Anytime - time to go and prostrate myself at the altar of Jordan and continue Lord of Chaos. Laters everyone :)

@SimonGill Do you think DFRPG's stunts and powers fall under the aegis of Chrome?

<-- likes Chrome

if I'm understanding what it means from context correctly

@KRyan I've got no problem with the idea of chrome, but it does have a tendency in practice to lead to unfortunate problems.

This guy is advocating a move away from exception-based systems entirely, which I think is interesting but ultimately futile because we want our characters to feel special.

He's also unaware of "any modern designer" attempting to create non-exception systems and claims all modern designers are "recycling failed concepts."

...so yeah, I'm very interested in his response to my comment.

@BESW ah well that's clearly untrue

Because games like MWLM and DitV are exactly what he's talking about.

FATE could be argued to be very Chromey because of its stunt mechanic.

@BESW would you mind giving a few examples? I am familiar with many problems in exception-laden systems but not sure they come from the exceptions

@BESW what are those abbreviations?

My Life With Master, Dogs in the Vineyard.

@KRyan Gleichman points out that in Chrome-heavy systems "It becomes increasing difficult to know how any combination of Chrome will react to another combination. Both the GM and Players ability to judge and thus control results are degraded."

He admits that Chrome serves an important function: to take a relatively boring core system and make it interesting. But he proposes that a better solution is to create interesting core systems.

Ah, he's aware of DitV and says they are examples of non-exception systems but that he "wouldn't call the mechanics fun or engaging either as that isn't their point."

Um.

That's exception-based logic.

I am now much less interested in his response to my comment.

mm, this kind of sounds like someone who doesn't want to do the hard work of balancing varied and interesting options

I mean, OK, it's a good idea to explore the possibility of circumventing the need to since it is difficult

but I think it takes more than just blaming Chrome for the problems in gaming

....Oh, this is the guy that Simon Gill rebutted a while back on the Gamer's Manifesto thing.

How'd your test go, @KRyan?

@Lord_Gareth pretty well I think

Did you get the chance to check your character and Nail for mechanical compatibility?

@Lord_Gareth no, I'm in class now

Hrm. Well, if you were interested in partying up you might want to tell Exe that at some point soon. It's easy to find out/well-known that Nail haunts the Harvest Moon Inn, in the war-like border zone between human realms and the Wildfey

From there she ventures forth to collect faerie skulls

[blink]

Yez @BESW?

What system?

Legend

Ahah.

This campaign's a sandbox-style PbP that's "Always Recruiting"

Actual playing hasn't started yet but I can link you if you think you might be interested

@Lord_Gareth Exe hasn't approved Fearth's concept and I haven't finished the sheet

Thanks, but PbP doesn't really attract me.

'Kay, understandable. PbP happens to fit into my schedule, so hey

Dinnertime!

That 'avoiding wrath of fellow players' question

I am a little perplexed, as most of the answers are not answering the question he has asked. Rather they are judging whether his actions are reasonable or not

Well, they are answering his question.

His question is "Any ideas?"

No, his question is 'So, a couple of them are basically out for my blood (unreasonably, considering their characters) and I'm not sure how to survive past the next few sessions. I'm level 8. Any ideas?'

In order to help his character survive, the first thing he needs to do is recognize that it's not a system/mechanics issue, it's a social/group issue. Part of that is seeing that he behaved in a way others might consider inappropriate.

He clearly doesn't see that, and so long as he doesn't any solution will be purely stop-gap and won't address the core problem.

Once again, I would link to this: giantitp.com/articles/tll307KmEm4H9k6efFP.html

@BESW this precisely

@BESW ooh, nice

@Ernir hit the nail on the head in particular

I've had some pretty brutal intraparty violence in some of my games, but I've done my absolute best to make sure it was always cleared on both sides.

After one particularly nasty fight in which neither character "could make any other decision" than to kill each other, I made Making the Tough Decisions mandatory reading for my players.

@BESW yeah that

@BESW I tend to be dubious about that; the table's social contract comes before purity of character

Exactly.

And as the essay points out, having only one possible choice of action is a vanishingly rare circumstance; it's more likely that the player is either attached to a certain outcome or simply failing to think about alternatives.

(I also wound up banning evil PCs entirely, except in special evil campaigns, because it never worked out despite everyone's best intentions.)

