|
Kai Tave posted:Contrariness for contrariness' sake isn't exactly the height of creativity, though. It is for these types. Everything is so regimented and defined in 3.5 every asinine niche is its own class.
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2015 19:43
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 8, 2024 05:30 |
|
|
If a fighter chokeslamming a dragon or Mayor Haggar piledriving  A lie told by funhating babies Grace Baiting fucked around with this message at 22:37 on Sep 24, 2015 |
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2015 19:51
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:I think it's the same mentality that my friend had, that jumped through all sorts of hoops and thought of all kinds of theorycrafting to play a melee Demon Hunter in Diablo 3 Eh, perhaps. Playing off-type in a video game and playing off-type in a TTRPG are different in at least one important qualitative way. The aesthetics of a video game class are fixed*, but the aesthetics of a character in a TTRPG are (in theory) totally mutable. *Mods can of course alter the aesthetics of a video game class, but modding is not a universally held skill or inclination.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2015 19:53
|
|
|
Abjad Soup posted:If a fighter chokeslamming a dragon or Mayor Haggar piledriving a Sentinel is wrong, then the world is a lie Mate, that's no Sentinel. That's motherfucking GALACTUS.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2015 19:57
|
|
|
Kurieg posted:you can take a background that will allow you to pick history as a trained skill. Or take a multiclass feat later that will give you history as a trained skill. There's only trained and untrained, there's no longer "Sort of trained but twice as expensive." As it turns out, one can pick the scholar background that not only provides additional languages and trained skills, it also provides additional languages and skills as the character continues to level, and allows the selection of utility powers that temporarily boost skill rolls by a significant margin (+5), reflecting the fact that this is an intelligent character that knows what's going on in life. I predict that this won't be acceptable for X reason though.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2015 20:10
|
|
|
TheBlandName posted:Eh, perhaps. Playing off-type in a video game and playing off-type in a TTRPG are different in at least one important qualitative way. The aesthetics of a video game class are fixed*, but the aesthetics of a character in a TTRPG are (in theory) totally mutable. You're also likely playing by yourself or it's a lot easier for other people to leave for a new group if you're playing something weird in a video game. In a TTRPG your friends are stuck in the basement with you and your gnome fighter dentist.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2015 20:11
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:I think it's the same mentality that my friend had, that jumped through all sorts of hoops and thought of all kinds of theorycrafting to play a melee Demon Hunter in Diablo 3 Nah, theorycrafting that way is usually a problem solving excercise. You want to see if you can make X viable because you've got a known baseline to work towards and fixed options. No wanting to play a ranger because you want a bow-using fighter is an issue due to lack of problem-solving ability. At least when not done by people who're treating tabletop games like MMOs (which is fine but those people usually aren't so lacking in creativity they can't play a guy with a bow unless their sheet says fighter).
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2015 20:26
|
|
|
Kai Tave posted:Contrariness for contrariness' sake isn't exactly the height of creativity, though.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2015 20:33
|
|
|
TheTatteredKing posted:Everything is so regimented and defined in 3.5 every asinine niche is its own class.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2015 20:40
|
|
|
Halloween Jack posted:On the martial side, you need a hybrid class, prestige class, or special niche class to get anything neat. On the spellcasting side, they made a ton of niche classes but the PHB wizard class just gets all the neat arcane spells, and PrCs are either gravy or not worth taking. To the extent that the main measure of a PrC's power is if you lose spellcasting levels. Give up any of those? Not worth it.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2015 20:47
|
|
|
On the divine side there's Charop's bestest of friends, the Archivist.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2015 20:47
|
|
|
remusclaw posted:I'm not much of a fan of classes all together. They constrain the brain more than they do the concept. No they don't. It's simply that classes have been cargo-cult design for the overwhelming majority of the history of RPGs. I'm serious when I say that the first new genuinely class based RPG I am aware of after oD&D in 1974 was Apocalypse World in 2010. What a genuinely class based game does is allows different players at the same gaming table to be playing what are essentially different games at the same time. In oD&D (this was gone by 3.0 of course) a fighter and a wizard have very different play experiences. Different paces of play. They don't even share the same loot. What one can do is completely different from what the other can do. And even moreso in Apocalypse World. If the party is a Hardholder, an Angel, a Brainer, and a Skinner their experiences and place in the world is so different that they might as well be playing four separate games with different motivations, different victory conditions (that may or may not have anything to do with each other) and otherwise a completely different experience. This is extremely different from e.g. Cyberpunk 2020 where your class was basically a couple of special abilities. (There's one other use of class based games - the one found in e.g. Feng Shui 2 where classes are essentially part-made pregens, allowing you to start playing in minutes). Halloween Jack posted:I had this, just...exasperating argument with some people who want a fighter who is balanced with the wizard and able to do stuff like fight dragons, but who is a "mundane fighter" that doesn't do anything that could be called anime, or wuxia, or comic-book-superhero, or anything else not in keeping with the style of how they remember pulp sword-and-sorcery. (As opposed to what it was actually like...) I'm not sure who it causes brain damage to. You're as mired in D&D assumptions as they are. There's a simple way of making the fighter realistic and able to keep up with the wizard. The single most unrealistic part of D&D is hit points. Every attack from the fighter should be Save or Die. I mean people don't survive being stabbed by an expert fighter with a sword even once. Dragons? Eyes or down its throat (use a bow). A balanced mundane fighter should be terrifying - their lack of extra abilities to get to the combat are made up for by the fact that every attack's a potential killer. (Also fighters should get amazing saving throws - and free perception checks to see through illusionary defences like Mirror Image or even Invisibility).
