So which tabletop rpg system has the best balance between magic users and non-magic users?
On the level of "no disparity whatsoever", a whole bunch of them.
D&D 4e, Tenra Bansho Zero, Dungeon World, Legend (RoC), Super Console, Grancrest, Make You Kingdom, Ryuutama, Log Horizon, Splittermond, The Dark Eye, Beyond the Wall, Sword World, Alshard Gaia, Arianrhod, Silver Rain...
>>45285017
Shadowrun is pretty good. Internal balance isn't as important as the fact that you need certain roles in your team filled, and one of those is someone magically attuned.
If you don't have a magic-user then you're liable to being tracked by astrally projecting magicians, to miss certain clues that can be picked up by assensing, and to miss out on all the magical shenanigans mages can pull, amongst other things.
On the other hand if you have nothing BUT magic-users, opponents who resist magic (artificial drones, adepts with certain powers, etc) can wreck your shit, and the enemy will use the Matrix against you unhindered.
>>45285017
L5R has a pretty good balance. I played a Dragon Bushi that had a higher kill count than the rest of the party combined
There isn't a balance of magic and non magic, it just depends on what your GM feels like creating and they determine the amount of magic.
>>45285017
D&D 4E
>>45285017
Any game or setting with no magic users.
>>45285017
Any system where magic and non magic run off the same systems. So FATE Core or Double Cross.
One would think D&D 4e, but Wizards, Clerics and at the absolute death knell of the system, Warlocks were dumb. The reason people think it's balanced is because Rangers/Fighters were also stupid good, but in a much simpler way.
>>45292981
This
Or
>>45293039
This
>>45293137
One would think 4e and be right.
>>45293137
If you don't have to edit the system much (which is kinda hard to quantify how much editting is too much, and you can have martial and magic-users both be important in making a team that can take on apperiate monsters, then it is balanced.
I say this because there is nothing that prevents a DM from unleashing everything on the players in game. Only the OOC answer that the experience will be likely be unfun and the players lever the game, near to be seen by the DM.
>>45285017
Any game where martial level up faster than the casters.
>>45295136
....
that's not true.
I can easily design a game where that is not the case.
caster level 1 (has the ability to win the game)
caster level 2 (nothing important gained) experience require is 100
martial level 1 (doesn't do anything important)
martial level 2 (nothing important gained) experience require is 50
which class do you pick to win the game?
Remember that the martial levels faster, but the caster wins you the game.
ITT: Autists who've never playedD&D at allanything but D&D defenstrating and the great irony that Japs have better games and character balance than their favorite thing.
Which should be extremely embarrassing to everyone in the western RPG dev side of things, but you stupid fucks keep lapping it up like 40k fans and their plastic crack.
>>45285017
2e d&d
>>45295180
But the game is about the story. So why won't you just let there be a class that sucks at everything it endeavors to do already?This is what some browsers of /tg/ actually believe.
>>45285017
Unknown Armies
>>45293137
Except FATE Core isn't a system, but a DIY toolkit and Double Cross doesn't have any magic. Unless you count the Renegade virus and then every "caster" is leagues superior to any "non-caster"
Wizards and Clerics are not the death knell of the system and Warlocks are perfectly viable. You're thinking of 3.5, not 4e, which you probably haven't read.
Not to mention that Rangers and Fighters weren't the least bit simpler because every class ran off the same framework pre-PHB3.
>>45285017
Anima
Though in Anima everybody ends being supernatural some way or another
>>45297186
Anima has Martial Supremacy.
>>45285017
Narrative systems are going to balance themselves out.
But if you want crunch, DnD 5e has martials and casters balanced at every tier without running into the same mechanic issues 4e and narrative systems usually do.
>>45297254
Nope. Wizards just require preptime, but they can crack reality over their knee if they feel like it.
If you frame everything around random spontaneous fighting of course the classes designed to do that will look better.
>>45285017
I don't know about best but Fantasy Craft has fairly good balance between the two.
Mages are consistently useful but also consistently only on-level with skilled mundanes and only temporarily by expending resources (although they get those resources back frequently enough to stay competent)
The only area that magic really pulls ahead is healing, and even there, specialization in mundane healing can make it feasible, it just tends to be slower to actually treat wounds than it is to magic them away.
>>45285017
Anime
>>45297372
>DnD 5e has martials and casters balanced
Horseshit.
>>45300118
this
My group played 5e from level 2 to 18. While at the beginning we felt that everyone was pretty even in terms of power, we noticed that as we leveled up, the casters evolved a lot more. By the time we were at high levels (11+) it was pretty easy to realize that casters made the most difference in combats, and were much more powerful.
When we fought an adult dragon at level 10, our melee fighters did almost no damage by themselves. We won the fight easily after the rogue teleported to the top of the dragon's back and the wizard and I (bard) turned him and our paladin into T-Rexes.
Also, casters get a lot more variety in character building (due to the pretty big list of spells they can choose from) than non-caster classes. 5e has very few variety in character creation, but non-casters suffer the most from it.
>>45286800
In the game I'm in, we have a magic-user, but he's more of a diplomancer. Aside from some non-lethal stuff, he's got no skills in identifying magical objects or such stuff. Is he not fulfilling his role in the group?
>>45300425
very little variety*
>>45297408
Sorta. Wizards Crack Reality earlier but Martials can get crazier with enough exp.
Fantasy craft.
>>45286800
In some ways, riggers counter mages, deckers counter riggers, any attacker can counter a decker if they turn their gear off, and mages are usually good against attackers.
It's really more complicated than that but really, no one class is better than the other.
>>45285017
>So which tabletop rpg system has the best balance between magic users and non-magic users?
Almost all that aren't d20.
>>45285017
Depends on the setting and which magic user you are using. I'd say 5e is pretty good.
GURPS
>>45300464
>>45300425
>>45300118
>>45297372
Casters in 5E aren't OP in how much they can do (okay, depends on build, Sorclocks are a dirty, dirty, dirty temptation) so much as "What", which is still "Pretty much everything".
Way too little versatility for half-casters and VERY little for non-casters.
Though admittedly a lot of that is due to the fanbase screaming at Wizards to take out mechanics that would have narrowed the gap.
>>45300775
I remember the halcyon days of the playtest when, for a brief, glorious moment, it looked like martials were actually going to have nice things. Fighters had cool maneuvers in combat, and even a few non-combat maneuvers, and it seemed there was plenty of room for expanding on the theme to let fighters finally be something more than just "I hit it with my sword".
Then they stripped all that out in the next iteration. It was then that I knew 5e was doomed.
>>45300450
What kind of magic user? Full mage? Adept? Aspected?
Technically, a shaman makes a good face and can ask spirits to do most of the magical gruntwork.
>>45301157
I'm honestly not sure, but he's definitely not a shaman - he doesn't use any spirits. I think he might just be an adept.
>>45301146
>I remember the halcyon days of the playtest when, for a brief, glorious moment, it looked like martials were actually going to have nice things. Fighters had cool maneuvers in combat, and even a few non-combat maneuvers, and it seemed there was plenty of room for expanding on the theme to let fighters finally be something more than just "I hit it with my sword".
Martials having nice things is "Not D&D", anon. It never had a chance.
>>45301174
Adepts are basically magical street sams. He's probably not covering you magically.
>>45301451
Just to be clear - there's a difference between a physical adept and a magical adept, right? One's more like what we'd call a monk, the other's a mage of some sort?
>>45301501
He described it as a magical street sam because adepts, until they have initiated a few times, are good at SOME things, and have no ability really in others, as street sams are.
>>45301608
Okay. So yeah, he's a diplomancer adept. He can sculpt and mess with people's minds a bit, but that's it.
>>45285017
anyone have original sauce on pic?
>>45301655
If you are playing 4e SR, that is one of the best ways to run an adept, because the essence for 'ware can be adhoc'd to be outrageously cheap for some major bonuses, on top of an always on power set.
>>45301686
Well, we are playing 4e. It's my first game, so I don't know much about it aside from that I'm a decker and I'm good at my job.
I'm pretty sure magic-types aren't supposed to use 'ware though.
>>45301730
Adepts can get away with it easy if their do it right, and even combat mages can drop for some 'ware because some of the advantages are just that damn worthwhile.
It's not recommended willy nilly, but you gotta have a tight plan. I've seen super 'wared up mages before that could give a troll money for sheer durability on top of MAGIC BITCHES.
