The New Design Philosophy?

[Banshee16]

What I don't like are some of the odd decisions that seem to be made on some things. Monsters is a wonderful example. I've complained about it elsewhere, but I loathe the notion that monsters (demons, esp.) should have some of their redundant or extraneous special abilities culled, just because they're not useful or convenient in combat. :vomit:

Bingo....that's a major problem I have with the new philosophy. It's so focused on the "run into the dungeon, walk, fight, walk, fight, walk, fight, rest, repeat" type scenario, that everything extraneous to that is excised.

Look at Eladrins...in 2nd. Ed. they had all that stuff about Veil. It was a cultural explanation for having a spell-like ability, Alter Self, that was 2nd lvl. But in 3E, Alter Self isn't much use in a fight and AFAIK, it was removed from most of the breeds of Eladrin, which in turn causes the entire nature of the race to be changed.

The "Forget" spell....great spell, very flavourful, and useful...but it doesn't involve blowing things up, or tactical advantage on a battlefield, and as a result, we no longer have it.

Paladins have the presto-horse....."get your instant mount, just add water!" because, well, a horse is difficult to bring into a dungeon. Well, now you have the prospect of the horse "expiring" while the paladin is riding him, because the duration expires...or the paladin uses him in the morning to get to the dungeon, dismisses him, then leaves the dungeon later that day, and can't summon the horse a second time, so has to walk back to town. Or what happens if his camping gear, or some other important item was in the mount's saddle-bags. The paladin dismisses him, and now needs the item....he's stuck waiting until tomorrow. In addition, it causes other quirks....the paladin no longer needs a squire, or someone to guard his horse, and watch the campsite outside of the dungeon....a central role of followers and hirelings. No longer needed.

Hold Person.....now opponents get one save every round. So your third level spell, which takes an action to cast, might hold your opponent for one round.....because it's "no fun" for a player to have to wait through multiple rounds with his character helpless. Sure, that sucks....but that's one reason that clerics and mages in the party would have to justify memorizing Freedom, Dispel Magic, etc.

There are a tonne of changes that this whole mentality to design cause with respect to how the game "feels" that have really been bothering me.

I could keep going, but I'm a little disturbed. The more I've been running 3E games, the more I'm realizing that I'm preferring alternate D20 or OGL rules....like Conan, A Game of Thrones, BCCS, etc. that get rid of a lot of the "cheese" factor/dungeon mentality that's been creeping into the game, especially since the arrival of 3.5.

Banshee

 

[Scribble]

You do realize that kobold has been prophesized as leading the kobold tribe to the promised land? Of course, they follow him, even though he's a complete do-nothing (what the tribe doesn't know is that he'll lead them to their deaths, thus the "promised land").

Grrr yip yip growlll gryaaarrrip ip ip! - Neo you are the one!

Grrr yi yip yiiiiir grri ri ri yyip yip- whoa.

 

[Banshee16]

But the hard part isn't running the Vrocks. It's keeping track of all the player character crap, and the inordinate amount of time that can (and some say needs to) be spent tweaking out NPCs with gear, class levels, whatever.

Of all the things to put effort into simplifying, oddball monsters is about the last thing to worry about.

I find making encounters with monsters easy.....balancing and creating NPCs with character races and classes? That's where my time gets taken up.....there are so many options, all the tracking and calculating of skill points, synergy bonuses, feat ability requirements etc.

In my swashbuckling campaign, 90% of the opponents are humans of varying stripes....and it just takes so long, because the opponents all have character levels, etc.

Banshee

 

[Kerrick]

And the overarching point in all this? How well is the CR system really balanced, then, and should all design center around a CR fitting to a few-rounds long combat, or maybe try to incorporate more factors than "how well does it measure up to a standard adventurer group in physical combat"?

