Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5934654" data-attributes="member: 42582">It seems that you checked the box saying that "I HATE damage on miss and will only play a D&D next game that excludes such effects" - and I (and perhaps others) had been reading your posts in that light.If in fact you really meant to check something along the lines of "Bad for believability; also bad for balance" that helps me make sense of what you've beein saying in your recent posts.Intriguing. So would this be an argument for including 4e-style incombat healing in the game, given that there are a good chunk of 4e players for whom the pacing of combat is pretty important?But Reaper is an option. It's a feat associated with a theme. If it causes trouble at a table, that table can agree not to use it. (Just as, at my 4e table, we don't use the Expertise feats.)I'm sorry, but that is pretty close to ridiculous. Have a look at those in the 64% camp, call to mind their posting histories, and then ask yourself - are they just tolerating this feat, or do they like it (or the sort of design approach that it represents)?I don't think  it's that big. I mean, magic missile never missed in AD&D, B/X, 3E and (latter-day) 4e. But it wasn't the only spell used, and it wasn't even the only 1st level spell used (both Sleep and Charm saw use, for example, and Charm has always had a miss chance).I think immobilise at will can be overly strong in some circumstances, actually. The fighter PC in my game has immobilise on any basic attack, and it makes his oppys and combat challenge attacks at least arguably overpowered.Part of the balance in 4e is that there are other powers available to the PCs, which give them a reason not to use Magic Missile or Reaping Strike or a basic attack. It seems that D&Dnext will have less of these, in the name of verisimilitude - so Reaper is really more like Hammer Rhythm than any particular 4e power. Hammer Rhythm is generally regarded as pretty good, isn't it? But not overpowered? (I don't follow the optimisation discussions very closesly.)I don't think these sorts of general claim are very helpful.For example: it is trivial to strip overnight healing out of 4e. Completely trivial. A stroke of the pen can change that rule. Whereas it is a huge job to strip incombat healing out of 4e - incombat healing is utterly central to the play of the game.It is very hard to add healing surges into AD&D. I would have to change healing spells, natural healing rules, aspects of class design and balance, etc. On the other hand, it is trivial to add a new weapon into AD&D. Just write up some damage numbers, speed factor and weapon vs armour mods.It is trivial both to add, and to remove, particular monsters from any edition of D&D, because of the comparative ease of monster design and the existence of long lists of monsters. Magic items less so (eg most versions of D&D will break down if the PCs don't get some magic weapons, given the prevelance of monsters which need magic to hit).I don't think there is any general rule. But in this case, it strikes me as pretty trivial for those groups who don't like damage on a miss just to make sure that none of their PCs takes the theme/feat!</blockquote>

Verification