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Of all the complaints about 3.x systems... do you people actually allow this stuff ?
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<blockquote data-quote="Fanaelialae" data-source="post: 5789234" data-attributes="member: 53980"><p>The 15 minute adventure day was a real problem. In my experience, it happens when a DM has a poor understanding of the (3e) system. He throws CRs that are significantly over the party's level at them, usually doesn't hand out sufficient magic items, and rolls random encounters any time the party rests. As a result, the party rests after almost every encounter. They don't have much choice. The party realizes that any time they rest there's a chance for up to two CR +4 encounters, not to mention that they probably just fought a CR +3 or +4 encounter (with crappy gear), and are therefore already low on resources. If they go on for even one more fight and the DM rolls well for random encounters, the party will TPK for certain.</p><p></p><p>When I still played 3e, I played with two different DMs who did this. One I eventually convinced of the error of his ways, but the other carried the mentality into 4e (the result is fortunately not nearly as bad in 4e). It's not even that this style of DM is trying to be a jerk; he's just trying to challenge the players using a mentality that was popular (at least in my circles) during 2e.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>If you haven't seen the caster/melee divide, then you haven't seen a caster played to it's full capabilities. Nothing wrong with that; casters who actively avoid overshadowing the party is a perfectly legitimate play style and works very well with 3e. The problem is that not everyone enjoys playing that way.</p><p></p><p>The problem lies in the fact that a lot of spells are auto-success. When there's 2 seconds left on the clock, do you chance the fighter kicking the ball through the goal posts or do you have the wizard teleport without error between the posts with the ball? I'm fairly certain that most groups will pick the latter, because it's just plain sensible. The caster classes are geared toward being the MVP for that reason. The non-casters have one speed they can travel at constantly (until brought to 0 hp, at least), while casters can go from zero to over nine thousand in less than a second.</p><p></p><p>Add to that spells that allow them to do a non-caster's job better than the non-caster class can via Shapechange, Knock, Invisibility, etc. and the capability to completely ignore their daily limitations via easy crafting of scrolls and wands, and 3e casters can very easily get out of hand very quickly. In some campaigns they didn't. That was, however, either because the DM realized the problem and imposed additional limitations (such as preventing the PCs from having time to craft items), or the players made it a non-issue either through ignorance of how to get maximum potency from a caster or recognizing the problem and avoiding any problematic elements.</p><p></p><p>Personally, I don't like using those kinds of workarounds in my games (ignorance works, but my players are too smart for that to last long). I'd much rather have a system that assumes that everyone is playing their class at 100% (or at least 90%), than one that assumes that casters will play at 25% and everyone else will play at 75%. IMO, of course.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Fanaelialae, post: 5789234, member: 53980"] The 15 minute adventure day was a real problem. In my experience, it happens when a DM has a poor understanding of the (3e) system. He throws CRs that are significantly over the party's level at them, usually doesn't hand out sufficient magic items, and rolls random encounters any time the party rests. As a result, the party rests after almost every encounter. They don't have much choice. The party realizes that any time they rest there's a chance for up to two CR +4 encounters, not to mention that they probably just fought a CR +3 or +4 encounter (with crappy gear), and are therefore already low on resources. If they go on for even one more fight and the DM rolls well for random encounters, the party will TPK for certain. When I still played 3e, I played with two different DMs who did this. One I eventually convinced of the error of his ways, but the other carried the mentality into 4e (the result is fortunately not nearly as bad in 4e). It's not even that this style of DM is trying to be a jerk; he's just trying to challenge the players using a mentality that was popular (at least in my circles) during 2e. If you haven't seen the caster/melee divide, then you haven't seen a caster played to it's full capabilities. Nothing wrong with that; casters who actively avoid overshadowing the party is a perfectly legitimate play style and works very well with 3e. The problem is that not everyone enjoys playing that way. The problem lies in the fact that a lot of spells are auto-success. When there's 2 seconds left on the clock, do you chance the fighter kicking the ball through the goal posts or do you have the wizard teleport without error between the posts with the ball? I'm fairly certain that most groups will pick the latter, because it's just plain sensible. The caster classes are geared toward being the MVP for that reason. The non-casters have one speed they can travel at constantly (until brought to 0 hp, at least), while casters can go from zero to over nine thousand in less than a second. Add to that spells that allow them to do a non-caster's job better than the non-caster class can via Shapechange, Knock, Invisibility, etc. and the capability to completely ignore their daily limitations via easy crafting of scrolls and wands, and 3e casters can very easily get out of hand very quickly. In some campaigns they didn't. That was, however, either because the DM realized the problem and imposed additional limitations (such as preventing the PCs from having time to craft items), or the players made it a non-issue either through ignorance of how to get maximum potency from a caster or recognizing the problem and avoiding any problematic elements. Personally, I don't like using those kinds of workarounds in my games (ignorance works, but my players are too smart for that to last long). I'd much rather have a system that assumes that everyone is playing their class at 100% (or at least 90%), than one that assumes that casters will play at 25% and everyone else will play at 75%. IMO, of course. [/QUOTE]
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Of all the complaints about 3.x systems... do you people actually allow this stuff ?
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