Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 5523997" data-attributes="member: 87792">And yet in a system with 30 or so classes and tons of powers, the designers can actually do their job and errata broken stuff.  I pay the designers to give me a good product, not a half broken collection of ideas.  I can come up with ill thought out ideas myself.  If it's that broken then it's not worth paying for.A character who has broken material and does not use it to the point where it severely negatively impacts bad guys is a suicidal idiot.  But because the designers screwed up, you apparently need to look at each spell on a case by case basis and ask "Is this broken?"  Apparently the GM is meant to do the designers' and playtesters' job for them.  Why the hell pay WoTC or Paizo for half finished product?Take a system like GURPS.  It's dead easy to break if you try.  But you need to be trying.  And that is the difference - in 3e you can easily break the system accidently.  More easily than in any other version of D&D.That GMs and players need to do this job is absolutely a reflection of the system.Oh, 3.X has a lot of advantages.  Tons of material, a massive embedded player base that have worked off the rough edges at their table (what one table considers fine, another one considers munchkin), excellent production values.  It has many, many advantages - just about everything except the system.I can tell my players at heroic tier in 4e "Design your own characters and just send me the background" without trouble.  At Paragon I need to give people the once-over.  In GURPS I just need to give the once-over unless we are playing at Supers levels (when I'd use another system...).  Wushu ... isn't a problem.  Dread?  How do you break a Dread character?  Dr Who?  The main thing to resolve is who plays the Time Lord.  Spirit of the Century?  I don't need to worry about things being broken.  Cold City?  Likewise.  Paranoia and AD&D I will be suspicious about extremely high rolls (and restrict to something resembling core).  But that's about it.Yet 3.X I need to go through the character sheets and spell lists looking for an arbitrary and home made definition of broken.  And you claim this isn't a problem with the system?  3.X is the 2003-era Microsoft Windows of the roleplaying world.  It has many advantages that make it the dominant OS of the time.  But the programming isn't one of them.Oh, ffs.  And I doubt it was me.  But the situation is Linear Fighter, Quadratic Wizard.  The wizard gains in power significantly faster than the fighter.  Saying high level wizards are too strong because they have plot power and ridiculous overkill doesn't mean that level 1 wizards are too weak.  This argument is about high levels, not level 1.  And could you please tell me who claimed that 3.X fighters were too strong?(And for that matter, there's a difference between too weak and feels like a chump.  At Will Ray of Frost feels more wizardly than having to fall back on a crossbow even if the crossbow is stronger).If and only if a wizard is level 1 and level 20 at the same time.  It also says it's balanced around that.  Which means it should be able to handle that easily - it can't.  (And IIRC you claim that the modules that came out after that were balanced round it).Would you kindly stop running your "My precious encounter model model" in message board threads?  It is a specific, narrow, and irrelevant style of argumentation.I claim it's suggested.  Because it says it's what the game is balanced round.  And many new DMs are going to be cautious breaking far from basic patterns and for good reasons.  You erroniously claim I claim it's required.And the wizard achieves a hell of a lot more than the fighter does.  Possibly the bard achieves more still - unlike the fighter he has both skills and magic.  (The fighter, of course, doesn't have one and doesn't have much of the other).  And can therefore get a lot done.Now bring the fighter in please.  What's he got to contribute?  A sword.  he must fight to do something he's better than a commoner at (a commoner gets a better skill list).  Or the Barbarian - better off than the fighter, but not great.  The wizard massively overperforms until you compare him to his high-casting bretheren.  The fighter massively underperforms unless you're running a combat stomp.Once more you are fitting things to the My Precious Encounter Model model.  Break outside your relentless focus on combat and encounters and the wizard can completely change economies with spells like Fabricate or by crafting.  The fighter, in exchange, has a double handful of ranks in Craft (Basketweaving).  (He doesn't even have Profession (Basketweaver) on his skill list).  He can also glower at people threateningly.  Or work in the stables as long as they don't care that he's not a professional.To sum up, a good DM can make 3.X sing.  Or any other system.  And a lot of people have put a lot of time into doing so.  But it takes a hell of a lot of work to fix the failures of the system.</blockquote>

Verification