D&D General The Crab Bucket Fallacy

[FrogReaver]

See, the issue is I knew cheerleaders and how they do their do. Cheerleaders... lead the crowd and direct one another through complex routines.

The cheerlord is the active mode of the lazy lord relying on the aforementioned wolfpack tactics and position switching. They direct the action around them while attacking while canceling negative statuses with the forced saving throws warlords had access to but no one acknowledges when talking about what they can do and how you can 'totally' replicate them with a battlemaster.

Think the general that leads from the front. your King Arthurs.

So maybe it's a tiny bit ill advised to say something doesn't exist when only working from context to know what it even is.

What you are describing is a lazy warlord.

 

[Tony Vargas]

What you are describing is a lazy warlord.

Nope, he specified STR exploits that wouldn't work well for that build.

 

[Vaalingrade]

What you are describing is a lazy warlord.

Okay, look.

There are warlord powers that let allies attack. That's the lazylord stuff.

There are other warlord powers, like the excellent at-will wolfpack tactics that move an ally while you attack.

This is NOT lazylord. Please stop.

 

[FrogReaver]

Nope, he specified STR exploits that wouldn't work well for that build.

Then he’s describing a regular warlord.

 

[FrogReaver]

Okay, look.

There are warlord powers that let allies attack. That's the lazylord stuff.

There are other warlord powers, like the excellent at-will wolfpack tactics that move an ally while you attack.

This is NOT lazylord. Please stop.

Fair. That’s a warlord. No need to call it a cheerlord since it’s doing exactly what a normal warlord does.

As I previously noted. I’m all for Warlord’s existing.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

So, what I'm reading begs the question. If you (general you) want to basically swap stats and attributes to fit your theme (I want to have a high CHA fighter and use CHA bonuses in place of STR and DEX), then the question is, "Why have stats at all?" If we're going to make the bonuses totally replaceable and interchangeable, why have them at all? I'm not asking this as some sort of gotcha or sarcastic response, but an honest one.

Do you get rid of them completely and just go to something sorta skill based and bake them into the class?

Fighters: Gain a +3 bonus to hit and damage with attacks (to replicate STR or DEX)
Background: Choose strength based, agility, personality, intellect, or willpower based skills. Gain a +3 bonus to any saving throw or check when doing one of these skills.

That way you could have a fighter who gets the bonuses to attacks as "traditional" fighters, but can be personality rather than strength or dex if they choose.

My preference if I could get away with in on a D&D would be that combat accuracy and defense numbers are based on class and only on class. Ability scores are there for skills and maybe some other stuff here and there.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I enjoyed 3e when it was a computer game running it. I loathed 3e as a ttrpg. Just opening the book and seeing how you had to figure different base attack bonuses for each of your attacks? No thanks. And looking at a 3e statblock for a monster? Yikes. And seeing as how I DM more than play? Good lord no...lol

One of the biggest turn off moments to me in 3e when I toyed with moving over to it (this was after 3.5 came out) was when I had posted a comment about how I was thinking of playing an arcane archer because the theme sounded cool and to a person, every comment was not to do that because the class sucks and isn't as powerful as other builds. 3e seems built for those who like optimization, and that's not me at all. I'm an old school gamers. I like fast combat, rulings over rules, and flavor over mechanics.

I'm not trying to bash 3e objectively. It's a great system for a lot of people. Just not me.

Yeah pretty much same. I enjoyed D&D Online a lot more than I enjoyed trying to play D&D 3.5 at a table.

Like I dislike ThAC0. A lot. I think it has more defenders than it deserves, and only ever looks good in comparison to truly absurd systems that seem impossible to believe anyone thought were good, like attack tables and 6000 modifiers that might or might not apply to a given attack.

But compared to a hypothetical “to hit armor class 20” system? It loses every time.

But 3.5 didn’t have a rational system either! Why is my attack mod different for every attack in a round!? What is this!?

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

Fair. That’s a warlord. No need to call it a cheerlord since it’s doing exactly what a normal warlord does.

As I previously noted. I’m all for Warlord’s existing.

Is that all this back and forth was about?

You are fine with a Warlord that sometimes directly attacks and that also does a bunch of inspiring, positioning, granting ally attacks, save bolstering etc.

But you don't like the idea of a Warlord that never directly attacks but only does the inspiring, positioning, etc.?

 

[Tony Vargas]

Then he’s describing a regular warlord.

There are like, 7 or so distinct 'regular' warlords, among the 6 commanding presence options, and the alt features Battlefront Leader and Archer.

(making one of the excuses for excluding the Warlord - oh, there just aren't enough potential sub-classes! - laughable.)

 

[James Gasik]

Yeah pretty much same. I enjoyed D&D Online a lot more than I enjoyed trying to play D&D 3.5 at a table.

Like I dislike ThAC0. A lot. I think it has more defenders than it deserves, and only ever looks good in comparison to truly absurd systems that seem impossible to believe anyone thought were good, like attack tables and 6000 modifiers that might or might not apply to a given attack.

But compared to a hypothetical “to hit armor class 20” system? It loses every time.

But 3.5 didn’t have a rational system either! Why is my attack mod different for every attack in a round!? What is this!?

It's telling that the 3.x developers were somehow terrified of a class that got multiple attacks per round and could actually hit with them on a regular basis, then they turned right around and gave monsters multiple attacks at their highest base attack, lol.

I never had a chance to hear a developer explain it, but my personal theory had to do with the Medium BAB classes, most of whom were intended to use weapons from time to time. If you make enemies purely with the attack bonuses of say, Fighters in mind, then pretty quickly Clerics, Bards, Rogues, and Monks aren't going to hit anything without massive buffs.

OTOH, if everything's AC is set to where they think a Rogue should be, you got Fighters just using Power Attack and Combat Expertise on every attack for "free"...or just pretty much always hitting.

Descending attack bonuses in theory prevent that sort of thing, I suppose. It's still clunky and inelegant and turning the game into "everyone stands still and full attacks, and monsters do more damage with their full attack than most players" is something I can never forgive them, as much as I liked the "build a character out of LEGOS" aspect of 3.x.

Then Paizo decided not only to not fix it, but give Fighters more built-in bonuses to hit so that you had level 5 characters with +12 to hit running around, lol.