"Aggro"

[the Jester]

Interesting thought: many folks who don't like aggro mechanics (rules dictating creature behavior, rather than DM roleplay) want morale mechanics (rules dictating creature behavior, rather than DM roleplay).

Likewise, the opposite is true: folks who want aggro mechanics, but don't want morale rules.

I've noticed this too.

I want morale rules, but not aggro rules.

In my view, morale encourages quicker fights, encourages pcs to flee (the monsters do it, so why not them?), encourages prisoner taking, encourages surrender, etc. Basically, it makes a more interesting game.

Aggro does... none of these things.

 

[Arlough]

[sblock]Shidaku, this is a great thread. I like your ideas, but ultimately....I still think "tank" is a dumb role. The only tank I find sensible is one who does lockdown - tripping, stand still, disarm, etc... to keep any enemies around him....around him. Aggro is a great simple solution to bad DMing and making the tank role feeling relevant. But ultimately I think it'd be better to just eliminate it and re-align the roles.

[/sblock]1. The Glass Canon / DPS: Does by far the most single target damage and is even capable of inflicting nasty status effects on one target such as blindness or stun, but has little or no means of effectively fighting off a large number of foes.
2. The Battlefield Controller: Does area of effect and multitarget stuff mostly. Can't do much of note against only one target compared to #1 and his debuffs are weaker in power, though he can hit every enemy with them and possibly inflict them more frequently. Also gets the wall spells, black tentacles, and other BFC to restrict enemies' ability to move.
3. The Buffer: Can grant the party haste, flight, and other strong buffs, as well as heal them. Has very few AoE offensive options, though more than #1, and is about as good as #2 for single target stuff.

You actually touched on a number of things here that I have been pondering, but I'm going to stick to the thread topic.
The thing you point out here that I find pertinent is that what you do is important. I would just like to add to that. How you do it may be what defines you in that role.

What you are called, on the other hand, should be insignificant when discussing mechanics, especially of a game in it's larval state.

Just have the fighter "generate a lot of threat" by being the most threatening character in the fight.

With apologies to those of you who don't watch American football, I don't play my fighters like an offensive tackle whose job is primarily to protect the quarterback. I play mine as a middle linebacker who needs to be taken down before I kill the opposing team's quarterback.

If DDN fulfills it's promise to make the fighter the best at "fighting", then he will be the one who needs to be accounted for. No more need for marking at that point.

If everybody here who had made an argument that involved the word "Fighter" could go back and re-evaluate that same statement if you had instead used the word "Defender" I would be most interested in how that would effect your view/statement. Do you think this is true?

Just have the defender "generate a lot of threat" by being the most threatening character in the fight.

With apologies to those of you who don't watch American football, I don't play my defenders like an offensive tackle whose job is primarily to protect the quarterback. I play mine as a middle linebacker who needs to be taken down before I kill the opposing team's quarterback.

If DDN fulfills it's promise to make the defender the best at "defending", then he will be the one who needs to be accounted for. No more need for marking at that point.

Interesting thought: many folks who don't like aggro mechanics (rules dictating creature behavior, rather than DM roleplay) want morale mechanics (rules dictating creature behavior, rather than DM roleplay).

Likewise, the opposite is true: folks who want aggro mechanics, but don't want morale rules.

Discuss.

I don't really see why you can't have both. Morale informs when the enemies should run away, and "aggro" or "marking" informs how the enemies should be attacking.
Both seem good to me. And both are subject to DM adjudication.

As for me, I like the idea of "aggro" in a way that incentivizes certain targets and disincentivizes others. Similar to how they obviously envisioned Marking working, even though it didn't play out as they had planned.
I like the idea of the "defender" type having a passive incentive/punishment mechanic.

As for the fighter being the big threat by having the most damage and the biggest AC, that sounds "kewl" and all in 3rd person action platformer video games, but I prefer group synergy and dynamics to work around weaknesses more than I would like to have none. By that standard I could just create a character that had strait 18's and was great at everything, and then play out a short and boring game where I was never really challenged. Basically, I could be that Ed guy in the Twilight books. (I think it was Ed, but I really don't care enough to look it up. If any of you have read the books and care enough to correct me, feel free to do so.)

 

[Sunseeker]

I've noticed this too.

I want morale rules, but not aggro rules.

In my view, morale encourages quicker fights, encourages pcs to flee (the monsters do it, so why not them?), encourages prisoner taking, encourages surrender, etc. Basically, it makes a more interesting game.

