Necratoid Wrote:Slayers is epic level DnD characters wandering around... its the literal concept behind it.
Umm... is that canonical? Because if so, they did a really bad job of it; I can't think of a single thing in slayers that actually follows D&D mechanics - and I don't think 2e had such thing as "epic level characters" the level caps were rock solid and topped at 20. Maybe under 1st edition, I recall there were High Level and Immortals expansions, including one that declared that the official way to win D&D was to reach the max level (36th, IIRC) as a mortal, then reach the top Immortal divine rank, then be reincarnated as a mortal again. Even so... the creatures are nothing like D&D, the spells are nothing like D&D, they cast whichever spell they want when it's appropriate.... did 1e have something like 3e Sorcerers? Even then, the Slayers magicians are too good at physical combat to be operating under D&D rules. Certainly, there's no city-buster combat spells. Record of Lodoss Wars, now there's a D&D show, but pretty much everyone knows that, as it's incredibly obvious when you watch.
Even if it's true the fact that a D&D character has to be at epic levels to pull off the kind of things that happen in the first episode of an adventure anime is only proving my point that it is a poor systemic match for the kind of game I want to play. Couple that with how long it takes to get to such levles, and I'm sure you cans ee why "Sure, I'm playing a gimp now, but just wit till he hits Lv30! With the finished build, he'll be so awesome!" just isn't a satisfying statement. And yes, I know it's possible to exploit various rule combinations, like the 6th level Kobold with effectively infinite stats, HD, and every Feat, Extarordinary, Spell-Like, Psi-Like, or Supernatural ability useable at will (google "Pun-pun" for the method) but if you have to exploit rule gaps and logic loops to make a strong character, that's again, saying bad things about the rules.
As for the various tales of gaming woe... that sounds a lot like dice getting in the way of the game to me. If I was running those sessions, you can bet I'd have been fudging in the party's favor rather than let a fluke string of bad rolls repeatedly kill them off. Likewise, letting a player build a character who turns out to have hhis cool abilities useless because the circumstances where they apply never comes up is just a putz move - justified perhaps if you tell the players you plan to run a low-magic fantasy game and the player insists on putting everything into firearms, driving, and computer skills and writes a background saying he was just cornered by the apocalyptic zombie horde before falling into a random portal, thereby getting stuck in a world with no ammunition factories or automobiles, and no electricity let alone computers - though now that I write that my evul-brane wants to make the concept into something that would work - but as long as the point-buy character fits with the rough theme of the campaign, making the challenges fit the players is the whole point of HAVING a GM in the first place. Otherwise you might as well just watch a movie or read a book, becasue the plot isn't going to adapt to your actions any more than they would.
Reading this over it sounds horribly confrontational and abrupt, but I've noted before that you (Necratoid) seem to come at things from the exact opposite direction I do; which makes argument perhaps inevitable but highly valuable all the same for the ability to see "the back of my own head" so to speak in trying to follow your logic, and "see the tip of my nose" as I try to quantify and lay out my own. (At which I still feel like I've failed, since there's still just something I can't identify that screams "No! No! No! Not right!" at me when tyring to work in D&D rules) Of course, this is the internet, so obviously anyone who disagrees with me is wrong and bad and unworthy (yes, I'm kidding!) no matter what logic or anecdotes or bare facts say.
- CD
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"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows