Author Topic: Underpowered Mundanes or Overpowered Magic - Which is worse?  (Read 122000 times)

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Solo

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Re: Underpowered Mundanes or Overpowered Magic - Which is worse?
« Reply #260 on: January 07, 2011, 04:15:48 AM »
Quote
What I'd add would be:
- Spells still requiring skill checks. If you move twice as fast, you must have some basic competence in balance, to remain standing, for an example.
*Looks at Haste*

*Looks at the fighter skill list*

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Midnight_v

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Re: Underpowered Mundanes or Overpowered Magic - Which is worse?
« Reply #261 on: January 07, 2011, 04:26:07 AM »
Quote
What I'd add would be:
- Spells still requiring skill checks. If you move twice as fast, you must have some basic competence in balance, to remain standing, for an example.
*Looks at Haste*

*Looks at the fighter skill list*
Nice. They won't get it though. Problem is with the mundanes. This is likely a issue stemming from time spent on actual attempts at such a thing, and exposure to such things. Ah well good luck . . .

Oh and something else before I go... this is @ CA.
I'm not sure if it was here or in the other thread but... something you said bugged me and it was essentially instead of comparing fighter builds to cleric builds (as everyone beats the fighter - your words) compare cleric builds to melee builds. It struck me a bit ago what was irksome about that. In that picture... the Dmm Melee cleric is just another melee build, onthe list of melee builds and if they're all optimized like you suggest then well it leads to the being essentially a "no problem" situation. I don't even care about DMM persist really its kind irrelavant. Untill you severly change the mundanes to have options and power having the extra caster is the better option.
Still... I see where you idea sets are leading and I'll leave you to it.
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Senevri

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Re: Underpowered Mundanes or Overpowered Magic - Which is worse?
« Reply #262 on: January 07, 2011, 04:37:18 AM »
Quote
What I'd add would be:
- Spells still requiring skill checks. If you move twice as fast, you must have some basic competence in balance, to remain standing, for an example.
*Looks at Haste*

*Looks at the fighter skill list*
Fighters have a skill list? :P Let me see...

*sputter* OH COME ON! Sheesh! Clearly fighters, who are supposedly super-warriors, as a first-level fighter used to be referred as 'veterans', have no need to manage on uneven terrain or to move around in dangerous battlefield conditions...
The fighter's skill situation is perhaps the most BLATANT example of how bad the class is. Fighters don't even have skills, they have, have NON-WEAPON PROFICIENCIES!
*pant*
Now, let's see what happened on the other side of the river...
Huh, Paizo added Knowledge(dungeoneering), K:(engineering) and Survival to their list. In this instance, rolling skills to Acrobatics bit them, as one gets this circus vibe from the term. On the other hand, since cross-class skills are actually useful in PF, it's less of an injury....

Cephid Arcanis

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Re: Underpowered Mundanes or Overpowered Magic - Which is worse?
« Reply #263 on: January 07, 2011, 05:02:53 AM »
Oh and something else before I go... this is @ CA.
I'm not sure if it was here or in the other thread but... something you said bugged me and it was essentially instead of comparing fighter builds to cleric builds (as everyone beats the fighter - your words) compare cleric builds to melee builds. It struck me a bit ago what was irksome about that. In that picture... the Dmm Melee cleric is just another melee build, onthe list of melee builds and if they're all optimized like you suggest then well it leads to the being essentially a "no problem" situation. I don't even care about DMM persist really its kind irrelavant. Untill you severly change the mundanes to have options and power having the extra caster is the better option.
Still... I see where you idea sets are leading and I'll leave you to it.

Sorry, I don't know what you mean?
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Cephid Arcanis

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Re: Underpowered Mundanes or Overpowered Magic - Which is worse?
« Reply #264 on: January 07, 2011, 05:12:16 AM »
Just to be random:
"Disentegrate.\\\" \\\"Gust of wind.\\\" \\\"Now Can we PLEASE resume saving the world?\\\"
Passes save, cloak of decption invisible, activates torc of anti magic, shadow strides behind wizard, eats him with full attack (+sneak attack & TWF) from shadow pounce.
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Solo

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Re: Underpowered Mundanes or Overpowered Magic - Which is worse?
« Reply #265 on: January 07, 2011, 05:15:26 AM »
Hi Welcome

"I am the Black Mage! I cast the spells that makes the peoples fall down!"

