Quote from: CRKrueger;9633555e's somewhat better, but it's still the wrong fix.  They now neutered the fuck out of the spellcasting abilities of casters, without instituting any of the sane restrictions from 1e and made them superheros with Pew-Pew cantrips to supplement damage output.

 Instead of making all non-casters casters, they're moving casters towards non-casters.

1: Not really. They have about the same oomph as AD&D and 2e casters scaled to 5e. But they now essentially have an unlimited elemental longbow. They removed casting time and spell interruption. But made a fair chunk of spells now concentration based which CAN be interrupted. I think theres a few too many concentration attack spells now. They also got a bump up in HD. But then so did some other classes.

2: Also not really. See point 1 above. It feels more like some of the non-caster classes got more widgets. And the Ranger and Paladin were shifted to being spell reliant for their main hitting power. They did though nerf the combat cantrips down from the playtest versions. Just not enough in my opinion.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;963463And WotC in particular is convinced that 'splitting the fanbase' killed TSR.

And then worship the "5 year plan" like a god. Splitting the fanbase again and again and again.

Quote from: tenbones;963778Let me put this out there. Again I've said this before elsewhere, but it deserves saying again. Raising non-casters to caster-level power is *already* there in the game as of 3e. It's Feats. Now everyone can argue about what they like/dislike about Feats - I will fully agree that it's been implemented horribly. But *that* was the system that needed to bring non-casters closer to parity. And by making it optional it would serve both camps of people that liked casters being uber-powerful (they can simply ignore the Feat system) but for those of us that want dramatic results backed by mechanics - Feats needed to be far more powerful and easier to obtain. Hell - just making them obtainable by means other than leveling would have been a *huge* improvement. This was one of the best things about 5e - they allowed Feats to be tied to Faction rewards.

Actually, that's incorrect.  Feats were designed specifically by Monte Cook to be 'trap cards', because of a misconception of how CCGs work. See, most feats do not scale in terms of power.  A flat +2 boost to an ability, like a save is of a minimal use after a certain level.  The real power, well outside of magic which scales up in utility and damage, are feats that scale, like Power Attack, Combat Expertise, Blind Fight...  And that's it.  Those are the only 3 feats in the base game that I could find in the D20 SRD that scale in effectiveness.  I may have missed a couple, but the amount of flat +2 feats is many times that.  

Remember this is the same system that gives Fighters and Wizards, 2 Skill slots because it was set up that skills are as powerful as magic spells.  Yes, Craft is as powerful and has the same level of utility as Charm person.  Jump is just as good as Fly.

Quote from: tenbones;963778I'm perfectly fine with letting a caster shoot a 5d6+ fireball or cast Finger of Death and having a non-caster do a Blade Flurry and strike everyone in a 10-ft area because he has Blade Mastery which might have several other benefits. Or an archer being able to rapid-fire arrows and have a similar effect as a byproduct of having Bow Mastery,  (they still have to hit, but their effectiveness is being raised.) Because ultimately Spells are, as you pointed out, their own system. Just like Feats. But unlike non-casters they can be acquired with far far greater ease, by mechanic AND implication. 3e/4e/5e dropped the ball with this, but 5e is closer to the mark, as far as the Feat system goes. I still contend they should have gone full-Fantasycraft with it in terms of power.

Feats are NOT their own system, most of them tie on to things like combat rolls to hit (Power Attack), combat damage rolls (Power Attack and Cleave(s)), Saving Throws and other already established systems in the game, even metamagic feats affect the Magic system.  However, Magic, like Charm Person by passes most of the mechanics, to affect Saving Throws, but there are several that by pass those as well.  Magic can attack things like statistics instead of hit points, end a conflict in a single action, nothing else in the game does this.

Quote from: tenbones;963778Good question. But I think a lot of the feats of these fine figures of myth and history could be handled a number of different ways. My personal view is that if you're going to use Feats as a system - non-casters should be doing incredible martial/skill-based stuff. Not necessarily "magic" unless it's something special to the campaign. This is precisely why the Feat system should be optional for D&D. Because too many people have an issue with it, for whatever reason.

People have issues with feats for one of two major reasons:  The first they misunderstand the power level, and hate that a non-caster class dares try to touch the ALMIGHTY WIZARD!  The second is that they don't think that feats add anything to the game, other than added complexity.

Personally, I think that all non-casters need something that scales up to increase their utility, the Rogue/Thief's Backstab/Sneak Attack are good examples.  Magic can be utilitarian, but when it becomes the only real tool to solve all problems, whats the point of having anything else?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;963845Magic can be utilitarian, but when it becomes the only real tool to solve all problems, whats the point of having anything else?

