D&D General Weapons should break left and right

[MGibster]

I wonder how many people would play shooter games where you were forced to load your own magazines.

My thumb is sore just thinking about it!

 

[Not a Decepticon]

You say “if you can solve it without complexity, I’m listening.” But there is nothing to solve. There is nothing to fix. This is all intentional. It's intentional game design meant to be accessible to a broad market.

And then there is this issue, you can't solve it with complexity even if you wanted. Some people want tactical depth, some want cinematic power, some want a simple on-ramp. And than there are some others who want casters all the way down. So no matter what you do, there will be real people voicing real complaints about your path forward.

Draw Steel works because it isn’t trying to be D&D. Different target, different assumptions, different design goals. Colville is up front about that. He never was aiming at the broadest possible player base. He never cared if real people didn't like it. He even says in a recent video, directed at real people, play another system if Draw Steel isn't for you.

People point to these third parties, to independent publishers. They rave about their bravery, committing to their niche and embracing thematic rules and systems. Committing to things that WotC never would. Eviscerating the blandness that plagues D&D. But it all misses the intentionality of WotC's decisions. None of those other publishers are doing what WotC is. They can be complex, they can be deadly, they can appeal to small audiences. They can do these things because they aren't aiming at the same target.

Micah had a good thought here;



WotC left the complexity to third parties like Level up. This keeps them from having to commit, while letting them benefit from having the best of both worlds. It was the only way. The best path for WotC was to error on the side of simple, and let other publishers pick up the slack.

They get the benefits of a simpler game, while profiting off third parties adding complexity. WotC is doing an awful lot of winning in this set up.

I am well aware WotC designed Fighter to be simple on purpose. I believe it was a bad decision. I believe Fighter as a class suffers and cannot reach its full potential, all for the sake of filling role that is already being filled by Barbarian. We should have simple and complex martial classes coexist, but we should give up on trying to force a class whose whole deal is being the person who is most experienced with battlefield and strategy into the "simple" bracket. If anything, the issue is that we do not have enough complex martial classes because Barbarian, Fighter, Rogue and Monk are all really simple.

 

[Lanefan]

Exact same thing except that one can be tracked, predicted, and completely eliminated with proper planning versus the other is random and uncontrolled. So completely different.

Only similarity is that both mechanics are annoying and I'd rather not use either one

They're supposed to be annoying, in that both mechanics (weapon breakage and ammo tracking) place limits on what a character can do and-or how long it can keep doing it.

Magic quivers that never run out of arrows were devloped for a reason. If ammo tracking is that onerous, go on a quest and find one or commission an artificer to make you one.

 

[Lanefan]

I would suggest that discussion of 2nd edition also belongs on the Older Versions forum. Clearly, people's experiences varied, as did their interpretation of the rules.

This is a D&D-General thread; thus implying all editions are equally fair game for discussion.

 

[Lanefan]

Doesn't it make sense for ranged combat to be superior most of the time? That's pretty much how it works in real life.

Perhaps it does, but it would IMO make for much duller game-play. I suspect the original designers in the 1970s thought the same way, as D&D missile weapons have never been as effective as they probably should be. I'm fine with it.