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Long rambly nerd post on 30 hours of no sleep  Clerics and Druids are stupidly powerful in 3rd edition D&D by design, because players felt forced to have a healer and more often than not so one felt like they got stuck playing a role they didn't want to. This is partly due to action economy, if you cast a spell that's your turn gone. Once a fight gets going and healing needs doing, the healer ends up having his actions dictated to him, rather than actively participating. The solution was to reward the healers for playing the role with some extra goodies and power, and since they had to match that power to high level wizards... Here's the thing though, the main problem was one of perception and player expectations vs system intentions and the fact that arcane casters were over powered. D&D, up until 4th edition was designed with high lethality baked in. They changed the Orc in the 3.0 monster manual from a greataxe (d12+4, x3), to a falchion in 3.5 (2d4+4, 19-20) because a CR 1/2 monster considered sword fodder by popular opinion dealt enough damage on an average roll (10.5) to drop a full health level 1 fighter into dying. An average critical would instantly kill (-10 hp) any level 1 character, full-stop, and classes with lesser HD weren't out of the "Orc gib zone" for quite some time. A wizard with a +1 con and Max hp at 1st level and 2.5/lvl afterwards is only safe from instant death from and AVERAGE critical with a greataxe from an Orc (31.5) at level 6 with an average of 22.5 hp, and can only weather two perfectly average blows before being at risk of dying. In such a scenario, which is actually pretty likely, what use is a healing spell? It is far more efficient for a cleric to prevent damage by killing or disabling his foes before they deal damage, and it is far less dangerous than artificially extending a fight, due to the extremely random nature of D&D combat. Healing in combat in one of the worst uses of your action unless you are otherwise unable to affect the enemy. With combat being so risky, the best strategy is to avoid it. Indeed, until 3rd edition, an Orc was worth 5xp when killed; a pittance! Most of your experience was awarded from finding treasure (1gp value = 1 xp) or awarded by the GM for roleplaying and accomplishing goals. Why fight 20 orcs if you can get past them without combat? The treasure they guard is worth 5000 gp total. 3rd edition did away with xp for treasure, meaning you absolutely wanted to fight everything you met, running counter to the core lethality of the system. In fact, the system got more lethal in some ways with more granular stat bonuses and "strength and a half" for two-handed weapons and the like. Adventure and module designs changed over time from sandbox exploration zones to tightly scripted narratives, while the mechanics didn't change to meet the new expectations. So a horror filled dungeon in D&D Basic that contained things your characters should wisely flee from and never speak of again, might become a guided tour through carefully tuned encounters where the damage output of the monsters is crunched against several mock party setups to expend x% of their overall resources on average so the PCs can get to the back and hear the wight lord's grand speech while having enough juice to win the day. This was further reinforced , IMHO, by the fact that narrative experiences are probably easier to set up for video games than sandboxes. The cool thing about all of this is that 5th edition D&D is really cool and finally hits a good level of "not a mook" at low levels that their audience has sort of expected since mid/late 1st edition AD&D or so and that the older Basic/Expert/etc style is experiencing its own renaissance through indie publishers doing OSR stuff. 5th edition also does the smart thing, and like in 4th edition, there are spells that a cleric/etc can cast fast enough to heal and still attack or do other stuff in a round. There's a lot of interesting offshoots of D&D active right now, from Pathfinder and 13th age, to Lamentations of the Flame Princess, White Star and Silent Legions.