@BESW I've had some success in the past

I had a guy come up with an elaborate backstory for why his evil vampire would be constantly forced to act like a lawful good paladin, so he wouldn't challenge the party dynamics.

@BESW wow, and that didn't work?

Yeah.

heh, I'm doing something similar in the PbP game Gareth and I were talking about previously

After the resulting war (three sessions in to the campaign, the entire forest was on fire, and half the party had to be retired), I gave up.

It was a brilliant backstory, too.

@BESW I refuse to recognize "in character" arguments, mainly because well... sufficiently pragmatic people can justify anything as in character.

Agreed.

See one of my ancient starred quotes from... person.

@BrianBallsun-Stanton agreed

Hence my requirement that my players read that essay.

@BrianBallsun-Stanton is there like a storage place for starred quotes?

@KRyan Click "show all 526"

... and pray?

@BrianBallsun-Stanton oh jeez

can't now, in class

The vampire was an epic-level lieutenant in an evil god's army, and was the lynchpin of an upcoming war to be sparked in a few years. The vamp killed an epic priest of Pelor, whose death curse made him experience crippling pain any time he harmed a non-evil creature. The curse could only be lifted when the vampire had performed a good deed for every evil he'd ever done.

So the vampire's god said "Damnit, that'll take hundreds of years! I need you sooner than that. Okay, here we go. This is gonna tickle."

@BESW what.

"BY THE POWER LATENT IN MY GODHOOD, I INVEST THEE AS MY FIRST AND ONLY PALADIN OF LIGHT."

"...ooh, that burned."

And the vampire got kicked down to a [party level] paladin so he had the tools to do more good deeds faster, and joined the party as part of that goal.

"For honor and justice! Damnit."

@BESW what.

@BESW no.

And that is how I got talked into having an evil vampire in a good party.

@BrianBallsun-Stanton That... was pretty much the vampire's response, too.

that is fantastic

I am extremely tempted to steal that at the earliest opportunity

That's HILARIOUS

I thought it was pretty brilliant myself, and let the player talk me into allowing it.

I had a Wight paladin for awhile. DM wondered how I was going to feed without harming sapient beings

He was a 3.5 vampire with a scythe, a big black hooded cloak so he could survive in daylight, and he went around using lay on hands and smiting evil.

So I purchased a Bag of Tricks

@Lord_Gareth I'm not sure that works because they're summoned, but okay.

@BESW what.

There's no reason it doesn't; Libris Mortis demands that Wights drain levels

Them being summoned just means I can't accidentally Wight them

(I once ran an evil catfolk who kept a bag of tricks for when he was bored. He'd sit down under a tree, pulled out a puppy and "play" with it until it vanished due to death.)

@Lord_Gareth Fair enough.

@BESW that's kind of awesome though creepy as anything

@BrianBallsun-Stanton Have I broken the Brian?

@KRyan He also had a music box. He liked that too.

@BESW no. Work has broken me. you're just jumping up and down on the shards going "wheee"

Oh, okay. I'll carry on then.

I'm probably abusing the star system but too much of that is just solid gold

I have had some awesome players.

Sadly, the vampire's party also had a druid whose player was unable to handle his feeding on dead animals.

There was no compromise, no backtracking, the vampire had to die. But they were perfectly evenly matched and after two real-life hours of fighting neither showed any sign of slowing down. The forest was burning and the rest of the party had fled.

So we agreed both PCs would get forcibly retired. They fought off into the sunset and the ensuing forest fire spread far enough to become a world-altering plot point.

Reminds me of the time I was in a SAGA game. GM handed Force Sensitivity out as a bonus feat and I was the only player to refuse it. We played as the handpicked assassination team of Darth Vader, and my character came from a planet where force users were hunted down and murdered as witches. Fought with a saber gauntlet, hated the rest of the party with a passion.

I'm alone on a ship with the party leader when it becomes evident that he's going to betray Vader. Conversation escalates, gets tense. Eventually, we realize this is going to end up in combat, and we're both okay with this. Initiative is rolled, I crit with the saber gauntlet for 2/3s of his hit points, rip his lightsaber out of his hands and throw it out of the room.

Stalking in for the kill...when he throws me out of the window with a heinously high Move Object

The vampire's player next rolled up a drunkard dragonblood sorcerer. He died from the lethal combination of elven Starwine, dwarven Black Assassin Ale, and a rather tippy boat.

