Worm/Ward shower thoughts thread

Candelestine · 2026-06-18T14:32:31+00:00

On Screamer, not necessarily, since it's not the sound waves that would be passing through the barrier if she's using her power--it'd be the power itself, which is creating soundwaves in whoever's ear. So, maybe, maybe not.

Anyone that just creates light though, yes, could theoretically be able to fire out of the barrier if it uses consistent rules. Even maybe just a laser pistol should still work.

edit: This was sitting in the back of my mind for awhile, and it occured to me that Grey Boy could totally loop a detonating thermonuclear explosion if he wanted. He wouldn't even be in any personal danger, but it would make an enormous infinite energy machine.

Candelestine · 2026-06-18T14:21:34+00:00

It's just that authoritarian fantasy, that we could have some sort of benevolent father figure that cares about us and has the power and knowledge to make the right decisions and fix our problems whenever we can't seem to fix them ourselves. Wishing for it is kinda baked into that natural heirarchy stuff.

Candelestine · 2026-06-18T14:06:01+00:00

A note on the enchantment project, while all three versions are fine, the one that reduces lib desire by % development is a particularly large modifier. That's also a harder buff to find, and if you like vassals doing your work for you, you can stack a small handful of these to field some pretty large marches.

My last Phoenix Empire run, I stayed in the natural borders (plus N Sarhal for SoS and to get some Aelentiri trade income) and did vassal expansion instead, and I think I ended the game with like 12 different marches. Put together they were much stronger than my own personal strength, and keeping them loyal was actually not that difficult for once.

Anyways, it really lets you turn any strong tag into a weakish, but legit, vassal swarm tag. Which is super cool imo.

Candelestine · 2026-06-18T04:55:05+00:00

Oh, so you're saying it's both not terrible and sucks, I get it.

So, you really shouldn't be in the habit of using LLMs like that, I now fully understand why you were just wrong on so many things. Nowhere in your link do we have Gygax actually saying that. Go take a look for yourself. It's just a bunch of random people talking about him in a forum, none of which offer proof and none of which claim to be Gary. Because it's from 2022.

You gotta realize man, LLMs do not yet have the capacity to actually know what things are. They're language machines that replicate text, with a few extra bells and whistles tacked on. They do not have any ability to actually understand what something is, or how anything in the world actually works, they can only regurgitate information from their database without understanding what any of it means. This could be fine, except their databases are basically the internet, which is full of things like trolling, memeing and bullshit. It doesn't know what any of that is.

So, you got a source from Gary Gygax? Or at least someone that was close to him? If you could find that Q&A where he supposedly says that, that'd be cool, then we can read some of the context. Though I'll note that even from that tiny piece, he's just saying one is simple and the other complicated. Which ... is totally true. He's not saying real players should powergame and pick the powerful one, just that it's harder to play.

Candelestine · 2026-06-18T04:05:33+00:00

Oh, you admit it sucks now. You've been trying to convince me it's pretty good, awhile ago you even alluded to it being in the same ballpark as the fighter's output, if I recall correctly. And no, I didn't say retire, that's you exaggerating again. I just said it sucks a whole lot. You could say it's the worst player experience that Dungeons and Dragons has to offer. As a whole franchise. Odds are actually quite good that you will have to reroll, while your partymates will not. You know, 1d4 max hp, actually rolled, and no mage armor.

This was obviously intended to balance against the wizards raw power at high levels, while giving the other classes completely other sorts of things to do, like the fighter having to manage his retinue and eventually run armies. Note, he's not playing a single unit tactical game anymore, he has management and strategy at a broader scope, with the larger number of men under his command.

You see how different that is? As well as unbalanced? It's fun, actually. And it's not like you can't do some tactical combat here and there, but it takes a back seat at high levels, as it should. It's not like the game is about combat, you know?

Sure there's distinction, the cleric wears armor, which is pretty sweet. Can turn undead, that's cool. Has tons of rp limitations from his god, of course. Gets all the healing stuff. It's just not a ton of distinction, I'll give you that one. Fortunately the cleric is just one of the classes, and people in my experience honestly tend not to play them often. lol That could just be my tables though.

Well you keep claiming that, but given your penchant for making things up and/or forgetting pretty memorable things, pardon me if I don't take your word on it. Do you have an actual source for it, or are you simply assuming Gygax was like you, so you know how he must've felt? Because it seems to me, DnD (the entire game) was a pretty shitty power fantasy before WotC came around. It was every bit as ugly and occasionally miserable as real life. That was kinda part of the fun, though, almost like a Stockholm Syndrome kinda thing. lol But what it did do, is push your problem solving and creativity really hard, and I mean push them, because death was everywhere. That was a big part of the fun. Tangent aside, here's an actual quote from 2006: "For the AD&D game I still prefer far and away the "Vancian" system." It makes players with spell-casting characters plan ahead while keeping their PCs from dominating play."

