Raging Barbarian Playtest update

[Insight]

I'll be very curious to see their reasoning for the way Rage Strike is designed. I don't like the precedent they're setting that you have a class feature you're given at 1st level that you can't use until 5th level. Why not just give it at 5th level?

 

[Stalker0]

I like the clean organized summary of what WOTC has presented. It shows that they have listened, and have shown the community the issues they plan to focus on.

Of course ultimately the question becomes how much playtesting is done on the changes based on this feedback?

 

[frankthedm]

I wonder if the Char Op Board is feeling used? Wotc is basically using them for R&D now.

 

[doctorhook]

I wonder if the Char Op Board is feeling used? Wotc is basically using them for R&D now.

They should be used; they're probably the world's most efficient playtesters.

Nothing illustrates where the game can break better than twenty threads about how to, "OMFG!! one-shot Orcus at 1st-level!"

 

[Derulbaskul]

I wonder if the Char Op Board is feeling used? Wotc is basically using them for R&D now.

WotC should have done this with 3.5E and they would have had far fewer problems. The CharOp guys have a much better grasp of, and feel for, the rules than practically any WotC developer and especially any editor.

 

[Donovan Morningfire]

The CharOp guys have a much better grasp of, and feel for, the rules than practically any WotC developer and especially any editor.

I don't think that's necessarily true. As is often the case with developers in any industry, they get used to seeing things from a certain perspective, which is often the "intended" perspective.

As Rodney Thompson sagely said, "No game system survives contact with its player base." What this means is that once the players get their hands on the system, regardless of whether it's d20, GURPs, Palladium, or what-have-you, they are going to come up with and/or find all sorts of problematic combinations that the designers never really considered simply because it was outside of the intention of how the rules were written.

So the developers probably have a pretty darn good idea of how the rules are supposed to work, it's just they've been so close to the material for so long that they've just gotten used to seeing things a certain way. Happens in writing just as frequently, as an author frequently makes for a notoriously bad editor when it comes to editing their own material. The author knows what was intended, and so may mentally "fill in the gaps" when doing any proofreading or editing.

As for the editors knowing the rules... who knows? I'm sure there are some that know the rules just as well as the CharOp guys, some that barely know the rules at all, with most falling somewhere in between.

 

[Mad Mac]

WotC should have done this with 3.5E and they would have had far fewer problems. The CharOp guys have a much better grasp of, and feel for, the rules than practically any WotC developer and especially any editor.

I wouldn't go that far. I remember a lot of "Oversized Weapons are totally balanced!" threads in the CharOp forums, while at the same time, pretty much every melee build posted were using oversized weapons.

CharOp's is very good at breaking the system, but their view of balanced, or normal level of optimization, is very skewed compared to the average player. They pretty much only deal with the most optimized builds possible, and then compare them to determine if Minotaur Maul-weilding fighters are balanced against Super Orb Focused Wizards. It's useful for picking out stuff that needs to be nerfed or clarified, but that's about it, IMO.