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4 years ago ::
Dec 02, 2009 - 7:17AM
#21
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Date Joined:
Mar 28, 2009
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I just noticed that Auspicious Dice made it into the Compiled Issue #381.
Anyone else going to buy multiple sets?
(Yep, in a year or two, they might possibly receive errata. Until then, it'll be fun.)
Nope. They're obviously broken and using multiple sets is a great way to suck the fun out of the game for players who aren't using the cheese and for GMs who want to provide a fun challenge for the group.
Seriously. This crap is damaging to the campaign. Why would one deliberately exploit something that's obviously unbalanced and broken? It's adolescent behavior at best.
Why would WOTC design an item that is "obviously unbalanced and broken"?
Would I use these dice in a home campaign, where there is not the 4 hour deadline to complete a mission, and where people actually can spend _TIME_ on roleplaying? Nope. In home games, I've been more than happy to run characters with no usable skills, but who have personality and are fun to role play. (The 86 year old halfling cleric who insists on equipping the party with signal whistles. Or, the rich, good looking fop who has a huge bank account, but has nothing else to offer the party but a good brunch each day, yet somehow manages to parlay this into successful storylines.)
Would I use these dice in LFR where the group has 4 hours to go through 4-5 encounters, and spending more than a modicum of minutes actually playing a role is considered bad form? Sure. Because LFR is a game of tactics, not a game of role playing. Tactically, Dice of Auspicious Fortune are economically sound. They provide a guaranteed die roll result for a daily power, or for when a successful attack or skill role is absolutely necessary.
If you truly think "this crap is damaging to the campaign", then you should be bitching about "this crap" to the people who publish "this crap". Not to the paying customers who are paying money for the published "this crap" and who are paying in game gold to buy "this crap". Blaming the customer is misdirected and counterproductive. In fact it is only though the customers that any change in "this crap" might occur. If customers use "this crap", then it will bring out the shortcomings of the published material driving change. If customers don't use "this crap" then they are simply giving the publisher license to continue publishing material that is unusable. We might as well be paying them to print lorem ipsum.
"At Gencon 2010, WOTC will announce a new edition of Dungeons & Dragons." - crm(1/2010)
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4 years ago ::
Dec 02, 2009 - 7:55AM
#22
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Date Joined:
Aug 22, 2007
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If you truly think "this crap is damaging to the campaign", then you should be bitching about "this crap" to the people who publish "this crap". Not to the paying customers who are paying money for the published "this crap" and who are paying in game gold to buy "this crap". Blaming the customer is misdirected and counterproductive. In fact it is only though the customers that any change in "this crap" might occur. If customers use "this crap", then it will bring out the shortcomings of the published material driving change. If customers don't use "this crap" then they are simply giving the publisher license to continue publishing material that is unusable. We might as well be paying them to print lorem ipsum.
I'm not blaming the customer, I'm blaming a fellow LFR player. I think your behavior is regrettable and damages the game for other people at the table who don't take your approach. As someone who may someday wind up playing with you, I'm telling you that I find your reaction to overpowered items distasteful.
WotC doesn't have any way to know how many people use the dice in an LFR game. The mechanism we have to provide feedback is a) CustServ and b) these forums. Neither of these is enhanced by abusing the dice. You can post every day noting the problem even if you're not using them in play; you can ask CustServ about them, ditto. You can corner a WotC dev at a con, likewise.
Claiming that you need to use them to make your character more powerful in order to demonstrate how broken they are is silly. You can tell they're broken by looking at them, as evidenced by your post.
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4 years ago ::
Dec 02, 2009 - 8:01AM
#23
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- Senior Volunteer Community Lead
Date Joined:
Aug 19, 2007
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If the dice at least saw some usability errata, they could maybe squeak in as an epic item, but as written I'm not even sure they'd fit in at 30th or lower. Certainly not below 26th to avoid there ever being a casual 'Oh, I have 6 of those'. And there are some crazy good items at that level.
Thankfully, one of the biggest excesses happens in a home game rather than LFR - rolling the dice on offdays until you roll something you like then hanging onto it, including across multiple dice sets. Most LFR scenarios don't allow you to do that - you can still have multiple dice sets, but you can't preload them to nearly the same abusiveness.
