D&D 4E The WotC designers will be bashing 4e once 5e is announced . . .

[Nifft]

Example: Polymorph spells.
The 3E versions were pretty good, and if you actually read through it once, they were easy to use as well. The one limitation that should not have been just implied but written out was that the caster can transform himself/target into anything he is familiar with

Eh, so every DM has to carefully design his setting and encounters so as to nerf this spell? No thanks. I'm lazy.

Example: Scry & Teleport
Comes up a lot in the current discussions about "game breaker" spell combos. Apart from the fact that nearly everybody of power who lives in a world where Scry is around for millenia already should routinely have scrying or teleporting countermeasures installed, the basic problem is that the risk for "Death by Mishap" has been reduced to nothing, which makes it easy to abuse Teleport whenever you can. This was done because "dying from one unlucky die roll is NO FUN!" to the wizard player, so the death chance was eliminated. So in order to make teleporting less (ab)useful, it got a reduced range slapped on.

I actually find this combo to be more problematic in that the party would be unlikely to survive, rather than the millennium-old BBEGs. In my world, teleport takes three rounds to complete, and there is a loud noise at the destination (starts as a DC 5 Listen check, then a louder DC -5 buzzing, and finally a DC -15 thunderclap as the spell completes). The target of a teleport attack is seldom caught flat-footed.

But again, it was up to the DM to fix this. Not good IMHO.

There's a handful more of those "problems" that were created by patching up imagined problems that could have been very easily dealt with if they really existed, which led to more patches, etc. And all was called "progress", while in the end it was only change.

Strongly disagree. Polymorph messed up my 3.0e game, as did haste. 3.5e fixed a lot of stuff that affected my game. Please don't call my problems imaginary.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Eh, so every DM has to carefully design his setting and encounters so as to nerf this spell? No thanks. I'm lazy.

Why nerf it in the first place? I don't see that much problems with the spell as it is in 3.0. Wanna enlighten me?

But again, it was up to the DM to fix this. Not good IMHO.

If it hadn't been "fixed" from its "unfunness" 2E version, there would have been less abuse in the first place. Scry counts as "Viewed Once" in my book, meaning an 8% chance to materialise too low, i.e. into solid floor and dying instantly. Sometimes, a little more risk can turn away a lot of abuse potential, too.

Strongly disagree. Polymorph messed up my 3.0e game, as did haste. 3.5e fixed a lot of stuff that affected my game. Please don't call my problems imaginary.

Cheers, -- N

Would never do that. The problems you percieve are the problems you have. Goes for everybody. I just wonder in what way Polymorph messed up your game? Just curious, mind you.

 

[Nifft]

I just wonder in what way Polymorph messed up your game? Just curious, mind you.

3.0e polymorph allowed Troll, which got a very high strength for its hit dice, and gave the Rend special attack, but was humanoid enough that the PC kept all his equipment.

The long duration of polymorph other, together with the long durations of the various ani-buff spells, meant that at 7th level the party's tank got a major upgrade for part of the day -- or until dispel'd.

Much like 3.0e's haste, it allowed PCs to expend a lot of resources very quickly (in this case, buffs before combat), for an unbalancing advantage. However, if the buffs were dispel'd, the party would be out of resources -- so just like 3.0e haste, it created a situation where they could be overpowered one round, then out of juice and underpowered the next. (It was a key ingredient in the daily "buff nova", if I can coin that term.)

Cheers, -- N

 

[Geron Raveneye]

3.0e polymorph allowed Troll, which got a very high strength for its hit dice, and gave the Rend special attack, but was humanoid enough that the PC kept all his equipment.

The long duration of polymorph other, together with the long durations of the various ani-buff spells, meant that at 7th level the party's tank got a major upgrade for part of the day -- or until dispel'd.

Much like 3.0e's haste, it allowed PCs to expend a lot of resources very quickly (in this case, buffs before combat), for an unbalancing advantage. However, if the buffs were dispel'd, the party would be out of resources -- so just like 3.0e haste, it created a situation where they could be overpowered one round, then out of juice and underpowered the next. (It was a key ingredient in the daily "buff nova", if I can coin that term.)

