Casters vs Mundanes in your experience

[Hussar]

No, you're missing it. It's literally a WMD - it kills everything (well, low-level everything) in the multiple-mile radius of the spell. It starts as a Divination, but the metamagics turn it into a nuclear explosion.

It's because the Locate City spell was mis-written to have an area-of-effect, which it really shouldn't. House ruling that is the easiest fix.

I disagree. The easiest fix is to make sure that this doesn't happen in the first place. It problem is with the area of effect. The designers should have caught that before publication and/or errata'd it soon after. To me, THIS is the best fix.

Simply telling each group that plays to reinvent the wheel whenever a known problem occurs is not the best fix. Although, to be honest, from the designers point of view, dumping it off on the players is certainly the easist fix.

 

[Savage Wombat]

I disagree. The easiest fix is to make sure that this doesn't happen in the first place. It problem is with the area of effect. The designers should have caught that before publication and/or errata'd it soon after. To me, THIS is the best fix.

Simply telling each group that plays to reinvent the wheel whenever a known problem occurs is not the best fix. Although, to be honest, from the designers point of view, dumping it off on the players is certainly the easist fix.

EASIEST fix, dude. Acknowledging that it's a mistake is easier than trying to ban a combo or fix several feats. Your way requires either (a) time travel or (b) a second printing of the book.

You don't need to get up on a soapbox about every little thing, dude.

 

[Hussar]

EASIEST fix, dude. Acknowledging that it's a mistake is easier than trying to ban a combo or fix several feats. Your way requires either (a) time travel or (b) a second printing of the book.

You don't need to get up on a soapbox about every little thing, dude.

But, that's the whole point here. Your "easiest fix" means that every single player has to be aware of game design elements. IOW, you are saying that it's okay for crappy rules to exist, because the players will just fix them.

For one, it's no longer 1985, we DO have the technology to reach as many gamers as possible with a couple of button clicks, so, no, it doesn't require time travel. All it requires is errata and a website address on the front page of every D&D book.

But, my biggest issue here is that the "easiest fix" means that group after group after group will hit this issue, have bad experiences with it, and then have to fix the problem.

I guess to me, easiest=laziest. I'd much rather have the best fix, or, even better, not need the fix in the first place. After all, isn't that what play-testing is for?

 

[Savage Wombat]

But, that's the whole point here. Your "easiest fix" means that every single player has to be aware of game design elements. IOW, you are saying that it's okay for crappy rules to exist, because the players will just fix them.

For one, it's no longer 1985, we DO have the technology to reach as many gamers as possible with a couple of button clicks, so, no, it doesn't require time travel. All it requires is errata and a website address on the front page of every D&D book.

But, my biggest issue here is that the "easiest fix" means that group after group after group will hit this issue, have bad experiences with it, and then have to fix the problem.

I guess to me, easiest=laziest. I'd much rather have the best fix, or, even better, not need the fix in the first place. After all, isn't that what play-testing is for?

No, the WHOLE POINT is that I was clarifying a comment on a particular bad spell, and you decided to diverge into a rant about errata.

We have other threads for that topic.

 

[pemerton]

No, you're missing it.

<snip>

It's because the Locate City spell was mis-written to have an area-of-effect, which it really shouldn't. House ruling that is the easiest fix.

it does show a problem with divination spells that comes up in RM too, namely, how to specify their geographical scope: is it a range to a target, and area of effect, or what?

What am I missing? - as per the self-quote, I made your comment about the problem being an area of effect issue in the post above yours.

I also made the broader point, which I stand by, that this issue of range vs area of effect is a general problem for writing divination spells that have a geographical scope. And it is an artefact of our tradition of statting up spells, which was first invented to handle combat spells - with a clear range to target, and a clear area of effect about that target - and doesn't adapt well to other sorts of spells, like divination spells limited by geographical scope.

The Locate City Bomb might be a limit case of the problems to which this can give rise, but it comes up in other ways as well: for example, is the correct metamagic for enhancing these sorts of divination spells one which adds to range, or one which increases area of effect? This is a question that comes up not only in D&D, but in Rolemaster, in HARP, and I imagine in Runequest used with the Intensify and related sorcery skills.

But anyway, the problems that arise in rules interactions that are themselves artefacts of spell effect formatting templates are orthogonal to this thread. The problems with Glitterdust and Evard's aren't caused by those sorts of high-level meta-issues. They're core to the effects of the spells.

 

[Savage Wombat]

Maybe I didn't quite get your point. But my understanding was that you were considering it in the contact of a divination, which is really not relevant to the exploit. And I haven't exactly researched this point, but for most of 3.5 it was a "general problem" that had been solved, by creating a standardized writeup for divinations that the writer of Locate City ignored.

So, that's why I commented - so that you weren't thinking of the exploit as being divination-related. And yes, it's an orthagonal point.

Moving on.

 

[Sadras]

In 4e this can be factored into a skill challenge, as part of the prelude to combat.

Very true, forgot about that feature of 4E. Cairn of the Winter King, a D&D adventure that came with the Essentials MM and Monster Tokens had such a Skill Challenge in place for the final boss. That was a great adventure module.

 

[Sadras]

@Neonchameleon
Not taking anything away from what you said:
Once 3.x bloated the feat trees, it became quite an effort to create a high level fighter and I would have thought the same with 4E if it had the same lifespan as 3.x and if DDI had not existed.
In 3.x you design to a concept just like 4E, and then select all the feat taxes initially, before choosing combat style feats. I didn't find it hard other than i never had software to assist me in this regard - and had to flip backwards and forwards through books and pdfs. Software makes a huge change that cannot be underestimated. The lifespan of 4E compared to 3.x should also not be ignored.
Furthermore, 4E has an additional complication of feats affecting certain powers - so once you have selected your powers and are going through the list of feats you need to keep that in mind. Given a few more years this could have gotten out of hand with more power-affecting feats. Level by level is fine, but creating a high level character - well that does take some effort in both editions.

 

[pemerton]

Very true, forgot about that feature of 4E. Cairn of the Winter King, a D&D adventure that came with the Essentials MM and Monster Tokens had such a Skill Challenge in place for the final boss. That was a great adventure module.

I have it, but haven't used it yet. (I have some ideas about advancing it to upper Paragon to mix in with my own conversion of Against the Frost Giants on the Feywild.)

The first sort of skill challenge I saw like that was in the Dungeon module called Heathen, and when I ran that recently my players did talk down the bad guy - a fallen paladin - rather than kill him. And then sent him home to safety on a flying Phantom Steed while they beat up on his armies.

It wasn't quite the "caster's ego is a weakness" you were referring to, but it did link emotions to conflict resolution.

 

[pemerton]

Once 3.x bloated the feat trees, it became quite an effort to create a high level fighter and I would have thought the same with 4E if it had the same lifespan as 3.x and if DDI had not existed.

<snip>

4E has an additional complication of feats affecting certain powers - so once you have selected your powers and are going through the list of feats you need to keep that in mind.

It's the worst feature of 4e in my opinion. Luckily it's my players' problem, not my problem!