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veekie

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Re: Underpowered Mundanes or Overpowered Magic - Which is worse?
« Reply #266 on: January 07, 2011, 05:45:42 AM »
Just to be random:
"Disentegrate.\\\" \\\"Gust of wind.\\\" \\\"Now Can we PLEASE resume saving the world?\\\"
Passes save, cloak of decption invisible, activates torc of anti magic, shadow strides behind wizard, eats him with full attack (+sneak attack & TWF) from shadow pounce.

I believe your Cloak of Deception and Shadow Stride are Su abilities there...
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Re: Underpowered Mundanes or Overpowered Magic - Which is worse?
« Reply #267 on: January 07, 2011, 05:54:21 AM »
Just to be random:
"Disentegrate.\\\" \\\"Gust of wind.\\\" \\\"Now Can we PLEASE resume saving the world?\\\"
Passes save, cloak of decption invisible, activates torc of anti magic, shadow strides behind wizard, eats him with full attack (+sneak attack & TWF) from shadow pounce.

Hi welcome.
Tiers explained in 8 sentences. With examples!
[spoiler]Tiers break down into who has spellcasting more than anything else due to spells being better than anything else in the game.
6: Skill based. Commoner, Expert, Samurai.
5: Mundane warrior. Barbarian, Fighter, Monk.
4: Partial casters. Adapt, Hexblade, Paladin, Ranger, Spelltheif.
3: Focused casters. Bard, Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Martial Adapts, Warmage.
2: Full casters. Favored Soul, Psion, Sorcerer, Wu Jen.
1: Elitists. Artificer, Cleric, Druid, Wizard.
0: Gods. StP Erudite, Illthid Savant, Pun-Pun, Rocks fall & you die.
[/spoiler]

Solo

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Re: Underpowered Mundanes or Overpowered Magic - Which is worse?
« Reply #268 on: January 07, 2011, 06:00:41 AM »
Poser.

"I am the Black Mage! I cast the spells that makes the peoples fall down!"

The Legend RPG, which I worked on and encourage you to read.

Midnight_v

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Re: Underpowered Mundanes or Overpowered Magic - Which is worse?
« Reply #269 on: January 07, 2011, 06:19:22 AM »
Quote
Fighters have a skill list? :P Let me see...

*sputter* OH COME ON! Sheesh! Clearly fighters, who are supposedly super-warriors, as a first-level fighter used to be referred as 'veterans', have no need to manage on uneven terrain or to move around in dangerous battlefield conditions... The fighter's skill situation is perhaps the most BLATANT example of how bad the class is. Fighters don't even have skills, they have, have NON-WEAPON PROFICIENCIES!
*pant*
Now, let's see what happened on the other side of the river...
Huh, Paizo added Knowledge(dungeoneering), K:(engineering) and Survival to their list. In this instance, rolling skills to Acrobatics bit them, as one gets this circus vibe from the term. On the other hand, since cross-class skills are actually useful in PF, it's less of an injury....

Now, let's see what happened on the other side of the river...
You should really take a look at the tome series. . . http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=50239
Which the fighter they prescribe...
Quote
Class Skills: The Fighter's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Balance (Dex), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Escape Artist (Dex), Handle Animal (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (all skills individually) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Sense Motive (Wis), Spot (Wis), Survival (Wis), Swim (Str), Tumble (Dex), and Use Rope (Dex).
Skills/Level: 6 + Intelligence Bonus
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Cephid Arcanis

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Re: Underpowered Mundanes or Overpowered Magic - Which is worse?
« Reply #270 on: January 07, 2011, 06:49:44 AM »
"Hi welcome."
sounds funny but... I don't get it. :blush
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Re: Underpowered Mundanes or Overpowered Magic - Which is worse?
« Reply #271 on: January 07, 2011, 06:55:18 AM »
Hi Welcome

Please do not start picking this up...

