Any of you all find it odd that people still act like D&D explicitly and solely refers to 3.5...

Have you played anything BEFORE 3.5?

No, but there's OSR for that. A good number of those systems are basically cleaned-up versions of older D&D editions.

Oh, and I forgot, using the unified d20 mechanic, and generally cleaning up the rules mess (presentation-wise) that was AD&D is great, but other systems built further on that, so while it's a +, it's a + that it shares with most contemporary RPGs.

I don't like D&D for various reasons. One reason if that I find classes too restrictive, which probably had something to do with my first RPG being Dark Heresy and then moving into mostly classless RPGs.

It was then that I ran into people who, when being told that I didn't like D&D, asked if I had ever played Pathfinder before asking why I didn't like D&D. Pathfinder doesn't even attempt to change a lot of the things I dislike.

Then 4th edition came out and I saw 3.5/Pathfinder fans complaining about how restrictive it was. I know they prefer more restrictive classes than I do, so if they were finding it too restrictive, there was no way I could enjoy it. So I ignored 4th edition.

I'm not sure about 5th edition yet, and I won't be until I play it. If I play it. My time it limited and If I've got a choice between an RPG I'll enjoy and one I'm not sure about, I'm going with the one I know I'll enjoy.

If you enjoy any variant of D&D, that's your choice. You're not wrong to like it. But please try to experience other RPGs so you can see how different they are.

>Then 4th edition came out and I saw 3.5/Pathfinder fans complaining about how restrictive it was. I know they prefer more restrictive classes than I do, so if they were finding it too restrictive, there was no way I could enjoy it. So I ignored 4th edition.

Class based game logic works like this (when not just based on legacy)
>we want players to work together as a team
>players who play as team tend to specialize (even in pointbuy systems)
>why not skip a few steps and hand out a premade framework of abilities that are already specialized, hence both making character building easier, and promoting teamwork?

Not dissing your preference, just explaining how classes are handled in 4e (and somewhat in 5e).

...

What said.
Veeky Forums is full of idiots and fanatics. Outside of Veeky Forums D&D is just another RPG. The idea of segmenting a populace and purposefully identifying of pro- or anti-D&D is fairly rare.
Fuck going outside, try going to other websites.

Veeky Forums just has a few dedicated anti-D&D trolls who are very persistent, and very annoying. You literally cannot say you like D&D without triggering one of them.

4e is still widely considered a disaster and most people don't want to buy the over-priced 5e books. It's only been out for 2 years, give it time to get some momentum.

Myself I still prefer the 3rd edition but I have dabbled in the new one and it is certainly much cleaner. Unfortunately it is nickled and dimed by what I consider stupid ideas so I just figured, fuck it, I know how to play 3.5, I'll stick to that.

I like proficiency and size-based hit dice, though.

Honestly, I can forgive the overpowered wizards as some technical oversight or they ate to many lead paint chips, but really the post part is the CR system.

It just straight up doesn't work. Two monster of a similar type will be wildly different from each other. Outsiders and dragons shit on every monster of an equivalent CR and have a weird mishmash of DR, SR, and elemental immunities that can fuck over a party for not having a very narrow set of weapons.

Not to mention in a system with a range from 1 to 20 you for some reason have monsters with fractional CRs that range from useless to possible low level PC killers like orcs.

Truly dank

You say this all the time, but really, it's just you not really understanding the CR system very well, and that in all fairness it does a pretty good job at approximating the difficulty of an encounter in an enormous game where such calculations are rather difficult.

We're talking about designers trying to scale encounters for a wide, wide, wide, wide, wide, wide, wide, wide, wide, wide, wide, wide, wide, wide amount of possible potential groups, and while there's a fair amount of hiccups, it's a quick and simple way for a DM to quickly gauge a monster without diving too far into the stats, which the DM will still have to do in the end anyway, so any further considerations will come to light then. If anything, it's mostly a reference number, rather than a hard and fast rule.

Really though, overall, you're just been crying about a small part of a much larger system, and you've been crying about it for sixteen years or so. I'm not really interested in your rebuttal either telling me how bad you actually think it is or how important you think it is, so you might as well save yourself the effort.

>fractional CR
That's so they have options for CR low level PC killers
That's more of a problem with low level D&D before 4e (and I'm not familiar with 5e enough to know how it handles level 1 HP). If you start with only a few HP, unless enemies do like 1 damage per hit you're going to get screwed by bad luck once in a while.

And I'm not hugely familiar with monster effectiveness vs CR, since I typically would just pick something similar out of the MM and then tweak it to suit my group's stats, but I expect imbalance there had to do with assumptions about how much magic the group would have, how the group's casters operated, etc. They probably did the math vs creatures with DR primarily based around the assumption that you'd have the appropriate type of weapon and then if you didn't you were kinda fucked, and the SR and elemental immunities tend not to really apply to martials so they don't matter as much to me since casters need to be brought back down a peg.

>That's more of a problem with low level D&D before 4e
It's not a bug, it's a feature. You should be trying not to fight if you can avoid it. You're there to get treasure, not to fight evil.

And even then, lots of DMs houseruled that you get max HP at level one, just to reduce the likelihood of playing well and getting royally screwed anyway.

>You're there to get treasure, not to fight evil.
>lots of DMs houseruled that you get max HP at level one
You're clearly talking about pre-3e D&D, where that's potentially fine (depending on what the group wants out of the game). This discussion, unless I missed something, is about 3.X.

3.X is explicitly about combat or otherwise overcoming obstacles (such as traps and enemies). iirc RAW says if you overcome a threat in a way that makes it not a threat anymore (such as convincing bandits to leave the nearby village alone, somehow) you should get XP for it, though not all 3.X DMs will do that.

