Fighter design goals . L&L April 30th

[Daztur]

Well one of the things that 4ed does to balance wizards is strip out most of their combat as war-friendly abilities (which were pretty out of control in 3.5ed, especially since many of the limitations such as teleport error and system shock rolls for polymorphing had been stripped out). How to put them back in without upsetting game balance is a big challenge but hopefully 5ed will try to tackle it. What they seem to be doing (which may or may not be the best way), is using the three pillars and having the fighters be better at combat (basically CaS) and the wizard be better at exploration (roughly CaW).

Perhaps not specifically how I would've done it, but I won't be annoyed if that's how 5ed does it.

I'd love 5ed fighters to have out of combat awesome but as long as they're not clumsy (can get acrobatic skills and whatnot and don't have to eat big armor check penalties) and are durable (especially good saves), I'll happily play one.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Well one of the things that 4ed does to balance wizards is strip out most of their combat as war-friendly abilities (which were pretty out of control in 3.5ed, especially since many of the limitations such as teleport error and system shock rolls for polymorphing had been stripped out).

Sounds like "Combat as War friendly" = "broken."

How to put them back in without upsetting game balance is a big challenge but hopefully 5ed will try to tackle it.

Because there's some slim chance they might succeed, or because you just want broken spells back? Seriously, balance is great for a game, but not everyone approaches D&D as a game. Do you think there might be a reasonable way to add back "desirable brokenness?" For instance, as an optional module?

What they seem to be doing (which may or may not be the best way), is using the three pillars and having the fighters be better at combat and the wizard be better at exploration.

The Pillars are a handy reference. Yes, I think it's clear from the fighter design goals that any balance 5e may retain is going to be across all Pillars rather than within each. Though the Fighter won't be /better/ at combat, but 'best.' Keep in mind that in marketing speak, the claim of best means "just as good as everyone else" or "nothing else is better." Even if Mr. Mearls wasn't being quite that disingenuous, "best" can be best by a very small margin.

Combat can probably be presumed, by D&D tradition, to be a very substantial part of the game. Thus, "best" at combat can be balanced by "worthless" in the other two pillars, while "best" in exploration can be balanced by "slightly limited in combat."

Again, all very AD&D.

 

[SkidAce]

Combat as War and Combat as Sport seems to be referencing the Strategic and Tactical levels of combat...is this how ya'll are using them?

 

[Aenghus]

"Combat as sport" is friendly to encounter-based games, and much easier to balance. "Combat as war" is about victory by any means necessary, and is not encounter-friendly as the whole point is to allow the players to shortcut, mangle, spindle and mutilate encounters, or simply avoid them, which is anticlimatic and missing the point in some styles of play.

One problem I have with "combat as war" games is that they are to a great extent about finding the weakest points in the setting and rules and exploiting it to the maximum, which I call "breaking the box". It's very difficult to design for, as many "CaW" tactics are emergent and not envisaged by the designers at all. The style of game that emerges, because it hasn't been designed as such, can quite possibly not be at all fun for a significant section of the player base e.g. scry and fry.

Another is that games where "combat as war" is being used and the bad guys take the gloves off can result in an unfun scorched earth world, where the PCs are likely to lose without a hope, and ultimately can't win due to enemy WMDs.

Limits and or social contracts are needed to to take tactics off the table for all sides which while effective on paper, just aren't acceptable to some or all of the people in the group.

To those who say they don't have any limits in their game, they don't have their BBEGs teleport in high level assassins to kill the party at 1st level in their sleep, do they? That's a potential world setup, though horrible for actual games involving people.

 

[mcintma]

I can see 2 outcomes from what I've read from fighter/wizard design. I base this on [paraphrasing] "fighter will be equal and can shrug off wizard spells at high levels" and statements like "haste etc. will never be as good as mundane fighter attacks" plus the fact that Monte was the Wizard fan, Mearls the Fighter fan, and Monte be gone.

1) Wizard is the recognizable unarmored, 'weak', spellbook-dependent, limited-cast (except for say a feat for weak at-will attacks) class from 1e-3e. This means wizard will lag throughout the progression in combat at least, as he'll definitely start behind everyone at 1st; and at high-level, the best he can accomplish is unloading his full complement and having it shrugged off. Meaning the Ftr beats him bloody at close or long range, prepared or not, any level. Wizard is now a utility class that the others keep around for noncombat uses, and can bully at will. High-level wizards in the campaign world are more like sages - respected for their usefulness but hardly feared. i.e. DM: "Behind the row of orcs stands ... the EVIL SAGE!"

