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W.T. Fits posted:Save against/avoid them until I can successfully withdraw from the current battle, then heal up and engage in hit and run attacks against him over the course of the day to wear him down until I can force him into a fight where he's already exhausted most of his valuable spells and is at a disadvantage. A cleric'd perform this tactic better, even before he or she gets Word of Recall.
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Sep 26, 2015 02:16
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Mystic Mongol posted:A cleric'd perform this tactic better, even before he or she gets Word of Recall. On the downside, you're still a monk.
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Sep 26, 2015 02:17
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I hope Rich is okay, and that everyone else shuts up about 3.5 class imbalance because holy poo poo who cares.
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Sep 26, 2015 02:20
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I have fun playing 3.5/Pathfinder even when not playing mega-optimized murder lords because I am not a friendless loser grognard and enjoy spending time with friends and allowing them time to shine as well, and they few the same way, so we go out of our ways to ensure everyone gets some limelight. And doing this is super, super easy to do. That's all I have to say about class balance.
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Sep 26, 2015 03:00
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Yes but why play a game that's actively fighting you in that? Why not play a game that supports it instead?
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Sep 26, 2015 03:12
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Colonel Cool posted:Yes but why play a game that's actively fighting you in that? Why not play a game that supports it instead? Because why bother learning/teaching a new game if everyone is satisfied anyway?
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Sep 26, 2015 03:33
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That and no sufficiently complex system is free from imbalance issues so sticking to what everyone is familiar with isn't wrong.
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Sep 26, 2015 03:37
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Also you can avoid minmaxing sperglordism by just not playing with minmaxing sperglords.
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Sep 26, 2015 03:38
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DnD and Pathfinder are a lot of fun when you aren't playing with insufferable people who have to ruin things because they can. Good DMing also helps. ^^This guy get it.
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Sep 26, 2015 03:44
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Rygar201 posted:DnD and Pathfinder are a lot of fun when you aren't playing with insufferable people who have to ruin things because they can. Good DMing also helps. See, that's the problem. The caster/physical issue isn't that you can break the game as a Wizard if you have a mind to. The issue is that a Wizard gets a whole lot of tools that happen to break the game while the Fighter doesn't. Like, you don't need to try. Let's say I like the idea of a Summoner from Final Fantasy who fights by bringing all sorts of creatures out instead of engaging in combat myself. Boom, I have now created a character who is better in nearly every way than my friend who wanted to be a Knight from Final Fantasy who hits things with a sword and shield and protects his friends, since summoned monsters get more HP and attacks than some dork with a sword. Or maybe I like Harry Potter and want to teleport around blowing things up. My Sorcerer with Dimension Door and various evocation spells is better at ranged combat than basically anyone who dares pick up a bow. Maybe I've been reading Order of the Stick and want to make a Dwarven Cleric like Durkon. I can fight nearly as well as my buddy the Dwarven Fighter next to me (better if I use a mid level spell or two before combat) while being able to Heal myself for more HP than the entire party will take in damage for the day. With one spell. These are not things you need to even go online and research Pun Pun and a bunch of splat books to run into. These are things you could run into just be playing the game for the first time, with just the Player's Handbook. You don't need to be an insufferable minmaxer in order to run into severe balance problems with casters. Saying "I don't run into these problems because none of my friends are awful people with no friends" or "A good DM will balance these things out" doesn't make 3.5 and derivatives well designed games. If you want to have fun with them, sure, go for it. Fun's kind of the point of playing a game, and if you have fun with something despite its flaws, great! Just don't get all in a twist because someone dares to say the Emperor's naked, especially when the discussion subject is a comic involving the game in question.
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Sep 26, 2015 04:20
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Basically that. You can have lots of fun with bad games and there's nothing wrong with it. But bending over backwards to make something like 3.5e work for you seems like a whole lot more effort than just playing a good game instead.
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Sep 26, 2015 04:28
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Every good game of D&D that I've played begins with a DM who finds balancing all the fiddly mechanics to be immensely pleasurable. The DM handles all that junk, the players bring good characters and avoid being awful, and the game works out great. You don't "accidentally" build a super-wizard because you play each level out and the DM painstakingly re-balances the game every single session. Let's break into car-chat. Why would anyone ever drive a manual transmission? It's the same principal: you add needless difficulty because it's fun to know that you can do it and make it look easy. In our games, the casters could definitely dish out the most damage/influence in 5 rounds. But we weren't going "fight a kobold, camp for the night, fight a second kobold, camp for the night..." Instead, the wizard had to decide which battle was the best use of her one fireball. You don't know whether you're going to be fighting a gang of orcs or negotiating with their chief or fighting with their wizards or learning that they're peaceful and then fighting off the invading paladins. Or all of those in succession. All the wizards I played with cast pretty conservatively, focused on helping the fighters and pulling off key spells to tilt the battle. I never had a game where the wizard solved everything while we sat around.
