Author Topic: Derailing the Tippyverse; or how to make DnD look as expected  (Read 51378 times)

Offline SorO_Lost

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Re: Derailing the Tippyverse; or how to make DnD look as expected
« Reply #40 on: November 15, 2014, 05:40:13 PM »
Quote from: Raineh Daze link=topic=14956.msg264372#msg264372
now be forever behind the rest of the party monetarily AND in levels'.
Like I said, if you TR'ed twice during the 19th level you only like lose 5k, that's a -0.006% loss to your WBL per tables. If you die 3 times in a row, someone sucks and you seriously need to reevaluate things penalty or not.

I also don't really see what this rant is about. So many people bitch death is a revolving door in the higher levels of D&D. Then someone points out the tables in the DMG suggest other wise and holy crap, death has a penalty so let's all bitch about that too.

Really? *sighs*

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Derailing the Tippyverse; or how to make DnD look as expected
« Reply #41 on: November 15, 2014, 05:50:29 PM »
Quote from: Raineh Daze link=topic=14956.msg264372#msg264372
now be forever behind the rest of the party monetarily AND in levels'.
Like I said, if you TR'ed twice during the 19th level you only like lose 5k, that's a -0.006% loss to your WBL per tables. If you die 3 times in a row, someone sucks and you seriously need to reevaluate things penalty or not.

I also don't really see what this rant is about. So many people bitch death is a revolving door in the higher levels of D&D. Then someone points out the tables in the DMG suggest other wise and holy crap, death has a penalty so let's all bitch about that too.

Really? *sighs*

I was thinking more about Resurrection.

Offline Chemus

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Re: Derailing the Tippyverse; or how to make DnD look as expected
« Reply #42 on: November 15, 2014, 07:23:23 PM »
Quote from: Raineh Daze link=topic=14956.msg264372#msg264372
now be forever behind the rest of the party monetarily AND in levels'.
Like I said, if you TR'ed twice during the 19th level you only like lose 5k, that's a -0.006% loss to your WBL per tables. If you die 3 times in a row, someone sucks and you seriously need to reevaluate things penalty or not.

I also don't really see what this rant is about. So many people bitch death is a revolving door in the higher levels of D&D. Then someone points out the tables in the DMG suggest other wise and holy crap, death has a penalty so let's all bitch about that too.

Really? *sighs*

From what I'm seeing, this is not about the lost cash or levels, but about not being able to re-equalize the party. XP as a river is a convenience that was new to 3rd ed that allowed the DM to catch a player who got (or started) behind up to the rest of the party. It's a convenience, because once all the players are 'equal' in resources, it simplifies planning a balanced adventure.

The rants I've seen are in regards Plz's suggestion that XP not be a river, and even True Res should eat some XP. If I wanted to play 1e or 2e, I would get my books back out and do so.
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Offline SorO_Lost

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Re: Derailing the Tippyverse; or how to make DnD look as expected
« Reply #43 on: November 15, 2014, 07:27:52 PM »
I was thinking more about Resurrection.
And I was talking about TR because res is free. Think about it, if strictly enforced you have to lose several items to remeet WBL for your new lower level anyway, cost paid in full and open for recovery. It's also odd to discuss permanent costs when the Spell you're talking about literally has one of those causes right in it (-2 con, forever).

Offline Samwise

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Re: Derailing the Tippyverse; or how to make DnD look as expected
« Reply #44 on: November 16, 2014, 11:18:26 PM »
Hey samwise do you have any example spells that aren't 9th level?

Of spells that became simply "broken" in D20 because of text changes?
Or of spells that cause campaign balance problems because of text changes?

For the first, the simplest is of course Detect Evil, although it is not in the text of the spell but almost lost in the text on adventuring in the DMG. There it is noted the spell essentially doesn't work against "mundane" creatures unless they are above 8th level/HD, and even then only if they are actively plotting evil.

For a more direct effect, there is Shield, which gave AC 2 against thrown weapons, AC 3 against fired weapons, and AC 4 against melee weapons.

As a general effect, what are classed as phantasms in D20 could cause actual damage on a failed save in AD&D 1st. (The change there occurred in AD&D 2nd.) A phantasmal force pit was often lethal.

Another "hidden" rule effect was Haste, including the potion of Speed. A careful check of the rules showed that you not only aged 1 year for each use, but that you got to make a System Shock Survival roll each time or simply up and die from use of your magical amphetamines.

