Narrative Space Options for non-spellcasters

[Neonchameleon]

I found that old school moel basically meant wizards would seek out spells lacking a save. Fighters can do damage, thanks.

Your point? That being able to create a Wall of Stone simply isn't enough? I don't see how "Fighters can do one aspect of what wizards can so wizards should do more" is a good argument. Especially as Gygax deliberately boosted the fighter with Unearthed Arcana for balanced purposes.

But spells with a "save means wasted action"? Exercise in frustration if we're down to a 1 in 3 or 4 chance it will do anything. May as well get rid of those spells - the others will be clearly superior choices.

Indeed. Leave the fighting and killing to the fighters. It's what they are good at - and they don't get anything else.

So why are L5 spells so easy to come by that our newly L9 wizard has his pick of the litter?

Depends which system you are using. In AD&D they aren't.

Seriously? It failed twice? Why do the PC's keep at it, then?

Because the PCs don't fail with it. The PCs normally inflict a TPK with it. On the other hand if it's the third time it's attempted against the PCs then the PCs must have survived the first two. That's why I say that in your example it failed twice.

It has weakened the enemy forces, taking out guards on each occasion. The raiders have whittled away a chunk of our defenses. Seems to me they are remarkably effective, so we better find a way to deal with this before we are all wiped out.

Where are your witnesses coming from? You just know that your guys are getting wiped out - but unless there are survivors you don't necessarily know how. Whether it's teleportation or the much more likely simple invisibility. Almost as deadly and can be done by a much lower wizard, therefore much more likely. Especially as invisibility doesn't mean that the wizard will eventually kill themselves with their own spell, unlike AD&D teleportation.

And the wizard gains powers to help with political machinations. The fighter did in AD&D - that's part of what the fighter's small army as a class feature was about. That stopped in 3e (and didn't return in 4e).

 

[pemerton]

We typically used 28 point point buy. That allows 4 14's and 2 10's, among an array of other iterations. Let's see - you could have a 14 INT, 14 CHA, 14 STR, 14 CON, 12 DEX (maxes your bonus in full plate) and 8 WIS. You won't get extreme bonus hp or attack/damage modifiers, but I'd say you're competent as a Fighter

I'm surprised and interested that you think this is a competent fighter. Since I first started playing I've always aimed at 16+ in a prime requisite (in the old days, to get the +10% XP bonus).

how is it so easy to acquire your pick of 5th level spells as a wizard?

So why are L5 spells so easy to come by that our newly L9 wizard has his pick of the litter?

Research. Plus looting ancient Suel archives.

Even Gary, in the 1E DMG, stated (in all caps, no less) that you can't have a stable campaign without effective time management.

I always understood him to be talking primarily about time as a resource for training, research, travel etc. Not primarily about the dynamics of NPC revenge against PC expeditions.

In such a case, it makes sense to ensure each indiviual encounter is potent enough to challenge the PC's on its own merits, as a single encounter.

Sure. The problem with this in a system of asymmetric balance (daily vs at will abilities) is that the daily-ability PCs can nova, and be comparatively more powerful.

 

[Alzrius]

The adventures are a decent point. But part of the point of the Realms is that it has a ridiculous amount of sourcebooks as a part of the world and that it is large and high powered. That the Greyhawk campaign setting is called explicitely "World of Greyhawk" implies that it covers just about all the movers and shakers. The very name "Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting" implies that there is a lot more out there - it's simply the part of the Realms you are expected to campaign in.

I disagree, and think that you're reading much too much into the wording of the titles. As I previously showed, the idea that the Forgotten Realms has a great deal of high-level characters whereas Greyhawk has a paucity of them is easily disproven - stating that the particular wording of some of the older campaign setting titles have implications about how expansive they are in their coverage of the world and it's characters is, well, I think you can guess the word.

That's without even covering that the issue of those two products covering roughly similar geographic areas (e.g. the subcontinent of the Flanaess to the continent of Faerun).

Now please stop accusing pemerton of being disingenuous simply because he doesn't make the apples to oranges comparison you would like him to make.

