D&D 3.x New D&D 3.5 FAQ at Wizards!

[MerricB]

Hmm... wasn't the MiniHB the one that was so seriously unbalanced?

Don't have it myself, but heard some bad things about this book, when it comes to balance.

Hardly. The book is innovative in its use of the rules, doing things that hadn't been done before with the 3E ruleset. A lot of people who haven't used it think it's unbalanced.

One of the designers was Mike Donais who used to design/develop for Magic. (You'll see his name on a lot of developing credits as well) And the Magic developers are fanatical about game balance - with reason.

After Urza's Saga the R&D team for Magic was called into the president's office and slammed. As far as I can gather, some lost their positions, and new personnel were hired. Urza's Saga was the most unbalanced block ever created, and they got hit hard over it.

There are perhaps a couple of elements in the MHb that are overpowered; but that's similar with most books.

Cheers!

 

[jgsugden]

So that's two designers (one of which is WotC's resident rules "expert") that say Sunder is a melee attack instead of a standard action.

Baker, in NOVEMBER, said he was 'pretty sure' that Sunder worked as a melee replacement, not a standard action.

1.) He wasn't sure.

2.) That was many months ago, when 3.5 was still fairly new.

His statement isn't authoritative. The book is.

The table specifies standard action. The text under the attack form has vague language that can be read not to contradict the clear table entry. Until someone officially says, "The table is wrong. Change it to XXXXXXXX.', that is the prime rule.

The Sage has given a reason why he believes the rule should be read differently. As mentioned repeatedly in this thread, his reasoning is flawed in many respects. Following his 'advice' when it is based upon flawed facts and arguments can lead to ridiculous results.

As a GROSS EXAMPLE, *IF* the Sage said: "T-Rex has a bite attack that deals 3d6+13 damage. Wolves have bite attacks too. Thus, wolves deal 3d6+13 damage with a bite attack." - What should we do? Change all our wolves into 3d6+13 damage dealing creatures because of the Sage's flawed argument? As I said, this is a gross example meant to demonstrate the concept that facts and logic behind the sage's interpretations need to be sound for us to treat it as sound, not an example of something specific the Sage has done. I'm somewhat sure that the Sage would not make a mistake this large. Somewhat.

 

[James McMurray]

Who said everyone at WotC agrees?

 

[Li Shenron]

There is somehow an attitude in this thread... sounds like we are talking about one rule as it was some sort of universal law, and that the designers have "discovered" it rather than invented. We are basically saying that the designers are wrong or unaware of the real thing, but there is no real thing. Their very indecision and the fact that two of them can hardly tell the same about the rule, shouldn't drive us crazy, but rather let us consider that in either way we play it still make sense.

 

[Pax]

Li, what gets everyone (including me) annoyed is, the man paid to get it RIGHT, apparently cannot even be bothered to do the same level of research - IOW, actually open the [censored] book - that the least rules-for-their-own-sake people here will do.

He just come sup with something off the cuff, and *poof* suddenly it's an official rule.

That's all well and fine when he's GMing at his own table ... but as the appointed Arbiter of All Things Official, the man needs to check his off-the-cuff rulings at the door, open the book, and give rulings based on the contents of that book - duly and reasonably researched.

If he cannot or will not, then WOTC should find someone who can and will. As the saying goes, "sh*t or get off the pot" ...

 

[Li Shenron]

Pax, what I meant is that even if the books are the official reference, what can we do when the author of the book himself says that the book is wrong? I am thinking for example at the famous topic about magic items caster level: the books said one thing but mostly everyone at WotC said they didn't mean it.

 

[Humanophile]

Li, this is partly to you in particular, partially to everyone who keeps saying that Skip needs to be cut a little slack.

Since Sage Advice goes up on the web as a free FAQ, I don't mind if the sage says "what we really meant in the books was...", so long as he makes it clear that he knows what the rules in the book say, and that he's changing them for a specific reason. I've seen a few accounts of "Sage Errata" where he did just that, and most of the time it's not that bad.

The problem comes when he seems blithely unaware what the current rules say... and he's done that more than a couple of times lately. I'd wager that the sage-bashing would cool off a lot if he said in any errata entry "the book says X, but what they really mean is Y"; it would show that he has a grasp of the rules at least on the level of your average rules boarder. But of late, he seems most likely to try shoehorning how he feels about D&D into the rules, regardless of how the rules themselves work, and that drives rules-monkies like me up the wall, not to mention making a rather well-tuned insturment feel somewhat discordant.

 

[CCamfield]

Revised is irrelevant - the table entry and wording in question are essentially identical, with the only real difference being the name of the action ("Strike a Weapon" in 3E, "Sunder" in 3.5).

In both editions, the table lists it as a standard action; in both editions, it lacks the footnote mark that Trip, Grapple, and Disarm have; in both editions, it states "You can use a melee attack to..." in the text.

So they screwed up the table.

I think it's also worth noting - which no one else seems to have remarked on - that the entries for Sunder in the table have "(attack)" after them:

"Sunder a weapon (attack)"
"Sunder an object (attack)"

No other entries in the table have that, even those which involve attack rolls. To me that suggests incompetent editing of the table but with a desire to indicate that, in fact, sunder attempts are like trip and grapple.

All this confusion is from the table, and we've been told that the text overrides the table. I think the text is fairly clear and stands on its own.

 

[Pax]

Well said, Humanophile. And yes, if the Sage specifically phrased his responses as "well by the RAW, it works THUS ... but what we intended was for it to work SO; the errata will corret things to work as we intended them to" ... I'd be fine with the way he was doing his job (I might disagree, and houserule differently, but that's a whole 'nother issue).

But he's not, so I'm not.

 

[Celtavian]

re

Personally, I wish the Sage would just get a direct answer from the game designers. Send an e-mail to Collins, "Hey, Collins, the table and Text in the PHB don't agree on what type of action Sunder is, what type of action did you intend Sunder to be?" That would be great IMO. Collins could give it a look, think it through, then give a definitive answer with perhaps some more concisely written text.