The 5 Totally Useless Statements You See in Every RPG Discussion

[Matthew Downie]

HWalsh wrote:

pretty rare in actual practice

I'd nominate for this topic any statement that claims to know how common something is in actual play. It might be true, but who knows? A lot of people feel qualified to say things like "only a minority of games take place in Golarion", or "no-one plays without house-rules", or "in most games, in-combat healing is a necessity". Without studying random samples of players, we've got nothing but anecdotal evidence and guesswork, and that's the sort of thing that leads to the "I haven't experienced this problem so it doesn't exist" fallacy.

According to my poll, around two-thirds of forum users find disparity to be a problem. And even that's extremely weak evidence.

[memorax]

To me if someone has to say a flaw does not exist in a rpg. Then lists a couple of fixes to said flaw only highlights it even more.

[Goth Guru]

"If noone is arguing with me I win"
I told the guy Paizo moderators check how many people hid the thread and how many actually agree(none in that case) before passing such an idea on to game designers. When I hid the topic only me and him had posted on that topic.

"I will not be moved" When two trolls argue about something pretty far off topic and end up getting the topic locked. I saw this happen recently with someone asking if someone could ready a charge. The argument was about why it was NO.
At the table, I had a player stop the game with his demands that a humanoid that got a 1 on the confirmation roll should drop the weapon before they hit. I never allowed fumble rules ever again. I wouldn't come back for the next session until he agreed to let it go.

[HWalsh]

Matthew Downie wrote:

HWalsh wrote:

pretty rare in actual practice

I'd nominate for this topic any statement that claims to know how common something is in actual play. It might be true, but who knows? A lot of people feel qualified to say things like "only a minority of games take place in Golarion", or "no-one plays without house-rules", or "in most games, in-combat healing is a necessity". Without studying random samples of players, we've got nothing but anecdotal evidence and guesswork, and that's the sort of thing that leads to the "I haven't experienced this problem so it doesn't exist" fallacy.

According to my poll, around two-thirds of forum users find disparity to be a problem. And even that's extremely weak evidence.

Forum users are an extreme minority of the most vocal and invested players. We are the ones most likely to see a disparity. When 2/3 of the most invested players see a problem then its likely not a problem.

BioWare when making TOR were told, repeatedly, by me and the company I was with, that they were creating a population disparity towards the Sith with slanted marketing, pre-story, and visuals. They claimed, "Due to polls conducted on our forums, and with our testers, we see no evidence of this."

I told them, straight up, you can't use your most dedicated fanbase for accurate data. They ignored me.

Within 2 months of release they had a 5:1 Sith:Republic population imbalance.

The caster/martial thing either doesn't exist or it has an incredibly low impact on the enjoyment of the vast majority of players.

Or to be brutally honest:

The only people that care about it are diehards and we are such a low percentage that, frankly, we don't matter.

[Jiggy]

Having that subgroup of people see a problem is no more indicative of there not being a problem than it is of there being a problem. Though you are correct in your assertion that the experience of the masses is not automatically the same as the experience of the "hardcore", you are wrong in your implication that the experience of the masses is automatically the opposite of the experience of the "hardcore".

EDIT: Come to think of it, your anecdote is really interesting. You make the assertion about C/MD that "since the forumites say there's a disparity, there probably isn't". A supporting anecdote would be one in which your assessment of TOR was "since the forumites say there's no population imbalance, there probably is."

Ironically, that's not what happened. Instead, you looked at the actual situation ("slanted marketing, pre-story, and visuals") and came up with a conclusion independently. Basically, you theory-crafted. You looked at the concrete things that the company was actually putting out, and used your knowledge of the subject matter to theorize what the result would be, independently of personal reports.

And your theorycrafting was right.

And yet whenever you're in a caster/martial disparity discussion and somebody does the exact same thing you did with your analysis of "slanted marketing, pre-story, and visuals" by analyzing the actual content being put out by the company, you dismiss the "theorycrafting" (which is what you did with BioWare) as being insignificant.

So when somebody says "I know there's a C/MD because [THEORY]", you reply that theory doesn't matter; only actual gameplay matters. Then when somebody says "I know there's a C/MD because [ACTUAL GAMEPLAY]", you reply that their experiences don't matter; the truth can be determined with theory.

