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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 6153179" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 324: October 2004part 8/8Sage advice: If a cleric rolls badly, and only turns 0 HD undead, do you round up to 1. (No. Ssorry, preciouss.)How do you know when a cleric can prepare spells. (You choosess at character generation, yess. Same time each day. No need to ssleep first.)How do favored souls regain spells (same way as ssorcerorss, yess. Do you have to drop your weapons to cast spells (Only has two handsess, collins collins. Needs a hand free for ssomatic componentss. Put it in your pocketsess or use a buckler.)Can a cleric of pelor use a wand of holy smite without the good domain (No, not on your spell list, collins collins. Sstupid cleric, doesn't kmow how powers work.)Can a sacred fist wear armor (Yes. Lose monk abilities though. You chossse if it's worth it, yess, collins collins. )Can a multiclassed cleric/wizard use divine metamagic on their arcane spells (No. Ssorry, precious. Pleasse don't ssmite poor little Andy.)Can you use divine metamagic to perform effects that would normally be too high level for you. (Yess. Very usefull power.) What's the ocean domain. (Itsss from the Forgotten Realms. Editors did nassty ssloppy copypasta, didn't put it in complete divine. Andy hatses sloppy copypasta. It always flickses around and stains your shirt, collins collins. )Does unyielding roots prevent you from turning round as well as moving, making you easy to flank. (No. Not unlesss you're using unearthed arcana, collins collins.)Does vigor's max duration override extend spell (Yess.)Can you use persistent spell on mass lesser vigor (Yess.)What's a Check Toee and why does Tharzidun have it as a favored weapon (Ssilly editors didn't finish the book properly. They didn't even copypasta from the temple of elemental evil like they ssaid they were going to.) Does exalted strike apply to grapple, sunder disarm and trip attempts (Nassty vow of poverty. We hatses it, collins collins. Mosst of them, yess.)Are you allowed to keep class-defining stuff like holy symbols, samurai swords, that would be forbidden if you take vow of poverty. (No, teeheeheeheehee. You don't get preciouss power for nothing, collins collins. Got to sacrifice important stuff, yess. ) Can saints deal nonlethal damage with holy touch. No! It always burnses, collins collins. Poor andy. Keep nassty ssaints away from poor little andy, collins collins.)  Coup de grace: Andy Collins takes a second column in a row to elaborate on the WotC R&D process. Once the designers have turned over their first drafts, the developers are set loose on them to give the mechanics a good kicking. Every single bit of mechanics gets individually examined and tweaked for balance. A few broken things may still slip through, especially in smaller products, but even the iffy ones will be less powerful than your basic single class CoDzilla. Which I think says it all. They did introduce a few underpowered core classes in 3.5, with the Tome of Magic ones in particular not quite measuring up, but even the new primary spellcasters like erudites and spirit shamen don't have quite the same flexibility as druids, clerics or wizards. The problem is that they only introduced this process in 2003, midway through the edition, and you can see a noticeable change in flavour around that time. It shows up the problems both in making incremental changes, and throwing the whole ruleset out and starting again. In one, you have to live with all the legacy stuff, while in the other, you won't know how the system really holds up in actual play for a few years. And if you try and get rid of the broken bits without creating a whole new system, the people who rely on those exploits will be pissed off. This is why you can't please everyone. Some people want a system that has loopholes and imbalances, so they can be on top. Question is, are they an important enough part of your market that you can't survive without them? The past year or two says they may have decided that is indeed the case. I really don't know, and it's a frustrating set of questions to end an issue on. As usual, october is one of the best months of the year, full of interesting material to make your game a little more gruesome. The irritation of the little basic columns is more than made up for by the interesting articles that look at the context of gaming and how it's developing. Let's hope they can push this new direction a little farther with some articles that really take advantage of gaming's history and surroundings.</blockquote>

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