D&D General The Crab Bucket Fallacy

[Zardnaar]

Okay.

That's kind of irrelevant to whether 3e was balanced. Because it wasn't. At all. No one denies this. You would need to rewrite every class in the PHB, many feats, most spells, and a boatload of items to get a balanced game out the other side.

This was literally admitted by Paizo directly. I can't remember the man's name, but one of their lead dev/design people made very clear that the reason they needed to make PF2e was that they couldn't fix the deep, fundamental, pervasive problems with the PF system--and 100% of those problems were inherited from 3e.

I would far, far rather have 140 pages of tiny fixes than 1 page of fixes and a broken mess. Any day of the week.

4e was a very well-balanced game. It got fixes to help improve that balance over time. Why—how—is that a flaw?

More complexity is the flaw.

Character sheet was 5 pages, every class had powers so you have to figure that out that and the errata.

Balance isn't the be all and end all you think it is. My errata was a list of banned stuff (S tier broken build pieces) and basically use 2E Spells and Magic item creation rules tweaked.

We were plugged into hivemind meta, every ther 3E group was not.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Okay.

That's kind of irrelevant to whether 3e was balanced. Because it wasn't. At all. No one denies this. You would need to rewrite every class in the PHB, many feats, most spells, and a boatload of items to get a balanced game out the other side.

This was literally admitted by Paizo directly. I can't remember the man's name, but one of their lead dev/design people made very clear that the reason they needed to make PF2e was that they couldn't fix the deep, fundamental, pervasive problems with the PF system--and 100% of those problems were inherited from 3e.

I would far, far rather have 140 pages of tiny fixes than 1 page of fixes and a broken mess. Any day of the week.

4e was a very well-balanced game. It got fixes to help improve that balance over time. Why—how—is that a flaw?

Because some people don't want to apply 140 pages of "fixes" to all their books.

 

[Aldarc]

This was literally admitted by Paizo directly. I can't remember the man's name, but one of their lead dev/design people made very clear that the reason they needed to make PF2e was that they couldn't fix the deep, fundamental, pervasive problems with the PF system--and 100% of those problems were inherited from 3e.

Jason Bulmahn was pretty upfront about how 3e was broken and how his house rules that became the basis for PF1 not only perpetuated many of those problems but also added to them.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Because some people don't want to apply 140 pages of "fixes" to all their books.

Then don't. The vast majority of those changes are exactly like the thing Zardaar brought up earlier. Extreme edge cases applicable to one power, of one class, which require chaining half a dozen specific elements together to get something that can do an unusually massive amount of damage, or survive an unusually extreme amount of damage, or get excessive skill bonuses.

It's nothing like what Mr. Bulmahn spoke of, as @Aldarc said. Nothing at all.

The vast majority of players neither looked at nor cared about the errata--and, where it was relevant, it was usually already updated on online tools. Exactly like how 5e works now, with D&D Beyond.

 

[Zardnaar]

Then don't. The vast majority of those changes are exactly like the thing Zardaar brought up earlier. Extreme edge cases applicable to one power, of one class, which require chaining half a dozen specific elements together to get something that can do an unusually massive amount of damage, or survive an unusually extreme amount of damage, or get excessive skill bonuses.

It's nothing like what Mr. Bulmahn spoke of, as @Aldarc said. Nothing at all.

The vast majority of players neither looked at nor cared about the errata--and, where it was relevant, it was usually already updated on online tools. Exactly like how 5e works now, with D&D Beyond.

I think the vast majority of 3E players played like the internet assumed.

I also suspect most games didn't go to high level which is where 3E breaks down.

So a lot of 3E problems are theoretical. Theory crafting.

4E games fell apart for different reasons over high level 3E games but that's a bigger problem than 3E largely theoretical failings.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I think the vast majority of 3E players played like the internet assumed.

I also suspect most games didn't go to high level which is where 3E breaks down.

So a lot of 3E problems are theoretical. Theory crafting.

4E games fell apart for different reasons over high level 3E games but that's a bigger problem than 3E largely theoretical failings.

Did you mean they did not play as such...?

Because the internet's assumption was that 3e would be played in the most ruthlessly exploitative way possible.

 

[Aldarc]

So a lot of 3E problems are theoretical. Theory crafting.

4E games fell apart for different reasons over high level 3E games but that's a bigger problem than 3E largely theoretical failings.

Not sure if I agree with that. I stopped playing mundanes like fighters and barbarians in 3e because I learned after my first game of D&D ever, which was in 3e, that the casters reigned supreme. This was before I went online to read people talking about the game or theory crafting. It was my experience. Then when I played casters in 3e/PF1, particularly clerics and druids which were my favorites, I found myself constantly having to hold myself back so that I wouldn't overshadow other players in the group, particularly the non-casters. It would have been all to easy to do that, but I could tell from the times that I went full-throttle as a caster that the non-caster players were having less fun. There were a lot of balance and mechanical problems with 3e. A lot of problems IME.

 

[Zardnaar]

Not sure if I agree with that. I stopped playing mundanes like fighters and barbarians in 3e because I learned after my first game of D&D ever, which was in 3e, that the casters reigned supreme. This was before I went online to read people talking about the game or theory crafting. It was my experience. Then when I played casters in 3e/PF1, particularly clerics and druids which were my favorites, I found myself constantly having to hold myself back so that I wouldn't overshadow other players in the group, particularly the non-casters. It would have been all to easy to do that, but I could tell from the times that I went full-throttle as a caster that the non-caster players were having less fun. There were a lot of balance and mechanical problems with 3e. A lot of problems IME.

Yup but you're part of the hivemind. So was I. Every other group of saw playing 3.X was more casual.

I noticed this as early as 2002 through to 2014 with Pathfinder.

I'm not saying 3E wasn't broken at higher level but it needed the right amount of knowledge. Split book material etc to really abuse it.

When 3.5 came out adding natural spell to core I knew it was good because of internet chatter and seeing it in Dungeon Magazine (I didn't buy the 3.0 softcovers).

Most players any edition are casuals, most games don't go much past 10 or even 7 according to WotC.

E6 3.X variant seemed to be how most people were playing. D&Ds sweet spot is 3-7 4th was 1-3 imho.

3E is ooe of the few editions I don't get nostalgic over. Played it for 10 years.

 

[Aldarc]

Yup but you're part of the hivemind.

I could not get past your poor choice of opening sentences. You don't get to speak for my experiences, Zardnaar, or make such claims about me just so you can dismiss everything that I have to say. This is rude. I would suggest refraining from this if you expect me to listen to anything else you have to say.

 

[Zardnaar]

I could not get past your poor choice of opening sentences. You don't get to speak for my experiences, Zardnaar, or make such claims about me just so you can dismiss everything that I have to say. This is rude. I would suggest refraining from this if you expect me to listen to anything else you have to say.

Wasn't meant to be offensive but we're in the minority by posting here on ENworld or old WotC forums.

You'll absorb stuff every if you don't directly experience it just by posting and reading what others say.

Most of us are also veterans of multiple editions.