BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
edited December 2009
Hey, hey. Don't knock zealotry. Otherwise, we wouldnt get to read the Crucible in junior high.
But seriously, I see where he is coming from. Yeah, the complete and total hatred of psionics is a bit extreme, but some players take things over the top. For example, in a group that I played one session with and then quit, "Hey guys, I have fire breath... I'm going to light that on fire..." Which happened once every 10 minutes or so. I garroted him in his sleep.
Brody on
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
Hey, hey. Don't knock zealotry. Otherwise, we wouldnt get to read the Crucible in junior high.
But seriously, I see where he is coming from. Yeah, the complete and total hatred of psionics is a bit extreme, but some players take things over the top. For example, in a group that I played one session with and then quit, "Hey guys, I have fire breath... I'm going to light that on fire..." Which happened once every 10 minutes or so. I garroted him in his sleep.
I don't usually allow my distaste and dislike of psionics to affect other DM's campaigns. That player went over the top and then some however. Had he not abused the rules and didn't brag about it, I would have found another way to try and get the campaign back on track and help the other players to alter their characters to be more effective politically and socially. Which would have been totally in character for my wizard. They preferred to work behind the scenes and manipulate events and people.
SkyCaptain on
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BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
Hey, hey. Don't knock zealotry. Otherwise, we wouldnt get to read the Crucible in junior high.
But seriously, I see where he is coming from. Yeah, the complete and total hatred of psionics is a bit extreme, but some players take things over the top. For example, in a group that I played one session with and then quit, "Hey guys, I have fire breath... I'm going to light that on fire..." Which happened once every 10 minutes or so. I garroted him in his sleep.
I don't usually allow my distaste and dislike of psionics to affect other DM's campaigns. That player went over the top and then some however. Had he not abused the rules and didn't brag about it, I would have found another way to try and get the campaign back on track and help the other players to alter their characters to be more effective politically and socially. Which would have been totally in character for my wizard. They preferred to work behind the scenes and manipulate events and people.
I play with people that are generally comically violent IRL, so when you manage to piss the group off, you will probably die in your sleep. Like Ice Princess. I don't remember any specific thing he did that was annoying, he just was. So the other CE character, the warpstone infused Moogle, stabbed him to death, pissed on his body, and then burned down the place we were staying in. Of course, this is all speculation as to what happened, because the DM would just reply that we had pissed off a number of NPC's, and any one of them could have been responsible.
Brody on
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
Hah, I'm not that bad and neither are the people I usually game with. Though I did have a group of shady characters hire an assassin to kill my paladin. I was "hindering the profit potential" of the group. I defeated the assassin and brought him along with the group to be questioned and judged by a tribunal at my church in the capitol city. The two week journey took almost six weeks, because the assassin kept "escaping" and I kept chasing him down and recapturing him.
It was fun diversion. All the more so because the other players didn't know I knew and I feigned ignorance since my character didn't know.
SkyCaptain on
The RPG Bestiary - Dangerous foes and legendary monsters for D&D 4th Edition
Hey guys, look at this incredibly wrong thing I just found:
Really, It's almost like 4E was moving towards getting rid of the attributes, since they make them virtually irrelevant. There's only like a few reasons you even care about them anymore.
The main one is simply your ability to attack people. You want one stat that's really high because your attack bonus is very important. It could be any stat, and honestly it doesn't matter what it is, but we pretty much know you're an idiot if you don't take it.
After that, your secondary stats are either things that buff up your secondary powers (which usually have some kind of A,B,C option you have to choose with your class) and also things that help you qualify for feats. The feat thing is really obnoxious because it requires you plan your character build pretty much from level 1 to make sure he can get the good feats that you want.
And after that, your score manage skills and defenses. But that stuff just happens to be something background related and not really something you actively care about. Your Fort, Ref and Will are going to be whatever they are, and you're never actively going to raise a stat to make your fort go up.
Basically what this tells us is that they could have basically removed ability scores entirely. You could have just picked a class and automatically be assumed to automatically be good at whatever class attacks your class has, and then you choose a build option in your class that helps you with one of the A,B,C secondary ability tree of your choice. After that you get a bonus to defenses and skills based on your class and build option and we call it a day after that.
Really, that's all 4E is, and if the attributes weren't iconic by now, I'm pretty sure they would have just decided to toss them entirely.
Dude, that's incredibly passive-aggressive and munchkin. I hope I never play with someone who feels the need to kill every other player's character because he can't handle one person in the group, and makes the judgement call that all the rest of us are just "pushovers" who can't stand up for ourselves.
It's just the way you hid it and planned it so no one would suspect what you intended. Cheesy man.
