How would you respond to someone like this?

[StupidSmurf]

If any fighter in my campaign tried the example quoted at the thread beginning (and even the rant is assuming that some suppositions come to pass, never a sure thing IMO), and ended up tipping the balance unduly, I'd have a fix in mind.

HINT: Raiders of the Lost Ark, marketplace standoff scene, guy with a big-ass sword and the obvious means to use it, Indy a good 30-40' away...with a pistol.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

http://www.giantitp.com/cgi-bin/GiantITP/ootscript?SK=216

Beat me to it! That's a great strip!

I don't see the problem though. The fighter uses three feats to take out a single humanoid opponent. If he wants to get really good he takes three more (7th level) and gets a wizard to back him up with Enlarge Person. And what do we get?

A guy who basically does double damage with a 2d4 weapon.

How do I defeat this guy as a DM?

1) Flank him ... actually this one is so freaking obvious I'm amazed the discussion came up. The trip build works when you only have to deal with one guy.
2) Non-humanoid opponents
3) Large opponets with reach weapons.
4) Enclosed / twisty spaces
5) Ranged weapons
6) Damage resistance

... and finally ...

7) Level the guy up!

The RPG.net guy suggests our fighter should carry around a few extra spiked chains in case of a failed trip attempt. Bueno. By the time the guy is 7th level, he's going to need a +1 weapon. By 10th level he's definately going to need one and will probably need a +2 weapon. How's he going to afford any of that?

The spiked chain build works great, but only in a very limited set of circumstances.

Man, I love d20.

EDIT: Oh wow! This gets even better! Enlarge Person only lasts for one minute per level! Awesome! Sure, Mr Spiked Chain will know about some combats in advance, but in any surprise situation the spell is going to have to be cast in combat. You know, instead of fireball or something like that! This is great! So if my fighter dedicates six feats to taking out single humanoid opponents in melee that don't have damage resistance and the wizard has time in advance to back me up before the combat starts .... then I'll, like, win?

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I mean, other than ignoring them or whatnot. The thing is, I'm currently in a group of AD&D 1e players, and enjoying it, but I'm trying to get them to try 3.0 (which I love). They respond very similar to the poster below (who posted this rant recently on RPGnet).

What's an intelligent response? To say, "It ain't the game, it's the player" or something like that? Because the truth is, I also hate the "Blah blah Optimum Build" crap, because it *does* remind me more of M:tG or a video game. But I still love 3.0.

Here's the post from RPGnet:

Why do I hate D&D 3.0/3.5? It's because of this kind of crap (quoted from another thread):

"The Spiked Chain Fighter Build"

The core of the build is having Improved Trip. The spiked chain is a reach weapon, so you have to leave a threatened square to get next to the wielder to attack in melee. The provokes an attack of opportunity, which is used to trip. When the person gets up that provokes another attack of opportunity - by the rules you can't trip with this attack, but some people do it anyway. With any luck the enemy will never get a full attack on you and you'll be giving out a bunch of extra hits outside your turn though the AoOs. This is a battlefield control build, not a direct damage one.

You'll obviously want spiked chain proficiency to do this. Then Combat Expertise and Improved Trip. A human fighter can take all three of these at first level. Since you rely heavily on attacks of opportunity the feat Combat Reflexes is also very useful. Then you get into extras like Improved Disarm, Weapon Focus and Specialization. I'm sure there are a ton of people around who can recite the exact feats required and the order to take them in. It helps to have a wizard to cast Enlarge Person on you because that both increases your reach and makes tripping people easier. Carry a few spare weapons so when you fail a trip attempt you can just drop the weapon and draw a new one.
****

Good Lord. It's not an RPG. It's friggin' Magic: the Gathering. It's a friggin' video-game. It's Halo. It's Street Fighter II (some of you old-timers remember *that* craze in the arcades ).

I hate it.

