What went so terribly, horrifically wrong?

In playtesting they had the fighter charge and attack, they had the rogue flank and sneak attack, they had the Cleric do NOTHING but heal and they had the wizard hang in the back and use mostly evocation spells.

They had the enemies attack the fighter and maybe the cleric and ignore anyone else except on rare occasions.

In other words: they had an assumed style of play and made sure that assumed style functioned then added on a bunch of other shit to the classes they could justify that with the easiest (the casters) then didn't bother to wonder how any of this actually played when you didn't follow their specific assumed mode.

>>55003619
First they made a game with poor balance decisions.

Then they tried to rebalance things by adding more content. Unfortunately, they created such a rush of content that

A) "Balance" is largely dictated by which splats a given group plays with, and thus you have very little uniformity between games
B) It creates so much crap that the GM rarely have the time or energy to integrate all of it, creating a chaotic mess of abilities that are poorly understood at the game table

>>55003650

/thread

Bad playtesting laid unstable foundations and everything else wrong with the system can be drawn back to exactly that.

>>55003619
They consolidated some shit, streamlining and unifying the way shit worked. The got rid of some ad hoc shit and replaced it with more straightforward, sensible shit. But then they stacked a bunch of complicated shit on top of it and they fucked up the math. And a lot of the old, ad hoc shit was there for a reason. It might not have been executed in the simplest, most sensible way, but it still served a purpose. But the designers didn't always see that and so they went with what made sense to them from an in-game perspective or from a what-seems-cool perspective, rather than a game-balance perspective. A less rules-heavy 3.x with better math and a better understanding of the shit they were replacing could work great.

>>55003619
Oh look, it's eternally triggered bitch anon.

>>55003619
Can you fuck off already?

It's nowhere near as bad as you're hoping to meme it is.

>>55003796
Is it you again, redditor?

>>55003619
Ivory tower game design (i.e., deliberate "trap" options and deliberately rewarding system mastery) and too much focus on +'s and -'s.

The ivory tower design is particularly bad, though, since the whole thing came out of a fundamental misunderstanding of Magic: the Gathering. Monte Cook, when talking about making 3e, mentioned that Magic has a concept called "Timmy" cards, which are cards that look good on the surface but are deliberately actually bad cards. Magic then rewards players who figure this out and stop using Timmy cards. So they idea was that they'd do the same thing with D&D - the feat Toughness, for example, is a deliberate "trap" option.

The thing is, that isn't what a Timmy card is. A Timmy card is any card that has a huge effect, with the idea being that Timmy is the kind of player who is wow'd by huge effects. While the archetypal Timmy card is Craw Wurm - a big but inefficient and ultimately bad creature - Timmy cards also include things like Wrath of God, which is an *amazing* card that wipes the entire field of creatures and is the standard against which all other field-wipes are measured.

Timmy cards are not "trap" cards. They're cards that cater to a certain playstyle, but that playstyle is not only completely legitimate, but also completely viable.

So that mindset, coupled with >>55003650, meant that the game was from the get-go being designed based on bad assumptions.

>>55003813
It - by which I mean, 3e - is pretty bad, though.

>>55003848
Stay eternally triggered, bitch.

It's kinda telling that the people criticising D&D do so with points, arguments and examples, and the people defending it do so with insults.

>>55003941
This. Rewarding system mastery excludes all the literal retards in a SOCIAL game ffs.

>>55003976
It would be kinda telling if it were true*
Shit, fucked my post all kinds of up.

File: Ivory Tower Game Design.png (313KB, 1060x1423px) Image search: [Google]

313KB, 1060x1423px

>>55003941
>Toughness, a deliberate trap action.
But that's wrong. It's a situational feat, very useful for things like convention play and was designed as such.

>>55004013

That's the retrospective he wrote, full of justifications and explanations came up with after the fact.

>>55004033
He coined the term Ivory Tower Game Design, that post sparked almost 100% of the controversy after very, very small online murmurings beforehand.

Saying it's a retrospective doesn't make it any less true.

>>55004013
>But that's wrong
What

>>55004013
It's still:

1) Born from a misunderstanding of what a "Timmy" card is, and
2) A terrible way to design a game.

Besides which, the difference between "this feat is deliberately designed to only be useful in an extremely limited number of circumstances" and "this feat is never good" is pretty much semantics, particularly when dealing with a feat like Toughness, which is in fact *never* good, even in its intended arena.

It's particularly problematic in the fact that you can't *change* the choice once you've made it, at least not for that character. In Magic, if your deck has a card that isn't useful, then between games you can swap it out for another one - even tournament games allow a sideboard for exactly that reason.

The 1st-level elf wizard, meanwhile, is stuck with Toughness for the rest of the campaign.

>>55004048

Except for everyone who actually followed the game during the development process.

>>55004078
>never good
>can almost double a level 1 characters hp
>stuck with for rest of campaign
>doesn't even know what convention play is

>>55004080
Development process? How do you think the game was developed, by committee? You must be really good at rationalizing away why 3.5 is still the most played RPG.

>>55004104

What?

I'm just saying for people who followed the articles and discussions around it during development and playtesting, these problems were present and actively discussed.

>>55004104

Nah, it's easy to rationalise it. Brand, presence and being in the right place at the right time to capitalize on the online boom. Given those factors, the system could have been even worse and it likely wouldn't have hurt it much.

>>55004116
Please provide evidence, because I was around at the same time, and while I remember a very, very, VERY small amount of people discussing these "problems" there was always 20x the number stopping all those threads for naysaying, and it was basically unknown to everyone.

>>55004013
>Posted the actually pretty reasonable "controversy" so early in thread
>Trying to steal away our fun and memeing
Fuck you, nigger

>>55004048
Look, it doesn't matter *why* 3e was designed with an Ivory Tower mentality, because an Ivory Tower mentality is still a terrible way to design an RPG. Frankly it's not even that good in other types of games - which is why, for example, Magic: the Gathering doesn't actually make a habit of designing deliberately bad cards.

(They have, in the past - Chimney Imp was deliberately designed to be the worst card in Magic at the time, as a joke/thought experiment ("how bad can a card be before no one will run it under any circumstance?") - but that's still only a single card in an entire set, and anyone who accidentally runs Chimney Imp can fix the problem much more easily than someone who picks Toughness)

>>55004104
>You must be really good at rationalizing away why 3.5 is still the most played RPG.

Nice bait, but 5e is by far the most popular RPG nowadays.

>>55004144
Just like Chimney imp can be useful if you imprint it with a mimic vat and use it to place all your opponents draws on top of their deck, toughness can be useful for one-time convention play when there were very few 1st level feats actually beneficial to a wizard.

>>55004167
Do you count pathfinder as a different rpg? Because it matters a lot for the numbers.

>>55004173

And it's still bad design, because you could print something that was useful in that context and actually worth taking outside of it, too.

>>55004013

>very useful for things like convention play

It's still an option presented in the game as something equivocal to something actually WORTH HAVING OVER A LONG TERM.

D&D should not be exclusively allowed to have its metaphorical cake and eat it. It can't be mechanically built around single session convention plays and also built and designed for long as campaigns and treat these as two seperate categories but with no actual distinction in game.

That's just piss poor planning right there.

allowing a blanket OK to write whatever 3rd party crap you wanted thanks to the OGL.

>>55004104
>can almost double a level 1 characters hp

In practical terms, there isn't much difference between 6 hit points and 3 hit points in 3e magic. A standard orc with his standard falchion deals 2d4+4 damage, which is going to drop the elf wizard outright anyway even with minimum damage. The wizard is honestly better off focusing on magic sure his spells can hit their target DCs with Spell Focus; or even ensuring that he can go first with Improved Initiative.

>>55004200
The game doesn't outright tell you that it is equivalent. Nowhere does it say that all the options are equal, that was an assumption you made yourself.

>>55004182
No, it really does not matter. Throw every other RPG on the market together and they all might maybe kinda even begin to approach 5e's numbers.

The fact it that most people play *current edition* of *most popular thing*. And in the RPG world that means 5e D&D.

>>55004205
If he stays at range and that same orc throws it's javelin (1d6+3) he actually has a chance at staying standing.

>>55004214
Which is a reasonable assumption to make, particularly since most people probably haven't even *heard* of convention play, let alone actually play in conventions.

>>55004214

> Nowhere does it say that all the options are equal

It just puts all these variantly useful things in the exact same category.

And fuck YOU player for not immediately understanding how this option is bad compared to this other one. I the game designer am FAR TOO BUSY writing another 3 Wizard/Sorcerer spells to meet you half way on any of this shit.

>>55004226
This is not factual, I'm glad you have your feelings about popularity though.

>>55004189
Just to be clear, I have nothing to say to refute this, the game made the mistake of having options for different styles of play without telling people that there were different styles of play.

>>55004244
Exactly.
See
>>55003992

>>55003992

>I have a life and don't wanna autistically pour over this book comparing every character option to make the most optamized build

>LOL WHAT A RETARD

>>55004251

But I don't see any evidence to suggest that different styles of play needed different options at all, or justifying why a shitty feat like toughness couldn't have been better while still being something good to select for convention play.

>>55004231
A relatively small one, however. The average of 1d6+3 is 6, so he's still dropping to 0, leaving him with just one action per turn. And of course you then run into the problem that an Orc is CR 1/2, meaning there's a good probability of there being another orc in the room.

And of course there is the problem of goblins. At CR 1/4, there's probably four of them in the room. While each does only 1d6 (3) damage with their morningstar, the fact that there's more to deal with means that action economy starts to turn in their favor. Particularly since they're goblins, and therefore have INT 10, and therefore can be reasonably expected to target the wizard first.

>>55004290
Not all options can be made for every play-style and still be equally powerful. You can say that they could be made that way easily enough, but actually doing it would be impossible.

Certainly there is room for disappointment in failing to achieve perfection.

>>55004310

What different play styles do you consider needing support? Because I still don't see any justification for Toughness existing.

>>55004304
Being able to survive the initial action economy turn while some are killed keeps it more balanced in their favor.

And the level 1 wizard is less of a threat than any barbarian, who they'd have to get by to get to the wizard anyways, wouldn't they know that at int 10?

I love when we have the same thread every day for 10 years....
Some people like X, some people don't, most of us just don't give a fuck.

>>55004319
One-off's will appreciate options that are more powerful at specific levels, as there are many things in the game that are stronger at particular levels than at others. (things that target specific saves, feats like toughness which peak at level 1, etc)

Campaign play will have VASTLY different power levels to abilities based on it's level of social vs pure combat.

Any given game is going to be incredibly varied. Certain options are vastly different in power to a creative player instead of to an unimaginative one.

>>55003619
They let casterfags design an edition.

>>55004333
Leave us to our fun. I've probably DMed more 3.5 than everyone else in this thread put together, and it hasn't been my game of choice since 2013.

I still enjoy hearing dissenting opinions, and it's an interesting social experiment to see how people can feel their problems are so vast and obvious when to most people they're not even noticeable.

>>55004323
With an INT 10, they can be expected to be as intelligent as the average human. The average human would know that one guy who can mumble some words and put them all asleep in 6 seconds, is more dangerous than one guy who can swing an axe and kill one of them in 6 seconds.

The wizard is always the most dangerous person in the room.

>>55003813
I'm not OP, but honestly, 3.pf is total shit. I say this as someone who's always run D&D and who stuck with 3E during most of its lifespan.

>>55004436
This isn't true at level 1, sleep has a fairly small cast area, and a very limited number of uses, assuming that it's all he prepared. Meanwhile they're getting beheaded by the guy with the big blade. A very real death.

