His purpose seem to be only to belittle Paizo’s product, which he constantly does, pointing out the weaknesses which he claims his version fixed.
I can see why you'd think so, but if I may, I'd like to correct this. My purpose is to belittle the philosophy that "all existing rules are perfect for all groups because the DM should fix everything." The existing rules we're talking about are Paizo's, so they're the ones I'm looking at, but if my rules were official, I'd be sniping at them instead.
See, my version has fixed the problems that our group had with the existing rules, not "all problems." YOUR group's version would fix the problems that YOUR group has with the existing rules. Everyone can do this. As you point out, there are a lot of houserules collections out there, some quite voluminous, and all of those people tend to love them. They're not all the same (although I do note a surprising amount of overlap), but they all have one thing in common: each group makes a better game for themselves, starting with PF or 3.5 or whatever as a base and altering to taste by group approval.
This is a big shift from the paradigm of "the group has no say in the rules and must simply trust the DM, who shall be the sole decider of how the rules will be skewed for his group."
The point is one you have published (even electronically only, and even free) YOUR game , and no longer play THIS game, it’s time to start your own MB about YOUR game, and don’t come here just to knock a game you no longer play. You are now a competitor, not a player.
The Devs post here often, yes? Do you see them posting on other companies MB about that other companies products, belittling them? No. Do you see Mike Mearls or any of the WotC devs posting here?
Once you have a competing product, then you need to stay out as your comments are tainted by that competition. Now that there *IS* a “Kirthfinder”, it’s time to say good-bye to your competitors MB. Sorry, but that’s the only ethical way to go.
I am telling you this as Dev to Dev, one gaming developer to another. You’re now a Developer of Kirthfinder. This means you should no longer haunt your competitors message board, as it can be seen as an attempt to drum up business for your own product (even if you don’t currently charge for it).
Now, I am retired from the business and my product is long out of print, no longer “competition” to anything. But you, you’re just starting. Good luck!
Publishing a houserule set doesn't make him a competitor. And even if it did, it would make him a 3PP, which Paizo likes because it keeps people playing the APs and Modules.
Sorry Ciretose, you & I usually agree. But Kirthfinder is not a supplement, it’s a system. It’s thus competition. This would be like Mearls coming here to crow about how great D&D Next is and point out the shortcomings of Pathfinder.
Sure, no doubt people buy Paizo APs but play 3.5 with them, and I am sure Jessica and co think that’s great. Still Mearls doesn't post here, and SKR doesn't post there.
It’s an ethical issue, and now Kirth is a developer of a competing game system, it’s not ethical for him to post here to push his system and knock Paizo’s. Since I am a Developer I can say this with some experience under my belt. Kirth has been a valued member of the community, yes, with well thought out comments. But now he’s a competitor. It's time to start his own MB for his own product , and I wish him luck.
|
Publishing a houserule set doesn't make him a competitor. And even if it did, it would make him a 3PP, which Paizo likes because it keeps people playing the APs and Modules.
When a printed version of the "house rules" rivals the size of the core rulebook, they aren't really house rules anymore.
It's a full system that occasionally references another system, akin to 0E D&D and Chainmail.
But Kirthfinder is not a supplement, it’s a system. It’s thus competition.
It's intended precisely as a supplement. I intentionally left out big swaths of the Core Rules so that you need that book, too, in order to play. I've inentionally made rules that you can still use when playing Paizo's APs (which are taking up more shelf space at home than I like to think about). And I've intentionally made it free (and the current version available by individual request only), and will always do so.
What me and my group have done is made a "patch," so that groups with preferences like ours can still use Paizo's game and Paizo's adventures, but get a game experience out of them that they might prefer.
In other words, if it works as intended, "Kirthfinder" will actively increase Paizo's sales, rather than cut into them.
Well, some theories are core and fundamental and do point to how a game is actually played. Hell, people seem to ignore that good theories are based on empirical observation.
-- An effective way to win fights is to deal lots of damage. Classes that are very good at dealing damage (barbarian) are more "effective" in combat than classes that are not so lucky (monk). That is, if the objective in combat is to deal enough damage to end the combat, the class that can more consistently deal more damage will be more effective at ending combat. You might say "in my game, monks are better than barbarians", but that's likely not going to be the norm because of essential game design.