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Jan 26, 2016 18:02
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If you want to be an Arcane Archer in anything derived from 3e, play a wizard and pretend to cast your offensive spells with your bow. Bonus points for being an elf and getting free short/long bow proficiency to display good archer form and maybe occasionally shoot at peasants. You can even take the magical crafting feats and make all kinds of wacky arrows and cool bows, and then make sure you hit by figuring out how to cast True Strike (+20 to hit) as a swift action after you've use Tenser's Transformation (fight as if your wizard levels were fighter levels) on yourself. The answer to any complicated build is just: "sure, that looks neat and is broken as hell, but making a pure wizard or cleric would be much simpler and almost as effective." E: and nobody is going to stop your wizard from calling himself an arcane archer or sorcerer or witch, etc. Pvt.Scott fucked around with this message at 10:24 on Feb 7, 2016 |
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Feb 7, 2016 10:18
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I'd rather play a fighter or a rogue or even a weird limited caster class like warlock in tabletop play. Sometimes, not being able to do everything after level six or so is fun. Pathfinder made the non-caster classes more powerful/interesting in a lot of little ways. I was happy that the fighter got some love. A pure fighter will have the highest ac, highest attack bonus and highest raw damage with weapons out of any of the martial classes, without spending a single feat. They'll eventually treat heavy armor as a second skin, and they essentially get weapon focus/specialization/greater focus etc for whole categories of weapons. You are free to actually then specialize through feats, which they still have tons of, as they still have bonus fighter feats at the same levels as in 3.5 in addition to more feats overall, since everyone gets feats every odd level, rather than every third level. I've been playing a lot of OSR games lately, though, so your class options are more, fighter, magic user, elf, etc. Yes, elf is a class. There aren't usually skill points or skills in these games, and if there are, they are way more abstract than anything in 3e. The most you have to deal with when you level is your hp roll, new saves, spells if you are a caster and if your attack bonus went up. It's, like, a game of imagination, maaaaaan. E: a lot of games only have four classes, fighter, magic-user, cleric and thief. Pvt.Scott fucked around with this message at 12:24 on Feb 9, 2016 |
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Feb 9, 2016 12:22
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Ah, the skill system is where 3e/pathfinder deliciously breaks. MechaCrash posted:The deurgar lady was not impressed by your massive charisma, because by this level, +5 or +6 due to that isn't going to be enough. It can help, but if you haven't been investing in the relevant social skill, you're probably wasting your time. A +5 or 6 from raw ability is a massive bonus, both systemically (where skills are considered) and in the fictional world. A tiny fraction of humanoids have a +3, let alone a +4 in charisma, with 0 and -1 being the most common. So with a +5-6 you've got more charisma than any humanoid race in the core book can start with, i.e. supernatural charisma. A lot of times pcs are comparing their stats and abilities to foes stronger than themselves, when they are already in the top 5% most powerful humanoids in the world after a few levels. It's kinda like how a second place athlete in the olympics gets shat on, even though that athlete is the second best in the world, often by only a few hundredths of a second or some other almost imperceptible measure. Let's make a level one expert with the standard terrible npc array, and we'll put his +1 into cha. At first level we'll give him max ranks in all the social skills and skill focus: bluff and skill focus: diplomacy. We now have an adult confidence man who is highly skilled in his craft, with a +8 in both bluff and diplomacy. (+1 cha, +4 skill ranks, +3 skill focus) When running a con he will work with a partner/apprentice (+2 aid bonus) and wear the appropriate clothing and gear(spending time/money if needed) for whatever role he is playing. (masterwork gear +2 equipment bonus) Let's say our man does his research and sweetens the pot with a bribe or gift tailored to the mark or he engineers a situation where the mark owes him gratitude(+2 circumstance bonus) So, now he has a +14 on bluff or diplomacy. Let's look at DCs. Whoa! The highest DC is 50! That's for changing someone from hostile (will take risks to harm you, a combat encounter or enemy) to helpful (will take risks to help you, i.e. a party member or ally) in the course of a short conversation. I'd call that a supernatural feat, so the DC fits. Getting someone from unfriendly (1 step up from hostile) to indifferent is DC 15. Our conman literally cannot fail if he is prepared. On an 11, he'll hit DC 25 and bump that up to friendly, but he still can't touch DC 40 to go from unfriendly to helpful in one swoop. If our man picked a good target, he's chosen someone indifferent