Zombies that need to stay dead. DEAD.

mkill · Jan 13, 2012

Naturally, with all the ideas currently floating around, it's interesting to see old issues cropping up again. It seems like some things will always be hot buttons. However, I also see people advocating stuff that was rightfully killed in 4th edition, or even 3rd edition (or neither, but should have been). Here is my personal list of "Monte, don't even think about it!"

* Different XP for different classes. Just No. I thought the mere idea is ridiculous, but there is a thread at rpg.net

* Favored class. Iconic class / race combinations will be rewarded by good support, they shoul NOT receive XP bonuses on top

* Detect Alignment spell - looks harmless, but can kill any kind of detective adventure in seconds. Also, tool of worst fantasy racism issues (it's fine to kill all orcs, they're evil and I can prove it)

* Challenge rating. Just NO, you cruddy, wonky bane of the DM

* Level adjustment for races - Playable monster races would be cool, but not this crud mechanic. Ever.

* Feat-only Fighter. Gyah, if you can't come up with good Fighter class abilities, don't design my D&D. Oh, and 3rd ed Marshall and Swashbuckler, you guys deserve mention for being even worse. What a waste of potentially amazing concepts.

* Entire categories of monsters with the same damage resistance - led to the infamous fighter golf bag

* Save-or-die spells - should be the absolute exception. 4th ed sleep is a reasonable compromise. The rest of the party wants to be more than the Pips for Gladys the Wizard

* Half-races: Bye half-elf, bye half-orc, hello full-blood orc. Much more cooler and no icky "how did it happen?"

* Sneak attack resistance on way too many monsters

* Self-buffing wizards, clerics and druids - good old CODzilla, how I miss you NOT

* The Toughness feat. Mentioned by Monte himself to be a deliberate trap crap choice. Don't ever pull something like that again.

Wormwood · Jan 13, 2012

* Different XP for different classes.
Stake. Behead. Holy wafers in mouth.

* Favored class. Iconic class / race combinations will be rewarded by good support, they shoul NOT receive XP bonuses on top
I don't think *anyone* wants to see this

* Detect Alignment spell
*any* mechanics tied to alignment seem to be problematic

* Challenge rating.
Meh---unless it can be reworked to make my job easier, I agree.

* Level adjustment for races -
Hear hear---I'd rather have a mechanically separate, playable version of certain monster races than some kludge to make a Mind Flayer playable at first level.

* Feat-only Fighter.
For something like the 15th time this week, I'll point to the Essentials classes as perfect examples of simple, effective class abilities which use feats to customize the character, not make them playable.

* Entire categories of monsters with the same damage resistance - led to the infamous fighter golf bag
Meh, not a problem for be

* Save-or-die spells - should be the absolute exception.
How magic interacts with group play should be torn down to its foundations and rebuilt with a purpose of fun and balance. Good luck to 'em!

* Half-races:
Don't mind them as an option or theme, but the orc should be core if only to finally remove the 'unfortunate implications' of the half-orc.

* Sneak attack resistance on way too many monsters
Don't think that'll be coming back any time soon.

* Self-buffing wizards, clerics and druids - good old CODzilla
Don't mind buffing magic with limits, but the abuse I saw in 3e still gives me DM nightmares. Plus I never want to deal with juggling bonus types.

I'd add:
Randomized stats as *default*. Don't mind it as an option, but that's a gaming artifact that I'd like to remain in the vault, to be pulled out for special, nostalgic occasions.

Class alignment restrictions

I'm sure I'll think of more as repressed memories come to the fore.

mkill · Jan 13, 2012

Wormwood said:
* Level adjustment for races -
Hear hear---I'd rather have a mechanically separate, playable version of certain monster races than some kludge to make a Mind Flayer playable at first level.

Yeah. Fingers crossed they come up with something good.

Wormwood said:
* Feat-only Fighter.
For something like the 15th time this week, I'll point to the Essentials classes as perfect examples of simple, effective class abilities which use feats to customize the character, not make them playable.

Sure, Knight and Slayer are a solution to this, not the problem.

Wormwood said:
I'd add:
Randomized stats as *default*. Don't mind it as an option, but that's a gaming artifact that I'd like to remain in the vault, to be pulled out for special, nostalgic occasions.

Oh yes, this holy cow made a very juicy steak! We better grind the bones, burn them and bury the ashes.

Another one:

* Druids fighting death duels to see who can level up - WTF? Was this for making them goth and edgy? More general, don't require in-game events for meta stuff. Came up again with some 3rd ed PrCs. Fist of Hextor is my favorite - kill another Fist of Hextor to join. Really? How does this group not die out?

