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Dec 15, 2009 -- 11:56AM, Atras wrote:

  In fact, I think this has been the case all along, and there was just a lot of hope that someone would come along and say "Here's some gold for your character to make up for the remarkable effectiveness that you once had, have fun playing."

No, there were a lot of people who did not think it reasonable for the campaign staff to effectively say, "oh, by the way, you're no longer proficient in your weapon and the armor you spent feats and item slots to get now reduces your AC. Ha ha. We long to see you suffer for one to four levels." And those people are correct. That approach would be a complete and total breach of the social contract that players and DMs (in a home or massively multiplayer campaign) enter into. If a home game DM did that, he would be looking for new players 5 minutes later. LFR players should not be expected to put up with it either.

Dec 15, 2009 -- 12:32PM, Joe_Shill wrote:

Dec 15, 2009 -- 11:56AM, Atras wrote:

  I think it is safe to say: play with the new rules.  If your Avenger lost 3 AC since the Armor of Faith doesn't work with Chainmail, start retraining as you level, or deal with having normal AC.  If your Dwarf is using an Urgosh, you don't have a proficency bonus on the spear end.  If your Grasp of the Grave isn't auto-dazing anymore and you hate it, retrain when you level.
  In fact, I think this has been the case all along, and there was just a lot of hope that someone would come along and say "Here's some gold for your character to make up for the remarkable effectiveness that you once had, have fun playing."

I think you might be right that this is the default answer.  But as far as a customer service response, it's b*******. 

One month ago, I proposed the suck-it-up option, and I've been less and less happy with that decision ever since.  Here's why.

When you bought X item, or you took Y feat, or you selected Z class feature, it had a specific wording.  That is the item, feat, or feature (or power) that you took.  The fact that they kept the name, but changed the wording does not mean that you took that item, feat, power, etc. 

If you order a car that's "Midnight Black" based on the color sample in a book, and when it comes, it's a crappy off-grey tone, you don't simply accept the explanation that "manufacturing that color was impractical, so we changed the paint mixture but kept the same name.  That's what you ordered - suck it up."

In fact, if you were to purchase a car that had a specific set of equipment, and when got it home you discovered that they had in fact removed some of that equipment in favor of less desirable gear, there is a term for it.  Bait - and - switch.

Bait and switch is an unacceptable business practice, and we would not expect a consumer to simply take what he was given instead of what he purchased. 

We should not expect players to accept bait and switch in their game.

I will recognize that the designers of the game feel that certain items are not working out how they might have intended them to work, and that they may feel the necessity of changing wording.  This is not the fault, nor the responsibility of the players (customers) who in good faith built their characters on wording-as-it-was, not wording-as-it-might-become.

I will recognize that allowing players to keep using an item as selected, and not as currently worded can lead to chaos at the convention table, with some players having items that work one way, while others have the same item working differently.  Again, this is not the fault, or the responsibility of the customer.

What then is the player (customer) to do, that is fair to that customer?

So.

My proposal is this:  If you took an item, power, feat, class feature which had had its description changed after your selection, then you should be able to treat that selection as if it had never happened. 

If you selected the Healer's Sash, and it is now not what you selected, then simply treat the selection as null and void.  (One side cannot unilaterally change the terms of a sale after the sale has already been agreed to.  The other side should always have the option to nullify that sale.)

Since a character with an unselected class feature is not a completed character, then you should feel free to select a different class feature.  If you selected feats, powers or items based on that class feature (and even ability scores), then you should feel free to rebuild/rebuy any affected feats, powers, or items.

I would hold similarly for any selection of powers, feats, items, paragon paths affected by a change in wording.  It is no longer the item you selected, therefore you did not select it.

Now.  The argument might be "This will just let power gamers rebuild to a maximum power character again!!!"  Maybe.  According to the DMG, power-gamer is a perfectly valid player characteristic.  But if the designers are making these changes to limit power, then this should not be a problem.  (It's not like they are getting to take feats not available to some who is only now starting a character and selecting feats.  They are just getting to _fairly_ nullify a sale on an item that is not what they contracted to buy.) 

The argument might be "Why are we rewarding people who took broken items???"  Well, since each of those items when through multiple stages of editing, playtesting, and updating before being published without anyone at WOTC deciding that they were broken, the only way that a player could have known that they were "broken" and not merely "well chosen" would be through some form of prescience, unavailable to the designers of the game.  We are not rewarding the customer who is being told that what he purchased no longer exists.  We are compensating him to make whole that which was taken from him. 

The argument might be "If we allow this, then almost everyone will have a claim on rebuilding their character from the ground up!!!"  True.  So what?  What harm is there to such an exercise?  We allow it of anyone taking a playtest class from Dragon magazine.  If it enhances fun for that player, why not?  My counter argument would be that if we don't want players rebuilding characters wholesale, then the designers should either 1) get it right the first time or 2) issue updates at a much more infrequent interval.  If each update were to generate a free rebuild, then the designers would understand how badly they are screwing with people who have invested time and money into their characters, and either cut out ill-designed cruft, or live with the ill-designed cruft.

(Essentially, my "suck-it-up" option for players has turned around into "the designers should suck it up.  If they change wording, they then owe it to the players to allow rebuilds.")

Absent any fair policy from WOTC, this is how I will be handling my characters.  Rather than quietly make the changes and hope nobody in my games notices, I'm coming right out and saying that this is what I am going to do.  I urge others to openly do so as well.

Dec 15, 2009 -- 1:06PM, tirianmal wrote:

But the rest of the LFR player base is among the best informed and most capable players I know. So I call BS. If you're playing LFR, and have been doing so for a few months, you're know where the cheese is. If you're claiming otherwise, you're either not paying attention, or deliberately not paying attention. Even then, assuming I didn't feel that way, claiming that the product needs to be perfect or somebody will assume that it is meant to be used this way, is like saying that all cars should come with speed limiters to prevent them from being used above the speed limit ... or we're all going to assume that speeding is legal. And when and if someone does finally install a speed-limiter, well then the government should compensate me for the lost speed.

Tchyah ... no.

I stand by my statement.  Every item that received update today and last month went though:

1) writing
2) editing
3) playtesting
4) rewriting
5) re-editing
6) publishing

with every single layer okaying each and every item.  If the designers, playtesters, and editors did not deem these items "broken", then there was no expectation for any player to have assumed that they were anything other than the superior choice for the appropriate build.

You can say they were obviously broken, but unless you are the designer admitting to a mistake, then you are simply spouting opinion that diverges from the evidence. 

Bloodclaw was even included in multiple written modules as a treasure bundle, demonstrating even more layers of checks and balances that could/should/did take place.  You can call bs all you want, but you are doing so in the face of all available evidence.