The Gaming Den

Feat chains rob people.

There is no reason why a paladin who has specialized in mounted combat(like 4 feats) has to take crap feats at mid-level like Mobility and Dodge to get Spring Attack and Whirlwind attack when a paladin who got them at 1st level(when they were useful) can now take mounted combat feats(which are useful at any level).

I think feats should be based on level, period. With the exception of feats that directly and 100% stack conceptionally and mechanically(like Spell Focus and Improved Spell Focus), no feat should be chained to another.

And the same goes for PrCs. Make 'em level based, and only include feat requirements that directly stack. Then we can avoid all the "and now by loosing two levels of this class and taking one level each of these two suck classes, I can qualify for that super PrC four levels lower than the designers intended. "

That'd be fine, just re-work the fighter so that it isn't feat dependent. The only thing that makes the fighter half-way useful is the long feat chains that only a fighter can really use effectively. The feat chains are nothing more than a way to say "Fighters get more than one combat style. Everybody else gets one." If you get rid of feat chains, then the main benefit of being a fighter (versatility) disappears.

I disagree that dodge is necessarily more useful at low levels. Dodge is just a crappy feat to begin with, but it's equally useful regardless of level, as it's a stacking +1 AC bonus.

Mobility just plain sucks because of tumble. Take tumble out of the game and mobility becomes awesome. Personally I think tumble is just overpowered.

On the concept of feat chains, I don't think there's anything too bad about them. Certain abilities need to be intermixed with lesser ones as prereqs, just like PrCs get the good abilities (or should get the godo abilities) at the later levels.

Spirited charge is too good for one feat to give. It's good that it has prereqs.

I sort-of agree with you and sort-of don't, K.

I think there's nothing wrong with a feat requiring other feats as long as the new feat builds upon the old one. Same goes with PrCs. The prerequisits should dictate how early various classes can get into a class, if at all. An archer class should require archery feats, and so forth, but that's about it. If your prerequisites are there to balance the ability, then you've done it wrong.

I think it's more fair to say that when a feat chain requires feats it doesn't build upon it's robbing people.

-Des

I agree with Desdan Mervolam. It sucks the hind tit that Whirlwind Attack requires Dodge when the two aren't related in the slightest. Heck, Whirlwind Attack isn't mechanically related to anything, and it really should just have a straight BAB +11 prereq and nothing else.

Feat chains as defined rob people, plain and simple.

There is no reason why should be able to get Improved Precise Shot without Precise Shot, however, so the concept of the feat chain is not necessarily devoid of utility.

It's a difficult line to walk. The ability to take an ability later in life that is superior to an ability you had access to earlier in life without first taking that early ability screws people. It screws people who invest in the early ability. But the requirement to invest a lot of feats into a direction before it turns into anything good screws people who even pretend to attempt to diversify.

This is the modern era, one with free multiclassing. Every single god damned time you take a new level you have the option of multiclassing - you have the option of deciding to take new abilities. And those abilities really do have to be good or the game is screwing people. This means that if we are wedded to the feat standard, a feat has to be a viable complete ability all by itself.

If we are really going to give Fighters "a feat" for getting a level, this needs to be game mechanically comparable to getting "a new spell level, two spells known, and four spells per day" like a Wizard gets just for getting to level nine in their class.

And that means that those feats should provide more abilities. Getting "Dodge" isn't enough for a feat. Getting "Dodge and Mobility" is not enough for a feat unless we start handing out more feats at each level.

The chain relations of feats need to be cut back, and if we just lump feats together that will somewhat take care of itself. But that's not all - feats need to scale with level the way that spells do. If your bonus for Greater Magic Weapon goes up when your level does - your bonus from Weapon Focus should go up when your level does.

-Username17

OK, I don't get how it's robbing you. It's no more robbing you than saying that wizards have to wait until 17th level to get 9th level spells or that rogue's don't get the opportunist ability until later levels.

Feats are arranged in a way similar to small class builds, except they're arranged in trees and not linear progressions.

