D&D 5E Warlord as a Fighter option; Assassin as a Rogue option

[Eldritch_Lord]

What you are proposing is to put layers off checks between martial characters and success. So, your Fighter's Come & Get it would require some sort of bluff check - a skill it's historically been difficult for fighters to be good at, and one using CHA while his attacks use STR - then, to actually hit his enemies, he'll have to make attack rolls. So it's two rolls to get one hit. That's like having an ability that /always has disadvantage/. Except of course, both of those rolls could have disadvantage, in addition.

That's not 'couching it in different language,' that's making it starkly inferior.

I'm proposing nothing of the sort. The reference to 3e Feint was to show an example of a mechanic that implements the effect "trick an enemy into doing something" in a way that players find acceptable and "realistic" because it covers corner cases, integrates existing mechanics, and has an explicit flavor explanation.

5e mechanics are different enough from 3e and 4e mechanics that I didn't want to propose a specific mechanic for a 5e CaGI, but there are several candidates:

• Make a normal attack, but you add your Bluff skill to your attack roll and your target adds his Sense Motive skill to his AC.
• Make a normal attack, but use your Bluff skill in place of your weapon attack bonus.
• Replace your attack roll vs. AC with Bluff vs. Sense Motive.
• Add Cha to your attack roll instead of Str, and the target adds the higher of Dex or Wis.
• Add both Cha and Str to your attack, and the target adds both Dex and Wis

The maneuver will of course be easier or harder to pull off based on the option you choose, and each implies a different flavor (specific training vs. general trickiness, ease of resisting, etc.). In any case, though, the point remains that I'm not suggesting that martial characters have to make more rolls to achieve the same effect, nor am I suggesting that fighters should be more MAD--you may recall that Bluff isn't Cha-only in 5e--I'm suggesting that if you make certain flavor/mechanics assumptions (pushing is a Str check, tricking is a Bluff check) you need to at least pay lip service to adhering to them.

People who think that 4e players don't care about the mesh between mechanics and flavour seem to be ignoring what (at least some of us) are posting.

I don't think that 4e players don't care about mechanic/flavor interactions, I'm saying that 4e players and pre-4e players care about them in a different way.

Let's step back from D&D for a second and look at some other games. GURPS and Mutants and Masterminds are effects-based systems: you gain an ability that says "you make a ball of fire that deals X damage in Y area" and it's up to you to determine whether that's due to casting a fireball spell, throwing an incendiary grenade, igniting the air with your mind, using a flamethrower, or something else. Shadowrun and Exalted are flavor-based systems: you gain an ability that says "you have superhuman reflexes" and the game then determines what having superhuman reflexes lets you do.

If you want to make an elf in an effects-based system, you pick abilities that make you stealthy, keen-eyed, good with bows, etc. and call yourself an elf (though often there are pre-built packages to get you most of the way there). If you want to make an elf in a flavor-based system, you pick the race called "elf" and then see what mechanics that gives you. In the former case, you can flavor things however you want, but only the actual mechanics apply: if your chosen abilities don't include long life, your elf isn't long-lived, even if everyone knows that elves live a long time. In the latter case, you can reflavor things however you want, but the original flavor still applies in some cases: elves don't sleep, so if you reflavor your elf into a tall thin human, that human still doesn't sleep.

Some people like effects-based systems, some people like flavor-based systems, some like both, and some like neither and would prefer something like FATE. Neither approach is objectively better, but mixing styles in a single game or game line or trying to attract effects-based players to a flavor-based system or vice versa won't usually turn out well.

Now let's bring things back to D&D. Pre-4e D&D is more flavor-based: flavor comes first, and you figure out mechanics based on that, which is how we get complicated grapple rules and monks that can talk to plants. 4e D&D is more effects-based: mechanics come first, and you apply flavor based on that, which is how you get skill challenges that don't map single skill checks to single actions and marks that impose penalties with no obvious in-game manifestation. Dedicated 3e players are looking at 4e players and saying "You don't care about flavor! Mind control! Martial dailies! Shout healing!" while dedicated 4e players are looking at 3e players and saying "Your flavor is limited! Alignment! Vancian casting! Physical HP!"

