What Core Class was actually fun to play

[Majoru Oakheart]

Possible, especially since they don't see the big picture - aside from the +2 to damage, the +2 to attack might have been responsible for even 100 % of the damage!

(On average, it would have been ~11 % of the barbarians base damage. Which is nice, but on the other hand - a second Barbarian would grant 100 % bonus to the damage. With more allies using melee or ranged attacks the Bards contribution to the parties damage becomes closer to that of another primary fighter ...)

I've posted this in other threads as well, but I've found that that actual time that the bonus to hit comes in handy is close to 5-10% of the time. 90% of the time the attack would have missed with or without the bonus or would have hit with or without the bonus.

The actual number of party members that benefited from the bonus was generally 3(the 2 fighters and the rogue, the wizard was casting spells that didn't get the bonus, the cleric was healing people and I was casting spells most rounds). The rogue was missing regularly so I didn't add anything to him most times. The fighters I often added 2 to each, without the attack bonus mattering. So I effectively did 4 damage per round. And about once every 5-10 rounds I do 30 more when the attack bonus mattered.

The wizard would regularly do 20 damage to multiple enemies due to fireballs and the like. Even the cleric could calculate his damage per round as higher simply based on the fact that the fighter's damage during 50% of the rounds of the combat could be added to his total because he'd be unconscious without healing.

I've always thought that if you were going to be a dedicated buffing class that your buffs needed to be extremely powerful. I do not believe that having 10% of the effectiveness of another party member is considered to valuable. Not by me nor the people I play with.

 

[Nifft]

One of my favorite support Bard builds -- which I really have to try out some day -- is a human Barbarian 1 / Bard 7+ (or Warblade 1 / Bard 7+) who takes mostly Archery feats.

His feats would look something like this:

"Hi, I'm a Ranger" (Barbarian 1 / Savage Bard 5+)
1/ Barbarian 1 -- Track, Point Blank Shot
3/ Brb 1 / S.Bard 2 -- Rapid Shot
6/ Brb 1 / S.Bard 5 -- Precise Shot
... later: Quickdraw, Power Attack, Cleave, Extra Rage. Keep a Greatsword handy, wear armor spikes, and surprise anyone who closes into melee expecting you to be squishy. Essential spells: haste. Since your Bard Song is adding damage on all your attacks, it behooves you to make a lot of attacks.


The more honest ("not a Ranger") build would look pretty much the same, but would skip Track and use a regular Bard instead of the Savage variant.

Cheers, -- N

 

[pawsplay]

I had fun playing:

- A 3.0 bard armed with lance and padded armor, who served as the squire to the party paladin
- A 3.0 wizard proficient with the battle-axe.
- A 3.5 halfling rogue
- A 3.5 human fighter

 

[Will]

Well, there's one really really really good bard trick. Haste.

Haste can practically double every meleers damage. That really really doesn't suck.

Add in UMD to use lots of magic, various perception skills like a rogue, casting that combines healing and arcane, ability to wear chain shirts (like having mage armor on all the time, really), cool spells like Glitterdust (most underrated spell!), and then some bardic music on top.

Ask that barbarian next time 'Oh, and where do you think your second full bonus attack came from, sparky? Or the archer's second full bonus attack? Or that other archer's second attack? Or... that's right, bitch. Oh, and how do you think you charged 140 feet?'

Bards don't get a lot of respect, but played right they are VERY useful.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

<snip>

Statistically, it's approximately 10 % more damage (if the bonus is +2), even if per each individual attack, it didn't matter...

Well, there's one really really really good bard trick. Haste.

Haste can practically double every meleers damage. That really really doesn't suck.

Add in UMD to use lots of magic, various perception skills like a rogue, casting that combines healing and arcane, ability to wear chain shirts (like having mage armor on all the time, really), cool spells like Glitterdust (most underrated spell!), and then some bardic music on top.

Well, most of the spells are available to other character classes too - some even earlier! Haste is a typical Sorceror or Wizard spell in the campaigns I played - but naturally, it's also a typical Bard spell.

