Tony Vargas
Member

...hen but superficially. Nature will prevail and keep things as they were meant to be, provided the "wheel" surrounding the hub of nature does not become unbalanced due to the work of unnatural forces - such as human and other intelligent creatures interfering with what is meant to be. So true neutral, in AD&D, is a "naturalistic ethos" which holds that all is as it is meant to be, with each facet of life contributing to that overall balance - provided that humans and their ilk don't disturb the balance through their attempts to change things (which cannot have any long-lasting effect). This is not unaligned, but more like the outlook of some realworld philosophies and religions - stoicism, for instance - and also some political movements - eg Burkean conservatism. The Han Solo-type scoundrel, who in 4e is unaligned and in OD&D or B/X is neutral, in AD&D I think is chaotic neutral: they prioritise their own self-realisation over other-regarding moral obligations. EDIT: I see Tony Vargas made a similar point to this upthread.

I think it's a good idea to think about medieval archetypes that may not be well served by the current class selection, but ... ...you need a day or two to let us know what those might be? ;) PPP - Fighter PPM - Tomb Raider, Adventuring Scholar, Horseman, Monk PPS - Cleric (Paladin) MMM - Scholar, MMP - Rogue, Merchants and Swashbucklers MMS - Priest SSS - Scorcerer SSP - Warlock SSM - Wizard PMS - Bard The "adventuring" is a good distinction on the PPM scholar. It implies that a character, or adventuring, has a required Physical component to it. Tomb Raider is a good choice, but is there a medieval equivalent? Also interesting to see rogues and merchants in the same category. Does the handling of large quantities of money constitute a class characteristic? Are merchants less physically oriented than rogues, or is that not a necessary distinction? Tony Vargas dropped the Mastermind into the MMM slot, which has a definite villain-flavor to it. Scholar has no flavor, except for a hint of Harry Potter. And sages...are just old. Aren't they? I was looking at putting Ranger as I did because I view that as a Fighter who earned his place through being a very skilled fighter. (M being more a focus on skills and learned tricks, application of the brain if you will, P being a kick ass fighter/combatant, application of the body, S being a how natural magic is to them, as I view it) This has me thinking that there could be three base classes - warrior, mage, thief - and each one has two varieties based on which direction it takes to differ from the base. The Skyrim standing stones might be too much of a pigeon hole though, but warrior/fighter and mage/wizard seem pretty obvious. Poet doesn't sound like a good class, but as a person who uses his mind to get what he needs, it fills the gap between warrior and mage pretty well. Aristocrat co...

Or Martial Controllers whichever thread this is AbdulAlhazred and Tony Vargas

LOL to both of you @Tony Vargas and @AbdulAlhazred.. gimme some epic practices ;)

Tony Vargas Heh, I would never have guessed you were a Skinnerian who hated the ‘black box’. I get the impression that you feel that something that you want is being taken away from you, by those who say it is for the sake of immersion. What would that be?

Tony Vargas I have a sense of what you are looking for in a warlord class from various discussions. But have you designed your own class, with all of the features that you want to see? I would love to have a look at if you did.

Tony Vargas, I think your post was mostly tongue-in-cheek, but where I thought I had something worthwhile to say in response I've said it: I think the issue is that the system implies qualities of the world, so if the system seems silly, the world will seem silly. Well, the systems that Lanefan is talking about include Burning Wheel, Cortex+ Heroic, HeroWars/Quest, a certain approach to 4e, etc. Which of those is supposed to imply a silly world? It's a reward for showing up, thenIn default 4e, showing up doesn't as such earn XP. Playing the game (by engaging encounters, realising quests, and - per the rule in DMG2 - meaningfully engaging the non-encounter fiction) accures XP at a rate of (roughly) 4 level-equivalent monster's worth per hour. Or approximately 3-4 sessions per level. I think one of the most remarkable things about 4e is how, on the surface, it retains so many D&D mecahnical tropes (hp, XP, attack rolls, magic items, and the like) but uses them to build a game which is ...