-- TTRPGs are open-ended games which have multiple ways of achieving goals. They also have myriad goals to achieve. This differentiates them from, say, video games, which tend to be more rigid in their design. A DM certainly CAN tailor challenges to fit "specific" builds, but in my experience a smart DM will have many different ways for characters to achieve goals in order to avoid bottlenecking. With this core assumption in mind, my "theory" is that classes that have access to more diverse yet effective types of problem-solving devices will do better in most situations. To me, this is the theoretical underpinning of why the game favors casters.
Being able to do "more things" makes one more effective in a situation where every week brings different challenges. Things like Speak With Dead, Teleport, Wild Shape, etc. don't really have an analog for most non-caster classes.
The "more effectively" comes into play when comparing spells to, say, skills or feats. For a substantial feat, class feature, and skill point investment, my party Ninja can get his Acrobatics or Climb skills up to remarkably high levels. I can cast Fly or Dimension Door and solve most of the problems that a high Acrobatics or Climb skill would solve.
This isn't really "theorycrafting" in a pejorative sense (as in it doesn't resemble what comes up in actual games). It's looking at what makes characters fundamentally effective in games. In your game, you might find that the party Rogue can do just as much just as effectively as the party Druid. But over hundreds of sessions in hundreds of games, the Druid will win out because the theory upon which the game is based favors his class.
You can put anecdotal outcomes into perspective, too. I expect that sometimes the rogue will be awesome and the druid won't be. Sometimes when the 2002 San Francisco Giants played, JT Snow hit a home run and Barry Bonds struck out. But over 600 at-bats I wouldn't expect their contributions to be equal, because Barry Bonds possesses more of what makes a baseball player good.
Yes, it may increase Paizos sales. So did 4th Ed. I don't see Wyatt, Mearls or Collins posting here, do you?
Even my friend Creighton, who only writes APs- does he knock Paizo's products? He does promote his stuff, sure, but in the section for that.
Spin it as you will. I have made an appeal to you Dev to Dev, one gaming developer to another. I have explained how this isn't ethical. Look, I have no dog in this hunt. I don't work for any game company. I still play & enjoy other systems.
I would like you to really think out the ethical issue of promoting your competing product on your competitors message board. This isn't En world, or the OotS MB, this is Paizo's.
What you are doing isn't ethical.
Question for you, Kirth. When was the last time you had more than two or thee posts in a topic discussing Pathfinder's system where you DIDN'T mention Kirthfinder?
Irrelevant, if it's used as an example to illustrate that Pathfinder itself can work better if you're willing to make changes to suit your group. EDIT: But see following post.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I don't work for any game company.
Neither do I! Still, if that's such an issue to you, I'll happily agree to refrain from mentioning my own homebrew patches as examples when discussing game balance. As a fair exchange, people might also stop claiming that addressing any balance issues "automatically leads to 4e" or that it "can't be done, because the DM has to fix everything."
See, this is where you lose me. You say that balance is objective, but that the metrics used to measure it are subjective. Given that the methods used to measure (and, by extension, define) it are subjective, the idea that balance is itself objective seems to be, at best, an academic argument (at worst it seems to undercut the idea of objective balance altogether).
I did not say that the metric is subjective, I said that the metric becomes subjective due to fallacy. An imperfect metric creates noise in a resultant which makes a proof impossible. This may seem like a semantic difference, but when using the scientific method, semantics can matter on documentation and procedure.
For example, I am stating standards that exist at all levels of balance design, not just tabletop RPGs. Tic-Tac-Toe has a very limited set of rules and permutations, and therefore the metrics of balance are very easy to define. Because of this, you can formulate an actual proof (the result being that the game is not balanced for each player due to turn order).
Checkers is more complicated, but also has been analyzed to a proof. Chess however has created enough complexity that there are still ambiguities and, last I checked, still being examined.