There were also aging effects with other popular spells:
Magical Aging Causes
casting alter reality spell      3 years
casting gate spell                5 years
casting limited wish spell     1 year
casting restoration spell       2 years
casting resurrection spell     3 years
casting wish spell                3 years
imbibing a speed potion       1 year
under a haste spell              1 year

While these wouldn't bother the average elf or even dwarf, those races either couldn't be wizards or couldn't cast Wish spells in AD&D, leaving humans to count the number of Wishes they expected to get away with before crumbling away to dust.

As for Resurrection, note that Raise Dead had a time limit of 1 day/level of the cleric. Die too far from town and you needed a 16th level cleric willing to give up 3 years of his life to bring you back.

I would note also that death didn't cost a level in AD&D, you were just limited to a number of returns equal to your starting Constitution, provided you made the Resurrection Survival checks of course.

And I would add that System Shock also applied to things like petrification, but also polymorph. Imagine a 14 Con wizard in AD&D checking his 88% System Shock Survival every time he wanted to turn into a whatever and wreak havoc. And of course the same applied to your fighter when you wanted him to get a boost. Those were removed in AD&D 2nd as well, but the effect was amplified in D20.

For other effects of polymorph, the later changes to the polymorph subschool, particularly in regards to druid shifting, pretty much reflect the AD&D rules on such - you got the form, perhaps the movement, but that was about it. Attacks and special powers required different spells. Polymorph (Other)  and Polymorph Any Object turned the target into whatever it was, but came with the risk of the mind of the target changing completely, like the D20 Baleful Polymorph.

If you have specific spells in mind I can check for any big changes in them.

Offline awaken_D_M_golem

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Re: Derailing the Tippyverse; or how to make DnD look as expected
« Reply #45 on: November 18, 2014, 05:18:43 PM »

... I wasn't looking for justifications. I was just assuming they don't exist. Like most everyone does with epic spells. I seem to think it would make DnD closer to the expected appearance, but I was asking for others thoughts on how big a difference they would think this presents.

So just accessible to the gawds.

Well, if you limit the Full Casters to 7s, except for up in a real and functional Epic, they don't outclass the lesser casters and non casters quite so quickly ... but you still have to deal with something like a lets call it "Tippy-lite" problem.

You could posit that the gawds are on the lookout for dudes trying to make it up to their turf.  And whenever someone gets close, they go give a smackdown.  Mere self interest.
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Offline PlzBreakMyCampaign

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Re: Derailing the Tippyverse; or how to make DnD look as expected
« Reply #46 on: November 21, 2014, 10:12:47 PM »
It's a convenience, because once all the players are 'equal' in resources, it simplifies planning a balanced adventure.
And balancing an adventure isn't hard for members 1 off average ECL if you just average the party ECL and assume the players care to defend each other. Even CE's could protect party members to a point if they realized a party of 3 is way weaker than a party of 4.
Quote
If I wanted to play 1e or 2e, I would get my books back out and do so.
Never played it.

Hey samwise do you have any example spells that aren't 9th level?
Of spells that became simply "broken" in D20 because of text changes?
Of spells that because unbalanced in 3e because of missing 1e or 2e text. The system shock seems unfair to petrified players, but is interesting for the polymorphed stuff. I have a thread around here for the polymorphed charts of Carnivore and another that is balanced by shortening the duration. I play a lot of DotA and running away while an enemy's huge buff runs out is a viable strategy.

The aging basically means players won't use those spells. What else you got?

Full Casters to 7ths
8ths actually. And even then if pelor doesn't have 9ths (just the salients), there's way more reason to not risk as much involvement. But the salient stuff is for another thread.

PS was the catgirl stare over a certain link I gave a few years ago?

Offline Samwise

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Re: Derailing the Tippyverse; or how to make DnD look as expected
« Reply #47 on: November 22, 2014, 06:49:53 PM »
What else you got?

Those are really the big ones. A lot of other changes go the other way, making spells almost useless.
A quick pass through the PHB:

Armor didn't stack with Shield but it stacked with a real shield, and it lasted until you too 8+1/caster level damage.

Charm Person was actually turned into junk as it lasted an indefinite time in AD&D with time between saves based on Int. An Int 8 orc got to save once a month!

Enlarge made you grow 10% per level of the caster, with damage increasing by a similar amount.

