Відео

Damn

@ can a fighter throw a fireball? Na. Wizard king my friend

yeah on one hand I understand simplifying some things like trivial spell components because frankly those were just annoying to keep track of. Nobody wants to have to count how much bat guano they have on their person at all times. But that combined with so many other minor quality of life changes like increasing the size of the hit die, increasing the total number of spell slots, allowing for more freeform spell prep, etc, have all culminated in casters just getting stronger and stronger with no tradeoffs to balance them out. And like, sure it's fun to play a caster, but either they need to put in some tradeoffs to make up for all of these boons they've been getting. Or they need to do the same to martials and try to bring them up to the same level

@BlazeMakesGames I never got NOT liking the component tracking. I mean, how would you feel like a magic user if you didn't have to? Modern day casters strike me more as boring marvel characters rather than the old wizards of legend with bags full of tricks and labs full of crazy stuff like Slaad gizzards and powdered gorgon hoof. This stuff was important for world building and character development as much as a resource management mini game.

I mean it mostly just slowed things down and made things tedious. At some point once you got rich enough, which often wouldn't take long, you'd just buy so many materials that you could just write it off anyways. Most GMs didn't wanna go through the hassle of forcing you to go out specifically to gather these supplies, at least not for your bread and butter spells like fireball. Plus even from a worldbuilding perspective it would make sense that these materials would be gathered and sold in towns for prospective spellcasters. So there was little justification for it anyways. Either way I just don't think it was a very good system to limit spellcasters. Obviously removing it did nothing but remove yet another drawback so they should have replaced it with at least something, but I understand the removal in the first place.

I mean it's a fantasy world there's no reason to limit ourselves to reality. We already have Monks able to use Ki and sprint at 60mph and Barbarians able to draw upon the power of pure rage to perform great feats of strength. They already have plenty of justification through supernatural abilities to perform these feats. The game just doesn't let those feats be cool or powerful enough to compete but I see no reason why we couldn't design a game that does

@@BlazeMakesGames Gotta love that the counter argument to "let's make ALL classes worth playing, instead of just the spellcasting ones" is "noooo, the spellcasters wouldn't be played if they weren't overpowered". Not only are you correct in pointing out that Monks and Barbarians are already supernatural classes, but we can add that a good portion of Fighter and Rogue subclasses are also supernatural. Eldritch Knight, Arcane Trickster, Soul Knife, Psi Warrior, Rune Knight, Phantom... these subclasses all utilize some sort of magical/supernatural ability or even spellslots outright. Seeeing as most characters are supernatural to one extent or another in D&D anyway (with the likes of Thief and Battlemaster being exceptions to this rule), the argument wouldn't even apply to the situation if we accepted it. Which we shouldn't, but still.

oh yeah I guess Mystery Dungeon is pretty roguelike-y isn't it. Still, it is a spinoff of a 2nd party title made by a 3rd party developer at that, I am still curious about what Nintendo taking on the roguelike genre in a 1st party context would be like

Lmao, you called it in the video though

Nintendo just like "oh god Blaze just released a video talking about us! Go go go! Launch that trailer, immediately!" This is the fantasy world I will choose to believe in.

Yeah bro, what a timing

I mean that's basically just the same as spell points as-is. It still doesn't really solve the core fundamental problem of spellcasters often having way more spell slots than they need in a typical adventuring day and as I pointed out this sort of thing allowing casters to have more uses of level 6+ spells might only make things even more unbalanced since those spells can often be fight-enders entirely on their own. Spell slots do at least solve the problem of stopping casters from having access to too many higher level spells per day at least.

@BlazeMakesGames I don't think it's the same at all, with spell points they have more options, but by making them pick and choose what kinds of things they cast you're making them think and place limits on themselves. but maybe I'm wrong. Also you could place limits on super high level spells by adding drawbacks or even a fatigue system limiting them even further if you wanted to

