem, namely Tome and Tome Fighter.

Oh, someone's got to explain this "final destination" phrase to me. I'm pretty sure the reference/memetic meaning is going over my head every time. The usage I see is usually "x, y, final destination". Where does this come from memetically? What's the source of this idiom? All I can think of is the terrible series of horror movies.
The argument "I've NEVER seen play that way!" is fucking stupid, because something doesn't effect your limited existence, or experience that doesn't mean its not needed or valid.
I'm not saying that Tome isn't needed or valid, I'm saying that it's a solution no group I've ever played with needs. I'm saying that I, personally, and my friends, don't need it. Generally because no one is really optimizing hard enough or playing at the level required for the difference between Fighter and Wizard to be felt as a fundamental breakage of the game. Likewise, everyone in the group is super comfortable and happy with the idea of the DM closing the particularly glaringly stupid rules loopholes (like chain-binding for infinite wishes) through MTP/fiat.
Like right now I am PCing in a 3.5e campaign where I'm controlling three characters, and my girlfriend is controlling three characters, and the DM is the DM. The three characters I'm controlling are a Wizard, a Rogue, and a Fighter. We started at Level 7 and just dinged to Level 9.

At this level, at least, the Wizard is not making the Fighter irrelevant (if anyone is feeling a little irrelevant, it's the Rogue, who can contribute very little to combat with such an annoyingly high percentage of immune-to-sneak-attack monsters, but then again is absolutely vital at solving all non-combat challenges; the campaign is super-duper dungeon crawl focused), because there is very little overlap between their shticks. The Wizard (actually now a Wizard 8/Incantatrix 1) is almost purely recon and utility focused, and is into logistics and buffing/protection. He usually prepares a few save-or-sucks per day which at this level have about a 50/50 chance of going off. He has a lot of versatility, but his spells per day are really lacking. The Fighter on the other hand, is damage output and is very very good at it. He is flat out better at doing damage than anyone in the party, and can easily and reliably hand out 25-60 damage per turn, assuming I manage not to roll absolute shit on my attack rolls all the time. The Wizard has to use up one of his very limited higher level spell slots to try and do that much damage even once, the Fighter can just do it every goddamn turn. Now obviously there are exceptions and so forth (enemies that fly around, enemies that are out of reach, enemies that going near them is fucking goddamn suicidal, and so forth) but generally speaking the Wizard is filling the party role of recon and logistics and the Fighter is filling the party roll of killing shit to death and they're both performing equally well in their respective roles. It is easy to imagine, even if they were not both being played by me, that they could exist harmoniously as the PCs of two different players without anyone feeling like BMX bandit.
I am not saying "the DMF problem doesn't exist" or that "Fighters are always equal to Wizards". I'm pretty sure there IS a level of play/type of player/type of DM wherein the system breaks down and the problems inherent in the strict RAW become a huge issue. I'm just saying that at our level of play and with our group dynamics and so forth, Tome is a solution to a problem that really doesn't manifest...for us. Not that it's a problem that doesn't exist at all.
Last edited by Neurosis on Fri Feb 24, 2012 7:20 pm, edited 5 times in total.
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Post by John Magnum »

It comes from Super Smash Bros Melee. The original meme is "No items, Fox only, Final Destination". Items are frowned on in competitive play for the high degree of skill-flattening randomness; Fox is one of the best characters because he's extremely fast and has many many interrupts; Final Destination is a popular competitive stage because it's a completely flat featureless arena without any height differentials, environmental quirks that can fuck up a player, etc.
Last edited by John Magnum on Fri Feb 24, 2012 7:21 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Neurosis »

Ah, thanks for explaining that. (I have a friend who's really super into Smash, he'd probably know exactly what I meant if I were to use that.)
For a minute, I used to be "a guy" in the TTRPG "industry". Now I'm just a nobody. For the most part, it's a relief.
Trank Frollman wrote:One of the reasons we can say insightful things about stuff is that we don't have to pretend to be nice to people. By embracing active aggression, we eliminate much of the passive aggression that so paralyzes things on other gaming forums.
hogarth wrote:As the good book saith, let he who is without boners cast the first stone.
TiaC wrote:I'm not quite sure why this is an argument. (Except that Kaelik is in it, that's a good reason.)
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Post by Libertad »

virgil wrote:I suspect the continued dialogue is because outside of the Den, essentially, nobody acknowledges Tome. Some refuse Tome on a philosophical level, others refuse Tome because of its associations with Frank, and still others see the 1-on-1 murder of the Tome Fighter and refuse it on principle. Many will refuse it before touching it because it's an internet creation, using the same mindset that created the "Core only, no splatbooks, final destination". This is even assuming they have even heard of Tome. Unless you close yourself off to the rest of the gaming community, you will see the cancerous design meme that keeps the DMF going.
I don't think that's the case. Many people are aware of the Tomes, it just doesn't fit their style. Let's use power levels as an example: a lot of people are upset with CoDzilla's level of power. The Tomes up the power level to optimized Clerics, Druids, and Wizards to solve this problem; many gamers prefer to scale down the big three (Cleric, Druid, Wizard) while scaling up the noncasters. If we used JaronK's Tier System, Tome Classes would be 1 & 2, some people want most options to be 2 & 3.

