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Goffer posted:Roy sort of got killed, or at least had 0 hitpoints outside and had to be healed by Durkon as well. No, but I'm pretty sure they only have Simple weapon proficiency by default.
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Sep 1, 2012 09:38
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I wouldn't be surprised if that axe had some kind of special properties that made Tarquin not mind leaving it behind. Maybe clairvoyance or the ability to use it as a teleportation beacon or something. Either that or it was his spare +5 axe.
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Sep 1, 2012 10:07
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bartolimu posted:I wouldn't be surprised if that axe had some kind of special properties that made Tarquin not mind leaving it behind. Maybe clairvoyance or the ability to use it as a teleportation beacon or something. Either that or it was his spare +5 axe. And it is alignment-bound and only evil characters can wield it and he left it behind because his goody son wouldn't hang out with evil people, which means Belkar would turn into a sexier shoeless god of war.
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Sep 1, 2012 10:20
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Vorgen posted:They survived a planned, coordinated assault by a capable band of prepared leveled classes. Usually that kind of strike team is death incarnate. None of them even died! Id say that's pretty badass. They also managed to split Malack away from the rest of his team (at least temporarily) and get rid of the succubus for at least 24 hours. That will severely hinder any further attacks from the Linear Guild.
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Sep 1, 2012 13:38
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ZearothK posted:And it is alignment-bound and only evil characters can wield it and he left it behind because his goody son wouldn't hang out with evil people, which means Belkar would turn into a sexier shoeless god of war. The axe is too big for him to use though. And Tarquin at least has some idea about Belkar, considering he refers to him as a foil and a source of interparty conflict.
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Sep 1, 2012 14:17
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Any chance Elan pulled the switcheroo with Nale? Would be a pretty convoluted and sneaky trick.
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Sep 1, 2012 19:47
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greatn posted:Any chance Elan pulled the switcheroo with Nale? Would be a pretty convoluted and sneaky trick. Nope, it would make Tarquin look stupid. And Elan is not the man you want on the inside.
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Sep 1, 2012 22:12
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LightWarden posted:The axe is too big for him to use though. And Tarquin at least has some idea about Belkar, considering he refers to him as a foil and a source of interparty conflict. Belkar using a comically unwieldy weapon seems right up his alley, though.
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Sep 2, 2012 05:29
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3.X rules literally prohibit Belkar from even attempting to wield a medium-sized two-handed weapon. Even with a DM house-ruling, it would probably incur a massive penalty to the point where it's not worth it at all - plus it's wasting his ranger bonus feats. So yeah, right up Belkar's alley.
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Sep 2, 2012 05:33
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I think it's more likely we'll get a rules joke about Belkar wanting to use it and not being able to.
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Sep 2, 2012 05:36
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Something to do with Monkey Grip, possibly.
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Sep 2, 2012 14:31
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By the by, I'm a little surprised Tarquin went for a twohander. He definitely strikes me as the axe-and-board type.
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Sep 2, 2012 16:08
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NihilCredo posted:By the by, I'm a little surprised Tarquin went for a twohander. He definitely strikes me as the axe-and-board type. Not-Thog deceive Talky-Man think Not-Thog Thog. Talky-Man see through deception!
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Sep 2, 2012 16:13
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Though still a pathetic insect compared to any caster, Great Axe is one of the best weapons in the game for Fighters and Barbarians.
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Sep 2, 2012 16:15
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NihilCredo posted:By the by, I'm a little surprised Tarquin went for a twohander. He definitely strikes me as the axe-and-board type. Tarquin taught Nale that bards are underpowered. You think he'd be so silly as to go sword-and-board? E: vvv re D&D 3.X, it probably wasn't a conscious effort to make casters in a completely different league from non-casters. The balance was supposed to be in casters having limited resources and non-casters having unlimited resources; the designers just hosed up the balancing act really badly. The problem was exacerbated with every book that came out, as they'd always have more spells that casters could pick up with little to no opportunity cost, whereas options for non-casters would be limited to feats, which are much more limited in supply for a character. Also, the irony is that as you go up in levels, the weapon you use as a fighter or barbarian matters less and less. When you're leap attacking for +100 damage, you don't really care if you have an axe that deals 1d12 damage or a two-handed butterknife that does 1d2. inthesto fucked around with this message at 17:11 on Sep 2, 2012 |
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Sep 2, 2012 17:03
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Cuchulain posted:Though still a pathetic insect compared to any caster, Great Axe is one of the best weapons in the game for Fighters and Barbarians. I've heard this said so often it's crazy. Is it a conscious design choice from the game's developers to make casters so unreasonably powerful?