That's where the disconnect is. From your post:

Deception in combat is not like selling someone the Brooklyn Bridge. It's about making the only tenable option this rather than that, and then taking advantage of foreknowledge that the enemy will choose this.

If asked to name a mechanic in any edition that lets you create an opening and tempt your enemies to take it, and then exploit it when they do, you'd probably name something like CaGI or LttS because that's how you see the flavor of those powers. (Forgive me if I've put words in your mouth, I'm just using that as an example.) If I were asked the same thing, I'd probably name something like Karmic Strike: you create an opening (you take -4 to AC), tempt your enemies to take it ("He's easier to hit now, get him!"), and then exploit it when if they do (you get a free AoO).

Likewise, you say:

This is what 4e-style forced movement models (as well as other stuff too, including mind control, physical force, recoiling in fear, etc).

You and other 4e fans look at it as one effect (forced movement) and use the same basic mechanics (namely Push, Pull, and Slide) for different abilities that force movement. I and other pre-4e fans look at it as several different flavors of abilities (mind control, physical force, fear, etc.) and attempt to find mechanics to suit (namely Will saves, Bull Rush checks, and Intimidate checks).

I prefer that mechanics match the given flavor like that, you prefer that flavor matches the given mechanics, and neither approach is better...but if you want mechanics introduced in the more effects-based 4e to be accepted in the more flavor-based 5e that's trying to appeal to fans of the more flavor-based pre-4e editions, you need to "translate" them appropriately. Any 4e mechanics can work in 3e and vice versa as long as you tweak them to fit to the different expectations.

There are a range of mechanical techniques for achieving this. I've explained upthread why, within the scope of the D&D paradigm, you won't achieve it if you eschew metagame mechanics.

There's a difference between metagame mechanics and effects-based mechanics, though. "I use my Bust Through The Wall power; in-game, I smash a hole in the wall with my greathammer and rush through" is effects-based, while "I spend a fate point to add a door to the scene that wasn't there before; in-game, I suddenly notice a door I missed before and rush through it." Players are, at least in my experience, a lot more comfortable with stretching the rules, breaking verisimilitude, or outright retconning things if a resource explicitly says it's an out-of-game resource and you need to change the story to fits its use than if an ability is an in-game ability but it's left open about how exactly it works.

I know several people who both love FATE games and Force and Destiny points in SWSE and love Riddle of Steel and 3e's rules-as-physics-engine approach, but who don't like M&M or 4e, because they're perfectly happy to treat the plot as a collective story and rewrite it with narrative mechanics but find effects-based games too physics-y to treat them as a novel and too metagame-y to treat them as a problem solving exercise. Again, it comes down to figuring out your audience's expectations and designing to them rather than trying to design to two sets of expectations with the same rules.

 

[pemerton]

Pre-4e D&D is more flavor-based: flavor comes first, and you figure out mechanics based on that, which is how we get complicated grapple rules and monks that can talk to plants. 4e D&D is more effects-based: mechanics come first, and you apply flavor based on that

I don't really accept this premise, although you're far from the first person to put it forward.

Come and Get It, in 4e, begins from flavour (or, as I called it upthread, fiction): the fighter is a master of his/her weapon, and is at the centre of the action. And this will be conveyed, in the game, by the fighter being able to pull his/her enemies in adjacent and then whack them down.

Come and Get It is effects-based to this extent: the mechanical resolution doesn't tell you whether or not the enemies closed because they wanted to pile on the fighter, or because the fighter dragged them all in with his/her polearm. But an ordinary D&D attack roll is effects based to the same extent: the mechanical resolution doesn't tell us whether the fighter missed because s/he sucks, or because s/he is awesome but the enemy parried with equal awesomeness (contrast Runquest, which does answer this question via the mechanical process of resolution).

marks that impose penalties with no obvious in-game manifestation.

<snip>

There's a difference between metagame mechanics and effects-based mechanics, though.