* XP for acquired treasure - yeah, very old school, but still... no.

Jawsh · Jan 13, 2012

mkill said:
* Different XP for different classes. Just No. I thought the mere idea is ridiculous, but there is a thread at rpg.net

Okay. I never saw different XP for different classes, so I don't know how that would work.

* Favored class. Iconic class / race combinations will be rewarded by good support, they shoul NOT receive XP bonuses on top

Favoured class is not a problem for me either way. I like the idea of there being some reward for picking desirable combinations, something to counterbalance the thinking of "always go with the race that gives you an ability score bonus".

* Detect Alignment spell - looks harmless, but can kill any kind of detective adventure in seconds. Also, tool of worst fantasy racism issues (it's fine to kill all orcs, they're evil and I can prove it)

If that's how you've been playing, you've been doing it wrong. Evil alignment is not a death sentence.

* Challenge rating. Just NO, you cruddy, wonky bane of the DM

The only problem with Challenge Rating was that it gave DMs a false sense of security. It's always been better to look at the actual stats. That said, CR was useful for a lot of things. 4E removing it in favour of "level" was, in my opinion, one of the things that made 4E too balanced, too homogeneous, and too predictable.

* Level adjustment for races - Playable monster races would be cool, but not this crud mechanic. Ever.

Level adjustment worked for me and my group.

* Feat-only Fighter. Gyah, if you can't come up with good Fighter class abilities, don't design my D&D. Oh, and 3rd ed Marshall and Swashbuckler, you guys deserve mention for being even worse. What a waste of potentially amazing concepts.

The game is about rolling dice and killing monsters. I don't really care if my class ability list looks like a Christmas tree. Plus, there really needs to be some variation in the complexity of different classes. If every class works on the AEDU model, they become cookie-cutter and interchangeable with each other, and it's boring.

* Entire categories of monsters with the same damage resistance - led to the infamous fighter golf bag

was fixed in 3.5. However, I still think requiring a unique kind of weapon to kill a monster is good story-telling. I'll grant that it's just not cool to randomly pick something out of the book, when the players have no chance of having the specific weapon needed. What they should have done is create a bunch of resistance templates; when a DM specifically wants to add that element into the game, he can add the template to a monster.

* Save-or-die spells - should be the absolute exception. 4th ed sleep is a reasonable compromise. The rest of the party wants to be more than the Pips for Gladys the Wizard

I like a few save-or-die spells, but it's true they are subject to accidental misuse. Like the damage resistance, I'd like to see these doled out to DMs in a more cautionary way. As far as killing monsters goes though, I'm happy to see PCs throw around save-or-die spells, because those are resources spent. And I always have an infinite supply of monsters.

* Half-races: Bye half-elf, bye half-orc, hello full-blood orc. Much more cooler and no icky "how did it happen?"

Huh. I thought you were pro-orc? Didn't you just say you didn't think all orcs deserved to die? Which is it? I personally don't think an orc-human relationship is a squicky thing.

* Sneak attack resistance on way too many monsters

Yep. Now monsters are boring. And rogues are boring.

* Self-buffing wizards, clerics and druids - good old CODzilla, how I miss you NOT

Meh. I never had a problem in my groups with spellcasters.

* The Toughness feat. Mentioned by Monte himself to be a deliberate trap crap choice. Don't ever pull something like that again.

Toughness wasn't necessarily that bad. It was just an unsolvable problem. 3 hp are pretty good at 1st level, which might be what you need to survive to 2nd and beyond. But 3 hp don't mean that much later on. You can't increase Toughness, because then 1st-level dudes become unkillable. And you can't make it scale with level because that would make the feat far too good.

I liked that they made Toughness a prerequisite for later, better Toughness feats. That way Toughness didn't feel wasted.

Simplicity · Jan 13, 2012

mkill said:
* Different XP for different classes. Just No. I thought the mere idea is ridiculous, but there is a thread at rpg.net

Agreed. Kill it with fire. The party that dings together brings together. Or something.

* Favored class. Iconic class / race combinations will be rewarded by good support, they shoul NOT receive XP bonuses on top

In fact, I don't want to see ANY XP bonuses, really. For the same reasons as above.

* Detect Alignment spell - looks harmless, but can kill any kind of detective adventure in seconds. Also, tool of worst fantasy racism issues (it's fine to kill all orcs, they're evil and I can prove it)

Also agreed. The people are once again duped by the evil vizier... Oh wait. No, because any king worth his salt would at least check that he doesn't have evil advisors.