 

[Darth Cyric]

A Swift Hunter Ranger/Scout was pretty fun. In fact, I'm hoping the 4e Ranger will be the Swift Hunter in one neat little package, and then given some serious steroids. Archery maneuvers that resemble the likes of Arrow Mind, Hunter's Mercy and Arrow Storm, some trick shots, and Diamond Mind-esque maneuvers, for starters, would really sweeten the deal.

 

[Leugren]

1: The fact that a class has unfun aspects does not mean that the class itself is totally unfun. For example, a campaign heavily focusing on undead has significant "unfun" aspects for a sneak attacking rogue who hasn't got special noncore items available to let him sneak attack the undead. This doesn't make the rogue 100% unfun.

There are a lot of ways that the fun aspects of a class can be retained, while the crappy aspects removed or alleviated.

2: The fact that you interpret comments and criticism of the core classes as people claiming that their classes shouldn't have drawbacks says more about you than it does about the people making complaints, or about the content of their complaints. The dispute is, and has always been, about the nature of the drawbacks each class should face.

3: The "make everyone good at something, but not necessarily combat" style is one possible design style. I happen to think its a terrible, terrible, horrible awful design style.

There's two ways to diversify characters. The first is to make everyone good at a different type of scenario. You could have the melee specialist, the ranged specialist, the diplomat, and the skillful character. The problem is that you end up in this situation- if you're in a diplomatic situation, three characters are sitting on their hands. If you're in a skill situation, three characters are sitting on their hands. If you're in a melee situation, a couple characters might as well be sitting on their hands. Take this to extremes, and you get Shadowrun.

The other option is to give everyone something they can do in each type of situation, but make the something each person can do different from the next person. Each character has a combat role, a skill role, and a social role. Now everyone can be involved in every type of encounter.

I think that's a massive, massive improvement over the "Negotiations? I'll get the pizza while you handle it" situation. I also think its the approach that 4e is taking. I'm quite excited by this.

4: Nothing. I played D&D for years while hating it with the fires of a thousand suns. I would have quit, but my DM had chained me to my chair.

Seriously, a mature person is capable of enjoying 3e, recognizing its flaws, and hoping that they're improved upon in 4e.

This "you're either with us or against us" attitude is starting to really get to me. I'm a fan of what I'm seeing in 4e. I was, and am, a fan of 3e. I also was, and am, a fan of BECM. You don't have to pick just one.

Cadfan has articulated my own thoughts perfectly, thereby saving me the trouble of a lengthy post. Thanks, Cadfan!

 

[small pumpkin man]

But...to a number of us, there is more to D&D than just "fight, fight, fight, LOOT." I'm not jumping to conclusions and assuming that 4E will be such a 2-dimensional game...but...

...Where is the rest of the game? Why not let hints of non-combat stuff out to the blogs and message boards? Are the developers being tight-lipped for some uber-secret reason, or....*gasp*....is there nothing to be secretive about?

It's there, I don't know why you haven't seen it, more dynamic social rules, a new skill system designed with the same "everyone can participate" ethos, an XP system with concrete rules for goal attainment rewards as opposed to just killing monsters, siloing of abilities so that all classes and all characters will have out of combat abilities, not to mention that their including PoL to help new GM's create their very own homebrew world, it's all been shown.

Considering the rules of the game have always been mostly about combat, with out of combat and social rules essentially tacked on, I don't see how you can argue that 4e will be more hack and slash orientated.



In regards to the OP I'd like to say that as a relatively experienced player, no, I don't really see those as problems, because I'm perfectly capable of working around the system when creating characters so that they don't have those problems, however when starting out, yes, I had problems with some of those things, and I have seen other less experienced players have problems where they've created a character, gotten ready to go, and then gone, "I don't get to be a Hero today? I have to wait? oh, okay...", I think this is a serious roadblock in the designers stated goal of making the game easier to get into.

