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1 year ago ::
Mar 31, 2012 - 11:27AM
#1
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Date Joined:
Oct 20, 2009
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1. 4th edition some races just don't fit.
Touchy subject. There are those that prefere the basic races elf dwarf human Halfling. Those that prefere a few more like drow gnome. Some that include Eladrin dragonborn tiefling. Others that include warforge genasi.
Some that want every race. Hey I want to play a skeleton. Why not.
I want to play a medusa. Why not. If your allowing so much then you open pandora box
I'm not looking for a debate here on my choice.
List your one thing you don't want to see from any edition.
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1 year ago ::
Mar 31, 2012 - 11:29AM
#2
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Date Joined:
Aug 19, 2007
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Extensive imbalance. It's probably the only thing that modules can't work around.
Are you interested in an online 4E game on Sunday? Contact me with a PM! Spoiler:
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Reflavoring: the change of flavor without changing any mechanical part of the game, no matter how small, in order to fit the mechanics to an otherwise unsupported concept.
Retexturing: the change of flavor (with at most minor mechanical adaptations) in order to effortlessly create support for a concept without inventing anything new.
Houseruling: the change, either minor or major, of the mechanics in order to better reflect a certain aspect of the game, including adapting the rules to fit an otherwise unsupported concept.
Homebrewing: the complete invention of something new that fits within the system in order to reflect an unsupported concept. Ideas for 5ESpoiler:
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1 year ago ::
Mar 31, 2012 - 11:52AM
#3
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Date Joined:
Feb 16, 2012
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I don't want to see a psionicist player being told 'Magic Resistance', 'spell resistance', or an 'Antimagic barrier', or 'dead magic zone' is making their powers not work. I'd also prefer the kensai not suck, and the paladin not be a dwarf wielding a hammer, but you can't always get what you want. So if I could make a wish, I'd like Psionics/Ki and Magic to be totally separate playing fields, like as far removed from each other as A fighter's sword skills and a cleric's healing spells. As far removed from Magic as Backstab is removed from Death Spell.
You know how you have that old sword trope - think of it as an extension of your hand? I think of Psionics as an extension of the Person. walk, run, jump, fly.
Options are Liberating
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1 year ago ::
Mar 31, 2012 - 1:22PM
#4
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Date Joined:
Aug 30, 2007
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-THAC0
-Basic attacks for fighters while wizards reshape reality
-Easy/common death (including spammable SoDs or just "you die" effects) "balanced" by ridiculously common resurrection
-Level/ability drain (or ability damage or anything that makes you recalculate your entire character sheet in the middle of combat)
-Certain classes being required for the party to be successful
-Class/level limits/restrictions by race
-Separate level progressions for each class
Owner and Proprietor of the House of Trolls.
God of ownership and possession.
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1 year ago ::
Mar 31, 2012 - 2:22PM
#5
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Date Joined:
Jun 29, 2008
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Hampered magic. (4th)
I want magic to be limited only by imagination. I want a huuuuuge spellbook for the casters and a huuuuuuge book of magic items for all.
The effects of those spells and magic items should not be limited by a balancing machine that only knows how to calculate the value of damage/To-Hit/push/pull/slide/daze/stun/skill effects, leading to spells and magic items that recognize only those factors.
The spells and effects should be written from a flavour view, and then be valued against other powers etc using a human touch to calculate level/worth.
Thus the game designer should think like this:
- "A really cool item would be "The slippers of shade"... They were created when a mad assassin poisoned her lover/partner with a cursed potion making his shadow break free of him and dragging him to the shadow plane. Little did she know though that part of him was never torn away and remained in his slippers. When the mad assassin woke up the next morning and put on the slippers, her lover took his revenge and plunged her through a window where she fell to her death. Rumours has it that a beggar stole her slippers and ran away with them and that the slippers have helped and killed many a wielder since then."
- Effect: A character who wields the slippers when attempting to kill someone will enjoy the benefits of the formers assassins protection, allowing the character to stretch shadows to cover him. If there is any shadow within 50', the character will always be considered concealed for the purpose of hiding when attempting to sneak up for a kill.
If the character wielding the slippers ever betrays someone who trusts him, the slippers will become cursed and irremovable until a remove curse is used. While wearing a pair of cursed slippers, a character can never find concealment, and should the character move within 30' of a ledge, it must roll a saving throw or be carried over the edge.