Whether individual feats are underpowered or not isn't really the question... mobility sucks, and should be improved, there's no doubt about that. But that doesn't invalidate feat trees any more than it invalidates the idea that you need 2nd level spells before you can pick up 3rd level spells.

There are certain goodies that people want with classes or feats, and we make those goodies require more commitment by placing prereqs. In the case of class abilities, it's a class level prereq. You need to invest X number of wizard levels before you see 9th level spells. With feats, you invest other feat slots. So to see whirlwind attack or spirited charge you have to make investments.

Now if those investments are worth the end product is of course a matter of opinion, but the basic principle of investment isn't a bad one and the robbery is only taking place in your mind.

Am I being robed because I can't learn meteor swarm by putting in only 1 level in wizard? I'm willing to give up first level spells, and just learn that 1 9th level spell slot. Is this robbery or am I just being overly greedy?

Actually, the fact that a Wizard/Rogue can only cast 5th level spells at 20th level is robbery. Unfortunately, this kind of multiclass penalty happens even to single classed fighters because of the way feat chains stack up.

Any time you have to "reinvest" at 12th level and start getting crappy abilities, you are being robbed. So multiclassing into Wizard at 11th level just janks you hard. Finishing out your feat chain, and then having to start over again - that's robbery too.

Same basic problem, but the feat thing is a lot easier to fix than the multiclass spellcaster thing..

-Username17

D&D does try to rob people who don't specialize... that's always been the way things have went.

The only way to stop robbery is to make use of diminishing returns, and that generally requires a more complex point system. The magic item system does that.

In the magic item system you're better off buying items that improve deflection, natural armor, and shield bonus to AC, as opposed to lumping all your money into a really good ring of protection. This is because the more money you put into your ring of protection, the less you get back. 2000 gets me a +1, but 4000 doesn't get me a +2, 8000 does.

Now skill points need to be that way, attack bonuses need to be that way, and spellcasting needs to be that way, if we're ever going to get away from "robbing" people.

The points it takes me to move from a 13th level fighter to a 14th level fighter should be able to make me have the abilities of a 5th level rogue or so.

Basically you can specialize in this system but your encouraged to generalize because improving your abilities are so expensive as they get higher and higher.

The magic item system already does this, and it works beautifully, and basically the class building system needs to do the same thing.

Moving from rank 20 to 21 in hide skill should be significantly more expesnvie than going from 1 to 2. Until this is so, we'll always be robbing people.

D&D does try to rob people who don't specialize... that's always been the way things have went.

How long have you been playing this game? Back in the days of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, each class had its own quasi-exponential experience chart and the amount of XP you got was per monster rather than by a convoluted formulae based on your level.

In short, taking small numbers of levels in secondary classes was basically free.

Back then, you were horribly robbed if you didn't specialize. The difference between an 8th level Fighter and an 8th level Wizard with the attack bonus, armor proficiencies, weapon proficiencies, strength and hit point bonuses of a 7th level Fighter was that the dual-classed Wizard had spent less total XP.

This isn't the way it's always been - it's a state of affairs that has been around for less than five years. That's chump change.

-Username17

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1083300420[/unixtime]]
In short, taking small numbers of levels in secondary classes was basically free.

I assume you're talking about dual classing.

Dual classing was just a crappy mechanic to begin with. For one you had to have uber stats, so almost nobody qualified unless you were a super character.

Second, you basicalyl became a useless peice of crap to the group until you got equal levels with your second class, then you became godly powerful.

Of course, you could never return to your original class either. Dual classing was just well... retarded. I didn't even think to mention it because it basically never happened given the stat reqs and the fact that you became useless for a while.

The period of uselessness is totally over rated. You are short class features for less time than it would have taken you to gain a single extra level, and in the meantime you keep your hit points and saves. Also, as per the rules on dual classing, once your second class exceeded your first class, seemingly you could go back, since the fact that you were unable to was a restriction and the restrictions were lifted.

