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Splicer posted:No I don't think I'll run towards where you're steering this conversation. I liked it at the beginning, when you asked what else it could be but arcane. This new place, where two people haver given perfectly good non-arcane reasons and you got pissy and tried to turn it into "Well why NOT arcane then yeah I thought so Splicer posted:When my Bard gives burns so sick people literally die from them I want it to be because he is that good at giving sick burns, not because he learned Power Word: But remember, it has to be supernatural, not magical.
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Mar 10, 2014 23:51
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", is not a conversation I'm interested in.
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Just add martial spells (to go with arcane and divine) and make fighters full casters. Problem... solved?
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Mar 10, 2014 23:54
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Bongo Bill posted:Just add martial spells (to go with arcane and divine) and make fighters full casters. Problem... solved? We already did that! Some people who never stopped playing 3E didn't like it.
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Mar 10, 2014 23:55
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:But remember, it has to be supernatural, not magical.
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Mar 10, 2014 23:55
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:But remember, it has to be supernatural, not magical. MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 00:01 on Mar 11, 2014 |
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Mar 10, 2014 23:58
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If you (a hypothetical game designer) really cared you could probably build some kind of formal/informal distinction right into the bard class, starting at level one, that determines whether your magic's accessed in a sorcerous or wizardly way.
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Mar 11, 2014 00:03
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MadScientistWorking posted:As I said before. Meet the rogue. Yes, at one time bards were under the rogue umbrella, in fact. But unless you're going to argue that we should go back to the four-class dynamic for some reason or that rogues and bards are indistinguishable in play, not much to discuss there. 4E happened, we no longer have to worry about what the gently caress was going on in 3E. As far as flavor, bards and rogues are also distinguishable there.
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Mar 11, 2014 00:03
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:Yes, at one time bards were under the rogue umbrella, in fact. But unless you're going to argue that we should go back to the four-class dynamic for some reason or that rogues and bards are indistinguishable in play, not much to discuss there. 4E happened, we no longer have to worry about what the gently caress was going on in 3E. It's not like your original point was completely unreasonable, what's bizarre is how you started childishly lashing out at the first person to disagree with you.
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Mar 11, 2014 00:08
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Splicer posted:So to be clear, Bards have always been Arcane, so of course they should be Arcane, except when they weren't really Arcane, but that doesn't count. I'm not even sure what this argument is about anymore. That said I feel there's a huge difference between "does magic" and "does supernatural things (not magic)" because 'magic' ultimately gets coupled back into whatever magic mechanics happen to exist, whereas 'not magic' gets to (or has to) roll its own. Whether that's good or bad depends on how good the designers are. You can refluff everything at the end, but from a design perspective, if you already have defined 'magic' as working a certain way, any time you assign a class as "being magic" they're going to slot in there, and "not magic" will be elsewhere.
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Mar 11, 2014 00:23
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I think the problem I have with the bard is less a quibble over magical/supernatural and more a reaction to the way they've decided to go back to every special power needing to be represented by a magic spell. It just seems like such a lazy and boring way of doing things. Yes, it goes back to 2e/3e, but so what? Those also had the Pit Fiends shooting fire at you by virtue of being able to cast Burning Hands rather than because they're demon lords. e: Daetrin posted:That said I feel there's a huge difference between "does magic" and "does supernatural things (not magic)" because 'magic' ultimately gets coupled back into whatever magic mechanics happen to exist, whereas 'not magic' gets to (or has to) roll its own. Whether that's good or bad depends on how good the designers are. This is what my problem with the Bard is. There's no reason for the bard's special powers to be wizard spells. If it's supposed to be kinda like a rogue but able to cast wizard spells, that's a good opportunity for multiclassing rules. If it's supposed to be a unique class, why can't it have a unique thing? It's a bard for gently caress's sake, the setting and flavor opportunities are amazing. But nope, it casts <spell> as <wizard> <level> while wearing leather armor. So unique. Instead of that, why not have weird voodoo bards that can drum up zombies which are stronger as long as the drumbeat continues? Dudes who can sing up a literal storm? Opera divas that can shatter not just wineglasses, but the spears of the foe-man? A guy who plays the fiddle so well that it shoots lighting out the end? A weird little dude with a flute who summons an army of rats? Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 00:37 on Mar 11, 2014 |
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Mar 11, 2014 00:25
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This is what's bothering me about their caster class design in general. EVERYTHING's hidebound to Wizard spell levels. They won;t take a single step outside '*class* has spell levels up to y, but *different in this way*'. Grow a pair and actually design something new, guys. If you lose the toxic grognards in the process, so much the better.
