I don't even know what to say bro.

We DID tell you.

It keeps happening.

It's a cycle, really. Wizards makes a caster edition. People complain about imbalance. Wizards makes a system in which everyone has powers. People want the old system back. Old system is back. People complain about caster imbalance.

On the plus side, AD&D2E is getting a reprint soon. Pick that up and go Spelljamming.

There's still time, right?
It could get better, right?

Thank god for other systems and the freedom of choice.

>>22115407
Until the alarm clock rings and you wake up from your dream anyway.

>>22115407
Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment. It's fucked, Anon. Wizards tried to break out of what they made in 3E, and we got 4E out of that. All the bitter grognards hated 4E for being different and jumped ship to Pathfinder. Wizards, instead of trying to iterate on the good points of 4E, is just playing hard to cannibalize the people they lost during the 3E<>4E split.

Light a little candle in commemoration then go play your system of choice.

Soon we will come to the four stages of denial.

>BUT IT'S A BETA
>BUT IT'S JUST RELEASED
>BUT THEY'LL PATCH IT
>I DON'T WANT TO BE ALONE

>>22115387
>Wizards makes a system in which everyone has powers. People want the old system back.
Well, then make old system but with stronger martial calsses. Or weaker casters. What is the fucking problem?

>>22115476
But that would result in balance, AND WE CAN'T HAVE THAT

>>22115431
B-but my system of choice was going to be the one that combined the more customizable 3.5 with the better aspects of 4e and rules that weren't all over the place.

It was...it was going to be

>>22115476
More limited casters, much stronger martial classes.
Give fighters something that's a lot like turn attempts that they can use for martial feats.
Quicksteppan, extra attackan, higher babban, dispellan, magic school immunities, etc.

And either make all classes MAD or no classes MAD. It's retarded that wizards have no need for anything but INT, and get huge amounts of skillpoints out of that.

>>22115476
Fighter'll still be "I swing sword. I swing sword. Hey, guess what? I swing sword!"

>>22115387
>>22115431

The sad thing is, Next had so much potential. They seemed to be putting together a martial powers system which would be different from but equivalent to magic, with a different method for using it and a different feel.

Vancian, per day casting for magic users, constantly regenerating maneuver dice for mundane fighters. Its an odd dichotomy, but it could have worked.

But no.

Monks get even worse vancian abilities -Four per day, and some of their other abilities costing multiple of those uses is fucking ludicrous- and Clerics get full casting and fucking manoeuvre dice.

I swear, I wish a better company would just pick up the basic design concepts, which actually seemed really cool, and make a half decent game out of it.

>>22115476
But Anon, Swordguy just hits shit with sharpened slabs of metal. Clearly, they must forever be inferior to the glorious master race of reality-fucking full casters.

I like 4E for its deeply developed combat mechanics and excellent efforts in ensuring all classes had meaningful, directly comparable contributions to party performance.

>>22115501
I prefer all MAD. Make em choose.

Catering to everyone was rank stupidity at best, a cynical lie at worst. The only path for growth of DnD is vehement rejection of the toxic grognard fanbase and courting of

1. DMs, who spend the most money and will drag all persuadable players with them anyway.
2. people who don't currently play DnD

Anything else is just further fracturing of the base.

We won't have a good version of DnD until they ditch "cleric", "wizard", "fighter" and all the shit baggage and expectations that come with those terms.

I'm disappointed by Next.

I enjoyed 3.5 despite its brokenness. It had a certain charm and could be a lot of fun, sometimes in despite of and sometimes because of how dumb it could get.

4e didn't interest me. Not saying its a bad game or anything like that, I'm just not a fan of tactical combat, which seemed to be the systems design focus. Its what they marketed it on, its what I heard the most about, and because of that I never bothered to look into it in any depth.

With Next, I hoped it'd be more similar to 3.5 in tone, less focused on the tactical combat, but able to cover new ground. As it is, its just a rehash, which is essentially pointless.

>>22115476
People think that having fighter be weaker than wizards is more realistic. Big emphasis is on the word more: people don't care about 100% realism, but they are ok with 90% realism.

>>22115642

No, only stinking sociopathic powergaming aspies think that, and they aren't people.

PEOPLE recognize that level is a strength quantification and that everyone of the same level is intended to be on equal footing.

So bitch about it in the playtest like we all will.

>>22115407
It could. We have to not give up, at least inasmuch as we need to voice strong opinions in the playtest feedback.

>>22115476

The problem is that nobody would stand for a class as conceptually bankrupt but overpowered as the Cleric or Wizard except for its ability to hide behind an appeal to tradition so option 1 will make people angry, and everyone hates having their pet build nerfed so option 2 will make people angry.

>>22115438
>>BUT IT'S JUST RELEASED
Nope. If they release it in anywhere near this state it's shit.

But it's still just a beta now, they could make it better and I sincerely hope they do. If they do I may actuall play some D&D again.

>>22115476
Mike Mearls just can'e figure that shit out.

>>22115669

The playtest is falling apart though, they keep not fixing shit so less and less people are bothering to stick it out and the only ones that do are the koolaid drinkers.

>>22115675
Yeah, sure, that will work. It's not like all the retarded grognards will be in those feedbacks sucking WotC's dick for making 3.5 again.

We lost. Pure and simple.

>>22115697
>>22115675
>>22115669

OP here. I plan to try one last time. Fill in the next survey, when its released, and send an accompanying email to the tune of 'What the fuck are you doing'.

I've not got much hope, though. Pretty much every time, the exact opposite of the feedback I've given has happened.

>>22115697
Actually there's apparently more and more people getting involved.

>>22115708
There's still a year and a half. We've lost a couple battles, but we haven't lost the war.

>>22115697
Delicious positive feedback loops of failed public beta tests. How many times have I seen these in MMO betas.

...really?
Last time I checked up on NEXT I saw that they had modified classes to nerf Fighter because it was still being called the most powerful class by playtesters.

>>22115713
Stick with it, man. A survey doesn't take that much of your time. It may be looking like an increasingly vain hope, but your hope costs you little.

File: 1355918223647.jpg-(57 KB, 400x300, ron paul.jpg)

>>22115746
>>22115731
Dream the impossible dream.

At this point I'd rather homebrew something that actually builds on the lessons of 4e and doesn't inordinately suck.

>>22115742
They nerfed fighter, buffed cleric, buffed wizard a bit, gave the fighter's mechanics to everyone, and abandoned a lot of what made early playtests good. Now all they need to do is drop backgrounds and subraces, and there will be literally nothing redeemable in this shitheap.

>>22115773
>"We decided to make every race a Changeling this time around, so it gives people the complete option to look how they want."

I've never understood why Wizards has had such trouble balancing casters with martial fighters.
Even something as simple as Damage Reduction that's bypassed by martial/physical damage.

Or better yet, damage reduction that reduces the number of dice available for damage, which can be calculated by the disparity between the monster's level and the level of the spell.

That and AoE capability for Fighters.

>>22115788
What is Cleave?

File: 1355918569016.gif-(133 KB, 300x168, cryingsoldier.gif)

>>22115713
Godspeed, OP. You're doing Pelor's work.

>>22115808
Don't be a patronizing dick, anon.
Cleave ≠ Fireball

>>22115808
>Cleave
>AoE
Allow me to laugh at you.
Ha Ha Ha.