3.X has maximum health at level 1, and bonus health from Con is easier to come by, but your Fighters are still only going to have ~12-14 HP (and Clerics are probably going to be ~10 if they're built for frontline stuff) so most of the time your characters are going down after 1-3 hits unless they get healed inbetween, and a crit from something like an Orc (2d4+4 damage with 15% chance to threaten a crit) stands a decent chance at dropping someone off a single non-crit hit and is nearly guaranteed to do so off a crit.

On top of that, supposedly 2 of them are a medium challenge for 4 1st level characters.

>for a wide, wide, wide, wide, wide, wide, wide, wide, wide, wide, wide, wide, wide, wide amount of possible potential groups
Gee, it's almost like there's so much variance in character power by level that it causes issues for the game, but that's a feature too, rather than a bug I presume?

4e had it right. A level X monster is appropriate for level X characters and a level X monster is comparable (not identical) to every other level X monster in the game. You have a rough idea of what PCs of level X can hit, how much damage they can deal, what sorts of abilities and status effects they have access to, how much they can heal, etc. Not every group is the same but rare indeed is the character that can't meaningfully interact with threats of their level or totally outclasses those threats.

The issue is that those are MAJOR offending issues. That's like saying "Oh, sure, that guys a murderer AND a child molester, but why are you guys not talking about how he likes puppies?"

Which things are good that aren't also done by otherwise superior systems?

>As does Qin: The Warring States, almost all casters have "I'm fucking Immortal bitches," as their endgame.

Because that's the endpoint of Daoism.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xian_(Taoism)

>The issue is that those are MAJOR offending issues.

Not really. It might be your opinion that they're major, but most groups that play the game have simple work-arounds or don't consider them to be problems. That's really just the list of exaggerated complaints that are parroted here that haven't been an issue for over a decade, while the amazing range of good attributes is what keeps the game popular for so long.

It's like saying "Oh, that wonderful person isn't perfect, let's hate him for having any flaws."

Seriously though. Your trolling has gotten tedious, especially because every time something simple is explained to you, you conveniently forget it just so you can continue to complain.

People have played and enjoyed the terrible system despite its flaws because they didn't know any better or didn't have anything else. People in the third world live without plumbing and electricity in their homes too, but you wouldn't say that a house without plumbing or electricity is just as good.

>Seriously though. Your trolling has gotten tedious, especially because every time something simple is explained to you, you conveniently forget it just so you can continue to complain.

Oh wow, this is quality right here.

This.

Dungeons & Dragons is to RPGs what the model T Ford was to Automobiles.

It's not a bad car by any measure. But someone trying to use it in the same way as a pick up truck or motorcycle would have a bad time, because it's not a pick up truck or a motorcycle.

I think D&D gets shit on because of its popularity. It's the most popular RPG on the market, therefore it's under the most scrutiny for every little flaw, and there's probably some mad sour grapes among those who are upset that everyone is playing D&D and not their pet system. The latter I can understand the feeling behind, but acting like D&D is irredeemable shit just because it has mechanical flaws is honestly moronic. Even GURPS has mechanical flaws and balancing issues, and because it's a point-buy system you could argue they're even worse than D&D's.

Can you really call it a "small part" of the game when it's used to determine what level a monster can reasonably challenge the party?

I mean, considering how combat focused 3.X is, it seems silly to call the CR system's buggery minor when you consider how easily one can cause a TPK just because you threw a monster at the party that seemed to be fair but in actuality was something that they couldn't fight against due to the party not having the appropriate weapons/spells to chew through their DR or SR or whatever.

If anything, you're downplaying the flaws just because of your own bias.

Why reply, when you're going to get the same response?

>We're talking about designers trying to scale encounters for a wide, wide, wide, wide, wide, wide, wide, wide, wide, wide, wide, wide, wide, wide amount of possible potential groups, and while there's a fair amount of hiccups, it's a quick and simple way for a DM to quickly gauge a monster without diving too far into the stats, which the DM will still have to do in the end anyway, so any further considerations will come to light then. If anything, it's mostly a reference number, rather than a hard and fast rule.

It's also very hard to cause a TPK unless you throw monsters 3 to 4 CR's higher than the party at them, the CR's are calculated with the assumption that players have the expected weapons they should have at their level, and in the end it's up to the DM to actually look at the stats and make their own assessment based on their group's composition and style of play.

>It's also very hard to cause a TPK unless you throw monsters 3 to 4 CR's higher than the party at them

Actually, it's fairly easy to TPK the party if you play by RAW, play creatures intelligently, and depend solely on the CR system to construct your encounters.

I mean, have you seen the stats on most creatures in the MM?

>the CR's are calculated with the assumption that players have the expected weapons they should have at their level

We're also talking about a game that believes that a dude who knows how to swing a sword is around the same power level as a dude who can construct demi-planes out of thin air.

Y'know what they say about assumptions right?

>in the end it's up to the DM to actually look at the stats and make their own assessment based on their group's composition and style of play.

If I'm a GM and I decide to throw a CR8 creature at a group of level 8 adventurers, I expect the CR8 creature to provide a challenge that's neither too hard or too easy.

What I don't expect is for one CR8 creature to die like a chump while another CR8 creature proceeds to murder my party just because I played the creature intelligently, just because some creatures just so happen to have DR, SR, spells, or some other kinds of fuckery while others do not, while still being lumped into the same CR category.

>Actually, it's fairly easy to TPK the party if you play by RAW, play creatures intelligently, and depend solely on the CR system to construct your encounters.

It's also ridiculously easy to not TPK the party, especially if you play creatures with flair, cinematic drama,realism, or intelligence.

