A Mind in Crisis (Rant Warning…)

[Nightshade]

I agree with almost everything you said. Just a couple of things:

 

The only time that characters are limited to how many skills that they put into a single skill to go from unskilled to very skilled is at low levels. I was in a D&D game once where the Rogue suddenly decided that he needed to be able to sneak, as we were in a scenerio where that was going to be important. He just got to 7th or 8th level and put all of his points into it, making him pretty good in just one level.

 

My point is this: I think that this situation is possible in any system, be it D&D, HERO, or any others. One advance that I'll give d20 over previous editions is that there is an advancement to the skills AT ALL. In 2nd ed, you put in a single skill point into swim, and you were an olympic quality swimmer. Don't have that point in it and you could only dog paddle. There was no gradient to make you better. It was much better done this time.

 

My other point is that I would rather have my players decide where to put their experience than the system. If they don't want to increase their body, they don't have to. More skills over more spells for wizards, fine. I like that. But that is an opinion that can't be argued for or against. If you don't like that, and you find it too easily abused, then you should try something else.

 

In terms of magic, I actually have the following problem with D&D wizards:

 

The start off complete wimps, barely able to passably help the party. They get more powerful, but feels like they do it slower than the other classes. Suddenly, they improve by leaps and bounds as they get access to the more powerful spells.

 

I found this trend as I went through my PBeM phase: Lower level games (say 7th and below) had a low frequency of wizards. High level games (15th and above) had a very high frequency of wizards. I finally figured out that it was because wizards get more powerful following an expontial curve. They start off slow, but then get more powerful per level. The other classes go up pretty linearly. This was for 2nd ed. The same somewhat holds true for 3rd, but it didn't look nearly as bad as before.

 

Personally, I like being able to improve your character as you see fit. If you want your character to be more magically fit, and don't want to improve your statistics, other skills, whatever, then I want you to be able to do that. If you want to become more buff, or a better marksman, or more diplomatic, I think that should be the player's prerogative. You have more freedom now in d20 D&D than before, but there are still some times when some people wish that they could have fewer skills and more hit points.

 

Nightshade

[Killer Shrike]

Nightshade I would also state that I don't agree with Killer Shrike as to feeding tesuji is feeding a troll. Aside from the insults, I think tesuji is trying to make his point. If he simply wouldn't be so, shall we say, aggressive about it, specifically the name calling and whatnot (however, I don't think he started it), I think that this would be a very good discussion. If you look at the last part of his last post, he was very cordial, and again had some very legitimate points. I am of the opinion that if more people did this, it would be a more pleasant forum.

 

Its not this particular thread or any 1 other particular thread that has lead to me to consider tesuji a troll; its the aggregate of many threads wherein he simply bashes the HERO System in favor of a system he prefers. Over time I noticed a trend in his posts which eventually lead me to decide to add him to my ignore list. Ive seen too many threads go off track on back and forth argumentative tangents in response to posts that he has made. Its not personal; I just prefer not to perpetuate the disruption by responding to him.

[Nightshade]

I must admit that I don't know much about what anyone does on most of the other forums. I am pretty new here, and the forums are pretty active, so I never get to read everything.

 

I would say that tesuji's last post had only a couple things that I would call inflamatory, and not nearly so bad as before. I would say that I am still confused as to why someone who likes D&D so much is on a Fantasy HERO forum, but hey, that's his prerogative.

 

I think that some of our forums do get way out of line due to people getting riled about something someone posted and feeding into the negativity created. There were lots of insults posted on both sides, you have to admit.

 

The annoying thing about opinions is that they cannot be proven, but people will try anyway. It is my opinion that HERO is a (far) better fantasy system than d20. I can't realistically prove it, as that is an opinion.

 

I can say that HERO has more flexibility in the character development area, as you can choose to focus on skills of any type, stats at any time, and not have to develop things that you don't want to develop, which is impossible to do in D&D (you cannot, for example, not gain any hit points at a level and get more skills instead). Whether that is a good thing or not is, again, a matter of opinion.

 

If people wouldn't get so personal about it, perhaps we could get a discussion, not a big screaming match like we had before.

 

I do understand, however, if you have seen someone post many times things like where the argument went before, and always involving the same person, why you would ignore their posts. Like I said, it is important to realize that these are the HERO forums, and we really should be discussing things related to HERO, and trying to keep it positive to HERO. We aren't paying anything to be here, so we should be respectful of that fact.

 

Nightshade

[tesuji]

[/b]

 

Originally posted by Nightshade

The only time that characters are limited to how many skills that they put into a single skill to go from unskilled to very skilled is at low levels. I was in a D&D game once where the Rogue suddenly decided that he needed to be able to sneak, as we were in a scenerio where that was going to be important. He just got to 7th or 8th level and put all of his points into it, making him pretty good in just one level.

Which is still less than if he had been able to put his BAB, reflex save, hit dice and so forth all into a hopper and dumped all their value into the skill.

 

The skills per level is only a part of his "experience" and the class progression the Gm viewed as acceptable for his game does not allow the character to by default dump all of it into skills or even skill. That is IMO a step in the direction of "reasonable advancement." It wont be the whole journey in all cases, but it is a little help and a nudge in that direction.

