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12 months ago ::
Jul 18, 2012 - 7:51PM
#831
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Heh, where was your indignation when Phoenix was saying all the players and DMs who didnt play his playstyle “suck”?
Honestly, there came a point in this thread where I had to pick and choose the posts I was reading. I probably never read them. I'm not intolerant of other play styles myself, I'm just very concerned that if enough people complain about every little issue they perceive, we will end up with a rule book that dwarfs the Pathfinder Core Rules, and that is not something I relish. I am very much for rules lite, and some brief guidelines on how to avoid common pitfalls. I don't believe rules are the answer to every problem.
Kalex the Omen Dungeonmaster Extraordinaire Concerning Player Rules Bias
Show
Gaining victory through rules bias is a hollow victory and they know it.
The argument goes, that some idiot at the table might claim that because there is a "default" that is the only true way to play D&D. An idiotic misconception that should be quite easy to disprove just by reading the rules, coming to these forums, or sending a quick note off to Customer Support and sharing the inevitable response with the group. BTW, I'm not just talking about Next when I say this. Of course, D&D has always been this way since at least the late 70's when I began playing.
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12 months ago ::
Jul 18, 2012 - 7:55PM
#832
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Legends and Lore:
The Five-Minute Workday
by Mike Mearls
How long do your groups tend to remain in an adventuring environment before seeking a place to rest up? This week, Mike tackles some of the expectations involved in combat-oriented resource management in D&D Next.
Talk about this column here.
GREAT!
We can't be bothered dealing with this major problem with the game,
so we're leaving it entirely in the hands of individual DMs to "manage".
Way to pass the buck!
Nice that it's onto the person who is ALREADY overwhelmingly loaded down with expectation inherently and who they are further encumbering through their refusal to embrace exception based design and focus on "DM may I" style rules "systems".
3.X was already harded to DM than it's predecessors (which were pretty easy) and after the JOY of DMing 4th I will NOT be going backwards.
If "Next" doesn't make my job as the DM easy then I will NOT be running it.
THIS does NOT make my job easy as a DM.
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12 months ago ::
Jul 18, 2012 - 8:04PM
#833
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Date Joined:
Apr 23, 2009
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I'm not pro-death. I'm pro-tension. I want my players having to fight for their lives to survive. If the game is easy or just show and tell for your powers then it lacks narrative tension.
I agree that we should just modularize things. But if you do it that way you don't need all the vancian safeguards some of you are suggesting. We who like it don't have a problem with it and won't need those rules.
It is my opinion that those who hated the five minute workday had incompetent DMs. Not because they didn't handle the five minute workday. Rather they didn't handle it when it was bugging the whole group apparently. The DM should have realized the group did not like the result of the five minute work day and then applied some common sense and ended it. Even if the DM was completely incapable of roleplaying the reasons (which is sad in and of itself) he should have just banned it.
There is no five minute workday in the real world. It's a metagame contrivance. If the DM just plays the monsters with a minimal IQ the five minute workday goes away. It doesn't mean there is never ever a situation where you might rest after a single encounter. It goes away as a metagame exploit because the group will rarely see those situations and won't be expecting them.
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12 months ago ::
Jul 18, 2012 - 8:59PM
#834
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Date Joined:
Aug 18, 2007
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There is no five minute workday in the real world. It's a metagame contrivance. If the DM just plays the monsters with a minimal IQ the five minute workday goes away. It doesn't mean there is never ever a situation where you might rest after a single encounter. It goes away as a metagame exploit because the group will rarely see those situations and won't be expecting them.
Part of the problem is that the 'modern' games such as 3rd edition, Pathfinder, and 4e made combat take so much longer that the wandering monsters become tedious. I still use them, and I have monsters attack during rest times, but they were still much easier to pull off in AD&D.
None of my dungeons or adventures are static. The dungeon is an ecosystem, and most creatures don't stay in their rooms.
It is my opinion that those who hated the five minute workday had incompetent DMs. Not because they didn't handle the five minute workday. Rather they didn't handle it when it was bugging the whole group apparently. The DM should have realized the group did not like the result of the five minute work day and then applied some common sense and ended it. Even if the DM was completely incapable of roleplaying the reasons (which is sad in and of itself) he should have just banned it.