I've tried all the other restaurants I think we both know that Tony Vargas will say to this astounding claim! ;)

@Tony Vargas I have a solution for scaling at will warlord powers while still providing short rest or daily healing. I don't have a solution for scaling long rest ones at all. Level 1 looks a little convoluted as I'll have to add the long rest powers in but also add something else just about as strong as them but not capable of producing healing. Level 3 looks even worse as I would potentially need to go from 2 uses to 6 uses (or maybe more). Level 5 even with extra attack you likely need to greatly upgrade your uses or their effects at this level. (probably effects would be best which would be doable) I guess I may have just answered the question for you. It looks adequate and not too bad when compared to the cleric or anything else.

Tony Vargas Since your direction is so strongly pushing to have the Warlord's Core ability be daily perhaps you can give us a preview of how to capture that ability and any others needed at level 1 while still keeping the potential healing power level in line with a cleric or bard and having as much potential combat power as those classes? How would you accomplish that? Further, how would you plan on scaling the Warlord Core ability in the level 1-5 range to ensure the warlord has enough uses and power in his core ability to keep up in power with classes like the cleric and bard?

...l, the Warlord becomes a long-range supporter, and has freedom to work from pretty much anywhere in the battlefield. Given the concept of the Warlord, Int is pretty much a required stat. Its complementary stat must be Dex, Con, or Wis (the 'big three' defense stats). Every single class has proficiency in one of the 'big three', and one of the other three; never two of the same type. If Int is a given, then the complementary stat must pretty much be Con. This benefits concentration checks, assuming concentration becomes a component, as well as the frontliner Icon/Vanguard types. Even if you discount the Tactical Focus and concentration, I have a hard time seeing the Warlord fitting a Dex or Wis proficiency. So an Int/Con support class. Of course, there are various concepts that go with it that draw on all of the other four stats. Str on the vanguard, Chr for inspiration, Dex for the ranged version, or Wis for the diplomatic or guerilla version. It's a very MAD class. Tony Vargas came up with a lot of subclass concepts. My own approach is much more concise. Icon - Inspirational focal point. Shonen hero (or protected princess). Minimum tactics, maximum guts (or luck). Commander - Focuses on tactics that can be executed by allies. Mix of working to gain advantage, and reactions. Strategist - Plots and schemes and creates elaborate strategems. Anticipates the enemy and preemptively counters. Defender - Tactician shaping the battlefield. Affects movement, hindering the enemy, and traps. Tony's Bravura, Inspiring, Hector, and Icon all wrap together into the same general concept (be a focus, inspire to heal, temp hp), which I call Icon. Protector might also fall in here. His Tactical/Commander, Combat Veteran, and Artillerist all fall under what I have as Commander, though I like the extra flavor he added about the cynical world view. His Resourceful and Skirmisher both roughly map to my Defender. His Insightful/Watcher is my Strategist....

Tony Vargas, Healing is an ability that Mearls believes should be gated behind some kind resource taking ability that you can run out of. I think most of us agree with mearls on that. This issue is that adding in a healing ability like that ends up constraining design a lot. Is it independent of our other warlord abilities or does it use a shared mechanic with them? If it's independent then we have to track the healings power and reduce the other warlordy stuff appropriately If they share a mechanic then suddenly you are requiring that mechanic to be gated behind some kind of spell slot or superiority dice or ki style mechanic. None of those abilities equal to the heal can then be at will, whereas there's many abilities a warlord could do at will that are just as strong as healing but because of how healing works, at will healing is bad. Basically, be aware of how your demands for core class healing will constrain other warlord mechanics.

So the concept as described in the two hours of video does cut it? For me, the Happy Fun warlord comes close to meeting all the criteria of the warlord. Close enough that it seems to me, it might work. So I am enthusiastic. Heh, but the truth is, to me, Tony Vargas pretty much personifies the warlord fan. If he is happy, I will rest easy about the warlord tradition. The reason why care about the warlord is, it opens up viable nonmagical options for D&D, that are essential to a DM for worldbuilding. Plus, if the warlord turns out cool, as Happy Fun suggests it will, I would love to play it as a player.

Tony Vargas well a Knight in full plate could fight 20 unarmored / lightly armored People at once without much Problems.

