D&D General The Crab Bucket Fallacy

[payn]

Oh, my friend you are behind in the Playtest. The Wizard now takes a minute and changes out that spell to Upstage Fighter (level 1) now.

Behind indeed. Though, my fighter joke doesnt work then. Im still laughing at the fighter pickaxing for hours on end. "Exploration builds character!"

 

[Vaalingrade]

Behind indeed. Though, my fighter joke doesnt work then. Im still laughing at the fighter pickaxing for hours on end. "Exploration builds character!"

"Do we tell him that wall is adamantine?"

"Nah. He seems so happy."

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

(it's like, "I can't feel powerful & cool, unless someone else at the table is forced to feel powerless & ..."
...have y'noticed that the couple colloquial words for decidedly-not-cool are, like, problematic? .... like abelist or homophobic?
... 'square' is too old... and the wrong sense of un-cool...
...er...um...
...tepid?
Powerless & Tepid?)

How about "wretched"?

 

[James Gasik]

4e solved these problems by

1. having a multiple check roll for major obstacles (skill challenges),
2. additional skills (Endurance and Streetwise),
3. assumption of using skills in situation not completely capable but relevant (Using Streetwise or History in Exploration in urban environments).
4. giving out tons of feats so taking a flavor or noncombat feat isn't a combat cost.

Unfortunately, as to point 4, when given a choice between a combat feat and a non-combat feat (or utility power), often the players would choose a combat one. Why? Because you don't know for sure when the non-combat option would be useful. A large bonus to, say, negotiating with NPC's might go fallow in an undead-infested tomb. An extra +1 to defenses, however, you know there's going to be combat. The fail state for a skill challenge was rarely death (I can think of only one "death" challenge I ever faced, in Scales of War), but that was often the fail state for combat- so you optimize to survive combat, at least, that's how the thought process seemed to go at the tables I played at.

 

[James Gasik]

At this point due to the (incorrectly IMO) perceived need of a 'simple' fighter, it's time to just make a Good Fighter class that's separate from the one that enables the Champion to exist.

and then we simply don't bring the simple fighter back for 6e.

They tried that back in 3.5 with the Warblade. The Fighter fans weren't happy that, rather than improve the Fighter, WotC chose to just make "Fighter+" an option.

Well, that is, the players who didn't just reject the Warblade because it was "too anime" for their sensibilities.

 

[Oofta]

Not w

They tried that back in 3.5 with the Warblade. The Fighter fans weren't happy that, rather than improve the Fighter, WotC chose to just make "Fighter+" an option.

Well, that is, the players who didn't just reject the Warblade because it was "too anime" for their sensibilities.

Not wanting to play an anime fighter in D&D because it doesn't fit the game is bad because...why?

 

[cbwjm]

It is established in the argument that the given warlord IS weaker than the wizard. You don't need to take anything away because of this.

Man, I read over that post a couple times and still missed that. I blame the fact that I was out drinking at the time.

 

[Minigiant]

Well, I think that the other elephant in the room is that the most popular class in actual play is always Fighter first.

He highest satisfaction class in the playtest was Rogue.

Fighter was most popular but a loud percentage of the fanbase was unsatisfied with every version of it.

That's why the 2013 playtest fighter was revised from the ground up at least 5 times.

It is literally the Psions problem.

 

[Micah Sweet]

He highest satisfaction class in the playtest was Rogue.

Fighter was most popular but a loud percentage of the fanbase was unsatisfied with every version of it.

That's why the 2013 playtest fighter was revised from the ground up at least 5 times.

It is literally the Psions problem.

Makes you wonder what WotC values more: popularity or satisfaction? In the case of the fighter it seems to be option 1.

 

[James Gasik]

Not w
Not wanting to play an anime fighter in D&D because it doesn't fit the game is bad because...why?

Because whether it fits the game or not is subjective. You may feel that a warrior having a moment of "bullet time" or shrugging off any baneful condition that happens to be affecting them at the moment doesn't fit your vision of the game. And there may be others who agree with you.

But D&D has long been a tentpole game with a vast breadth and width of diversity. You can play as half broke crazed adventurers being nickled and dimed to death by kobolds in an old mine, or you can be globe trotting heroes in a flying ship, or you can be a cadre of demigods on their way to the Abyss for a showdown with Grazzt.

All of these things are D&D.

The rejection of the Warblade because of it's themes is fine, if you just said "I don't want to play that". But what I was referring to was the absolute backlash from a portion of the fanbase who not only didn't want to play it, they loathed it with ever fiber of their being and seemed to not want it to exist for other people to play the class.