Do you think making wizards use magic gems(al la dominions) to cast spells would be a good way to balance them?(3...

>core martials replaced with ToB

Bullshit. Maybe in the playtest, but the best 5e has is the Battlemaster, which is watered down shite compared to real ToB style classes.

Sometimes I wonder why the devs even bothered to mention materials and shit because that never comes into play if rules as written.

Also the game has retarded no-brainer utility spells like familiar for wizards that make almost all situations and challenges other than combat trivial.

Modern D&D is not very well designed at all.

Force spellcasters to choose between Warmage, Healer, Dread Necromancer, Beguiler, Psion, or Wilder. 3.X has already had this question answered multiple fucking ways but people who can't slap the titty labled "I need to write Wizard on my char sheet" can't fucking see it.

Fucking done.

"Enforcing" those requirements does nothing because the rules gloss over them with the spell component pouch, plus most of the broken spells have joke requirements so all you're doing is adding bookkeeping to the game for no reason.

And of course, divine casters ignore material components wholesale.

>3.5 -> derivatives
>Balanced
To unfuck it, you need to unfuck it at a deep level
So at bare basics:
1. Cap skillchecks at 80 for truly impossible deeds
2. Tier classes, and cap levels for bad classes
3. Actually playtest
4. HP is either Meat Points, or Fatigue/Luck points, good luck unfucking that
5. Unfuck Grapple/Climb/Jump, so they can be used to combat flying enemies
At which point its no longer 3.5 anymore, since 3.5s core defining feature is how none of its systems is capable of scaling against each other, before splat books do that again.

This is also a option. No reason to go below it, and get far worse classes.

4e was! And everyone hated it. Apparently 'Real D&D' involves bad design.

>Fatigue/Luck points
It has been described as such since 2e, people just didn't read the book, or saw the Massive Damage rules and made an assumption.
This. If D&D doesn't have multiple subsystems to learn (that need not be there because they don't actually do things differently in practice on the table) and a number of sacred cows (that lend to the imbalance by existing), it's not D&D.

Being fair, on the abstract vs meat points thing, the system has always said it's abstract and then forgotten it ten seconds later in things like spell descriptions.

Abstract is the only real thing that makes sense, but the system has to take a lot of the blame for confusing people.

There's bad design and then there's shitty design. Anything after TSR goes straight into the shitty department because they wanted the game to be Magic The Gathering style build-making game with lots of trap choices and a few clearly overpowered cookie cutter options. It has been like this ever since 3.X even though 4e was better in this regard. 4e is not a roleplaying game though so that doesn't count.

Its not really done that well.
Basically some times its meat points, some times it fatigue points.
A lot of actions, such as chopping heads/arms/spells give you meat point damage.
Some give you luck damage.
Save or Death anything can do both, like Disintegrate basically being what 50 damage + luck save?
Con scaling, and how feats interact with it? A nightmare.

So you might think its settled, but DnD is far more than the core book, and even the core book forgets about it.

This so much. 3.X onwards the designers didn't even understand how their own game was supposed to work and that shows.

4e is a roleplaying game. There is no meaningful definition of 'roleplaying game' that excludes 4e.

>Eschew Material wouldn't work, it only allows you to ignore components up to 10gp.
>Gems are still needed, but thank you for the (fake) story.

Yeah if you actually READ my post you'll see that I mentioned the DM was meticulous about other reagents, even normal ones. That was why he took the feat. I never said that it stops the need for pearls. Oh and it allows you to ignore components up to 1g, not 10.

It's a tactical miniature skirmish game with roleplaying elements. Tactical skirmishes is where the focus is so that's what the game is about.

Even Monopoly can be called a roleplaying game by your standards.

The only way to "make 3.X more equal" is with a radical overhaul of some pretty fundamental parts of the system. Taking casters down a peg is a big part of it, but accomplishing that is no simple fix. is really the best approach, though it's a bit awkward since some caster concepts simply aren't supported with any tier 3/4 classes.