>>22115788

Damage isn't and has never been the problem.

The problem is flexibility.

Fighters can swing a sword.

Magic users can do anything they fucking want.

There are ways to close this gap, making 'mundane' classes heroic in the style of old school legends, where mundane badassery could achieve effects on a similar scale to magic, or even trump it.

But no. D&D fanboys hate the idea of fighters being anything but dumb brutes who swing swords. Achilles, Heracles, King Arthur or Lancelot should all lose to a Wizard with half their level, because fuck you.

>>22115788

The same reason they have trouble with ANYTHING: they feel beholden to a bunch of balding man-babies who take any fix that identifies itself as a fix as a personal insult to their still-ongoing childhoods.

Relax folks. Every edition of D&D already has all the material you will ever need and more.

If one or another edition of Classic makes you happy, you can keep running games with it until you croak.

Same for BECMI (all iterations), Advanced, and 2-4e. Fuck, same with that Pathfinder thing.

And if, somehow, Next is the bee's knees for some poor sap? The same goes for them.

The same, too, is true of non-D&D games, and I'm sure somewhere there's a group having the time of their lives playing Wraeththu.

And if some game breaks your heart, go cheat on it with another game, or mutilate the first into a shape you can love once more.

>>22115808
A feat that any class can take

>>22115839
Fred: Hey alright! I'm totally bypassing its DR with this awesome new sword!
Wally: Good job, man. I just turned them all into frogs because they failed their saving throw. I can only do it four times a day, though.
Fred: But we only fight twice a day...

>>22115788
>I've never understood why Wizards has had such trouble balancing casters with martial fighters.
It's because they think like you do. The problems with wizard power aren't really damage-based.

>>22115861

That's not a "relax" point, anon, that's a PANIC point. If DnD fails to patch the fanbase WHICH IT WILL, it's the end of DnD as a centralized product. Which, well, if you think it's hard to find games NOW...

>>22115788
Because casters ewere the most played class by AD&D people. People liked using magic. And the developers got a hard on for casters - notice how all the original 2E developers played casters? Only two played fighter types. No rogues. A monk, lawful evil (Scarlet Brotherhood founder). A cleric, Cuthbert. But 9, no less than that, casters: Bigby, Mordenkainen, Drawmij, Tasha, etc.

And WotC saw that and said, "oh, people want to play casters." and poof, you have caster edition from tSR, and caster edition plus from WotC.

It took revamping all the monsters and a slew of spells and wording everything PERFECTLY so it would be RAW and never RAI to get even close to making 3.5 playable, and even then it's not perfect, just better.

>>22115829
>>22115820
Cleave is the only thing a fighter needs. It isn't like a fighter can realistically take on multiple opponents at once without incurring AoO from the ones that she isn't targeting. Anything else is just "lol super magic bullshit"

>>22115861

Its still sad to see such potential wasted.

I haven't played D&D style games in years, but a new entry to the family, which actually did things differently and changed the game, could have interested me.

Its just sad to see the sheer wasted potential.

Still, there's at least some hope in that, if D&D Next is terrible, 4e remains unsupported and Pathfinder eventually goes down the drain, people could realise that there are actually RPG's which aren't D&D or its various ripoffs.

Well, at least it will be a better 3.75 than Pathfinder.

>>22115888

Not even that. This is, like, a worse 2e clone atm.

>>22115888

Pathfinder was never 3.75. That was just their excellent marketing.

If they'd had put as much effort into game design as they put into their marketing they might have actually had something decent rather than a set of hyped up houserules to foist onto the 3.5 grogs.

>>22115882
>fighters
>multiple opponents
>super magic bullshit

Wizards.
>NOT super magic bullshit

>>22115829
>>22115820
>Cleave isn't AOE
Why not? They're literally writing a new game system, so what's stopping them from giving fighters a Cleave style AOE?

>>22115902
at least their new classes are interesting. Some of them are almost useless (Cavalier!) but there are a couple that are pretty well designed (Ninja, Oracle).

>>22115839
Damage can be a problem, though.
Flexibility is the main one, sure, but damage is at least a starting point. Blaster casters can easily outclass any other type of caster.
I'd love to see more capability with martial classes, but it's good to start with the fact that most casters can flick their wrists and hurt everything in the vicinity.
Maneuvers and the ability to cripple enemies with strikes need to be more effective, at the very least, of course.

But apparently I'm everything that's wrong with the industry, so fuck this.

>>22115902
>Pathfinder was never 3.75. That was just their excellent marketing.
The increased number doesn't actually mean it's better. It does what it's supposed to.

What pisses me off is the various good ideas they just seemed to drop.

Something I read about early on was the idea of tying save or die/suck spells to HP. So you had to reduce the enemies HP first, and then these spells could finish it off. It seemed like a good idea. It kept HP relevant, and meant you needed to actually fight first, before you could just autowin.

But no. Instead, they tied the spells to Maximum HP... Which does absolutely nothing useful or worthwhile. Its so stupid it hurts.

>>22115908
Because that wouldn't "feel" like D&D.

>>22115915
I dunno, I think your ideas are good. HP damage /should/ be the only listing of health. Having an enemy be able to be dropped because of a single bad roll (looking at you, Baleful Polymorph) is ridiculous.

>I cast Baleful Polymorph!
>Well, you won the campaign. What an awesome final battle.

>>22115915

>Blaster casters can easily outclass any other type of caster.

This is wrong. Its a common mistake people make about D&D.

HP is basically irrelevant in combat. It has no real use. If you're attacking somethings HP, the system laughs at you. Save or dies, or save or sucks, don't care about HP. They ignore that entire side of the system entirely. They can win a fight straight out, even if the enemy is on 100% HP.

That's the problem. Or one of them anyway.

>>22115908
its called whirlwind attack
and its 5 feat long chain in 3.5

Thank you based 13th age. Best of both 3.5 and 4th.

With D&D dying a horrible death maybe that will mean people will realize that not all games are as hard for a complete beginner to jump into as 3.5 and we'll get a greater variety of games being run out there.

Or, more likely, people will just masturbate to Pathfinder instead as if it's the greatest game ever and nothing else should ever be used. People will post threads on the official Pathfinder forums asking how they can convert it to a semi-hard sci-fi space travel game instead of just playing Traveller.

>>22115944
Ok, but why does it need to be a 5 feat long chain? Why can't it be an inherent ability for fighters / an option (e.g. "At level 4 you either get [cool aoe] or [other cool ability]"?

Why would you stick with things that failed in 3.5 when you have the ability to write literally anything in the rules?

>>22115943
Save or fail situations can be shitty, but I see this exaggeration all the time.

Where the hell are these spells that supposedly win battles instantly? Can't that be solved by just making stronger enemies immune to such supposed potent effects?

>>22115950

I've heard this system mentioned a lot. Nobody has ever said what's good about it. Could you fill me in?

My favourite D&Dalike at the moment is Legend, but I'm increasingly curious about 13th age if only because everyone seems to be so constantly vague about it.

Anything to say on the matter?

>>22115944
As it should be!
A fighter should have to INVEST and COMMIT to becoming a godly power, just like in reality.

>>22115965
Unlike a caster, who just gets handed godly power by existing.

I see it now. D&D is a social commentary on capitalism.

