D&D 5E D&D podcast!

[pemerton]

[MENTION=50304]mlund[/MENTION], I don't disagree with much of your post in reply above. (And your point contasting Heal/Cure Critical Wounds with Regeneration is particularly good).

But I think the tradition of D&D giving a free pass to magic, and the very obvious response to the martial powers and non-magical healing in 4e by a segment of the D&D market, means that it is too late to rescind that free pass, or just give one to martial characters as well and expect it to go unremarked.

The one thing I do disagree on is the AEDU issue. Admittedly I don't know the Marshal class other than by reputation, but that reputation doesn't seem to be very strong. Whereas the warlord is widely admired and enjoyed. What the 4e framework permits is for the warlord both to act and confer free acions (which become the upgrades to the warlord's encounter or daily actions). With a purely at-will framework, the ability to confer free actions on allies while acting oneself wil have to be curtailed, to the detriment either of the warlord's acting (so all builds turn into lazy builds) or the nature of the buffs (instead of free actions we get modest attack or damage buffs, which are much less resonant when we make the translation from mechanics to fiction).

 

[mlund]

But I think the tradition of D&D giving a free pass to magic, and the very obvious response to the martial powers and non-magical healing in 4e by a segment of the D&D market, means that it is too late to rescind that free pass, or just give one to martial characters as well and expect it to go unremarked.

There are different ways of handling things when they get remarked upon, though. You can make the logical argument and point out that the logic being used to take exception is, in fact, fundamentally flawed and internally inconsistent and explain a consistent rules set that allows everyone to play their way. Or you can also just roll over and treat one way or the other as a sacred cow based on how loudly one camp or another complains and choose one group to pander to and another to give a sharp thumb in the eye.

I like Option A a lot more. I think it speaks to better integrity of game design and business planning, if nothing else.

The one thing I do disagree on is the AEDU issue. Admittedly I don't know the Marshal class other than by reputation, but that reputation doesn't seem to be very strong.

He was a late-coming class that didn't make it into a Player's Handbook.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20030906b

There's a basic breakdown though - sharing some space with the Bard but devoid of spells thusly being generally relegated to level-dipping for front-loaded benefits - like most Martial Classes in 3.5, really.

Whereas the warlord is widely admired and enjoyed. What the 4e framework permits is for the warlord both to act and confer free acions (which become the upgrades to the warlord's encounter or daily actions). With a purely at-will framework, the ability to confer free actions on allies while acting oneself wil have to be curtailed, to the detriment either of the warlord's acting (so all builds turn into lazy builds) or the nature of the buffs (instead of free actions we get modest attack or damage buffs, which are much less resonant when we make the translation from mechanics to fiction).

Action economy is actually a very small sub-set of what the Warlord could do. Most commonly, the Warlord traded his Standard Action for someone else's action (or even less, a Basic Attack). This was At-Will for the Warlord in 4E and translates to DNDNext perfectly.

The limited scope of Warlord Encounter and Daily Powers generally didn't grant full Actions to other characters either. Instead the Warlord would either make a weaker attack than normal but give an ally an opportunity to make a weaker (read:basic) attack or even just the chance to move a limited distance.

The Warlord's best Encounter and Attack Powers were generally attacks that generated "buffs" that helped his allies when they next acted, with the power level / scarcity equation escalating the scope of the bonus.

Once you remove the E + D scope from the Warlord due to changing the game framework you still have a rich design space. The DNDNext framework also curtailed all traditional forms of multi-attack, which was a way of escalating the action economy. The still managed to build something out with cleave, whirlwind, volley, etc. I'm pretty sure they can balance out something similar.

You could even use the Fighter's high-level surges as a benchmark on action economy for true instances of "I take a full action and so does my friend."

As to the bulk of the Warlord's functionality that doesn't meddle with the Action economy, there's plenty of room for buffing, setting up 1-2 combinations with other characters, and continuous Aura-style effects like the Marshal brought to the table in 3.5.

- Marty Lund

 

[Crazy Jerome]

You guys have to remember that "meta gaming" is a concept that for many people in their formative roleplaying years (heh) was treated as a "Bad Wrong Fun". For some it became the bad kind of dogma--that is, dogma where people have kept the dogmatic statements and attitudes but lost the understanding of where the dogma comes from--and thus when and where it doesn't apply anymore. In a few cases, it's not even that anymore, but rejection of any "meta gaming" as mere attitude.

A lot of the rationalization that we see comes from the base of "metagaming is bad, a priori".

Now, I'd say that the thought that "metagaming doesn't belong in D&D" is not only unreasonably limiting, but also a sign of a bad understanding of the breadth of D&D history. But no one can even start discussing the boundaries and options until they get past that dogma.

 

[Manbearcat]

@Crazy Jerome Thats a great post CJ and I'm in complete agreement. Its the reason why I cringe when I see folks not wanting to investigate their own "feelings" on subjects (in this case and often on this board its metagame mechanics or just a subset of it; inherent PC stance fluctuation) or get indignant (and assume bad faith) when people try to engage them to explore the gears and levers of those "feelings."

