D&D 5E Fixing the Fighter

[pming]

Hiya.

I didn't read all 37+ pages...but I did scan a bit. I don't mean to derail the current discussion about the 4e tactical mini's rules stuff, but here's my quick 2¢.

Fighters should simply fight better than anyone else. Yes, it is that simple. They should have their focus on fighting. The game as a whole should be *extremely BASIC* as, well, a base. All the extra stuff can be added as 'options' in sidebars and/or appendices. Anyway, if a fighter simply had the best "to hit" baseline, all these supposed "maneuvers" could just have a to-hit applied. Fighters would naturally be the most likely to succeed in pulling them off. For example, a tricky maneuver may call for a -8 to hit. If a 10th level fighter has +14 to hit with his chosen weapon, he still gets a +6 to hit when he tries that...whilst the 10th level thief, with his +6 to hit total has a -2 to hit if he tried it. Plain, simple, quick and easy.

IMHO, trying to 'codify' special maneuvers, throwing them under "fighter", and then just hand waiving any actual intelligent reasoning as to why a fighter can use/try Tide of Iron, but a cleric with a shield can't is silly. Don't even get me started on the whole "encounter" or "daily" stuff.

So, yeah, simple. The current designers of 5e seem to be going farther and farther away from "simple, base design" so that anyone can play 5e, then add stuff they want to play any 'version' using 5e, just isn't happening now.They *should* be looking at what the game originally was, and then taking that as a base and re-creating it so that later "add ins" could be added without the need to actually change anything. For example: AC. Pre-3e D&D had descending AC, post-3e had ascending AC. The older versions could be easily re-worked to have/use ascending AC without 'screwing up' the old stuff. However, if you add in "feats" as a core base for the game, then that pretty much screws anyone from easily playing a more 'basic' version of the game that doesn't want to play with Feats (or any "choosable special abilities", so to speak), as originally there was nothing like 'feats' available. Ergo, "feats" should be an add-in, and not part of the core rule assumptions.

Anyway, there you have it. Fighters should fight better than anyone else, and, thus have the best chance to pull off fancy combat maneuvers/tricks/whatever. That should be based on absolute basic skill, with no 'added on doo-dads' like Feats or Combat Maneuvers; it's a ROLE-PLAYING GAME...and not a computer or rigid-ruled board game.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[pemerton]

Whereas I'm talking in regards to player fiat and the thread. Obryn likes 4e for the player fiat enabled regularly; you and Manbearcat have listed strong regular use of something I consider the opposite of that.

But strong improvisation rules can also support player agency - even when adjudicated by the GM - because they provide a framework for the GM saying "yes" rather than "no".

And I agree with [MENTION=11821]Obryn[/MENTION] that both make for a good game, because they encourage engagement with the fictional positioning moreso than a classic AD&D "I roll to hit; I roll my damage", which makes the details of the fictional situation almost irrelevant. (To call some of that AD&D play "theatre of the mind" is to overly glorify it, in my personal opinion - at least until you're getting to wacky stuff like White Plume Mountain or The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan.)

 

[JamesonCourage]

JamesonCourage I understand your earnest, sincere effort in this exchange, but I think you aren't groking it because, to be honest, I don't think you're familiar enough with the ruleset to understand what happens at a mechanical level here.

I disagree. You're certainly more familiar with the rules, no question about it. But, I clearly understand the difference between "the player says what he wants, GM consults guidelines, GM interprets player action via guidelines, GM tells player how it plays out" and "player tells GM exactly what is happening, mechanically and in the fiction."

For a player to be 10 feet away from a hazard or terrain featuring fire damage (that isn't directly behind the enemy) and say "I want to force my enemy through blade flurries and footwork into that hazard/terrain feature", he's saying "I am using a Fire, Martial, Weapon Keyword, Standard Action, Melee Range, Dex vs Ref Attack, Slide 2 rider effect". When a player says "I want the boiling stewpot to burn him" he's saying "This attack will do ongoing fire damage". When a player says I want to use my 7th level encounter power to achieve this improve limited effect damage expression, he is saying "I want the Ongoing Fire Damage to be 5 (Save Ends) and it will be medium damage expression".

