Introducing New Player to Epic Campaign

MwaO · May 1, 2017

AbdulAlhazred said:
Hybrids are basically a hack, not something that seems worthy of a core book.

Just want to address this - I think Hybrids were just brilliant in a very specific way - they're AD&D-style multi-classing that for the most part works and is balanced. Except for the wacky armor where as an example, an Avenger|Battlemind who went Con/Wis would start out with an AC of say 11 unless they spent feats or Hybrid Talent on AC.

4e's really the only edition that solved the "I want to be 50% X, 50% Y, start at 1st level with some capabilities in each because, you know, I grew up with X for a Mom and Y for a Dad." problem that didn't involve weird XP and leveling issues.

AbdulAlhazred · May 1, 2017

MwaO said:
Just want to address this - I think Hybrids were just brilliant in a very specific way - they're AD&D-style multi-classing that for the most part works and is balanced. Except for the wacky armor where as an example, an Avenger|Battlemind who went Con/Wis would start out with an AC of say 11 unless they spent feats or Hybrid Talent on AC.

4e's really the only edition that solved the "I want to be 50% X, 50% Y, start at 1st level with some capabilities in each because, you know, I grew up with X for a Mom and Y for a Dad." problem that didn't involve weird XP and leveling issues.

It CAN work, but you've already noted one of the main issues. The other is just the fact that you had to generate a 'hacked' version of each class (not a huge deal, but it shows how the whole thing is an afterthought). I think it might have been more elegant if it had been a design concept from the start. I still think they could have spent the page space on MC stuff and achieved better utility. I mean, you have a certain set of hybrids that are effectively improvements on ANY character, and slews of others that are basically worthless. Certainly most combinations are terrible, or at least not good. I don't actually HATE the system, it just has low return for investment IMHO. It also sucked a lot of later design bandwidth away from other areas that might have better utilized it, and then served as a kind of excuse for not fixing other classes, like the Vampire.

MwaO · May 1, 2017

AbdulAlhazred said:
I mean, you have a certain set of hybrids that are effectively improvements on ANY character, and slews of others that are basically worthless. Certainly most combinations are terrible, or at least not good.

Actually, I'd argue against this, quite vehemently. Most are good as long as you're solid(and not optimizer solid, but solid) at power selection. Very, very few are worthless. The problem is more who plays hybrids and why. Namely:
Optimizers who realize just how powerful power selection is.
People who have an unfocused idea of what they want, but know they want to be cool. And love utility. And in general are terrible at power selection.

Garthanos · May 1, 2017

MwaO said:
Actually, I'd argue against this, quite vehemently. Most are good as long as you're solid(and not optimizer solid, but solid) at power selection. Very, very few are worthless. The problem is more who plays hybrids and why. Namely:
Optimizers who realize just how powerful power selection is.
People who have an unfocused idea of what they want, but know they want to be cool. And love utility. And in general are terrible at power selection.

It's very possible to not be one or the other of that

edit: oh wait you mentioned a viable third first my bad....

MwaO · May 1, 2017

Garthanos said:
It's very possible to not be one or the other of that

edit: oh wait you mentioned a viable third first my bad....

Yeah, the larger problem hybrids have is similar to the Bard or Monk problem of 3x. They sound cool and in fact can be quite good. But they invariably attract the kind of player ill-suited to playing them. And there's a tendency if that if you see say 10 players playing X and X is just horrid, to assume that X is actually bad.

Bard and Monk of 3x aren't bad. In fact, Bard's default in 3.5 is basically Warchanter in 4e. Haste, Inspire Courage, Inspire Greatness - rinse and repeat. But as that's not particularly interesting to play, the optimizers generally stay away and the people who'd rather throw a vial of acid(1d6) at a hardness 5 object/creature(so max of 1 damage on a 6 only) end up playing them.

That's a real example...

Garthanos · May 2, 2017

MwaO said:
Yeah, the larger problem hybrids have is similar to the Bard or Monk problem of 3x. They sound cool and in fact can be quite good. But they invariably attract the kind of player ill-suited to playing them. And there's a tendency if that if you see say 10 players playing X and X is just horrid, to assume that X is actually bad.

