Quote from: VisionStorm;1137825Yeah, it's a weak argument on its own and specially out of context. But that wasn't so much a core argument as much as it was a reinforcing one. It wasn't so much "Aw, this sucks because I have to wait!" but rather "Aw, this sucks because all these feats are garbage and don't even make sense as requirements. And to top it off, now I have to wait AND use up all my selections in the meantime on stuff I don't want just to qualify for something I might not even play long enough to get!"

Except that you still get to use the stuff that you picked on the way to getting what you want.  You still get to dodge, expertise and mobility even if you dont ever get to spring attack.

And if you have to miss out on power attack because you need mobility then thats called a meaningful choice.  Yes it would be cool if I can just pick the strongest thing every time I get a choice or, in Shieldwifes case, have no strong thing to pick because everything is the same for everyone.

QuoteTrue. I just accept this as a fact of life. My only problem is when the game exacerbates this with stuff like long feat chains that force you to take a bunch of crappy feats and plan ahead just to get the few viable feats. While inexperienced players just consistently gimp their character trying to navigate a sea of useless feats.

Sure and newer games have different ideas about how to "fix" the problems that some people complain about.

But how many DnD heart breakers are out there, each with their own particular way to "fix" AC, or HP, or Vancian Casting or Feats Chains or whatever it is that the author particularly hated.

Quote from: Spike;1137829Actually, 3E D&D was literally designed with 'trap' options to deliberately lull inexperienced players into bad design to reward more experienced players. This was explained, and later apologized for, by... as I recall... Jonathon Tweet in an essay called... Ivory Tower Design... or something like that, and... again, as I recall (Its been a while since I read it)... this idea explicitly came from Magic the Gathering deck building design philosophy.

It is a spectacularly stupid idea to punish new players (Eg Potential new lifelong customers) simply for the crime of being new.

Right, as opposed to playing a 1st level Mage in ADnD with 1d4 hit points and one spell to cast.  Yeah that game was certainly designed to coddle those new players with kid gloves.

QuoteOf course, as far as I'm concerned modern gaming has taken a decidedly stupid turn by focusing entirely on combat balancing. Certainly no character should only ever be useful in a fight, which is an entirely different topic, but my earlier comments (this thread?) about how the Rogue should have remained the Thief certainly do more than touch upon my thoughts on the matter.

But yes: Being able to Dodge an attack is, or should be, an innate human characteristic, rather than a selected (and chain mandatory) 'Special Thing' about your character... and if you are a noteworthy 'exceptional dodger', having something better than a mere 5% increase to dodge chances, against one dude at a time where mass combats are common, is especially pathetic.  Dodge is a poster child for the problems with 3E Feat philosophy.

Maybe you are getting confused between Dexterity and the Dodge action?

Yeah, DnD has a real problem with naming conventions otherwise how do we end up with [Character] Level, [Spell] Level and [Dungeon] Level all having the same name and yet meaning very different things.

Quote from: Shasarak;1137809Thats really a fake complaint.  Why?  Because you could apply it to literally anything in the game. For example:

The DM gives your party a plot hook: Go to the ruins, defeat the Dragon and rescue the Princess.  But oh noes, maybe me only get half way there and the game finishes so what a waste of plot hook.

The PC has a backstory, his brother has gone missing presumed kidnapped!  But oh noes, the group falls apart and can not game anymore before you get to find out what happened to your characters brother so what a waste of backstory.

You have come up with a great accent for your character complete with different sayings that ground your character within the game world,  But oh noes, Bill wants to swap to playing Shadowrun chummer and now your DnD game is finished.

The worst that you can say about Dodge is that it gives you +1 to your AC vs one opponent which, if you have had at least one fight, has helped your character at least once during your game.  Is it a +5 to AC? No, but so what its a level 1 feat were you expecting an extra language or something.

If we want to talk about wasted opportunity then you have to realise that you dont even get any feats in 5e until what 4th or 5th level so oh noes maybe your game does not even make it that far because reasons.

Want to cast Fireball?  Well bad luck, you dont even get that to 5th level so better hope the game lasts that long otherwise you are stuck with crappy magic missile and burning hands like a chump.

If my DM was in the habit of sending the party off on numerous tedious side quests that weren't fun, didn't further the main plot, didn't profit the party, and took literally months or years of real life playing before we finally get to the plot that we were interested in, then I would have issues with that. That would be a problem of the DM, not the rule system, but if the rule system does the same thing then it is a problem.