I still don't understand how folks can be fine with limiting martial prowess by physics (gravity, requisite thrust for altitude gain and atmospheric drag specifically) and there are so many monsters in the implied setting in D&D that are utterly mundane and completely deny fundamental physics (gravity, requisite thrust for altitude gain and atmospheric drag specifically). But these monsters get a pass while martial characters are held to a different set of physics.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I still don't understand how folks can be fine with limiting martial prowess by physics (gravity, requisite thrust for altitude gain and atmospheric drag specifically) and there are so many monsters in the implied setting in D&D that are utterly mundane and completely deny fundamental physics (gravity, requisite thrust for altitude gain and atmospheric drag specifically). But these monsters get a pass while martial characters are held to a different set of physics.

I don't see what's difficult to understand. Some want the world to work in a familiar way, with fantastic creatures and magic being the exception to normality. Sometimes, what's exciting about fantasy is being a mere mortal in a fantastic setting.

 

[Manbearcat]

I don't see what's difficult to understand. Some want the world to work in a familiar way, with fantastic creatures and magic being the exception to normality. Sometimes, what's exciting about fantasy is being a mere mortal in a fantastic setting.

Oh no, I understand that. But I'm assuming "fantastic" means supernatural, yes? Or does fantastic just mean "wondrous but mundane"? Because if its the latter then that isn't an internally consistent explanation. You can't have "but physics" as the reasoning for a causal logic explanation underwriting limits for one sort of phenomenon (mundane demi-human kinesiology) and "but wondrous" as the reasoning for a causal logic explanation underwriting the unbounding of the exact same phenomenon (mundane monstrous kinesiology).

Supernatural? Ok. Wondrous but mundane? Not so much. At least that position doesn't work as 3rd party actors (us) outside of the gameworld who look behind the curtain and know the nature, for certain, of the moving parts...and then demand that this (somewhat shared by the greater culture) subjective tolerance level (which is internally inconsistent) is somehow a mandate to declare what should and should not be orthodox within the implied setting and within the mechanics through which we resolve tasks and conflict in the game world.

Fighter: I'm going to stab this Ankheg and use the two handed stab to vault over it and land on the other side of him and dance away!
DM: Roll these 3 checks which total to a 27 % chance for success and 35 % chance of some critical failure.
Fighter: Um, he's an 800 lb, 10 ft, mundane arthropod. The weight of his exoskeleton should render him utterly immobile, his respiratory functionality completely inert and the weight of it should crush his organs...but somehow he moves faster than my fighter in chain mail?...and he is able to somehow also create the requisite force to excavate earth/rock and move through it? But I can't stab him and jump over him? And we're simulating process here?
DM: But wondrous!
Fighter: 27 % success...35 % failure. Ok. I attack him with my sword.

This is the problem I have with this paradigm. It makes me glad I've never been a player in all my years of gaming in D&D. But I've watched enough games and cringed as I saw this exact same deal play out in one form or another. We aren't even talking about mundane versus magic here. Just mundane versus some subjective, collective "wondrous" when we all can look under the hood and see the "wondrous" is just mundane...just like fighters.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

[MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], in fairness, a lot of what you saw there is not so much lockstep with process simulation as being bad at probability. Usually, people that are serious about process simulation get that stage out of the way pretty darn quick.

 

[Manbearcat]

@Crazy Jerome Well, maybe a bit of both but point taken!

 

[Bluenose]

I don't see what's difficult to understand. Some want the world to work in a familiar way, with fantastic creatures and magic being the exception to normality. Sometimes, what's exciting about fantasy is being a mere mortal in a fantastic setting.

That argument can be applied just as well to allowing people the capabilities they can have in real life, rather than restricting them to less than that.

 

[Gorgoroth]

That argument can be applied just as well to allowing people the capabilities they can have in real life, rather than restricting them to less than that.

Exactly. Why do I need a power to "Go for the eyes?" and why can it only be done once per day. Also, same with Knockout. I can throw sand in people's eyes all day long in real life. It might not land very often, and they might beat me up for doing so, but I am not physically prevented from even attempting it. And before anyone says page 42, why have powers at all if I can do whatever I want on top of the power system? It should not be up to the game designer to assign frequency to mundane physical tasks, especially those that are suboptimal use of your standard action. What's better, a 1/20 chance of blinding an enemy each round? Or a 50% chance of outright killing them. There's an imbalance between the expected outcome and the game mechanics that grates on people after a while.

I don't need or want a rule book to tell me the enemy sees my ruse and closes his eyes the next time he sees me reaching in my pouch. That's the DM's job. No more gaming on rails, please, that's what videogames do. (and even then, better, considering the physics is getting quite good now). Trust me, I write physics code for AAA games and if a pen n paper RPG simulates physical outcomes worse than what we can do on a console, Houston, we have a problem.