Please keep your posts polite, on-topic, and refrain from making personal attacks. You are welcome to disagree with one another but please do so respectfully and constructively.
If you wish to report a post for Code of Conduct violation, click on the “Report Post” button above the post and this will submit your report to the moderators on duty.
Even if you honestly believe that, you can express that without being negative and bashing editions you don't like. There are editions that I don't like, but you don't see me bashing them at every opportunity. We just can't have productive conversation like that.
People bash 3.5 constantly on the fourms. See the multclass thread or the 4th ed is balanced mantra. Yet PF lives on and 4th ed is dead as a published edition. 3.5 was unbalnced true, 4th ed split the player base and went out of production.
Every edition to date has split the player base and gone out of production (except the original, which courted the initial player base). Of course, every edition has also grown the player base of D&D as a whole.
Also, while I haven't read any edition bashing on the multiclass thread, 3e's multiclass system was horrible. Now that's not a judgement on the entirety of 3e. I played it for years and enjoyed it. But the MC rules were abominable, especially when you tried to blend magic and non-magic classes.
so why even play a fighter if you can play the paladin the exact same way behaviorally and get added power to boot. "Paladin" is about accepting better game-enhancing mechanics at the price of more rigid in game behavior.
Really? So it goes something like this?
Fighter: "I want to be a paladin." NPC: "Really?" Fighter: "Yes." NPC: "Very well." Starts reading from a holy book while still in-character "Do you accept having to choose and stick to the lawful good alignment, eventhough neither of us actually knows that it exists or what it is?" Fighter: "I do." NPC: "Do you reject good game balance because you accidentally rolled a high Charisma?" Fighter: "What?" NPC: "I don't know what it means either." Fighter: "Oh. Umm, ok I do." NPC: "In the name of all that is metagamey and broken, accept these better game enhancing mechanics." Fighter: "These what?" NPC: "Just get out there and try to fulfill a million different people's notion of good while not violating and part of any of them."
So the system is designed such that every single hit needs to be described to avoid confusion? Here's a scenario. The players are nudists, everybody in the world are nudists, it's not weird, it's totally normal in this land. They are naked and they fight drakes taking damage throughout, but healing up with surges. Later they meet the guy who raised the drakes.
Part 1: I didn't describe any of the hits. What does he see?
Part 2: Lets say I described the drakes as biting the players, yet they healed up. What does he see?
Even if you honestly believe that, you can express that without being negative and bashing editions you don't like. There are editions that I don't like, but you don't see me bashing them at every opportunity. We just can't have productive conversation like that.
People bash 3.5 constantly on the fourms. See the multclass thread or the 4th ed is balanced mantra. Yet PF lives on and 4th ed is dead as a published edition. 3.5 was unbalnced true, 4th ed split the player base and went out of production. Not trying to suger coat it. I am somewhat reaosnable with game mechanics as D&D has never really had good mechanics and BECM, AD&D, 3rd ed, and 4th all have differnet mechanics. It has to feel like D&D though to play it and that to me means alignments, Mordenkainen etc and various things some people hate.
4th ed tried to be new and it did not work out so well. If D&DN is radically different you are just going to repeat 2008 all over again. 4th ed was the only verison of D&D with no alignment based mechanics and it was one of the reasons it alienated the player base.
Just 'cause someone bashes on 3.5 doesn't mean you need to run madly to its defense in all things. That just makes you look... silly. It's no different from the tactics of a 4venger, and those guys just look like total butt gremlins. Seriously, if you've got a 3.5 grog porting tripe, a 4venger being a tool, or one of the old guard acting up and flying into butt-hurt battle rage, just hit the report button and call 'em on their edition warring. That simple.
Be reasonable, understand that all editions have their faults (D&D isn't exactly a beautifully designed game in any of its incarnations), and just stay cool, brother.
Even if you honestly believe that, you can express that without being negative and bashing editions you don't like. There are editions that I don't like, but you don't see me bashing them at every opportunity. We just can't have productive conversation like that.
People bash 3.5 constantly on the fourms. See the multclass thread or the 4th ed is balanced mantra. Yet PF lives on and 4th ed is dead as a published edition. 3.5 was unbalnced true, 4th ed split the player base and went out of production. Not trying to suger coat it. I am somewhat reaosnable with game mechanics as D&D has never really had good mechanics and BECM, AD&D, 3rd ed, and 4th all have differnet mechanics. It has to feel like D&D though to play it and that to me means alignments, Mordenkainen etc and various things some people hate.
4th ed tried to be new and it did not work out so well. If D&DN is radically different you are just going to repeat 2008 all over again. 4th ed was the only verison of D&D with no alignment based mechanics and it was one of the reasons it alienated the player base.
