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1 year ago ::
Apr 10, 2012 - 8:56AM
#21
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Date Joined:
Jan 17, 2009
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Also, around 16:40 Monte mentions that Fireball should be the best spell, which reeks of bias. I don't want any spells intentionally designed to be "better." You shouldn't have to sacrifice power level for being anything other than a blaster Wizard. I would be fine with something like Charm Person (the spell he compared Fireball to) to be more difficult to use in combat, but perhaps more effective out of combat. In that case the comparison would be a little murkier, with CP's lower power level being compensated for with utility elsewhere.
I believe that was Mike Mearls, not Monte, and I'm pretty sure he was joking when he was talking about fireball being the best spell.
Hmm, I had the opposite impression. I think he wants Fireball to go back to being awesome. Surprising a large group of foes or setting them up to get roasted together is IMO a pretty iconic D&D tactic.
I look at it in this light: one of the flaws of 3.5 were the absolute predominance of "You Suck" spells: walls, fogs, save or die, save or lose, no-save-just-lose, buffs... those spells were pretty much the only ones even considered by casters. There was no wizard worth his salt that would choose Fireball over Haste, because Haste was just better in every reasonable situation (subjective, but reasonably true). They want to get the reverse in place: sure, there will be spells that shape the battlefield, inflict conditions and stuff on opponents, that buff your allies and everything, but when all's said and done, a big old trusty Fireball will be slightly better in most situations.
I think two things contributed to the rise of "Save or Suck" spells in 3e:
1) The overall increase in hit points, both for characters and monsters.
2) The moving away from saving throws being easier to make as levels increase.
In 1e, it was far more effective to throw a damage spell at a creature than a Save or Suck spell if it was going to make it's save on a 4 or something of that nature. With the damage spell, even if the save was made, half damage was still damage and with lower hit points overall, still a significant contribution to the fight.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 10, 2012 - 9:03AM
#22
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Date Joined:
Jan 10, 2012
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I'm not convinced the designers understand what it will take to attract old school gamers.
I was disappointed with what they said about haste. Haste was previously a spell that you could cast on several members of your party. The drawback was that it would age everyone. Oh well, it sounds like they are trying to make it a personal spell that you can’t cast on your companions anymore.
I just hope they don't screw up Charm Person and other spells by nerfing them. I want the option of having charm person last for months just like it did in AD&D. It would also be nice if spells like Raise Dead returned as an in combat spell.
IMO, spells like haste and charm person can't be compared to a spell like fireball. You can't balance them and they shouldn't be balanced. Trying to make all spells equally desirable and usable in all situations is a ridiculous endeavor. Not all spells serve the same purpose anyway. Spells should vary in power level, usefulness, complexity, serve as cues for role-playing, inspire your imagination, and/or destroy dozens of enemies if needed. They should be 'magical' and shouldn't conform to any restrictive sense of balance. Spells should be capable of doing anything imaginable and include all sorts of quirky aftereffects and consequences. The test of a good spell for me is one that no video game can ever hope to duplicate. The only balancing factor should be spell level.
Spoken like a true caster supremacist. After all, its the fighter/rogue players own fault for being too stupid to pick a real class!
I'm not a caster supremacist, I'm a magic supremacist. I think that all classess find equalibrium via magic that is accessable to all. Fighters with vorpal swords, paladins with anti-magic holy avengers, rogues with arrows of slaying, clerics with boots of flying, and hobbits with the one ring.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 10, 2012 - 9:06AM
#23
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Date Joined:
Mar 26, 2007
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I prefer the guy on the left.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 10, 2012 - 9:08AM
#24
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Date Joined:
Jan 10, 2012
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Also, around 16:40 Monte mentions that Fireball should be the best spell, which reeks of bias. I don't want any spells intentionally designed to be "better." You shouldn't have to sacrifice power level for being anything other than a blaster Wizard. I would be fine with something like Charm Person (the spell he compared Fireball to) to be more difficult to use in combat, but perhaps more effective out of combat. In that case the comparison would be a little murkier, with CP's lower power level being compensated for with utility elsewhere.
I believe that was Mike Mearls, not Monte, and I'm pretty sure he was joking when he was talking about fireball being the best spell.
Hmm, I had the opposite impression. I think he wants Fireball to go back to being awesome. Surprising a large group of foes or setting them up to get roasted together is IMO a pretty iconic D&D tactic.