And that's what seems to invariably happen in any system with any kind of utility magic. One of my constant players, part of every campaign I've run the last 3-5 years, almost always plays a mage for the shortcuts. If there's a fluffy, magic way to circumventing something, he WILL find it, and WILL use it, unless you outlaw it (which is a douchey move I rarely do). The damned "Shadow Walk" move or whatever is was in Dungeon World, basically killed a great deal of the "Perilous Journey" part of the game. I had to amp up the risk  of constant teleportation to  make them think twice about wormholing from home base to dungeon and back and forth constantly, thus negating a major part of the game. It was a minor amp--snake eyes and the caster gets plopped to a different plane--but guess what? It eventually happened... (another story for another time).

My only real beef with magic, magic, everywhere (and everyone shall drink!) is, and has ever been, that messing with the primal force of nature (MISTER BEALS!) should be risky. 5E casters throwing fire bolts out their asses because they can't be bothered to learn a weapon goes against my ethos, in this regard (though, if that's the way the system works, that's the way it works, so, rather than screw someone over by stripping everything, I just don't play that system).

Quote from: Christopher Brady;963845Actually, that's incorrect.  Feats were designed specifically by Monte Cook to be 'trap cards', because of a misconception of how CCGs work. See, most feats do not scale in terms of power.  A flat +2 boost to an ability, like a save is of a minimal use after a certain level.  The real power, well outside of magic which scales up in utility and damage, are feats that scale, like Power Attack, Combat Expertise, Blind Fight...  And that's it.  Those are the only 3 feats in the base game that I could find in the D20 SRD that scale in effectiveness.  I may have missed a couple, but the amount of flat +2 feats is many times that.

Right. I'm speaking of D&D writ-large. You're talking specifically about 3e, which I can comment on.

So me and Mike Mearls when were designing for 3e back in Dragon and he for AEG and Goodman we had a different opinion because we both saw through this dumb notion about Monte's design. Because we both knew that for Feats to actually be mathematically useful for non-casters they'd have to scale not just against one another, but against... spellcasters. We kept getting shot down by editorial every time we tried to push that envelope for various reasons. I'm assuming everyone like me is looking past all that stupid Monte Cook bullshit.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;963845Remember this is the same system that gives Fighters and Wizards, 2 Skill slots because it was set up that skills are as powerful as magic spells.  Yes, Craft is as powerful and has the same level of utility as Charm person.  Jump is just as good as Fly.

Yes. Monte Cook's design reputation survived these ridiculous assumptions.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;963845Feats are NOT their own system, most of them tie on to things like combat rolls to hit (Power Attack), combat damage rolls (Power Attack and Cleave(s)), Saving Throws and other already established systems in the game, even metamagic feats affect the Magic system.  However, Magic, like Charm Person by passes most of the mechanics, to affect Saving Throws, but there are several that by pass those as well.  Magic can attack things like statistics instead of hit points, end a conflict in a single action, nothing else in the game does this.

This is only true if you believe it and insist on playing it like this. I liken it to standing in the fire by fiat. You know it hurts you, yet you continue to do it. Right - I'm not playing that game. I tried it, it clearly doesn't work, so it needed to be fixed. So I did. For me - Feats are a System because I make it work to my liking. I have no use for playing bi-polar headgames with rules that get in the way of the game as I want to run things. So while what you're pointing out is RAW true - I want RTW (rules that work). And therefore, I relegate Feats to being a system that neither detracts from those that don't need it - Spellcasters, to those that do, non-casters. Easy. Peasy.

Better - I make it optional.

But ultimately these are dead systems to me. If I ever do d20 again, it'll be Fantasycraft, mainly because I'm lazy and everything I need is right there.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;963845People have issues with feats for one of two major reasons:  The first they misunderstand the power level, and hate that a non-caster class dares try to touch the ALMIGHTY WIZARD!  The second is that they don't think that feats add anything to the game, other than added complexity.

Personally, I think that all non-casters need something that scales up to increase their utility, the Rogue/Thief's Backstab/Sneak Attack are good examples.  Magic can be utilitarian, but when it becomes the only real tool to solve all problems, whats the point of having anything else?

AGREED! Too bad D&D doesn't do this.

On Topic - And while we tap blades on this topic. At least we're talking about RPGs's we can discuss how mechanics express things we want in the game. 4e's mechanics *WERE* the game.

Edit: And I fully submit that 3e/PF helped synthesize that playstyle, to the detriment of the brand.

Interesting thoughts on feats. I wonder how things would have turned out had feats been only for martial characters right from the get-go and actually been worthy of the name, like things that have you turning into Hercules or Samson as you level up rather than Guy Who Can Trip Another Guy.

