Which version of Dungeons and Dragons has the most balanced (but still fun) mages?

>4rries still exist
>still plague muh teegee

Fookin' mmo shits get off my lawn. 3.5 had the fun mages and if you weren't a shit GM they were balanced.

Doesn't 13th Age recapture some of that feel? Or was I memed?

for my money, 13th age was too much of a deviation - particularly with some story game-esque mechanics. it's still a great system, and if I had an ongoing 4e campaign I'd be tempted to transition it to 13th Age. But there's a simplicity in teaching people 4e (particularly if they come from video games or mtg) that 13th Age doesn't quite have.

>3.5 had the fun mages
They were fun.

>and if you weren't a shit GM they were balanced.
They were designed not to be in 3, then they errata the fuck out of them and released 3.5 and said they were. They weren't.

We did, and answered accordingly.

13th Age is distinctly lacking in the tactical element due to doing away with the grid

4e

I wish those recurring story game elements weren't presented quite so stiff. Those bits seem oddly rigid compared to very similar mechanics in, for example, Edge of the Empire (which seems to have a lot in common 13th Age, now that I think about it--they both came out in 2012, right?).

For the most part I would say that Rules Cyclopedia, 4e, and 5e have pretty much balanced and fun magic classes.

In Rules Cyclopedia a major point of balance is that every class levels at different XP values and every class grows a bit more bizarre and esoteric over time. Access to magic invariably means you level much more slowly and are far less free in how you can leverage your "Name Level" features. Book could be organized better, game might be too outside of your expectation, including things like race-as-class stuff.

4e is 4e. It was a design goal that every class be structured close to identically outside of contextual thematic bits at important stages of character growth--so if nothing else at least classes are pretty much balanced, barring conscious attempts at breaking things.
It was also intended for a bold digital format that never fully came together because of a murder/suicide. Woulda been way ahead of its time.
If you ask me it's ultimately too reliant on splat and it can be a cluttered system in general. Excels in its niche all the same.

5e is straightforward maybe to a fault. It's great if you just want a cleanly presented version of D&D that doesn't get in its own way. Spells don't have as many freebies and guarantees, and skills are more useful to characters in general, both of which eliminate a big avenue for how magic could cut out other party members in 3.PF and 2e. Concentration mechanics kill pretty much all the potential for heinous cheese.

Basically this.
5e is pretty good. You pretty much have to be actively trying to break the game with some weird rules lawyer shit to manage it.

(Combine some 4e mechanics and 5e for a bunch of fun, pretty sure Colville has a video on it somewhere.)

Mind if I veer this into a 4e thread and ask if anyone has any decent adventure modules/paths/whatevers for 4th Edition D&D? I'm thinking of trying to run a game, but would prefer to start with GM training wheels.

4th edition

From what I understand, all the content was good.

Aye, just hoping for PDFs and/or any recommendations of stuff that would work well with 4th. I suppose I'll just bring my DMG to work tomorrow and start studying up; last few attempts at DMing had me confused on how to give out loot.

I quickly found out that no, I shouldn't be giving the players ALL the stuff that the mooks they killed would have had on them. Even with a 10% resale value, they could have effectively retired after 3 battles.

I liked 4e fine. It had plenty of flaws, but no more than any other edition of that game. I never understood why so many people hated it so much.

It's also such a pointless argument. I mean, you could say that of anything. Vegan hamburgers are just as good as real hamburgers if you just take out the patty and put in some beef. I don't understand that logic at all.

Because it was preceded by 3.5, had questionable marketing and had a crucial part of its concept evaporate.

Because 4e was more of an MMO/wargame on paper then an actual RPG, 99% of the ruleset was based entirely around combat and combat would take up the majority of the play session, which mean that if you wanted a more RP heavy session, you'd have to look for other rulesets anyway.

You may not agree with what I am getting at, but thats why most people didn't like 4th edition, combat was overly complicated for what should simply be "I cast spell, I hit with sword."

pastebin.com/85Hm56k5

Now, I've never used any of themodules/paths/whatevers for 4e myself, but if you want them, I believe they're all in there somewhere

Update the math for some of the older monsters. A lot of the earlier monsters had more health and lower damage than necessary, so fights would slog on for a long time without properly challenging players.

