WotC_PeterS talks about his "aggresive playtest" (with Le Rouse, SKR, & Noonan)

[Wolfspider]

Not to put words in Amphimir Míriel's mouth, but I believe his point is that with a huge chunk of material, a big fat slab of Fluff Text and Crunch text, the majority of the discussion zeroed in and revolved around a single line of text! That's nitpicking.

I like to look at this reaction in a bit more positive light. Instead of nitpicking, I like to think that is shows that people care enough about the game to criticize it constructively so that the final product is as good as it can be.

After all, if people zeroed in on only a tiny portion of the article, that implies that the rest of it was pretty good.

Or would you rather that people have a lot of complaints about the elf preview?

 

[Rechan]

I like to look at this reaction in a bit more positive light. Instead of nitpicking, I like to think that is shows that people care enough about the game to criticize it constructively so that the final product is as good as it can be.

Assuming the designers listen to the forums. I mean, if the designers KEEP bringing things to the forums, and they complain regardless, then they'll stop editing because the forums complain.

What happens if, for instance, every race provides an Aura power? In one of the playtests, we saw the Eladrin wizard borrow the half-elf's diplomacy bonus to try diplomacy on a copper dragon. So it's possible that the Half-elf's presence provides a Diplomacy bonus like the Elf provides an Aura.

So, complaining here might be futile, since it's fairly ingrained.

After all, if people zeroed in on only a tiny portion of the article, that implies that the rest of it was pretty good.

Which is pretty bad, that the only thing worth commenting about is the single flaw, as opposed to the whole big chunk.

Reminds me of a joke. The opptomist, wanting to find something his pessimist friend couldn't complain about, finally found something: a dog that could walk on water. He bought the dog, trained it to hunt with him.

Finally, he took the dog out hunting with his pessimist friend. The opptomist spotted a duck, BLAM. Duck falls into the water. The opptomist ushers the dog off, the dog walks across the water, picks up the duck, and brings it back. The opptomist turns to the pessimist and says, "Well, what do you think of that?"

The pessimist says, "That was pretty dumb, buying a dog that can't swim."

 

[Wolfspider]

Ok.

 

[JohnSnow]

Agreed. They never really worked out what they wanted polymorph to do, or how massively it can impact the game. What was the point in being an ogre and taking the associated level penalty, when a human fighter can get polymorphed into a fire giant and be far better off, with no level adjustment at all?

I'm just amazed that it never got properly fixed.

Actually, it did. The fix in PHB II was perfect, even if it made some people extraordinarily unhappy.

I imagine that PHB II got its polymorph "fix" by converting a system that was developed for 4e. The problem is that in Third Edition, each transform is a separate spell that has to be memorized.

The proper fix for polymorph is to decide what forms are appropriate at what level and write a power that allows a caster to assume any of forms A thru G. That's the proper fix for summoning spells too. And you can allow the caster to assume any form that's on the list for lower level powers too.

I imagine that's one of the fungible qualities of 4e's magical powers. You can probably always choose the "lesser" effect if you want to. For example, if it was balanced for you to turn into a bear at level 5, it should still be balanced at level 8 (or 12, or whatever). Similarly, if you have an at-will fire blast, I'm sure you can use it to light your pipe.

With the magic system properly fixed, polymorph can probably be fixed as well.