Aggro does... none of these things.

While writing this topic I often noted the similarities between the language I was using and that of "morale" topics. It made me wonder if perhaps aggro should be a function of morale. Creatures with high morale would be more likely to be tactical and make and follow good orders. Creatures with low morale would make bad judgements out of fear or blind anger, thus falling prey to control efforts by the party more easily, and be generally less tactical in their attacks.

 

[Dausuul]

I'm not necessarily opposed to aggro mechanics, as long as there is a clear explanation for them in the fiction and that explanation does not lead to crazy inconsistencies.

Morale has a strong fictional explanation: The monsters get scared and run away. As such, creatures like golems and skeletons are typically immune to morale effects, and the DM can refuse to make a morale check in a situation where it doesn't make any sense. (For instance, if there's a rule that monsters have to make a morale check when 50% of them are defeated, the DM can say "That doesn't happen" when the party is fighting a dragon and half a dozen kobolds and they kill 4 kobolds.)

Perhaps aggro is explained as "You taunt and insult enemies into a blind rage." That's fine, as long as you can't apply aggro to unintelligent foes, or foes who don't speak your language. (Hey, a reason to pick up the Linguist feat!) Or "You lure the enemy by faking an opening." That works too, but shouldn't be able to draw a spellcaster into melee.

I have no objection to aggro mechanics per se. In fact, I quite like the idea of taunt and feint abilities that trick opponents into making unsound decisions. What I object to is aggro without explanation or that doesn't fit the explanation given.

 

[Janaxstrus]

Interesting thought: many folks who don't like aggro mechanics (rules dictating creature behavior, rather than DM roleplay) want morale mechanics (rules dictating creature behavior, rather than DM roleplay).

Likewise, the opposite is true: folks who want aggro mechanics, but don't want morale rules.

Discuss.

I want Morale guidelines, not hard and fast rules. My preferred method would be notes in the monster writeup, "Goblins are cowardly and tend to flee when reduced below half their original number"
This puts it right back in the DMs hand, just like aggro mechanics

 

[Sunseeker]

I want Morale guidelines, not hard and fast rules. My preferred method would be notes in the monster writeup, "Goblins are cowardly and tend to flee when reduced below half their original number"
This puts it right back in the DMs hand, just like aggro mechanics

But that's part of the question, should "aggro" be a tool that the DM uses in order to battle his party, or should it also be a tool that a player can use to battle the NPCs.

I'm not opposed to aggro as DM fiat, but I do think players should have a hand in controlling the mobs, without an explicit "controller" role.

Here's a fairly napkin-mathy example.

Lets say all creatures have a morale rating of somewhere between 0 and 10.
Lets say that all creatures get X morale points from a particular score modifier, perhaps charisma for players, and various others for monsters.
Then lets say that morale goes up +1 for each member of the [npc] party, with members in a "leader" role providing a larger bonus. IE: the orc war party with the Orc Chieftan has more morale than the orc war party that doesn't have the Chieftan in it.

As members of the group are eliminated, HP are lost(lets keep it simple, 1/2 HP means -1 morale), etc... morale drops.

As morale drops, enemies become less coordinated and more easily controlled by the party. "Taunts" become more effective, enemies engage the closest PC party member or the one who last hit them regardless of how important a target another PC party member is.

Intimidate, Diplomacy, and other checks by the PC party aimed at getting the enemy to give up, then run away or surrender would become more effective. Party morale +d20 roll vs enemy morale +d20(ideally 7 to 8+d20 vs 0-3 +d20). Taunts would function the same, free or minor action, PC morale +d20 vs enemy morale +d20.

High-morale, coordinated war-parties would be unmoved by the fighter swearing at them trying to goad them into attacking him. Low-morale, uncoordinated groups would easily fall prey to his verbal jousting.

As I said, it's a very mathy example, but the actual execution of it doesn't need to be. The purpose of the whole thing is simply to engage the players with the DM. Both players and DM would be playing together not just against each other, and it would provide something to do during combat that's more than just attacking. It could give the fighter more utility, ie: Fighters get a bonus to "taunt" attempts, or characters in the "defender" role get said bonus.

Either way, it engages the players with the dm, instead of simply both whack on each other through proxy.

If you want a more guideliney example:
An Orc war party with high HP and no deaths will not run away for anything, but if they lose their leader or many members they often become uncoordinated and fall prey to their race's mental shortcomings and blind rage. Without a leader, war-party members are most likely to attack the closest target to them, or whatever player attacked them last.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

If we HAVE to use combat roles (grumble grumble) this is what I am more drawn to. At the end of the day, tanking is just a variant on controller. Think about, they take away the enemies ability to attack softer enemies = they are controlling enemy actions.