Ideally, you'd want to rearrange the spell lists to get a more equitable spread of utility in each school (rather than Conjuration & Transmutation having the lion's share of the most powerful and versatile spells), and make specialist casters a la the Beguiler and Dread Necromancer to fill out other thematic niches. That is no small task, let me tell you.

I had actually been in the process of tackling that approach before I realized Fantasy Craft basically gets me what I'm really looking for without needing so much effort on my end to hack it into shape.

What I'm thinking of doing is rewriting all the martial classes to be tier 2 and banning tier 1 classes.

It's gonna take some effort but, eh.

Nope. It's a roleplaying game. It calls itself a roleplaying game, it has players make characters and a GM run a collaborative story for all involved.

You failed to give any definition of roleplaying game, beyond 'I don't like that style of gameplay'. That isn't a meaningful definition.

It doesn't matter what it calls itself. If 90% of the play time revolves around tactical combat, it's a tactical fighting game.

So D&D has always not been an RPG? Despite being the first RPG? It started out as a set of alternate rules for a tactical wargame, after all.

You aren't saying anything meaningful. And you're also being intensely stupid and acting like conflict can't be a meaningful part of roleplaying.

OD&D was mostly freeform though, and even in its beginning it had the alternate combat system so you wouldn't need chainmail

>It started out as a set of alternate rules for a tactical wargame, after all.
Precisely. D&D is a tactical wargame first, character theorycrafting mingame second, rpg third.
You can role play a wargame, does that make any wargame an rpg as long as you roleplay while playing it?

No? Because it specifically has a set of roleplaying rules that change the context of the mechanics, making it focused on individual characters and telling fantasy stories involving them.

That makes it an RPG.

Could you create roleplaying rules drawn from another wargame? Of course. Fuck, Malifaux, Warmachine and Infinity have already done it, making RPG's inspired by their tabletop rulesets and settings, but recontextualising them for a focus on individual characters and storytelling.

Are none of those RPGs?

You're right. D&D was actually a wargame in its first incarnation. After they detached it from the Chainmail wargame rules and focused on single characters instead of armies it became a roleplaying game.

After that the game wasn't about pushing counters anymore like it had previously been. 4e has always been about pushing counters in a tactical, highly rules-strict combat.

No more than 3.5.

This is the thing which always bugs me about the stupid claim that 4e isn't an RPG. Nobody can actually give a real definition of an RPG that excludes it beyond 'I don't like it', save for definitions with end up excluding swathes of other games as well, mostly for reasons of 'I don't like it'.

>Nobody can actually give a real definition of an RPG that excludes it beyond 'I don't like it'
Then come up with a definition of an RPG that doesn't include literally everything because you can role play over any game.

>what would you do to make 3.X more equal?
Ban the PHB classes.

He's just being angry for the sake of angry.

From personal experience with both 4e and 5e, I can honestly say that they feel too bland. I've played both and don't really feel like they have anything on other role playing games. Why would I play a class-based combat system when I could just play GURPS which offers all that and more.

3.X has the advantage of tons of content, and the ability to go into epic levels. As well as the wonderful artstyle that 3 has.

4e doesn't give me any reason to play it.

> tactical wargame first
OD&D is only a tactical wargame in the sense that you can literally play chainmail and attach it to the campaign. The focus isn't even on combat
>character theorycrafting mingame
There is almost no chargen process on OD&D, or on anything prior to 3e. It only starts taking more than 5 minutes by 2e if the DM allows some of the stupider rules. You roll your stats down the line, pick a class (most often not even a race) and a name. Even the combat heavily relied on freeform since it

>since it provides almost no rules other than the bare basic conflict resolution

A quick google search found this one, which works-

>A role-playing game (RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development.

No. It alone is not enough. The big key, the one that actually made all martial classes necessary was casting times. When 15+(random number, but not hyperbole, it could actually be 15+) creatures can go during the time it takes to finish casting a single 3rd level spell, it becomes far more balanced. That big slab of meat, bone, and metal is the only thing holding back the horde of orcs from gutting your artillery. Without said artillery, meat, bone and metal won't get past orcs to get to the real treasure that the boss is guarding. These dynamics made their far different skill sets and end games tolerable. Even fun.