Bard and Monk of 3x aren't bad. In fact, Bard's default in 3.5 is basically Warchanter in 4e. Haste, Inspire Courage, Inspire Greatness - rinse and repeat. But as that's not particularly interesting to play, the optimizers generally stay away and the people who'd rather throw a vial of acid(1d6) at a hardness 5 object/creature(so max of 1 damage on a 6 only) end up playing them.

That's a real example...

OUCH... yeah I actually had a friend teach me not to over optimize in magic the gathering LOL... ie yes you can make a deck that will lock people down in 1 to 3 rounds with a very high degree of regularity but it just isnt any FUN, so balance it out find a theme and use your optimization skills to make the theme work, you don't win as often maybe but everyone involved gets a lot more out of it.

AbdulAlhazred · May 2, 2017

Garthanos said:
OUCH... yeah I actually had a friend teach me not to over optimize in magic the gathering LOL... ie yes you can make a deck that will lock people down in 1 to 3 rounds with a very high degree of regularity but it just isnt any FUN, so balance it out find a theme and use your optimization skills to make the theme work, you don't win as often maybe but everyone involved gets a lot more out of it.

Well, M:tG is different. YES, you can find such a deck, or something analogous, in any particular set selection. I can easily cripple it too, if that's what everyone is fixated on doing. I used to kick ass at tournaments by just building against the rage of the day decks. The trick is of course adding just enough adaptability to be able to handle that one other oddball guy out there. The other option of course being to BE that oddball guy, with a deck just SLIGHTLY worse than 50/50 against the deck of the day, but able to eat all the counter decks. It was always a tossup which way to go. Of course there were plenty of periods of time when there were 3 or even 4 solid strategies people were pushing at the same time, and then you had to find a different shtick, but it IS a pretty deep game.

Optimizing is fine in 4e, its just when you optimize to the exclusion of theme or anything like that. Its really more a problem of some players that want to wargame vs roleplay really, and mixing the two.

Anyway, I can see what MwaO is saying, but I judge purely by results, and hybrids didn't make the game better on the whole. They added a lot of fun discussion to charops I'm sure, but not much else.

Garthanos · May 2, 2017

AbdulAlhazred said:
Well, M:tG is different. YES, you can find such a deck, or something analogous, in any particular set selection. I can easily cripple it too.

We didnt generally limit ourselves to one set for our normal play so chaos rules and I had maybe 8 decks I liked (my friend did do the one set thing when designing to play official tournaments) I had a manna eater deck, and my friend had a time warping deck, they both could lock down bloody fast but his was better at locking down in multi-player games.

I beat some rather perplexed people who were pulling out their deck of the day... with for instance a quirky fun "wolf" deck and similar surprises. When it comes to hybrids with strong design decisions I think we are talking about that quirky fun wolf deck. It had some thematic badassery.

Garthanos · May 2, 2017

I like hybrids for me weaving a hybrid that works it definitely adds fun it did and still does, it is lot like designing a new class. The "princess build" also tweaked that same fun for me. Ie finding the good stuff which works with a coherent flavor.

Garthanos · May 2, 2017

MwaO said:
.
Monk works mostly as is. Just needs to beef up that Monk Unarmed Strike with - get inherent bonuses to hit with it, use Dexterity as a melee basic attack, and if one hits with it off-turn, gets to use Flurry of Blows with it even if it already worked that round. That gives Monks reasons to not have a weapon in one hand, which is the opposite of what is true now - you want two weapons to be optimized.

That seems like a lot but enabling inherent bonus is something I approve of in general.... and I think every class that does melee with a different base stat ought to have the melee training built in.... your idea narrows that to just the monkish unarmed strike right.

So that just leaves "if one hits with it off-turn, gets to use Flurry of Blows with it even if it already worked that round. "

I am thinking I would prefer a more fully martial derivative, guess I could use those ideas there

Introducing New Player to Epic Campaign

MwaO

Adventurer

AbdulAlhazred

Legend

MwaO

Adventurer

Garthanos

Arcadian Knight

MwaO

Adventurer

Garthanos

Arcadian Knight

AbdulAlhazred

Legend

Garthanos

Arcadian Knight

Garthanos

Arcadian Knight

Garthanos

Arcadian Knight

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