>We're also talking about a game that believes that a dude who knows how to swing a sword is around the same power level as a dude who can construct demi-planes out of thin air.

Yes? And?
Sounds like you've just got other beefs you're trying to throw up here, and I can honestly tell you that you're pretty pathetic.

>If I'm a GM and I decide to throw a CR8 creature at a group of level 8 adventurers, I expect the CR8 creature to provide a challenge that's neither too hard or too easy.

And that's generally the case. It might depend on which sourcebook you're taking the monster from, but for a game with several thousands of monsters and countless more that can be created through templates and class levels and HD increases, it does a pretty good job considering the scale of the task.

Look, you're just bad at running the game. That's hardly the systems fault, and I kind of wish you didn't pretend your own ineptitude is a reflection of the system.

Honestly, your complaints are tiresome, because they all sound like you think you know the system, but it's also quite clear that you skipped most of the relevant chapters in the DM's guide explaining how to actually run the game. Can you really blame a game if you're unwilling to actually read the rulebooks?

What's next? You're going to say the rulebooks are too difficult to read through, all because you're dumber than the hundreds of thousand of middleschoolers who can play the game you apparently find too difficult?

Pathetic.

>This thread still goes on
But why?

Son, I would really, really wish D&D was getting scorned just because it's popular and not due to countless major design flaws it perpetuates over decades.

Name the major design flaws in 0e (especially in clones that clarify vague rules from the original).

"I don't like classes" is not a design flaw, by the way.

Or, more likely, they have played any game other than dnd and compared it to 3.5.

They could hate 3.5 if they played any game other than D&D OR any version of D&D besides 3.5, and compared it to 3.5.

Absolutely unplayable games like FATAL being an obvious exception.

>It's also ridiculously easy to not TPK the party, especially if you play creatures with flair, cinematic drama,realism, or intelligence.

1) Most creatures won't bother looking cool as they rip your spine out through you mouth.
2) How would you suggest playing a character with "cinematic drama" when some creatures can easily chump most PC's HP in one turn.
3) Realism has no basis in 3.X, even then, the physics in FG might be much different than how physics work in our world, especially when how much realism is utilized depends solely on the DM.
4) The issue with playing creatures intelligently is that most creatures are much more capable than the average PC, especially when you can do things like "trip fighter" or "grappler" without sacrificing any long term capabilities since the creatures aren't expected to survive past the encounter anyways.

>Yes? And?

If you have a system that puts "dude with sword" and "demi-god" on the same plane of power, while at the same time putting creatures like oozes or goblinoids at the same threat level as creatures like dragons or outsiders, it just produces a system where you're dealing with too many variables to construct a meaningful encounter with.

It's the reason why a group of martials could spend five turns chipping away at a creature's health while a group of mages will deal with most threats in one turn due to having an abundance of SoL/SoD spells to throw at the creature(s) until they're dead.

>Look, you're just bad at running the game. That's hardly the systems fault, and I kind of wish you didn't pretend your own ineptitude is a reflection of the system.

That's pretty presumptuous to say, considering you're the only one ITT defending the system.

To 1,2,3,4, you seem to be too stupid to understand that there are different styles of play. I don't honestly know why I bother explaining anything to you.

To your dude with sword question, that dude gets really, really, really good with that sword. Overall, you seem to just be trying to scrounge up some sideways complaint, and once again, that makes you look pathetic.

And, if you haven't noticed, this is a bitch user bait thread. It's no surprise that the other people who play the game don't bother talking to you anymore and are in other threads actually discussing the game, while trolls like yourself are trapped here because you feel the need to complain about a sixteen year old game like you're on some sort of crusade.

>To 1,2,3,4, you seem to be too stupid to understand that there are different styles of play. I don't honestly know why I bother explaining anything to you.

And you seem to stupid to realize that 3.X is an overall flawed system, which is why you're more inclined to insult people who disagree with you than to actually give legitimate reasons that support your argument.

Because you can't.

>To your dude with sword question, that dude gets really, really, really good with that sword.

Yet at the end of the day, the dude who has magic is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more powerful than the dude with a sword, yet are still considered equally powerful somehow.

And for the record, how do you expect a system that's based on the party being at the same relative level to work when the classes themselves are not around the same relative power, especially when this logic extends to monsters that has DR, SR, or spells vs. monsters that don't?

>It's no surprise that the other people who play the game don't bother talking to you anymore and are in other threads actually discussing the game

If you're talking about /pfg/, they're more concerned with getting into petty squabbles and discussing varying levels of magical realm to actual discuss the game.

That and even they acknowledge that, yes, the game is flawed and isn't appropriate for every level of play.

My preferred D&D system is 4e. Fire me.

Dammit autocorrect. Fite me, not fire me!

You're fired!

Troll, please. Don't try talking to me like you know the game better, or that you even know it at all.

Also, don't pretend you can speak for the PFG, or that they don't discuss the game.

You are a dumb troll who still thinks that you can try and steer a discussion to revolve around casters and martials, like that's a problem for anyone that actually plays the game.

No matter what some one will tell you, no matter how clearly they explain something to you, you will bull-headedly stick to arguments that haven't held any weight for over a decade. That's why it's tedious to discuss things with you, because there's nothing that can convince you since you are unwilling to let go of all the misconceptions you've dedicated your entire crusade to.

CR isn't as big a problem as you want to pretend it is. 3rd edition is a better system than you're willing to give it credit for. You are a petty, pathetic troll that can't be reasoned with, because you will uniformly dismiss anything that might challenge your dedication to your blinding hatred.

I still say the best way to play dnd is to never invite anyone from Veeky Forums to the table.