@BESW sigh. I'd have a problem with the Druid's player in that case

I did.

That was the event which led me to making that essay mandatory reading.

Then there was the time the lawful good cleric was just a bit too trusting of the nice lady who gave him tea and biscuits, and would up betraying the entire party to the leader of the rebel movement, which resulted in the death of one character.

The instant the survivors escaped from the rebels, the cleric was pinned to a tree and flayed.

I sat back and let that one happen because I knew something like that was inevitable and it gave me an excellent opportunity to have a nice chat with the player afterward about his difficulties RPing effectively.

We wound up rolling him a very mechanically simple character, because his problem was trying to track 3.5 spellcasting AND learn to RP at the same time.

Once his character was mechanically easy to use, he became a much better roleplayer, and was eventually able to return to the casters he loved.

Man, if only the mature approach had worked on the Always Edward Elric Guy

My experience with that player is the reason I will heartily contest any claim that spellcasters are the default "good choice" for a new player.

Didn't matter how we talked to him or how we approached him, how nice or nasty or detached we were, his response was always, "So I'm bad at the only thing I thought I was good at, glad to know I'm pathetic," and then he'd go into a depression for days

@BESW I tend to like Crusaders or Warlocks; limited options but lack of the utterly crucial and irrevocable feat choices (which are also absurdly overwhelming for, say, the Fighter)

there are "spells" but your character only has a very few of them

Well, I approached it from the attitude of "we obviously have a dilemma here, let's see what we can do to get you where you want to be."

Tried that.

I'd be curious what your thoughts on that approach are

For this guy, it wound up being a skillmonkey rogue. I switched out sneak attack for ranged legerdemain, and we had a character who had nothing to track. If it was on his sheet, he could do it in any circumstance as many times as he liked.

He wasn't especially DPS-effective, but the party wasn't concerned with that at the time.

@KRyan - My thoughts are that it's a great approach that should be tried first, it's just that my player was a pathetic scumsucking fiend who only got invited to games because his attic lair was the only reliable place to host them

He sucked the fun out of sessions, roleplayed in a boring monotone utterly devoid of life, recycled the same four character concepts in every system and loudly bitched about every aspect of roleplaying from dice to PLAYER AGENCY

HE WAS ANGRY THAT HE HAD AGENCY

There is an unhealthy habit that can be acquired in which a person needs the affirmation of others and uses self-deprecation to guilt others into affirming them.

It's very sad and rather challenging to deal with compassionately.

@KRyan You mean the warlock/crusader choices for starting PCs?

I didn't have enough experience with them in 3.5 to render judgement.

@BESW fair enough

It sounds like a valid theory, but (gonna use warlocks since I know more about them) SLAs have their own set of subsystems that might be a little overwhelming depending on the powers chosen.

@mxyzplk: I think the fact that the overwhelming majority of votes on the linked question correspond to an answer that claims upfront that "Monk is one of the weakest classes in the game" suggests a pretty wide agreement on the subject; if you disagree, you should be providing an answer to that question rather than modifying this reference to it

@BESW ultimately I consider learning about subsystems to be crucial to 3.x play because the system doesn't really function well without them

@KRyan - Dafruit are you talking about?

@KRyan Agreed, but are SLAs really the first subsystem to introduce?

Actually yes @BESW

They're fairly simple and have less fiddly bits than spellcasting

They cannot, for example, counter spells or be countered

mxyzplk edited it to say "generally considered underpowered under heavy optimization" which I neither agree with nor think is a fair edit

In my personal experience, a truly new RPGer is going to be best off learning the base system and then adding subsystems.

@BESW they're at-will, is mostly what I was getting at

That is a major point in their favor.

And ASF is a pretty simple system, which is all 'Locks worry about

ASF, Essence and Shape invocations

Boom, all the complicated is over

Guide player to make Glaivelock, complicated vanishes

I find it amusing the 4e Essentials turned glaivelock into an entire class.

Was it Hexblade?

aye.

Weird little class.

Of course, Essentials also made a defender barbarian who could turn into a striker at any time, but couldn't turn back until the fight was over.

I've only generally heard awful things about Essentials

well, actually, the details I've heard haven't sounded that bad, but the judgment I've heard from 4e players was that it was awful

Essentials added some very important things to 4e, but it's got some... quirks...