Find Familiar was a spell, not a class feature. In 1st you have a 5% chance of getting a special familiar - an imp, quasit, brownie, or pseudodragon depending on alignment. Those were removed in 2nd ed. The spell text made it significantly more like a "traditional" witch's familiar, with an unspecified "powerful entity" getting upset if the familiar was harmed by neglect. Dismissing the familiar meant you couldn't get another one for a year.

Identify reduced your Con by 8, recovered at a rate of 1 per hour.

Light could blind the target.

Blur gave a -4 to hit on the first attack, -2 on subsequent attacks. That extends in general to all miss chances, including blindness - 50% was a -4, 20% was a -2, displacement allowed that the 1st attack during a fight was an auto-miss.

Invisibility lasted 24 hours or until you attacked and ended it.

Acid Arrow attacked "as if fired from the bow of a fighter of the same level as the wizard." In general, the concept of Touch AC didn't exist.

Ray of Enfeeblement reduced you to a Str of 5, but didn't affect magic items. (And since Gauntlets of Ogre Power or a Belt of Giant Strength gave you a score and not a bonus, that interaction was different too.)

Strength gave a bonus based on class, and lasted for 1 hour/level. Other stat boost spells didn't exist. The class bonuses for Strength were: Warrior 1d8/Priest or Rogue 1d6/Wizard 1d4.

Web was 8-10x10x10 cubes selected by the caster, and escape was determined by Str score and rather slow.

Blink was more like a continuing dimension hop with no miss chance.

Fireball was a ball and would conform to the area - around 33,000 cu. ft. Cast it at the wrong place in a dungeon and fry your friends!

Lightning Bolt bounced. Off walls. Back at you.

Monster Summoning I was 3rd level, and the whole chain pretty much sucked so badly I never saw it used. On the fun side, PCs could theoretically be summoned away by the spell by NPCs. That was a feature in the Planescape setting.

Slow caused 1/2 move, +4 AC (effectively -4 AC in D20), -4 to hit, and negated Dexterity. It affected a 40' cube.

Confusion affected a 60' cube.

Dimension Door was personal and required 1 round to recover.

Enchanted Weapon lasted 5 rounds/level and only added a bonus up to +3.

Black Tentacles created 1d4+1/level tentacles that had AC 4 (equivalent AC 16) and hp equal to caster level. If you saved when a tentacle hit you took 1d4 damage and the tentacle disappeared. Otherwise you took 2d4 damage increasing to 3d4 every round after.

Extension was a 4th level spell that affected a previously cast 1st-3rd level spells. Other metamagic was similar.

Cloudkill had no save but caused only 1d10 damage to creatures over 6 HD.

Teleport had a "miss chance" based on how well you knew the target location. Miss low and it was instant death from teleporting into a solid space unless the DM had a cave at a convenient spot to save you.

Three general game system effects to keep in mind with this:
1. PC HD topped out at 9 or 10. HP bonus from Con was only 1-4 at Con 15-18. Blasting spells were a LOT more effective in AD&D.
2. Save DCs did not scale up. Very few spells had inherent penalties to the save.
3. Casting time was very relevant for spells, and was generally 1 segment/spell level. Effectively it meant that you cast a spell for initiative count per spell level during which it could be disrupted. (And there was no Concentration skill to avoid provoking or keep a spell if you took damage.) That is another factor that made Power Word spells so dangerous - they had a 1 segment casting time.

One Druid spell in 1st, possibly Cleric in 2nd that should be noted:

Animal Friendship was a spell, not a class feature. You could have 2 HD/caster level (4 HD/caster level with a magic item), you had to train them, they would wander off during city adventures, and all the other problems.

Offline SorO_Lost

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Re: Derailing the Tippyverse; or how to make DnD look as expected
« Reply #48 on: November 22, 2014, 09:03:24 PM »
I'm not going to hit them all up but a little clarification.
Armor didn't stack with Shield but it stacked with a real shield, and it lasted until you too 8+1/caster level damage.
Armor takes you to AC 6 and doesn't stack with anything. Shield takes you to AC 2 (vs thrown), AC 3 (rs shot) or AC 4 (rest) and provides +1 to Saves against frontal attacks but lasts 5 rounds per level.

Charm Person was actually turned into junk as it lasted an indefinite time in AD&D with time between saves based on Int. An Int 8 orc got to save once a month!
But the Orc also gets +1 per point of damage dealt to him by your allies.