I look at it in this light: one of the flaws of 3.5 were the absolute predominance of "You Suck" spells: walls, fogs, save or die, save or lose, no-save-just-lose, buffs... those spells were pretty much the only ones even considered by casters. There was no wizard worth his salt that would choose Fireball over Haste, because Haste was just better in every reasonable situation (subjective, but reasonably true). They want to get the reverse in place: sure, there will be spells that shape the battlefield, inflict conditions and stuff on opponents, that buff your allies and everything, but when all's said and done, a big old trusty Fireball will be slightly better in most situations.
I think two things contributed to the rise of "Save or Suck" spells in 3e:
1) The overall increase in hit points, both for characters and monsters.
2) The moving away from saving throws being easier to make as levels increase.
In 1e, it was far more effective to throw a damage spell at a creature than a Save or Suck spell if it was going to make it's save on a 4 or something of that nature. With the damage spell, even if the save was made, half damage was still damage and with lower hit points overall, still a significant contribution to the fight.
In AD&D you wasted an entire round if the monster saved vs your Flesh to Stone spell. A round that you could have used to cast a chain lightining. It was a big risk to cast a save or die spell in AD&D especially when many high level monsters had magic resistance. If anything it was more like 'Pray they Fail or You Die'
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1 year ago ::
Apr 10, 2012 - 10:03AM
#25
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Date Joined:
Jan 12, 2012
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In AD&D you wasted an entire round if the monster saved vs your Flesh to Stone spell. A round that you could have used to cast a chain lightining. It was a big risk to cast a save or die spell in AD&D especially when many high level monsters had magic resistance. If anything it was more like 'Pray they Fail or You Die'
I think it is difficult to avoid this problem. If you plan to lower a monster to 0 HP then a round spend on flesh to stone will always be a round wasted, but if you place all your bets on flesh to stone, then the fighters can arguably just as well spend their time on "full defence", because they will not be able to kill the monster before disaster strikes..
Here are some ideas to fix he problem
- Perhaps a blodied monster could be more vulnerable to magic. That would change stone to flesh into a "finishing move"-spell, and it would force the wizard to wait for the fighters before he could cast his stone to flesh.
- Similarly spells like bane or slow should be very difficult to resist. That would encourage the wizard to spend his initial spells weakening the monster, while waiting for the fighter to bloody it.
Hopefully these rules would make it more meaningful to use stone to flesh spells in a party full of fighters, but I don't know if they are too complicated. Does 4ed have something like this?
DISCLAIMER: I never played 4ed, so I may misunderstand some of the rules.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 10, 2012 - 10:10AM
#26
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Date Joined:
Aug 31, 2008
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IMO, spells like haste and charm person can't be compared to a spell like fireball. You can't balance them and they shouldn't be balanced.
They should be 'magical' and shouldn't conform to any restrictive sense of balance. Spells should be capable of doing anything imaginable and include all sorts of quirky aftereffects and consequences. The test of a good spell for me is one that no video game can ever hope to duplicate.
The only balancing factor should be spell level.
The first and second parts are contradictory here. How can you have spells that can do anything and don't conform to any sense of balance and yet at the same time are balanced by spell level? How can you decide what level the spell should be if spells aren't limited by anything and aren't balanced?
While I'm sure playing in your style will be an option in D&D Next, I don't think it will be the core. The game is about more than just magic, and needs to support all styles. So people who want the fighter to be able to play alongside the wizard without needing a vorpal sword can do so.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 10, 2012 - 10:17AM
#27
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I'm not a caster surpremacist, I'm a magic supremacist. I think that all classess find qualibriam via magic that is accessable to all. Fighters with vorpal swords, paladins with anti-magic holy avengers, rogues with arrows of slaying, clerics with boots of flying, and hobbits with the one ring.
The idea that classes need specific items - or any items at all - is a big turn-off for a number of people:
1) DMs who don't want players to feel entitled to specific items ("You have to give me a good sword so I can be balanced with the wizard.")
2) Groups that want a game without magic items.
3) Players who don't want disarm or rust monsters or thieves or anything else to strip them of their effectiveness far more easily than casters can be denied theirs.
Balancing through magic items doesn't solve problems at every table. I won't claim to have a D&D census in front of me, but based on posts and experience a lot of people fit at least one of those groups.