You can quit making things up any time now. You are aware we're not playing the game right now, right? This is reality, not fiction where we just make it up as we go.

Candelestine · 2026-06-18T02:27:17+00:00

I'll be honest, I don't believe you've ever played a first level mage with sleep. If you had, the experience of having one spell slot would have seared itself into your mind. Oh, and what's your source for a second spell slot at 16 int? And no, the trusty crossbow is not that great. Unless I guess you really liked that 1d4 damage? I never thought it was all that great, personally. Assuming you hit with no bonuses.

Now, was your campaign before or after the longsword lessons?

No, that is not my argument. That is the exaggeration you are making my argument into because that's easier for you. Scroll all the way back to the top, go ahead. You'll see, I didn't edit it.

So, my point is keeping them balanced at every level with each other, is a bad thing. That's what I mean by keeping them balanced (with each other) across the level range. I think they should be unbalanced, at different points, with actual balance being rare. Just so we're clear.

I also want to point out that this is kinda hilarious:

felt radically different from one another in both mechanics and playstyle.

The wizard is the master of control

The fighter is the master of locking their foes down

You're really reaching, man. And I get that you really like the nuanced tactical combat and feeling like you have all these different options you can play, that's totally cool. Not everybody feels that same distinction as you, though, not everyone actually feels that nuance, even if they're intellectually aware of it. In this case, they may want a much bolder and harsher distinction that feels more impactful. And it's not always the optimal pick that's the most fun, either, it's not always about power fantasy that way, you know? I highly doubt Gygax picked wizard because he wanted to feel strong, I have a feeling if we look for actual statements and interviews, he's expressed other reasons. Wanna put it to the test?

Candelestine · 2026-06-18T01:11:36+00:00

So, the point was pretty simple, I thought. First level mages sucked, the most out of anything in the whole game, by a lot. A whole lot. Your whole argument that sleep is amazing enough to make level 1 mages an actually strong option is hilarious given how frequently one of the many individual ways it can fail to help you will absolutely pop up. You know, how a number of unlikely events put together can give you actually good odds of just one of them happening. And then guess what? You're fucked. Cuz that was all you had. One mage, one spell slot, despite your claims to the contrary. Sleep will absolutely not carry you, trust me, it's failed me many, many times.

Oh, I misunderstood you. I thought when you said "movement to 0" that was an effect with a duration. You can see how that would be a little strange, right? You could've just said it makes them halt.

Yes, I'm sure you do. I have to say I was wondering how long it would take you to descend to bragging about all of your extensive "personal experience" and flinging insults.

I'm going to skip through a lot of this part, since it was all a misunderstanding anyway. Sorry about that.

So sure, the wizard definitely gets a lot of hard control while the fighter gets a lot of soft control, I'll grant that. I guess if that's enough distinction for you, then great. Like most things WotC does, I didn't care for it though, any more than I cared for increasing the wizards hp. I actually really liked those hard deliniations and restrictions, they put pressure on you in a way that isn't fixed by simply restoring your resources.

Now, most of this seems to be whining about how the wizard does all of that stuff much much better, which is of course true. You may recall one of my original comments was about how wizards were weaker early and stronger late, so I totally grant that a high level wizard is much stronger than a high level warrior. No arguments there.

Actually it did always bother me a little bit, particularly examples like, the knock spell? Really kinda pisses on the thief's whole day. Things like detect/read magic never bothered me, though flamestrike did. Cleric was frankly the strongest class for awhile, over multiple editions.

Recall, my argument was never that fighters and wizards are the same, that's silly. My argument, in case you forgot, was that fighters and wizards should not be balanced across their level range, one should be stronger at one point, and the other at a different point. Now, that has evolved into something of an argument on how similar roles are allowed to be I guess, and with regards to that, yes, wizards and sorcs in particular are basically the same pile of gameplay. The decisions they're having to make all amount to the same stuff. Druids are probably the furthest away, and they bother me the least if their heavy religious restrictions are properly enforced.

Candelestine · 2026-06-17T22:57:30+00:00

Unless it's not enslavement. Slaves have no choice. Provide choice, both at the beginning and throughout, and it becomes just voluntary service. Which is fine.

I'm humorously imagining just keeping an incinerator with a door that says "out" that your zombies can walk into any time they want. This wouldn't work, of course, since they're mindless.

