XP Penalties and Dual Progression

[Nunkuruji]

Moderately browsing over this, it seems like a good opportunity to play a War Weaver, and just take a reserve feat if you want to zap things like a warlock.

[jojolagger]

He has cited that requiring material components is a check against spellcasters which many people here seem to overlook.

[Thistledown Thurbertaut]

OK Ok!  I get it!  I want my DM to actually read this thread so let's not keep saying the same points.  I really appreciate the feedback and thoughtfullness tho! 

And yeah...one of the other regular players was a Monk...I believe he died at 2nd or 3rd level because he waded into Melee combat with an Ankheg that ambushed us because "he needed to test himself in combat".  He got eaten pretty quickly.  Now he is playing a Wizard.  Ha!

Interestingly he plays his wizard pretty smart.  He flys around invisible, summoning celestial riding dogs, hell hounds, and (recently) some metalic angel guardian thing to keep enemies from swarming us while occasionally peppering them with scorching rays, fireballs, and pyrobursts. 

Last game I was being chided for playing my smartly built Dragon Fire Adept BFC and being called cheesy for it.  I responded with, "Hey!  I'm not cheesy I'm effective...look at the wizard!"  The wizard player grinned and admitted that "Yes the way he is playing the wizard is cheesy."  But I disagre...if you have these abilities, it would be stupid to NOT make the best of them.  In that sense my group considers even light optimization and playing with a smart tactical focus to be cheesy.

I've tried to point out the many times that we would have dies were it not for the combination of our party synergy and tactical expertise.  Like the time my DFAs slow breath kept the trolls from taking full round actions and rending us, or the way the wizard keeps on summoning hell hounds so that the enemies have bigger fish to fry rather than all laying into us with crossbows...

I've tried to explain to them what REAL cheese is...some of the many game breaking yet perfectly RAW combos we see around here even without dipping and igniring the multiclass xp rules.

I doubt that this thread will change the mind of my DM or group but I am glad I have something to show him that more adequately and eloquently expresses the lessons I have learned from these boards and makes a case that playing smart and effectivly doesn't make me some horribly infantile munchkin.

Bravo. 

[jojolagger]

I've tried to explain to them what REAL cheese is...some of the many game breaking yet perfectly RAW combos we see around here even without dipping and igniring the multiclass xp rules.

I doubt that this thread will change the mind of my DM or group but I am glad I have something to show him that more adequately and eloquently expresses the lessons I have learned from these boards and makes a case that playing smart and effectivly doesn't make me some horribly infantile munchkin.

I'll see if I can find the link to "The Very Best of CO.pdf". It was in someones sig. Would be the perfect way to show what real cheese is.

[Thistledown Thurbertaut]

Yeah I've mentioned in passing to them a few crazy things that can be done, like maximizing force missle damage or the Hulking Hurler build.  They aren't really amused and frankly neither am I.  I have an aversion to serious chesse.  Optimizing a character for survivability and tactical fun is where I am at.  I like challenges and it's been fun to -almost- but not die a few times.  made the battle seem fun and worth it when we had to struggle. 

[jojolagger]

I'm not saying to use the cheese in the pdf, I'm just pointing out that being able to says, "that isn't cheese, This is cheese." when they complain about some basic min maxing, will help your case.

[Thistledown Thurbertaut]

Part of the issue I think is that DnD is *so* system heavy.  Sure you can houserule and talk your DM inot making exceptions or finagling or homebrewing like any RPG but for the most part the RAW is the RAW.

In some games like Marvel Super Heroes or White Wolf there is a certain amount of leewy to "stunt" yourself new abilities or find creative ways to work with the ones you have. 

Basically the system FORCES one to minmax if one wants to be good.  Say you roll an 18 stat and you play a Fighter...are you REALLY going to put that into Wisdom?  In some games you can get away with the role play vs. roll play.  IN those games you could have a 15 Str and 18 wisdom and say you are a grizzled old veteran and have fun playing the character.  But in DnD such noble high-browed sentiments will get you killed in the mechanics of combat.  Hence the fun and sometimes rote predictability of min-maxing...