Fortunately, unless you're trying to update someone like Demogorgon, the process is fairly fast. There's also a nifty program called Asmor's Monster Maker if you want to make new baddies later with pretty little stat blocks like those dolled up whores in the actual manuals.

I don't think this was the actual problem. D&D has always been 99% rules about combat, and RP is done more or less outside the rules. The actual problem was that mages didn't have 1,000 tricks they could use to break the game out of combat like they did in previous editions, so the tryhard 3.5 players hated it for not fulfilling their power fantasies.

It lost the expectations game, essentially. If you go into a 4e game knowing what you're in for, it's fine.

Thanks. The PDF link is dead, but I was able to get some other stuff there.

I'll keep that in mind and check that out, too.

I've read through so many goddamn core books in my time. Take out setting information, and most of the rules are about combat.

I'm still unaware of any "Roleplaying Rules" that 4E lacks that 3.5/Path has, but I may have missed some argument aside from "Sleep spells!".

>but I may have missed some argument aside from "Sleep spells!".
What happened with sleep spells?

I just recall it being used as an example of "4e lacks roleplaying stuff! I can't cast Sleep as I want to!" or something.

player-facing content, yes
adventure modules (and delves) were mostly various degrees of wank, especially those that like Keep on the Shadowfell hit every one of edition's weak points

Insufficient verbiage

>especially those that like Keep on the Shadowfell hit every one of edition's weak points
I'd like to hear more about this.

It's a good video.
youtube.com/watch?v=QoELQ7px9ws

5e is just as imbalanced as 3.5e. martials that aren't rogues might as well break out their phones outside of combat.

Many of the combats are unimaginative, and suffer from the lack of polish in early 4e monster design. There are too many monsters with bad composition. The main part of the adventure itself, the Keep, is a tiresome dungeon crawl with way too many encounters. There are blank areas with no interesting features, which serves to make the encounters even duller.

For recommendations, the second set of heroic modules is an improvement. Slaying Stone, Reavers of Harkenwold, Orcs of Stonefang Pass and Madness at Gardmore Abbey are a better introduction to heroic tier 4e adventures.

3.5, just make everyone a mage and nip the problem in the bud.

>most balanced
4e
>but still fun
5e

I hate to ask but I apparently suck at finding PDFs. Happen to have these?

Basically, there are a few things that ruin a 4E game that weren't uncommon (or much of a problem) in previous editions. KotS, being the first module to be released (and written by the magnificent pillock Mike Mearls, who never got the edition he was on the design team of) managed to hit every landmine there was to hit.

These things are:
1) Trash fights. Due to the rather involved nature of 4E combats, they tend to got for a while, especially if your players don't know their characters yet and/or if they didn't yet come together as a team all that well. This means that combats intended to be about spendidng party's daily resources tend to distract from the narrative meat of the game and if strung together can be aggravating. KotS does exactly that.
Say, your party goes floor be floor through a wizard's tower that isn't quite as abandoned as they believed to be. In older editions, it would be logical to make every room its own encounter so you don't overwhelm your PCs. In 4E a more fitting approach would be to design the whole floor (or half of it if they're large) as an encounter that would have reinforcements arrive in waves.

2) Boring rooms. While it's something of a truism that good maps are entertaining on their own, it's more important for your fights to not take place in empty rooms when they take a better part of the hour instead of 10 minutes. As 4E DMG states, it's a good practice to have your rooms include nooks to hide in, chandeliers to swing off, sloped slippery floors to be wary off or push the enemies into and so on. While KotS does have a few rooms with that, they're not all that common.
In our earlier example with the wizard's tower, it would be nice to have places with odd puddles of assorted potions all mixed up into a hazard (or a boon), or a caged tentacled beast trying to grab anyone who's close to the cage, an odd bottle with an angry djinn who if released will scorch the room and fuck off and so on.

cont...

