Fighter design goals . L&L April 30th

[Tony Vargas]

And you're accusing me of hyperbole? BTW the linear Ftr / Quad Wiz argument is by its very nature hyperbolic,

I suppose the trajectory of the Wizard's power might be hyperbolic....

 

[UngeheuerLich]

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.

Ok, you are right... against magic he is not the best. But overall his saves are great.
And he is not lagging that much behind in the spell save department!

 

[billd91]

And he is not lagging that much behind in the spell save department!

That's partly the point of having the limited range of save targets in 1e/2e. Nobody is lagging that far behind! Except the thief and his saves vs breath weapons. I can't figure out the point of that one at all. Of all of the 1e/2e saves, the thief's table is the worst and the save vs breath weapon head-scratchingly bad.

 

[Ratskinner]

I think part of the point of 5e is not to pick a direction, but to support many diverse styles.

I agree. I'm not sure how they do that with such a core part of the game, but I suspect its possible. I've mentioned in other threads that I'm curious to see how this eventually works. I think there's general agreement that starting from simple and adding complexity is the way to go. I think its an open question whether there is a similar "direction" between CaW and CaS.

I remember the combat as war/sport thread, and I didn't find the implied superiority of one over the other a very compelling idea.

I'm only speaking of superiority in effect, not RP experience. You can be a great fighter in the ring, but the guy who sneaks up on you with a shotgun still wins. (I watch American Football, I don't think it'd be as enjoyable is the players were allowed to bring weapons. Others may disagree.)

My original point was that in earlier editions, magic was the shotgun. I was expressing my opinion that most of the things that you can do to make D&D's abstract combat system more interesting for the fighter tend to be CaS. If magical combat effects in 5e go back to more CaW effects (Stopping Time, Holding, flat out Save or Die, etc.), then I suspect the LFQW problem will resurrect itself. Hopefully, I'm wrong.

I'm sorry, but how are all 4e characters 'machines?' I've had a good time RPing a number of character under the system, and never felt I was running a robot. What exactly are you driving at?

::Sigh:: Dial down the edition war sensitivity, man. I'm not taking shots at 4e. 4e doesn't address roleplaying ruleswise any more or less than the other editions, AFAICT. D&D has always played a little loose and undefined in that area. 4e Characters are CaS machines because that was how they were intentionally designed, its one of 4e's selling points. (Reduction of SoD, everybody has interesting maneuvers, etc.) Its integral to how they balanced the classes. Making the math transparent and all that, plus the actual math (an appropriate-level monster should take X hits before dying, etc.) are all CaS. The way 4e sets up combat to go "like so", is no different than the NFL or MLB changing rules to limit or encourage certain types of events or results in the game.

And, just to be clear. THAT ISN'T INHERENTLY A BAD OR GOOD WAY TO PLAY D&D. However, the fact that 5e is even attempting to "reunite" the player base or whatever-ya-wanna-call-it, indicates that that didn't go down so hot with the D&D public as a whole. I like 4e, but currently I'm alone amongst my gaming group in that regard, and have been for a few years. That's okay with me, because I'm not as married to any particular edition as a lot of folks seem to be.

I'm not sure how that applies here, though. The fighter described my Mr. Mearls is very much the classic AD&D fighter.

Hopefully the above will indicate some of why I think it applies. I agree about the description. While I didn't explicitly say so when introducing the idea, I think this is one of the things that made the Fighter, "the toughest class to design."

Well, if you can't hit interesting, flavorful, balanced, /and/ "Combat as War," maybe that says something about "Combat as War" as a litmus test for a game.

Maybe, but I'm not sure who's using it as a litmus test for a game. Part of the mechanical design issue is that a lot of CaW takes place outside of combat (sabotage, setting up ambushes, subverting allies, etc.) So, to some extent, CaW is served by making the Fighter more viable in the other pillars.

Why is it only a problem for the Fighter, though? The fighter is a straightforward enough archetype, and in fiction and legend often does some very remarkable things. Magic is a lot less consistent in genre, most often being very narrative in nature - wizards provide exposition, plot-enablement, and the occasional deus ex machina; evil sorcerers provide fearsome foes that are overcome in profoundly plot-driven narrative ways - all tropes very much at odds with CaW.

Oh, I mostly agree with you here, and its part of my point. The fundamental problem with the way D&D has traditionally viewed Wizards....as PCs/protagonists. Wizards as anything but a Deus Ex Machina or villain are a relatively recent phenomenon in genre, IMO. So, in a fairy tale, a grumpy enchantress turns you into a frog until you get a kiss from a princess. That's not Combat as anything, but take away the narrative context, and Polymorph is suddenly a CaW effect. Magic in narratives where the Wizard is the protagonist tends to be much more limited, unreliable, and often has tremendous "backlash" of one kind or another. 3e made magic much more reliable and removed almost all the "backlash" from previous versions...exacerbating the LFQW problem.