or friendly, making his schemes much more likely to succeed in very few attempts. He needs a 30 or a 20 to get to helpful from indifferent or friendly respectively, with his +14. On any reaction other than hostile, it is literally impossible for our conman to actually lower the target's attitude because he cannot roll low enough. He cannot roll low enough even with just his raw +8. It is important to note that 1s and 20s in the skill system are just numbers, no crits or fumbles here. This is an npc with lovely stats and one level a feat and mundane equipment. He can already rock very hard checks with proper prep. All extra levels do is make bonus fishing less necessary for more mundane tasks and make the harder tasks more and more trivial. DC 25 or 30 is the highest DC for a lot of skills with those DCs representing supernatural feats of prowess. If you have a +30 hide bonus, you are the god of hiding. Before level 6, PCs can outperform our best real-world athletes and our greatest scientific minds. On skills that you can take 10 and 20 on and are highly unlikely to ever be used during anything but non stress situations (like craft, pick locks, search, etc) you can calculate how much you need to do what you want when given access to tools and helpers (and magic bonuses too!) etc if applicable, and never put another point in it. Hell in 3.5, you only need a total +14 tumble bonus to never provoke an attack of opportunity while moving (at half speed,mind you) because the DC for that is 15 and you can't roll less than 1. Pathfinder "patched" this by making you beat the Combat Maneuver Defense (CMD) of potential threats, a number that actually takes into account the combat skill of the tumble target.( CMD is 10+BAB+STR+DEX+Misc. if I remember right. It's used to unify special attacks like trips, bull rushes, grapples, disarms etc under a singleish mechanic. CMD is like AC and CMB is like your normal attack bonus, but for the weird poo poo) I say "patched" because skill bonuses from leveling, feats, items and more far outstrip anything you could do to pump CMD, assuming it was even 15 in the first place. So the nimble dude might fail at ALWAYS moving freely at very early levels, but past that, it's trivial again. I'll try to dig up some cool essays later on how 3e actually did a good job of modeling a close approximation of real world stuff when you look at the very early levels, and a neat one for how npc commoners and the like might reach level 10 or whatever while leading a normalish life. E: Skill Focus is sillier in Pathfinder because the bonus doubles to +6 at level 10? Somewhere around there. Pvt.Scott fucked around with this message at 22:50 on Feb 15, 2016 |
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Feb 15, 2016 22:43
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Well, that's my point I guess. I haven't caught up on the update, but was the NPC openly uncooperative? I realize NWN doesn't exactly hew to tabletop rules, but it does make the bad assumption of scaling the world around the abilities of superheroes and not mortals. That +5 bonus should be enough to have a shot at budging a neutral npc a little. A +30 diplomacy bonus is enough to give you a 5% chance to turn Orcus, Demon Lord of the Undead ( we'll assume he's hostile) from wanting to kill you to your best buddy in a few words. Even if you don't hit that DC of 50, you're guaranteed to deescalate the situation from violence to civil conversation. A lot of game designers make the mistake of just scaling the challenges with the player's abilities whether or not it makes sense at all. Wizards of the Coast certainly did that with a lot of their stuff. 3e starts to fall to pieces around level 10 at latest. I still like the system.
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Feb 17, 2016 02:19
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There's an elegant solution to 3e scaling poorly past a certain point, and I enjoy it thoroughly in table top. E6 (or P6) puts epic level at 6th and players then advance through feats. Higher level spells and class abilities are available as epic feats and ritual magic. By stopping the traditional linear advancement at 6th level ( or 8th or 10th in some variants) player characters hit a nice arc where they quickly harden from novices into heroes about on scale with the Fellowship of the Ring, especially Aragorn, Boromir Legolas and Gimli, where they then diversify, specialize and slowly grow more powerful in a more organic fashion, rather than in huge "level" chunks all of the time. It works pretty well. Just think, at level cap orcs can still mob you, ogres are still scary and CR 10 monsters are something you have to loving prepare for or flee from. It's even simple enough to stat up a stable of foes, say demon cultist 1st 3rd 5th 6th and if you want a billy badass add feats to the level 6 chassis, give him a cool name and bam, epic dark lord. E6 P6
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Feb 17, 2016 05:24
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WanderingMinstrel I posted:Which all sounds fabulous (it really does, I've love to play a game like that), except we're discussing NWN, which probably predates that system. True. I should stop spergin' and get back to spectatin'.