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2015 21:31
|
|
|
neonchameleon posted:
Source your quotes
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2015 21:45
|
|
|
Abjad Soup posted:If a fighter chokeslamming a dragon or Mayor Haggar piledriving a Sentinel is wrong, then the world is a lie
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2015 21:50
|
|
|
Classes also let you have guaranteed game focuses with a variety of niches. D&D is a game about killing things and taking their stuff, but you do that in a variety of ways, compared to combat builds in more self-constructed systems where things trend towards the singular "best build".
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2015 21:59
|
|
|
Countblanc posted:Fun sucks though Fun is deeply problematic.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2015 22:22
|
|
Apocalypse World is deliberately unbalanced, first of all, and second of all,Countblanc posted:Fun sucks though
|
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2015 22:40
|
|
|
quote:In my opinion, 4e was a fantastic version of d&d, but there are a few things it did really wrong. quote:Yeah, one of my favorite characters to play as (i.e. neglecting lore/personality) was a fighter dual-crossbow wielder in 3.5e with a level in mage so he could shoot on the order of 100-200 bolts per turn by level 20 (something like that). I miss the silly brokenness of 3.5e. Why not play a Ranger? They have the same power source, and even if you don't want to "refluff" any of the powers you can still pick those that don't have any connection to the Nature part of the Ranger. Like, a quick browse of the PHB 1: Level 1: Careful Attack at-will, Twin Strike at-will, Evasive Strike encounter, Split the Tree daily Level 2: Yield Ground utility Level 3: Disruptive Strike encounter Level 4: - Level 5: Excruciating Shot daily quote:But that's also a good example of what I'm saying, right? What is the definition of "fighter" in that question in the first place? Which class specializes in ranged damage-dealing without using "spells"? The first part of the question leads us to Striker, and the second part of the question leads us to the Martial power source, which then comes out to a Ranger on some chart with Power Source and Role as the axes. I get that it's a change from classes that used to be more about a broad theme than anything else, but it's arguably a change that needed to happen because otherwise you're in this weird space where Fighter just means "guy who fights, in general" which then isn't that distinct from Barbarian, Ranger or Paladin. quote:To my table (and players), the 3.x definition of Fighter was "versatility." A class that didn't have any level dependent abilities and you could use to build anything as long as there was a feat for it, because a Fighter was a catch-all for anything who didn't fall into the lines of Ranger, Barbarian, Paladin, etc.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2015 23:28
|
|
|
It's vitally important that the Fighter serve the role of "dumping ground for whatever leftover poo poo that wasn't already parceled out to the other classes." Also versatility = as long as you buy the right combination of feats, buddy.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2015 23:35
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:To my table (and players), the 3.x definition of Fighter was "versatility." A class that didn't have any level dependent abilities and you could use to build anything as long as there was a feat for it, because a Fighter was a catch-all for anything who didn't fall into the lines of Ranger, Barbarian, Paladin, etc. "I don't accept that I have to pick any class name other than fighter, and I don't want to choose anything other than fighter powers" On the other hand, it's all about what feats they can use. This is so incredibly arbitrary, isn't it? Feats are okay, but powers... no man, powers and a class name kicked my dog once.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2015 23:37
|
|
|
That whole thing about "A class that didn't have any level dependent abilities" is also complete bunk considering feat chains and feats that need certain amounts of BAB. Like, you're going to tell me that Whirlwind Attack isn't level-dependent?