>>45301684
Love/Hate Letter by Yuuki Ray
http://exhentai.org/g/762680/b69ac74276/
>>45301730
You're going to tell Shadowrunners they aren't supposed to do something?
Mages like cyber-eyes; you need to be able to see your targets to cast spells on them, and cyber-eyes are cheap. Put that together with some kind of logic boosting ware and you are gold for under one essence. You can afford to lose one essence.
Physical adepts like cyberware too; the IP enhancing bioware is more BP efficient than the IP enhancing adept power.
>>45300775
that's why we're going back to 4e
we feel like we already played every kind (mechanically) of character possible. Also, some classes get boring pretty quickly
>>45301823
And then at some point they look around and ask themselves "what am I doing with my life?" and feel very alienated by who or what they have become, or how unsavory the twitchy, almost cyber zombie street sammie they hang with is, to say nothing of the creepy fucking decker who giggles too much and is constantly abusing uppers and downers to keep working, and they are never NOT working.
Or how things are "sort of mostly ok. Right now" because they are hiding in some slum from some legal authority and they think it's mostly safe. probably.
>>45301967
Seems reasonable enough, though I myself will be getting into 13th Age as soon as possible.
>>45285017
Fate is good at balancing characters of drastically different power levels. I'm in a 40k game in Fate where we're all humans except for the fucking Space Marine. Yeah, he's a combat monster like you'd expect, but we keep up with him no problem.
Just shut up. What you want would come out to boring homogenization and then you'd bitch about that. Fuck's sake.
>>45285017
Anima.
Martial characters still need to rely on Ki, but if they do they're much more powerful much sooner than Casters are. Comparatively, casters get more powerful as you go on and don't really STOP getting more powerful.
Psychics just sorta exist. They're on a fairly balanced curve.
>>45285017
4e, hands down, though others are tied for "they are perfectly balanced"
>>45304183
This is what all the fucking martials are buttmad about
>never stop becoming more powerful
They want to be both realistic, grounded AND as powerful as casters at the same time
My solution is this as a GM
>Fuck off and stop crying like a bitch
Simple as that. If you are playing in a setting where you can't get super strength from just training, deal with it, Wizards are going to have super powers because they draw from a magical source
BUT GUESS WHAT, YOU CAN JUST MUTATE YOURSELF OR USE VARIOUS MAGICAL TOOLS TO GIVE YOURSELF SUPER POWERS TOO!
You know why martials ignore this fact? Because as I said before, they want to be both badass normals AND be as strong as the casters without any magic being used on them.
Martial crybabies are hypocrites.
>>45304166
This, I honestly do not understand shitty complaints like that. There are settings like Exalted where everyone is a walking rapegod of destruction and might, there are settings with no magic, there are settings with this and that.
You can find system for any sort of gameplay.
You know what this thread is though? It's stealth
>WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH WHY ARE CASTERS STRONGER THAN MARTIALS IN DND LIKE GAMES WWWWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAH
>>45304956
>Simple as that. If you are playing in a setting where you can't get super strength from just training, deal with it, Wizards are going to have super powers because they draw from a magical source
Then don't run a game that includes martials and casters in the same set of classes marketed as theoretically balanced choices. IF the game has a full set of fully balanced fullcasters in the class section, and then gives rules for the martial NPC classes in a different section, while making it clear that this is a game ABOUT casters, that's different, but that's not what the systems we're talking about did. Actually, that could be a very fun game, with all different variations on the caster motif, you might actually get a functioning muscle-wizard.
>>45305144
Game doesn't have to be about the strongest thing in existence you fucking assfaggot. Plus the difference between a usual wizard and a martial in majority of DnD editions and whatever it spawned is not that large until later levels...which again is negated by the fact that fighter can still get all sorts of magical artifacts, augmentations and magic resists to help himself out.
>>45305424
>Game doesn't have to be about the strongest thing in existence you fucking assfaggot.
Then have a full set of balanced martial classes, and include the casters in the "boss classes" section.
OR have your PC martials be assumed to be sufficiently exceptional specimens of... martialdom, that it is reasonable to put PC martials on the same tier as PC wizards.
OR make this
>the fact that fighter can still get all sorts of magical artifacts, augmentations and magic resists to help himself out
More codified, obvious, and most importantly, not something casters can already do all by themselves better than non-casters.
IF you can't imagine a world where any martial could ever rival any caster, that's fine (not that I'm saying you do, just the most extreme case) but PC's should be within the same power plateau, whether it's the top (Exalted,) the bottom (The Dark Eye,) or something in-between (4e.)
Mouse Guard.
>>45305578
>not something casters can already do all by themselves better than non-casters.
Why should that be a thing again?
A caster and a non-caster martial with equal augmentations are not an even match, martial with his feats, combat knowledge and already pre-existing strength/dexterity is a clear winner over a wizard of the same level that got the same augmentations.
>>45305686
>Sleep at level 1
>Blindness at level 3
No.
>>45305826
Fuck off, both need material components and at that point your DC will be low as shit so every fucking other fighter will be shrugging off sleep like nothing, then he will come up to you and shove his axe up your fucking ass.
Stop moaning and bitching.
>>45305686
>martial with his feats, combat knowledge and already pre-existing strength/dexterity is a clear winner over a wizard of the same level that got the same augmentations.
Then we are clearly no longer talking about the same system, because I was talking about (for the most part) 3e and 5e. Whatever game you're talking about sounds lovely, but you should probably specify it in a conversation where 3e/5e D&D can be assumed to be the default (which is totally the case in a conversation about martial-caster disparity.)
>>45305686
>martial with his feats, combat knowledge and already pre-existing strength/dexterity is a clear winner over a wizard of the same level that got the same augmentations.
Then we're clearly talking about different systems. I was under the impression we were talking about 3e and/or 5e D&D. Since this IS a thread about martial-caster disparity, you should probably specify if you're talking about a system other than the obvious assumption of 3e/5e. Whatever you're playing sounds lovely if that's the case however.
>>45305886
>>45306050
Sonofabitch. Post took so long to show up (over 5 minutes) that I said the same thing again. Dammit.
Any game where maric is limited in use and pricy enough. I.e. SW and 7sea. Basically, you can be a good swordsman, get some useful skills and some allies OR you have one supernatural ability.
>>45306191
Also, WFRP and any other where magic comes at a price. Yeah, Red Magic is better than +1 to damage, but you don't risk summoning a shitload of daemons, angry mob or spoiling all food on the ship by hitting hard at fighting career.
>>45305686
The major flaw that I think they're trying to point out is that any magical item or trinket or other thing that a martial can pick up, a caster can too. Oftentimes the caster doesn't even need to buy it, just craft it.
This wouldn't be a problem, except that the feats and other abilities that try to serve as the "advantage" over casters aren't terribly strong overall, and don't at all bridge the power gap except in campaigns where the martials are specifically given more gold to work with than the casters.
No matter how hard a Fighter tries, there isn't a feat that lets him attack a 30' radius, at a not-insignificant range, for 20d6 Fire. Should there be? Well fuck I dunno I'm just some anon on the internet.
There's only three ways these people will ever be satisfied and call a system "balanced"
>when the martial is better than the caster
>when the martial and caster are the exact same thing with different flavor text
>when the caster doesn't exist
>>45306815
More strawmen doesn't mean better argument.
>>45306865
Exept all those three are real examples commonly seen on /tg/.
"2E D&D is good because if fighter and wizard fight 1 on 1 faggot, the fighter is immune to everything and will stop the wizard from casting anything anyway"
"4E D&D is good because all the classes are the same"
>it's a gritty low fantasy episode
>>45307033
Except that, just reading through this thread alone, it should be pretty easy to see that all classes are not the same in 4e and, besides that, people have said what they'd be happy with.
Just because some people use bad arguments, or even if those bad arguments are common, doesn't mean that those are the only arguments and that there shouldn't be a conversation.
I mean, for one thing, consider Das Schwarze Auge/The Dark Eye, where mages are clearly different and are useful but do not eclipse or replace the other players.
![wulin%2005[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/oHAdade.jpg "wulin%2005[1].jpg")
>>45285017
Systems where the lines are blurred entirely.
>Warriors that split the earth with their raw strength and can call on their internal yang energies to punch fireballs at enemies
>Scholars who can fortify their bodies with Iron Body Style techniques and shrug off even the most lethal looking blows
>Priests who weave Taoist magics to trap people in geometric impossibilities and then beat the shit out of them with their bare hands
So good
>>45310732
That last thing doesn't sound very Taoist. Aren't they all about harmony and living according to universal principles and stuff like that?