[idontmuchcareforit]

The class balance of 3.5 is so poor that a brand new player picking wizard spells would likely be more powerful, by accident, than a veteran fighter, especially after level 6..  And if he picked bad ones?  Well then the next day he could prep more of the spells that he found use for, and new ones in leiu of the ones that he didn't.  Whereas a fighter who picked the twf tree, or the spring attack tree, or the whirlwind tree, or basically any tree that isn't tripping or archery, will be disappointed.  for the life of the character.  Even if they did pick their feats carefully and with much research, they'll have the show stolen from them by the third grader playing the wizard after level 9.  Monks are even worse.  Paladins are about the same.  Barbarians are about the same, but have the luxury of being the most powereful first level character IMHO.
Having a mind for min/maxing and tactics is nice, but it doesn't fix a bad game.

That's what I was getting at, Benly.

Tome of Battle fixes this nonsense.


A DM has every right to restrict the Class tiers that his players have access to.  I do so in EVERY campaign I run, and I insist on it in EVERY campaign I play in.  Arbitrarily banning some classes because of (let's face it) ignorance, is a poor alternative to reading or "Allowable until proven ban-worthy", or just having faith in the tier system.


The idea that casters are balanced by their duty to buff the weaker classes is absolute nonlogic.  Just think where the party would be if the fighter wasn't there.  They'd be short one fighter, and tall one summoned bison.

Thistledown:  Seriously, show your DM Fochlucan lyrist(cadv) and ask him how someone would even get into the class without xp penalties.

[Benly]

Having a mind for min/maxing and tactics is nice, but it doesn't fix a bad game.

That's what I was getting at, Benly.

Tome of Battle fixes this nonsense.


A DM has every right to restrict the Class tiers that his players have access to.  I do so in EVERY campaign I run, and I insist on it in EVERY campaign I play in.  Arbitrarily banning some classes because of (let's face it) ignorance, is a poor alternative to reading or "Allowable until proven ban-worthy", or just having faith in the tier system.

Asking someone who doesn't post on charop forums to "just have faith in the tier system" is a losing proposition. The point I was trying to make is not "ToB is too strong for underoptimizers!", my point is that it is entirely reasonable for people used to underoptimizing to look at ToB and see it as overpowered without seeing wizards as overpowered. It's not that they are ignorant, stupid, or bad people, it's that their point of comparison is a different one from that presumed by the tier system.

[BeholderSlayer]

I doubt that this thread will change the mind of my DM or group but I am glad I have something to show him that more adequately and eloquently expresses the lessons I have learned from these boards and makes a case that playing smart and effectivly doesn't make me some horribly infantile munchkin.

I have run into DM's like this, and typically they fall into a few common pitfalls. They typically believe that fighters fight, clerics heal, rogues do traps and locks, and wizards kill stuff with fire. Once a person is able to remove this mindset from their point of view (if they can at all), the facts of reality set in.

If you play the game the way it is playtested, exactly, no party will typically live beyond level 10. Enemies become too strong, and have too many hit points for the party to defeat them. Since your pewpewpew tactics cannot one-round a creature, your party gets one-rounded. Playing the game using actual tactics and strong spells results in the party being able to defeat the threats before them. If you are playing mid to high level D&D and not using smart tactics, you die.

Utilizing strong spells does not make you a munchkin, it makes you smart. Nobody wants to fail, and that's exactly what happens if you don't use strong tactics after a certain point. Utilizing the tactics I mentioned in my first paragraph results in death even in an "easy mode" campaign after a while. Using them in a "hard mode" campaign results in your death at level 1.

[idontmuchcareforit]

, my point is that it is entirely reasonable for people used to underoptimizing to look at ToB and see it as overpowered without seeing wizards as overpowered. It's not that they are ignorant, stupid, or bad people, it's that their point of comparison is a different one from that presumed by the tier system.

Looking at something, and fearing it's power because you lack understanding of it is basically the definition of ignorance.  I did not mean to imply that their ignorance of the interclass balance in a stupid game reflects their character or their intelligence.