But really, to me, it comes down to the creatures you are facing having well defined behaviours. As [MENTION=44640]bill[/MENTION]91 pointed out very early in the thread, creatures should really have concise write ups how they react in combat.

[MENTION=93444]shidaku[/MENTION] made a point about zombies going for the softest target and avoiding the tank. Well, to me, zombies are brainless and wouldnt even know how to perceive a threat...they would go for the guy with the juiceist looking brain (Sorry wizards, come zombie apocolypse, you had better be prepared)

I like the idea of fighters controlling if they can and treating high defence and HP as an asset of the class. Meanwhile, dump threat mechanics and have creature behaviour well defined.

I would certainly be open to having tweaks on the combat roles based on class. The 3 I mentioned were just the general slots to be filled. And I made it intentionally that if you had 5 people, there would be good reasons to have any combo of the 3 roles (though preferably at least one of each).

I would be fine with a "martial controller" that locks down his threatened area to keep foes from moving out of it. Such a character would need means of greatly extending reach (such as several abberant and shapeshifting oriented material in 3E) or the ability to move around frequently out of turn to move his "halo" of threatened area and in effect shut down a wider radius than his actual reach allows (like PF's Combat Patrol feat). Otherwise I fear he'd be too limited compared to a caster-based controller to be balanced.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

You actually touched on a number of things here that I have been pondering, but I'm going to stick to the thread topic.
The thing you point out here that I find pertinent is that what you do is important. I would just like to add to that. How you do it may be what defines you in that role.

IMO, what you do defines your role. How you do it is defined by your class / fighting style / etc... As a most basic example, a rogue may do high single target damage and status effects by stabbing you in vulnerable spots while as a warlock may do it by shooting frickin lasers at people.

Maybe that's what you were saying too and I just misunderstood.

What you are called, on the other hand, should be insignificant when discussing mechanics, especially of a game in it's larval state.

Totally agree. Naming those roles was a struggle for me, I went with currently well known terms, but they very much don't fit. So I ended up referring to the roles by # instead. Name doesn't really matter, though. It's just a convenience for discussion.

 

[Zelda Themelin]

I think aggro is very much needed in computer games. But in rpg:s my monsters attack one which does most damage (if pc:s went first), if caster used some nasty spell with area effect like slow/fireball/fear, they probably attack caster.

Some monsters avoid melee with powerful melee pc:s and try to hit weaker pc:s. Some roll some knowledge skill back as pc:s for them and choose tactic based on that if they go first. Also some enemies might opt to surrender or run away if they realize pc:s are more powerful. Some monsters just swarm over everything without any real tactics, like zombies, slimes and other non-sentients which don't care for pain.

If some pc/or npc-monster has aggro talent it's either based on skill check that is kinda opposite of intimidate aka you roll will save to avoid acting to taunt. Or it's magical effect which differs in feeling from skill-induced reactions. I usually call it provoke skill use that can be activated either with bluff or intimidate.

I think skill based provoking is pretty much similar than using faint.

Even earlier editions had morale checks for monsters. I know, many weren't using them. Rpg-aggro is not same as computer came aggro anyhow. Even with mechanics there are always succesful resists.

 

[Starfox]

I believe aggro should be a DM prerogative.

In my 4E game, at early levels, I had the figher's aggro control work out. The fighter bottlenecked the monsters by finding a good position and thus took all the aggro. Bam, downed fighter. Over time, I discovered that the fighter only worked out if played the monsters stupid by having them try to attack rear-echelon PCs, thus letting the fighter use his aggro control tools without being teh creature's primary target.

This shows the kind of trouble you get into with artificial aggro systems.

That said, I believe there can be some powers that exploit things like blindsiding. My experiences from LARP fighting is that fighters tend to pair up, and the numerically superior side has a very strong advantage in that it is hard to defend against 2 foes. I is generally not worthwhile to mix in an adjacent fight - sure you can blindside an opponent, but you'll also get blindsided yourself. A system that represented this is a way that is not overly complex could see sue at my table. Say something like the 4E fighter's mark, only the effect is that if the creature ignores the mark, the fighter gets a significant bonus against them - in other words something like how backstab worked for rogues in 1E and 2E when we actually used facing - only its for everyone.