Some gamers also like certain elements of Tome, but not the other stuff. For example, a lot of gamers like the fluff text and explanation of the Wish Economy; the Fighter's Foil Action, not so much.

If it seems that "nobody acknowledges Tome," it's also because it's a fan-created supplement. The Internet is a great avenue for communication, but many game products rely upon marketing and distribution to game stores to spread the word. If Frank and K published the Tomes as third-party supplements, I'd bet they'd get more publicity. But then they wouldn't be free.
Last edited by Libertad on Fri Feb 24, 2012 9:13 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by Midnight_v »

Shouldn't the discussion then focus on getting more of the greater gaming community to consider Tome?
I really think so...
Funny thing is Virgil:
Some refuse Tome on a philosophical level, others refuse Tome because of its associations with Frank, and still others see the 1-on-1 murder of the Tome Fighter and refuse it on principle. Many will refuse it before touching it because it's an internet creation, using the same mindset that created the "Core only, no splatbooks, final destination". This is even assuming they have even heard of Tome. Unless you close yourself off to the rest of the gaming community, you will see the cancerous design meme that keeps the DMF going
In my opinion has it spot on...
I hear people saying "thats not my play style" but ultimately they are actually NOT going to accept any change that makes things more powerful than "X" and "X" is something arbitrary...
Why? Rule 0.
Its really shitty but many people say things like "That shit would never fly in my games" and feel like they totally don't need to wizard up the fighter because apparently NO ONE in thier universe is ever used a wizard beyond simple tricks.
I find them pretty fuckin stupid... but they are there in droves.
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Post by Kaelik »

Libertad wrote: If we used JaronK's Tier System, Tome Classes would be 1 & 2, some people want most options to be 2 & 3.
Please don't. If we used JaronK's Tier system, most Tome classes would be Tier 4. Because being really good at one thing, like the Samurai/Barbarian/Monk/Fire Mage/400 variations of Fire Mage for different themes/Assassin gets you Tier 4.

Because the Tiers have nothing to do with power at all.

EDIT: Also, if you read the rest of his post, like the next sentence, it clarifies that by acknowledges he means something like uses, because people who think the Tomes are too powerful are specifically mentioned as some of the people who do not acknowledge them.
Last edited by Kaelik on Fri Feb 24, 2012 10:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Libertad »

Kaelik wrote:
Libertad wrote: If we used JaronK's Tier System, Tome Classes would be 1 & 2, some people want most options to be 2 & 3.
Please don't. If we used JaronK's Tier system, most Tome classes would be Tier 4. Because being really good at one thing, like the Samurai/Barbarian/Monk/Fire Mage/400 variations of Fire Mage for different themes/Assassin gets you Tier 4.

Because the Tiers have nothing to do with power at all.

EDIT: Also, if you read the rest of his post, like the next sentence, it clarifies that by acknowledges he means something like uses, because people who think the Tomes are too powerful are specifically mentioned as some of the people who do not acknowledge them.
I meant in terms of power, like how Fighters and Monk are bad (5) and Wizards and Clerics and Druids rock (1). Most Tome classes would be around 2-3 based on available power and versatility.

The term "not acknowledge" implies that people refuse to even give it time. I've read several posters on various message boards who take bits and pieces of the Tomes while disregarding other parts.
Last edited by Libertad on Fri Feb 24, 2012 10:42 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by virgil »

Libertad wrote:The term "not acknowledge" implies that people refuse to even give it time. I've read several posters on various message boards who take bits and pieces of the Tomes while disregarding other parts.
I did not intend my statement to be one of absolutes, hence my use of the word 'essentially'. Non-Denners who acknowledge Tome seem to be a rare breed indeed.
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Post by Kaelik »

Libertad wrote:I meant in terms of power, like how Fighters and Monk are bad (5) and Wizards and Clerics and Druids rock (1). Most Tome classes would be around 2-3 based on available power and versatility.
Right, and my point is that you can't sort how powerful Tome classes are on a scale that has nothing to do with Power.