First, I've already amply demonstrated that it's apples to apples - your attempt to redefine it otherwise using the wording of the materials simply doesn't hold up.

Secondly, please stop accusing me of making accusations just because I pointed out a flaw in someone else's logic. I'm simply stating that it's difficult to sympathize with people who say that the game has an inherent problem that's created entirely by their play-style.

And if you want the all-in comparison, as far as I am aware, Greyhawk never had an equivalent to the FR1-16 series, starting with Waterdeep and the North and ending with The Shining South. And in 2e Greyhawk was treated about as kindly as 4e was later to treat the Realms...

If you want to go all-in, you have to take everything into account that's set on Greyhawk. Not just it's 2E supplements with the world logo on the cover (or lack thereof). Greyhawk-material can be found in generic 2E adventures and sourcebooks such as Die Vecna Die!, TSR Jam 1999, Reverse Dungeon, Guide to Hell, Bastion of Faith, etc. Plus it had fairly intense development across three adventure paths in the pages of Dungeon during the 3E era - The Shackled City, The Age of Worms, and The Savage Tide - plus a number of smaller adventures and articles. That's without even getting into the Dragon materials (or Polyhedron, or the short-lived Living Greyhawk Journal).

Many, if not most, of these sources had high-level characters.

Me, I'd call "The setting as published, ignoring adventure modules" - which is what Pemerton is taking to be a fair comparison to "The setting as published, ignoring adventure modules" which is what I believe he is taking for the Realms.

That's not what he said, though. Likewise, even if it was, cherry-picking which materials to use so that you can artificially arrive at the conclusion you've already postulated is...insincere.

Why "Released at simmilar times"? If we do that then we have to drop seven years of Greyhawk because Greyhawk was first published in 1980 and the Realms campaign set in 1987. As was FR1 - Waterdeep and the North. And FR2: Moonshae. In short the Realms (two 96 page books) was always intended to be published with supplements - Greyhawk was not other than a little material in Dragon - and World of Greyhawk is a total of 128 pages (i.e. only about twice as long as Moonshae).

I threw the "similar times" qualifier in there because products released at similar times are more likely to reflect the same design philosophy, as a general rule (and, ideally, to prevent cross-edition comparison of specific products, since that can have some degree of impact).

Note that the two campaign settings mentioned above were in 1983 (Greyhawk) and 1987 (Forgotten Realms), which allows for the shift in design philosophy mentioned above, and is why further material was developed for both settings (hence why Greyhawk had The City of Greyhawk, Wars, From the Ashes, Treasures of Greyhawk, etc. over the next few years). No one's denying that FR had more sourcebooks, certainly, but that doesn't mean anything in the context of how many high-level characters the settings had.

And comparing a product that was intended to be standalone (and hence had no immediate expansions) as standalone against one that was released only shortly before its first two expansions that it was intended to be used with is to me the sensible way to do things.

I disagree. It's not sensible, since you're suggesting that it's somehow apropos to compare one campaign setting boxed set against an entire product line to determine which had more high-level characters. There's a reason why Greyhawk had further development as well (see above).

I always understood him to be talking primarily about time as a resource for training, research, travel etc. Not primarily about the dynamics of NPC revenge against PC expeditions.

"NPC revenge" is just one facet of it; it's meant to remind the GMs that there's a living world out there which is reacting to - and influencing - the PCs. Hostile NPCs are a part of this.

 

[Quartz]

Out of interest have you also tweaked the attack chances so they don't outstrip even what are now the equivalent to the old good saving throws? But I definitely agree this is an improvement.

I'm not sure I understand: they did to start with. The max base saving throw was +12 for a single-classed character at L20. A character with 3 classes (base or prestige) might boost that to +16. But he'd have some very low saves too. That's still shy of the L20 Fighter's BAB of +20. Under my system you get a max of +12, the same as before but your base saves at L20 would be +12/+10/+10, not (say) +16/+3/+3. Notice that this stops the cheese dip of 2 levels of Monk.