Unless you give a caster all of the spells they might ever get to start with, then there is always the chance (the likelihood in fact) that they never get to the level to gain a cool power that they want. That isn't a problem as long as they are getting cool powers powers along the way and are having fun. If there is some class where you feel useless until you get to a certain level, then that would be a flawed class. Back in AD&D we had wizards, as you say, with 1d4 hit points who could only cast a single marginally useful spell each day - though as D&D editions have come and gone, the class has been improved upon.

The 3rd and Pathfinder feat system isn't terrible in every regard, there are good feats and it can still be fun, but what I described above is still a major flaw in the system which D&D 5th has improved upon.

Quote from: Shasarak;1137820Any game that involves skill is going to have an advantage to an experienced player.

DnD has always been like that.

Of course, any RPG is going to be like that to some degree, but it is a flaw of a game, not a feature which designers should want to increase deliberately.

Quote from: ShieldWife;1137854If my DM was in the habit of sending the party off on numerous tedious side quests that weren't fun, didn't further the main plot, didn't profit the party, and took literally months or years of real life playing before we finally get to the plot that we were interested in, then I would have issues with that. That would be a problem of the DM, not the rule system, but if the rule system does the same thing then it is a problem.

Unless you give a caster all of the spells they might ever get to start with, then there is always the chance (the likelihood in fact) that they never get to the level to gain a cool power that they want. That isn't a problem as long as they are getting cool powers powers along the way and are having fun. If there is some class where you feel useless until you get to a certain level, then that would be a flawed class. Back in AD&D we had wizards, as you say, with 1d4 hit points who could only cast a single marginally useful spell each day - though as D&D editions have come and gone, the class has been improved upon.

Its really up to the players to bring the fun themselves, the DM is not supposed to be some kind of monkey dancing for the amusement of their players.

My point is that any long term goal may never have time to play out because the game might finish.

QuoteThe 3rd and Pathfinder feat system isn't terrible in every regard, there are good feats and it can still be fun, but what I described above is still a major flaw in the system which D&D 5th has improved upon.

I am willing to leave it up to you on how much 5e has or has not improved on it.  From my point of view it just made a couple of feats absolute must haves which I thought was exactly what you were complaining about previously with trap feats.

QuoteOf course, any RPG is going to be like that to some degree, but it is a flaw of a game, not a feature which designers should want to increase deliberately.

Sure, tell that to anyone who has had a character encounter rot grubs, green slime or every other gotcha monster for the first time.

But maybe you are right, maybe players just like easier games that dont have real challenges in them.

Quote from: Shasarak;1137839Except that you still get to use the stuff that you picked on the way to getting what you want.  You still get to dodge, expertise and mobility even if you dont ever get to spring attack.

And if you have to miss out on power attack because you need mobility then thats called a meaningful choice.  Yes it would be cool if I can just pick the strongest thing every time I get a choice or, in Shieldwifes case, have no strong thing to pick because everything is the same for everyone.

Yeah, but what benefits are those?

• A +5% bonus to maybe evade ONE SINGLE enemy's attack in the entire round?
• The "ability" to trade attack for defense, which is something ANYONE IRL can do by default, on pure instinct without training?
• An extra +20% to evade attacks of opportunity, specifically when moving between enemies--IF that ever happens?
• The "ability" to complete your move after an attack, which is something so situational it's just default in 5e now?

And all for ONE situational special attack that might not always be more useful than simply unloading all your multiple attacks into a single enemy at higher levels? Do you really need a FOUR feat investment for that? What's meaningful about sinking FOUR feats into a bunch of useless, situational abilities and artificially gated stuff that should just be default to gain access to ONE special attack you won't even be able to benefit from most of the time?

Quote from: Shasarak;1137857Its really up to the players to bring the fun themselves, the DM is not supposed to be some kind of monkey dancing for the amusement of their players.

My point is that any long term goal may never have time to play out because the game might finish.

The DM has a very central role in the game and if the DM is bad, there will be problems. Of course, the players have to bring fun too, but they can only do so much. That is a tangential issue though. Long term goals may never be achieved, that is true, which is why its good to have fun along the way. Or have some kind of benefit along the way in the case of feats.

Quote from: Shasarak;1137857I am willing to leave it up to you on how much 5e has or has not improved on it.  From my point of view it just made a couple of feats absolute must haves which I thought was exactly what you were complaining about previously with trap feats.

How are feats must have in 5th? Plenty of feats are really good for certain builds. If they are good, get them, but if you prefer increasing attributes, do that instead.

Quote from: Shasarak;1137857Sure, tell that to anyone who has had a character encounter rot grubs, green slime or every other gotcha monster for the first time.

But maybe you are right, maybe players just like easier games that dont have real challenges in them.

