Hey, Obed's GGG,
Hogarth was giving us the quick-and-dirty version.
Holy Beholder, a poster over on the Gleemax formus, had this, more extensive explanation:
** spoiler omitted **
Ah, I see. Thank you for the clarification.
The chain, while superficially quite clever, is nonetheless sophistry. What's listed as the "area" of the locate city spell is in fact the range at which the city can be located. The fact that it's listed as an area (thus spurring this whole escapade) should reasonably be seen as an artefact of the spell stat block format, not viewed as an invitation to abuse.
If we're viewing things in that manner, what's stopping me from gating in Azathoth (an entity the size of a star) and thereby destroying an entire planet of my choice? (Assuming I set a contingent spherical wall of force around myself first, and plane shift to safety afterwards?)
I would kill the pc on the spot or even tying such a thing...but I would not allow must that junk anyhow
EDIT; talking about the city nuke here
The chain, while superficially quite clever, is nonetheless sophistry. What's listed as the "area" of the locate city spell is in fact the range at which the city can be located. The fact that it's listed as an area (thus spurring this whole escapade) should reasonably be seen as an artefact of the spell stat block format, not viewed as an invitation to abuse.
If we're viewing things in that manner, what's stopping me from gating in Azathoth (an entity the size of a star) and thereby destroying an entire planet of my choice? (Assuming I set a contingent spherical wall of force around myself first, and plane shift to safety afterwards?)
I think the sanity loss from gating to Azathoth would render your character a broken shell of a person, unfit for further adventuring.
I think the sanity loss from gating to Azathoth would render your character a broken shell of a person, unfit for further adventuring.
Not if I cast mind blank before my contingency!
I cast "Greater DM Fiat" and make all cheeseheads disappear...
GREATER DM FIAT
ConjurationComponents: V,S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Unlimited (same plane)
Targets: All Packers fans within range
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: No
Effect: All residents of the state of Wisconsin who are currently on the same plane as the caster are immediately transferred to the ethereal plane.
Like The Black Bard, I allow EVERYTHING 3.0-3.5 ever produced, whether it is from Wizards themselves or anyone else. Unlike The Black Bard, I have players who are simultaneously interested in making a cool story together AND creating very powerful combinations of classes/feats/spells/racial abilities, etc.
A bit late and off topic, but you may want to read a bit closer before you include in responses. I never said my PCs were under-powered or afraid to make powerful or optimized characters. I merely said they didn't outright try to break the system or take away from the fun of others by exploiting loopholes.
My last game had an Admantine Plated Dwarf Knight (Nearly unkillable), a Draconic Human Bard (added incredible damage boosts and brutal enchantment effects), human monk/drunken master who did startling damage, a raptoran warlock/acolyte of the skin who was consistently breaking 3 digits on damage due to crits and boosts.
Sorry, I probably could have been more clear in my origional post, but I refuse to be misinterpeted if I can help it.
Slightly more on topic: Doesn't gate have a size limitation? Can you bring something that big through?
Slightly more on topic: Doesn't gate have a size limitation? Can you bring something that big through?
Azathoth is formless; presumably he/it could stretch to fit through a pinhole.
Note that I'm in no way advocating that such a trick should be allowed; merely presenting it as another example of something that should be dismissed as nonsense from the outset, no matter how many loopholes are stacked together to "allow" it.
I think the sanity loss from gating to Azathoth would render your character a broken shell of a person, unfit for further adventuring.Not if I cast mind blank before my contingency!
Touche.
Lets not forget that a monster can take a Bo9S manuver as a feat, and take up to 3 of them! And, they use half their racial HD as initiator levels! Even if its only once per encounter, and limited to low level manuvers, some of those can be really nasty coming from a monster.
I've used this more than a few time, with manuvers that were thematically appropriate for the monster in question. PCs enjoyed a "fresh tactic from an old face" and was an overwhelming success at the game table.
|
It's been said lots but not in so many words -- there's stuff in all the books that's "over-powered" compared to other stuff in all the books.