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Mar 11, 2014 00:35
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Splicer posted:So to be clear, Bards have always been Arcane, so of course they should be Arcane, except when they weren't really Arcane, but that doesn't count. Well... 1e: Fighter -> Thief -> Druid -> Bard = Divine? 2e: Thief subclass w/wizard spells 3e: Casts mostly wizard spells with a few cleric tossed in and a few of its own special ones 4e: Arcane power source Result?  Personally, I agree with AlphaDog above. Though it is telling that 3rd edition adopted the term "spell like ability" rather than "at will" for things like this, and it's kinda lazy to always have abilities refer to "Spell X" rather than simply reproduce the text, or give a truncated version in cases where the spell is simple.
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Mar 11, 2014 00:39
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Splicer posted:So to be clear, Bards have always been Arcane, so of course they should be Arcane, except when they weren't really arcane, but that doesn't count. I have yet to hear why "arcane" and "magical" are meaningful distinctions in any way. The best that has been mustered up is that we must say that they are supernatural in order to rescue martial characters from irrelevance at the table, which doesn't follow and has nothing to do with anything. Vancian isn't your problem; power source isn't your problem; this isn't the design space where you fix martial characters, because calling the bard a thing or giving it an existing framework doesn't fix the urge by certain D&D designers to ignore the idea of fantasy in the martial design space, or to nurse their "wizards are best" fixation. Daetrin posted:I'm not even sure what this argument is about anymore. Giving every class a completely different mechanical framework just to differentiate fluff doesn't lend itself well to the idea of a well-balanced system. Nothing broke in 4E when every class had 1/encounters and 1/dailies, and two at-wills. As a DM you just go "the pit lord shoots fire out of his hands" and thus immersion in your serious elfgame isn't broken. We can go "OK, different fluff means very different mechanics" but at that point balance is certainly not a serious concern because it becomes that much more impossible.
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Mar 11, 2014 00:49
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:
Oh yeah, it was great in 4E, where everyone used the same power progression. But if you're going to use different power progressions like they are in 5E, you might as well make them interesting.
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Mar 11, 2014 00:56
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:Vancian isn't your problem; power source isn't your problem; this isn't the design space where you fix martial characters, because calling the bard a thing or giving it an existing framework doesn't fix the urge by certain D&D designers to ignore the idea of fantasy in the martial design space, or to nurse their "wizards are best" fixation.
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Mar 11, 2014 01:07
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Magic songs are a pretty big staple of fantasy though.
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Mar 11, 2014 01:13
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AlphaDog posted:This is what my problem with the Bard is. There's no reason for the bard's special powers to be wizard spells. If it's supposed to be kinda like a rogue but able to cast wizard spells, that's a good opportunity for multiclassing rules. If it's supposed to be a unique class, why can't it have a unique thing? It's a bard for gently caress's sake, the setting and flavor opportunities are amazing. But nope, it casts <spell> as <wizard> <level> while wearing leather armor. So unique. I think its exceptionally strange that in 'exotic fantasy world only limited by your imagination' everything is so rigidly defined that theres zero mystery about anything. All it would take would be a single line such as 'Scholars have debated the power behind music, be it natural or sorcery, that seems to transcend its limitations in the hands of a skilled and renowned bard.' Boom done. People have a vague idea that theres something special behind it, who the hell knows what it is but some people who are unique are capable of making that kind of stuff become something more than that average person. Gort posted:Magic songs are a pretty big staple of fantasy though. Not even just that, the idea that music in and of itself is some powerful force as a source of power is a fantasy staple.
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Mar 11, 2014 01:13
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kingcom posted:Not even just that, the idea that music in and of itself is some powerful force as a source of power is a fantasy staple. Splicer fucked around with this message at 01:27 on Mar 11, 2014 |
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Mar 11, 2014 01:24
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:As a DM you just go "the pit lord shoots fire out of his hands" and thus immersion in your serious elfgame isn't broken. It's not about immersion, and it's not even about vancian casting being a thing that some PCs do. The idea that every magical/supernatural/special power is a vancian magic spell informs the design of the pit lord. It's not "burning hands 5/day" because of game balance or because there's any fluff reason pit lords can only do that 5 times a day, it's pulling a number out of your arse because there has to be a number there because of your lazy design principle. It could still be exactly burning hands but he could be able to do it every round, or every 2 rounds, or it might recharge (5+ on 1d6) at the end of every round. But nope, it's a wizard spell and everything that gets those only gets them on an x-per-day basis.