...defense, or maybe recognizing the opponent's fighting style, and knowing how to counter it, etc. Mostly it just rewards the fighter for not dumping Int, because he's supposed to be smart. The Inspiring/Insightful Heal/Damage thing will need more mechanics behind it to really evaluate. This is the bit that's most strongly tied to the available dice pool. Maybe give a few temp hit points before the fight starts, or urge the paladin to keep fighting when he's just about to fall over. On the other side, it might grant damage boosts, though I'm rather unsure in how that might be applied that isn't in conflict with the other ways of boosting damage that the Cunning Plan offers. ~~~ Overall, I'm already very much liking the design. It provides an easy hook to readily expand its minor cantrip-level abilities, and even spell-level abilities, and it maintains the essence of "flavor before mechanics" design. Even in this incomplete state, I'm very much interested in playing it. Tony Vargas provided this list of 4E Warlord builds earlier in the thread: Tactical - a canny warlord, who excels at devising & coordinating cunning plans. This is the one that Mearls was talking about in the podcast as if it were the whole class, so, in 5e would use INT and 'Gambits' that map, vaguely, to spells in the way Mearls went into, only, to do it 'right,' it'd map more to the casting of Druid or Wizard than an EK. It would emphasize 'Tactical Gambits' in the same sense that an Evoker emphasizes blasty spells, an emphasis, being better at it, not in the sense of being unable to use everything else. Inspiring - the original opposite number to the tactical warlord, the inspiring warlord did exactly what it says on the tin, bolstered his allies (hps, both healing &temps and handed out buffs), mainly keyed off CHA. It tended to be less about maneuvering & commanding and more about leading & aiding. In 5e, it would use the same Gambits & Maneuvers as other warlords, but better at the ones...

I chose "Other". I can't possibly determine just from a list of names. What matters is the design space, not the title. So maybe you're assuming they would be similar to classes from previous editions, but I think that's a bad way to go about it. The "design space" I could see exploring: - A more animistic/primitive caster class. Something that encapsulates shaman and witches and witch-doctors. -INT-based, but whereas Wizards are "book learned" these would be more informally schooled, or self-taught. Mechanically I would like to see spell lists that exclude most direct damage spells, especially the flashy nukes, and maybe even make it a half-caster, then make up for it with interesting, subtle support features. The druid could have served this role if they had put the shapeshifting into sub-classes. - Although I detest Warlords, I have been persuaded by Tony Vargas and Bawylie and some others that there's room for a more flexible "martial support class". So I could picture something that is like a fighter but less so (if that makes sense) with more room in the sub-classes to tack on interesting and flavorful abilities. - I've also always wanted a divine magical support class that more resembles a priest from WoW than a cleric from D&D. While you can build such a thing, it's always a bad tradeoff. But this could also be solved with a cleric sub-class that had an ability or abilities that only function when no armor is worn. And that's about it. Looking through the list in the poll I could see almost all of them (if we are envisioning the same thing because, again, the OP just provided titles, not concepts) fitting in as subclasses of existing classes.

Tony Vargas The volley fire ability used to create a wall... reminds me very much of a Warlord

My current horribly verbose Feign Death - maybe @Tony Vargas has affected my designing. 92506

This is exactly how I do it of course. ;-), cannot imagine why. It also works for when my ray of frost is cast on a flyer vs cast on a grounded character... different method. Feet sticking to the ground is significantly different perceptually than wings clumped with ice. Yeah, and MOSTLY this is OK. It can seem a bit forced at times though. I mean think about the 'Ray of Fire' example that Tony Vargas uses: Why does a Ray of Fire cause you to move slower in order to put yourself out, but some other Fire power just does ongoing damage UNTIL you put yourself out (presumably covered by the save ends or the EONT or whatever it is). I'm not saying this doesn't work, but 4e always left me wondering why the same 'narrative' effects get mapped so inconsistently to mechanical effects. Of course I don't think 4e is especially unique in this respect. D&D in general has been fairly ad-hoc. It just seems that 4e, with its rich repertoire of standardized effects, didn't do better. Well, clearly it would have added a whole extra rule to do so. I think maybe there should have been fewer but more interesting 'damage changers', and if effects WERE standardized then those could have been where some more comprehensive approach would be undertaken. In other words you could create a set of powers that exchange damage types and encapsulate the rules (however complex) for changing effects. Then anythin...