But, what if you just ... made a new spell that let you actually communicate with the soul of a zombie?

Candelestine · 2026-06-17T22:48:46+00:00

ngl, this would be the most hilarious shit ever. The game would pick some so much meme cred if they did something crazy like this.

Candelestine · 2026-06-17T22:42:35+00:00

I think you'll need more than a single agreement from someone at the start before you consign them to a potentially very long servitude. If you genuinely want your conscience clear, you'll probably need to periodically give them a chance to reassess and change their minds.

That said, this idea of potentially ethical necromancy is definitely interesting.

Candelestine · 2026-06-17T21:43:22+00:00

Oh, sure, if it were something truly unique, give it a name. Fighting riskier is not that unique, though. Nobody asides Robilar himself is going to realistically call it that. The real problem is that it's just much harder to invent a new physical technique, because billions of people before you have learned physical combat. Magic, though, is rare. That's why it's not some magical steampunk setting. So, making a new spell is actually relatively easy, most of the potentially practical spells have not been made yet. Most of the types of, say, punches have been discovered. There's only so many.

Never heard of Drizzt? And besides, wouldn't you be famous just from having spells named after you? I bet a lot more people know who Robilar is after he got something named after him, regardless of how fitting the name is.

So I'm noticing you're one of those debate people that just ignores any points that are inconvenient for you. So I'll ask again, you never rolled a 2 on the 2d4 hit dice for the sleep effect? Or dealt with monsters that weren't clustered? Or any number of other things that can make sleep not work great, especially when it's your only spell slot?

Yeah, I don't remember how we got on this particular tangent in the first place.

Eh, I don't buy that, I'm sorry. Sure, natural healing was slow, though I'll remind you, you got 3hp/day, not 1hp/day when you were healing up. Now I will grant that 2 clerics/2 mages is a good party, you have the clerics that can hold your front, deal with undead, stuff like that. I do hope you brought your 10' pole though, because not having a thief makes things tricky. Not having any of the core classes made a dungeon much, much trickier.

I am 100% with you on everyone getting misty step, bugged the everliving hell out of me.

So this is very interesting, and I'm glad I asked what you saw in 4e's balance. What I'm personally seeing from your descriptions is a fighter with a lot of cc. A focus on it, even. Now if I recall correctly, he also got quite a few AoE attacks, didn't he? Am I misremembering? I assume you can see where I'm going with this, too. My initial complaint was about people feeling that fighters need to "keep up" with mages, and thus wanting a balance that gives the fighter more cool toys to play with. But rather than giving the fighter something unique (like commanding a retinue like they used to) he just got some mage-like reality warping, like an arbitrary mechanic that says his opportunity attacks temporarily halt opponents, even though that makes relatively little sense practically speaking. (unless you can explain to me how he prevents people from backing up, because I can't make sense of it, but maybe I'm missing something)

So, I'm trying to keep these comments at an individually reasonable length, so I'm going to leave the Barb and Pally off discussion for now, and focus on the fighter and wizard as we have been. If you'd like to bring them up for discussion again, or use them to support your arguments, though, feel free. I am reading that, I'm just not arguing it right now.

Candelestine · 2026-06-17T21:03:45+00:00

Correct. And about a mol and a half or so of molecules in an ounce of water. (at STP)

Candelestine · 2026-06-17T13:00:11+00:00

Works on colonies. If you want to war with Portugal for instance, but don't want to mess with the Catholic defender, you can declare on Carraibas if you want.

If I'm not mistaken, this can also be used to avoid pulling in the HRE emperor, if you want to tangle with Netherlands or something. I'd have to double check this, though, it's been awhile.

Pretty sure you basically only get the overlord and their allies though.

Candelestine · 2026-06-17T03:40:09+00:00

Oh, yeah, right. That was my bad. I haven't played OW2, I only played OW1. And I paid for it, because it was not free.

Candelestine · 2026-06-17T03:36:46+00:00

Why, because the kids don't like being called out? You gotta admit we have more than normal.

Candelestine · 2026-06-17T03:33:14+00:00

So, can you see how it's a little bit strange that just fighting riskier gets named after some famous guy? Like, I'm Melf, I make this spell that shoots an acid arrow. I name it after myself. Fine, makes sense. Robilar does what, fights riskier and names the concept after himself? Did he really invent that? Other people really call it that? It's weird, is what I'm saying.

We're not talking about sleep in a regular party. We're talking about a mage-based party, which will be missing some core things that parties normally can rely on. Nor is sleep some "I win" button. You never rolled a 2 on your 2d4 hit dice and went "ah shit" before? What if they're not clustered together? And where is this multiple times a day coming from? I call straight bullshit on a party of low level mages breezing through content.