Midnight_v

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Re: Underpowered Mundanes or Overpowered Magic - Which is worse?
« Reply #272 on: January 07, 2011, 07:06:52 AM »
"Hi welcome."
sounds funny but... I don't get it. :blush
Its an internet meme.With a long back story.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Hi%20Welcome
Quote
Here is one example:

Someone (most likely a n00b or a known forum jackass) has just given a long forum rant displaying a lack of experience, social adeptness, and most of all...intelligence.

You reply with: Hi Welcome
Basically they're calling you a fucking idiot, or an ignorant noob for your bit of liberty(Dare I say commentary with my sig). Sigh. I was never really a fan that particular meme myself. . . but it was bad form on your behalf and so I roughly understand why.
 Now. . . the thing is this. All the ideas that you probbably come up with for fixing game imbalance... arguments that you think are new relating to constructing fighter vs X challenges, your stated ideas even of what would make the game "Good again" are mostly  ...and I hate to be idiomatic here... but mostly done to death.
 For most of us its just another person in a long line of people who kinda repeat the same litany, before someone eventually show's them why they're wrong, and points out whats wrong with the system in general... many people have tried to fix it. WE tried to fix it... go to house rules and creations and you'll see a rebalanced compendium that we worked on for a long time. I'm talking about people with HUGE game understanding, math backgrounds, forum experience, job expericnce in gaming.
... and so to make it short D&D doesn't work like you want it to. Really... in someways like any of us want it to, which is why  Wotc is on 4.5 or 4.0 essence or whatever you get me.
  I say it because I and everyone else at somepoint and then again to nerf casters, but really thats not the solutions. Not really at any level, because ironically (barring going infinite etc) CoDzilla + Wiz are the ones who are doing what they're supposed to at the level they're supposed to do it at.
Only the Melees' HAVE to go through every book twice and master new systems TOB and what have you to do what they're supposed to do. Rogues... they're somewhere in between... the skill people need a boost too but not in the class but in how skills interact with the game.
  This is why after all the hating on it I used to do, I finally became a vocal proponent of frank and K's work.
Saving you lots of time... spot banning everything that you're not gonna like is going to produce a product very similar to what pathfinder did, but even thats bad too because some peoples common sense tell them that Trip and spiked chain are brokeEEEENN!
Go to google and type in figher vs, and you'll see how this is an age old argument... even if you ban Dmm, celerity, whatever else, you still end up with parties of Cleric, Druid, Wizard, and one more of any for good measure. Or 1 rogue cause people love em. What you're not gonna see is Fighter,Pally,Monk...Rogue cause people love em...
actually you might see that but if its to survive it'd be an extremely optimized version of that party. We can do that. Some of these people I post with really are brilliant... but its not the same level of power.
So yeah... those classes need to have the power up'd regardless of what you do to the caster.
Its stupid that there's no such thing as fighter 5, really.
« Last Edit: January 07, 2011, 07:26:48 AM by Midnight_v »
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Senevri

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Re: Underpowered Mundanes or Overpowered Magic - Which is worse?
« Reply #273 on: January 07, 2011, 07:07:21 AM »
That Phrase(tm) is some DDO forum meme, which is contaminating the meme pool. As far as infections go, it's not that bad - it's not blatantly malicious and uses polite language.

@Midnight_v: bookmarked. Mainly since I want to take up what was done with social combat and the skill system.

Tome Fighter is nice. There's something annoying about Foil Action autosucceeding without any check, though. And it's somewhat complicated.It's a good concept, definitely, although it defines the flavor a bit more tightly - not exactly a swordmaster-type class any more.

Mixster

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Re: Underpowered Mundanes or Overpowered Magic - Which is worse?
« Reply #274 on: January 07, 2011, 07:12:03 AM »
I... I didn't read all of this so forgive me if what I'm about to say is covered somewhere in here already, but allow me to ad my voice to this question.

