Mortality Radio # 30: Ed Stark interview available...

[A'koss]

Originally posted by DrSpunj:

Great! Sounds like they're going with the d20 Modern version of 2WF then.

BTW, what's "r.g.f.d"?!?

Yea, a good step in the right direction indeed.

r.g.f.d. is just short for the D&D based newsgroup rec.games.frp.dnd.


Cheers,

A'koss.

 

[Gez]

Staple or not, Magic Missile is too powerful as is.

No. It is not too powerful. It even can't be too powerful. It's absolutely impossible for magic missile to be too powerful.

Why ?

Because it's the benchmark. The standard. Magic missile's definition in the D&D designer bible is "most powerful 1st-level attack spell for wizards". Saying magic missile is too powerful is like saying one meter is too long.

1) It has excellent range, never misses and has no saving throw. This makes it hard for the DM to include low HP foes, as they will always (unless they have Shield) get zapped. Oh yeah, and cover/concealment doesn't matter either -- if you can see it, you can zap it.

Wizards have no armor, no hit points, pathetic saves, and few spells.

2) It's a force effect, so it hits incorporeal creatures automatically and has no resistance built in. This means that right from level 1, incorporeal creatures lose a lot of their "mystique". Oooh, a ghost -- BZZZT.

Yeah. "oooh, a ghost -- TPK" is better. Sheesh. Wizards are there to zap things -- it is their very role. Bitching about wizards zapping things is like bitching about rogue disarming traps and picking locks, or clerics healing the party, or figthers engaging enemies in melee.

3) And of course, it scales very well, retaining its usefulness for a long time.

The horror, the horror. Cleave also retains its usefulness for a long time.

It's so good that any character who can take it would be foolish not to take it. It's far, far better than any other 1st level attack spell -- so taking any other 1st level attack spell is just a bad call.

This mean that other 1st level attack spells are too wimpy -- and that's my opinion. Look at those stupid energy orbs spells, short range, attack roll, and saving throw. In other words, "how to be ridiculous by casting an useless spell that fails to kill the enemy, letting said enemy rip your asunder, and making you wanting to play a dang cleric this time".

Does 1d4 damage instead of 1d4+1. Probably not enough.

Yes, it's not enough damage.

Does elemental damage (fire, probably) instead of force. At least then an Endure Elements will render you immune.

A shield or brooch of shielding render you immune already.

Ranged touch attack.

Then give a 3/4 BAB to the wizards and sorcerers. They are the classes that are not supposed to make attack rolls applenty -- hence auto-hit spells like magic missile and area-of-effect spells like fireball.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

If you want some bonus feats for you sword-n-board or greatsword ranger, take a few levels of fighter and use the bonus feats. You can even get weapon specialization out of the deal.

How soon we forget the flexibility of multi-classing when breaking class stereotypes.

Yet another sign the ranger sucks. If I want to play a proper ranger, I should multiclass? I don't WANT bonus feats. I guess I should clarify, as above I mentioned giving bonus feats instead of SPECEFIC feats. Drop the fighting styles entirely and the ranger will be closer to being a valid class. No bonus feats at all is better than bonus feats you'll never use. That way you don't feel like your getting cheated. A greatsword weilding ranger with twf or pbs/rapid shot will always feel like he's getting screwed. I stand by the comment I made above. There will be NO two handed weapon weilding or sword and shield weilding rangers (barring those who go the shield bash route, which is in effect two weapon fighting.) It's like telling the wizard he HAS to be a divination specialist.

 

[Galfridus]

Because it's the benchmark. The standard. Magic missile's definition in the D&D designer bible is "most powerful 1st-level attack spell for wizards". Saying magic missile is too powerful is like saying one meter is too long.

Having a "most powerful" spell is a Bad Idea. The whole point should be to encourage choices, rather than effectively force everyone to take one spell because it's far and away the best.

This mean that other 1st level attack spells are too wimpy -- and that's my opinion. Look at those stupid energy orbs spells, short range, attack roll, and saving throw. In other words, "how to be ridiculous by casting an useless spell that fails to kill the enemy, letting said enemy rip your asunder, and making you wanting to play a dang cleric this time".

Raising the power level of all the other attack spells is an option, but seems like a lot more work.

 

[Vrylakos]

I'm sorry, but I agree with much of the frustration here.

I'm not seeing a pressing need to get 3.5 with the revelation of these changes, whereas a few days ago I almost put down money to preorder them.

It *doesn't* sound like they're making this revision to please the players out there, to "give options" as they say.

The ranger seems like the illusion of choice. It's stuck in one particular niche that only exists in "D&D land/D&D fiction" rather than the fantasy stories it's meant to emulate. You want to include rangers in a jungle setting? A setting with no bows, and only thrown weapons? Well, the ranger can't make the transition, but almost every other class can.

The sorcerer sounds like he's going to NEVER see play as a single class character to the high levels. I've only ever seen him as a multiclass option, used to support another class rogue/sorc, fighter/sorc.

I actually doubt the Rogue will be sidelined. The other classes have too many other abilities they need to dump their big scores into.

Sigh... sure, many people may have no problem with things, but I'm not one of them.

I wonder if the original team were working on this, would it be more widely liked?

Vrylakos

 

[dead_radish]

Well, if you substanially modify the setting (no ranged weapons) I would argue you then substanially modify the classes. Can a wizard do okay in an all jungle setting? No, because a large portion of his spell components won't be available (not that any pays attention to spell components). If you take X out of a setting, then any abilities tied to X need to leave. If you remove all non magical beasts, the druid gets hosed. You would have to adjust the druid. And so on....