Right. And true player fiat would give him the ability to declare these things, and not have to clear it with the GM. Just like a player does not have to clear an attack roll with the GM (exercising player fiat according to the original poster), the player needs to not have to clear this through the GM if he is to have the same amount of player fiat.

That is, as I said, the player says what he's doing (and what that means mechanically, as you've outlined), and then rolls happen. There is no "say yes" or "GM lets you" or "GM interpretation" or the like. That undermines player fiat (even "say yes").

Instead of having a pre-built shelving unit (a stock level 7 encounter power), its going to Ikea and buying all the pieces that precisely fit together, with instructions, and building the shelving unit yourself. Just because you build it yourself, using explicit instructions and tongue and groove or snap-lock or dowel/bolt and stock Allen's Wrench doesn't make it a different unit than if it was pre-built for you. If anything, perhaps it makes it more "yours"...more "fiat" as you're assembling it yourself through your imagination and explicit guidelines + deconstructed pieces and the tool that comes in the box.

I agree with this as long as the player gets to make the decisions on each part. If the GM is translating it, then I disagree.

I don't know how this could possibly be "mother may I." Its codified. Its clear.

And it's determined by the GM, not the player. That's what makes it "mother may I." From the DMG:

"Your presence as the Dungeon Master is what makes D&D such a great game. You make it possible for the players to try anything they can imagine. That means it’s your job to resolve unusual actions when the players try them.

Use the “DM’s Best Friend”: This simple guideline helps you adjudicate any unusual situation

[SNIP]

Other Checks: If the action is related to a skill (Acrobatics and Athletics cover a lot of the stunts characters try in combat), use that check. If it is not an obvious skill or attack roll, use an ability check. Consult the Difficulty Class and Damage by Level table below, and set the DC according to whether you think the task should be easy, hard, or somewhere in between. A quick rule of thumb is to start with a DC of 10 (easy), 15 (moderate), or 20 (hard) and add one-half the character’s level.

The book makes it fairly clear (in the DMG, at that), that the DM is the one who is determining the mechanical aspects. The guidelines do give strong support for players ("If the action is related to a skill (Acrobatics and Athletics cover a lot of the stunts characters try in combat), use that check" is very reliable for players), but the DM is explicitly the person making the mechanical decisions ("it’s your job to resolve unusual actions when the players try them").

This is why I labeled it as, at best, strongly supported "mother may I" in function. You have to hope your DM agrees with the skill use ("I hope he lets me use Acrobatics over a Dexterity check"), agrees with the difficulty ("it seemed Easy to me, but he picked Moderate"), and effects ("I wanted to slide him and damage him with the kick, not just slide him"). If the player got to determine these things, then it would be player fiat; as it stands, this is very, very different from "I attack him, using my [power] to gain [effect]." It's reliant on the DM to translate and interpret things mechanically, and while it has strong guidelines, it's not player fiat.

Side note: [sblock]Backing us up in the conversation a couple pages, I wanted to address this:

PC: "I'm near this boiling stewpot, hanging on the spit over the fire...I'm going to wrongfoot him into the fire with a level 7 limited use (level 7 encounter power equivalent)."

My first, honest question is "if the fire is hanging around, shouldn't it be more at-will damage, not encounter?" I ask honestly. The fire is going to stay there, I assume, so that'd be what I think it'd be. I don't play 4e, but I've read page 42. It's cool. If the fire is hanging around, I thought it would deal at-will level damage, wouldn't it?

Your first question of "could this particular attack have been at-will" is related to this issue; in order for the Rogue to pull this altogether, he needed a Slide 2 (medium control effect) and the result of knocking into the stewpot and getting the boiling liquid on him would e 5 ongoing Fire Damage (of-level for a 7th level encounter power).