Fighter marking is primarily a metagame mechanic - a metagame debuff that gives the GM an incentive to attack the fighter, and which allows the fighter to punish the NPC/monster if it does otherwise.

The effect of this is to make the fighter the centre of the action. (Other fighter features, like combat superiority, further reinforce this - people who try to run past the fighter get stuck there - the fighter is the centre of the action.)

Another example is the paladin at-will Valiant Strike, which grants +1 to hit for each adjacent enemy. This is best analysed as a metagame ability - it gives the player of the paladin a reason to play his/her paladin as valiant - as at the centre of a multitude of foes.

Players are, at least in my experience, a lot more comfortable with stretching the rules, breaking verisimilitude, or outright retconning things if a resource explicitly says it's an out-of-game resource and you need to change the story to fits its use than if an ability is an in-game ability but it's left open about how exactly it works.

It has always been a distinctive feature of D&D that it blurs the distinction between PC and player resources. Is level a metagame device or an ingame one? It's tempting to answer "metagame", until you think about the relationship between name level and stronghold-building, and also the dietary habits of wights. Hit points have combined PC and player elements at least since Gygax's essays in the AD&D rulebooks. And class is a category with both metagame and ingame dimensions.

4e takes this feature of D&D and extends its application. I'm personally rather surprised that it is so contentious, given how ubiquitous it has always been in the game.

If asked to name a mechanic in any edition that lets you create an opening and tempt your enemies to take it, and then exploit it when they do, you'd probably name something like CaGI or LttS because that's how you see the flavor of those powers. (Forgive me if I've put words in your mouth, I'm just using that as an example.) If I were asked the same thing, I'd probably name something like Karmic Strike: you create an opening (you take -4 to AC), tempt your enemies to take it ("He's easier to hit now, get him!"), and then exploit it when if they do (you get a free AoO).

Provided that it's balanced, I don't have any particular objection to a power like the one you describe. (The warlord At-Will Brash Assault resembles Karmic Strike, except that it is an ally who gets to take the free attack, and the warlord also gets to make an attack before providing the opening).

As I said upthread, action economy, forced movement and hit points are the relevant categories. In this case, we're talking action economy.

But that's not the same as Come and Get It - for a start, it makes you likely to be hit - whereas Come and Get It doesn't let the enemy make an attack, let alone at advantage, before they get punished by the fighter.

An ability that requires the player to forfeit an action, in return for a hope that the GM will respond to an incentive (such as reduced AC) in order to trigger out-of-turn actions by the player, seems to me a bad deal and dubious design. It puts the effectivness of the PC into the GM's hands.

You could use a Bluff check instead of GM fiat, of course, but this has its own problems:

You and other 4e fans look at it as one effect (forced movement) and use the same basic mechanics (namely Push, Pull, and Slide) for different abilities that force movement. I and other pre-4e fans look at it as several different flavors of abilities (mind control, physical force, fear, etc.) and attempt to find mechanics to suit (namely Will saves, Bull Rush checks, and Intimidate checks).

This gets back to [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION]'s point, about multiple checks. If the player has to succeed at a Bluff check, and then at a to hit roll, the likelihood of success is reduced.
[MENTION=882]Chris_Nightwing[/MENTION] suggested, upthread, a preference for an attack vs Will first, and then auto-hit against anyone who is tricked in. That is how errata-ed Come and Get It handles it. At my table, however, we play Come and Get It pre-errata style - the movement is auto, and then the attack has to be rolled. This approach reinforces the desired fiction - the fighter is at the centre of the action, surrounded by enemies whom s/he may or may not be beating up.

Come and Get It, played in this way, has an obvious metagame dimension - the player of the fighter gets to dictate the movement of NPCs without that necessarily being determined by the actions of his/her PC, though in many instances of the use of the power a causal narrative of that sort can be introduced easily enough ("I lured them in", "I wrong-footed them in", etc).

I prefer that mechanics match the given flavor like that, you prefer that flavor matches the given mechanics

As I said earlier, I don't accept this characterisation. I prefer mechanics that deliver the fiction that I want. The fiction I want, when playing a heroic fantasy RPG, puts the fighter at the centre of the action; involves valiant paladins; and involves battle captains who can rouse and inspire their allies, and lead them into battle in a way that leaves their enemies no choice but to play out the tactical hand that the battle captain has dealt them.

