Recent content by Asen

There were and are rumors of assassination.  And not just those regarding his wife, as mentioned in the Wiki, which are suspect.

In any case, the point was the validity of pay-offs.

Bellum said:

Paying an army not to kill you is always a bad idea. Only shows them that you're rich and a perfect target for capture.

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Shows what you know.  Some enemies aren't very organized, and turning down a large pay-off can disrupt an army's unity.  After all, why did Rome pay off the Huns?  As it worked out, it changed the cost-benefit analysis for Attila and he backed off, only to die mysteriously.

Pay offs also are excellent at dividing army.  Buy half and it's like you defeated the whole thing.

Oh, I'm chilled.  I just wanted to get some confirmation.  Seems like it is the case, as I thought, that we'll see it when we see it.

So there is no, repeat no, official word yet on when we get ours?

Hmm.

Uh, agility is something even the very strong need to train.  I have very little personal experience, but with several acquaintances in martial arts conditioning and training, I'll tell you--the strongest guy isn't often the one with the best balance, the most precision, or the greatest agility.  Not being a physical fitness student, I can't tell you if this is as simple as muscle mass versus tone, but those of you who are saying strength = agility, I think you're oversimplifying.  They're related, but you can have one without the other; I've seen examples of that in almost every physical activity.

Compare a gymnast to a weight lifter.  The gymnast must be very strong, and the weight lifter needs some agility, no doubt, but you can see that in specialization, the two conditions can be combined in different quantities.  And in lesser athletes, you'll see more pronounced exaggerations.

Armagan!  You were holding out on us!!

When this game comes out in September, though, we're going to all be pleasantly surprised.  I guess the beta suspension was a blessing in disguise.

Yes, Morgoth, you have The Real Problem in mind, but some people still want to discuss the nature of the problem.  You can do both.  And I'm not saying you're like this, but a lot of people who've repeated the "Let's stop pointing fingers" argument publicly only do so because, a few years back, they were with the global warming "skeptics," who did nothing but waste time and prevent industrial and agricultural reforms.

Lost-Lamb said:

Now don't be silly, the works shown at Science & Public Policy Institute's site are fascinating to read. Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate being one of the newest.

Although my favourite so far still has to be: 35 Inconvenient Truths: The errors in Al Gore's movie.

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As scaddenp already noted, this group is tied to oil interests.  Just follow the money.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_Public_Policy_Institute

That's backed up by Exxon-Mobil's own data, too.  A shame about their funding of the Cato Institute, too.    But I've always known of their leanings.

War Bastard, how are you marching through a city? 

No.

I've got trees glowing at night.  Never happened before.

Yeah, I really have to agree with you 4E guys.  The combat moves seem to be really an improvement in the latest edition because in 3rd, only fighters and fighters who had been built with these moves in mind would use the majority of the combat rules.  I mean, who really uses bull rush except for certain combat classes, and then only once in a while?

But, that said,

Weaver said:

But how was character generation itself a problem?

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well, we had a lot of options, but in the end they severely limited gameplay. i mean we could specialize our characters pretty narrowly but they exclusively did what they were specialized in all the time while non-specialists were not viable unfortunately. like spiked chain guys only did some tripping+generating AOs. you always knew what they're gonna do next. first - enlarge or expansion, then trip, trip, trip... sorc blaster is all like blast, blast, blast.. rogues mostly flank+sneak, they only do something else when fighting undead or constructs. it all gets old pretty soon really. even my favourite char scout/acrobat thief (whom i liked a lot at first cuz he could do a lot of things though was not really an optimized build) bored me to death after a month or two of horribly similiar battles. no matter if it was a forest, a dungeon, a roof or a bridge over an abyss all he could do not to suck on his turn was move 40ft. + multishot with skirmish.

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Weaver, first, then you've seen the same min-maxers I've seen.  Good lord, I wish I could be rid of that weird kind of player who doesn't want to ever be real, or frail in some way.  Everybody has a weakness.  That said, I miss the ability to cherry-pick and multiclass in 3E.  You don't want every character to be a superninja, but then there are some very real and very versatile characters for whom multiclassing would be necessary to realize.  Say, a Conan-like with levels of barbarian and rogue?  Such a combo would be close to min-maxing, but might not be exploitative.  That type of flexibility is what I like in 3E.  But I'm a bit of an anarchic player and DM.  I like my options.

Now, with that out of the way, I've got to point to what you've said above.  I don't really see this as a problem with character creation.  It was a problem with skills (the list was too long, and needed streamlining) and with combat (fixed apparently well in 4E and I look forward to playing with it).  How, aside from that, did char gen suck and how is what you describe fixed by 4E char gen simplification as opposed to, say, 4E's superior combat model.