The Dread Necromancer is Tier 3 because it's only gamebreakingly good at Necromancy and Planar Binding, and pretty good at casting Save or Dies, but since it can only break the game twice over it's Tier 3. On the other hand, the Factotum can't actually do anything to anyone at any level, and is Tier 3.

So the acceptable power range for Tier 3 is Anything that is more powerful than a Factotum who shoots poisoned arrows with a mediocre attack bonus and no extra damage, but less powerful than unnerfed Wish cheese giving you an infinite undead army of Shadows to go with your +400 Belt of Magnificence.

It is factually true to say that every single Tome class falls within that range, but of course, it's also factually true to say that the vast majority of Wizard and Druid and Fighter builds fall within that range.

Fighters are really bad but not because they can't be powerful. There are certainly fighter builds that do infinity damage to anything they can charge and hit. Those builds are considered Tier 5, because Tiers have nothing to do with power. Those Fighter builds fall within the power spectrum of Tier 5 classes, Tier 4 classes, Tier 3 classes, Tier 2 classes, and Tier 1 classes. So yes, the statement "X class is about as powerful as Tier Y classes." makes about as much sense as "The Marklar are about as intelligent as the set of all prime numbers."
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Post by tussock »

hyzmarca wrote:
tussock wrote:
If nothing else, Globe of Invulnerability would kinda make that fight hilariously one-sided.
You can do that for every possible situation a high level Wizard might face. IME, Wizards do not have perfect spell selection, nor always know which spell is the best to cast, nor which needs saved for later. That they have perfect solutions for everything is not in itself a problem, because they don't have all of them all of the time.
No, but they do have Foresight, Time Stop, Contengency up the ass, and probably a personal fast-time demi-plane that they can retreat to an fully rest between turns.
8 hour rest between rounds? No one plays that way, dude. It doesn't happen. It's like theoretical Blasphemy, the DM checks the casterlevel, sighs, and then doesn't do that. You don't, I don't, the game designers sure don't, no one does.

Even wankfests like Elminster don't do that. Not Bigby, not Modenkainen, not Halaster, not Blackstaff. Not in the modules, not in the worldbooks, not in the novels, not in the source fiction, not in anyone's games. Does not happen.

Yes, By The Book you can maybe chain bind an infinite number of outsiders, maybe have unlimited wishes, and maybe cast dozens of 9th level spells per round forever for free, and maybe have dozens of backup copies around should the big Blasphemy come out, but it doesn't happen that way.

People cast 1-2 spells a round, hide their contingeancy so the DM doesn't steal it, maybe have one big pet so as not to drag the game to a crawl, a familiar they ignore, and one or two backups, and spend half their spells helping the other characters suck a bit less. If spellcasters optimise that too hard they shatter the illusion of challenge and everyone else stops playing. Most groups never even use Wish, at all.
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Post by Kaelik »

Tussock, you are being an idiot.

There is nothing theoretical about having a contingency, and then Planeshifting when you get attacked by a bunch of level 5 Wizards.

Nothing at all. And frankly, I'm not sure why we are pretending that you have to put a lot of work into beating 20 level 5 Wizards, because if you don't roll a 1 on your save, you win, and if you do roll a 1 on your save, what's the level 3 spell they are casting, because you might be immune to it or survive it anyway.

Level 15 Wizards can fail a save against fear and live, they can fail a save against slow and easily live, they can fail a save against stinking cloud and run outside and not die during the period where they can only take move actions. Or hell, if they have a contingencied planeshift on saying a specific word, they can just say that word no matter what save they fail and come back and murder everyone in two minutes.
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Post by Neurosis »

because if you don't roll a 1 on your save, you win,
Depending on how optimized the Wiz 5s and Wiz 15 are, there Wiz 15 might easily need to roll as high as a five or a six. And even if the save DC was 1 or 2, if you have to make TWENTY saves, you will probably fail one.

However, I would like to again mention that globe of invulnerability is a thing, and exists, and makes this entire argument laughably moot.
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Post by Kaelik »

Schwarzkopf wrote:Depending on how optimized the Wiz 5s and Wiz 15 are, there Wiz 15 might easily need to roll as high as a five or a six. And even if the save DC was 1 or 2, if you have to make TWENTY saves, you will probably fail one.

However, I would like to again mention that globe of invulnerability is a thing, and exists, and makes this entire argument laughably moot.
1) Except for the part where Wizards never memorize or cast that spelll, and most of them don't have it in their spell book at all.

2) Yes, it's almost like the part where I talked about how a Wizard that fails a saving throw would still win was predicated on some kind of math having to do with 20 and needing to not roll a 1.
DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?
The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.

That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
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