The only mainstream fantasy RPG I'm familiar with that reliably delivers this fiction is 4e D&D. Strip out the mechanical features, and my prediction is that you'll lose the fiction.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I would *much* rather have seen it expressed as an attack against Will, and if successful they are drawn in and the Fighter hits them automatically.

IIRC, that is exactly how the power works as of the last time it was updated. Rejoice.

Edit: I actually could imagine some abilities that require two checks to hit, and the tradeoff would be a powerful effect or additional damage or affecting many creatures.

Affecting many creatures on a single roll, per creature, is fairly common. However, there are powers in 4e or Essentials that take two rolls, but they typical have a more potent effect, or have a bonus to one of the rolls. The Mage at-will Hypnosis is an example, on a hit vs Will (an easy hit, since Will is the lowest defense of most monsters) the target attacks one of it's allies, with a +4 bonus. Between the ease of hitting will and the large bonus, it's about like a more typical attack in it's success rate.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

That is how errata-ed Come and Get It handles it. At my table, however, we play Come and Get It pre-errata style - the movement is auto, and then the attack has to be rolled. This approach reinforces the desired fiction - the fighter is at the centre of the action, surrounded by enemies whom s/he may or may not be beating up.

Errata for the win. My problem with the way you describe the pre-errata version is that it takes a premise (the fighter should be in the middle of melee with lots of enemies) and finds a way to achieve it that doesn't address why that is the case. If he's luring them in, there's a reason. If you look at another fighter ability - the one that stops people moving past you - that also explains why he ends up surrounded. Marking is similar, it doesn't explain why there's a penalty to hit others, when instead it could have been a bonus to hit the Fighter, since he deliberately lures in attackers so they ignore others.

IIRC, that is exactly how the power works as of the last time it was updated. Rejoice.

Affecting many creatures on a single roll, per creature, is fairly common. However, there are powers in 4e or Essentials that take two rolls, but they typical have a more potent effect, or have a bonus to one of the rolls. The Mage at-will Hypnosis is an example, on a hit vs Will (an easy hit, since Will is the lowest defense of most monsters) the target attacks one of it's allies, with a +4 bonus. Between the ease of hitting will and the large bonus, it's about like a more typical attack in it's success rate.

Errata for the win, again! You make an excellent point: if there are going to be two rolls, for a more powerful effect, adding a bonus to the second is a good way to get the odds right.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Come and Get It, in 4e, begins from flavour (or, as I called it upthread, fiction): the fighter is a master of his/her weapon, and is at the centre of the action. And this will be conveyed, in the game, by the fighter being able to pull his/her enemies in adjacent and then whack them down.

Come and Get It is effects-based to this extent: the mechanical resolution doesn't tell you whether or not the enemies closed because they wanted to pile on the fighter, or because the fighter dragged them all in with his/her polearm. But an ordinary D&D attack roll is effects based to the same extent: the mechanical resolution doesn't tell us whether the fighter missed because s/he sucks, or because s/he is awesome but the enemy parried with equal awesomeness (contrast Runquest, which does answer this question via the mechanical process of resolution).

The thing is that "the fighter is a master of their weapon, and is at the centre of the action" isn't an action. It's not something the fighter does. It is an assertion. If someone walks into a room and makes that claim about themselves, that doesn't establish anything other than that they can say that this is true about themselves. I could say the same thing about myself.

What establishes the archetype to me is then having specific actions that support that assertion -- actions I can take and abilities I have that make that statement true. Something I can do to prove this.

Not an end result. A behavior that achieves that end result.

Otherwise it becomes an empty tautology. "I am at the centre of the action because this ability makes me at the centre of the action and thus I am the centre of the action, and it doesn't really matter why."

Versus,

"I am at the centre of the action because I am really annoying and know how to get under my enemy's skin and provoke them into reckless behavior. One example of that is this ability I have that provokes them into reckless behavior, which makes me the centre of the action."