2) In order to come close to balancing the statements made so far about Ftr, wizard is unrecognizable from the 1e-3e Wiz. He wears armor and has high HP and can stand toe-to-toe with the Ftr in melee. OR he has unlimited spells that are all weaksauce or utility-only (shift a foe 5' on failed save, spoil 1d4 food rations in foe's backpack, +1 to all poison saves for 1 second, open unlocked doors, light torches, etc.) OR some other combo that is a departure from 1e-3e Wiz.

And that's fine, many obviously want that. But either option means I'll be sticking to 1e-3e/PF. I daresay the player base will remain very much split.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I can see 2 outcomes from what I've read from fighter/wizard design. I base this on [paraphrasing] "fighter will be equal and can shrug off wizard spells at high levels" and statements like "haste etc. will never be as good as mundane fighter attacks" plus the fact that Monte was the Wizard fan, Mearls the Fighter fan, and Monte be gone.

1) Wizard is the recognizable unarmored, 'weak', spellbook-dependent, limited-cast (except for say a feat for weak at-will attacks) class from 1e-3e. This means wizard will lag throughout the progression in combat at least, as he'll definitely start behind everyone at 1st; and at high-level, the best he can accomplish is unloading his full complement and having it shrugged off. Meaning the Ftr beats him bloody at close or long range, prepared or not, any level. Wizard is now a utility class that the others keep around for noncombat uses, and can bully at will. High-level wizards in the campaign world are more like sages - respected for their usefulness but hardly feared. i.e. DM: "Behind the row of orcs stands ... the EVIL SAGE!"

2) In order to come close to balancing the statements made so far about Ftr, wizard is unrecognizable from the 1e-3e Wiz. He wears armor and has high HP and can stand toe-to-toe with the Ftr in melee. OR he has unlimited spells that are all weaksauce or utility-only (shift a foe 5' on failed save, spoil 1d4 food rations in foe's backpack, +1 to all poison saves for 1 second, open unlocked doors, light torches, etc.) OR some other combo that is a departure from 1e-3e Wiz.

And that's fine, many obviously want that. But either option means I'll be sticking to 1e-3e/PF. I daresay the player base will remain very much split.

I think, hyperbole on tour...

The fighter of 2nd edition was able to shrug off most spells. A fact. But there were spells that just didn´t attack the fighter directly.
Defensive spells. Making holes in the ground. Making the ground very greasy, icy or something.
The 2e wizard just had to be more creative than just using direct attacks. In 3e, there was a different tactic: Hey fighter, what is yur will save? Ah, does not matter, you can´t beat the DC anyway. And now you are down two Persons.
Also spells like haste had serious drawbacks: you lost a year of life. So you could use it once in a while, but not as everyday tactic.

So please, stick to any edition, but stop pretending a 2nd edition wizard was as overpowered as a 3rd edition wizard compared to a fighter of the same edition.

Maybe a wizard could lay down a whole army once or twice a day, the fighter held everything together in pre 3e. (And this is from someone that did not like fighters back then.)

Even if a fighter never had a chance to kill the high level (prepared) wizard, against high level monsters, both could hold their own. The fighter was tough as nails. He only needed some kind of armor. The wizard could use spells to enhance the fighter´s performance. Add monsters, that were immune to some spells, 95% magic resistant, and you instantly notice, that wizards and fighters both were needed.

In 3rd edition all those balancing factors were thrown overboard (more or less accidently i guess)

So in 5e I expect saving throws and saving throw DC not scale as in 3e or 4e. I rather expect level bonuses to saves. None to DCs. I expect abilities for the fighter to make saving throws one round later to end effects. Those are concepts explored with 4e and they work great. Often you take out a combatant for one round, but then he comes back. In 4e even skipping one round is terrible, but I remember times, when a ghoul disabled someone for 10 minutes with no chance of recovery. Bad. Really bad.

 

[billd91]

The fighter of 2nd edition was able to shrug off most spells. A fact. But there were spells that just didn´t attack the fighter directly.
Defensive spells. Making holes in the ground. Making the ground very greasy, icy or something.
The 2e wizard just had to be more creative than just using direct attacks. In 3e, there was a different tactic: Hey fighter, what is yur will save? Ah, does not matter, you can´t beat the DC anyway. And now you are down two Persons.
Also spells like haste had serious drawbacks: you lost a year of life. So you could use it once in a while, but not as everyday tactic.