I don't have a group to test it, but I've been toying with simply saying that combat-types get BAB=Level, everyone else gets BAB/2 rounded down. This really seems to hit rogues until you realise they can take a levels of a combat class - Rog 15 / Ftr 5 gives a BAB of +12, for example. Monks would get full BAB but drop their flurry of blows (which is just TWF) and their special attack progression and their open hand attack does 1d6 + level/2 rounded down.

 

[billd91]

The adventures are a decent point. But part of the point of the Realms is that it has a ridiculous amount of sourcebooks as a part of the world and that it is large and high powered. That the Greyhawk campaign setting is called explicitely "World of Greyhawk" implies that it covers just about all the movers and shakers. The very name "Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting" implies that there is a lot more out there - it's simply the part of the Realms you are expected to campaign in.

This is about as ridiculous an argument as I could have imagined - that a somewhat more poetic name indicates that it's more comprehensive? That's inferring a lot of meaning with no evidence.

And if you want the all-in comparison, as far as I am aware, Greyhawk never had an equivalent to the FR1-16 series, starting with Waterdeep and the North and ending with The Shining South. And in 2e Greyhawk was treated about as kindly as 4e was later to treat the Realms...

Me, I'd call "The setting as published, ignoring adventure modules" - which is what Pemerton is taking to be a fair comparison to "The setting as published, ignoring adventure modules" which is what I believe he is taking for the Realms.

Ignorance of the sources that were published - such as WGR4: The Marklands - leads to a poor argument. There are quite a few high level NPCs in that volume. The only valid reason FR really seems to have more high level NPCs is simply because there were more published campaign setting supplements to actually detail them. But that difference offers no insight that the rate of high level characters per campaign in FR is any higher than in GH.

 

[Mike Eagling]

I'm reminded of two sayings: "With great power comes great responsibility" and "if you make your bed you'd better lie in it".

Can we at least agree that if no effort is made to curb the inherent power and versatility of magic in the campaign world then it will, almost by definition, run rampant across its face? If the deck is deliberately or inadvertently stacked in favour of a few PCs with all the magic and no comparable adversaries then they will dominate everyone else, playstyle choice or not.

There are strategic methods to curb this. Some may see this as nerfing the spell casters. I don't agree. I won't agree and I don't think it's a particularly worthwhile discussion in this thread.

Which brings me back to the matter at hand:

There are strategic methods for increasing narrative options for player characters. These involve immersing the PCs in the machinations of the campaign world. AD&D included many of these as standard: strongholds for fighters, thieves guilds for thieves, the hierarchical struggles of druids and monks. ACKS (re-)introduces some of these campaign concepts. So does Pathfinder's Ultimate Campaign. Options abound for characters to carve out their own niche in the wider world, to exert their influence and make their own plot instead of sitting around in a tavern waiting for someone to give them a quest.

So, we're left with narrative options at a tactical level.

There seem to be two strands to this: the three pillars of combat, exploration and interaction; and scene framing.

For me, D&D is cause and effect. I'm not interested in players negotiating or bidding for the opportunity to retcon the environment. There are other games in which I can do this, if I want. If I cast a spell to change the environment I'm not retconning, I'm creating an effect from a cause. I should arguably be able to use a mundane skill (or series thereof) to produce a comparable effect, possibly by re-framing the environment in my favour. There are plenty of ways to get past a wall without inventing a secret passage only my character seems to know about. This will likely take longer (in the fiction) than casting a spell but that's the benefit of magic, in my opinion.

Neither am I particularly interested in abstractly resolving opportunities for role playing encounters like infiltration in the short term. Stood outside the castle and want to get in? Cause and effect: get with the climb and stealth skills. However, taking my cue from the 1e AD&D assassination rules, I think it's entirely feasible for a thief/rogue to devote some portion of in-fiction time to infiltrate an organisation ahead of time. Think Lando Calrissian at Jabba's palace. This is where the "Surprise! It's me!" feat works, primarily because it's a strategic campaign process.