4e feats were a total mess. There were just too many of them, and the vast majority were these kinds of odd situational bonuses that you were unlikely to ever run into randomly, and thus weren't worth it compared to feats that just gave you some kind of passive improvement.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;963955Interesting thoughts on feats. I wonder how things would have turned out had feats been only for martial characters right from the get-go and actually been worthy of the name, like things that have you turning into Hercules or Samson as you level up rather than Guy Who Can Trip Another Guy.

4e feats were a total mess. There were just too many of them, and the vast majority were these kinds of odd situational bonuses that you were unlikely to ever run into randomly, and thus weren't worth it compared to feats that just gave you some kind of passive improvement.

I think if you had been in the room and got this idea into the DNA for 3e design, you'd be a goddamn hero.

There's a lot of stuff that's tied into 4e that was incorrectly extrapolated out of 3.x that Feats are only a symptom of.

Leveling as meta-mechanic. 1e and to a lesser extent 2e were spot on. The game should be shooting for a ten-level curve by the math. St. Gary knew it. Beyond 10th, you're really talking superheroic crazytown shit. Especially once you factor in itemization.

3.x had a static (*false*)assumption of power-progression. But the reality was that assumption was clearly not executed on mechanically in the design. LFQM and Itemization as Balance, pigeon-holed into this progression into a mathematical nightmare of post-15th level play *based* on those realities. Plus there was this weird 20th-lvl Capstone ability thing which was like a dingleberry-scented cherry on a shit-cake.

4e codified that further with their own respective curves by implementing Tiers as an actual playable concept. Sure other games kinda do this too - but 4e really "went there" with it.

Quote from: tenbones;963964I think if you had been in the room and got this idea into the DNA for 3e design, you'd be a goddamn hero.

I think a lot of 4e fighter powers would make sense as feats. Hit a guy so hard that that everyone around you is overcome with terror. Bash a guy's face so hard that you do quadruple damage and he's dazed. Knock down a whole group of enemies with a single swing of your warhammer. Those have more in common with the regular use of the word "feat" than "I can trip a guy without drawing OA."

QuoteThere's a lot of stuff that's tied into 4e that was incorrectly extrapolated out of 3.x that Feats are only a symptom of.

Leveling as meta-mechanic. 1e and to a lesser extent 2e were spot on. The game should be shooting for a ten-level curve by the math. St. Gary knew it. Beyond 10th, you're really talking superheroic crazytown shit. Especially once you factor in itemization.

3.x had a static (*false*)assumption of power-progression. But the reality was that assumption was clearly not executed on mechanically in the design. LFQM and Itemization as Balance, pigeon-holed into this progression into a mathematical nightmare of post-15th level play *based* on those realities. Plus there was this weird 20th-lvl Capstone ability thing which was like a dingleberry-scented cherry on a shit-cake.

4e codified that further with their own respective curves by implementing Tiers as an actual playable concept. Sure other games kinda do this too - but 4e really "went there" with it.

I kinda liked the tier concept in 4e, especially the Epic Destiny. Of course, as 4e went up in level, pretty much everyone was just there to set up striker hits. One thing 4e showed is that you don't have to have the game totally break down as you get to high levels. Of course, they did that via homogenization, but at least they showed it's possible. 5e did things via a different route.

Another move 4e made in the right direction was not codifying so much of the skill system. By that I mean things like 3.5's NPC Interaction Table that flat-out defines what you can do with your Diplomacy rolls, what the DC is, what success means, etc. There are still more codified checks in 4e than 5e, but there's a whole lot more that's left up to the DM to decide when you can do a check and what the consequences are for success or failure. I mostly ignored the codified tables, so 5e feels pretty similar in that regard.

Quote from: tenbones;963943Edit: And I fully submit that 3e/PF helped synthesize that playstyle, to the detriment of the brand.

The whole "multiclassing" craze and "dipping" I've seen players try to carry over to 5e. Rather bemusing when they realize later that they hosed their character at the endgame for a short term perceived advantage.

Which brings up the question. Just how multiclassing happy is 4e? I dont think I've ever heard a single 4e player even mention it? Whereas sometimes it feels like thats all 3/PF players do. (Not quite. but sometimes it gets excessive.)

I remember min/maxers being multiclass happy in the 1e/2e days too. I can't stand it and don't allow it. Looking at 5e's rules as written multiclassing seems better balanced but I can't be bothered to allow it as it never feels done for flavour or character but to min/max. The very notion of 'dipping' is mindnumbing to me.  Don't want to come off as badwrongfun but it seems to be the influence of pvp 'builds' in videogames to me.

Quote from: Voros;964025I remember min/maxers being multiclass happy in the 1e/2e days too. I can't stand it and don't allow it. Looking at 5e's rules as written multiclassing seems better balanced but I can't be bothered to allow it as it never feels done for flavour or character but to min/max. The very notion of 'dipping' is mindnumbing to me.  Don't want to come off as badwrongfun but it seems to be the influence of pvp 'builds' in videogames to me.

