Thing is, SoDs are unfun and bad design. The HP system exists for a reason, and there is no reason to do Con damage instead of HP damage.
Save or Dies can be unfun, I will agree (Wail of the Banshee). But Save or Dies have their place in the game. IF you fail the Perception check to notice a strange smell from your drink and IF you fail your Insight check to notice the bartender acting strangely and IF you don't have a good enough RP reason to suspect someone is trying to kill you, then I think you deserve to suffer possible death due to a Save or Die.
Titanium Dragon wrote:
Well, you're screwing yourself for a few levels, and the problem is that this has a very unfun effect on the game. You make others have less fun because your character is too strong, and then when you're too weak you have less fun because you're overshadowed. Yeah, it evens out in the long run, but it is FAR better for it to simply avoid it altogether. It isn't facism, its improved fun. Taking away bad choices with very long ranging consequences isn't a bad thing; people should not be able to screw themselves on their character, only on their actions.
Well, I realize this is the Char-Op forum and all, but going down the "removing bad choices" road leads to things like removing 3.5 Monks and Sorcerors completely. While class balance is important, a large part of "fun" for me is freedom to explore a different mindset and philosophy. I *want* to be the profligate gambler in D&D because I save too much money in real life. In a sense, I *enjoy* suffering long term consequences in game due to "poor" decisions.
Also, I'm a huge fan of rolling your stats and living with the terrible 14/11/10/10/10/8's once in a while. Necessity is the mother of invention, and it's in the games where I started a lower levels than other PCs and/or weaker stats than other PCs that I actually got to think and improvise the most to make myself effective. Refusing to "gimp" characters takes away from that.
Titanium Dragon wrote:
You're wrong. Sorry, but you don't really understand the point of the healing surge system.
The entire point of the system is that you have two HP pools - an encounter pool and a daily pool. Healing surges represent your daily pool, and your current HP are your encounter pool. When you use healing surges, you're drawing from your daily pool to refill your encounter pool. The idea is that your encounter pool is considerably smaller than your daily pool. The reason for this is quite simple:
Every combat encounter needs to give you a decent chance of dying if you screw it up, but you should be able to fight in 5 encounters per day for an adventure.
3.5 sucked because, among other reasons, your daily pool WAS your encounter pool. This has the net effect of, if you want people to have 5 encounters that day, ONLY the last encounter will have a real chance of death (and it will be dangerous), and if they choose to rest after the third or fourth because they're "running low", then the last encounter will be rather trivial. The final fight, if it was the strongest, would often lead to a TPK unless the other encounters were too easy (or unless you were cheesing out with magic users and making the game trivial, which is unfun).
The reality is that you have to have healing potions suck your daily pool because otherwise you're going back to 3.x, and 3.x's way of doing things was horrid. Your daily pool simply cannot be your encounter pool, and you should NOT be able to convert gold directly into HP, which is what you're proposing.
Hm, interesting point about encounter vs. daily HP pools. I hadn't thought about it that way. But with classes with drastically different daily HP pools, you'll get the 3.5 wizard dilemma all over again. Low HP strikers like Rangers and Rogues will presumably run out of daily HP more quickly (both because they have less total, and because they take more damage), and will be arguing for the party to take extended rests.
I disagree that the last fight of the day was the only one with any real chance of death in 3.5. When I DM 3.5, there are two kinds of combat encounters: offensive and defensive. Offensive involves the party going to storm a castle or something, while defensive involves some sort of ambush or assassination by the NPCs. I play the NPCs exceptionally strategically, exploiting PC weaknesses where it seems likely they can be discovered through research.
The key to the element of danger is to mix up the two types. Any defensive encounter (such as surviving an assassination attempt) may be followed up by an offensive encounter (such as trying to capture the assassin), which may be followed again by a defensive encounter (an ambush by the assassin's confederates).
