D&D 5E Fixing the Fighter

[Obryn]

Mostly, yes. Cleave is hacking through one enemy and the momentum carries you through to hit a second. Whirlwind Attack swinging your weapon in a wide arc. Power Attack is recklessly attacking. Tripping is tripping.

And that's as far as you narrate? Seems kind of light. So you just say every time the Fighter cleaves, "your momentum carries you through?" Or does it get flexible and you adjust it based on the situation?

Could feats like this be *gasp* effects-based design?!?

-O

 

[FireLance]

Not in my games. Effects-based design is weak-tier game design.

I would say that it's weak-tier simulation design instead. Game design is much broader than simulation.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

In the end the game overall made me feel like a guy standing above a large grid moving pieces around. Myself and my group were getting so frustrated because we couldn't see the images in our mind to justify a lot of the powers and that was a turn off, and the fact that it was just flat out boring as hell. I don't want another iteration of D&D to make me feel this way.

We like to be able to imagine what's going on and to feel like we are in the game world.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Not in my games. Effects-based design is weak-tier game design.

And in mine, process-based design is a straightjacket that makes it impossible to think outside the box or imagine a real world situation that matches up to what's happening unless you go into absurd detail. And that just slows the game down to a hideous clunk and requires that the designers need to be right about everything. GURPS almost gets away with it; I seriously had no idea that people thought that e.g. Cleave, Bull Rush, or Whirlwind Attack were other than effect based as making them process-based is just so limiting.

Sorry, bro, I need more than a quick line of fluff justifying how your fighter does Weird Power Name. Sneak attack makes sense.

And I have more than the amount I need in 4e powers. They are about how the character moves and what they are trying to do. What Icertainly don't need is a game that pins down my fighter and makes doing sensible things (like using my shield to control where the enemy is and drive them backwards to keep them off balance for my sword) next to impossible.

The name alone tells you what's going on (you're making an attack that the enemy doesn't expect), but in something with a name like Tide of Iron, I'd like to see a bit more effort put into describing the power.

You mean using your shield to drive the enemy back? Doesn't that idea make any sense to you? The effect of the power is part of the description. The push shows you are driving the enemy back, and that you use your shield shows you are using a shield to do it. The exact technical detail, something that I've written two descriptive paragraphs for, is something that is situational especially for a fighter.

Sorry bro, but if a game had given the amount of fluff I gave for Tide of Iron for every major possible type of attack I would put it back for being incredibly annoyingly patronising. And for padding the page count to an absurd extent rather than giving me a workable and elegant game.

CAGI is merely symptomatic of a greater problem in 4e, much like how Prone Shooter is symptomatic of a greater problem in Pathfinder. Criticizing these specific aspects is criticizing the system as a whole on the micro level. (To wit: 4e is abstract, gamey, and desperate to be an action movie, and Pathfinder is written by people who don't know or understand the system.)

Calling 4e abstract is a joke. If you think 4e is abstract, I'd like to introduce you to Dungeon World. Or Fiasco.

Even if you mean by D&D standards, it's still a joke. pre-3.0 D&D is genuinely abstract. 1 minute combat rounds that are boiled down to a simple attack roll? That's abstract. 4e is incredibly concrete by those standards. And the 3e combat system that assumes that people are always in exactly the same part of the 5ft square every time and you can make exactly the same type of attack every time? You're simplifying far more than 4e ever does. And Theatre of the Mind? Way more abstract than the 4e battlemap.

4e is quite simply the least abstract that D&D has ever been.

As for gamey - oD&D was written as a game. XP for GP anyone? 4e is less gamey than oD&D or BECMI And desperate to be an action movie? Compared to the loving description of spells given in e.g. 3.X. Well... possibly.

There are other powers to criticize--Bloody Path and Own the Battlefield come to mind--but CAGI is the one most well-known.

