Developer Talk = Gospel?

[Nifft]

In the case of "Economy of Actions", lots of people already knew about it, but it didn't have a specific name. The developers gave it a name, and discussed how to balance it.

Nearly everyone who used it knew that 3.0e haste was broken, for example, even if it was hard for them to articulate exactly why.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Andor]

Terms like the economy of actions are new and useful tools for considering how to run or shape a game.

However to my mind they took the wrong apporach with 4e. I don't want "Equality for all, in all ways' as a religeon ala 'The Sirens of Titan.' More useful is a toolkit approach where the economy of actions is discussed and a range of options for dealing with it is presented from the lesse faire capitalism approach of standard 3e where casters can summon almost anything, and the buff/polymorph them, to option that prevent buffing of summons, summoning from a fixed list like some of the options in Unearthed Arcana, to simple tips like having all summons pre-written on 3x5 cards, to striping summoning out entirely.

Then each table can sculpt the game to suit their need.

Can a single player who effectively has 5 characters a problem? It can be, it might not for some. I've played a shaper psion who was an astral construct summoning god in 3.0. While I suspect he was more powerful than the rest of the party put together he did not dominate either the fights or table time because I would get everything worked out and rolled up before my turn came around and could just spit out he does this, that one does that and my shaper vitrifies that guy.

OTOH I played a Cleric with some FR PrC that gave him a gaggle of mephit following him around. I did feel guilty about sucking up table time with him, because all the numbers kept shifting with various buffs, plus the little bastards were fragile enough that I had to take a lot of care not to get them geeked.

 

[NaturalZero]

1. Chess isn't a role-playing game.

Maybe i laid that comparison down without enough explaination.

The thing is that making a "cool" character despite being a fighter outclassed mechanically by a wizard, as described in the post you were responding to, involves introducing things have nothing to do with the system itself. If your fighter is so cool despite being totally outclassed in every aspect measurable in the actual rules, i can only imagine that its because your adding a level of roleplay into the situation that has nothing to do with system itself.

At that point its akin to roleplaying a pawn to be as cool as the bishop, despite the bishop's mechanical advantage. It seems to me that most people playing the game would like to be as mechacanically cool as the bishop or the rook instead of being the pawn and trying to add something completely external to the rules (roleplaying) in order to be as "cool" as the other pieces who are mechanically more interesting.

As this relates to this thread, i think the inter-class balance has been a huge issue for many players for years and so its only natural for players to be highly vocal when the devs say that this is an issue that is being addressed. Players take it to be "gospel" when the devs say it because they've been waiting for a savior to preach those ideas for years.

2. I didn't say that horrendously overpowered/underpowered things were good; I specifically said "not to the extent that they were in 3e."

In the context of what you were responding to, you made it sound like it didnt really matter because creators could simply make their characters "cool" regardless of how mechanically viable they were. Sorry if i missed something here.

 

[hong]

1. Chess isn't a role-playing game.

Nonsense. You're just not playing it right.

2. I didn't say that horrendously overpowered/underpowered things were good; I specifically said "not to the extent that they were in 3e."

See? You're getting it already!

 

[hong]

Terms like the economy of actions are new and useful tools for considering how to run or shape a game.

However to my mind they took the wrong apporach with 4e. I don't want "Equality for all, in all ways' as a religeon ala 'The Sirens of Titan.' More useful is a toolkit approach where the economy of actions is discussed

The toolkit approach is so 1999.

 

[Dire Bare]

Wow. This fine example of a poster had me spend some time figuring out how to use the ignore function on the new boards. Found it and done.

 

[ryryguy]

Wait... there really is an ignore function? I always thought people were just speaking metaphorically!

Quick, tell me where to find it! (I am totally not kidding here.)

 

[Jhulae]

As many have said, it's nothing new. Companion-less Druids and Rangers and mountless Paladins were in 3.x because people wanted options to get away from extra stuff.

 

[Branduil]

I really find it odd when someone says Wizards, Druids, and Clerics deserve to be more powerful, as if the abstract idea of studying or praying a lot is somehow inherently more worthy of mechanical reward than the abstract idea of honing your physical skills.

 

[shadowguidex]

I remember a game I dungeon mastered where one of my players was a conjurer/summoner, and managed to get something like 7 elementals into the fight before the end. His final turn took him like 10 minutes to complete.

Sure, those summoning ideas can be a cool mechanic, but they just totally bog down the game and ruin the fun. My entire gaming group complained from that night on that we gotta limit the number of summons because it's ridiculous to have the game bog down that bad.

So, with 4E, one of the things I enjoy IMMENSELY is the economy of actions, whereby every player and monster's turns are relatively fast paced, and some minor math problems or multi-attack AoEs aside, every players turn tends to take a minute or less.