Dual classing happened all the time when people actually read the rules and understood what they meant. Characters died a lot and didn't take a whole lot of time to roll up - and chaarcters who qualified for special classes were so much more survivable than anyone else that they tended to stick around longer.

If you played as written, you could have as much as half the party at any time be dual classed - with the other half of the party trying to work their way up as an actually first level character instead of a first level character with the hit points, strength, and saves of a 7th level Fighter.

Yes it was stupid. Really really stupid. And broken. But when you start asking for the ability to buy levels for absolute prices and such - that is apparently exactly what you are asking for.

-Username17

Dual classing depended on the DM. Many DM's rarely, if ever, let dual classed PC's get much xp b/c those PC's never contributed much to the success of the group. A dual classes ftr7/wizard1 (unable to use any fighter abilities) sucked up some hits from the monsters, and that was about it.

IMX, nobody dualclassed.

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1083334883[/unixtime]]
Yes it was stupid. Really really stupid. And broken. But when you start asking for the ability to buy levels for absolute prices and such - that is apparently exactly what you are asking for.

Well, I'm not quite asking for the ability to buy levels, just skills, BaB and spellcasting.

Basically the level system would work the same, however it'd simply cost more to improve very high BaBs and high level skills. Basically in a manner very similar to GURPS and the White wolf systems.

The white wolf system especially encourages a balance between generalist and specialist very well. You can choose to improve your mage sphere to level 3 at a huge exp cost, or you can take something like a knowledge skill at rank 1 for dirt cheap, or improve your dodge from 3 to 4 for a midlevel cost. That's what we have to do in D&D if we ever care about encouraging generalization. So long as 1 rank of knowledge(planes) costs the same as my 24th rank in hide, the rogue is always going to keep improving hide and not bother with any other dip skills.

So long as you gain a spell level every 2 caster levels, caster levels become super important, and you're very loathe to give one up. If you required say 4 caster levels to get from 5th level spells to 6th level spells and that number got bigger as time went on, you're much more likely to consider giving up a caster level here or there for some other general benefits. When being behind 4 caster levels only means you're down 1 spell level and a few spell slots, it's much more feasable to take a few levels in something else.

Obviously by the end of this whole process you'd be left with something that doesn't resemble D&D at all, but as I said before, D&D, especially 3E, has never really encouraged generalization.

Well, I'm not quite asking for the ability to buy levels, just skills, BaB and spellcasting.

At which point we aren't even playing a level system, we are playing a point-based system.

Many games work fine with a point base system. But you know what makes things a "level" system? The concept of "level" - as in "equal".

Level 3 is a measure of equal overall power, with the built-in amount of specialization and diversification needed to maintain that. There is, by very definition, no possible way to integrate someone who is "just a swordsman" into a level based system withou making him "lower level" than someone who can change weather patterns, threaten kingdoms, travel the stars, and slay demon lords.

Since the wizard will eventually get those things if he gets high enough in level - there's no place for "just a swordsman" past a certain level. And pretending that there is gets us stupidity like expecting a 12th level fighter to pick up two more levels before he gets to take weapon focus.

-Username17

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1083356756[/unixtime]]
Level 3 is a measure of equal overall power, with the built-in amount of specialization and diversification needed to maintain that. There is, by very definition, no possible way to integrate someone who is "just a swordsman" into a level based system withou making him "lower level" than someone who can change weather patterns, threaten kingdoms, travel the stars, and slay demon lords.

Well, sure there is. Basically fighting ability is equal to your average damage per round, and your ability to resist effects.

The way to balance this is relatively easy. First you get rid of anything that doesn't grant a save, like forcecage. Damage effects like magic missile are OK because hit points overcome them, which we don't care about anyway. then you just tailor average damage. Really, the only reason you NEED magic right now is to bypass certain no save spells. You can beat flying with a bow and basically anything else you can just plain outfight.