Now that's interesting. He's basically sacrificing his level 7 encounter power for an on-the-fly power of alternate effect... Still, it doesn't seem to be a RAW, but a damn well done house rule.

That has always been my understanding of RAW p42 since they compared the example to the payload of an 8th level Rogue spending her 7th level encounter power. I could be wrong, but everything else I've read in Dragon and elsewhere supports my understanding of it. If I'm somehow wrong, I'll continue to use it in that fashion.

Looking at the page, I think you might be determining things differently from how the books suggests, too. Didn't you mention, in your earlier example, dealing encounter damage, since the player used up an encounter power? That doesn't look like how the rules function, to me:

Use a normal damage expression for something that might make an attack round after round, or something that’s relatively minor.

This makes it look like if you can push someone into a fire over and over again, then you should use the normal damage expression. This seems supported in the example:

Shiera the 8th-level rogue wants to try the classic swashbuckling move of swinging on a chandelier and kicking an ogre in the chest on her way down to the ground, hoping to push the ogre into the brazier of burning coals behind it.

[SNIP]

If she pulls it off, let her push the ogre 1 square and into the brazier, and find an appropriate damage number. Use a normal damage expression from the table, because once the characters see this trick work they’ll try anything they can to keep pushing the ogres into the brazier.

And, didn't you mention, in your earlier example, the Rogue's own encounter power getting used up to perform the maneuver? I'm not sure that happens, by the book, either:

You can safely use the high value, though— 2d8 + 5 fire damage. If Shiera had used a 7th-level encounter power and Sneak Attack, she might have dealt 4d6 (plus her Dexterity modifier), so you’re not giving away too much with this damage.

This is just giving you a way to judge damage dealt. If the 8th level Rogue had used her encounter power and Sneak Attack, she'd be dealing more (4d6+5ish to 2d8+5), thus it's okay to use the high damage value. As far as I can tell, it's not saying to actually consume her encounter power to deal that level of damage.[/sblock]
Just thought I'd give my input. I know you said if you're wrong, you'll continue to use it that way, so I'm not trying to convince you to change your game. Though if I'm right, I'll probably revel in how you opened your post to me ("but I think you aren't groking it because, to be honest, I don't think you're familiar enough with the ruleset to understand what happens at a mechanical level here"). As always, play what you like

But strong improvisation rules can also support player agency - even when adjudicated by the GM - because they provide a framework for the GM saying "yes" rather than "no".

Oh, very true. I agree.

And I agree with Obryn that both make for a good game, because they encourage engagement with the fictional positioning moreso than a classic AD&D "I roll to hit; I roll my damage", which makes the details of the fictional situation almost irrelevant.

I think both can make for a good game, too, but I see no reason the guidelines can't be set up in a way that favors PC-control over GM-control, barring things that break those guidelines pretty much completely. As always, play what you like

 

[Neonchameleon]

Hiya.

I didn't read all 37+ pages...but I did scan a bit. I don't mean to derail the current discussion about the 4e tactical mini's rules stuff, but here's my quick 2¢.

Fighters should simply fight better than anyone else. Yes, it is that simple. They should have their focus on fighting. The game as a whole should be *extremely BASIC* as, well, a base. All the extra stuff can be added as 'options' in sidebars and/or appendices. Anyway, if a fighter simply had the best "to hit" baseline, all these supposed "maneuvers" could just have a to-hit applied. Fighters would naturally be the most likely to succeed in pulling them off. For example, a tricky maneuver may call for a -8 to hit. If a 10th level fighter has +14 to hit with his chosen weapon, he still gets a +6 to hit when he tries that...whilst the 10th level thief, with his +6 to hit total has a -2 to hit if he tried it. Plain, simple, quick and easy.

