what do you do when a +3 bloodclaw weapon is more powerful than a +4 artifact

[Mallus]

And thanks, Mallus, for being completely unhelpful: you typify the sort of stuff that I knew would be coming in this thread, so you're getting it out of the way early. Maybe others will read your post, know that I've been "got" and just move on.

I wasn't trying to 'get' you, EB, I was trying to be helpful. Well, I was trying helpful and funny... and sometimes the latter obscures the former, sad to say.

For what's its worth, I agree with you about certain item choices being too good, which encourages characters to carry similar item sets. In fact, we joked about it at one point in my campaign ("I see we patronize the same Big and Violent Shoppe!").

I disagree that bugs like these add up to the system being irrevocably broken. That sure sounds like a wild overstatement, and I agree w/Barastrondo that incremental fixes are the way to go (note this is neither a quip nor a logical fallacy, merely practical advice...).

 

[malraux]

I dunno, its pretty hard to not have one item be better than another, even if there are only two items. Its not like 3e didn't also have this problem. I'm not familiar with other systems, but I have a hard time seeing how other systems couldn't also have the same problem.

 

[Mallus]

[*]Restrict the flow of new material into the campaign. Add a 2-3 month delay between publication to availability to allow errata, problematic use, and other problems to surface.

You can also allow new material with the understanding that it will be nerfed or outright removed if it proves problematic.

The problem with a delay period is that it doesn't answer the fundamental question: does my group have a problem with it? You can only answer that by trying it out. One group's game-breaking item/spell/ability is another groups inconsequential thing that works fine as written.

 

[Doug McCrae]

What is left to do other than stop purchasing products with known defects.

Give up all your material possessions and go and live in a cave. Get off the treadmill, man.

See, I offer sensible advice, not like Mallus's unhelpful idea to nerf bloodclaw weapons. That's totally impractical.

 

[Obryn]

Thinking about it more, I think part of the issue - which I think someone already touched on - is that the production schedule of WotC is set up to pretty much guarantee a very high number of errors. Cranking out one book per month is a whole lot of work, and with so much time focused on creative production how could you possibly have enough time for reflection? I think this is reflected in the lack of refinement that we've seen, and why it takes so long for them to carve out fixes to certain problems (example: skill challenges).

While that might lead to reduced playtesting and bug-squashing, I think what you're describing is endemic to any expandable system. Simply slowing down the release schedule wouldn't magically eliminate broken combinations.

Ultimately I do wonder, for those of you who have suggested it, if finding a different product would either a) solve this problem or b) delay this problem. Maybe a secondary question is: if WotC isn't big enough to handle this issue, who is - or is it rather that WotC is too big and that's what's causing the issue?

I don't think it's either, frankly. As I mentioned, I think it's endemic to the kind of games 3.5 and 4e simply are - that is, expandable and modular mechanics-heavy game lines with (in the case of 3.5) a staggeringly huge product line, or (in the case of 4e) a steadily-growing product line. (SWSE fits this bill, too, imho. Rifts is basically the case study. I've heard that Exalted and other WoD game lines have similar issues.)

It's not a matter of WotC being too big or not big enough. It's a matter of 3.5 and 4e being mechanics-heavy, expandable games. Something will always be better than something else, and a very few will be way better than the alternatives.

If you want to avoid broken combinations and the like, you're pretty much looking at rules-light games. Or at least closed, rules-simple games. Rules Cyclopedia might be your speed for D&D, or else something along the lines of Call of Cthulhu. WFRP2e may work, too.

-O

 

[Herschel]

Then, last night, we managed to find a +4 artifact weapon. This weapon has all kinds of powers and abilities and gives lots of bonuses all over the place, and it was clearly meant to be a powerful uber-weapon for our +3 bloodclaw striker buddy. But here's the thing: the more I think about it, the more I analyze this situation, the more I realized that my buddy should not trade up. The +4 artifact weapon is not as good. A +3 bloodclaw weapon is better than a +4 artifact.

The thing is, it will cause his damage to go down by 8 each hit. Yes, it gives a +1 to hit overall, but the +8 damage is something that is really, REALLY palpable. In fact, as a striker, it is indispensable. Damage is -the- most important thing - especially as a striker. 4.0 tried to get away from this, but they did not. If you're not a striker, there's an argument to be made that you have other abilities that are more important than damage. But even if you're not a striker, if you can find a way to gain additional damage, you should always make that trade. For wizards and other controllers who use staffs, there's only one choice for a weapon. For anyone who uses two-handed weapons, there's only one choice. If you're a two-weapon fighter, you have exactly one choice for each. If you are a melee character, you have one choice for an arm item - and so on and so on. So many items so completely overshadow all other items in the game that they create a situation in which there is only one choice. 4.0 tried to get away from the "6 most common items" or whatever it was, but they immediately recreated them in a slightly different form.

Your argument completely falls apart in this section. Damage in not, I repeat, IS NOT the be-all/end-all thing in 4E. One's not accepting this is not a design flaw, but simply an indication of their play style. The DMG even mentions the striker is probably the easiest role to do without.

