My comrade-in-geekdom Jacob clued me in to this.
My response:
They're a bunch of whores.
That's probably a bit too blog-raw for a family blog, so let me rephrase:
I meant: I read their bitching about polymorph, and they're operating
from base assumptions that are precisely those which I think are where
the company's interests and the player's interests diverge.
Hm, the first way conveys the same meaning with a lot fewer words.
Polymorph's too powerful because sometimes people make creatures that aren't
balanced with other creatures of the same HD value. Whose fault is
that, again? Might it be the company that seeks to profit by pushing
more and more content on collection-prone gamers? And has sometimes
ignored whether the new additions were actually advancing the fun and
balance of the game?
Polymorph's too powerful because there's so many sourcebooks
with so many monsters out there. See above, plus: the power of a spell
is accommodated by giving it an appropriate level (and stuff like
duration, xp cost, etc.) You think polymorph's too powerful, give it
some costs and/or raise the level. Or just scale the HD limitation,
either by tying it to caster level or making it less than 15 HD.
Oh, and since when did a generic spellcaster know about all
the monsters in all the sourcebooks? Throw a knowledge check in there
to see if they even know of the creature they want to turn into. (Only
necessary if they're digging around in some expansion book to find the
killer munchkin creature, which is your own fault, but apparently
that's the sort of wizards they play with.)
using d20 rules without a human DM involved. Not unlike saying "wish
can imitate any other spell of a lower level, but nothing you actually
come up with on your own", which they almost but didn't quite say in
that spell's description, IIRC.
The idea of changing into some animal of choice is a
fundamental magic idea. Removing it from the game is unthinkable.
Stripping flexibility from it is sacrificing what the game is about
because of the designer's inability to find a practical way to
accommodate it. Given the other restrictions available, and that the
"problem" is of their own making (why not have a "Polymorph into any
critter from the Monster Manual", and a higher level "Polymorph into
any critter we foolishly published in our `canon'"?), I question the
sincerity of the "We didn't make this change lightly, and we care
deeply about everything, and after a lot of thought we think this is
the best solution for all concerned" blather at the end.
Finally, they talk about "this errata document", as if there's
a "Polymorph FAQ and Errata" doc somewhere. I don't see it, just the
errata lists for all the books. If you made the design change from the
polymorph POV, why not provide an actual "errata document" that shows
what changes were made to the various books? Seeing as I'm not going
through all my books and actually writing the errata in the margins,
that would be a lot more useful to me, and presumably is what you did in
the first place (find all the polymorph references you wanted to
change, rather than go through book by book and change everything on
all topics before going to the next). Otherwise, save your noise about
how much work you all did and who deserves credit for this "document"
that I can't see.
My response:
They're a bunch of whores.
That's probably a bit too blog-raw for a family blog, so let me rephrase:
I meant: I read their bitching about polymorph, and they're operating
from base assumptions that are precisely those which I think are where
the company's interests and the player's interests diverge.
Hm, the first way conveys the same meaning with a lot fewer words.
Polymorph's too powerful because sometimes people make creatures that aren't
balanced with other creatures of the same HD value. Whose fault is
that, again? Might it be the company that seeks to profit by pushing
more and more content on collection-prone gamers? And has sometimes
ignored whether the new additions were actually advancing the fun and
balance of the game?
Polymorph's too powerful because there's so many sourcebooks
with so many monsters out there. See above, plus: the power of a spell
is accommodated by giving it an appropriate level (and stuff like
duration, xp cost, etc.) You think polymorph's too powerful, give it
some costs and/or raise the level. Or just scale the HD limitation,
either by tying it to caster level or making it less than 15 HD.
Oh, and since when did a generic spellcaster know about all
the monsters in all the sourcebooks? Throw a knowledge check in there
to see if they even know of the creature they want to turn into. (Only
necessary if they're digging around in some expansion book to find the
killer munchkin creature, which is your own fault, but apparently
that's the sort of wizards they play with.)
The ideal "take the form of another creature" spell would limit the caster's options to a very small list of choices (possibly as low as one). To replace even a reasonable fraction of the total functionality of polymorph, then, would require not one spell but more than a dozen, scattered across various levels and class lists.This is ideal only in terms of making it easy to implement a computer game
using d20 rules without a human DM involved. Not unlike saying "wish
can imitate any other spell of a lower level, but nothing you actually
come up with on your own", which they almost but didn't quite say in
that spell's description, IIRC.
The idea of changing into some animal of choice is a
fundamental magic idea. Removing it from the game is unthinkable.
Stripping flexibility from it is sacrificing what the game is about
because of the designer's inability to find a practical way to
accommodate it. Given the other restrictions available, and that the
"problem" is of their own making (why not have a "Polymorph into any
critter from the Monster Manual", and a higher level "Polymorph into
any critter we foolishly published in our `canon'"?), I question the
sincerity of the "We didn't make this change lightly, and we care
deeply about everything, and after a lot of thought we think this is
the best solution for all concerned" blather at the end.
Finally, they talk about "this errata document", as if there's
a "Polymorph FAQ and Errata" doc somewhere. I don't see it, just the
errata lists for all the books. If you made the design change from the
polymorph POV, why not provide an actual "errata document" that shows
what changes were made to the various books? Seeing as I'm not going
through all my books and actually writing the errata in the margins,
that would be a lot more useful to me, and presumably is what you did in
the first place (find all the polymorph references you wanted to
change, rather than go through book by book and change everything on
all topics before going to the next). Otherwise, save your noise about
how much work you all did and who deserves credit for this "document"
that I can't see.
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