At other levels, much harder to argue against the wizard.

This is assuming that the goblins are also int 3 and don't run, setup ambushes, or sneak around.

>>55004403
It's idiot trolls exaggerating and lying in order for their hyperbolic statements to get any attention.

Saying "3.5 was flawed but good, though largely superceded by 5e" won't get much attention despite being the general consensus among roleplayers, so they have to get attention by screaming "LOOK HOW AWFUL THIS POPULAR SYSTEM IS, I HATE EVERYONE WHO EVER PLAYED IT."

>>55004483
So?

>>55004360
You know what gives Toughness a modicum of usefulness? Make it grant 2 hit points plus 1 hit point per level. That means that at level 1 it grants +3, at level two it's +4, and so on. At least then it gets observably better as your level increases.

>>55004391
This thread is about 3.5 not Pathfinder

>>55004538
A good idea, but there are almost no scaling feats so not something they thought of. Honestly, for a feat slot, it should just give +2 Con and +2 hit points.

>Started that vile fantasy trend of everyone wearing weird leather bondage gear, fur, and blacks/earthtones that we see today in GoT
>Introduced Book of Vile Darkness in an edgy attempt to draw controversy/sales
>Spellcaster edition. Failed to start weaning the playerbase off of Vancian magic
>Prestige classes: Either useless or a no-brainer compared to the core classes.

>>55003767
You mean 5e?

>>55004473
>This is assuming that the goblins are also int 3 and don't run, setup ambushes, or sneak around.

But they're not, they're INT 10.

>This isn't true at level 1, sleep has a fairly small cast area

100 ft. + 10 ft./level range, 10-ft. radius (therefore, 20 ft. diameter, or if you like, most of the squares in a 4x4 square grid). While not fireball-huge, that's still pretty decently-sized, especially considering the typical size of a dungeon room.

>>55003619
I refuse to believe someone who knows what 3.5 is is incapable of using google

>>55004483

Alternatively, it's people who sincerely think it's shit and hope that highlighting its terrible design decisions will help people be aware of them and notice their like in other games, letting them be better at selecting systems to play.

Seriously, the 3.5 core books are garbage. Incredibly class imbalance, lacklustre core combat mechanics and a CR system that gives no actual indication of the difficulty a combat encounter will present. It's trash.

>>55004626
If you assume the goblins are intelligent, then they likely don't get in a lot of scenarios where the wizard could freely cast sleep without hitting allies, although the goblins would be effected first since they have <1 HD.

You could argue one way that going after the weaker members who are easier to kill is best, and that stopping the biggest threat is best, and see the goblins going after different targets.

This also varies considerably in reliability based on a wizards initiative and being in a tunnel, a room, or outside in the forest.

>>55003796
This.

>>55004672
That's literally repeating what he said, but in a more calm manner and adding in a weak excuse about helping others.

>>55004672
You're an idiot exaggerating and lying in order for your hyperbolic statements to get any attention.

So, here's your (you).

>>55004403
>guys can we talk about something other than blue? I know this is a board for colors but all we do is talk about one color.
>FUCK YOU. I love blue, I've discussed blue for 10 years and I'm not about to stop. Believe it or not I actually enjoy everyone screaming at me to shut the fuck up about blue.

>>55004686
>>55004692

Alternatively, I'm entirely sincere and expressing an opinion.

The idea everyone who opposes you must be insincerely trolling or expressing something they don't believe is true is an intellectual black hole that just lets you dismiss your opponents without thinking, and you're wilfully indulging in it.

I believe everything I said, and I believe all my points are justified. If you actually disagree, then disprove them. Or just dismiss me as a troll because it's the only way to defend your broken sack of shit system.

>>55004673
I feel we've wandered. My ultimate point is that there's little difference between 3 hit points and 6 since even at 1st level you're likely to run into things that can deal 6 or more damage outright, and a wizard is better off focusing on not getting hit than on surviving hits.

Meaning even in a 1st-level convention adventure, Toughness' actual usefulness is dubious at best.

>>55004751
It's not that they're insincere, it's that they're making bold and obviously incorrect hyperbole like saying
>core books are garbage
>garbage
>broken sack of shit system

Despite the general consensus being
>3.5 was flawed but good, though largely superceded by 5e

>>55004760
Yeah, there are other much softer hitting enemies like cats though. Really, at level 1 there are almost no feats that are useful to the wizard, I would say that Toughness is comfortably in 4th place in order of useful level 1 wizard feats.

>>55004751
>Alternatively, I'm entirely sincere and expressing an opinion.

Doesn't stop you from being both an idiot, and exaggerating for attention.

Just because you believe it doesn't make you less of a troll, it makes you a particularly dedicated one.

>>55004820

If you're calling someone a troll, you're calling them insincere. Trolling is by definition the act of saying things just to upset people, either expressing opinions you don't hold or exaggerating them to unreasonable degrees purely to piss people off. I am not a troll.

I am also not a liar. Despite your claim that consensus defines reality, I believe that the 3.x core books are hot garbage in RPG form, barely functioning and only tolerated because people have become so invested in them and their shitty design decisions.

Justify the class imbalance. Justify the trap options. Justify the CR system that does more to hurt than help a prospective GM. Justify the boring as hell combat where none of the default actions save 'full attack' are worth using without ludicrous amounts of investment, which still ends up being outright worse than a few low level spells.

Make actual points and actual defences. Argue ideas, not your opponents, or you just make it seem like you have no actual ground to stand on.

>>55004865
>Trolling is by definition the act of saying things just to upset people

Trolling is just saying dumb things for attention.
That's exactly what you're doing.

File: 1448426967853.jpg (108KB, 456x447px) Image search: [Google]

108KB, 456x447px

>>55004745
I laughed, scrolled down, then scrolled back up and chuckled again.

>>55004887

And, once more, we come back to attacking your opponents.

If you actually had a point, you wouldn't need to do this. You wouldn't need to assume insincerity on my part in order to dismiss my points, because arguing the points themselves should be easy for you.

And yet this is what the D&D defence force does, time and time again. When faced with points, arguments or even opinions they dislike, they brand everyone involved a troll, because it's utterly impossible that someone could sincerely, honestly hold these opinions.

It's intellectually dishonest, and it's fucking pathetic.

>>55004865
>If you're calling someone a troll
I didn't say you were a troll, I guess what this anon said.
>>55004838

Listen anon, how can something "barely function" when literally hundreds of thousands of people have played and enjoy it, and continue to do so? What is your definition for non-standard, personal definition for "barely"? Is it "exceedingly well?"

>>55004865
You exaggerate all those issues way too much, and completely ignore all the good points of the system because those would undermine your postition.
You're not here to present a fair evaluation of the system, and you clearly don't even understand half of what you're talking about.
You are literally just here to shitpost and tell people how much the game upsets you, and you spend more time justifying why to yourself than actually convincing anyone else.

>>55004915
>my argument is please stop picking on me
ok

>>55004915
The point is arguing with you is a waste of time because you are a troll hoping to bait people into a pointless argument that leads nowhere, but provides you an opportunity to further exaggerate and demand that your personal opinions be treated as facts.

Calling you an idiot is really all you deserve, because anything else just encourages you to talk more about a game you don't understand. It's much better to have you flail around and try to pretend you're not a troll despite spamming these threads and bumping them with your inane criticisms.

File: nervous troll.png (13KB, 481x457px) Image search: [Google]

13KB, 481x457px

>>55004887
Trolling requires 3 components:
Insincere, controversial, and fallacious.

If you are controversial and fallacious, but sincere, then you are just bad at arguing what you actually care about.
If you are insincere and fallacious, but not controversial, no one will care or bother to reply.
If you are insincere and controversial, but not fallacious, then you are simply presenting real arguments.

>>55004922

Because RPG's are a medium where the GM is capable of making things work, even if they're crap RAW, and with enough time and investment 3.x can work pretty well.

None of that contradicts my core point. These issues were well known back in the day, they were talked about and discussed often enough, but the people still playing it are the people who learned to cope with them.

But working around them doesn't mean they don't exist, even if you're at the point of doing so without even thinking about it. They're still significant design failures that deserve to be remembered.

I don't even hate 3.x. I've had some fun games with it. But the core systems are hot garbage, and that shouldn't be excused or whitewashed.

>>55004924

Having severe flaws to its fundamental mechanics is in no way undermined by the strengths of 3.x, because those strengths are built on top of those flaws. The awesome spellcasting system is rooted in the issue of caster supremacy, the breadth of content is undermined by the extensive trap options, core imbalances and lack of interesting decisionmaking in combat outside of spellcasting. Heck, lack of interesting mechanical decisionmaking at all outside of spellcasting, given how fiddly and rough the skill system is.

I am someone who cares about system design, which means that instead of just taking something and figuring out how to make it work, I like to get into why it doesn't work. Most of the people criticising 3.x are probably coming from the same place. Many groups won't bother. The GM will get a functional understanding of how to make it work and stop there. But that doesn't mean those fundamental flaws aren't present or should be overlooked.

>>55004976

And once again, you're incapable of actually arguing any points. All you can do is dismiss your opponents. Pathetic.

>>55004915
Shouldn't you actually try and point out a flaw or better yet a series of flaws in the system instead of just trying to distract from the topic and accusing everyone else around you of attacking your sincerity or whatever?

Try and introspect about how little "arguments" you've posted.

>>55004995
>with enough time and investment 3.x can work pretty well
>"barely functional"

It's kind of a shame you lack the ability to notice how few arguments you are putting forth while claiming your position is unassailable.

>>55004993
Trolling just requires you to say something stupid for attention.

You can't prove sincerity.
Your statements are controversial and largely innaccurate and rely on extreme hyperbole.

That's what makes you a troll, and whether or not you are sincere is of little consequence.

>>55005004
see
>>55004936

>>55005010

I've already posted several. I'm waiting for anyone to actually respond without dismissing them out of hand.

>>55005010

That the GM is required to put in a shitton of work to make a game function makes it barely functional.

A well designed system creates less work for the GM. A badly designed system makes more work for the GM. 3.x is a badly designed system.

>>55005004
>you won't fall for my bait!

The only thing that's pathetic is your arguments and that you think anyone's dumb enough to engage in your stupidity.

>>55005025
See the trolling attempt is a mindgame, but the troll themselves will know if they are sincere. That's the secret, that's what makes it so critical.

>>55005036
No, you've just made vague statements like "core imbalances". You don't have any examples or basis behind the claims.

This is why people aren't taking you seriously.

>>55005045
So your non-standard definition for "barely" is anything that takes some amount of work?

What is this "less" and "more" even relative too?

>>55005101

How much work it should take. GMing always takes work, GMing a crunchy system always takes more work than a light system.

If a systems mechanics are well designed and functional, they will reduce the work required of the GM as they will support them, removing the need to do things like micromanage players character sheets, if the system balance is good enough it's not necessary, or providing effective tools for encounter building rather than forcing the GM to math out his PC's expected damage output and how much they can take and figure out the values.

A bad system, on the other hand, makes these things harder. Micromanaging sheets is an utter necessity in 3.x, while the CR system tells the GM it will help them, while actually making it harder to tell if an encounter is balanced or not due to the system itself lying to you.

Bad design.

