I'm agreeing with you, but was the issue that the cleric didn't want to heal? Healing isn't that reliant on stats, it's more of a paying attention and be a team player kind of thing. Sucking in battle is infinitely forgiveable, especially for a utility type character.. but healing is kind of important. (I  know hybrid healers only get the one heal per encounter, but still, it's better than nothing).

The same with dubious tactical choices if they are deliberate-- is it a roleplaying thing, or is it "one player is off in his own world" kind of thing. Here's two examples from my recent experience.

I've been in a recent game where my (wild elf) invoker was suffering from a fugue state that caused her to go back and forth between her past and her present- and in her past, before she found her divine spirit.. she would never do things like wear heavy armor. So I was having her strip off her armor.. even cast aside her holy symbol- the characters past was primal and spiritual- a huntress, not the divine and judgmental "born to reap the wicked" archon she had become.

So here I was stripping off my armor before combat, and looking for my bow that I had dropped back when I was 1st level. I did this even though we were fighting fire monsters and my chainmail had an ability to put up some fire resistance. So I was easier to hit by a factor of about 6-- so what? I was still in the game.
 
But here's another example that annoyed me:

When Monster Manual 2 came out, I ran a gameday event, and there's an encounter with rust monsters. The player of the character in platemail (note that this is a oneshot adventure, not connected to any continuity or campaign) decides it would be funny to simply run away comically, abandoning the other PCs to their fate.

So the group got to fight at like half strength while one player sat out the encounter, and I was tempted not to let him back in. Once the remaining players finally got through that part, they advanced further into the adventure and I had the guy come wandering back in, but to me that was just lame.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;368218I'm agreeing with you, but was the issue that the cleric didn't want to heal?

It's more like, they're storming the castle and he's staying outside to control the ballista he's proficient with and fire at anything that comes running and screaming out of the front gate. He's an evil gnome, with the Dark Knight "some people just watch this world burn" tagline written all over his character concept. In short, he's not really serving his tactical role as a heal-bot every every time he should from a WoW point of view. (Also, beware, this is D&D 3.5 - we're not playing 4E hybrids...yet!)

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;368218The same with dubious tactical choices if they are deliberate-- is it a roleplaying thing, or is it "one player is off in his own world" kind of thing.

Interesting dichotomy. Look at the example I gave - I (the DM) and the player would say it's the former, the WoW guy stigmatized it as the latter.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;368218When Monster Manual 2 came out, I ran a gameday event, and there's an encounter with rust monsters. The player of the character in platemail (note that this is a oneshot adventure, not connected to any continuity or campaign) decides it would be funny to simply run away comically, abandoning the other PCs to their fate.

So the group got to fight at like half strength while one player sat out the encounter, and I was tempted not to let him back in. Once the remaining players finally got through that part, they advanced further into the adventure and I had the guy come wandering back in, but to me that was just lame.

Haha, now that's funny. I'm sorry, but players like this only bring out my devious-asshole-DM hat.

So you know what I'd have done? Have filled the rustmonster's belly with an ass ton of residuum, and then the next encounter (after the raft) with the dead spirits from Nerath who're basically BUILT of residuum (they suck it up, or so the mod says) ... I would have made them into a MASSIVE DISCOUNT MAGICAL GEAR RETAIL CHAIN  - NEAR YOU! 'xcept they only trade in residuum, sorry gp not accepted. As in, 'man, that's not Nerath currency, is it?'. Note that this is only a slight exaggeration of how the module officially describes those spirits.

Then close the mod with the massive orc encounter by having the orcs being super hesitant over attacking guys wearing 'Nerath gear' out of superstition - and instead gang up on that pal in the shiny new plate armour. I'd also have pulled out my Low grovelling voice TM, with the orcs saying 'is that cowardly fear I can sniff, knighty boy?`.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;368193This often happens if you get in an "arms race" with the players- they have "no problem" fighting monsters around their own encounter level.. so you bump it up..and they adjust, and you bump again, and they adjust again.. until you have a group of characters fighting stuff right at the limit of what a completely optimized character can handle.

So when the new guy comes in, of course he can't hit anything. He could be rolling 18 and 19 on the dice and still not hit. But that's because he's so far out of his league.