That's quite the setup you've got going on there.

[MendedWall12]

Neal Litherland wrote:

memorax wrote:

Here another one "if a flaw in rpg does not happen at a posters gaming table it does not exist". Usually brought up when martial/caster disparity discussions are had on forums. Only to find out that their a gentleman agreement amongst casters and fighters at tables. To not use their abilities to the fullest to make sure a class does not get overshadowed. Or the DM uses 3pp.

That "if I haven't seen it, it isn't a problem," is definitely going on the list.

I've seen this in a pretty wide range of topics, from discussions of a given class archetype, to sexist behavior at a table, to whether or not 3rd party material should be allowed. A lot of the time the attitude of "WE don't do that, so it's clearly not a problem," is very present.

I've never read any posts like that, so clearly that's not a problem.

:P

[Paulicus]

One useless statement I see relatively often on an unnamed forum, which is typically accompanied by a highly illogical or silly rule/interpretation:

"But RAW says it works this way! RAW RAW RAW."

I like to call it the Lady Gaga Fallacy.

[Jiggy]

Paulicus wrote:

One useless statement I see relatively often on an unnamed forum, which is typically accompanied by a highly illogical or silly rule/interpretation:

"But RAW says it works this way! RAW RAW RAW."

I like to call it the Lady Gaga Fallacy.

I wouldn't mind the "But RAW says X" mantra nearly so much, if RAW actually said X.

Typically, when I see someone making a silly "RAW" claim, it's a situation like this:

The actual "RAW" (rules as written) says that all reptiles are cold-blooded, and also says that all turtles are reptiles. Then somebody notices that there's not a line in the rules that says "All turtles are cold-blooded", and therefore the poster proclaims "By RAW, turtles aren't actually cold-blooded". The most classic example is the old "By RAW, rogues still can't Sneak Attack undead, because the Sneak Attack rules don't say 'this works on undead'."

What's really ironic, though, is when people's response to the above absurdity is "This is why it's silly to care what RAW says" instead of "RAW doesn't actually say that". They basically put themselves on the same level as the person they're reacting to, by being just as wrong about how the rules actually work.

Personal pet peeve of mine.
:/

[MendedWall12]

Jiggy wrote:

Personal pet peeve of mine.

This is why it's silly to care about people and what they say.

:P

[Goth Guru]

When 2 trolls argued about what RAW says, the thread got locked so fast you missed it.

[HWalsh]

Jiggy wrote:

Having that subgroup of people see a problem is no more indicative of there not being a problem than it is of there being a problem. Though you are correct in your assertion that the experience of the masses is not automatically the same as the experience of the "hardcore", you are wrong in your implication that the experience of the masses is automatically the opposite of the experience of the "hardcore".

EDIT: Come to think of it, your anecdote is really interesting. You make the assertion about C/MD that "since the forumites say there's a disparity, there probably isn't". A supporting anecdote would be one in which your assessment of TOR was "since the forumites say there's no population imbalance, there probably is."

Ironically, that's not what happened. Instead, you looked at the actual situation ("slanted marketing, pre-story, and visuals") and came up with a conclusion independently. Basically, you theory-crafted. You looked at the concrete things that the company was actually putting out, and used your knowledge of the subject matter to theorize what the result would be, independently of personal reports.

And your theorycrafting was right.

And yet whenever you're in a caster/martial disparity discussion and somebody does the exact same thing you did with your analysis of "slanted marketing, pre-story, and visuals" by analyzing the actual content being put out by the company, you dismiss the "theorycrafting" (which is what you did with BioWare) as being insignificant.

So when somebody says "I know there's a C/MD because [THEORY]", you reply that theory doesn't matter; only actual gameplay matters. Then when somebody says "I know there's a C/MD because [ACTUAL GAMEPLAY]", you reply that their experiences don't matter; the truth can be determined with theory.

That's quite the setup you've got going on there.

Not quite.

The situation is that theory crafters say:

"There is a gross disparity between casters and Martials and this is a serious problem. Martials are less effective and thus less fun to play than Casters."

That is the general argument.

This, if it were true, would have a universal effect. This effect would be a severe lack of players who play Martials.

There is no such lack.

Between both anecdotal and quantifiable evidence there is no lack of Martial players in either private games or PFS games.

