Fighter design goals . L&L April 30th

[frankthedm]

But how did they solve the "dragon problem"? (Dragon flies up and drops breath attacks/spells)

Not a problem if wings are not the assumed default on every dragon. Also less a problem if the ruleset doesn't assume dragons get to fly for hours upon hours without tiring.

Thankfully D&D has been moving away from Dragon = Spellcaster so hopefully not every dragon even has spells in 5e. Finally Breath attacks should be a limited resource in some manner and hopefully blockable with a shield as depicted in countless pieces of art.

 

[Blackwarder]

are we certain of that? Has that been confirmed and if so do you have a link?

No, but I'm rooting for it

Warder

 

[GM Dave]

Can you give a bit feedback for that fighter in comparison with the dnd and the one they want to playtest?
From these words i find the fighting system you mention quite intersting.

I can not do a proper comparison because I have not played A Song of Ice and Fire with friends yet. I hope that by the end of the month to do it.

It is a low fantasy world.

The system is a roll and keep system using d6. Using an Axe might be Fighting 4d + 2B Axe; where Fighting is the Attribute that represents your general melee skill and 2B Axe represents a further study in using Axes.

A player would roll 6d (4+2) and then choose the best 4 to keep as their total.

The attack roll would then be compared to your opponents defense which is based on 3 attributes/skills (Agility, Athletics, Awareness). A normal person would have a 6 defense (2 is normal making this 2+2+2).

Plate Armour has a -6 modifier to the defense (so even a skilled warrior that might have 3s or 4s in their attributes will have a defense of 6 at most when wearing plate armour making them fairly easy to hit and a commoner is just a walking target for thumping).

A standard Shield gives a +2 while a large Kite shield would give a +4. You can see how this can be important for offsetting the penalty of wearing heavy armour but a mostly naked person using a shield could still benefit.

If you surpass the person's defense then you get to do damage. For every 5 points that you surpass the person's defense the damage done is multiplied.

Damage done is related to the attribute/skill modified by the weapon used. If you have say a knife then the damage is Athletics -2 while a Longsword is Athletics +1 and a Great Sword is Athletics +3. A normal fighter would have Athletics of 3. This gives a range of 1, 4, & 6.

If you were attacking a person with a defense of 10 and you rolled an 11 to hit with a Longsword.

If the person had no armour then you would have beat the target number by 1 and done 4 damage.

If the person had no armour and a shield raising their defense to 12 then you would have missed.

If the person had been wearing plate armour then their defense would have been lowered to 4. You would have thus beaten their total by more than 5 and get to do 4x2 = 8 damage.

Health (HP in the game) is Endurance x3. An average person has 6 Health and warrior will often have no more than 5 x3 = 15 Health.

So, if you had hit the average person for 4 damage with the longsword then they are in bad shape and a regular warrior is down a 1/3 of their health (assuming 12 Health total).

Plate Armour provides 10 AR. This means that in the example where the longsword hit for a bonus total of 8 damage that the armour held and none was transferred on to the warrior inside the suit. If the attacker had used a Great Sword 6x2 = 12 damage then there would be some minor damage to the person inside the armour from the hit.

The weapon list is interesting and colourful. Some weapons will impose a negative bonus die to using them because they are more difficult to learn to use (Flails and Whips are examples). Some weapons do extra effects if you get a couple of raises. Some weapons are described as Vicious (normally if you knock a person to 0 heath then you can choose how wounded you want them to be but vicious weapons automatically send a person to dying). Some weapons can impale a person and there are rules that if you impale someone that you can then stick them to the wall or ground.

It looks like it will be a fun system to play.

 

[gweinel]

I can not do a proper comparison because I have not played A Song of Ice and Fire with friends yet. I hope that by the end of the month to do it.

It is a low fantasy world.

The system is a roll and keep system using d6. Using an Axe might be Fighting 4d + 2B Axe; where Fighting is the Attribute that represents your general melee skill and 2B Axe represents a further study in using Axes.

A player would roll 6d (4+2) and then choose the best 4 to keep as their total.

The attack roll would then be compared to your opponents defense which is based on 3 attributes/skills (Agility, Athletics, Awareness). A normal person would have a 6 defense (2 is normal making this 2+2+2).

Plate Armour has a -6 modifier to the defense (so even a skilled warrior that might have 3s or 4s in their attributes will have a defense of 6 at most when wearing plate armour making them fairly easy to hit and a commoner is just a walking target for thumping).