>>22115954
It's already happened, I think.

>PSYCHIATRIC ntsGaome
they do need help, you're right

>>22115961

The solution is

>>22115921

which, as mentioned, D&D Next dropped.

And pick your save or die. There's a selection at every level of D&D. One of the common lower level ones is Colour Spray, which can instantly neuter almost any encounter you'd have at that point in the game.

>>22115965
While wizards can say "alakazam" and ruin everything, with no commitment or investment whatsoever.

>>22115965
And yet, a five-feat chain to hit everything around you once in a round for your base melee damage is not quite up to spec to "oh hey I guess I'll memorize a few castings of Fuck Everything Until It's Incapacitated today."

>>22115961
Sleep, Glitterdust, Baleful Polymorph, Black Tentacles, Force Cage, Banishment, to name but a few, across several levels.

>>22115965
>A fighter should have to INVEST and COMMIT to becoming a godly power,
Like, say, getting experience and levelling up (similar to how a wizard gets his godly power)?

>>22115959

Because 3.X is what most modern D&Ders started with and 5e is all about reaching out to the players who weren't onboard with 4e.

A significant portion of whom have problems with the idea that noncasters and casters should be on an equal footing.

>>22115961 Can't that be solved by just making stronger enemies immune to such supposed potent effects?

No, because that just leads to people being pissed that the DM is picking on them and not letting their ability work.

If DnD is ever going to be worth a damn, problems in the rules MUST be treated as actual problems, not just brushed off onto the group to solve because you're a lazy jackoff.

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>>22115521
The only fault I have with 4E is its combat/advancement pacing. That's it. I love every other part of it. Fluff, crunch, all of it.

>>22115985
>A significant portion of whom have problems with the idea that noncasters and casters should be on an equal footing.
ALL OF MY RAGE

>>22115985

Why do we care about the opinion of subhumans?

>>22115985
>A significant portion of whom have problems with the idea that noncasters and casters should be on an equal footing.
But they're all faggots, and the rules say they're bitches too! Doesn't that make their opinions invalid?

>>22115959
well 5 feat chain isn't a problem for a fighter
only thing is that the feats that are required are a bit useful

>>22115961

It can be, but you end up having to write a laundry list of immunities onto the end of every monster that you want to use as a major threat. And you have to keep updating that list.

Which is a pain and only serves to make save-or-suck spells a trap choice.

>>22115985
Isn't that just preaching to the choir though?

Doesn't it make a lot more sense to make a fun and balanced game than to rehash a ten year old game for customers who are already very likely to buy it (and/or will absolutely refuse to buy the new game)?

>>22115990
>If DnD is ever going to be worth a damn, problems in the rules MUST be treated as actual problems

Yes.
That's why I proposed the solution of adding save immunities. I don't see how changing the way monsters work doesn't constitute as changing the rules.

>>22115996
>The only fault I have with 4E is its combat/advancement pacing. That's it. I love every other part of it. Fluff, crunch, all of it.

Except that it's shadow boxing. 1/2 level here, 1/2 level there... and the enemies get it too. You essentially have the same bonuse at level 30 as you do at level 5, plus or minus a few circumstantial bonuses (or crazy charop)

>>22115985
But they SHOULDN'T be on equal ground. A fighter is Meat, a solid mass of muscle and reflexes there to handle the minions and monsters of the BBEG

The Caster is the star of the show, he's there to handle the leaders and BBEG itself.

I mean, if you think back to mythology, all the best and coolest monsters were killed by Wizards. And all the best and coolest Wizards had fighters do their shit for them,

>>22116007
>well 5 feat chain isn't a problem for a fighter
But then they can only do that one thing, by spend half of their levels getting it. Wizards can do five different things, every level. And have some feats.

>>22116007
No, a five-feat chain is still an issue for a fighter, because that's a huge PERMANENT character investment for functionality that is a mere shade of what a wizard, cleric, or druid can do. And they can dynamically adapt themselves to circumstances every eight-hour rest without irrevocably investing huge chunks of their character build into it.

>>22115713
Where do I sign up for playtests? How do I fill in surveys? How do I voice my opinion towards this?

>>22116011

Because it's a band-aid, not a solution. Every time you write a new bullshit spell you have to make a new immunity list for every monster. Come on man, THINK! A fucking five year old could've told you why this was a bad idea.

>>22116019
>I mean, if you think back to mythology, all the best and coolest monsters were killed by Wizards. And all the best and coolest Wizards had fighters do their shit for them,

confirmed for troll

>>22116019

Rot in your own filth.

>>22116011

Its not a good solution. Its just an increased layer of complexity and annoyance.

The solution is easy and obvious. Tie save or dies and save or sucks to HP. A monster has to be below a certain minimum before the effect takes place.

And its fucking done. A caster can no longer win a fight in a single spell. Their spells still work, and are still useful, but damage now actually means something.

just give the fighter some other abilities than swinging a stick, and make it harder for wizard to achieve godly powers......

>>22116028
Then just ban the fucking spells you, as a gm can't handle. Its not fucking rocket science.

>>22116013
This is true, but it's nice in its own way since it ensures that encounters always have to be taken seriously, instead of reaching a certain level where fights are either steamrollers or brutal genocidal clusterfucks with nothing in between.

>>22116019
7/10
You got three responses.
Good job keeping trolling classy, sire.

The only way save/die spells can remain in the game is if they REMOVE THE HP SYSTEM, and give fighters and such their own versions of save/die abilities.

>>22116048
>Then just ban the fucking spells you, as a gm can't handle. Its not fucking rocket science.
That is just a GM making houserules... and means that the game itself doesn't work very well. If people at home have to fix it themselves, you have a problem.

>>22116028
>give monsters appropriate base saves
>thus giving immunity to spells of a certain level cased by a caster of a certain level

Or, as mentioned in this thread

>tie save or suck to HP
>must be weakened to a certain threshold before they can take effect

Also, you're a prick.

File: 1355920081837.png-(2 KB, 184x156, 1330729957350.png)

I play Fighters and I like Caster Editions.

Wizards should have crazy potential in my opinion, it fits with my idea of what a Wizard is at his core.

It's not a competition, it's a story. if you've got a good group, these kinds of editions are the best.

>>22116009

You'd think so, but not really.

They're still selling material to the 4e guys, and the early edition fans have more retroclones than they know what to do with. The only marketing left is really 3.x holdouts and new players. The brand name alone is enough to make sure that new players hit that system up first.

You can make a hell of a lot of many off preaching to the choir if you preach loud enough.

>>22116053
I agree; point granted in your favor, sir

>>22116048

No. You're the one trying to sell me a product., YOU do the fucking work, you lazy asshole.

>>22116066
>It's not a competition, it's a story. if you've got a good group, these kinds of editions are the best.
If you have a good group, any game can have a good story. Why not insist on a good story that also uses a good game?

>>22116019
But they SHOULDN'T be on equal ground. A wizard is a nerd, nothing more than skin and bones meant to enchant and scry.
The Fighter is the star of the show, he's there to handle the leaders and BBEG itself.
I mean, if you think back to mythology, all the best and coolest monsters were killed by Figthers. And all the best and coolest Fighters had wizards give them quests and shit.