Do I still get my severance check?

>You are a petty, pathetic troll that can't be reasoned with, because you will uniformly dismiss anything that might challenge your dedication

Cute, but really, the recent anti-3.PF trolls seem to have done nothing but dig up and parrot the old baleful cries of the 4e fans from years ago, to repeat them ad nauseum as if they mattered.

At this point, the only thing that matters is that they can't shut up about how much they hate a popular game, and they likely never will.

And the only argument you can bring to the table are

>insults
>it's popular so it's good

So really, that just tells me that it was a shit game with great marketing.

If you're going to casually dismiss all the arguments down to simply those two, then there's really nothing stopping me from dismissing your arguments down to the first.

All your complaints are petty and insignificant.

Add to the fact that you can't say anything against it being not simply popular, but the most popular game for the entirety of its print run and even now it's still the 2nd most popular game (the only objective data we can actually use in this discussion, with all others being largely subjective, especially in significance), that puts you without anything except to try and claim that such monstrous and incomparable popular agreement that this is a great game is less important than your complaints on how Dragons hit on the hard side of their CR in a game called Dungeons and Dragons.

This isn't some Justin Bieber we're talking about here. We're talking about the industry standard for the better part of a decade, a game so popular that it was synonymous with roleplaying games.

We can squabble about the good and bad points of the game forever, and I've got a list of complaints that justifiably makes all your complaints look petty, but what separates you from me is that you are stupid enough to ignore all the great things about the game and to presume anyone that likes it must be an idiot because you are oh so smart, when you're just a little kid crying about what's popular.

>If you're going to casually dismiss all the arguments down to simply those two, then there's really nothing stopping me from dismissing your arguments down to the first.

What arguments?

"Oh, the CR system isn't as bad as you think, you're just trolling."

"The Fighter isn't less capable than the Wizard, you're just doing things wrong."

"It can't be shit, it was really popular and people reeeeeaaaaaaaaaally liked it, fuckiing troll hater bitch user!"

Keep in mind, you were the one who opened up by going full defensive and insulting everyone who had an opinion, which started here where you called anyone who didn't like 3.5 a "bearded old grog" or babies who started with 4e/5e and just believe popular opinion, which is ironic considering one of your points revolves around 3.5's popularity.

And just for the record, if dragons are on the hard side of their CR then it raises the question of why they're in the same weight class as creatures that are weaker than them?

The focus of the argument was that the CR system wasn't as bad as you thought, and I supplied reasons.

Now, here's the part where you get tedious, because you kept digging deeper into the subjective and actually relying on your inability to use the system as intended, going to great lengths to ultimately do nothing but convince me that you may very well have never actually played the game (perhaps because no one wants to play with someone like you) and are just flicking through rulebooks, all just so you can try and maintain your devotion to your temple of hatred.

What's the point of talking to you? We can go back and forth forever, with you listing all your petty complaints and you demanding people to respect them, when at the end of the day you can't come to terms with the actual reason behind your hatred.

It's funny, because you think it's a defense to say it's popular, as if its popularity makes it good (though, it being good is in part responsible for its popularity), when I'm reminding you of its popularity because that's what upsets you most, and you need to come to terms with that.

When you look at other popular games, if you've actually ever done that, you'll find a multitude of problems, many of them far worse than what you'll find in 3.PF, but your dedication to hating 3.PF overrides any notion that all games have flaws. You compile a meager list of pathetic complaints, shorter and weaker than what you can find for just about any other large game on the market, and you think that because it's not perfect, it must be bad.

Bad, despite more people having fun with it than any other game for the better part of a decade.

You've got your subjective opinion, and as much as it pains you, you need to come to terms with that being all it is, and that more people will gladly ignore your petty complaints than bother to explain to you why they're so petty.

And, each CR is a bit broad. Dragons just lean towards one end of the scale.

Also,
Wasn't me.

>The focus of the argument was that the CR system wasn't as bad as you thought, and I supplied reasons.

Then I offered refutations that disagreed with your points and rather than offer counter-refutations, you decided to insult me while telling that I was wrong without offering actual reasons beyond how I sucked or was mistaken.

>It's funny, because you think it's a defense to say it's popular, as if its popularity makes it good (though, it being good is in part responsible for its popularity), when I'm reminding you of its popularity because that's what upsets you most, and you need to come to terms with that.

As I said earlier, its popularity had more to do with its marketing than its quality as a game.

Everyone who has an even marginal awareness on tabletop RPGs know about D&D, either from its legacy or from news stories claiming that it was borne of satanic rituals or whatever. It stands to reason that people who have heard of it, yet didn't want to trudge through years of out-of-print handbooks to play it would jump at third edition, if only just to see how it plays.

If it wasn't called D&D, nobody would care, especially once people realized how broken it was and how poorly written the rules were.

>When you look at other popular games, if you've actually ever done that, you'll find a multitude of problems, many of them far worse than what you'll find in 3.PF, but your dedication to hating 3.PF overrides any notion that all games have flaws.

I never said that other (popular) games didn't have flaws. Even then, the discussion at hand is based on 3.X specifically, not these other games.

>Bad, despite more people having fun with it than any other game for the better part of a decade.

Based on what metric, specifically?

>And, each CR is a bit broad. Dragons just lean towards one end of the scale.

Then what's the point of having CR if it's broad enough to comprise creatures that are weaker or stronger than the base line?

Was you though?

Because if it was, the point still stands.

>Then I offered refutations that disagreed with your points and rather than offer counter-refutations,

To what end? We can go back and forth forever, and your offered "refutations" were so bogus, it's me who should feel insulted.