A standard Shield gives a +2 while a large Kite shield would give a +4. You can see how this can be important for offsetting the penalty of wearing heavy armour but a mostly naked person using a shield could still benefit.

If you surpass the person's defense then you get to do damage. For every 5 points that you surpass the person's defense the damage done is multiplied.

Damage done is related to the attribute/skill modified by the weapon used. If you have say a knife then the damage is Athletics -2 while a Longsword is Athletics +1 and a Great Sword is Athletics +3. A normal fighter would have Athletics of 3. This gives a range of 1, 4, & 6.

If you were attacking a person with a defense of 10 and you rolled an 11 to hit with a Longsword.

If the person had no armour then you would have beat the target number by 1 and done 4 damage.

If the person had no armour and a shield raising their defense to 12 then you would have missed.

If the person had been wearing plate armour then their defense would have been lowered to 4. You would have thus beaten their total by more than 5 and get to do 4x2 = 8 damage.

Health (HP in the game) is Endurance x3. An average person has 6 Health and warrior will often have no more than 5 x3 = 15 Health.

So, if you had hit the average person for 4 damage with the longsword then they are in bad shape and a regular warrior is down a 1/3 of their health (assuming 12 Health total).

Plate Armour provides 10 AR. This means that in the example where the longsword hit for a bonus total of 8 damage that the armour held and none was transferred on to the warrior inside the suit. If the attacker had used a Great Sword 6x2 = 12 damage then there would be some minor damage to the person inside the armour from the hit.

The weapon list is interesting and colourful. Some weapons will impose a negative bonus die to using them because they are more difficult to learn to use (Flails and Whips are examples). Some weapons do extra effects if you get a couple of raises. Some weapons are described as Vicious (normally if you knock a person to 0 heath then you can choose how wounded you want them to be but vicious weapons automatically send a person to dying). Some weapons can impale a person and there are rules that if you impale someone that you can then stick them to the wall or ground.

It looks like it will be a fun system to play.

Thank you for the info and yes sounds fun.

I am wondering if a fight takes too long whith all these calculations/charts. (The clasical problem of these kind of combat mechanics). I always found em attractive in way. Probably because my first roleplaying game was Middle Earth Role Playing game in the 90s using rolemaster combat system.

 

[GX.Sigma]

And a final alarm bell: nowhere in that column do I see anything about the Fighter being simple to roll up, simple to grok, and simple to play.

One of the goals of D&D Next is that any character can be as simple or as complex as you want. So there are simple fighters, simple wizards, complex fighters, complex wizards.

 

[Steely_Dan]

A few points other have hit on:

-Barbarian, yeah, they mentioned the Fighter having the most HP, good, I have always thought the barbarian was not worthy of a class; like the idea of Background, so you could have a Barbaric party.

-Monks, yes, one of my all time favourite classes, the 1st Ed one still rocks the most.

-Simplicity, I remember them mentioning simple and complex classes, Assassin being a complex one, I think (hope) Fighter would be a simple one.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I think that this #6 point misses the Wizard's strongest weapon.

The Wizard's tool box of spells.

"Misses" or glosses over? If you define 'fighting' as narrowly as 'hitting enemies with weapons who respond only by hitting you back with weapons,' the fighter could be 'best' at fighting, even by a large margin, while still leaving the wizard plenty of room to be better at solving all problems and overcoming all challenges - including the broader concept of 'combat.'

 

[Minigiant]

because barbarian is a background choice and not a class? And berserker should be a fighter theme (if not a class).

Warder

Since we don't known what themes look like, I wont drop barbarian in the theme bin. Especially since they themes would be close to feats and so far we haven seen a "barbarian" theme or feat.

Not a problem if wings are not the assumed default on every dragon. Also less a problem if the ruleset doesn't assume dragons get to fly for hours upon hours without tiring.

Thankfully D&D has been moving away from Dragon = Spellcaster so hopefully not every dragon even has spells in 5e. Finally Breath attacks should be a limited resource in some manner and hopefully blockable with a shield as depicted in countless pieces of art.

But D&D's true dragons all have wings. Fights don't typically last hours.

A red dragon will probably be able to fly for at least 5 minutes. He's be able able to get one free fire breath on the fighter.

But like you said, hopefully breath attacks are limited and spells are not mandatory or combat worthy; forcing the dragon to land.