Originally posted by Nightshade

My point is this: I think that this situation is possible in any system, be it D&D, HERO, or any others. One advance that I'll give d20 over previous editions is that there is an advancement to the skills AT ALL. In 2nd ed, you put in a single skill point into swim, and you were an olympic quality swimmer. Don't have that point in it and you could only dog paddle. There was no gradient to make you better. It was much better done this time.

I avoided the entire 2e debacle for the most part.

Originally posted by Nightshade

My other point is that I would rather have my players decide where to put their experience than the system.

The class the gm allows is making some of that determination. If he thinks its reasonable for a character to advance in nothing but skills, with no other knowledge or ability gained, he could include such a class in his game.

 

Most, IMO, wont make that choice. Most people do see people advancing in more than one narrow area over the course of an "adventure" in a typical fantasgy campaign. I personally would think it odd for a rogue to go out, trek on some sort of fantastic adventure, probably get into a fight or two, smoosh info from a village, pick a few locks and then come out of it wanting to say all he learned from the experience were some skills.

 

But, if that is apropos for your games, then a class that reflects this should be easy enough. Its what, three lines... "for each level of advancement in this class the character gains X skill ranks in the following skills and no other abilities."

Originally posted by Nightshade

If they don't want to increase their body, they don't have to. More skills over more spells for wizards, fine. I like that. But that is an opinion that can't be argued for or against. If you don't like that, and you find it too easily abused, then you should try something else.

I tend to agree, although i find the notion of adding such a "calls" relatively easy, though not somethin i would embrace.

Originally posted by Nightshade

The start off complete wimps, barely able to passably help the party. They get more powerful, but feels like they do it slower than the other classes. Suddenly, they improve by leaps and bounds as they get access to the more powerful spells.

With 3e, i have foudn that some of the low level weakness is gone... with bonus spells for int/cha and feats and good numbers of starting spells. I mean, the ability to in theory cast 4 sleep spells per day for a 1st level mage with 16 int is pretty more than weak. The ability to scribe scrolls at even thos low levels also helps after a little coin is in pocket. Depending on the speed of the campaign, a first level wiz may have a couple more scrolls to back him up.

 

By third level or defintely by fifth, i don't see any weakness problem with wizards and certainly not for sorcerers, which i play more frequently. I will wholeheartedly agree that in 1e, where your wiz started with one spell per day, this was a serious issue.

 

At high levels, the challenges are much more the balancing element for the mage spells. Lots of SR creatures are going to address some of that spell power vs melee power issue.

Originally posted by Nightshade

I found this trend as I went through my PBeM phase: Lower level games (say 7th and below) had a low frequency of wizards. High level games (15th and above) had a very high frequency of wizards. I finally figured out that it was because wizards get more powerful following an expontial curve. They start off slow, but then get more powerful per level. The other classes go up pretty linearly. This was for 2nd ed. The same somewhat holds true for 3rd, but it didn't look nearly as bad as before.

Here we are in some agreement... the problems you describe are much more previous editions issues than current issue ones.

Originally posted by Nightshade

Personally, I like being able to improve your character as you see fit. If you want your character to be more magically fit, and don't want to improve your statistics, other skills, whatever, then I want you to be able to do that. If you want to become more buff, or a better marksman, or more diplomatic, I think that should be the player's prerogative. You have more freedom now in d20 D&D than before, but there are still some times when some people wish that they could have fewer skills and more hit points.

Nightshade

 

Again, my only caveat we both already agree on... the addition of "within reason" after "as you see fit."

 

The thing classes do, and i prefer loose classes, is to define for your players what "within reason" means. I think this definition is very invaluable for the further your world goes into "unreasonable land" the further it is removed from real world the players know. As such, i think classes are great for things such as DND and other high magic high fanbtasy type settings which are wholly unlike our world and less useful for things like modern day.

 

If you take a look at the basic classes in D20 modern you will see very loose defined classes with a lot more flexibility than the DND ones.. which seems a good approach to making loose light classes for the setting you already know and the tighter classes such as advanced or prestige classes for the stuff you may not know as well or at all.

[tesuji]

This sounds very reasonable, though of course i disagree with his conclusion.

 

In particular, the last sentence seems to be very reasonable.

 

" I just prefer not to perpetuate the disruption by responding to him."

 

Indeed, that sounds like reasonable attitude and response for someone you have decided is a troll.

 

Unfortunately, this easy-going-reasonableness and "its not personal" is somewhat brung into doubt by then expanding the scope of action to include hopping into threads to repeatedly discourage others from engaging in the discussion and tossing "troll" around as name calling for posts which apparently you do not even see?

 

That behavior makes it look entirely personal, a cause to go out and jump in, not just a decision to reasonably decide to ignore some posts or posters.

 

But i gotta admit, this posts did sound good, and if i had not read Shrike's other posts on this thread, i might have bought it myself.

