Originally Posted by
dragonofsteel2
I am strong believer if all you do is seperate the differinces between classes all you will get is couple classes that thrive while the rest get thrown in the waste basket. Reality video games fights are made for the mid/maxer. (sic) Ac is always but curve with it's use. Though hp never put on a curve hmmm. This by making it king in the video game realm. All games allow you to get more hp and deal more damage. If they did not no one would play. So your arguement that shuting out one class/race from more hp or damage is not valid to me. Because to me all video games or mmo come down to this to simple facts. Why is simple, people like seeing there tough charcter doing lots of damage. (It sales) So you telling me be limiting certain builds to have less and less hp does not make the game more cookie cutter, I can not and will not believe. Reality it just makes thoose builds useless in that content so people will stray from them.
While see the point you are trying to make, I disagree wholeheartedly with most of it. You're right that most video games are made for (or at least with them in mind) min/maxers. However I don't agree that that automatically means if a particular race or class can't completely max out HP that they are going to be avoided. I also think you're backwards on the idea that removing a prerequisite for a feat makes the game less cookie-cutter. Hell, having the requirement doesn't either. Removing that requirement from the feat means that virtually all builds are going to incorporate that 1 feat, regardless of anything else. Want proof of that? How many builds, especially viable end-game builds, *DON'T* have the toughness feat? The reason Epic Toughness has a rather high prerequisite is exactly so that not everyone has it, so that it can, itself, be a point of diversity in builds.
Though the angle you looking at this I think is the actual differences in classes/races. From that angle you would be right. Though we comparing apples and oranges. I am looking at the pratical side and you looking at the role playing side. I do not and never will play games for that side. I looking at the functional side of playing end game.
In this, I feel sorry for you, I really do. I've been playing D&D for a long time (18ish years now), I've played purely from the practical side. I've played purely from the role-playing side. In the end the former is very cookie cutter, somethings work and other don't, and there is very little, if any, deviation - the latter is almost entirely diversity, rarely optimal, but allows for some extremely epic moments when you manage to pull off what would normally seem impossible. Now, I'm speaking here from almost 20 years of experience in the PnP game, not a video game/mmo, but the same theories apply. In DDO all of my toons are custom builds, I don't use other peoples builds (though I do tend to read up about new builds on the forums to get ideas sometimes), and I don't truly min/max. I used to have a light monk that could quite handily solo ANYTHING. However, she couldn't stun anything (WIS too low), I never got good with using the monk finishers, and the build I put together had ~160 HP at lv17. Yeah, 160 HP at lv17. Thats insanely low, so low in fact that I ended up HAVING to solo because I wasn't ever allowed in groups with my HP so low. And yet she never died, see I didn't need 1000HP like everyone else because I build a toon where everything she did healed her a little, sure +1 HP per attack doesn't seem like much, but on a dex-build monk in air stance... thats actually really fast healing. and then you add in the healing curse that a light monk can do. and you add in max healing amp on a human monk. and you can start to see how a very non-optimal build can be viable in end-game content. The whole point of getting away from the cookie cutter mentality is finding these unique and extremely different builds that *CAN* be just as viable in end game content. maybe they aren't the absolutely best, most optimized spec, but really, if thats what you want, then cookie cutter builds are exactly what you're gonna end up with, because there is only 1 absolute best build for a particular purpose, and once that gets found, those that want/need the "very best" will just copy the existing build. I find it far more fun to make a build based on a concept and see just how well it turns out. Most of the time, it doesn't last long, but sometimes you can end up really surprised.
Last thing just going on making my agruement about hp into ac and all that other things you do is ridiculous. I was talking Hp not making all toons the same. Keep on my thoughts not what you read into it. I never would make the classes identical, but talking option away from people is never good. Beside my caster will have 700 to 800hp when done with him. Why simple things hit for 200 plus on epic elite. Ac takes way to much gear and takes away from my ablity to fit in my caster items. So my caster will not be a drow, taking that option away from me, it sad in my veiw. Though sure some wizards that drow will figure out get that many hp, but I am a sorc, that does not play WF because Easy button. Do I ask them to nerf hmm no, I just challenge myself.
You're taking that option away from yourself. Your caster certainly can be a drow, but that involves a trade-off in that it reduces your CON, and thus, your HP. Thats a trade you're not willing to make, which is fine, but that doesn't mean that the rules should just be different. By that mentality why not just change the Drow race to *NOT* have the -2 CON? I mean, that would allow a lot more people to playt dorw, since a lot of people stay way from it because of the lowered CON, right?
I'm sure that if we made such a small concession as that it wouldn't make the game more cookie cutter, after all, its not like *most* casters would jump on being drow for the bonus to INT & CHA... After all, divine casters really care more about WIS anyway. It isn't about taking options away, it's about there being practical consequences (positive as well as negative) to each option. A Drow takes -2 CON at creation, so they probably won't be in a good position at level 21 (or 24) to take epic toughness. If the build you're putting together absolutely must have that feat, maybe you can make it work without gimping the character too bad, if not, either pick a different race or change your build so it doesn't need that feat. Its just my $0.02, but Drow is virtually never the optimal race for a build anyhow... (and no, that doesn't stop me from using them in my builds)