See, that's the problem - monsters are being balanced against a party of iconics, and that's the wrong way to do it. Does anyone play that party? No - they play a wide range of classes, stat-generation systems (I find it amusing that the iconics use arrays and point-buy, but the standard generation is 4d6, drop the low die), and variant rulesets. You can't possibly hope to balance a creature if you're working against that. Monsters should be balanced against themselves - their stats should be rated on their own merits, and a straight-up CR given. The DM can then adjust it on the fly for the difficulty of the encounter - a rust monster vs. a fighter in an arena is one thing, but a rust monster vs. a fighter in a 10 x 10 room with locked doors is another thing entirely.

When I play D&D, I am at the table to enjoy for what the D&D game system is good at.

Which is...? (I'm not trying to be snarky here, just wondering what your opinion is).

The idea of players preferring death over item loss reminds me of days of old when players preferred death over level loss...so level loss in 3e was greatly watered down. So was item loss, come to that, at least to some extent... For my part, I see items as a transient thing...you find 'em, you break 'em (sometimes with dire consequences), you find some more, and on you go.

I think level loss was so feared partly because it was permenent, and partly because restoration was a 7th-level spell - nigh unto inaccessible to the average party, or, if it was, it cost a fortune to get an NPC to cast it. Now that you can restore levels with a L4 spell, they should keep the "permanent level drain" thing - instead of nerfing just one part of that problem, they nerfed two, and made it so no one fears level drain anymore.

In 1.x or 3.x, a 20th level butterknife wielding fighter still going to mow through the mooks. The question is, in the future will he have *anything* to fear?

Exactly. This is my big gripe with the new design philosophy - it's become too PC-friendly. We can't endanger the PCs too much, or the players won't have fun. While I agree - somewhat (getting rid of save or die poisons was a good move) - you can't get rid of every threat to the PCs, or the game becomes little more than the players mowing over everything and moving on to the next challenge.

 

[MerricB]

Rot grub. Funny thing is, I like the rot grub. It's one of the reasons I bought Tome of Horrors along with the core three books. It served it's purpose. It taught players not to go jumping around in trash heaps and other situations without checking them out first. A little poking with a stick and some fire and the threat was usually avoided. It may be have been a coin toss but the toss was easy to weight heavily in your favor if you were prepared and had some wits. Reducing all challenges to "actual combat" is bad design for an RPG. It makes for a boring, uninspired RPG even if its a good miniatures wargame.

Rot Grub isn't save or die. After infestation with the rot grub, you can apply flame to the wound and kill it. (Painful, but it works). I rather like them, myself.

Poisonous spiders aren't save or die either. They must (a) enter melee, (b) hit you and (c) you must fail a save. These are factors that allow good tactics.

An Ogre Mage flies in invisibly and casts cone of cold. For most parties, they won't be able to detect the invisibility at this point (if they can, the OM is dead). Against a party of the proper CR for what the OM's hp and AC imply - level 3 or 4 - then someone dies, possibly even if they make their save.

What's particularly bad about the OM is that it then can't do anything else. At all.

Well, ok - they can charm person. Once. They have a pathetic melee attack bonus (+7? That's bad). They have a useless ranged attack bonus (+2!) Whee.

From the text: "Ogre mages rely on their spell-like abilities, resorting to physical combat only when necessary."

Huh? Like, after the first round?

I've never found it difficult to kill PCs in 3e. I've done it again, and again, and again. Melee against giants and similar high-strength monsters can be brutal. A dragonspawn arcaniss hitting the party with three fireballs in a row tends to show who has a good Reflex save and who is charcoal. Anyone who thinks 3e isn't dangerous has had a very kind DM.

If I were to use a ogre magi for the BBEG of an adventure (much like I'd use a mind flayer, or an evil wizard), the final combat would involve a lot of charmed minions throwing themselves in front of the PCs, allowing the ogre magi to sit back and taunt the PCs and use its abilities on them...

Oh wait. It doesn't have any after the ice storm. A mind flayer creates a memorable last encounter as it actually does something against the PCs. So does the evil wizard. The Ogre Mage, despite looking scary, just runs away.