In the PHB Druids and Monks are a little more overpowered than the other classes; there are some classes & PrCs in the Complete books that are stronger than others in the same book. Same with spells in the SC.
Robert Carter, looking at the classes in your AoW campaign, they're all tremendously overpowered compared to a party with a Fighter/9, Wizard/9, Rogue/9 and Cleric/9. Tremendously. But that's okay because everyone's got one and the DM is handling the encounters well.
I won't likely allow Bo9S or VoP or several PrCs, Feats or character builds in my campaign mostly because all of the Players would have to create a "broken" PC just to stay competent.
-W. E. Ray
|
In a current group, we have 2 VoP Monks, one being a werewolf (in a savage species-like progression class) with the other being straight monk. Me and my long time friend have decided to retire our characters because 1. We weren't having too much fun because of 2. The characters we came up with ended up being at odds with the rest of the group. A NE Tiefling Rogue/Warlock/Wizard and my CN Gnome Beguiler with the rest of the party pretty much being exalted or close to it wasn't really cutting it. We try to stay in character, but some of the stuff we had to do really put a strain on the Suspension of Disbelief and I couldn't take it anymore, plus all of the combats went *Round 1: "I cast Glitterdust to blind them all" and then the monks and everyone has at them. Round 2: "Um............. I'll check around the other corner since they don't need me anymore after that first spell"*
Soooooo... getting to my point, I am making a Bo9S character currently, single-class CG swordsage and the former Rogue is making a NG druid. I realized that I want a character to do something every round, and actually have something to spend money on (like weapons and armor). Since my other character never even came close to being in combat (always stayed at least 30ft down the hallway behind everyone) I never had to worry about getting hit, or even hitting anyone. I spent all of my money on random magical crap, none of which really helped the group or made a difference. So, that is retired for now (although I did like the character and he will most likely be an NPC at some point when I DM) and I am playing a class that will compare with the 2 VoP exalted monks.
Everything comes down to inter-party balance (since it is a 9 player party, every other niche is still filled. This just allows the DM to throw more battles at us rather than refreshing our spells in between every fight)
Like The Black Bard, I allow EVERYTHING 3.0-3.5 ever produced, whether it is from Wizards themselves or anyone else. Unlike The Black Bard, I have players who are simultaneously interested in making a cool story together AND creating very powerful combinations of classes/feats/spells/racial abilities, etc.A bit late and off topic, but you may want to read a bit closer before you include in responses. I never said my PCs were under-powered or afraid to make powerful or optimized characters. I merely said they didn't outright try to break the system or take away from the fun of others by exploiting loopholes.
My last game had an Admantine Plated Dwarf Knight (Nearly unkillable), a Draconic Human Bard (added incredible damage boosts and brutal enchantment effects), human monk/drunken master who did startling damage, a raptoran warlock/acolyte of the skin who was consistently breaking 3 digits on damage due to crits and boosts.
Sorry, I probably could have been more clear in my origional post, but I refuse to be misinterpeted if I can help it.
Slightly more on topic: Doesn't gate have a size limitation? Can you bring something that big through?
Perhaps I was not clear enough. By saying my players are "interested in...creating very powerful combinations of classes/feats/spells/racial abilities, etc." I was trying to say that they DO attempt to exploit loopholes, any way they can...it just never "breaks" my game. I've always managed to keep under control.
I never meant to imply that your players deliberately (or even accidentally) create weak characters. I have never actually heard of anyone doing that. Do not worry, you were not misinterpreted...I guess we BOTH could have been more clear with what we were saying.
How did I miss Deathedge's avatar when I chose mine?
I ban Book of 9 Swords (and all other classes from 3.5 for that matter) for a very simple reason: I love using Paizo's adventure paths, and they do not use non-pathfinder material (Currently on part 2 of Kingmaker). I don't want to spend hours rewriting them.
If I make my own campains (doesn't happen as often as it used to anymore), I pretty much do the same as I do in the kitchen; use whatever I think will improve the end result, and keep everything else at away from the pot.
1. Why is the Tome of Battle considered broken?
Because people are convinced that fighty types should be both weak and, more importantly, boring to play.