Enlarge made you grow 10% per level of the caster, with damage increasing by a similar amount.
Mindful your Strength remains the same. 3rd's Giant Size is significantly more powerful.

Find Familiar was a spell, not a class feature. In 1st you have a 5% chance of getting a special familiar - an imp, quasit, brownie, or pseudodragon depending on alignment. Those were removed in 2nd ed. The spell text made it significantly more like a "traditional" witch's familiar, with an unspecified "powerful entity" getting upset if the familiar was harmed by neglect. Dismissing the familiar meant you couldn't get another one for a year.
In second you simply could not cast the spell more than once a year, no penalty for dismissing. Through a dead familiar reduces your Con.

Identify reduced your Con by 8, recovered at a rate of 1 per hour.
But you recover 1 point per hour.

Light could blind the target.
Which is only -4 Saves/Attack unlike 3rd's loss of target based Spells, 50% miss chance, 1/2 Speed, loss of Dex-to-Ac AND your opponent's getting a +2 bonus to Attack rolls against you.

Invisibility lasted 24 hours or until you attacked and ended it.
Any creature with 13 Int or 10 HD can Save against the Spell.

Ray of Enfeeblement reduced you to a Str of 5, but didn't affect magic items. (And since Gauntlets of Ogre Power or a Belt of Giant Strength gave you a score and not a bonus, that interaction was different too.)
Yeah, you ignored it.

Strength gave a bonus based on class, and lasted for 1 hour/level. Other stat boost spells didn't exist. The class bonuses for Strength were: Warrior 1d8/Priest or Rogue 1d6/Wizard 1d4.
Limited to 18/80 on the best roll and the best target. Or just 18 on everyone else.

Web was 8-10x10x10 cubes selected by the caster, and escape was determined by Str score and rather slow.
In 2nd 13 Str could move 1ft through it per round for free or double that if they Save. In 3rd, they need to spend a Full-Round Action AND make a DC20 Strength Check to break free if they fail the check. The Web provides cover, restricts movement, and penalizes their AC too.

Lightning Bolt's reflect trait made it one of the greatest damaging Spells ever. You could literately reflect it all too walls and strike a creature several times.

Offline Samwise

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Re: Derailing the Tippyverse; or how to make DnD look as expected
« Reply #49 on: November 23, 2014, 09:24:44 PM »
But the Orc also gets +1 per point of damage dealt to him by your allies.

Yeah, but that really didn't matter. Anything charmed was lucky to die for your greater glory (and intact hit points) in the second room rather than just the next room.

In second you simply could not cast the spell more than once a year, no penalty for dismissing. Through a dead familiar reduces your Con.

Yes, the downsides were heavily dependent on the DM invoking RAI over RAW.

But you recover 1 point per hour.

Remember the lower hp in general in AD&D.
And the higher stat required for a bonus.
A wizard with 10 Con was not considered Dead Man Walking. Dropping 8 Con in the middle of an adventure though, even for "just" 8 hours, was near suicidal.

Which is only -4 Saves/Attack unlike 3rd's loss of target based Spells, 50% miss chance, 1/2 Speed, loss of Dex-to-Ac AND your opponent's getting a +2 bonus to Attack rolls against you.

Light was also just a 1st level spell.
Also note that the sight effect worked both ways - no annoying 50% miss chance for you against those sneaky enemies.

Limited to 18/80 on the best roll and the best target. Or just 18 on everyone else.

Yep. And again, with the lower general stat range, it typically meant you were lucky to get +1 to hit and damage if you weren't a fighter/ranger/paladin/barbarian.

In 2nd 13 Str could move 1ft through it per round for free or double that if they Save. In 3rd, they need to spend a Full-Round Action AND make a DC20 Strength Check to break free if they fail the check. The Web provides cover, restricts movement, and penalizes their AC too.

You have to compare those movement rates to spell coverage:
In D20, the spell was 20' max to the outside, which means minimum 1 round, "maximum" 4 rounds to escape.
In AD&D, 50' of hallway required 25 rounds to escape.
The cover restrictions in D20 more than negate the AC penalty. Although if you get a bit slick and RAW, combining it with Haboob creates a real killer.

Quote
Lightning Bolt's reflect trait made it one of the greatest damaging Spells ever. You could literately reflect it all too walls and strike a creature several times.