...am simply disagreeing with Man in a Funny Hat that there should be no correlation between attention and player roleplaying skill. I think such a correlation is fairly inevitable in player-driven RPGing, and I prefer player-driven RPGing. That's not an argument for player-driven RPGing. It's an argument from player-driven RPGing to the falsity of MitFH's contention. Some of the DM driven style games do a great job of balancing between character options and don't pay any attention to spotlight time. 4e is a great example of the latter, where niche protections are weak, there's little mechanical drive for spotlight time, and player options are keenly balanced against each other. But 4e runs fine without regard to your theory of spotlight time.I don't really follow this. 4e, at least as I've experienced it, defaults to a rather player-driven game (some better-known illustrations: player-authored quests; player wish-lists for one category of "reward"); and I think it illustrates Tony Vargas's idea that balanced player options which allow players to engage the ingame situation together, in mutually reinforcing ways, makes spotlight non-zreo-sum.

On the contrary, if something doesn't come up in the play of the game, it doesn't exist. Sure it does, at least in the mind (or in the notes) of whoever thought it up. The secret door shown on the DM's map that connects rooms 23 and 27 exists in the DM's notes and mind even if the PCs don't find it and thus it never comes up in play. The set of loaded dice my PC carries around in her backpack exist in my notes (i.e. written on the character sheet) and mind even if I never bring them into play or make anyone else aware I have them. 13A is decidedly less a simulation than D&D, which wasn't ever much of a simulation. Besides, even at its most simulationist - 3e - D&D had different rules (NPC classes, for instance) for NPCs.3e's NPC classes were a not-great but still appreciated attempt to solve a very real believability headache that's been around forever: that of how non-adventuring NPCs can mechanically acquire some skills and hit points and luck during their lives.

...but, yeah, Lanefan was prettymuch talking about winding back the clock to early 1e, before there was anything much resembling skills outside the Thief class.The various physical "skills" that model things done in real life, including physical skills (jump, balance, hold breath, etc.) and mental skills (memory, knowledge, etc.) are all just fine and weren't much of a part of 1e at all. It's the interpersonal skills - the ones that replace or short-circuit actual RP at the table - that have to go.

Hands down the best of 'Heroes of _____' series. Better yet, the Elemental Sorcerer from HotEC Possibly the finest RPG supplement of all time. Certainly in the top 10!

Yeah, yeah, imply anyone noting the complexity is a moron. Classy. I said no such thing. Saying that somethibg isn’t that complicated isn’t the same as saying anyone who doesn’t get it is a moron. That’s a really lousy attempt to put words in my mouth. I’m gonna drop this whole side topic. I think I made a point, you addressed something about the way I made my point, and I then clarified. I’m not gonna get drawn into any further semantic quibble with you on this.

It did sell a bit better than D&D a few times, and it's fans made a lot out if that, those particular fans could react badly if PF2 doesn't do well enough (whatever 'enough' might be for them). I doubt they're a huge number or that they'd war against a new/different PF the way they did a new/different D&D. One other factor is development costs, if, like 5e, PF2 keeps it's staff and costs down, it won't need as high sales to be profitable, that could be a reason to adopt some 5e-isms, like slow pace of release, or re-cycling older mechanics. The difference between 5e & PF isn't simplicity, D&D has never been simple, it's varied a little here and there in the nature of its complexity. PF has more content than any single edition of D&D, for instance. While, 5e has drawn together traditional elements of multiple past editions to make it familiar or at least acceptable to fans of the TSR era and 3.5, both, making it easily as complex, mechanically, as any single other edition. The main differ...

And, if you don't have such scenes, you've cut out half the game. That doesn't leave a very large slice of the pie for Exploration...

In 13th Age only PCs get One Unique Thing but the GM is certainly free to make NPCs equally unique if they like. To an extent I think this is a good idea - NPCs should certainly be interesting - but not so interesting that they step on the PCs' toes. 13th Age very much takes the view that the PCs are The Heroes, analogous to the protagonists in fiction.Ah. So kind of the opposite, then, of the small-fish-in-a-big-pond type of PC I prefer. Fair enough. :) Why would a character with no player need to be a special snowflake? It's just there to be a challenge or a help or a source of exposition or whatever, the DM plays it for a bit, then the next one... Because the same rules that apply to PCs need to apply to NPCs, if the game world is to maintain any believability or verisimal...whatever that word is. The special-snowflake bits of any given NPC might never become relevant during its interaction with the PCs, but that doesn't mean those bits shouldn't exist. Lanefan