2. What other books or classes seem broken/overpowered/underpowered?
PHB is broken! Seriously, three of the five most powerful classes of 3.X are there. Other books added only archivist and artificer. PF didn't really change anything about this, of course.
Nearly all attempts at making "non-magical warrior" classes (whatever this means in the world where high-level characters can survive orbital reentry), both in PHB and later, are severely underpowered. In 3.X you can salvage many of them with proper feats and whatever, though.
3. To turn the conversation around a bit, what about the good classes...ones well thought out and well done. Any stand out in your mind?
Classes like Dread Necromancer, Beguiler or Duskblade are pretty well balanced. Classes from Bot9S can be on their level, unless offical errata for them is used. Psionic Warrior too.
|
Actually, the gist of criticism against Bo9s comes from people who are fine with one-dimensional fighters and consider Wuxia flying tiger chop suey types as an antithesis of Fighter. I believe that many of them are perfectly fine with Fighters being there just to stab things by full attack, as it were.
From my personal perspective as a GM, I always tell people who want to play a fighting type "Look, Fighters are good at what they do, but what they do isn't exactly varied - you stab things and that's it. If you are fine with that - go ahead, if you want some crazy stuff - let's look at the other classes".
The problem happens when somebody wants to make a Erroly Flynn meets Jet Li guy, runs around with light armor and two sais, his feat choices are, um, Acrobatic, Fleet and Lightning Stance tree and suddenly he discovers that He's Doing It Wrong. If PF/3.5 Fighter is guilty of anything it's making it hard to cater for the myriad of Fighting Person archetypes, reducing viable options to 2-3 builds.
1. Class design in 3.0 was more or less based around hamstringing the warrior classes: they lost the ability to move and full attack, they lost the exclusivity of iterative attacks and their iterative attacks were assigned penalties, they lost the ability to reliably disrupt spellcasting (Concentration checks), their level progression at high levels was pegged to the spellcasters' instead of being accelerated, and their high-level saves got a lot worse. As a result, full casters at high level pretty much own 3.0/3.5. The Tome of Battle tried to overcome these nerfs by essentially designing martial classes as if they were spellcasters. People who never played 1e, and/or who think that 3.0/3.5 are OK at high levels, will therefore perceive this attempt at re-equalization as "breaking" the game.
Fighters were never equal to spellcasters in DnD. Ever. Since Gigax and his gaming buddies played their first long campaigns. All pre-3.0 editions pretty much explicitly admitted in their design that wizards=ultimate power. Reliably disrpupting spellcasting? Don't make me laugh. Once an AD&D 2 wizard received ability to regularly use then-current versions of Fly, Stoneskin and Improved Invisibilty (a 3rd-level and two 4th-level spells) he was basically Immune To Fighters. Particularly because before 3.0 a fighter was not guaranteed to ever receive any magic items that could possibly counter spell-based Screw Yous. Better saves at high levels? Didn't matter because much lower HPs and the same damage from spells meant that evocation rocks and you don't need to cast SoL spells much. And because at higher levels some spells just destroyed fighters without save.
This was supposed to be balanced by wizards' extreme fragility and very low numbers of spells at lower levels. AD&D's relative propensity for throwing massive numbers of weak opponents at the party, and long rememorizing times also helped fighters somewhat, because wizards had much more reason to conserve power and not to go all "I'm a wizard and therefore I win" in every battle. But do not pretend that at two-digit levels AD&D wizards were anything but more powerful than the rest of the party combined.
2. Many of the full bases classes from the "Complete" books are pretty weak -- essentially fighters with their feats chosen for them (e.g., Samurai, Swashbuckler) -- and/or overly-focused. For example, the Duskblade is very powerful in a limited area of expertise, but nigh-well useless outside of that area. If your game is 100% melee combat, the duskblade will be overpowered. If your game is 5% melee combat and 95% investigation and skills/utility spells use, the duskblade will sit on the sidelines and sulk.
Funny that you say that when the Duskblade actually has skills that help in investigation, such as Knowledges and Sense Motive, and even a little bit of utility spells, while non-magical warrior classes have neither.