In my last campaign, 2 of the four PCs died, in separate occasions. In one case (trying to rescue a prisoner), it was the first encounter of the day. In the other (eating poisoned food prepared by bandits while a separate enemy group was pursuing them), it was the 2nd or 3rd encounter of the day.
And, what's wrong with 1 encounter per day? 4-6 per day is a guideline that fits the "dungeon crawl" motif, but generally not useful for urban campaigns.
Even worse, after looking in numerous places, I couldn't find any way to handle powers outside of combat. At best, some powers say they last five minutes when used... and most of those powers are Encounter powers, which doesn't help at all since you're not always having an encounter when you want to use one.
Did you notice most powers that ladt 5 minutes can be maitained as a minor action like Light. At least KotS it haf the minor action to maintain.
"If you can't believe in yourself, believe in me who believes in you."
and
"Go beyond the impossible, and kick reason to the curb" Kamina, from Gurren Lagann
Let's not get snippy, people; it can't possibly help us in the discussion.
I would like to say, though, that I do think the balancing stuff has been done superbly. There isn't a single class not worth playing in the book, and that is a good thing. I'm actually amazed, because the claim that the monster levels really do scale correctly to character levels seems to actually hold true. I still will need to see if my predictions are true, but I'm fairly sure four 6th level characters would have an equally hard time against a level 6 solo monster, two level 6 elite monsters, four level 6 normal monsters, eight level 3 normal monsters, and ninety-six level 1 minions. Now, obviously the last one would be a bit irritating to track, but as far as results go, I'm fairly sure that considering the average amount of times they would hit and the damage they would deal before they die would be close to equaling the damage of the single level 6 solo monster. This, of course, depends on the potential of an AoE spell wiping them, but there I'm nearly possible that no single wizard could down 96 squares of zombies in a single round. Hell, the only thing that would get close is if the entire party was wizards, and then they'd go down with from any zombies that manage to get close. I like that.
And, yes, multi-classing is difficult now. I've already felt the sting; I really liked the idea of an Eladrin Fighter nabbing a Feylock's Misty Step for some extra teleporting goodness. But, I also understand why it is not available to me: Warlock Curses (from which the Misty Step stems) is the hallmark of a Warlock. It is one of the defining points of their class, and if I want to have it, I need to be a Warlock. I can grab a few flavored abilities that don't intrinsically change my class' role, but I can't be a true mix of the two. An argument one might make is that this is 'clearly' a limitation on my imagination brought on by the multi-classing rules. However, I don't think it should be viewed as such; the classes are exactly what they set out to be. If you want a class that is a true combination of two classes, you never wanted to be either of the classes to begin with: you want a new class.
So, build one.
The rules are so incredibly simple that there should be little to no difficulty creating your own class with your own abilities. Yeah, we all like things being core, especially here on the CO board; we like to be able to build things that should be universally accepted on any table. "Homebrew," to many, is a dirty word that implies an unbalanced mess of a character class. And I'd have had the same opinion... in 3.x. 4th Edition is so clear cut about how races and classes are designed, it's not hard to follow a pretty basic template.
In effect, the game designers have created a game that has a very simple yet solid framework from which to build a character that does what you want her/him to do. This is a good thing.
The multi-quote on these boards is broken, as I recall.
Regarding 4e, Arrrrgggh does have some points. The multiclass mechanic is awfully clunky and fails in several key places because of class features.
For example, only a Ranger can take the Ranger paragon paths.
Hunter's Quarry as an encounter power is much, much better than Sneak Attack as an encounter power. This will probably be changed, which is unfortunate because again, no PP's.
A lot of the power requirements make multiclassing unreasonable. For example, a Fighter/Wizard - the traditional multiclass, will have serious problems hitting with his Wiz powers unless he gets a proper level implement as well as a proper level weapon.
Power effects are misleading. Eyebite is pretty horrible as an encounter power, and yet there are already Rogue/Warlocks who think it's the way to go.
Also, the Ranger's Twin Strike is so very superior to Careful Strike, but this is probably only obvious to the mechanically inclined. Careful Strike is almost worthless next to it, with only a few rare instanced it becomes useful (none of them common enough to give an at-will to).