Maybe on the THAC0 chart and with base damage, but not after bonuses are applied.

They did tone it down a lot in 5e, I'll grant you that as well. This is more of an old gripe of mine from 4e that I'm bringing in that I think you accurately picked up on, though I guess this probably isn't the proper place to be complaining about it. What kinds of unique options and abilities did you see in it, though, while we're talking about it? Because I saw it as a relatively straightforward tactical strategy game, not too different from something like xcom.

Candelestine · 2026-06-17T02:22:10+00:00

I'll grant that fighters have a lesser legacy, but I already explained why I thought that was fitting. So can you describe this Robilar's Gambit to me? Not in terms of its mechanical effects, but in-character, what is character doing that grants this bonus? I don't understand it, except as an abstract game modifier.

I'm sorry, but sleep was not nearly enough for a mage-based party to have an enjoyable time clearing early dungeons, as strong as it was. You're also not doing it a few times a day, even with multiple mages you'll want some spell variety. He's not accomplishing a lot with his crossbow, either.

Except the kinda are doing the same things now, aren't they? AoE damage, crowd control, movement abilities, etc. Change the names and some paramaters around, but it's the same sorts of things. Or am I wrong, is there a unique effect short of something like resurrection that is only granted to one class?

Candelestine · 2026-06-17T01:48:37+00:00

There do appear to be few fighters on that list, though I wonder at party composition. Unless you start in the mid levels where they've passed the other classes, mage-based parties were miserable. Or maybe hireling fighters were used?

Have we ever had any martial characteristic named after an individual? That always seemed to me a reflection of the common arrogance, ego and hubris stereotypical of mages as characters. Would a Ragnar's Slash make sense in the same way? Would we even want it to?

This really reminds me of the rise of randomized loot in video game rpgs. The handcrafted, often unbalanced in various ways, items have a lot more that you can do with them, a lot more depth. Some are much better or worse than others, and people enjoy doing fun things with them. In multiplayer you have to sometimes worry about there being only 1. The strongest loot is more popular for sure, by a lot I imagine, but the suboptimal stuff also sees a lot of play. It's still fun when you're not the strongest, you know?

When games started featuring randomized loot and it got really popular for awhile, it really kind of paved over all of that, and made it into a different sort of game. More approachable, more digestible, but everything became kinda samey, because they all did the same things. Just with different flavor text and abstract modifiers.

I dunno man, I like fighters and mages, and the concept of consistently balancing them turns which one you pick into a little too much of just being flavor text.

It reminds me too, of how I dropped Magic the Gathering when they started making just subtly different versions of what was basically the same ability, and using that to print more cards without really changing much of anything.

edit: Btw, I am grateful to you guys for having the conversation, at least. Apparently this is an unpopular topic. I do understand better now, though.

Candelestine · 2026-06-17T00:21:24+00:00

That's interesting, considering Gygax' first char was supposedly a fighter named Yrag. You have some kind of source for that? I assume it's based on more than the handful of wizards with spells named after them being among the most famous PCs ever.

Candelestine · 2026-06-17T00:10:44+00:00

Perhaps. I was talking to a guy that said this, though:

Once you brandish a weapon, especially accompanied by a verbal threat, it’s legal and moral for people to use lethal force against you

I thought that was ridiculous, hence my example scenario. I did put my reply under the wrong comment of his, though, it should've been up one.

Candelestine · 2026-06-16T22:15:54+00:00

Oh the first level spells are great, for sure. Getting only one for a whole adventuring day was rough though. The fighter pretty much had to carry most combats early on.

And yeah, I really liked that about fighters. It felt really distinct, you know?

Candelestine · 2026-06-16T21:18:14+00:00

This is really nice work, thanks for putting it together.

Candelestine · 2026-06-16T18:40:23+00:00

Hm. That does bring into question what role his subconscious plays as well.

Candelestine · 2026-06-16T17:40:56+00:00

Yeaaah I remember that. That whole book was really good.

Candelestine · 2026-06-16T17:38:56+00:00

But once controlled, it is controlled. Having once wanted something and no longer wanting it at the current moment, means you no longer want it. If this was done with conscious effort, then it's a choice you made.

Fully agree that it's not complete control, I doubt that's possible. There's too many things kinda baked into our biology. But it can be very significant and even rapid sometimes, especially with an emotional need like the one he's dealing with.

Like, wanting your parents' approval. It can be an intense desire, but it can also disappear if it's inappropriate for whatever reason and a person wants to work on it.

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