3. The Pathfinder rogue and barbarian are well-conceived.
The PF rogue is horribly nerfed. He no longer is able to eventually sneak attack everything, all the time, which was the main reason the 3.5 rogue was good. New options do not compensate. The PF barbarian is an overcomplicated mess full of trap options.
Actually, the gist of criticism against Bo9s comes from people who are fine with one-dimensional fighters and consider Wuxia flying tiger chop suey types as an antithesis of Fighter.
I know that there are people who consider being good at fighting and interesting when you fight an antithesis of the Fighter. What I don't know is why they do so. I mean, Figher from 8-bit Theater has more dimensions to him than their vision. I only know that because of them we still have the Fighter that is too conceptually narrow to model not only characters appropriate for the power level of an average DnD settings, but even nearly any fantasy warriors that are not directly inspired by DnD. To parse some of the iconic examples: Conan and Fafhrd - skillmonkeys, Gray Mouser - skillmonkey and uses magic, Corum - knows magical artifice, Elric - uses bad-ass magic, the asskicker part of Fellowship of the Ring - skillmonkeys or/and have magic/supernatural talents, the part of Wheel of Time's main cast that doesn't directly use magic - all have great non-combat skills and supernatural talents. And do on. Fighters being good only at stabbing things in the face are pretty much DnD-only thing. That needs to die for the good of all.
I believe that many of them are perfectly fine with Fighters being there just to stab things by full attack, as it were.
Well, as I said people want fighters to be boring to play. Why, I, again don't know.
Unbalanced and third party splat books aside, he never could. Sneak attack did not work against anything that could not be critically hit, which includes all undead, constructs, elemenentals, plant creatures, ooze creatures, and anything else with an exotic enough anatomy.
He could. Gravestrike and its ilk + wand chamber weapons = sneak attacking everything or almost everything. No third party books. And "unbalanced" is only your opinion which is not generally shared by the optimizer community.
The Book of Nine Swords has a couple of damming issues with it.
1. First of, it was designed to test 4.0 concepts with a 3.5 game, balancing the book with the 3.5 martial classes was obviouly not a high design priority. The martial adept is essentially going to make the folks playing fighters, paladins, and rangers wish they'd stayed home in bed.
So will any class that actually can stay viable above level 6 without a serious optimization effort.
2. The system is dense enough for players to pull off ridiculous amounts of cheese with an unprepared DM.
There are abut two things in the entire Bot9S that are broken, and they are immediately obvious. Otherwise, Alter Self and Charm Person seriously have more cheese potential between them than the entire Bot9S.
How did I miss Deathedge's avatar when I chose mine?
Thank you for reviving this year-old thread to add such a trenchant insight into the issue.
:-)
The Pathfinder rogue and barbarian are well-conceived.The PF rogue is horribly nerfed. He no longer is able to eventually sneak attack everything, all the time, which was the main reason the 3.5 rogue was good. New options do not compensate. The PF barbarian is an overcomplicated mess full of trap options.
Are you seriously reduced to quote-mining from like a year ago, out of context, solely because you're bored and want someone to argue with? I expected better from you by now.
The "well-conceived" comment referred specifically to the fact that they were given modular features (talents, rage powers) to make them less cookie-cutter. As to the power level of those features, I agreed with you, and rewrote them with huge boosts for my home game, as posted in a number of threads hereabout (which you conveniently ignore).
Implying that I felt that lame modularity compensated for nerfs in utility is both dishonest and at variance with the massive rewriting I've done of all the core martial classes.
If your game is 100% melee combat, the duskblade will be overpowered. If your game is 5% melee combat and 95% investigation and skills/utility spells use, the duskblade will sit on the sidelines and sulk.Funny that you say that when the Duskblade actually has skills that help in investigation, such as Knowledges and Sense Motive, and even a little bit of utility spells, while non-magical warrior classes have neither.