In general, some of the Ranger's flavour is irritating at best, and also provides logical disconnects. His skill-boosting utilities, for example. Seriously, the man gives advice to others every 5 minutes, but can never listen to it himself? What an arrogant *****.
Actually, a lot of problems lie with the Ranger.
The only reason you should get Archery combat style is if you want one of the two Archery PP's. Otherwise, TWF is superior - this reminds me too much of throwaway feat prerequisites. I thought we'd ditched those?
Intelligence is worthless next to Dex for most characters. Cha, Wis, Con and Str all seem to be of somewhat equal worth in comparison to each other. Characters should get some benefit for being smarter than the average bear.
(Skill training should probably have been Int Modifier skills, with classes receiving a more even number of trained skills in general. Probably.)
The (Archery) Ranger's only option when approached is to flee. It'd be great if she could draw a sword and defend herself... but her applicable archery powers require her to dual-wield.
Poisons are pathetic. They're the equivalent of week-old Coca Cola in terms of potency and lethality. (In contrast, diseases are awesome).
Other than those complaints, which are kind of minor, the system is actually pretty solid. I really, really like the way things have been streamlined.
Okay, first of all, who let the Paizo staff in the building?? :D
Seriously, I played D&D back in the late 80's and left it for Palladium, which was then a superior system and eventually drifted away from all RPGs. When I came back 5 years ago, I was excited to introduce my new gaming group to Palladium, which I was sure was still the superior system. However, after comparing 2nd edition Palladium with 3.5, there was simply no contest that Wotc had turned lead into gold. Now, I've played two preview adventures and ran some fan-made adventures for my home group and done two 8-hour marathon intro to 4E using KotSF for two different gaming stores.
With all of that under my belt I can unequivocally say that 4E rocks and is simply an evolution of gaming. Sure, if you want to swim about in the H2O, then continue to support 3.75 and leave the rest of us alone!
Wotc has turned gold into platinum. . .
and astral diamonds!!
Oh, the other thing for you folks who insist on complaining, please take a course in effective communication. When you give feedback always start with the positive or you immediately lose your audience. However, if you're just looking for a convenient place to dump your negative feelings because life has kicked you around, then perhaps you'd be better off watching Dr. Phil than posting here!
Oh, the other thing for you folks who insist on complaining, please take a course in effective communication. When you give feedback always start with the positive or you immediately lose your audience. However, if you're just looking for a convenient place to dump your negative feelings because life has kicked you around, then perhaps you'd be better off watching Dr. Phil than posting here!
So you equated people have complaints about significant changes that have been made to a game to people who have significant problems in their life. According to you, one must 120% LOVE the major nerfs and changes to be a normal person in life. Real mature with the personal attacks.
Also, its hard to start with the positive when you can't find any...
So you equated people have complaints about significant changes that have been made to a game to people who have significant problems in their life. According to you, one must 120% LOVE the major nerfs and changes to be a normal person in life. Real mature with the personal attacks.
Also, its hard to start with the positive when you can't find any...
Yes did. He basically told that those who have any complaints at all ("those who insist on complaining") shouldn't post on the forums ("than posting here!"), have personal problems ("because life has kicked you around"), and should watch dr.phil more ("you'd be better off watching Dr. Phil").
I quoted, and put in parenthesis, his exact words for your convenience.
also, here is a copy of what I am refering to
"Oh, the other thing for you folks who insist on complaining, please take a course in effective communication. When you give feedback always start with the positive or you immediately lose your audience. However, if you're just looking for a convenient place to dump your negative feelings because life has kicked you around, then perhaps you'd be better off watching Dr. Phil than posting here! "
So you equated people have complaints about significant changes that have been made to a game to people who have significant problems in their life. According to you, one must 120% LOVE the major nerfs and changes to be a normal person in life. Real mature with the personal attacks.
Also, its hard to start with the positive when you can't find any...