Anyway, I hope that makes my points clearer.

 

[Steely_Dan]

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

Which, to be honest, you do seem to promote a bit, with the constant use of the words "balance" and "broken" (though I do agree with you on some points).

I never saw Fighters in pre-4th Ed holding the Wizard's jockstrap as so many espouse on these and other boards, and not all of the parties I DMed for (or were in as a player) had a Cleric or Druid (healer) in the party, and we managed just fine.

 

[Ratskinner]

I suppose the trajectory of the Wizard's power might be hyperbolic....

I always thought exponential, myself.

 

[Ratskinner]

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.

That's an interesting perspective. I generally agree with the idea of taking away the PCs' special CaW powers. I don't think CaW actually needs special mechanical support. Since so much of CaW ideally takes place outside actual combat, supporting CaW is merely supporting the other pillars, IMO.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Some folks may have latched onto the CaS/CaW thing to continue the edition war, but I don't think there is anything inherent in the idea that makes it so. (Actually, I'm sure there has been some such latching, given the "any stick is good enough to beat edition X" with mentality.) Rather, CaS/CaW points to different influences in how the story is going to be told. CaS is Lancelot and Gawain tilting for the same fair maiden's favor. CaW is trying to avoid getting poisoned by Mordred in the process.

And of course, most stories have a mix--and not in the same proportions or evenly, either. Games can probably tend to more extremes than stories without totally breaking--because you've still got the game part to hold it together. Even so, I suspect it is a rare CaS game that doesn't have a bit of off the wall stuff allowed, and I suspect it is a rare CaW game that doesn't have some "fair play" agreements that puts some things off limits.

One thing I personally can't stand is a game pretending to one extreme while being actually run as the other. For example, picture a campaign that sells itself as Fantasy Vietnam, but thanks to DM fiat and other such means, no character ever dies. I realize that some people play for an atmosphere as much as anything else, but I'm not one of them.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

That's partly the point of having the limited range of save targets in 1e/2e. Nobody is lagging that far behind! Except the thief and his saves vs breath weapons. I can't figure out the point of that one at all. Of all of the 1e/2e saves, the thief's table is the worst and the save vs breath weapon head-scratchingly bad.

maybe to encourage hiding very well when going into the dragon´s hoard...

 

[Tony Vargas]

I agree. I'm not sure how they do that with such a core part of the game, but I suspect its possible.

Nod. I supsect it isn't. But, then, I didn't think it'd bee possible to balance fighters & wizards in D&D, and 4e went and did it. So I have a record of being pleasantly surprised.

I think there's general agreement that starting from simple and adding complexity is the way to go. I think its an open question whether there is a similar "direction" between CaW and CaS.

I'd hesitate to claim a 'general agreement' around here. What I'm sure won't work is starting with limited options/power, and bolting-on new options that add power. What might work while retaining some balance is starting with a complex framework 'behind the curtain,' and using it more as a design standard to build simple-seeming classes with most choices already made. Then, in modules, not adding complexity, but revealing it. In that way, the 'simple' character can be played along side the 'complex' one without it being at a great disadvantage.

The perfect example in 4e is Backgrounds & Themes. The game didn't have them initially. When they were added as options, the characters that opted for them gained additional benefits over and above those that didn't. While those benefits were mostly pretty minor, it's still a pattern that needs to be avoided, because, if multiplied by the many modules we should probably expect from 5e, it could result in vast gulfs in effectiveness between 'simple' and 'complex' options.

More concisely: 'simple' must not be inferior to 'complex.'

I'm only speaking of superiority in effect, not RP experience. You can be a great fighter in the ring, but the guy who sneaks up on you with a shotgun still wins.

Nod. He also gets the gas chamber.

CaW is presented as about 'thinking outside the box' and the like, finding ways to sieze. In other words, finding overwhelming advantage or exploit weakness. Cheating, in the context of a game. When it's happening in the context of the imagined world, that's fine in an RPG, even though it's a game, you're not cheating, you're following the rules to model your characters 'cheating.' When it's happening at the meta-game level, it's just powergaming, often quite disruptive and undesireable powergaming.

The former sort of in-character CaW style is well-supported by a balanced - and detailed - game system. The latter sort is supported by a poorly balanced system, and not, IMHO, at all desireable at the table, unless there's a unanimous enthusiasm for it.