Quick, easy, and a third rate "solution" that has been tried by many games and been interesting in none of them. Giving a maneuver a simple penalty to hit means that there is always the same optimal solution against the same monster. (The classic would be the GURPS "Go for the eyes" fighter with an absurd weapon skill and a bonus to called shots - it is no more inherently interesting to always go for the eyes than always attack normally any other way).

Repeating the same idea that's failed many other games (and failed D&D Next already) won't mysteriously make it work.

IMHO, trying to 'codify' special maneuvers, throwing them under "fighter", and then just hand waiving any actual intelligent reasoning as to why a fighter can use/try Tide of Iron, but a cleric with a shield can't is silly.

There's a difference between things you can try and things you have practiced so much they become instinctive. At Wills are things you've practiced so much they become instinctive.

Don't even get me started on the whole "encounter" or "daily" stuff.

Good. Because we've been round it in this thread.

Anyway, there you have it. Fighters should fight better than anyone else, and, thus have the best chance to pull off fancy combat maneuvers/tricks/whatever. That should be based on absolute basic skill, with no 'added on doo-dads' like Feats or Combat Maneuvers; it's a ROLE-PLAYING GAME...and not a computer or rigid-ruled board game.

And yet you want to make your "role-playing game" incredibly rigid with little room for differentiating characters (you want to remove feats), little point doing anything in combat except mashing the same button until it stops working (which is what both to hit penalties for maneuvers and feat based maneuvers lead to), and make your characters into cardboard cutouts who never practice or get any better at special tricks and only "absolute basic skill". You want a "role-playing game" with no mechanical ways of fleshing out your role.

The reason simple combat works in oD&D is that combat is something you want to avoid like the plague. It risks your life for very few XP and a probability of early death. And you want it over fast to get back to the interesting parts - the exploration, trying to outthink the dungeon, and loot-gathering. Making combat complex by adding maneuvers cuts against this design philosophy.

 

[pemerton]

I see no reason the guidelines can't be set up in a way that favors PC-control over GM-control

I think this is connected to issues around fictional positioning and adversity.

As long as it is the GM and not the player who is in charge of providing adversity to the PCs - and D&D is very traditional in this respect - then there are going to be some aspects of the fictional positioning that are under the GM's rather than the players' control. A simple example - there will be some NPCs whose attitude to the PCs is determined, as least at the outset, by the GM rather than the players.

And I think that it follows from this that the GM will have the final say on at least some attempts to leverage fictional positioning into successful action resolution - because it is the GM who has the job of framing the fiction in question as part of that adversity-providing function.

In 4e, for instance, the players have authority over their powers and similar abilities - which includes not just class and level specific ones, but the generic abilities described in the combat and skill chapters of the rulebooks. The game, being an RPG, utterly takes for granted that the players can leverage elements of the fiction in other ways too, but gives the GM authority over that because those elements (terrain, etc) are typically introduced for the purpose of providing adversity. (The rules actually have a category of terrain called a "terrain power" which is expressly intended as neutral between adversity and advantage, and the GM is directed by the rules to draw the players' attention to such powers at the start of a combat - which takes such powers out of the realm of "mother may I".)

[MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION] has interesting views on the relationship between fictional positioning, GM authority and adversity - I wonder if I can draw him in?

 

[pemerton]

double post

 

[JamesonCourage]

I think this is connected to issues around fictional positioning and adversity.

As long as it is the GM and not the player who is in charge of providing adversity to the PCs - and D&D is very traditional in this respect - then there are going to be some aspects of the fictional positioning that are under the GM's rather than the players' control. A simple example - there will be some NPCs whose attitude to the PCs is determined, as least at the outset, by the GM rather than the players.

I'm with you so far.

And I think that it follows from this that the GM will have the final say on at least some attempts to leverage fictional positioning into successful action resolution - because it is the GM who has the job of framing the fiction in question as part of that adversity-providing function.

Right. This makes sense when the GM is determining things outside of the player's ability to determine. The DC to convince this guy is Hard, but his buddy is Moderate. Makes sense.