* Challenge rating. Just NO, you cruddy, wonky bane of the DM

I didn't mind CRs. I thought they were better than nothing or HD, which was way worse.

* Level adjustment for races - Playable monster races would be cool, but not this crud mechanic. Ever.

Horrible mechanic. Something else please.

* Feat-only Fighter. Gyah, if you can't come up with good Fighter class abilities, don't design my D&D. Oh, and 3rd ed Marshall and Swashbuckler, you guys deserve mention for being even worse. What a waste of potentially amazing concepts.

The fighter used to be like an introductory class for people looking to play. Few abilities... just mash your way through combat. It's not bad to have some of these options. Some people like to play that character. They're not interested in weighing lots of strategic options each round. I don't mind having such a class. That said, I also don't mind having a martial class with more options. Fighter (specializes in + to hit and that's about it) vs. Warlord (who has more combat maneuvers), say.

* Entire categories of monsters with the same damage resistance - led to the infamous fighter golf bag

The golf bag is annoying, but I *like* the flavor of silver weapons and cold-iron weapons. Monster Flavor is good. Especially in a white wine sauce.

* Save-or-die spells - should be the absolute exception. 4th ed sleep is a reasonable compromise. The rest of the party wants to be more than the Pips for Gladys the Wizard

Agreed. Let's be specific what the solution was: Successful attack vs. a defense plus a failed save equals we are okay to disintegrate. Other solutions included a save track, which put you in a bad state after first failure and then the death state after second.

* Half-races: Bye half-elf, bye half-orc, hello full-blood orc. Much more cooler and no icky "how did it happen?"

I have no problem with the half-races.

* Sneak attack resistance on way too many monsters

I never even noticed this...

* Self-buffing wizards, clerics and druids - good old CODzilla, how I miss you NOT

I *like* self-buffing wizards as a DM. I also think they're pretty useful as opponents. Having your big bad go down in a single hit from the party fighter is not really that interesting.

* The Toughness feat. Mentioned by Monte himself to be a deliberate trap crap choice. Don't ever pull something like that again.

Boring, but it wasn't always the worst choice in the world if you didn't have a ton of books. Meh. I had no problem with it.

Other items which should be buried:

- Success tables. No THAC0 tables. No pickpocket percentage rolls. d20 at least made that move forward. Roll vs. defense is a better mechanic.

- Level drain. For much the same reason as the XP bonus issues.

- Item crafting using xp as a component. Terrible idea.

- Dual-classing. Yes, let's start over at level 1 for a bit. No. Multi-classing or taking a couple levels of another class, that's fine. Just none of this forget about everything you know for a while stuff.

Crazy Jerome · Jan 13, 2012

Feats or Prestige classes or Paragon Paths as "ways to shoehorn a bunch of mechanics exceptions into something that we can call all the same thing, even though a lot of them aren't".

I've got no beef with more limited use of any of them. For example, if they want to make feats, "things that a character can either have or not have, and most characters don't," and then use it for that, great! (Or some other consistent variation.) But then if developement has a few things left over that don't quite fit that model, don't cram them into feats because that's the easiest choice. At least not without going back and refining the definition of "feat" to fit those in, and then checking the ripples through the system of that redefinition.

No multiple attacks as anything other than flavor. No encouragement to go dual scimitar. No 3E iterated attacks. No extra strikes against low hit die goblins. No 4E twin strike. Just say no. If they want to give weapon users some "area effect" options, flavor some attacks accordingly. They have a hard enough time coming up with good flavor for such as it is. Why cut out the most obvious and flavorful possibilties while at the same time introducing an element that never fails to complicate play and introduce unintended side effects?

DonTadow · Jan 13, 2012

mkill said:
Naturally, with all the ideas currently floating around, it's interesting to see old issues cropping up again. It seems like some things will always be hot buttons. However, I also see people advocating stuff that was rightfully killed in 4th edition, or even 3rd edition (or neither, but should have been). Here is my personal list of "Monte, don't even think about it!"

My first multiquote since I got back, let's do this.

* Different XP for different classes. Just No. I thought the mere idea is ridiculous, but there is a thread at rpg.net

It's just too much programming on 3rd parties and WOTC. It's not worth the hassle. It's also difficult for new players to follow, so that's a no.

* Favored class. Iconic class / race combinations will be rewarded by good support, they shoul NOT receive XP bonuses on top

No XP bonuses. I would love some type of race to class combination. Especially if they only stick to 4 classes ever, it's a lot easier to provide one class benefit for each of the classes.

