Jimlock
Adventurer
I have one thing to say to this. If D&D (3e anyway) isn't intended to be a combat-oriented game then why does such a large proportion of the rules deal with combat? Virtually everything in the game is directed towards the eventuality of beating monsters and taking their stuff.
Easy answer: Because combat is the most complicated aspect of the game. Combat needs plenty of rules to be resolved properly, whereas almost every other aspect of the game is not so rules-dependant.
White Wolf, who beats both TSR and WotC 10 times out of 10 on all aspects of ROLE-playing, has combat rules as well, and it tends to be the most big and complicated chapter of their books. This does not make WOD games combat-oriented, far from it actually. I would suggest you try some of their games, cause they really are great, but seeing how you value combat over everything else I guess you wouldn't like it.
And yes, there is no wrong way to play the game as long as you are having fun, but I feel its a waste of a perfectly good combat system if all you want to do is sit around and practice your extemporaneous acting skills. Again, nothing wrong with sitting around roleplaying and never picking up dice. But you don't need a rulebook to do that.
You feel what? A waste of a combat system?
So what you are saying is that people have (only ?) two options:
1)They roleplay without rules and dice
2)They gather around for hack-n-slash sessions only, under the blessings of a "perfectly good combat system".
Well don't be surprised to find out that GREAT combat CAN be combined with GREAT roleplaying. You use the system/dice/rules when you need it to resolve the "drama"...while you roleplay everything else.
...Hell you can even roleplay during combat, even while using the combat-rules, as long you know them well enough so that they don't slow down your game.
Oh... and so as to be clear on one thing:
D&D isn't about combat, D&D is about adventure. Combat is a part of the adventure but not all of it.
I read the thread. I got pretty tired of seeing overgeneralizations about the school of illusion and wanted to set the record straight.
Did it ever occur to you, while reading through the thread, that these "overgeneralizations" as you call them, revolve around non-combat situations in the game? ...and that because of their (off-combat) focus do not "appeal" to your style of play... and thus you reject them as "overgeneralizations".
Permit me to make these assumptions, because the people who are SO against the idea that Detect Magic is broken in respect to Illusions, are people who (from what I make of them anyway...based on their words in this Forum) probably share your opinion of the game as being a combat game, optimizers included.
I have no intention of being judgmental on how people play the game. Surely you play what you like, the way you like it. No problem with that.
...But when it comes down to putting rules to the test... one has to be able to judge things from different perspectives, not simply through the lenses of his own game-style.
To be more precise, despite the fact that I brought fourth all those Illusion spells from post 1, explaining how various Illusions CAN be broken by detect magic in off-combat situations...
... a surprisingly big number of posters kept going back to that accursed "3 round process" claiming it as the reason DM is NOT broken. It was enervating really...
"but in order to... you need three rounds....", "it's stupid to lose 3 rounds....", "wasting 3 rounds so as to..."
Why? because those 3 rounds... are indeed a big problem ... IN COMBAT...
So people filtered my question through their own gaming experience, and rightly so, but those SO focused on combat, fail to see the importance of the rest....
calling it either as "fluff"... or as "situationalisms" or as "overgeneralizations"...
but the point remains... that Illusions can find 100s of uses outside of combat, and those are the ones I'm more worried about.
...no ONLY about how difficult it is to see an invisible person in combat with DM..
Illusions are a means to an end just like any school of magic. They serve to help you navigate the dungeon, beat the dragon, and take his stuff. A few might be a little more in the fluff area (like disguise self), but they are in the clear minority.
What can I say... we use the same books but we play different games.