Legends and Lore: What's With the Polls?

[Aegeri]

Me and my buddy were talking and we feel like we've been firmly screwed. Where is the version of the Wizard who only has a properly scaling magic missile and nothing else? All I want to do is hit monsters with my magic missile dammit, why is this game so unfair and not giving me that option?

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm sorry, but if you insist on playing a wizard, you're just going to have to suffer with a surfiet of powerful options and get used to dominating play.

If you want to just plink away at a monster from a distance every round, play an Elven Slayer with a bow. You can pretend it's a wand.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I am still not quite sure I understand the "Essentials Ruined D&D" crowd.

What do they deprive you of?

"Oh no, some options will not be usable by my characters!" is a problem on every single player option book released by WotC.

It's almost as if the opposition is entirely on pure principle: "4e should not have martial characters without daily powers because this is An Abomination Before The Gods, and those who desire such characters are Simple Fools who shall be banished from our make-believe game of gumdrop elves For All Days, as it is a Blasphemy Unto our Purity."

HoS has options for nonessential characters. They have stated their commitment to nonessential character options. I don't know what more you want to put your mind at ease that WotC has not gone out for a pack of cigarettes never to return. The tent is bigger, the net is wider, some options will be for Other People. This has been true since the first Player's Handbook.

 

[Tony Vargas]

It's almost as if the opposition is entirely on pure principle: "4e should not have martial characters without daily powers because this is An Abomination ....

That's probably the biggest chunk of it, yeah. In 4e, the martial source was recognized and had parity with arcane and divine. If you'd been enjoying having your CoDzilla tromping through campaigns and your Wizard save-or-die'ing everything in sight, while the Fighter just took the odd hit for you and stood in the corner when it came time to RP, that might not have seemed like a big deal. But it was. Game balance, including balancing the classes, had always been a goal of ever D&D ruleset. 4e just succeeded in finally delivering. Some were overjoyed, others dissapointed.

Essentials really looks like an attempt to start rolling that back. Which would suck. Which is the point, since there are legions of people buying Pathfinder products instead of 4e products because Pathfinder sucks the way 3e did - in that nice, familiar, caster-rule kinda way that so many fans had come to love. Thus, as with 4e, Essentials has some overjoyed, and other dissapointed.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

That's probably the biggest chunk of it, yeah. In 4e, the martial source was recognized and had parity with arcane and divine. If you'd been enjoying having your CoDzilla tromping through campaigns and your Wizard save-or-die'ing everything in sight, while the Fighter just took the odd hit for you and stood in the corner when it came time to RP, that might not have seemed like a big deal. But it was. Game balance, including balancing the classes, had always been a goal of ever D&D ruleset. 4e just succeeded in finally delivering. Some were overjoyed, others dissapointed.

Essentials really looks like an attempt to start rolling that back. Which would suck. Which is the point, since there are legions of people buying Pathfinder products instead of 4e products because Pathfinder sucks the way 3e did - in that nice, familiar, caster-rule kinda way that so many fans had come to love. Thus, as with 4e, Essentials has some overjoyed, and other dissapointed.

You would have a point if Essentials had rolled back any of the balancing done to martial classes, but it simply isn't the case.

Every week there is a thread on here crying about how Thieves and Slayers are overpowered (also not the case).

 

[Aegeri]

In all fairness, the Slayer doesn't suck whatsoever and is actually a quiet overachiever for how simple it is - something the thief and scout do well also. The Knight has some issues because the defender aura is horrible against creatures with forced movement auras, or powers that ignore slow or don't provoke OAs (like Deathjump spiders death from above as an example). It's just some of the other sillyness that has come from this "cling to the past" goal, like racial penalties on races that are otherwise not that great anyway (The Vryloka get away with theirs as a minor annoyance by mid heroic, the Shade just plain sucks outright and then gets a -1 surge penalty to add insult to injury).

The endless debate over the Vampire and if the sunlight vulnerability and being destroyed is just flavor - or something the DM should deliberately mechanically exploit in combat gives me major 3.x flashbacks. It's just silly and not required - especially because they did clearly try to just quietly sweep it under the rug with the whole "heavy clothing and you're fine" sort of thing. But then you read the debate over this at the official forum and you realize that this just isn't going to work well.