I'll agree... somewhat.
Most of the things that really, really, really encouraged me to not support WotC, or 4E in general, were choices made regarding writing. From the 4E cosmology, to the FR debacle, right on through to the abandonment of the nine-fold alignments. All of it, I believe, affected the success of 4E.
However, that's not what we're talking about. We're discussing mechanics, and, mechanically, I don't think alignment absolutely needs to be involved. BRP has an optional alignment-esque system that works well, but I don't think D&D needs even that. Alignment should retain its place in the universe, but it should be in the makeup of the "core" universe's cosmology and fluff (seperate from the mechanical aspects). D&D needs to be adaptible to be saleable to those that just want another universal fantasy engine, but it needs its history and its identity (which, thankfully, are mostly the fluffy bits anyway and can be contained within setting books). Everybody wins.
Still, I don't know why it even matters at this point. The devs have already stated that the game will most certainly include alignment as a mechanical aspect, albeit as an optional module.
4th ed tried to be new and it did not work out so well. If D&DN is radically different you are just going to repeat 2008 all over again. 4th ed was the only verison of D&D with no alignment based mechanics and it was one of the reasons it alienated the player base.
I think the lack of alignment based mechanics was the least of the complaints against 4E. Of all the arguments and complaints that I was witness to, alignment was pretty low on the list. The major factors:
"Every class is the same."
"Where are my spells?"
"Every class is the same."
"Why does the Fighter have powers?"
"Every class is the same."
"What do you mean I can shout at someone and they heal?"
"Every class is the same."
"Where are my Craft / Profession / Perform Skills?"
"Every class is the same."
"What happened to the Realms?"
"Every class is the same."
"Where are Chaotic Good / Neutral Good / Neutral / Chaotic Neutral / Lawful Neutral / Neutral Evil / Lawful Evil" (I heard complaints about the lack of the missing alignments lots more than I heard complaints about the lack of alignment mechanics)
"Every class is the same."
"What are Dragonborn and Tieflings doing in the PHB?"
"Every class is the same."
"Why aren't Half-Orcs in the PHB?"
"Every class is the same."
"Why are the Warlord and Warlock in the PHB?"
"Every class is the same."
"Why aren't the Bard / Barbarian / Druid / Monk / Sorcerer in the PHB?"
"Every class is the same."
Then, after all of those, you might hear a complaint about the lack of Detect Evil or the DM not being able to strip a Paladin of his powers for "role-playing wrong."
The most oft heard complaint, "every class is the same," was part of almost every rant against 4E that I heard, and it proved that the person complaining had never actually played 4E, as it is the claim most easily disproved by anyone with any experience with the system. If alignment mechanics were on someone's radar, they were the straw that broke that camel's back, and not a major issue.
4th ed tried to be new and it did not work out so well. If D&DN is radically different you are just going to repeat 2008 all over again. 4th ed was the only verison of D&D with no alignment based mechanics and it was one of the reasons it alienated the player base.
I think the lack of alignment based mechanics was the least of the complaints against 4E. Of all the arguments and complaints that I was witness to, alignment was pretty low on the list. The major factors:
"Every class is the same."
"Where are my spells?"
"Every class is the same."
"Why does the Fighter have powers?"
"Every class is the same."
"What do you mean I can shout at someone and they heal?"
"Every class is the same."
"Where are my Craft / Profession / Perform Skills?"
"Every class is the same."
"What happened to the Realms?"
"Every class is the same."
"Where are Chaotic Good / Neutral Good / Neutral / Chaotic Neutral / Lawful Neutral / Neutral Evil / Lawful Evil" (I heard complaints about the lack of the missing alignments lots more than I heard complaints about the lack of alignment mechanics)
"Every class is the same."
"What are Dragonborn and Tieflings doing in the PHB?"
"Every class is the same."
"Why aren't Half-Orcs in the PHB?"
"Every class is the same."
"Why are the Warlord and Warlock in the PHB?"
"Every class is the same."
"Why aren't the Bard / Barbarian / Druid / Monk / Sorcerer in the PHB?"
"Every class is the same."
Then, after all of those, you might hear a complaint about the lack of Detect Evil or the DM not being able to strip a Paladin of his powers for "role-playing wrong."
The most oft heard complaint, "every class is the same," was part of almost every rant against 4E that I heard, and it proved that the person complaining had never actually played 4E, as it is the claim most easily disproved by anyone with any experience with the system. If alignment mechanics were on someone's radar, they were the straw that broke that camel's back, and not a major issue.
You've pretty much hit it on the head there, partner.
We've seen that, historically, when you get a new set of designers messing with history and settings, you get rage. Terrible, terrible rage.