Cheers!

 

[Scribble]

See, that's the problem - monsters are being balanced against a party of iconics, and that's the wrong way to do it. Does anyone play that party? No - they play a wide range of classes, stat-generation systems (I find it amusing that the iconics use arrays and point-buy, but the standard generation is 4d6, drop the low die), and variant rulesets. You can't possibly hope to balance a creature if you're working against that. Monsters should be balanced against themselves - their stats should be rated on their own merits, and a straight-up CR given. The DM can then adjust it on the fly for the difficulty of the encounter - a rust monster vs. a fighter in an arena is one thing, but a rust monster vs. a fighter in a 10 x 10 room with locked doors is another thing entirely.

The CR system isn't a set in stone use this number or WOTC will come get you... The CR rules already do this. It already tells you to adjust for situational modifiers.

What do you mean rated on their own merrits? How do you judge what a power level is unless you have something to balance it against? That would be like telling somone it's 4 inches long without ever showing them a ruler.

The CR systems says this Monster is this powerfull against the classes and powers offered in the core rules. The core party becomes your ruler. If you decide to change the party to something not balanced to the core, you can, but you will need to adjust CR to match.

Exactly. This is my big gripe with the new design philosophy - it's become too PC-friendly. We can't endanger the PCs too much, or the players won't have fun. While I agree - somewhat (getting rid of save or die poisons was a good move) - you can't get rid of every threat to the PCs, or the game becomes little more than the players mowing over everything and moving on to the next challenge.

I don't really agree with this. There are plenty of challenges in the game. People still die from fireballs and swords and poisons and arrows and dragons and all sortsa stuff.

They're just cutting back on the number of things that are based soley on luck of the drawl and not the power or strategy of your character.

 

[The Shaman]

Rot Grub isn't save or die. After infestation with the rot grub, you can apply flame to the wound and kill it. (Painful, but it works). I rather like them, myself.

Poisonous spiders aren't save or die either. They must (a) enter melee, (b) hit you and (c) you must fail a save. These are factors that allow good tactics.

Well, if we're going to parse this closely, the ogre mage's cone of cold isn't save or die either - the ogre mage must target the adventurers within the cone and the adventurers get a save. Depending on hit points, they may survive the cone of cold without or without making their save, though it may be fairly punishing.

How is this different from a 5th level wizard casting fireball?

And since we're getting particularly persnickety, what about the party members with magic or class abilities that provide protection from cold?

A mind flayer creates a memorable last encounter as it actually does something against the PCs. So does the evil wizard. The Ogre Mage, despite looking scary, just runs away.

And comes back again with new minions, and in a different guise...again...and again...until the adventurers reach a point where they can stop him...at which point he says, "Before you kill me, remember the maguffin you've been searching for? I know where it is...."

Yeah, MerricB, you're right - what a boring monster... :\

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Exactly. This is my big gripe with the new design philosophy - it's become too PC-friendly. We can't endanger the PCs too much, or the players won't have fun. While I agree - somewhat (getting rid of save or die poisons was a good move) - you can't get rid of every threat to the PCs, or the game becomes little more than the players mowing over everything and moving on to the next challenge.

The assertion, raised again and again, that the new design philosophy intends to eliminate all danger is a red herring. As I see it the goal is to make the risks inherent to a particular challenge understandable and more predictable to the DM. The DM always has control over the level of danger if the designers give him the tools with which to do so.

I concede there is some degree of loss of variability and flavor from streamlining a monster that is not unambiguously a good thing, even if I support the approach overall.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Yeah, MerricB, you're right - what a boring monster... :\

I think a lot of the flavor you see, you're injecting yourself. That macguffin thing, for instance, can be done by anybody.

 

[The Shaman]

I think a lot of the flavor you see, you're injecting yourself. That macguffin thing, for instance, can be done by anybody.

It could also be done without magic and without monsters at all.

Flavor matters.