A Word About Balance and Fixing Stuff

[Sunic_Flames]

Well actually at least half the broken stuff in the entire system is core. Except core is 3 books, out of quite a few dozen. Much higher concentration of brokenness = provable by fact it is the most broken.

You have your Clerics, your Druids, your Wizards, and your Sorcerers (if you know what you're doing). Then you have a bunch of bit players that will never be able to keep up with the party, and can only barely keep up with the core enemies with perfect builds and the DM going easy on them. No middle ground. Later books, you get your non casters that don't suck by default, and your casters that aren't gods pre epic levels.

So let's see... you make an all tier 1 (and maybe a tier 2) party, or you have one or more people that feel like lackeys, or you just get smacked around by your foes. Alternately you allow non core stuff, party uses stuff around tier 2-4 to play what they want to play, and guess what? It actually works.

[oldrobotsneverrust]

Optimization is NOT finding the most powerful character.  That's powergaming (my definition).  Optimization is finding the most efficient way to execute a character concept, and a secondary goal is finding the most efficient way for a given character concept to work in a campaign.

Maybe we're playing with different people. The group I had tried the experiment on has a tendency to pass by any kind of interesting (roleplaying wise) character concepts for the most mechanically broken ones. Ultimately, it just frustrated the DM (including myself) because he had to spend countless hours drawing up NPC's specifically built to cause a threat. There was less focus for both sides on the story. And that's personally what I go for in roleplaying. Not a pissing contest of who can make the dirtier character.

Ultimately, I definitely found that there was much less temptation in 3.5 for players to construct ridiculous (and unrealistic) builds to break game mechanics when using only the core rules. There were alot more plain old paladins. And that definitely put some more focus on character.

But of course, this is just my opinion.

First off, I'd like to point out the inconsistencies between the bolded segments.  I mean, come on!

Now, ask yourself this.  Was it because they weren't tempted, or was it because you banned everything?  And were they going to try to find ways to break game mechanics if you allowed non-core?  I mean, personally, I'd try to break the game more if it was core restricted, because I might want to play a character that's not possible with core only rules.  Like a swift hunter.

Perhaps my specific words are catching you up. Let me elaborate. I tried vanilla as an experiment, and what I found, which is not fact, but my very own opinion, was that it worked to pull my players out of their pile of bookmarked books and into the world. They knew the content, they weren't searching for the perfect combination of PrCs to make them ultimate. They let their characters develop freely, and joined prestige classes as it made sense to their respective stories. Perhaps it was a problem unique to my group, and perhaps its not something that would work for everyone, but it made my players think differently for once.

And I want it to be known that after I tried vanilla I ran an Arcana Evolved gestalt game. I'm not a crazy vanilla Nazi.

[dman11235]

You know, why not do both?  I mean, the more effort you put into your character, the more attached to it you're likely to become.  If you can't do it well, then come here for some help.  I mean, you're going to make him the most powerful 2-handed fighter/monk/cleric/ninja/etc. he can be anyways, right?  So why not do something that helps you better execute your character concept.

Here's some advice.  Slowly allow one book at a time into your game.  Let them slowly use more stuff.  They'll be better acquainted with the rule that they're using, and they'll be able to make better characters and more unique characters.By doing it slowly, you're allowing yourself and your players the time to get very well acquainted with the rules of those books, thus eliminating the biggest problem you stated happens.  Pretty soon you'll be able to add books faster, because you'll have had practice with getting to know rules better.  And pretty soon, you'll have an entire library at your fingertips, allowing you to make very unique characters, like a swift hunter, a dread necromancer, or a crusader, instead of one cleric after another.

Your first few books that should be allowed in: the first four completes, XPH, and PHBII and DMGII.  Those last two can be added at roughly the same time, due to little mechanical content.  Then start adding books that have things that you want, like ToM, ToB, MoI, more completes, etc.

[OneWinged4ngel]

Well actually at least half the broken stuff in the entire system is core.

It's not exactly that "all the broken stuff is core."  It's just that the most problematic stuff tends to be core.  That is, imbalances and issues that are not easily removed, which extend themselves out to the rest of the system.

[Orion]

I'd like to point out that you can take the exact same build of a boring old Fighter and play it in dozens of different ways depending on attitude, accent, demeanour, and all kinds of other role-play choices. Variety is not limited to mechanics. Mechanics are big part of it, of course, just not the only part. So the core books are not, in fact, limited to 15 or so options. That's just not the case, unless you consider your character to be nothing more than a collection of attacks, defences, and interpersonal stats.

[NineInchNall]

Uh, yeah. We're talking about the mechanics here, not Magical Tea Party.