I believe the problem is primarily underpowered mundanes, and until someone does a hard rewrite of TEAM:MONSTER I'm going to feel that way. Even if you proceeded to ream out caster power the challenges presented by the Dmg and MM 1-X, Fiend Folio, and co are or rather can be devastating to a non caster party. If 2 fighter, and 2 rogues stroll into the ghostlands, they become one with team monster pretty quick.
 
  There are skills that outright are replaced by spells "Sim-Salla-bim, bitches" but that failing is in the skill system never being allowed to do thing like open the door and the burden of staying closed is on the door. I may not be all the way clear with that but take something simple like G.Invisibility vs. Basic Hiding the class skill. With hide you're forced to roll meaning you can roll poorly, G. Invis the opponent does make the attempt, this doesnt' mean wizards are broke it means things like invisible stalkers existence are radically more succesful at staying hidden. etc.  The problem is the mundanes are victims of a system that makes it hard for them to do thier jobs. Imho

Ah finally someone to have a meaningful discussion with!

Ok, I think our base difference lies in the power of Team Monster.
I believe that mid powered classes can deal with most monsters their level with only a little bit of thought. Casters do it way to easily IMO. Yes, fighters and commoners and their friends have a hard time at it, but this problem is minor IMO.

Take the ghost mentioned before as an example. I'm pretty sure a party playing together that includes a warlock or a warmage and a bard can handle such an encounter. Yes they will have it a lot harder than just dropping some CC bomb on them.
The dread Necromancer wont mind that much, he can cast control undead and take control of the ghosts.
Even the lower tiered classes (like a fighter and an expert) would have something to do, since all ghosts have a reason for their existence, their job could be to set those things right, that would prevent the ghosts from coming back.

With this in mind I don't think Tome is a good idea.
Tome classes buffs "mundanes" to Tier 2, pretty much. I'm not against giving the mundanes minors buffs, but IMO tome went overboard. Not to mention the whole problem with retraining the monsters feats, and thus making more work for the DM.
On the other hand is pathfinder, pathfinder attempted to buff the lower level classes and nerf the higher level classes, exactly what I want. Their problem, IMO, lies not in the idea, but in the execution, their nerfs seemed pretty random, the druid and cleric got hit pretty hard, but the wizard seemed to have cast invisibility and didn't get hit. The paladin got awesome, but captain barbarian didn't get much better.

Now, high tiered classes laugh at most challenges that give regular characters a sweat for their break, they even do better in most combat encounters.
For example:
The group has to get access to a dungeon, located underneath a nobles castle in a major city, since they have heard rumours of a kobold force attempting to attack the city from below. When finally in the dungeon, they have to steer clear of a number of traps, both magical and non magical. Fighting of a minor counter attack by kobolds untill finally fighting off the dragon that is leading the kobolds.
Casters response to this is: Spells, Spells, Spells, Spells. Or in case of clerics, Diplomacy, Spells, Hit them with my sword, Spells. And druids: Wildshape, Wildshape, Wildshape, Wildshape and spells.
Mid-Tier classes, or semi casters would have to think more. The rogue might be able to sneak into the castle, and get into the dungeon to disarm the traps, then he would have to think of a way to dodge the fighting, to move on to the dragon and get some good sneak attacks in.
A warlock would deal with this according to the invocations he chose, being able to charm your way into the castle is good. But how are you gonna deal with the traps? And with the right Invocations, the kobolds are gonna be a cake-walk, but when he finally arrives at the dragons place, does he have the tools to deal with it?
A bard might easily charm his way past the guards, have some summons for the traps, but unless in a party he will have huge trouble with the traps.
A warblade would have trouble getting past the guards, but would have moderate difficulty with the traps, (since they are only Hit point damage to him, as he can stop any ability damage with IHS). And a lot of kobolds would probably not matter that much to him. The dragon probably would though.

Now, assume the above had to work like a party, the caster party would all go crazy doing their own thing, and blast through everything.
The semi-caster, or mid-tier party would have to work together to be at their best, the rogue dealing with the traps, after the bard has charmed their way through the guards, and they would have to work like a unit to bring down the encounters, the warblade moving into unfavorable positions to give the rogue a flanking advantage, the warlock locking down some threats while the others can deal with those at hand. And the bard buffing the rogue and the warblade to make the monsters go down faster.