A lot gets said about fighter saves in 1e/2e, but how many of you have really compared them? Overall, they have the best saves in the sense that they have or tie for the best saves more than any other character (the wizard, however, is very close behind him).

But for the first 8 levels, the fighter's saves are among the weakest or tie for the weakest as well. So that fighter isn't really shrugging off the wizard's spells any more than anybody else for a significant chunk of his career. He makes up for it for a while because of his fast save progression (every 2 levels) and because he hits his apex sooner than any other class (17th level compared to 21st). But for the levels when most people are actually playing 1e/2e characters (the first 10 levels or so), he's more vulnerable to spells than most other characters.

That doesn't mean that wizards and other spell casters are as powerful with their spells in 1e/2e as they are under the 3e save DC setting system and standard action casting times. In many ways they are not. Casting times and weapon speeds in 2e make getting off higher levels spells harder than in 3e. That limits the power a wizard can effectively bear on a regular basis. The basis of saving throw targets on the target's level/hit dice and range (all under 18 on a d20 and getting progressively easier as the target's might increases) also keeps the wizard less powerful compared to his target while in 3e his power tends to outstrip his target. Save or sit spells were a much riskier prospect in 1e/2e as far as being wasted actions than in 3e since the wizard could do very little to improve his odds of succeeding with them. In 3e, he can take feats, pump up his intelligence, cast a higher level spell, and fairly easily target a weak save that's not keeping up with the spell's level.

 

[mcintma]

I think, hyperbole on tour...

In 3e, there was a different tactic: Hey fighter, what is yur will save? Ah, does not matter, you can´t beat the DC anyway. And now you are down two Persons.

And you're accusing me of hyperbole? BTW the linear Ftr / Quad Wiz argument is by its very nature hyperbolic, notwithstanding that it has some solid points I wouldn't dispute. But yeah, I was on the hyperbolic side in my prev post I'll admit - I'm really p1sed that Monte's off 5e.

Other than that, I don't disagree with you that 3e made the Wiz more survivable, but I'd counter that his spells got toned-down too (3.5e/PF) - looking through the 1e PHB, Wiz spells were more open-ended and potentially deadlier - disintegrate, wish, fireball (no 10HD cap), shapechange, spider climb, etc.

Where the real balance break happens IME is when DMs allow too much crafting/scribing time (so Wiz has crazy scroll/wand backups) and also the 15-min workday effect (the latter would be a problem thru 1e-3e).

 

[Neonchameleon]

Well one of the things that 4ed does to balance wizards is strip out most of their combat as war-friendly abilities (which were pretty out of control in 3.5ed, especially since many of the limitations such as teleport error and system shock rolls for polymorphing had been stripped out). How to put them back in without upsetting game balance is a big challenge but hopefully 5ed will try to tackle it. What they seem to be doing (which may or may not be the best way), is using the three pillars and having the fighters be better at combat (basically CaS) and the wizard be better at exploration (roughly CaW).

No, not at all. But, if you pick a direction, both classes should follow it. Combat as War basically trumps Combat as Sport. 4e seems to have solved the LFQW problem by turning fighters and wizards (everybody, really) into "Combat as Sport" machines. That's okay, objectively, but a lot folks subjectively felt that was a pronounced deviation from previous D&D. So much so that the next edition is striving to reunite the player base.

Can both classes be made interesting, flavorful, and be "Combat as War" oriented? I dunno, but I think the abstract nature of D&D's combat system makes it harder to hit all three with the Fighter.

The key thing is that giving people Combat-As-War centric abilities doesn't promote Combat-As-War. What it promotes is "The most dangerous game" - with the effect of the combat as war abilities to be to arm the people with them with night vision goggles, camo-suits, bullet proof body armour, and either assault rifles or sniper rifles. Hunting other people armed with swords or bows and arrows. Yes, you may kid yourselves in a warzone. But unless you're playing Fantasy ing Vietnam against enemies who resemble Tucker's Kobolds and use low cunning and sheer viciousness to make up for a lack of special Combat As War abilities, you are for all practical purposes just playing a particularly vicious version of Combat As Sport.

If you want Combat as War, the agregate enemies need to be massively more powerful than the PCs to the point PCs need to fight asymmetrically. And giving the PCs force multipliers (as Combat as War spells are) takes the threat out of the supposed superiority - you can almost always be sure of superior force at the given point. So for a good CaW experience, take most of the CaW toys away or they themselves will turn war into a sport.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Combat as War and Combat as Sport seems to be referencing the Strategic and Tactical levels of combat...is this how ya'll are using them?

No, it's more a crypto-edition-war thing.