And I would point out that the people on this thread are not a representative sampling, nor have we seen and playtested the new rules. You can't get 50% of the people in house rules to agree on things. How could you expect that the new rules would satisfy everyone? They are all new house rules, but they have a wide playtest audience. I'm going to wait and see.

So is it the general assumption that sorcerors are a weak and useless class, compared to wizards? That's been the general opinion here in the thread, it seems. That's another thing I'd bet that not 50% of the population of ENWorld agrees with....

And for the ranger's combat trees - I've seen a lot of fighters that play dexy dodgy disarmy types. That minimizes the value of high bab and high fort saves. Do they feel that they are "left out" now? Not at all.

I also know players that play rangers now, without twf. Do they feel left out? Nah - they do it for skills, track, favored enemy, spells, rp, and flavor.

So.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

No word, but seeing as how Elves already have automatic racial proficiencies...

Will they get something else, then?

Regarding Half-Orcs, it is infact because they are only Half-Orcs that they don't gain any weapon familiarity.

That makes sense

No skiprocks for halflings apparantly in 3.5e either.

Cries for a house rule, then.

Who wants abilities that they never use?

What, like my cleric's turning? A sorcerer's proficiency for simple weapons? My bladesinger's heavy weapon proficiency gained by a fighter level? Well noone wants them, they just occur sometimes

What good is point blank/rapid shot when using a sword and shield? Go tell the fighter with the greatsword he has to spend feats on two weapon fighting when he really wants the spring attack chain.

Well, that's because he's a fighter. He has a good AB and bonus feats. And nothing else.

And a ranger is even worse. He doesn't get a bazillion feats to choose from.

But he has a truckload of class skills, many many skill points, still a d10 HD (I guess), favored weapons, spells,.... The fighter has just his feats.

Show me one person who will play a ranger and use a fighting style NOT granted by his class abilities and I'll eat my Dungeon Master's Guide. It will be worse than it is now. You'll have archers taking two levels for the archery feats and Drizzt wannabes taking it for twf. They'll just have to take two levels instead of one. Whoopee.

Taking to levels to gain the Two Weapon Fighting feat for free? Well, these are clever buggers!

The way I see it you'll get one feat at 2nd level, and at later levels you'll get additional feats. I don't see a way to get the use of these feats without taking many levels in the class

From what has been said about the ranger alone, it appears they have listened to no ones comments. Look back at this thread.

So this thread is representative? I doubt it. And there aren't actually so many people that complain about the rangers' paths, and a lot who like the idea (me amongst them) or are indifferent towards it.

At least half tose who have posted disagree with the fighting styles approach. Any company that alienates 50% of their business is producing crap.

Let me reiterate it: You and a handful of other guys in that thread here aren't 50% of Wizard's business. You exaggerate.

If enough people feel the same way, they'll either fix the damn ranger or go bankrupt.

I seriously doubt that Wizards will have to close their doors just because a single class (out of 11) was less than perfect for a percentage of the prospective customers.

That's like saying Ford will go bankrupt cause some people don't like the rims on the new Focus.

I don't WANT bonus feats.

I have a perfect soulution: just ignore the paths on the ranger. You won't GET bonus feats that way, and can invest your normal feats on fighting feats.

I guess I should clarify, as above I mentioned giving bonus feats instead of SPECEFIC feats. Drop the fighting styles entirely and the ranger will be closer to being a valid class. No bonus feats at all is better than bonus feats you'll never use. That way you don't feel like your getting cheated. A greatsword weilding ranger with twf or pbs/rapid shot will always feel like he's getting screwed. I stand by the comment I made above. There will be NO two handed weapon weilding or sword and shield weilding rangers (barring those who go the shield bash route, which is in effect two weapon fighting.) It's like telling the wizard he HAS to be a divination specialist.

There are general classes, and there are specific classes. The ranger is a specialist, at least in some ways. The monk is best when fighting unarmed, and noone seems to complain - even the "penalties" a monk gets when fighting with something else (less damage at later levels, possibly a worse attack routine, not being able to use stunning fist....) are more severe.

As I said: if you don't like feats you'll never use, just don't take them. There's no rule against that.

 

[D'karr]

<snip>

I wonder if the original team were working on this, would it be more widely liked?

Vrylakos

No... It's a mathematical certainty that gamers are never satisfied so probably as many people as are pleased now would be dissatisfied then.

For gamers, "Bitching is not just a job, it's an adventure."

 

[Acmite]

Or I can show WotC that I do not like what they are doing and that I don't aprove of the way they are doing it and I will not give them money so that they think it is OK. Instead I will spend my money on d20 publishers who care about the hobby rather than milking the customer out of as much money as possible. D&D will not die, the SRD can't be revoked, so I will spend my money with companies who do care.

Are you serious? I can understand an argument made that Hasbro could give a rat's butt about D&D, but Wizards?

Do you know anything about how Wizards gained the rights to D&D to save it from the bankrupt TSR? Do you know that the main man behind Wizards at the time (CEO Peter Adkison) is a gamer and he has now bought Gen Con to stay involved in the industry now that he has left Wizards?

Wizards never looked at D&D as a huge money maker--they had Magic (and then Pokemon) for that. They bought D&D becuase they played the game. They wanted to make sure it never went off the radar and faded into obsurity. They rescued it. And by creating the OGL, they insured that even if Hasbro sandbags it, those d20 publishers you are raving about can still legally make D&D products for years to come.

Where do you get the impression Wizards doesn't care??

Edit Log: Me no spell good

 

[D'karr]

Oh my god!!!!!!

D&D is going to go the way of the Dodo... Wizards is owned by the devil... Hasbro doesn't give a rat's @ss about G.I. Joe. The sky is falling!!!

Heh, people that overreact are funny...