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Mr_Rose83 Blue Ridge Protects the HolyRegistered Userregular
Hey guys, look at this incredibly wrong thing I just found:
Really, It's almost like 4E was moving towards getting rid of the attributes, since they make them virtually irrelevant. There's only like a few reasons you even care about them anymore.
The main one is simply your ability to attack people. You want one stat that's really high because your attack bonus is very important. It could be any stat, and honestly it doesn't matter what it is, but we pretty much know you're an idiot if you don't take it.
After that, your secondary stats are either things that buff up your secondary powers (which usually have some kind of A,B,C option you have to choose with your class) and also things that help you qualify for feats. The feat thing is really obnoxious because it requires you plan your character build pretty much from level 1 to make sure he can get the good feats that you want.
And after that, your score manage skills and defenses. But that stuff just happens to be something background related and not really something you actively care about. Your Fort, Ref and Will are going to be whatever they are, and you're never actively going to raise a stat to make your fort go up.
Basically what this tells us is that they could have basically removed ability scores entirely. You could have just picked a class and automatically be assumed to automatically be good at whatever class attacks your class has, and then you choose a build option in your class that helps you with one of the A,B,C secondary ability tree of your choice. After that you get a bonus to defenses and skills based on your class and build option and we call it a day after that.
Really, that's all 4E is, and if the attributes weren't iconic by now, I'm pretty sure they would have just decided to toss them entirely.
Yeah, because now that your stats determine how well and how hard you hit, they are somehow doing less than when your to-hit was determined entirely by your class' BAB progression.
As for powers and feats, no-one normal looks that far ahead unless they already know how the campaign is going to go (what use is the ability to summon fire at will when all the monsters turn out to be lava-based and immune to fire?).
So no-one, ever, is going to attempt to arrange their stats to have a good distribution of NADs? Not even if Fort boosting via Con changes also increases HP and surges? Wait, all that one just one stat? Maybe it is important after all?
And then everyone would have the exact same character and it would be boring, and no-one would buy it. What about all those Dwarf fighters who don't have their highest stat in their primary attack characteristic?
It is difficult to imagine a more whiny and insipid denial of reality than that which is presented here. Where does this drivel come from?
Dude, that's incredibly passive-aggressive and munchkin. I hope I never play with someone who feels the need to kill every other player's character because he can't handle one person in the group, and makes the judgement call that all the rest of us are just "pushovers" who can't stand up for ourselves.
It's just the way you hid it and planned it so no one would suspect what you intended. Cheesy man.
Passive-aggressive? I dunno, killing pc's seems pretty aggressive to me. Passive-aggressive would have been to just whine about it and never do anything. I just found a way to do it without the others knowing it was on purpose. That's just mean and sneaky, and I would make the same decision again, if one player was on the verge of disrupting a campaign so thoroughly that other players just stop showing up.
SkyCaptain on
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UtsanomikoBros before DoesRollin' in the thlayRegistered Userregular
...Aren't the attributes doing the same thing they've always done?
Honestly, they are doing MORE in most cases.
In AD&D, you'd only have one or two abilities that made a difference, usually STR/INT and CON. Even then the bonuses didn't really move a whole lot, and the big increases came through leveling.
In D20 it's much the same thing, although you can regularly just pump up your important skills or boost defenses with stackable item bonuses.
Really, it's just another one of those uninformed hyperbolic rants from someone who probably doesn't even play the game currently, or is just used to playing D&D in ways the system was never good at.
Dude, that's incredibly passive-aggressive and munchkin. I hope I never play with someone who feels the need to kill every other player's character because he can't handle one person in the group, and makes the judgement call that all the rest of us are just "pushovers" who can't stand up for ourselves.
It's just the way you hid it and planned it so no one would suspect what you intended. Cheesy man.
Passive-aggressive? I dunno, killing pc's seems pretty aggressive to me. Passive-aggressive would have been to just whine about it and never do anything. I just found a way to do it without the others knowing it was on purpose. That's just mean and sneaky, and I would make the same decision again, if one player was on the verge of disrupting a campaign so thoroughly that other players just stop showing up.
Aggressive: "Fuck off, man. Your stupid character is killing all the fun."
Reasonable: "Man, can you not cheese that so hard? It's not like we're competing against each other, here."
Passive-Aggressive: "Oh, look. Everyone's dead. Well, everyone but me. Ooops. Maybe it's for the best."
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds.2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
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Mostlyjoe13Evil, Evil, Jump for joy!Registered Userregular
edited December 2009
I've come to the opinion that the books need more fluff. Primal Power was right about the sweet spot. But then I read posts by many folks on the Wizards boards who say all they want is stats. Like fluff is 'teh enemy'. o_O I build characters based on the fluffs. Oiy.