All in all I much rather like the experience where players have to work together and think their way through encounters, instead of just using a spell for that. And high tier classes do just that, they have immense variaton in their abilities from their class, so they don't really need to think when handling encounters. Which IMO becomes rather boring.

PS. Oh and Hi Welcome is just a weird form of trolling, just ignore it.
Monks are pretty much the best designed class ever.

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Midnight_v

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Re: Underpowered Mundanes or Overpowered Magic - Which is worse?
« Reply #275 on: January 07, 2011, 08:21:52 AM »
   I'm going to remention something. . . I thought I said it above at first I didn't like the tome. Well okay I did like the fluff, its one of the best looks at the game I've ever seen...
but I couldn't get past foil. Foil bugged me. Really irked me. Then I realized, the normal man fighter guy does that shit it movies, comic books, cutscenes in video games all the time. The "interupt" is a power that the fighters in all our tropes and idioms have. Its a part of the narrative... it's an intagible thing because it varies into the abstract, but it exists. I see that foil action hand wave power in everything. . . especially in fantasy works, but putting a little duex ex into the main charaters hands is good in my opinion. It makes them feel like they move the game world with their chars.
Quote
Ah finally someone to have a meaningful discussion with!
Thanks you, I'm glad I come off like that I'm feeling a bit frustrated with all of this right this second though so excuse my brevity. I am not the defender of the tome. I think people should try it because it at least because it give an alternative to paizo and wotch. I like it because its fan made and takes a seriously analytical look at this game I've given so much or my time to over the years in order to make it work. You've played a tome game I hope, and thus are able to say what you've said.
Quote
Tome classes buffs "mundanes" to Tier 2, pretty much.
I'll agree with that.
 
Quote
Pathfinder
Quote
. Their problem, IMO, lies not in the idea, but in the execution, their nerfs seemed pretty random, 
That too..
 I suppose you're right where we disagree may be mosnter power ... and we also likely prefer different power levels for our games.
 I mostly Dm nowdays, sometimes I even do random games for folks at a couple FLGS right in the area... and I've found that people who sit down want to play as Drizzt, Wolverine, Gutz, and Ichigo (from an anime named bleach)... thats if they picking up a blade at all. You know what those dude have in common? They're cool main characters, they're badass. I've actually had people roll up to me and say "can I play as wolverine!"... and I'm like "Well if you wanna play... I can get ya pretty damned close". All of those characters in the eyes of the people who want to play them are basically tier 2.
 So I'm going to let the play those characters to the best of my ability. When you sit down to play a D&D game the party is basically "The Ultimates" or insert your favorite world class super hero team.
   
Quote
Ok, I think our base difference lies in the power of Team Monster.
You might be right but I think you need to take a look at the same game test.
I'm actually annoyed with something you said
Quote
Casters response to this is: Spells, Spells, Spells, Spells
You realize that suppose to be how they respond. Thats what they do, harry potter style, course i've never seen harry potter so I can't say what level he is but I've seen the commercials and... well yeah spells.
Don't reduce it to the "easy" way. Its just the way they do it.
  You know, Zendu and I wrote the Consolidated Barbarian handbook. You know what the Barbarians answer to any given question is supposed to be? Or course you do, I hit it with my axe.
The thing is if he's going to exist at all he's got to get scalingly better at hitting things with his axe and likely have a way to not die instantly to things that refuse him the chance to do that.
Thats what the tome does. Thats what i personally prescribe.
 If you want to force these people to do things together i.e. work together as you said on some level you're 1 trying to make them stick to archaic class roles ala WOW and there are totally ways of doing that like playing wow or 4th edition... 2. Not giving the indivitualy shine they likely are expecting...
The real class roles are things like: I hit it with my sword/magic/sneakattack/my gods holy fist...
To me at least none of those options should suck.
Finally, and I don't want to use the exmamples you suggest... but what kept smakcing me in the face at how dead that rogue was.  :bigeye
Also how, if the warlock is going to charm his way through the castle well he'll obviously have one of his charmed dudes disarm the traps, or he could always use the dead walk and send them through the traps even after they died... and I think you meant the bard would have huge trouble with the dragon.  Again what you want to look at is the same game test.
lastly you underestimate the power of team monster severly. level monsters you mean like 8-12. Or how about 6? Try melee with a 7 headed pyrohydra, or shoot it out close range vs a Gauth beholder. Black puddings come online at level 7... having a really hard time is not a mark of good class design. Lastly when you consider that its expected that the game was completlely hinged on a party of 4 having 4 fights per day, there's some real issue with the warrior types. damn... tired. long post. zzzzzz.....
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Senevri

