WotC Blogs II

[Andor]

I'm a little disturbed that he didn't understand what is meant by power inflation. Or perhaps I just think of it differently than everybody else.

I view it from a simulationist perspective. How do the heros compare to A) regular people in their world and B) the physics of their world.

For example in OD&D or 1st edition a low level adventurer felt appropriately stronger than Joe Peasant. OTOH Joe Peasant would have gotten his ass kicked by a gerbil so it felt kind of off. The average human is not a helpless target before the wrath of a housecat, but you wouldn't know it from D&D.

OTOH if they made the commoner an even match for a housecat, and then pumped up the adventurer from there you might wind up in a situation where a low level fighter can fell mighty oaks with a single swipe of his dagger. Appropriate perhaps for Exalted, but out of place in D&D.

It's a balancing act, and I would see it as power inflation if a 4ed 2nd level fighter has the damage output to chew hiw way through a rockwall with his bare fists.

 

[Aloïsius]

Thanks to everyone who participated in discussion on hypothetical courses of action. I appreciate the input.

Races were fun to develop, fast and easy. Each race works best with two or three classes, thanks to a stat bonus or other feature, and none suck at any class; a couple tweaks here and there let us reinforce those connections without weakening the races' flexibilities. Only one race gave us any trouble and got a bit of a change in return. It's the sort of thing that would raise some eyebrows in the playing public - and also in the office, I'm told, so we'll see if it makes it to your eyes. I hope it does, because it makes everything about the race simpler and just as effective.

I wonder wich race it is.... Dwarf ? They had some trouble with it, and the size problem of dwarves make them a first suspect for this.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I wonder wich race it is.... Dwarf ? They had some trouble with it, and the size problem of dwarves make them a first suspect for this.

I though they had more problems with the Warforged?

 

[Glyfair]

Mike Mearls latest post starts with a very cryptic comment about a change they just made in the game, and follows with a bit on immersion in the game.

Today, the dev team made a change to the game that falls into the "Design something to do what it's supposed to do," rule of thumb. It's a bit of a jarring change, and I'm curious to see if it holds up as we move forward, but it's fundamentally the kind of change I love to make.

With one fell swoop, we cut out an entire layer of complexity from the game. Admittedly, we turned it into a localized layer of complexity for the players who specifically interact with the rules we modified, but if you don't touch this rule, you never even realize that it (and its complexity) is there.

PH development is interesting at this point, because we've officially reversed how we've been doing things. Until this point, between every round of playtest we worked like heck on the classes and then finished everything else. Now, we're working on everything but classes. Once all that stuff has been developed, we'll then circle around and make sure our classes work fine.

Anyway, that sense of immersion is the hardest thing to get right in a game, especially a tabletop one. In some ways, immersion asks for slightly inefficient mechanics. Absolute speed in mechanics is easy to attain (roll a die; if it's a six, you win. Otherwise, you lose. Voila, one of the fastest games ever designed), but mechanics that are just the right speed, that do just the right job of evoking whatever it is that the designer is after, those are incredibly difficult.

A good, slow mechanic is a short stop to admire the view. An ugly slow mechanic makes you wish you had moved along to greener pastures.

 

[Plane Sailing]

With one fell swoop, we cut out an entire layer of complexity from the game. Admittedly, we turned it into a localized layer of complexity for the players who specifically interact with the rules we modified, but if you don't touch this rule, you never even realize that it (and its complexity) is there.

I'm not sure how I feel about this - is he sorta talking about introducing special case mechanics for special cases... a direction that leads to madness (and the 3e undead turning rules. Or perhaps the grapple rules)

We've got no idea what he's actually talking about of course, but maybe the scale of change in the general case makes it worthwhile maintaining it in one special case.

Cheers

 

[Glyfair]

I'm not sure how I feel about this - is he sorta talking about introducing special case mechanics for special cases... a direction that leads to madness (and the 3e undead turning rules. Or perhaps the grapple rules)

It seems to be something that in 3.5 has a layer of complexity that only exists to support the "special cases." Having a specific rule for those special cases isn't too bad, if it is unified.

As it stands, I can't think of anything that obviously fits the bill. Maybe something in spell casting?

 

[Sammael]

Sunder rules and object hit points? (EDIT: along with hardness and such)

 

[DaveMage]

I wonder wich race it is.... Dwarf ? They had some trouble with it, and the size problem of dwarves make them a first suspect for this.

There are changes to elves that we've heard about so this could allude to those.

 

[Fobok]

There are changes to elves that we've heard about so this could allude to those.

Yeah, but we'd previously heard of those. This seems to have been something brand new.

 

[Glyfair]

Yeah, but we'd previously heard of those. This seems to have been something brand new.

The statement seems to imply that it's tied to the race either working well for 2-3 classes, or not sucking at any class. Given that, I'd predict the half-orc. Getting that race so that it doesn't suck with some classes will be difficult.