I have difficulty understanding that as well. If players are complaining about the 5 minute work day, why are they taking them? If it is not fun for the players, why is the DM allowing it?
CAMRA preserves and protects real ale from the homogenization of modern beer production.
D&D Grognards are the CAMRA of D&D!
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12 months ago ::
Jul 18, 2012 - 9:39PM
#835
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Date Joined:
Apr 23, 2009
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@Mourneblade94
I agree the game has progressively slowed since 2e. But 3e was still a lot faster especially at the pre-10th levels, than 4e was.
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12 months ago ::
Jul 18, 2012 - 9:53PM
#836
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Date Joined:
May 10, 2007
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In my very subjective opinion the 5 minute work day really only existed as a 5 minute workday in 3.5 and was caused by an unintended consequence of an attempt to balance a particular style of caster with non-casters.
The particular style of caster was the buffer.
In 3.0 a lot of buff spells had durations of 1hour/level. So once you reached level 7+ a particular buff only had to be applied 1/day as it would last the majority of the adventuring day. Also at about this level casters had so many low level spell slots available that they weren't running out of spells over the course of the adventuring day. So the buffed characters would run around all day with their buffs up and would not have to waste actions during a combat to buff up.
So they changed the durations of quite a few buff spells from 1 hour/level to 1 minute/level
A buffed character was still very powerful so for a particular style of adventure (like a raid on a Thieves guild, evil cultists temple etc) it made sense to try to get in as many combats as possible while the buffs were active. So you would buff before you entered and then rush through the complex killing everything as quickly as possible. The most extreme form of this was the Scry and die form of adventuring. You would scry your opponents lair, buff up with the relevant spells, teleport in and try to kill everything within that complex within 5 minutes. Whilst under this sort of time limit it doesn't make sense to hold anything back you would be trying to finish encounters as quickly as possible. This style of course favours Casters Rocket Tag form of offence so the attempt at balancing failed. And with the persistent spell metamagic feat a few levels later and you're running around with all day buffs anyway.
They attempted to treat the symptom (and the buffed character was a symptom) and didn't treat the actual problem (hence why the treatment didn't work).
In my opinion the problem is that for non-casting characters there is an imbalance in the basic class design.
Non-casters have their endurance measured by a daily (or actually weekly if you discount magical healing) resource. Your Hit points determine how many rounds of combat you can participate in. However a non-casters offense is balanced around the position that you can use your offense every round for the entire day. This is a false position to be balancing the non-casters offense around, they can only use their offense as long as they have hit points.
Casters on the other hand with a daily limited offense are allowed to have a bigger offense, but as both casters and non-casters endurance are really measured by their hit-points you only need enough uses of your offense to match the number of rounds your hit points will last and in many occasions once a caster got to about 6-7 level they had enough spells to be able to cast a spell every single round. So the supposed daily offense limit matched the daily endurance limit and in a levels time (where you get even more spell slots) exceed it.
I hope they can treat this actual problem in DDN, and then they won't have to worry about any 5 minute work days.
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12 months ago ::
Jul 19, 2012 - 2:19AM
#837
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Date Joined:
Jun 29, 2010
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I mean character development - in a narrative sense - the personal transformation of a main character across a story arc from the beginning to the end.
Bob1, Bob2, Bob3 is a real style. The original Tomb of Horrors, for example.
Even so I think you aren't giving players who enjoy this style enough credit. First of all we don't make the automatic assumption that the character we start with at first level is the hero of the story. That judgement isn't revealed until he dies or makes it to the end of the campaign. Secondly, there can be a lot of narrative character development in a short period of time. In my current 4e campaign our swordmage just died in Reavers of Harkenwold while infiltrating Iron Keep (in the Chapel to be specific). He was 3rd level. In that time he went from being an angry orphaned young man, to a real champion of justice. He went from being distrustful of others to being a great teammate and sometimes leader of the party. He died trying to save the bladesinger, and the rogue from certain death and his death, though tragic, was extremely heroic.
