D&D 5E "But Wizards Can Fly, Teleport and Turn People Into Frogs!"

[TwoSix]

You are confusing a lot of different points here. People certainly played with plenty of houserules back in the day. But I don't think that proves the game was flawed, just that we had a culture that was open to variation from table to table. In my own groups we pretty much ran 2E the same for the most part. Most variations ofplay were around the optional rules provided in the PHB. 1E was a much more open system, where the dm was supposed to make a lot of ad hoc calls. By its very nature it led to different mechanical resolutions to things at different tables, but that wasn't neccessarily because it was a flawed game. In fact there is something to be said for letting the GM apply what makes most sense to a given situation rather than be a slave to an elaborate system of rules that attempts to account for every eventuality.

The talk about campaigns wasn't so much about rules as adventure styles and structures.


Either way, none of these demonstrate the game is flawed.

You're conflating two separate points. Pemerton's post said that drifting earlier games is perfectly normal, almost inherent to the type of play they provide. This assumed fact of play is what makes more modern games that assume that play should follow the rules directly so alien to the traditional player's experience.

The point about other games (specifically 3e) being flawed is a whole separate issue.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Lessee, btw, I'll bite. If we find more than 4 problem spells in this level alone, will you concede the point Ahn?

No. If you prove that the concept of level 4 spells itself is unbalanced, that any spell of that level makes a caster completely broken and is meaningfully disruptive to the majority of D&D players, then I'd be convinced the system needs to be changed. Otherwise it's just about fixing spells. 3.5 did a great job of fixing recognized problem 3.0 spells, and PF did a great job with 3.5 spells. Each new incremental revision recognizes and fixes a few issues.

Black Tentacles - very powerful spell, signficantly more powerful than most other offensive spells of the level.

Probably in need of an errata. Too many grapple checks for one spell. I've never seen a player actually take this spell, perhaps because they know it's cheese or perhaps because they don't want to make all those dice rolls.

Solid Fog - very, very effective crowd control spell - all targets limited to 5 feet per round movement, no save, no SR. 20 foot radius means you've locked down a target for 4 rounds.

Useful in some circumstances, but hardly game-breaking.

Scry - game changing spell.

Game-changing? Yes. Game-breaking? No. There is abundant (and good) official advice for DMs to sensibly manage divinations.

Charm Monster - Save or Die, effectively.

Save at +5, IIRC. And you're not actually dead. The battle is either over amicably, or you keep saving every time your allies get attacked. Charms are borderline useless in combat, and illegal in most civilized areas. They're a decent niche spell, not game-breaking by a long shot.

Animate Dead - largely unlimited source of meat shields. Yay, I don't need the fighter anymore. As I recall, skeletal hydras are a fav here.

The skeletal hydra can get stupid (and is a corner case; it's hardly a given that a hydra skeleton is available), but this spell is essentially a source of expensive crappy meatshields. Nor can a wizard do much with undead. Even clerical necromancers are hardly unbalanced with their better spells and turning.

Polymorph - ok, obvious issues here.

Yes.

How's that for problematic?

You've given me a list of spells that, for the most part, aren't even worth memorizing relative to direct damage spells. The only legitimately problematic ones are Polymorph and Tentacles.

So, you don't allow x3 critical weapons in your game Ahn?

I don't tell players that they only work once a day but the player can decide when.

And, do you have similar issues with the 3e power systems like that of the Bard (why can he only do bardic music X times/day) and barbarian rage powers? Or any class which has /day (or /time period) powers? Because, AFAIK, every single edition has had classes with that limitation.

Issues? Yes. It's a crappy balancing tool and creates metagame pressures and bookkeeping distractions. For barbarians (and knights), that stuff is implausible and I just gave up on trying to make it work and changed it. Frankly, my players deserve better.

You're right that it was present in every version of D&D. However, it was not present in every class.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Continuing in that framework, would the presence of a class like the Warblade cause you to reject the game? Do you allow anything from the Book of Nine Swords in your own game?

Would it cause me to reject the game if it were optional and a relatively small part of the rules? No. If the warblade structure were used for all martial classes, yes. Do I allow ToB? No. Do I mind it being there for those who do like it. No, tentatively. But I think the topic could have been addressed better.