Basically, you showed you were willing to stoop low, and that if we kept going, you would only stoop lower. It's this kind of tedious argumentation that is the hallmark of people who argue for the sake of arguing, and that's when you revealed you were little more than a troll.

I'm actually scared that you might not even consciously realize how poorly your attempt to refute was.

>If it wasn't called D&D, nobody would care, especially once people realized how broken it was and how poorly written the rules were.

It retained its popularity after 4e though. Weird, huh? How does that work in your theory?

Also, how does it expanding the player base and effectively revitalizing a declining market factor into your schematics? It's not just a game people played grudgingly, but a game that brought more people into the hobby.

In general, your argument is hollow, because you are unwilling to look at how good the game is and instead will resort to some genuinely pathetic mental gymnastics to try and declare that its popularity was undeserved, when even if it was only as good as a tenth of it popularity might indicate it still would be a fantastic game.

>Then what's the point of having CR if it's broad enough to comprise creatures that are weaker or stronger than the base line?

Because the system understands that such a diversity of monsters will inevitably form a gradient, so they established a high and low benchmark for each CR. A high CR3 might be closer to a low CR4 than a low CR3, but that's still cleaner than working with decimals in a game that involves a fair amount of subjectivity, abstraction, and circumstance, as almost all roleplaying games do.

>To what end? We can go back and forth forever

This is how arguments work.

>your offered "refutations" were so bogus

Why were my refutations bogus though?

>Basically, you showed you were willing to stoop low, and that if we kept going, you would only stoop lower. It's this kind of tedious argumentation that is the hallmark of people who argue for the sake of arguing, and that's when you revealed you were little more than a troll.

Yet when confronted with a point, you just say how the other side is wrong, call them names, and spout fallacies.

>It retained its popularity after 4e though. Weird, huh? How does that work in your theory?

That the way 4e presented its rules was a firm departure from what D&D was in the past, which is why most stayed stayed with 3.X rather than going on to a new system that rubbed them the wrong way due to their expectations on what D&D is supposed to be.

>Also, how does it expanding the player base and effectively revitalizing a declining market factor into your schematics?

It "revitalizing" the market has no basis on its quality as a game.

I say this as someone who saw the rise in FPS games after CoD's popularity grew as its quality diminished over time. It's popular to be popular and mediocre at the same time, especially when it's something made by companies as large as WotC or GW.

>Because the system understands that such a diversity of monsters will inevitably form a gradient, so they established a high and low benchmark for each CR.

Here's the thing though, the system is designed to help GM's design encounters on the fly. If there's gradients that's the difference between CR (-1) and CR (+1), then the system should make these gradients known so that the GM doesn't accidentally throw in creatures that are too weak or too strong for the party.

But then, why put a creature in a CR that's higher/lower than its actual threat level, rather than just putting it into the appropriate CR in the first place?

Stupid auto-correct, the sentence should be

>It's possible to be popular and mediocre at the same time, especially when it's something made by companies as large as WotC or GW.

>This is how arguments work.

No, that's how a discussion becomes petty.

That's all you do, and all you ever can do, because at its heart, your goal isn't to discuss the game. There's no joy in it for you, you're only here to troll about how much you hate it, to the point where you are complaining about a quick reference number that as a whole does a very good job at cataloging an incredibly diverse array of monsters.

I don't even know what is wrong with your brain.
>. If there's gradients that's the difference between CR (-1) and CR (+1),
That's not the case. CR 1.9 is closer to CR 2.0 than CR1.7, but it makes more sense to keep it in the class of CR1. But, even so, the differences between each level of CR isn't so dramatic that a DM would have to worry about a particular monster within a CR being dramatically stronger or weaker, outside of a few outliers.

Fuck, the more you talk, the more I'm convinced you've just never actually played the game, because you're literally complaining about something that is an absolute non-issue.

>No, that's how a discussion becomes petty.

Because I disagree with you and explain why I disagree with you?

Also, do you normally claim that people are wrong and call them names when they have a discussion with you?

>that's all you do, and all you ever can do, because at its heart, your goal isn't to discuss the game.

I am discussing the game, I'm discussing my reason why I don't like it sure but it doesn't mean that I'm not discussing the game just because I'm not praising it.

>That's not the case. CR 1.9 is closer to CR 2.0 than CR1.7, but it makes more sense to keep it in the class of CR1.

Actually, it'd make more sense to round both of those values up to CR2.

>the differences between each level of CR isn't so dramatic that a DM would have to worry about a particular monster within a CR being dramatically stronger or weaker, outside of a few outliers.

Except for the fact that the power level between CRs can be pretty fucking huge depending on which creature you use.

For the sake of argument, lets compare some random CR1 creatures against one another.

dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Giant_Bee
dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Octopus
dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Ghoul

One creature can poison one PC with a relatively weak poison and promptly dies soon afterwards.

One creature gets to jet away up to 200 ft. in a straight line without provoking AoO and can make a grapple roll whenever it successfully attacks somebody.

While the last creature can paralyze a creature with a successful attack (which it can make three per turn as a full round action) and also has the ability to turn anyone it kills into another ghoul.

Yet somehow, all three of these creatures are within the same CR level, even though one creature kills itself if it successfully strikes somebody while another can convert anyone it kills into more ghouls.

That's a major flaw in the system, especially for newer GM's who aren't familiar with the system.

Bee can fly and have vermin traits which are mostly beneficial.
Octopus doesn't deal a lot of damage.
Ghoul has undead traits which are mostly a weakness at low levels, low AC, and no ranged attacks. And the conversion ability has little combat application.

I've already told you you were stupid, so you don't have to convince me further.