...cont

3) Linearity. It applies to just about all editions, really. Just don't make your adventure a winding corridor. Just don't.

4) Lack of teamwork. This applies to both the PCs (and rampant in 3.X) and their adversaries (just about every edition). If your monsters have tricks up their sleeves and you're making an encounter, make sure they can play off each other tricks, but don't make it mandatory. Thanks to 4E disassociated mechanics (another boogieman of the Edition Wars) you can rather easilt take any monster you like and explain their abilities however you like.

And as a bonus bit that's not really about KotS specifically:
*) Magic item treadmill and Parcels can go die in a fire. Just use the Inherent Bonuses optional rule and send treasure parcels and WBL to their well deserved resting place in a dumpster.

I enjoyed using Hammerfast, if not for the adventure, than for having a fleshed out dwarven city replete with all manner of plot hooks at hand.

Warhammer Fantasy

>d&d is created and get famous
>its the first rpg so (since its famous) you have all those extreme amount of rpg players with different point of view of how a rpg should be, playing the exact same rpg
>after some amount of time playing some players discover some stuff they think are flaws, while discover some rules they think are really awesome
>because they have very different views on what a rpg should be (despise playing the exact same rpg), what some guy think is a good idea wont be considered a good idea by the other player, what some consider a shitty idea will be considered a good idea by other rpg
>new system is made based at this enviroment, and create a mess of a rpg system.
>many of those players quickly jump into the new system, expecting fixed to what they think are flaws
>because the players have very different opinions on what rpg should be (despise playing the same exact system), what is a flaw to some is a fix to another, and what is a fix to another is a flaw to someone. So the system CAN'T be fixed.
>all those extreme amount of players quickly jumping to this new system, bring new (to rpg) players to the new d&d system
>this make the game have an extreme amount of rpg players with different point of view of how a rpg should be, playing the exact same rpg
>because they have very different views on what a rpg should be (despise playing the exact same rpg), what some guy think is a good idea wont be considered a good idea by the other player, what some consider a shitty idea will be considered a good idea by other rpg
>new system is made based at this enviroment, and create a mess of a rpg system. No one knows what the system/d&d is suposed to be, because it was created based on a mess.
>the story continue ad infinitum

bump

>the tryhard 3.5 players hated it for not fulfilling their power fantasies.
I rarely played mages in 3.5 and when I did, I didn't break them. I hated the MMO-like, paint-by-numbers feel of 4th Ed. This is such a common sentiment that I know you're just being obtuse.

On the behalf of WotC, we sorry the game hurt your feefees by being clear to read and honest about what it's doing.

Thankfully, in 5e we have removed all the evil-evil colored boxes! Your immersion is now protected once again.

And "4e is an MMO" is so inaccurate I know you're arguing in bad faith.

Can you expand on the magic item treadmill and, inherent bonus, and WBL? Im new to ttrpgs..

The Magic Item Treadmill is the idea that you get better magic items for the sake of keeping your numbers up so you can do harder stuff so you can get better magic items. So you need a +1 sword to keep your accuracy up so you can fight the Bigger Orc so you can get a +2 weapon to fight the Even Bigger Orc. Not quite a realistic example but it gets the idea across. MMOs are famous for magic item treadmills even more than Tabletop RPGs but the term still applies.

The issue with that is that it's kinda boring as you are getting items that just fix numbers. Inherent bonuses give you a scaling bonus to your numbers based on level so you don't need those items and instead magic items can be interesting stuff (Like flaming swords or helms of invisibility).

Wealth By Level is a GM tool basically saying 'You should have this much worth of gear and cash by this level so that you can get the right items for the magic item treadmill'. It's a balancing factor but one tied heavily into the Magic Item Treadmill. If magic items don't give you bigger numbers but instead do interesting things, it's less of a problem to scrap it.

In this particular case, one of the things I hated is that that at will/encounter/daily system made pretty much every class feel very same-y in a lot of ways, and in moving to that system it gutted a lot of iconic spells (e.g. feather fall). I much prefer 5E because wizards and fighters still feel distinct and it somehow managed to keep the PHB pretty fucking balanced.