Personally I don't mind essentials. What I do mind are great classes that were published long ago being utterly ignored, like the poor Artificer, Seeker and Runepriest. HoS doesn't annoy me because it's "essentials", it annoys me because many of the elements I've seen are poorly designed. Examples: The terrible ED previewed recently, the races with penalties, the lackluster paragon path, the daily power that will be mostly pointless in a vast number of situations, the Nethermancers pet that relies on charging that lacks a melee basic attack - or at least did when previewed - and such forth. It also annoys me because it adds tons of support to old classes that already have tons of it. We need more Wizard at-wills? Really? We totally do? We need more powers for Clerics? Really?

Personally I was looking forward to Arcane Power 2, because I was looking forward to more Artificer powers and a new build. That would have been great and well needed for a class that actually warranted that support. But it's okay, we had another book coming out adding yet more to Fighters/Wizards and everything else. Because it's not like they have been done to death already.

Really, that's why I am so negative about the book and essentials has little to do with it. It's not essentials fault those previous classes get ignored - that's just what Wizards chooses to publish. I am just not happy about paying for the same damn things for the same classes over and over again.

 

[Tony Vargas]

You would have a point if Essentials had rolled back any of the balancing done to martial classes, but it simply isn't the case.

I said "Essentials really looks like an attempt to start rolling that back..."

I never said it did it one fell swoop. Not that an Essentials-only game is very far from the old status quo.

Every week there is a thread on here crying about how Thieves and Slayers are overpowered (also not the case).

Nod. Since actually just replacing the old Fighters and Rogues would go over even worse, the only way to /maybe/ slide the game back where it was before 4e would be to let the old martial classes slowly fall behind the power-inflation curve. Essentials classes are kinda pre-powergamed for you, so they do seem pretty butch at first glance.

If future support tends toward the Essentials builds, and contains generous helpings of power inflation, then, yes, the fears of some of the Essentials-haters may come true. Not that having been 'right' the whole time will be any consolation at that point. If future support ignores the Essentials martial builds (leaving them simple), and the old martial builds ride the same tide of power inflation as everyone else, then Essentials will have been exhonerated. Also, too late to really matter.

Heh, I suppose it's an existencial thing, we won't /really/ be able to judge Essentials until it's dead (and by then, we'll be too busy arguing about 5e).

 

[I'm A Banana]

Game balance, including balancing the classes, had always been a goal of ever D&D ruleset. 4e just succeeded in finally delivering. Some were overjoyed, others dissapointed.

I think you overstate the delivery and the disappointment. There's still vast oceans of balance problems with classes (Warlocks are not as good at striking as rangers or rogues, forex, especially right out in PHB1). There's still a lot of contention about the power level of spellcasters and warriors, but very little of it has to do with some sort of "I AM NO LONGER GOD GGRRRR" childish spite, and much of it has to do with much subtler things like suspension of disbelief and flow of play, which are not balance problems.

Essentials really looks like an attempt to start rolling that back. Which would suck.

How so? The Slayer is one of the most powerful strikers in the game, and is fairly simple to trick out to maximum awesome, and it doesn't need any dailies to do it.

Essentials is an evolution of designing classes that are more distinct and different than the PHB1-3 classes were. They are simpler, more distinct, and more evocative of the way older editions felt in play.

The idea is to get a diversification, to make sure that different classes play differently, so that when I play a fighter I'm not just playing a paladin whose spells are fluffed differently.

Fighters without dailies does not make fighters somehow weaker automatically. Slayers and knights and thieves and scouts can all contribute just as well as, and, actually, probably better than, any warlock, sorcerer, paladin, barbarian, or warden. Essentials also does not give spellcasters back the ability to scry-buff-teleport, fly indefinitely, or summon monsters that skew the action economy. Wizards are still firmly limited by the powers system to do things that are narrow and specific with their spells.

I can grok that some folks want all characters to use the same power structure. But some folks do not like psionics, and some folks run only Tolkeinesque races, and some folks find warlords dumb, and some folks don't like "dark heroes," and ultimately not every item in every book will be for every player. One of the points Mearls made was that D&D needs to be for as many players as possible, which includes all of those people, frequently at the same table with people who love the thing they hate.

Ideological purity in game design is useless for actually designing a game that the most people want to play. Making all folks use the same power structure is just going to limit your audience to people who are big fans of that power structure, while ignoring those who might want a little more variety, or a little more retro appeal, or a little simplicity....

 

[Tony Vargas]

There's still vast oceans of balance problems with classes (Warlocks are not as good at striking as rangers or rogues, forex, especially right out in PHB1).