>>55004287
you know, I play everquest on and off, was my first mmo I dove into and was a massive fucking part of my life. now, let me explain to you how level 105 worked in that game lat time I played it (its been a few expansions and the devs despise the playstyle skill allowed)
You play up your character, you fuck up the alternate advancement the first time, meaning that you now have to piss more time away getting more aa because you fucked up.
at this point you are expected to read what aa's do and possibly look up a wiki to find out what people who ran the numbers say about the aa
so now that you got a better grasp of the aa system you continue leveling, most of this is bitch work grinding as nothing is really worth stopping and sticking around unless you really like an expansion. Its somewhere around level 95 that the game full stops holding your goddamn hand,or there is no content that holds your hand, and almost regardless of class you play a group mission game as it's the most effective and fastest way to do it anymore.
now it may not happen day 1 of this cycle, at some point you find someone who is well the fuck above your skill level. This personally happened to me with every class I played, and I ended up getting better then each of the players I watched to the point it's obvious they were still doing things wrong, and all that I did was read up on how my abilities stacked with each other
somewhere in here is where people either get good or stay bad
The sad thing is,at 105 I was able in group gear to do something like 200k dps with a wizard till the devs bastardised everything, most wizards only manage to pull off 30k and run out of mana all the fucking time when literally all they have to do is read how stacking works
Unless d&d completely obscures everything, it's been a long time since I was new to it so I can't really tell from a noobs perspective, you not reading the fucking player's guide and then playing the game is a fuck you to everyone involved

>>55005085

Casters and Martials

Core combat maneuvers against full attack

The CR system. Just... The CR system.

These are simple, obvious and should be clear if you've ever read any 3.x related content.

>>55005136
>how much it should take
What do you personally think such a vague statement means?

How does a game's design prevent you from having to check your players character sheets? That sounds like trust so it's group based and not system based.

>uses reduce and harder without giving reference as to what in comparison too.
>"One will be harder, and the other easier!"
Than what?

A PC's expected damage output being consistent across all builds and levels sounds like a BAD thing. People hated their characters being too similar.

The CR system works very well as a rough guideline, but the variety in player builds is too great to allow for ANY possible consistency in it's creation, no matter how much of a genius game designer you were.

See the social vs high combat posts above.

>>55005208
Please, don't argue with them. They honestly don't know anything and are just repeating memes at this point.

>>55005208

I'm not sure what else to say.

GMing takes a base amount of work. Any GM knows that.

The system can make your job easier, giving you less things to do, or make it harder, giving you more things to do.

That's all there is to it.

The CR system utterly fails. Some encounters will get stomped despite being arguably higher level, others will always be ridiculously lethal because of SLA or monster caster save or dies, which the system barely accounts for, as part of the larger issue of 3.x having no idea how powerful spellcasting actually is in its own rules.

As for social vs high combat, I can't buy that because other systems have fixed it by dividing those resource pools up, letting you have access to both without necessitating a tradeoff.

Which is just one of the many good design lessons you can learn from understanding why 3.x is crap.

>>55005168
It's the same in WoW, a player who knew what they were doing could do more than 3x (10's of thousands of more) DPS than the casual players.

Basically if you didn't read anything and expected to just do a tenth of the work for the same payout you would get nowhere. Same for reading the players handbook in 3.x. You traded your time for your efficacy. RPG's are a social game that unfortunately require some contribution from each person involved.

>>55004865
>class imbalance
doesn't come up in casual play
>trap options
aren't traps but rather situational for things like conventions
>Justify the CR system that does more to hurt than help a prospective GM
massively overstated. For most things CR works.
>Justify the boring as hell combat where none of the default actions save 'full attack' are worth using without ludicrous amounts of investment, which still ends up being outright worse than a few low level spells.
child of its time. elaborate combat systems didn't really become a thing until recently.

>>55005343
Look, I read the book before I ever tried to play, maybe I'm special, but how in the fuck do you read the literal rulebook where everything is spelled out for you and not see half the shit that is coming your way?

I say this because I don't know what the norm is, do people typically not read the rules before they play?

>>55005350

I played a fighter the first time I played 3.x. Fuck you, yes it does come up in casual play. That is also when I learned that the core combat maneuvers are garbage, as you are ruthlessly punished for taking any actions other than 'I full attack'.

I also saw the pain on my GM's face when he nearly TPK'd us. He showed us the monster stat blocks afterwards, how he'd thought it was an easy introductory encounter based on the information the system gave him. Then, hilariously, we steamrolled the next encounter despite it, on paper, being stronger.

And I still don't buy the 'convention game' argument. There's no reason you can't make things which are still good options in other uses that happen to also work for convention games. Making Toughness scale, as mentioned above, being a very basic example of this.

>>55005393
Normally people do not read the rulebook. Ever tried to play on roll20 or at a convention or maybe a Pathfinder Society game?

The standard is that people will not read the rulebook pretty much at all. Their characters come from their friends, online, or them guessing around the book.

/tg/ is the same way, except they like to claim they've read the book.

>>55005419
>fighter at level 1 getting a bonus from full attacking
>fucking up your lie that bad

>>55005423
I have read or had friends who had too many convention horror stories that I just can't bring myself to go to them, my normal group fell apart a bit after we all left school.
What was typical was we would pick a game, someone would source the books we needed, either physical or a pdf, and we would play them.
Shit was nice, everyone had a rough grasp of the games and we would either be corrected or house rule shit when no one came to a definitive conclusion.
I honestly want to say we got got good at this because one of my friends wanted to play a diablo like but in pen and paper form. was a clusterfuck of every rulebook he had because some rules lent themselves to on the fly decisions better then others but fun.

>>55005481

Yep. Because the other options available involved 'The monster attacks you, hits you, you lose your action'.

I was specifically comparing it to the combat maneuvers, for fuck sake. Do you even bother to read?

>>55005419
>generic platitudes instead of specific stories
good to know you're lying.

So, everyone's pointed out the obvious flaws in 3.5 by now, but can we just highlight some of the smaller mistakes? Like the monk not actually getting proficiency in unarmed attacks at any point? Or how about the one weapon that dealt a 1d43 for damage?

>>55005563

I'm sorry for not being able to remember the specific details of my first ever RPG session close to two fucking decades ago.

I remember making a dual wielding fighter (god, I fucked up so hard) and being comically incompetent for the entire campaign, save when the GM bent the rules in my favour.

And for what it's worth, I actually had fun. But it was always obvious that just making my character relevant in the campaign was an active strain on the GM and that the rules did very little to support him and a lot to inhibit him.

>>55005068
Would you prefer it if instead of calling them trolls, we called them Stupid Contrarian Attention Whores?

Honestly, "Troll" works fine and doesn't mean what you think it means, but if you really want to get technical, we can go ahead and just call these guys Stupid Contrarian Attention Whores if you think Troll is too offensive. Hell, why not Eternally Triggered Stupid Contrarian Attention Whores?

>>55005593
You made a suboptimal character?!?!

Damn the system, damn it to hell!

>>55005608

Because that's still a pointlessly inaccurate description.

Assuming everyone who disagrees with you is stupid is just another intellectually dishonest way of dismissing people you disagree with.

Having an unpopular opinion doesn't make you a contrarian, being a contrarian is holding an unpopular opinion specifically because it's unpopular. It's just the same assumption of insincerity, more intellectually dishonest dismissal of any opposition.

'Attention whores' also doesn't really make sense. They're posting an opinion on the internet. If that is attention whoring by default, then you're just as guilty of it. If it isn't by default, then you're just making yet another assumption that lets you dismiss your opposition.

>>55005613

A suboptimal character that the system never informed me was suboptimal, and does not make intuitive sense as being suboptimal.

Some things are going to be worse than others. If a wizard wants Int, then a low Int wizard is going to be worse than a high Int wizard. That makes sense, and is in line with the fiction.

However, fantasy fiction is full of badass warriors with two swords or axes, kicking ass in awesome style. It makes intuitive sense that doing so should be a viable option, and in my experience it is a viable option in many, many RPG's.

That what makes intuitive sense does not line up with what actually works is a failure of the mechanics.

>>55005665
>Because that's still a pointlessly inaccurate description.

Whatever you say, you Eternally Triggered Stupid Contrarian Attention Whore.
Man, I'd love to see what would happen to you if you actually played a genuinely bad game.

>>55005736

Thankfully, after playing 3.5 I learned a lot about how to recognize bad games so I tend not to play them. It's really helpful as an example of doing things wrong.

>>55003619
/tg/

>>55005825
Whatever you say, Eternally Triggered Stupid Contrarian Attention Whore.

I actually wouldn't be surprised if you don't play anything except genuinely bad games, but are just happy because you're not playing what's popular.

>>55005608
>SCAW
I kind of like that.

>>55005727
Because they're not suboptimal by default, just the one you made happened to be suboptimal because you made bad choices.

>>55005951

>Fighters
>Not suboptimal by default

lol

>>55005868
Being contrarian actually feels really good, I know we like to knock it a lot, but liking something specifically because it's hipster or counter-popular is legitimately satisfying and good for your mental satisfaction.

Rational =/= good

>>55005968
A fighter can solo pretty much every equal CR encounter in the whole monster manual up to level 11. If built correctly with magic items, they can go all the way to 20.

Those encounters are designed for a party of 4, that must mean that fighters are fucking broken and overpowered.

So, what does it matter if they're suboptimal in theorycrafting?

>>55005727
>A suboptimal character that the system never informed me was suboptimal, and does not make intuitive sense as being suboptimal.

Table: Two-Weapon Fighting Penalties

Circumstances Primary Hand Off Hand
Normal penalties –6 –10
Off-hand weapon is light –4 –8
Two-Weapon Fighting feat –4 –4
Off-hand weapon is light and Two-Weapon Fighting feat –2 –2

>From the SRD

You wanted the book to literally spell "hey, don't pick this if you're a cunt"?

File: 1498960158866.png (471KB, 556x796px) Image search: [Google]

471KB, 556x796px

>>55003619
Constant fucking need to cross-reference to 2e, and the errata, and Web Enhancements.

It's all over the fucking place, but it was the last vestiges of an IP in the memory of what it was intended to be.

>>55003650
...but that doesn't explain whey they added more bullshit to casters and buried in shit martials.

>>55005951
But he's arguing that it *shouldn't* be suboptimal, because there's no logical, intuitive reason for it to be so, because a dual-wielding fighter sounds like something that should be effective in a fantasy world, but due to the vagueries of the rules, it's not in this system, which is a problem.

>>55005509
Being deliberately obtuse is the hottest new meme.

>>55005951
>Monk
>Not suboptimal
When a feature of a class renders you useless, yeah, you're suboptimal
>w-which feature?
Animal companion for example

>>55006017
The problem with your post are:
1. You assume the fighter can physically hit the monster. Flying creatures, ethereal ones, blinking ones, etc etc
2. You assume the fighter can act before the monster. Either by having lower Ini, or monsters having auras that paralyze you or make you run frightened, etc

You can build a fighter to be pretty good against a expecifical situation, but it will suck against so many others and he can't sleep over to rebuild his tools the next day as other classes can

>>55006359
>muh animal companion meme
>not following the rules for handle animal and controlling the animal like you do your own character
>still blame the system even though you're not using it

>>55006333
Anon, dual-wielding is very viable, you keep using suboptimal and not understanding that in every system there will be better options, even in 4e there were suboptimal options.

>>55006226
>cross-reference 2e
wha?

>>55006395
>flawed assumption #1
>Bows don't exist
>flying doesn't exist
>magic weapons don't exist
>cheap and simple magic weapon potions don't exist
>literally throwing rocks doesn't exist

>assumption 2
Nope, no I don't make that assumption.

Mathematically, they can beat basically every equal CR, not as one-sidedly as a barbarian can in Pathfinder, but they can win against any fight you take from the rules.