This is what it feels like to me, too, though paper character 'builds' may have predated video game charop. The discussions surrounding it are key. When you get into damage comparison and such, we're straying into video territory.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;963955Interesting thoughts on feats. I wonder how things would have turned out had feats been only for martial characters right from the get-go and actually been worthy of the name, like things that have you turning into Hercules or Samson as you level up rather than Guy Who Can Trip Another Guy.

4e feats were a total mess. There were just too many of them, and the vast majority were these kinds of odd situational bonuses that you were unlikely to ever run into randomly, and thus weren't worth it compared to feats that just gave you some kind of passive improvement.

RE: Feats for just Martials - On one hand I agree with you. Had Feats been a way for non-magical classes (monk, rogue fit in here too) to do really extraordinary things AND progressed with level then I think that would've been a great idea. Of course that would also be separate from actual class features that a Fighter would receive like wearing your armor better, getting Weapon Specialization etc. Blind-Fight could start off as it's seen in the PHB but then progress to almost like an extra-sensory perception against invisible creatures.

RE: 4e Feats - I think, for the most part, 4e Feats did exactly what their role was....that of a supplementary feature just made classes features better or added versatility and nothing more. 90% of what a character brings to the table, mechanically speaking, was designed to come from class features and powers with the rest made up of your Race and Feats. In this regard Feats worked fairly well. What my biggest beef with 4e feats were was with how bad some of the earlier ones were AND the fact that they were the mechanism to "fix" some classes. Take the Strength-based Paladin for example, it's mechanics were pretty bad considering that it's main sticky feature (Divine Challenge) was Charisma based, making Charisma-based Paladins FAR better in almost every way. Later we got some feats to help out the Strength-based Paladin (like Sudden Smite but these were basically resources that took away from actual choices because original options were bad.

Multiclassing in 4e amounted to a feat that allowed you to get a cut-down version of another class feature and one of its powers. 5e multiclassing is pretty well-balanced. One of the things that really keeps it under control is that extra attacks don't stack, and ASIs are class features. So if you do anything less than a 4-level excursion into another class, you'll miss out on an ASI. But extra attacks are all at level 5. On top of that, the fighter and the rogue have magic-using subclasses, and it's generally a stronger option to just take those instead of trying to multiclass into a full caster.

I feel like the first really build-focused computer game was probably Diablo, and wonder if feat chains were inspired by it.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;964039Multiclassing in 4e amounted to a feat that allowed you to get a cut-down version of another class feature and one of its powers. 5e multiclassing is pretty well-balanced. One of the things that really keeps it under control is that extra attacks don't stack, and ASIs are class features. So if you do anything less than a 4-level excursion into another class, you'll miss out on an ASI. But extra attacks are all at level 5. On top of that, the fighter and the rogue have magic-using subclasses, and it's generally a stronger option to just take those instead of trying to multiclass into a full caster.

I feel like the first really build-focused computer game was probably Diablo, and wonder if feat chains were inspired by it.

I think one of the biggest things people hated about 4e was it's inflexible multiclass system, but of course this is coming from a large majority who just came from a D&D system with probably the most BROKEN multiclass system D&D had ever seen. In 3e I rarely saw straight classes unless either A) forced "Core" books only or B) the class largely didn't benefit much from it (or there weren't very many good PrCs to pick from). A Barbarian 2/ Fighter 2-4/ Cleric X/ PrC X to get Rage, Pounce, Weapon Specialization/Focus, Turn attempts, Spells, the ability to use any and all divine wands, domain powers, etc. ALL by 6th to 8th level was ridiculous. At least in 4e you couldn't create a power-combo of epic proportions before you left Heroic Tier.

Now was 4e's strict handling of Multiclassing the best way to go about it? Certainly not, I think they could have given more bang for their buck in terms of power swaps AND if you wanted to Paragon Multiclass (take more features of a 2nd class rather than a Paragon Path) then it should've been done with less investment, especially since the options of doing so were very "meh".  4e got better, I'll admit, when Hybrid Classes came out in PHB3. I really liked the idea, which sort of went back to the old Dual-Class style of 2e. You get a little bit of Column A and a little bit of Column B and there's definitely good synergy there if you do it right. Paladin|Warlocks, Paladin|Sorcerers, Wizard|Swordmags, Cleric|Avengers, Cleric|Fighters, Fighter|Rangers were all pretty awesome combos that delivered in both Roles but didn't UP the power that something like 3e's Gestalt did.

Quote from: cranebump;964031This is what it feels like to me, too, though paper character 'builds' may have predated video game charop. The discussions surrounding it are key. When you get into damage comparison and such, we're straying into video territory.

Or just people who enjoy the tactical puzzle-game of character building.