Talk:3.5e Flaws

Zebra Sortable

So, I recently switched the sortable table to a zebra sortable table... not realizing that apparently none of the other homebrew sortable tables are set to this. The question I ask is: Should zhey be zet to zebra zortable, er, zebra sortable? I tend to like the look of the zebra lists better, especially when there are several columns of information per article entry. Anybody else got a preference on this. --Ganteka Future (talk) 19:51, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Foxwarrior has pointed out to me that, unfortunately, when sorting, the colors get all garbled. Z'alas, poor zebras. --Ganteka Future (talk) 01:10, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Balance Point

I see a lot of flaws being rated with the express topic of 'nyuhnyuh this isn't worth a feat', and while it may very well be true, it's quite annoying, since what constitutes what a feat is worth is its balance point.

Therefore, I suggest Flaws should get their own balance point that determines the maximum balance point of the bonus feat you get in return. --Sulacu (talk) 11:47, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

A balance point for its overall worth seems fair, though I don't see the need to codify "Only High feats can get High feats". Flaws by their optional nature already go to the "pass DM mustard" requirement, so it's not like a feat where you can take it and the core rules support you. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 12:24, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Well, the balance point is more guideline than code for classes, feats, spells and the like. Why can't it be the same for a flaw? Though, I suppose it would be inclusive of the feat gained. --Sulacu (talk) 12:25, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

I like this idea, but don't we simply trade one argument for basically the same argument in a narrower focus? Doesn't the argument simply shift to "this H flaw isn't worth H feat?" OTOH, what I just said feels like a more constructive argument to have than just the general "not worth a feat, period" argument. --Spanambula (talk) 12:27, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

The idea would be to enable the mixing and matching of feats with flaws more easily. If flaws get a balance point, that narrows down the search, and if people feel a particular flaw isn't worth a feat, the balance point can simply be altered to make up for it. Even the least substantial flaws are generally offset quite nicely by a Low balance feat, after all. It's not like it needs to be set in stone. --Sulacu (talk) 12:37, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

I am not looking forward to the inverse of that discussion, that a flaw is insufficiently punishing to be worth a VH feat. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 16:17, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

After thinking about this some more, I'm not sure I even agree with the premise. "There are enough weak penalties to be worth tagging everything as stronger or weaker" has not been sufficiently proven to me, and Eiji's suggestion that we shouldn't try to correlate X balance flaws with X balance feats is already flying right over people discussing this. Balance tagging in other things leads to similar correlations, and this doesn't seem any different. Gan's Unskill Focus (3.5e Flaw) is already doing this with it's special line "A Low Balance feat for which you meet the prereqs", and that seems like the sort of design that we open up with complete balance tagging. So if you don't love that flaw, you probably shouldn't be considering this sort of move (Full Disclosure - I'm still pretty mixed on that flaw).

There's other problems with this proposal. Flaws are level 1 things and offer up level 1 things in return. It's easy to forget that the balance categories are much more compressed at level 1 than level 10 (because Monks can contribute at 1 by just being present), which means that there is less room for wildly divergent level 1 things than level 10 or 20 things. I can't even imagine what I would consider a VH flaw or an H flaw that isn't also an M flaw. There are no guidelines for these things, and that would need to be done up before any sort of real balance assignments could be done. So if you're on the tagging side of this argument, I'm going to ask you to go through the UA flaws and pull a few examples for each of the categories (if there aren't any examples there feel free to go to homebrew, but WotC book published take priority). Balance talks need everyone on the same page for the discussion, and that's how it starts. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 01:20, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

I do not think this is too problematic, flaws may be level 1 thing but so is the feat (you must qualify for it after all). --Leziad (talk) 01:43, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Then guideline it up Leziad. We'll need them anyway if it moves forward. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 02:22, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't see where I said we should do it. I was just tackling the particular issue you had. I don't think we should add balance point to flaw personally. I think we should have special rating guidelines for flaws, similar to our rating guideline with variant rules. --Leziad (talk) 02:37, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

My mistake, sorry. Guidelines are my paragraph 2 concern with it though, and their generation doesn't get at paragraph 1 at all. But that isn't your thing, so meh.