A lot of its classes are either more complicated than advertised, or too nichey for typical 4e play.

It's got some great flavor, and some good general design choices, and a few... well, poorly thought out Chrome.

Totally changed what basic attacks meant to builds.

@KRyan I'm one 4e player who loves essentials. I haven't played them heavily, but when I need a quick character for a n00b I reach for them first.

Actually, on reflection, Essentials is a lot like late-game 3.5 material.

It fixes a lot of the problems with the core, though often only with band-aids by providing better options, but it isn't made with a lot of thought to how it'll mesh with core.

@waxeagle This. Slayer is an excellent noob class. Simple, straightforward, and a powerhouse.

@BESW yeah built one for a new player the other week. The only thing it was missing was surprising charge and a way to get CA and it would have been a serious beast.

I really want to try 4e at some point

@waxeagle Depending on level, Wolf Pack Outcast.

One of my players ran with Predatory Eye and Superior Reflex.

And then knocked everything prone.

heh

@KRyan Just head the best Crusader idea ever from a friend of mine. He built a low-level Crusader of Olidamarra, took Iron Guard's Glare. DM goes, "How does a knight of thieves do that?" Without batting an eyelash, player says, "He sings." "....But he has no Perform." "Exactly," says the player. "His singing is THAT annoying."

[slowclap]

@Lord_Gareth were you aware of afro's SLLgame? we had an Orc Bard with the requisite 3 ranks in Perform (Sing), but a Cha of 4

hilarious character

Aaaand we've just measured my boot time. 2 hours, impressive. Mornin', all.

hiyo

I was admiring your stars

@Magician Hi.

@KRyan Consider, for a moment, a 3.5 dwarven bard with intelligent bagpipes. The bard's Charisma is rotten, so it's good he can use the bagpipes' modifier.

@BESW heh

@KRyan thank you :). I was dominating the sideboard until @BESW and his cursed awesome vampire story.

Unfortunately, the bagpipes refuse to perform unless sloppy drunk. And drinking reduces Charisma.

@BESW ahahaha

@Magician it really is absurd ly amazing

Also? Wet bagpipes don't sound good anyway.

@KRyan Emphasis on "absurd."

@BESW your wish is my command

@Magician I'm just glad we're getting other people starred regularly now. A couple months ago I didn't have much competition.

Has anybody here run the DFRPG module "Night Fears"?

Hrm. I'm tempted to try writing down my group's social contract, just to see it in black and white for myself.

@mxyzplk hi!

@KRyan Legend is a d20 system, right? How does it handle goblin dice?

Define goblin dice @BESW

@Lord_Gareth magbonch.wordpress.com/2013/01/27/goblin-dice

@BESW That's going to be my legacy, isn't it. Born in the late 20th century, coined the term "goblin dice".

@Magician If I have anything to say about it.

@Lord_Gareth No single die roll is important because there are so many of them that the outcome is pretty certain. It's a problem when the same mechanic is used on single rolls that should be important, like most d20 social rolls.

Ah, Legend uses a social encounter system that combines aspects of an auction and traditional rolling, where rolls only get you resources used to influence the encounter rather than commanding authority in and of themselves.

Imagine modeling Cinderella as a d20 game; how many rolls would it entail and how important would each of them be?

@Lord_Gareth That sounds a little like DitV.

I'll pick this up in a few hours, I need to get off this compy

@Magician FATE actually has an interesting discussion that's basically about "unpacking" goblin dice. Let's see if I can find it...

Okay, so it's not easily quotable, but...

> "Sometimes, the GM (or one of the players) wants to do something that takes a bit longer than a single roll, but doesn’t want to engage the detail of the conflict system (below, page 197) to do it. That’s a good time to think about running an extended contest—a short series of rolls that add up to a final result."

The basic idea is that they're providing a sliding scale of event resolution from "one roll, win or lose" to "full on opposed conflict."

And the developers are suggesting that the choice about where on the scale an event falls should be based on its narrative importance.

Nice. FATE is now sitting at the top of the unread RPGs pile, vibrating meaningfully.

[bzzzzzzzz]

Apparently FATE Core is simplifying and combining some of the steps on the scale, which I'm really interested in seeing.

