D&D 3E/3.5 J Tweets 3ed BANE

[Votan]

Oh I got a hunch the fans of those spells will NOT be happy with 4E.

Scry seems to be already pretty limited when I try to use it in practice so I am not worried about it being in use in a future edition.

Teleport, on the other hand, was just too useful at mobility to not require at least some tweaking.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I see no reason to believe that the 4e class model will make fighters or paladins the "end-all, be-all" of killing stuff. That's not the primary job of the defender role. Defenders dish out respectable but probably not dominating damage. Since these class roles seem to be founded on the same design principles as most MMOs, the strikers and controllers are more likely to be cranking out withering amounts of damage.

The problem of course, is how does a defender do their job when the guy hitting harder is a softer target? A dumb will almost assuredly turn and attack the guy who just did 2x damage over the armored guy who just hit it for x damage. Same with intelligent foes. Bo9S somewhat answered this with shield block, iron guard's glare and a couple others without resorting to "taunt" effect, however martial adepts were more than capable of laying out the hurt as needed.

Additionall, all a fighter does in the current edition is fight. They contribute very littlle from their class outside of combat (yeah, they can jump and make barrels or whatever... whoopty crap). While I'd prefer it if they expanded the fighter outside of combat, if they dont, he needs to remain one of the most powerful classes once it comes time to roll initiative.

 

[ruleslawyer]

That pic looks like pretty much like most of my D&D sessions. My DM can confirm if he sees this thread ...

We have more cocktail nibbles, though.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

My opinions:

A big part of the problem with Scry is due to players using it as step 1 of the "Scry, Buff, Teleport, Murder" combo. Being able to use it to discover key plot points requires using it at exactly the right moments.

Teleport can be fixed by making the following changes:

1) 3 hour or more casting time.
2) A loud and obvious manifestation at the other end comparable to a jet plane landing across the street, granting something like +300 to a Listen check to notice it.
3) Everyone who teleports ends up Stunned and Nauseated for about 10 minutes.

Element 1 makes the spell impossible to use at a moments notice. Element 2 makes it impossible to use to gain the element of surprise unless you teleport some distance away. Element 3 makes it suicidal to teleport anywhere near hostile opponents who would want to kill you.

If the design goal if Teleport is to allow player to skip overland travel, then with these modifications, the spell will still work as intended. This just removes the potential for 'tactical abuse'. If you can arrange to use Dimension Door instead of Teleport, you can still get a very nasty ambush.

END COMMUNICTION

 

[med stud]

I see no reason to believe that the 4e class model will make fighters or paladins the "end-all, be-all" of killing stuff. That's not the primary job of the defender role. Defenders dish out respectable but probably not dominating damage. Since these class roles seem to be founded on the same design principles as most MMOs, the strikers and controllers are more likely to be cranking out withering amounts of damage.
Haven

Dealing damage is more than rolling lots of dices, it's also about bringing damage to where it hurts. I think an archer who might be a striker and a melee fighter who is a defender can deal the same damage per round but the archer can hit anything on the battle field while the fighter has to use a pretty low movement score to be able to deliver her damage. If a combat is on average 6 rounds then every round spent moving is a 16,666... reduction in damage dealt during the combat.

I think this opens the opportunity for distance- strikers like archers and melee strikers who are adept at getting to the opposition, deal loads of damage and (hopefully) get the hell out of dodge.

 

[gizmo33]

A big part of the problem with Scry is due to players using it as step 1 of the "Scry, Buff, Teleport, Murder" combo.

The problem with high level play is that the rules aren't really designed for it in ways that I think have been so far unexplored. I don't see any reason why teleport shouldn't be at least as risky as a transporter in Star Trek. That thing is killing people every other episode. You don't even have to change anything about the existing teleport spell to make it more dangerous.

In my campaign, the Scry, Buff, Teleport, Murder sequence might very well be a
Scry and see the false image, buff, teleport into the Glyph of Nuclear Winter, walk into a Dispelling Screen and lose your buffs, and get Murdered by a teleport filter that shreds you as you teleport out of the dungeon. Sure, that's a defensive shield that kobolds probably don't have - in which case PCs can probably teleport-kill them. I'm not worried about that.

