Quote from: Abyssal Maw;367962The "standard array" method used in 4th was actually introduced in a 3.0 book (Savage Species).

Another interesting precedent (though not nearly quite as close) to the standard array were the tables in 2e Complete Paladin's Handbook. It was so damn hard to get a 17 in CHA (not to mention the odds if you rolled in order) that the Complete offered a 1d10 table with different arrays, all of which met the minimum requirement of the class but fluctuated quite a bit as far as the rest of the stats were concerned.

And I like that. Such a table doesn't keep the whole craziness that's so awesome about 3d6, but it keeps some randomness - while letting you play the class you want and giving you viable stats for that. In a sense, a middle-of-the-road approach to 4E would be to give people the optimized stats for the 2-3 abilities their build requires, and let them roll 3d6 for the rest. What do you think?

PS. I fixed a typo in my post above. I meant 'stealth errata', not 'stealth nerf', as far as certain feats (which increase the attack bonuses and those which let you change out which ability your attacks work on) are concerned.

Quote from: Windjammer;367980It was so damn hard to get a 17 in CHA (not to mention the odds if you rolled in order) that the Complete offered a 1d10 table with different arrays, all of which met the minimum requirement of the class but fluctuated quite a bit as far as the rest of the stats were concerned.

But of course, that was exactly the point.  It was really damn hard to roll up a paladin, which is why they had a raft of near super powers.  Same with a monk.  They were intended to be very rare participants.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;367955Dwarves can use greatswords in 4E.

I wasn't talking about 4e, I was talking about Dungeons and Dragons.

QuoteWell- dwarves who throw everything they have into strength are less strong than another race that chooses to throw everything into strength. But dwarves make up for it in constitution, durability, the sturdy second wind, their ability to stand their ground. Strength is definitely important for a fighter- but there's more than a few options for a dwarf.  

They only make up for it with those racial abilities if you believe the races are fundamentally unbalanced. Other races get racial benefits, too. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the programmers didn't totally screw up racial balance in general (certainly many specific cases where they did), so that you can't call up dwarven racial traits and assume they're a magic bullet for the obvious inferiority, while simultaneously ignoring all other racial traits that the other races get.

Again, there's a mathematics issue you're missing, they're still objectively inferior. You can either choose to be inferior, or not. My players, always, choose not, and I'm really under the impression they're the majority. If everyone chose to be inferior, it wouldn't be noticeable, of course, but that's not how most (I conjecture) players play the game.

QuoteSome of you might be familiar with Matt James of Loremaster (and he posts every once in a while at criticalhits.com)-- his main character is an unstoppable dwarven fighter based around the invigorating powers--

And those invigorating powers were classic math failure by the design team (didn't they get nerfed in like the first patch after it came out?). Much like with the warlock's temp hit points, they just didn't realize how a constant flow of hit points makes characters invulnerable.

Quote( There was a moment at the Battle Interactive at DDXP where adventurers across all of the tables could sacrifice some of their life force to fuel a ritual- (the Battle Interactive is like a massive D&D event with 200+ adventurers fighting at once in the same adventure, sort of like a mass battle- the individual tables of 4-6 players are like 'squads')- when the main DM called out "Did anyone sacrifice.. 5 or more healing surges..?" it was only Matt James who jumped up and shouted "yeah!!" and I knew exactly what character he was playing at that moment.

Yeah, the broken healing surge mechanic is another thing I need to figure out a fix for, but your story brings us back to the point:

If you add house rules like using surges to power a special one-time ritual, then, maybe, you could, for purposes of that one ritual on that one house rule that one time that comes up, 'balance' the dwarf to be viable as a fighter.

But, I'm looking for house rules that are generally useful.

My optimization-crazy friend at DDXP actually had a spiel he would do "1,125,000 gold pieces.. does that sound like a lot of gold to you? That's the difference between a +5 and +6 weapon.. so don't tell ME how unimportant optimization is..!"

I think it's an illusion.

What you see as math, I am looking at as a matter of style.

The fighter job itself isn't merely a matter of laying on tons of damage...(for certain builds, Great Weapon maybe?, but not for all of them). You want to do damage as a martial dwarf? Choose barbarian. Choose a ruffian build rogue with Deadly Hammer as a feat (you can sneak attack with that warhammer!).  Being a fighter is much more about taking damage than dealing it, and dwarven fighters do it better than most.

 Not that I'm arguing for balance...

Quote from: Doom;367990Yeah, the broken healing surge mechanic is another thing I need to figure out a fix for, but your story brings us back to the point:

If you add house rules like using surges to power a special one-time ritual, then, maybe, you could, for purposes of that one ritual on that one house rule that one time that comes up, 'balance' the dwarf to be viable as a fighter.

But, I'm looking for house rules that are generally useful.

"If you can fix it, it isn't broken"

Quote from: StormBringer;367985But of course, that was exactly the point.  It was really damn hard to roll up a paladin, which is why they had a raft of near super powers.  Same with a monk.  They were intended to be very rare participants.

Going back to the original thread title, the play expectation is actually very different between the 2 games.  I like to see the Houserulings for the 4E games, since I actually perceive houseruling as one of the healthiest part of the process.

But the expectations of the two games are very different, in terms of power gain, in terms of lethality, in terms of rarity of certain character types, and as I have mentioned before, in the power level compared to the 'average person' in the world.  
Not a value judgement, just noting a difference.