* Detect Alignment spell - looks harmless, but can kill any kind of detective adventure in seconds. Also, tool of worst fantasy racism issues (it's fine to kill all orcs, they're evil and I can prove it)

I never realized how bad this was until I read these threads. No alignment based magic or spells or abilities. I always have to have my people have no-alignment items.

* Challenge rating. Just NO, you cruddy, wonky bane of the DM

We'll need a system to make encounters. But I would rather have it say "level 6 through 8" as opposed to CR this. I'm neutral on this. there is no system suggested better

* Level adjustment for races - Playable monster races would be cool, but not this crud mechanic. Ever.

Absolutely not. Not this again. My first 3.0 dm game, everyone chose to be githyanki. HOrrible idea for me to allow it. But even more horrible that they were in there. Just like a b-sides album, this should be chalked up in a 3rd party system for hardcore fans only.

* Feat-only Fighter. Gyah, if you can't come up with good Fighter class abilities, don't design my D&D. Oh, and 3rd ed Marshall and Swashbuckler, you guys deserve mention for being even worse. What a waste of potentially amazing concepts.

Thus I am hoping hard for true module classes. That solves the fighters problem. I'm a fighter class and I have barbarian and armor abilities.
* Entire categories of monsters with the same damage resistance - led to the infamous fighter golf bag

* Save-or-die spells - should be the absolute exception. 4th ed sleep is a reasonable compromise. The rest of the party wants to be more than the Pips for Gladys the Wizard

I hate save or die, but i hate the 4e carebear approach. I like the idea of a merger between the two. Something awful happens at the end if you fail another save, but something debilitating happens during combat. Sleep spells make you drowsy and slow you, paralyze spells make you fearful, decintegrate spells make you burn in the inside a little.

* Half-races: Bye half-elf, bye half-orc, hello full-blood orc. Much more cooler and no icky "how did it happen?"

Oh these are still around, i dont allow them into my game. I wouldn't mind a variant though where you can install bloodlines and replace racial features. But not in core.

* Sneak attack resistance on way too many monsters

i like that some things don't work on some things. I odn't mind that. Of course, don't make sneak attack the end all be all of the rogue. Of course i am also voting to eliminate rogue as a class and wrap up rogue sub into all of the other 3. thus eliminating the need for a rogue in the party. Cure light wounds wands can replace clerics, but who can replace the lock guy. Make a game where any group can reasonably do the job. I don't ever want to read again "should have "x" class" in an adventure.

* Self-buffing wizards, clerics and druids - good old CODzilla, how I miss you NOT

I don't mind balanced self buffs. Armor enhancing spells should be treated like armor.

* The Toughness feat. Mentioned by Monte himself to be a deliberate trap crap choice. Don't ever pull something like that again

The bigger problem is just plain glut in the system and no balance. If you make every ability important, a strong 6 skills associated with each, there's no need for toughness feats to make constitution look pretty.

trancejeremy · Jan 13, 2012

Jawsh said:
If that's how you've been playing, you've been doing it wrong. Evil alignment is not a death sentence.

Yeah, I think this is really people taking alignment far too literally and not applying common sense.

Not to mention overlooking that someone that is LE would be perfectly law-abiding. Oh sure, they'd always use those rules to their advantage, but that wouldn't make them murderers or something heinous.

Nivenus · Jan 13, 2012

I agree on a lot of these, though some perhaps should remain optional plug-ins.

This one stuck out to me, though:

mkill said:
* Half-races: Bye half-elf, bye half-orc, hello full-blood orc. Much more cooler and no icky "how did it happen?"

I agree on getting rid of half-elves and half-orcs as distinctive races. However, I think hybrids should be accounted for; they're firmly entrenched in a lot of the lore and previous editions had them by the ton as both core and optional races.

I just think they should be treated as they are: hybrids. Make hybrid templates for every race, just like 4e did for the classes after the PHB2. You want to play a half-elf? Use the human and elf hybrid race templates: simple and easy.

Plus, this would let players play a number of exotic half-breeds that have never really had full support, like half-elf / half-orc (why not?), half-dwarf (aside from muls), half-halfling / half-gnome (they're the same size anyway), etc.

I'm honestly unsure why WotC hasn't tried this before.

KidSnide · Jan 13, 2012

I agree with much of this, except...

mkill said:
* Half-races: Bye half-elf, bye half-orc, hello full-blood orc. Much more cooler and no icky "how did it happen?"

Lots of folks have existing campaign worlds that matter to them more than the rules system they're using. Many of those worlds have half-elves and half-orcs in them, and some of them are PCs. It would be a little nuts if these characters were unplayable or lost the distinctive characteristics of their hybrid race.

-KS