What you've done is show me three diverse creatures. Their challenge rating is appropriate, because there are tons of factors to consider, even if the bee dying from one attack is a little silly and mostly for flavor, but still fine because a creature with 13 HP isn't going to live for very long anyway.

I'm sorry, but you're really just showing off that you don't know how games work, and that's why I stopped taking you seriously hours ago, you dumb troll.

Not the same guy you're arguing with but you look like a bitch right now. The whole thing has basically been some guy politely blowing you the fuck out while you cry "troll, hater, etc." The whole time and then have the balls to tell him he's the one being childish.

>inb4 more buttburned whining

I even enjoy 3.5 and you're embarrassing me for doing so.

Nice false flagging.
It's sad when you think you can try to say that "CR is too hard for me to understand" can be called anything other than pathetic.

>no, impossible! two people told me I was wrong? must be a false flagging samefag

Wow. I really do enjoy 3.5 but the CR system is trash and definitely a big pain in my ass when I'm planning my sessions and trying to use new monsters. More often than not I have to end up adding/removing a feature, some hp, etc. from a monster just to balance it out because as soon as the encounter starts I can see it's imbalanced. I don't like 5e but it did fix the problem slightly.

Why don't I beli-

Oh, it's because you're telling me something stupid that someone that actually plays the game wouldn't say.
Barring that, you're just bad at the game, which is less a mark against you, because it just means you're really stupid instead of a liar.

>Bee can fly and have vermin traits which are mostly beneficial.

Which doesn't really make up for the fact that they die after each attack, which only deals 1d4 damage and has a relatively easy DC to save against for most classes who either gain a bonus to Fort or focused on CON.

>Octopus doesn't deal a lot of damage.

Yet that in and of itself doesn't make its ability to grapple as a free action any less dangerous. It basically prevents the victim from moving while also allowing it to automatically deal bite damage to anyone that it successfully grapples.

>Ghoul has undead traits which are mostly a weakness at low levels, low AC, and no ranged attacks. And the conversion ability has little combat application.

Which is why they usually ambush parties who stray into their territory, rather than confronting them directly.

Many parties lose 1-2 people because melee fighters got swarmed and eventually just succumbed to the paralysis and just kept eating hit after hit until they died.

And even if the conversion ability has little combat application, the fact that they can convert people that they've killed into more ghouls is dangerous enough if you're in an area with a modest population.

I mean, it's the same principle as why one zombie is easy to take out but a swarm of them can take out even well armed military in zombie movies.

>I've already told you you were stupid, so you don't have to convince me further.

Well it's not like you're actually proving why 3.X is a good system beyond insulting me and claiming that I'm wrong.

>Their challenge rating is appropriate, because there are tons of factors to consider, even if the bee dying from one attack is a little silly and mostly for flavor, but still fine because a creature with 13 HP isn't going to live for very long anyway.

One creature dies by attacking while another can paralyze you and turn you into one of them after you die.

Yet they're the same CR, when one is stronger than the other.

>Oh, it's because you're telling me something stupid that someone that actually plays the game wouldn't say.

Yet that's exactly what most veterans say when discussing the system as a whole.

You do realize that one can still enjoy something while acknowledging its flaws right? Calling anyone who disagrees with you a "troll" or "stupid" isn't going to make your arguments sound, it just makes you look like a bitter fanboy who cannot accept the flaws in either his argument or his favorite game system.

>Yet they're the same CR, when one is stronger than the other.

They're still within a certain range of each other, and under different circumstances, different ones will be stronger. Like I already said.

Please, stop being stupid. We can keep going back and forth, and I can keep explaining to you why you're an idiot, and you can keep telling me that you're an idiot, but that's all you're going to ever end up doing.

Every time I tell you something, you just bounce back with some argument that makes it clear you're just here to be stupid, like you think that you can keep ignoring the points I make just to make me have to explain them again and again.

One creature flies 80ft per round while another moves 30ft and has no ranged attacks and is highly susceptible to divine magic. See what I did there?

In the end, it's a waste of time arguing with you, because there's no way for me to prove 3.x is good system in a way you won't just pettily argue against, while at the same time there's no way for you to prove 3.x is a bad system. We are deep in the realm of subjectivity, except that you spend your time complaining about a game unfairly, while I'm telling you to just shut up and direct your hatred to something worthwhile.

>They're still within a certain range of each other, and under different circumstances, different ones will be stronger. Like I already said.

And like I already asked earlier, why are they lumped into the same CR when some are stronger than others?

I mean, it can't be THAT difficult to construct a baseline for a given CR level and base creatures around that baseline, especially when there's like three iterations of third edition, yet have somehow made this, and other poor design choices, worse.

>One creature flies 80ft per round while another moves 30ft and has no ranged attacks and is highly susceptible to divine magic. See what I did there?

Yet one only deals about 1d4 without any modifiers to their attack along with a weak poison (while dying after one strike) while the other can easily murder a low level party if they get the drop on them.

Also, travel distance doesn't matter since once you're engaged with an enemy, you cannot move away without provoking an AoO.

Not to mention, most martials are going to engage anything they fight in melee, and since the ghoul can make three attacks in one turn compared to the martial that can only attack once, it means that they effectively have three chances to paralyze you and if you fail, you're dead.

Do YOU see what I did there?

>In the end, it's a waste of time arguing with you, because there's no way for me to prove 3.x is good system in a way you won't just pettily argue against

So you have no evidence to support your argument?

>while at the same time there's no way for you to prove 3.x is a bad system.

Except for the last few posts where I did just that. Don't worry, you probably missed it when you were too busy patting yourself on the back and calling me names, rather than actually refuting the facts that I've been stating.