Heh, where was your indignation when Phoenix was saying the players and DMs who didnt play his playstyle “suck”?
You convince me you care about character development. Tho it seems sad its so brief.
Anyway, high lethality can be fun for those who enjoy it.
To be clear, I neither said nor inferred any such thing. I said if your players/dm were unable to conceive of other options besides nova or die they either sucked, or wanted a different type of game than any edition of D&D (with the possible exception of 4th which I don't have enough experience with to comment on) has ever provided for.
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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12 months ago ::
Jul 19, 2012 - 4:15AM
#838
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I mean character development - in a narrative sense - the personal transformation of a main character across a story arc from the beginning to the end.
Bob1, Bob2, Bob3 is a real style. The original Tomb of Horrors, for example.
Even so I think you aren't giving players who enjoy this style enough credit. First of all we don't make the automatic assumption that the character we start with at first level is the hero of the story. That judgement isn't revealed until he dies or makes it to the end of the campaign. Secondly, there can be a lot of narrative character development in a short period of time. In my current 4e campaign our swordmage just died in Reavers of Harkenwold while infiltrating Iron Keep (in the Chapel to be specific). He was 3rd level. In that time he went from being an angry orphaned young man, to a real champion of justice. He went from being distrustful of others to being a great teammate and sometimes leader of the party. He died trying to save the bladesinger, and the rogue from certain death and his death, though tragic, was extremely heroic.
Heh, where was your indignation when Phoenix was saying the players and DMs who didnt play his playstyle “suck”?
You convince me you care about character development. Tho it seems sad its so brief.
Anyway, high lethality can be fun for those who enjoy it.
To be clear, I neither said nor inferred any such thing. I said if your players/dm were unable to conceive of other options besides nova or die they either sucked, or wanted a different type of game than any edition of D&D (with the possible exception of 4th which I don't have enough experience with to comment on) has ever provided for.
As said, your solution is to kill your own teammates. Your advice is less desirable.
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12 months ago ::
Jul 19, 2012 - 4:20AM
#839
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Date Joined:
Jun 29, 2010
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I mean character development - in a narrative sense - the personal transformation of a main character across a story arc from the beginning to the end.
Bob1, Bob2, Bob3 is a real style. The original Tomb of Horrors, for example.
Even so I think you aren't giving players who enjoy this style enough credit. First of all we don't make the automatic assumption that the character we start with at first level is the hero of the story. That judgement isn't revealed until he dies or makes it to the end of the campaign. Secondly, there can be a lot of narrative character development in a short period of time. In my current 4e campaign our swordmage just died in Reavers of Harkenwold while infiltrating Iron Keep (in the Chapel to be specific). He was 3rd level. In that time he went from being an angry orphaned young man, to a real champion of justice. He went from being distrustful of others to being a great teammate and sometimes leader of the party. He died trying to save the bladesinger, and the rogue from certain death and his death, though tragic, was extremely heroic.
Heh, where was your indignation when Phoenix was saying the players and DMs who didnt play his playstyle “suck”?
You convince me you care about character development. Tho it seems sad its so brief.
Anyway, high lethality can be fun for those who enjoy it.
To be clear, I neither said nor inferred any such thing. I said if your players/dm were unable to conceive of other options besides nova or die they either sucked, or wanted a different type of game than any edition of D&D (with the possible exception of 4th which I don't have enough experience with to comment on) has ever provided for.
As said, your solution is to kill your own teammates. Your advice is less desirable.
No, although that may sometimes happen. My solution is to roleplay creatively so that characters don't rely on mechanical powers to keep them alive.
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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12 months ago ::
Jul 19, 2012 - 4:26AM
#840
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To contrive pretexts and force narratives into absurdities (such as sleeping for 22 hours underground even after adventuring for 5 encounters!) to fit a gamist mechanic, is unpleasant for many people.
The per-day mechanic is too inflexible to represent most adventure stories that exist.
The per-day mechanic is too gamey.
The per-day mechanic makes adventure stories too samey.
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