 

[Guest 85555]

You're conflating two separate points. Pemerton's post said that drifting earlier games is perfectly normal, almost inherent to the type of play they provide. This assumed fact of play is what makes more modern games that assume that play should follow the rules directly so alien to the traditional player's experience.

The point about other games (specifically 3e) being flawed is a whole separate issue.

I may have misunderstood your post then. You stated the game was ojbectively flawed then mentioned pemerton's post where he said something about game drift. I assumed his post was made in support of the game being flawed. I did lo for his post, but was unable to tack it down so just went by what you said.

I may have missed the argument about drift, but if by drift you simply mean deviating from the RAW, then I dont think the divide is so simpe as modern versus traditional players (though again, this may not be what you mean by drift). I play with plenty of non old school gamers who don't believe in adherence to the RAW. Even back when I was playing 2E regularly, you had people who believed in raw and those who didn't. Same as when I was playing 3E. I think in recent years, there has been more of an assumption that RAW is how things go, but at the same time there has been a drift toward rules light systems that don't emphasize this (Dr. Who is an excellent example of a game, one with a bit of narrative bent I might add, that takes has more of a rulings over rules vibe).

 

[Balesir]

So, you don't allow x3 critical weapons in your game Ahn?

Because, if you do, what is the difference between how you narrate a power that deals [3w] damage and a weapons that deals triple damage on a crit?

I think I can answer that, at least for some folk, with an attempt to add light without heat, here.

If the fighter (effectively) gets to choose when s/he gets a crit, that is potentially "immersion breaking" because they can be seen as getting control over something the character does not "really" have control over. Now, from what I know about medieval fighting I'm not at all sure the situation is anything like as simplistic as that, but I can see how a fairly natural world model could look at things that way.

The issue then becomes one of what a person's world model will admit as "believable control" by an acting character. There are systems (4e) which are pretty lenient in terms of how a player is allowed to control timing on behalf of his/her character; there are other systems where player control of the timing of their character's most effective actions is much more circumscribed (RuneQuest, HarnMaster, Traveller). Older editions of D&D are a slightly odd fish, in this respect, in that fighters, thieves and other "mundane" types are given little control - or, put another way, little in the way of "power moves" that are not governed by chance (e.g. critical rolls, fumble rolls) as regards their timing and availability - but spellcasters are given full and complete control over the timing of their own "power moves". In RQ3, for example, RAW a spell caster has to roll to see if any spell goes off - not just to see if it overcomes the target's resistance. Same deal with HarnMaster.

I can see each of these world views - you only get to act with truly powerful effect if the opportunity arises by chance versus you have a limit on the number of truly powerful coups de main that you can pull off but it's up to the player when they happen - as being coherent and acceptable 'styles' on their own, but I do think that mixing them in the same game will inevitably cause problems.

 

[Neonchameleon]

For you.

The rules work for you so long as you do not put pressure on them.

The rules have worked acceptably for *tens of thousands of people*, for years. Acceptably enough that when they were replaced, a separate company was able to pick it up and make successful business of it. So, how about we drop the implications that somehow the thing is objectively fundamentally flawed, and admit that we all play differently, and what works for someone else may not be the best for you?

How about you stop trying to claim that I and the significant proportion of people who approach the game the way I do do not and should not matter.

No game works under all circumstances. Some games work at what they were designed for. Some really don't. And some work as long as you only play them the way they were intended - others can be expanded past this and drifted into a massive range of areas.

3e was intended to work if you approached it as if it was late-era 2e, with Wizards being blast mages, clerics healers, fighters meat shields, and rogues sneaky killers.

If you approach it like that it does work - and @Ahenhnois claimed that this was the default approach earlier. He may very well be right. And a lot of people like these stereotypes. If you start approaching the wizard as a class that should be outthinking their opponents rather than merely blow them up you end up with Batman Wizards, Scry and Fry, Lunar Lich Wars, and the works. This is what I mean by pushing the system. And some people like the Lunar Lich Wars and a Wish-based economy (Frank Trollman for one).

Is the 4e AEDU structure the only way to deal with this? Hell no. oD&D was pretty well balanced by a whole range of methods. Most of which made sure wizards had stonking great weaknesses and couldn't recover spells except between adventures (no resting in the dungeon due to wandering monster rolls which were there for that purpose). 3e stripped out just about all the balancing factors that D&D had had. Feng Shui has completely different gun and ki patterns that are about balanced with each other. But there are two options that would work - either deliberately set things so the default way to play is one of the strongest not one of the weakest or near symmetric design as in 4e.