How is this any different than any of the hundred optimized builds available in GURPS based on taking various advantages, disadvantages, and skill combos? Or any other game that isn't based on a more abstract mechanical system? The only games I've seen that you can't really min/max are My Life With Master and Kill Puppies for Satan, and that's only because there's not enough rules to be exploitable. You can usually work FUDGE a little bit, if you're creative.

So...another example of baseless d02 hat. Yawn. Could this get any more irrelevent?

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Well, my response would be:

"If you think Street Fighter II is old-time, you ain't nothin' but a whipper snapper!"

No kidding. I remember when people used to min/max their Pac-man strategies.

 

[jdrakeh]

Actually, there are a lot of really good d20 threads over there

Yeah, I was going to point that out - RPGnet is typically perceived as a 'bastion of d20 bashing' by people who hail from online communities largely or specifically devoted to d20, but really, there is just about as much d20 bashing going on at RPGnet as there is in other RPG general discussion forums. It just seems worse, because there is no true board majority that supports any one system (d20 or otherwise).

 

[jdrakeh]

Take a look again, Cro - unless Yamo and a few others've stopped posting, the signal-to-noise ratio there is pretty godawful when it comes to d20 games beyond True20 and MnM.

Yamo was permanently banned months ago.

 

[Jim Hague]

Yamo was permanently banned months ago.

Aha. Since I've got no reason to go there, I did not know this. Might be interesting to go back sometime, then.

 

[Crothian]

Yeah, I was going to point that out - RPGnet is typically perceived as a 'bastion of d20 bashing' by people who hail from online communities largely or specifically devoted to d20, but really, there is just about as much d20 bashing going on at RPGnet as there is in other RPG general discussion forums. It just seems worse, because there is no true board majority that supports any one system (d20 or otherwise).

Exalted, the majority like exalted. And indy games, you can't really bash indy games there either.

I do think they bash d20 more then other sites, but in the past year they have really gotten better about it as more d20 people found the site and the mods changed allowing for people to be banned that wouldn't have otherwise.

 

[Thia Halmades]

Mmm. Between the hating of the non-d20 board (and admittedly, the system is flawed) and the ripping on build systems, I think we have the makings of a pot/kettle discussion. Regardless. People have opinions; and, more importantly, as was pointed out earlier, d20 3.5 allows people to express those opinions mechanically.

I don't know if I understand the original question; are you upset because someone made sacrifices to optimize? It's power gaming; it's not a crime. You can't really 'disallow it.' You can discourage it, sure. But if you have a guy who's abusing the RAW, then throw the book at him. If it's eating at the DM, a few well placed archers will shish-kabob him. There's more than one way, said the poet, to skin a cat.

That being said, I'm anti-power game. Agreed; I generally leave that to my Xbox or some other loud, visceral variation on that theme. I enjoy my 4-way CRPGs like no other, but I also enjoy my gritty, rough & tumble table top. I encourage my players to focus on what they want to accomplish in game; if that means they end up PGing the system, hey. All I can do is use monsters creatively and make sure they're doing it within the structure of the rules. That didn't stop my Paladin from taking Improved Unarmed Combat.

It's a style question.

 

[jdrakeh]

Exalted, the majority like exalted.

I think that's untrue - I think it's merely a very vocal minority that like Exalted. If you actually take the time to see who posts all of those Exalted threads, you'll find that most of them originate from the same handful of people. That said, yeah - that handful of people like Exalted very, very, much [Note: I really can't stand Exalted.]

And indy games, you can't really bash indy games there either.

Sure you can - I was regularly criticizing indie publishers for peeing on my leg and then telling me that it was raining (that is, regurgitating the same old crap and dressing it up with some new terminology, then promoting it as innovative). I probably didn't make a lot of friends doing that, but I never got banned for it or had a thread closed because of it. The key, I think, was to do it constructively.

I do think they bash d20 more then other sites

Again, I really think that this has to do with the diversity of the posting population - I really don't think that d20 gets bashed there any more than, say... Hero, GURPS, Palladium, or any other popular game. That said, I think it's probably fair to say that popular games get bashed a lot there, but again, this comes back to havig a more diverse community make-up, I think.