My Thoughts on DnD, and the next Edition (Long, rambly)

[Felon]

With regard to the Armour providing Damage Reduction concept: It's something I don't like. One of the chief reasons I don't like it is because it causes a major overhaul of the entire damage system. Consider a fighter wearing Chainmail. Let's say this is DR 5. What then does this fighter have to fear from Kobolds? At d6-1 damage, they're only ever going to hurt me on a Critical Hit! To make these weaker creatures useful again, you have to, once more, go through every creature in the Monster Manual and increase their damage codes. Ugh. Meanwhile, if you're a wizard (low AC in any case), your hit dice is suddenly even less useful than before. The overall effect of adding Damage Reduction as a feature of normal armour is as massive as any previous change in D&D. It undermines the familiar combat system to a great degree. Cheers!

Yep, that's about the size of it. I have DM's who house rule armor as DR, and it's exquisitely lame. They don't beef up the kobolds, of course--we just never fight anything with attacks that do less than 2d6 damage. Rather, every foe is a brutal heavy-hitter who tears right through the DR. In fact, they've even decided it's a good idea to give all characters Power Attack as a free feat.

 

[Nisarg]

DR for armour only really makes sense when you're using the Vitality/wounds system, the way Star Wars does.

Regarding Power-creep. Again, the problem definable as power-creep is not in and of itself power-gaming, but rather when a system begins to be a carte-blanche for ever-increasing degrees of power-gaming.
Any system will have power-gamers and rules lawyers.
When a system becomes endemically filled with a slow but steady increase of power levels, as D&D is, where every class has to be better than the last, every PrC more powerful, every feat more useful, every race more "kewl" and powerful, the end result is that for DMs not interested in powergaming each new book in the system becomes progressively less useful.
Gamers (and especially DMs) who don't want to include the powergaming element in their game become increasingly more alienated. This is happening now... I've had an ever-increasing ratio of would-be players who want x feat from x book, who want to play x prestige class, and who are generally uncomprehending when my D&D games don't reach the levels of power that are standard for these days as reflected by recent D&D sourcebooks.

Sadly, i guess putting "20 all new prestige classes" in a sourcebook is an easier way to sell more copies than, say, actually filling it with useful setting information that doesn't further throw off the balance of the game.

Nisarg

 

[DragonLancer]

Just a sidenote: Why is it that whenever I see a thread like this one one of the complaints I hear is about spellcasters multi-classing and loosing spell-level effectiveness?

Is it just a holdover form the previous editions when a multiclassed character was quite a bit more powerful for a given amount of XP?

Or do we really want a Fighter/Wizard to be as good as two single classed characters from a power stand point?

I realize there is a high demand for it post 3e release and therefore it was shoe-horned into 3.5 via prestige classes of questionable play balance and showed up in UA also but should there be more bang for your 20 levels as a multi class than single classed character?

I think it is something that has a valid balance stand point for not existing and the system for 4e should not be tweaked to allow such.

Sorry for the mini-rant.

Straight off the bat I banned any PrC that was the combo of two classes (Eldritch Knight, Mystic Theurge, Cerbromancer...etc) because the point of multiclassing is that you gain the benefits of a second class but you also lose out on the benefits of remaining single class. It's the same whether your a spellcaster or not.

In the case of the usual... Wizard who multi's into Fighter, you give up some spellcasting power in return for a few better hit points, better BAB and some fighting ability. Now you will never be as good as a pure Fighter or Wizard, but thats the price you pay for it.

 

[DragonLancer]

There's a general policy of "defend the system, blame the DM" among posters on this board that I rail against from time to time, but in this instance I have to say that a DM should make it pretty clear what kind of optional material isn't going to be allowed in (I actually wrote up a spreasheet for it, but that's only because I wanted to encourage the use of certain PrC's). That alleviates some of the strain of having to rubber-stamp PrC's on an individual basis.

Yep, been on the end of the "defend the system, blame the DM" on here. However, I ban most PrC's from my games sticking with those that are a part of my chosen campaign setting, or fit it very well. This does mean that the combat specilisation PrC's get binned but then I firmly stick to the idea that a prestige class represents something specific to the setting.

I'd like to hope that 4th edition goes back to this initial idea. Though sadly I doubt it will.

 

[Zappo]

In the case of the usual... Wizard who multi's into Fighter, you give up some spellcasting power in return for a few better hit points, better BAB and some fighting ability. Now you will never be as good as a pure Fighter or Wizard, but thats the price you pay for it.

