3.5 is inherently imbalanced, but is that really an issue?

[Quertus]

@Cosi - I, if not agree with you, at least find most if what you said reasonable and internally consistent. So, unless they come up later, rather than quibble over minor details, I'll just say, "sounds reasonable". But,

I don't understand why you would want to do that.

I don't understand what that's supposed to mean.

Dang, I lost the context. Back in a minute, senility willing.

EDIT:

"To make it easier to balance low-level and high-level players;" - because sometimes I'm in a group with little Timmy.

"Top five those who enjoy optimization a lower baseline to work from;" - wow, autocorrect. Let me try again:

"To give those who enjoy optimization a lower baseline to work from;" - some people enjoy the act of optimization. If they optimize a good (or "balanced") character, the result will be too strong for their table. Instead, you let them optimize a suboptimal concept / class / whatever up to the table's balance range, and everyone's happy.

Which was reflected in his prodigal number of starting skill points and a fittingly extremely high Int and Cha scores along with no low ability scores, as well as the unparalleled number of skill points he had amassed in numerous skills in wildly different areas by 7th level?

So... Would that be maybe max ranks in several Knowledge skills, including more esoteric ones such as planes and arcana, along with max ranks in Spellcraft and I assume Diplomacy, Intimidate, Gather Information, Listen, Search and Spot, plus a few ranks in some basic physical stuff like Climb, Balance and Swim, all of them treated as class skills of course, and many of them further boosted by magic items?

I would love to see the breakdown of what parts of my stories lead you to conclude each of these.

1. How many of those supposedly more experienced players would you say would've been capable of playing a PC of equivalent narrative power without mechanical support?

Out of the 14 there? Maybe two, if they cared (neither ever showed any such interest, so I'm just guessing). Three, I imagine, if my brother had been there for that campaign.

2. So which one is correct:

a) your GM had no grasp of the rules or of the most basic combat tactics,
b) your GM was intentionally ignoring the actual mechanical power of the so called drow "high-priestess" in order to let Armus kill her,
c) your GM decided she had a brain aneurysm at that precise moment so she could act impressively stupid in order to let Armus kill her,
d) Armus was made vastly mechanically superior to any other 1st level PCs in the game,
e) you're the world's greatest tactical genius when it comes to 3.5 combat (but you're not very good at any similar kind of tabletop combat),
f) your group actually plays freeform D&D because you all love the settings but hate all the rules,
g) your GM secretly plays freeform, while you and the other players believe your mechanical abilities and die rolls actually matter
h) you just dreamed the whole thing and it never happened in an actual game

False... Octotomy? So, the GM never really explained it, but, from what I've inferred, the closest was "c", except that it was supposed to be part of the plot.

The Drow were acting very... odd. Honestly, initially, I thought it was more "A", the GM was an idiot. But, the more I looked at it, the more there actually seemed method to it. For example, the Priestess who fled... I don't remember the GM's words, but, to paraphrase, acted like she was a dream, and Armus' actions (unfortunately) started to wake her up. Later, the GM gave several other clues as to what was going on, but afaict, nobody cared. No, not even Armus, who was too busy fighting "Hart's War" to spare time for that detail beyond noting it for future reference in case it was required (it was not).


EDIT: definitely not "D", in fact the exact opposite (which was part of the point of the character, to be as mechanically weak as I could make him). And where did you get "but you're not very good at any similar kind of tabletop combat"?

OK. While I of course have no problems whatsoever distinguishing between the sources of power (player skill and PC abilities) I still don't see any meaningful difference between "directing the narrative" and "power power". Neither do I see why either source would be inherently more connected to either supposed type of result.

Absolutely not. It's becoming abundantly clear that both you and Crake are having great difficulties clearly defining what you call "Narrative power" and "power power" and the differences between these concepts when it comes to their impact on the game. And I think I have a pretty good idea of why, because there simply is no functional or qualitative difference between the two in the way you claim. Instead, you're confusing what you at best describe as some kind of highly arbitrary relative amounts of power ("narrative" being greater than "power") with sources of power, and it appears you fail to understand that any kind of effect a PC has on the game, regardless of source, is per definition having an impact on the "narrative" (and therefore also has "narrative power" in this context).

... What? That sounds just about backwards from what I'm saying. Much like your conclusions previously sounded almost backwards from my understanding. This sounds fun!*

So, Armus got a PC to hand over a treasured artifact. He utilized his amazing "paid attention when PCs talked about themselves" skills to utilize backstory details to seal the deal.

