D&D 5E More Rock/Paper/Scissors/Lizard/Spock in Combat

[GreyICE]

I kinda disagree, see to me 4E went too far. Not with PC choices and not with monster roles etc (even though most of those cases existed/exist in all additions).

The problem for the PCs was everyone can now do everything all the time! To me, that just was NOT fun. I liked earlier editions' powers/abilities that specialised vs certain creatures, and I certainly lked that all your powers did not work equally against all enemies (barring 1-3 defense differences here and there).

You 'can' defeat fire creatures with fire? You can just keep hacking away at bags of hps like undead, iron golems etc no matter what you brought to the fight. To me (us - our group) that was NOT fun.

And yeah, monsters had roles (as if they never did), but basing all stats purely on level also diminished inginuity in a fight. No longer were people thinking, 'How can we take advantage of this slow, dim-witted, lumbering ogre?' You just used your best powers (same as the last fight whatever that was against). At best you might select powers tarketing Will and Ref, but even the monster stats don't help much there. The ogre was okay in those too, simply b.c of level?

I am liking some of the choices PCs are getting so far and the idea of the OP, but there should be some situations where you simply had the best combination to win the day...and others where it is a real struggle to be effective without thinking outside the square, running away, planning ahead, etc.

Well most fire-based creatures have Resist 10 or so, meaning I wonder if you've ever tried to defeat a fire-based creature with fire. Most of your at-wills do on the order of 1-4 damage, and even daily powers are hugely nerfed. Meanwhile ongoing damage riders might as well not even exist. Seen an Abyssal Pact Warlock against fire-resist creatures, it's not that funny.

I mean sure, you can SAY that they'll go down eventually to fire, but you're basically upgrading standard monsters to elites, and elites to solos by attempting it.

But I think we're simply hitting an edition barrier. 3E was rocket tag. Bring the wrong flavor of rockets to the fight and you were doomed. 4E is tactical combat. Bring the wrong flavor of rocket, and good tactics still carry the day.

The fact is, it sounds like you enjoy the research and the planning. Once you've researched and planned, it's okay if the fight is a foregone conclusion, since you're not interested in it. And 4E, with its focus on tactical combat and situational awareness is the exact opposite of that.

Actually I'd highly recommend you check out a narrative-based system like FATE or even Mage. You'd probably really enjoy that style of gaming.

 

[Connorsrpg]

[MENTION=6684526]GreyICE[/MENTION]

Sorry - I don't agree with the whole rocket analogy at all. In very few fights in our years of 3E did we feel doomed, yet in almost every 4E fight we felt we had more than enough fire power without worrying about tactics.

In fact, to say 4E is more 'tactical' irks me even more. So there were rules for grid combat, but to me actual choice of tactics (meaning what you choose to do in a round) were significantly reduced in my mind. With a power list by level it was quite clear what to do. Strategy as a whole maybe...but again, it simply involved coming up with team combos of powers. Again, not really in game strategising at all.

I am sure I might like those other games, but I have enjoyed DnD for a long long time and hope to continue to do so.

 

[delericho]

Yet this hasn't been my experience. Make a character super specialized in fire damage means you get to do significantly more damage than everyone else. If 95% of all monsters are NOT immune or heavily resistant to fire, then your tactic pays off.

Until you run into one of those 5% that are immune, and then you're dead. But the DM must use those creatures, even if it means a TPK. Otherwise, specialisation just becomes a straight power-boost.

Fire Giants: Hmm...are they powerful enough that the rest of the party can't take them without my help? No. Good, I'll sit back and do nothing this combat while the rest of the group defeats them...after all, they have all of their abilities left, since I've been killing the rest of the encounters in one or two hits.

And, again, the key there is that those fire giants shouldn't be easy enough for the party to handle minus the Wizard, or at least not without the encounter being vastly harder, and the victory therefore much more costly.

D&D encourages specialization due to feats, classes, PrC, PPs, and the like tend to give you more power the more you specialize. Got a feat that makes you do 10 more damage with fire spells? It's more powerful if you take nothing BUT fire spells. Have a PrC that let's you knock everyone down when you hit with a fire spell? Perfect, that just means you should have all fire spells. Then you just search the book for everything that gives you a benefit with fire spells. Then, if you run into something immune to fire...well, perfect, the other person in your group has specialized just as much in cold spells. He'll deal with it.

