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Post by lockedontarget on May 26, 2009 1:29:44 GMT -5
This is ridiculous. Not having an alignment system in the mechanics of the game does not remove the concept of good and evil. An evil character is still evil, a good character is still good. No, it really isn't. Without an alignment system, what's keeping the players from all just becoming a bunch of "Chaotic neutral" jerks? I see this happen in nonalignement/"punish you for being evil" games far too often: Adventure 1: "I'm so happy! My character is a great guy, I'm going to save that orphan!" Adventure 2: "I'm still happy, man, life is going great! My character is not only a great guy, but a beloved hero as well! I walk grandma across the street!" Adventure 3: "snork! My snorking girlfriend snorking broke up with me, I had a snorking fight with my snorking boss, I'm snorking late on my rent...I rob, rape, and murder that shoemaker!! What? I'm pissed off, and even though my guy has never EVER acted in that way before, it's not like there's some...pft...alignment system keeping me in check or anything! I'm going to kill the shoemaker's wife and young baby too...vent some of my real life ADAMANTIUM RAGE! I AM A MAHN!" Yes, the DM now gets to try to see if the "authorities" catch the guy/figure out he did it, and now the DM has to deal with all this other crap that he had, in no way, prepared for his game. With the alignment system, the DM can at least warn the angry player "If you do this, it goes against everything your character believes in..." and hopefully get the player to think twice about his actions. If the player still insists on carrying his deeds out, now the DM has a ton of "anti alignment" spells and such he can smash the player with. It's not the system's fault if the players are jerks. It's not like the alignment system in 3rd edition kept crappy players from being crappy players. Any decent player is going to put more thought into his character's actions. I don't need to have "Lawful" written on my character sheet to play a lawful character, and you don't need rules to understand and use the concepts of good and evil.
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Post by lockedontarget on May 26, 2009 1:33:00 GMT -5
Druid is in the PH2. And the bard is an important support class in combat. They don't do the big damage, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't play an important role. Every class should be useful in combat. No one ever picks the bard because they suck. They shouldn't continue to suck just because that's been the status quo up until now. 4th actually made an effort to make them a class people might want to take, and that is without doubt a good thing. Just because it's different doesn't mean it's a bad idea. Striving for good balance makes it a more fun experience for all, keeps players from feeling useless, and reduces powergaming. Well players wouldn't feel useless if they didn't pick Bard in the first place. There, problem solved. Making the class something useful and fun is a MUCH better solution. And it's a flaw in the system if a class is useless, not the player's fault for picking it.
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Post by Koda, Master Crunchyroller on May 26, 2009 1:37:36 GMT -5
Well players wouldn't feel useless if they didn't pick Bard in the first place. There, problem solved. Making the class something useful and fun is a MUCH better solution. And it's a flaw in the system if a class is useless, not the player's fault for picking it. Well if they actually took the time to read the character class in the Player's Handbook, they'd learn that it sucks. Their fault for picking a Bard when Barbarian is right next to it.
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Post by lockedontarget on May 26, 2009 1:39:58 GMT -5
Making the class something useful and fun is a MUCH better solution. And it's a flaw in the system if a class is useless, not the player's fault for picking it. Well if they actually took the time to read the character class in the Player's Handbook, they'd learn that it sucks. Their fault for picking a Bard when Barbarian is right next to it. And now both the Barbarian AND the Bard are useful and fun. Yet you seem to be implying that this is a bad thing. Every class being useful and fun >>>>>>>>>>>>> only some classes being useful and fun.
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Post by Koda, Master Crunchyroller on May 26, 2009 1:47:48 GMT -5
Well if they actually took the time to read the character class in the Player's Handbook, they'd learn that it sucks. Their fault for picking a Bard when Barbarian is right next to it. And now both the Barbarian AND the Bard are useful and fun. Yet you seem to be implying that this is a bad thing. Every class being useful and fun >>>>>>>>>>>>> only some classes being useful and fun. It IS a bad thing. Every RPG should have that one class that sucks and everyone makes fun of. For D&D that was the Bard. By making it useful it is no longer lame and thus no longer a target for ridicule.