Then, someone would start figuring approximately how much such an item would be worth compared to others... i.e. level X?
The wrong way to design a spell would be for a designer to go the other way and use known powers and their values to create an item, and then name it later. I.e.
"Lets create an item that helps with hiding. If the item gives a +5 bonus to Hide, that would yield a net worth of X gold. Lets also say that it gives +5 to Move Silently... that yields another X gold worth. Hmmm... since it is a pair of boots it will take a slot that would usually be for adding an enchancement bonus to dex... So we should probably throw in +1 Enhancement to Dex as well, yielding another Y gold of worth. This means the item is worth 2*X+Y gold.... that is a Level Z item. Hmm... let's name these "Slippers of Shadow" since they are for hiding."
- Effect: +5 Hide/+5 Move Silently/+1 Enhancement bonus to Dex.
If they create the item in the second manner, they are limiting magic to their tables... not their imaginations... creating an item that lacks soul... It is a dead, boring item without a tale... without flavour... and will only satisfy a bonus-chaser. A one-liner description such as "These slippers are black and soft and leaves a trail of shadow behind them", will do nothing to change the dullness of the item.
This is the worst thing that can happen to the wondrous magic world of D&D... the neutering of magic. Because writing a complete set of spells and magic items is beyond any non-hardcore-diehard DM, and without magic, D&D is not D&D to me - It is potatoe-fantasy (A friend uses the term for low-magic settings... I think it has to do with the fact that you are more likely to care about mundane problems such as crops, instead of evil plots of mad wizards. While he uses it as a postive description, for me potato-fantasy is a derogatory term but even so I love the phrase :D)....
The Character Initiative
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Every time you abuse the system you enforce limitations.
Every time the system is limited we lose options.
Breaking an RPG is like cheating in a computer game.
As a DM you are the punkbuster of your table.
Dare to say no to abusers.
Make players build characters, not characters out of builds.
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1 year ago ::
Mar 31, 2012 - 2:24PM
#6
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@shintashi, why make psionics special? Should primal powers (if those are kept) operate separate from magic? Should divine and arcane magic operate on different rules?
bone_naga said a ot of what I agree with, so here's a few other ideas.
- Ability score boosts which cascade down the entire character sheet. One of the most annoying things in 3.5 was trying to keep track of everything that a Cat's Grace spell changed.
- From 4e, immediate powers which may or may not change everything based on hidden information. Example: the wand of accuracy which retroactively adds a +Dex bonus, or the shield spell which retroactively adds +4 to AC. The problem with these approaches is that a player plays a guessing game to suss out the information "would an X have hit instead? Because if not I don't want to waste the power." The wand of accuracy being a "reroll with +Dex" or shild being DR (kind of like the fighter's unbreakable) will be less disruptive to the flow of the game.
- Potions which heal fixed damage. This basically means that high level characters get potion resistance. That feels wrong. There has to be a better way to deal with potion spamming.
- Classes with a very rigid set of progression. The 3.5 monk is the worst offender here. At 12th level, every monk gets abundant step? Meh. The 3.5 paladin is almost as bad.
- Oh, speaking of the monk, I hope they don't go back to making "ki" something unique. One of the things that 4e did completely and totally right was rolling ki into the psionic power source. Don't make "asia" a power source again.
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1 year ago ::
Mar 31, 2012 - 3:15PM
#7
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Date Joined:
Feb 16, 2012
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@shintashi, why make psionics special? Should primal powers (if those are kept) operate separate from magic? Should divine and arcane magic operate on different rules?
- Oh, speaking of the monk, I hope they don't go back to making "ki" something unique. One of the things that 4e did completely and totally right was rolling ki into the psionic power source. Don't make "asia" a power source again.
Psionics is no more special that a sword being wielded by a fighter. Speaking of Swords, I'd like the Kensai, Ninja, and Monk to use the same power source as the Psionicist. Do that and there's nothing special about it, but it still isn't "magic". Primal powers? Never played enough 3e to care. Let me google it...
druids. shamans. barbarians. Meh.
Shukenja? monks? warden? wtf is that?
ok, look. Druids worship. What they worship is irrelevant. What responds is. Barbarians and Kensai used to both strike as +5 weapons at 12th level. That's cool. No problem with it. Shukenja were sort of like Clerics in OA, but they were also sort of like Feng Shui masters. I didn't get it.