One of those things touches on the fiction of the game world in the resolution. The reason why that assertion is true. That anchors it, making that trait of the character the reason why they have the qualities they assert.

The other one passes it by and clings only to the assertion. I am because I am because this says I am and makes me that way, without any touching on why that would be true.

That's not a problem for everyone, but for some folks, it's a BIG problem. It removes a step in the establishment of a character's identity. It is kind of like the gameplay equivalent of telling instead of showing. Rather than demonstrate the in-world logic for such a thing, the character simply declares it to be true and thus it is true in the rules and thus figure out for yourself what happened in the world. The evidence for being able to do it is the statement that you are able to do it, not a reason for it.

 

[Manbearcat]

I think a few of the issues here are:

1 - Overall, how granular versus how abstract are the combat mechanics?
2 - Along that line, how granular versus how abstract do you expect further innovation to be?
3 - To what end does granularity serve versus the end that abstraction serves?

On the whole, I see the combat mechanics as abstract in the extreme. Therefore, when I see random (seemingly mismatched) attempts at granularity, I balk. In my martial combat, I don't have a warrior standing in one spot, or hardly moving (assuming no move action or just a shift for 6 seconds), looking in one direction, attacking a number of times equal to his attacks/round. In my martial combat, ***the warriors are constantly in motion (within a constrained area...perhaps 5 feet), circling, head on a swivel, defending all sides, looking for openings and ways to dictate the battlefield...and then executing modes of attack. Therefore, when I see "Facing" rules, I don't just balk heavily...I'm outright incredulous. When I have no true method to reliably act out of turn or dictate the battlefield, I don't just balk heavily...I"m outright incredulous. The abstractions of "Lack of Facing", "Immediation Actions", and "Forced Movement" reinforce my gameplay expectations. WIthout any of them, or an incoherent collection of them (facing + forced movement + wound track/death spiral/HP as solely meat + no immediation actions), I could do little more than look the other way and hold my nose while trying to play out the scene.

*** In the composite fiction of our combats, there is constantly forced movement outside of mechanical resolution. As such, having the mechanical resolution tools available to activate so they are more than just narrative dressing is actually "immersive" to my players and creates for a more enjoyable martial experience. Circling right versus an opponent who has a mean right hand is "forced movement" by the opponent with the mean right hand. Circling left when opponents have you corned such that circling right would expose your unprotected flank is forced movement by your opponents. There are dozens and dozens of examples of subconscious, cost-benefit anlaysis-driven "forced movement" that ocurrs in martial conflict, from American Football (and a DE or OLB having contain on a running play and rerouting the RB inside by their outside leverage) to cage-fighting (A strikers legendary overhand right forcing an opponent to circle right for the entirety of the fight in order to not expose himself to it). Forced movement in martial enterprise is putting all of the variables into your opponents head, and forcing him to compute an unconscious permutation that can spit out only one result...and then his body instinctively (predictably) acting upon it...to the opponent's (who "forced" the movement) advantage. The actor who is being forced is not making an autonomous (conscious, aware, ego-driven) decision to move. He is being manipulated (not exclusively "bluffed"...manipulated) by something external to his own conscious will. This can be reliably reproduced with any number of "reflex" tests.

In order to inject this specific dynamism within the combat tactical interface and fictional tapestry, you have to have some sort of mechanical resolution tool. There are two other "control" mechanics in 4e (but they have their own detractors) that work differently than standard "forced movement"; marking and "move or you take damage/don't move or you take damage" effects. These are Catch-22 effects that actually provide limited autonomy to the afflected. Perhaps some feel better about these Catch-22 effects than they do with "forced movement" due to this limited expression of autonomy. However, as @pemerton stated above, forgoing "forced movement" entirely for the interest of "limited expression of autonomy" (and inserting a Catch-22 mechanic) will have impact on the fiction. Is it worth it?