Just to give 2 cents, but the CR system logically should be designed so that outliers are closest to the CR they resemble, rather than some weird cutoff method like you suggest.

A CR 2 creature being anywhere from 1.6 to 2.4 is reasonable. While not perfect, you're mostly throwing something at the part that is CR 2

If it was 2.0 to 2.9, that means any given CR 2 creature might be CR 2, or might be just a hair away from CR 3

See how that could be an issue?

>Do YOU see what I did there?

...Miss the fucking point?
The point where you don't seem to recognize that in different circumstances, one will be stronger than the other?

It's like in one ear, out the other.

>Except for the last few posts where I did just that.

Honestly? You really think you've proven anything except that you have petty concerns that most people casually dismiss?

Like, I knew you were stupid, but now you're stupid and delusional.

>A CR 2 creature being anywhere from 1.6 to 2.4 is reasonable.

That still just gives a range of creatures within 1 CR, which isn't really all that different from setting the cutoff at 1.0-1.9 rather than 1.5-2.4.

>Also, travel distance doesn't matter since once you're engaged with an enemy, you cannot move away without provoking an AoO.

At low levels, where monsters and players are often one or two good hits between being knocked out, it's a vital consideration.

Ranged attacks are also especially important, and being able to even get as much as one extra ranged shot before closing in to melee can decide a battle.

>At low levels, where monsters and players are often one or two good hits between being knocked out, it's a vital consideration.

No it isn't.

Otherwise the monk would be a good class at low levels due to gaining additional speed right out the gate.

And the reason it isn't viable to have a lot of speed is because once you're engaged in melee, you're basically stuck there unless you have a means of moving without provoking an AoO.

Even then, you have to be engaged in melee to attack multiple times per round, which means that you only really need to move about as far as the closest target is.

>Ranged attacks are also especially important, and being able to even get as much as one extra ranged shot before closing in to melee can decide a battle.

At best, you're dealing maybe 1d8/1d10 damage per shot and once the gap is closed and you have no reliable means to shoot without provoking an AoO, you're screwed.

If you're surrounded by enemies, which for ghouls is not out of the realm of possibility, and they close the gap on you and the rest of the party, it basically becomes a matter of whether or not you become paralyzed now or later.

We've already demonstrated that creatures of the SAME CR can be stronger than others.

Imagine how wildly different a CR1 creature would be in comparison to a CR2 creature.

>We've already demonstrated that creatures of the SAME CR can be stronger than others.

Under particular circumstances.

Tell me, which is scarier, a giant bee 80ft away, or a ghoul 80ft away? The ghoul is going to die in the first round of ranged fire, but the giant bee gets an attack in that might cripple the adventurer severely for the rest of the adventure.

What about once the players get access to fly spells? The ghoul can't do anything, while the bee gets that attack in, and if there's a good number of them, that can get pretty hairy pretty quickly.

Different circumstances. Please, stop being stupid.

>The point where you don't seem to recognize that in different circumstances, one will be stronger than the other?

Except that, y'know, one creature will kill itself if it attacks anybody while another creature only needs one hit to paralyze and kill you.

Also, one creature can be dealt with by anyone with decent CON (which, let's be frank, can apply to anyone) while another creature can only really be dealt with if you have a good cleric or paladin within the party who actually knows what they're doing.

>Honestly? You really think you've proven anything except that you have petty concerns that most people casually dismiss?

Y'mean "petty concerns" that you casually dismiss because you already decided that I was wrong and you were right?

That's not have arguments, or even discussions, work mate. If you believe that you're right, prove me wrong, cite some sources, give me a reason to meet you half way on this.

Rather than calling anyone who disagrees with you names, citing its popularity and influence as a means of measuring its qualities as a game, and generally acting like a spoiled child who knows less than he actually believes.

I mean, you actually cite speed as a marker for why a creature isn't dogshit, when any newbie in the world would tell you that speed is the most superfluous element on your sheet due to the fact that you can only attack multiple times if you're already standing next to your target.

How am I supposed to meet you half way when you keep moving further and further away from me?

What's an honest situation where a Giant Bee will be harder to fight than a Ghoul?

The only situation I can think of is if you're a wizard who has to hop across a bunch of narrow pillars. The bee could fly up and sting you, but even that might not be a death sentance for you. If it rolls poorly on damage and you make the save, then you also just won the encounter.

Meanwhile, the Ghoul is going to have to try and climb up to strike you, but once it does you're pretty much dead. You could potentially use a spell to defeat it, but the same could be said for the Bee.

It's still a range of 1 yes, which could be improved, but it also makes things more clear when designing encounters.

Your way, if I pick out a CR 2 monster, I have to carefully look it over to figure out if it's an actual CR 2 monster, or one of those CR 2.9 ones, or somewhere in between.

The other way, I can reasonably rely that while it might be .5 higher or lower, it at least won't be a completely different CR.

> If you believe that you're right, prove me wrong, cite some sources,

In something as subjective as whether a roleplaying game is good or not?

If you want me to stop calling you retarded, stop being retarded.

You've been reduced to the level of arguing about giant bees as if they were an integral aspect of the system, and you are still trying to argue that your complaints are not petty.

Fuck, how stupid can you get? What do you want me to do?

Tell you good parts of the system, just so you can be petty and argue about how they're not so good?

You are just a simple troll who thinks he's clever because he's discovered that he can endlessly argue about anything as long as its subjective. Congrats.

But, here's the part where I call you out on being an idiot who somehow thinks that you can force people to take you seriously when you're claiming you've proved a game is bad because you don't like it and you have some petty complaints.