You're not seriously arguing that "better than a non-magical core warrior" = "good," are you?
|
Fighters were never equal to spellcasters in DnD. Ever. Since Gigax and his gaming buddies played their first long campaigns. All pre-3.0 editions pretty much explicitly admitted in their design that wizards=ultimate power. Reliably disrpupting spellcasting? Don't make me laugh. Once an AD&D 2 wizard received ability to regularly use then-current versions of Fly, Stoneskin and Improved Invisibilty (a 3rd-level and two 4th-level spells) he was basically Immune To Fighters. Particularly because before 3.0 a fighter was not guaranteed to ever receive any magic items that could possibly counter spell-based Screw Yous. Better saves at high levels? Didn't matter because much lower HPs and the same damage from spells meant that evocation rocks and you don't need to cast SoL spells much. And because at higher levels some spells just destroyed fighters without save.
This was supposed to be balanced by wizards' extreme fragility and very low numbers of spells at lower levels. AD&D's relative propensity for throwing massive numbers of weak opponents at the party, and long rememorizing times also helped fighters somewhat, because wizards had much more reason to conserve power and not to go all "I'm a wizard and therefore I win" in every battle. But do not pretend that at two-digit levels AD&D wizards were anything but more powerful than the rest of the party combined.
You really should stop listening to Frank, jump in a time machine, and play some AD&D 1e in 1982.
You have some serious misconceptions about relative power in AD&D. Wizards, at very high levels, were, in fact, masters of all they could see. Wizards at moderately high levels still only beat a fighter maybe three out of five attempts, because, contrary to your belief, magic wasn't a rarity in AD&D, fighters had all kinds of goodies useful to punk magic users, and they did so, with alarming regularity.
Trust me, Mordenkainen didn't want to mess with Robilar in a straight up fight.
play some AD&D 1e in 1982.
Maybe part of the disagreement is that he specifically references 2e, which you and I mostly skipped.
Fighters were never equal to spellcasters in DnD. Ever. Since Gigax and his gaming buddies played their first long campaigns. All pre-3.0 editions pretty much explicitly admitted in their design that wizards=ultimate power. Reliably disrpupting spellcasting? Don't make me laugh. Once an AD&D 2 wizard received ability to regularly use then-current versions of Fly, Stoneskin and Improved Invisibilty (a 3rd-level and two 4th-level spells) he was basically Immune To Fighters. Particularly because before 3.0 a fighter was not guaranteed to ever receive any magic items that could possibly counter spell-based Screw Yous. Better saves at high levels? Didn't matter because much lower HPs and the same damage from spells meant that evocation rocks and you don't need to cast SoL spells much. And because at higher levels some spells just destroyed fighters without save.
This was supposed to be balanced by wizards' extreme fragility and very low numbers of spells at lower levels. AD&D's relative propensity for throwing massive numbers of weak opponents at the party, and long rememorizing times also helped fighters somewhat, because wizards had much more reason to conserve power and not to go all "I'm a wizard and therefore I win" in every battle. But do not pretend that at two-digit levels AD&D wizards were anything but more powerful than the rest of the party combined.You really should stop listening to Frank, jump in a time machine, and play some AD&D 1e in 1982.
You have some serious misconceptions about relative power in AD&D. Wizards, at very high levels, were, in fact, masters of all they could see. Wizards at moderately high levels still only beat a fighter maybe three out of five attempts, because, contrary to your belief, magic wasn't a rarity in AD&D, fighters had all kinds of goodies useful to punk magic users, and they did so, with alarming regularity.
Trust me, Mordenkainen didn't want to mess with Robilar in a straight up fight.
Oh man, this brings me back. But yeah, the fighter was scary stuff back in the day. I recall 2nd edition campains being more or less fighter-love from levels 1-12, since the mage required an absurd amount of XP to reach the truly awe-inspiring levels of power, while the fighter could reach his apex of grand mastery at lv12 and chainsaw through just about everything. If someone played a mage in any of the games I hosted or played, they invariably were Fighter/Mages, Thief/Mages or dual class Fighter/Mages in order to simply survive until higher levels.
Guess current day characters suffer from much of the same problem: A fighter has reached much of his best stuff around level 12, and kinda stagnates after that, while a caster only grow more and more powerful.
