what do you do when a +3 bloodclaw weapon is more powerful than a +4 artifact

[Piratecat]

And thanks, Mallus, for being completely unhelpful: you typify the sort of stuff that I knew would be coming in this thread, so you're getting it out of the way early. Maybe others will read your post, know that I've been "got" and just move on.

Bob - - guy, you don't get to be a jerk to people just because you started the thread and you're frustrated. Not everyone will agree with you. Please, turn down the hostility.

 

[Bumbles]

Post removed by Admin. Honestly, you think being condescending helps?

 

[OchreJelly]

To look at it from a "big picture" perspective, I think that a handful of broken items / abilities is a necessary evil of a game designed for constant updates. People often talk about things like "power creep" and broken abilities, without talking about completely expanded options, new classes, new fun items etc. that come from game expansions.

Basically, if you're ok with taking some bad with the rest of the good then I think you're in for a rewarding game experience. It's only a problem when a subsystem of the rules is so broken that it hurts the whole game. For example you as a GM could remove a broken item like Bloodclaw weapons with little impact on the game, but you couldn't fix grapple from an earlier edition without some serious work (houseruling) on your part (arguably, the "expertise feat" issue is 4E's biggest bugbear in this regard).

The alternative would be to design your game in a way that overbalances everything to the point where you see little difference between individual classes, options, or items to the point where the sameness becomes bland and boring. It can be a very tough balancing act between keeping things in line with the maths, and also having creative freedom to introduce new options.

I accept this necessary evil and so do my players. We often have frank discussions about things like imba items / abilities and as a group we agree what's best for the game, by usually agreeing to remove the offending thing. It's never a one-man decision, but it's worked pretty well for us. It's probably the best advice on the matter I could offer.

 

[fba827]

Folks, what do you do? What do you do when the game is getting more imbalanced but house rules are more discouraged than ever? What do you do when some items are so brokenly powerful that nothing else is really useful, and everyone in the party ends up looking the same - cookie-cutter carbon copies who all use the same BEST equipment and half of them use the same power? What do you do when a +3 bloodclaw weapon is more powerful than a +4 artifact?

What is left to do other than stop purchasing products with known defects.

No rpg system is perfect for me, and it sounds the same for you. That's when you look for one that you can enjoy the core mechanics and houserule the rest as much as needed/wanted.

In your specific example (bloodclaw vs. artifact) it sounds like in your game one or the other needs adjusting - either bloodclaw (limit it's effect or cap it's availability at a +3), or the artifact (make it stronger if you feel you really have to in your campaign). That's what houserules are for. Or else just let it go and say "so what if no one wants to use it. it's an artifact and there to serve a story related purpose and then it's going to move on."


As for players all picking the same "uber" weapons and equipment, we don't really have that problem; out of all the characters we've made in multiple campaigns, no one is a cookie-cutter (even partially) of another. So I shouldn't comment on that.



But, yes, as said, I can see your basic "meta-problem point" but I have that same issue with any rules system. There will always be some feat, item, rule, power that doesn't fit for you. If you thought every system was perfect without fault then i would question your objectivity if not sanity
So find a system with core rules you like and then be prepared to houserule it as needed/wanted when things come up that aren't working for your group.

 

[LightPhoenix]

The best thing to do is talk to the player, and explain your thoughts to him/her. My experience is that often times players feel the same way about overpowered stuff. For a completely anecdotal example, I told my DM I was considering the Scintillating Robe from AV for my Wizard (no OAs from area/ranged attacks). Thinking about it more though, I realized that it was a lot more fun to have to worry about positioning than not. It's what makes Thunderwave such a useful power.

 

[Bumbles]

Well, I can understand that PC didn't like my post, sorry about that, but I do stand by my suggestion that it might be better to try another forum, such as a blog where you might find more catharsis. You may find you're getting people here trying to fix your problem, while you don't want a fix yourself.

Apologies for the prior post though, hope this one is more acceptable.

 

[Nagol]

It sounds like you are forcing a few different beefs with the system into a single complaint. It may be easier to break the beefs out into their individual components to see if they can be solved independently.

As I read your post, I see the following complaints:

1. Some items are inherently better than others. In fact, the number of tier-1 items is close to one per category. This breeds a lot of overlap between player choices.
2. Character roles have very tight focuses on what constitutes a good job. This exacerbates the issue of having a tier-1 item.
3. Flexibility in action in the game is not as valuable as increased specialisation. A player who is trying to ‘keep up’ with the group and properly fulfil his role will voluntarily restrict his equipment to that which maximises his specialty.
4. The fact that the game you are playing is a living game (i.e. receiving updates) with a heavy flow of new material is beginning to overwhelm the DM/player capacity to properly absorb/vet the material for campaign use. This is particularly a problem since the content developers have shown a propensity for imbalanced items.
5. The auxiliary online tools offered do not offer sufficient capability to track campaign decision and house ruling. Keeping the tools useful means keeping the campaign options near the official rulings.

