Read through the 4E alternate universe bit last night. Funny, but it missed out on two critical points.
#1, Normal Roy was dead wrong every time he said there was no narrative explanation or creative options. It's almost like he didn't examine the system before forming opinions about it - which is actually mostly correct? #2, Normal Belkar's rematch should have gone *exactly* the same as the first one, because being invisible is completely irrelevant and the rest of the potions can't make up for it: The melee ranger still takes no penalty to hit you, still hits on very low numbers, and still does several times the maximum possible HP of a D20 ranger every round, because 4E rangers are actually good at being rangers. Normal Belkar's "solution" should quite naturally have been laughed at, followed by Competent Belkar destroying him completely. (Unless Useful Belkar was built by someone who had no idea what they're doing, and, well, it's Belkar's player in both cases. There's no way he made the kind of crap ranger who could be taken out by even a buffed D20 character from one of the Useless Classes)
Ah, well. I can't dispute the end result, though - the 4E characters didn't kill all the D20 primary spellcasters in round 1, therefore they lost, because D20 primary spellcasters are omnipotent except against another of their own kind. Even if you adjust non-casters to be "not complete garbage" the way 4E does and D20 does not, "not completely garbage" is still no match for CoDzilla.
(Didn't help that 4E V apparently didn't notice that the old-fashioned pure-damage spells are a trap, though. A competent 4E wizard would have made things more competitive, briefly, at least.)
I'm all for nitpicking, but I haven't played any 4E so I can't really contribute. Some of my favourite OotS bits are when they take the piss out of rules and edge cases though, so I enjoyed the 4E bit anyways.
Oh, no, they had some good points. Just, also some really bad ones. And I, for one, am offended that it was implied that Non-Crap-Game Belkar could lose to Incompetent-Game-Design Belkar. And not just because 4E rangers are powerhouses, although they really are - also because D20 rangers are complete shit and can't do anything right.
(I also kind of like that the 4E characters complained about how the cleric trivially summoned extraplanar allies who were way more powerful than the entire party combined, including both D20 spellcasters.)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-10 01:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-10 01:42 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-10 01:51 am (UTC)(I forgot about it while arranging the pics)
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-10 07:42 pm (UTC)#1, Normal Roy was dead wrong every time he said there was no narrative explanation or creative options. It's almost like he didn't examine the system before forming opinions about it - which is actually mostly correct?
#2, Normal Belkar's rematch should have gone *exactly* the same as the first one, because being invisible is completely irrelevant and the rest of the potions can't make up for it: The melee ranger still takes no penalty to hit you, still hits on very low numbers, and still does several times the maximum possible HP of a D20 ranger every round, because 4E rangers are actually good at being rangers. Normal Belkar's "solution" should quite naturally have been laughed at, followed by Competent Belkar destroying him completely. (Unless Useful Belkar was built by someone who had no idea what they're doing, and, well, it's Belkar's player in both cases. There's no way he made the kind of crap ranger who could be taken out by even a buffed D20 character from one of the Useless Classes)
Ah, well. I can't dispute the end result, though - the 4E characters didn't kill all the D20 primary spellcasters in round 1, therefore they lost, because D20 primary spellcasters are omnipotent except against another of their own kind. Even if you adjust non-casters to be "not complete garbage" the way 4E does and D20 does not, "not completely garbage" is still no match for CoDzilla.
(Didn't help that 4E V apparently didn't notice that the old-fashioned pure-damage spells are a trap, though. A competent 4E wizard would have made things more competitive, briefly, at least.)
I think I'm thinking about this too much.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-10 10:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-10 11:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-10 11:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-10 01:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-10 01:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-10 02:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-10 04:57 am (UTC)On a tangent note, are you a fan of Erfworld (http://www.erfworld.com/book-1-archive/?px=%2F001.jpg)?
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-10 12:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-10 12:23 pm (UTC)I missed out on this Kickstarter - I guess I'm just going to have to navigate a web store like a normal pleb.
ditto
Date: 2012-08-11 04:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-10 01:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-10 02:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-10 03:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-10 03:13 pm (UTC)Saw the message, can't decide if it's Guess The State material or just... gah.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-10 03:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-10 08:57 pm (UTC)