Quote from: Haffrung;782675Poster 1: "Anyone else think the Gank Dweomer Slash is underpowered? It can only jazz its caps on a daily matrix. Why would someone ever take it over a Thrush Blade Topper, who has every bit of jazz max as the Gank, but can also bottle like a Shell Captain?

Poster 2: "I know, right? While your Gank Dweomer Slash (or any Dweomer ganking build, really) is capped on fungibles, a Thrush Blade Topper, or even a basic all-strike Thrush Blade, will be kill-shotting mobs every two rounds without even bottling a daily. And it only gets worse past 14th level, when bottling ramps up area soakage even better than any of the blanket flat-block classes. Why the fuck didn't the devs catch this in playtesting?"

:rotfl:

So fucking full of win!!!!

Quote from: Exploderwizard;782679:rotfl:

So fucking full of win!!!!

It truly is a thing of literary beauty.

Quote from: Bren;782685It truly is a thing of literary beauty.

It perfectly nailed what D&D conversations looked like to me after I returned to the game after a long hiatus.

That was fucking beautiful Haffrung.

Quote from: Bill;782529"Cant" wing it?

I really don't get that. I mean, isn't a huge part of a gm's job to wing pretty much everything about the campaign world?

Are we talking about a mindset where it's heresy if the gm gives an Ogre a +1 to hit instead of applying an official template or literally adding a fighter level....

But is ok if the gm decides a hoard of Ogres invade your town and pound you to paste?


The 'Can't' part befuddles me

There are some wildly different styles of GMing. Some are total wing-o-ramas. Some are totally mechanical. And everything in between and beyond. And there are some players and GMs who just love a totally random game. Roll on tables. etc. Random everything.

Some GMs just cannot make stuff up. They may be really good at describing things and running modules. But freeform is some Lovecraftian horror that incurs sanity loss. This has been a known fact since nearly the get-go.

Then you have the players who for god unknown reasons just despise the GM making anything up. "Magic Tea Party" "Mother May I" and other derogatory terms used and especially mis-used.

Some take that to the Nth degree. What else is new?

As a DM, I think it's important to stick to the rules often, mostly because they're easier to reference, the game remains consistent, and so everyone's on the page. Rules, however vast, don't cover everything and often completely by-pass common sense (like lava dealing d6's of damage, WTF??). In those specific circumstances, It's imperative for the DM to get in and deal with the situation to the best of his or her ability. Many times everyone at the table is fine with the ruling, other times not everyone satisfied. That short of shit is to be expected though.

If you can sit at the table with people and trust that the person running the game is out to have a good time and not just at you or your characters expense, then I'm sure 99.9% of the time it doesn't matter if there's a specific rule for something OR if the DM just "wings it". If it's for the betterment of the game and people are having fun, who cares? Now if you have someone who can ONLY have fun when the RAW is placed first and foremost on EVERY single instance of the game, then there will probably be problems. It's unavoidable unless you screen players prior to games starting. And in those instances, you talk with the guy after the session and see if the group is right for him/her.


BTW, in honestly answering the question "What is a Defender Wizard", it's deciding to use a Wizard class to better defend his allies through spells and maybe his staff or dagger. Wizards, for the most part, are terrible at this in most of the editions I know save multiclassed Wizards/Duskblades (v3.5) or Wizards/Swordmages (4E).

Quote from: Bren;782685It truly is a thing of literary beauty.

It reminds me so much of WOW/MMO talk "builds," and yes it is a think of terrible, disturbing, mind-warping, sanity-devouring, beauty.

Quote from: LibraryLass;782598I find lack of GM trust to pretty much sit at the core of most of the system-wonks that make up 4e's remaining base. It utterly perplexes me why anyone would play with someone they don't trust to be fair and reasonable.

I guess a lot of them are engaged in organised play where you have no idea who the DM is going to be until you turn up.
I can see that if you are trying to create a large perpetual world with a range of DMs and many players geogrpahically dispersed you might well want to codify the rules more.

It reminds me of teaching in the UK after they enforced the national Curriculum and Ofsted. The effect definitely restricted the better teachers and school from offering a varied and enriched curriculum but it also curtailed the very worst schools and awful teachers that were very very poor.

These dense systems do the same thing.

As an aside I don't really have an issue at all with ruling everything. Since starting play in Singapore I have run my heartbreaker whic has no written rules and just a singel core mechanic. I have added some rules in detail which I did write down, like Mass combat, or the space combat rules that became a stand alone game. But usually I ad lib the rules, the NPCs, the plot and the setting as we go. Pretty simple really, but not really rules lite more rules consistent so I don't need to be too creative with stuff

Quote from: Haffrung;782675Poster 1: "Anyone else think the Gank Dweomer Slash is underpowered? It can only jazz its caps on a daily matrix. Why would someone ever take it over a Thrush Blade Topper, who has every bit of jazz max as the Gank, but can also bottle like a Shell Captain?