Aggressive: "Fuck off, man. Your stupid character is killing all the fun."
Reasonable: "Man, can you not cheese that so hard? It's not like we're competing against each other, here."
Passive-Aggressive: "Oh, look. Everyone's dead. Well, everyone but me. Ooops. Maybe it's for the best."
Yeah, whatever. Passive-aggressive would be not doing anything at all and just complaining and making snide remarks at the player running the soul knife. Like some of the players were doing. They kept complaining and the soul knife player just ate it up. They thought it was cool that they were killing everything pretty much single-handedly and the DM either didn't care or wasn't paying attention.
The one time I complained about it privately, the DM used constructs that were immune to crits and con damage. Didn't work, because the soul knife had some power that let them do shitloads of damage anyway without the ability drain.
I'm done defending myself from you and anyone else that wants to bitch and whine about what I did. I was right to do what I did and I would do it again in the same situation. The only other option was to stop playing in that campaign and watch as the rest of the non-psion players leave as well.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
I've come to the opinion that the books need more fluff. Primal Power was right about the sweet spot. But then I read posts by many folks on the Wizards boards who say all they want is stats. Like fluff is 'teh enemy'. o_O I build characters based on the fluffs. Oiy.
I'm with you, I like some ideas to jump-start the imagination proccess.
Though I can see where some people who already have thier characters and campaign settings all set up, or don't want them infulenced, would be annoyed with stuff that gives 0 imput for them.
Hey guys, look at this incredibly wrong thing I just found:
Really, It's almost like 4E was moving towards getting rid of the attributes, since they make them virtually irrelevant. There's only like a few reasons you even care about them anymore.
The main one is simply your ability to attack people. You want one stat that's really high because your attack bonus is very important. It could be any stat, and honestly it doesn't matter what it is, but we pretty much know you're an idiot if you don't take it.
After that, your secondary stats are either things that buff up your secondary powers (which usually have some kind of A,B,C option you have to choose with your class) and also things that help you qualify for feats. The feat thing is really obnoxious because it requires you plan your character build pretty much from level 1 to make sure he can get the good feats that you want.
And after that, your score manage skills and defenses. But that stuff just happens to be something background related and not really something you actively care about. Your Fort, Ref and Will are going to be whatever they are, and you're never actively going to raise a stat to make your fort go up.
Basically what this tells us is that they could have basically removed ability scores entirely. You could have just picked a class and automatically be assumed to automatically be good at whatever class attacks your class has, and then you choose a build option in your class that helps you with one of the A,B,C secondary ability tree of your choice. After that you get a bonus to defenses and skills based on your class and build option and we call it a day after that.
Really, that's all 4E is, and if the attributes weren't iconic by now, I'm pretty sure they would have just decided to toss them entirely.
Yeah, because now that your stats determine how well and how hard you hit, they are somehow doing less than when your to-hit was determined entirely by your class' BAB progression.
As for powers and feats, no-one normal looks that far ahead unless they already know how the campaign is going to go (what use is the ability to summon fire at will when all the monsters turn out to be lava-based and immune to fire?).
So no-one, ever, is going to attempt to arrange their stats to have a good distribution of NADs? Not even if Fort boosting via Con changes also increases HP and surges? Wait, all that one just one stat? Maybe it is important after all?
And then everyone would have the exact same character and it would be boring, and no-one would buy it. What about all those Dwarf fighters who don't have their highest stat in their primary attack characteristic?
It is difficult to imagine a more whiny and insipid denial of reality than that which is presented here. Where does this drivel come from?
Here's a reply to the original post by someone else:
I think he was meaning more that, because of how the game has handled the HP, defenses and skills that you're never going to raise or care about any stat that isn't directly related your power's attack rolls and your power's secondary effects, but the feats weren't written to really take this into consideration at all, so that the only way to not be entirely cookie cutter is to plan your character's 30 level progression from level 1.
And that because everyone takes (and the game encourages you to do so), just the 2 stats you need, that you might as well just have no attributes and a flat bonus, because they're all the same otherwise.
Like maybe all defenses and skills get +1 (some classes give +2 to a defense or +5 to specific skills), secondary powers get +2 and primary get +4. Because that's realitically how it always turns out, and few to nobody raises a stat that isn't an attack power or secondary power stat, because they get to cherry pick what those and their defenses are.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
I've come to the opinion that the books need more fluff. Primal Power was right about the sweet spot. But then I read posts by many folks on the Wizards boards who say all they want is stats. Like fluff is 'teh enemy'. o_O I build characters based on the fluffs. Oiy.