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Sep 26, 2015 05:14
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Not one single solitary poster has said 3.5/Pathfinder doesn't have flaws, so I don't know why you turbonerds are putting so much effort into attacking that strawman
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Sep 26, 2015 06:11
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It's important that everybody understands the game is bad.
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Sep 26, 2015 10:15
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Bongo Bill posted:It's important that everyone understands the game is bad. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NRIr9MNmCwU
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Sep 26, 2015 10:28
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If wiazards so good how come miko a paladin is capture party? Check mate nerds Does Roy have any chance against the vampire in the rules? I'm pretty sure Belkar is finally going to save the day, but was wondering if post-harm Roy could still win. builds character fucked around with this message at 13:08 on Sep 26, 2015 |
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Sep 26, 2015 13:06
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Since Roy was able to learn a special sword swing this cant be under pure 3.5 rules anyway so I dont get the arguments.
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Sep 26, 2015 13:23
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All this whining about caster supremacy reminds me the only tabletop RPG my gaming group still plays regularly is Ars Magica.
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Sep 26, 2015 13:42
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Some years ago I DM'd a 3.5 game where I solved the "casters being overpowered" problem by getting rid of casters. In the setting I cooked up only elves could be wizards and only half-elves could be sorcerers, both were very very rare (as I put it to my players: "give me a good reason why you should play a wizard or sorcerer and I might consider letting you play one"), and all other classes had their spell lists pruned to eliminate damage-dealing spells. It was lots of fun.
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Sep 26, 2015 14:17
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Mikl posted:Some years ago I DM'd a 3.5 game where I solved the "casters being overpowered" problem by getting rid of casters. In the setting I cooked up only elves could be wizards and only half-elves could be sorcerers, both were very very rare (as I put it to my players: "give me a good reason why you should play a wizard or sorcerer and I might consider letting you play one"), and all other classes had their spell lists pruned to eliminate damage-dealing spells. It was lots of fun. That's a cool idea, but aren't the problem spells in 3.5 the ones that have nothing to do with damage?
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Sep 26, 2015 14:26
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Mikl posted:Some years ago I DM'd a 3.5 game where I solved the "casters being overpowered" problem by getting rid of casters. In the setting I cooked up only elves could be wizards and only half-elves could be sorcerers, both were very very rare (as I put it to my players: "give me a good reason why you should play a wizard or sorcerer and I might consider letting you play one"), and all other classes had their spell lists pruned to eliminate damage-dealing spells. It was lots of fun. sounds like your party members were not clever enough to realize that the spells that don't do damage (Grease, for god's sake) were where the actual power of casters lied 
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Sep 26, 2015 14:27
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I also think it's a problem in other ways, now it's the odd NPC that's the personification of death. The potential imbalance of wizards is worsened in low magic settings because they always still get their two spells per level no matter how rare the magic item drops. Additionally if the DM is going to be arbitrary with basic stuff from the PHB what won't he be arbitrary with? e: Yeah I also had a DM that sent a hoard of skeletons at us and had no idea web would be so drat effective at battlefield control. It stopped them all cold, so he pulled out a ithilid mindflayer from his butt just to get rid of it.
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Sep 26, 2015 14:29
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Wittgen posted:That's a cool idea, but aren't the problem spells in 3.5 the ones that have nothing to do with damage? Yeah, damage spells are terrible once you're past level 3 or so because they just copy-pasted them from AD&D while jacking everything's HP up enormously. Anything that lets you incapacitate, so you can just Coup-de-grace it, or lets you summon or lets you transform are the biggest offenders. Which is why PHB only druids are ridiculous. Their spells aren't as good as Cleric/Wizard spells but they also have Wildshape and the ability to cast spells while wildshaped. Also at level 1 they can get a dog companion that is strictly better than a level 1 fighter if you use the elite array, and pretty comparable otherwise.