Unaccountably jamming Dragonborn into the every nook and cranny possible caused rage. Screwing with the Realms caused uber rage. Changing the cosmology resulted in burning hatred for all things 4E.
Most of the anger was caused by the vast departures from the cosmetics, not from the mechanics. True, true, true. Most definitely true.
Sure, everyone could've just gone with whatever historical itteration of whatever setting or planar setup they prefered, but it still doesn't change the fact that someonewas messing withtheir D&D, damn it! Mostly cosmetic, but there you have it.
Oh, but I will say this: I hated the dependence on miniatures. That was a big deal killer for me. Also, the very broad and dungeon-delvey focus of the skills were not a big positive for many.
Edit: You absolutely could strip a paladin of his powers if he fell out of line with his deity's ethos, just as you could limit a clerics access to powers if he did the same, but this was all DM fiat. I wouldn't disagree with a Dungeon Master that opted to do so, either. Priests and Paladins get their abilities from someone that expects them to be performing in a certain way, afterall.
I don't play FR, but I actually like the Points of Light setting and the World Axis Cosmology. If there is some support in D&D Next for them I would like it.
There is one advantage in class design that it’s not mentioned very often. The short version is: being a Wizard actually means something. I will try to explain this. A class is formed by several parts: It has the mechanics, which is obvious. But it also has fluff, flavor, description and legacy. Basically there are the stories about characters of that class, the class’s identity and all of such. To better represent my opinion, I shall bring to the discussion another commercial franchise: Final Fantasy. In many FFs there exists the Job system, which is really just a class system. Many times the Final Fantasy’s games uses a system different from that, but usually it’s a system unique to the game, and even so references to the Job system exist, so the Job system wins as most common system used by FF. Thing is, many people recognize FF Jobs, from classical Jobs such as Black Mage, White Mage, Warrior, Ninja, Paladin, Dragoon to less iconic Jobs such as, I don’t know, Jobs that only appeared in one to three games. Thing is, with considered time, these Jobs have all sort of Fluff and Legacy with then. Many characters not only use one Job, but also marked the series. When people talk about the Black Mage, for instance, not only they will remember the concept itself, but they will also remember all the appearances made in Job based games (which, in that specific case, are many) and also many characters like Palom from FFIV or Vivi from FFIX or Lulu from FFX. Things is, these Jobs marked the series and being one of them actually has meaning, because this Jobs have strong identities attached to them. The problem with classless systems is that, they are classless. What is a Wizard in a classless system? This really matter? In a classless system, is there some meaning in being a Wizard? The problem with classless systems is that these identities are kinda of lost, because being a Wizard is not so important, because being a Wizard does not have any mechanical marks and basically in a classless system, there is no Wizard by default, this doesn’t have meaning in a practical way. With class bases D&D, however, that is different. Being a Wizard in D&D has meaning, an when people talk about Wizards in D&D they will not only remember the current version of the Wizard, they will also remember all versions of the Wizard, and all characters and NPCs that are Wizards, and now, they will also remember the mechanical difference and the flavor, identity difference between the Wizard and the other spellcasting classes. This is something really hard to put in words, there is my best shot.
Right now, I would make Vancian the standard magic system for most classes in D&D (including Wizard and Cleric). What people complained is the fact that the Wizard was Vancian-Only. If it was Vancian-Default, that would be different. I've long advocated supporting both the Points of Light setting and settings full of magic items. I had some thought on one spellcasting system. Spoiler:Show
It is basically composed of three parts: 1. The Standard System: The standard system would be classic Vancian. Wizard: classic Vancian, have to learn spells first, and then prepare them. All the 9 spells levels. Cleric: It would be Vancian, but with some differences, The Cleric would carry on the tradition of choosing spells directly from the class’s spell list, but it would have some old school disadvantages to compensate, such as 7 spell-levels for Clerics and Druids (and even less for Paladins and Rangers), and most divine’s spells would be about healing and support (the Druid and the Ranger can have more offensive spells), and, in general, they would have less spells, perhaps even having divine spells (Cleric, Druid, Paladin and Ranger) be worse than arcane spells, as I’ve told that it was like this in pre-3rd Edition. 2. The Flagships The Flagships are classes that represent one alternative magic system in the standard system. They, by default, are not Vancian, they use another system (with the possibility of using Vancian or other systems). Sorcerer: This Sorcerer would be a little different than the other casters. They would have the same spell list as the Wizard (a la 3.X) and they will use, by default, flexible spell-slots spellcasting (the current system. Very like 3.X Sorcerer, but with class benefits that make then different, a la 4th Edition. With regards to other classes, I would make Bards Vancian, but the Warlock is also a good candidate to some different spellcasting mechanics. Possibly the Witch (4e post-Essentials subclass) somewhere? 