Why do you think flaws need alternate ratings guidelines? Flaws aren't modifying existing game frameworks, they're slotting into an existing framework. UA even has guidelines for creating new ones that you can compare against if you want. I don't why an alternate guideline would be appropriate because of that, or what those guidelines would be. Can you expand a bit if you're serious about getting that changed? - Tarkisflux ^Talk 03:28, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

If a feat don't benefits your character you typically don't take it, this is a given. However flaws flip that on it head, it completely possible (and even I believe encouraged by UA) to take flaws that don't affect your character at all. This make rating them very tricky and I saw many many flaws being downrated because they don't affect a type of character. It is in fact impossible to design a flaw that will affect everyone equally, much like it impossible (not really impossible in either case, but very hard) to design feats that benefits all character equally. Additionally you have stuff like scaling feats which are clearly worth more than a flaw. You have VH, H, M and L material laying around.

I believe we should rate flaw in relation to what they were made for, kinda sorta like variant rules. Trying to encompass all classes and archetype in our design create many problem and overall impact the overall qualities of wiki flaws. If I make a flaw that cause you to drop the items you hold and someone downrate it because it does not penalize psions, there nothing I can do about it. Does this rating help our visitors at all when they look for flaw? Is it well designed for my fighter? Is this wild magic flaw too harsh for my wizard? We can't rate flaw like we rate other material. Sorry for the wonky grammar, I didn't had much sleep in a while, I hope I can get my point across. --Leziad (talk) 03:49, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

→Reverted indentation to one colon

Point is clear, but I think you're misremembering the UA guidelines for new flaws. See item 3 here about making them apply regardless of class or role, so that people don't just select around them. Accepting that as Very Hard (TM) / impossible and just not worrying about it is deviating from actual published guidelines (in the rare case when we actually have them even), and I want to avoid that if possible. The point about making the ratings relevant is potentially compelling though, and something I need to think more about. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 04:07, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

To be fair I haven't wrote this section in a while, my point is that making all flaws all-encompassing will hurt the overall quality of the articles and downrating a flaw because it does not apply to some (minor) archetype isn't helpful at all. --Leziad (talk) 04:47, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Flaw Grants

After some poking, I got the table and template to recognize the type of bonus feat granted by a flaw. You can now sort by this property. Eiji-kun (talk) 06:18, 4 February 2017 (MST)

I'm not sure how much I like the "grants a feat of X balance range or lower" thing, since there are quite a few H or even VH prestige classes or feats that have prerequisites including L or M feats. Since those feats tend to have less "big" weaknesses, yet still enables higher-balance builds, it feels a bit off. Thoughts? --Ghostwheel (talk) 06:36, 4 February 2017 (MST)

Alright, let's see if I can address this or at least add a few talking points to get this going and delve deeper. To start, let's establish that "this feat counts as X for the purpose of prerequisites" sorts of feats exist. They're partway to make meeting prerequisites smoother and partway because a lot of prerequisite feats are Low or Moderate often, especially in earlier published material for Low or Moderate classes, and that's fine and good and whatever. If your High or Very High class has Low or Moderate feats as a prerequisite... that's potentially already a failure of design in a sort of "pay early, benefit later" gating for the class, throwing off a character's balance a bit, where a DM might compensate with something like gear that they'll still have later when (theoretically) the class catches them back up, as a potential example. Sometimes, characters only really need a little boost or something for flavor reasons, so they'll want a Low or Moderate feat in a High or Very High game, and obviously that's less optimal normally, but also sticking them with a crippling Very High flaw for a Low feat has the opposite effect of unbalancing a character in the other direction, and that's crap design too. So, if you're going to force someone to need a sub-optimal choice, saddling them with an extreme penalty just so they can build the character they want is basically wrong. That all said, we've been testing these sorts of things out and it has been working rather well, actually (granted, all the players involved are experienced). I don't even really like the flaw system, either. I lost my train of thought, so I guess that's it for now. --Ganteka Future (talk) 13:38, 4 February 2017 (MST)