I'm with you, I like some ideas to jump-start the imagination proccess.
Though I can see where some people who already have thier characters and campaign settings all set up, or don't want them infulenced, would be annoyed with stuff that gives 0 imput for them.
The logic is generally to provide some basic generic "Can be inserted into as many places as possible" fluff and maintain as much (or equal) mechanics support. This is so that what they publish can be used in every campaign setting or homebrewed campaign as much as possible. This is an approach I approve of because when I want to use something even in FR or Eberron, it's easy to convert it into those settings because mechanics are universal (but fluff isn't).
Hey, hey. Don't knock zealotry. Otherwise, we wouldnt get to read the Crucible in junior high.
But seriously, I see where he is coming from. Yeah, the complete and total hatred of psionics is a bit extreme, but some players take things over the top. For example, in a group that I played one session with and then quit, "Hey guys, I have fire breath... I'm going to light that on fire..." Which happened once every 10 minutes or so. I garroted him in his sleep.
I don't usually allow my distaste and dislike of psionics to affect other DM's campaigns. That player went over the top and then some however. Had he not abused the rules and didn't brag about it, I would have found another way to try and get the campaign back on track and help the other players to alter their characters to be more effective politically and socially. Which would have been totally in character for my wizard. They preferred to work behind the scenes and manipulate events and people.
"Psionics are terrible because this one DM I had didn't bother to learn how they work and still allowed them into his game"
Is that the argument that you are operating under?
I just want to make sure I understand this correctly.
Also, I like how the Wizard holding the life and death of the entire game in his hand, literally because you ended the game in a little temper tantrum, is somehow better than whatever Psionics can do (or can't do, since we've already established that your hatred is of some theoretical interpretation of Psionics that occurs when the DM doesn't know the rules and the player doesn't follow them)
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited December 2009
I love how the final encounter in the new Scales of War adventure is IMPOSSIBLE for the antagonist to actually win.
The dragon simply doesn't do enough damage to the angel in the encounter. Mechanically chipping away at AC 44, 1036 HP with a 3d8+8 attack is not going to be a workable strategy or should I say strategery in this case. To make this encounter exciting, the DM should really abandon attacks and HP for that monster vs. monster example. Instead narration with a rough description of what is going on would be more exciting and make that more the lynchpin of the fight. As it is the dragons chances of killing the angel to succeed at what it is trying to do is simply impossible.
I love how the final encounter in the new Scales of War adventure is IMPOSSIBLE for the antagonist to actually win.
The dragon simply doesn't do enough damage to the angel in the encounter. Mechanically chipping away at AC 44, 1036 HP with a 3d8+8 attack is not going to be a workable strategy or should I say strategery in this case. To make this encounter exciting, the DM should really abandon attacks and HP for that monster vs. monster example. Instead narration with a rough description of what is going on would be more exciting and make that more the lynchpin of the fight. As it is the dragons chances of killing the angel to succeed at what it is trying to do is simply impossible.
It.... it can use Wing Buffet too :P
Besides, the angel only really responds with 4d6 + 10. They'll both be there for-ever.
I hated psionics so much in 3rd edition, that I killed off the rest of my party members just to kill the psychic warrior / soul knife cheesy munchtard. Balors dealt 100 unresistable damage to any creature within 100 feet when they die. My wizard, who just happened to be 110' away from the group of five balors that the rest of my party was in melee combat with, used Time Stop, delayed blast acid/ice "fire"balls, and an iceberg to kill all five of the balors in "one" round.
There was nothing left of the balors or the group after my time stop expired and five acid/ice balls exploded and then an iceberg fell on top of them all (with convienent holes in it to avoid hitting party members - yay archmage).
Hey, hey. Don't knock zealotry. Otherwise, we wouldnt get to read the Crucible in junior high.
But seriously, I see where he is coming from. Yeah, the complete and total hatred of psionics is a bit extreme, but some players take things over the top. For example, in a group that I played one session with and then quit, "Hey guys, I have fire breath... I'm going to light that on fire..." Which happened once every 10 minutes or so. I garroted him in his sleep.
I don't usually allow my distaste and dislike of psionics to affect other DM's campaigns. That player went over the top and then some however. Had he not abused the rules and didn't brag about it, I would have found another way to try and get the campaign back on track and help the other players to alter their characters to be more effective politically and socially. Which would have been totally in character for my wizard. They preferred to work behind the scenes and manipulate events and people.
"Psionics are terrible because this one DM I had didn't bother to learn how they work and still allowed them into his game"
Is that the argument that you are operating under?
I just want to make sure I understand this correctly.