Ed_Warlord, on what it takes to make a thread work: I think for it to be really constructive, everyone would have to be honest with each other, and with themselves. Quotation of the moment
Show
Areleth: How does this help the problems we have with Fighters? Do you think that every time I thought I was playing D&D what I was actually doing was slamming my head in a car door and that if you just explain how to play without doing that then I'll finally enjoy the game?
Quotation of ALL moments
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TD: That's why they put me on the front of every book. This is the dungeon, and I am the dragon.
A word of warning though: I'm totally not a level appropriate encounter.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 10, 2012 - 10:20AM
#28
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Date Joined:
Jan 30, 2012
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would make it more meaningful to use stone to flesh spells in a party full of fighters, but I don't know if they are too complicated. Does 4ed have something like this?
A 4th Ed StF variant would take multiple turns to work; first slowing the target, then immobilizing it, then finally petrifying it. The target would end up with about three chances to "save" from the effect before it was too late and this had precious turns to still act or try to counter the effect some other way before the time ran out.
You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is "never get involved in an thread with GM_Champion" - but only slightly less well-known is this: "Never go in against AzureShade when card design is on the line!
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1 year ago ::
Apr 10, 2012 - 10:32AM
#29
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@alien270
That other guy wasn't Monte. Don't remember who he was but he's not Monte.
Just to clarify, that was totally a typo on my part. I meant to say "Mearls."
Disappointed to hear it was only around 10-20% through development, had hoped it was a bit further along!
I was very happy to hear this, because the less they have before the playtest goes live the more impact the playtest will actually have. I want to experience that "core kernel" before they even have a draft of most of the other modules (which I'm hoping they release for playtest as they work on them).
Regarding my Fireball concern, I didn't get the sense that Mearls was joking. I think he was reacting to the negativity surrounding the criticisms of 3E's SoD/SoS spells, as well as the fact that 4E has "too many status effects." While I'm certainly not a fan of 1 roll having such a huge consequence, I would be very disappointed to see control be marginalized. Control just opens up so many tactical possibilities and keeps combats from becoming hack 'n slash, and I fear that in an attempt at making combat as quick as possible (entire adventures in 2 hours!) that the system will make anything that doesn't deal high damage almost irrelevant. I like holding several guys back with spells like Web or Entangle while the party beats on whichever enemy was dumb enough to rush in first, and I don't want everyone else to say "yeah, that was cool and all, but you would have been better off just blowing them up instead." Ideally both options would be best under different circumstances, but would still be roughly balanced against each other.
Regarding the DM "fixing things" comments I did say I might be overreacting on that. It just called to mind that article that Monte (not a typo this time!) wrote about perfect balance being impossible, so why even attempt balance at all? The same faulty logic could concievably be applied to the game as a whole; no DM will like everything about a given system, so why make it the "best" it can be? I just want a game with math that works, and straightforward, easy to remember (or reference) in-play rules. No convoluted 3E style grapple rules that I need to overhaul (or ignore) in order to keep the game moving (for example).
I guess it really comes down to balance again; as a customer I expect the game designers to devise an internally balanced system that makes sense within the context of both the metagame "experience" and the game world itself. Because that's what I'm paying them for. If I wanted a system with a bunch of noticeable flaws and imbalances, I'd make my own system (because I don't have the time to make a perfect one). If it's a customizeable, modular system then great! All the better! But all of those modules had better "work" within the context of the core. That they might not achieve that is a concern, given how many different (often opposing) factions they're trying to please.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 10, 2012 - 10:36AM
#30
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I'm not a caster surpremacist, I'm a magic supremacist. I think that all classess find qualibriam via magic that is accessable to all. Fighters with vorpal swords, paladins with anti-magic holy avengers, rogues with arrows of slaying, clerics with boots of flying, and hobbits with the one ring.
The idea that classes need specific items - or any items at all - is a big turn-off for a number of people:
1) DMs who don't want players to feel entitled to specific items ("You have to give me a good sword so I can be balanced with the wizard.")
2) Groups that want a game without magic items.
3) Players who don't want disarm or rust monsters or thieves or anything else to strip them of their effectiveness far more easily than casters can be denied theirs.
Balancing through magic items doesn't solve problems at every table. I won't claim to have a D&D census in front of me, but based on posts and experience a lot of people fit at least one of those groups.
Count me as one of those players who hates magic item dependency.
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