You say it sucks he can't sleep to rebuild his tools, a fighter says it's awesome he always has his tools without sleeping.

>>55006333
>a dual-wielding fighter sounds like something that should be effective in a fantasy world
I disagree.

Even so, dual-wielding was viable in 3.5, you just needed to put some thought into it. You can argue:
>it wasn't viable on level 1!
In which case I'll point out that the general mentality is: "I wanna be cool like the guys in medieval action movies who use two weapons and slash their enemies and it's so badass", and this shouldn't be achieved at level one. It's a complicated technique that, if made "not suboptimal", should only be so at higher levels.

>>55006396
>>muh animal companion meme
>>not following the rules for handle animal and controlling the animal like you do your own character
>>still blame the system even though you're not using it
In English, doc. Handle animal is a free action, you can tell him to do whatever you want, and animal companions are so much stronger than monks is just silly

Monks need godly stats to even be as good as a fighter, a goddamn fithter

>>55006442
>you can tell him to do whatever you want
>ignores training them tricks, them understanding you, them being incapable of performing complicated tasks or strategy, their animal instincts, their natural survival instinct

Oh, you literally haven't read the rules... d20 srd is free online man, OGL.

>>55006439
>>Bows don't exist
You're either good at bow or good at melee, if faced with a monsters that flies and you're good at melee your bow will be weak and you won't do shit. If faced with a big monsters that deals on melee once it reaches your squares you'll have to pass to melee and suck at it.
>magic weapons don't exist
Don't do shit against blinking creatures or creatures with miss chance
>>literally throwing rocks doesn't exist
You clearly never read the rules for that because unless you're a hulkling hurler, monsters will laugh at you

>Mathematically
Mathematically a wizard with a dagger can bring down even a Tarrasque, because like you I just assumed the Tarrasque does nothing and just stays there.
But you already know all this and you're just asking for yous, so here, hope you're happy.

>>55006396
There are multiple segments of lore directly ripped from the 2nd Edition, not even being reprints, often edited to suitor to the writing style of 3.5, sometimes completely missing context in favour of how 3.5 makes the functionality of rules, classes and other such content in the era make sense. A good example of this is the fact that Fiendish Codex makes references to a character in the Demon Web Pits who is Lloth's Consort, who you will find nothing on until your read a fucking 1e adventure and put two and two togther, and a bunch of other 2e books and tidbits locked away in Dragon, Dungeon, and Polyhedron Magazines.

2e Detailed the likes of Ghanaudaurs rituals and sacrifices and much of his description, dogmas and the like are copy-pasted from his 2e book, such as his herald being a giant slug, a creature only found for 3.5 in the Dragon magazine article.

Orcus, Demon Prince of the Undead is one of the most well consistent characters by 3.5, referring you back to Throne of Bloodstone and even dead cods for important context you wouldn't understand otherwise, especially for the like of his Visages, Undead Demons from Dead gods who have a fucking broken as fuck realtiy manipuilation ability.

All of the Demon Lords in Fiendish Codex, barring aspects are infact, NOT their actual CR or power-level, and these were published in Demonomicon of iggwilv articles in Dragon.

The sheer amount of fucking archeological shit you have to do with 3.5 is astounding. Like the fucking abilities in Monsters of Faerun for Liches being in actual fact, barely covered Salient abilities from 2e's Ravenloft, which follows on to the contiuation of Kanchelsis, and how Vampires work overall, next to the Demiplane of Dread still beign canon, which they confirm in both the remake of the 1e adventure, expedition to Castle Ravenloft and Strahd's article in DMG for 3.5 stats based on his 2e version and his Top villains listing.

>>55006507
>either good at bow or good at melee
Nope

>creatures with miss chance
So? Those creatures can barely touch the fighter, he will statistically win out against them every single time.

>Tries to confusedly equate something being statistically probably with something being possible.
Are you retarded?

File: 1475617598919.jpg (16KB, 428x469px) Image search: [Google]

16KB, 428x469px

>>55003619
The lives of the shitty, endlessly complaining weebs who ceaselessly resurrect this thread.

>>55006482
>>ignores training them tricks, them understanding you, them being incapable of performing complicated tasks or strategy, their animal instincts, their natural survival instinct
Animal companions learn tricks FOR FREE, you don't even need to train them, you can, but they learn for free a trick ever odd level, but I guess you didn't read that.
You have +4 to animal handling and share a bond in where both, you can even push it to do stuff it will never do, but I guess you also didn't read that.
Animal companions go beyond their survival instinct is also stated, but I guess you also didn't read that.

>>55006528
>So? Those creatures can barely touch the fighter, he will statistically win out against them every single time.
Nigga, creatures as you have miss chance to hit them and they don't to hit, do you even D&D?

>>55006558
>doesn't have any idea what tricks do and hasn't read their limitations
>accuses another anon of not reading about tricks
Good distraction, well memed.

>>55006575
You're not making any sense. A fighter will reliably hit and reliably dodge/absorb with his large hp and high AC any equal CR in the monster manual.

This takes into account any miss chances from monsters.

>>55006577
Read motherfucker read
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/handleAnimal.htm

This argument is almost a legal adult in the US

Sometimes I forget people are actually this desperate to defend their god-awful system.

>>55006598
>"pushing" an animal is an insane DC 25
>still only covers the basic 12 tricks that don't give you any fine control over the beast
>thinks that telling something to just "attack" is as useful as what an actual character can do.

You're retarded, you should try to read that link.

>>55006637
It pales in comparison to the years of desperation people spend to try and bring down things because they're popular.

They've convinced themselves they have "special" knowledge and they must share it, like a tin-foil hat conspirator.

>>55006640
Of course it won't be as good as you, is a big martial, you're a Druid, a fucking caster, but it will be better than a monk which was the point in question.
But keep moving the goalpost.

>>55006518
For example, an Undead Visage has a reality fucking ability that only Dead Gods describes in action perfect as being more or less thrown into virtual reality without the sensations to make it real, but 3.5 does not give context on how far this power can be taken, making it almost useless in encounters.

There's also REMAINING errors in the text that not even the Errata covered, stuff like Entropic Reapers damage stats being calculated wrong, Thrall of Zuggtmoy being a non-functional Druid PrC that goes against the alignment rules for druids, the fact that Outsiders as a type no longer cover the "soul and body being one unit crap any longer" because there are other non-planar Outsiders that have been shown to go completely against this and other such errors.

Also there was the issue of repeat-classes and PrCs, rules, spells and the like that sometimes did the exact same thing, but better or in many cases, nonfunctional. There were again abilities, spells and things that could be abused in manners that amounted to the like of shit PC's get away with in bethesda TES games when they fuck with Alchemy and break the universe.

>>55006656
Monk is the OPest piece of shit I ever saw, the fuck are you talking about?

>>55006656
>thinks that a stupid, hard to control animal is as useful as a monk PC who can actually use their brains and skills in a fight

Wew, what a nice white theorycraft room with no environment you've got going.

>>55006682
He's not talking about the zen archer variants, probably.

>>55006664
This is actually really cool, and I can't tell if this is pasta.

File: 123948339392.jpg (142KB, 472x874px) Image search: [Google]

142KB, 472x874px

>>55006686

>>55006703
Zen Archer isn't OP, is just pretty easy to build and is autopilot mode, it also performs ok to good in every situation, but isn't OP.

>>55006686
>Animal companions have more attacks than monk, plus pounce, plus better type of movement, more HPs, better at maneuvers because monsters have better manuevers than monks, etc
>"Is not better because you can use your brain"
Just to amuse your argument, awaken your animal companion, boom, done. That was easy.

>>55006682
I need to hear the story of how you got the idea that monks are OP, because I can't even imagine the party composition necessary for someone to think this.

>>55006703
True-Names and Truenaming was also a lost art, spells to find truenames, rules to research them, classes that incorporate them, there is a lot of important shit surrounding this entire fucking concept, and Tome of Magic came out and gave you a class which uses them. A class which is notorious for actually being the most unplayable base class in 3.5, it's only merit being that you're technically possibly the only self-aware PC in the fame, and that you can pretty much end the universe by summoning an Outsider THAT ISN'T UNDER YOUR CONTROL OR IS NERFED BY THE RULES OF SUMMONING THAT PREVENT IT FROM FLOODING THE UNIVERSE WITH IT's KIND.

Then of course, comes the most fucking important part about True names, in that they relate to fucking Epic-Level Setting important PCs found in planes. And they give you no lists as to what these are, which is a fundamentally incorrect thing, because through digging, I've discovered the following-
>Orcus has his true name in a Truename based Dragon-Magazine Article
>Anyone who has played Neverwinter Nights knows what Mephistopheles' is
>Juiblex's true name is FUCKING CURSED TO SEND YOU TO THE ABYSS IN A YEAR, COMPLETELY REMOVING YOUR LIFESPAN
And no one thought that this was going to be important in the context of handling Demon Lords, Archdevils and Whatever the fuck the Upper Planes have going on?

The Fuck?
Oh right, Epic Levels, a fucking 3e book with updates for 3.5 in separate documents that are integral to higher-level play even when 3.5 came out.

Oozemaster, a PrC class revolving around slime being entirely anti-ethical to the play of a Juiblex or Ghaunadaur worshipper, because many of their spells that relate to Ooze usage are infact, dependant on Charisma and you get Charisma penalties as you level the fucking thing, with the most important build using this being a Cleric to Oozemaster even.

File: 2016-04-18 02_31_40-[Forgotten Realms #15_Forgotten Realms 15 - 00 - FC.jpg + Forgotten Realms #15_F.png (2MB, 663x1024px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 663x1024px

>>55006893
Oh right, and the fucking Vampire Template missing Spiderclimb which they added in in almost every book past the Monster Manual, even it's fucking Monster Class template, there are now 3.5 players who are not even aware of this, so much so that the Complete vampire 3rd Party d20 book was published with this false information in mind.

Imagine fucking up so hard someone makes a splatbook on your fuckup then proceeds to propagate it to players everywhere. It's a minor error, but no one fucking knew.

They also constantly if not more often than so brought forth reoccurring magical items that are infact, a good cause for highlighting, but they never often did, often people stumbling on them by complete chance. If I told you that old set of Lich-used Undead Bagpipes from 2e was still in 3.5, would you have even guessed?

I mean, how the fuck is anyone supposed to know the Old AD&D comics and the Forgotten Realms D&D comics are actually canon and even have the characters mentioned in FR books, such as this one Elf who was split into multiple Elves based on their alignment, and fused back toghether as a single elf with the sex-drive of all her other halves, fucking like 5 people an issue everytime she shows up, and now she's Khelben Blackstaff's right hand woman?

Like, this is the kind of shit people would be interested to know about, a fucking Elf who got split into a Drow and a (sun elf?) and then merged to become this fucking OC donut Steel of the 80's-90's or the fuckign 1e-2e Jester Class and the fluff behind it being an actual canon event in the comics, with the story of Diarmunds Jest Retold from generations ago in Dragon Magazine to boot, with The Jester's guild Laying siege to Waterdeep with the Giant fireball throwign siege skeleton made by a class that cannot even use Necromancy that has some of the most amazing and diverse fuckshit abilities ever, or how all of this continued on even into 3.5?