Also, I like how the Wizard holding the life and death of the entire game in his hand, literally because you ended the game in a little temper tantrum, is somehow better than whatever Psionics can do (or can't do, since we've already established that your hatred is of some theoretical interpretation of Psionics that occurs when the DM doesn't know the rules and the player doesn't follow them)
Can we just stop before this degenerates into another everyone against skycaptain thing again?
There are plenty of reasons to hate on Psionics in previous editions of D&D, lets just hope they get it right this time.
"Psionics are terrible because this one DM I had didn't bother to learn how they work and still allowed them into his game"
Is that the argument that you are operating under?
I just want to make sure I understand this correctly.
Also, I like how the Wizard holding the life and death of the entire game in his hand, literally because you ended the game in a little temper tantrum, is somehow better than whatever Psionics can do (or can't do, since we've already established that your hatred is of some theoretical interpretation of Psionics that occurs when the DM doesn't know the rules and the player doesn't follow them)
I have plenty of reasons I don't like psionics. However, since like and dislike are entirely subjective... those reason don't really matter here. All that matters is that I don't like psionics, the player was an ass, and the dm didn't have the balls to tell the player to create a new character after the abuse of the rules became apparent to everyone.
I don't usually allow my distaste and dislike of psionics to affect other DM's campaigns. That player went over the top and then some however. Had he not abused the rules and didn't brag about it, I would have found another way to try and get the campaign back on track and help the other players to alter their characters to be more effective politically and socially. Which would have been totally in character for my wizard. They preferred to work behind the scenes and manipulate events and people.
I'm done defending myself from you and anyone else that wants to bitch and whine about what I did. I was right to do what I did and I would do it again in the same situation. The only other option was to stop playing in that campaign and watch as the rest of the non-psion players leave as well.
Here, I'll quote these for you, Maddoc, since you skipped over every single reply after the first post so you could gnash your teeth and chatter like an angry squirrel about something that doesn't affect you in any way whatsoever.
SkyCaptain on
The RPG Bestiary - Dangerous foes and legendary monsters for D&D 4th Edition
I'm actually on Skycaptain's side here, but mostly because I had one of those players when I was in my formative DM'ing days that abused the hell out of 2e Psionics and it completely turned me off of it.
Still, so much better than Vancian. I liked the spell point system they came up with in the Player's Options books, I just didn't like that they made regaining sp so hard. Never got a chance to use it though
ravensmuse on
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Still, so much better than Vancian. I liked the spell point system they came up with in the Player's Options books, I just didn't like that they made regaining sp so hard. Never got a chance to use it though
I liked Vancian casting. It made playing a mid-level wizard require some planning and created some great "Oh shit!" moments when I didn't have good spells for the situation and came up with clever uses of the spells I had prepared. I do agree that the level 1 wizard wasn't much fun.
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Mr_Rose83 Blue Ridge Protects the HolyRegistered Userregular
I liked Vancian casting. It made playing a mid-level wizard require some planning and created some great "Oh shit!" moments when I didn't have good spells for the situation and came up with clever uses of the spells I had prepared. I do agree that the level 1 wizard wasn't much fun.
I never had a problem with memorising spells at the beginning of each day; it was figuring out how many of each spell you got to memorise, and also remembering to bring the required components* for them all. This got exponentially worse with each arcane class you multi-classed into.
Also, new invoker article == Divine Familiars, sort of. It's actually a nice idea, will have to think really hard about the implementation; I have little experience with Invokers myself.
*About 90% of my DMs just said to forget that part though, because it was such a headache to them too.
Same here; for you standard stuff, I usually didn't ask for much, but the bigger stuff I did.
Vancian just didn't jive with how I imagined magic to be. I was used to reading books where wizards could pull almost anything out of their hat. With the Vancian system, it just became, "okay, I have to remember to remember this, and that, and..." It just never seemed natural to me (in the entirely natural DnD world, mind).
ravensmuse on
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Letting bias based on previous incarnations of the game make mechanical choices in an updated version strikes me as terribly short sighted and closed minded.
If Psionics are broken, cheesy or outright bad in 4th edition on their own merrit, I'd be fine with banning them from my games, or asking other players to not use them if that wasn't an option, along with whatever evidence and opinion I could give to back that statement.
"They were bad in 2e and 3e and 3.5e" means very little in my eyes when WOTC has already adjusted the ever loving shit out of all the other classes.
We've seen that there are potential issues to be addressed, and hopefully the final version will retain flavour, balance and mechanical advantages that make them playable but not easily abusable (or at least, only on a similar scale to other classes of the same role). If the final version isn't rectified, well then they can be houseruled or rule 0'd as chosen by each group as a whole, but choosing based on entirely unrelated mechanics is like shitting on Fighters just because in 2e-3.5e all they really did was attack. And later they attacked multiple times in a round.