There is no reason everybody needs super powers at all. in fact, just hitting and doing damage is a perfectly valid superpower. Because after all, the end result is just to kill the enemy, so all you have to balance combat wise is that both classes do it equally well.

the end result is just to kill the enemy

Not since we stopped fielding armies back in the sixties.

The end result is to rescue the Princess. Anything else you do along the way is secondary. So no, just swinging a sword and doing damage is not a superpower. And it's not enough.

Theseus could do lots of stuff. He could woo the princess, he could trace his way through the maze, he could overcome the traps, he could operate a boat, he was proficient with the sword and the spear, and he could fight sufficiently well in the dark to beat up The Minotaur.

That's a nice enough package of abilities - but in D&D the Minotaur is only CR 4. So Theseus should be represented by a character who is between 3rd and 5th level. If you want to make a higher level character - you need to be able to do more than that.

Like maybe be undefeatable while touching the ground. Or maybe just invincible except to critical hits. Because heroes who are higher level than Theseus start getting really crazy schticks like that.

Being Achilles shouldn't require being all that high level, he basically just has the ability to lay out huge numbers of mooks without suffering any damage - which is the kind of thing that an 8th level character should be able to do. Which means that when you have a warrior of 8th - 12th level, that is exactly what you are being compared to.

-Username17

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1083366888[/unixtime]]
Theseus could do lots of stuff. He could woo the princess, he could trace his way through the maze, he could overcome the traps, he could operate a boat, he was proficient with the sword and the spear, and he could fight sufficiently well in the dark to beat up The Minotaur.

MOst of these don't require a stat in the first place. The princess is an NPC, she likes you if the DM wants her to basically. A PC making a map can trace his way through a maze. Operating a boat is sailing, but so what, a normal fighter can do that anyway. And fighting in the dark is another part of fighting effectively and killing stuff.

Like maybe be undefeatable while touching the ground. Or maybe just invincible except to critical hits. Because heroes who are higher level than Theseus start getting really crazy schticks like that.

Huh? says who. Where did the weird ass jump from realistic warrior to Superman, man of steel come from?

Stuff like this are plot device abilities, not abilities PCs should be having. Achilles was just a plot device. He was this super uber warrior and he died when it was his time to die in the story. This isn't the kind of power PC characters should have. Generally villains shouldn't be expected to research the hero they're fighting, because not ever villain is a research type. Some just punch people and rip em up. If you have to know that the guy has to be taken off the ground before you can hurt him, you have to be a research type.

And absolutes are absolute dumbest thing you can do in a game like this. Anything that ignores completely whatever your facing is dumb. Yeah, as long as you're on the ground your undefeatable... eh... right. So what powers do gods have in your world... I mean seriously, once you're "invulnerable to everything" there isn't anywhere you can go from there. It's generally why we apply numbers to it, like the barbarian's damage reduction, instead of just saying "you own all"

Being Achilles shouldn't require being all that high level, he basically just has the ability to lay out huge numbers of mooks without suffering any damage - which is the kind of thing that an 8th level character should be able to do.

And he can do that with just high AC and high attack and damage bonuses. Because surprise... if they can't hit you, you tend not to take much damage.

Where did the weird ass jump from realistic warrior to Superman, man of steel come from?

Because that's how legendary warriors work.

Remember, these are story characters, not "real people". Which means that the ranking goes smoothly from Theseus to Odysseus to Achilles.

Achilles is invulnerable excecpt at his weak spot (game mechanically a critical hit). And Achilles is a playable character because real fantasy epics have him as a character rather than as a plot device.

That's the real source material, so anything you say about how that shouldn't happen is meaningless jibber jabber. For goodness sake, read a book. If you can't be bothered - I hear that they are making a movie version.

-Username17

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1083368687[/unixtime]]

Achilles is invulnerable excecpt at his weak spot (game mechanically a critical hit). And Achilles is a playable character because real fantasy epics have him as a character rather than as a plot device.

To be immune to everything but a critical hit is freaking broke. And a critical hit isn't even a hit to the heel, not unless you know the heel is a vulnerable spot.