>>45301823
Magic targeting doesn't work through cameras.
A Mage with cyber eyes should never be able to cast a spell at anyone.
>>45310862
>Aren't they all about harmony and living according to universal principles and stuff like that?
Yeah.
So? You don't sound like you're very familiar with Wuxia, or Lawful Good not meaning Lawful Pussy for that matter, either.
>>45311056
>So? You don't sound like you're very familiar with Wuxia, or Lawful Good not meaning Lawful Pussy for that matter, either.
Welcome to Conclusions Island. I hope you had a nice jump.
>>45295601
Seconded. UA adepts are terrifying in terms of power, but horribly broken people who struggle with basic interactions and are bound by obsessive and often self-destructive behaviors. Avatars are generally less scary and suffer the same problems to a commensurate level (at least until they get to the upper power bands).
Either group can be handled by normal folks who aren't nearly so psychologically dependent on using magic as a hammer to solve every problem and getting a bead on exactly what a magic-user's deal is means you've got one over on them. Also, taking a fighting skill as your obsession (allowing you to invert your d100 rolls on a particular skill) instead of magic generally puts you ahead of a guy who has to eat money or drink himself stupid to lay a mystical whammy on someone in terms of combat power, at least in a straight up fight.
>>45289152
>L5R is pretty balanced
>mine wasn't tho lol
Rethink your life.
>>45311142
Well, feel free to correct me then. All you're doing now is evading the accusation, as if it doesn't logically follow from saying that it's "not very Taoist" to get down and dirty when the time calls for it, because "they're, like, about harmony and stuff, man, beating people up isn't very harmonious."
>>45311309
I've seen some Wuxia, but I guess I never really connected it to Taoism -- what I do know about Taoism mostly seems more pacifist than not. It might be because I don't know enough about the ideology but violence strikes me as something more or less incompatible with its laid-back philosophy.
Fantasy Craft
>>45285017
honestly 4e. I followed their design choices that they were talking about all the way up to release. I think that made it hit less hard for me than for other people. But I really liked how they said to themselves," game design has come a really long way, let's start fresh"
Most of their changes made total sense to me.
34 races of elves? Only actual two when we think about it. Magic and nature. Everything else is fluff.
Everyone likes getting new abilities and growing their character? Every level you make some kind of decision.
so on and so forth.
I think a lot of the problem came from art style and community outreach.
Anyway as to your question, since they thought about the actual mechanics of the game they were able to balance everyone out pretty nice mathmatically.
>>45297372
>5e magic balenced
It's got fucking infininte use cantrips anon.
>>45313581
>changing the color of things is broken
You kinda tried I guess?
>>45313929
Prestidigitation does more than that, and they get more than one cantrip. You are right that that isn't what makes them overpowered.
>>45311369
>It might be because I don't know enough about the ideology but violence strikes me as something more or less incompatible with its laid-back philosophy.
I mean... wu wei isn't the same as "passivity." To my understanding, it's about not imposing your own desires on the world. You become a part of the rhythm of the natural world. An instrument for it. And sometimes the world needs people to get kicked in the face. Taoism regards rendering aid to the downtrodden as a positive, for one thing.
But yeah, I think it's out of character for a monk to start shit. Lao Tzu says that where armies march, only brambles and thorns grow in their footsteps and wagon-ruts. Actively fomenting conflict is right out.
But sometimes, the fastest way to end a conflict is to break a dude's arms.
>>45285017
Savage Worlds is pretty good at that because it takes feats or edges or whatever they're called in order to become magic, thus making it something you have to invest in in.
>>45286242
so games we can't play.
>>45316285
Savage Worlds has other problems though, like wonky odds and exploding dice.
>>45285017
I feel like, at this point, the source should just be pinned to the bottom of this image
>>45316826
TBZ, Ryuutama, Grancrest and Make you kingdom were translated into english.
RoC legend, DW and 4e ARE in english
so, unless you have some weird religious taboo against playing good games, you, in fact, can play them.
>>45304166
>>45305013
>Balance is homogenization
I want this meme to go.
>>45304166
>homogenization
That's dumb. You could make an RPG system that's basically xactly like D&D except for one thing- Casters don't have ANY attack or save-or-die spells. They can still use wands/utility spells or attack in melee or turn into bears and shit, so they wouldn't be useless, but that would turn the martials of the game into actual useful options.
>>45312896
Give this man a cookie!
>>45311052
Wrong. Cyberware is part of your body, it isn't just bunch of gadgets in your pocket.
>>45311052
>Eyes are cameras
Not if they're flooded with your essence, which is why cyberware is the cause for your essence loss.
>>45285017
i don't know what those speech balloons used to say... all i know is i hope i never find out.
also ill throw d&d 2e out there because the non casters leveled up quicker, and it was way harder to get bonus spells. the clerics levels up fast too, but the spheres system meant they only had a very restricted spell list.
>>45317308
Wasn't Dark Eye translated?
>>45317340
It's not like 3e was homogenized because everyone got on the same xp-level track.
>>45319106
>3e
>balance
anon.
>>45319137
I'm not saying it was balanced, I'm saying classes weren't homogenized.
>>45313929
>he doesn't think free, constant versatility and the ability to flawlessly influence the world with no checks or saves involved isn't a power in and of itself
>>45318526
Gygax himself disputed that.
Here is his quote on such from a issue of Dungeon Mag:
>Magic-use was thereby to be powerful enough to enable its followers to compete with any other type of player-character, and yet the use of magic would not be so great as to make those using it overshadow all others. This was the conception, but in practice it did not work out as planned. Primarily at fault is the game itself which does not carefully explain the reasoning behind the magic system. Also, the various magic items for employment by magic-users tend to make them too powerful in relation to other classes (although the GREYHAWK supplement took steps to correct this somewhat).
>The logic behind it all was drawn from game balance as much as from anything else. Fighters have their strength, weapons, and armor to aid them in their competition. Magic-users must rely upon their spells, as they have virtually no weaponry or armor to protect them. Clerics combine some of the advantages of the other two classes. The new class, thieves, have the basic advantage of stealthful actions with some additions in order for them to successfully operate on a plane with other character types. If magic is unrestrained in the campaign, D & D quickly degenerates into a weird wizard show where players get bored quickly, or the referee is forced to change the game into a new framework which will accommodate what he has created by way of player-characters. It is the opinion of this writer that the most desirable game is one in which the various character types are able to compete with each other as relative equals.
>>45318526
There are no significant differences in leveling speed between magic mans and muggles in the various TSR editions and amges don't levelup meaningfully slower.
>>45295457
The only extremely embarrassing thing here is your incoherent posting.
>>45299401
Nonsense. FC mages can invalidate entire skills with single spells.
>>45302083
it'd be nice if 13th Age was the 4e successor that the fanbase was desperate for
>>45304166
Its funny how ideal balance between mages, clerics and fighters was a thing in 1e AD&D and they were, particularly in the way initiative was handled, utterly nonhomogenous. By far, having a wide mix between the above makes it easily ten times as probable that the PCs will survive and thrive.
Clerics & fighters block and thrash in hand to hand, and serve to give the mage enough time for control effects.
Clerics are nearly as good in melee, but... fighters completely rape during the surprise round with bows, its not unusual for bows to get ten or more attacks off with a good surprise roll.
Fighters & mages dominate at range and there's also a great balance between low and high level spells, the latter are untenable to cast if the enemy is at all likely to attack your squishy wizard self, while the former are your only hope if someone's attacking you.
And of course, clerics are your best chance at surviving the Forces of Badtouch (TM).
>>45313929
havent looked to know if it still is cantrip 5e but cmon acid splash can solve all problems.
>>45319492
How so?
>>45319511
>it'd be nice if 13th Age was the 4e successor that the fanbase was desperate for
It's kind of its own beast, really.
Fantasy Hero
Most games that aren't D20
I have always wanted to play a video game style RPG with a mana pool and everything for casting spells, along with spells being much more limited in scope than 3.5. IE you can't fly, scry, or teleport until the end game.
>>45319537
well, you'd be a fool to put points in medicine or disguise in a game with the default spell list available. Having a support mage in your party means you never have downtime, and opens up lots of options you couldn't get any other way, like massive aoe damage and flying around the place.
Fantasy Craft is a pretty solid game for low-fantasy heroics, but the magic system is just a retread of the D&D spell list, except on a mana point system and with important characters getting a bonus against save-or-dies. It's disappointing for a game that's supposed to be generic and adaptable.