Which would be dumb. Because Fighters are totally different in a lot of ways now.
Also, while I'm striving to make this general and not jump on the usual bandwagon, any player that chose to wipe out the party to a selfish end rather than discuss the problem rationally with the rest of the group is being an asshole. I have been that guy wherein for one reason or another (often due to other players being killed or just playing a new character) the party's power level fell behind my own. Sometimes I'd willingly choose to trade into a new character (it's funny that over my Rifts campaign, my characters became dramatically less combat proficient as the years went on, from a Power Armour Pilot with mini-missile volleys to a guy carrying some of the weakest weapons in the party, but was flavourful, enjoyable and powerful in other aspects, like scouting or defensive abilities).
Long story short, sometimes I'd step back into line on my own, sometimes my group and I would discuss when something was becomming abusive, but issues were typically handled in a more direct and non-confrontational manner. To be sure, some of the debates became heated, even argumentative, but none of them involved trying to kill off characters or entire parties.
Also, the ego involved in believing that a TPK is for the good of the group and abusing out of game knowledge to arrange it is staggering. I have a hard time believing that a single string of actions that led to everyone but the wizard conveniently dying (and then not arranging resurrections?) went over with narry a sigh nor a whimper, but I suppose it's barely worth mentioning, as any discussion of such an event is at best saved for another thread, and at worst only detrimental to what barely civil discourse remains on our topic at hand.
As a parting thought; Psionics are, far as I know, still in development to some degree? Rather than just bitching about how broken they might or might not be, wouldn't it be more productive to study what we know, perhaps test a little and see where the reality is? Some people have done just this, and have hopefully tried to provide feedback on the matter. Hating without evidence is just being biased for the sake of being biased. Don't be that guy. The issue with the level 1/3 at-wills scaling so well is worthy of note. Problems with troublesome players of systems and years past just seems petty and to be misguided.
Forar on
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Same here; for you standard stuff, I usually didn't ask for much, but the bigger stuff I did.
Vancian just didn't jive with how I imagined magic to be. I was used to reading books where wizards could pull almost anything out of their hat. With the Vancian system, it just became, "okay, I have to remember to remember this, and that, and..." It just never seemed natural to me (in the entirely natural DnD world, mind).
Might be neat to have a spellcasting system that allows you to cast spells as long as you have the components, but obviously the components themselves would be the limiting factor. It'd be a nice aspect of resource management.
SkyCaptain on
The RPG Bestiary - Dangerous foes and legendary monsters for D&D 4th Edition
Same here; for you standard stuff, I usually didn't ask for much, but the bigger stuff I did.
Vancian just didn't jive with how I imagined magic to be. I was used to reading books where wizards could pull almost anything out of their hat. With the Vancian system, it just became, "okay, I have to remember to remember this, and that, and..." It just never seemed natural to me (in the entirely natural DnD world, mind).
Might be neat to have a spellcasting system that allows you to cast spells as long as you have the components, but obviously the components themselves would be the limiting factor. It'd be a nice aspect of resource management.
Same here; for you standard stuff, I usually didn't ask for much, but the bigger stuff I did.
Vancian just didn't jive with how I imagined magic to be. I was used to reading books where wizards could pull almost anything out of their hat. With the Vancian system, it just became, "okay, I have to remember to remember this, and that, and..." It just never seemed natural to me (in the entirely natural DnD world, mind).
Might be neat to have a spellcasting system that allows you to cast spells as long as you have the components, but obviously the components themselves would be the limiting factor. It'd be a nice aspect of resource management.
Isn't this just rituals?
Somewhat, but I'm talking about all spells. Even combat spells. Not just 1 minute to 24 hour long rituals.
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Same here; for you standard stuff, I usually didn't ask for much, but the bigger stuff I did.
Vancian just didn't jive with how I imagined magic to be. I was used to reading books where wizards could pull almost anything out of their hat. With the Vancian system, it just became, "okay, I have to remember to remember this, and that, and..." It just never seemed natural to me (in the entirely natural DnD world, mind).
Might be neat to have a spellcasting system that allows you to cast spells as long as you have the components, but obviously the components themselves would be the limiting factor. It'd be a nice aspect of resource management.
Isn't this just rituals?
Somewhat, but I'm talking about all spells. Even combat spells. Not just 1 minute to 24 hour long rituals.
The fact that they aren't limited use is balanced by the fact that they take forever to actually use. Combat powers based on "available components" would have all sorts of balance problems. I suppose you could use alchemy as a base for it, but then why not just use alchemy instead?