I'd also like to point out that many of these problems become more obvious, or at least more important to me when I started GMing, and was required, again to "work against the system" when creating encounters, to make sure there aren't too many undead for example, because even though the rogue player's actually shown himself to be quite capable of affecting the outcome of combat even without sneak attack, it still feels like I'm picking on him when I say "your major combat power is useless against this guy", not to mention that the characters are starting to get get to mid levels, and my "explore, talk, puzzle, one combat" style is starting favor the Wizard too much, which I wouldn't have to deal with in 4e or SW SE.

 

[small pumpkin man]

Grapple: It's best used against enemies like Rogues and Spellcasters. Against Giants or Dragons - forget it. If you use it often enough, you begin to understand the rules well enough. The important part of grappling though is not to damage your foe, but to keep him unable to act. Your parties Rogue or Cleric will have the honor of killing the foe, probably. (Which makes it a less useful tactic if you lack other "melees" in your party)

Except many high level spellcasters will have abilities to deal with this, making its major target rogues, which don't come up that much, and when they do, tend to come in groups, I don't recomend grappling one rogue in a group of rogues. It also requires spending character resources to get decent at.

Sunder: If the enemy is using weapon,they aren't always that expensive. Think of it as using a scroll or potion - or if the weapon _was_ expensive, think of it as avoiding to pay for Raise Dead.

I've never played a character who used potions/scrolls as anything except to cover corner cases, certainly not for things that came up most combats, it's also just the principle of the thing, that's our lootb the fighter is breaking there, jerk , and it requires feats.

Bullrush: Best used in close quarters or near pits or keep your enemy away from your weaker friends. But the result often seems a bit too random (the d20 is still the bigger part of the roll)

Which is kinda specific, and doesn't really work on larger foes, which tend to come up a lot at higher levels.

Disarm: You really need a fighter for this route. But I think it can pay off often enough.

It's not bad, at low levels.

The mistake is to attempt to be good at only one of these options. Which makes it hard for any non-Fighter, and Fighters will have to sacrifice the "plain" but effective feats like Weapon Focus & co.

I'm not saying these are useless, (there's a character in our group who's got several, and he's doing pretty good so far) the but none of them are really good against high level spellcasters or large beasties, which make up a lot of the encounters at high levels (at least in the games I've played).

And sometimes (maybe too often in 3.x), the only thing you can do is use regular attack.
---

The problem is they're all a simulationist nail in a fantasy game, they're all based off real-world tactics, which make them really good vs other Fighter Types (what a warrior could reasonably expect to fight in RL), but sub-par against, say, Dragons the size of a house, or a flying invisible Wizard. The problem is that there are few "tricks" that are good against these creatures because simulationists get up in arms about it "being too unrealistic" for a Fighter to trip a Dragon, ignoring the fact that anybody who's taking one a Dragon that size with full plate & Zweihänder is going to be fairly "unrealistic" in the first place, or that Fighter types in a world where it's expected they're going to fight such things is going to develop tactics against them.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Statistically, it's approximately 10 % more damage (if the bonus is +2), even if per each individual attack, it didn't matter...

That's true. IF you weren't already hitting on a 2 or missing on a 19 even with(or without) the +2. In those corner cases it reduces the bonus to a couple of extra points of damage.

Either way, I'd need 10 party members to do 100% of the damage of one of my party members using this ability. And that's 10 party members who are attacking every round. Each round they don't attack, I lose damage. Also, if one of them makes a bad character then adding 10% of their damage probably isn't useful either.

Well, most of the spells are available to other character classes too - some even earlier! Haste is a typical Sorceror or Wizard spell in the campaigns I played - but naturally, it's also a typical Bard spell.

Yes, this is my point, too. Saying "They get haste and glitterdust so that makes them good" when wizards gets haste, glitterdust, teleport, fly, fireball, magic missile, and so much more is kind pointless. Same thing with UMD. Same thing with saying that if they buff themselves a lot, choose a lot of feats towards a specific goal they can do almost as much damage as a fighter.

It's like saying "See, this class isn't that bad, because if they choose very specific options they can have a small percentage of the power of one of the better classes." Sure, they might be able to equal a fighter in damage built the right way or equal the cleric in terms of buffing the party if built the right way. However, both of those classes have benefits beyond what the bard gets from equaling them.