Easy one, I promise

[moritheil]

So this is reactive overkill, much like Congress making laws in reaction to the media.

See, there's the thing.
...
As soon as they tied Vorpal to a 20, instead of a crit, they no longer needed to prevent Improved Critical and Keen from stacking - the instakills don't happen on every third attack, and IC/Keen was never the problem with balancing different weapons anyway.

-Hyp.

 

[RigaMortus]

And so you quoted me because ... ?

Because I thought you were responding to the same person, and I felt your answer was a little off. But if in fact you were responding to someone else about comparing weapons that both have Keen and Imp. Crit (which I was not responding to), then my mistake.

 

[Nail]

Man, how did they ever expect us to figure out all of the changes involved every time a Druid Wildshapes, especially now in 3.5 there's the burden of equipment, etc!

(Disclaimer: I teach college level math. I like math.)

It's not about "lazier math", it's about "quicker math". Combat is a time consuming process. Each roll, each modifier, each change must be taken into account. And all of that takes time! The difference in speed between 1.5x and 2x is significant.....and for some people more than others.

I'm more than happy to deviate a bit from the Str rules and go to a x2 on Power Attack because - as Hyper has pointed out - it can change every round. Or, at the very least, have three or four more popular values. It makes the game slightly quicker....and perhaps less intimidating to some.

 

[ksbsnowowl]

It's not about "lazier math", it's about "quicker math". Combat is a time consuming process.

Which is why every self-respecting Druid PC has premade mini character sheets for all his common animal forms. (Though admittedly this is only directed toward the situation surrounding Druids.)

Edit: anyone else notice that the board's clock is off by about 15 minutes? It's 9:56 where I'm at right now, and the time stamp shows 9:42

 

[Nail]

Which is why every self-respecting Druid PC has premade mini character sheets for all his common animal forms. (Though admittedly this is only directed toward the situation surrounding Druids.)

....actually, I'd broaden your statement a bit: "Every Druid PC who expects to use wildshape in combat...."

Once you get past 10th level, I figure, having that stuff pre-written out is mandatory. YMMV, and IMC.

 

[Deset Gled]

And yeah, I seem to recall that 1.5x/1x/.5x "would obviously fit better with the Str bonus rules", but this was 'easier'.

I remember this as well. And even though as an engineer it makes me cringe to think that the world is that bad at math, my gaming experience has done nothing but back it up. Despite the large number of D+D players who are geeky math people (especially here in the Rules Forum), there is a significant percentage of the general playing population that aren't. And to these people really don't want to deal with figuring out things like a 1.5 multiplier.

A lot of it is about speed, like Nail said. People don't want to have to spend a lot of time calculating in the middle of combat. Psychology is also a factor. Some people look at a multiplier with a decimal point in it and just get depressed.

The best example I can give is when I was DMing a small low level party with two druids and a wizard. The wizard needed to make a touch attack for a spell. She rolled a d20, and reported the result. When I pointed out that she should have a few modifiers to add to the roll, she just shrugged and said "Yeah, but I don't have it written down on my character sheet and I don't want to go through the trouble of adding it up." I died a little inside when that happened.

 

[werk]

Just advice...not necessarily about this thread.

You should be very sure of you(r) math before saying someone else(')s is pathetic.

As a mmorpg player, please allow me to offer the following advice which has served me well for years:
If you become upset with something that someone has said, to you or others, just take a second to remind yourself...they are probably 11 years old and are unsupervised.

Also many people prefer to be 'right' than to be 'correct' and will follow faulty logic to the depths of hell to prove it. They want to 'win' the argument, not figure out the real solution.

 

[moritheil]

This doesn't just apply to druids. Anyone who summons allies had better have a few with templates added beforehand or incur the wrath of his or her DM.

....actually, I'd broaden your statement a bit: "Every Druid PC who expects to use wildshape in combat...."

Once you get past 10th level, I figure, having that stuff pre-written out is mandatory. YMMV, and IMC.

 

[Nail]

This doesn't just apply to druids. Anyone who summons allies had better have a few with templates added beforehand or incur the wrath of his or her DM.

As a player of a "summoner", I've even begun to scare my DM...I regularly update a 3-ring binder with the templated beasties I can summon. It's getting kinda thick. (The binder: I'm talking about the binder. )