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10 months ago ::
Sep 20, 2012 - 2:48PM
#171
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Date Joined:
Apr 10, 2009
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you're right let me rephrase
bloat isn't a problem if you design with the potential for such in mind
I'll agree that bloat as a problem can be mitigated through design.
Carl
And that would be by not using a business model that demands new splat books published every couple months.
True. But every business model requires new products be constantly rolled out to generate revenue. What would you suggest that they publsh instead?
Carl
Not completely true. They need sales to generate revenue. Having a wide variety of products certainly helps, but they could just as easily reformat the rulebooks for online use, pdfs, phones, et al. "New" is completely relative.
How many different copies of the rulebooks - even in different formats - do you plan on buying?
Carl
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10 months ago ::
Sep 20, 2012 - 3:06PM
#172
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I'll also add that WYTAA don't feel very modular, and therefore counter productive to one of the games core designs. For example playing with a battle map is considered an modular add on, but without some sort of rules for movement to replace the WYTAA's we cannot move and attack in the same round, due to WYTAA's not being an actual action. Likewise if you want to add in more advanced action options that would normally cost a minor action, you can't WYTAA isn't an action. In effect it ruins some peoples play styles limiting the potential costumer base. Compare this to advantage/disadvantage system which is still simple but by design could be replaced by situation bonuses if you prefer.
Advantage/disadvantage is good modular design WYTAA's are not.
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10 months ago ::
Sep 20, 2012 - 3:07PM
#173
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Date Joined:
May 17, 2009
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I'd melee 2 polar bears simultaneously.
I'd steal one from a man who was willing to enter melee with two polar pears simultaneuously.
Seriously, though, you should check out the PbP Haven. You might also like Real Adventures, IF you're cool. | Knights of W.T.F.- Silver Spur Winner | |
4enclave, a place where 4e fans can talk 4e in peace.
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10 months ago ::
Sep 20, 2012 - 4:20PM
#174
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Date Joined:
Apr 10, 2009
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I'd melee 2 polar bears simultaneously.
I'd steal one from a man who was willing to enter melee with two polar pears simultaneuously.
I sic two polar bears on a man who had one and take it from his bleeding corpse.
Carl
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10 months ago ::
Sep 20, 2012 - 7:35PM
#175
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Date Joined:
Aug 28, 2005
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I hate to disagree, but this perspective is far from universally accepted...
I hate to potentially sound overly harsh, but whether people accept it or not is irrelevant to me and should be irrelevant to this game. A lot of people fail to accept the truth, but that doesn't mean that I should need to humor them. Roles exist and affect character play whether people recognize them or not or accept them or not.
Instead of figuring out how we can let someone perform some basic expectation and figuring out how to let the character do that anyway, we simply remove that expectation.
Actually, I would love for you to try to figure out how to do that. I don't think that you can, but I would sincerely be happy to be wrong.
Why, yes, as a matter of fact I am the Unfailing Arbiter of All That Is Good Design (Even More So Than The Actual Developers) TMSpeaking of things that were badly designed, please check out this thread for my Minotaur fix. What have the critics said, you ask? "If any of my players ask to play a Minotaur, I'm definitely offering this as an alternative to the official version." - EmpactWB "If I ever feel like playing a Minotaur I'll know where to look!" - Undrave "WoTC if you are reading this - please take this guy's advice." - Ferol_Debtor_of_Torm "Really full of win. A minotaur that is actually attractive for more than just melee classes." - Cpt_Micha Also, check out my recent GENASI variant! If you've ever wished that your Fire Genasi could actually set stuff on fire, your Water Genasi could actually swim, or your Wind Genasi could at least glide, then look no further. Finally, check out my OPTIONS FOR EVERYONE article, an effort to give unique support to the races that WotC keeps forgetting about. Includes new racial feature options for the Changeling, Deva, Githzerai, Gnoll, Gnome, Goliath, Half-Orc, Kalashtar, Minotaur, Shadar-Kai, Thri-Kreen, Warforged and more!
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10 months ago ::
Sep 20, 2012 - 8:19PM
#176
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Date Joined:
Oct 26, 2004
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I never understood why people resisted the role labels so much. They were concepts and expectations that had been in the game since before I ever played, and it was completely possible to move outside them. IF you wanted a fighter who was more striker or controller it was easy to do, leader was harder of course, but one class shouldn't be able to do everything, and even then healing powers were easy to MC into if you really wanted them.
The only thing official roles did was make sure that each class could aactually perform theirs. Unlike in 3rd edition.
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10 months ago ::
Sep 20, 2012 - 10:27PM
#177
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If roles exist, then what role does a Factotum from Dungeonscape fill? What role does an Erudite from Complete Psionic fill?
While many classes have obvious roles, not all classes do. There are classes/players who defy/dislike expectation and assumption.