I understand why these things make sense. But, this makes page 42 not player fiat (though I agree it helps with player agency). And, of course, there's no reason stronger guidelines can't be set along the lines of the example we used (a strong player-driven stunt system).

LostSoul has interesting views on the relationship between fictional positioning, GM authority and adversity - I wonder if I can draw him in?

He's got a lot of interesting views, so I do hope he shows up. As always, play what you like

 

[Neonchameleon]

The book makes it fairly clear (in the DMG, at that), that the DM is the one who is determining the mechanical aspects. The guidelines do give strong support for players ("If the action is related to a skill (Acrobatics and Athletics cover a lot of the stunts characters try in combat), use that check" is very reliable for players), but the DM is explicitly the person making the mechanical decisions ("it’s your job to resolve unusual actions when the players try them").

I agree with Jamieson here. This isn't player fiat, it's Mother May I. (I've been running a player fiat system last night - modern Cortex+. If the players want to fiat something as a weapon they can - the DM can be bypassed entirely). It may be (as @pmerton says) the edition of D&D with the lowest barrier to the DM saying yes - but it's still Mother May I.

I think both can make for a good game, too, but I see no reason the guidelines can't be set up in a way that favors PC-control over GM-control, barring things that break those guidelines pretty much completely. As always, play what you like

I refer anyone who doubts that you can have a good PC-control game to the Cortex+ games Marvel Heroic Roleplaying and Leverage (IMO the best comic book supers and the best con-game RPG on the market respectively; avoid Serenity and Supernatural or the old blue book like the plague, and I've not actually got Smallville).

 

[Manbearcat]

Though if I'm right, I'll probably revel in how you opened your post to me ("but I think you aren't groking it because, to be honest, I don't think you're familiar enough with the ruleset to understand what happens at a mechanical level here").

You'll revel in it? Ok. I'm not really sure how you would like me to be as clear as possible and polite as possible and relay that I think that you're effort here is in good faith but that its misunderstood by way of not having considerable experience with the ruleset; I could put a smily afterward? (but that may seem condescending and intentionally provocative when juxtaposed with the antecedent commentary, rather than sincere...I have no idea...its impossible to discern how one person may interpret language when they can't see your face versus another...so I just try to be as clear as possible with my language and put the ball in their court). People misunderstand things all the time. I misunderstand things plenty. Sort of like I did earlier and I owned it without hesitation or any loss of sense of self-worth. Nor does it affect me toward the end of gaining any sense of self-worth when I'm right about something. Its pretty trivial. We're human. It happens. And the world doesn't blink (tragedy continues in every corner of the world while we mull over useless game theory and rules adjudication). I wasn't being a jerk or slighting you or anything of the sort. We happen to sit on different sides of the fence of an issue, but so be it. I'm not sure what would be cause for revelling. But on we go I suppose:

but the DM is explicitly the person making the mechanical decisions ("it’s your job to resolve unusual actions when the players try them").

I think the term fiat here might be constrained into borderline meaninglessness if this is the case. Fiat is a decree made from authority. The player made the decree with the authority vested in him (by the rules and by our creative agenda at the table); and it ocurred...and does consistently. Does a mother/father not have the fiat to decide how to run their household because ultimately a government agency can potentially overturn it and/or incarcerate them or take their children away? Did King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette not have fiat because the French proletariat can at any point ultimately rise up, remove them from power (remove their fiat/authority), try them for treason and execute them by guillotine?