Absolutely.
That was one of AD&D's "rules mastery" points - the difference between wizards who relied on Fireball and incinerated their whole party AND the treasure and the wizards who relied on Lightning Bolt and billiards skill and electrocuted whole enemy armies. (And hopefully didn't bounce it back at you.  :P )


Oh, and JUST IN CASE:

This is NOT an edition wars thing.
I'm just noting differences, some of which I consider got worse, some of which clearly got better.
However much I loved AD&D after playing it for 20 years, I switched to D20 and hope to play that for 20 more years.
Though some of the mods I do D20 reflect AD&D of course.  :D

Offline JaronK

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Re: Derailing the Tippyverse; or how to make DnD look as expected
« Reply #50 on: November 24, 2014, 02:15:37 AM »
I'm noticing a lack discussion on RAW campaign styles. I seem to remember a creature generator / loot generator that I think JaronK and his friend were working on but I can't seem to find it.

Still incomplete as our work schedules got in the way.  So, don't bother looking for now.

With that said, in our quest for a game that felt like what the game seemed to be intending, we mostly found that sticking to 6th level (no higher) helped a great deal for the world.

JaronK

Offline Samwise

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Re: Derailing the Tippyverse; or how to make DnD look as expected
« Reply #51 on: November 24, 2014, 10:58:07 AM »
For me and getting a game as "intended":

Well, first, I don't really like the RAW, and the even the RAI doesn't get exactly what I want, so the question is more how to make RAW into WIW/WPW. Those are, and should, impact the answer more.
For me reconciling them it breaks into two rules sets plus campaign work:

For RAW, mostly what I've done is be overly obsessive about Item Levels relative to character level, including being annoying about the "wealth" of a wizard's spell book. A lot of this comes from my experience in the Living Greyhawk campaign, where the focus was getting the best stat buff items possible as soon as possible, along with blessed books. Stat buff items in particular make a joke of encounter balance if "properly" abused.
The other factor in getting RAW closer to RAI is getting players to "waste" feats, and possibly a couple of levels. Again, "proper" abuse of both is easily worth 3 or more levels.

For outright changes, the main issue is the caster vs non-caster divide. Ultimately, that can't be balanced, as 20th level caster are supposed to rule the world RAI, just not as badly as they do.
Changing things at mid levels has mostly been getting rid of the iterative attack penalty. You full attack at your full BAB on every attack, and you get to make a full attack with a move action.
Another change has been switching combat feats from exceptions to just bonuses. As long as it is just a mechanical act, you can do it without the feat, you just take a -4 on it.
On the spellcaster end, I simply go to more encounters per "day". That cuts into how much awesome casters can unleash in any one battle, keeping them from dominating and letting the non-casters remain relevant longer.

On the campaign end, I use the rules to be more "narrative", restricting race and class choices by the particular campaign going on. Since advancement means leveling out every 2 years or so, we cycle through enough campaigns that the players get access to pretty much whatever they want, and it gives them a prod to get a bit "innovative" now and again.
Related to that, I throw healing magic about with gratuitous abandon. Wands of cure light wounds and lesser vigor are burned at 2-3 per level, plus I've designed a construct for healing and done my own healer class revision.
Encounter design is also critical, and very time consuming, taking 1 hour to customize a critter with a lifespan of 2 rounds.

Offline PlzBreakMyCampaign

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Re: Derailing the Tippyverse; or how to make DnD look as expected
« Reply #52 on: November 24, 2014, 09:07:13 PM »
A lot of other changes go the other way, making spells almost useless
Yeah that's a big list of stuff that 3.5 did right ... and its still subtitled "caster edition." The only spells you listed that got buffed were sensical, and deserving: DDoor to take along grabbed people, slow, SMx

The casting time thing is well-noted and cannot be repeated often enough.The DC-scaling people seem to agree needs to be dealt with but no one has a good method (my home rules involve MAD casters and monsters with x2 stats who auto-roll 20s)

Still incomplete as our work schedules got in the way.  So, don't bother looking for now.

With that said, in our quest for a game that felt like what the game seemed to be intending, we mostly found that sticking to 6th level (no higher) helped a great deal for the world.
Do you know when it will be finished / incomplete work shared? Assuming 9ths didn't exist, how did the 4-5th level spells effect things? Was it just planar bind and polymorph. Did anyone make it to the 6th-8th level peak?

be overly obsessive about Item Levels relative to character level, including being annoying about the "wealth" of a wizard's spell book. A lot of this comes from my experience in the Living Greyhawk campaign, where the focus was getting the best stat buff items possible as soon as possible, along with blessed books. Stat buff items in particular make a joke of encounter balance if "properly" abused.
I don't have enough to go on here.