If so, Weaver, that's awesome.  I believe in the DM's ability to check power-gamers, and I've had to do it myself.  (****ing ninja...  Why did the old DM let that guy in?  Ah well, he's gone now.)  I also think that, short of fudging the rolls, a lot of the classes were balanced in and of themselves.  There were weaknesses which could be exploited.  Now, I'm not sure exactly which instances of min-maxing you're referring to, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.  I think some of these are a DM's responsibility, but some may also be the rule-writer's job to fix.  So if 4E has found a balance, I'm happy to hear it.

But how was character generation itself a problem?

I thought the skill list was flawed.  It seems to have been fixed, to my liking.  I did like skill points.
I thought that the attributes were acceptable, and they've largely been retained as is.
What, were the classes fixed?  That's an external issue.  What's the problem with 3E char gen?  The poster you linked to talked of too many options, but I still don't see that as a problem.  You can have bad options, options that are irrelevant or illusory or ineffectual...  But too many options?  3E's char creation wasn't that complex at all, and it was modular and thus rewarded any kind of shift of personality or character as one saw fit.

And we'll have to disagree about alignment.  Making it irrelevant in the rules doesn't mean it was irrelevant to begin with.  It was an abstraction, but it was one that good DMs could utilize or ignore at their discretion depending on what kind of world they wanted to create.  And if Wizards found it too hard because, as they argue, ****ty paladin players were having trouble working with chaotic rogues, then they're obviously set on satisfying a demographic stupider than any a paper-and-pencil game should court.  It was a great creator of tension, conflict, strife...  Story, in effect.

Edit--And WK, I use a similar system.  I divide evenly for almost everything, and I'm always giving ad hoc XP.

No, rogues, are not normally combat classes.  They can do it, but they've got to pay, and that's as it should be.  Which is why I really loathe all the millions of assassin builds.  ****ers don't know how versatile Fighter is, but they have to have something glitzy. 

Hmm.  Well, that's also a problem with experience, because fighters tend to put out more damage and that often leads to them getting all the XP for a given monster.  I've rectified that (or some might say, avoided it) by having everyone share XP.  Everything's split down the middle, unless someone's absent.  I've rationalized that by considering that healers, sneak attackers/flankers, arcane blasters, and tanks are really more of a chain than disparate parts, and I think that non-combat chars get punished by the default XP system.  Still, a rogue with dual wielding can take advantage of sneak attack to wreak some real havoc.  I think rogues are one of the best classes in 3E.

Another side point.  Some friends of mine who've played 4E have said that (and they like this, actually, though it doesn't sound fun to me) their characters put out less damage, but are also more resilient than in previous editions.  I don't know, I kinda think that rogues are resilient enough in 3E, as long as they pump their Dex and, in so doing, their AC, and also have support.  I've been able to balance it very easily, and our rogue and sorceress are actually the highest level characters in our bunch.  But then, I try to have a balance of diplomatic or intellectual challenges to match combat.

Edit--Also, I'm a fan of grittier combat.  I don't want a long, drawn out skirmish between unkillables and, in fact, that's why I like the potential frailty of the rogue and particularly the mage classes.  Easy death makes the characters feel powerful because of what they can do but cautious as well, because of what can happen to them.  And, given that, I suppose it's a miracle that the only deaths so far have been due to a sphere of annihilation. 

Archonsod said:

Asen said:

I'm not saying the game won't net up.  But why remove all the character creation?  Why revolutionize when revision was all that was needed (in some areas, anyway)?

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Biggest complaint I always heard from ex D&D players was that it spent far too much time playing the rules rather than actually gaming. Character generation was the main culprit, since you either had to plan the character out from creation or else you mini-maxxed like hell. There was a constant stream of players who gave it up, or at least abandoned the core rules, purely because they were too restrictive. Not too mention the ever increasing burden in books and preperation time it placed on the DM.

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As far as the books, that'll happen with 4E (not to say you argued otherwise, but to advance my point).  You're right; it's a real bother.  But it's also a nature of the beast.  They'll pump out as many books as they can, campaign settings and all that, extra rules and side rules and alternate classes.  And we'll be back to square one as far as that.

Now I will disagree with you about min-maxing.  In my own 3.5 campaign I've got a rogue player who was doing fine.  Now we had a balanced troop, so there were other fighters who could take the heat off him, but he played rogue from first level to great effect and satisfaction.

And he's also been able to diversify.  This latest level he took an attribute point (he just reached 4th) in strength, because he felt that his character needed to have a bit of a stronger sword-arm.  So I'm not seeing a lot of min-maxing.  We've been able to role-play.  Now part of this is because of what expectations we've all had for each other and the story.  I don't know.  But I think that a player can make a character who's satisfying to play, who's a good character.  Min-maxing is less part of the 3.5 system than it is a part of the individual player.

Also, I've tried to push stock classes.  I think they're more balanced than others.  And personally, I think the rogue's amazing, though the skill list leads to waste and needed, sorely, to be streamlined.  I'm still impressed with 4E for that.