WotC, Design and MMORPGs

This could turn into a bash-thread REALLY QUICKLY. I ask everyone to remain civil so that we can hava a good discussion.

My friend allowed a knight into his campaign. At the time, he had five players: a wizard, a rogue, a bard, and a mystic (spont casting cleric). It was a classic, 5 person balanced team.

The group went against a vrock (~ around appropriate CR) guarding a tome. Combat went something like this.

1.) Knight used Knights challenge on Vrock; fails will save. Vrock goes to attack knight.
2.) Knight soaks vrock full attack and spores, attacks vrock back with power attack and deals average damage.
3.) Rogue gets into flank; sneak attacks abound.
4.) Wizard stays a comfortable distance and zaps the thing with orbs, magic missiles, etc.
5.) The mystic hangs behind the knight, healing each round. She uses Reach Spell to keep out of vrocks AoOs.
6.) Bard hangs back, singing and casting buffs (haste).

5 rounds. 1 dead vrock. One extremely PO'ed DM.

What's sad is with some terminology changes, I could've described ANY fantasy MMORPG. Tank, Nuker, Healer, Buffer, Second Damage. Everquest, Final Fantasy XI, D&D Online, Warcraft. Its a common tactical method; someone pulls the monster, the tank "holds" the monster, the second damage sneak/back attacks, the mages stay back healing/nuking/buffing. The monster doesn't have much of a chance but to get lucky and crit/kill the tank, but with the healer healing every round (holding her action to heal if the tank goes too low), he's got a low chance of that working. The DM was bored to tears, and next game, the knight was a fighter, reach spell was gone, and the DM is seriously considering banning the Orb of X spells (No SR, touch attack, no save).

There was alot of discussion afterwards about how "MMORPG" the fight felt. The DM felt he had no real chance of influencing the fight, and despised how the Knights Challenge turned a difficult fight into a five-round annoyance. He also despised how the mages just pelted it to death, the mystic could heal without hassle, and the rogue was dumping buckets of d6s per round.

However, looking at what most of WotC has been designing, and you see this seems to be what WotC would like the game to go towards. Everything from the Warlock class (infinite damage spell) to Telling Blow (free sneak attack) have reduced combat not to a war-game as most think but to an MMORPG.

First off; did we screw up somewhere, or is knights challenge against a single foe instant death for the foe?

Secondly; short of banning everything the DM already banned (and probably more), is there a way to avoid the scenario above from happening all the time?

Lastly; are we alone in assuming the game is drifting this way, or did we have a bad experience? Anyone else have similar experiences?

All relevant comments are welcomed.

Remathilis said:

Lastly; are we alone in assuming the game is drifting this way, or did we have a bad experience? Anyone else have similar experiences?

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First of all, "bad experience" is relative. Even so, the fact is that it only feels like an MMORPG because you're obviously familiar with those. I thought the same thing when I saw the knight ("Hey look, D&D finally has a Tanker!") but I am not sure that non-MMO playing D&D players are going to treat the mechanics in a way that turns it into a MMO fight.

BTW -- I created a Knight as my replacement PC in the Eberron campaign I am playing. This should be fun.

Sounds like everyone in their party did their job and did exactly what they were supposed to.

the DM should have given the Vrock leadership and summoned another one.

Huh... yeah... that does bring back memories of playing DAoC... however- in that game, there was at least a chance that the monster would go after the healer and/or blaster.

...Stupid knight challenge ability- which by the way, I see as the crux of this issue. Monsters in MMORPGs are... stupid. They have to be- their are thousands of them, and they exist for basically one purpose- to give the players xp.

In D&D though, the monsters don't have to be stupid- that Vrock should have fled when things started to go bad, and came with with cunning plans and minions- else he should have went after the mage and/or healer (those spores can be NASTY)- however he was prevented from doing that by the knight's challenge ability... an ability which gets rid of one of the main things D&D has going for it (monsters who can think- and more importantly, reactive enviroments).

And while there may be a trend of WOTC going toward a wargame, or MMORPG if you wanna call it that- I don't see that happeneing. The players won't let it... most people who play D&D aren't looking to play an MMORPG (they can do that from the comfort of their home)- and aren't looking for a wargame (as wargames go, D&D isn't THAT great... too many rule problems, weird abilities- and not the greatest miniatures [though much cheaper than, say, Warhammer 40k- heh]).

So... Anyway- my two cents.

Vorp

I think you are thinking backwards, personally, Remathilis. MMORPGs didn't give the tank/nuking/healing/buffing to tabletop RPGs. That's tabletop RPGs which gave them by filiation to MMORPGs. The tanks and healers etc. exist since OD&D.

It seems overly simplified to just say "hey, that was 'videogamey' because the Knight was included". The players used the rules for maximum effect. It paid. Period. If they don't want the game to feel like a "MMORPG" to them, then they role-play their characters so that they don't always use optimal tactics in a fight.

That's how I did with my previous character, which was a horned devil specialized in melee combat: he was damn efficient, but I role-played him as a devil, loosing his nerves, going for some suboptimal choices because he was getting too easily angry, and so on. That worked marvels as far as ambiance and role-playing at the game table were concerned (my character got often in trouble with the other members of the group. He almost got killed by the mage blade of the group once because he went on personal errands/revenge on his own and almost got the party in full TPK).

I fail to see what the problem is... it sounds like your party used good tactics and the DM has sour grapes because he expected the combat to last longer and/or be harder to the party to overcome.

I would also point out that a CR appropriate encounter SHOULD be a 5 round speed bump.

If APL=EL, then you shouldn't expect the encounter to be particularly challenging. It's like expecting two orcs to be a serious challenge to a 1st level party. It just isn't.

Also, there are just far too many ways to get around this problem. Adding a second Vrock is perhaps the simplest. Or, if that's overpowering, add some smaller minions. Nothing like 2d10 dretches to make things interesting. Besides, why wasn't the vrock using his mirror image ability to get around those pesky orb attacks and whatnot?

Or, even better, grapple the knight.

I wonder something though. The knight stood up to FIVE rounds of full attacks from the vrock? What's his AC? Did the DM pay attention to the Vrock's immunities? It's got 10 points of energy resistance to just about everything. Sure, the cleric is healing, but, that's not really a problem anyway since the cleric could do the same by casting defensively.

But, in all honesty, this would accurately describe combat in any edition. Bad guy walks up to the fighter and starts beating. The rest of the party hangs back and supports.

I don't understand the DM's complaint... he designed the encounter. If he wanted it to work differentlly, he should have used a few more opponents. Even one extra could have changed the the flavor of the combat drastically.

If you run D&D encounters that play like run-of-the-mill MMPORPG engagements, the fault isn't with the rule set...

Hussar said:

I would also point out that a CR appropriate encounter SHOULD be a 5 round speed bump.

If APL=EL, then you shouldn't expect the encounter to be particularly challenging. It's like expecting two orcs to be a serious challenge to a 1st level party. It just isn't.

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Also, note that the party was 5, instead of 4. So, that's 25% more actions and abilities than would be found in the standard 4-person party.

As described, I'd be surprised if the vrock hadn't gone down without much trouble.

Brad

If the Knight is breaking the rules, then you have a problem.

Test of Mettle ends once the Vrock is attacked by another character. Once the Rogue sneak attacks or the Wizard casts an orb spell, then the Vrock can act as it sees fit.

Mind you, having a tank standing up front whilst the casters hide behind to heal and throw missiles is a time-honored tactic.

Cheers!