D&D 5E Merlin and Arthur or Batman and zatana

[Krachek]

I mean, she'd be a bad influence on a real person in the same situation. What's good for the fictional character and what's good for the stories are two different things. The most emotionally healthy thing for Bruce Wayne to do would be to move past his trauma (therapy, whatever) and stop being a vigilante. But that would end the comic book.

I can imagine a group therapy session, with Wolverine, Jessica Jones, Bruce Wayne, Dead pool, indeed we rely on those characters suffering.

 

[Garthanos]

if you are a comics fan you may know a character called Capitan Atom (his last name is Adam of course) and he pinballs back and forth from 'good little soldier' to 'i wont follow those orders' so fast that sometimes its in the same story line.

I like in the movies that they didnt put the Captain in the lacky role and instead made it more a difficulty that Ironman was working out

 

[Umbran]

And I think this is a fundamental problem that doesn't get addressed very often. Batman cannot stop Darkseid.

You know the Fantastic Four has stopped Galactus multiple times, right? You don't think it was by brute force, do you? Ben Grimm hits hard, sure, but not hard enough to do much against an entity that eats planets.

"Stop" and "beat the living crap out of" are not synonymous.

 

[Haplo781]

You know the Fantastic Four has stopped Galactus multiple times, right? You don't think it was by brute force, do you? Ben Grimm hits hard, sure, but not hard enough to do much against an entity that eats planets.

"Stop" and "beat the living crap out of" are not synonymous.

In the context of Justice League level threats, Batman functions as a warlord.

Doesn't matter how tough Darkseid is when you're dual wielding Superman and Shazam.

 

[Krachek]

You know the Fantastic Four has stopped Galactus multiple times, right? You don't think it was by brute force, do you? Ben Grimm hits hard, sure, but not hard enough to do much against an entity that eats planets.

"Stop" and "beat the living crap out of" are not synonymous.

Those writer were also amazing to postpone the final fight, You think you finish the final boss? no it was only an intermediate boss, there is bigger threat coming in.
The same was true with impossible task and inevitable fate, until someone arrive with an old knowledge exposing a weakness of the nemesis!

 

[Micah Sweet]

As Fanaelialae said--what on earth gave you the notion that I wanted to remove the Wizard? I want a game that purports to be about peers adventuring together, a game that presents different classes (and races) as being equally-valid options, to actually have those options be on a par with one another, up to a reasonable standard (generally, one coming from statistical analysis, to avoid various biases and outliers.) Given that caster supremacy has been an issue for literally decades at this point* for at least a meaningful minority, enough that even Paizo, torchbearers for the crème de la crème caster-supremacy edition, explicitly said, "We cannot solve this problem without rewriting the system on a fundamental level" (when asking for patience and open-mindedness from their audience about PF2e), yes, I really do think there's an ongoing issue here, one that still hasn't been properly addressed. Half-hearted efforts have plagued D&D and its descendants for ages.

*Other than 4e.


This is like saying that "taste" is the only thing that matters in baking. It is a useless standard; to tell someone "make your cupcakes yellow and fluffy" is pointless, because that doesn't give them the slightest bit of information they didn't already have. To say that "'fun' is the only thing that matters in game design" is like saying "the only thing that matters in science is being correct" or "the only thing that matters in ethics is right behavior." Yes, ultimately, the goal of science is to advance knowledge by empirical adequacy, and the goal of ethics is to guide us toward right behavior, but those are not standards by which we can judge individual theories. They are reasons for which one should reject a theory for being bad, NOT reasons for which one should accept a theory. You can be correct for the wrong reasons, which is still bad science, even if it leads to empirical adequacy. Newton's laws, for example, are objectively false, provably so, and yet they were still good science because they grew out of good standards. Those standards are how we aim toward the goal of "being correct."

Good design needs more than "fun." "Fun" is the prerequisite for us to even consider whether to use something. It is not the point at which we say "ah, good job everyone, no more work is needed."


And I--as stated above--don't expect perfection. I expect balance within a reasonable range, one defined by statistical analysis, which is easy to do (if you can gather enough data) for a game like D&D that is built on numbers and probability.

So who's the one dealing in absolutes here?


Again, you are projecting a completely false idea into this. I didn't say "fun" is wrong. I said it is a bad standard. Because it is. A game that isn't fun doesn't deserve to exist. Only games that are fun should ever be allowed to get to the point of testing them. Just as scientific theories that are demonstrably wrong should never reach the point of experimental design. The point of evaluative standards within game design, as it is within science, is to pick between things that are already plausibly effective, but which have not yet been truly put through their paces to find any unforeseen issues. And the standards at that point cannot be "fun," because it is a waste of everyone's time to test a game that simply isn't fun at all (unless, as stated, you're trying to develop weapons of psychological warfare--being able to force someone to stop experiencing joy for a while would be a powerful psychological weapon.)

Statistical testing enables improvement of games that are already fun.

Given that people have been griping about this particular issue for pretty much the entire history of the game, do you really think anyone's going to fix it, ever? The best attempt at class balance D&D ever made was ultimately rejected for a host of reasons, including  how they achieved that balance.

it seems the game you want had its time in the sun from 2009 to 2014.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

In the context of Justice League level threats, Batman functions as a warlord.

Doesn't matter how tough Darkseid is when you're dual wielding Superman and Shazam.

...I never considered that, but you're completely right.

He's, as TVTropes would put it, a "Magnificent Bastard" Tactical Warlord, with a splash of Wisdom riders on the side. Leaning in the Lazy direction because he relies on gadgets and gizmos that use other ability scores for his hit bonus, but otherwise coordinates so his allies can do the best they can. Big Charisma score for the Intimidate and Diplomacy stuff....probably has miscellaneous bonuses to Insight as well...

That's a surprisingly close fit.

 

[Haplo781]

...I never considered that, but you're completely right.

He's, as TVTropes would put it, a "Magnificent Bastard" Tactical Warlord, with a splash of Wisdom riders on the side. Leaning in the Lazy direction because he relies on gadgets and gizmos that use other ability scores for his hit bonus, but otherwise coordinates so his allies can do the best they can. Big Charisma score for the Intimidate and Diplomacy stuff....probably has miscellaneous bonuses to Insight as well...

That's a surprisingly close fit.

In his own stories, of course, Batman is a rogue.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Given that people have been griping about this particular issue for pretty much the entire history of the game, do you really think anyone's going to fix it, ever?

I 100% believe they can, and that they should. Unless and until I am given good reason to think either of those things is untrue, I'm going to keep advocating for it. Wouldn't you, in my shoes?

The best attempt at class balance D&D ever made was ultimately rejected for a host of reasons, including  how they achieved that balance.

Most of which was (a) smear campaign (since we now know the game was doing just fine financially, it just wasn't selling absolute unbelievable gangbusters), and (b) actively creating their own worst enemy via the GSL inducing the creation of Pathfinder.

it seems the game you want had its time in the sun from 2009 to 2014.

And I think that both completely trivializes the actual concerns present here and conflates several issues that should not be mistaken as being one issue. Note, here, that you are the one dragging in 4e-related edition warring, and I have done my best to keep that out of my statements, speaking as generally as I can. People talk a lot about how this issue devolves into edition warring and re-litigating old subjects. If you want to actually debate the substance of my argument, please, go ahead. Otherwise, I just want it to be recognized where this topic got broached and why.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

In his own stories, of course, Batman is a rogue.

I dunno man. He accumulates a pretty impressive Bat Family very quickly in pretty much every form of media I'm familiar with.