I already have the t-shirt for this one. 'Course, I build non-optimized characters almost as a default.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;368193When you run into this problem, the first thing I would do is a side by side comparison of a non-optimized character.. and a monster of the same level, and just look at what he needs to hit the defenses. If that number is consistently 17 or higher, there's a problem with the players build. But if it isn't, the DM should look at how he puts together his encounters.

My solution is not to get into the arms race. As a DM, don't bump up the encounters. As a player, don't build over optimized characters.

Seanchai

Quote from: Peregrin;368184Fixed that for you, because I'm clueless

Fixed that for you, since the judges clearly docked her points for every fall, and nobody, nowhere, said the judges were unfair in doing so.

Quote from: Doom;368285Fixed that for you, since the judges clearly docked her points for every fall, and nobody, nowhere, said the judges were unfair in doing so.

Except that a role playing game has nothing, nothing to do with a competition where players would receive points from judges according to the way their characters succeed or fail at the task at hand.

It's nonsense.

Quote from: Windjammer;368197That said, I'm not strong in the analysis area, so if the above calculations contain errors, I'll gladly stand corrected. As I said initially, I'd like to see your math.

tl; dr. You're going the wrong direction with all that. What you're missing is the numbers just get bigger as characters level, it doesn't matter that it's +38 as opposed to +39, or +6 as opposed to +7.

Let's take a scenario against a monster with a good ac, so that an 'optimized' fighter needs a 12 to hit, 45% chance. (I don't really care about the scenarios where the characters are fighting crap monsters anyone can beat at any time, nobody designs their hero around such a scenario.)

The dwarven fighter will need a 13 to hit, a 40% chance.

In this case, the good fighter doesn't hit 5% more often, he hits 12.5% more often, AND he's going to deal more damage, too.

(If you want to think of this as low level characters fighting hobgoblins, or medium level characters fighting yuan-ti soldiers, or whatever, you can...but the actual + is irrelevant.)

Hitting more often and dealing more damage is almost universally considered a positive thing, especially in a class called 'fighter'.

A typical easy combat entails 20 swings (factoring in burst, opportunities, etc), so that  measly +1 now adds up to one more hit...rather a big deal if it's a big hit, and he's hitting harder than the dwarf, also.

('big hit' is an important detail, by the way...the dwarf isn't just weaker on his at-wills, he's weaker at everything, which means he's more likely to miss with dailies, too)

Minimum, that one hit easily represents 1/5 of a monter not destroyed that should have been (more than that, since dwarf is dealing less damage, too); if the whole party of five is messed up like this, it basically means every encounter they have to deal with 1 extra monster than the 'normal' party...basically have to add 20% or more to the length of each fight...basically taking 20% more damage (actually more, but I'm keeping this short),  definitely earning less experience in the same amount of time, and probably spending more of their treasure to pay for the extra damage they take if any of it is serious.

Obviously, some folks like taking more damage and progressing more slowly for less rewards....but these players are easily satisfied. I, and lots of folks, prefer a game that allows players that think about the rules to have some actual choices in character building.

What's funny about this, is of all the things fundamentally broken about 4e, this is the one that I have a fix for (via floating ability mods)...no suggestions on the other broken aspects at all?

Quote from: Benoist;368286Except that a role playing game has nothing, nothing to do with a competition where players would receive points from judges according to the way their characters succeed or fail at the task at hand.

It's nonsense.

I suppose, much like math, it's all just a matter of opinion, but, next game, institute a house rule where 'everyone misses all the time', and see for yourself how much fun that is.

Quote from: Doom;368292What you're missing is the numbers just get bigger as characters level, it doesn't matter that it's +38 as opposed to +39, or +6 as opposed to +7.

Exactly how do 'the numbers just get bigger as characters level' since the difference is relative?  

Quote from: Doom;368292Let's take a scenario against a monster with a good ac, so that an 'optimized' fighter needs a 12 to hit, 45% chance. (I don't really care about the scenarios where the characters are fighting crap monsters anyone can beat at any time, nobody designs their hero around such a scenario.)

The dwarven fighter will need a 13 to hit, a 40% chance.

In this case, the good fighter doesn't hit 5% more often, he hits 12.5% more often, AND he's going to deal more damage, too.