This probably isn't interesting to anyone else, but I'm trying to articulate my group's stated and unstated social contract points so I can look at it. Thought I might share it case it sparked someone else's ideas. docs.google.com/document/d/…

@KRyan I'm guessing you saw the monk reply too.

@BESW Gareth got it right, more-or-less. I'd add though that a fair few people haven't really been satisfied with it, though personally I love the concept

at least part of the problem is in the explanation rather than the rules themselves though

people aren't really clear on how it works

@Lord_Gareth sure; he's entitled to his opinion. I disagree with his very premise and find his notion of "real games" somewhere between "limited" and "I'm insulted that you're calling my games unreal" but that's a discussion I've had with him repeatedly and it's not likely to change. I find the answer inaccurate so I downvoted it, and I'm sure he expected that when he posted it.

Same here, but I left a comment explaining the downvote as well.

I didn't because, like I said, I'm sure he expected it

@Lord_Gareth Miiiight want to take the 'real campaign' jab out of that comment, if there's still time.

@BESW frankly, mxyzplk should consider taking his 'real campaign' jab out of the answer, IMO. shrug

Yeah, but that's not your choice and shouldn't be allowed to influence your choices.

I suppose it's just that I agree with Gareth that I find his less of a "jab" than mxyzplk's

Umm...what jab?

I used real campaigns as distincted from Op scenarios

You said, "it's difficult to play a hero in a real campaign if you are not capable of heroic action." He said monks being underpowered is "a problem that exists only in CharOp artificial scenarios and not in real campaigns."

KRyan found his "real campaign" comment to be offensive, and in that light your use of the same phrase looks like (I'm not reading intent, mind you, just analyzing appearance) a parry thrust.

No, phrase used solely for distinction

@BESW I'm reasonably sure Gareth commented before I said anything in chat

Just read the goblin dice article, @BESW, and I have this additional statement to add: Legend addresses the issue of Goblin Dice in combat by encouraging tactical complexity and intelligent use of commonly limited resources on both sides of the battle.

@Lord_Gareth Goblin dice are rarely a problem in combat because there are so many of them; that's the place they work.

Aye, it's true.

Out of combat, they tend to model things either with the Skill Games system (which I think has actually been aborted due to unpopularity) or by encouraging DMs to make the challenges a place for dynamic use of skills

It's when a single roll is important, but the goblin dice system is still used so that the roll's outcome is too uncontrollable to be useful, that the philosophy becomes a problem.

A chase scene might involve, for example, Athletics to run the guy down, or Acrobatics to parkour a shortcut

@Lord_Gareth Is that using multiple rolls to determine the outcome of a single chase?

Since there's no hard-and-fast system beyond the Skill Games, not necessarily. I tend to permit multiple rolls depending on the relative success of both sides

That would be more effective at alleviating the problems of goblin dice.

If a chase scene is resolved with a single roll, or even a single set of opposed rolls, each roll is given more significance than the system can actually support.

I come from a WoD-heavy background so I'm used to the idea of rolls that are "extended and contested"

In the absence of skill games Legend has no hard-and-fast way to resolve these conflicts (I'll note it's still in beta) so I default to what's worked for me in other systems

With a goblin dice system, a chase scene should be resolved via a sequence of rolls: Hitman runs away (Athletics) and the hero vaults over a wall and through a clothesline to cut him off but gets tangled in a bedsheet (failed Acrobatics), so the hitman has time to hotwire a car (Mechanics) but the hero catches up (Athletics) just in time to jump onto the side of the car (Athletics) as it drives away (failed Driving).

That gives multiple opportunities to fail a roll without failing the conflict, the way goblin dice are supposed to work.

Yeah that's pretty much how I do it

Add circumstance bonuses/penalties to taste

Like, if the hero had the Fly movement mode to use, he might enjoy a bonus

Right. FATE uses Fate points and maneuvers with free invocations to make the bonuses and penalties hardwired into the system.

4e has utility powers that are intended to do something similar, to greater and lesser success.