>>55003619
- Core systems are complete cack. Practically every core rule and system of the game is a complex writeup in legalese that practically all groups have ignored as many of as possible. The most central ones got memorized and the rest were avoided, often by intentionally avoiding character archetypes that made use of those rules.
Better would be something simple but powerful, that doesn't try to rule for every possible situation, but instead relies on the GM for rulings,

- Feats and action/attack options in the book that actually take away from what a "normal warrior" can do proficiently, by making it absolute dogshit unless you're 12 character levels in, balls deep into a feat tree just so trying to trip someone isn't invariably a waste of your standard action

- The action economy, examples of actions, and examples of skill use, are all horrible shit, both due to the actual wording being an unbelievable mess, as well as being rigid and ultimately more limiting than helpful when it came to adjudicating situational stuff, or homebrewing.
If you use the rules as written, your game is already a piece of shit; the solution is a fuckload of class/race features to fix the problems caused by the core rules!

- Implicitly fostering the classic "Rules not rulings" 3.5e milieu that would reign for most of its heyday, eroding the GM's power and furthering distrust of the GM, while largely denying the DM good guidelines to make rulings even in special cases.

- The game scales too fast; you blaze past content at an alarming pace (e.g. weaker enemies quickly become a boring addition to a fight, a complete waste of your time - and conversely, stronger enemies will very likely kill you unless your caster gets them with save or suck, or your DM has them be incompetent, or both.)

- Scaling d20 roll mods at different rates (e.g. class skills vs. non class skills, high BAB vs. medium BAB...) is a terrible idea and turns to shit at high level.

- Shockingly bad spell design

>>55007024
>>55006893
>>55006664
>>55006518

what did he mean by this?

>>55006358
I agree, it's so dismissive and a more frustrating level.

>>55003619
Eh, nothing really.

It has flaws, but it's one of the better designed systems, really.

>1e is a clusterfuck

>2e has a few moments, but things like THAC0, woefully inconsistent rules and monsters that were still designed to instagib a player or two made it a pain to run.

>2e + S&P was a broken mess. Any argument that Fighters held a candle to casters was dispelled by this.

>3e was splatbook hell. You spent more time theorycrafting a possible build with 18 PrCs and where to level dip

>4e was "fine". Every ability reads "Deal X damage to Y targets, move A squares, move target B squares, give self buff Q and target debuff P" It was boring, but mostly anything about it was drowned out by people calling it a WoW clone.

>5e is okay. There are an astounding lack of rules, nothing is that balanced and they go through hoops to not say the words "standard action and move action" in the PHB, but people like it well enough.

You can bitch and moan about 3.X, but it really set a good standard for RPGs.

>>55004391
I hate this argument that casters were only overpowered in 3e. It's stupid and wrong.

Shit in the High level campaign book for 2ed there was a graph showing wizards curving up quickly, thieves having a spike early then petering out and fighters with a logarithmic growth.

If you actually played prior editions you'd know that wizards had stupid overpowered everything.

>>55007544
Their argument lies around casters being rather weak in early levels and leveling up slower.

Still, high level 2e was basically the worst version imaginable of Caster Supremacy, with mages being able to utterly shut down anyone other than other mages.

>>55003619
>/tg/ poophead says epicness is wrong
>Me smart, me remind him if it's wrong how come most popular
>le /tg/ turd is btfo
yurnexti kiddo ;)

>>55006786
>Always armed
>Always unarmed
>Adds Dex, Wis to attack, damage, defense which means all he needs is to rise stats
>TWF but better for free
>Those motherfucking saves
>Did I also mention they're faster than horses?

>>55007544
>thieves having a spike early
Pretender detected

>>55008006
>Wis to attack
>Wis to damage
>"Defense"
"Hello fellow D&D'ers! I, a D&D'er like you, am sure fitting in with you, other D&D'ers, in an inconspicuous fashion. How about them Dex, Wis to attack, damage, defense, huh?"

File: 0-bret-prologue-a.jpg (377KB, 2041x1490px) Image search: [Google]

377KB, 2041x1490px

You know, in my experience? Nothing went wrong. Nothing major, anyway.

My group still plays 3.5. Not because it was the first game we played (that honor goes to 4e), but because it is a game we genuinely enjoy. Most of /tg/'s whining has no relation to reality, and the more I read their complaints, the more it seems like /tg/'s hate brigade does not play any game. 3.5 is still loved and played by thousands, for its varied subsystems, quirky settings, plenitude of content, and intuitive gameplay.

Most of tg's complaints amount to "But Toughness exists!" and "Fighters suck!", to which my group would reply... just don't play a Fighter and don't pick the Toughness feat. Seriously. This game is great for its tinkering and bricolage, why should anyone care about some less-than-ideal choices in the core book?

>>55008129
You know feats that do that exist, right?

>>55008164

Wis to damage? Nope. There is no such feat.

>>55008129
Sacred fist
Shiva protector
Insightful strike
Intuitive Attack

>>55008244
There's a PrC though

>>55008294

Once we are talking about a collection of feats and a PrC (a PrC that can be entered without a single Monk level, at that), are we really even talking about Monks any more?

>>55008328
Taking into account you only add Wis to hit and damage to unarmed attack and simple melee weapons I don't think lots of classes will benefit from that PrC. You also only need a single level in that PrC for that.

>>55008394

Shiba Protectors apply it to all attack and damage rolls, and Sacred Fists only get Wis to damage from Sacred Flames at level 4, so I don't know what game you've been playing 'cause it isn't this one.

>>55003650
That design has problems even within its own framework, though. Sword and board Fighters obsolete themselves by level 5 because of how fucking shit their damage is compared to monster HP and how useless AC is as a defense, Rogues are useless for damage dealing against half of the enemies in the game, healbots can't keep up with a single monster's damage until level 9, and blasters have to deal with elemental resistances being everywhere and spell resistance existing solely to shit on them.

The real crime they did during playtesting was OK the Druid because the guy playtesting it was a fucking retard who hit things with a scimitar with 12 STR while not casting spells or using Wild Shape or his animal companion.

>>55003619
The issue is less what they changed and more what they kept the same. The stuff they changed was mostly a great success (ascending AC, making most things work according to a unified mechanic instead of dozens of unrelated tables, templated creature types, feats, getting rid of nonsensical race/class limitations and insane multiclassing/dual classing rules.) The worst parts of it are parts it kept from AD&D (caster supremacy, the exact level and function of most spells, dead levels, random ability scores and hit dice.) So in that sense nothing went wrong; it just didn't change as much as it should have for fear of alienating people. Anyone have that screencap from Dragon magazine complaining that 3.0 wasn't "real" D&D because it had ability scores that very slightly increased with level?

>>55008328
To be fair, we have alternate starting packages, Class Variant Swapouts, Prestige Base Classes (Not sure if they covered Monks, but eh-) The stuff from LOTR Incarnum, and Thingys of the East to cover all given Monk Needs.

In theory.

>>55008625

In practice, it was all Ardents and Psychic Warriors with a Monk dip and the Tashalatora feat.

>People really discussing if monk is OP
holy shit I can believe this

>>55008163
I can play a Warblade just fine but that doesn't change the fact that my first experience with 3.0 was as a sword and board Fighter and it permanently poisoned the well because they were complete fucking shit compared to the same fucking thing in AD&D.

>>55003619
Chesterton's Fence all over the place.

>>55008163
>just don't play a Fighter and don't pick the Toughness feat. Seriously
There's a problem though, you had the priviledge of playing 3.5 once it ended, so you had every source at your disposal, some people played that game before ToB existed, you can't tell them "well, just have played ToB, bruh". Then there's the problem that on average ToB and Psyonics (probably most balanced books) are forbiden, why? I don't really know, blame the "it's animoo" mentality or "psyonics don't belong in D&D" but the fact is there.

Right now you can play a 3.5 game and don't face much balance problems if your GM allows every source.

Is similar to PF and monks, now you have Unchained Monk, which is an improvement over monk (in theory, if you add archetypes you'll realize there isn't an actual improvement) but people like myself didn't have the luxury of that when I started PF

>>55008751
Any of the classes can be optimized to the point where they can wreck a character made by someone with moderate knowledge of the system working without assistance.

>>55008781
Irrelevant. The rationale behind almost everything in AD&D, all the way back to the white box, is "because that's the way we did it before in this miniatures wargame that people don't really play anymore." That includes everything from minor rules like elves' sleep resistance to sacred cows like HP that scale linearly.

>>55003619
>What went so terribly, horrifically wrong?
HP Bloat
Caster Supremacy
Power Creep
Feat Trees
Ivory Tower Design

...and on and on and on...

>>55003796
Welcome back, how long was your ban? 30 days or 60 days?

>>55008869
I wish. Even if you optimized as much as possible damn near every T4 or below class is categorically inferior to core Druid 20.

>>55008922
The thing I can think of that they changed without properly compensating for its effects was unifying the level progression. On its face it made sense - it was retarded that each class advanced at a different speed and therefore experience levels were not actually a useful measure for how strong a character was. However, it existed that way as a kludge to slap some figurative duct tape over the problem of wildly imbalanced classes. A level 5 thief was shit compared to a level 5 wizard, but at least the thief got to level 5 a little faster. They did not fix the imbalanced classes in 3.0 (each class can more or less do the same thing it could at the corresponding level in AD&D, often right down to the same spells,) meaning caster supremacy was a bit worse in 3.X compared to AD&D when it should have been at least about the same.

>>55008006
Being permanently stuck with either the worst weapon style in the game(AoMFs cost 3 times a magical weapon for fuck's sake) or a selection of the worst weapons in the game isn't a benefit. Neither is having to raise STR, DEX, CON, and WIS all to good levels or else you're even more useless.

>>55008608
>Anyone have that screencap from Dragon magazine complaining that 3.0 wasn't "real" D&D because it had ability scores that very slightly increased with level?
wtf?

>>55009062
Not making this up. Reactions to the 3.0 playtest were extremely hidebound. Maybe I can google it.

>>55007935
>>Me smart, me remind him if it's wrong how come most popular
brand recognition. not-so-smart anon BTFO

File: CerealGuy_Spit_large.png (62KB, 1500x978px) Image search: [Google]

62KB, 1500x978px

>>55007430
>You can bitch and moan about 3.X, but it really set a good standard for RPGs.
By which measure did it set a good standard compared to its contemporaries?

They didn't go full 4e with it.

>>55009280
Its contemporaries weren't exactly stunning examples of RPG design, either. We're looking at it with the benefit of hindsight.

>>55009290

Yeah, that was the problem. A strong design direction, consistency and balance would really have improved 3.x.

>>55008755
>my first experience with 3.0 was as a sword and board Fighter and it permanently poisoned the well

My first experience with solid food was bad carrots & peas that gave me diarrhea, and that never stopped me from eating for the rest of my life. If you attach that much emotion to early 3.0, then it is you that has a problem, not the game.

>>55008839
>Then there's the problem that on average ToB and Psyonics (probably most balanced books) are forbiden, why?
They aren't. This is just a meme on /tg/, go to other online communities that talk about 3.5 (GitP, MinMaxForum, Roll20, Myth-Weavers, whatever else) and you'll discover that people play psionics and Tome of Battle just fine.

>>55009442
Then I, taking into account I'm an army brat and that I've been in 5 different countries, 7 different cities and in like over 30 D&D groups, had the worst luck ever and still do

>>55009442
Two of those are places where players aren't afraid to talk about the game's mechanics. Try it in real life. Half of the time you'll get some fucking faggot who insists on running the game core only.

>>55009473
>Core only
Stopped playing D&D due that
Tried to come back both in 4e and 5e but people insists on core only

>>55009469

Have you tried Canada? Everybody uses Tome of Battle in Canada.

>>55009290
They couldn't have gone 4e with it. World of Warcraft wouldn't come out for five more years.