Are you seriously reduced to quote-mining from like a year ago, out of context, solely because you're bored and want someone to argue with? I expected better from you by now.
If you check FatR's posting history, at least recently, you won't be surprised at all.
The "well-conceived" comment referred specifically to the fact that they were given modular features (talents, rage powers) to make them less cookie-cutter. As to the power level of those features, I agreed with you, and rewrote them with huge boosts for my home game, as posted in a number of threads hereabout (which you conveniently ignore).
Implying that I felt that lame modularity compensated for nerfs in utility is both dishonest and at variance with the massive rewriting I've done of all the core martial classes.
Sorry then. Modular features are indeed step in the right direction. Actually, I've given rogue a treatment inspired by his new PF abilities in my houserules (but without taking away things he was able to do before). Their implementation in PF... but you've said everything need to be said already.
You really should stop listening to Frank, jump in a time machine, and play some AD&D 1e in 1982.You have some serious misconceptions about relative power in AD&D. Wizards, at very high levels, were, in fact, masters of all they could see. Wizards at moderately high levels still only beat a fighter maybe three out of five attempts, because, contrary to your belief, magic wasn't a rarity in AD&D, fighters had all kinds of goodies useful to punk magic users, and they did so, with alarming regularity.
Trust me, Mordenkainen didn't want to mess with Robilar in a straight up fight.
Did he needed to? Problem is, of PCs I know were played/served as author avatars for campaign creators and their buddies, I can name one fighter - Robilar. Circle of Eight Former PCs? All wizards. Elminster and his FR-dominating buddies? Wizards. Various BBEGs? If not monsters, then wizards or clerics most of the times (FR was particularly bad in this department, but even in Ravenloft Strahd was given 16 levels of spellcasting, when they wanted to make the most iconic Darklord tough). So it is pretty clear what class writers and authors perceived as the top dog.
I'm closely familiar with the rules only starting with AD&D 2. But for that system I can say for certain, that wizards totally blew everyone else away from level 9 and needed the party only as means of saving spells for important encounters. Sometimes to kill magic-resistant things, but high MR was common enough to really care only in Planescape. Supplements vastly aggravated this problem, because wizards were getting enormous amounts of extra power in the form of new spells (including spells that fixed their problems with MR, saves, inability to cast more than once per round, and so on), and fighters were getting maybe new kits, offering bonuses that were hard to care about past low levels.
As about magic items, as far as I'm aware, the first edition that make handing them out mandatory was 3.0. Before that you couldn't usually go and buy what you needed.
I recall 2nd edition campains being more or less fighter-love from levels 1-12, since the mage required an absurd amount of XP to reach the truly awe-inspiring levels of power, while the fighter could reach his apex of grand mastery at lv12 and chainsaw through just about everything. If someone played a mage in any of the games I hosted or played, they invariably were Fighter/Mages, Thief/Mages or dual class Fighter/Mages in order to simply survive until higher levels.
You recall very wrong (or another edition), because at mid-levels 2E Wizards actually pulled ahead of Fighters on the experience charts. Quite significantly. The most classic powergaming build, dual-classed Fighter 9/Wizard X was based on the fact that it took 300k XP to go from Fighter 9 to Fighter 10 and 250k XP to go from Wizard 1 to Wizard 10. Fighters leveled up faster only below level 7 and above level 14. But I already said that at low levels wizards suffered bigtime. And above level 14 it did not matter, because the wizard was likely to win DnD already by that time.
|
I recall 2nd edition campains being more or less fighter-love from levels 1-12, since the mage required an absurd amount of XP to reach the truly awe-inspiring levels of power, while the fighter could reach his apex of grand mastery at lv12 and chainsaw through just about everything. If someone played a mage in any of the games I hosted or played, they invariably were Fighter/Mages, Thief/Mages or dual class Fighter/Mages in order to simply survive until higher levels.You recall very wrong (or another edition), because at mid-levels 2E Wizards actually pulled ahead of Fighters on the experience charts. Quite significantly. The most classic powergaming build, dual-classed Fighter 9/Wizard X was based on the fact that it took 300k XP to go from Fighter 9 to Fighter 10 and 250k XP to go from Wizard 1 to Wizard 10. Fighters leveled up faster only below level 7 and above level 14. But I already said that at low levels wizards suffered bigtime. And above level 14 it did not matter, because the wizard was likely to win DnD already by that time.
just out of curiosity, how does one "Win DnD?"
