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The best thing about 4th edition was dropping the fantasy equivalent of a nuclear apocalypse on FR and stripping Elminster of almost all of his power. I'm sure the novels didn't get any better, and it's probably been walked back by this point, but at least it angered all the right people.
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Jan 20, 2014 12:28
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I used to enjoy FR lore so when 4E hit, even though I hadn't played D&D in years, I tried to learn about the changes that were brought to the setting - but the spellplague is just so drat boring and generic. "Goddess of magic died. Again. Magic goes crazy and some countries blow up. Again." is a really lazy shake-up prompt compared to "the gods are punished for their hubris by God and condemned to walk the Earth as mortals".
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Jan 20, 2014 13:05
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That's the kind of stuff that happens when you replace one system with another that has superficial similarities at best and feel you absolutely must reflect this change in fiction as well.
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Jan 20, 2014 13:22
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Lurdiak posted:The best thing about 4th edition was dropping the fantasy equivalent of a nuclear apocalypse on FR and stripping Elminster of almost all of his power. I'm sure the novels didn't get any better, and it's probably been walked back by this point, but at least it angered all the right people. Now the novels try to work in that the characters have 4e powers and it's especially bumbling and awkward for the warrior types.
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Jan 20, 2014 15:42
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I'm probably going to get poo poo on for bringing this up, but I always hated that Fighter-types never got ridiculous powers on par with Wizards in base 3/3.5E. When you think of mythical fighter types, you always think of guys like Hercules, Beowulf, and Achilles. Yes, the best ones invariably had some sort of magic helping them out, but these guys codified what a fighter was. I see no reason, in a game where high level wizards can stop time and make literal wishes, why a high level fighter shouldn't have mechanics and abilities that allow him to manually divert rivers, crush mountains underfoot, and be near-invulnerable to physical assault even in minimal armor. Why is it so hard for some D&D players to accept fighters that can do more than full attack every round? Tome of Battle was awesome because it gave fighters the ability to do these things yet those people seem to hate it with every ounce of their souls. (That's not even opening the 4E can of worms, which put everyone on equal footing by making everyone work off the same ability system.)
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Jan 20, 2014 16:08
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Zonekeeper posted:I'm probably going to get poo poo on for bringing this up, but I always hated that Fighter-types never got ridiculous powers on par with Wizards in base 3/3.5E. When you think of mythical fighter types, you always think of guys like Hercules, Beowulf, and Achilles. Yes, the best ones invariably had some sort of magic helping them out, but these guys codified what a fighter was. My guess is that these games are played by a lot of pencil-necked geeks who were oppressed by athletes in school, and they want to believe magic is infinitely mightier than muscle. 
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Jan 20, 2014 16:28
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What it boils down to is that people have a frame of reference for what actual people can physically do and want their games to be far less about imagination and fantastic deeds than they're prepared to admit. It doesn't help that apparently some of the designers based things like "how quickly can you draw and throw an object" on their own performance, i.e. they'd actually time themselves doing it and base the rules around it, so what a fighter can do more often than not is based not on "what a mythical hero can do" or "what a professional athlete can do" but "what a man who writes game systems for a living can do." Meanwhile magic is by definition "whatever you can imagine just find a way to put it in numbers." e: ^^^ and that too.
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Jan 20, 2014 16:29
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prefect posted:My guess is that these games are played by a lot of pencil-necked geeks who were oppressed by athletes in school, and they want to believe magic is infinitely mightier than muscle. See also: "why do dirty rogues get more skill points that intellectual wizards?"
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Jan 20, 2014 17:06
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I think it's because it's hard to turn "move a river" into a dice roll. Also the Hulking Hurler is a fighter type and he can do Who What Now fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Jan 20, 2014 |
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Jan 20, 2014 17:16
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Who What Now posted:I think it's because it's hard to turn "move a river" into a dice roll. Hulking Hurler is a one trick pony limited to Large characters though. Tome of Battle's maneuvers give you abilities that let you ignore hardness on inanimate objects, temporarily gain DR, and bear hug an opponent to death when you grapple them, among other things. (and that's just limiting myself to the Stone Dragon school) That's the kind of thing I'm after. Feats of strength that aren't just "I hit him with my sword again."