I'm having a hard time trying to follow your logic and math here.  Rolling a 12 or less on a d20 is a 60% chance not a 45% chance.  Rolling a 13 or less on a d20 is a 65% chance and not a 40% chance.  I just don't understand the part about a 'good fighter' not having a relative 5% more chance to hit more often, and where you get the number of the 'good fighter' hitting 12.5% more often.

The difference between an optimized dwarf fighter and an optimized fighter (race with +2 STR bonus) is relatively +1 (5%).  The +2 racial bonus to STR translates into an ability score modifier difference of +1, or 5%.  Since attack bonuses, damage, and armor class scale with level, the difference is relative and stays at a static +1 or 5% difference.

However, I am no math whiz by any means so maybe there is a method to your madness.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;368218I'm agreeing with you, but was the issue that the cleric didn't want to heal? Healing isn't that reliant on stats, it's more of a paying attention and be a team player kind of thing. Sucking in battle is infinitely forgiveable, especially for a utility type character.. but healing is kind of important. (I  know hybrid healers only get the one heal per encounter, but still, it's better than nothing).

The same with dubious tactical choices if they are deliberate-- is it a roleplaying thing, or is it "one player is off in his own world" kind of thing. Here's two examples from my recent experience.

I've been in a recent game where my (wild elf) invoker was suffering from a fugue state that caused her to go back and forth between her past and her present- and in her past, before she found her divine spirit.. she would never do things like wear heavy armor. So I was having her strip off her armor.. even cast aside her holy symbol- the characters past was primal and spiritual- a huntress, not the divine and judgmental "born to reap the wicked" archon she had become.

So here I was stripping off my armor before combat, and looking for my bow that I had dropped back when I was 1st level. I did this even though we were fighting fire monsters and my chainmail had an ability to put up some fire resistance. So I was easier to hit by a factor of about 6-- so what? I was still in the game.
 
But here's another example that annoyed me:

When Monster Manual 2 came out, I ran a gameday event, and there's an encounter with rust monsters. The player of the character in platemail (note that this is a oneshot adventure, not connected to any continuity or campaign) decides it would be funny to simply run away comically, abandoning the other PCs to their fate.

So the group got to fight at like half strength while one player sat out the encounter, and I was tempted not to let him back in. Once the remaining players finally got through that part, they advanced further into the adventure and I had the guy come wandering back in, but to me that was just lame.

I guess it does depend on what everyone expects. I have played plenty of clerics that don't have heal spells at all. Why would a god of numbers have healing spells? etc but that was fine because the table expected it and I had plenty of other tricks to make up for it.

There is another thing though what if you don't want your PC to be a tactical genius. What if you are roleplaying someone that makes suboptimal choices. The guy in the platemail that ran away could be playing a coward. The Guy that listens to the carefully crafted plan and the party leader telling him to flank from the left and take out the enemy wizard but then just plought straight down the middle and engages the ogre. When asked the player says yeah I understood the plan but Thrud here has 8 int and 7 wisdom.... so what can I say. Again depends on the group. My guys woudl never, never pick on a guy for being crap but I can see if its some LRF tournament thingie...

And characters that make sub-optimal choices can feel much more real. Some of the charcters in my current Amber campaign are liek this and it's great

Quote from: Doom;368295

Quote from: Benoist;368286Except that a role playing game has nothing, nothing to do with a competition where players would receive points from judges according to the way their characters succeed or fail at the task at hand.

It's nonsense.

I suppose, much like math, it's all just a matter of opinion, but, next game, institute a house rule where 'everyone misses all the time', and see for yourself how much fun that is.

Er. Ok. The one-liner is fun and all, but I just fail to see how that's relevant.
Try again. Please. For the mentally challenged among us.

Or... I could institute a houserule where everyone succeeds all the time and see where that leads, me, too?
That must be a lot of fun!

Quote from: Doom;368292tl; dr. You're going the wrong direction with all that. What you're missing is the numbers just get bigger as characters level, it doesn't matter that it's +38 as opposed to +39, or +6 as opposed to +7.

Let's take a scenario against a monster with a good ac, so that an 'optimized' fighter needs a 12 to hit, 45% chance. (I don't really care about the scenarios where the characters are fighting crap monsters anyone can beat at any time, nobody designs their hero around such a scenario.)