>>45319604
Actually, I find it interesting that most RPGs are a lot more contemptuous of muggle types than 3e is -- the usual assumption for noncaster types isn't "here are abilities that vaguely replace your lack of magic," but "eat shit, you get nothing."
If you extend the metaphor a little you'll see the dichotomy popping up everywhere as well; in Vampire the Masquerade, the Gangrel get fuck all compared to the Tremere, in Mage the Awakening Forces mages are both used as the buttmonkey in background/storyline examples and wholly secondary to Mind mages (who, besides being just as good at attacking, and better even due to less paradox/etc., can use magic to make themselves better at magic, etc). Runequest doesn't even bother to attempt any parity with muggles vs sorcerers, monks, etcetera.
Traveler makes psi *hard to get* and the talent fades with age (thus, you must leave the space military before your talent is gone, cutting your stats/skills short), so one could argue psi types and muggles are balanced, but its not as if a psi vs non psi char of a given age have anything remotely compared to parity.
Jedi vs non jedi in Star Warzy stuff are of course legendarily imbalanced.
Nonmagical characters in Exalted are of course irrelevant peasants of zero significance by comparison. If we do go with essence users, that's a little different, but having a few sorcery spells is disproportionately useful for, say, dragon blooded.
The only kind of RPGs that commonly have better muggle vs mage balance than D&D are ultra-narrative type games and ones where there just plain isn't anything like a mage vs muggle dynamic at all.
>>45319749
Lots of (most?) games have balance issues, but I don't think pointing out that one school of magic is stronger than another in a game that's all about mages is entirely relevant to a conversation about games where mages overshadow people without magic powers.
>>45319711
Unless you have two mages with Healing Touch the mage is still going to require someone to patch them up since they cannot cast Healing Touch on themselves and the Mass versions of those spells are decently costly.
Disguise Self is something I got to agree with, but it has weaknesses that a regular check doesn't.
>>45319841
Is there a rule against targetting yourself with touch-range spells? I completely missed that one.
>>45319911
Eyup. If you wanna touch yourself it needs to be Personal spell.
>>45295457
You forgot to post a smug loli
Font worry I got u senpai
>>45319911
On top of that, there's currently no spell that reduces Subdual or Stress damage (Not sure about the latter though) apart from Heal, but that removes the conditions they cause and not the damage itself.
>>45319965What is she from?
>>45316059
>Taoism regards rendering aid to the downtrodden as a positive, for one thing.
That doesn't sound like violence at all, though. Hitting motherfuckers is far from the only way to "give aid."
>Sometimes the world needs people to get kicked in the face
This is the kind of thing I have trouble taking seriously
>>45319947
I guess you can infer this from how it Touch of Light is a "personal or touch" spell while Cure Wounds just says "touch", but is it actually stated anywhere? The entry for spell distance defines each range category as a maximum so it's not easy to intuit that, e.g. a mage couldn't blow his own head off with a magic missile if he chose.
>>45285017
3.PF
>>45320046
K-on! 2: Electric Tubaloo
>>45319991
Oh man don't get me started on subdual damage.
>>45300775
Sorlock is only damage and nothing else, and even so still deals less damage than a focused battlemaster even at range
>>45312896
This sums up some of the things that made me like 4e.
>I think a lot of the problem came from art style and community outreach.
Agreed, along with timing.
>>45320096
>Sorlock is only damage and nothing else
I know.
>>45312896
>I think a lot of the problem came from art style and community outreach.
It was all, all about presentation. People could have gotten on board with every class getting powers if they weren't faced with 30 levels of identically-formatted powers. That's too much info to parse on a quick readthrough, so you go with your gut impression that every class is the same now.
Healing Surges? Brilliant mechanic, my single favourite innovation of the game. But call it fucking stamina or something, jesus christ. And if you don't want people to call your game tabletop warcraft then don't copy their look, which is terrible anyway.
>>45285017
Sauce on this?
>>45312896
>Everyone likes getting new abilities and growing their character? Let's make everyone an MMO character that presses hotkeys to use their skills with extremely contrived side effects
Fixed
>>45285017
Any system with a competent GM
>>45320325
But that... that doesn't mean anything at all. What you're saying doesn't make sense, or distinguish the thing you're talking about from all other things of its type. Is this bait? Is this what it is to be baited?
>>45320325
As opposed to what? "Let's make the only options "I attack" or "I attack while using this feat that adds a status effect"?
>>45320402
As opposed to pulling out six splat books from 1981 and then arguing for half an hour whether or not he is allowed to use meta knowledge to summon a lesser god and wish to win the game there and then
>>45320358
A good GM could run an enjoyable session of FATAL, but that doesn't mean FATAL should be considered an enjoyable game.
>>45320471
True
>>45320395
What I'm saying is that 4E is literally a videogame in tabletop form. Why would you play it, when you could just play an actual tabletop game, or an actual videogame where the computer automatically takes care of calculations.
>>45320549
How else am I supposed to run my ultra special Super Robot Wars campaign where every other person IS the giant robot without drowning in spreadsheets?
I love the fights that take place all over a bar or on rooftops, what other system let's me run that with a proper image clipped from Pirates of the Caribbean?
>>45320549
You're repeating a meaningless meme. Why does a 4e character using their powers evoke pressing hotkeys to you, in a way that it doesn't in any other edition of D&D or any other RPG where a player can say 'hey, I use this thing that I have on my charcter sheet'? What is uniquely contrived about the effects of 4e characters' powers? What does contrived mean in this context? How could a game mechanic ever NOT be a contrivance in the most literal sense?
>>45320096
It's literally a 9th level caster, on top of doing fighter tier at-will damage.
>>45320314
To me it made magic users feel more magical because they never ran out of magic really.
3.5 if you ran out of spells you were just a faggot with a stick.
I like how they solved the problem of
>martials: I never get any cool abilities
now you get a ton of movement based abilities, and warlords are fucking boss as hell
>casters:if I run out of spells I am worthless
at-will, encounter, and daily spells make it so you never feel like you run out but there is still a ramp up
>>45320325
okay anon.
>>45285017
ironclaw
>>45319511
Instead, Strike! is.
Kinda. Sorta. You could bolt a d20 to it maybe.
>>45320549
What are you talking about? Its combat is heavyweight, I'll give you that; but its roleplaying out-of-combat elements are pretty lightweight
>>45285017
sorry now with cover.
Ironclaw.
>>45319749
>gangrel get fuck all
>mfw tearing apart tremere fuckers with claws
>>45320727
>that disgusting stereotypical furry 'art'
They couldn't have at least got a professional artist?
>>45321255
The funny part is that they did.
I think it's the same guy who drew Danny Phantom.
Now what you should be asking, is why they didn't get an actually good artist.
>>45320727
The bitch of it is, you're not wrong. But no one's going to look at the cover and say "yeah, let's make a campaign for THAT".
A shame because the setting is actually decently interesting, but horrible furry art ruins everything, it seems. What a world.
>>45293137
How does FATE work in regards to magic? This sounds interesting
>>45321255
>>45321919
>tfw there's actually some sweet art for ironclaw but nobody cares thanks to that shitty cover
>>45301146
I remember when barbarian first came out. By America that shit got righteous.
>>45285017
GURPS
>>45322305
Well, the species entry art looks pretty good, but the rest is fairly unimpressive.
Do have to ask, which one do people think is more horrible: the goofy-ass 2nd Edition cover, or the Slayers ripoff 1st Edition cover? Doubt anyone would look at either and say "yeah, let's make a campaign for THAT" but I'm curious which offends the senses more.
>>45320549
MEMES
EMESM
MESME
ESMEM
SMEME
>>45320549
Wow is this 2010 all over again or something
>>45322305
Most of the art inside the book is pretty good and has a lot of character to it.
(This is a bad picture but I assure you the print version shows up better.)
Better yet, this is right next to the white fox entry that has them dressed as aloof aristocrats watching the red foxes performance. That's some great visualization of the differences between the foxes as well as stats.
Anyway, magic balance thread. Trust be it's good for this. I could go into detail but I don't know how many of you out there are actually interested in hearing the game mechanics breakdown.
>>45323014
>I don't know how many of you out there are actually interested in hearing the game mechanics breakdown.
I think everyone willing to consider Ironclaw already knows them, and the people who don't know them don't want to learn.
>>45323008
It was correct in 2010, and it's still correct now.