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Jan 20, 2014 17:29
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My Lovely Horse posted:What it boils down to is that people have a frame of reference for what actual people can physically do and want their games to be far less about imagination and fantastic deeds than they're prepared to admit. It doesn't help that apparently some of the designers based things like "how quickly can you draw and throw an object" on their own performance, i.e. they'd actually time themselves doing it and base the rules around it, so what a fighter can do more often than not is based not on "what a mythical hero can do" or "what a professional athlete can do" but "what a man who writes game systems for a living can do." Meanwhile magic is by definition "whatever you can imagine just find a way to put it in numbers." I always figured that it came from D&D's wargame origin. You play single scenario's (read dungeons) that you more or less finish in one or two sessions, so that magical characters do not have as much time refreshing their spell slots. So a martial character can consistently deal out mediocre damage, while a wizard can do amazing things, but only a set number of times during an adventure. Of course, this is completely thrown off balance , due to the fact that a wizards spell slots basically determine the parties resting schedule and that all the subsequent additions warped magic from a more powerful tool to do magic into a reality warping superpower.
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Jan 20, 2014 17:38
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Zonekeeper posted:Hulking Hurler is a one trick pony limited to Large characters though. Tome of Battle's maneuvers give you abilities that let you ignore hardness on inanimate objects, temporarily gain DR, and bear hug an opponent to death when you grapple them, among other things. (and that's just limiting myself to the Stone Dragon school) That's the kind of thing I'm after. Feats of strength that aren't just "I hit him with my sword again." I like Tome of Battle, but everything in there is really just a wizard that happens to be holding a sword.
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Jan 20, 2014 18:45
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Who What Now posted:I like Tome of Battle, but everything in there is really just a wizard that happens to be holding a sword. If you're going to reduce the argument to that, then Clerics are just wizards that can cast heal spells, and Druids are wizards that can cast spells as a bear. Bards, Rangers, and Paladins are Wizards with limited casting capability. Spells are spells no matter who is casting them; what makes them different is the flavor justification. How do you propose they differentiate ToB maneuvers from "magic" without making them horrifically weak or broken in comparison?
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Jan 20, 2014 18:55
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Superman is a wizard. Batman is also a wizard.
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Jan 20, 2014 19:05
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Cat Mattress posted:Superman is a wizard. Batman is also a wizard. I played a wizard once where I made it very clear that my scorching ray spells were being cast out of my eyes. Then I crafted goggles of scorching ray, just to drive the point home. I didn't have Fly yet, but I had boots of spider-climbing so I stuck to walls and fired my lasers. Also, mirror images, so I had a pack of wizards running up walls and firing lasers out of their eyes.
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Jan 20, 2014 19:10
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Cat Mattress posted:Superman is a wizard. Batman is also a wizard. There's precedent for that kind of thing. 
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Jan 20, 2014 19:22
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prefect posted:There's precedent for that kind of thing. Colour-coded American continent.
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Jan 20, 2014 19:35
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DoctorTristan posted:Colour-coded American continent. Sporting Bolivian flag colors, no less.
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Jan 20, 2014 19:49
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NihilCredo posted:I used to enjoy FR lore so when 4E hit, even though I hadn't played D&D in years, I tried to learn about the changes that were brought to the setting - but the spellplague is just so drat boring and generic. "Goddess of magic died. Again. Magic goes crazy and some countries blow up. Again." is a really lazy shake-up prompt compared to "the gods are punished for their hubris by God and condemned to walk the Earth as mortals". Filling the world with 200 more NPC's that are better than you at everything (tm) is honestly the worst thing you could have possibly done to FR so I'm not sure why you think it's better than "No seriously gently caress Elimister".
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Jan 20, 2014 19:56
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Zonekeeper posted:If you're going to reduce the argument to that, then Clerics are just wizards that can cast heal spells, and Druids are wizards that can cast spells as a bear. Bards, Rangers, and Paladins are Wizards with limited casting capability. Pretty much, yeah. And I don't see a problem with that.