3. Modular Magic Systems And there would be a module that changes the way that the spellcasting works. This would be a module that has guidelines about altering the default spellcasting mechanics. The guidelines would consist of how the quantity of spells cast can be ported over, and from which spells they prepare, etc... Let’s give a proper example: The Wizard would be classic Vancian. Thing is, for alternative casting systems, the Wizard would have guidelines that would be something on these lines: “They always prepare spells from the list of know spells. In alternative spellcasting modules, he can prepare a number of spells equal to 1+ Wizard’s level, and the number of spells slots or equivalent is equal to the number of spells per level per day.” This is not something that will have problems of text space. All that you need is some short guidelines about which spells they can chose to cast and how much spells they cast. The rest of these mechanics would be stated only once, in the module of alternative magic system. The good points: • Not only every Vancian class would have an option to be non-Vancian, but also the non-Vancian classes would have the options to be Vancian. Why some classes in default would be Vancian while others not? Add some variety for the new players and players of things like RPGA and Encounter. That and many of the editions of D&D had it like that. • It manages to both being classic with classic Vancian and satisfy the non-Vancian fans with flagships and modules. The bad points: • Using alternative magic systems do not raise your raw power but make casters more flexible. The classes that are already flexible (such as Sorcerer) would need some more flexibility to keep up. No idea how to handle martial characters, although.
We should get rid of at-will cantrips. Spoiler:Show
Okay, now that you’ve got the first panic reaction, let me explain it. Yes, many people like at-will cantrips and they are popular. They have everything that it takes to be popular. However, I think we should remove them from the game, at least as an assumption to all caster classes. First: At-will cantrips blur up the distinction between casters and martial characters, and makes being a gish useless. Basically in non at-will cantrips systems there is an advantage in martial characters: the fact that they have abilities that they can always use. But if we give every caster at-will cantrips this blurs up the difference between classes, take out a huge advantage of martial classes. There is also the gish issue. Basically in non at-will cantrips systems, there is a huge advantage of being a gish over being a full caster. The advantage of have some reliable action when out of spells. At-will cantrips weakens that advantage. Just for you to have some idea I was talking previously about the possibility of the Wizard being weaker than the Cleric (some time ago), and when I quoted the fact that the Cleric is a gish, people talked that this is not important, that it doesn’t have such impact because it will use its at-will cantrips. Being a gish should matter. Of course when being a gish actually matters, we can rebalance the classes but it should matter.
Second: At-will cantrips go into the opposite direction of trying to balance casters. Really when we are trying to balance classic or neo Vancian casters, why give to all of them at-will cantrips? Why we cannot use the absence of at-will cantrips to provide a drawback to balance casters? Third: At-will cantrips weaken the challenge of resource management. Really when you always have magic a great part of the challenge goes away. The possibility in being out of magic is not a bug, it is a feature It is part of the system, and this challenge don’t have to go away because it is fun. The challenge of running out of magic is part of the system, and fun. Fourth: At-will cantrips do not fit properly under every system. Really is not that I don’t like at-will magic, but I don’t think we should bake in every spellcasting system. In 4e it worked because it was part of AEDU, but now, they don’t feel part of anything. They seem to be an arbitrary addition to the game. The 3.5 Warlock was special because it was a class with at-will magic in a game where it doesn’t exist, otherwise, at-will magic. We can have at-will cantrips but it should be done it right, and not being a default assumption for every caster class. I’m worried if they are going to launch a mana spell-point based magic system for spellcasters. This system should not have at-will, no mana cost magic as default for every caster class, because running out of mana is part of the mana system. In Final Fantasy they even have no MP cost magic, but they do it right, and when they use no MP cost magic, it is special because it is in a game that is otherwise MP based.
I don't play FR, but I actually like the Points of Light setting and the World Axis Cosmology. If there is some support in D&D Next for them I would like it.
And it absolutely should be supported. I may not like that cosmology, but that's no reason for you not to get what you like out of D&D.
The cosmologies just need to stay divorced from the mechanics, is all. They're story telling tools, not rules.
I don't play FR, but I actually like the Points of Light setting and the World Axis Cosmology. If there is some support in D&D Next for them I would like it.
It was actually a good cosmology and the 4th ed fluff wasn't as bad as some would claim. It did replace stuff people liked though and it probably should have been made as a setting distinct from the core rules. Darksun and Eberron for example did not use the core D&D cosmology and no one really cared.
The mechanics of D&D don't really matter. They can be balanced, brken, great, stupid and borked and it mostly won't matter.
Reducing a character to a list of dice rolls and modifiers is not role playing*