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Dr. T is an alien
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Post by Dr. T is an alien on May 26, 2009 2:04:33 GMT -5
War Priests are scary tanks, aren't they? They're even scarier than the dragonslayer class (prestige classes with 10 levels could be used as regular character classes, though only the patterned benefits continued past the 10th level (such as gaining a level in a pre-established spellcaster class every other level or some other patterned bonus such as that).
I had a 23th level dragonslayer that was originally in the 2nd ed. Counsel of the Wyrms setting that went from being especially impressive in 2nd ed. (no surprise, as he DID have 23 levels (3 as a cleric, 20 as a slayer) to being an absolute BEAST in 3.5 using the conversion rules. The fact that he was also a half gold dragon/half human made him an even bigger beast (there was no level adjustment in 2nd ed., plus half dragons became real monsters in 3.0). Because it originally was a 2nd ed character, the DM allowed me to keep his physical traits as well, which with the transfer to 3.0 meant that he was a large creature (large half dragons got wings large enough to fly with).
The way that my character was introduced to the rest of the epic party was interesting. The DM allowed me to fulfill my character's life goal. His goal was to track down his father who had abandoned him, hunt him down, and kill him. The party came across a half gold dragon battling with a great wyrm gold dragon. It took them 5 rounds to get down to the scene of the battle in order to help the dragon, but that was 2 rounds too late. After that they were understandably a little reluctant to pick a fight with me (the average level of the four other characters was 27th, but none of them could slay a great wyrm in 3 rounds), and they allowed me to tell them by story. Since I no longer had any personal goals, I was looking for career goals to fulfill, which meant that I was looking for some high profile adventures to get my name out there with. Therefore, I was interested in joining the party.
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Post by Koda, Master Crunchyroller on May 26, 2009 2:10:53 GMT -5
War Priests are scary tanks, aren't they? They're even scarier than the dragonslayer class (prestige classes with 10 levels could be used as regular character classes, though only the patterned benefits continued past the 10th level (such as gaining a level in a pre-established spellcaster class every other level or some other patterned bonus such as that). I had a 23th level dragonslayer that was originally in the 2nd ed. Counsel of the Wyrms setting that went from being especially impressive in 2nd ed. (no surprise, as he DID have 23 levels (3 as a cleric, 20 as a slayer) to being an absolute BEAST in 3.5 using the conversion rules. The fact that he was also a half gold dragon/half human made him an even bigger beast (there was no level adjustment in 2nd ed., plus half dragons became real monsters in 3.0). Because it originally was a 2nd ed character, the DM allowed me to keep his physical traits as well, which with the transfer to 3.0 meant that he was a large creature (large half dragons got wings large enough to fly with). The way that my character was introduced to the rest of the epic party was interesting. The DM allowed me to fulfill my character's life goal. His goal was to track down his father who had abandoned him, hunt him down, and kill him. The party came across a half gold dragon battling with a great wyrm gold dragon. It took them 5 rounds to get down to the scene of the battle in order to help the dragon, but that was 2 rounds too late. After that they were understandably a little reluctant to pick a fight with me (the average level of the four other characters was 27th, but none of them could slay a great wyrm in 3 rounds), and they allowed me to tell them by story. Since I no longer had any personal goals, I was looking for career goals to fulfill, which meant that I was looking for some high profile adventures to get my name out there with. Therefore, I was interested in joining the party. I guess War Priests can be awesome tanks. Mine, however, was more like a Spartan soldier clad is steel plate. My main weapon was my spear, and I took weapon specialization in Spear. I got 3 strikes with it, and my most common tactic was standing behind the real tanker in my party and jab the enemies with my longer reach(10 foot reach against the normal 5 foot reach of everyone else).
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Dr. T is an alien
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Post by Dr. T is an alien on May 26, 2009 2:24:32 GMT -5
I'm not used to worrying about reaching distances. I usually ran one of three archetypes. The large tank (such as the 1/2 gold, minotaurs (2 different ones), home brewed giant races, war trolls, etc.), talented spellcasters, or mercenary warriors skilled at ranged weapons. Granted, the individuals had unique personalities to set them apart, but the three fighting styles were what I usually stuck to.