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Feb 17, 2016 05:41
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MechaCrash posted:You're overestimating the depth of the conversation system in Neverwinter Nights. There are no degrees of cooperation, it's just "I want you to do this thing, I will now roll the relevant skill to see if you comply." I don't know if it's a fixed "you must have this much skill to get result" thing, or if there's a DC and you roll against it, but in either case, an 18 charisma is not nearly enough to make up for not having any skill points in the social things. That's a problem with the D20 skill system. Any skills with only set DCs have clear point where there is no reason to invest in them (though nothing in the text helpfully points this out), and depending on your magical gear and spell loadout, you might be able to cut that number down further or avoid making the check at all. The only skills you "need" to continually invest in are opposed checks like Hide vs Spot, because if you have hide as a class skill you want the highest number in there because you're working with a fluctuating bonus of 1-20 against another guy with a fluctuating bonus of 1-20, not counting skill bonuses. Since 3e brought in more "tailored" encounter design using CR as threat measurement, if you are the party scout, you have to put points into the stealth and spot skills every level because the foes that are an "average challenge" for a group of four yous, if they have stealth or observation skills have them maxed, and sometimes arbitrary racial bonuses and more on top. This is despite the fact that most beings in the world cant detect you hiding if you have a +20 bonus. Hell every 10 feet between spotter and spotee adds to the difficulty, a rule no other gm I've played with has ever used. It's actually useful, because you roll a 16 for sneaking orcs ( a good result for them) and the party spotter gets a 20(average result), that means the orcs are spotted 40 feet out if it was relatively clear terrain, like plains. It's just that a slavering hellbeast can be supernaturally stealthy because it has a lot of hit dice and hide and move silent are it's only racial skills because it was supposed to be sneaky, but what that means in the reality of the game world is that unless you can read fine print on a contract at a thousand yards and hear a butterfly fart in a hurricane, the monster might as well just have invisibility and silence cast on it. E: To clarify, you either scale DCs based on player level (as in open-ended opposed checks ala monster with nothing to do but specialize in a few skills as an artifact of 3e design), meaning perpetual investment in a skill is mandatory and dabbling is worthless, or you try and constrain the numbers to a range where they still all make sense and you can have set DCs and opposed checks and still allow those who don't heavily invest in a skill to still see return from some investment. That's why I said much past level 10 the skill system can't even pretend it's working any longer. Pvt.Scott fucked around with this message at 06:44 on Feb 17, 2016 |
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Feb 17, 2016 06:21
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This is what happens when we teach our kids that only the PC classes are cool. I bet all of the local zealots wanted to be Clerics or Paladins or Druids and whatnot and washed right out of basic training and dejectedly took up commoner. If we taught them that being an Adept is much more attainable, practical and useful to the community, maybe OP could have had his disease removed.
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Feb 28, 2016 17:47
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The CR system is another idea that looks good on paper and functions ok in the range most groups play, 1-10, but the higher level your PCs get, the more worthless it becomes. A CR 30+ caster creature might get chumped by a high level party but the same party might have to retreat from 4 CR ~20 bruisers, simply due to the action economy and individual character builds. Put those two encounters together, which might be logical in the game fiction, (big bad is paranoid and has his monstrous guards always at his side) and you might get a TPK depending on your PCs target priority and tactical acumen.
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Mar 8, 2016 03:36
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