There are so many variables as to why this is the case that I can't realistically quantify all of them.

What I "can" do, however, is look at the people that are the most vocal about the caster/martial disparity and extrapolate certain variables that seem usually consistent between them.

These, so far, seem to be:

1. Sandbox players/GMs.
2. Do not like house rules.
3. Do not like fiat rulings.
4. Do not like things that are not "book legal."
5. Tend to like a high degree of optimization.
6. Tend to like "high powered" games usually in the 12-16 range or more.
7. Do not appear fond of gentleman's agreements.

The postulation I make is that the number of games that meet all of these is fairly low as they are fairly specific as well. Indeed, this excludes PFS as well as no PFS games are sandbox OR high powered.

Thus is why in practice the disparity appears in a very small quantity of games.

[Wrath]

It's interesting HWalsh,

My experience wit Pathfinder satisfied most of he criteria you list, and my group still didn't have an issue with caster/martial power.

We played APs though, and there has to be DM decisions in any game because player actions change situations as written. Heck, many spells require DM interpretation as written. What some folks call decision making, others call fiat. That's caused more disagreements than I care to list, unfortunately.

[Steve Geddes]

HWalsh wrote:

The situation is that theory crafters say:

"There is a gross disparity between casters and Martials and this is a serious problem. Martials are less effective and thus less fun to play than Casters."

That is the general argument.

This, if it were true, would have a universal effect. This effect would be a severe lack of players who play Martials.

There is no such lack.

This is an invalid argument (in the sense of formal logic - that is, the conclusion doesn't necessarily follow from the premises).

The most obvious disproof is that, in contrast to what you declare would be "a universal effect", it could be that there are the same number of players playing Martials, they are just having less fun.

[Bluenose]

Steve Geddes wrote:

HWalsh wrote:

The situation is that theory crafters say:

"There is a gross disparity between casters and Martials and this is a serious problem. Martials are less effective and thus less fun to play than Casters."

That is the general argument.

This, if it were true, would have a universal effect. This effect would be a severe lack of players who play Martials.

There is no such lack.

This is an invalid argument (in the sense of formal logic - that is, the conclusion doesn't necessarily follow from the premises).

The most obvious disproof is that, in contrast to what you declare would be "a universal effect", it could be that there are the same number of players playing Martials, they are just having less fun.

It's also an invalid argument until the evidence that there is no lack of players playing non-casters is presented. Until then it's merely an assertion.

Edit: I invite people to look at the characters being played in games in the PbP forum for evidence either way.

[Steve Geddes]

Yeah, it's a poor argument on a number of levels. However, I think that it's useful to remember that often our if-then statements are limited by our own experiences/imagination and that "If X were true, we'd expect to see Y" is a very poor reason to reject something unless we understand X really, really well.

[HWalsh]

Bluenose wrote:

Steve Geddes wrote:

HWalsh wrote:

The situation is that theory crafters say:

"There is a gross disparity between casters and Martials and this is a serious problem. Martials are less effective and thus less fun to play than Casters."

That is the general argument.

This, if it were true, would have a universal effect. This effect would be a severe lack of players who play Martials.

There is no such lack.

This is an invalid argument (in the sense of formal logic - that is, the conclusion doesn't necessarily follow from the premises).

The most obvious disproof is that, in contrast to what you declare would be "a universal effect", it could be that there are the same number of players playing Martials, they are just having less fun.

It's also an invalid argument until the evidence that there is no lack of players playing non-casters is presented. Until then it's merely an assertion.

Edit: I invite people to look at the characters being played in games in the PbP forum for evidence either way.

PbP are forum users and thus are not a viable source of average players. We have to go to PFS numbers or a general poll.

[wraithstrike]

You can't read the devs mind. You can't say for certain that you are right.

All arguments are equally valid.

O.o

[DrDeth]

Jiggy wrote:

Then when somebody says "I know there's a C/MD because [ACTUAL GAMEPLAY]", you reply that their experiences don't matter;

I have seen very few people actually claim that in their games, casters dominate in actual game play.

[Goth Guru]

I have seen casters and martials compete at doing the most damage and causing the most kills. All the way to epic levels and tearing apart the big bad. This was in 3.5. Unless you can make a good case that Pathfinder somehow drastically changed the balance, I still believe that the C/MD statements are all useless.

