races of destiny --has D&D 3.5 jumped the shark?

[Psion]

I mean guys with letters floating around there heads is cool to 5 year olds not adults

I'll start off by saying that the illumians will have to have more meat than "humans with floating runes around their head" to impress me.

But that said, I don't see anything "un-adult" or "juvenile" about it. I heard similar claims from people about IOUN stones, but never considered Vance juvenile fiction by any measure.

 

[Brennin Magalus]

giggle giggle
I don't get called "uncritical" around here very often.

If you think I'm a wotc apologist then you haven't been paying attention.
When I like something wotc does I say so and when I think they have done something badly, I say so. (Funny, in this very thread I referred to the topic product as a "dog". Maybe actually reading the debate at hand will hep you strenghten your argument.)

I guess you can say I give your posts all the consideration that they're due. In any event, as I recall, you are a vocal advocate for the "summon paladin mount" nonsense of 3.5 and that is enough to seal your fate in my estimation.

 

[Orius]

Yeah, it's a good thing we have stats for the archer bush, the flail snail, and the wolf-in-sheep's-clothing again.

I don't think I've ever been as disappointed in a book as Tome of Horrors. I was hoping for 3e-ification of the wealth of cool monsters from Dark Sun, Mystara, Spelljammer, and so on. Instead I got a book full of Fiend Folio rejects. Good thing I didn't have to pay for it (I won it as a prize in a chat with the Necro folks).

Didn't Tome of Horrors reprint the greatest FF monster of all time, the almighty flumph?

 

[warlord]

Alright I'm sorry if I offended anyone who just found out about D&D out of nowhere. And it not the concept of illumians I hate its just the floating letters. If it was tatoos of magic runes on their bodies it'd be cool. then theyed work great with Monte's Runethane class too.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

If you don't like the idea of a race with floating sigils, then change it.

For God's sake . . .

 

[BryonD]

I guess you can say I give your posts all the consideration that they're due. In any event, as I recall, you are a vocal advocate for the "summon paladin mount" nonsense of 3.5 and that is enough to seal your fate in my estimation.

Shrug

Being as you have so well considered my posts, I'm certain you can easily re-state exactly what my position on called mounts, in fact, was. I eagerly await your demonstration. However, seeing as you have already called me uncritical (in a thread in which was quite critical, no less), your capacity for such assessment is quite deeply in question.

People who have nothing other than hollow generalizations and unvalidated opinions whose basis fold under scrutity tend to take refuge in fooling themselves regarding the merits of their critics. You are not the first to do so, nor will you be the last.

Now excuse me while I go tremble in misery over my fate.

Oh, wait, its a new 3.5 book!! Gee I feel better already. I seem to have a rather cool fate. Thanks for leaving me here.

 

[Toben the Many]

Well, either you think WotC has jumped the shark or you don't. Everyone's going to fall into one or two camps.

I think that WotC has jumped the shark, though I believe it happened much earlier. I would agree that it probably started around the time of the Epic Level Handbook.

Now, I would like to say that I'm definately not of the "gloom and doom" camp that believes everything sucks now. There are definately golden treasures out there. The Complete Warrior was a welcome edition. And the Illumians don't offend me nearly as much as the Digester from the MMI.

Here's a question for you all. Has the OGL hastened the jumping of the shark? With all of the d20 stuff out there, it's hard for WotC to produce something that someone else hasn't come up with first. True, WotC products tend to have tighter rules, and have that nice "official" flavor to them, but still...one has to wonder if they haven't shortened the lifespan for their own product.

 

[mearls]

If you don't like the idea of a race with floating sigils, then change it.

For God's sake . . .

I've of two minds about this. On one hand, it's trivially easy to change, especially since the entire visual look of the illumians is something that's just in your head. As a DM, you can easily change it.

On the other hand, as a consumer you have to ask, "Why should I pay money for something that I have to change for it to work in my campaign? If the designer is so much smarter than me that he gets paid to write this stuff, he should at least do it right."

I think there's something to be said for both arguments.

(Personally, the illumian "look" really turns me off, but I find the mechanics really interesting, so I'll probably make some changes to them and eventually use them in a game. An illumian chameleon might be a lot of fun to play.)

 

[mearls]

As a game designer, I know how to avoid the most glaring balance problems. I know how to playtest. But anyone in the industry who tells you how they have a foolproof way of ensuring 100% balance on all aspects of everything they create is either a liar or delusional.

Exactly. I've personally run two different games where:

A) A mystic theurge was too powerful to allow as a PC option.

B) A mystic theurge was too weak to allow as a PC option.

"Balance" represents a range of values. The goatrider prestige class might be balanced for campaigns A, B, and C, underpowered in D, and too tough for E. The key is to make things as balanced as possible.

There's no canonical litmus test, especially if you use house rules. For instance, if a DM really cuts back on the magic items in a campaign and doesn't make any other changes, the monk becomes more powerful than normal at higher levels.

 

[FireLance]

I've of two minds about this. On one hand, it's trivially easy to change, especially since the entire visual look of the illumians is something that's just in your head. As a DM, you can easily change it.

On the other hand, as a consumer you have to ask, "Why should I pay money for something that I have to change for it to work in my campaign? If the designer is so much smarter than me that he gets paid to write this stuff, he should at least do it right."

The problem is, flavor is much more subjective than rules balance (which is hardly an objective science in itself). What looks strange, funny, out-of-place or ridiculous to one person may be the height of coolness to another.

Just a personal example here. Many years ago, the first time I read about a spherical monster with a huge central eye and ten smaller eyes on eyestalks, I thought it was a ridiculous creature, and proceeded to make many jokes about beauty being in the eye of the beholder. Now, I can't wait to get my hands on the beholder mini coming out...