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With Respect to the Door and Expectations....The REAL Reason 5e Can't Unite the Base
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<blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5994770" data-attributes="member: 54877"><p>That will depend, of course, on what you want to do with the system. Like I've said before, I can solve the <strong>most</strong> balance objections I have to 3E/3.5 by simply excluding all full casters (or making them multiclass every third level, which amounts to turning them into bards), and then stopping play at around 15th level. That part works great for me. It doesn't work so hot for my players, who want to play full casters on up to about level 20. With a different group, I'm sure the above would help. That's pretty radical, but I'm not really touching the embedded part of the system. Since my players don't want to play that game, it becomes academic.</p><p> </p><p>OTOH, I have a really fundamental dislike of the 3E/3.5 skill system that simply cannot be tweaked into acceptance for me or the players. I only tolerate the 4E simplification of it because it is so simple that I can just accept that it is just a patina of skills. Next is even further down this road. So for me, this is a case of less is more, since the "more" that WotC keeps coming up with is something universally disliked at our table thus far. So the d20 manifestation of skills is something that is so embedded for us, that the fallacy could be fairly invoked, if someone suggested we tweak the system to be more our taste. </p><p> </p><p>Another group, that perhaps wants these 21 skills instead of that 17 or that other list of 30+, or merely wants no professions, or wants slightly lower skill numbers at higher levels--for them it's more a practical concern. It's a hassle to make those kinds of changes to the system, because the skills are replicated so much, but not conceptually difficult if that is what you really want to do. </p><p> </p><p>I think we will find, if we examine closely, that when someone has a truly warranted objection to a system, that it is nearly always comprised of multiple elements, some practical, some for more embedded difficulty reasons. That is, if someone says they can't make a fighter in 4E without using these metagaming powers, they are objectively wrong. OTOH, if someone says that as an expression of a real dislike of 4E after having played it somewhat, it's also probably true that they have other, more serious disagreements with something else in 4E, not so easily disposed of. We can hardly cite, however, it as a fallacy that their stated objection is easily handled by a few considered exclusions. </p><p> </p><p>Not that any of this is easy to communicate. I can state clearly my objection to 3E skills that it is impossible to tweak them to do what I want, practically difficult to rip them out to replace them with something I like better, and yet they are heavy enough that I can't simply ignore them. Which is entirely accurate, but gives you practically nothing to go on to evaluate my accuracy. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite8" alt=":D" title="Big grin :D" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":D" /> To fully explain why this is so would take many posts, by me and others interacting, and would probably interest about two people on this whole forum. And when we got to the end, if you wanted to be nice and managed to read the whole thing, you might say something like, "Well darn, that explains why you don't like it. But I like that stuff!"</p><p> </p><p>All kinds of complaints, on various versions of D&D, are voiced by those who haven't discovered that they are in an analogous position. But it's the journey, not the destination, that matters. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite8" alt=":D" title="Big grin :D" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":D" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Crazy Jerome, post: 5994770, member: 54877"] That will depend, of course, on what you want to do with the system. Like I've said before, I can solve the [B]most[/B] balance objections I have to 3E/3.5 by simply excluding all full casters (or making them multiclass every third level, which amounts to turning them into bards), and then stopping play at around 15th level. That part works great for me. It doesn't work so hot for my players, who want to play full casters on up to about level 20. With a different group, I'm sure the above would help. That's pretty radical, but I'm not really touching the embedded part of the system. Since my players don't want to play that game, it becomes academic. OTOH, I have a really fundamental dislike of the 3E/3.5 skill system that simply cannot be tweaked into acceptance for me or the players. I only tolerate the 4E simplification of it because it is so simple that I can just accept that it is just a patina of skills. Next is even further down this road. So for me, this is a case of less is more, since the "more" that WotC keeps coming up with is something universally disliked at our table thus far. So the d20 manifestation of skills is something that is so embedded for us, that the fallacy could be fairly invoked, if someone suggested we tweak the system to be more our taste. Another group, that perhaps wants these 21 skills instead of that 17 or that other list of 30+, or merely wants no professions, or wants slightly lower skill numbers at higher levels--for them it's more a practical concern. It's a hassle to make those kinds of changes to the system, because the skills are replicated so much, but not conceptually difficult if that is what you really want to do. I think we will find, if we examine closely, that when someone has a truly warranted objection to a system, that it is nearly always comprised of multiple elements, some practical, some for more embedded difficulty reasons. That is, if someone says they can't make a fighter in 4E without using these metagaming powers, they are objectively wrong. OTOH, if someone says that as an expression of a real dislike of 4E after having played it somewhat, it's also probably true that they have other, more serious disagreements with something else in 4E, not so easily disposed of. We can hardly cite, however, it as a fallacy that their stated objection is easily handled by a few considered exclusions. Not that any of this is easy to communicate. I can state clearly my objection to 3E skills that it is impossible to tweak them to do what I want, practically difficult to rip them out to replace them with something I like better, and yet they are heavy enough that I can't simply ignore them. Which is entirely accurate, but gives you practically nothing to go on to evaluate my accuracy. :D To fully explain why this is so would take many posts, by me and others interacting, and would probably interest about two people on this whole forum. And when we got to the end, if you wanted to be nice and managed to read the whole thing, you might say something like, "Well darn, that explains why you don't like it. But I like that stuff!" All kinds of complaints, on various versions of D&D, are voiced by those who haven't discovered that they are in an analogous position. But it's the journey, not the destination, that matters. :D [/QUOTE]
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