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Sep 2, 2012 17:07
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Turns out it's hard to balance "These guys hit stuff until it falls down" with "These guys ignore the basic laws of reality".
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Sep 2, 2012 17:11
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Nilbop posted:I've heard this said so often it's crazy. Is it a conscious design choice from the game's developers to make casters so unreasonably powerful? Magic users are like artillery - they're most effective as long as they have a meat shield between themselves and the enemy. Truly epic level casters can pretty much sweep the floor by themselves, as seen during V's little... episode some time ago. But usually a lone caster is quite limited in his prospects, as V is experiencing presently.
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Sep 2, 2012 17:15
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Nilbop posted:I've heard this said so often it's crazy. Is it a conscious design choice from the game's developers to make casters so unreasonably powerful? Nope. During design no one sat down and said, "What are the limits of spellcaster ability?" so across several hundred spells they can do pretty much anything. Most effective when they have a meat shield? There are spells that provide meat shields! And so on. A single spellcaster can't have all the powers, but they can fill any single role better than any noncaster can beyond level five or seven. Big ole' mess.
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Sep 2, 2012 18:32
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Nenonen posted:Magic users are like artillery - they're most effective as long as they have a meat shield between themselves and the enemy. 3.5 Druids and Clerics are better at fighting (after buffing up) than warrior-types, and Mages have Tensers' Transformation.
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Sep 2, 2012 18:59
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I always figured that with the right magic items to complement their natural abilities, a fighting character has a perfectly reasonable shot of taking down a powerful caster even if the caster maintains an edge. D&D outside of the first few levels is a game of counter-measures and contingencies where the winner is the one who manages to catch their opponent in a situation they're unprepared for.
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Sep 2, 2012 19:52
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Dolash posted:I always figured that with the right magic items to complement their natural abilities, a fighting character has a perfectly reasonable shot of taking down a powerful caster even if the caster maintains an edge. D&D outside of the first few levels is a game of counter-measures and contingencies where the winner is the one who manages to catch their opponent in a situation they're unprepared for. But as soon as that fighter fails a single Will save...
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Sep 2, 2012 20:18
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Dolash posted:I always figured that with the right magic items to complement their natural abilities, a fighting character has a perfectly reasonable shot of taking down a powerful caster even if the caster maintains an edge. D&D outside of the first few levels is a game of counter-measures and contingencies where the winner is the one who manages to catch their opponent in a situation they're unprepared for. The issue is that magic items are all ridiculously inferior to the spells they replicate and most of the best abilities are totally out of the question for a 'fightery' type. Casters can become literally invulnerable in far, far too many ways from very low levels and any fighter struggles to pull off the tricks the Wizard was doing ten levels ago with his magical items. Plus Wizards can craft those same items for cheaper than a fighter can buy them and, you know, still have spells on top of it. Not to mention using items offensively is nigh impossible because they don't scale in difficulty like 'actual' spells do. Oh and the defensive buffs are also really easy to dispell because they likewise don't scale and using most magical items is a pain in the rear end for any non-spellcaster who isn't a Rogue anyways due to lack of Use Magical Item as a class skill. Good luck even managing to trigger a wand of cantrips consistently before you're in the mid teens. That's not to say Spellcasters always win, but if you go up against a Druid/Cleric/Wizard/Sorcerer who knows what they're doing you're usually hosed or might be able to drag them to a draw. They always have so many more options available. I mean, just for the sake of example, a Druid can shift into the form of a bear and keep the bear's stats along with his natural spellcasting from level six and by level ten can literally keep it up all day. Oh and he can also summon a horde of bears and has a special bear companion while the fighter can hit things roughly as hard as one of those bears. And the druid can have and use as many magical items as the fighter except earlier and cheaper (through crafting). Zore fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Sep 2, 2012 |
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Sep 2, 2012 20:35
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Dolash posted:I always figured that with the right magic items to complement their natural abilities, a fighting character has a perfectly reasonable shot of taking down a powerful caster even if the caster maintains an edge.
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Sep 2, 2012 20:38
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I said it before upthread, but the problem is that wizards are quadratic (their power goes up exponentially as they level) and fighters are linear (their power goes up evenly as they level) The solution is to make the fighters quadratic too. A lot of people hate Tome of Battle for being too "anime", but it was the only time Wizards honestly tried to bridge the power/utility gap in 3.5. One of the major failings of Pathfinder (Paizo produced continuation of the 3.5 ruleset, for those unfamiliar with it) is that they left in the linear/quadratic problem, so it never quite fixed the balance issues like it claimed to. Don't get me wrong, I liked Pathfinder's streamlining of the ruleset, but it didn't get rid of the #1 flaw with the game.