>>45323080
I dunno how it's possible to keep being so impossibly wrong, but here you are, posting
Whatever, here's your free (You)
>>45323060
True, 2nd edition needs a furless adaption. they did one for 1st but 2nd is the better game.
https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Ironclaw/Furless
>>45323008
This shit went out of style in fucking 2008.
I dunno man, maybe somebody opened a time capsule and this retard popped out.
>>45320549
>literally a videogame in tabletop form
What did he mean by this?
>>45317277
Wonky how?
>>45324271
Exploding dice is when you roll the highest number on the die, you keep that number and roll again.
Die size determines your proficiency in an attribute. If you're really strong, you roll a d12. If you're weak, you roll a d4.
The odds of you rolling an exploding die are worse on a d12 than a d4 however.
I don't know how to calculate the percentages but with a little luck, the weakest man in the world could handily best the strongest.
>>45324769
>The odds of you rolling an exploding die are worse on a d12 than a d4 however.
There is a wonkiness in SW's dice mechanics but you're grotesquely exaggerating it. If you roll a D12 you have a 1/12 chance of getting to roll another D12 - the D4 has a higher chance to explode, but you only get another D4. The character with the D12 will roll higher and win the contest the vast majority of the time. Not all the time, but if it was a certainty you wouldn't be rolling dice.
The curve is fucked up at exactly one point: an exploding D4 is, on average, very slightly better than an exploding D6. Functionally they're about equally good, but you have to pay 2 skill points to get the D6. Personally that doesn't bother me, it's just a tax you have to pay to get to a real skill rank, but it does create a noob trap that the game would be better without.
>>45305884
>What is optimization
>[3.5e] What is shitty Will saving throw
>>45324175
As I understand it, the reasoning goes:
In 4th edition dungeons and dragons, they gave special moves to the fighters and rogues and so on so that they wouldn't be so boring to play. This is also something that a lot of video games do, such as in your final fantasies and your worlds of warcraft, and for that matter it was not unheard of in tabletop RPGs. However, it wasn't something that existed in previous versions of D&D, where the only special moves available were the spells of mages and priests. So therefore this means that 4e debased the spirit of dungeons and dragons by using concepts that had been in video games, so that it became LITERALLY a videogame in tabletop form.
>>45323143
What's the point of Ironclaw if you take out the furries? I already have more fantasy RPGs than I'm going to get around to playing.
>>45325177
It's got a solid system underneath that 95% of the gaming population will never experience because ewwfurries.
And diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks and all that; maybe Ironclaw's mechanics hits the sweet spot for some groups that other fantasy systems don't.
>>45325159
Yeah, I hate 4e and I've never gotten the "literally a video game" or "WoW on the tabletop" thing.WoW's classes are more diverse, At least they have different resource systems.
>>45285017
most do, in fact even DnD is balanced in some way (allthough i will agree that magic users have the scale on their side more than somewhat, but wizards are not some sort of demi-gods that can kill everything in their way without getting out of bed). What people tend to forget is that wizards dont have ALL the spells at their hand, only the ones they picked and still have active casts left.
>>45325265
I'm prepared to believe it, I'm just curious what the unique selling points are that make it worth converting. I suppose I'll have to skim it at some point.
>>45305424
>>45304956
And wizards, with the same amount of money martials get, also buy themselves magic items to keep the distance from martials. Guess you didn't thought that, right?
>>45325270
And that's exactly the sort of thing they should have been improving on with 5e!
And in fairness they tried different resource systems with the psychic and "essentials" classes, with mixed success.
>>45305884
>Martials
>Not having Will save as the worst
An average of DC 15 for a 1st level spells can only be passed by a roll of 15+ because martials don't have a good Will save
Without magic items martials suck
With magic items martials are still way below casters with magic items
>>45319749
>Tremere vs. Gangrel
Well, for one, Tremere should have a very hard time learning Thaumaturgy, and it usually involves being deeply indebted to NPC Tremere Clanmembers. The BS of players inventing their own rituals and paths should never ever be allowed.
On the Gangrel, they get limited shapeshifting, which includes the ability to see in the dark, grow claws that do aggravated damage, join with the earth to avoid the sun, and a more dangerous combat form. Plus Fortitude and Animalism.
Don't underestimate the ability to get animals to do things for you. A creative player can do all sorts of things with that.
Are they as powerful as some hoary sorcerer vampire? Probably not.
But then, both are fucked when the Brujah uses even low level Presence abilities on them. Hell, if they're sufficiently powerful to have Majesty (rank 5), they Tremere and Gangrel have to make a Courage roll to be RUDE to the Brujah.
>>45325507
The Gangrel should join the Circle of the Crone and learn blood sorcery of his own to fuck up that lich.
>>45325270
I didn't really like 4e either, in fact the "video game" comparison was something I remember thinking about it independently when I played it myself. I think the kind of arbitrary "You can only use this power once/thrice per encounter" was part of what really did it, because I didn't really see the justification for doing that. When I found /tg/ and saw all the people saying the same thing, I could identify with that, so it kind of irks me when people say the 4e/video game comparison is nothing more than a meme.
>>45285017
FantasyCraft handles it pretty well(indeed it's pretty easy to make a sub-optimal Mage in that system), as does Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG, and quite a few other OSR games as well(especially if they cover Domain Level stuff, as non-Magic classes tend to get better stuff at that point)
>>45312896
yeah 4E is pretty good at that, as is Strike!
>>45325536
There's always that. Tremere don't exactly have the monopoly on blood sorcery they think they do.
>>45323143
any klink to the second ed pdf ? curious to see the system. the furry fluff can be excised if needed if the system is interesting.
>>45325554
It's just a very silly complaint, because there's practically no part of D&D's rules that you couldn't point to as an unrealistic gamey contrivance that takes you out of the fiction (which afaict is what people mean by when they call vidya on it). Look at hit points. Look at how you can move and attack while everyone else stands frozen in time. Look at having all your actions depend on the same hugely variable die roll.
Powerful abilities need some kind of cost or limitation, making them once per day or scene is easy on the bookkeeping. All this says, in the fiction, is that you can't pull off your coolest tricks all the time.
>>45320316
I second this.
>>45325408
To an extent, they did, though not as much as they perhaps should have.
>>45325554
Fair enough. I don't mean to call it a meme, it's just not the bad feel I got. For me, it was more like a tabletop war/skirmish game. Really, most like D&D miniatures had decided to pollute D&D with its backwash (And I don't mean the Miniatures Handbook, though that one was pretty shitty too). I like a good skirmish game as much as the next fa/tg/uy, but it's not what I wanted out of a TTRPG
>>45325842
But what in the fiction says so?
It just feels like I'm having to think up houserules to justify gamey limitations on shit like "you can only hop on one foot three times a day" There's no fictional reason for the limitation so the rules are clearly separated from what's going on in fiction. It's alienating.
>>45286242
>D&D 4e
are you retarded or do you think being able to wait a few hours and DESTROY THE FUCKING WORLD IN ONE HIT is a funny joke?
>>45285017
what is that manga?
>>45325902
Just do like i do and call it D&D Tactics.
>>45320049
>Being good = pacifism
Fuck off.
>>45325930
The given reason for only being able to pull off a martial exploit every so often is: they're difficult and exhausting. They're the things you can do when you give it your all, and you can't give your all all the time.
That they handle this by giving each power a refresh time instead of some unified fatigue mechanic is purely for ease of play, the end result is that the mechanics of what's happening in combat approximate a plausible narrative - and this is the key bit - at least as well as D&D ever has.
You only find this jarring because it wasn't there when you learned to play D&D, it's ultimately no stranger than established mechanics like barbarians only being able to get productively angry a few times a day, or everyone fighting at full capacity until they fall over unconscious.
>>45325953
Boku no Read the Thread
>>45326115
I can lift a weight and it's difficult and exhausting. I can do it say 3x5 times a day. And if I push myself I can do it 2 or 3 more times but then I'd have less energy for other exercises. If I kept pushing myself, I could keep going until I injure myself. Whether I've been eating or sleeping well will play into it. There aren't many difficult and exhausting things which I could only do 3 times a day every single day regardless of circumstances until the day I die.
And I doubt all the encounters are exactly "you can only do it three times a day or once an encounter"
Besides, an encounter length is entirely arbitrary amount of time.
Also I notice, you just created a house rule to explain why the rule works. We both know it's designed around game balance reasons, your jamming that square shaped peg into a round shaped hole in your head so that it makes sense in a simulationist way.
>get called out on 4e mechanics making no sense
>dig up the good old hp/meat points argument
>>45320316
>>45325894
Love/Hate letter
I'll warn you, the small one has a dick.