The player says I want to slide this guy into the boiling stewpot hanging on the spit over the firepit for ongoing fire damage...and knock the whole thing down and make a mess of it for permanent difficult terrain and a fire zone (well, in terms of the encounter...as soon as its cleaned up, its not there anymore); this is why its "limited use damage expression" rather than "normal use". While people can now get folks into the difficult terrain/fire square over and over as they wish (a normal damage expression - an at-will power), people can't upend the cauldron of boiling water and knock down the spit down by exerting force onto the apparatus over and over. They can do it once. That is a limited use effect; interchangeable jargon for encounter power. He asks to spend his level 7 encounter power to do it. He gets to do this by default. He frames it as forced movement through weapon flurries and wrongfooting him - Dex vs Ref; Fire, Martial, Weapon keywords. All of that is borderline impossible to adjudicate any differently. All that is left is the limited use (1/encounter) damage expression for level 7 encounter powers based on p42. That is the most meaningless portion of what he was wanting to do (and just as clear and intuitive as the rest of it). His primary goals:

1) Slide 2 - Check. 2 squares of forced movement that is not a push is a slide; its just gamist jargon for ease-of-use. *

2) Ongoing Fire Damage (save ends) - Check. Defaults to 5 for this level. *

3) Weapon Attack such that he gets Sneak Attack as he has CA - Check. That is how he described it and what he outlined be done. Perfectly legitimate. Making it not be would be suspending action resolution rules...for what good end exactly? *

4) Turn innocuous blocking terrain (I had envisioned it differently...but gladly deferred to him) into a difficult terrain/fire zone for the rest of the encounter where the enemy is standing (with the mess of the spit, the cauldron, the fire/stones. Therefore the enemy has a catch-22; move action and risk a successful OA or endure 5 automatic fire damage each round. Check. If folks (enemies or allies) want to, they can now use this terrain feature At-Will. *

* Automatic and impossible to "interpret" any differently such that the word "interpretation" is a pretty liberal use of the word. Resolve and resolution would be more fitting. You can't reconstruct a functional shower drain-pan assembly from deconstructed parts any differently. You aren't "interpretting" the shower drain-pan from the deconstructed parts. You're resolving the reconstruction.

He basically wanted to do this level 8 limited use hazard effect but sub melee range, single target, slide 2 for AoE effect:

Standard Action Close blast 3
Targets All creatures in blast
Attack: +11 vs. Reflex
Hit: 3d8 + 4 fire damage and ongoing 5 fire damage (save ends).


If the collection of that is not player fiat, then there can exist no such thing with improvised attacks (due to their very nature, they require some level of mechanical mapping) while a GM exists within the game construct; no matter how clear the apparatus/recipe is for resolution of the reconstruction from parts.

 

[pemerton]

I agree with Jamieson here. This isn't player fiat, it's Mother May I.

<snip>

It may be (as @pmerton says) the edition of D&D with the lowest barrier to the DM saying yes - but it's still Mother May I.

I think it has one feature that differentiates it from "traditional" mother may I - namely, the DC and damage rules which are non-arbitrarily mechnically integrated with the numbers on the players' PC sheets.

This enables the players to have a certain confidence in their prospects of success that are absent in a more traditional approach.

(Of course, this feature doesn't change it into player fiat - I don't regard Page 42 as a system for player fiat. But I do regard it as a system that supports player agency, because of the mechanical feature that I have identified.)

I refer anyone who doubts that you can have a good PC-control game to the Cortex+ games Marvel Heroic Roleplaying and Leverage

I looked for Marvel in late December but couldn't find it at the local games shop or the local comic shop.

The less that operational/tactical adversity is a feature of play, the less the significance of the GM having ultimate say over terrain and the like. I would expect a super hero game to be a bit different from 4e in this respect.

Burning Wheel combines both approaches: it expects the GM to exercise overall authority over the ingame situation, but has a range of abilities that players are expected to use to create new facts within the fiction. The discussion in the Adventure Burner (the GM's guide for that system, and a much later book than its core rulebook) of how to handle this aspect of the game shows that some issues of the sort LostSoul is interested in have come up in play: tensions between the GM's role in providing adversity, and the interest of the player in using his/her resources to minimise adversity, including by changing/adding to the fiction using the relevant abilities.

Is it easy to describe how Marvel Cortex handles this to someone who doesn't know the system?