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No, I meant the cleric and druid are more powerful than any psionic character.

 pretre wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Your post boils down to "nuh uh." In point of fact, most of the 3E splat is devoted to, by feat or prestige class, conferring what would be known as powers in 4E. As I mentioned, Bo9S was simply the most explicit example -- it was it's own logical next step from the Complete ____ line of books and 4E logically followed from it.

Thanks, Manchu! I was going to respond since he's mostly beating up on me, but I figured I'd wait a couple for you to cover it more succinctly.

I don't see how my reasoning is 'Nuh uh'. I've stated sound examples as to how my opinion could certainly be justified. We will just have to agree to disagree. I'm not beating up on anybody, I seem to remember getting beat up when I didn't agree with the power poster and his views.

Stating that a set of books that were intentionally meant to be feelers for 4th Edition show the logical step from 3rd to 4th is a rather limited scope for debate for the whole '3rd to 4th' was a logical step.

Again...agree to disagree. I feel it isn't logical at all, and you feel it is completely logical. I don't think we're going to meet in the middle on this one. Perhaps if you didn't mention how your opinion is that it is a logical step as often, I wouldn't have felt the need to interject that for some....it certainly wasn't. Almost as bad as people slamming their religion down others throats. Perhaps word it better to say 'I think it is logical' instead of insisting you are right.


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 pretre wrote:

 warboss wrote:
You're being ridiculous. What do you want? An official statement from WOTC that some people didn't like it? You're not going to get one.

Nope, I simply want you to back up your statement or change it. You said:
"It's not arbitrary if a large segment of the playerbase doesn't like the mechanics it uses or the power level it introduces. "
Which means that you have some knowledge of what a large segment of the player base thinks. I asked for a citation. If instead, you had said:
"It's not arbitrary because I don't like the mechanics it uses or the power level it introduces." I wouldn't have said anything, since that is your opinion.

Why don't you on the other hand prove that a large segment of the population didn't have an issue with it?

Because I am not making declarative statements speaking for a large segment of the population. I'm speaking for myself and my experience.

You're not going to find anything more definitive than I would which is anecdotal evidence from at best local gaming groups. In the end, it's obvious that I'm not going to convince you in either case and frankly I don't care.

Aha, so best not to make declarative statements that cannot be supported by fact then.

A poll would be a good way to do it, but proably not on Dakka as its D&D scope is very limited. I will chime in and say it wasn't played in my 5 local gaming stores at all because the mechanics were not liked. This is Central, PA...so add that area to the list of 'We like Pathfinder, and 4th Ed and its mechanics aren't wanted'. There are currently, on the board, 9 total D&D games and only one of which is 4th Edition. That is also a 'young gamer' group with no players who have enjoyed D&d for more than 5 years.

I will also say in general that the overall reception of 4th Edition was not strong among even gamers I kept tabs with from older groups...for what its worth. Granted that the negative posters tend to overwhelm such sites, but the forums I'd frequented were not very positive of the changes in 4th.

Obviously, different style gamers can and will think different...but in my experience the reception was not good at all.

 Farseer Faenyin wrote:
I've stated sound examples as to how my opinion could certainly be justified.

Where?

 Farseer Faenyin wrote:
Stating that a set of books that were intentionally meant to be feelers for 4th Edition show the logical step from 3rd to 4th is a rather limited scope for debate for the whole '3rd to 4th' was a logical step.

The Complete _____ books weren't "feelers" for 4E. (TBH, that you think so makes me doubt that you know what they are.) Once again, my point is that feats and [prestige] class abilities (extraordinary, spell-like, supernatural, etc) available via splat paved the way for 4E powers. Bo9S was simply the culmination of these ideas in light of the realization that caster power creep had invalidated non-casting classes.

 Farseer Faenyin wrote:
Perhaps if you didn't mention how your opinion is that it is a logical step as often, I wouldn't have felt the need to interject that for some....it certainly wasn't.

This subject isn't a matter of personal sentiment. You can feel that 4E does not logically follow from 3E all that you like but you have not posted a credible counterargument much less evidence supporting it.