Eh, I'd personally disagree (Though you are free to have your own opinion). I finally felt like a lot of spellcasting classes finally felt different to each other, especially letting the Sorcerer step out from the 'Wizard but worse' shadow.

Is 4e Pathfinder? Because I've played that and it was boring as fuck.

No.

Pathfinder is based on 3.5 D&D.

>everyone saying 4e
but being a wizard isn't particularly fun in it. The wizardness of being a wizard was removed.

AD&D.

>your experiences aren't real
>my opinion>your experience
>LALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU

The wizardness?

What did you expect? 4rries are internet contrarian hipsterfags who will always like things that are shit just because those fucking NORMIES REEEEE everywhere else like filthy popular stuff (and damn good design?

the quintessence of wizarding. The essence of wizards

4e, almost certainly. Every caster has a unique power list and playstyle rather than mostly copypasted spell lists, and the actual powers are generally a lot more interesting in play.

Out of combat is weaker RAW, but with some tweaking the Rituals subsystem is a great, balanced way of making magic a useful problem solving tool without it being the only practical solution.

And that is?

having a bunch of ways of solving things in often non-standard ways, but requiring knowledge/preparedness.
At least to me that's what makes wizards fun

>having a bunch of ways of solving things in often non-standard ways, but requiring knowledge/preparedness.

Isn't that the Ritual Caster feat they start with? If you have prep time, you can do a heap of unusual stuff.

But at that point you're not really talking about the content of the game at all, just its presentation style.

They only looked samey on paper. In practical terms it made them all actually play more different.

3.PF is a system that looks amazing in books and struggles in play. 4e is a system that's very clear and simple in books, and amazing in play.

Rituals, utilities, and a DM that let's you use arcana in interesting ways

Repeating a bad meme isn't the same as having an informed opinion.

If you really want to stick behind it, then argue and explain it. Because every other attempt I've seen to support the '4e=WoW' meme just reveals the person spouting it knows nothing about 4e, nothing about WoW, or both.

rituals do cover a bit of it for sure.
But you don't really get enough utilities. With other editions you could get away with almost all utilities powers and made a few death spells.

But doesn't that kind of highlight the issue? That you could be supremely effective in combat with only a fraction of your total resources, and use the rest to be the most important and useful party member for solving non-combat problems?

Mind you, 4e would have been a better system if it had more non-combat powers. A project I'm working on at the moment actually splits Utilities into two categories, Utility and Support, with the former having their own slot and being dedicated to out of combat effects.

What would you say is 'enough utility'? Enough that you can replace the Rogue by simply turning invisible, magically detecting traps, and using Knock to open doors? Enough that even if you spend,all your spells solving every problem the group runs into, you'll stull have a few left over to end every fight with a single crowd-control effect?

I'm not trying to argue that 4e is bad or that other systems are perfect, I just meant to say that wizards feel less like wizards in 4e.

I prefer the utitilties that are more powerful but much more circumstantial or can do more mundane things and not just steal other classes roles. Also create demiplane

But how would what you say, the feel of a wizard, actually function in a balanced RPG?

Do you give everyone else that much utility? Wouldn't that degrade that feeling just as much?

Serious question here, since I'm working on a game, capturing the feel of the Wizard in a class, while still keeping things balanced and different classes on equivalent terms with regard to utility, even if they do so different ways.

Would a system of, I don't know, Prepared Rituals be interesting? Invest the time and resources early/at the start of the day, and then have the opportunity to bust out utility effects that might otherwise take a lot longer to cast with right when you need them?

>I have to be able to make my own private pocket dimensiom where nobody can touch me, or it's not enough utility!

Pretty sure there's an Epic Destiny for that anyway

>Also create demiplane

Planeshaper Epic Destiny has that as it's 'Thing'.

>Also create demiplane

All I'm looking for is an edition which balances my class but still lets them conjure up their own pocket realities. The rogue spots traps, I create worlds. Balanced, right?