That said, I would expect these dice to become ubiquitous in late paragon. They will ensure that daily attacks land and critical saves are made. There are many who will take them for pretty much wholly those reasons. Others will take multiple sets of the dice. The number of criticals that happen, especially on certain abilities, will climb sharply. Certain effects like stun attacks, knockout, will start hitting BBEGs with startling reliability. It will have a big effect.
And I'd not be surprised if by early epic you're met with confusion if you're a leader type (whose attacks are critical to hit, for handing out bonuses) who doesn't have them, and misses your attacks with any regularity.
Home games are in far more danger, since there are probably epic home games already where people have bought 3-6 _per person_ to cycle through and load them up with good values.
Keith Richmond
Living Forgotten Realms Epic Writing Director
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4 years ago ::
Dec 02, 2009 - 8:09AM
#24
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Date Joined:
Mar 28, 2009
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If you truly think "this crap is damaging to the campaign", then you should be bitching about "this crap" to the people who publish "this crap". Not to the paying customers who are paying money for the published "this crap" and who are paying in game gold to buy "this crap". Blaming the customer is misdirected and counterproductive. In fact it is only though the customers that any change in "this crap" might occur. If customers use "this crap", then it will bring out the shortcomings of the published material driving change. If customers don't use "this crap" then they are simply giving the publisher license to continue publishing material that is unusable. We might as well be paying them to print lorem ipsum.
I'm not blaming the customer, I'm blaming a fellow LFR player. I think your behavior is regrettable and damages the game for other people at the table who don't take your approach. As someone who may someday wind up playing with you, I'm telling you that I find your reaction to overpowered items distasteful.
WotC doesn't have any way to know how many people use the dice in an LFR game. The mechanism we have to provide feedback is a) CustServ and b) these forums. Neither of these is enhanced by abusing the dice. You can post every day noting the problem even if you're not using them in play; you can ask CustServ about them, ditto. You can corner a WotC dev at a con, likewise.
Claiming that you need to use them to make your character more powerful in order to demonstrate how broken they are is silly. You can tell they're broken by looking at them, as evidenced by your post.
I find your reaction to overpowered items equally distasteful. If I purchase and use an overpowered item, that my character has paid in game gold for, and that I (the customer) have paid cash money for (in my DDI subscription), then you feel that I am damaging the game.
If I were breaking the rules, then I would be damaging the game.
If I were making arbitrary rules as a DM, then I would be damaging the game.
But to state that by playing by the rules, not only as written, but as intended (I am not using any corner case, or cheesing any interpretation, but simply looking at the plain text of the item, as written, edited, published, discussed on message boards and then republished in the monthly compilation - thus passing at least five separate review steps by WOTC), you feel that I (the customer) am damaging the game?
Distasteful indeeed.
"At Gencon 2010, WOTC will announce a new edition of Dungeons & Dragons." - crm(1/2010)
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4 years ago ::
Dec 02, 2009 - 8:10AM
#25
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Date Joined:
Nov 10, 2003
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Home games are in far more danger, since there are probably epic home games already where people have bought 3-6 _per person_ to cycle through and load them up with good values.
But in a home game the GM just bans them.
LFR doesn't have that luxury.
All we can do is harp on to the devs.
I'm amazed at how it seems that we can all see how absurdly good they are, yet the devs are apparently oblivious. I really expected them to have been pulled by the compiled issue.,
4e had the right idea with daily magic item powers, but forgot to insert a clause about not being able to use the same daily power multiple times with multiple copies of the item. I don't think the designers ever thought that people would buy multiple low-level items for the abusive daily properties, in the same way that I think they never thought people would hang on to their level 1/5 dailies until 30. If they didn't, salves of power wouldn't be an issue. But if they will go and print Sleep, Grasp of the Grave, Lead the Attack, Silent Malediction and other low level dailies that outshine higher level options, then abuse is inevitable.
And yes, people will use and abuse every broken option out there. There are only two solutions: either WoTC stops printing broken crap, or players as a whole shun it. Neither looks likely. People will, as a rule, take the most powerful options available.
I expect Epic tier LFR to be 100% unplayable. Un-houseruled epic is already wonky, and with another eight months of potential rubbish between now and Epic LFR. Urg.
Looks as if heroic is going to be the 4e sweet spot. For me, at least.
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4 years ago ::
Dec 02, 2009 - 8:17AM
#26
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Date Joined:
Mar 28, 2009
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Home games are in far more danger, since there are probably epic home games already where people have bought 3-6 _per person_ to cycle through and load them up with good values.