Magic-User X wanders off into the planes to play with demons, gods, and existential dread.

Fighter A becomes king, gets the girl(s), the booze, the glory and the peasants.

Decent rewards for both after they needed each other in their early days of 3 spells a day, that took far too fucking long to cast; a single blade, suit of armor, and big ass shield; and whatever wits they could gather between them both.

It sounds like it just isn't your playstyle, which is fine. Personally I love 4e for high action pulp fantasy stuff, and I feel like the tactical combat system is an enjoyable compliment to that, but it's a matter of whether that sort of thing appeals to you.

In contrast, I've always found GURPS dull as dishwater, the mechanics just boring me to tears. I don't think it's a bad game, and I can see why people like it, but it just doesn't align with my playstyle and preferences.

You want to balance 3.x? Here's how you do it.

Step 1: 'Fighter' becomes an NPC class.

Step 2: 'Ranger' uses the 'Non-Spellcasting Ranger' variant from Complete Warrior. Paladin does the same with Complete Divine.

Step 3: Druids and Spirit Shamans now get skill points as a rogue and no spellcasting. Clerics lose their spellcasting but gain bonus feats as a fighter does that must be chosen from the 'Divine Feats' category, the ones that trade Turn/Rebuke attempts for special effects.

Step 4: Bards lose their spellcasting abilities, but not their magic song BS.

Step 5: Completely erase the Wizard, Sorcerer, Wu Jen, Favored Soul, Monk, Truenamer, Samurai, and all other full-casting classes (I may have forgotten) that use the spells/day mechanic. Half-casters (Hexblade can stay. A few others).

Step 6: Take the psionics rules and rename them. Metacreation becomes 'Summoning', etc. Call them wizards. Since they're forced to ultra-specialize, and they're capped at how many points they can spend per round on powers and enhancements, the system rebalances.

Step 7: Tome of Battle becomes a core part of martial characters.

Step 8: Remove any prestige class that enhances spells/day casting progression.

Step 9: Incorporate Binders, Warlocks, Incarnates, Totemists, and Shadowcasters as core casting classes.

Step 10: Separate 'Knowledge Arcana' and 'spellcraft' into a separate skill for each individual type of supernatural powerset. So no, a 'summoner' would have no idea how a Totemist or Warlock does what they do. Not all magic is the same.

Step 11: Remove every spell or magical effect from the system that is no longer on a character's spell list or duplicated by one of the remaining powersets.

Step 12: Remove from the system every magical item and monster which is dependent on the removed spells and effects. Some can be converted over, some are just gone.

You now have a system in which magic is rare, mysterious, and difficult to abuse? You're welcome.

Key me know what you come up with. I've been wanting to run a Dominion game for approximately forever.

well you see, I found the god templates in the back of the Immortals handbook:ascension, one thing lead to another and boom

Or you could use the vandican to psionics PDF.

that only addresses steps 5nd 6, and not very well. So no, that's stupid.

>I don't think it's a bad game, and I can see why people like it, but it just doesn't align with my playstyle and preferences.
Why can't you cunts just say this, versus shitting on something because it doesn't fit your personal playstyle?
There are plenty of games I don't like, but I don't say they are bad games because they don't fit my preferences.

I'm a bit confused why you're addressing that to me, of all people, since I just said exactly what you think should be said?

Honestly I'm going to try to make things more powerful by overhauling the non-preforming classes.

What I think I'm going to do.
>ban all tier one classes.
>boost all martial classes to tier 2
>boost all skill monkey classes to tier 2
>remove a lot of the feat tax and stupid crap
>rework races(remove some broken ones)

I want to keep as much crap as possible because why play 3.5 if you are going to cut stuff out.

The issue with 4e and 5e is that they really don't do anything awesomely.