To my understanding of the terms,

* This was narrative power, because Armus shaped the course of events (artifact changed hands).

* This was not "power" power, because what button did I push / what statistic on Armus' sheet did I use to choose and utilize this particular tactic?

So, to try to turn that into definitions (not my strong suit, so this may take a few attempts),

* Narrative power is the ability to shape the flow of events, through the actions and choices of the character.

* "Power" power is the statistical attributes of the character.

-----

* I base this on my experience learning about databases (which I love), but my initial impression was that they talk backwards. Seriously, people have shirts, and shirts have buttons. But ask a database, and buttons have shirts, and shirts have people.

I mean, the source of the power (or lack thereof) being completely irrelevant for the power's actual effects on the game was kinda my point, yeah.

Again, the only kind of power you have been discussing is just plain power, nothing more and nothing less, regardless of source and regardless of amount.

Now this is not to say there's no such thing as qualitative differences between types of power, and simply by comparing say the spells teleportation and fireball tells us this is clearly the case. But that's a different discussion you're obviously not having.

Really, what does this actually have to do with the balance of the game itself? You know, that thing which isn't tied to specific "player skill" or "subject to GM whim"?

So, just to be clear, my sentient potted plant, who viewed "mobility" and "ability to push buttons" as super powers far beyond his ken, to your mind has "power power" when he remembers where we parked?

And, when that's his important contribution to the party escaping, you would say that he is "more powerful than Thor", who did not remember where we parked, and thus did not contribute to that scene (beyond, of course, carrying my poor plant)?

Are you really contending that the potted plant is more powerful than Thor by your definition of "power"?

If so, please define "power".

@Quertus
while I don't have unearthed arcana handy; assuming it's the same as the "incantations" section listed in the SRD; it specifically does NOT include a number of standard spells like teleport; and it recommends you not make things like the standard teleport, in addition to being harder in general.
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/ma...cantations.htm
it also notes they may be very hard to find and have risks.

been a long time since I read 4th ed; but iirc the rituals there specifically included a lot more ordinary utility stuff and were meant to be more reliably available to everyone. the overall rules setup for it (iirc again) was quite different from those incantations in 3rd.

AFB. That's... probably the one? Although I thought Plane Shift was explicitly one of the example rituals (or whatever they were called).

Yeah, no. The Fighter doesn't have access to wall of stone. The Wizard does. You can tell, because it is a Wizard ability and not a Fighter ability. The Fighter saying "hey you could use your abilities to do X" is at best deciding how the Wizard uses his spotlight time (which is still not the Fighter's), and at worst an attempt to hijack someone else's character.

If every problem gets solved by the Wizard using an ability it doesn't matter if sometimes it's the Rogue or the Fighter's player suggesting what ability to use. Their characters are still unimportant and do not get any spotlight time. Because they don't have abilities that put them in the spotlight.

The wizard gets mechanical spotlight time for making the fortress, but the narrative spotlight still goes to the one who came up with the idea, no matter how much you deny it. That's pretty much the point of this narrative power side discussion: anyone in the party can have narrative power regardless of mechanical power, and that mechanical power doesn't somehow give anyone any more narrative power, because the ability to direct the narrative is a player ability. If nobody had ever suggested to make a fortress at the mountain pass, then the wizard's ability to cast wall of stone is pretty irrelevant toward the narrative, isn't it.

So, I kinda agree with both of you, I guess?

The Wizard's power makes "make a fortress" an option - or, at least, a viable one in a short timeframe. Enough stonemasons with enough time could do the same thing.

The Wizard's power directs creativity towards utilizing that power, warping the narrative to favor certain solutions.

The Fighter can absolutely have the spotlight during the planning phase, saying "this would be so much easier with battlements, say Wizard can your wall spell do that", and planning out the exact optimal defenses. Unless the Wizard is a ****, that's narrative power for the Fighter.

When it comes time to implement this strategy, yes, the Wizard probably has (or maybe shares) the spotlight then. But that's probably not narrative power (unless, again, the Wizard is a ****).

So, it depends a bit on what you see, what you care about, and where the focus the game is, as to who you think gets the spotlight here.

It sounds like if Crake came up with the plans, and Cosi implemented them, then they'd both be happy in a game, feeling that they contributed.