To reiterate, what this means is that you simply need to do many tests with many subsets. Procedurally you need to change the metrics and retest until you are satisfied with the results (this does not mean balance was achieved).
I'll not speak to your credentials, since I think that this is necessarily a difference of opinions rather than a debate over facts.
Interestingly enough, I did not truly wish to use credentials but opted to do so because of laziness. Traditionally, this is a logical fallacy known as Appeal to Authority and is a mistake to use a logical fallacy in such a way. I simply was so lazy I did not wish to track down true evidence to my claims because a large portion of design methodology is not open source or readily available on the internet.
I point this out because I commend you for noticing that an appeal to authority is not even remotely important, and I thank you for keeping me honest.
|
Back on the topic:
I seem to see a fair number of people (not a majority by any means, but my sample set is small) at PFS tables playing theorycraft characters. It works better than in a home game, because the adventure is all written and set before they sit down at the table or even before they build their character. A player who has played a lot of senarios, and knows the sort of enemies and encounters paizo writes can get far with theorycraft. Of course I have also seen it fail hilariously, such as the necromancer/dark cleric who went a whole adventure without encountering a single undead to practice his awesome uberundeadjitsu on. (I think his whole concept was "each undead we meet gives me strength that I can turn loose on the big boss battle at the end.")
At home tables I have run (admittedly in other systems, but there are enough similarities to apply) I have had a lot of players theory craft, and a lot of players underbuild because something about the character appealed to them. (for example my halfling medic with an obscene heal score and no magic, who was constantly infuriated that even though he was more knowledgable about the body and healing than anyone he had ever met, he was instantly relegated to obscurity the moment a cleric stepped into view, and people only turned to him as an afterthough.)
In home games, the job of the GM is to set up the game so that there are super hard battles that the theorycrafter can shine in, and also challenges that address his weaknesses so that the other players can mock him.... I mean, "Shine in their own areas of expertise."
But what, specifically, are we measuring when you say we're measuring "balance"? For that matter, what metric are we using to do it?
Your question prompted me to find a short resource to cite from, and though wikipedia is not a final arbiter of information, it is a good starting point:
Primarily when looking at the techniques that are mentioned and the methodologies I was attempting to discuss, I refer to Symmetry and Statistical Analysis as the best discourse to balance as I was describing it, although we have discussed the styles in such a way to equate to Gamemaster as well.
I'll see your thanks regarding this, and raise you a statement of gratitude for keeping the discussion very polite. It's always a pleasure to debate something with someone without it becoming disagreeable (especially on the internet).
You're welcome. I do enjoy a debate, but I dislike arguing.
This is an impossible standard, since there are no objective metrics for what constitute "broken exploits" or "contribute equally" - let alone ones that will not only be ageeable to all people, but apply in all in-game situations as well.In the game design world, game balance is considered an objective problem. It can be measured and it can be held up to scrutiny. However one of the most difficult challenges for any game designer is to find the qualifying metrics to measure from.
Indeed. D&D 4 came up with the idea that if they balanced relative power between the classes, this would lead to a better game. Paizo came up with the idea that if you could have fun playing it, this would lead to a better game. However, fun is entirely subjective. My own perspective to measure 'fun' is to look at 'involvement' by asking the question: does each class/character/player have something they can do to make a substantive contribution to party success?
Using this metric, although casters are more "powerful" than non-casters, although they are at high level much more versatile, if the non-casters can make equally effective contributions every game then they are "balanced" with the casters.
Indeed. D&D 4 came up with the idea that if they balanced relative power between the classes, this would lead to a better game. Paizo came up with the idea that if you could have fun playing it, this would lead to a better game.
Can we please please please please please please stop it with the "any balance leads to 4e" nonsense? It's been thoroughly refuted more times than I can count. Check out Frank and K's 3.5-compatible Tomes material, or Sartzany's "Ultimate Classes" stuff, for counterexamples.
Indeed. D&D 4 came up with the idea that if they balanced relative power between the classes, this would lead to a better game. Paizo came up with the idea that if you could have fun playing it, this would lead to a better game.Can we please please please please please please stop it with the "any balance leads to 4e" nonsense? It's been thoroughly refuted more times than I can count. Check out Frank and K's 3.5-compatible Tomes material, or Sartzany's "Ultimate Classes" stuff, for counterexamples.