Yes, that is a very significant problem - the game allows for, and indeed encourages, ultra-specialisation: pick one thing to be good at, and then throw every other advance into becoming truly uber in the use of that one thing.

But I addressed that in my previous post. I did say it was a two-part fix, with the first part being that the game should not allow that sort of ultra-specialisation. (Or, if it absolutely must, then it should very definitely be a case of diminishing returns - take a "tier one" specialisation and you get a largish boost for a relatively small cost, take a "tier two" to get a smaller (additional) boost at a higher cost, then "tier three" specialisations give yet smaller gains for ever-increasing cost, and so on.)

 

[slobo777]

But I addressed that in my previous post. I did say it was a two-part fix, with the first part being that the game should not allow that sort of ultra-specialisation. (Or, if it absolutely must, then it should very definitely be a case of diminishing returns - take a "tier one" specialisation and you get a largish boost for a relatively small cost, take a "tier two" to get a smaller (additional) boost at a higher cost, then "tier three" specialisations give yet smaller gains for ever-increasing cost, and so on.)

It's a balancing act.

Diminishing returns occuring too early will mean that "best" characters are jack-of-all-trades, and will cause optimisers to homogenise their characters.

As an extreme example, I experimented for a short while with a system which allowed all bonuses to "stack", but pushed them into a triangular number system i.e. adding a +1 to anything got you nowhere, but combining a +3 (triangle 6) and a +4 (triangle 10) got you a +5 (triangle 15). Not only was the system unwieldy in use, it also encouraged very bland character builds using point buy. Having said that, it might be made work nicely with e.g. a 3d6 check system (as opposed to d20), because every +1 you can squeeze out at the top end of such a system is a big deal.

Any Fantasy RPG system does benefit from rewarding thematic lock in such as a "Fire Mage", because then these recognised fantasy tropes emerge from the system more often. Now, I might prefer a completely different route to this (such as a "feat tree" for access to spells, meaning you have to get Burning Hands to get Fireball) - but the end result would be the same specialisation.

The question isn't so much whether to do it or not, but "How much is enough?"

In addition, interesting secondary concerns crop up, such as the fire mage player feeling that they have no or shallow character progression if they are not allowed to somehow increase the depth of relation to fire - it's a defining part of their character after all. IMO the game should absolutely support this, it's a question of how (I quite like ideas like "Fire Archon" prestige classes, that can add breadth and story, but not necessarily +X more damage to stack with what the character already has).

 

[GreyICE]

[MENTION=6684526]GreyICE[/MENTION]

Sorry - I don't agree with the whole rocket analogy at all. In very few fights in our years of 3E did we feel doomed, yet in almost every 4E fight we felt we had more than enough fire power without worrying about tactics.

In fact, to say 4E is more 'tactical' irks me even more. So there were rules for grid combat, but to me actual choice of tactics (meaning what you choose to do in a round) were significantly reduced in my mind. With a power list by level it was quite clear what to do. Strategy as a whole maybe...but again, it simply involved coming up with team combos of powers. Again, not really in game strategising at all.

I am sure I might like those other games, but I have enjoyed DnD for a long long time and hope to continue to do so.

Really? Were you running through the WotC published adventures by any chance? Or were you dealing with a DM who made their own material? Because even those of us who like 4E hold the WotC published material in only the highest levels of contempt (it's seriously intolerably bad and contains fights ranging from EL -1 to EL +1, which gets more and more ridiculous as you gain levels).

If you're dealing with an actual challenge, 4E becomes very tactical and interesting. There are some real choices to be made with most any class. How much do you risk to get a flank in if it would be safer to stick next to the defender? How do you use the terrain and features of the map to split up the enemy and reduce incoming damage? If it's a proper encounter with high danger levels these are important, because the incoming damage is higher than the party's outgoing damage in a straight slugfest, so the party is going to get creamed. Proper control of the situation, target priorities, maneuvering, and other elements of gameplay become super important.

[MENTION=19265]Connorsrpg[/MENTION]: I hate the passive-aggressive habit of responding to people in Experience Point Comments. So, to answer your comment, no, those tactics are not equally effective in every edition of D&D. 3E, for instance, features very few ways to effectively reposition enemies, making terrain hazards and other features anti-PC effects which the PCs had no real way to positively utilize.