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Jan 20, 2014 20:25
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Who What Now posted:I think it's because it's hard to turn "move a river" into a dice roll. No reason for it to be a dice roll. Just give them the ability to rearrange the landscape once per day, let them move a river or a mountain or whatever without rolling anything.
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Jan 20, 2014 20:45
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A.o.D. posted:Sporting Bolivian flag colors, no less. Traffic-light warnings for risk of encountering communists.
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Jan 20, 2014 22:45
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ZenMasterBullshit posted:Filling the world with 200 more NPC's that are better than you at everything (tm) is honestly the worst thing you could have possibly done to FR so I'm not sure why you think it's better than "No seriously gently caress Elimister". This is the kind of talk you only get from someone who hasn't been subjected to enough fiction about Elminster's wrinkly rear end loving Mystra and loving Mystra's daughters and loving his assistant and god knows what else. I seem to recall a Lich slathering a naked maiden in barbecue sauce in Elminster in Hell or something
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Jan 20, 2014 23:00
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There were already 200 NPCs better than the PCs at their jobs before 4e anyways, so...?
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Jan 20, 2014 23:12
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It is KIND of funny that a lot of the problems people have with 3E/3.5E/4E/Whatever are lore and fluff based things that can be changed by the DM wiggling their fingers a bit. Not that that makes them not bad, I always enjoy a good Elminster scoffing
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Jan 20, 2014 23:19
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Captain Oblivious posted:This is the kind of talk you only get from someone who hasn't been subjected to enough fiction about Elminster's wrinkly rear end loving Mystra and loving Mystra's daughters and loving his assistant and god knows what else. 
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Jan 20, 2014 23:50
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ZenMasterBullshit posted:Filling the world with 200 more NPC's that are better than you at everything (tm) is honestly the worst thing you could have possibly done to FR so I'm not sure why you think it's better than "No seriously gently caress Elimister". Somethingawful.com forums poster JdCorley did an awesome (and sadly incomplete) thread on rpg.net of adventure seeds around the Forgotten Realms. Oh, and the First Invitational Kill Elminster thread is worth a read, too, not least for the ever-more-autistic lengths the OP goes to stop thread posters from succeeding.
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Jan 20, 2014 23:57
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sebmojo posted:Somethingawful.com forums poster JdCorley did an awesome (and sadly incomplete) thread on rpg.net of adventure seeds around the Forgotten Realms. Hah, thanks for the link. And this is quite relevant: quote:Actually the real Elminster whiners are those that aren't his fans. Every time "what's the matter with the Forgotten Realms anyway?" comes up there's a huge long line of people with a bunch of time cards marked "Elminster", like in a cartoon, they walk up, shove the card in the slot and pull the lever marked "Post Reply". I've never seen one idiotic, easy-to-write-off, useless-as-poo poo NPC get more dumbass "he's ruining the setting!" things written about him. Not even Samuel Haight or the Harlequin. Then when someone says "well, if you're sensible, you don't have him show up in every adventure" everyone with their time card yells "YOU'RE NOT PLAYING FORGOTTEN REALMS!!" as if playing sensibly were somehow not allowed.
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Jan 21, 2014 00:08
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NihilCredo posted:Hah, thanks for the link. And this is quite relevant: I drunkenly bought Corley an av for doing that. The adventure ideas are full of little gems like: quote:Page 14: the retreat to Evermeet and some elves' return quote:p. 22 - instruments of Faerun, including the wargong, made from the shields of fallen enemies quote:p.27 Sorcerers can have octopus familiars
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Jan 21, 2014 00:22
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I liked how Baldur's Gate used Elminster, where he showed up early on to play Mysterious Mentor and point you in the right direction, then dropped off the face of the earth only to pop up again much later and talk about how badass you were now, he wasn't even sure he could take you. Just... have Elminster doing other poo poo. Gandalf pulled that all the time, it's a classic.
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Jan 21, 2014 01:20
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Gee, I sure hope Rich is this derail is stupid.
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Jan 21, 2014 01:43
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On a scale of one to Alice from the RE movies where does Elminster fall on the Mary Sue scale? Somewhere like Drizzt where the worse part isn't the character itself but more the people ripping it off? Like, sure he has problems, but he isn't as terrible as people make him out, he just inspires terrible things. Or something OoTS related, that's good too.