Meh, there's nothing like the gulfs in class balance of prior eds. A powergamed warlock might not quite match the DPR of a powergamed Ranger, but they're both perfectly fine in normal play. Warlocks were one of those classes that really captured the imagination of players, but then failed to deliver mechanically on those heightened expectations.

There's still a lot of contention about the power level of spellcasters and warriors, but very little of it has to do with some sort of "I AM NO LONGER GOD GGRRRR" childish spite, and much of it has to do with much subtler things like suspension of disbelief and flow of play, which are not balance problems.

Very little of it /admits/ to the childish spite, of course. But, when you use 'verisimilitude' or 'supsension of disbelief' or 'flow of play' as a rationale to take away one class's toys, so your favorite class feels 'distinct and different' again, it just might start to look a little spiteful.

It's really not even 'childish,' it's a legitimate simulationist issue. You're simulating fantasy, in fantasy, magic does wild, amazing things. If any schmuck with a sharppened bit of metal and chain-link jumpsuit can do wild, amazing things, too, then magic isn't magic, and you're not simulating fantasy.

You may be playing a 'balanced' RPG, but you aren't simulating fantasy anymore.

Essentials seems like an attempt to start rolling that (balance between casters and non-casters) back...

How so?

Well, to see the hater PoV, you really have to embrace the 'slippery slope' fallacy in a big way. I mean, we're talking, tinfoil hat, second gunman on the grassy gnoll, inside job, false-flag attack type conspiracy theory here, but, if you want to understand where it's coming from...

First off, be aware that the goal of the Evil Conspiracy is to restore the 3.x and earlier status quo of casters rule, fighters drool to 4e.

Secondly, be aware that like all good Evil Conspiracies, it is vast in reach, subtle in action, cunningly concealed, and malevolently patient.

Thirdly, ... oh, I think you get the ideea...

So, the slippery slope goes like this:

First 'they' (the Conspiracy, stay with me) put out Essentials, which has 1) old-fashioned 'drooling' fighters who just hit things (and similar conceptual downgrades for other martial classes), 2) capable option-rich casters, and 3) a palpable surge of power creep to make even the crappier E-classes competative.

Next 'they' continue to put out 'support' (new builds, feats, powers, etc, etc, etc) for all the new Essentials builds. Because the caster builds are compatible, that translates into support for the parent classes, so Wizards, Clerics, all the non-Martial types, continue to get new shiny goodies to edge up their power, interest, and effectiveness as the game continues to evolve. However, because there is little such compatibility for the martial types, the support for the E-type martial classes doesn't pass through to the older, builds - with their 'suspension of disbelief'-shattering dailies.

Inevitably, over time, the old martial builds which had parity with the caster classes when they first arrived, fall behind the power-inflation curve and get left behind. Once they're far enough back that the new Essentials builds are the only viable martial options, those, too, can be allowed to languish, while spells and prayers and whatnot become ever more powerful and varied.

And, finally, perhaps enshrined with the release of a 4.5 or 5e, the fine old status-quo is restored. Purged of class balance, D&D retruns proudly to the "weird wizard show" that Gygax warned you about back in the 70s.

Why? Follow the money! (...over to Paizo, where Pathfinder is doing so well...) OK, so it's not a lot of money, but when Hasbro has the Men in Black holding your future children hostage on Pluto until you bring in more revenue, you take what you can get.




I hope you have found this 'manifesto' informative and entertaining.

 

[Aegeri]

There's still vast oceans of balance problems with classes (Warlocks are not as good at striking as rangers or rogues, forex, especially right out in PHB1).

With some luck the rules update at the end of this month is going to give warlocks some much needed teeth. Then again it could just be another massive disappointment given wizards current track record. At the same time, Warlocks really aren't that bad anymore and have had major feat support. A lot of the "Warlocks suck" is a hold-over from when they did kind of suck - but they don't anymore by a long shot.

There's still a lot of contention about the power level of spellcasters and warriors, but very little of it has to do with some sort of "I AM NO LONGER GOD GGRRRR" childish spite, and much of it has to do with much subtler things like suspension of disbelief and flow of play, which are not balance problems.

To be honest it totally is "I am no longer a god GRRRRR" and it is out of spite - I have yet to encounter a single person who ever argues this that isn't upset they aren't more powerful than the mere "meatshield" martial characters.