I really liked the Vancian magic system. It seemed to fit well with the wizardly bookish stereotype, required significant choices on the part of the player to how they would run their character...it just fit really well. I never really understood the hate for it. I know that rituals are in 4e to fill that gap, but it's just not the same. The fact that they always cost money and take so long to cast means they see very little play, my group hasn't used one yet.
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But seriously, I see where he is coming from. Yeah, the complete and total hatred of psionics is a bit extreme, but some players take things over the top. For example, in a group that I played one session with and then quit, "Hey guys, I have fire breath... I'm going to light that on fire..." Which happened once every 10 minutes or so. I garroted him in his sleep.
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I don't usually allow my distaste and dislike of psionics to affect other DM's campaigns. That player went over the top and then some however. Had he not abused the rules and didn't brag about it, I would have found another way to try and get the campaign back on track and help the other players to alter their characters to be more effective politically and socially. Which would have been totally in character for my wizard. They preferred to work behind the scenes and manipulate events and people.
I play with people that are generally comically violent IRL, so when you manage to piss the group off, you will probably die in your sleep. Like Ice Princess. I don't remember any specific thing he did that was annoying, he just was. So the other CE character, the warpstone infused Moogle, stabbed him to death, pissed on his body, and then burned down the place we were staying in. Of course, this is all speculation as to what happened, because the DM would just reply that we had pissed off a number of NPC's, and any one of them could have been responsible.
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That shit was terrible! (Or maybe it was just that we read much better stuff in English class.)
It was fun diversion. All the more so because the other players didn't know I knew and I feigned ignorance since my character didn't know.
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It's just the way you hid it and planned it so no one would suspect what you intended. Cheesy man.
As for powers and feats, no-one normal looks that far ahead unless they already know how the campaign is going to go (what use is the ability to summon fire at will when all the monsters turn out to be lava-based and immune to fire?).
So no-one, ever, is going to attempt to arrange their stats to have a good distribution of NADs? Not even if Fort boosting via Con changes also increases HP and surges? Wait, all that one just one stat? Maybe it is important after all?
And then everyone would have the exact same character and it would be boring, and no-one would buy it. What about all those Dwarf fighters who don't have their highest stat in their primary attack characteristic?
It is difficult to imagine a more whiny and insipid denial of reality than that which is presented here. Where does this drivel come from?
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Passive-aggressive? I dunno, killing pc's seems pretty aggressive to me. Passive-aggressive would have been to just whine about it and never do anything. I just found a way to do it without the others knowing it was on purpose. That's just mean and sneaky, and I would make the same decision again, if one player was on the verge of disrupting a campaign so thoroughly that other players just stop showing up.
In AD&D, you'd only have one or two abilities that made a difference, usually STR/INT and CON. Even then the bonuses didn't really move a whole lot, and the big increases came through leveling.
In D20 it's much the same thing, although you can regularly just pump up your important skills or boost defenses with stackable item bonuses.
Really, it's just another one of those uninformed hyperbolic rants from someone who probably doesn't even play the game currently, or is just used to playing D&D in ways the system was never good at.
Reasonable: "Man, can you not cheese that so hard? It's not like we're competing against each other, here."
Passive-Aggressive: "Oh, look. Everyone's dead. Well, everyone but me. Ooops. Maybe it's for the best."
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Yeah, whatever. Passive-aggressive would be not doing anything at all and just complaining and making snide remarks at the player running the soul knife. Like some of the players were doing. They kept complaining and the soul knife player just ate it up. They thought it was cool that they were killing everything pretty much single-handedly and the DM either didn't care or wasn't paying attention.
The one time I complained about it privately, the DM used constructs that were immune to crits and con damage. Didn't work, because the soul knife had some power that let them do shitloads of damage anyway without the ability drain.
I'm done defending myself from you and anyone else that wants to bitch and whine about what I did. I was right to do what I did and I would do it again in the same situation. The only other option was to stop playing in that campaign and watch as the rest of the non-psion players leave as well.
I wasn't the DM.
I'm with you, I like some ideas to jump-start the imagination proccess.
Though I can see where some people who already have thier characters and campaign settings all set up, or don't want them infulenced, would be annoyed with stuff that gives 0 imput for them.
Here's a reply to the original post by someone else:
The logic is generally to provide some basic generic "Can be inserted into as many places as possible" fluff and maintain as much (or equal) mechanics support. This is so that what they publish can be used in every campaign setting or homebrewed campaign as much as possible. This is an approach I approve of because when I want to use something even in FR or Eberron, it's easy to convert it into those settings because mechanics are universal (but fluff isn't).