>>22116082
he's a troll, sorry dude

>>22116060
Do you even play DND? Just say it doesn't exist. I will never understand why people think its okay to ban splat books, races, classes to suit the world they are running but not spells. Jesus Christ people are fucking retarded

>>22116063

If you want Wizards to be anything other than mindless blasters, you need spells other than direct damage ones to be able to do something even if you want the fight-enders restricted. Which means you can't just jack up all the saves to ridiculous levels.

And, frankly, if the spells are going to be utterly pointless or broken, why even print them in the first place?

>>22116013

Actually, if you remotely pay attention to what you're doing you reach the point where you significantly outpower the monsters and "standard" monsters become appropriately cardboardy vs. your epic heroes.

The only problem is that while that holds for every other role, they fucked it up on the strikers so that in order to justify your existence in an epic party a striker has to be about 2 choices from obnoxiously overpowered.

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>>22115921
>Something I read about early on was the idea of tying save or die/suck spells to HP. So you had to reduce the enemies HP first, and then these spells could finish it off. It seemed like a good idea. It kept HP relevant, and meant you needed to actually fight first, before you could just autowin.

Holy shit that's brilliant. I love that. It has group cooperation, tactical feel, even a slight video gameyness to it. Why the HELL would they ever get rid of that?

>>22116092
>I will never understand why people think its okay to ban splat books, races, classes to suit the world they are running but not spells
Those are not part of the core rules, but are splats. Expansions. Extra. The core rules of the game assume spell use and wizard-characters. It'd be like banning Feats, or the use of martial weapons.

>>22116082
But they SHOULDN'T be on equal ground. An Arming Sword is a hunk of metal, nothing more than some diluted pig iron mean to skewer your stake with.
The Katana is the star of the show, it's there to bisect the leaders and the BBEG itself.
I mean, if you think back to mythology, all the best and coolest warriors were killed by Katanas. And the best and coolest Katanas had Arming Swords paying them for lessons and shit.

File: 1355920412283.jpg-(64 KB, 680x680, 1325761695401.jpg)

>>22116078
But the game is actually really good, so long as your group isn't meta-gaming and making the most powerful builds possible.

4th edition is GREAT if you need a system for a group that does want to meta-game and play Legolas vs Gimli's "who can kill the most Orks?" but not every game needs to be balanced like that.

Both systems have their place.

>>22116092

You end up having to ban a metric fuckton of material.

And it royally pisses caster players off, since 'you get to pick from this list of awesome' happens to be their main reward for levelling up. Hell, in 3.X the rules outright stated that the spell choices from levelling up were purely the players choice.

>>22116092
>implying that needing to ban splat books, races or classes is okay
No. If the game is well balanced, you should never need to say "Book of nine swords is banned because it's too good" or "No full casters".

>>22116100
And this is indeed a sticky point here. If non-damage combat spells are going to be compelling, then they need to at least be as good as the damage spells. And hitting that sweet spot is...difficult, to put it lightly.

>>22116119
IT BEGINS.

>for leading OP ing exp nec. O ropsac
Captcha, you're also worried about this stuff?

>>22116092
>to suit the world

You just answered your own question. Banning half-orcs because There Are No Orcs In My Alternate History Medieval Germany is COMPLETELY different than banning Polymorph because polymorph is fucking overpowered. The first is adapting the game to fit the story. The latter is you doing some down's-afflicted writer's work for him because he doesn't understand his goddamn job.

>>22116100
>appropriate base saves = super jacked up saves
>no fighter-enders = pointless and broken

Yeah okay, we're done here.

>>22116072
Also, homebrew solutions tend to be controversial. Example: I HAAAATE Vancian limitations in all regards ever. Not just with magic, it even kills stuff like Stunning Fist for me. But the DM won't agree to any alternate ways to deal with such things. However, we're both okay with say, the maneuvers Swordsages do, which are by default not vancian.

Basically, the only consistent way to make sure a system goes how I prefer is for it to be written that way in the first place. Otherwise I just never play any classes with Vancian limitations.

File: 1355920487906.jpg-(39 KB, 600x452, 1342276927690.jpg)

The solution is easy, but the developers make it so, very hard.
The problem is not in fighters not reaching some retarded level of strength where they fuck shit up with pure muscle. That is retarded. Sounds like some exalted shit.
There are a few problems that have solutions.

1. Variety. Fighter feats were terrible because they had to be purchased. Fighters should have technique lists (ALA TOB), where they just have skills they can call on. 4e did it right, except for the amount of techniques. One had to keep trading them in and such, and it left the amount one always had quite low.

2.Reliability in damage.
Take away his +10 sword of doom, and most melee characters only do base damage. Once again rectified by techniques. They should also have passive abilities that last all day.

3.Skills and the skill monkey.
The existence of the skill monkey is what fucks the fighter over so. They need a WEALTH of skills, but are given none, since the skillmonkey needs a reason for being. Fighters need HELLA skill points, less they become useless outside of combat.

Maneuvers all but fixed the fighter. All that is needed after that is a large amount of skill points, and voila. The fighter becomes viable.

5.e would have benefitted from simply taking all of the styles 4.e had for combat, and made them into a maneuver list. TOB was perfect in that respect too.

Can we all agree that this is all based on some weird fighter-jock/wizard-nerd dichotomy grognards who were bullied in highschool are still carrying around with them?

>EAT FIREBALL, MEATHEAD! HAHAHAHA! WHO'S SHOVING WHO IN A LOCKER NOW, LANCE!?

>>22116119
But they SHOULDN'T be on equal ground. A human being is a hunk of meat, nothing more than some bone-filled meat-flapping emotion-feeler.
The bodiless pseudo-being is the star of the show, it's there to create universes and contemplate the nature of realities.
I mean, if you think back to mythology, all the best and coolest planets were wrought by star children. And the best and coolest star-children had humans worshipping them.

>>22116126
Dude playing a druid with natural spell is not meta-gaming and that is all it takes to completely outclass half the damn class in the game.

>>22116113

I know, right? But I can't think of any games which actually use it.

Its part of why I was so hopeful for Next. A lot of their ideas were on the same level of 'Shit this could be awesome'.

And then they pretty much ruined all of it by pandering to the grogs.

>>22116126

Here's the problem.

Breaking 3.X doesn't require deliberate powergaming. All it takes is one guy deciding he thinks that a cunning mages or a militant cleric or a druid are awesome character ideas and suddenly everything goes to shit in a hurry.

Or on the flipside, one guy thinking that he'd like to play a Samurai. Or a swashbuckling sort.

>>22116126
>But the game is actually really good, so long as your group isn't meta-gaming and making the most powerful builds possible.
Stormwind Fallacy

why should I be forced to play a sub-optimal character so that the game functions?

>>22116119

But they SHOULDN'T be on equal ground. A choppa is a hunk of metal, nothing more than some scrap metal welded together and sharpened.
The Shoota is the star of the show, it's there to krump sum gitz and have lotz a dakka
I mean, if you think back to mythology, all the best and coolest boyz were killed by shootaz. And the best and coolest shootaz had a buncha gitz wif choppas to soak up da uvva boy's dakka

>>22116142

What they need to do is come up with some new core skills that focus on things the Fighter could do that make him unique.
"Fighting" alone isn't a very fun core for a class, because everyone fights well.

>>22116153 I can't think of any games which actually use it.