[dman11235]

Can I play that mobile character in core?  No, not really.  Your fighter with the same feats can only be roleplayed slightly differently, and those intstances of differences won't be reflected in combat style.  It's because I don't view my character as just a collection of attacks/defenses/stats that I am capable of pulling off different characters, allowing for that guy who likes to move around and hide, or that guy who punches you for negative energy damage, or the Incredible Hulk (changeling psychic warrior/warshaper/monk, it's fun).

Those roleplaying differences won't be very big.  The difference between ordering lager or ale at a bar, for instance.  That's just the same guy, dressed in a different outfit.  That's repetition.  If you like playing the same character over and over again, by all means, restrict things to core.  If you feel you want to try new characters occasionally, there's a vast resource of great classes and PrCs out there.

On the subject of core balance/imbalance: Core you have fighters, monks, and paladins along side clerics, wizards, and druids.  That's three tier 5 classes with three tier 1 classes.  Of your 11 classes.  The others are barbarian, ranger, bard, rogue, and sorcerer.  The rogue is less powerful in core, due to sneak attack woes, it's probably tier 4 or 5, same with the ranger and barbarian.  Bard and sorcerer are up there in tiers 1, 2, and 3, probably just 1 and 2 core only, due to the still smallish amount of spells and the still hilariousness of diplomacy and bardic music effects.  Do you see the massive gap here in class power?  Bring in stuff outside of core, and the tier 1s get more powerful.  Do to access to more stuff.  But the lower classes get a tremendous boost in power here.  Rogues now have the means to SA some creatures, or all creatures, and settle into their tier 4 position.  Bards move to tier 3.  Monks now have the ability to take Fist of the Forest and instantly fix some of their problems.  Paladins have CC.  Fighters can now do lock-down effectively.  Barbarians have charger builds.  The list goes on.  Sure it does give a boost to the Big 5 (6, erudite with spell to power variant is currently under discussion), but it's not game breaking at all.  Overall it just gives you more choices.

Now, I'm wondering how many game breaking things are actually core.  Wish/miracle.  Those can be abused in so many ways.  Fabricate/Wall of Stone/Iron.  Diplomacy.  That's three game breaking things right there.  Polymorph line.  The Planar Binding spells.  All of these are immensely abusable.  Out of core?  I can't think of any right now.

Also, well put NiN.

[Sunic_Flames]

Sorc is tier 2. Most broken spells are core. A bard of any sort as tier 1? Even SC is stretching it a little.

[dman11235]

No, bard would be tier 2 possibly in a core only game.  Not tier 1 (sorcerer possibly tier 1 in core only, if only because the advantage of the wizard isn't as apparent).  It's possible that they remain tiers 2 and 3 though.  I was trying to prove a point, you see.

[Sunic_Flames]

Not seeing how it isn't apparent, since most of the best tricks are still core. Hell, a fair number of the sorc tricks aren't core. What was that one? Arcane Spellsurge?

[Chemus]

The actuality of save-or-die/suck spells is that the fighter has no response in kind in regular D&D.

My attempt to fix this is that everyone dies when Con=0 (as usual) but critical damage is base weapon damage, with no other modifiers at the moment, directly to Con. Crits happen on 20 only, in one roll; no confirmation roll. Weapon immaterial. Keen applies the weapon damage twice on a critical, Vorpal...kills.

Also save or die/suck is very hard to counter or resist. One ability of a character negates all or almost all abilities of another character.

Fighter/Melee-er and archer need things that let them do their job; deal damage and keep the enemy off of the battlefield controller/artillery (if you use artillery...)

[dman11235]

So monks are now godly when they crit.  36d8 con damage?  Wow.

[Guyr Adamantine]

So monks are now godly when they crit.  36d8 con damage?  Wow.

 

That... might need fixing.

[OneWinged4ngel]

I'd like to point out that you can take the exact same build of a boring old Fighter and play it in dozens of different ways depending on attitude, accent, demeanour, and all kinds of other role-play choices. Variety is not limited to mechanics. Mechanics are big part of it, of course, just not the only part. So the core books are not, in fact, limited to 15 or so options. That's just not the case, unless you consider your character to be nothing more than a collection of attacks, defences, and interpersonal stats.

I think you're preaching to the choir here.  My latest character is a "half-ghost" Cyran human of an impoverished noble house tainted by the Mournland who can fade into dead grey smoke and get hurt by healing (long story, heh).  Mechanics are eladrin warlord 1.  Nobody the wiser.  Heh.

Heck, I remember Tempest doing a bunch of shapechangers that would do stuff like morph their hands into hammers to attack or grow spikes out of their arms into walls to slow their ascent and stuff, and he made them with just like, straight human monk.

Really, is there anyone here that doesn't understand that flavor is mutable?

Moreover, I don't see how this Captain Obvious factoid is relevant to the topic in absolutely any way...