@BESW in Legend, an opposed roll would determine how many "tokens" one has, which can be used in a limited-narrative sense to, for instance, decide that there's a straight-away or a winding alleys or whatever as would benefit your character vs. the opponent in the chase

Compare 3.5's "Roll Diplomacy vs a fixed DC with minor modifiers" to model five or more minutes of conversation; a single die roll with little opportunity to modify it but a lot riding on its outcome.

but you'd have repeated "rounds" in which rolls are made to win tokens, and tokens are bid to affect the end-outcome

and you can make choices about exactly which rolls get made

Interesting. Sounds like a Dogs in the Vineyard type of system with an extra level of abstraction.

for instance by bidding tokens to get a straightaway, you can force Athletics rather than Acrobatics and therefore favor a Strength-based character over a Dexterity-based character

at least, this is my understanding of the system, but I caveat it heavily saying that I have never actually gotten a chance to use it

the system is a bit complicated, and the explanation of it is more than a bit confusing, and my group was very new to the system

Fair enough.

so we basically free-form-informed-by-rolls the social stuff

like, the players would just RP, occasionally rolling when they wanted to make an important point, and they'd phrase it poorly (or, more often, humorously) when they rolled poorly

My players tend to let go of the dice in talky situations, but when physical or mental ability comes into play they like to have the random failure chance rather than narrative failure choice.

I'm interesting in seeing how they react to FATE, where failure has the potential to be both, and you're actually rewarded for choosing narrative-based failure.

@BESW I love that system so much, I cannot begin to tell you

Meant no offense with the downvote, @mxyzplk, but responses like yours are why there's so many lost and frustrated players asking how to make Monk better. Denying that there's a problem does not solve it.

@KRyan I haven't done anything beyond a single test conflict, and I'm squeeing all over the place about it.

so many times I've been annoyed at 3.5 Knowledge skills, where my character will randomly know something that has nothing to do with him, and then I'll nat-1 my check to know something that literally directly references important aspects of my own backstory

also, on another note: I really hate when question-edits force major changes to already-heavily-upvoted answers

I feel like it's a bit underhanded

@KRyan I felt like that the first time I had it happen to one of my answers, but I think that the SE gestalt will eventually lead to leveling out. Besides, at a fairly low rep level it's possible to see edits and know what was going on.

@BESW oh, I know

it didn't stop me

but I wish it hadn't been like that

there was one case where someone changed a question from system-agnostic to dnd-3.5e, and a whole bunch of answers that I'd previously felt neutral about ("I'm sure that's true in some systems, just not the one I'm most familiar with") suddenly became wrong and that left me like "do they all get downvotes now because the asker pulled the rug out from under them?"

And, to be quite frank @mxyzplk I have to say that I found the whole, "Fun = winning in an RPG, not DPR = winning." thing to be confrontational and rude. @BESW can tell you how much I emphasize group dynamics and roleplay when I'm talking about games; my goal is not power, but usability, especially in a system like 3.X where player characters are expected, even required, to have more lethal encounters per day than they do meals

@Lord_Gareth Eh, monks do fine in our games.

They don't do anything better than a dedicated X, but they have plenty to contribute. Each new campaign, a different player rolls monk - therefore by definition they feel like they do contribute.

@mxyzplk and your group is admittedly extremely low-op to anti-op

@mxyzplk That's great, but there's a lot of anecdotal evidence that suggests your games are... if not atypical, at least not a universal benchmark. And I'm not talking about theory or just in optimized games.

But why do they do fine in your games? I listed a whole set of non-standard circumstances in my answer on the other question that make Monk more viable, but without context I can't assess your statement. "Monk does fine," is unhelpful without a list of reasons it does fine. I've got a list of reasons as to why they shouldn't.

yep

I'd also be very interested in an analysis of why monks in your games seem to buck the trends, @mxyzplk.

You're welcome to read all our builds and all our session summaries and all that. Current game geek-related.com/session-summaries/reavers-on-the-seas-of-fate/…

If it's not an CharOp centric game then they are fine. If it's heavy op, then probably not, but I personally over a long and varied gaming career have yet to see the campaign played as heavy CharOp.

But making the unqualified statement that Monks are okay isn't just wrong (though it is, indeed, very wrong) but actively detrimental to the querent gaining the understanding of the game that they're probably seeking. This guy asked a question and acknowledged in his update (made well before you posted) that he accepts @KRyan's issues with Monk as legitimate, so I can reasonably infer that he's looking for answers that involve some of the real issues with Monk

In our current game there's a cleric, a druid/ranger/barbarian, a monk, a thief/assassin...

And my answer had more real information about things to help out Pathfinder monks than anyone else's.