"Psionics are terrible because this one DM I had didn't bother to learn how they work and still allowed them into his game"
Is that the argument that you are operating under?
I just want to make sure I understand this correctly.
Also, I like how the Wizard holding the life and death of the entire game in his hand, literally because you ended the game in a little temper tantrum, is somehow better than whatever Psionics can do (or can't do, since we've already established that your hatred is of some theoretical interpretation of Psionics that occurs when the DM doesn't know the rules and the player doesn't follow them)
Besides, the angel only really responds with 4d6 + 10. They'll both be there for-ever.
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Can we just stop before this degenerates into another everyone against skycaptain thing again?
There are plenty of reasons to hate on Psionics in previous editions of D&D, lets just hope they get it right this time.
Here, I'll quote these for you, Maddoc, since you skipped over every single reply after the first post so you could gnash your teeth and chatter like an angry squirrel about something that doesn't affect you in any way whatsoever.
Still, so much better than Vancian. I liked the spell point system they came up with in the Player's Options books, I just didn't like that they made regaining sp so hard. Never got a chance to use it though
I liked Vancian casting. It made playing a mid-level wizard require some planning and created some great "Oh shit!" moments when I didn't have good spells for the situation and came up with clever uses of the spells I had prepared. I do agree that the level 1 wizard wasn't much fun.
Also, new invoker article == Divine Familiars, sort of. It's actually a nice idea, will have to think really hard about the implementation; I have little experience with Invokers myself.
*About 90% of my DMs just said to forget that part though, because it was such a headache to them too.
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Vancian just didn't jive with how I imagined magic to be. I was used to reading books where wizards could pull almost anything out of their hat. With the Vancian system, it just became, "okay, I have to remember to remember this, and that, and..." It just never seemed natural to me (in the entirely natural DnD world, mind).
If Psionics are broken, cheesy or outright bad in 4th edition on their own merrit, I'd be fine with banning them from my games, or asking other players to not use them if that wasn't an option, along with whatever evidence and opinion I could give to back that statement.
"They were bad in 2e and 3e and 3.5e" means very little in my eyes when WOTC has already adjusted the ever loving shit out of all the other classes.
We've seen that there are potential issues to be addressed, and hopefully the final version will retain flavour, balance and mechanical advantages that make them playable but not easily abusable (or at least, only on a similar scale to other classes of the same role). If the final version isn't rectified, well then they can be houseruled or rule 0'd as chosen by each group as a whole, but choosing based on entirely unrelated mechanics is like shitting on Fighters just because in 2e-3.5e all they really did was attack. And later they attacked multiple times in a round.
Which would be dumb. Because Fighters are totally different in a lot of ways now.
Also, while I'm striving to make this general and not jump on the usual bandwagon, any player that chose to wipe out the party to a selfish end rather than discuss the problem rationally with the rest of the group is being an asshole. I have been that guy wherein for one reason or another (often due to other players being killed or just playing a new character) the party's power level fell behind my own. Sometimes I'd willingly choose to trade into a new character (it's funny that over my Rifts campaign, my characters became dramatically less combat proficient as the years went on, from a Power Armour Pilot with mini-missile volleys to a guy carrying some of the weakest weapons in the party, but was flavourful, enjoyable and powerful in other aspects, like scouting or defensive abilities).
Long story short, sometimes I'd step back into line on my own, sometimes my group and I would discuss when something was becomming abusive, but issues were typically handled in a more direct and non-confrontational manner. To be sure, some of the debates became heated, even argumentative, but none of them involved trying to kill off characters or entire parties.
Also, the ego involved in believing that a TPK is for the good of the group and abusing out of game knowledge to arrange it is staggering. I have a hard time believing that a single string of actions that led to everyone but the wizard conveniently dying (and then not arranging resurrections?) went over with narry a sigh nor a whimper, but I suppose it's barely worth mentioning, as any discussion of such an event is at best saved for another thread, and at worst only detrimental to what barely civil discourse remains on our topic at hand.
As a parting thought; Psionics are, far as I know, still in development to some degree? Rather than just bitching about how broken they might or might not be, wouldn't it be more productive to study what we know, perhaps test a little and see where the reality is? Some people have done just this, and have hopefully tried to provide feedback on the matter. Hating without evidence is just being biased for the sake of being biased. Don't be that guy. The issue with the level 1/3 at-wills scaling so well is worthy of note. Problems with troublesome players of systems and years past just seems petty and to be misguided.
Might be neat to have a spellcasting system that allows you to cast spells as long as you have the components, but obviously the components themselves would be the limiting factor. It'd be a nice aspect of resource management.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.