No one sez that. What we say is that a attempt at full & complete balance led to 4th ed, which was IMHO a failure. And, I agree- any attempt at 100% balance must needs lead to class homogenization, like 4th Ed had.
Even the Devs here have said they strive for MORE balance. But every other D&D iteration, even OD&D has had imbalance.
The issue is- how much of an imbalance? Can the weaker PC’s still pull their weight and have fun playing? Is the imbalance… um, err- “balanced”- for example the martial/caster imbalance that has been part of D&D since OD&D days, where the martials are more powerful than the caster at low levels, but the caster better at high levels. If it that sort of imbalance- is the ‘sweet spot” there where most games are played? In my experience far far more time is spent playing levels 1-4 than levels 17-20. ymmv, but I doubt it.
And you see- in the games I have played- there is balance of at least #1 and #2.
The issue did arise in 3.5 if all the splat books BUT BonS were allowed, then the “sweet spot” was small and casters rather rapidly took over, leading to nearly unplayable and marginalizing imbalances at higher levels. This is BAD balance issues.
PF seems to be fine, altho I have not played at the very highest levels (where few do). I am reliably informed that the casters do rule there, altho the martials are able to contribute.
And honestly, I don’t give a rodents rear end about some little known 3rd party stuff. Not that their stuff may not be well written but it has not come under the harsh scrutiny of 10’s of thousands of players and optimizers like PF has. Look how long it took the optimizers to find the Simulacrum loophole.
Quite a few minor glitches were found not by the Paizo design team or even by their playtesters but by the 10’s of thousands of PF players and posters. Until that product has been exposed to the harsh scrutiny of the public like WotC and Paizo, they can’t be used as an example.
Simulacrum is entirely up to the GM what powers a half HD creature would have. Since the spells says that creatures made have only the powers appropriate for the new HD of the creature. RAW simulacrum can be either completely broken or perfectly balanced depending on what the GM rules as appropriate.
The discussion about simulacrum is case in point the flaws of theory crafting. It assumes the GM will rule one way or the other about ambiguous rules.
Like if your GM doesn't find wish to be an appropriate power for a half-HD creature, then simulacrum doesn't give you wish. If you as a GM think that is appropriate the spells breaks your game.
Even running games using RAW, GM skill has a lot to do with how balanced everything is and whether or not certain theorycraft builds work.
Also the only real problem with 4e is how meta 90% of the mechanics are. Describing powers in square range or as "encounter" powers destroys the suspension of disbelief for me. The ritual system and actual combat was very solid, but the meta wording was the biggest turn-off for me. (That and 5hp CR 20 mooks. wtf?)
Marthkus,
4edition is what happens when you go as far in the Gamist direction of the GNS triad ass you can. It's almost taking the gamist to the absurd. I'm sure someone will pipe up with an example system that takes narrativist to the absurd (Amber perhaps?---Storyteller in practice was fairly middle of the road despite its pretensions).
I'm not one to call 4e some sort of anti-fun devil spawn that causes poor Gary to role in his grave.
It's a solid system and addresses everyone's problems with pathfinder. WotC just used poor wording. Encounter powers were something you could do and then had to catch your breath before doing again. When you workout and lift weights something like that makes a lot of sense. But I had to really read the RAI rules to remove the powers away from being meta encounter based.
They put the mechanics first instead of the narrative first. Honestly instead of 5e wizards should be working on 4.5 and just tweak everything to be far less meta. (Oh and by the way. On 4e boards people still call casters OP and lament about martial caster disparity, so no amount of balance will ever fix that problem.)
It's a solid system and addresses everyone's problems with pathfinder. WotC just used poor wording. Encounter powers were something you could do and then had to catch your breath before doing again. When you workout and lift weights something like that makes a lot of sense. But I had to really read the RAI rules to remove the powers away from being meta encounter based.