>>45325842
You're right, honestly, but like I said this is just what I thought about while playing the game. Hit-points and turn-based concepts felt natural to me: people take so many hits before they fall down, and it makes things easier to do things if we take turns (Allowing for certain team plays to take place on the same turn at the DM's discretion and allowing for initiative makes a big difference, no matter what system).
But I can only swing my axe like -this- once each time I meet a group of goblins? It just felt odd. I remember being reminded instantly and lastingly of ability cooldowns in Diablo II and I was never able to shake that impression. And saying that this was only for "coolest tricks," superlative, is to me an underexaggeration, because up to the level I was playing I had many tricks up my sleeve. Combat became a question of "Ok, I'll use this -here-, and that -there." It didn't feel like I was fighting creatures as much as I was planning different things. It was, as many people have pointed out, mostly a tactical experience.
>>45326115
>That they handle this by giving each power a refresh time instead of some unified fatigue mechanic is purely for ease of play
And this was the part that simply didn't jive with me. I'm sorry we don't see eye-to-eye on this.
>>45325966
Ok, you've come back to this twice now, starting with >>45311056, so let me just try and dispel this as clearly as I can -- Lawful Good is one of my favorite archetypes to play, and no, I don't exclusively play it as pacifist characters. I understand fully the implications of doing violence in the name of Good and/or Law, both at the same time whenever possible, and it happens quite a lot because I also happen to like playing as Fighters. Posting that Lawful Good != nice at me over and over again is missing the mark entirely.
The philosophy in question here is not Lawful, nor Good, nor any other made-up D&D alignment stuff. It's TAOISM, an actual thing that exists in real life that would be very very difficult to approximate using the D&D Alignment grid; it's all but certain that any version of Taoism that could be pegged down to "Lawful Good" or any other two-word facile combination of traits would be little more than a pale imitation of how Taoism works in real life. It's probably arguable that Taoism even fits the idea of D&D "Lawful"ness or "Good"ness, but that's not significant because I wasn't talking about D&D alignments in the first place.
This conversation is not about being LAWFUL GOOD. It is about being TAOIST. I do not find it hard to believe that a LAWFUL GOOD individual uses violence. I do find it somewhat confusing that a TAOIST would use violent means to an end. This might be because I don't know all that much about Taoism, which I've acceded already several times now.
To reiterate a final time: I am aware that Good characters and Lawful characters need not be pacifists in D&D. I am not sure if a TAOIST character could be violent, however. That is what I expressed in my first reply to you and each reply since.
>>45320727
>>45321376
>>45321919
fun fact, they actually got their asses sued over this cover and had to change to a different one in later printings.
>>45327147
What'd they get sued for? Was the guy on a contract or something?
Was the new cover any better?
>>45326936
You have to remember that strict pacifism being associated with pure goodness is more of a western thing. Yes, even buddhism isn't nearly as pacifist in asia as western buddhism is.
Taoism is very concerned with "the natural flow of things". Law and order aren't inherently good things so for example "you can tell the emperor has lost the mandate of heaven when the taoists hermits pick up arms" It's got a long history of being associated with peasant revolts and taoist mysticism gets into blue/orange morality where in accordance with the tao/not in accordance with the tao becomes very separate from good/evil.
For example "the evil taoist" is a very old trope in chinese fiction of a sorcerer/martial artist who has inscrutable and alien motives while being perfectly calm and content during murders, poisoning and putting spells on people. You can be evil and be a taoist sage because while a taoist sage isn't thought of having a reason to do evil, taoism itself can have a strange morality at times.
>>45327178
>What'd they get sued for?
Nick Simmons -level obvious plagiarism.
>>45286242
>The Dark Eye
>no disparity whatsoever
laughing_elemental_summoners.gif
I mean, seriously? I mean, it's not DnD 3.5, but a mundane will generally get fucked over by anyone with astral or karma points, assuming reasonable builds.
>>45326618
>the small one has a dick
Wouldn't have it any other way.
>>45285017
This picture will never ever not be good.
>>45327330
Explain further.
>>45326753
>different anon
I can understand that.
However, if that is the case, how do you play ANY edition of D&D, all of whom worked expressly on game mechanic logic for many things to actually work, and limits were very much created not as an organic growth of the (many different, sometimes contrasting) setting, but as a balancing mechanic alone?
>>45326753
>>45327734
Just wanted to chime in that 1/encounter things had been a thing since AD&D; the thief could backstab exactly once/encounter, with no real justification. I mean, you could make the ruling that he can do it again if he drinks an invisibility potion or if the enemy can't pay attention to him and gets surprised by him again or something, but IIRC, you only get one, that's it.
If I'm wrong, feel free to enlighten me, my AD&D knowledge is murky.
>>45327927
I'm not too familiar with ad&d but I know in basic it just says "Whenever he's unnoticed from behind" and if he's using a one handed weapon. Though OSR types generally consider basic to be more well designed.
>>45327734
I, uh, don't think you actually understood "that," if you meant "that" to mean "my post."
I already explained how things like HP and taking turns made sense to me as narrative aspects of how to run a fight in an imaginary setting. I then explained that restricting certain "powers" to a certain number of times per arbitrary encounters did not make sense to me.
I guess for a more specific example would be that there was a sense of something going to waste if you didn't, for example, use a certain encounterly power each encounter. Narratively speaking, that wouldn't make sense, but in terms of closing out a fight in-game if you don't use that power it felt like you'd wasted a resource. It was an odd situation where the narrative and gameplay components of the game both kind of failed to make sense with what it felt like to play, if that makes sense.
By contrast, when I cut my teeth playing pic related, if I wanted to do some cinematic shit like try and do some kind of tricky Cleave multi-damage move, I would have to describe how my character would do this, the DM would make up a number in his head and let me roll to make it, and depending on the results I'd pull it off or something else would happen. That kind of improvisation to me was(is) the heart of D&D that video games can never match that got me hooked in the first place.
Maybe the guy who DMed my 4e game just wasn't as good as my first DM; I can't really say for sure. But using "Cleave" once per combat as some kind of NOT MAGIC ability that wound up damaging people next to the first target somehow never felt nearly as real as that time I sliced through one guy to the next with a lucky wild swing.
>>45327927
My first-ever character was a thief, actually! I think we houseruled that bit, though -- all I can remember was that it was a real pain in the ass to get in the proper position for a backstab, and I think the enemy had to be at least distracted somehow.
GURPS
>>45328077
I had this exact conversation with someone a few days ago. It's uncanny.
Anyway, I think since the magic man/cleric gets to arbitrarily decide when and how he forgets and remembers spells/the cleric can decide when the god lends aid to him/the fighter should be okay deciding when the time is right to make his super special move.
In a more real-world example, I did some HEMA longsword fighting, and it's ridiculously hard to pull techniques off properly in actual combat (and doing so usually ends the match but, hey, we got HP here). So maybe you could limit it with some kind of skill-roll mechanic ("you need to roll at least X on your attack to execute this" or "beat AC by Y" or something) if you wanted to be more down to earth, but missing those just isn't fun. I guess it's something 3.5 tried with the combat maneuvers, and it resulted in the pitfall of either never fucking using any maneuver you aren't specced for, or using your maneuver for EVERYTHING.
Maybe some luck or stamina point spending would be more up your alley? It's really easy to houserule it in for 4e (you have tamina points equal to your number of dailies+encounters, you have luck points equal to number of dailies, an encounter costs 1 stamina, a daily costs 1 stamina+1 luck).
>Maybe the guy who DMed my 4e game just wasn't as good as my first DM; I can't really say for sure. But using "Cleave" once per combat as some kind of NOT MAGIC ability that wound up damaging people next to the first target somehow never felt nearly as real as that time I sliced through one guy to the next with a lucky wild swing.Cleave is an at-will.
![d552903e90[1].png](https://i.imgur.com/d2qUV5D.png "d552903e90[1].png")
>>45328077
>But using "Cleave" once per combat as some kind of NOT MAGIC ability that wound up damaging people next to the first target somehow never felt nearly as real as that time I sliced through one guy to the next with a lucky wild swing.
Why are d&ders so retarded?
>>45328400
Apparently, it's only 3.PF players who can't read.
We are discussing 4e here.
>>45328400
I'm sorry, I've never actually played any 3.x systems. I'm only referring to my experiences with 4th edition, not 3rd, 3.5, or Pathfinder.