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2015 23:47
|
|
|
Effectronica posted:I still don't understand how you can get this mad about loving nu-metal. Diztyrbud and Pudddle off Mudd trigger a cortisol tidal wave? I dunno. It's just an awful genre. I would just rather be stuck on a deserted island with an ipod full of Taylor Swift than listen to 1/10th of a Syztem 0f 4 DVN album.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2015 23:47
|
|
|
Kai Tave posted:It's vitally important that the Fighter serve the role of "dumping ground for whatever leftover poo poo that wasn't already parceled out to the other classes." Because of this, I have never seen or played a 3.PF Fighter who was actually 'versatile' and at all effective; you have to hyper specialize to even pull off one mediocre trick, generally.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2015 00:01
|
|
|
Night10194 posted:Because of this, I have never seen or played a 3.PF Fighter who was actually 'versatile' and at all effective; you have to hyper specialize to even pull off one mediocre trick, generally.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2015 00:05
|
|
|
Gizmoduck_5000 posted:Diztyrbud and Pudddle off Mudd trigger a cortisol tidal wave? I dunno. It's just an awful genre. I would just rather be stuck on a deserted island with an ipod full of Taylor Swift than listen to 1/10th of a Syztem 0f 4 DVN album. You don't get to shittalk Taylor Swiftspear. Oh and my middle school self says hey. You both like to make similar posts.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2015 00:29
|
|
|
Haha, this all reminds me of how bad of a music grog I was back in school. As I've gotten older, I usually find something really loving cool in everything.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2015 00:45
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:Like, you're going to tell me that Whirlwind Attack isn't level-dependent? Whirlwind Attack is even worse because it requires Dex 13+, Int 13+, neither of which are particularly vital for a melee fighter. The extra woundsalt is requiring an odd level of an attribute, even though nothing else does, just to try and justify why odd levels of attributes exist at all. Meanwhile, there are no metamagic feats of note with attribute requirements, because
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2015 01:22
|
|
|
Lightning Lord posted:You don't get to shittalk Taylor Swiftspear. I don't have anything against Taylor Swift. I don't believe I've ever actually heard any of her songs. Same for Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus. But you're right. I'm shutting up about this now.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2015 02:00
|
|
|
Another issue with the D&D model as of 3rd and 5th edition is that each and every book adds more to caster's ability's but only adds more options to martials. Wizards get wider and taller and fighters get wider but stay the same height. E: When I say classes constrain the brain more than the concept I mean people have a habit of limiting themselves on what a class does and is, based on preconceptions they have about what the name means, where there is no such limitation in concept. They are the people who walk up to the shop-keep and introduce themselves as Gary the thief. remusclaw fucked around with this message at 02:18 on Sep 25, 2015 |
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2015 02:12
|
|
|
Pfox posted:"I don't accept that I have to pick any class name other than fighter, and I don't want to choose anything other than fighter powers" On the other hand, it's all about what feats they can use. This is so incredibly arbitrary, isn't it? Feats are okay, but powers... no man, powers and a class name kicked my dog once. A friend of mine adamantly believes that the issue with powers is the flavor text, because apparently in her experience people just do what the flavor text (or ability name) implies they do and never narrate differently???? It sounds like bullshit but she likes Strike which basically has the same poo poo with generic power names and no flavor text so maybe she's just gamed with really weird people.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2015 02:59
|
|
|
For some reason my players never had an issue with reskinning stuff or thinking outside the box. Like the aforementioned baseball wizard straight-up asked me if his magic missile could be a fastball instead and I said "It can be whatever you want" and my players just rolled with it. It's always so weird to me when people take the flavor text incredibly seriously like it has to be the only way things can go. Even mechanical stuff like changing the elemental type of an attack, who cares? One of my players rolled a fire sword for random loot (no, I don't know why we did this, we had no clue) and thought that a lightning sword fit their character better, and so it was. The fact that some people out there are unable to deviate from what the book says just blows my mind.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2015 03:18
|
|
|
Countblanc posted:A friend of mine adamantly believes that the issue with powers is the flavor text, because apparently in her experience people just do what the flavor text (or ability name) implies they do and never narrate differently???? It sounds like bullshit but she likes Strike which basically has the same poo poo with generic power names and no flavor text so maybe she's just gamed with really weird people. Well this sort of thing is the crux of the whole "dissociated mechanics" business where every game mechanic has to mean a single, specific, concrete thing. If you have a power called "Tripping Blow" or whatever but when you use it you narrate it as you punching someone in the stomach so hard they crumple to the ground then uh-oh, you've just dissociated the mechanic and now Justin Alexander is going to lecture you condescendingly for an hour.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2015 03:18
|
|
|
Countblanc posted:A friend of mine adamantly believes that the issue with powers is the flavor text, because apparently in her experience people just do what the flavor text (or ability name) implies they do and never narrate differently???? It sounds like bullshit but she likes Strike which basically has the same poo poo with generic power names and no flavor text so maybe she's just gamed with really weird people. From the same thread as earlier: quote:I loved 4e. Combat was quick and fun, if your players were familiar with all their abilities, and were able to plan out their minor, move, standard before their turn hit. Every time I played my turns lasted on average 30sec to a minute.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2015 03:19
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:From the same thread as earlier: The thing that always gets me about this is even if people are just saying "I use [POWER NAME]" like some kind of robot or whatever this is how spells have always worked in D&D in every edition, I bet you a hundred bucks that far more people simply say "I cast Melf's Acid Arrow" than give some florid description of how they weave the aether into acidic bolts and send them hurtling etc. etc. It's probably how most people handle a lot of their stuff if they aren't feeling especially creative spellcaster or no, or did every 3.X Fighter player launch into a spate of color commentary every time they wanted to use Whirlwind Strike?