Look at it this way: There are many ways to be efficient. I'm playing an Assault Swordmage who's built to be defensive, accurate and the guy who goes and pulls allies out of trouble. I have resistences out the wazoo (fire, cold, thunder, poison, necrotic). I intentionally looked for and took items for this reason. The Necrotic, Fire and Poison resists have saved me countless HP of damage, more than, say, more surges would have helped.

Some people still prefer more surges because they're less specialized. For me, the +2 Armor of Resist (Necrotic) has been worth its weight in gold. It would take more than a standard suit of +3 for me to swap it. Others would prefer teh +1 AC bump. It's all a matter of choice.

Maybe if you outlined the artifact's powers we'd have more information to work with.

 

[Mallus]

That's totally impractical.

Impractical?!

I am the very model of modern ludic practically.

(I have information fanciful, statistical, and literal!)

 

[Umbran]

Ultimately I do wonder, for those of you who have suggested it, if finding a different product would either a) solve this problem or b) delay this problem. Maybe a secondary question is: if WotC isn't big enough to handle this issue, who is - or is it rather that WotC is too big and that's what's causing the issue?

I don't think the issue has anything to do with the size of the company, but instead with the size of the game.

Bugs will be found, that much is a given. The problem you noted is visible in 2e, 3e, and 4e. It is also visible in other games, though. White Wolf's various World of Darkness games, the various editions of Shadowrun - they all ended up with a lot of abusive bits. The more rules and expansions you have, the more bugs there will be, no matter who is publishing them. If you switch to a game that has fewer books, you'll find fewer bugs.

Mind you, this is not distinguishable from simply limiting your use of 4e to specific books.

 

[evilbob]

To address a couple of specifics:

- It's hard to limit your selections (or ban items) when "everything is core." I appreciate this advice and its simplicity, and it's not a bad solution if you only play in one group or if everyone agrees that effectively "ok, not everything is core". But even without those issues there comes a time when enough is enough and I'm tired of being the one who has to go through everything and figure out what's broken so I know what to look out for. I thought I paid the publishers to do that.

- 3.5, for its flaws, was a very different animal (and production model) than 4.0. For one, the core books were published - and revised - a while before the supplement machine really got rolling. And supplements weren't produced every month at a breakneck pace (until toward end - and that's when things started to really fall apart in the same way). They had about 3 years to refine the product before they really ramped up production, and I think that helped. Yes, it had flaws, and yes, they were exploitable, but most of those flaws seemed to come more from a difficulty in expressing rules in language, whereas 4.0 flaws seem to be more mechanically based. Is this a byproduct of an improved language system, or were the 3.5 flaws also mechanically based but just disguised by the language? Those are fair questions, but it doesn't seem like that to me.


I understand that not everyone is going to go through these mechanics with a fine toothed comb and that some of these issues simply are not issues for others, and that is completely and totally ok. In fact, that's great - more power to you. But it's just not that way for me. Each of these problems seems like a little "trap" that you have to avoid or deal with that the publishers should have already addressed. And each one takes a little bit more of my time and enjoyment with it each time I encounter it. And at this point, I'm just running out of patience.

 

[gizmo33]

Folks, what do you do? What do you do when the game is getting more imbalanced but house rules are more discouraged than ever?

The first thing I would do is acknowledge that there's no one around to actually tell you not to use house rules. Especially something relatively simple like banning certain magic items.

The second thing I'd do is question how suitable the challenges are that you're facing. +8 damage is nice, but you're taking 3 pts of damage each time you swing the weapon, which is a bigger deal if you don't hit all the time. If you hit all of the time, and are always facing the same cookie-cutter monsters with the same powers (and always close melee, I would assume) then *no wonder* all of the PCs start to look the same and choose the same equipment. There's no reason for flexibility and variety if the encounters aren't requiring it.

Theoretically, a striker is supposed to do more damage than the rest of the party. IME a striker also gets *pounded* if he steps out of the protective zone of the defenders. PCs need to be able to find/engage lurkers and artillery. They need to avoid being slid into traps and flanked by adversaries. They need to shake off debilitating conditions (for example, the petrification of a basilisk which is a very appropriate challenge for the level). The damage that a rogue does is completely unimportant when facing minions.

And that's just combat stuff, which IME relies on much more than just damage output at the expense of everything else. Skills should be important in the game and AFAICT it sounds like they're not.

There are tons of issues in combat that IME are more important than raw damage. Then again, if you're always able to engage your opponent and hit, and never have to worry about being hit yourself or deal with conditions (or heal) then I guess damage becomes all important. But in that case I think it's really obvious that the problem is not the bloodclaw.

Some DMs have certain fallback approaches to encounter design. For example (and this was an issue in earlier editions) some DMs like the simplicity of the PCs battling one powerful BBEG, but can often be surprised at how well a party of PCs can deal with a single opponent. Yes, it would be nice if a game existed that would assure the DM that any thing you threw against the PCs would be a challenge. But until such a game system comes along I think it would really help if the DM studied the problem.

Take the level 12 encounter listed under "stone eye basilisk" for example (I chose level 12 because of the bloodclaw level). Now if your rogue got trapped by a briar cage, was inside the slow aura of the basilisk and was getting hit by petrifying gaze each round I'm not sure if that +4 net damage is really looking that good. A briar witch with 262 hit points is going to lose sleep over your rogue's +8 to damage? Her plant minions do +5 damage themselves just from being around her.