Poster 2: "I know, right? While your Gank Dweomer Slash (or any Dweomer ganking build, really) is capped on fungibles, a Thrush Blade Topper, or even a basic all-strike Thrush Blade, will be kill-shotting mobs every two rounds without even bottling a daily. And it only gets worse past 14th level, when bottling ramps up area soakage even better than any of the blanket flat-block classes. Why the fuck didn't the devs catch this in playtesting?"

Holy crap yes. I got so frustrated on Pathfinder forums finding stuff like this as the focus of Character threads ("what do you MEAN that you didn't pick this esoteric build for your Sorcerer Bloodline!? I wouldn't let you play at my table...").

EDIT: I quit playing Pathfinder because of the prevalence of this mentality of people I'd talk to. Er, also because I'd found games more to my liking, but anyway...

Quote from: jibbajibba;782777I guess a lot of them are engaged in organised play where you have no idea who the DM is going to be until you turn up.
I can see that if you are trying to create a large perpetual world with a range of DMs and many players geogrpahically dispersed you might well want to codify the rules more.

Sure you might, but you should do that either in a separate game aimed at organized play and tournaments or at least in a separate supplement aimed at organized play. You should not co-op the core rules of a system originally intended for home play with a group of friends with such rules as that stifles play for those who have no need to worry about only being able to play with a potluck DM in a one-size and playstyle fits all set piece adventure.

Quote from: RandallS;782803Sure you might, but you should do that either in a separate game aimed at organized play and tournaments or at least in a separate supplement aimed at organized play. You should not co-op the core rules of a system originally intended for home play with a group of friends with such rules as that stifles play for those who have no need to worry about only being able to play with a potluck DM in a one-size and playstyle fits all set piece adventure.

  Tell it to Gary Gygax.

  Wasn't AD&D conceived in part as a way to do tournaments and organized play, and as a replacement for OD&D? This is not exactly a new issue.

Quote from: Haffrung;778836Another criticism:

Cure disease. Paladins can cast it at 2nd level, using a fraction of their daily lay on hands HP. So goodbye diseases. And then at 3rd level they get immunity disease as a class ability, when they're effectively immune to disease already with lay on hands.

House rule: All diseases have a CL. 10 for mild, 15, for serious, 20 for virulent. To cure disease, Paladins (and anyone else) must make a spellcasting check against the disease CL. The person doing the curing can only make one check per disease per afflicted person in his lifetime.

I don't really think Paladins should cure disease; feels more like a cleric power to me, and only some clerics.

But its a legacy of 1E dnd where paladins were immune and could cure disease.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;778848Why do people dislike the Inspiration mechanic? Not everybody is going to want to roleplay their character that much, and it gives those people an excuse to do so.

"Excuse" to roleplay!

ArrrrghHHHH!!!!!    

Quote from: LibraryLass;782598I find lack of GM trust to pretty much sit at the core of most of the system-wonks that make up 4e's remaining base. It utterly perplexes me why anyone would play with someone they don't trust to be fair and reasonable.

I hate builds that are about 'being uber' (I don't mind builds that make some sort of sense and are for a cool theme, not raw power)

But I do think some system mastery/buildmongering is not about trust, but about being allowed to be uber.

Many gm's ban splattbooks, or freak out when an uber build is unleashed.

Sometimes the buildmeister just wants to show off and use his awesome build.

While I agree it can be about trust, I think it can also be about being allowed to run amok.

Quote from: Haffrung;782675Char op and char comparison threads are like peeking into another dimension. This is how they read to me:

Poster 1: "Anyone else think the Gank Dweomer Slash is underpowered? It can only jazz its caps on a daily matrix. Why would someone ever take it over a Thrush Blade Topper, who has every bit of jazz max as the Gank, but can also bottle like a Shell Captain?

Poster 2: "I know, right? While your Gank Dweomer Slash (or any Dweomer ganking build, really) is capped on fungibles, a Thrush Blade Topper, or even a basic all-strike Thrush Blade, will be kill-shotting mobs every two rounds without even bottling a daily. And it only gets worse past 14th level, when bottling ramps up area soakage even better than any of the blanket flat-block classes. Why the fuck didn't the devs catch this in playtesting?"

I nominate this post for "Post of the Year"

Epic!!!



Now how do I learn to 'Bottle like a Shell Captain'?  That sounds cool.