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2015 03:26
|
|
|
Kai Tave posted:The thing that always gets me about this is even if people are just saying "I use [POWER NAME]" like some kind of robot or whatever this is how spells have always worked in D&D in every edition, I bet you a hundred bucks that far more people simply say "I cast Melf's Acid Arrow" than give some florid description of how they weave the aether into acidic bolts and send them hurtling etc. etc. It's probably how most people handle a lot of their stuff if they aren't feeling especially creative spellcaster or no, or did every 3.X Fighter player launch into a spate of color commentary every time they wanted to use Whirlwind Strike? I go into a berserker rage!
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2015 03:37
|
|
|
Kai Tave posted:The thing that always gets me about this is even if people are just saying "I use [POWER NAME]" like some kind of robot or whatever this is how spells have always worked in D&D in every edition, I bet you a hundred bucks that far more people simply say "I cast Melf's Acid Arrow" than give some florid description of how they weave the aether into acidic bolts and send them hurtling etc. etc. It's probably how most people handle a lot of their stuff if they aren't feeling especially creative spellcaster or no, or did every 3.X Fighter player launch into a spate of color commentary every time they wanted to use Whirlwind Strike? Exalted 1E's stunt rules seemed to come out of exactly this, trying to avoid 'I use Power X!' which Exalted gave exceptionally long and florid names but still boiled down to basically resource-gated feats and they offered you bonus dice to describe things a little more interestingly.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2015 03:37
|
|
|
Kai Tave posted:The thing that always gets me about this is even if people are just saying "I use [POWER NAME]" like some kind of robot or whatever this is how spells have always worked in D&D in every edition, I bet you a hundred bucks that far more people simply say "I cast Melf's Acid Arrow" than give some florid description of how they weave the aether into acidic bolts and send them hurtling etc. etc. It's probably how most people handle a lot of their stuff if they aren't feeling especially creative spellcaster or no, or did every 3.X Fighter player launch into a spate of color commentary every time they wanted to use Whirlwind Strike? Well, every time there's a thread about "how do I make combat more interesting?", the boilerplate response is always always having the players narrate their characters' attacks with more purple prose, so yeah, that's exactly what I would expect happens. I don't know, personally every time I've DM'd a game of D&D the paladin/monk/fighter would usually just go "I hit him with my warhammer/strike him with my quarterstaff/swing my battleaxe" and that was always good enough for the players. They'd only call out "I try to bust his kneecaps" because the thief they were chasing was literally trying to get away, and then of course you try to enable that.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2015 03:40
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:From the same thread as earlier: Funny how the solution to their problem is "Fighters shouldn't get spells" and not "wizards shouldn't get spells either", since "I cast fireball" is pretty boring too.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2015 03:46
|
|
|
Halloween Jack posted:D&D causes brain damage. Since we're coming around to this again, your big rambling defense about this where you pretend you weren't defending it kind of disregarded that Ron Edwards's original rant was all based on White Wolf games and the Storyteller system. a lot of it could be generally applicable to D&D, yeah, but it could also be applied to any number of older systems with a large following, or hell, consumerist nerd culture as a whole. Edwards did do a whole series of separate articles on D&D and the impact it has on rpgs, player/designer assumptions, genre fiction, etc. that are interesting reads if anyone can stand his insufferable prose Nuns with Guns fucked around with this message at 04:27 on Sep 25, 2015 |
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2015 04:08
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 8, 2024 05:30 |
|
|
Nuns with Guns posted:Since we're coming around to this again, your big rambling defense about this where you pretend you weren't defending it kind of disregarded that Ron Edwards's original rant was all based on White Wolf games and the Storyteller system. a lot of it could be generally applicable to D&D, yeah, but it could also be applied to any number of older systems with a large following, or hell, consumerist nerd culture as a whole. You've got a point, but this hobby really does seem to cause edit: horrible poo poo to the imaginations of its participants. What follows is why 5e allows roleplaying a "smart fighter" and 4e forces you to roleplay a statblock: quote:The fact that 5e put a lid on everything. Even when trying very hard to min/max there's a point where there's no further improvement in that area. 4e's complete lack of caps and direct requirement of magic items appropriate to level means that you constantly have to improve in areas related directly to character effectiveness. Is there a difference between the two? No, but only 5e truly allows roleplaying. slap me and kiss me fucked around with this message at 04:44 on Sep 25, 2015 |
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2015 04:29
|
|