Wiki says shukenja "were the 7th century practitioners of the Japanese Religion of Shugendo"
now at first I was like "what the hell is shugendo?" so I looked it up.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shugend%C5%8D
looks like what happened when shinto priests of the mountains multiclassed as Taoists and Buddhists. It looks like in the 17th century, the priests were forced to pick a school of Buddhism, and in the 19th century under Meiji, it was completely banned and a few ended up going into official State Recognized Shinto sects.
My conclusion is the Shukenja is a specialty priest within the Taoist/Shinto/Buddhist mix. I applaud the Original attempt at presenting a Syncretic Class, but there's already a lot of Japanese classes and not enough other stuff.
What does this all have to do with power source? I've suggested Animism, Spirit, Ki, Chi, and Psi all use the same power source, and noted similarity between the kensai +5 and the barbarian +5. Conclusion?
They all use the same power source, and that source is not the same as wizards, spell books, and faeries. I wouldn't put the Feywild in the same source - look at the Saga of Hrolf Kraki and the story of Skuld.
ee Gawds?
although to be technical,
when you call upon ancestors, or faith in some other power, buddha, or god, you are using 'divine' power source.
When you start doing the god/satan priest/witch thing, you start running into the "magic = religion" issue, which confuses whether or not a Priest is using spells or if Magic Resistance effects them. In Wrath of the Titans, the gods were powered by mortal faith. In some religions, the faith of mortals is irrelevant. Cthulhu doesn't care if you believe in him, and he won't go away if the whole world forgets, no matter how nice that might sound.
Personally i'd do away with "Divine" power source in the strictest sense, and say that gods are powered either by 1. faith 2. magic 3. psionics
Then you would compare the particular god's intervention type to the effect in question. Thus a priest of psionic aliens would always be Divine (Psionic), while a Gaiman Novel god would always be Divine (Faith).
That was a horribly complex subject to address, especially when you count in Clerics. That's why I made this thread:
community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/758...
I would probably resolve it by giving gods 6 power levels, and comparing their power level to the Resistance. For instance:
20 Quasipower
25 Demigod
30 Lesser Power
35 Intermediate Power
40 Greater God
N/A Over Power (High God)
This is not unlike the Vancian vs. AEUD effect - more spells = less power. Getting the attention of higher deities is harder, and can be represented either as higher level spells, or as different frequency of Spell acquisition. Naturally game balance people will want all the gods to be equal to each other, but that's not really how it is even in fiction and pantheons of multiple deities.
Power source and Resistance are always going to create complications. I have no qualms with having more than 2 power sources. I have five fingers on my hand and can definitely count past three.
Options are Liberating
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1 year ago ::
Mar 31, 2012 - 3:40PM
#8
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Date Joined:
Mar 18, 2012
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Mechanical/balance requirements for magic items. I don't want to be told that at level X everyone should have Y gold (or silver) worth of magical equipment, or that they should have a +2 weapon/implement and +2 armor and a +2 saves necklace. Magical loot should be a special reward and more than just a +4 sword you need to compete vs. the challenges of your particular level.
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1 year ago ::
Mar 31, 2012 - 3:54PM
#9
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Date Joined:
Jun 29, 2010
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I don't mind anything existing as a module or option. If there are people that want it, print it. If you're talking about being included as core, well then that's a HUGE list. In a game about allowing all playstyles I don't want to see anything that detracts from any feeling/flavor/style as core. It must be the Jeet Kune Do of roleplaying...a purely formless form. Anything else prefers/infers a specific playstyle as 'correct', and is therefore counter to the purpose of the edition.
DISCLAIMER - Everything said by anyone is absolute subjective opinion. There are no objective claims being made by me, or anyone else, unless they overtly state 'The following is an objective claim'. At this point if you choose to be offended by anything I (or anyone else) say the problem is ENTIRELY your own.
WotC won't let us give them money because they won't produce a game we want to play.
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1 year ago ::
Mar 31, 2012 - 4:16PM
#10
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Date Joined:
Apr 23, 2009
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Sidenote:
This thread is proof that forum posters can't read. The thread title says ONE. What is MOST important.
Back to Thread:
AEDU alone.
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