Yep, that's back to the OP's issue. You can get a lot more exact in modeling your vision of a fictional character in a point-build system than in a class/level system, but you still have to nail down that vision... Yeah, figuring out what the vision is is one thing, but the game system often doesn't cooperate. I do think it's one reason why modern games often have mechanisms for extraordinary success above what is just generated by the dice. Willpower (from oWoD and nWoD), bennies from Savage Worlds, chips from Deadlands, Doom and Momentum from Modiphius games, and so on can help avoid having everything just come down to the dice. I think that goes a long way towards making fictional characters not need quite so maxed out abilities. D&D has had that in different times in the form of Action Points (from Eberron) or some of the human abilities, or Lucky and Inspiration in the current edition, but for the most part it's not really been a big part of D&D.

In 5e, specifically, the DM is Empowered to support or undercut player agency as he sees fit. A conscientious DM might always do the former, a bad one the latter, but a really good one, IMHO, will consistently present the appearance of the former, while judiciously doing the latter when it's best for the campaign & the player experience. I disagree. The presented play procedures are as @Iserth keeps repeating: the DM narrates a scene, the players declare actions, the DM resolves the actions (via mechanics or declaration) and narrates the results. Wash, rinse, repeat. The amount of DM Empowerment is in the first and last parts, not the middle part. The players get the freedom to declare actions however they wish. They may declare impossible actions, to which the DM narrates failure, but the DM shouldn't be choosing player actions. As for deciding what's best for the campaign and the player experience, under what metric is the DM determining this? What means does he use to divine this...

Or two corporations or two AIs, if you want to get all cyberpunk. The setting you've envisioned certainly seems ideal for it. I'm just not sure how to take that story into an RPG neatly, because it's always a party of PCs. I've been toying with the idea of running a "Last Adventurer Standing" D&D game for years, but it never quite gelled for that reason. Well, the world could use "more" (1?) RPGs that are ideal for 1 DM and 1 Player.

Particularly in the subjective sense, and by past experiences and expectations. Something familiar seems more intuitive and simpler than something new, even if, objectively, they're the /same/ thing, viewed from different perspectives. D&D is very complex, but the more you play it, the less you notice that complexity. Similarly, D&D deviates radically from many of it's sources of inspiration, so if you come into it with expectations formed from those same sources, it'll seem less intuitive than if you come to it with expectations shaped by past editions of the same game, or by, say CRPGs or MMOs - or fiction based on them - that cribbed heavily from D&D, themselves. Sure, I agree with that. But honestly, I don't think the addition of the word Chaotic or Lawful really muddies things all that much. My 8 year old self was able to suss it out pretty easily, and I wasn't some kind of prodigy. Your level of concern or knowledge of past editions doesn't change the facts. If you prese...

Maybe 'backsliding' is an unfairly easy thing to hang on a game that set out, explicitly, and continually re-affirmed throughout it's playtest, the goal if evoking the classic game. But, it is certainly going back to the 9-alignment system, and some mechanical impact, from a simpler/more intuitive (CG, LE, CN, LN, & TN having each thrown some folks) one with less mechanical impact. Backsliding has a negative connotation and that is what I was disagreeing with. Whether or not it's more intuitive or simpler will vary by person. 9 alignments is the middle ground between 9 alignments and no alignments? Wouldn't 4.5 be the mid-point. ;P Seriously, though, it's fine to note that alignment has not been returned to nearly the invasive mechanical bugaboo it was in the classic game. Just don't kid anyone 5e 'reduced' that impact, anymore than it nerfed casters relative to the preceding edition. 5e is very much a compromise edition, so for any given horrendous D&Dism it's typically better tha...

Don't see the point of 2 & 3. Why force the complexity of multi-classing on what promises to be a simpler variant? So playing a caster doesn't suck. You seem uninterested in maintaining fairness and balance between your players, but I'm not uninterested. I want to make sure that the guy who chooses to play a caster isn't punished for that choice. If you want to limit casters to cantrips and 1st-2nd level spells, you can either (1) allow casters to keep leveling up but give them something else for it, or (2) just cap the level advancement and have them level up in fighter or rogue instead. My first post (allowing all 1st and 2nd level spells to scale with character level) was an attempt at option 1, and my second post (just capping advancement) was a stab at option 2.