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Mar 11, 2014 01:24
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Splicer posted:This would again be an argument for a Bard's abilities being their own thing. Music being a source of immense power, that a song can be so powerful or someone can perform it so well that even the universe is never the same after hearing it, is a very different kettle of fish to a spellcaster with a high focus on verbal components. One can use song to do the impossible. The other is good at singing because magic, or, in the case of 4E, is good at magic and singing because magic is kind of an art so there's a bit of cross-training potential there. One of these is, in my opinion, a much more powerful archetype to build a class around. I know, I was agreeing with you, Bardic music as a power source seems the best way to handle it.
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Mar 11, 2014 01:36
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Bards being full casters is mechanically good for Next given the spellcaster love. Bards being full casters because everything must be a spell is bad from a greater design viewpoint. It informs a lot beyond just the bard is the thing you have to note. It's basically the heart of the whole magic/mundane or wizard/rogue or cleric/fighter problem. If everything supernatural must be magic, then characters with magic will always be better then those without because they are the only ones who can achieve supernatural feats. You cannot have Cú Chulainn because the warp spasms become an arcane spell. You cannot have Beowulf because lasting underwater for several days becomes a "wizard thing." It's basically the core problem in D&D. If all supernatural acts MUST be magic, then non-magic classes cannot perform the supernatural. This becomes an increasingly large problem when you note how seemingly everything in D&D becomes a supernatural feat, even poo poo people do normally in real life. If you want, I'm ok with many bardic abilities being magic. I dislike them being Magic. As was also stated, it removes all fluff from the bard. Bards are no longer supernatural musicians or tricksters. They aren't people who have tapped into an inner kin with themselves. They haven't begin understanding the Harmony of the Spheres. They aren't summoning up the power of the first song that started the world. They're wizards. They're just variant wizards. That's it. That's all they are. Just another kind of wizard. This is what happens when everything must be a spell. Do you remember 3.x? Do you remember all those awesome monsters? And how all of them - ALL OF THEM - just became different wizards? The balor with it's flaming whip and vorpal sword? Wizard. That every so popular abomination from beyond the stars or from the Far Realms, the beholder with flashing eyes of death? Wizard. The dragon, ancient and powerful? How did that line go? "My armour is like tenfold shields, my teeth are swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail is a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath death!" loving. Wizard. There was a thread in the Paizo forums about how people did BBEGs who weren't wizards. The overwhelming response was "you can't." Not just in Pathfinder - literally in no game at all could they imagine a non-wizard BBEG. That is the brain damage that occurs when everything has to be a wizard. ProfessorCirno fucked around with this message at 01:57 on Mar 11, 2014 |
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Mar 11, 2014 01:50
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I think the root of the problem might be that the entire framework for special ability usage limits was named magic. They made a class with special abilities, the wizard, and made rules to limit his special ability usage. The class was the wizard so they called that framework 'magic' which seems extremely short sighted design wise. Then they come up with a cleric and said, 'this class should have special abilities, we already have a framework for that so let's use that". Now the cleric 'does magic' because that's what the special ability rule set was called because the first class to use it was wizard.
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Mar 11, 2014 03:39
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:I have yet to hear why "arcane" and "magical" are meaningful distinctions in any way. The best that has been mustered up is that we must say that they are supernatural in order to rescue martial characters from irrelevance at the table, which doesn't follow and has nothing to do with anything. ...Where did Splicer say that the Bard had to be 'magical'? What I read him saying was, with some paraphrase, 'I don't want my disses to be Power Word:  , I just want to be SO GOOD at dissing that people die when I hit them with ice burns'. As in, the bard doesn't have magic. He's simply SO GOOD at words and entertainment that he can make you laugh yourself to death, or cry yourself to babydom, or belt out such a soulful, powerful solo that women who hear him get pregnant with his children. That's not magic, not of the Vanciant sort, the sympathetic sort, or anything else. It IS fantastical, but not magic unless stated to be such. The whole point is that the bard is simply skilled. What part of that is so difficult to understand?