I mean I think I gotta heavily disagree here. I think 2014 martials are heavily unfun to play cause they get overshadowed in every way. What's the point of playing a class that isn't even really tankier than a wizard, does less damage than a wizard, and has less to do out of combat than a wizard? I won't deny that it's possible to have fun despite these problems but surely one would have more fun if their class of choice had more to contribute to a game session than just say "I run up and hit it with my sword... Oh I rolled a 7 so I missed, pass turn" I can understand not wanting to nerf something as that is often frustrating, but that's not even necessarily what I want. If anything I'm advocating here for a radically different system that just operates totally differently from how D&D handles spell slots. Not necessarily weaker or stronger, just different and in turn better suited for how people tend to play these games. And if anything the biggest thing I want is just more buffs for martial characters to bring them up to the same level as casters

​@@BlazeMakesGames The caster classes aren't designed like turn-based chess pieces; they are meant to fulfill archetypes and fantasies from stories. In Dungeons & Dragons, you can simulate a good mage or an evil mage. I won't go into detail, but the point is that in order to achieve your "balance," your nerfs undermine the class's ability to fulfill this function. Take a look at pathfinder 2e: you can't properly fulfill many fantasies anymore because of the obsession with balance. You're viewing the game solely from a competitive perspective, without realizing that some players enjoy playing Frodo just as much as they enjoy playing Gandalf. Originally, D&D was a simulationist system, not a tabletop MOBA or battle royale. This isn't League of Legends or Fortnite; this game is meant to simulate a world. It would be one thing if you were advocating for stronger martial classes, but instead, you seem intent on ruining the enjoyment of those who appreciate aspects of the game that you don't understand, purely out of envy.

I mean the issue tho with spellcasters isn't even necessarily balance. In theory the system *is* balanced in a sense, if you play it a certain way, but the issue is that most people don't play the game in a way that actually makes that balance work out. So my issue is seemingly similar to what you're saying, the game mechanics don't line up with how people want to play the game. So what I'm advocating for is realigning those mechanics to try and better reflect how people play to try and create a better experience for all. Again I'm not necessarily saying casters need to be weaker, If anything making Martials Stronger is the number 1 thing I would want to change if I could only change so much. So we're at least aligned on that front. And I 100% agree that the game is not anything like a competitive shooter or anything. It doesn't need to be perfectly balanced. But at the same time to say balance is wholly irrelevant I think is going a bit too far in the opposite direction. the issue with D&D is that yeah, sometimes you wanna play Gandalf and some people wanna be Frodo. But D&D sets up a system where Gandalf is given all of the skills and spells and the ability to solve basically any problem in or out of a fight entirely on their own and Frodo is essentially just dead weight unless Gandalf specifically steps aside to give them space. But Most DMs aren't gonna use a Balrog to write the wizard player out of the game for 5 sessions, so as a result it's hardly uncommon to see people playing as fighters or rogues or whatever that barely get to actually do anything cause the wizard just always has a spell to solve the problem and more than enough spell slots to spare for it. I just think that a different magic system would be better suited to the sorts of games that people tend to play with D&D. Not weaker, just different. I think that spell slots specifically fail at what they were designed to accomplish, both in terms of balance and storytelling, and as such we should probably be trying something else. Something that would be both better for telling stories as well as for creating opportunities for other types of characters to shine at the table

​@@BlazeMakesGames Okay, but what do you propose? Try to imagine a game with five classes: the Brawling Man, the Knife Man, the Pistol Man, the Bazooka Man, and the Stealth Bomber Man. I understand that this is exaggerated, but I'm doing this to illustrate a point. If you attempt to balance these five classes so that they are equal, you will end up in ridiculous situations where a man with bare fists is on par with a stealth bomber. In a simulationist game where you want the wizard to fulfill various wizard fantasies-ranging from necromancer to summoner to dragon mage-you will either need to make the fighter more powerful than Atomic Samurai from "One Punch Man," or you will end up with less balance in the game. I find it hard to imagine a situation where you can make the Brawling Man equal to the Stealth Bomber Man without either turning the former into a superhero or making the stealth bomber so weak that it undermines the fantasy of using an aircraft in the first place. Take a look at Pathfinder 2E and the necromancer's playtest. Notice how they made it so the necromancer can't move his undead thralls; they are essentially like trees. This is what happens when you try to balance spellcasters by weakening them: you end up with such a watered-down fantasy that it's painful to look at.

