D&D 5E Legends & Lore Article 4/1/14 (Fighter Maneuvers)

[Wulfgar76]

Players became completely arbitrary on which rules they would houserule without issue to make them work the way they wanted, and which ones they decided they HAD to play as written down in the book... all the while complaining that the rule was stupid.

"By the book it says I can trip an ooze? Well, I guess I'm tripping that ooze EVEN THOUGH IT'S COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS AND HOW COULD ANYONE LIKE THIS DAMN GAME AND IT'S STUPID STUPID STUPID!!!

Oh, and Eladrin don't exist in my game... they're just High Elves."

I'll tell you what happened:

An imperfect simulation of reality became a perfect simulation of absurdity.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Thats what you get by making the system more gameist. In such a system the rules as written count and not common sense.

The Rules As Written have never counted. Ever. Regardless of edition. People change rules they don't like whenever it matters to them. And the only time its an issue is when a person is already predisposed to not liking a game as much as another one... and thus "being stuck playing RAW" is just an additional reason for them to justify not liking it. As though any of the rest of us actually give a rat's ass that the person doesn't like it.

 

[Wulfgar76]

Thats what you get by making the system more gameist. In such a system the rules as written count and not common sense. After all, when so many rules are written in such a way that they violate common sense in favor of a tight gameist framework, why should you apply common sense now?

"Hello, I am the 3e spiked chain trip specialist. I'd like to have a word with you about common sense."

 

[Derren]

The Rules As Written have never counted. Ever. Regardless of edition. People change rules they don't like whenever it matters to them. And the only time its an issue is when a person is already predisposed to not liking a game as much as another one... and thus "being stuck playing RAW" is just an additional reason for them to justify not liking it. As though any of the rest of us actually give a rat's ass that the person doesn't like it.

And yet, the more the rules themselves violate common sense and instead present themselves as a gamist tabletop game the less are players inclined to change rules because of common sense.
Trip is only seen as a other status effect, nothing more. And while in a more simulationist system players would never even get the idea to try to trip a huge giant without some plan and support in gamist systems players look at their power list, see that it applies the trip condition on hit and expect it to work.

Thats similar to a discussion I witnessed where the question was if a power which stunns a creature by making it believe it is falling down a cliff would work on creatures that can fly. It again came down to simulationists (won't work as a flying creature is not bothered by that) versus gameist (the power says so without restriction) interpretation.

 

[DEFCON 1]

And yet, the more the rules themselves violate common sense and instead present themselves as a gamist tabletop game the less are players inclined to change rules because of common sense.
Trip is only seen as a other status effect, nothing more. And while in a more simulationist system players would never even get the idea to try to trip a huge giant without some plan and support in gamist systems players look at their power list, see that it applies the trip condition on hit and expect it to work.

Thats similar to a discussion I witnessed where the question was if a power which stunns a creature by making it believe it is falling down a cliff would work on creatures that can fly. It again came down to simulationists (won't work as a flying creature is not bothered by that) versus gameist (the power says so without restriction) interpretation.

And I presume then, that your real point is that you're a simulationist rather than a gamist? Good for you. Hope that's working for ya!

 

[Derren]

And I presume then, that your real point is that you're a simulationist rather than a gamist? Good for you. Hope that's working for ya!

No, the real point is that when you write a rules system which does not even try to simulate reality in favor of a gameist combat system it should not come as surprise that the players expect things to work according to gameist expectations, including tripping oozes, instead of simulationist common sense.

 

[Ahnehnois]

And I presume then, that your real point is that you're a simulationist rather than a gamist?

Aren't we all?

 

[I'm A Banana]

The Rules As Written have never counted. Ever. Regardless of edition. People change rules they don't like whenever it matters to them. And the only time its an issue is when a person is already predisposed to not liking a game as much as another one... and thus "being stuck playing RAW" is just an additional reason for them to justify not liking it. As though any of the rest of us actually give a rat's ass that the person doesn't like it.

I dunno, man, that seems to me a little like saying that genetics never mattered. People change, the environment has enormous influence, and the expression of genes is not the same in all people. But you can have genes that predispose you to some pretty awful stuff -- it matters what the fundamentals do.

Tryin' something other than the Generic Food Metaphor out here, but you can obviously see it applying to food, too.

 

[Klaus]

There's a continuum, right? You can even see it within 4e to a certain degree.

Yes, like I said, every system has that, and 4e is no exception.

If you want to play a vampire in 4e, there's a bunch of different ways to do it, and though there might be some mechanical quibbles, all of them basically deliver that experience of playing a vampire (in slightly different ways).

And I'm right there with ya, I love these redundancies. And I agree that DDN/5e is looking to be versatile enough to cover a wide range of encounters and builds. I'm eager to see the 5e DMG and MM, specially for the encounter-building advice and tools.

 

[Remathilis]

I think this points out how 4e made assumptions that weren't born out in practice, though: It assumed that every combat was something you wanted to spend a significant amount of time doing. If you didn't want to spend a lot of time on a fight, you needed to use some very specific tools to make that come about (such as minions), and those tools might have had their own problems (such as making you buy into the minion concept in order to run a short combat).

That's as it should be, IMO. No special rules or modifications needed. If you plunk down a level 1 human thief in an alley with a level 1 human fighter, that combat will not take 5+ rounds.

This.

Tide of Iron just highlighted the problems of the above scenario, it didn't create them. What created them was 4E's extraordinarily low damage-to-hit-point ratio, which came from 4E's decision to focus on big set-piece battles to the exclusion of all other combat scenarios..

Also this.

Sigh.

1) You don't have to use the push. Forced movement is almost always optional. You use it when you can gain something from it - like push the guy into a flanked position, of into a brazier, or over a drop, or...

2) A brute monster (max HP) against a PC armed with nothing but a fruit knife (or dagger) is just asking for a long fight. Why do that if you aren't set up for a long fight?

3) What was the "mugger" doing in all this? MBA (repeat)? Didn't they have anything interesting to do?

4) Such a long fight and no one else (Watch, etc.) turned up?

Seem to me to be plenty of things wrong, there - but the system wasn't really one of them.

1. As you said later; in PHB1 you did. I mean, as I said before he could just MBA or Cleave to no effect, but in any case isn't he limited to Attack + push/no push?

2. I wasn't the DM. (I was the wizard in the inn). I actually don't recall WHY the PC didn't have his weapon (I think he went out drinking, as dwarves are prone to do). Similarly, we were fairly new to the system and the DM probably thought a level 1 thug was a decent challenge for a level 1 fighter. Similarly, he probably didn't set up an elaborate combat arena since he assumed the fight would be over in a few rounds. Draw a quick square on the mat, set two minis, and roll for initiative. That's how it worked in 2e, and in 3e, so we assumed it work the same in 4e.

3. I don't recall. The DM didn't call out his attack name "Bashing STRIKE!" However, I did dust off my Monster Manual just now and saw the Level 2 skirmisher "Human Bandit" which DOES IN FACT only have an encounter power and two basic attacks. I would not be surprised if the DM didn't use that as a template. (I might also be wrong on the brute part now that I look at the MM)

4. 6 second round x 10-12 rounds = 1 minute. How quick does the watch get down a dark alley near a tavern in the bad side of town? Not that quickly.

I mentioned it to discuss how spamming a single "at will maneuver" seemed silly. However, Dansuul and KM have kinda pointed out its not 4e's tactical system that was the culprit, it was the grindy nature of early 4e combat. Sure, there were some novice mistakes (such as the PC going unarmed; or using a fairly boring room with neither of them really taking advantage of any possible terrain ideas) so I hope Next allows such combats to go as smooth as they would in earlier games again.