Cheers, -- N

Okay, correct me if I'm wrong, but Rend is (for 3.0 context now) an Extraordinary ability..like Regeneration.

The spell description of the Polymorph spells states: "The subject does not gain the supernatural abilities (such as breath weapons and gaze attacks) or the extraordinary abilities of the new creature."
Further up, it also excludes the spell-like abilities of the new form, so no SFX at all for polymorphed people.

So (in 3.0) no Rend for polymorphed trolls, as far as I read it.

As for the rest...I agree to it all, but isn't that rather a problem of players using it once, getting the "dispel" hammer, and NOT learning from that to not spend all resources before a fight? I mean...call me cruel, but this sounds like it's a problem that should incite players to vary their approach to battle, and not something that incites game designers to "nerf" spells or other effects?

Or am I in a small, tiny, insignificant minority with that opinion? Just asking?

And again, don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to call your problems with it imaginary, or anything...problems are problems. I'm just offering my opinion on how I'd have approached them in order to illustrate why I have certain opinions on how certain game elements were changed in the course of 3.X. Hope that's acceptable.

 

[The Little Raven]

It is more than enough of a deception for me to feel that WotC was feeding up books.....3.5 Rules Compendium!......that it had no intention of continuing to support, while knowing that it had no intention of continuing to support them.

So, Wizards should not publish material it's had in the pipeline because their new edition is a year (or more, since development began in 2005) away?

Someone earlier said it's a good thing you don't do their marketing... and I think it's a good thing you don't handle any kind of project scheduling or development, since this attitude would damage the company financially.

Thank you. This whole thing cheeses me off to no end, in a way that the initially announced year's notice, no deception, and a petering off of soon-to-be-obsolete books would not have.

Yes, because you reading into non-WotC employee's unconfirmed statements is deception.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Someone earlier said it's a good thing you don't do their marketing... and I think it's a good thing you don't handle any kind of project scheduling or development, since this attitude would damage the company financially.

Nope, that was said about me...and you know, because you come up with the same silly quip: it's ALWAYS better for a company that its customers don't do the marketing, development, or anything else connected to it except the BUYING! So, what's new?

 

[Raven Crowking]

Someone earlier said it's a good thing you don't do their marketing...

Not to me. You are conflating me with another poster.

RC

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Not to me. You are conflating me with another poster.

RC

Yeah, that would make us, what, Raven Raveneye? Well, could be worse...but I'd hate to be spread out over two continents.

 

[Nifft]

Okay, correct me if I'm wrong, but Rend is (for 3.0 context now) an Extraordinary ability..like Regeneration...So (in 3.0) no Rend for polymorphed trolls, as far as I read it.

Seems you're right, so Rend must not have been what caused the problems in my game.

I guess it was just the natural armor, the speed boost, being Large (with reach), and the Strength and Constitution boosts, for 1 hour/level, with a single spell.

As for the rest...I agree to it all, but isn't that rather a problem of players using it once, getting the "dispel" hammer, and NOT learning from that to not spend all resources before a fight?

No. The spell polymorph other was too strong.

The value provided by buffing up with hour/level spells was too good. 3.0e haste was too good.

After using 3.5e for a while, my players were surprised at how many fights they could handle before needing to rest.

Cheers, -- N

 

[WayneLigon]

It is pretty hard to demonstrate objectively that a new edition of an RPG is automatically "better" than its predecessor, in spite of all the "progress is good; evolution is inevitable" rhetoric.

I think you can objectively demonstrate that a game gets better when it fixes things that the majority of it's players find tiresome and unweildy. At least hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of gamers moved to 3E because it dealt with many long-lasting problems in D&D while a few hundred stuck with the previous editions. I think that's as objective a demonstration of 'better' and 'evolution' as you're going to get.

But honestly, the whole "change is good; progress is inevitable" stuff gets tiresome.

Not anywhere nearly as tiresome as 'D&D should always remain the same and never change, except perhaps for going back to 1E' that I hear from some people.

And for a game that until recently had been almost completely static for 20 years beforehand, any change, even bad change, would have been good. At least something would be different.