D&D General 6E But A + Thread

[Lanefan]

Add a "Dungeonborn" species for symmetry

What would that look like?

We've had them for ages, hiding in plain sight.

Their other name is "Dwarf".

 

[Lanefan]

But that isn't actually balance. Like even in a long-term sense, it's not actually balance.

It's literally not long-term balance, because in the long term, things become more unbalanced than they were before.

Instead, it is, at absolute best, temporary middle-term balance: a range of levels where the exponential wizard is comparable to the linear fighter, rather than painfully behind or ridiculously ahead.

Long-term balance looks either like oscillation, where two things repeatedly crisscross one another and neither maintains a lead for long, or like convergence, where two things take different paths to reach the same result. Middle-term balance just means you have two things genuinely comparable over some range, and anywhere else, anything goes.

If track A starts at +2 and makes its way to -2 while track B starts at -2 and over the same rough length of time gets to +2 while track C hums along at roughly 0 the whole way, that's balanced enough for me.

And yes, this means different characters' roles within a party will change over the long run. The Fighter who was often front-and-centre at low levels becomes more of a support character at high levels, while the Wizard who was mainly support to begin with later becomes front-and-center. Meanwhile the Cleric happily hums along throughout and the Thief steals from all of 'em equally.

Of course, this assumes one is playing roughly the same amount of time-sessions-adventures-whatever at low levels as at high.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Oh wait, I forgot. 6E should tell people to join Enworld! Arn't we the greatest online Dungeons and Dragons community to ever exist or what???

 

[Lanefan]

And almost none of them will ever have any interest in starting. Which is the bigger thing, since (remember) Lanefan's arguments often boil down to "well if we force them to play X way, they'll just go along with it and then we'll change how people choose to play."

Hell, it worked for WotC. It's exactly what they've done, starting right from 3e.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I thought we were talking about warriors learning their trade in mercenary guilds or martial-arts schools the same as wizards learn in academic settings and guilds and clerics learn in temples or monasteries and thieves learn in guilds or on the street.

That all looks pretty much the same to me. So what am I missing?

You said nobody could learn certain kinds of skills. Hence, there could not be schools, because...people don't learn them.

Are you now saying there are schools Fighters can attend to become (say) sword-saints, where they can learn Aura Cutter or whatever once they've refined their skills enough so that (again, at high level) they can strike someone, with a sword, without throwing it, from 20 feet away, or the like?

Because that, as I understood it, was the issue. You claimed they couldn't learn such things, and the conversation turned to one side having completely undescribed training while the other didn't.

What Fighters should be getting is to be the clear-cut number-one damage dealers in melee, at any level. 4e made them damage absorbers instead, but that's only halfway right: they should be both the best damage absorbers AND the best damage dealers. But somehow Rogues got given the damage-dealing piece, where their party role should be as sneaks and scouts and trapfinders with their combat abilities being a secondary thing at best.

Not "instead". In addition. This is a common error regarding 4e.

Fighters were the Defender who was best at personally doing damage. Pretty much bar none. You had to really, really work for any other Defender to reach what just a reasonably well-built, well-played basic Fighter could do.

Also, Rogues were....also that? Like...sneak attack has been a thing for Rogues for a long time, so...they've kinda had that "we do big damage" thing for a fair amount of time. But Rogues were specifically the type of Striker--what in a monster would be called a "lurker"--that does, in fact, sneak around, and do a bunch of skill-y things. Rogues get more baseline skills than any other class. Bards get the same number of "pick what skills you want", but Rogues get two baked-in skills, while Bards only get one. Utility powers take care of the rest.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Hell, it worked for WotC. It's exactly what they've done, starting right from 3e.

Nope!

Because that, itself, was an evolution out of what had happened in late 2e.

Your assertion of a sharp discontinuity doesn't hold.

 

[Zardnaar]

13th Age.

Really truly excellent game design--that is definitely not a narrative game. Unless you consider 4e to be a narrative game, which I'm fairly sure you would not.

Great example thereof: They actually solved the 3.5e Druid Problem. That is, the problem that the 3rd edition Druid is both an extremely popular character archetype (to the point that it is almost single-handedly responsible for the WoW Druid class having the form it has), and also ludicrously broken because it's got like three full classes' worth of class features (animal companion, full spellcasting with an emphasis on summoning, and wildshape). 13th Age solves the problem by splitting up the powers into six buckets, which you can get either a portion of (1 talent) or the whole thing (2 talents). Each Druid gets exactly three talents to spend, right at the start.

This means that the Druid retains the ability to express any part of the 3.5e Druid, so everyone can still go to that class and get the thing(s) they really really loved about it. But no single druid can do all of it the way the 3.5e Druid could.

Apparently it wasn't a very popular classes so they buffed the hell out of it (same as cleric). And it still wasn't popular.

Natural spell had its origin in 3.0. Wildshape wasn't great in AD&D mostly a ribbon for exploration pillar.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

If track A starts at +2 and makes its way to -2 while track B starts at -2 and over the same rough length of time gets to +2 while track C hums along at roughly 0 the whole way, that's balanced enough for me.

But that's not what it is.

Using completely made-up numbers: One thing starts at 10 and grows to 30. The other starts at 1, and grows so that between (say) 4 and 8, the two are pretty close together (intersecting at 6, where both are 16), only to then shoot off to 3000 by level 20.

Yes, during that narrow window, the two things are, say, within +/-5 or whatever--a pretty loose balance, but something vaguely approximating it nonetheless. Before that, at the lowest levels, the linear-scaler is so much better it isn't even funny--starting out literally ten times better. But afterward? The linear scaler becomes completely irrelevant.

And yes, I genuinely do believe this accurately describes multiple editions of D&D. It describes 3rd edition the best, but it describes all of them except 4e to enough of a degree to have a valid point.

And yes, this means different characters' roles within a party will change over the long run. The Fighter who was often front-and-centre at low levels becomes more of a support character at high levels,

Sounds like you're taking away from the player the thing they actually enjoyed doing, so that you can make someone else ridiculously powerful.

Doesn't sound like particularly good game design.

while the Wizard who was mainly support to begin with later becomes front-and-center. Meanwhile the Cleric happily hums along throughout and the Thief steals from all of 'em equally.

Of course, this assumes one is playing roughly the same amount of time-sessions-adventures-whatever at low levels as at high.

Which is a bad assumption to make.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Apparently it wasn't a very popular classes so they buffed the hell out of it (same as cleric). And it still wasn't popular.

Oh, no, not popular at all. Only had enough influence to affect one of the most widely played video games of all time.

Pull the other one, Zard.

Natural spell had its origin in 3.0. Wildshape wasn't great in AD&D mostly a ribbon for exploration pillar.

I'm quite well aware that 3e is what made Druid ridiculously, stupidly powerful.

 

[Zardnaar]

Oh, no, not popular at all. Only had enough influence to affect one of the most widely played video games of all time.

Pull the other one, Zard.


I'm quite well aware that 3e is what made Druid ridiculously, stupidly powerful.

Im not sure it had direct influence.

WoW was mostly done once 3.5 came out.