>>55009625

Yeah, 3.x was diablo instead

>>55009647

I can dig that. Diablo was awesome

>>55009469
The reason a lot of people allow it now is because they were so forbidden before.
These days, people want to use shit most disallowed when it was recent.

>>55008923
Nice list of exaggerated or debunked memes.

>>55009780

He said, without actually making anything even resembling an argument.

Those are all facts, you aren't arguing against them because you know you can't.

>>55009780
Every one of those "memes" is of discussion-worthy scale and fully demonstrable.

>>55009780
If they're exaggerated or debunked, prove how they're exaggerated or debunked.

>>55009780
>Feet trees have been debunked!
>Please fuck my tight facehole
>Oh god i love cocks so much
>Please more

>>55009836
Feat trees are not debunked, but they are exaggerated. They were there, but small and not a big deal.

>>55006395
>can't sleep over to rebuild his tools the next day as other classes can

Other classes getting to do this successfully is a symptom of railroaded plot points DMing/groups using bits and pieces from D&D for everything. You know what stops Wizards showing up fully-loaded to every encounter? A 50%+ chance of a slightly tougher encounter with a couple surprise rounds if they try to sleep.

>>55003619
Monte Cook.

>>55003992
But then it becomes a containment system, see 3e, 3.5e, Pathfinder. The non autists moved to 5e.

>>55009825
>>55009833
You mean you put fingers in your ears and ignore what people have told you a hundred times before?

This isn't the first time you've made this thread.
Your "tactics" and "antics" are pretty appalling, especially because you even had the nerve to include blatantly false complaints like Ivory Tower Design, which actually has already been addressed earlier in this thread as something people gravely misunderstand, and is just a cool sounding phrase for something that actually doesn't apply to the system.

It's just memes on top of memes, and that's why these threads are such an embarrassment even to the low standards of /tg/.

>>55010139
>The non autists moved to games that aren't D&D
FTFY

>>55010186
This isn't the first time you've said "this isn't the first time" and every time you say it, you never actually list any of the facts that disprove those statements.

All you do is attack any arguments for being dishonest, anyone who disagrees with you for being ignorant, and all the while never saying any of those things that disprove them.

We're asking for your facts. You aren't giving them. It makes you look like you're making their existence up.

>>55004865
Pathfinder centres a spotlight on these points and magnifies these criticisms by making these raised points worse. Why is that system so insanely popular?

>>55003619
The internet became mainstream and people started to care more about what total strangers half a planet away thought about their game than their own group did.

File: 2e Grog.jpg (358KB, 625x898px) Image search: [Google]

358KB, 625x898px

>>55009062
Anon still delivers.

>>55010245
>>The non autists played whatever game they enjoyed rather than worry about autistic memes
FTFY

>>55004623
Unfortunately, aside from bounded accuracy, 5e has pretty weird math.

>>55010245
>>55010316
Which meant the non autists moved to 5e.

>>55010309
>video rental
>books at retail
>ad&d
>dialup (at least, not-tied-to-physical-plant) internet service
man, this guy sure is a winner when it comes to picking his safe spaces

>>55007430
Except for the fact 4e and 5e are legitimately well designed systems.

>>55010456
You gotta stop assuming numbers in terms of previous editions. 5e's maths works.

>>55010049
>Teleports away

File: 1433251233192.gif (2MB, 245x276px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 245x276px

>>55008163
>why should anyone care about some less-than-ideal choices in the core book
Because they are bald-facedly, and dishonestly, presented as viable choices. Also, taking up space while adding no value is inefficient and bad, but mostly the dishonesty is the issue. Had they just made a core book that had a full selection of T1 fullcasters, clearly labeled the game "Masters of Magic D20" and the included the intentional trap options in the NPC class section in the DMG, then there would be no dishonesty, and people would be able to play the game the way it works best right out of the box, without having to spend multiple sub-par afternoons/evenings fiddling around with intentionally mislabeled options.
>>55009397
>My first experience with solid food was bad carrots & peas that gave me diarrhea, and that never stopped me from eating for the rest of my life. If you attach that much emotion to early 3.0, then it is you that has a problem, not the game.
It a game is set up to intentionally create first play experiences that can be compared to diarrhea, then it has problems, no matter what the play experience eventually becomes once the system is mastered.

>>55010525
>Several overworld random encounters while traveling back, followed by the more intelligent denizens having prepared for war after noticing that their neighbors are dead, and possibly something new and meaner having set up shop in the empty space
>Constructs or undead that you can disassemble but not "kill"
>Abominations which just undergo mitosis and come back up to full population absorbing the corpses you left
>Also, the princess is still getting sacrificed to Vecna in a week, except now it's six days

Per day is broken because DMs don't enforce deadlines or non-PC-driven change in the world, not because it's per day.

>>55010528
This, see Mage: The Ascension, you can be a mundane dude, but the game tells you it isn't a good idea, 3.PF has the balls of telling you everybody has the same level of power at the same level which is blatantly false.

>>55010614
Yeah, except say if you're running a game in something other than the style of story driven modules (say you're just plundering an old tomb or some shit).

>>55010614
I wish more martials got fast healing, my "i can do this all day" Barb was the only one that came near to that (Fast healing 6 and can get back a rage turn on a fell enemy)

>>55010309
He's not wrong that 3e was basically an attempt to rewrite AD&D by people who prefer other games and have no particular respect for its traditions. But fuck him, that was a good thing and I only wish they'd done it better.

>>55010614
That fucks up martials even more due HPs. In my experience by the time a caster runs out of spells the martials are already at less than 10 HPs

File: 0aa2a423-bc24-4123-ac64-727080e6e800.jpg (150KB, 800x600px) Image search: [Google]

150KB, 800x600px

>>55010528

It isn't "once the system is mastered", unless you mean "once the system is mastered by others", which was ages before my group even started. I didn't have the fighters vs wizards problem because everybody already knew what fighters were before we even started the game. It is not some secret that you need to hunt for.

The game exists as it is *now*. Its legacy is history, not the game itself. Calling 3.5 bad based on its core book makes about as much sense as calling America bad because it used to have slavery.

Furthermore, it was not "intentionally" set up to make the Fighter relatively weak compared to other classes. They made it in good faith, and they made some mistakes along the way. You act as if Wizards were some cackling schemers in a far corner of the earth plotting to make Conan fans cry. What actually happened was that they made a game, based on an existing game and very much like that existing game, and overestimated the value of the new thing (feats), leading to a discrepancy that sometimes, not always, caused a less-good play experience.

Look what is happening here: you are saying D&D 3.5 is bad based on a game that I do not play and neither would you (Core Only), I am saying that D&D 3.5 is good based on the game people actually play nowadays (post-completion D&D 3.5). Which approach is more relevant to real people today?

>>55009780
>exaggerated
>S&B Fighter might be doing 1d8+20 per swing by the end of the game vs monsters with 300 HP. Blasters are consistently behind the enemy HP curve because they use AD&D blaster damage in a game with 3 or more times the hit points.
>Polymorph and Shapechange are in core. Both make CoDzillas better martials than any core martial and that's without any of the other dozens of buffs they have
>constant introduction of spells that allow spellcasters to destroy encounters and fight in ways they couldn't before, like Shivering Touch and orbs, and unbelievably broken PrCs like Planar Shepherd and Incantatrix
>Whirlwind Attack takes 4 dead weight feats in a game where you get 7 without your race/class and it isn't even a good feat
>Dodge vs Leadership

File: 1438148590919.jpg (33KB, 450x270px) Image search: [Google]

33KB, 450x270px

>>55010821
Look man, you can't use the fact that you can scour the charop boards for hours in 2017 to justify a genuinely shitty 2000 release. Hell, even if we're ONLY looking at post-internet-ubiquity 2017, there are a lot of people at a table who don't have the time and/or inclination to delve into the optimization community, and just want to pick up and play a game about exploring Dungeons that might have Dragons in them. Maybe they've come to the table with a pre-existing idea of what character they want to play, independent of any system knowledge based on the genre/themes of the game (which again were dishonestly presented.) Those people, at those tables, deserve a good play experience as well, and 3.PF just can't deliver because of its dishonesty problem.

I'm glad you found a table who are ubiquitously familiar enough with modern accepted 3.PF optimization to make high optimization 3.PF fun, but that's a damn narrow qualification.

And finally, I'm not presenting them as cackling overlords, I'm presenting them as they've presented themselves: creating a system that intentionally "rewards" system mastery over time via the same positive feedback loop as MTG deckbuilding. See>>55004013

>>55010821
When you put Monk design in the hands of someone who hates Monks I'm going to hold you accountable for it. That's completely unacceptable.

>>55009780
Thanks for the laugh retard.

>>55010984
>hours
If you play any games at all, you'd have heard about the fighters vs wizards thing by accident, without doing anything. So, zero hours. You'd likely hear about it sometime before you learn that D&D has multiple editions.

There is no dishonesty. People on /tg/ vastly overstate how much of a discrepancy there was. It was perfectly reasonable for them to think they did a good job, and it wasn't some sort of deception. Just imperfect people making an imperfect product, which they improved over time.

>>55011013
3.5 monks were designed by Jonathan Tweet. What makes you think he hated monks?

>>55011092
>3.5 monks were designed by Jonathan Tweet
You are wrong.

>>55003650
>[citation needed]

>>55010697
Or you make your CoDzilla go healing spec and use most of their actions on healing rather than isekai_adaption_buff_bar.webm. Then your frontline hitting single digits is what makes your "we pull out and deal with the consequences or we die" decision.

This has its own problems. It's restrictive and limiting, with a side of hope you have a healslut. But forcing D&D into being a generalist system rather than a tomb-raiding simulator is just as problematic for the games it's used in PLUS sucks the oxygen out of the room for games it shouldn't be used in.

>>55010984
>dishonesty problem

Holy fuck, get over yourself you little shit.

File: O rly.png (685KB, 597x504px) Image search: [Google]

685KB, 597x504px

>>55011099

>>55011121
>healing spec
Why? I can buy wands for that and heal even more than using my spells
It's also stupid, going healer in D&D is retarded, healing is for out of combat, you can't reliably heal in combat, you heal less than monsters damage, is better to deny monsters damage by rendering them useless iwith spells. Did you ever play 3.PF?

Last time someone tried "healed" GM gave him for free intensify and maximize (with no increase in spell slot) heals, we barely could do shit. Then the player decided to reroll, same class and buff/debuff, became a cakewalk

>>55011148
Look literally just below that.

>>55011180

Oh yes, three names, one of whom is Jonathan Tweet. Yet while blaming Monte Cook for everything is a /tg/ meme, it only shows their ignorance, for each of those three had an area they were in charge of, and the others in advisory roles.

/tg/ does not hate D&D 3.5. They hate an idea conjured by their own imaginations, with "dishonesty" and "hatred" that had nothing at all to do with real life, as is obvious to all reasonable people.

File: 1430363217643.png (95KB, 273x288px) Image search: [Google]

95KB, 273x288px

>>55004013
>"Certain game choices are deliberately better than others"

>"just laying out the rules without a lot of help or advice... The idea here is that the game just gives the rules, and players figure out the ins and outs for themselves -- players are rewarded for achieving mastery of rules and maing good choices rather than poor ones."
>>55011092
>There is no dishonesty
Except that there specifically WAS. The devs themselves admitted it. Like I said, I'm glad that your table is universally steeped in internet gaming culture enough that all the deceptions come pre-exposed for you guys: grats. I run games for varied groups of people, most of whom have jobs, and other hobbies, and children. The "Ivory Tower Design" simply doesn't work for that crowd. Also, call me crazy, but I like variety in my players' characters, and a system that takes a little effort to not just make lots of options, but make a variety of options that are balanced with each other and are versatile in fluff options, encourages players to think character first, rather than thinking crunch-first as they tend to do with 3e and all its OGL spawn.