As for solutions, some are simpler to solve than others.

1. Beef up poor items or tone down items that appear overpowered in comparison is a workable solution if the set of items is reasonably static (i.e. the system is dead), but not particularly reasonable when the system is still receiving heavy updates. The auxiliary toolset offers additional problems with item changes. The best option appears to be to restrict items from use rather than adjusting the power sets.
2. This is a design constraint in the game. There isn’t anything the group can do other than find a game with a different design.
3. This is heavily linked with #2. It may be possible for the DM to provide alternative reasons to branch away for a combat specialty, but that is likely to be difficult.
4. Restrict the flow of new material into the campaign. Add a 2-3 month dealy between publication to availability to allow errata, problematic use, and other problems to surface.
5. Stop using the tools? I thought the game was set up to be simpler and easier to prepare for play. If that is the case, auxiliary tools are like gilding the lily. (I don’t play 4e, but that was my impression).

 

[Barastrondo]

Thanks, Barastrondo, for being helpful.

Sure thing!

Barastrondo's point about solving problems as you come to them is a great one, and that's what I used to think, too. But part of the problem is that these are coming too fast and too furious; I can't keep up with everything that's imbalanced and it's frankly insulting to me that the product would have so many issues and have so many holes.

The number of holes and issues is pretty inevitable the number of new mechanical things that are introduced with each supplement. This is definitely going to be trouble with just about any ruleset that has a strong "new mechanical item/variation/trick per page" density. This will be a problem with 4e, which is very rules-dense, but it was also with 3e, and with plenty of other games with heavy rule density. (I'm pretty sure the infamous Pun-Pun is founded on something slipping through in a supplement.)

I tend to run 4e sort of like I ran 2e, in a way; players start out stronger than recommended (I'm awfully generous with the point buy), so I have an excuse to drop fewer magic items along the way, including fewer stuff with qualities. "Masterwork" in the sense of "it's a +1 item due to quality, but it isn't technically enchanted" is a staple. Though it's not entirely recommended, I prefer telling my players up front that they can make wish lists, but I won't necessarily place items with the exact qualities they want. We're not a very "build"-focused group. That may be part of my blessings.

And not all of them fit into the Character Builder which has become an indispensable tool for playing the online-based game that 4.0 has become.

That's probably another difference. I have one player who uses the builder, and... that's it. (We're a Mac household, so DDI has less to offer overall unless we really want to muck around with BootCamp and Windows and stuff like that.)

Honestly, I don't know that there is a solution to this problem. I'm pretty sure that the only kind of solution that exists is well outside of my meager realm of control - so maybe, Piratecat, I am just bitching. There you go. But honestly, at this point I don't even think I care about solving the problem anymore; I think I'd settle for just one other person who can understand what I am saying and agrees with me.

Sure. It stinks to have problems with a game system, but I'm glad you're able to analyze them and assess them, and hopefully this thread helps with that as well with as the opportunity to vent.

 

[Obryn]

I started having a very similar problem in 3e with spells. Simply put, the more spells there were, the more broken ones there were. In some cases, it was quite simply insane.

I just did what I always do - ban the things I think are problems.

In any expanding game with increasing numbers of choices, the potential for abusive individual items and the potential for abusive combinations will increase exponentially. I think it's clear that Bloodclaw items are one of these.

I guess I don't expect any game I run to be perfect. There are bound to be bugs and flaws. There are also likely ways to work with them. The only question is whether or not you and your group care enough to work around a game's flaws.

-O

 

[evilbob]

Piratecat: Sorry to make you use the red text.

Mallus: I apologize for being a jerk earlier when I was frustrated.



Nagol: Wow - thank you. It is incredibly refreshing to see someone paraphrase my messy jumble into something so usefully coherent. Yes, those are all defining problems in 4.0.

Thinking about it more, I think part of the issue - which I think someone already touched on - is that the production schedule of WotC is set up to pretty much guarantee a very high number of errors. Cranking out one book per month is a whole lot of work, and with so much time focused on creative production how could you possibly have enough time for reflection? I think this is reflected in the lack of refinement that we've seen, and why it takes so long for them to carve out fixes to certain problems (example: skill challenges).


Ultimately I do wonder, for those of you who have suggested it, if finding a different product would either a) solve this problem or b) delay this problem. Maybe a secondary question is: if WotC isn't big enough to handle this issue, who is - or is it rather that WotC is too big and that's what's causing the issue?