They put the mechanics first instead of the narrative first. Honestly instead of 5e wizards should be working on 4.5 and just tweak everything to be far less meta. (Oh and by the way. On 4e boards people still call casters OP and lament about martial caster disparity, so no amount of balance will ever fix that problem.)
I suspect 4th editions biggest problem was just trying to change far too much far too quickly. Since there were so many radical changes to the system that needed to be adjusted for, actual game balance didn't really improve very much. Sure, some of the OP classes were martials now instead of casters, but balance was still wonky.
On top of that, the radical change just alienated the fanbase. There are gamers who still miss THAC0 and Elf being a class instead of a race. Heck, anytime the Paizo devs deviate from 3.5 rules/rulings (Like the recent armor spikes issue) a lot of players get upset. How WotC didn't realize that junking almost every single familiar mechanic was bound to leave them with a lot of unhappy customers...
Marthkus,
4edition is what happens when you go as far in the Gamist direction of the GNS triad ass you can. It's almost taking the gamist to the absurd. I'm sure someone will pipe up with an example system that takes narrativist to the absurd (Amber perhaps?---Storyteller in practice was fairly middle of the road despite its pretensions).I'm not one to call 4e some sort of anti-fun devil spawn that causes poor Gary to role in his grave.
It's a solid system and addresses everyone's problems with pathfinder. WotC just used poor wording. Encounter powers were something you could do and then had to catch your breath before doing again. When you workout and lift weights something like that makes a lot of sense. But I had to really read the RAI rules to remove the powers away from being meta encounter based.
They put the mechanics first instead of the narrative first. Honestly instead of 5e wizards should be working on 4.5 and just tweak everything to be far less meta. (Oh and by the way. On 4e boards people still call casters OP and lament about martial caster disparity, so no amount of balance will ever fix that problem.)
I like 4e as well! I don't think it addresses EVERYBODY'S problems with PF, but I appreciate their design philosophy. I get what Chendar is saying about it being *too* different, but I liked that as well. If I wanted to play a game like 3.5... I'd just play 3.5. I like Pathfinder and 4e for different reasons, just like I like a good salad and a nice pizza for different reasons. Sometimes I feel like one, sometimes I feel like the other. Variety is a good thing.
And yeah, there were "caster/martial" disparity problems (although not nearly as pronounced), but in 4e it was "PHB1 classes are OP" because they all got waaaaaaay more support from WOTC (and OP in 4e wasn't really that OP). But it wasn't nearly as bad as PF's caster/martial or monk & rogue/everybody else balance issues. Like, a 4e Fighter is the best Defender, but the Warden does a lot of things better than the Fighter does, even if it's slightly less effective overall. There were terrible 4e classes, but the difference between a highly optimized 4e character and an utterly unoptimized one was not nearly as pronounced.
Honestly, I'd say that D&D always put mechanics ahead of narrative. Their philosophy has always seemed to be that it's easier to make rules for combat than RP, so we'll focus on combat. Which is certainly not a bad philosophy. 4e just too it to (perhaps absurd) extremes and drew back the "this is a game" curtain a bit far. That's all relative, though. I'm sure that a lot of people who play something like Nobilis will roll their eyes about how PF is "just like WoW".
(I also totally agree that I'd love to see WOTC do a 4.5. They stopped production of the game just when they were getting good at designing it. Sigh. I hope somebody pulls a Paizo and gets the rights to the game and makes it a lot more fun, like PF is a fun version of 3.5)
Can we please please please please please please stop it with the "any balance leads to 4e" nonsense? It's been thoroughly refuted more times than I can count.
It's also not what Dabbler said. Can we please, please, please address what people are saying?
Pahlease.
You expect people to actually read posts? And address what they said in our replies?!
Where's the fun in that? :)
-S
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm still confused about how we can have threads that aren't about casters vs. martials.
Can we please please please please please please stop it with the "any balance leads to 4e" nonsense? It's been thoroughly refuted more times than I can count.It's also not what Dabbler said. Can we please, please, please address what people are saying?
Indeed. D&D 4 came up with the idea that if they balanced relative power between the classes, this would lead to a better game. Paizo came up with the idea that if you could have fun playing it, this would lead to a better game.