No, I mean, there's a leveling system for monsters. Your'e DMing, right? Those aren't "crap monsters" -- those are (I suspect..) the appropriately leveled challenges that you should be using, at least if you expect the party to be able to battle them. I personally have nothing against putting Umber Hulks and Neogi up against a level 1 party, but I am being realistic about the party's ability to fight such creatures. ie- It's not going to happen. That's going to be a social encounter if anything.. or perhaps even a "accidental glimpse into what the mysterious force behind these kobolds is..now..run for your lives!" type of encounter.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;368218I'm agreeing with you, but was the issue that the cleric didn't want to heal? Healing isn't that reliant on stats, it's more of a paying attention and be a team player kind of thing. Sucking in battle is infinitely forgiveable, especially for a utility type character.. but healing is kind of important. (I  know hybrid healers only get the one heal per encounter, but still, it's better than nothing).

Deal with it in-game and if the players can't handle that without getting all huffy out-of-game perhaps they should consider another form of entertainment.

If I am going to do X in-game I expect to suffer the consequences good or bad as it nobody fault but my own for my behavior. If my character get's wiped out that just how it is and again nobody fault but my own. Even it the result of deliberate action by other players.

The only thing that will make me upset is out of game crap like cheating, table-top griefing, etc.

The reason the games I referee don't devolve into total chaos or why I don't just going around doing what the hell I want is because the characters have motivations. They don't act like insane mad-dogs performing random acts of violence. As

A referee I setup my campaign that the characters  have reasons to act the way they do. Consequences occur, both good and bad, as result of that the character do. As a player my fellow party members can figure out what my characters are about.

If a party has problem with a cleric that doesn't heal then take it up in-game. If it not resolved to the party's satisfaction then either the player of the cleric gets to find another night to play a solo campaign or rolls up another character. Usually it doesn't get to that extreme of an resolution.

Quote from: Benoist;368302Er. Ok. The one-liner is fun and all, but I just fail to see how that's relevant.
Try again. Please. For the mentally challenged among us.

Or... I could institute a houserule where everyone succeeds all the time and see where that leads, me, too?
That must be a lot of fun!

It's not really worth debating over.  He's arguing from one modern D&D philosophical standpoint that has little bearing on older playstyles or other RPGs.  Even Monte Cook, Mr. System Mastery himself, hates obvious number-crunchers at his table.

Still, even in D&D, you're balancing from a baseline level of competence of the party.  Doesn't matter if they're crappy or the best fighters in the world, as long as you're balancing based on their combat prowess.  His argument holds true for his group because yes, being the odd-man-out in a group can be crappy.  But it doesn't hold true for groups of other competence levels where the characters are relatively close to each other in ability.  Which was the whole point of me adding "by me" to the end of his statement.

Quote from: jibbajibba;368300I guess it does depend on what everyone expects. I have played plenty of clerics that don't have heal spells at all. Why would a god of numbers have healing spells?


 etc but that was fine because the table expected it and I had plenty of other tricks to make up for it.

There is another thing though what if you don't want your PC to be a tactical genius. What if you are roleplaying someone that makes suboptimal choices. The guy in the platemail that ran away could be playing a coward. The Guy that listens to the carefully crafted plan and the party leader telling him to flank from the left and take out the enemy wizard but then just plought straight down the middle and engages the ogre. When asked the player says yeah I understood the plan but Thrud here has 8 int and 7 wisdom.... so what can I say. Again depends on the group. My guys woudl never, never pick on a guy for being crap but I can see if its some LRF tournament thingie...

And characters that make sub-optimal choices can feel much more real. Some of the charcters in my current Amber campaign are liek this and it's great

Players make suboptimal choices all the time, but D&D is a social team-oriented game. The player that intentionally sabotages the rest of the group for his own enjoyment (and there's a world of difference between that and making suboptimal choices) is not actually engaging the activity in a way that is productive. (I know I'll get shouted down for saying that, but I've been around long enough to see the silly little arguments). If you have players like this, you can't possibly go wrong with avoiding them. Maybe they'll end up in a Paranoia or a Dogs in the Vineyard game or something (or Amber).

And "But that's my character!" is the second worst excuse ("but that's my alignment" being the worst) for sabotage.

I completely realize that this kind of activity has a long history and some people think it's just wonderful. But man. No way.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;368308And "But that's my character!" is the second worst excuse ("but that's my alignment" being the worst) for sabotage.

Quite right.