You should all focus on level affected magic items, feats, how to get more feats, body modification such as tattoos or shape shifting, and other kinds of combat optimization.

[Anzyr]

DrDeth wrote:

Jiggy wrote:

Then when somebody says "I know there's a C/MD because [ACTUAL GAMEPLAY]", you reply that their experiences don't matter;

I have seen very few people actually claim that in their games, casters dominate in actual game play.

Very few?

You've been here long enough to see more then that. I've described several.

Wrath wrote:

It's interesting HWalsh,

My experience wit Pathfinder satisfied most of he criteria you list, and my group still didn't have an issue with caster/martial power.

We played APs though, and there has to be DM decisions in any game because player actions change situations as written. Heck, many spells require DM interpretation as written. What some folks call decision making, others call fiat. That's caused more disagreements than I care to list, unfortunately.

Purely judging from your posts and how you react to spells that poke holes in your examples, I would find the idea that you dislike houserules and fiat to be unlikely to say the least. And considering some of your reactions to high optimization (particularly full caster optimization) I am pretty unconvinced your group "likes a high degree of optimization".

[137ben]

HWalsh wrote:

Forum users are an extreme minority

Got any evidence to back that claim up? You don't know how many forum users there are (since you don't have access to Paizo's server).

No one knows how many total players there are, since there is no way to track it. Paizo, using their private sales data (which you don't have access to), might be able to piece together a rough estimate, but they couldn't pin it down more precisely than an order of magnitude or so (since, for example, one copy of a book can be used by an entire group, some people play without buying anything, Paizo has no records of how many people bought used books, someone who bought the core rules awhile ago may have stopped playing, etc.) You, on the other hand, can't even honestly approximate the total number of players, since you don't have access to Paizo's sales data.
Now, if Paizo or someone with access to Paizo's internal data were to find that their rough approximation for the total number of players was several orders of magnitude larger than their far-more-accurate count of the number of forum users, then it would be pretty strong evidence that forumites were a minority. At present, however, you don't know either of those numbers, so you can't compare them.

You then go on to claim that "most" players think C/M disparity is a myth or "don't see it". You don't offer any evidence to back of this second claim, either, though.

HWalsh wrote:

PbP are forum users and thus are not a viable source of average players. We have to go to PFS numbers or a general poll.

By a "general poll" I assume you mean a random sample of every player. Such a poll is impossible as you lack contact information of every player, and you don't even know how many players there are (no one does).

What professional pollsters use is a stratified poll. In a stratified poll, respondents are asked various questions about their demographics in addition to the main poll questions. The respondents answers are then weighted based on how common people with their demographic profile are according to national census data and other similar sources.

A stratified poll of Pathfinder players is also in possible, though, because their is no national or global census of pathfinder players.
PFS players also don't necessarily represent the typical player base.

So of the polls you suggest, that leaves us with PFS polls. Any such poll, however, is inherently flawed because PFS players are just as much a specific subset of the player base as forum users. Heck, for all you know, the number of PFS players might be far less than the number of forum users (you don't know because both numbers are private).

Even if polls of PFS players were a reliable indicator of the overall player base, it wouldn't actually tell you anything because there aren't any polls of PFS players. Paizo has a complete database of all PFS players. Hence, if they wanted to, Paizo could conduct a poll of PFS players and ask what they thought about various game-balance-related topics. If they have done such a poll, however, the results have not been made public.
You, on the other hand, do not have access to a database of all PFS players, so you can not conduct an unbiased poll of PFS players. Only someone with access to Paizo's internal database could do it, and they have chosen not to do so.

So to summarize, there are no polls of PFS players supporting your claims about what fraction of them think C/M disparity exists, because there are no polls of PFS players at all. There are no polls of "general" PF players supporting your claims because doing such a poll would be impossible. The only subset of pathfinder players who can be polled are forumites, and you have repeatedly asserted that they don't matter.
So you actually have no evidence whatsoever for your claims about what a majority of players think.

