Why doesn't 3.5 make SENSE?

[Noumenon]

I don't think the variety of sourcebooks is what makes Shapechange unusually strong -- according to this post,

shapechange: pit fiend does give the caster the following, assuming a 32-point "standard" sorcerer build (Str 10, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 12, Cha 16 [20]):

+13 Dex, +13 Con
+28 (!) AC
+108 hp
Speed 40 ft, fly 60 ft (avg)
Reach
fear aura (DC [10 +0 +10 (modified Cha 30) =] 20)
DR 15/good and silver
Darkvision
Immunity to fire and poison
Acid and cold resistance 10
regeneration 5
see in darkness
SR 32
telepathy 100 ft.

Those are the really relevant benefits. The +27 Str, natural attacks, disease, improved grab, and poison are actually not that important; hit points or not, this is still a human with BAB +9 and no relevant combat feats, so engaging in melee combat is just not going to be worth it for him.

Compare that to iron body or (it seems to me) basic common sense about what's a fair deal for one spell, and you don't have to look any farther.

I can understand being offended by a game design (I won't play a Savage Worlds because, due to exploding, d4s are better than d6s at some of the most common difficulty numbers), but I can't imagine becoming offended by a system because you dislike certain spells.

It's a lot more difficult to tease out what about a system is logically bad design than it is to start reading a spell and then realize "Holy crap, this just breaks the sense of the whole rest of the game!" That's what gets me mad, is the nasty surprises, like when you see a gynosphinx and say "oh, it can make you insane" and then you read the spell and realize it can afflict level 8 characters with permanent insanity only a level 13 character could ever get rid of. Like when you read fascinate and only then realize hypnotism might as well not be castable in combat. Like when you see the huge chain of feats Whirlwind Attack costs and then compare it to Fireball.

I would expect that CR 8 creatures would inflict conditions level 8 characters can deal with, that rainbow pattern type spells would actually work in combat like Color Spray does, that a system based on tiny +1 and +2 bonuses like favored enemy status wouldn't suddenly give out damage in big lumps of 35 * multiple targets, and after a while I get tired of boggling and shrugging and I get mad. You feel like after reading the books and playing the game you know how the designers think, and then they throw it out with no warning.

Edit: so it's not that I want them to be balanced, it's that I want them to be predictable. When I see a Magic card that says "Discard a card: 4 damage to target player", I can tell that means you can only discard one, just based on the way the game is balanced. In D&D, you never know.

 

[Windjammer]

I think this is right.

See my sig.
In 3E, the medusa is more about modeling the concept, then getting as close to balanced as possible with that idea constraint.

This is the long and short of it, yes. Here's an interview transcript featuring Andy Collins talking about the difference between 3E and 4E.

Question: So you want to bring back a lot of iconic elements – but what about team work?

Andy Collins: […Well, what changed is] how we approached class design. In a lot of editions of the game, classes compared to new classes were designed by [first] imagining what could exist in the D&D world, and now I assign the mechanics that make that feel realistic and then I’m done. Well the problem with that is, that you get an interesting simulation of a D&D world but not necessarily a compelling game play experience. A lot of the classes designed in the last 30 years are not interesting, are not compelling either in a fight or maybe out of a fight, but just pale compared to other characters on the table top. Who really wants to play a monk when you can play a rogue or a fighter, who can do all these things - ok, the monk gets to jump and run around a lot but what does he really get to contribute at the table that other characters don’t do better than him. The wizard can fly – so why do you need someone who jumps well?

So whenever we were approaching a new class we had to home in on what makes this guy special and unique within in the game - not just in the world of D&D but, since we’re playing a game, why is this game piece different than another game piece and why do I want to play it instead another game piece. It's got to have a hook (or multiple hooks, preferably) for every class because it’s got to be compelling for people to play it. Not just because it’s got a story – that’s important – but good, compelling mechanics that fit into the team work aspect of gaming.

Watch this quote - premise and conclusion. So a monk is basically a guy who can jump. Ooookay.