 

Originally posted by Killer Shrike

Its not this particular thread or any 1 other particular thread that has lead to me to consider tesuji a troll; its the aggregate of many threads wherein he simply bashes the HERO System in favor of a system he prefers. Over time I noticed a trend in his posts which eventually lead me to decide to add him to my ignore list. Ive seen too many threads go off track on back and forth argumentative tangents in response to posts that he has made. Its not personal; I just prefer not to perpetuate the disruption by responding to him.

[AnotherSkip]

Actually there are still problems with 3E which you point out as advantages.

 

you arbitrarily suggest "making new classes"

 

Seems strange. Isn't everything we need in the main books?

 

however your efftorts at considering balance for them are very odd.

 

id say nonexistant.

 

Quite simply put here are no balancing factors to even suggest what you are suggesting. At least in Hero I have some idea of what certain abilities can do for a person. Also lets say you do this Skills for everything else. is it balanced at 20th as it is at 3rd?

 

And Monster CR's are problematic. Do you realise that hey are balanced only for the first level? After that there is severe problems.

 

 

Besides if i played a Troll (CR 10) in a typical campaign of characters from 5th-8th I could easily violate those limits? Sorry I still see no balance, the limit on _me_ is leveling, and moneyvalue. it still does not create inherent game blance.

 

Even an ogre with CR4 in a group ranging the 5-8th is at a great advantage since by that point he can get stacking armor that is magical and works with his Natural armor and he can buy/get stuff that works well with his other attributes as well as compensating for his weaknesses.

 

A smart party will outfir their best fighter with the best gear they can get him and keep him up and going on the front lines. No party is going to _try_ to make everyone balanced. trust me bubba but switching gear around just to prepare for a fight is pretty common. Heck i remeber my 1E, 19 Str Halfling thief(Girdle of Giant Str) kicking Waaaaaaay more tail than she should have...... Because you can "Suit up" a character with the best stuff a party has and easily walk over what would be appropriate challenges to the rest of the party.

 

Im sorry but CR is just as broken as you seem to think that the Hero system points are.

[AnotherSkip]

Oh yes by the way For the record I agree with tetsubo's Quote

"Points (equal points or even very precisely calculated points) do not make balance happen in play. Instead, balance in play is what shows the points and costs were appropriate."

 

Yep you are right, however if a Gm does not make them cool then they are wasted.

 

Howabout a character who builds a Great Cleave character and then you never run into more than two creatures at a time? Are not _those_ points wasted?

 

Basically it is up to the Gm and the player to work together to make the character workable as well as valuable. and that is the rub it equally applies to _every_ system. Not just Hero not just D&D, every system.

 

So Basically Tetsujii's rant is not about the HERO system but about ALL systems.

[tesuji]

Failed my will save, but then due to the indomitable will feat, got a reroll and made it.

 

Thanks for the unique perspective sharing there Anotherskip.

 

Happy holiday.

 

 

[tesuji]

a quick note to nightshade...

 

the MIDNIGHT sourcebook/worldbook out for d20 presents a new campaign "epic fantasy in the age of shadow" and has only the barbarian, fighter and rogue from the core books with all other classes replaced. it seems like a somewhat different magic system, but i only took a few minutes in my flgs to look it over.

 

I have heard good things about it but have no use for it right now myself.

[Rene]

Originally posted by tesuji

a quick note to nightshade...

 

the MIDNIGHT sourcebook/worldbook out for d20 presents a new campaign "epic fantasy in the age of shadow" and has only the barbarian, fighter and rogue from the core books with all other classes replaced. it seems like a somewhat different magic system, but i only took a few minutes in my flgs to look it over.

 

I have heard good things about it but have no use for it right now myself.

 

 

Seems like a good idea. This is the kind of stuff I'd like to see more for D&D. Those three classes are among the most versatile and universal from D&D. I really dislike the official magic system (and the classes that depends more heavily on it). They seem to me very little representative from fantasy literarure.

 

Basically I'd like a magic system that offered two other options: more free-form magic for the heavily magical classes (a la Ars Magica), and further options for more limited magical classes like the Ranger and Paladin from today, but getting rid of the times/day stuff and making them more customizable.

[rayoman]

Forget it.

 

What I had to say isn't worth writing, especially in this thread.

[Killer Shrike]

Originally posted by Rene

Basically I'd like a magic system that offered two other options: more free-form magic for the heavily magical classes (a la Ars Magica), and further options for more limited magical classes like the Ranger and Paladin from today, but getting rid of the times/day stuff and making them more customizable.

Then you are going to like Fantasy HERO

[Rene]

Originally posted by Killer Shrike

Then you are going to like Fantasy HERO

 

I bet I will.

 

You know, I really really liked when D&D 3rd made their Skill-system more HERO-like. If only they'd got rid of the magic system...

[AnotherSkip]

I knew we'd eventually get to the best part.

Agreeing.

 

really the best part of any system is the friends you have to share it.

 

and the Spell System of AD&D is kinda based upon the magic system from Jack Vances works.

 

so as long as you understand where things are from you can kinda rationalise the system.

 

D&D can be a cool amalagam of stuff, until you want something really different.