[BeholderSlayer]

oops, i hit quote instead of edit

[Benly]

, my point is that it is entirely reasonable for people used to underoptimizing to look at ToB and see it as overpowered without seeing wizards as overpowered. It's not that they are ignorant, stupid, or bad people, it's that their point of comparison is a different one from that presumed by the tier system.

Looking at something, and fearing it's power because you lack understanding of it is basically the definition of ignorance.  I did not mean to imply that their ignorance of the interclass balance in a stupid game reflects their character or their intelligence.

"fearing its power" is over-glorifying the situation. It is a logical response on the basis of their play experience to say "this looks overpowered and kind of silly, I don't want to play with it".

[idontmuchcareforit]

Thanks for clearing that up for me.

[Thistledown Thurbertaut]

I should qualify by saying that I am the new guy to the group and at least two of the others have been playing DnD for years together and never got deep into any kind of optimization.

That said the DM has stated that if he were to play a dragon to the fullest of their tactical potential it would likely end in a TPK...

[BeholderSlayer]

I should qualify by saying that I am the new guy to the group and at least two of the others have been playing DnD for years together and never got deep into any kind of optimization.

That said the DM has stated that if he were to play a dragon to the fullest of their tactical potential it would likely end in a TPK...

I got the same story from the other DM in my group. Then we killed two dragons, one of them a ghost mature adult red, in 3 rounds.

[idontmuchcareforit]

It all depends.  I've been wiped by CR appropriate encounters in my early 3.5 days.  But now... the 4 person ECL10 party that I dm for will be fighting 2-3 back to back CR21 encounters and I doubt anyone will die.

[archangel.arcanis]

Depending on how your group is made at least the DM acknowledges that the group is weaker than it should be. That is a start. It is a problem when your tactically sound character devastates every encounter because you didn't play "me bash" and the DM can't figure out what the problem is.

The way I finally got that DM to understand what the problem was was to get them to build a character and ask why for every choice. That helped the realize that some of their choices were really stupid, not just weak but actually hurt the character more than if they had chosen nothing. I followed that up by asking them to pick a theme or concept for a character. They went and built the character to fit their concept and I did the same thing but didn't limit myself to just a single class the way they would normally do. Once they saw that I was picking the abilities that fit what they wanted in a character and that was more important than picking a class and making your character fit into the class's strengths and weaknesses it all kind of opened up. The DM still can't optimize but they can understand it a lot better and had begun working on better tactics than finding a monster with a higher strength and bigger weapon.

For the DM's view they need to keep in mind several weaker, but still capable, enemies will do much more in taxing the party than a single enemy.

[Thistledown Thurbertaut]

Actually so far my DM seems to favor the hordes of lessers rather than the Big Bad.  Our encounters tend to be with groups of things: trolls, ghasts, skeletons, a whole guild of thieves, a vampire and it's spawn etc...

 Of course we are getting higher in level now, almost 9th so we shall see what happens next...

[awaken DM golem]

Th Th ... some other points ...

In 1e and 2e there was such a thing as terminal classes.
You could take Elf to level 8 maximum, in class Y.
You could take Halfling to level 4 in Class Z, but uncapped if a Thief.

WHY ?
No that's the wrong question. It's even wrong to ask the question.
Gygax said so, and so it was ... and it was "good".

3.0e and 3.5e continue this History, in the thinnest of fashions.
Having a "favored" class is this leftover.
4e goes ahead and ditches the idea altogether (but it has it's own quirks).

So anyways ...
if you accept the claims made in the previous posts,
about the power level of Core Wiz or Cleric or Druid 20,
then it doesn't really matter what kind of multiclass fun / nonsense happens.

If the DM insists on keeping it,
well you can either build around it,
which requires having a good idea how it works ...
[tangent] the math gets complicated in a hurry, and the rules have never been fully figured out [/tangent]
or
ignore it completely and make a good build of less multi-wacky stuff.

Pixie = carnivore ...  
Pixie has a rather good racial hd. You could always give it that.