Uh, yeah. We're talking about the mechanics here, not Magical Tea Party.

[dman11235]

See, they're fine without that rule, it's only 162 average.  Plus strength and stuff.  So it's still behind your typical optimized charger.  And it's just damage.  But with this, and Monkey Grip becomes an amazing feat: 3d6 con from medium.   Heck, straight monk is 4d8 con (18 average...).  A greatsword is 2d6 con (7 average).

[NineInchNall]

All that rule does is emphasize the importance of not being hit ever.  So Hide in Plain Sight, invisibility, scry and die, and the like become the only viable tools.  I mean seriously, a given tank is likely to be subjected to more than 20 attacks over the course of a campaign, so the chances of getting smashed by Con damage are immense.

[OneWinged4ngel]

 :monocle

The actuality of save-or-die/suck spells is that the fighter has no response in kind in regular D&D.

  I'm afraid you've missed the target pretty vastly, Chemus.

The problem with save or dies doesn't have anything to do with the saving or the dying.  It's all in the setup.  Consider, for a moment, why no one complains about a certain much higher DC save or die that EVERYONE has.  Coup de grace.  It has 3 setup points:  Tactical positioning, easily interruptable 1 round action, and preexisting condition on target.

The problem with save or dies like Finger of Death, and many other things in D&D's top-down nova combat structure for that matter, is that they don't require a setup.  You simply announce "I am casting a save or die."  If the person rolls poorly, they die.  I find that if you introduce almost ANY element of setup into the equation, no one complains about save or dies anymore, because you actually had to have some OTHER sort of tactical failure (like letting someone get off a one round casting time) than just getting a bad roll.

On top of all that... you shouldn't need to be able to "respond in kind" to anything in order to be balanced.  You can have completely different means to completely different ends and still have a pretty well balanced contributor to the party.  You don't need to make everything the same, nor should you.

...Not to mention that it doesn't even address the issue of letting the Fighter respond in kind, because his attack requires more setup (and luck!) than the Wizard's.  And is more likely to screw over the Fighter than anyone else in the party besides.

I would say your fix is anything but, and just adds a host of new problems to an overburdened top down ambush/nova tag combat system...

[oldrobotsneverrust]

Agreed. No one (or next to no one) complains about the assassin's death attack either. And that is one step up from coupe de grace.
I think save or die is lame because both ends of the table it just ruins the fun.
Against a player, "roll well or your character dies." The DM looks like an asshole for putting his player in that situation.
Against a DM, "roll well or your monster/NPC/boss dies." There goes my hour of building that custom monster...
It becomes something like a gun in real life. When a high level wizard points his staff at you it shouldn't be any more or less terrifying than when a high level fighter points his bastard sword.

[OneWinged4ngel]

Agreed. No one (or next to no one) complains about the assassin's death attack either. And that is one step up from coupe de grace.
I think save or die is lame because both ends of the table it just ruins the fun.
Against a player, "roll well or your character dies." The DM looks like an asshole for putting his player in that situation.
Against a DM, "roll well or your monster/NPC/boss dies." There goes my hour of building that custom monster...
It becomes something like a gun in real life. When a high level wizard points his staff at you it shouldn't be any more or less terrifying than when a high level fighter points his bastard sword.

Again, it is an issue of setup, not the saving or the dying.

I kinda find it funny how so many people seem to get mad about something, but then don't seem to quite know exactly what they're mad at.  X_x

[Chemus]

Perhaps I have missed something. It's been playtested a little, but not exhaustively, and it's been fun. The post was kind of terse, as I was posting while on break at work.

I noticed that there's no setup required for save or die spells; I mentioned that one ability of casters is to remove others or all of their abilities from play. All at once.

CDG is very hard to set up, IMO, and it's not what I was talking about here. At all.

What I was looking for was for a way for a fighter-type to one-shot an opponent, a wizard for example, on a lucky hit. Or at least weaken them severely. Battlefield control is of interest as well, and is not served by this proposed rule.

Looking at dman's reaction, where is 36d8 from? Typo? If so, I think that a greatsword would cut a man (10 Con) in half if the user got off a lucky shot. And since that monk has to be higher level to get 4d8, and he got a roll that happens 1 in 20, or so, he should kick some ass since that's one of his jobs.

Also, though I didn't say it in the post, spells would not deal con damage by default, unless there's a base weapon there (such as with flame blade).

I never said anything about any changes to save-or-dies. They need changing and I think that having some setup is a good start, but I was trying to get something easier than CDG for the melee-er in the party. For me, criticals should have a chance to be lethal. Con damage is a good way for that to happen IMO, since Con scales a bit less as levels progress, but HP's often soar into the multiple hundreds.

On the main topic, I'm looking for balance in the same method that OW4 mentioned: 'Do I take this, or that...I can't decide!'