@@colorpg152 How about we begin by limiting what fantasy each spellcasting class is capable of fulfilling? D&D has 12 base classes to work with, each of which has its own set of subclassees. Wizards don't need to be capable of fulfilling all of the roles of damage dealer, controller, summoner, utility caster and tank. And they certainly shouldn't be able to do several of those on a single build, like they currently can. A good place to start could be to simply make a lot of spells exclusive to certain subclasses. You're a Necromancer? Alright, then you get spells like Animate Dead, but you don't get Fireball, Hypnotic Pattern and so on. The staple Evocation spells should be exclusive to Evokers, Enchantment spells to Enchanters etc. The shared Wizard spell list should be a lot more restrticted, especially for higher tier spells. You could do this with all the spellcasters. Restict their baseline spell selection and tie up a lot of their more powerful tools in specific subclasses. This would also let each subclass have its niche in terms of fulfilling a class fantasy. Another thing we should do with casters is to make it so they can't replace martials. Martial subclasses for classes like Bard and Wizard should be the martial equivalent of 3rrd casting, and not capable of holding their own next to a dedicated martial any more than an Eldritch Knight can replace a Wizard. Furthermore, let's expand what fantasies martial characters are actually capable of fulfilling. For example, let's give Barbarians access to threat management as part of their base class, since they're the main physical tank class in the game. Fighters need an overhaul since they pretty much only do damage unless their an Eldritch Knight. I'd say make them the most customizable martial, where you choose what to focus on. Rogues, being martial utility characters and lower case a "assassins" or skirmisher, need more reliable ways to deal damage than Sneak Attack and access to meaningful non-skill based utility that can compete in usefulness to utility spells. We'd also need to tune the hybrid classes. Rangers and Paladins shouldn't be comparable as martials to Rogue and Fighter. They should have clear drawbacks they get in return for their vastly more versatile abilities. At all lvls of play, not just lvl 17+. You're saying that the Brawler Man shouldn't be as good as the others and that we'd need Atomic Samurrai to have martials as good as casters. I say then let's replace the Brawler Man with Atomic Samurai, because CLASS BALANCE should take priority when designing a game. Or nerf the stealth bomber to be a stealth operative instead.

yeah Martials absolutely need at the very least some more AoE options of their own. So whirlwind attacks that attack everyone around you, slamming the ground to cause an earthquake in a line or even a cone attack, stuff like that I think would go a long way towards making martials more interesting and powerful

It's so weird that D&D keeps getting the balance wrong, because theere are literally decades and decades of video games that have martial characters worth playing. Warrior was considered one of the best classes in Final Fantasy 1 because it was a great tank and single target damage dealer. It was released in 1987!!! Yet, almost 40 years later, the developers over at WotC can't manage it, despite having numerous sources they could pull inspiration from?

@TheTdroid I think it's because they hate Marshalls

@@jordongotthold5006 I dunno. Rangers got some really good stuff like Gloom Stalker. And Paladin was always a solid class. I think they just hate martials without spellcasting.

@TheTdroid I was just about to make that observation

yeah it's terribly ironic cause TF2 really codified a lot of these important design trends and then they released so many insane cosmetics that basically just completely cover up the characters. I would argue that it's not completely ruined, I think that for the most part at least, you can at least still identify the characters by their silhouette despite all the insane hats and whatnot, like you're never gonna mistake a heavy for a scout or whatever. But it does still muddy the waters way more than it used to. At least when it was just hats it just modified the heads of the characters and not much else.

@@BlazeMakesGames I wouldn't mind if it was just hats but its now got some cosmetics that cover 80% of the team colour area

To be fair GWM is actually arguably stronger in 5e24. You no longer suffer an attack penalty so there's no more choosing whether you wanna take that -5 penalty to hit to get that +10 bonus. You just always get a free +Prof bonus for all of your attacks from then on, so up to a +6 with no penalties. Plus it's a half feat so you get a stat boost on top of that. but yeah, they did move some things around. Honestly I'm fine with things like the changes to humans cause it was frankly busted to get such a powerful feat at level 1 compared to every other race in the game. I will say I think they took some steps in the right direction. Almost every martial class themselves got some pretty notable buffs. the Monk might take home the trophy for most improved honestly and that's saying something. Barbarians can actually use their rage out of combat for various utilities. Fighter Subclasses generally got lots of nice buffs, etc. And things like Weapon Masteries do a lot of good towards making martials both more powerful and more fun to play. There definitely is still a lot more I wish they had done. I think they could have gone a lot further with weapon masteries among other things. But it's at least better than it was before imo