Unfortunately, such characters tend to be not only "worse fighters than fighters and worse wizards than wizards", which would be fine. Without a PrC or some other trick, they are simply overall very weak. It is even worse for arcane/divine multiclassers; these characters are outright unplayable without becoming Mystic Theurges. Did you ban the multi PrCs because you don't like their flavor, or because you think they are too powerful? In the second case, you may want to actually try them out before deciding.

 

[DragonLancer]

Unfortunately, such characters tend to be not only "worse fighters than fighters and worse wizards than wizards", which would be fine. Without a PrC or some other trick, they are simply overall very weak. It is even worse for arcane/divine multiclassers; these characters are outright unplayable without becoming Mystic Theurges. Did you ban the multi PrCs because you don't like their flavor, or because you think they are too powerful? In the second case, you may want to actually try them out before deciding.

I wouldn't say too powerful (except in case of the Mystic Theurge), but I do believe full well that if you decide to multiclass from a spellcasting class that you take the drawbacks for doing so. I don't feel that its right for a character to gain a footup for taking an option that is going to weaken them slightly.

However you look at it, Wizards are meant to be Wizards. If you want a decent warrior mage type, take Fighter/Sorcerer combo and have the benefit of the spontaneous casting.

 

[FireLance]

So do you approve of the system offered in Unearthed Arcana?

It's mostly there, but I think primary spellcasters should get +1 MR/level, "half-casters" (and I would include bards, monks, paladins and rangers here) should get +3 MR/4 levels and non-casters should get +1 MR/2 levels. This would parallel BAB more closely.

 

[Li Shenron]

I wouldn't say too powerful (except in case of the Mystic Theurge), but I do believe full well that if you decide to multiclass from a spellcasting class that you take the drawbacks for doing so. I don't feel that its right for a character to gain a footup for taking an option that is going to weaken them slightly.

Well but from another point of view, WotC has been trying to turn suboptimal combinations into more balanced and playable ones. You can believe that a Wizard/Fighter MUST be weak, like in real life being half-physician / half-pianist is very "inefficient". But if one could be decent in both, how would it be that bad?

 

[DragonLancer]

Well but from another point of view, WotC has been trying to turn suboptimal combinations into more balanced and playable ones. You can believe that a Wizard/Fighter MUST be weak, like in real life being half-physician / half-pianist is very "inefficient". But if one could be decent in both, how would it be that bad?

OK, lets have the following three characters... (as examples)

Bob, Fighter 20.
Bill, Wizard 20.
Baz, Fighter 5/Wizard5/Eldritch Knight 10.

Baz, is now more powerful than he should be because he has the best of both worlds. True, he doesn't have the feats that Bob has, but he has all the spell power of Bill.

And its worse when you look at the Mystic Theurge.

At the end of the day, I don't consider a multiclass fighter/wizard to be inefficient. He has decided to weaken himself slightly by gaining the skills of a second class. The game balance is in that detail.

 

[Belen]

There's a general policy of "defend the system, blame the DM" among posters on this board that I rail against from time to time, but in this instance I have to say that a DM should make it pretty clear what kind of optional material isn't going to be allowed in (I actually wrote up a spreasheet for it, but that's only because I wanted to encourage the use of certain PrC's). That alleviates some of the strain of having to rubber-stamp PrC's on an individual basis.

No doubt. You'd think that people on these boards hated GMs, except that most of them are GMs. I just think a good number are disconnected with those people who do not spend as much time on DnD, thus those people do not want to spend time evaluating PrCs or feats and creating spreadsheets yada yada.

I do not often agree with Nisarg, but he is spot on in this thread. And the third party market cannot really be blamed. It is WOTC that has flooded the market with feats and PrCs. In most cases, these feats and classes have seen zero playtesting. I truly believe that the designers have created a "balance matrix" whereby certain things that fit within the confines of this model are ok'd without playtest.

The 3e rules have been bogged down faster than any previous rules set. They will have to get to 4e, probably in 2-3 years (sooner, but they need to mature Eberron before creating a new rule set) in order to clear the rules of mess.

Basically, the RPGA now serves as the WOTC playtest group. The only problem is that the RPGA playtest the rules after the fact and we get revisions after the fact.

WOTC current strategy is a center that cannot hold. period.