As far as I know, Roleplaying, Character Design, and Adventuring are the major components of the game, and there's nothing in either of the first stating "Most Powerful, Most Options, can fly, etc..." is required.
Sure, some adventures are geared for spellcasters, and they often have a wicked knockout punch when it comes time to fight, but saying someone "Wins" by reason of having a powerful character design...I don't get it.
-t
just out of curiosity, how does one "Win DnD?"
By casting poorly balanced spells like Simulacrum, Shapechange, Polymorph Any Object, etc.
just out of curiosity, how does one "Win DnD?"
I felt like I won D&D when my aloof lv6 CN half-elf bard Ray, also known as "Magical Ray" (for different reasons depending on the scenario) died throwing himself at a white dragon that was going to murder the paladin that always tried to make Ray go the straight and narrow path. I was almost killed in one round, and spent my round slamming a necklace of fireballs down the dragon's gaping maw, immolating us both.
I died. Dragon died. Paladin lived in shock and awe 10' outside the blast radius. We all forgot the paladin's name, but Ray will always live on in our memories.
|
|
just out of curiosity, how does one "Win DnD?"By casting poorly balanced spells like Simulacrum, Shapechange, Polymorph Any Object, etc.
Balance? We didn't need balance in 1e. The game played right, everyone had fun and we liked it.
Oh, and it sold by leaps and bounds more than any other game in existence. Well, maybe Cook/Moldvay sold a bit better, but that was because they had it at Toys R Us and parents thought it was a board game.
just out of curiosity, how does one "Win DnD?"By casting poorly balanced spells like Simulacrum, Shapechange, Polymorph Any Object, etc.Balance? We didn't need balance in 1e. The game played right, everyone had fun and we liked it.
Oh, and it sold by leaps and bounds more than any other game in existence. Well, maybe Cook/Moldvay sold a bit better, but that was because they had it at Toys R Us and parents thought it was a board game.
...Er, no, each edition of D&D has sold better then the last. 1e might've been the best selling game at the time it was made, but in existence?
He could. Gravestrike and its ilk + wand chamber weapons = sneak attacking everything or almost everything. No third party books. And "unbalanced" is only your opinion which is not generally shared by the optimizer community.
Unbalanced and third party splat books aside, he never could. Sneak attack did not work against anything that could not be critically hit, which includes all undead, constructs, elemenentals, plant creatures, ooze creatures, and anything else with an exotic enough anatomy.
PF is backwards compatible so the splat books should still work, unless the DM says otherwise, but that is on the DM not Piazo.
How did I miss Deathedge's avatar when I chose mine?Thank you for reviving this year-old thread to add such a trenchant insight into the issue.
:-)
LoL. Maybe it will take the ToB discussion out of the Kingmaker thread since they were, and maybe still are threadjacking it over there.
|
|
...Er, no, each edition of D&D has sold better then the last. 1e might've been the best selling game at the time it was made, but in existence?just out of curiosity, how does one "Win DnD?"By casting poorly balanced spells like Simulacrum, Shapechange, Polymorph Any Object, etc.Balance? We didn't need balance in 1e. The game played right, everyone had fun and we liked it.
Oh, and it sold by leaps and bounds more than any other game in existence. Well, maybe Cook/Moldvay sold a bit better, but that was because they had it at Toys R Us and parents thought it was a board game.
Um, no. Each edition hasn't sold better than the last. Actually, the 1e AD&D Player's Handbook is the best selling rpg book ever. Heck, they were still printing and selling 1e PHBs three or four years into the 2e run.