>>45328303
I thought about the stamina points thing too, but that's also pretty gamey. I think I like it better than having per-encounter powers, though.
>spoiler
Shit. I was worried about getting that wrong, too, but I could have sworn it was limited to only a few times per combat somehow. Oh well, my mistake.
>>45328077
There's nothing keeping you from doing things like that with your DM in 4e
>>45328303
>Anyway, I think since the magic man/cleric gets to arbitrarily decide when and how he forgets and remembers spells/the cleric can decide when the god lends aid to him/the fighter should be okay deciding when the time is right to make his super special move.
The difference here is that it's more reasonable that magic doesn't follow the same laws as the purely physical world (that's kind of the definition of "magic"), than a situlation where magic isn't involved using mechanics that are totally disconnected from the surrounding world.
>>45295457
...What?
Do the japs even make tabletop? If they do I'd assume it's bad since literally everything they create is bad.
>>45328697
what is this? summer doesn't start for months
>>45285017
>This is my fetish
God dammit /tg/, this is my first day back on this board in like a year. I already fapped once today and then this is the first thing I see on the front page.
>>45328680
That's true -- it's also why I put that qualifier at the beginning of my sentence.
>>45328697
They do, but there's not a lot of crossover between our market and theirs' because theirs is really small. They mostly use d6 systems because D&D never really took off there.
>If they do I'd assume it's bad since literally everything they create is bad.
pic related
>>45328619
I mean, AD&D style "DM makes shit up as he goes" also works, its just a bit too freeform for me.
Plus there's shit like continuity. I mean, okay, he allowed you to just cleave shit, why would you not cleave shit from now on?
>>45328694
What I'm saying is, I see the magic system just as arbitrary and gamey as deciding when to spend fate points. I mean, it's ridiculously obvious to me that they ported over the role of artillery to D&D, and had to limit it with something and just went with "wizards run out of spells!"
Fuck, I can see it happenning
>Guys, what if the artillery unit was like, a wizard throwing lightning and fireballs?
>Fuck, that's metal, let's do it!
>But artillery is balanced by having shit defenses and needing setup time and support.
>Well, let's just have it not use any weapon or armor... because it like, interferes with magical energies or some shit.
>But it can still just throw fireballs all day!
>No it can't because... it forgets them!
>What. That's retarded. Merlin never forgot how to disguise people. Kirke never forgot how to turn people into pigs.
>Then again, they also didn't lob fireballs.
>No, like, lets have it work like the Jack Vance books. There wizards need setup and planning cause they forget spells after using them because...
>Okay, whatever, so we can use the same stats for artillery then, right? Consider it done.
>Whoo!
>>45328893
>I mean, okay, he allowed you to just cleave shit, why would you not cleave shit from now on?
That would apply just the same to everything.
>attempt to do [thing]
>roll
>if roll > [abstracted difficulty of thing], you did it!
>if roll < [abstracted difficult of thing], you didn't do it
I mean, you wouldn't say something like, "okay, he allowed you to just hit shit, why would you not cleave shit from now on?"
If anything, that's more of a complaint against on-encounter powers, because there's nothing narratively speaking to say "OK, you already cleaved him, so now you have to wait until he and all his buddies fuck off before you do it again" except for a limp attempt to tie something like that to stamina.
>>45328893
You don't understand the core issue. Magic can be anything the setting says it is, even if it's retarded, and it won't break suspension of disbelief unless it's incredibly retarded. Storing magic runes into your soul or some shit and then expending them like ammunition is still in the realm of reason, because the setting has been defined to have magic that breaks the normal laws of physics with that mechanic.
Meanwhile, a fighter using "swording slots" has no basis in the established world where the game is located, nor does doors level scaling like bandits in an elder scrolls game and neither does a whole lot of other stuff. There's no explanation to why a warlord can instantly arrange an entire horde of enemies into an exact feng shui formation of his liking, there's no explanation why he can do it once every day but only once every day, etc.
>>45329026
What I'm trying to convey (but possibly failing, not sure) is that if a DM allows you to cleave shit once, and it is beneficial to you, why would you not always cleave?
Why stop at two enemies? Why not do 3?
Not making a slippery slope argument. But you get to a point where you have to limit it somehow, and that somehow can be something hard to measure, like a difficulty made up on the spot, or something easy like "you can do it 1/fight".
Making up a difficulty just sounds... bad to me. It feels like it has a much higher chance to be unfair, and is also harder to keep consistent. If you allow the fighter to cleave, will you allow the rogue? Maybe to do like some kind of super backstab because he says "I target his neck and slice it from behind before he can scream for help!". Making them DCs alo runs into the 3.5 thing where they are either always worth doing (because they are beneficial to you even with the hardness) or only worth doing in very limited circumstances because they are more of a downgrade any other time.
And, for that matter, 4e DMG actually gives you a guideline for improvising stuff so it at least stays mostly fair.
>>45329241
If you try to intentionally frame it so the magic one makes more sense than the fighter one, of fucking course it sounds ridiculous. If you said "the characters are special, and they can decide when they get to affect the story in a way that aligns with their training and talent", or "a fighter is a canny combatant, who can in the chaos of combat sometimes make an opportunity for himself to deliver a special strike; but such opportunities are inherently limited by fate and the favor of battle" or something other than "fighter slots", it'd work. But nope, only magic gets a free pass for whatever mechanics are made up!
Also
>doors level scaling like bandits in an elder scrolls game
eat shit
>>45285017
Pokemon
>>45329434
>If you try to intentionally frame it so the magic one makes more sense than the fighter one, of fucking course it sounds ridiculous
Funny how you're doing this in the opposite direction.
>"the characters are special, and they can decide when they get to affect the story in a way that aligns with their training and talent", or "a fighter is a canny combatant, who can in the chaos of combat sometimes make an opportunity for himself to deliver a special strike; but such opportunities are inherently limited by fate and the favor of battle"
Then why aren't the abilities something that can happen when a certain circumstance is met but without a use limit? If it's an exceptional manouver that requires the fighter to exceed himself, why can it be done on command instead of happening randomly on highly successful rolls? If you rule it to be an act of fate, does that mean that "fate" or "luck" is an innately quantifiable resource that can be activated at will in the setting? Why can't the wizard use "luck" if strong characters have it? And how does the meta act of "affecting the story" that isn't actually happening in-universe translate to what is actually happening in the game?
>>45329434
>What I'm trying to convey (but possibly failing, not sure) is that if a DM allows you to cleave shit once, and it is beneficial to you, why would you not always cleave?
I think I understand, but I didn't understand why this would be a bad thing for you until
>Making up a difficulty just sounds... bad to me.
Well, that's just kind of how it works, really. The DM is the arbiter of the rules. I'm not saying that it ought to get into mother-may-I levels of play -- but that's always the disagreement, isn't it? Utter crunch vs. utter freeform. Obviously, my preferred method is closer to the latter than yours is, but you shouldn't confuse them just because of that.
It makes sense to put the question of rogues Cleaving in the hands of the DM. I'd personally take into account the kind of weapon the rogue in question was wielding -- rapiers yes, daggers now. It all comes down to judgment. Some people don't like that, and that's understandable, but the game has always been at least partially geared towards accepting that kind of improvisation, at least when it doesn't actively try to facilitate it.
>If you allow the fighter to cleave, will you allow the rogue? Maybe to do like some kind of super backstab because he says "I target his neck and slice it from behind before he can scream for help!"
Working on how I think about and run combat, I'd allow them to attempt it. It's very unrealistic in his ambitions, of course, so I'd make it very difficult (maybe even to the point where it's impossible for them to roll high enough). But the thing about rolls is that you can set the initial difficulty low, and the more ambitious effects high: if he gets a decent roll, he misses, if he gets a high roll, he hits, if he gets something crazy or crits then what the hell, maybe he actually does get the guy's neck.
If that "sounds bad," that's fine. But I don't think that's much of an argument, and I doubt you do either.
>>45329756
>Why can't the wizard use "luck" if strong characters have it?
He can. He's lucky that wiggling his fingers and saying the alphabet backwards made a fireball.
>>45329797
It sounds bad because I don't feel that it can be done consistently, and so I don't think it's fair, nor am I able to plan around it when making decisions for the turn.
Plus, it's just not what I want out of D&D. If I can just improvise doing stuff, why even have shit written down? Why can only the rogue backstab; surely, if a fighter gets the drop on someone, he'd be able to take advantage of the enemy being distracted. If he can, why can't the rogue just take advantage better? If the high level fighter can attack twice in a minute (AD&D is minute/round, right?) why can't a low level fighter try? If a low level fighter CAN try, why is it a high level ability? And lets not even get into the thief trying.
