Forked Thread: Rate WotC as a company: 4e Complete?

[Haffrung Helleyes]

Until I house ruled Fly, it was a constant problem with my 3.5 games. I really don't like it when D&D becomes a superheroes game.

The other big problem was scry/buff/teleport. This was in 3.0; they introduced spells in 3.5 that helped to a certain extent (but only when the bad guys were spellcasters).

I think 4E did a great job of nerfing scry/buff/teleport, by the way. Of course it introduced PC races that can teleport at 1st level, albeit only for short distances, which I really don't like.

Ken

 

[pemerton]

a once-a-week spell that did 200d20 fire damage is also suitably "high" in the same way that producing a bog-standard Fireball is; yet game breaking is game breaking no matter what the genre is.

At least one person following this thread agrees with you! I think this is an excellent rhetorical point which has not really been addressed by the defenders of fly.

 

[Rechan]

Larger creatures have larger reach. Really - how many encounters in Dungeons did you have where Fly would have helped a lot?

Any time that the place isn't a constructed dungeon, thus a natural thing. Underground caverns et al are pretty populated.

Also, with regards to "Larger reach"; a diagnial square counts as two squares in 3.5. So unless the flying wizard is right above them, the reach isn't as useful.

 

[ironvyper]

It would certainly help if the MM (you know, the book that you're supposed to assume will provide good encounters) seemed to assume the flying/invisible wizard was a common feature.

Seriously, if Fly becomes available at level 5, count how many creatures at CR 5 and above can actually deal with a flying wizard. Hell, to make it even better, throw in Improved Invisibility and take a look at the CR of creatures.

The MM obviously didn't assume that flying, invisible wizards would be standard until the early teens at the earliest.

So why blame DMs when the books themselves don't seem to factor it in.

Its not the monster manuals job to give a DM world advice or tactical advice or to assume the DM is too stupid to design a decent encounter. Its the MMs job to provide examples of possibilities for the PCs to face in combat. Many campaign worlds have many different levels of default magic and items. Previous MMs correctly left it up to the DM to make his own world, with his own houserules to support his story without forcing a default scenario upon the DM. They correctly left it up to the DM to read his own book and decide what was right for his adventures within the rules framework. Furthermore the MM doesnt need to assume flying is an option because the PHB tells you its an option and gives you plenty of missile weapons to deal with flyers. Nowhere in the MM does it say that monsters are restricted to any particular items, it only gives suggested items. So clearly any DM can look and see that any creature capable of throwing things would at the bare minimum have a few spears to chuck before a fight, and probably a lot more given that according to most default settings wizards who can cast a 3rd level spell and flying enemies are very common.

Your question about CR5 enemies is pointless misleading as well. 3e was designed around monsters being able to have classes. So intelligent monsters in a well laid out world should have had divine and arcane spellcasters for every large group and most small groups, just like the good guys did. So fly is less of an issue becaue the bad guys have dispel magic at the same level, and swarms of magic missiles to pummel a wizard with on the way down. Basic invisibility isnt even a consideration because it sucks and improved invisibility isnt available yet, so thats a strawman argument. Even if it was available though, see invisibility is low level, and one can assume reasonably common in a magic rich world. And again most of those enemies are fought inside their lair, and even if they are faced outdoors unless you happen to fight them in wide open plain, then forest trees or city buildings provide plenty of cover to force a flyer very low to the ground in order to attack. So again you just need to play the enemies like they have a brain in thier head. I mean if prairie dogs can scurry under trees when an eagle shows up i think an orc can manage the same against a high flying wizard.

 

[ironvyper]

=No, but try and tell me what I was saying again and we'll see if you get closer.

Well you did such a crappy job saying what you meant that someone had to try and clear it up.

But how about this, why dont you explain the actual point behind your rambling diatribe about players with good powers, monsters that can counter those powers and your absolute refusal to even occasionally use them, or even to acknowledge they exist even though they are all over the books we all bought about a decade ago? And happily used until WoTC just recently told us we were all wrong and these problems we surmounted for years were actually insurmountable and we didnt actually deal with them at all. It was just a dream i guess.

 

[ironvyper]

Any time that the place isn't a constructed dungeon, thus a natural thing. Underground caverns et al are pretty populated.

Also, with regards to "Larger reach"; a diagnial square counts as two squares in 3.5. So unless the flying wizard is right above them, the reach isn't as useful.

wow, in tennesee no less. where you have several cave complexes within easy drive. I would have thought you might have done some research. Natural caves are usually very small and round. Only big enough for the water that formed them to have forced a hole through enough weaker rock to make way. The majority of natural caves are so small they have to be explored by spelunking along your stomach through many tunnels and few of even the larger chambers are over a mans height tall. Depending on how you play it fly might be a help in a natural dungeon by reducing the drag and letting you float through the tiny sections faster then you could belly crawl but that would be about it. Large natural caverns hundreds of feet high and across might have populated the Jules Verne book that seems to have inspired D&D dungeons, but they are so rare as to be practically non existant in actual natural caverns.

 

[Hussar]

wow, in tennesee no less. where you have several cave complexes within easy drive. I would have thought you might have done some research. Natural caves are usually very small and round. Only big enough for the water that formed them to have forced a hole through enough weaker rock to make way. The majority of natural caves are so small they have to be explored by spelunking along your stomach through many tunnels and few of even the larger chambers are over a mans height tall. Depending on how you play it fly might be a help in a natural dungeon by reducing the drag and letting you float through the tiny sections faster then you could belly crawl but that would be about it. Large natural caverns hundreds of feet high and across might have populated the Jules Verne book that seems to have inspired D&D dungeons, but they are so rare as to be practically non existant in actual natural caverns.

I take it you haven't spent much time in volcanic areas. Try looking up lava tubes and you'll see some very large caverns.

 

[ironvyper]

I take it you haven't spent much time in volcanic areas. Try looking up lava tubes and you'll see some very large caverns.

Lava tubes are not common, or the default dungeon setting. However a quick search revealed that few have a cross section larger then 10 meters. Which is by no means outside of missile for any weapon in the book. So fly still isnt encounter breaking if the enemies you built had half a brain and brought some bows, or even throwing spears.

 

[Hussar]

Lava tubes are not common, or the default dungeon setting. However a quick search revealed that few have a cross section larger then 10 meters. Which is by no means outside of missile for any weapon in the book. So fly still isnt encounter breaking if the enemies you built had half a brain and brought some bows, or even throwing spears.

So, in order to counter a 3rd level wizard spell, I can no longer use 3/4 of the monster types in the game? I mean, sure, humanoids, giants and a couple of other types can use bows, but, everyone else is screwed.

I think I'd rather do away with the spell, or move it up to the point where the majority of creatures have built in ways of countering it, rather than forcing every dungeon to be a tower of orcs.

 

[Andor]

Could someone explain to me why Fly was broken in 3e, but not in 4e, when in combat there is no bloody difference that I can see?

All that 4e lacks is overland flight, which it hardly needs because now you can just use your handy dandy teleportals to avoid the overland encounters.

Yes flight comes later in 4e, but it's an expanded level scale, and Wizards get levitate at 6th level anyway. So what difference is there, save that 4e makes flying useless outside of combat?

3 pages later, no one has tounched this one yet.

Wizards can fly in combat 3e. Wizards can fly in combat 4e.

So how exactly did they fix flight?