[137ben]

Come to think of it, I'd be mildly interested in seeing a comparison between the number of forum users and the number of PFS players. Of course, someone would need to define what time period is being compared. For example, you could compare the total number of people who have made a forum post in the last year (or other arbitrary time period) vs the total number of people who have played a session of PFS in the last year (or the same other arbitrary time period). Or, you could compare the total number of people who have made at least one forum post ever vs the total number of people who have played at least one PFS session.
And by "you", of course, I mean someone with access to Paizo's internal database, since they are the only ones who can determine any of the relevant statistics.

[Matthew Downie]

DrDeth wrote:

I have seen very few people actually claim that in their games, casters dominate in actual game play.

I have seen 45 people claim that casters dominate play except at very low levels, 47 claim that casters dominate play outside of combat, and 23 claim that the game seems balanced between martials and casters. Even if we assume the first two groups are exactly the same people, that's still around two-thirds of forum users who have that problem in actual gameplay.

[TOZ]

DrDeth wrote:

Jiggy wrote:

Then when somebody says "I know there's a C/MD because [ACTUAL GAMEPLAY]", you reply that their experiences don't matter;

I have seen very few people actually claim that in their games, casters dominate in actual game play.

I'm right here.

[Kudaku]

DrDeth wrote:

Jiggy wrote:

Then when somebody says "I know there's a C/MD because [ACTUAL GAMEPLAY]", you reply that their experiences don't matter;

I have seen very few people actually claim that in their games, casters dominate in actual game play.

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2s0y7&page=2?So-Ive-got-a-person-who-thinks #77 wrote:

*Waves*

[Orthos]

TOZ wrote:

DrDeth wrote:

Jiggy wrote:

Then when somebody says "I know there's a C/MD because [ACTUAL GAMEPLAY]", you reply that their experiences don't matter;

I have seen very few people actually claim that in their games, casters dominate in actual game play.

I'm right here.

Me too. Sup.

[N. Jolly]

Orthos wrote:

TOZ wrote:

DrDeth wrote:

Jiggy wrote:

Then when somebody says "I know there's a C/MD because [ACTUAL GAMEPLAY]", you reply that their experiences don't matter;

I have seen very few people actually claim that in their games, casters dominate in actual game play.

I'm right here.

Me too. Sup.

Yo, add me to the list.

[necromental]

N. Jolly wrote:

Orthos wrote:

TOZ wrote:

DrDeth wrote:

Jiggy wrote:

Then when somebody says "I know there's a C/MD because [ACTUAL GAMEPLAY]", you reply that their experiences don't matter;

I have seen very few people actually claim that in their games, casters dominate in actual game play.

I'm right here.

Me too. Sup.

Yo, add me to the list.

You have my bow an' axe, 'cause don't cast no stinkin' spells!

[houstonderek]

TOZ wrote:

DrDeth wrote:

Jiggy wrote:

Then when somebody says "I know there's a C/MD because [ACTUAL GAMEPLAY]", you reply that their experiences don't matter;

I have seen very few people actually claim that in their games, casters dominate in actual game play.

I'm right here.

Yep. The few times my wizard ever bothered to actually cast a spell (which would take time from complaining about everything), stuff got resolved pretty quickly. My method of "balancing" the party was deciding a bunch of stuff wasn't worth the effort to help with. ;-)

[TriOmegaZero]

Ah, good times.

[Jiggy]

necromental wrote:

N. Jolly wrote:

Orthos wrote:

TOZ wrote:

DrDeth wrote:

Jiggy wrote:

Then when somebody says "I know there's a C/MD because [ACTUAL GAMEPLAY]", you reply that their experiences don't matter;

I have seen very few people actually claim that in their games, casters dominate in actual game play.

I'm right here.

Me too. Sup.

Yo, add me to the list.

You have my bow an' axe, 'cause don't cast no stinkin' spells!

DrDeth, should we add to this list the 15-20 people from when you made a thread specifically asking for gameplay experiences, or were they already counted in the "very few" you were talking about?

[HyperMissingno]

Not only is there C/MD, there's divine/arcane disparity, spontaneous/prepared disparity, witch/spellbook user disparity, archer/melee disparity, don't even get me started on the animal/dinosaur disparity!