Quote
The other factor in getting RAW closer to RAI is getting players to "waste" feats, and possibly a couple of levels. Again, "proper" abuse of both is easily worth 3 or more levels.
That sounds awful...

Quote
You full attack at your full BAB on every attack action, and you get to make a full attack after a move action.
Another change has been switching combat feats from exceptions to just bonuses. As long as it is just a mechanical act, you can do it without the feat, you just take a -4 on it.
On the spellcaster end, I simply go to more encounters per "day". That cuts into how much awesome casters can unleash in any one battle, keeping them from dominating and letting the non-casters remain relevant longer.
1 Sounds like healthy homebrew, 2 sounds a lot like my 'free mundane feats' thread and 3 is pretty standard for maintaining game balance

Quote
On the campaign end, I ... restrict[] race and class choices by the particular campaign going on.
...
Wands of cure light wounds and lesser vigor are burned at 2-3 per level, plus I've designed a construct for healing and done my own healer class revision.
Encounter design is also critical, and very time consuming, taking 1 hour to customize a critter with a lifespan of 2 rounds.
That sounds awful too...

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Derailing the Tippyverse; or how to make DnD look as expected
« Reply #53 on: November 25, 2014, 06:21:27 AM »
I agree that forcing people to pick certain things, then kneecap their characters, seems the wrong way round. If they're worth three levels, make the encounters three levels stronger when they're meant to be challenging. It sounds rather like shackling everyone because one person might be left behind.

Offline Samwise

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Re: Derailing the Tippyverse; or how to make DnD look as expected
« Reply #54 on: November 25, 2014, 09:50:06 PM »
I don't have enough to go on here.

MIC, Table 6-3, page 226
No stat buff items until 8th level, no +2 weapons until 9th level, and so on.

This is compared to playing in LG where a +6 stat buff item was a "standard" purchase around 8th level.

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That sounds awful...

Not really.
It means taking the game from a paradigm of who can optimize better to a paradigm of . . . pretty much anything else.
Instead of everyone spending their time trying to figure out how to eek out one more iteration of damage, they can build "sub-optimal" characters around whatever theme works best.
Naturally it helps that the players aren't into optimization to begin with - I wind up emailing them links to the guides here more often than not - so they typically don't even realize there is anything to miss out on unless I tell them.

Quote
1 Sounds like healthy homebrew, 2 sounds a lot like my 'free mundane feats' thread and 3 is pretty standard for maintaining game balance

So far it is working.

Quote
That sounds awful too...

It is a style preference.
I've run about 8 1-3 year long campaigns using it so far and my players enjoy it.
And, combined with the feat "restrictions", it kept the one campaign we pushed that up to 18th level stable in terms of power, when I had to put it on hiatus because of time restraints and not knowing where the story was going next. I expect it would still be stable into low epic play.

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Derailing the Tippyverse; or how to make DnD look as expected
« Reply #55 on: November 25, 2014, 09:55:25 PM »
So... basically your argument is based around players that don't really know better? I... can barely stand being restricted by the official classes as it is; there's too many things that I want to do and try. Being constricted further into specific classes and wasting feats--which is maddening when you're doing something that gets 7 total--would just have me quitting.

Offline Samwise

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Re: Derailing the Tippyverse; or how to make DnD look as expected
« Reply #56 on: November 25, 2014, 10:29:48 PM »
I agree that forcing people to pick certain things, then kneecap their characters, seems the wrong way round. If they're worth three levels, make the encounters three levels stronger when they're meant to be challenging. It sounds rather like shackling everyone because one person might be left behind.

If you have to pump up encounters like that, then pretty much by definition something has broken in the rules, and you are just letting it aggravate the power balance in the game.

I've been in that position before.
With late AD&D, I could easily optimize a 1st level party that could walk through adventures for 4th-7th level characters, as long as they avoided that one super-hit.
And I've been in a Champions game where the GM was outright biased against me and my friend because our characters were just that much better, not to mention our tactics.

So... basically your argument is based around players that don't really know better? I... can barely stand being restricted by the official classes as it is; there's too many things that I want to do and try. Being constricted further into specific classes and wasting feats--which is maddening when you're doing something that gets 7 total--would just have me quitting.