Actually, the ghoul could spend his turn moving at double his movement and unless everyone in the party is throwing some means of ranged attack, the ghoul will probably be able to move in and strike at someone after two turns.

Also, the bee's poison has a relatively low DC that most adventurers would be able to crack.

If an adventurer has a +2 Fort for their class and a +2 CON, they'd be able to pass the check on an (8) or higher, meaning that they have a 65% chance of passing the save. Even then, the poison's effects revert after the party rests for a day or so.

>What about once the players get access to fly spells?

So when they're level 5 and much more capable of handling CR1 creatures?

I imagine they'd fight creatures that are CR5 or so.

>The ghoul can't do anything, while the bee gets that attack in, and if there's a good number of them, that can get pretty hairy pretty quickly.

Except that, y'know, said bees will be dealing a poison with a DC of 11 against level 5 PC's who will likely have much higher fort saves to ignore it.

Have you even played the game that you're defending so rabidly?

That's not really that different from having to wonder if it's a 1.5 or 2.4.

If you walk in with the assumption that CR 2 means 2.5 instead of 2.0, everything makes sense, right? Because 2.5 represents the average of CR 2.

Overall, the scale of difference between one CR isn't really all that much, so dividing it into decimals was just for the purpose of illustrating a point.

The system math and CR system being screwed up isn't subjective. This whole giant Bee thing isn't the only possible example, and yet you're defending it tooth and nail.

Do you honestly think a Giant Bee is as dangerous as a Ghoul? That something that kills itself is more of a challenge than something that gets 3 attacks?

>In something as subjective as whether a roleplaying game is good or not?

In this particular situation, I'm arguing about how borked the CR system is when used in designing encounters.

I picked three random creatures and showed how one is objectively weaker than the other.

I cited their stats and their potential as well and in the process, I also pointed out how creatures of the same CR can be stronger than one another while also pointing out how even adding 1 level of CR makes a potential creature exponentially more dangerous.

This isn't a matter of subjective taste, this is a matter of objectively showing how flawed the system is for this particular situation.

If you cannot prove that my reasoning isn't sound or there's an actual reason for why arguments are flawed beyond me being a "troll," then you simply have no argument and are arguing in bad faith under the guise of a discussion.

>Tell you good parts of the system, just so you can be petty and argue about how they're not so good?

Well if they were actually as good as you claim, I wouldn't be able to point out how they are, in fact, flawed in the first place.

I mean, you're not exactly giving me a reason to not believe the system is flawed since accusations are the height of your argument.

>unless everyone in the party is throwing some means of ranged attack, the ghoul will probably be able to move in and strike at someone after two turns.

With low HP and low AC, that ghoul is likely dead if even one person has a bow, let alone two. Still you're kind of getting reallllly petty. I wish there was another word to better describe how much pointless arguing you're doing, because you're still just missing the point.

>So when they're level 5 and much more capable of handling CR1 creatures?

Ever think that these bees might be encountered in groups?

Seriously, stop being stupid.

>If you walk in with the assumption that CR 2 means 2.5 instead of 2.0, everything makes sense, right?

Except that's not what the book suggests. The assumption the book gives is that a CR 2 creature would be good for building a CR 2 challenge, while a CR 3 creature is good for a CR 3 challenge. If some CR 2 creatures are .1 away from being CR 3 creatures, that system doesn't work. If they're .5 away from being CR 3 creatures, then that's much less of a margin for error, because at least you'd know that even if it was a stronger CR 2 creature, it still wouldn't be jumping an entire challenge level.

>I picked three random creatures and showed how one is objectively weaker than the other.

Which you didn't do.

Don't claim things you haven't done.

Really, I think I figured out WHY you're so stupid. You don't understand the difference between subjective and objective. That explains everything about you, because you're so thoroughly convinced of your subjective ideas that you honestly think they're objective.

That's why you like to argue about subjective matters. You're an idiot who thinks his subjective points have value outside of his own skull.

>full tantrum mode because of a CR system

You're the stuff THAT GUY threads are made of

They're .1 away from the lowest tier of 3, or 3.0, rather than the average of 3.5.

Monsters that number in the thousands exist in a gradient of power. For what it is, the system does a fairly good job, especially since the difference between one CR and another really isn't that dramatic.

>With low HP and low AC, that ghoul is likely dead if even one person has a bow, let alone
two.

A ghoul has 2d12 HP (average 13). It also has an AC of 14, with a flat-footed/touch of 12 each.

By contrast, a longbow will only deal maybe 1d8 damage per hit, meaning that on average, the bowman will be dealing (5) damage per shot, assuming he hits.

A ghoul could survive a round of fire from two bowman if they roll average and still close the distance and get one attack in. Keep in mind, these longbow users have to deal (13) damage to take this lone ghoul out while all the ghoul has to do is hit once and take out its enemy while they're paralzed.

>Ever think that these bees might be encountered in groups?

Ever think you'll only ever deal with one ghoul at a reasonably safe distance?

>petty

You like using that word a lot don't you?

>Which you didn't do.

Actually I did, you're just too stubborn to accept that I'm correct.

Oh, and you don't actually know anything about the system you're rabidly defending.

It's the only way to describe you.

Here. Three bowmen. Happy?

>wow u sure are dumb
>how so?
>haha wow you don't even know how dumb u r do u?
>uh ok well anyway how bout refuting any of my points?
>wowww like u r just the dumbest idiot, you idiot

Every month is autism awareness month here on Veeky Forums

>For what it is, the system does a fairly good job, especially since the difference between one CR and another really isn't that dramatic.

Except it's not and you're too dumb to listen.

Then again, you're the fool who thinks that a giant bee is somehow more dangerous than a fucking ghoul so who gives a shit about your opinion?