 

[Szatany]

I'm pretty sure that I don't want even a high level fighter to be taking down waves of orcs each round.

I definitely do. Wizards will be able to do so from 5th level onwards, at least. Fighter at high level should be able to kill 5 or so puny orcs with a turn worth of attacks.

I've always seen the role of the high level fighter being more taking down tough opponents quickly (ie, doing insane amounts of damage).

Maybe, I don't know. I mean I don't think he should be limited to what you want of him. I've always seen the fighter as being able to do all kinds of tactics, provided he has appropriate weapon and abilities.

And I'm even more sure that such a fighter will NOT be what I'll consider mundane.

Me neither. But I don't want the fighter to stay with mundane abilities at higher level. I want him to do stuff I read in books about Conan, Kane, Heracles etc. In other words, let him do mundane stuff as far as fantastic worlds go.

As described, the fighter sounds likely to be over the top to me. Best AC, best hit points, best at taking down waves of opponents, best at dealing damage. So what exactly are the others doing? Having the wizard hold the fighters cape isn't really any better than having the fighter hold the wizards cape

Fighter's gonna be best in combat. Other might come close (rangers), be better at one thing but worse at all others (rogues), or be better once every x rounds (wizards). All of those classes will have more powerful out of combat abilities to compensate.

 

[Ratskinner]

Okay, without reading the rest of the thread first...

1. The Fighter Is the Best at . . . Fighting!

Sounds good. I have a minor concern that this is a lot of weight for one class, given the breadth of what "Fighting" entails in a game like D&D.

2. The Fighter Draws on Training and Experience, not Magic

Okay.

3. The Fighter Exists in a World of Myth, Fantasy, and Legend

Okay, not sure why this and #2 aren't some kind of joint point, but whatever.

4. The Fighter Is Versatile

The fighter is skilled with all weapons. The best archer, jouster, and swordmaster in the realm are all fighters. A monk can match a fighter’s skill when it comes to unarmed combat, and rangers and paladins are near a fighter’s skill level, but the fighter is typically in a class by itself regardless of weapon.
​

And this is where my problem with #1 comes up. This idea is okay, I think, except that we don't seem to want the realm's best archer, jouster, and swordmaster to be the same guy! I'll rant below on this.

5. The Fighter Is the Toughest Character

My Barbarian's toes say "ouch."

6. A High-Level Fighter and a High-Level Wizard Are Equal

Absolutely no problem here. Although I prefer taking the Wizard down a few notches by making magic riskier than it has been of late.

Anyway, I generally don't object to the overall tone, except to the #1 & #4 rant below.

Begin Rant, Ignore as you will:
The problem with #4\#1 is pretty fundamental. So the fighter is good an everything with every weapon. Fine, so long as I have only one at the table. A recent BECMI-ish game that I played in saw three fighters at the table. We were functionally identical. It made magic item distribution an argumentative chore, with the added bonus that we were defined by our stuff...I thought that was a bad thing. It was bad enough that the DM retrofitted in some subclasses for us by 5th level.

So 3.x approaches this problem with feats. The fighter got the most, and they helped spruce them up with specialties. The problem is that now the mechanical weight is on the feats, not the class. So I can't look at (or write up) a Fighter without looking at his list of feats to find out what he can really do. Suddenly, the idea that the fighter is best at fighting becomes questionable. A specialist with his weapon can be far more effective that a non-specialized fighter. Which brings up another question:

Which fighter do you balance with the Wizard? Is the super-swordsman or Joe Generico the fighter who is equally effective as the spellchucker? If you make something (anything) like specialization count so little that this difference is academic, then I (as a DM, if not player) will resent the extra effort that it burdens me with.

If you later add in an Archer class, should he be better than the Fighter at Archery? If you do take that route (and don't splatbook sales demand it?), is a large party better served by dumping the Fighter and instead having an Archer, Swashbuckler, and Weaponmaster?

End Rant

Maybe themes will help make this a bit easier? Obviously, I don't know how well they will help this, but the possibility is there. Tacking "Lurker", "Slayer", or "Academic" to the top of the Character Sheet might make it a bit easier to tell right off how they work. I just hope that themes are already mechanically optimized. I hate the idea of having to again build NPCs tiny piece by tiny piece.

Anyhow, time to read the rest of the thread and find out how crazy I am.