Basically by granting that kind of immunity you're tossing the entire AC system out the window and saying "well all that matters is your weapon's threat range"

Gee and I distinctly remember you telling us all a while back that the scimitar was too good already.

Do you realize how powerful total immunity to damage really is? Cause seriously I don't think you do.

If that's your conception of an 8th level character, I don't think I even wanna know what you think a 15th level character is. It's likely to make the Silver surfer pale in comparison.

No wonder in the other thread you think Batman was so powerful... it's cause you think every creature of high level should have some super invulnerability that absolutely requires research to beat. There's really no point carrying around a sword in your games, or ever bothering with a fireball if you think that about high level challenges. The only one who really does well is a cleric because he's got the divinations to figure out that the latests CR 13 monstrosity can only be killed by "the petrified flesh of a half-fiend half-celestial cocatrice jabbed in its hidden weak spot just below its left testicle."

Anything with invulnerabilities similar to what you're describing is a plot device, like a greater artifact. You don't go handing that shit out half cocked, and certainly not to PCs playing in anything short of a super epic 'battlefield of the gods' game.

RandomC, you totally made me laugh!:lol:

White Wolf encouraged specialization more than any other game. Since low level abilties were cheap, you took your starting character and calced your freebies and did your best to be a Vampire with one Level 5 Discipline who roxxored everyone, rather than a feeb with three Level one Disciplines(since the cost a level 5 power from 1 to 5 was 50 XP(in-clan), three times the cost of gaining two extra level one powers at 20 XP). With an XP gain of 2-3 per adventure(not session), you totally went for the level 5 power because your game with that group often ended before you ever gained a total of 60 XP.

Mage made it a little more difficult. You blew all you freebies on Arete(4), and then had two level 3 powers, and spend a bunch of freebies on a Library so that you could buy level 4 powers for a minimum of XP(since the power scales exponentially in all WW games for a near useless level 1 power to a godlike level 5 power).



----------------------------------------------------
But back on the point....

The BAB system would scale just fine in a Multiclass system with some classes gaining slowly and others gaining quickly, but there are too many ways to get extra attacks and bonuses. Nix a few of those(like Divine Power, and Two eapon fighting and monster withs 12 natural attacks), and you are good to go.

Now, the fact that the spells in the PHB takes up 1/2 the space means that spells are a pretty good example of level based power. Now, using them as templates, redesign the feat and level system:

FEATS: Rank them from level 1 to 9, set them in power against spells of the same level, and remove all the hokey "How can I find a way to break the system and get this as early as possible" requirements. Add in Metafeats to calc the cost of a feat when it has been taken at a level that is higher than it normally was. For example, Widen is +2. Add that you your Whirlwind attack(level 3), and at level 5 you have a whirlwind attack that can be taken at char level 10 and has reach to it.

If you want to take a feat that you already have, you just take it at the new level with your newly gained feat, and get a refund of the old feat's level. If a 5th level fighter wanted a Widened Whirlwind(5), and he has Whirlwind(3), then when he takes it at 10th level, he gets its, and a level 3 feat as well.

SPELLS: Spellcasting could also scale, with these revisions. Make it so that anyone gains spell levels at half their character level, but give them spell slots based on class, and make a rule that you can never have more spell slots in a level than you have in a lower level. Bonus spells for high scores are eliminated.

For example, lets say the Wizard gets 2 spell slots per level, and the fighter gets 0. Lets say that we had two guys of each class, and both were 5th level, and about to take their sixth level as Wizard. At 6th, both will have access to 3rd level spells. The wizard has been trying to get the highest level spells he can, so his spell list at 5th level looks like this: 4/3/3. He has 4 0ths, 3 1st, and 3 2nds. The fighter has no spells.

Now they both take thier level of Wizard. The Wizard takes his list, and goes 4/3/3/2. He could add those spells to any other lower level, like a 5/4/3, or a 6/3/3, or a 5/3/3/1, or a 4/4/3/1, but he wants those tasty high level slots. 4/3/5 is right out, since he has more spells in 2nd level than in 1st.