>>45329756
>Funny how you're doing this in the opposite direction.
That's the fucking point. You can decide what makes and what doesn't make sense, because both mechanics are arbitrary, and you decided that it doesn't make sense because of your preconceptions on how it should be, not how it is.
> If you rule it to be an act of fate, does that mean that "fate" or "luck" is an innately quantifiable resource that can be activated at will in the setting?
It's in the control of the player, not the character. Like spending luck/fate/whatever.
>And how does the meta act of "affecting the story" that isn't actually happening in-universe translate to what is actually happening in the game?
It translates to the warlords enemies being exactly fucking where the warlord wants them.
>>45330008
>That's the fucking point. You can decide what makes and what doesn't make sense, because both mechanics are arbitrary, and you decided that it doesn't make sense because of your preconceptions on how it should be, not how it is.
This so much, why is this hobby so bad at playing pretend?
>>45285017
What is the source of the picture?
>>45330008
>Why can only the rogue backstab; surely, if a fighter gets the drop on someone, he'd be able to take advantage of the enemy being distracted. If he can, why can't the rogue just take advantage better? If the high level fighter can attack twice in a minute (AD&D is minute/round, right?) why can't a low level fighter try? If a low level fighter CAN try, why is it a high level ability? And lets not even get into the thief trying.
You DID say you weren't making a slippery slope argument, but this is really starting to sound like one. Some stuff (like backstabs and attacking multiple times in a turn) have to do with class distinctions and level advancement. Just because the DM can adjudicate the results of individual attempts to attack a certain way doesn't mean that he's changing fundamentally what classes can or cannot do.
To be more specific with how I'd think about your examples, I don't see any reason why a fighter can't take advantage of a distracted or surprised opponent. But that advantage isn't as likely to take the form of a backstab as it would with a rogue, because those classes just fight differently and are better at different things.
>If he can, why can't the rogue just take advantage better?
Well, he can, arguably. Depends on what you think is "better," a backstab or an improved chance to hit or trip or whatever. To add to what you're saying, nobody would argue that a fighter can't attempt to hide, but a rogue is obviously going to be better at it.
As I said, there's a balance between having everything written down and having everything improvised, and the way that 4e writes down rules for certain things left me cold in terms of verisimilitude in a way that improvisation does not.
>>45330266
A doujin called "Read the Thread" by A. Faggot.
>>45330147
It's being raised on different premises and getting used to those as the only right way for it to be.
I never have this problem with new players. Only players who played D&D before (and even then, only the groggy ones). They need to be lied to. They can't handle the wool not being pulled over their eyes. Tried it once as an experiment, just refluffing shit, "unpacking" the power boxes using 3.5 language, using tweaked essentials classes for martials (pre-built as it should be, martials don't get to choose from exciting stuff as they level), and suddenly, everyone was ok with it.
>239 posts
>only 3 mention GURPS
GURPS
>>45330008
>because both mechanics are arbitrary
Except I've already explained exactly why the powers in 4E are far more arbitrary and gamey than the magic system in previous editions ever was. But it doesn't matter to you because your opinions are facts, established concepts that exist even outside tabletop gaming like internal consistency be damned.
>>45330331
> To add to what you're saying, nobody would argue that a fighter can't attempt to hide, but a rogue is obviously going to be better at it.
I think I actually saw a few arguments about that.
One was, obviously only the thief can hide, since he's the only one with "hide in shadows" %.
One was saying that's stupid, everyone can hide, only not in shadows, the thief is the only one that can do that.
There was a third argument, saying that "hide in shadows" is actually basically the thief being supernaturally good hiding in shadows, so much so that he's basically undetectable, while others can only hide in shadows "normally".
But I digress. Sorry if I started to sound like going into a slippery slope argument. I'm trying to put into words why I dislike just improvising shit instead of actually having combat options.
I wanted to write up a list, but really, it's just that too much of it is up to the DM. With a great DM, it's great, with a bad DM it's less great... and I doubt even an amazing DM could improvise the cool mechanics 4e has (and if he could, he probably still couldn't balance it for everyone throughout the campaign). Are AD&D DM-ing tools great? Maybe I'm missing something here.
Seriously though, I have no problem with this in FATE/DW (or its retroclone, World of Dungeons)/other narrative games where I feel like the game is based on the assumption that I'm improvising how shit happens anyway. But with D&D, with its wargame roots, all its statistics, and the heavy emphasis on combat roles, it just rubs me the wrong way.
>>45295457
The flqw is that most nippon tabletops are made to be shoet rather than long games
>>45330757
>Except I've already explained exactly why the powers in 4E are far more arbitrary and gamey than the magic system in previous editions ever was.
You adequately explained what your opinion is. You explained "swording slots" are stupider than "magic slots" because you can suspend your disbelief for one, and not the other.
You didn't explain why "because magic!" is less arbitrary than "because fate!", or "because training!" or "because narrative demands!".
> But it doesn't matter to you because your opinions are facts
Right...
>>45301212
It makes sense. A guy who commands the fabric of the universe will be better than the one that waves a sharp piece of metal around.
>>45286800
>Shadowrun
Buddy of mine told me that the problem with Shadowrun is that it's creators introduced magic and immediately went "OH SHIT! FIXITFIXITFIXITFIXIT!!!" and have been taking a nerf bat to the system with every new edition.
Then again, this same friend never plays fighter-type characters/ALWAYS plays some sort of Diplomancer and his parents are OG Nerds and his first Tabletop games were in Eclipse Phase, so he might be a little biased lol.
>>45330805
>I'm trying to put into words why I dislike just improvising shit instead of actually having combat options.
I think, to begin with, that it's a mistake to say those are different things. Having a group that's accustomed to improvisation means you have as many "combat options" as you can think of realistic actions.
It's a fair complaint if you see D&D as more of a war/tactical game than an RPG, or at least one that's more focused on rules-based combat. Frankly, I don't actually have any experience with FATE or DW, but playing D&D as being neither entirely a tactical game nor a freeform game is enjoyable for me, and I believe that's how it was supposed to be played at one point. Now, if course, there are more rules, but even in the beginning DMs weren't just supposed to be able to think on their feet, they were expected to.
>>45331054
>Eclipse Phase
Fucking derp. Exalted. His firt ttrpg's were Exalted games
>>45331107
>firt
Go to bed, Anon-kun
>>45331102
>I think, to begin with, that it's a mistake to say those are different things.
I meant actually having "codified" combat options, sorry.
Yeah, improvising is an option, wouldn't dispute that; and it's a good option in 4e as well, it's just not the only option besides attacking and casting a spell, maybe using an item.
>Having a group that's accustomed to improvisation means you have as many "combat options" as you can think of realistic actions.
Yeah, and 4e helps by making the less-realistic actions into encounters and dailies, hence giving me even more shit to do. Which I like.
>Frankly, I don't actually have any experience with FATE or DW, but playing D&D as being neither entirely a tactical game nor a freeform game is enjoyable for me, and I believe that's how it was supposed to be played at one point.
DW/FATE/World of Dungeons are narrative, not freeform. Both have a bunch of rules, and are at least as crunchy as AD&D. I think maybe you should give it a try one time, who knows? I mean, maybe D&D was meant to be played like that, but those games are explicitly meant to be played using described actions, and rolling dice to see how they work out.
>>45331311
>I meant actually having "codified" combat options, sorry.
Of course, I understand.
I didn't mean to indicate that I thought FATE or DW were freeform, I was just using those as the possible bounds from rules-heavy to rules-light again in the context of D&D.
>>45331360
Right, thought you meant that, but also thought I may mention that just in case that's something keeping you from playing those.
And I kinda lied, World of Dungeons is actually really light, like 3 pages I think, so yeah.
>>45319749
>Jedi vs non jedi in Star Warzy stuff are of course legendarily imbalanced.
A large part of the popularity of the FFG Star Wars RPGs is the fact that they ARE balanced.
>>45311302
Seems pretty obvious, that you need to rethink your life instead. Complete tard doesn't realize that Dragon is a clan, and Bushi means warrior. So his Dragon Bushi that had almost as many kills as the entire party, was a swordsman.
You fail at everything. Slit your own fucking throat, as you are not man enough to be allowed seppuku.
>>45331600
>You fail at everything.
And you fail to realize that whether or not you divorce the thought train from his odd quip, anything Wick is very easy to break over its own back.