I've often found that playing 3e, or any OGLd20 game, is a lot like playing a constructed format of a TCG at the highest tier of play: the game is more about building your deck/character, and playing is really more of a "proof of concept" that gets old after seeing your combo go off a few times.

>>55011251
Don't call these handful of contrarians "/tg/" please.

Most people here ignore these threads or just pop in to call these guys idiots and trolls.

>>55011179
Out of combat is only separate from in combat because out of combat is treated--has been treated near-universally in every 3.pf game I've played over the last decade and a half, other than one dungeon crawl run by a grognard--as magical no consequences time where resources aren't expended and the PCs are allowed to walk out of the dungeon, graduate military academy, go to war, find a beautiful wife from among the nobility of the kingdom they conquered, have a son who's raised to take on the challenges of statecraft, have a second son who takes on a higher calling, and then finally have a third son who they train in the martial disciplines until he's ready to begin questing as a squire, and then finally take him back and finish off the single orc they left at 3HP because they realized they couldn't carry the suit of armor he was guarding.
And the players will be very, very mad if the orc has healed back up to 7, or gets to reroll initiative.

When finding a wand merchant is a quest in itself, and you're fighting ten or fifteen short encounters in a day where Bull's Strength gives you +4 or +6 damage over the course of the encounter but Cure Moderate gives you back up to 20HP, shit changes.

>>55011257

READ the Ivory Tower game design thing. Really read it. Its point isn't that "some things were made to suck." Rather, it is that "things were made for a specific purpose, and we did not explain exactly what it was, so as to let the players figure it out themselves." This is a very different concept.

>>55011107
I'd assume the fact it was 3.5 is reason enough
>3 was so bad they have to shift to a new setting
>failed to balance out the cast problem

>>55011257
>Ivory Tower

You fucking moron. That's Cook's fancy phrase for "provide the rules, don't go too in depth on explaining them," and it's a perfectly reasonable approach for a player's handbook, the only book that it applies to. The other books go in depth to explain the underlying mechanics, including books that lead players through the classes.

So, please, shut. The. Fuck. Up.
Hell, you're probably the guy who needs to be explained a hundred times that Ivory Tower doesn't mean trap options, and that Cook was talking about trap options in Magic, not D&D.

For the love of gaming, how can you be so perpetually stupid?

>>55011321
No, that'd give you more incentive to use Bull's Strength because 20 HP isn't even enough to count for a single one of those.

>>55011321
>where resources aren't expended
Lucky you I guess, in my games you still run out of resources if you use them outside of combat, is just better because you have more time (combats last barely seconds, never more than 1 minute but out of combat a minute is almost nothing), you don't provoke AoOs, etc. But whatever, nice strawmen though.

>Finding a wand merchant
Why though? you can make them yourself, takes less than 8 hours, you can even pop one in 1 hour if you even invested a little in spellcrafting
>10 or fifteen short encounters in a day
Speaking of "forcing D&D into being not what it was meant to be", game clearly tells you is 4 encounters a day. Also I still prefer a bull's strenght that lasts for hours thanks to divine metamagic and other stuff over 20 Hps that I can cover with a wand in 18 seconds after the fight while not wasting my spells on it

>>55011432
Now I know you're just trolling.
Call me when you find out about XP.

>>55011344
I want to know the purpose of Pebble Underfoot

>>55003619
We let Monte Cook, Skip Williams,and Sean K Reynolds anywhere within 500 yards of a writing utensil. You'd have to try to be worse at game design than those three and even then you might not succeed.

>>55011457
Now I know you're trolling, call me when you read how little XP a wand costs, or how to bypass that cost, or abot PF in where there isn't XP cost at all.

>>55004745
Thought for a while you were talking about MTG which still makes it relevant.

>>55011457
Yeah, that 30 XP per 275 points of healing on average sure is painful, especially when it keeps you barely out of leveling range when everyone else levels and then rockets you ahead of the rest of the party in XP on the next fucking encounter because you gain more XP when you're behind.

And then there's wands of Lesser Vigor, which give you 550 points of healing over 50 charges.

>>55011481
No, you find how much it costs, and how reducing that cost isn't so simple. Because, it's clear you are now just exaggerating for the sake of continuing your flawed argument.

>>55011519
>1/25 wand cost in XP
>so for a 1st level wand which is 750 it will be 30 XP
WOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH, so much

>>55011519
It's so obvious now that you never played a caster or even the game. Man, why I even wasted my time replying to this bait.

>>55011462

To trip creatures at least two sizes larger than yourself, of course. You might say "A-ha! But the rules say you cannot do that!" Except as soon as you say so, you realize the absurdity of the idea that they *intentionally* wrote that feat to not work. What is far more likely is the designer forgot about the rule that you cannot trip creatures two sizes larger than yourself, and the reasonable conclusion is that the feat allow you to bypass that rule.

D&D isn't designed by robots, nor is it played by robots. When there is an obvious error, that isn't a sign of a conspiracy to keep you down. It is only an error, and this error is easily corrected.

>>55011519
>He doesn't know how to bypass the XP cost
Holy shit, and you were supposedly schooling others about system mastery? pfffhahahaha

>>55011573
Read the FAQ, the feat doesn't allow you to trip creatures that big, it just gives you the bonus. SO that "aha!" is pretty valid.

File: smug no longer smug after seeing your post.png (1MB, 1214x1109px) Image search: [Google]

1MB, 1214x1109px

>>55011519
>doesn't know the rules
>NO YOU'RE EXAGGERATING YOUR ARGUMENT IS FLAWED REEEE REEEEE REEEEEEEEEEEE

>>55011408
Ivory tower game design is real, but it wasn't Monte Cook who introduced it to D&D. Lots of old-school material makes no sense except in a context that you'd never be able to guess if you didn't know it already, because they sure don't go out of their way to explain it. The rulebooks didn't even have an index until 2e in 1989.

Having played in groups who thought we were clever with our wands of vigor, it doesn't take much for the DM to adjust. We once ended up burning through ten wands in one night, and it's largely because those 50 charges don't really last long when you use more than half of them in every fight.

>>55011588

Which FAQ is that, exactly? Its not in the main D&D FAQ, nor in the Dragon Compendium Errata.

>>55011642
Somehow I doubt your party took 5500 points of damage in a single day.

>>55011642
I prefer to burn through ten wands in one day that to burn through 3 days of full spells of my class, you saved 2 days

>>55011633
Dude, shut the fuck up. You don't know jack shit, so think next time before you make the mistake of trying to talk about Ivory Towers.

>>55011659
You mean made the DM add 2 days worth of monsters.

>>55011633
AD&D was loads better at explaining how classes and mechanics were intended to be used and rationale behind them, especially 1E.

>>55003619
Honestly? The bad design wasn't what went wrong, really. Subsequent editions usually mean that bad design is only temporary.

What truly went terribly, horrifically wrong was market saturation.

>>55011678
I still saved 2 days, now the princess has a chance, or the moon still didn't fall over the city yet, or you can save the goddess of love from her fast killing poison, etc.

File: 1466969681729.gif (595KB, 316x237px) Image search: [Google]

595KB, 316x237px

>>55011408
>The other books go in depth to explain the underlying mechanics, including books that lead players through the classes.
>>55004013
>I was just reading a passage from a recent book, and I found it rather obtuse. But it wasn't the writer's fault. He was just following the lead the core books offered him. Nevertheless, the whole thing would have been much better if the writer had just broken through the barrier this kind of design sets up between designer and player and just told the reader what the heck he was talking about.">>55011408
>Ivory Tower doesn't mean trap options, and that Cook was talking about trap options in Magic, not D&D.
>>55004013
>Magic also has a concept of "Timmy Cards." These are cards that look cool, but aren't actually that great in the game. The purpose of such cards is to reward people for really mastering the game, and making players feel smart when they've figured out that one card is better than the other. While D&D doesn't exactly do that, it is true that certain game choices are deliberately better than others.
Maybe read the text, and seriously calm down. Why are you so mad? Does it upset you that you spent time mastering the skill of "3e mastery" and now feel cheated because it is a skill custom tailored to a game that we are calling garbage?>>55011344
>READ the Ivory Tower game design thing. Really read it. Its point isn't that "some things were made to suck." Rather, it is that "things were made for a specific purpose, and we did not explain exactly what it was, so as to let the players figure it out themselves."
>>55004013
>it is true that certain game choices are deliberately better than others.

>>55011718
I don't think you understand. The DM adjusted the battles to match our strength and tactics. In later games, we stopped buying Vigor Wands because it wasn't a fun playstyle, even if it was effective.

>>55011779
Spending spells that could be used to do something interesting on healing is far less fun than you're implying it is. All your DM did was inflate damage numbers.

>>55011779
>hey, they're going to kill the princess in 3 days, but lets take it easy, if we do maybe fate will be easy on us
You can always go naked and unarmed, and jump into lava pits, maybe your GM will also adjust the game for your needs

>>55011746

Again, you are having a wee bit of trouble with reading comprehension. He goes on to explain what he means, and it isn't that the choices are bad for everything. They are bad for particular cases. Like how maxing Strength is bad if you are a Wizard.

Are you going to keep reposting the same thing, or are you going to start using that thick noggin of yours?

>>55011746
How can you quote text but clearly not read it? Are you a savant idiot? A person who's a genius at being stupid?

Read, and stop misinterpreting everything.

Why is toughness a weak feat? Not because its deliberately a "trap option," but because it is a passive, boring feat the designers wanted to discourage, but they kept it in the case of particularly fragile characters needing a boost.

You done being stupid yet?

>>55011850
>Not because its deliberately a "trap option," but because it is a passive, boring feat the designers wanted to discourage
Then it's a fucking trap option.

>>55011817
If you cheese, that tends to make the DM cheese too. It's always relative unless your DM is running a premade without altering it, and that's why it's best to just play in a style that's fun, even if it's not max efficiency.

>>55011862
You sure managed to read the first half of a sentence right there. Maybe if you work hard, you will succeed on reading the second half! Keep trying!

>>55011887
>If you cheese
>making 1st level wands is cheese
Man, the definition of cheese really got watered down a lot

>>55011665
Ivory tower game design may be an essentially contested concept, but in this case you're just wrong. Just like the Toughness feat in 3.X, the nonhuman races in AD&D had hard level limits because they were meant to be used in organized play. You could make a character with a nice little boost who'd never get enough xp to hit the limit, or you could play in low-level convention modules forever with the same character without placing out of them.

>>55011887
Using wands to heal isn't cheesing and it sure beats wasting spells on boring shit. If anything, a game where the DM can't get away with doing nothing but chipping at the party's HP with shitty encounters and instead has to challenge them every time or attrition away their actually limited resources is far more interesting.

>>55011862
That's not what a trap option is, you moron.

Just because some options are weaker does not make them traps, especially when we're talking about something as obvious as +3HP which clearly isn't exciting unless you only have a handful of HP to begin with. The class-specific books even explain what feats are better suited for what kind of characters, and when and why you should select different feats.

>>55011428
Bull's Strength is a flat +4 to STR, enduring for 1 minute/level (so in the modern parlance, one encounter plus its adds, but almost never two completely distinct encounters, and could easily run out in a standoff or rolling brawl.) That means +2 to hit and +2-+3 damage per hit, and at the level the cleric picks it up the fighter is still swinging once a round.