in regards to the scaling issue, that is something I've seen a number of other games do in some really fun and interesting ways. For example in Wrath and Glory, you make a dice pool check every time you cast a spell, and for every 6 on all the various d6 you roll, you can spend those to upgrade the spell, but instead of having a singular linear upgrade path, most spells have multiple options you can spend your 6s on. So even for a basic Damaging spell like flame breath or whatever, you can of course upgrade the damage, but you can instead choose to upgrade the size of the cone, or you can do some combination of both if you have enough 6s. And for other kinds of spells you might get more unique effects like with Wall of Fire you can spend 2 6s to be able to move the wall after you cast it in addition to other options that increase the size or shape of the wall But yeah the sheer versatility of some spellcasters is definitely another problem, especially if you view it from a worldbuilding perspective like you said. Comprehend Languages is nutz and things like fly and teleportation or even things as simple as mage hand and mold earth are kind of world shattering spells that are only written off because mages are meant to be relatively rare in most settings. But also from a balance perspective it means that casters get to be so good at so many things. A Fighter gets to be good at Fighting and not a whole lot else. There are some situations where you can leverage raw muscle but there's only so many problems that can be solved with raw strength. Meanwhile a wizard is good in combat, social situations, stealth, puzzles, problem solving, traversal, etc becasue chances are that they have a spell for almost any occasion

@BlazeMakesGames the most interesting magic system I've seen so far is from a pdf doc called Witchery (Google it, it's free), which uses a sympathetic magic and a dice poll. Each cast has risks, like an Injury (cater hurts themselves), Displacement (spell doesn't go exactly where you wanted it to go), Peril (fireball might accidentally cause a forest fire) and a Strangeness (weird stuff happens). You can use successes on your rolls to eliminate these, or to amplify the effectiveness of your spell. It's more suited for a more narrative system, but overall definitely something i gravitate to over D&D magic. It's just more fun and interesting.

which is still such a wild thing to imagine. Would Halo have caused Macs to suddenly become a much more popular system for gaming way earlier? Or would it have languished in obscurity as a result of the exclusivity? I honestly don't know

its so good big recommend

There are a few other avenues. I mean for example I think a big part of the issue is just that full casters scale so quickly. Getting 3rd level spells by level 5 is such a huge jump in power so early in the game when other characters are getting things like 2 attacks. Meanwhile Half Casters I feel have a much more reasonable progression that feels a lot more on par with other kinds of characters. Now big AoE spells and whatnot are held off till the mid-levels and other classes have a lot more time to shine. I believe Starfinder did this with their sci-fi take on Pathfinder, de-emphasizing magic by limiting it to only half caster classes and whatnot. I also feel like a reasonable limitation that wouldn't have as much pushback as nerfing spells entirely is just limiting their versatility. The problem is not just how powerful spells are but also how insanely versatile they are. A wizard can not only blow away an entire encounter by themselves with a spell or two, but if you need to sneak somewhere they have invisibility if you need to traverse great distances they can fly etc etc. If you actually had to focus on a specific spell school and could *only* cast spells from that school, that I think would make for a much more interesting class design. Because like yeah an Evocation Wizard or Sorcerer would still be insanely powerful in combat, but now they can't just solve every non-combat encounter by tossing out other random utility spells. And conversely an Illusionist might have a lot of useful abilities like minor illusion and invisibility but their damage potential would be severely limited. You could probably let people still learn cantrips from any school, that way they have at least *some* basic damage output and other utility and whatnot. Maybe even extend that to first level spells cause to be frank most wizard should be able to know how to cast detect magic and such. But if from 2nd level and up you were limited to exclusively what school of magic you specialized in, I think that would make for a much more balanced class that still lets you be very powerful, but the reduced versatility would help keep them in check. Plus that could be an interesting distinction between Half and Full Casters. Like if I was making a 6th edition, having Full casters get that fast spell progression but also be very limited in what kinds of spells they can cast, while Half casters progress more slowly but can much more freely cast spells from any school would I think be a good way to go about things