That may be one of the most ridiculous strawmen I have seen on an RPG forum that didn't involve politics. What does any of this have to do with challenges? Is knowing the right 5 feats in a row to get the kind of challenge that we want in our RPG's? I don't think so.

Also, veteran players shouldn't be able to prepare better for rot grubs or green slime than new players, in either case that would be metagaming. Does the character know what those things are? If not, the player shouldn't use out of game information. Creating these traps for new players on purpose so that they have suboptimal characters is absurd on its face. Why would anybody want to do that unless they just wanted to bully and ultimately drive away new players?

In any case, not wanting to make feat optimization hard for new players doesn't mean that I don't want any challenges in a game.

Quote from: Shasarak;1137857Its really up to the players to bring the fun themselves, the DM is not supposed to be some kind of monkey dancing for the amusement of their players.

What are you, some sort of Indie-player? :-)

It's true that the players need to bring their sense of fun, and the GM needs to respond to player actions - but if the GM is bad and just keeps putting tedious dungeons that are 90% empty and with no fun in them that's a recipe for a short campaign.
A game with a good GM can survive a large %age of "bad" players, but a game with a bad GM is doomed, even if all the players are great.

Quote from: Spike;1137829Actually, 3E D&D was literally designed with 'trap' options to deliberately lull inexperienced players into bad design to reward more experienced players. This was explained, and later apologized for, by... as I recall... Jonathon Tweet in an essay called... Ivory Tower Design... or something like that, and... again, as I recall (Its been a while since I read it)... this idea explicitly came from Magic the Gathering deck building design philosophy.

It was Monte Cook in 2008. And while Cook laments the (supposed) decision, the whole apology smacks suspiciously of retroactive bullshit to me. So call me skeptical that the complete (and admitted) fuck-up was "deliberate". In particular, I have a hard time believing that anyone actually sat down at a table and said "we could make D&D rules collectible just like MtG ... so you only get the rules you pay for," and everyone else somehow twistedly thought that concept made any sense for D&D at all -- and in fact enough sense to invest a whole new product launch with.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1137862Yeah, but what benefits are those?

• A +5% bonus to maybe evade ONE SINGLE enemy's attack in the entire round?
• The "ability" to trade attack for defense, which is something ANYONE IRL can do by default, on pure instinct without training?
• An extra +20% to evade attacks of opportunity, specifically when moving between enemies--IF that ever happens?
• The "ability" to complete your move after an attack, which is something so situational it's just default in 5e now?

And all for ONE situational special attack that might not always be more useful than simply unloading all your multiple attacks into a single enemy at higher levels? Do you really need a FOUR feat investment for that? What's meaningful about sinking FOUR feats into a bunch of useless, situational abilities and artificially gated stuff that should just be default to gain access to ONE special attack you won't even be able to benefit from most of the time?

I guess, if you consider +1 to your AC to be useless and situational.

Maybe you just dont play front rank fighters very much?

Quote from: ShieldWife;1137863How are feats must have in 5th? Plenty of feats are really good for certain builds. If they are good, get them, but if you prefer increasing attributes, do that instead.

If you really want to know which feats are good then there are plenty of character builds that you can search up on the internet.

Otherwise just take your ability increase.

QuoteThat may be one of the most ridiculous strawmen I have seen on an RPG forum that didn't involve politics. What does any of this have to do with challenges? Is knowing the right 5 feats in a row to get the kind of challenge that we want in our RPG's? I don't think so.

Also, veteran players shouldn't be able to prepare better for rot grubs or green slime than new players, in either case that would be metagaming. Does the character know what those things are? If not, the player shouldn't use out of game information. Creating these traps for new players on purpose so that they have suboptimal characters is absurd on its face. Why would anybody want to do that unless they just wanted to bully and ultimately drive away new players?

In any case, not wanting to make feat optimization hard for new players doesn't mean that I don't want any challenges in a game.

To be honest, I just kind of blank out when someone rolls out the strawman claims.

Peace out!

Quote from: Zalman;1137888It was Monte Cook in 2008. And while Cook laments the (supposed) decision, the whole apology smacks suspiciously of retroactive bullshit to me. So call me skeptical that the complete (and admitted) fuck-up was "deliberate". In particular, I have a hard time believing that anyone actually sat down at a table and said "we could make D&D rules collectible just like MtG ... so you only get the rules you pay for," and everyone else somehow twistedly thought that concept made any sense for D&D at all -- and in fact enough sense to invest a whole new product launch with.

Am I the only one old enough to remember the 4e Fortune cards?

Quote from: Shasarak;1137948I guess, if you consider +1 to your AC to be useless and situational.

Maybe you just dont play front rank fighters very much?