My original point was that in earlier editions, magic was the shotgun.

Magic was often 'broken' yes.

I was expressing my opinion that most of the things that you can do to make D&D's abstract combat system more interesting for the fighter tend to be CaS. If magical combat effects in 5e go back to more CaW effects (Stopping Time, Holding, flat out Save or Die, etc.), then I suspect the LFQW problem will resurrect itself. Hopefully, I'm wrong.

There is nothing inately in-character 'CaW' about broken or overpowered or badly-written magic systems. Yes, they make the metagame take on a 'CaW' feel, as everyone scrambles for the most broken thing, and the game devolves into a sort of arms race.

To make the fighter and wizard work with either a CaW or CaS aproach in-game simply requires a balanced system. And that requires looking at casters as protagonists in a story, viable choices within a game, or established technologies in a theatre of war.

4e Characters are CaS machines because that was how they were intentionally designed, its one of 4e's selling points.

They were intentionally designed to be balanced. Balance supports both styles. Imbalance only suports metagaming, and makes it boring into the bargain if the imbalance is extreme.

I'm afraid you're conflating something. D&D /is/ a game. Of course it will need to have game balance. That's analogous to the 'fairness' of aproaching combat as a 'sport' - a structured contest with rules, but it does not force that style of play within the imagined world the game represents. Rogues may be balanced characters in the metagame, for instance, but to the imaginary monsters they stab in the back, they must not seem to be 'playing fair,' at all.

And, just to be clear. THAT ISN'T INHERENTLY A BAD OR GOOD WAY TO PLAY D&D. However, the fact that 5e is even attempting to "reunite" the player base or whatever-ya-wanna-call-it, indicates that that didn't go down so hot with the D&D public as a whole.

Every edition has had it's hold-outs. 3.5 just had the SRD and Paizo waiting to cater to those hold-outs. That's the only difference between the rejection of 4e by 3.5 hold-outs, and the rejection of 3e by AD&D hold-outs.

Maybe, but I'm not sure who's using it as a litmus test for a game. Part of the mechanical design issue is that a lot of CaW takes place outside of combat (sabotage, setting up ambushes, subverting allies, etc.) So, to some extent, CaW is served by making the Fighter more viable in the other pillars.

That would be awesome.

Oh, I mostly agree with you here, and its part of my point. The fundamental problem with the way D&D has traditionally viewed Wizards....as PCs/protagonists. Wizards as anything but a Deus Ex Machina or villain are a relatively recent phenomenon in genre, IMO. So, in a fairy tale, a grumpy enchantress turns you into a frog until you get a kiss from a princess. That's not Combat as anything, but take away the narrative context, and Polymorph is suddenly a CaW effect.

Magic in narratives where the Wizard is the protagonist tends to be much more limited, unreliable, and often has tremendous "backlash" of one kind or another.

I'm not sure I'd agree. Magic when it's being used on the protagonist's behalf by a supporting character is often that way, because the story has to be about the protagonist, not the magic that let him easily win through. When magic finally makes it into the hands of the protagonist, it often becomes much more reliable and understandable, and much less powerful. If it remains powerful, it's generally also in the hands of all the protagonists 'real' foes, and also any allies or co-protagonists in an ensemble.

In other words, magic has to become balanced in some sense to become the tool of the hero, rather than the tool of the plot, the helper, or the villain.

In 4e, magic was made balanced by making it no more powerful (though still more versatile) than non-magical heroic abilities. In Harry Potter, magic was balanced by making it the focus of the story - everyone who mattered (anyone who might be PC) had magic.

D&D, coming at the early stages of mage-as-protagonist made the understanible and disasterous mistake of giving PC magic-users antagonist/plot-device level magic, and trying to 'limit it down' to protagonist-apropriate levels (actually support-character-apropriate). And the game has been an imbalanced shambles for the longest time as a result of that initial error.

3e made magic much more reliable and removed almost all the "backlash" from previous versions...exacerbating the LFQW problem.

Very true. The AD&D caster was barely-playable. The demand of healing on the Cleric kept it from being anything but support, the physical weakness and profound limitations on casting made it hard for the magic-user to contribute consistently (or at all at all levels). 3e took note of the problem and made magic more useable and consistent, as required to model a 'protagonist,' and thus also more playable. It just failed to dial down the power to match, and the result was the optimization tiers and endless 'Fighter SUX' threads on the WotC boards.

4e finally achieved balance by further removing limitations from casting, but bringing casting down, and non-casting up, to the same level of 'protagonist-apropriate' power. An elegant solution, rejected for being different. As any improvement, sadly, must be.