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Re: Underpowered Mundanes or Overpowered Magic - Which is worse?
« Reply #276 on: January 07, 2011, 08:26:18 AM »
Ah finally someone to have a meaningful discussion with!
...You do realize you just insulted everyone here?

Traps... I'm quite fond of them, but in truth, there are very few that cannot be circumvented via role playing or tactics. Large boulders or summons can be used to brute force through any obvious ones; only ones that must be worried of are those without a breakable mechanism, with very fast or no recharge time.

Recently, I've thought that you can build better traps by just filing numbers off constructsmonsters. Perhaps a mechanism hitting you functions exactly like a manticore throwing spikes, or the roof slams on you with the power of a titan's maul...

Easiest sensible traps of the mobile maze type can be constructed by simply applying animated objects.

Bloody Initiate

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Re: Underpowered Mundanes or Overpowered Magic - Which is worse?
« Reply #277 on: January 07, 2011, 09:29:05 AM »
 I say it because I and everyone else at somepoint and then again to nerf casters, but really thats not the solutions. Not really at any level, because ironically (barring going infinite etc) CoDzilla + Wiz are the ones who are doing what they're supposed to at the level they're supposed to do it at.

Actually I think nerfing casters is definitely PART of the solution. They are NOT doing what they're supposed to at the level they're supposed to do it, they're doing much much more and more efficiently than anyone else. Normally I'm in the school of thought that says "Nothing is overpowered, everything else is underpowered," but D&D casters break that basic wide open.

You may have a different opinion, but Tier 1s to me are almost as bad as Tier 5s and 6s and such, because neither is a properly designed. They all have inappropriate levels of power, either too high or too low. The 1s aren't AS bad, because there's a lot more creative freedom there. It's like most of the best spells were just brainstormed and never refined; someone said "This is an awesome idea!" and it never got streamlined from "awesome" to "appropriately awesome." It's also easier to nerf something, as unpleasant as it is, than it is to empower something else that's so far behind.

However the thread's question is not: "Underpowered Mundanes or Overpowered Magic - Which needs work?", it's "...Which is WORSE?"

So the OP assumes that both Underpowered Mundanes and Overpowered Magic OBVIOUSLY need work, but that you cannot realistically approach both at the same time and must prioritize.

Beyond clarifying what I view as the thread's intent, I don't disagree with you. I just think it's important to keep a to-do list in the back of one's mind. You may be amping mundanes or nerfing casters, whichever you're doing the other has to be lurking in the back of your head waiting its turn. The tragic thing is that for all the work people do on this site and others like it, the stuff will be regarded as "house rules" etcetera forever.
« Last Edit: January 07, 2011, 09:33:22 AM by Bloody Initiate »
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Senevri

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Re: Underpowered Mundanes or Overpowered Magic - Which is worse?
« Reply #278 on: January 07, 2011, 09:39:31 AM »
I think that perhaps, mistaken assumptions are the most dangerous. If  you're playing with an underpowered class, and acknowledge that... you're not that badly off. However, if you think you'll be doing okay... ouch.

veekie

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Re: Underpowered Mundanes or Overpowered Magic - Which is worse?
« Reply #279 on: January 07, 2011, 10:38:35 AM »
I think that perhaps, mistaken assumptions are the most dangerous. If  you're playing with an underpowered class, and acknowledge that... you're not that badly off. However, if you think you'll be doing okay... ouch.
Well, underestimating how good a caster class is isn't as bad though!
Casters playing it stupid can be pretty weak.
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