 Manchu wrote:
No, I meant the cleric and druid are more powerful than any psionic character.

Well, to be fair CoDzilla is more powerful than pretty much anything else in 3.5 but I concede my misunderstanding of your last statement.

I was agreeing with whoever (you?) said earlier that Psionics and Bo9S are very frequently arbitrarily banned (except by Warboss, who apparently banned them with full knowledge that they were not OP but rather because he disliked the play style).

 Manchu wrote:
I was agreeing with whoever (you?) said earlier that Psionics and Bo9S are very frequently arbitrarily banned (except by Warboss, who apparently banned them with full knowledge that they were not OP but rather because he disliked the play style).

Stop being agreeable!

I can say that, from my experience, whenever I limit the books in a campaign it is more from a simplicity or a laziness standpoint as a DM than a power level problem. Although, originally I did it to limit the setting but then realized that that didn't really matter much since any class/combo/source can be reskinned to fit anywhere so I quit doing that.

And again, I agree! This is kind of what I was referring to about Bo9S. It has the very cool side-campaign content that can be nicely fit into just about anything.

OTOH, I did think a lot of 3.5 prestige classes would really only be useful in a more narrow campaign. I'm not just talking about the "environmental" books (Sandstorm, et al.) but prestige classes like daemon hunters and so forth. What's the point of being really, really good at dealing with enemy type X unless you are pretty damn certain X will make up most if not all of the opposition?

Yeah, I guess that's the problem when you need to come up with SOOO many prestige classes, many of them will be too specific to be useful.

Darn it Manchu, why do you have to be such a nice reasonable person? You're a moderator...you're supposed to be tyrannical and capricious

Kick him in the junk a couple times and/or try to get past the swear filter. He'll rise to the occasion.

I dunno, he was holding my feet to the coals recently, but best I can tell from the last 3 pages he and I have essentially the exact same views on 2E, 3E and 4E aside from when a few mechanics started/evolved.

But mods are capricious and quick to anger. Post not ye flame wars, for your bans are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

/sagenod

:-D

From all accounts I have heard the Book of Exalted Deeds did infinitely more to increase the power level of 3.5 than anything in Bo9S, but it didn't see as much banning because it was formatted and presented in the traditional manner and didn't require the DM to learn what amounted to a completely new playstyle in Bo9S.

It is fair to say that there was a section of the player base that didn't like the style, feel, or perceived power level of the new material in Bo9S, and there was also a group of players that felt it provided a breath of fresh air to the game. I don't think anyone should stretch to say that either of these groups is especially large or a majority. My guess would be that the situation is similar to many in this world. There are vocal minorities on either extreme, but the vast majority of players don't have a strong opinion one way or the other.

AS for edition evolution you can put me in the camp of "4E is not the logical progression of 3.5." The 3.5 feat system may have similarities to 4E at-wills, but 4E actually walked much of this back, not allowing you to combine effects as easily because every effect is keyed from a separate power. For example. you can't "cleave" and "twin strike" together in 4E, but I believe the feats cleave and 2-WP fighting could be used together in 3.5. I AM rusty on 3.5 rules so I could be wrong. The prestige class abilities of 3.5 and '1 used per day per level' abilities are as similar to 2nd ed rules as anything in 4E. There are plenty of things in 4E that didn't seem to be evolutions. Non-AC defenses, and 10+ saving throws don't seem to sprout from anything specific is 3.5. The whole "powers" structure of 4E didn't seem like a natural progression to me. Did I mention that skills were dumbed down in 4E? The later Essentials classes seem to be closer to the 3.5 -> 4E shift people have insinuated, but the fact that they came out years into 4E is a sign to me that 4E was an extreme departure from previous editions and WOTC was trying to walk that back a bit. I tell people 4E is a great game, and 3.5 is a great game, but 3.5 and 4E are not anywhere near the same game. Each previous edition 1st, 2nd, 3/3.5 seemed to me like a natural replacement of the previous rules set. 4E in no way obsoleted anything that made 3.5 great.

Non-AC Defenses are just the Fort, Will, and Reflex saves of 3rd/3.5 ed, except you switch it from a "I roll to defend" to an "attacker rolls to hit, just like he does against AC" mechanic. The main difference between them, mechanically, is in who rolls.