At the same level, Cure Moderate will do 5-19 healing, and it can be dropped on the other fighter if he's the one who takes the brunt of attacks, the rogue if he fucks up and pops a trap, safe the wizard's life if he gets a splinter from his staff and starts bleeding out, etc. It's quite possibly enough healing to take someone from lethally wounded to full in one go, basically an entire free party member redeemable anytime rather than having to pick the 3 minutes of the day you want your level 3 fighter to roll hit and damage like a level 4 fighter.

Buffs are only superior if you know you're only doing that one combat and then you're home safe, and you know that combat won't be lethal for the party.
Debuffs are more useful in the special case that you get handed one big bad to tank'n'spank, but -6 STR on one of twelve orcs is not exactly worth Cure Serious unless that orc is being handed a free five rounds to beat on you.

>>55011917
>>55011945
Vigor Wand spam is cheese. It's dull and basic, but it's still cheese if the party is fully healing at relatively low cost after each battle, which is why the DM responds with the dull and basic cheese of dealing more damage.

Not all cheese is pepperjack. Wand Spam is the cottage cheese of player tactics.

>>55011975
Or: you don't know what you're talking about. If you're fighting 12 orcs or even 1 CR 3 Ogre 15 times a day, Cure Moderate Wounds isn't going to do shit. It doesn't even achieve parity with a single ogre swing connecting.

>>55012029
>but it's still cheese if the party is fully healing at relatively low cost after each battle
Only because you seem to think HP management is more interesting than watching paint dry.

>>55011975
Maybe I'm confusing it with higher level spells, but I'm kinda sure there're better buffs (and that target more friends) than bull's str at that level

>>55011901
Not the guy you're arguing with, but if the designers wanted it to be a tool to make weaker characters more durable, why wasn't the feat just "raise your hit die by one size, up to a maximum of d8"? Then they wouldn't have to discourage it and it would be a legitimate option.

Like, if the designer wants to "discourage" the feat from being useful, and it can't accomplish the job of making weaker characters more durable (+20 HP over 20 levels is utterly meaningless)...isn't that a trap?

I'm genuinely curious.

>>55011519
>reducing that cost isn't so simple.
The Artificer would like a word with you.

>>55011519
>No, you find how much it costs, and how reducing that cost isn't so simple. Because, it's clear you are now just exaggerating for the sake of continuing your flawed argument.
So get this....
3e has relative XP gain. The lower your level, the more XP you get. 30 XP is enough to be one level below the other party members, but enough to be lower the difference that your bonus XP for being a level below. (Unless you're only within levels 1-3 where there is no bonus).

>>55012203
So would the Thought Bottle and Extraordinary Artisan feat tree.

>>55011945
You could just as easily say, if you're fighting a CR 3 Ogre, Bull's Strength isn't going to do shit if you're not healed to full, you're going to drop it on your fighter who will then get oneshotted (remember, 9-23 damage against someone with 3 hit dice) if he didn't win initiative.

>>55012153
It's level 2. Your other options are the other flat +4s, or:
Aid -single-target +1 to hit but no damage bonus, 4-11 temp HP at learned level. nice if you know the target's getting hit hard.
Desecrate - aoe +1 to hit/damage/saves for undead, excellent if your party are undead using full attack actions, but that's a pretty niche assumption.
Resist Energy - single-target, excellent against energy attacks, useless against a spear to the face.

Debuffwise, you've got Hold Person (only works on humanoids) or Enthrall (as written, can't be used without two rounds of setup while your party does nothing but in a way that doesn't make the foe wonder why they're doing nothing in combat.)

>>55012187
"Raise your hit die by one size, up to a maximum of d8" would actually be worse in the example provided (that of a level 1 convention one-shot). At level 1, it would increase your hit points by two, whereas Toughness increases it by 3. It is also less easy to understand "raise your hit die" than "+3 HP".

Something equivalent to "raise your hit die by one size" actually exists: it is the Improved Toughness feat, found in Complete Warrior, Libris Mortis, and three of the Monster Manuals. It gives +1 hit point per level.

>>55012357
Why not protection from evil communal?

>>55012357
Or you could just throw Command at him and drop him prone to get murdered by everyone else. Or Shatter his greatclub to leave him with a javelin to fight back with, cutting his effective damage nearly in half(16 vs 9.5). Or even charge in yourself because you're a Cleric and take him down before he can do anything. Literally any of those are more effective than healbotting in combat.

>>55012374
Improved Toughness is terrible, though, for the reasons I just said - +20 HP over 20 levels is basically absorbing the strength bonus of something at level 20. And +3 HP is not a substantially more meaningful boost than +2 HP at 1st-level, because a greataxe or a greatsword or a bow is still going to more or less instantly kill anybody who could meaningfully benefit from either feat.

"Increase your HD Size by one to a maximum of d8" means that you get anywhere from +40 to +80 HP over 20 levels, and an immediate +2-+4 in convention one-shots, so it's useful regardless.

That took me two minutes. Like, honestly. I don't understand the need to "discourage" Toughness as a feat; giving low-level characters durability is a worthy thing. Why would you want people not to take it?

>>55012462
>"Increase your HD Size by one to a maximum of d8" means that you get anywhere from +40 to +80 HP over 20 levels
No, it would not. The difference between a d6 and a d8 is an average of +1. The average roll of 1d6 is 3.5, while the average roll of 1d8 is 4.5.

Did you play with all dice at maximum? That is not the norm.

>>55012462
>Why would you want people not to take it?

Apart from level 1 convention play, Toughness is used primarily in monster statistics as a "placeholder" feat, when the monster isn't important enough to be worth lots of specific rules.

As for why you want people not to take it: HP is a boring statistic, and passive defenses are boring to increase. It is better for the whole table if PCs take more active feats, which have a meaningful effect on what they do (rather than how long it takes them to die).

>>55012414
Eats a feat, 3.5 or splats, duration around one encounter, is only guaranteed to work on undead and is guaranteed not to work on dungeon fauna or lethal traps.

>>55012449
Charging in is ideal, yes. But charging in amplifies the value of saving casts for out-of-combat healing even more, because now he can choose to swing at the fighter OR you so any temporary HP or shielding you supply is only half as effective if the DM isn't deliberately bloodthirsty/gentle.

>>55012462
Passive abilities aren't as interesting as active ones, and passive defensive abilities are particularly uninteresting choices. Still, if they're powerful enough, people will opt for them, which is why some DMs lament people going for cloaks of resistance rather than choosing things like a gray bag of tricks.

They made a fun game everyone enjoyed and then made a piece of awful MMO combat focused shit in 4E.

>>55012562
People on /tg/ have literal autism and complain about everything. It's almost like /v/.

>>55012562

The only thing more annoying than the 3.PF defence force is the dumb meme criticisms people spout of 4e. It's easy enough to actually critique it, but people are so lazy about it.

>>55012533
>Eats a feat
what?
>Only on undead
what?

Oh, nvm, protection from evil communal is 2nd level spell in PF, in 3.5 is 3rd level spell.

>>55012587
Yeah, it's hilarious to see people destroy the edition that everyone loved, and then ignore the one that ruined it and caused the rise of Pathfinder to take over in it's place.

>>55012608

Please stop repeating memes and lies

>>55012626
Please delete this thread then.

As it is entirely memes and lies.

>>55012587
Calm down, 4rrie.
The most annoying cunts are the people who make and bump these threads, because they are trying to convince themselves they have a purpose and reason for shitposting about a game they don't like.

When's the last time you saw someone make a "4e sucks" thread? And, don't act like that's a rare opinion.

HURR MUH SHITTY 3.5

HURRRRR

ME ME, ME A /TG/ PLAYER

ME ME, ME LOVE 5E :)))

I like 3.0 and how over the top it is.

I also like the 2nd revision/black label ADND.

And I like Pathfinder.
And 5E.

4E is the worst version of the game by far.

Have fun in your gay little retard masturbation thread where people make up fantasies like
"Da playtest involved da wrong assujmptionssss hurrrrrr"

>>55003650
This is literally 100% made up

File: Fascinating.jpg (78KB, 293x301px) Image search: [Google]

78KB, 293x301px

>>55012639

You can only delete your own in the first few minutes. There is no escape now. No escape.

>>55012651

...Pretty recently? We had a whole spate of them the other week.

>>55012603
apparently there are multiple versions of "communal" metamagic for 3.5. the one i found is taken as a feat and adds +1 to spell level, to split up the duration to multiple targets. yours may be different, and this is a definite problem with 3.pf modularity.

and the problem with protection from evil is that it's protection /from evil/. the only always evil entries left in the mm are unintelligent undead - even mummies? usually. ogres? usually. orcs? just "often". gelatinous cube? owlbear? mimic? that's some always neutral that PfE will never help you with.

File: 1332350225916.jpg (49KB, 405x307px) Image search: [Google]

49KB, 405x307px

>let's all hate together on a game
>instead of just, acknowledging people liked it, it happened, and move on

Why does 4chan do this. It's literally /v/ shit.

>>55012700
Citation needed. I'm already in June in the archive and seen no such thread being made.

>>55012651
Only like 4 months ago we had one.

File: 9GM7LK9.png (123KB, 1920x1200px) Image search: [Google]

123KB, 1920x1200px

>>55012754

There's no barrier between the boards, anon. We're all /v/ here.

>>55012533
I don't know if you're reading what has been posted or not, but you need to stop and comprehend that those healing spells can't possibly keep up with the damage you're taking in a 4 encounter per day schedule, let alone 10 or 15. It's not going to matter if you're spending all of your spell slots on healing your party when you have 5 spell slots. You're far better off disabling enemies or relying on the Wizard or Druid to disable multiple enemies at once.

>>55012738
*entries which are plausible for that level band. as you move up you get to move into devils, demons, and dragons, of course, but you also start mixing it up with neutral and even good planar outsiders.

>>55012738
>the only always evil entries left in the mm are unintelligent undead
And evil outsiders

>>55012771
Compared to the twice-a-week "STOP LIKING 3.PF" troll threads? Wow.

>>55012657
>HURR MUH SHITTY 3.5
Yup>>55012657
>ME ME, ME LOVE 5E :)))
Eeeew, no. It's more of the goddamned same 3e OGLd20 Bullshit, change JUST enough that it can have its own, not open, gaming license. It's basically 3.PF with some duct tape thrown over it: strictly better, but so barely it's only noticeable if you've only ever played OGLd20

>>55012852
Why do you trolls insist on trying to belittle everyone who plays games you don't like? It's why no one can take you seriously, and why they in turn insult you.

>>55012788
Actually do the math rather than autistically assuming I mean to blow your biggest heal the second someone gets scratched for 2 damage. Not only is removing a single target from the fight quite likely to mitigate less damage than a single heal can provide, but unless your party is exclusively playing 4-6v1 it's entirely possible that your net mitigation from the disable stops the 10 damage to your fighter which would have left him at 20 but lets through the 10 damage to your mage which leaves him out.

Optimal cleric doctrine in a campaign with actual attritive encounter design is being a worse fighter in combat so you have optimized heals saved for critical situations out of it. It sucks for the cleric but it's also a necessary tradeoff to have some heals and prevent party wipes/brick walls while still having attrition.

>>55012897
>heals saved for critical situations
...you know you can spontaneously cast heal any time as a cleric, right?

>>55012947
you do know you can't after you've used up your spells per day, right?