>But how would what you say, the feel of a wizard, actually function in a balanced RPG?
Go back to the beginning, where the wizard is your nearly guaranteed solution to n problems (which n are set when the wizard chooses his daily spells) daily, while the fighter and thief are probable solutions to an infinite number of problems, and the cleric sits in between the fighter an wizard, and one of the problems he resolves is everybody else running low on HP.

It's resource management.

4e has a larger emphasis on resource management by far. It's just that there's more to worry about than just spells and HP, with spells being able to become HP, so just spells.

But that completely shatters with effortless ease. If the players encounter less than n encounters in a day the wizard is the only party member who matters, if they encounter significantly more than that then the wizard spends most of their time being useless, which is no fun at all.

It seems to oblige the GM to have a number of problems within a very specific range- 1.5n? 2n? To actually let each side feel useful, which is very limiting.

Setting aside the fact that it also means your value for n has to be very, very low before the GM is forced to add in extra issues and problems entirely to absorb spells, rather than existing as interesting problems for their own sake.

I think it's possible, though I think the cost to wizards has to be greater restrictions and having other characters being capable of great feats and abilities, as well as their own utilities that most mages can't just do better than them.

I think one of the issues with say 3rd edition is that there's no chance of failure for their powers, and no risk to them. Shadowrun did magic fairly relatively balanced, but that was in part because technology covered similar niches.

It is an epic destiny, but that just feels too late in the game. Like maybe there could be lesser versions of that.

Create demiplane isn't the best spell gameplay wise, and that's an issue with how poorly "mundane" powers are treated despite what there power at those levels should be.

>if you wanted a more RP heavy session, you'd have to look for other rulesets
>more RP ... look for rulesets
>RP ... rulesets

Only autistic manchildren failed to appreciate 4th

>Why cant there be a lesser version of something to let me play god? Why is it in the 'become god' levels of the game?

>create demiplane can only be becine god level powers

>It is an epic destiny, but that just feels too late in the game. Like maybe there could be lesser versions of that.

I dunno, I'd put 'I have created an entire world of my own' as pretty epic destiny. I'm not sure how you'd really put it something smaller than that.

There are earlier versions that give you access to such things but the epic destiny lets you actually create one of your own.

...You're literally creating a world.

No matter how minor that is, it's still the kind of act that's considered divine.

Well, I mean...you ARE going 'Genesis 1: In the beginning wizard created the heavens and the earth'

>It is an epic destiny, but that just feels too late in the game. Like maybe there could be lesser versions of that.

What's a purely epic spell then? I mean, 4e Epic is 'You are an Archmage/Master of Martial arts' tier.

Yeah, pretty much. It easily puts you above the concerns of mortals when you can,create your own little world and do whatever you want with it. That's like basic level godhood.

Why do Wizards have to be gods? Why do you need a demiplane instead of a Tower?

>the wizard spends most of their time being useless
>wizards without spells can do literally nothing
Are you retarded?

> If the players encounter less than n encounters in a day the wizard is the only party member who matters
Oh, you are.

I was going by the information presented in your post.

If, instead, the wizards are equally capable of participating in problem solving without access to their spells, it only makes the situation worse.

Do you have a solution to this?

>I'm not sure how you'd really put it something smaller than that.
Create Shared Demiplane

Creates a fragment of reality which is exactly the same as every other casting of Create Shared Demiplane occurring simultaneously across the multiverse. Less useful than it sounds because the multiverse is infinite but the plane is not, so things get a little cramped.

create a plane of a self looping hallway that's only 10 feet by 50 feet

Ooh! Ooh! What if the wizard had a few trusty cantrips he could get by on, and a spellbook of limited but more powerful options that had to be prepared daily?

none, the only way to have a balanced mage is if the mage's player doesnt powergame

Hey! Good idea. Then what if we gave the Wizard some mid-power options, like cantrips that required a bit more energy so couldn't be used constantly through a fight.

Oh, and then we could also give martials some things based off stamina for really big impactful hits.