But here's the problem. Even if you agree with the premise, a problem remains. By fixing each and every of these mechanical things with a low focus on it individually, and cramming it full with a ton of all 'megacool' options it can do, it doesn't mean that the end result will deliver an overall satisfactory experience when it comes to playing that class. Sometimes less is more, and sometimes the more doesn't mesh or make a whole lot of sense.

Instead of explaning myself here, I recommend you to watch 1 minute and 30 seconds of this Youtube clip. I play both 4E and older editions, and that's the best explanation of the divergence in underlying design ethos I've ever heard (though it is by analogy to another medium, the point translates to the entertainment industry of the past decade, and certainly to the edition overhaul in D&D).

CAREFUL: contains adult language. Click at own discretion. Thank you.

YouTube - Star Wars: The Phantom Menace Review (Part 2 of 7)

 

[Crothian]

I'm still not sure I get your point. You are compairing 9th level spells with 8th levels spells, spells to feats, and seem to be all over the place.

Are some choices in the game better then others? Yes.
Are there some spells and abilities that got printed that someone did not look to closely at or maybe it just slipped by them? Yes.
Is there anything in the game a good DM and reasonable players cannot handle? No.

 

[Noumenon]

I'm wondering at the moment whether there is any reason for this thread to continue, because it starts with what can only be described as a rant.

I am sorry about that, because if I'd slept on the post I could've made a better discussion -- I have lots of times, with threads like "I wanna get back on the railroad." I won't indulge myself again.

Considering that the 9th level spell 'Shapechange' appeared back in supplement 1, Greyhawk for OD&D, I'm not sure what your grounds for having an issue is here.

I bet it appears way different to someone saying "Oh, here's the 3.5 take on shapechange" than to someone like me saying "OK, I'm gonna learn the system from ground zero, spell by spell. Wait, what is that doing in there?!?"

This really isn't a 3.5 issue (you'll notice no comparisons to 4E), it's just that I only know two versions of D&D, 4E and 3.5, and I was posting about the earlier one.

That Andy Collins quote kind of sounds like the designers actually did think the same way I do but the system had more power than they did!

This is what I was going to suggest.

Just use the Pathfinder version.

That's potentially a very helpful suggestion, because they could have houseruled every little spell or monster till it made sense, and I never thought of it. I think that spell version would cover everything my friend wants to do with it (he mentioned a fire elemental and a Clydesdale, you could do that with much lower level spells!)

The Pathfinder version seems to "make sense", in that I can imagine sitting down at the table and casting the spell without doing calculations for 15 minutes and throwing the whole combat math into chaos as I become unhittable. I kind of miss the idea of turning into a pit fiend, but I can't see any way of making it work in a game.

 

[Noumenon]

I'm still not sure I get your point. You are compairing 9th level spells with 8th levels spells, spells to feats, and seem to be all over the place.

And realizing how all over the place I am is what helps me confront my irrationality. Like I talk about how Magic cards are predictable, but if I compared the worst spells and the best creatures it would be just as lopsided as the comparisons I'm making, but I wouldn't get mad. Trying to figure out why. Is it that I don't feel free to accept or reject spells the way I'd ignore a card I didn't like, because they all fit into a world? Is it that I invest so much more in learning how each subsystem works, I'm disappointed when it doesn't? (If so maybe the answer is the same as to my DMing troubles... stop focusing on the details.) Maybe it's some kind of religious purity thing. Ideally I will learn to handle my reactions and not get so passionate by this stuff.

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

High level spells in D&D

Here's something to consider:

1st edition D&D had 9 levels of spells, but due to the exponential XP system it was very unlikely that PCs ever got to cast the 8th and 9th level spells. I don't think I ever saw Shapechange cast in 1E D&D; the highest level character I ever had as a kid was level 14 (and we were insanely munchkin).

Then 3E came out, and Monte/Skip/Johnathan made two decisions that caused this problem.

1) they placed a high premium on continuity with older editions. Shapechange did what it did because it always had.