@mxyzplk there is a huge gulf between your game and a "heavy CharOp-centric game"

Y'all just love trolling through all the questions downvoting any opinion you don't like, which is your God-given right, but whatever.

@KRyan Yes, yes there is.

@mxyzplk I cannot support the claim that monks are only mechanically poor in high levels of CharOp, based on my own personal experiences in both low and high CharOp games (if anything, my personal experience suggests the opposite is true).

Except they don't help, because they don't address the real problems, @mxyzplk. Damage is not Monk's problem. Everything but damage is Monk's problem. Monk's problem is getting to the point where it can decide if damage is even a problem to begin with.

@mxyzplk which wasn't what was asked for, the question was specifically whether or not the proposed change would fix the problems in the linked question. As we both pointed out, such items already exist, and no, they do not fix the problem

@Lord_Gareth That's not the frame of the question. Do the weapons and magic stuff help? Of course they do.

My games are low to mid op, leaning towards low because I and my players are not very skilled with the system, and my games still experience the problems with Monk simply by trying to have my players face classic enemies.

@mxyzplk No, it's not. Check the quote out:

>Would adding magic 'weapons' that could add enhancement bonuses and magic weapon effects to a monk's unarmed strikes be sufficient to re-balance them? Would they then be over-balanced?

No, they are not in any sense sufficient to rebalance Monk

They're not even close.

my answer to the linked-to question, in fact, already assumed them

for whatever that's worth

If I simply didn't like your answer I would have left it alone, as I did with @Eric's answer earlier that I didn't like, but that's not the reason I downvoted it. The reason I downvoted your answer is that it is only valid at your table

It's valid at many, many tables in my experience.

Why does the monk still exist? Why do real gamers in real games play monks? Y'all can rage against the machine all you want, but if you were right no one would play them.

@mxyzplk I have never played a game where someone took more than 2 levels of Monk, and those who did take 2 were very careful about doing so to make sure they were getting the most they could out of those 2 levels.

Many, many people play monks - so by definition whatever criteria you are using to declare them "suboptimal" is not the criteria people use in real gaming.

@mxyzplk I, at least, have no interest in trolling. I'm finding it hard to reconcile my experiences with yours, and am curious about the difference and why you feel your experiences are broad enough to justify such blanket statements. I don't think it's valid to brush off other testimonies with "CharOp" because many of the 'real game' experiences including my own do not fall under that umbrella.

@KRyan Yes, I bet.

@BESW Would love to have a reasoned discussion about it.

People play monks because special circumstances in their campaigns (low to no op, generous point buy, additional cash, new DMs, new players) permit them to do so. People play monks because they don't know any better, and above all people play monks because irresponsibly poor information like yours is put out and then not fact checked. You can read our criteria on why Monk has problems in some of our answers. I gave you some in the comments as well.

In any RPG mechanics are used to determine how a character affects the world, be it physically, mentally, socially, passively, actively, with peace or with hostility

And Monk lacks the mechanics to do that

@Lord_Gareth Now, that I will also contest vigorously. Most of the players I've known who played monks did so because they wanted to play a monk despite the MAD frustrations that plagued them.

@Lord_Gareth So not really. Yes, you can pull out a given build better at one of those things than the monk.

whatever, @mxyzplk, have your discussion; I'm out

But in our game, the monk provides a good middle ground.

Hits harder than the rogue and cleric, but not as hard as the ranger/barb/rogue.

Doesn't have bluff/diplomacy but has a higher sense motive than all the rest, so contributes in social stuff that way (well, and intimidate).

Is able to be agile and position himself more than anyone but the rogue.

When the rogue's not around (unreliable player), is usually scout and trap-avoider due to very high DC/Reflex/evasion.

It's not about comparisons between Monk and other classes. It's about comparisons between Monk and his environment, composed in this instance of non-combat encounters, combat encounters with monsters, and combat encounters with NPCs that have class levels. I've done this enough times that I have this essentially memorized.

Yeah, I fail to see what that means. Our monk kills, dodges, browbeats his fair share.

To survive combat and use the class features they have, Monks demand Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution, and Strength, essentially in that order. In order to contribute with Knowledge ranks, they'd want Intelligence (also for skill points); to participate in social encounters, they want Charisma. Already they're stretched thin. In social encounters, Monks can throw out an Aid Another for Diplomacy (but cannot carry it on their own) and can utilize Sense Motive.