[knightnday]

Jiggy wrote:

necromental wrote:

N. Jolly wrote:

Orthos wrote:

TOZ wrote:

DrDeth wrote:

Jiggy wrote:

Then when somebody says "I know there's a C/MD because [ACTUAL GAMEPLAY]", you reply that their experiences don't matter;

I have seen very few people actually claim that in their games, casters dominate in actual game play.

I'm right here.

Me too. Sup.

Yo, add me to the list.

You have my bow an' axe, 'cause don't cast no stinkin' spells!

DrDeth, should we add to this list the 15-20 people from when you made a thread specifically asking for gameplay experiences, or were they already counted in the "very few" you were talking about?

I've run across it as well, across the years and states I've played in.

[Mark Hoover]

Wait, are you saying there's a caster/martial disparity? I'd never heard that on these boards. Do tell.

[Goth Guru]

I've played both casters and martials and I say there is no real disparity. (This is based on 3.5. I'm still waiting to hear from anyone about a difference in Pathfinder)

[TOZ]

Oh. Those were serious statements. Not examples for the OP. My mistake.

[Scythia]

knightnday wrote:

Jiggy wrote:

necromental wrote:

N. Jolly wrote:

Orthos wrote:

TOZ wrote:

DrDeth wrote:

Jiggy wrote:

Then when somebody says "I know there's a C/MD because [ACTUAL GAMEPLAY]", you reply that their experiences don't matter;

I have seen very few people actually claim that in their games, casters dominate in actual game play.

I'm right here.

Me too. Sup.

Yo, add me to the list.

You have my bow an' axe, 'cause don't cast no stinkin' spells!

DrDeth, should we add to this list the 15-20 people from when you made a thread specifically asking for gameplay experiences, or were they already counted in the "very few" you were talking about?

I've run across it as well, across the years and states I've played in.

Another.

Had a player with a large Titan Mauler Barbarian with a huge great sword that got fireball sized damage dice with every swing, but he still looked like a chump when the sorcerer figured out how to bypass encounters entirely with a spell or two.

[Jiggy]

Goth Guru wrote:

I've played both casters and martials and I say there is no real disparity. (This is based on 3.5. I'm still waiting to hear from anyone about a difference in Pathfinder)

You know, DrDeth isn't the only one allowed to click on my link a few posts up. Plenty of examples to be found there.

[Ithsay the Unseen]

Wait, wait; is another head of the C/MD hydra really cropping up here? Let's not feed it, maybe it'll go away.

[memorax]

I have run into it as well.

Not so much a statement. So much as not being able to really explain away martial/caster disparity. A posters who does not believe the disparity exist. Goes into a thread to prove it. Fails miserably imo. Then tries to hide behind the victim card. As more often than not those like myself who do believe the disparity exist pretty much have proven it does.

Just once I would like to see the no disparity side side defend their position without:

-Blaming the DM and players

-Without making casters or those who run them play them like idiots. No offence unless the npc and player has no clue how to use magic. Your fighter is not going to causally stroll up to a wizard and catch him unawares. Even then it's not a easy thing to do and npc and pc have many options to overcome being surprised. Unless the caster is feeebleminded he won't be flying or standing out in the open without at least casting vanish in or out of combat.

-Stop downplaying the effectiveness of magic. That Tower your Fighter is trying to sneak in. Has good chances of having Guards and Wars cast on it. If not at the very least a Alarm spell cast on all the doors.

[RDM42]

memorax wrote:

Here another one "if a flaw in rpg does not happen at a posters gaming table it does not exist". Usually brought up when martial/caster disparity discussions are had on forums. Only to find out that their a gentleman agreement amongst casters and fighters at tables. To not use their abilities to the fullest to make sure a class does not get overshadowed. Or the DM uses 3pp.

Conversely 'if it is a problem at my table it must be one universally' is also false.

[Goth Guru]

memorax wrote:

I have run into it as well.

Not so much a statement. So much as not being able to really explain away martial/caster disparity. A posters who does not believe the disparity exist. Goes into a thread to prove it. Fails miserably imo. Then tries to hide behind the victim card. As more often than not those like myself who do believe the disparity exist pretty much have proven it does.

Just once I would like to see the no disparity side side defend their position without:

-Blaming the DM and players

-Without making casters or those who run them play them like idiots. No offence unless the npc and player has no clue how to use magic. Your fighter is not going to causally stroll up to a wizard and catch him unawares. Even then it's not a easy thing to do and npc and pc have many options to overcome being surprised. Unless the caster is feeebleminded he won't be flying or standing out in the open without at least casting vanish in or out of combat.