I don't use SCs. Instead, I set objectives in the game that can be met with skills, spells, or just creative role playing and I let the PCs go at it however they choose. As an example, a bandit robbed a merchant near the PCs and they decided to chase him down. In 4E, this would have been an excellent option for a skill challenge. However, PCs might just cast hold person, teleport ahead of the NPC, persuade him to stop with a good threat, etc... Or they might engage in a lengthy chase involving several skill checks. All that makes sense and I use those examples too. :) As I said I'm not locked into the SC, I see it as another tool in the box. SCs were part of a system that generally played best 'above board,' and they share that quality. I'm not necessarily 100% convinced of this as I think it depends on the challenge (and the Rules Compendium allows for both options), but to be honest I know I do not have the experience you have had with the mechanic. A game where the players do not...

Why would it make sense to have a magical ability that you trade a weapon attack now for an extra die later? The fiction is feeling out enemies (making 'probing attacks' if in melee, for instance) and observing the battle to gain tactical insight, obviously. It could also represent 'conditioning' tactics, in which you make a repeated pattern of attacks that the enemy can easily counter, then vary one part of it when they've gotten used to your 'predictability,' creating an opening. That might be a lot more satisfying of an explanation if the character in question didn't also get uses of the same abilities without having to feel out enemies by making probing attacks etc.

Entirely depends on the system. A highly-customizeable build system, like Hero or a more freeform one like FUDGE/Fate, OTOH, lets you build to /your/ vision of the character in question. Sure, you can often do pretty well but fiction characters often have a lot of abilities that make them require very high point totals. Furthermore, the game system may "fight" you to some degree, though nowhere like is the case with a class/level system.

Entirely depends on the system. A class/level system like D&D? Nah, even at it's most customizeable (3.x) or balanced/re-skinnable (4e), it's unlikely to work well - maybe you'll capture the feel of the character at some level, if everything in the campaign comes together, possibly if you squint at it just right. An officially-licensed system purpose-built to simulate a specific property? Maybe, if your vision of it matches that of the guy who wrote it closely enough, and the system's not just some slap-dash thing to make it technically an RPG because the RPG license was available relatively cheaply. A well-researched GURPS worldbook? Again, if your vision is as well-researched and your research led you to the same conclusions. ;) A highly-customizeable build system, like Hero or a more freeform one like FUDGE/Fate, OTOH, lets you build to /your/ vision of the character in question. Sure, I'll generally agree with that. I'm not familiar with the system but I understand they'r...

I seem to recall there being several fairly satisfactory translations of Gandalf (my favorite only missed out on cantrips) these often involving the Shielding swordmage some times the Avenger. Early paragon with level 11 or 13 in most cases for Gandalf the White. I felt both Half-Celestial and Deva captured Maiar, conceptually, better than cleric. And what did Gandalf (or anyone in genre, really) ever do that was at all D&D-Cleric-like?I thought "cleric" because it (i) gives ritual magic, and (ii) gives melee capability (in STR form), and (iii) gives the power to rouse allies' spirits by speaking a gentle word of encouragement (Healing Word), and (iv) gives the power to drive back the Nazgul (Turn Undead). I though multi-class wizard to get access to Scorching Burst as an encounter power. Aside from that Gandalf is a DMNPC argument.I know it's common, in discussions of LotR from a RPG perspective, to frame Gandalf as a NPC or DMPC. But I think it's fruitful to actually think of him as a...

The 'balance' is likely to be more in a 'right spell for the job,' way. Wish lets you do anything less powerful than a 9th level spell, the other 9th level spells each do their thing. Power Word Kill's thing is that it's a Power Word. Which used to count for something when short casting times (theoretically, the exact mechanics were iffy) made a big difference. That shifts the balance consideration from "is character A able to pwn character B" to "does having character A in the group tend to obviate the contributions of character B to the group" It's not as big a shift as it sounds. 'Spotlight' balance is still important in 5e whether it's because you're all grandstanding rivals or because you're all trying to make meaningful contributions to your success as a team. Yeah, spotlighting has never really been a thing in our games. Don’t know why. My players are happy to be a participating spectator if they are killed or otherwise disabled (actually generally insist on it unless there’s a g...

If there were more limitations to casting, in the first place, there could be more ways to illustrate the ease of casting a spell of but a single word. I do miss the constraints on spell casting. The Mage Slayer feat can make life tricky but.... Even spell most components can be hand waved away with a spell focus.