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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ptolemy18" data-source="post: 3752560" data-attributes="member: 24970">Meh. I do actually have a slight problem with the "always a badass" part too. I like badass games and I like making badass characters -- I am a gamer after all -- but I also like having the option to run, or play in, 1st-level schlub games in D&D. (And then if you can gain levels and work your way up to being a badass, then it's sooo sweet.) It is a Simulation of a game world, and schlubs exist in that game world, after all, and once in a while it can be fun to play one. (This is my experience with games like KULT, Call of Cthulhu and Warhammer speaking, I guess.)Now, maybe the majority of people don't like this, or maybe there is a terrible problem with 12-year-old newbies playing D&D for the first time and saying "I was knocked unconscious by an orc? This sucks! Back to Warcraft!" And so I can understand the desire for D&D4e characters to start out with 3xhd hit points. But I personally also like the option to play games where the characters are kinda weak, just as I personally like the option (shock! horror! insanity!) to play games where there's quite not so much combat or there's minimal miniatures-use and every class and every character type doesn't have to be combat-capable. If I am outvoted by Wizards, Wizard's focus groups, and the people in the enworld.org 4e forum, then che sera, sera. But I like having the option to do that in D&D.Of course, I like super high-fantasy badass games too. And actually, I also worry about the "high end" of the game being removed too; the high-level powers and weirdness. Like that "Game Breaking Spells" thread, where everyone is whining and moaning about how Fly or Teleport or Polymorph or Speak with Dead makes their games unplayable. Give me a break! Stop nerfing all the cool stuff! There is NO way to perfectly balance a game. The way to balance a game isn't to eliminate "game breaking" effects, it's to craft the game around your PCs' abilities, or alternately, to make sure that there are *enough* game breaking effects that if someone "breaks" the game one way, another PC or NPC or monster can "break" the game another way. (Evil NPC: "Damn! That wizard flew over my basilisk-filled ravine, negating that entire portion of the encounter! I guess I'll just have to FINGER OF DEATH them!") If the PCs' particular ability or spell or magic item turns out to be the perfect tool for the scenario, then the PCs deserve two things, in order: (1) a reward for their cleverness (2) the DM working harder on the *next* scenario to design something that challenges that particular group of PCs. They don't deserve the DM writing to Wizards saying "Take Teleport out of the game cuz the PCs teleported into the fortress."D&D should be about flavor and options, and at high levels, in a high fantasy setting, your options should be nearly limitless. D&D is a fantasy game, and fantasy means a certain level of weirdness and unpredictability and chaos. If a wizard or monster is able to do it in a fantasy novel, it should be doable in D&D, even if only at an incredibly high level. D&D shouldn't be a predictable tactical setup where everyone goes against approximately the same challenges with approximately the same power level. Otherwise the only difference between 1st level and 15th level is that the PCs are doing 100~ damage per round instead of 10~ damage per round, and the only difference between a wizard and a fighter is that the wizard says "I blast him" and the fighter says "I hit him."</blockquote>

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