-Stop downplaying the effectiveness of magic. That Tower your Fighter is trying to sneak in. Has good chances of having Guards and Wars cast on it. If not at the very least a Alarm spell cast on all the doors.

I did none of those things.

[memorax]

Goth Guru wrote:

I did none of those things.

Well you did not. But almost every time if not every time a martial/ caster disparity thread is started. The no disparity side usually does the same thing.

Say their no problem as long as players who use casters underplay their characters. Or a problem does not exist because before the game started everyone at the table and possibly even the DM agreed to a gentlemens agreement where players would downplay their characters so that players running fighters can shine.

Assume the DM is a complete incompatent who does not know how to run the game. Or the players running the casters are powergamers if they run a caster properly.

Magic at least in this game in the hands of of even a inexperienced player can wreck encounters or just too damn effective imo. So they usually use examples where a caster simply walks into a fight with no magic cast ahead of time. A fighter is simply going to stroll into a completely unprotected wizards tower. No guards and wards. Not even a alarm spell cast on the main bedroom of the wizard.

Go out of their way to nerf spells such as Commune, Contact Other Plane and similar such spells. Using the rationale that a god does not have to answer the person using such spells. All well and good. Too bad the spells don't work that way. now if I was running a cleric of Erastil. Who went around burning forest and salting farmland. I could see my god denying my character answers. When I do the opposite I don't see why those spells would fail to work.

Or worse come out with some strange contrived reason. Sorry you can't use Simulacrum as creating one is "slavery". Sure if it said that in the text. Where the main setting slavery is legal in some place.

So maybe not every person says that but I would hazard a guess of 90%+ we get the above reasons as to why their no disparity in the gam.e

[Digitalelf]

memorax wrote:

I don't see why those spells would fail to work.

As a player, and not the DM/GM, I would not expect a player to see why any given spell would not work as expected. But it IS 100% within the purview of the DM/GM to have spells simply not work. There should be a reason as to why (other than the DM/GM being vindictive or what have you), but that reason does NOT need to be known by the players...

[memorax]

Digitalelf wrote:

As a player, and not the DM/GM, I would not expect a player to see why any given spell would not work as expected. But it IS 100% within the purview of the DM/GM to have spells simply not work. There should be a reason as to why (other than the DM/GM being vindictive or what have you), but that reason does NOT need to be known by the players...

That's BS imo. If it says the spell may fail in the description sure. If Commune always keeps failing because the DM does not want it to myself and other players are going to notice. The DM is allowed to do many things at the table. DM or no being a dick is not one of them. Either tell me upfront that some spells that usually don't fail have been houseruled to fail. Dropping it out of the blue is poor DMing imo.

[Wrath]

Anzyr wrote:

DrDeth wrote:

Jiggy wrote:

Then when somebody says "I know there's a C/MD because [ACTUAL GAMEPLAY]", you reply that their experiences don't matter;

I have seen very few people actually claim that in their games, casters dominate in actual game play.

Very few?

You've been here long enough to see more then that. I've described several.

Wrath wrote:

It's interesting HWalsh,

My experience wit Pathfinder satisfied most of he criteria you list, and my group still didn't have an issue with caster/martial power.

We played APs though, and there has to be DM decisions in any game because player actions change situations as written. Heck, many spells require DM interpretation as written. What some folks call decision making, others call fiat. That's caused more disagreements than I care to list, unfortunately.

Purely judging from your posts and how you react to spells that poke holes in your examples, I would find the idea that you dislike houserules and fiat to be unlikely to say the least. And considering some of your reactions to high optimization (particularly full caster optimization) I am pretty unconvinced your group "likes a high degree of optimization".

Most of the spells you use to "poke holes in arguments" require amazingly lenient DM calls.

And when you dump a stat in games we play, we are happily able to use that against you.

You play easy mode Anzyr.

I'll happily admit people see a problem in their games. The difference comes down to what they accept as why it happens. Seems like a group have an issue with it, and another group don't. The Devs aren't changing too much (although they released unchained as a way to help some folk find answers). Which means they are happy with how it runs and how their APs sell and how the game works when played to the design parameters.