The fighter has his options. As a 6th level guy, he can do anything he wants. 3 could be his list, with three cantrips, but lets assume he also wants those tasty high level slots, so he goes 1/1/1, with one cantrip, one 1st, and 1 second. He cannot put all his slots into 3rd level spells, since he would then have more slots in a level than the one below it.

Now lets assume they both want to take level 7 as Wizard. The Wiz guy gets a list like 4/4/3/3. The fighter get a list like 2/1/1/1.

The Wiz has a BAB of 3, 21 + Con HP, one good save and The fighter has a BAB of 6 35ish + Con HP, one save thats pretty good and another thats OK. The fighter also has a few more feats, but none of his feats is higher than those availble to a 7th level guy. His fighter feats were all taken at 5th level or lower, so at that power level they will stay.

Also, remove spells with HD caps, and the no save spells(except for clouds, which are just fine as they are damaging spells which do relatively large amounts of damage to low level guys, and low amounts to powerful guys). Rework the system so that spells have some effect when they fail to affect high HD guys(like Color Spray). Calc DCs on stats and char level, not spell level and stats.

Make magic items a level thing too. You just can't eak must power out of the Sword of Doom as a low level guy, but an Epic guy cuts through Walls of Force.

Do these things

Guest (Unregistered) at [unixtime wrote:1083371634[/unixtime]]
White Wolf encouraged specialization more than any other game.

The character creation system did, which sucked, but once you actually had a character created and spent XP did not encourage specialization in the least. It was one of the few systems where I didn't always find myself saying "Ok more exp, how much do I need to improve my spellcasting skill another level?"

In D&D with linear skills, when I'm a 20th level rogue advancing form 19th to 20, I'm always going to keep improving my hide skill and move silently. In fact there's no reason I wouldn't do that.

In vampire, I'd look at my stealth of 4 and wonder if I really wanted to pay out the large sum of points to raise it to 5, or maybe i"d rather increase something else that's cheaper. I didn't really have any incentive to specialize per se, as the dice in stealth I'd gain was just another die... it wasn't particularly any better than before. In fact, it'd probably help me less than the past increases.

Diminisihing returns makes me choose. Linear progression, in the case of spells, exponential progression, doesn't. There is no choice in linear progression. I only get one action to do something, so I might as well do what I do the best I possibly can, since the 1 skill point I could invest in a knowledge skill won't help me anyway I won't succeed on a check so who cares and if I don't spend more points on hide, I'll be relatively falling behind all the stuff I'll be hiding against. The same cannot be said when you can spend 8 exp to gain 1 dot of stealth or you can use that same amount to increase 3 other skills to a more useable level.

Make magic items a level thing too. You just can't eak must power out of the Sword of Doom as a low level guy, but an Epic guy cuts through Walls of Force.

I dunno about scaling magic items, that sounds really weird. How could you ever price something like that?

White Wolf encouraged specialization more than any other game. Since low level abilties were cheap, you took your starting character and calced your freebies and did your best to be a Vampire with one Level 5 Discipline who roxxored everyone, rather than a feeb with three Level one Disciplines....

Oh man, so many hillarious memories! Yeah, White Wolf Min/Maxxing is way over the top. Once you realize that you can make a starting character who can win the Ascension War in Mage. Like right now, your min/maxxing problems are completely out of control. Scaling costs don't mean jack if the effects scale even faster....

Now, the fact that the spells in the PHB takes up 1/2 the space means that spells are a pretty good example of level based power.

And here I was thinking that the fact that Polar Ray is an 8th level spell that I seriously wouldn't walk across the street to be able to cast at will as a first level character and Planar Binding was a 6th level spell that makes you win D&D showed that these were terrible examples of level based power.

In general, basing something on a template only works if it is short, simple, and has good correlation all the way through. The D&D spell system is a sprawling morass of legacy effects and has little or no correlation internally or no.