Similarly, the skill system in 4th is pretty close to how the skill system in 3rd tended to work if you optimized your character. It was usually a bad idea to spreas your skill points around a lot; you got better results concentrating on your best skills. 4th mostly just prevents you from shooting yourself in the foot that way. There are some other things you could do with the 3rd ed skills (all the little fiddly synergy bonuses from having x ranks in one skill helping another skill, or how you needed at least 1 rank in Jump to land on your feet after a Jump), but most of those didn't really add much to the game. IMO.

 Galen wrote:
From all accounts I have heard the Book of Exalted Deeds did infinitely more to increase the power level of 3.5 than anything in Bo9S, but it didn't see as much banning because it was formatted and presented in the traditional manner and didn't require the DM to learn what amounted to a completely new playstyle in Bo9S.

The VOW of poverty was pretty much the only useful thing from BOED, made you awesome at low levels, on par with magic gear at mid levels, and handicapped you at high level play, where the magic items available dwarfed the VOP abilities. Completely fun/awesome for maybe the first 10 levels.

Like you said though, the formatting just felt like adding monk abilites and bonus feats.

 Galen wrote:
From all accounts I have heard the Book of Exalted Deeds did infinitely more to increase the power level of 3.5 than anything in Bo9S, but it didn't see as much banning because it was formatted and presented in the traditional manner and didn't require the DM to learn what amounted to a completely new playstyle in Bo9S.

BoED was 3.0. And there was a fair amount of not allowing it going on.

The 3.5 feat system may have similarities to 4E at-wills,

Apples to oranges. Compare 3.5 Feats to 4E feats and 3.5 Powers/abiltiies to 4E At Wills, Encounters, Dailies.

Did I mention that skills were dumbed down in 4E?

There's a difference between dumbed down and simplified. Did we really need a knowledge skill for every single thing in the world? Three skills for stealthiness? Etc. Skills have waxed and waned over the history of D&D. 4th wasn't the first time.

The later Essentials classes seem to be closer to the 3.5 -> 4E shift people have insinuated, but the fact that they came out years into 4E is a sign to me that 4E was an extreme departure from previous editions and WOTC was trying to walk that back a bit.

Really? Essentials was even more simplified, imo. If you look into it, Essentials was just basically taking 4E and making it easier for starting players and combining all the existing materials into new books.

I tell people 4E is a great game, and 3.5 is a great game, but 3.5 and 4E are not anywhere near the same game.

Are you also saying that 2E and 3E are not the same game? Because they had just as many differences (and just as much caterwauling at the time) and still managed to be the same game, just different editions.

Each previous edition 1st, 2nd, 3/3.5 seemed to me like a natural replacement of the previous rules set.

Really? Because there were some pretty big uproars when 3E came out.

I made a very broken character without even trying to min/max or powergame using BoED. The Saint template is a beast.


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 pretre wrote:
There's a difference between dumbed down and simplified.

This is a really good point. I could rephrase it as, "there is a difference between complex and fun/useful."

 Manchu wrote:
I made a very broken character without even trying to min/max or powergame using BoED. The Saint template is a beast.

Yeah, in our 'high level' game which ran a couple years, we had a monk who ended up with VOP and Saint. He was omg ouchy broken.

Is anybody participating in the Murder in Baldur's Gate adventure?

I really wanted to do it, but I was turned off by the materials cost ($35 for an adventure and a screen is fantastic, but I just don't have the money) and I lacked a party that would regularly come.

 Galen wrote:
From all accounts I have heard the Book of Exalted Deeds did infinitely more to increase the power level of 3.5 than anything in Bo9S, but it didn't see as much banning because it was formatted and presented in the traditional manner and didn't require the DM to learn what amounted to a completely new playstyle in Bo9S.

The Book of Exalted Deeds introduced the most broken PrC in the game: the Apostle of Peace. And I don't mean "broken" as in "overpowered", I mean "broken" as in "this is a toxic character who will make everything around him". It's like a Frenzied Berserker with good PR.