Long distance travel can be handled in an equally mundane fashion. A ranger or similarly skilled character should be able to travel great distances whilst avoiding or evading encounters. Arguably the time required to do this should be proportional to the number of travelling companions--even a large group of people can likely avoid any problems provided they don't mind taking long detours or remaining hidden for extended periods. The "anti-magic" camouflage skill is an interesting idea. I was reminded of the scene in LotR when the Fellowship evade Saruman's crebain or the Nazgul in the Dead Marshes. The evasion of magic wasn't explicit but the comparison sprung to mind. So too did Legolas' enhanced vision. It's debatable whether or not this is a magical effect but there is perhaps room for mundane perception skills that go beyond low-light vision.

The "conscript a militia" idea from up thread is interesting as a mundane summon "spell". A comparable "hue and cry" ability could enable a character to call upon joe public to grab the villain attempting to make his get away--a literal "hold person" if you will. Clearly, both of these skills/feats/whatever only work in suitable (urban) environments with a population that is at worst neutral to the character. Then again, even in an ostensibly hostile environment, the "general public" may not realise the person running away is actually on "their side" rather than the authoritative person demanding they be stopped...

The Conan d20 system has a temptress class. At its most basic this is a femme fatale but has scope for wider concepts. Whatever the details, there's scope for mundane charm and beguile skills that go beyond the usual bluff, intimidate and diplomacy. These could also be employed at a strategic level, consider Margaery Tyrell.

I'm sure there are loads of other possibilities. These are the ones that have currently sprung to mind.

 

[N'raac]

Indeed. Leave the fighting and killing to the fighters. It's what they are good at - and they don't get anything else.

So should the non-fighter players just sit, bored and ineffectual, during combat? If so, then we probably need some changes to de-emphasize combat as a percentage of game play. A perfectly valid approach.

Depends which system you are using. In AD&D they aren't.

They aren't? Then why is the issue consistently framed in the context that this is a common strategy among PC's, which suggests to me that it must be pretty easy for them to get the spells.

Because the PCs don't fail with it. The PCs normally inflict a TPK with it. On the other hand if it's the third time it's attempted against the PCs then the PCs must have survived the first two. That's why I say that in your example it failed twice.

Why would you send the Teleporting Assassin Team against all the PC's at once? Port in when one, two at the most, are isolated. Just like the PC's take out a few guards (or skip right to the one endgame target). And how does being in the Imperial Palace protect the PC's if the enemy can teleport in, blast them with surprise, and teleport away again?

Where are your witnesses coming from? You just know that your guys are getting wiped out - but unless there are survivors you don't necessarily know how. Whether it's teleportation or the much more likely simple invisibility. Almost as deadly and can be done by a much lower wizard, therefore much more likely. Especially as invisibility doesn't mean that the wizard will eventually kill themselves with their own spell, unlike AD&D teleportation.

First, why would the enemy not employ the same divinations which enable unfailing intel to be gathered on them? Second, Invisible characters leave footprints which can be tracked, trigger bell alarms, etc. How is it the tracks just start from nowhere, then end? Once we get to "how are they getting in?", the near-ubiquitous Teleport should come up as an option.

I'm surprised and interested that you think this is a competent fighter. Since I first started playing I've always aimed at 16+ in a prime requisite (in the old days, to get the +10% XP bonus).

One of the biggest benefits of 3e, to my mind, was the much more granular bonus structure. In 2e, a 17 STR provided +1 to hit and +1 to damage. That's a 12(!) STR in 3e. A 16? That's more like the +2/+4 bonus provided by percentile STR in the 76% range. But then, how many AD&D fighters had a % under 50? Similarly, a 15 DEX in 2e is a 12 in 3e; a 2e 16 is a 3e 14. Of course, we kind of got used to having a slate of 16+ stats, typically with at least one 18, to have a "competent" 2e character. At least that 16+ for 2e's 10% xp bonus (not always restricted to one stat) was a fairly standard expectation - getting +10% wasn't a bonus, it was a penalty to do without it.

With 3e, more likely rolled stats would provide reasonable bonuses. Of course, if one transitioned with the assumption the stats should stay the same, with higher bonuses coming with that, you'd get a different result. We certainly didn't. You could also have a slate of 16/14/14/14/8/8 if you're prepared to dump two stats to get that 16. What constitutes "competent" depends on your comparables. Note, also, that I am suggesting a competent fighter who is also tricked out for skills and interaction. You can't have everything.