From what I've seen online it just doesn't seem like many DMs really change their designs to accomodate high level adventuring. If all you do when you design a castle is put up 4 towers and some walls, you're not accomodating high level adventuring. Hopefully that's something the new DM's Guide will address, but I won't hold my breath.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I don't see any reason why teleport shouldn't be at least as risky as a transporter in Star Trek. That thing is killing people every other episode.

Hyperbole much?

I can't think of a single episode of star trek where someone is actually accidentally killed by a transporter, and precious few (out of hundreds) where the transporter even plays a pivotal aspect of the episode.

Killing people every other episode? Nah.


Personally I like the teleport spell. One quick way of changing its use for SBT and avoiding overland travel etc is quite simple - make it personal only. It is still useful and stylish, but can't become a 'party avoids the dungeon' or a 'party teleports away to recover' trick, which is what most of the complaints I see about it relate to.

Cheers

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Speaking as both a frequent GM and a slightly-less-frequent player of spellcasters, I feel like JoT's overstating the problem.

In my experience, there are multiple valid approaches to most problems, and I can use my spells alone or in combination to solve those problems. If I focus on the low-end spells, then my fighter buddies will be carrying a little more of the weight for that encounter. If I focus on the high-end spells, then my fighter buddies will be carrying a little more of the weight in later encounters. JoT makes it sound like a wizard's player is making a critical, stressful choice every time he casts a spell; if that's the case, he needs to invest in some wands or staves. These magic items give you something to do when you don't know what to do, and let you conserve your spells for when you're actually in a jam. But then, the thing I love most about being a wizard is always having just one or two more tricks up your sleeve.

As a GM, I can scale encounters within a day more sharply. That is, if the PCs have held onto their high-end spells all day in preparation for that last encounter (and you know they've been in the habit of doing so), then let that last encounter be one where they're happy they did so. But if they've already burned those spells for whatever reason... well, the wizard and the cleric (or other Vancian casters) aren't the only party members who can destroy enemies en masse.

I'm looking forward to 4e, but I feel like JoT's getting a little carried away with recognizing the problems of 3e. Giving players meaningful choices to make in each round of combat isn't bad game design, though I think it may be falling out of vogue.

Haven

This works fine for some people, but not so fine for others. For this tactic to work, your encounters need to be placed in a way that ensures that the group take the correct number of encounters per day, so everything actually turns out as you describe. If you want to have a different string of encounters, one that deviates too much from this baseline, you will experience the problems JoT mentions.

The game as it is certainly works. But it's not flexible enough for many people. So the designers address this.

 

[gizmo33]

Hyperbole much?

Not enough for you to read around it apparently. Does it really matter? Since you've apparently seen and remember the hundreds of episodes then I'm sure you can make your own list of times when the transporter doesn't function as expected. Someone get killed in the first movie, IIRC. I thought there was some sort of energy parasite that infested it one time. I think there are magnetic forces and stuff that have interfered with it's use, or made it's use risky. And didn't the crew get teleported into an evil universe one time? I really can't believe you require me to spell this out.

Otherwise my point was about certainty, which you apparently missed. Here's what I was trying to get at: the transporter is an uncertain technology in Star Trek, and it's equivalent could be equally uncertain in DnD.

Personally I like the teleport spell.

Really? That's such a surprise.

 

[Shieldhaven]

It's certainly the case that I don't lose much sleep over following the four-encounters-a-day structure. Though distinctly slower to run, players are more likely to remember set-piece encounters with a larger number of bad guys. Fighters get to take advantage of Cleave and Great Cleave more often, area-effect spells have more targets to put down, and damage-over-time spells have more time to take effect.

The point that I'm trying to make, though, is that spellcasting optimization on a daily basis isn't generally a razor-thin line. JoT presents this as a factor pushing 3.x into unplayability. I feel that this overstates the difficulties that spellcasters face in the Vancian model, especially in high-end play (a part of the game I admittedly haven't seen as often as I'd like).

3.x has problems. I am hardly blind to them. Exaggerating them or misidentifying them doesn't lead to improvements.

Haven