Can we stop the Angel Summoner BMX Bandit comparisons

[Piratecat]

The dragon, the PC, the player or the DM?

Two of the aforementioned four. I love everyone in the game - they're all my best friends from high school - but saying they're playing high powered, lopsided, Monty Haul D&D* is an insult to high powered, lopsided, Monty Haul D&D elsewhere. On the plus side, I served as a highly effective one-round-meat-shield!

* Except for my character. My PC was normal powered. Another PC had an AC 23 points higher than mine. I could only make saves vs the breath weapon on an 18 or higher. Want to guess which of us the dragon kept attacking?

 

[rkwoodard]

sorry

Sorry to those of you that did not get the reference. I had seen the reference in a few threads and had to look it up myself.

Now, I realize that these problems seem to be at a higher level than I have traditionally played. And we never played with a lot of splat books as well.

In My Opinion. It was just that any game that ran like those videos, would have to have a lot of the blame on the DM, not the system.

I have no doubt that there is problems at higher levels, it is just that 10-12 has always been my favorite range to top off the campaign and move on.

RK

 

[Greg K]

now those are not the only or even the worst ones, but being 1 player who was not trying to step on toes... ok maybe the last time it was... ruined other people's concepts.

A lot of what you described sounds like issues with a) the DM not doing his "job" of controlling what comes in play at the table and fixing inequities that arise and b)the player not thinking about others at the table. Just because something can be thought of or allowed does not mean it is a good idea to allow it in practice. Good friend or not, Paul's characters would not have flied in my campaigns. Unlike a video game, as a DM, I can say, "No!". Optional things like divine metamagic, night sticks, and several other things would have been off limits. Ruining other people's concepts, that is not going to fly either. In the first instance, he would not have been allowed the ToB feat in my game (well, I don't allow the book anyway) and, if the feat allowing the eldritch blast to be channeled was causing problems, it would have been disallowed as well.



.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Speaking as a moderator I'd be happy to never see a 'BMX bandit vs Angel Summoner' comparison used in a D&D thread ever again.

Why?

Because it is hyperbole used to shut down discussion. Hyperbole is fun as humour on occasion, but hyperbole used to shut down discussions just irritates people.

Bottom line? D&D has over 35 years of history which says that some people have fun playing fighters, some people have fun playing wizards etc. etc. Thus grand statements of the troof about relative power of classes (which typically ignore the whole magic item dimension which has been core to D&D since its inception) are, in my mind, somewhat lacking. It says more about the prejudices of individuals than the game as played by most of the players over most of its history. Somebody's bad experience in a game doesn't translate into the experience of everyone, everywhere.

There are some people who ended up banned from ENworld because they couldn't get the bit out of their teeth on this issue, and it became the basis of argument for every discussion they had. I'd hope to not see that again.

Regards

 

[Loonook]

Speaking as a moderator I'd be happy to never see a 'BMX bandit vs Angel Summoner' comparison used in a D&D thread ever again.

Bottom line? D&D has over 35 years of history which says that some people have fun playing fighters, some people have fun playing wizards etc. etc. Thus grand statements of the troof about relative power of classes (which typically ignore the whole magic item dimension which has been core to D&D since its inception) are, in my mind, somewhat lacking. It says more about the prejudices of individuals than the game as played by most of the players over most of its history. Somebody's bad experience in a game doesn't translate into the experience of everyone, everywhere.

Regards

I feel wrong giving a Moderator XP... But I have to agree with this specifically. Sadly those who do complain about things don't look back over the rest of the game's history... And when enlightened about how each edition handles it, usually cause a lot of troubles/break up threads .

So I guess you do get XP .

Slainte,

-Loonook.

 

[MichaelSomething]

To be honest I think the people who complain about this have either had bad DMs who didn't know how to tailor adventures for the characters in his party or didn't follow the rules. In a recent thread someone was complaining about how a wizard could know every spell. His DM never made the player roll a spellcraft check to see if he could actually put the spell in his book nor did he make the character do any bookkeeping so he had never had to buy a new spellbook.

There was another thread about how the party was knocked out by a high level monk because the magic users of the party couldn't get past his improved evasion.

The system works fine if everyone in the group (DM included) has a good social contract and similar levels of system mastery. While house rules and such can alter a game greatly; the idea is that even when you follow the rules to the letter, the wizards will render the fighter impotent. It really occurs only above level 12 or so though (IMO).

If improved evasion can stop a magic user, then that magic user sucks
A real magic user would have spells that target will, reflex, touch AC, and a whole bunch of other options.

 

[Loonook]

If improved evasion can stop a magic user, then that magic user sucks
A real magic user would have spells that target will, reflex, touch AC, and a whole bunch of other options.

And that's the thing. Fighters so rarely get to change their target numbers without investing a large sum of feats into various odd forms of martial prowess. If a fighter could target Will without having to invest in weak powers like Intimidating Presence or similar he could be more effective... But many consider this to be 'magic'. Of course, morale existed in earlier versions of the game so...

Slainte,

-Loonook.

 

[Nifft]

Because it is hyperbole used to shut down discussion. Hyperbole is fun as humour on occasion, but hyperbole used to shut down discussions just irritates people.

Intentions are difficult to guess, and even more difficult to correctly assign for all posters who have ever, or will ever, use a particular argument. I think you overstate.

I've used this as an example (to my players, not here on the forums) of a problem that could happen in 3e which 4e solved.

Bottom line? D&D has over 35 years of history which says that some people have fun playing fighters,

... at certain levels. If you had spent the last 25 years re-playing levels one through five, it'd be no wonder that you didn't encounter this issue. In fact, you'd probably think the Wizard was totally underpowered! At those levels, in older editions, he probably would be.

At high levels, the issue is readily apparent to many people. The video is a humorous illustration of a point which is (in my experience) very real.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Nifft]

The system works fine if everyone in the group (DM included) has a good social contract and similar levels of system mastery. While house rules and such can alter a game greatly; the idea is that even when you follow the rules to the letter, the wizards will render the fighter impotent. It really occurs only above level 12 or so though (IMO).

I'll agree that players with similar levels of System Mastery will tend to create characters that don't overshadow each other... but in part that's because they will skip 'underpowered' options entirely, so they might not have to worry about Fighter vs. Wizard because none of them ever take more than 2 levels of Fighter.

Cheers, -- N

 

[S'mon]

I
... at certain levels. If you had spent the last 25 years re-playing levels one through five, it'd be no wonder that you didn't encounter this issue. In fact, you'd probably think the Wizard was totally underpowered! At those levels, in older editions, he probably would be.

At high levels, the issue is readily apparent to many people. The video is a humorous illustration of a point which is (in my experience) very real.

Cheers, -- N

IMO it's only an issue in 3e (and derivatives of 3e). Fighter types stood up well vs M-Us in my 1e-2e AD&D games, at any level. Admittedly no one played single-class Thieves.