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Sep 26, 2015 14:33
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Zore posted:Yeah, damage spells are terrible once you're past level 3 or so because they just copy-pasted them from AD&D while jacking everything's HP up enormously. Counterpoint to both of these statements: Creeping Doom. Although I see that in 3.5 they changed it from "1000 vermin that do one damage each" to "up to ten swarms of centipedes that do 2d6" to I guess 3.5 wasn't happy that Druids got a cool spell.
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Sep 26, 2015 14:40
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people that excuse bad game design must be destroyed i will not rest until the last monopoly board is ash
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Sep 26, 2015 15:38
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I think a means of retaining the mechanically distinct classes is required while also ditching the tier system. I wonder if 5th ed is making progress there, but I haven't checked up on it.
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Sep 26, 2015 18:35
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Raenir Salazar posted:I think a means of retaining the mechanically distinct classes is required while also ditching the tier system. I wonder if 5th ed is making progress there, but I haven't checked up on it. Nope!
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Sep 26, 2015 18:35
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Raenir Salazar posted:I think a means of retaining the mechanically distinct classes is required while also ditching the tier system. I wonder if 5th ed is making progress there, but I haven't checked up on it. 5e has many of the same problems as 3.5, though they're mostly less severe. It has some weird problems of it's own brought on by vague rule text, though.
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Sep 26, 2015 18:42
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Tiler Kiwi posted:people that excuse bad game design must be destroyed Same but unironically. The comic backs me up on this.
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Sep 26, 2015 18:46
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Carrasco posted:Same but unironically. Yeah but only as a firestarter for the true demons of game design; munchkin and cosmic encounter.
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Sep 26, 2015 18:50
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Mikl posted:Some years ago I DM'd a 3.5 game where I solved the "casters being overpowered" problem by getting rid of casters. In the setting I cooked up only elves could be wizards and only half-elves could be sorcerers, both were very very rare (as I put it to my players: "give me a good reason why you should play a wizard or sorcerer and I might consider letting you play one"), and all other classes had their spell lists pruned to eliminate damage-dealing spells. It was lots of fun.
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Sep 26, 2015 20:24
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Raenir Salazar posted:I think a means of retaining the mechanically distinct classes is required while also ditching the tier system. I wonder if 5th ed is making progress there, but I haven't checked up on it. 13th age is decent. 4e classes were quite distinct in play, for all they were built on the same chassis.
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Sep 26, 2015 22:21
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sebmojo posted:13th age is decent. 4e classes were quite distinct in play, for all they were built on the same chassis. Didn't 4e remove spell lists?
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Sep 26, 2015 23:48
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Raenir Salazar posted:Didn't 4e remove spell lists? 4E was lame. If I wanted to play Diablo, I'd play Diablo.
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Sep 26, 2015 23:52
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Raenir Salazar posted:Didn't 4e remove spell lists? It moved everything to an "at-Will", "Per Encounter" and "Per Rest" System with some classes getting extra subsystems (ex. Psions only got At-Will powers but they could super charge them with a limited supply of power points etc.) I liked it.  I also like 3.5 (though Pathfinder is a loving blight)
Zore fucked around with this message at 23:59 on Sep 26, 2015 |
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Sep 26, 2015 23:57
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Zore posted:It moved everything to an "at-Will", "Per Encounter" and "Per Rest" System with some classes getting extra subsystems (ex. Psions only got At-Will powers but they could super charge them with a limited supply of power points etc.) Okay, now I'm curious. What distinction are you drawing between 3.5 and Pathfinder that you like the one but hate the other? Because mechanically they feel really drat similar as far as I can tell.
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Sep 27, 2015 00:15
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Pathfinder is like 3.5 but awesome instead. So I'm Hella curious as to how you can love 3.5 but hate Pathfinder.
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Sep 27, 2015 00:17
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Rygar201 posted:4E was lame. If I wanted to play Diablo, I'd play Diablo.
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Sep 27, 2015 00:26
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Yeah I don't feel like that's at all a meaningful distinction in terms of mechanics. I like my spell lists and won't ever give them up.Rygar201 posted:Pathfinder is like 3.5 but awesome instead. So I'm Hella curious as to how you can love 3.5 but hate Pathfinder. Pathfinder makes an effort to streamline and better balance 3.5e and fixes some of the worst wizard abuses so yeah, I prefer pathfinder to 3.5. Especially as it lets me play monsters pretty well without silly level adjustments.
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Sep 27, 2015 00:36
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Rygar201 posted:4E was lame. If I wanted to play Diablo, I'd play Diablo. Wait did Jay Wilson work on 4e???
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Sep 27, 2015 00:39
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