Play out side the parameter and you need to make parameter changes to get a balanced feel.

So, to clarify my statement. My players optimise hard within the parameters set by the games we play. I run APs, 15 point buy, but my players have learned to not dump stats into the ridiculous lows because NPCs react accordingly. There's a group of players who think that's cheating though. Meh, that same group think anything that doesn't match their exact view of the game are wrong and cheating.

You happen to fall into that group unfortunately, which is why our posts never seem to agree. You call it "expert mode" I call it "easy mode". Different expectations from the same game.

[Digitalelf]

memorax wrote:

That's BS imo. If it says the spell may fail in the description sure.

Spells can and cannot do anything that the game requires them to do or not do, regardless of what the spell's description says. And sure, if it is going to be a permanent houseruled change, then the DM/GM should by all means inform the players that spells do not function as per the RAW.

However, my comment was specific only to that happening every once in a while, and that the DM should indeed have a reason for that, but the DM does not have to inform the players of that reason, since the spell not working would be a mystery in this case, and not something that the player's character would know (and perhaps something the character may not even be able to find out at all).

memorax wrote:

If Commune always keeps failing because the DM does not want it to myself and other players are going to notice. The DM is allowed to do many things at the table. DM or no being a dick is not one of them.

While definitely not advisable, technically, the DM IS allowed to be a phallic symbol all he wants... ;-)

But like I said, if, to use your example, Commune always fails, then yes, the DM should be up front about such a change to the rules.

memorax wrote:

Dropping it out of the blue is poor DMing imo.

If the DM is doing so just to stop a player from using an ability he did not account for or simply does not like or is inconvenient to him, then I'd agree.

But there are times when a DM does things behind the scenes, which from the player's POV may seem like "out of the blue", but are very much planned and calculated decisions, and as much as the player might want to know what's going on, the DM is under no obligation to reveal the how's and the why's of his campaign until the time is right or the characters are able to figure it out in game.

[Rhedyn]

Scythia wrote:

knightnday wrote:

Jiggy wrote:

necromental wrote:

N. Jolly wrote:

Orthos wrote:

TOZ wrote:

DrDeth wrote:

Jiggy wrote:

Then when somebody says "I know there's a C/MD because [ACTUAL GAMEPLAY]", you reply that their experiences don't matter;

I have seen very few people actually claim that in their games, casters dominate in actual game play.

I'm right here.

Me too. Sup.

Yo, add me to the list.

You have my bow an' axe, 'cause don't cast no stinkin' spells!

DrDeth, should we add to this list the 15-20 people from when you made a thread specifically asking for gameplay experiences, or were they already counted in the "very few" you were talking about?

I've run across it as well, across the years and states I've played in.

Another.

Had a player with a large Titan Mauler Barbarian with a huge great sword that got fireball sized damage dice with every swing, but he still looked like a chump when the sorcerer figured out how to bypass encounters entirely with a spell or two.

casters dominate in our pathfinder games.

Martial in our games is someone with 6th casting. Anything less is just a liability.

We rarely play buffinder anymore.

[memorax]

Digitalelf wrote:

But there are times when a DM does things behind the scenes, which from the player's POV may seem like "out of the blue", but are very much planned and calculated decisions, and as much as the player might want to know what's going on, the DM is under no obligation to reveal the how's and the why's of his campaign until the time is right or the characters are able to figure it out in game.

A DM should inform his or her players that he might throw a monkey wrench in the works. Just changing stuff without any warning just seems like a poor way to DM imo.

[thejeff]

memorax wrote:

Digitalelf wrote:

But there are times when a DM does things behind the scenes, which from the player's POV may seem like "out of the blue", but are very much planned and calculated decisions, and as much as the player might want to know what's going on, the DM is under no obligation to reveal the how's and the why's of his campaign until the time is right or the characters are able to figure it out in game.

A DM should inform his or her players that he might throw a monkey wrench in the works. Just changing stuff without any warning just seems like a poor way to DM imo.

Upfront warning: I might throw a monkey wrench in the works. Not everything will go your way. Not everything will work the way you expect it too. There will be a reason when it doesn't.

There. Done.

Honestly seems like basic expectations to me, but what do I know.