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Post by Koda, Master Crunchyroller on May 26, 2009 2:30:15 GMT -5
I'm not used to worrying about reaching distances. I usually ran one of three archetypes. The large tank (such as the 1/2 gold, minotaurs (2 different ones), home brewed giant races, war trolls, etc.), talented spellcasters, or mercenary warriors skilled at ranged weapons. Granted, the individuals had unique personalities to set them apart, but the three fighting styles were what I usually stuck to. Oh don't worry, I could still get up close and fight with the spear and my many axes and swords(the symbol of the War Priest is a Great Axe). Just with the spear, I can also melee guys two tiles away from me.
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Post by thwak is T.hawk on May 26, 2009 7:31:01 GMT -5
And now both the Barbarian AND the Bard are useful and fun. Yet you seem to be implying that this is a bad thing. Every class being useful and fun >>>>>>>>>>>>> only some classes being useful and fun. It IS a bad thing. Every RPG should have that one class that sucks and everyone makes fun of. For D&D that was the Bard. By making it useful it is no longer lame and thus no longer a target for ridicule. That's ridiculous because then no one would play that class making all the work done on that class completely null and void. If I'm making the game I want all of my classes to be used or else I just wasted a bunch of hours in my life.
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Post by Koda, Master Crunchyroller on May 26, 2009 12:27:44 GMT -5
It IS a bad thing. Every RPG should have that one class that sucks and everyone makes fun of. For D&D that was the Bard. By making it useful it is no longer lame and thus no longer a target for ridicule. That's ridiculous because then no one would play that class making all the work done on that class completely null and void. If I'm making the game I want all of my classes to be used or else I just wasted a bunch of hours in my life. Hey, the Bard has sucked since it first came into D&D. Changing that is f***ing with tradition.
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Post by Goldenbane on May 26, 2009 15:25:06 GMT -5
That's ridiculous because then no one would play that class making all the work done on that class completely null and void. If I'm making the game I want all of my classes to be used or else I just wasted a bunch of hours in my life. Hey, the Bard has sucked since it first came into D&D. Changing that is snorking with tradition. Actually, the 2nd edition bard was a bad ass, especially if you gave him the "Blade" kit. These guys could use swords and daggers like a thief, throw around arcane magic like a wizard, and still wear leather armor. When 3rd edition gave them wussy minor divine spells, they really cut the bard off at the knee.
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Dr. T is an alien
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Post by Dr. T is an alien on May 26, 2009 21:20:45 GMT -5
Hey, the Bard has sucked since it first came into D&D. Changing that is snorking with tradition. Actually, the 2nd edition bard was a bad ass, especially if you gave him the "Blade" kit. These guys could use swords and daggers like a thief, throw around arcane magic like a wizard, and still wear leather armor. When 3rd edition gave them wussy minor divine spells, they really cut the bard off at the knee. Agreed. 2nd ed. bards had plenty of potential to be awesome, so long as you knew how to use them.
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Post by Koda, Master Crunchyroller on May 26, 2009 22:03:59 GMT -5
Hey, the Bard has sucked since it first came into D&D. Changing that is snorking with tradition. Actually, the 2nd edition bard was a bad ass, especially if you gave him the "Blade" kit. These guys could use swords and daggers like a thief, throw around arcane magic like a wizard, and still wear leather armor. When 3rd edition gave them wussy minor divine spells, they really cut the bard off at the knee. Ok, THAT sounds like a good Bard, and makes sense of how a Bard SHOULD be. A Bard is basically a street performer, and in a world of magic, that means doing some magic tricks and some knife tricks. Still, I just love making fun of the 3rd Ed Bard too much.
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Post by BoilerRoomBrawler on May 26, 2009 22:56:26 GMT -5
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Post by BoilerRoomBrawler on May 26, 2009 23:06:12 GMT -5
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Post by BoilerRoomBrawler on May 26, 2009 23:15:43 GMT -5
Neutral Good
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Post by BoilerRoomBrawler on May 26, 2009 23:17:38 GMT -5
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Post by BoilerRoomBrawler on May 26, 2009 23:20:23 GMT -5
Lawful Neutral
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Post by BoilerRoomBrawler on May 26, 2009 23:22:09 GMT -5
True Neutral
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