@KRyan There's just nothing to talk about. You believe the world is mostly high op, I have the reverse belief, both of our beliefs driven by our experience. There's really no reconciling it so I'm happy going down the path that works for all the groups I've gamed with.

In mental encounters like puzzles or riddles, they suffer from low Intelligence; a Wizard or Warblade might trade riddles with a dragon but a Monk is unlikely to be capable.

May I butt in?

@Lord_Gareth But you see, you keep comparing them as worse than "the best class for it."

@BESW Sure.

Oops, one moment, phone.

Warblade isn't the best class for it, it's just a class that has a reason for Intelligence synergy; if I wanted the best class for it I'd've brought up Factotum and their crazy skill-boosting.

But I'ma let @BESW speak once he gets off phone

@Lord_Gareth Real parties don't have all the best characters optimized for each of those. At least, ours don't. Sure, you can run something where every campaign a group plays is the same 4 super-healer, super-dpr, super-crowdcontrol conjurer, super-social-skill guy. But that gets old.

We prefer to make interesting characters, build them in a way that the rules support the general vibe we're going for, and play them.

My groups don't do that, @mxyzplk, and your mistake is in assuming that there's your way and then Theoretical Optimization. That's a horrible mistake to make and an insulting generalization to boot because it also implies that creating mechanically sound characters damages roleplaying, an assertation that is categorically wrong

My last 3.5 party had a crusader (me; tanking, damage, social face, all around morally gray guy), a cleric (damage, knowledges, light healing, minions), a swordsage (stealth, damage, subtlety, traps) and a wizard (detection, divination, traps, lockdown), all of whom were well-rounded characters with flaws and pros.

Okay, so let's back up a moment. I'm not as up on 3.5 as you guys are, so I'd like to make sure I have a few correct assumptions.

@Lord_Gareth I think you mean "right." The Stormwind Fallacy is profoundly confused as an even cursory reading of System Does Matter should reveal. If you concentrate on what's "mechanically sound" (read optimized) then you are a priori limiting character concepts - story suffers. Decisions are not always equal, story and rules power wise - so any decision made rules power wise does affect the rp. It's trivially true.

First: is it true that for most classes (regardless of "tier") you can look at their descriptions and tell which abilities you'll want to have high scores in for the class to be effective?

@BESW Define effective

@BESW - It tends to be immediately clear what ability scores will synergize best with class features. This has some limited exceptions (Warlock, Monk, Samurai) but for the most part if you look at a class you can find it pretty easily. MAD classes tend to be less obvious, SAD classes more obvious

@mxyzplk Having a reasonable chance of expecting the features and abilities of his class to function. A fighter wants Str or Dex high enough to have a chance of hitting things, a wizard wants an Int high enough that people sometimes fail saves against his spells.

That is to say, it's easy to realize that Wizard wants Int/Dex/Con in that order

Yes, I agree "in general with some traps out there"

But harder to recognize that Paladin needs Str/Cha/Wis/Dex

and I do mean needs

Samurai is unique in needing Cha if you're going to wring anything good out of it but not making that obvious in any way.

Why does a samurai... Oh you probably mean some 3.5 one, not Pathfinder?

Second: is it generally true that a character should be able to count on his class features and abilities working with a modicum of success (barring unusual concepts not anticipated by the system or in general practice)?

@mxyzplk Yeah, 3.5 and for Intimidate stuff

@BESW Sure, though sometimes it requires some work above "bog standard" - like wizards will hit guys with high saves, where they need feats or careful spell choice to not just "bounce stuff off the giants all day"

That is, is it reasonable for a fighter to expect to be able to hit things, and wizard to expect his spells to work more often than not?

sure.

@mxyzplk Right, there are going to be case-specific exceptions where a class is less effective, but he should expect to be able to contribute to conflicts most of the time.

@Lord_Gareth In PF you can feat in subbing STR for CHA for intimidate

Okay, so... how many stats is it reasonable (assuming standard 3.5 point buy) to have notable bonuses in?

For notable, I'd be inclined to say "+4 in one and +2 in others," but I don't know what the standard is.

depends on the point buy value... and that you do point buy... but in Pathfinder 20 point buy you can easily have 14/14/14/14/10/10 and then many races give +2/+2/-2 ability bumps so you can have +3,+3,+2,+2,+0,-1