3e brought D&D back from the dead, but roleplaying has never reached the fad status it had in the '80s.
|
|
...Er, no, each edition of D&D has sold better then the last. 1e might've been the best selling game at the time it was made, but in existence?just out of curiosity, how does one "Win DnD?"By casting poorly balanced spells like Simulacrum, Shapechange, Polymorph Any Object, etc.Balance? We didn't need balance in 1e. The game played right, everyone had fun and we liked it.
Oh, and it sold by leaps and bounds more than any other game in existence. Well, maybe Cook/Moldvay sold a bit better, but that was because they had it at Toys R Us and parents thought it was a board game.
Um, no. Each edition hasn't sold better than the last. Actually, the 1e AD&D Player's Handbook is the best selling rpg book ever. Heck, they were still printing and selling 1e PHBs three or four years into the 2e run. That's nearly fifteen years of print runs. The sixth printing was probably the biggest run, and it sold in the millions.
3e brought D&D back from the dead, but roleplaying has never reached the fad status it had in the '80s.
Balance? We didn't need balance in 1e. The game played right, everyone had fun and we liked it.just out of curiosity, how does one "Win DnD?"By casting poorly balanced spells like Simulacrum, Shapechange, Polymorph Any Object, etc.
Well, I certainly remember having fun, but I also remember seeing debates about how overpowered PCs were (or weren't) back in the letters Dragon magazine going back to the early 80s (e.g. is a huge ancient red dragon a challenge for a party of high level characters, or just a speed bump?). I also remember a murder mystery adventure published in Dragon that mentioned how it's just about impossible to have a murder mystery when clerics and wizards are involved. So it's hardly a new thing.
Just because you weren't aware of it doesn't mean that folks weren't saying "XYZ is overpowered" in Ye Olde Days.
|
|
Balance? We didn't need balance in 1e. The game played right, everyone had fun and we liked it.just out of curiosity, how does one "Win DnD?"By casting poorly balanced spells like Simulacrum, Shapechange, Polymorph Any Object, etc.Well, I certainly remember having fun, but I also remember seeing debates about how overpowered PCs were (or weren't) back in the letters Dragon magazine going back to the early 80s (e.g. is a huge ancient red dragon a challenge for a party of high level characters, or just a speed bump?). I also remember a murder mystery adventure published in Dragon that mentioned how it's just about impossible to have a murder mystery when clerics and wizards are involved. So it's hardly a new thing.
Just because you weren't aware of it doesn't mean that folks weren't saying "XYZ is overpowered" in Ye Olde Days.
I knew they were. I had a Dragon sub back then. Of course, I also read all of the articles in said magazine that gave you nice tactics to make that 88 h.p. Ancient Red scary again. And I didn't use anything but the new weapons and spells out of the "proto-splat", Unearthed Arcana.
D&D is what the people at the table make it. "Killer DMs" didn't have players for long, and, once they got that label, never again, so I wonder about the kids today using that as an example of how bad AD&D was. Cheating little pissants (I guess they're called "munchkins" now) didn't last long. Rules lawyers spent more time writing the Dragon forums than playing, since none of us wanted to hear it, and the DM was the final arbiter (and we liked it).
Different times, different expectations, and much different attitudes towards game play.
I blame World of Darkness and Emo music more than poor balance in games for today's problems.
...Er, no, each edition of D&D has sold better then the last. 1e might've been the best selling game at the time it was made, but in existence?just out of curiosity, how does one "Win DnD?"By casting poorly balanced spells like Simulacrum, Shapechange, Polymorph Any Object, etc.Balance? We didn't need balance in 1e. The game played right, everyone had fun and we liked it.
Oh, and it sold by leaps and bounds more than any other game in existence. Well, maybe Cook/Moldvay sold a bit better, but that was because they had it at Toys R Us and parents thought it was a board game.
Um, no. Each edition hasn't sold better than the last. Actually, the 1e AD&D Player's Handbook is the best selling rpg book ever. Heck, they were still printing and selling 1e PHBs three or four years into the 2e run. That's nearly fifteen years of print runs. The sixth printing was probably the biggest run, and it sold in the millions.
3e brought D&D back from the dead, but roleplaying has never reached the fad status it had in the '80s.
...Your numbers? ;p