Research. Plus looting ancient Suel archives.

For research to succeed, the answers have to be out there. And are we the only characters ever to have looted ancient archives? What a coincidence that every one of our PC groups finds exactly the same spell that no one else has ever come across!

Sure. The problem with this in a system of asymmetric balance (daily vs at will abilities) is that the daily-ability PCs can nova, and be comparatively more powerful.

Unquestionably. That suggests, to me at least, a variety of challenges to allow each type of character his chance to shine.

Secondly, please stop accusing me of making accusations just because I pointed out a flaw in someone else's logic. I'm simply stating that it's difficult to sympathize with people who say that the game has an inherent problem that's created entirely by their play-style.

If you want to go all-in, you have to take everything into account that's set on Greyhawk. Not just it's 2E supplements with the world logo on the cover (or lack thereof). Greyhawk-material can be found in generic 2E adventures and sourcebooks such as Die Vecna Die!, TSR Jam 1999, Reverse Dungeon, Guide to Hell, Bastion of Faith, etc. Plus it had fairly intense development across three adventure paths in the pages of Dungeon during the 3E era - The Shackled City, The Age of Worms, and The Savage Tide - plus a number of smaller adventures and articles. That's without even getting into the Dragon materials (or Polyhedron, or the short-lived Living Greyhawk Journal).

Many, if not most, of these sources had high-level characters.

Perhaps a better test is the proportion of characters at various levels. If we have, say, 20 published Greyhawk characters and 200 published FR characters, how many of each pool are L12+, say? If there are 10 Greyhawk characters and 75 FR characters, Greyhawk seems proportionately to have more high level characters. The more published for each setting, the greater the numbers we should have at all levels, if the spread is equal in both settings.

I threw the "similar times" qualifier in there because products released at similar times are more likely to reflect the same design philosophy, as a general rule (and, ideally, to prevent cross-edition comparison of specific products, since that can have some degree of impact).

Especially when one considers 3e was designed to make attaining those high levels in a shorter timeframe more practical!

 

[Alzrius]

Perhaps a better test is the proportion of characters at various levels. If we have, say, 20 published Greyhawk characters and 200 published FR characters, how many of each pool are L12+, say? If there are 10 Greyhawk characters and 75 FR characters, Greyhawk seems proportionately to have more high level characters. The more published for each setting, the greater the numbers we should have at all levels, if the spread is equal in both settings.

I like this idea, but foresee two problems.

The first is that since the characters chosen wouldn't be random, the process would be suspect based on who is being compared. The only way to avoid that would be to compare every character for each setting when making a ratio.

Secondly, 3E and 4E had no demihuman level limits, and multiclassing rules that were very different from 1E and 2E. So a straightforward comparison of character levels across that particular divide could get tricky.

 

[N'raac]

I like this idea, but foresee two problems.

The first is that since the characters chosen wouldn't be random, the process would be suspect based on who is being compared. The only way to avoid that would be to compare every character for each setting when making a ratio.

That would be ideal. If you only have three books from one and 17 from the other, the ratios would be more valid than "there are only 6 characters above L15 in the first setting, and 12 in the second" when that's 2 per book in the first and less than one per book in the second.

Secondly, 3E and 4E had no demihuman level limits, and multiclassing rules that were very different from 1E and 2E. So a straightforward comparison of character levels across that particular divide could get tricky.

I think you absolutely have to divide between the editions - 3e was intended to allow, IIRC, regular weekly play to advance a character to 20th level in a year. 2e? You'll be a lot longer than a year!

 

[Tuft]

The "conscript a militia" idea from up thread is interesting as a mundane summon "spell". A comparable "hue and cry" ability could enable a character to call upon joe public to grab the villain attempting to make his get away--a literal "hold person" if you will. Clearly, both of these skills/feats/whatever only work in suitable (urban) environments with a population that is at worst neutral to the character. Then again, even in an ostensibly hostile environment, the "general public" may not realise the person running away is actually on "their side" rather than the authoritative person demanding they be stopped...

So, what happens when a person who has *not* purchased that feat calls out "Stop Thief!" in a crowded street?