I play them (well I play Warblades which are fighters done right) all the time and it's categorically worse than just upgrading from scale to a breastplate (+1 AC for +150gp) or from banded to full plate (+2 AC for +1250gp)... or adding a +1 enhancement bonus to an armor or shield (+1000 gp). All of which apply to everyone attacking the player.

Dodge ranks behind even weapon focus (+1 to all attack rolls with one type of weapon) in terms of utility.

Dodge is such inarguably trash that you even attemping to claim otherwise is grounds to disregard everything you say about any RPG related topic. You beclown yourself even making the statement.

Further, that you consider playing a fighter of any kind in 3.5e to be something players might willingly do except by accident just reinforces your utter lack of understanding of the system you're commenting on.

Other than perhaps Monk, there is no more functionally useless class in 3.5e than a fighter. A bard or a cleric who preps nothing but self-buffs (ex. bless, magic weapon, bull's strength, divine power) can outfight any same level fighter and actually be useful in other situations without even needing feats. Barbarian and Ranger are better choices for a party due to greater number of skills and supporting abilities. 3.5e Paladins suck, but are still better than 3.5e fighters.

Fighters can't even do its own job well (needing a full-round action to make more than one attack per round does a number on their ability to deal meaningful damage... the only class it hurts worse is the monk whose movement features actively fight its damage dealing flurry feature) and lacks any tools (crap skill points with no intelligence synergy, crap skill list, no other class features) to contribute outside of combat.

One of the chief reasons 3.5e fighters suck is because their only class feature is getting more crappy feats.

Quote from: Shasarak;1137950Am I the only one old enough to remember the 4e Fortune cards?

I remember those. I got a free booster pack as a promo from my FLGS. I was agog at the flagrant obtuseness of the concept: "CCGing the TTRPG session." Said FLGS owner & workers shared their disbelief after the 4e game. Something about distributor sent it as part of the WotC order (dunno how much they paid beyond extra shipping) and they were trying to move it after months sitting on shelves.

Still kept those cards as a reminder whenever the urge to buy heavy into 5e came up. I wanna support 5e, as it is a curbing of many WotC excesses, but... their corporate nature chases the flavor of the month after it's already stale.  Such a perspective since 2000 helped me avoid a lot of mediocre crap from a lot of companies.

Quote from: Shasarak;1137841Right, as opposed to playing a 1st level Mage in ADnD with 1d4 hit points and one spell to cast.  Yeah that game was certainly designed to coddle those new players with kid gloves.

You may want to re-read my argument again. Playing a 1st level mage is, while admittedly 'difficult' is not in any fashion a 'trap' option, especially as Mages quickly grow in power sufficient to render non-mages near obsolete (I can recall many a 'mid level' (9-12, say) games where the main fight of the night was essentially over the moment the Mage cast a spell, to the point where encounter design became notoriously swingy... if the mage player was having an off day, or simply felt exceptionally pissy, encounters designed to engage the whole group became quickly overwhelming simply because massive AOE damage wasn't being tossed down (or some other alternate means of fundamentally changing the calculus of combat via magic).

Being fragile and (temporarily) low powered utility players is not a "Trap", at best its a decent trade off.

Forgive me if I don't offer up any examples off the top of my head. I haven't played 3e in a long damn time, and clearly brokenly sub-optimal 'trap' designs, by their very nature, do not get used often (ideally, no player makes that mistake more than once in a career...), and thus don't necessarily stick in memory.  

I am absolutely certain I made no mentions of 'Kid Gloves' or 'Coddling' at any point, and I believe I made clear that there is a distinct difference between 'Rewarding mastery' and 'punishing ignorance'.  3E, at least according to Monte Cook (thank you Thread for clarifying that), chose the later.

But you do you, man.

Quote from: Chris24601;1137964I play them (well I play Warblades which are fighters done right) all the time and it's categorically worse than just upgrading from scale to a breastplate (+1 AC for +150gp) or from banded to full plate (+2 AC for +1250gp)... or adding a +1 enhancement bonus to an armor or shield (+1000 gp). All of which apply to everyone attacking the player.

Dodge ranks behind even weapon focus (+1 to all attack rolls with one type of weapon) in terms of utility.

Dodge is such inarguably trash that you even attemping to claim otherwise is grounds to disregard everything you say about any RPG related topic. You beclown yourself even making the statement.

And yet it stacks on top of your plate mail which gives now gives you an extra +2 to your AC over your non-dodging banded mail wearing compatriot who spent his feat on power attack and an extra +1 on his sword.

Your invocation of "inarguably trash" indicate that you must have never experienced the full range of trash feats to be found within the complete 3e library or then we could argue about getting +3 to your hit points.