HELLO MY NAME IS POKEYMANZ YOU MAY HAVE HEARD OF ME.

>>22116150
But it SHOULDN'T be on equal ground. A bodiless pseudo-being is an abstract concept, nothing more than some fantastical delusion.
The empirically-derived scientific method is the star of the show, it's there to rationally uncover the mechanics of the universe.
I mean, if you think back to the Enlightenment, all the best and coolest theories were based on empirical observation. And the best and coolest methods accounted for the old abstract beliefs.

>>22116144
No because when i started playing dnd in high school it was with members of the football team.

>>22116142

The ToB is good. Heck, you can have a pretty balanced game of 3.5 if you ban core and use ToB plus the various limited casting classes.

Unfortunately, that involves abandoning all the core classes. ToB fighters are still extremely weak compared to druids, clerics and wizards.

>>22115507

they did, it's called pathfinder

The real problem is that clerics, druids, and wizards aren't compelling archetypes so they had to make them stupidly overpowered in order to make them interesting.

>>22116144

No, I'm a new player to the game, and I prefer "Caster Editions" to be honest.
Ad-hominem is a weak ass argument as well, makes you look butt-mad and petty.

10 years ago you may of had a point, but we're not living in an age of bullied nerds anymore.

>>22116166
See, 4E actually did this well by making the Fighter an expert in reliably controlling hostile movement through tarpit tactics. Other classes could situationally shuffle around hostiles or could only do it periodicially, but the Fighter was your on-demand man for ensuring that the enemy only moved the way you wanted them to.

>>22116184

see

>>22115902

>>22116171
But it SHOULDN'T be on equal ground. The empirically-derived scientific method is another pointless concept, nothing more than yet another lie conceived by my meatbrain.
Solipsism is the star of the show, it's there to accept that nothing is real.
I mean, if you think back to the the beginning of reality, the only person was me. And I don't know why I'm talking to myself on an imaginary image board.

>>22115944
It's a single maneuver that you can take at first level in the last playtest. How is it in this one?

>>22116136

Here's the thing; Given the save mechanics, every spell of the same level has an equal chance of working (assuming it targets the same save), and the higher level spells are more likely to work. The fight ending spells are, obviously, going to trend higher than the weaker debuffs.

This presents something of a problem when you're trying to encourage the Wizards to use interesting debuff spells and similar rather than fireballing everything or going straight to Disintegrate.

Because giving the monsters high saves is a perverse incentive, it means you either have save-or-suck spells being your strongest spells that aren't direct damage, which means that unless both lots are basically useless you have no reason not to open with your Disintegrate/Ray of Enfeeblement/etc. And if they are uselss, why bother doing anything other than fireball?

>>22116142
>The problem is not in fighters not reaching some retarded level of strength where they fuck shit up with pure muscle. That is retarded. Sounds like some exalted shit.

Actually, no, that IS a problem in its own right: all characters are the same strength and the higher levels have always dealt with gods and world-spanning magic, so if DnD does not make all its characters --including the "mundane" ones-- into exalted-level demigods at the high levels, it has completely failed verisimilitude.

>>22116183
I love ToB

>>22116208
WEEABOO FIGHTAN MAGICKS

I also really like ToB. 4E did a good thing in using it as their basis for all martial classes.

>>22116201
Normal debuffs work as usual, but monsters are immune to fight-enders until below a certain HP threshold.

Just use both ideas that he originally posted.

>>22116213
That tears it.

Next d20 game I play I'm running with a Warblade.

>>22116058
I never got why Fighters or martial classes cannot have save or die abilties.

Throat slashes, eye gouges, backbrackers, arm snappers. You can render anything basically dead or useless in a fight through the right application of Sword.

File: 1355921120941.png-(17 KB, 206x205, 1326071923950.png)

>>22116158

You don't NEED to play sub-optimal.

The game still functions, even if one player is more powerful, he just gets more kills and perhaps rolls more skill tests.

4E was a horrendous edition. It may have 'balanced' the game but in doing so made everything bland identical and boring while stretching combat into a 3 hour tactical combat miniature game.

And regardless the concept of balance within an RPG doesn't really exist as the DM has full control to balance everything and there's the general rule that players shouldn't be abusive shitbags.

I'm happy for a return to a far superior design of the game

>>22116223
HP, man. It is both 'not actual damage' and 'is actual damage'

>>22116144
>Can we all agree that this is all based on some weird fighter-jock/wizard-nerd dichotomy grognards who were bullied in highschool are still carrying around with them?

That's probably one of the most retarded theory that gets thrown around every time we talk about 3.X

Also I love how it completely ignores any other class beside the Fighter: protip most other classes that are not casting spells are terrible too compared to the the Cleric/Druid/Wizard triangle.

>>22116229
so I say again, why not insist on a better system to play your story within?

>>22116235

Aye, isn't HP a mix of supposed to be a measure of remaining stamina, body damage and luck?

>>22116232

^whiny caster bitch who will die alone.

>>22116222
You walk the path of the virtuous man.

>>22116126
>4th edition is GREAT if you need a system for a group that does want to meta-game and play Legolas vs Gimli's "who can kill the most Orks?" but not every game needs to be balanced like that.

As opposed to just defaulting to Gandalf? Jesus Fuck, I'll never understand you beaten-wife fighter players. I suspect you're toe suckers.

>>22116229
What's the advantage in having an unbalanced game?

>>22116232
>I'm happy for a return to a far superior design of the game
troll
it's always your last line, man. You get me in your opening two, and that last one...? BAM. Trollbait.

>>22116245
it's never beet very clear

>>22116245

It's plot armor and morale.

>>22116245
Sorta.
Until you hit 0, when it becomes explicitly your life force.

It's confusing.

>>22116251

It lets people who use rpgs as a form of public masturbation get away with it.

>>22116245
It's whatever you decide it is, but in short, yes.

>>22116223
Didn't mikemearls tweet something about a week ago about giving 5e fighters a save-or-die?

>>22116235
Well fuck that.

Some Fighter abilties should trancend HP damage and go right into "OH SHIT SON WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIS ARM" territory.

>>22116267
like stabbing someone?

man I should go play some Riddle of Steel

>>22116261
I always pictured it in the way characters in movies can just keep on fighting forever and forever no matter how many injuries they take, until that one blow knocks them down.

Except for the "swarm of generic goons the heroes take down in one hit each" which in 4e were "minions" anyway.

>>22116170
Yeah, and it's fucking brilliant in MON games. If this was indeed in Next, even only on "boss" or solo enemies, I have no fucking clue why they turfed it.

>>22116269
>Well fuck that.
WoTC

File: 1355921468062.jpg-(24 KB, 180x200, 1338053507385.jpg)

>>22116243

The system needs some work, no doubt.

But what we've got has honestly been more FUN then the alternatives presented, in my opinion.

I'd rather have a slightly "imbalanced" system which reflects the flavor of the classes stronger as opposed to a system where they all operate in a similar manner, just to make it fair.

Wizards probably SHOULD have tried something new altogether, but 4th ed was a huge problem for them and they lost a huge chunk of the market to Pathfinder.

>>22116267
A single save or die? Amazing.

Fighters should become Gods of War when the Wizard becomes the reality warper.

>>22116256
>>22116254
>>22116245
RPG players and most developers have no idea what Hit Points are actually means to be, just look at the reaction to the Warlord.