Setting things so the default of blasty mage was one of the strongest ways to play wouldn't do a damn thing to everyone who wanted to play this default way. Something like giving everyone +3 to all saving throws against spells that don't do direct damage, and +6 to saving throws against death effects would be a good start, and a soft cap on the game at level 10, and polymorphing yourself gave you a 5% chance of dying while teleport gives you a 5% chance of teleporting yourself into solid rock and killing everyone. (When you look at the AD&D saving throw tables they do roughly what I've just outlined for precisely the reasons I'm talking about). This would be a boon to everyone who wanted to play a blasty mage. It would be almost as much of a boon to people like me who like playing tricksters and who actually want a challenge rather than to show everyone up. The only people it would upset would be those who want to play casters because they are broken.

But apparently because many people don't push the system I should just sit down, shut up, and stop pointing out that the system is broken if you push it. Right.

And for the record (on another post) [3W] is not triple damage. It's approximately double damage - it's three times your weapon damage but your strength modifier isn't multiplied.

 

[Guest 85555]

I think tempers are getting a bit too hot on this thread. All of us would do well to take a step back and not assume bad intent behind every post that disagrees with ours. Because right now it is only a matter of time before someone freaks and takes a ban. The easiest way to stop bait is not take the bait. This has occassionally been an interesting discussion when people have been genuinely curious about one another's opinions. When it became jsut about scoring points and winning, that is when it just turns into a flame war (and I am as guilty as anyone there). Maybe if we try to the approach that this isnt a debate to be won, but a chance to see how others view the game, things will be more productive.

 

[TwoSix]

Would it cause me to reject the game if it were optional and a relatively small part of the rules? No. If the warblade structure were used for all martial classes, yes. Do I allow ToB? No. Do I mind it being there for those who do like it. No, tentatively. But I think the topic could have been addressed better.

How would you have modified Bo9S to suit your playstyle? I'm curious at to where your objections arise (and I'm not judging you for having them, I'm honestly curious!)
Was it that the maneuvers mimicked Vancian progression? Was it the fact that they recharged? Was it the more grossly supernatural ones, like the Desert Fire school? Is it the maneuver concept in general?

I have trouble seeing an objection to a fighter class gaining an ability like punishing strike, as opposed to Power Attack. They feel too similar to me for it to be a problem.

 

[Neonchameleon]

No. If you prove that the concept of level 4 spells itself is unbalanced, that any spell of that level makes a caster completely broken and is meaningfully disruptive to the majority of D&D players, then I'd be convinced the system needs to be changed.

So why the double standards here? Why keep bringing up Come And Get It when it is for this purpose equivalent to a single spell that's unbalanced. Attacking AEDU (and preferring fighters that neither have a clue how to pace themselves nor are able to pace themselves, instead behaving almost robotically always at the same level of potential) is one thing. CAGI is just a very optional ability you don't like and should be treated like a spell you don't like.

CAGI is significantly less relevant to 4e than Polymorph is to 3e. Both are abilities you pick up at level 7 that cause problems. CAGI is an option for one class out of eight in the PHB and one option out of five then. Polymorph is picked up by two classes out of thirteen with a third having it as a class feature.

 

[TwoSix]

I think tempers are getting a bit too hot on this thread. All of us would do well to take a step back and not assume bad intent behind every post that disagrees with ours. Because right now it is only a matter of time before someone freaks and takes a ban. The easiest way to stop bait is not take the bait. This has occassionally been an interesting discussion when people have been genuinely curious about one another's opinions. When it became jsut about scoring points and winning, that is when it just turns into a flame war (and I am as guilty as anyone there). Maybe if we try to the approach that this isnt a debate to be won, but a chance to see how others view the game, things will be more productive.

I agree it is a little heated. My own approach is to assume that by arguing, I'm merely strengthening your attachment to your opinion, not weakening it. So convincing anyone posting in this thread of my correctness is a fool's errand.

However, there are people lurking who read these threads who aren't arguing and can be convinced. I know this because it happened to me 5 years ago, when I was unsure about 4e. So I merely wish to be one of the one of the voices that says that "D&D + narrative/metagame mechanics = win."