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Mar 11, 2014 05:11
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Transient People posted:'I don't want my disses to be Power Word: Now that you mention it I really want Power Words to be stuff like that.
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Mar 11, 2014 06:42
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Transient People posted:...Where did Splicer say that the Bard had to be 'magical'? What I read him saying was, with some paraphrase, 'I don't want my disses to be Power Word: Another example: a fighter that is strong enough to chokeslam a dragon is supernaturally strong, but not necessarily magically. Of course Next fighters are neither supernatural nor magical so that's maybe not the best example.
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Mar 11, 2014 06:45
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Is this entire argument really people splitting hairs between supernatural and magical?
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Mar 11, 2014 07:20
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Hashtag Yoloswag posted:Another example: a fighter that is strong enough to chokeslam a dragon is supernaturally strong, but not necessarily magically. So in Next so far you cannot get swole enough to accomplish this as a Fighter?
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Mar 11, 2014 07:22
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Cease to Hope posted:Is this entire argument really people splitting hairs between supernatural and magical? Yeah, and it's an argument that's been dividing D&D for decades. Or rather, there's a kind of issue in how D&D treats supernatural things (they are all magic, all magic is spells, all spells are available to wizards/clerics, if you don't do magic and aren't a wizard/cleric you don't do supernatural) that hugely impacts the fundamental assumptions and gameplay of the game and most D&D settings and it's caused basically every balance argument in D&D ever. Let the semantics begin.
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Mar 11, 2014 07:33
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Cease to Hope posted:Is this entire argument really people splitting hairs between supernatural and magical? Should Wish be a spell the genie casts, or an ability inherent to the genie? The answer is a much bigger deal then it may initially seem.
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Mar 11, 2014 07:53
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Rulebook Heavily posted:all spells are available to wizards/clerics I think this is the crux of where argument really gets off the rails for me. Okay, let's say everything superhuman is magic. Awesome, that's a decent game-wise assumption. It's the idea "if it's arcane, then Wizards can do it, and if it's divine, then Clerics can do it" that really drives the balance issue. You could give everyone all kinds of awesome abilities and if Wizards get to do them too, then it's pointless from a gaming perspective; even if Wizards have
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Mar 11, 2014 07:54
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Magic should be simple and gamey, rather than "does everything/overcomes obstacles". Personally I lean towards "does area attacks" where multi-attacking fighters is the assumption on the other end of the spectrum.
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Mar 11, 2014 08:22
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Magic clearing obstacles isn't that big of an issue. Like, a limited invisibility and knock aren't really game enders in of themselves, so long as spells stay limited. The issue is that a) magic is the only thing with obstacle clearing abilities that don't compete for space with combat abilities, because they can be freely switched, and b) those are level 2 spells, you got 7 more spell levels to go. Eventually the wizard gets "literally never even notice doors again because I teleport across the planet or just turn into mist and go through the wall." Rogues get "Ok but that one time doors matter again I'M TOTALLY loving ON IT!" It's why people were equal parts groaning and laughing at the two articles about scope side by side. Wizards go up in scope naturally due to their spells. Magic always gets better. Fighters...well, god bless them, they can hit you a second time.
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Mar 11, 2014 08:40
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neonchameleon posted:The 3.0 master of none approach. The 3.5 bard was actually an excellent class if you knew how to exploit the synergies (or just abuse glibness). While true, that wasn't really the point I was making - the 3.X bard started as a mechanical and conceptual loving mess destined to be a fifth wheel. The silly synergy stuff came later, I assume as a backlash to how poo poo they were, and a few other bad classes got a boost from similar things. Rather than that, if you start with a stronger concept - "guy who does magic with singing" - and give it a stronger, if astoundingly dull in 2014, mechanical framework - "full caster" - it will probably come out as something better from the getgo. Maybe. Don't quote me on that. ProfessorCirno posted:Magic clearing obstacles isn't that big of an issue. Like, a limited invisibility and knock aren't really game enders in of themselves, so long as spells stay limited. Well, that's the rub, isn't it? If it's still mostly tied into to literal daily spell renewal instead of some non-chronological system then it's kind of a wash unless everything that happens is time critical or penalties for taking early rests are liberally applied.