2) they changed the XP chart so that a typical once a week campaign got to level 20 in a year or two.

Now, the problem was, a lot of those level 8 and 9 spells had NEVER been balanced -- even when Gary wrote them. But their problems weren't seen in play.

Pathfinder tries to clean up most of these issues, while simultaneoulsy attempting to remain as compatible as possible with earlier versions of D&D.
But it's an iterative process, so there are still many options in Pathfinder that are better than other options.

The 4E designers chose to remake the game from the ground up, putting play balance above all else, and sacrificing the parts of D&D that they couldn't make fit. Some people like this approach; others find that the elements removed from the game were essential ones.

Personally, I'm glad that we have both systems. They are different enough in substance that they address different core audiences. If you're frustrated with 3.5, I suggest you buy both Pathfinder and 4E and consider migrating to one of them.

Ken

 

[Celtavian]

re

Pathfinder fixed alot of the problems with the polymorph spells. It's a more polished version of the 3.5 rules.

 

[S'mon]

BTW I ran very high level 1e, we never had any trouble with Shapechange. The most powerful non-unique monsters in 1e pretty much topped out with the huge ancient gold dragon; I guess Titans were nifty. By the time PCs were 18th level though the only real threats came from uniques - Tarrasque, Tiamat (houseruled to 128 hp), Arch-Devils & Demon Princes, and especially high level enemy NPCs, including Liches. Since you couldn't shapechange into uniques, there was never really any problem.

The problem with 3e is that it sought to create balance by providing viable foes for very high level PCs, AND kept in the old Shapechange as written. They actually made it much worse by greatly powering up Polymorph (Self), too, a mere 4th level spell.

Sometimes I think this was all part of Tweet's cunning plan to turn 3e into Ars Magica, with Fighter PCs as Grogs.

 

[Harlekin]

Sometimes I think this was all part of Tweet's cunning plan to turn 3e into Ars Magica, with Fighter PCs as Grogs.

Lol, nice.

 

[Celtavian]

Here's something to consider:

1st edition D&D had 9 levels of spells, but due to the exponential XP system it was very unlikely that PCs ever got to cast the 8th and 9th level spells. I don't think I ever saw Shapechange cast in 1E D&D; the highest level character I ever had as a kid was level 14 (and we were insanely munchkin).

Then 3E came out, and Monte/Skip/Johnathan made two decisions that caused this problem.

1) they placed a high premium on continuity with older editions. Shapechange did what it did because it always had.

2) they changed the XP chart so that a typical once a week campaign got to level 20 in a year or two.

Now, the problem was, a lot of those level 8 and 9 spells had NEVER been balanced -- even when Gary wrote them. But their problems weren't seen in play.

Pathfinder tries to clean up most of these issues, while simultaneoulsy attempting to remain as compatible as possible with earlier versions of D&D.
But it's an iterative process, so there are still many options in Pathfinder that are better than other options.

The 4E designers chose to remake the game from the ground up, putting play balance above all else, and sacrificing the parts of D&D that they couldn't make fit. Some people like this approach; others find that the elements removed from the game were essential ones.

Personally, I'm glad that we have both systems. They are different enough in substance that they address different core audiences. If you're frustrated with 3.5, I suggest you buy both Pathfinder and 4E and consider migrating to one of them.

Ken

Pathfinder still has some serious balance issues at high level. The Fighter is unfreaking real now, especially a dedicated fighter archer. We had to tone down crits in our campaign because of the archer. I don't quite understand what the Pathfinder design team was thinking by giving the archer so much including the equivalent of Power Attack.

Paladin is pretty sick at high levels too. Immune to every type of relevant crowd control, very effective DR, and smite evil is sickeningly tough now.

I guess there were different ways to render the wizard and sorcerer balanced against the melee classes. As far as damage dealing goes, the fighter, paladin, and barbarian are probably the strongest damage dealers now. Even the ranger against his favored enemy is pretty sick, especially an archer ranger.

I hope Pathfinder powers up some of the monsters. They don't stand much of a chance against higher level character parties.