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10 months ago ::
Sep 20, 2012 - 11:00PM
#178
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Date Joined:
Aug 28, 2005
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While many classes have obvious roles, not all classes do.
And those classes are bad. And let me be clear, being able to fulfill multiple different roles depending on build such that the class doesn't have one clear role is totally fine (example: the 3.5 Druid, except that it was overpowered because it could do all of the roles at the exact same time); it's not being able to fulfill any very well without insight into optimization concepts that makes a class suck. That's why so many people were excited about the 4E Bard being upgraded into something that was actually useful, for example.
There are classes/players who defy/dislike expectation and assumption.
That's fine, but if you want to play a character that's bad, you can screw it up yourself. For the rest of us, we'd like classes that represent basic archetypal concepts to also be basically functional and useful by contributing to the party without requiring high system mastery.
Why, yes, as a matter of fact I am the Unfailing Arbiter of All That Is Good Design (Even More So Than The Actual Developers) TMSpeaking of things that were badly designed, please check out this thread for my Minotaur fix. What have the critics said, you ask? "If any of my players ask to play a Minotaur, I'm definitely offering this as an alternative to the official version." - EmpactWB "If I ever feel like playing a Minotaur I'll know where to look!" - Undrave "WoTC if you are reading this - please take this guy's advice." - Ferol_Debtor_of_Torm "Really full of win. A minotaur that is actually attractive for more than just melee classes." - Cpt_Micha Also, check out my recent GENASI variant! If you've ever wished that your Fire Genasi could actually set stuff on fire, your Water Genasi could actually swim, or your Wind Genasi could at least glide, then look no further. Finally, check out my OPTIONS FOR EVERYONE article, an effort to give unique support to the races that WotC keeps forgetting about. Includes new racial feature options for the Changeling, Deva, Githzerai, Gnoll, Gnome, Goliath, Half-Orc, Kalashtar, Minotaur, Shadar-Kai, Thri-Kreen, Warforged and more!
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10 months ago ::
Sep 20, 2012 - 11:20PM
#179
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Date Joined:
Oct 26, 2004
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Erudite is kind of the ultimate example of why roles are important things to keep in mind when building a class. In fact 3e/3.5 class design is why I'm so fond of the concept. See during the 3e days classes were hap-hazard collections of features that sometimes worked well together (Paladin, Scout), sometimes worked at cross purposes (monk, swashbuckler), and were sometimes completely over powered.
Of the last category 2 stand out as the worst offenders. The wizard, who would later be dethroned by the Erudite and the Artificer, was capable of nigh anything and had no limits on what he could accomplish because nothing limited his access to spells except the DM. Later the Erudite's abilities to learn any power granted the same potential but without even the rather half-hearted limits placed upon wizards. The artificer was in many ways worse because he didn't even need to waste time learning his spells, so even though he couldn't change things up on a day to day basis he had nigh unlimited power via magic item creation. The Druid on the other hand would never be dethroned from its place because it was the easiest and fastest way to bork the action economy. The animal companion was a powerful creature that ran interference for you and allowed you to cast freely, combined with summoning and wild-shape/natural spell this created a nearly self-sufficient class, especially since wisdom and constitution were the only stats you really had to invest in.
A player or individual PC defying expectation and assumptions is probably a good thing, and nothing in the 4e roles ever stopped a fighter from being a great damage dealer, or a wizard from being a nuke-master.
It did however seem to do a pretty good job of avoiding the situation in 3e where some classes could do everything, while other classes were lucky if they did one thing well.
I'm not familiar with the factotum as I had pretty much stopped caring by the time that book came out.
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10 months ago ::
Sep 20, 2012 - 11:54PM
#180
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Date Joined:
May 30, 2010
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I hate to disagree, but this perspective is far from universally accepted...
I hate to potentially sound overly harsh, but whether people accept it or not is irrelevant to me and should be irrelevant to this game. A lot of people fail to accept the truth, but that doesn't mean that I should need to humor them. Roles exist and affect character play whether people recognize them or not or accept them or not.
Instead of figuring out how we can let someone perform some basic expectation and figuring out how to let the character do that anyway, we simply remove that expectation.
Actually, I would love for you to try to figure out how to do that. I don't think that you can, but I would sincerely be happy to be wrong.
If the goal was to remove expectations, it would really be a very easy thing to do.
You give every "role" function to every charachter.
You make healing potions, and other buffing potions easy to aquire and easy to administer to other players.
You create items that can be used to create area effects easily, such as airators or thrown sand, or explosive arrows easy to aquire and to be used.
You allow any weapon to be "sharpened", and any spell to be "focused", causing extra damage.
And you give every charachter the ability to throw themselves into the line of fire or attack and take damage for another character.
And you do all this in such a way that they can not stack with other class abilities that do the sort of thing.
These are all very easy things to do, and you can very easily make these modular rules and items that do not affect action economy, or role expectations.
But something tells me, you knew that allready.
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