Parse this differently? I'm reading "Class balance -> 4e -> not fun."
If that's not the take-home message here, please explain what is, and I'll be happy to follow your request.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Indeed. D&D 4 came up with the idea that if they balanced relative power between the classes, this would lead to a better game. Paizo came up with the idea that if you could have fun playing it, this would lead to a better game.Parse this differently? I'm reading "Class balance -> 4e -> not fun."
If that's not the take-home message here, please explain what is, and I'll be happy to follow your request.
He's not saying "any balance leads to 4e". The way I read it, he's holding up 4e is an example of how pursuing class balance doesn't necessarily make for a better game. I don't see how you can be reading it the way you're trying to read it.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"Class balance -> 4e -> not fun."
(This is not directed at Kirth despite his quote, but merely the direction this conversation is going with Kirth's quote being the most pointed statement)
There are several problems with this line of thinking, with two principal fallacies:
Cum hoc ergo propter hoc
Petitio principii
Class balance does not lead to fourth edition and fourth edition is not the primal example of class balance. In fact, the removal of social interaction skills could be argued as an imbalance in the system. Fourth edition simply has better balanced combat, and that is all.
Fourth edition is not objectively accepted as not fun. It has fans like every other game system. It has less fans than 3.5 for more reasons than a balance issue. I actually believe Chengar spoke much closer to the heart of the issue.
This entire argument is rendered fairly illogical. You cannot say that class balance is not fun based off of these criteria.
The way I read it, he's holding up 4e is an example of how pursuing class balance doesn't necessarily make for a better game.
This presents another problem though, because class balance does not necessarily make for a worse game. Generally speaking, an objective improvement is a positive trend but certainly we can debate that more balance has negative value. I think you'll find very little proof of this however.
Well, I do post a lot about balance on a game design forum, and one major thing that comes up is losing asymmetry vs better balance. Obviously, symmetrical games are perfectly balanced, but those types of games are pretty boring.
This is very true, but it is also two fold. You don't actually have to become directly symmetrical to achieve greater balance. This is essentially where designer intent on game design should be stepping in. I completely agree that pure symmetry is often less fun, though this is itself a different problem.
A complex problem that is relational, but different. Trying to determine the best course of action is what separates good game designers from bad.
Also I'm glad you used Guilty Gear as an example, as I specifically love that game as my favorite fighting game ever. :) Specifically if you ban Sol Badguy and Ky, Guilty Gear XX tournaments were a fantastic example of balance and asymmetry.
Indeed. D&D 4 came up with the idea that if they balanced relative power between the classes, this would lead to a better game. Paizo came up with the idea that if you could have fun playing it, this would lead to a better game.Can we please please please please please please stop it with the "any balance leads to 4e" nonsense? It's been thoroughly refuted more times than I can count. Check out Frank and K's 3.5-compatible Tomes material, or Sartzany's "Ultimate Classes" stuff, for counterexamples.
That nonsense hasn't even started. I merely gave 4e as an example of one kind of balance, and I didn't attempt to imply anything else - Paizo DID specify that "FUN" was the yardstick of the playtest. WotC said that balance was how they would make 4e work. How else could I parse it? It's what they did. At no point have I attempted to present one method as superior to the other - although I have my own opinion on that, as do many others, and this being a GAME it really comes down to personal preference at the end of the day.
I'm sure someone will pipe up with an example system that takes narrativist to the absurd (Amber perhaps?---Storyteller in practice was fairly middle of the road despite its pretensions).
Everway, I think, is a system that has that issue.
The thing is, if you take any design philosophy to the extreme you could well end up with a game that is bad, because gamers are a varied bunch and their playing philosophy might not match your design philosophy. Badly unbalanced classes can detract from fun. Homogenised characters can do likewise. Going entirely gamist excludes lovers of narrativism; going entirely narrativist excludes the gamists.
What is more, we game to enjoy ourselves, and we all have different ideas of what that should entail. There IS no right way to make a game, unless it is to make one with the widest appeal to the largest number of potential players of different philosophies.
Hence the comparisons to WoW.