 

[delericho]

In addition, interesting secondary concerns crop up, such as the fire mage player feeling that they have no or shallow character progression if they are not allowed to somehow increase the depth of relation to fire - it's a defining part of their character after all.

Ah, now that's also something they can fix. They key there is to have multiple different (and non-stacking) specialisations in various areas at the various tiers. That way, there are ways to "deepen the relationship to fire" at each level, if that's really what the player wants, but without increasing the power gain of specialising.

(To give an example of what I'm trying to get at, consider the 3e 2nd level spells scroching ray and flaming sphere (and assume for the moment that these were actually balanced!). If the Wizard chose one of these for his spellbook at 3rd level, and the other at 4th, that would "deepen his relationship" to some extent, but wouldn't actually increase his power any, since he can only use one per round. That's an imperfect example, of course, but hopefully gives an idea of what I mean!)

 

[Connorsrpg]

[MENTION=6684526]GreyICE[/MENTION]
Appologies for replying in the XP section. It does make it hard to continue discussions, but I certainly did not intend any aggression.

For the record I played and DMed a lot of 4E. I simply find it odd that it was 'the tactical' edition. I found 1E highly tactical b/c we tried all those things you mentioned on a regular basis. Granted - 4E brought in Powers that allowed you to move others around the grid and combats were more 'mobile', which I enjoyed. That certainly led to some tactics, but it still relied upon Power selection and quite often the choice was clear.

Strategy and tactics have always been a part of our games. I am liking the shift back to 'try these things out' as opposed to 'you can only do these things'. Then tactics won't be restricted. If you have found the opposite that is great. If there is some sort of medium (b/w freeform and chess-like) for 5E I will be very happy.

But is this even relavant to the OP? I kinda lost the gist of this thread, sorry.

 

[GreyICE]

I think it was that basically D&D needs to vary monster design a lot, because otherwise the game becomes about one thing, "how fast can you kill a bag of X HP with N AC/Defenses."

And how 4E had the Minion/Standard/Elite/Solo divide as well as the monster roles that forced (with well-designed encounters) a variety of tactics.

Then we got derailed into the tactical options in 4E versus earlier editions. For the record, my saying "4E is much more tactical than previous editions" was probably a mistake. I should have said "it is much more tactical than THE previous edition."

 

[Zustiur]

Then we got derailed into the tactical options in 4E versus earlier editions. For the record, my saying "4E is much more tactical than previous editions" was probably a mistake. I should have said "it is much more tactical than THE previous edition."

I don't know that it's more tactical per se... The difference is in the minimum standard for tactics. e.g. on a scale of 1-10, 3E can be played at any number, including 1. 4E has about a 3 minimum. Both top out at 10.

 

[GreyICE]

I don't know that it's more tactical per se... The difference is in the minimum standard for tactics. e.g. on a scale of 1-10, 3E can be played at any number, including 1. 4E has about a 3 minimum. Both top out at 10.

I haven't found that to be the case. 3E has severe issues with intricate tactics being optimal. Mostly, you want to do the following in your average combat:

- Pick your best spell or attack, slam it home.
- Repeat

The need for all melee to do full attack actions removes positioning and anything related to it from being much of an interesting thing - you stand still.

What 3E is is very strategic. You have to pick and choose how you will fight a tough battle. Summon and grapple? Which target do you attack first? What's the most efficient way to win?

These are all strategic concerns, but once you're done with that, everything left is executing the strategy. The plethora of precombat buffs and temporary buffs that make things a lot easier, as well as specialized spells and other abilities that work very well against the right targets is, again, strategy.

So if we were ranking them, 4E starts out at a 3 and goes to 10 in tactics (tactical concerns are basically necessary to get anywhere). 3E starts at a 1, and goes to maybe 6. In strategy, 4E starts at 1 and goes to maybe 4-5 (power conservation, a few potions, etc.), 3E starts at 1 and goes to 10.

The change can be seen in how easy it is to wear a party down. 3E, long-term resource management is huge. And that's all strategy. Wear down the party's resources, and you can lose - not that fight, not the next fight, but the third or fourth fight.

4E, wearing down the party's resources is tough, and even a party bereft of daily attacks and low on healing surges can find lots to do in an encounter.

It's just a different focus, and a different game.