And once more these are mere options you are picking out. By picking out a handful of obscure powers you are saying "No one should ever be able to play this game in a specific way I don't like." Who are you and why should every possible ability of every single martial character cater to you? Why shouldn't those of us like @Pmerton, [MENTION=11821]Obryn[/MENTION], and myself be able to play with the sort of fighters, rogues, and warlords we want to which restricts you to a mere 90% of all martial powers possible? Why is other people having BadWrongFun by giving their own fighters and rogues metagame-related powers so anathema to you personally?

 

[Ahnehnois]

And in mine, process-based design is a straightjacket that makes it impossible to think outside the box or imagine a real world situation that matches up to what's happening unless you go into absurd detail. And that just slows the game down to a hideous clunk and requires that the designers need to be right about everything. GURPS almost gets away with it; I seriously had no idea that people thought that e.g. Cleave, Bull Rush, or Whirlwind Attack were other than effect based as making them process-based is just so limiting.

That's what rules are. Limits. Anyone can sit down with a group of friends and play make-believe and do anything you want. The only role of D&D rules (or any rules) is to restrict that freedom. Hopefully, the restrictions make the experience more focused, and take away some of the potential disagreement and nonsense that results from freeform rp-ing.

That being said, a process-based design which leaves effects to interpretation is more open-ended and less limiting than an outcomes-based design that asks you to explain where the outcomes came from.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Well if you're really playing the role of the character, both will go hand in hand. Of course D&D is not "purely" a roleplaying game in that sense; there is typically a third-person element to it as well. However, it is nonetheless fairly typical that a character's and players perceptions and decisions will mirror each other, particularly in tactical situations.

This whole metagame mechanic thing drives a wedge between the two, of course.

Except that none of the examples presented even come close to breaking immersion in the way you indicate. Come and Get It is normally accompanied by a barrage of insults and "Come and Get Me you [censored]". No reason that breaks immersion. Own the Battlefield? [Warlord narrows eyes] "If only ... Aha!" It's plotting things out for a setup. Bloody Path involves a whole lot of parrying and redirecting to get where you want to go. But none of these powers are ones with a wedge - the only possible wedge here is AEDU.

Besides, there are a grand total of two people whose immersion is at stake here. The first is the player with the power. If they found such a power would break immersion they shouldn't have chosen it. This is a BadWrongFun issue. The second is the DM - and that's hardly immersive in the same way.

So you're saying that a 4e fighter doesn't know when he's used his powers? What does he think about that one great attack he just did? How did he do that? Why doesn't he try to do it again?

I'm saying that's a metagame mechanic, just as feats are. And he might try to do it again in the case of an encounter power when the opportunity comes up. In the case of a daily, it takes an adrenaline rush and an opportunity.

Clearly, magical characters know how many spells they have. I can't see why (under the 4e paradigm), other power sources are different.

We've explained. What I don't understand is why divine characters whose power comes at the whim of the Gods should use anything that approximates Vancian casting or Spell Points or other obviously controllable systems. (Or AEDU). But they do because it's the abstraction classic D&D has chosen.

I get that. I also get that it's really bizarre that a player chooses directly between having the character do something that is completely explained within the context of the game world (such as a basic attack) and something that isn't.

Fine. You don't like it you don't have to do it. There is no law saying fighters have to take CAGI. Why are you trying to police how others play their characters?

Given that D&D is for both the some and the others, I'd say it's worth considering.

Indeed. If balancing the game isn't important, why do people object when it is balanced? Once more this boils down to a BadWrongFun problem. The only people who should object to balance are those who openly want things to be unbalanced. (There are some who do - in favour of the casters). A balanced game should satisfy those who care about balance and those who don't.

 

[Neonchameleon]

That's what rules are. Limits.

Indeed. But that's no excuse why my level 10 fighter in AD&D or 3.X can't use a technique I have used in real life like Tide of Iron. The rules are limits - and what is being objected to here is that they limit a martial character far below the limitations of the real world.