Not even close.

I'm saying that, as a baseline, I'm the best optimizer at the table, and if I ran the game on just who could buff up their side the best, every campaign would end with a TPK before the third encounter, and that doesn't include the base power advantage the DM has.
That doesn't appeal to me.

Further, by having those restrictions, the players wind up trying more new things than they otherwise would.
When I ran a campaign and said elves would get totally screwed so nobody should play one, the player who has never played an elf before decided that was a challenge and played an elf.
When I started my current campaign and said no elves but dwarves are favored, the player who usually takes a human or elven ranger picked a gnome factotum. He had played his first wizard two campaigns previously, and loved when I showed him the joys of battlefield control.

The same with feats. Sometimes it seems there are only 7 feats ever worth taking, and any alternatives are as good as throwing your character away.
Of course if the DM isn't trying to prove he can optimize a monster better than anyone else, which I've seen playing Champions, and the DM had to cheat to do it, and we beat him anyway, then there is room to try some of those other feats without it "wasting" an entire character.


Ultimately it is a play style preference, and I won't fight about that.
Or about whether something is table legal just because it is in an "official" book.
This has worked for me with the narrative style I like, and works to control a good deal of the RAW power creep, so I shared it.
I'm quite sure it won't work for everyone.

Offline JaronK

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Re: Derailing the Tippyverse; or how to make DnD look as expected
« Reply #57 on: December 01, 2014, 01:40:59 PM »
Do you know when it will be finished / incomplete work shared? Assuming 9ths didn't exist, how did the 4-5th level spells effect things? Was it just planar bind and polymorph. Did anyone make it to the 6th-8th level peak?

Not sure when it will be complete, as my partner on this decided to run a 5th edition game, which may mean his interest in 3.5 is waining.  Still, we did get all the D&D Tools data before it went down, so that's good.

Also, we were playing E6 basically, so third level spells were the maximum.  That keeps the game exactly where it's intended as far as power and stuff goes.  They don't seem to ever have made higher levels right.

But we did find that the game was WAY harder when the monsters were so random, at least for the casters.  You just never knew what the right spell was because you had no idea what you were dealing with half the time.  Knowledge spells turned out to be really valuable, too.

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« Last Edit: December 01, 2014, 02:41:10 PM by JaronK »

Offline PlzBreakMyCampaign

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Re: Derailing the Tippyverse; or how to make DnD look as expected
« Reply #58 on: December 12, 2014, 07:18:36 PM »
I don't have enough to go on here.

MIC, Table 6-3, page 226
No stat buff items until 8th level, no +2 weapons until 9th level, and so on.

This is compared to playing in LG where a +6 stat buff item was a "standard" purchase around 8th level.
By that chart ECL20 characters may never max their weapons (+5 enhancement bonus plus 5 +1 WSAs) until they go five levels into epic! The only use of that chart is for equiping NPCs or making sure characters don't buy weapons with 90% of their WBL.

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Not really.
It means taking the game from a paradigm of who can optimize better to a paradigm of . . . pretty much anything else.
Instead of everyone spending their time trying to figure out how to eek out one more iteration of damage, they can build "sub-optimal" characters around whatever theme works best.
Naturally it helps that the players aren't into optimization to begin with - I wind up emailing them links to the guides here more often than not - so they typically don't even realize there is anything to miss out on unless I tell them.
1 Sounds like healthy homebrew, 2 sounds a lot like my 'free mundane feats' thread and 3 is pretty standard for maintaining game balance

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It is a style preference.
I've run about 8 1-3 year long campaigns using it so far and my players enjoy it.
And, combined with the feat "restrictions", it kept the one campaign we pushed that up to 18th level stable in terms of power, when I had to put it on hiatus because of time restraints and not knowing where the story was going next. I expect it would still be stable into low epic play.
That's sort of like saying you can do -fun mode in DotA AI as long as you limit everyone's farm with -om and -noneutrals without -em ... which, nevermind, is actually really fun. But it still it doesn't show that the -fun items are balanced.

Offline Gavinfoxx

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Re: Derailing the Tippyverse; or how to make DnD look as expected
« Reply #59 on: December 13, 2014, 11:40:28 PM »
There are other ways than just traps to do 'things which cast useful spells over and over again'...

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aG4P3dU6WP3pq8mW9l1qztFeNfqQHyI22oJe09i8KWw/edit
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