I am never going to play D&D Next because it's an obvious throwback to a game I decided to never run again because it was way too overcomplicated and time-consuming for no reward (3.x, of course), and the total lack of balance wouldn't be as bad if the entire game wasn't built around over-complex mechanisms assuming every class, race and skill is of equal value.

I can put together an encounter and campaign in 4e in the fraction of the time a 3.x encounter takes, and I can be sure that it probably won't TPK any party of the right level and size as long as they're not being particularly stupid. It's actually what I expect from a modern gaming product, and it's been rejected by a bunch of nerds for no better reason than because it's different from what they've been playing and bought hundreds of dollars worth of books for.

>>22116188
That, and I find the D&D Cleric to have way too much versatility, both mechanically and superficially. They're designed to be shiny golden holy dudes, but with deity selection, they can also be rogues, druids, fighters, paladins, etc.

>>22116267
Would make sense. If vorpal swords' automatic head-lopping counts as an insta-kill, then I don't see why virtuosos of martial expertise couldn't attempt go for an execution blow under their own power.

>>22116284
>>22116229
>>22116126
>>22116066
Please stop avatarfagging.

>>22116282
What does that mean, excuse me, I only got into DnD 4E and even then only played like 4 sessions.

I just think fighters should just be as awesome as Wizards in their own way.

>>22116284
and what we're saying is that you can have all of those things that you want, without the 'imbalance' part.

It already exists in many systems, and COULD exist in 5e, if they stopped making 3.again edition

What're some good houserules for balancing something like Pathfinder?

>>22116223

Yeah. The monk has Quivering Palm; The Fighter should be able to do a move like Decapitate and so on.

I wonder, though: In fantasy, Fighters are generally on the same level as Wizards. It feels weird that Fighters need copious amounts of magic bling at high-levels to keep up...

I don't recall Guts from Berserk needing more than a suit of armor, a sword, and a lot of hate, for instance. Shouldn't Fighters have the ability to block magical projectiles, shrug off attacks through sheer toughness, and cut through magical barriers with MUSCLE MYSTERY?

It's like...There is a Warrior class. Those guys are meant to be the chumps a Wizard fries with a twitch of his little finger, and the ones a Fighter shears through in a righteous kill-frenzy. Fighters are a heroic class, aren't they?

>>22116299

They were clearly --and seemingly intentionally-- the base class in 2e, since they could do anything with the right kit and didn't have any notable stat reqs.

File: 1355921655531.png-(13 KB, 519x95, mearls.png)

Found it.

>>22116311
Ban wizards, clerics, druids.

>>22116299
or any one of those, day by day. Or by hour, even, considering it only takes one to change their spells for the day.

>>22116284
But 3.x classes don't even have any flavour at all! The Wizard does literally everything while the Fighter has all the depth of a RTS grunt. The mechanics are near worthless for getting a remotely interesting idea out of.

It's funny, I never feel "outdone" by the Wizard when I play a Ranger, Rogue or the Barbarian, because I'm still doing things he can't.

I think the problem is that "Fighter" is just a boring relic from the early days.
It's just too simple a concept to base your combat skills on.

File: 1355921713698.jpg-(143 KB, 500x475, 1259247860339.jpg)

Jesus instead of whining can't we just write a huge letter to Mearls telling him to step it up? I mean watching the ship slowly sinking is fun and all but shouldn't we at least try and go to the captain telling him there's a huge iceberg right in front of us? Maybe they won't care if one person sends an e-mail but if a hundred fa/tg/uys send the same fucking e-mail maybe it would do something. Or maybe they would consider it spam and just delete everything. Eh...

>>22116319
Cool.

Now in my game I have these homebrewed classes called Nizards, Blerics, and Pruids. They function extremely similarly to wizards, clerics, and druids. In fact, exactly the same.

How would I go about balancing them?

>>22116313

One more counterpoint: Dark Souls. Everyone in the game - Well, nearly everyone - is a fighter. And yet, you kill TONS of shit with bargain-basement equipment.

>>22116319
ban core!

>telsochu satisfactory
absolutely right, capcha

>>22116330
What do you think everyone has been doing?

>>22116334
Ban all PHB classes and spells.

>>22116144
It's a nice fantasy to entertain.
There's a nagging part of my mind that keeps telling me they're just stupid though

>>22116311

Go back to 3.5

Ban all the core classes (possibly exempting the Bard). Replace the now-banned melee classes with the stuff from the Tome of Battle. Replace the full casters with the various splatbook ones that run off niche spell lists (stuff like Dread Necromancer and so on)

Not balanced, but closer to it.

>>22116313

>MUSCLE MYSTERY

All my wants.

>>22116334
Seriously, balancing them would involve gutting them of so much of their spell selection and basic mechanical operation that you may as well just deadbook 'em. If people want to roll spellcasters, then they can be sorcs, bards, magus, oracles, inquisitors, etc., etc.

>>22116313

This is what should happen.

Unfortunately, devs are retarded.

>>22116345
It's really just that 'This is how I first learned to D&D, therefore this is what D&D IS and any attempt to tell me it's something different is BAD AND WRONG!'

I also blame how you could break 3.x over your knee with system mastery, and the spergs are freaking out at the potential realisation that all the splatbooks they bought and the nights they spend poring over them instead of going to parties were a waste of time and money.

>>22116334
>How would I go about balancing them?
Remove their spells. All of them.
>Wizards get shittons of knowledge and maybe can cast light. They can use weapons and wear no armor. They are leaders of men.
>Clerics know the spiritual world and can communicate with it. They can heal and provide succor, and fight with the fury of gods.
>Druids can shapeshift and commune with nature.

There. Easy. Keep the classic style and can no longer bend the rules of reality.

Hey guise.. what if we took DY^&D Next ..and started working on turning it into what we want ourselves. Like giving Fighters powers balanced to spells for example. So if Next is shit in the end.. we have our own D&D Next "Pathfinder" Edition. I mean in the end if you want something cool and useful to you, you should help mold it with your own hands. Just an idea...

>>22116327

He's being nice.

The Wizard spell list contains pretty much everything you need to obliviate skills out of combat, and he's better at shutting down stuff in combat than any of those classes.

>>22116269
Not a bad idea. Bleed damage. Instant wounds causing ability damage. Incapacitation of hands and jaws. The ability to determine the weak points of things which appear to have no weak points.

>>22116364
ignore random letters where i said d&d, keyboard is retarded.

>>22116365
I'm in that boat. In my current Pathfinder game I got stuck being the party wizard, and I'm constantly having to softball shit lest I one-man just about every encounter we face. It's kind of fun when I go all "fuck this noise, time to unleash my TRUE POWER" like a bad shounen protag, but that basically means the rest of the party gets to stand back and watch me get my magical lockdown apocalypse on.

>>22116371
I'm sorry, I can't resist.

AND THEN WE COULD GIVE THEM MODES FOR DAMAGE DEALING OR DEFENDING, WE COULD CALL THEM STANCES

AND GIVE THEM ABILITIES LIKE "HEROIC STRIKE" AND "MORTAL STRIKE"

>>22116364
We already have 4e.