When you get it, the effects of Sleep and Wail of the Banshee are largely indistinguishable - which means that Wizards aren't really getting anything from levelling and facing larger challenges, are they? They have to go 16 levels just to get back to the relative position they have at first level - and all their other gains are pretty much restricted to non-combat spells. That's a terrible correlation of level to effect.

Consider the 6th level spells vs. the 7th level spells in the 3.5 PHB:

Abjuration:
Antimagic Field, Greater Dispel, Globe of Invulnerability, Guards and Wards, Repulsion.
vs.
Banishment, Sequester, Spell Turning.

Conjuration:
Acid Fog, Planar Binding, Summon Monster VI, Wall of Iron.
vs.
Drawmij's Instant Summons, Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion, Phase Door, Plane Shift, Summon Monster VII, Greater Teleport, Teleport Object.

Divination:
Analyze Dweomer, Legend Lore, True Seeing.
vs.
Greater Arcane Sight, Greater Scrying, Vision.

Enchantment:
Geas, Greater Heroism, Mass Suggestion, Symbol of Persuassion.
vs.
Mass Hold Person, Insanity, Power Word: Blind, Symbol of Stunning.

Evocation
Chain Lightning, Contingency, Bigby's Forceful Hand, Ottiluke's Freezing Sphere.
vs.
Delayed Blast Fireball, Forcecage, Bigby's Grasping Hand, Mordenkainen's Sword, Prismatic Spray.

Illusion:
Mislead, Permanent Image, Programmed Image, Shadow Walk, Veil.
vs.
Mass Invisibility, Project Image, Greater Shadow Conjuration, Simulacrum.

Necromancy
Circle of Death, Create Undead, Eyebite, Symbol of Fear, Undeath to Death.
vs.
Control Undead, Finger of Death, Symbol of Weakness, Waves of Exhaustion.

Transmutation:
Mass Bear's Endurance, Mass Cat's Grace, Mass Bull's Strength, Control Water, Disintegrate, Mass Eagle's Splendor, Flesh to Stone, Mass Fox's Cunning, Mordenkainen's Lucubration, Move Earth, Mass Owl's Wisdom, Stone to Flesh, Tenser's Transformation.
vs.
Control Weather, Ethereal Jaunt, Reverse Gravit, Statue, Limited Wish.

If you didn't already know, which group would you say are the more powerful? How good do you think the correlation between power and level is between level 6 and level 7?

There are spells that can break the game at level 6 (planar binding), and at level 7 (simulacrum). Which one is worse? Well, which one doesn't cost any XP?

Further, even if the correlation were good, which it is not, we haven't even gotten to the fact that many of these spells are lower level for a Cleric - a class which gets a better chasis in literally all ways (even as a spellcasting platform) in exchange for supposedly having a worse spell list.

No, working game balance out from the spell list or the magic item system may sound attractive, but it's not possible. Game balance must be found elsewhere, and then imposed upon the spells and magic item systems.

-Username17

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1083376218[/unixtime]]
Oh man, so many hillarious memories! Yeah, White Wolf Min/Maxxing is way over the top. Once you realize that you can make a starting character who can win the Ascension War in Mage. Like right now, your min/maxxing problems are completely out of control. Scaling costs don't mean jack if the effects scale even faster....

Huh? A starting character... well whatever, it's probably some weird loophole, and I don't really care about mage, it's poorly thought out anyway.

And as I said before, character creation wasn't great in WW, but the character advancement system was good. It was one of the few systems where I felt encouraged to generalize as opposed to just specialize.

And as I said before, character creation wasn't great in WW, but the character advancement system was good.

No it wasn't. The powers granted by each new dot of super power grew faster than the cost. While it took a larger investment to get each new dot of discipline (or gift, or sphere, or whatever the crap), each new dot also gave a greater return.

A larger greater return than the greater cost. The cost per amount of power kept going down so long as you stayed in a single line of advancement. The only drawback was that you had to purchase them in larger and larger blocks.

-Username17