Tactical combat is done by Strike!
Combat based is better done with risus
High powered dungeon crawling is best done with 3.5/MM3e
Rules-heavy is best done by GURPS

Etc

Eh, I found Strike! to be intensely unsatisfying, combat wise. I get that people say the combat itself has more depth, but I found the character options and their interactions a lot less interesting, which is an aspect of 4e I really enjoy.

I'd also take 4e over 3.5 any day for high powered dungeon crawling. But opinions etc.

Because I am speaking to the rest of the thread, and using your words as an example.

Ahh, fair, that makes sense. Was a bit confused in context, but thank you.

Nah 4e really doesn't do epic well and doesn't have amazing books like the immortals handbook.

I prefer Epic Destinies to anything available in 3.PF. While 3.5 epic stuff sounds cool, in my experience it's an absolute clusterfuck in practice. 4e's epic scale stuff might be smaller in scope, sticking to the same basic combat system, but it can still have much greater consequences and it has the advantage of working smoothly out of the box.

>balance with houserules
>3.x
Don't even try, you're practically guaranteed to only make things worse. If you want a game that's balanced, just play something else.

>immortals handbook
>amazing

I wouldn't use any D&D after 2nd for dungeon crawling because the rules offer no support for such activities to make it worthwhile or fun.

The math might be wonky and the stuff might've been made under LSD but that doesn't change the fact that it's the most fun I've ever had playing 3.X in forever.

What aspects do you find interesting or fun, the resource management and dangerous exploration aspect?

I can see that. Personally I enjoy it more as adventuring through a themed environment, progressing storylines or discovering interesting things, and fighting lots of cool enemies.

How many of the rules did you actually use, and how much of it was the GM just improvising on the theme?

Not him but I personally feel like darkest dungeon is the peak of dungeon crawling.

Someone should get on translating it into ttrpg terms.

Darkest Dungeon was at least partially inspired by Torchbearer

I was actually the GM and had everyone be level 20 with the hero-deity template.

It took 2 character building sessions but man was it fun when it got off the ground. Love the artifact concepts my players came up with.

How much did you use the rules, and how much did you improvise on the theme?

This is just proof that any game can be fun no matter how shit it is, but that doesn't make it less shit, it means you had fun with it.

This. Seriously, if "balance" is so important to you, just don't play the most unbalanced edition of D&D and it's derivate

Go back to AD&D and make spells take a number of actions equal to their level, minimum.
3 rounds of casting just to hit em with a fireball? Better hope the fighter is guarding your ass.

Very.

They all had to have a backstory of how they got 1000 quintessence, I calculated the worshippers that those backstories gave them, had them calculate artifact costs, people got virtual size categories, etc.

It was really fun.

Alright, I'll bite.
Why shouldn't balanced character options be a worthy goal in a cooperative game where pcs are rated in power based on the same metric of measure?
If pcs were not based on the same metric of advancement, I'd get it, but most games are, and when it's not balanced, it can lead to a lot of discontentment for both player and gm.

Well, you also need to draw a distinction between different parts of the game.

I can entirely accept that 3.PF is full of awesome ideas, especially things like the Immortals Handbook, and I can entirely see why people are very attached to those ideas and consider the game that has those ideas good because they're present.

But that's oddly disconnected from the mechanical reality that most of those ideas are either bad and unsupported, or far too good and capable of breaking the system over their knee. For some people, this is a frustrating dealbreaker. Others seem to quite naturally learn to cope, or be comfortable using the system as a reference rather than a ruleset, taking inspiration from it rather than actually using the RAW which leads to all the design issues that are discussed.

I don't think they were speaking out against the idea of balance. I think they're more saying that 3.PF is beyond the point it's worth trying to fix.

But how did that actually affect the game in play? Did those rules smoothly interact with and support you in running the game? Was there anything you had to fix, bodge or ignore?

Correct. Other games do balance better and then there's thousands of systems you can use.
Why get hung up over 3.PF?

Exploration, mapping, strategy, danger of getting lost, actually hostile environments, resource management, logistics, pressure of time or wandering monsters, treasure hunting.

That sort of stuff. 3rd ed and onwards pretty much none of that is in.