The funny part is that it's likely the desperate attempts to pander to threeaboos will fail, because it doesn't matter how much you make the system look like 3.x, it's not 3.x, and the fans want to stick to the system them know inside out. I bet most of them will keep playing Pathfinder til they burn out and never touch Next.

And even the diehards are starting to actually look at 4e now that the dust has settled and actually realise all the lies they've been spewing about it might actually be bullshit.

>>22116355
What about cleric's healspam, though?
I can't think of anything that even comes close to it.

I can certainly think of fluff reasons as to why Druids, and even Wizards, aren't a thing, but Clerics?

This has been an interesting, and hard fought from both sides, topic. If people are willing to contribute this would make a great Skubument for issue 1. Anyone interested arguing for Caster Edition Vs Balanced Edition could you shoot an email along to the read gamer email address.

>>22116385
Thats better than doing nothing at all honestly.

A stance system might even work.

>>22116327
Just give them more weeaboo fighting magics.

The archetypal situation of a fighter who can't hit a wizard because of flying? Well what if he had an immediate reaction after evading damage from an attack that lets him teleport to an enemy and make a basic melee.

It's spirit energy, I aint gotta explain shit. You gave Rogues Bloody Path, right?

>>22116361
Hmm. Go back far enough though, to when D&D started, and I really and truly believe casters were gods and fighters sucked shit because clasically and in most people's perception wizards are bookpussies and fighters are johnnyfootballhero.

>>22116396
I was trying for a LOL WORLD OF WARCRAFT thing, but drew a complete blank for shit that fighters haven't always had.

>>22116393
Clerics are not quite as bad in PF as they are in 3.x, but their self-buffing can still render most other combat classes irrelevant. If you want healing, you can go oracle or witch.

File: 1355922226479.jpg-(67 KB, 466x700, Sylvester Potter.jpg)

>>22116340
>What do you think everyone has been doing?
Writing e-mails as a single entity and not as a group of pissed people? I don't know man in case like this it's usually more important to make a lot of noise and get attention than presenting well thought points.

>>22116397
Just wondering, do you actually think 4e Fighters work that way? Because the actual rules for them bend over backwards to make sure they don't do anything that looks explicitly magical.

If anything, 4e martials and the class structure in general are based more on sports roles and tactics. (Striker, Defender, marking...) And now I want to roll an American football player Fighter.

>>22116313

But wouldn't that mean Fighters would murder their way through everything? A Fighter does consistent damage, but a Wizard has 'spikes' of damage.

The problem is that in a D&D game, you don't fight THAT often - You rest between encounters. So Wizards always go from strength to strength.

>>22116397
Not even Weeaboo fighting magic, have Mythology Muscles.

Wizard flying? Fighter can fucking leap at that bastard.

Fireballs? Deflect with a well timed sword swing.

Elder god summoned? plunge a spear through it's heart.

Fighters should be Conan, Arthur and Beowulf all rolled into one.

>>22116362
I like this.

File: 1355922311077.jpg-(Spoiler Image, 647 KB, 1800x1324)

>>22116397
... god damnit, this is now how I'm picturing D&D fights.

>everybody's a multiclassed swordmage/sorceror

>>22116436
thank you.

>>22116397
Or even something as basic as "always carries a crossbow pistol and knows right where to put it to break that concentration needed for flight". Fuck yes, Grounding Shot.

>>22116392
Okay then, if you enjoy 4e, lets say you were making a next edition. What would you do to improve on it? Things that could be done differently, things that seem broken, etc. From your experience, are there anything you don't like?

>>22116431
>Fighters should be Conan, Arthur and Beowulf all rolled into one.
FWOAR YESSS

>>22116427
And now I want to roll an American football player Fighter.

Please do. Surely there's something you could fluff into what is essentially a football.

Or just go Spiked Gauntlet + Free Hand.

>>22116451
>YOU HAVE DAMAGE REDUCTION?
>FUCK YOU, NOTHING HAS DAMAGE REDUCTION AGAINST MUSCLES
>RIP AND TEAR
>RIP AND TEAR YOUR LIMBS

>>22116447
Exactly.
Nothing especially tricky, but smart, like daggers, bombs or fuck it, hidden fucking cannons.

>>22116428
This. There's a reason 4e built its classes around everyone having something cool to do each encounter, because the way 3.x tried to do it- and Next, because the whole point is to unlearn what they learned from its mistakes- was assuming that every campaign and day would have a certain number of encounters per day that would mean the casters wouldn't be able to wipe the floor with all of them- no more, no less. Of course then Rope Trick fucked that up.

File: 1355922470156.jpg-(31 KB, 299x240, ripandtear.jpg)

>>22116463

>>22116334
>>22116319
I'd say the most effective solution wouldn't be so much to balance the class features themselves, but rather to make a list of banned spells.

File: 1355922493109.jpg-(6 KB, 251x241, 1341481546139.jpg)

>>22116431

That actually sounds good.

Low levels, the Fighter is a slightly athletic guy who can hit shit well and the Wizard is just slightly above a children's party magician.

At high levels, the Fighter is as you say and the Wizard is the old school, flying, fireball shootin' reality warper we know and love.

I think the key is making sure Wizards don't get all the cool shit right at the beginning.
But, they must have skills and magical abilities that set them apart and make them useful.

>>22116440

Nah, the default Shinigami class is Avenger. Clothie, favored weapon is fuckoff huge swords, big blasty spells that can't hit for shit, has to trash-talk the enemy before engaging... It all fits perfectly.

Aizen is, of course, an early-ed contingency-whoring illusionist wizard. One of the only cases in fiction to live up to the mechanics, in fact!

>>22116431
>Fireballs? Deflect with a well timed sword swing.

Man, remember all those old pictures where you have a knight blocking the flames from a dragon's breath?

Those pictures were why I started playing DnD.

>>22116431
>Fighters should be Conan, Arthur and Beowulf all rolled into one
Go away and play your shitty Exhulted anime crap with the likes of you.

>>22116481
I... cannot unsee it.

>or am I actually seeing it at all?
>lol Complete Hypnosis

>>22116476
Refocusing wizards on non-combat utility spells would make them extremely useful without rendering the rest of the party irrelevant. We love wizards as much for their flight, dispel, True Seeing, scrying, teleport, etc. as we do their Black Tentacles and Disintegrate.

>>22116428
and hence why when adding these abilities in, you do more to balance them out mechanically and statistically. Sure its a bit more work, but in the end you will have a better game.

>>22116449
Well, for starts, Feats would be burned to the ground and started right over with, probably with something like Backgrounds but not shit.

And Ability Scores would need a work-over to make them somewhat relevant. Probably rejigger classes along with them to create more flexibility within classes, and an alternative to the power bloat that 4e suffered. (definitely not the whole using them as skills BS)

>>22116440

I believe the official /tg/ stance on Bleach is that it's an Exalted adaptation of Wraith.

>>22116481
Aren't Avengers basically Grim Reaper: the Class?

>>22116424
Yeah, I suppose so.

I'm toying with the thought of removing their general spells, but allowing them to keep Domain spells/abilties along with Channel energy.

>>22116492

Yeah, that sounds good.

3.5 and 4th ed are sounding shitter and shitter by the minute...

>>22116501
Another thing I hate to do, but...

How easy would it be to GRIMDARK up the Bleach setting? It's already full to the brim of cosmic horrors and secrets man was not meant to know and indescribable powers.