I'm just waiting for the cognitive dissonance when the haters that previously had been arguing strenuously against balance decide to suddenly reverse course and argue that all of the races should be balanced or else they are broken...

Oh wait. Has that already happened?

Yeah, I'm just not seeing any real issue with dwarves in 4e D&D, and they are my favorite fantasy race.  I have four dwarven fighter characters (1st, 5th, 8th, and 23rd), and haven't experienced any issues of being less effective than other fighter characters of a different race.  If you want a dwarf fighter that is strong, then you put your highest ability score into Strength.

Quote from: Sigmund;367901I'd love to see you instead discuss how they work for you and what you like about them, but I'm not gonna hold my breath.

Now that I've played and run 4e, I considered discussing my thoughts about 4e, what I wanted out of it, what I liked and didn't, et al., but then the reality of RPGSite hit me: You can't discuss 4e here in a neutral or positive way without someone coming along to have a shit on the thread and you. As you're among the group that does so, yeah, I wouldn't hold my breath.

Seanchai

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;367997I'm just waiting for the cognitive dissonance when the haters that previously had been arguing strenuously against balance decide to suddenly reverse course and argue that all of the races should be balanced or else they are broken...

Oh wait. Has that already happened?

1. There with those unhelpful ad hominems again and your hater meme when the thread was entirely clear of them for a moment. Is it that hard to shelve this stuff?

2. I don't think you understood the topic. It's not that certain races are 'broken' i.e. (way) more powerful than others. It's rather that the game has a couple of restrictions on race+class combos in place, if you grant the point that certain players*  will want to have rather good stats for the abilities their class build targets. It'd be nice to open up these restrictions, as in the 3.0 slogan 'Options, not restrictions'. No one, e.g., is interested in balancing the goodies that the races give beyond their ability modifications, yet this is exactly the area where 4E -rightly- puts all the flavour on the races (and where it helps you to flesh out and build on your racial choice with extra feats). So even if we wanted all races to give the same (free) ability bonuses, that's a far cry from wanting to equalize all races mechanically or somesuch.  - As to the meta-question why one would want that, I think Stormbringer has incidentally brought up the answer. Unlike earlier editions where the higher power level of certain classes was 'balanced' by the rarity of rolling up stats that would qualify you for picking that class, 4E classes (and races!) as written are already carefully balanced. If so, then there's no inherent design reason to make some race+class combos rarer than others. So it's not that balancing things out is suddenly a good design decision for everyone here (for me it's neither here nor there - I'm fine with balance and the lack thereof), it's rather that if you design (and like to play) a game around balancing classes and races then carry that design through and open up the race+class combos as much as you can. To repeat, it's not about balance, it's about promoting more options.

3. I really don't see how that's a criticism of the game. It's a proposal to do things differently, and I thought some of us already decided that that would be a good, constructive topic to be discussed here. In that vein, I'd like to repeat my question: what do you think of my proposal above to use a 'middle of the road' approach for 2-3 optimized stats and rolling the rest 3d6 in order?

* Mind you, not necessarily me or you, but people we've played with or met. It's a genuine if, I'm aware that you don't personally grant it.

Quote from: Windjammer;3680073. I really don't see how that's a criticism of the game. It's a proposal to do things differently, and I thought some of us already decided that that would be a good, constructive topic to be discussed here. In that vein, I'd like to repeat my question: what do you think of my proposal above to use a 'middle of the road' approach for 2-3 optimized stats and rolling the rest 3d6 in order?

* Mind you, not necessarily me or you, but people we've played with or met. It's a genuine if, I'm aware that you don't personally grant it.

I know, I'm just snarky.

I like your idea of 2-3 balanced stats and randomizing the others in order. Hmm. It kinda reminds me of the additional methods from AD&D (that appear in Unearth Arcana 1e).

Quote from: Windjammer;3680072. I don't think you understood the topic. It's not that certain races are 'broken' i.e. (way) more powerful than others. It's rather that the game has a couple of restrictions on race+class combos in place, if you grant the point that certain players*  will want to have rather good stats for the abilities their class build targets.

[/snip]

* Mind you, not necessarily me or you, but people we've played with or met. It's a genuine if, I'm aware that you don't personally grant it.

I understand this, and I'm still not seeing the issue with dwarves and the fighter class.  The two ability scores that dwarves receive the racial bonus are Constitution and Wisdom.  The key abilities listed for the fighter class are Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom, and Constitution.  The dwarven racial bonus to ability scores overlaps with two of the four recommended ability scores for the fighter class.

Dwarfs in 4E get a bonus to Wisdom? What's the reasoning behind that? :confused:

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;367997I'm just waiting for the cognitive dissonance when the haters that previously had been arguing strenuously against balance decide to suddenly reverse course and argue that all of the races should be balanced or else they are broken...

Oh wait. Has that already happened?

Quote from: Windjammer;3680071. There with those unhelpful ad hominems again and your hater meme when the thread was entirely clear of them for a moment. Is it that hard to shelve this stuff?

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;368017I know, I'm just snarky.

Just laying it bare for all to see.

Quote from: T. Foster;368030Dwarfs in 4E get a bonus to Wisdom? What's the reasoning behind that? :confused:

They're like... super small, see? So they got to think real fast when to jump and headbutt people and when... not to. And they got lots of training drinking beer too and trying to appear sort of reasonable when drunk. That helps too. "Control, Luke. You must learn Control!"