There's a certain feeling of enjoyment to the game when you pick up a pencil and start mapping out a dungeon square by square. For a player, that physical paper map that's being drawn by the players, not by the DM, is such a powerful connection to the game.

I think it's a great loss for D&D that joys of mapping have become so alien for the modern playerbase. That's mainly because the rules of the game don't encourage such things and even if there's a map, most players expect the DM to draw it for the players.

Not really.

Quintessence is kind of a measure of exp that you get for killing gods or outsiders.

Worshippers(or WP) gave the players something to worry about and gave them incentive to get a good press.

Virtual size catagories make it so matrials aren't useless because they can wield gigaswords.

I don't think there was anything I objected too. At times I had to make my own enemies because the monster Manuals where unfinished but they had tables for that so it wasn't hard.

>Why shouldn't balanced character options be a worthy goal in a cooperative game where pcs are rated in power based on the same metric of measure?
It is! But if that's your goal, why in the world would you handicap yourself by choosing a system that fights you every step in the way?

Content and aesthetic.

And the fact that I'd rather have a broken game than a boring one.

I can see the appeal in that even if I don't share it myself, and I think a desire for it is why OSR is a vibrant part of the RPG scene. It's always good to see more games out there, with more design ideas and more options for people getting into the hobby. More choices and variation is only a good thing, after all.

>That sort of stuff. 3rd ed and onwards pretty much none of that is in.
I believe most of that is discussed in the DMG of the respective editions as things you CAN do, but not things that are hardcoded into the game. They are presented as options for the GM to wield as they see fit for the situation.

don't forget no concentration checks. taking 1 point of damage ruined the spell and wasted the slot. casters had to be more reserved in their casting, doing so when it was safe, or the risk was necessary.

To balance 3.5 ypu have to throw put most of the content anyway to achieve parity.

If anything, it would be less work to take an already balanced system and add new options rather than going over every existing one in 3.5 and tweaking it

It works pretty well, it's no FATAL it's very much playable.

It just has a few weird design choices that can be fixed with a little effort.

Fighters and Wizards are portrayed as equal choices in the core book.

>It just has a few weird design choices that can be fixed with a little effort.
In case you hadn't noticed, there are about a million "fixes" floating around. Very few of them actually fix anything without either breaking something else or throwing out a lot of content. No, you absolutely can't fix 3.x with "a little effort."

I did say some design choices are wierd.
Just use ToB.
But if you play e6 or giants in the graveyard things change.

Or epic, where full casting belongs to everyone.

Right, just a few weird quirks. Certainly nothing broken enough to make the two best solutions to balancing the system being to ban 80% of the classes that fall outside of the tier of your choice or to stop the game at level 6 and only use a third of any given class.

If 3.5 was easy to fix it would have been done already

Well, I guess relative to how much work it would take otherwise, tier restricting games or E6 are 'easy'? I can kind of rationalise it like that, even if it doesn't hold up if you compare it to other games as a whole.

>you can't balance 3.5 without throwing out most of the content
>sure you can!
>just ban any martial classes outside of these three and stop the game at 30% of max level

Yeah, really making the best use of all that content you want the game for

Just play 40 level epic.

Make everyone play 20 martial/skillmonkey 20 caster/psion

How does a martial even work in epic?

hello Dominions, the "why even hire troops when you can summon 9000 ghosts per month" game

If you're going to remove large swathes of the game like this, it begs the question, why are you even playing the game in the first place?

He really likes the splat books, the already existing dungeon crawls, and adventures.

When you have to do this to balance the game, your game is neither balanced or easy to fix.

It's easy, just either play 8 and under or 30 and over.

Then you have whole sessions where the party has to wait around while the wizard runs around scraping bat shit off the cave floor or bartering with vendors for pearls or just generally wasting time that could be spent actually playing. It sucks for everyone else at the table.

While tossing out 80% of the content that people are most familiar with, okay whatever.

Or have make people level 9+ have divine ranks.

Spellcasting loses its edge when divine abilities show up.