 

[Manbearcat]

One of the problems here in the melee combat and forced movement conversation is that no abstract combat engine could possibly properly model the interaction. For it to properly model combat interaction, you would need considerably more than a <insert physical attribute> test versus <insert most relevant in the abstraction> defense. The function should take into account Intelligence, Widsom and Charisma as much, if not more, than the physical attributes. In most martial endeavors, information processing acumen and intestinal fortitude/drive/determination separate the wheat from the chaffe as much, if not more, than the physical attributes. There is a reason that Drew Brees, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady are all going to go down as 3 of the greatest QBs of all time...while Ryan Leaf, Jeff George, JeMarcus Russel are all busts. The former 3 possess unparalleled information processing acumen, drive/determination, spatial awareness/orientation and uncanny accuracy (while being undersized and/or athletically marginal compared to their competitors). The latter 3 blow them out of the water in size and/or arm strength/other physical attributes.

If D&D wanted to properly model martial combat (and forced movement contests), the "check" would either infolve an algorithm with Int, Wis, Cha being at least as important as Str, Dex, Con or it would need to have multiple checks. Obviously, we aren't going either of those routes due to the interests of (i) ease of use, (ii) speed of play, and (iii) balance. So, given that we don't properly model (or even attempt to) information processing acumen, drive/determination, spatial awareness in a classic D&D contest, how are we to model thiings such as "forced movement" without taking liberties within an abstraction meant to (as close as possible with deference to the interests of i - iii) represent the resolution of the task?

 

[mlund]

The real problem with getting down the granular combat like that is the appeal of such a combat system is niche, and that niche is already filled with games with hit-location tables and wounds rules and all manner of other nitty-gritty that's always been at the periphery of D&D at best. Slap it onto a module if you want to.

But the Core game of D&D can't require Martial characters to suck on un-abstracted physics and action-reaction-metareaction-metametareactioncheck operational sequences in the name of "realism" while Casters get to play Calvin-ball with meta-physics as long as they meet some basic meta-game restrictions. When you get down to it all such a system really does is use "realism" as an excuse to punish the Grogs (and their players) for not being Magicians.

- Marty Lund

 

[Manbearcat]

Absolutely. And the "realism" return on the investment of all of those hoops is dubious...at best...especially when you consider the other incoherencies and abstractions sitting right next to that granularity.

 

[pemerton]

My problem with the way you describe the pre-errata version is that it takes a premise (the fighter should be in the middle of melee with lots of enemies) and finds a way to achieve it that doesn't address why that is the case.

Yes. It's fortune-in-the-middle.

The thing is that "the fighter is a master of their weapon, and is at the centre of the action" isn't an action. It's not something the fighter does. It is an assertion.

<snip>

it becomes an empty tautology. "I am at the centre of the action because this ability makes me at the centre of the action and thus I am the centre of the action, and it doesn't really matter why."

First, from the fact that the mechanics don't model "why" it doesn't follow that it doesn't matter why. The mechanics don't model how a cleric, as opposed to a wizard, casts spells - there are no mechanics around prayers, for example (contrast Burning Wheel in that respect) - but it doesn't follow that it doesn't matter that a cleric is praying.

Second, we're playing a game. So the whole thing is mere assertion. The question for me is, which assertions do we want to take as starting points, and which do we want to work out in play. I want a game that starts from the premise that the fighter is at the centre of the action, and unfolds from there. I'm not interested in mucking around with granular action resolution mechanics in order to get there.

It's a bit like a magic-user: the game doesn't make the player of a high level MU engage in action resoution to establish that his/her PC is a master of magic - that's taken for granted. It's a starting point.

Likewise for the 4e fighter. The question posed is not "Is the fighter at the centre of the action" but rather "Given that the fighter is at the centre of the action, what happens?" I personally find the second question the more interesting one for my heroic fantasy game.

On the whole, I see the combat mechanics as abstract in the extreme. Therefore, when I see random (seemingly mismatched) attempts at granularity, I balk.

This.

D&D can't require Martial characters to suck on un-abstracted physics and action-reaction-metareaction-metametareactioncheck operational sequences in the name of "realism" while Casters get to play Calvin-ball with meta-physics as long as they meet some basic meta-game restrictions.

And this.