>>22116440
> this is now how I'm picturing D&D fights.

...People sitting around in a library looking fabulous?

Also, does that hat say FUCK?

>>22116487
Oh, you.

>>22116492
But then you gotta be careful not to make the skill monkeys irrelevant.

>>22116494
It's a sad indication of how backwards the RPG industry is when testing and doing the maths to make sure classes are balanced is considered a radical, out-of-the-way move, rather than the bare minimum of effort required. If WotC made video games they'd 20 years behind the times.

>>22116475
mostly though if you think there arn't some spells that need to be rewritten or taken out your an idiot. most can be balanced out, some are just retardly written.

>>22116385
What's wrong with that? I mean you don't have to go right to everyone has buttons and cooldowns, but stances are a neat idea. Different abilities gained based on weapon/armor specializations. More attacks per round with lighter faster weapons. More damage per swing with heavier weapons.

For starters, I'd make combat maneuvers much much easier for martial characters. Why are they so hard in the first place? It's just more paperwork when the goal should be smoother, faster combat pacing. Let fighters trip as one of their attacks without getting hit with an AoO. Let them move around without getting AoO. Let Rogues and Fighters flank from more angles by default. Let rogues tie their acrobatics skill (which they always have) into fighting. Give Barbarians a roar that dazes enemies within reach. There's tons of interesting things you can do.

Alright, we have a lot of ideas going here.
Is anyone stating these and tweaking anything as we speak?
Or at least archiving the thread so that we can rewrite everything once DnD next releases (assuming we'll wait that long).

>>22116520
That would actually work rather well, now that I think of it. Do the Oracle thing and give them Cure/Inflict spells by default, but leave Heal/Harm to domain-only.

>>22116525
Welcome to Bleach's manga "splash pages".

>>22116523
Kill more people off.
Byakuya? Stain on the wall. That useless guy with red hair? Died a few hundred chapters ago because he's fucking useless.

Oh, and take away Orihime's "I reject your wounds/death" bullshit.

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>>22116525
Japan loev English words.

>>22116535
They did that in 4e. Apparently it's weeaboo shit and makes every class the same.

>>22116531
And the fucked up part is that Next apparently is going to be all about spells being blocks of flavour text that you're meant to have to figure out what they do. Because everyone fucking loves when White Wolf does that.

>>22116530
I hate the idea of "skill monkeys". Rogues need to be able to do more than "guys I have a lot of skill points".

>>22116397
I actually like this a lot. The fighter can use special melees to at least try and knock the wizard prone, out of the sky. But the beauty of it? This Fighter has used something approaching magic, but because he isn't a Wizard, he doesn't understand it.

Sure he can teleport 30 feet into the air, to slap the shit out of that smug firethrowing fucker. And he just sent him hurtling to the ground with a well placed overhead.

But now he's falling to the ground as well. Better hope your body can take it. He overcame the obstacle with what he does best, slapping shit with a sword and tanking hits like a boss.

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>>22116549
Someone hasn't kept up with the manga since they cancelled the anime.
It's like Kubo was waiting for this.

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>>22116523 How easy would it be to GRIMDARK up the Bleach setting?

Uhm, completely trivial? It comes pre-DARKed already, just move the camera focus from Ichigo to, say, any person that /doesn't believe themselves to be the hero of a shonen manga/ and you're basically there.

>>22116560
You could just make it so the system doesn't punish the Fighter for using a ranged weapon, even as backup.

Also, less flying invisible wizards.

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>>22116530

Welcome to "the JRPG problem".

>>22116560
Technically doable in 4e with Fighter and that one skill power that gives you +20 for one athletics check?

>>22116569
Note the "more" part.
Editor forced him to pussy out on killing overly popular characters.
Imagine the reaction if Hitsugaya died. I'd rejoice. The other parts of the fandom wouldn't.

I say we just cut the Fighter class altogether and have two classes for non-barbarian/paladin martial dudes.

The first would be warlord, since it was one of the better ideas to crawl out of 4e.

The second would be Hero, which at low levels is similar to fighters but eventually scales up into something like Gilgamesh.

>>22116583
Ugh, good point.
The "yaoi fangirls" would die of collective heart attacks. And Shonen Jump wouldn't want to lose all that precious money.

>>22116583 Imagine the reaction if Hitsugaya died.

/a/ would think he was just being a cocktease again, probably wouldn't realize he was actually dead until 18 months later.

>>22116580
I'd say 4th edition is FF9, it was fun, classes were varied and fun, but IT'S NOT BETTER THAN 7!

>>22116539
I was >>22116364

and I'm loving discussion on what to change, what works and doesn't and possible outcomes. I feel that seeing what works and doesn't is more fun and better for the community than arguing about everything sucking and just throwing the towel in.

I could put all the info in a document, if someone could go through and quote posts with ideas.

>>22116586
Man, I'm loving the idea of a high-level "hero" just toting around a walking arsenal of kit, able to switch between all their weaponry without being mechanically penalized.

>>22116580

So... are we officially far enough along to declare 5e FFXIII (aka the "no really, we swear! we didn't learn anything!" game) yet?

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>>22116501
Well you see, my problem with that is the Ideas of fellows like>>22116313. See, I don't mind herculean strength at all, but sometimes people go too far and do the whole "cut the fabrics of space and tiem with my sword"

Fuck that. A 20th level fighter should be exemplified logically, by simply knowing all there is to fighting, not outwizarding a wizard. Verisimilitude dies with things like that, it doesn't get better.

Now, you give the fighter a power source like ki, or even better, Prana, then we can go with the charles atlas super power no problem, but having no explination for it makes me wanna puke.

Manga does have a lesson to teach us, and that is, what a really high level melee fight shoud flow like.

Just saying fuck you magic out of spite makes me sick. Maybe give mundane characters the ability to make charms. Charms have ALWAYS been a part of lore to keep monsters away.

Perhaps magical tattoos that ward ALL magic to a point without going full dispel.

>>22116205
I would naturally want my fighters to have that whole shinigami appeal martially. Foot techniques, h2h techniques, and weapon techniques. Smiles all around

>>22116586
A lot of what makes the warlord awesome doesn't work outside of 4E and its enormous emphasis on movement. Without that it's mostly a glorified nova-enabling buffbot with a side dash of healer.

>>22116540
I do feel sort of bad entirely gutting those classes like that.

But I might just let them buy/earn spells they particularly want. Becomes more of a study than a suddenly-more-powerful-because-we-leveled-up sort of thing.

>>22116598

It's XII because it's the controversially different one that --surprise surprise-- the company ends up recanting halfway through because they're pussies.

>>22116598

Aye, 9 was very focused on Unique classes being different.

Not every party member was balanced, but that was part of the fun.

>>22116586
I like it. Also, solves the problem of 2e-lovers saying that a personal army is the ONE TRVE WAY for fighters.

>>22116539
I've been writing my own D20 homebrew PF/4E/fromt the Ground up mish mash let's see how this all works together. for a couple weeks now. I'm not good at the maths so it's slow going.

>>22116586
so split fighter into a commander/defender type and a musclebound attacking guy. I could deal with that. Maybe call Hero something else, hero is a lil generic sounding.

>>22116633

I'd say that hero is a bit more evocative than fighter at the very least.