But in a home game the GM just bans them.
LFR doesn't have that luxury.
All we can do is harp on to the devs.
I'm amazed at how it seems that we can all see how absurdly good they are, yet the devs are apparently oblivious. I really expected them to have been pulled by the compiled issue.,
4e had the right idea with daily magic item powers, but forgot to insert a clause about not being able to use the same daily power multiple times with multiple copies of the item. I don't think the designers ever thought that people would buy multiple low-level items for the abusive daily properties, in the same way that I think they never thought people would hang on to their level 1/5 dailies until 30. If they didn't, salves of power wouldn't be an issue. But if they will go and print Sleep, Grasp of the Grave, Lead the Attack, Silent Malediction and other low level dailies that outshine higher level options, then abuse is inevitable.
And yes, people will use and abuse every broken option out there. There are only two solutions: either WoTC stops printing broken crap, or players as a whole shun it. Neither looks likely. People will, as a rule, take the most powerful options available.
I expect Epic tier LFR to be 100% unplayable. Un-houseruled epic is already wonky, and with another eight months of potential rubbish between now and Epic LFR. Urg.
Looks as if heroic is going to be the 4e sweet spot. For me, at least.
It's very difficult to believe that designers never thought about people using multiple low levels items for the daily abilities. 3.5 was rife with x/day items that people would buy extras of.
If you see a low level item that gives a 1/day "ooh, that's awesome", why in the world wouldn't you buy one for half of your day's expected encounters? (milestones giving extra daily power uses)
I'm afraid that you might be right about epic LFR being unplayable. It may be that LFR tops out at 21st level or so, the way that LG topped out at 16th level. This is a serious design flaw that is only getting worse with the lower level power creep that every printed article and book brings.
I agree with you that much could be solve with a simple rule:
"Items of the same name are considered to be the same item when determining the frequency that their powers may be used."
"At Gencon 2010, WOTC will announce a new edition of Dungeons & Dragons." - crm(1/2010)
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4 years ago ::
Dec 02, 2009 - 8:26AM
#27
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- Senior Volunteer Community Lead
Date Joined:
Aug 19, 2007
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Home games are in far more danger, since there are probably epic home games already where people have bought 3-6 _per person_ to cycle through and load them up with good values.
But in a home game the GM just bans them.
A savvy GM, sure. But there are games that don't look at things that closely. Heck, there are probably GMs who'll hand them out going 'Hey, they hate when they miss that important daily' and then let the party enchant magic item a dozen more out 8 levels later. Or, as I said, have an epic character today just make twenty and hand them out amongst the group.
LFR at least has a number of months before they're casually affordable, and they don't currently have high paragon modules available. Things will start to get tricky after DDXP to a certain extent, and Gen Con by a large extent, but I can hold out hope that these can be fixed fast enough before they make things too horrible.
They are definitely working on fixing up epic play, though. I hope they at least fix save penalties soon (yes, they took some initial steps). Stunned (can't save) is really going to be a total downer if I start running into it.
Keith Richmond
Living Forgotten Realms Epic Writing Director
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4 years ago ::
Dec 02, 2009 - 9:04AM
#28
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Date Joined:
May 11, 2005
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I really just don't get the attitude of 'let's buy multiple, so we can abuse them and suck the fun out of the game'.
Gomez
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4 years ago ::
Dec 02, 2009 - 9:13AM
#29
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Date Joined:
Nov 10, 2003
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I really just don't get the attitude of 'let's buy multiple, so we can abuse them and suck the fun out of the game'.
Gomez
Nor do I, but try telling that to everyone who already owns three salves of power.
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4 years ago ::
Dec 02, 2009 - 9:46AM
#30
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- Senior Volunteer Community Lead
Date Joined:
Aug 19, 2007
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Going out on a limb - because they find it fun to use that daily, or crit with that power, or not be stunned (save ends), or _whatever_ the thing is, but are either shortsighted with respect to challenge (not realizing that they're taking away their own fun to a certain extent, and the rest of their tables to a larger extent) or expect the campaign to match the challenge of its options.
But it starts at 'I enjoy being the guy who does bla (hits with his cool powers, doesn't stand around stunned, etc), and snowballs from there.
Keith Richmond
Living Forgotten Realms Epic Writing Director
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