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Sep 2, 2012 20:51
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Zore posted:I mean, just for the sake of example, a Druid can shift into the form of a bear and keep the bear's stats along with his natural spellcasting from level six and by level ten can literally keep it up all day. Oh and he can also summon a horde of bears and has a special bear companion while the fighter can hit things roughly as hard as one of those bears. The "aggressively hegemonizing ursine swarm" approach
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Sep 2, 2012 21:06
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Pathfinder did a few pretty decent fixes for the whole caster/melee problem. Concentration checks are now not an automatic pass anymore, in fact they are now rather nasty, if you want to defensively cast a high level spell you need to roll a 15+ or spend a feat and still need an 11+. Combat maneuvers are easy to win against a wizard, and there's a few really nasty feats like the whole Step Up line. Besides, OOtS consistently shows casters as stronger than they should be according to 3.5 rules. Nobody ever makes their saves unless the plot demands it, spell resistance has shown up exactly once while in "reality" about half the highlevel monsters have it, and Xykon always cheats on his metamagic rules.
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Sep 3, 2012 00:58
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Fourth edition fixed all of this.
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Sep 3, 2012 03:29
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Please, no edition wars. But yes, 4th is better.
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Sep 3, 2012 03:39
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Thing is Fourth had its own set of problems, particularly in the land of verisimilitude. Fourth may have been a better game mechanically, but it became so at the cost of making it a harder setting to roleplay and tell stories in because nothing made any sense. At all. As....to bring things back around to the thread topic....Rich himself points out in the "Attack from the Fourth Dimension" strips in Snips, Snails, and Dragon Tales.
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Sep 3, 2012 05:03
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The conclusion of that mini-series was pretty great. While Burlew clearly favors 3E overall, the moral of the story was that both editions can co-exist peacefully, and that all other hobbies should be destroyed so kids can be playing D&D instead. 
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Sep 3, 2012 05:27
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Soonmot posted:Fourth edition fixed all of this. It really didn't, it just slightly shuffled the clearly superior classes a bit is all.
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Sep 3, 2012 05:31
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Edition war. Edition war... never changes. 4th undoubtedly has flaws (for me it's the graunching gearshift between in and out of combat) but you have to be pretty groggy to not see the quirks of 3.x that led to it. Especially in an OOTS thread. Hell, Burlew just had the high level fix-everything wizard literally unconscious in a hole for the last ten strips so he didn't break the plot.
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Sep 3, 2012 05:37
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You're right, 3.5 has some glaringly huge problems. But anyone who thinks that 4e fixed them completely is wrong. Mechanically I'd have to agree that 4e is probably superior in terms of balance, but its not balanced overall and it sacrificed the ability to have a huge range of options when building your character to do so.
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Sep 3, 2012 05:49
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Who What Now posted:You're right, 3.5 has some glaringly huge problems. But anyone who thinks that 4e fixed them completely is wrong. Mechanically I'd have to agree that 4e is probably superior in terms of balance, but its not balanced overall and it sacrificed the ability to have a huge range of options when building your character to do so.
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Sep 3, 2012 07:29
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All that matters is that my warlord can yell hit points back into her party members and insult them into hitting better/harder.
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Sep 3, 2012 07:33
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Soonmot posted:All that matters is that my warlord can yell hit points back into her party members and insult them into hitting better/harder. And that a bard can literally kill a kobold by saying that its mother had a fat rear end.
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Sep 3, 2012 07:46
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Who What Now posted:it sacrificed the ability to have a huge range of options when building your character to do so. Even within some classes themselves, there's a huge range of options: A brawler fighter plays different to a two-handed weapon fighter; a pacifist cleric plays different to a melee cleric which plays different to a bow cleric; an assault swordmage plays different to a shielding swordmage, etc, etc, etc. And then there's hybrid classes!
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Sep 3, 2012 08:08
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Roger Explosion posted:This is flat-out wrong. One of the "problems" with 4.0 now is that there's just so many feats/powers/builds, it's hard to know where to start, especially if you want to play something basic like a Wizard, Fighter or Cleric. Don't forget normal multiclassing! 4E gave 2 different systems to multi-class, for varying levels of character customization. It was a bit ridiculous.
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Sep 3, 2012 08:44
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Dudes posted:4e vs 3e Not a mod, but in my opinion, this is the wrong thread for this. There are plenty of places in TG to discuss how you feel about the different editions, maybe we can keep it there?
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Sep 3, 2012 09:21
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