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Jan 21, 2014 01:46
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xanthan posted:On a scale of one to Alice from the RE movies where does Elminster fall on the Mary Sue scale? quote:Elminster's Evasion is a special, wish-powered, chain contingency that Elminster has active on him at all times, canonically.  The 'kill Elminster' thread (which that quote's from) is a good read if you want to see for yourself. sebmojo fucked around with this message at 02:01 on Jan 21, 2014 |
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Jan 21, 2014 01:58
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So shove a wad of cotton in Elminster's mouth, chop off one arm and both legs, and leave him in a room somewhere.
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Jan 21, 2014 03:10
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I wonder how they settled on exactly 70 minutes' cooldown for the Weave-repair effect. Not an hour, 70 minutes. Anyway, worth noting that that fancy escape clause isn't really much stronger than anything a regular 20-something-level wizard should be able to pull off. As far as custom spells go, "hey DM, I want to make a chain contingency variant that has a few extra triggers but only casts two spells, and one of them is sending" is about as dull as it gets. To return on topic, this puts things in perspective about how much Rich is gimping spellcasters in his comic (preempting any nerdrage: anditmakesforabetterstoryIamokaywithit), because Xykon is impulsive and V is arrogant, but Dorukan was definitely the type to set up some precautions along those lines.
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Jan 21, 2014 03:32
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Archenteron posted:So shove a wad of cotton in Elminster's mouth, chop off one arm and both legs, and leave him in a room somewhere. One of the better entries: quote:So there you have it. Elminster is stuck forever, unaging, not needing air or sustenance, and accruing subdual damage for the rest of time, inside a Portable Hole inside a small lead box inside a Portable Hole that is "lost forever". NihilCredo posted:To return on topic, this puts things in perspective about how much Rich is gimping spellcasters in his comic (preempting any nerdrage: anditmakesforabetterstoryIamokaywithit), because Xykon is impulsive and V is arrogant, but Dorukan was definitely the type to set up some precautions along those lines. Notice that he has set up a pre-cooked rationale for V to not get involved in a given fight because he's worried about the Fiends whipping him out. And Durkon being evil is another one. In both cases there is an interesting way for him to avoid having the spell casters fix everything. sebmojo fucked around with this message at 03:48 on Jan 21, 2014 |
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Jan 21, 2014 03:45
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xanthan posted:On a scale of one to Alice from the RE movies where does Elminster fall on the Mary Sue scale? High five fellow Drizzt fan! Say what you will Salvetore is willing to take the character places; and spoilers for the latest book Kills him off because of a bad fight with his psychotic girl friends. At least its implied its because his goddess is swooping him and his old friends to help her fix the Weave or something. Ultimately Drizzt serves a good niche where he's a relatively mid level adventurer that does literally 99% of All of Forgotten Realms philosophical navel gazing; its not the most profound but its more than any other author suggests. re: Elminster, I actually had a game where I argued that a min-maxed 20 wizard (Incantatar) without using cheese could beat Elminster. I think it came down to the CR 71 Hekatoncheries (That I summoned via its Simulcrum) and Elminster wrestling with the game stopping due to rules lawyering. I argued that no, Elminster cannot transform/shapechange into an massive cube inanimate object as it had to be a non unique creature. Raenir Salazar fucked around with this message at 04:47 on Jan 21, 2014 |
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Jan 21, 2014 04:43
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Zonekeeper posted:
The people I played with had no problem with it.
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Jan 21, 2014 04:53
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Who What Now posted:Now the novels try to work in that the characters have 4e powers and it's especially bumbling and awkward for the warrior types. That sounds incredibly misguided considering the point of 4e martial powers was conveying that non-casters can do incredible feats in a way that was clearly codified through gameplay, not setting up some strange world where people learn fighting skills like they were vancian spellcasting.
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Jan 21, 2014 05:02
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Yeah the whole point is your just have flashy/fancy sword/halberd/whatever techniques you picked up because you're a huge badass with a sword/halberd/flail/whatever. If the books are treating it like invoking a specific power I don't even know what to say.
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Jan 21, 2014 05:32
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