That being said, a process-based design which leaves effects to interpretation is more open-ended and less limiting than an outcomes-based design that asks you to explain where the outcomes came from.

Wrong. Process-based design only allows you to use the processes it models. If you want a different process you're SOL. Which is why you don't get Tide of Iron in 3.X. Outcome and exception based design allows you to do anything if the approximate outcome roughly matches one of the outcomes someone has thought up.

Of course abstract resolution/task focussed resolution is the one that does allow you freedom.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

Except that none of the examples presented even come close to breaking immersion in the way you indicate. Come and Get It is normally accompanied by a barrage of insults and "Come and Get Me you [censored]". No reason that breaks immersion. Own the Battlefield? [Warlord narrows eyes] "If only ... Aha!" It's plotting things out for a setup. Bloody Path involves a whole lot of parrying and redirecting to get where you want to go. But none of these powers are ones with a wedge - the only possible wedge here is AEDU.

It does for me, even more so when it works on an enemy who is clearly intelligent, cool headed, and has lots of combat experience. Reminds me of Bugs Bunny drawing the line in the sand and daring Yosemite Sam to step across it until they come to a cliff and he steps over that final line and ends up plummeting to the ground below.

 

[Obryn]

It does for me, even more so when it works on an enemy who is clearly intelligent, cool headed, and has lots of combat experience. Reminds me of Bugs Bunny drawing the line in the sand and daring Yosemite Sam to step across it until they come to a cliff and he steps over that final line and ends up plummeting to the ground below.

What about when a canny, intelligent combatant falls for a feint? What about when a tough, durable dwarf gets poisoned? Or an agile, perceptive monk gets caught in a fireball blast?

CaGI in particular - post-errata - goes against the enemy's Will defense. It's no different from a saving throw, except in who's doing the rolling. Will represents that "cool-headed and experienced" bit.

Which is why you don't get Tide of Iron in 3.X. Outcome and exception based design allows you to do anything if the approximate outcome roughly matches one of the outcomes someone has thought up.

Oh you could have it in 3.x, more or less. There's not a substantial difference between an at-will power, an effect tacked onto a basic attack via a stance, and an option opened up by a feat. The ToI "feat" might be, "You can make an attack as a standard action. If you hit, in addition to dealing damage, you push your enemy 5' and may advance to the space they exited. This movement does not provoke attacks of opportunity. Requirement: You must be using a shield."

Due to iterative attacks, the feat has some issues in that it significantly downgrades a Fighter's damage potential, but there's seriously not a lot of difference between the options.

-O

 

[ForeverSlayer]

What about when a canny, intelligent combatant falls for a feint? What about when a tough, durable dwarf gets poisoned? Or an agile, perceptive monk gets caught in a fireball blast?

CaGI in particular - post-errata - goes against the enemy's Will defense. It's no different from a saving throw, except in who's doing the rolling. Will represents that "cool-headed and experienced" bit.


Oh you could have it in 3.x, more or less. There's not a substantial difference between an at-will power, an effect tacked onto a basic attack via a stance, and an option opened up by a feat. The ToI "feat" might be, "You can make an attack as a standard action. If you hit, in addition to dealing damage, you push your enemy 5' and may advance to the space they exited. This movement does not provoke attacks of opportunity. Requirement: You must be using a shield."

Due to iterative attacks, the feat has some issues in that it significantly downgrades a Fighter's damage potential, but there's seriously not a lot of difference between the options.

-O

Not the same thing at all. I'm not prone to name calling in real life, you can call me what ever you want but I won't fall for it like every time Marty McFly was called "chicken".

Someone quicker than I am can out feint me, or I can still be poisoned. Saves also account for things outside the PC's control like with a monk failing his reflex save. He could have been about to run and a bit of the ground gave way, or there was some loose gravel that cause him to slip or even movement off to the side that caught his attention for a split second and that was enough to distract him and not get out of the way in time.