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Mar 11, 2014 08:53
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Wizards don't even have to
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Mar 11, 2014 08:56
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Cease to Hope posted:Is this entire argument really people splitting hairs between supernatural and magical? Yeah, but by "Magic" they mean "Casts just like a D&D wizard" and by "Supernatural" they mean "Jesus loving Christ does everything in D&D have to look like a D&D Wizard?" It's a valid argument with fuzzy terminology. It's kind of like how people complained about 4e's unified power progression made classes feel too "samey" -- and there are some valid complaints there which is why they started to break up their approach to classes as they game moved on* -- but when they broke the unified power progression for 5e, the result has been to shift everything into the starkly defined power progressions of "Wizard" and "Non-wizard". 5e's Vancian wizards aren't even really that powerful compared to older editions, but just by existing they pull the Overton Window towards themselves. *Admittedly, this also coincided with them slowly forgetting how to do good game design, but that was an unfortunate coincidence.
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Mar 11, 2014 10:03
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Let's not pretend that argument was in any way made in good faith. I think it's important to note that it's never been an actual argument against "all classes are the same!" It takes little more then two brain cells to rub together to note how starkly similar classes are in pre-4e, and how similar they are again in Next. The argument is and has always been - ALWAYS been - "don't let those mundanes act like spellcasters." Every complaint about "the classes are too similar" regarding 4e from the typical 3.x fanbase boiled down to that. The ideal is not a wide variety of resource management, because most of these people hated the 3e warlock and they REALLY hate psionics, and let's not forget the hate Tome of Battle got, and people have whined that loving Truenamers are overpowered. The ideal is not every class having different options to choose from to customize their character, because they hate fighters having options, and they hate those options being too distinct. No, the ideal is simply: Spellcasters get vancian casting, everyone else gets nothing. Don't pretend there was ever an attempt to make a valid argument there. I mean, a game with multiple let's just go with power sources, where each power source actually DID have their own form of resource management? That'd be super cool. I'm lukewarm at best for AEDU. But that was never what was requested. What was requested was "I want AD&D wizards and poo poo eating fighters and nothing else."
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Mar 11, 2014 11:24
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 Look at what Next is doing to us ProfessorCirno posted:I mean, a game with multiple let's just go with power sources, where each power source actually DID have their own form of resource management? That'd be super cool. I agree with that. And it doesn't even have to be a completely different power structure like they did for psionic or essential classes. Channel Divinity is a nice add-on mechanic that gives divine classes their own flavor without tipping the scales or having players learn a whole new arbitrarily designed resource management system before they can play their class. Same with Wizards being able to choose their Daily at the start of the day, it could have been an Arcane thing to do.
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Mar 11, 2014 11:47
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Oh, that ire isn't aimed at OKShark. Sorry OKShark! Didn't mean to target you there. But I mean, after what, 4? 5 years? Of the most inane bullshit imaginable about 4e being spewed, 90% of it solidly untrue and that last 10% mostly true on accident? Sorry, I'm not giving any benefits of the doubt here. It's telling that all classes in 4e WERE THE SAAAAAAAAAAME, whereas every single non-caster in 3.x being "Charge and full attack" didn't cause a single blink (and every book that let them do otherwise was attacked for it). And the spell lists OF spellcasters were always so wide and varied that they all ended up playing the same, too.
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Mar 11, 2014 11:51
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I think that what people missed most from 3E and where these arguments against 4E come from (other than those who just want to play god-wizards), is the class abilities by level chart. Two classes could play entirely the same in-game (two-weapon fighter and two-weapon ranger, for example), but as long as their charts had different words or different numbers, they were different classes. Essentials didn't bring back just basic-attack fighters or vancian wizards, it brought back class charts. Which does have it's own charm, IMHO. You look at the first level of the chart, and you can see that your dude has the ability to chokeslam an orc. Then you look at the same column on level 20 and he can chokeslam a dragon. It's evocative in the same way that browsing through pages of powers and seeing all the ridiculous poo poo you can do at higher levels is, but compressed into 1/3 of a page. Of course it would still be 1/3 of wasted space in 4E (unless some powers were standard features of the class), but having that even as a "suggested progression" chart could have alleviated some of the complaints.
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Mar 11, 2014 12:39
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Yes, many 3e fans are obsessed with the superficial metagame. Man I've been arguing that for years ;p
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Mar 11, 2014 13:04
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