Fighters vs. Spellcasters (a case for fighters.)

[Ahnehnois]

Maybe it's because my players generally know the rules better than I do anyway,

Um, yeah. Based on these posts, you would be well advised to learn the rules you're discussing before posting about them.

ninja'd by [MENTION=221]Wicht[/MENTION] but yes on that.

Umm, you realize, that reading the rules, very little of that is true.

Except, you know, all of it. Some of it is in the skill description and some of it would require you to read the general rules for skills and checks, but it is all in black and white.

First, a player can certainly choose to use diplomacy whenever he or she wishes.

No. There is nothing in the rules that says that. If a player says "I use Diplomacy", that does not necessarily entitle him to a check, for any number of reasons enumerated above. The rules merely enumerate what happens when the player uses Diplomacy.

Secondly, the player can choose the time by either using the DM's time choice, or a doing a rushed diplo check at -10 and doing it in 6 seconds,

No. There's nothing that says the player knows what the time requirement is. If he wants to make a rushed check, he is still subject to the potential increase in time. Again, it's right there: "In some situations, this time requirement may greatly increase.".

third, outside of the "DM's friend of +2 to the DC", the DC's are actually not subject to the DM, they are pretty clearly stated in the rules.

In other words, outside of the universal rule that you know explicitly proves you wrong, you are right.

Again, this is all textbook examples of DM force.

What force? In what game would the DM not determine these circumstances? Who else is there to even determine them? Do the players come up to the DM and say "I make a level 15 character with 40 Diplomacy? Run your game?". Do they say "there's a goblin over there, I'm going to go Diplo him?". What circumstances can ever exist in a D&D game that are not created by the DM?

AFAICT, you define any action the DM takes as DM force, in which case it isn't a very useful term. It's just DMing.

Then again, if the player was actually capable of epic levels of diplomacy (a 50+ check is an epic level check), then he actually COULD do exactly what you say he can't - namely walk in a take over the kingdom. See Epic Skills for more information. If the king was already well disposed towards our PC's, that Diplo check could make him a fanatical level follower.

Only if the DM allowed the characters to get close enough to make a check, decided that the king listened patiently to them for the requisite amount of time, and the DM chose not to apply any circumstance modifiers. And of course, if the DM established the existence of said king in the first place.

 

[TwoSix]

Heck, most of the time, I ask them what happens when I do something.

Heh, that happens to me all the time in the PF game I'm running, because the rules are just different enough from 3.X that I can't quote them from memory, and I hate looking up rules at the table. "Actually, that's rolled vs the CMD" is a very common quote from my players to me.

 

[TwoSix]

"You can change the initial attitude of nonplayer characters with a successful check. The DC of this check depends on the creature's starting attitude toward you, adjusted by its charisma modifier. If you succeed, the character's attitude toward you is improved by one step. For every 5 by which your check result exceeds the DC, the character's attitude toward you increases by one additional step. A creature's attitude cannot be shifted more than two steps up in this way, although the GM can override this rule in some situations." - Pathfinder Core, Diplomacy, pg 93.

Wow, that's pretty different from the 3.5 Diplomacy. Good thing to know the PF team was aware of Diplomancer abuse.

 

[Wicht]

I knew I should have brought my 1e DMG with me today. Does anyone recall what Gygax's justification for emphatically being against the players having access to the DMG? (It always seemed kind of odd to me since we rotated through DMing and so all had our own copy. I can see cases where its annoying where the DM makes a ruling and half of the players fly to the DMG mid-game to find a quote backing up their disagreement with it.)

I have it, and actually the comments were in the Preface, so not hard to find, and they dovetail nicely into this discussion:

As this book is the exclusive precint of the DM, you must view any non-DM player possessing it as something less than worthy of honorable death. Peeping players there will undoubtedly be, but they are simply lessening their own enjoyment of the game by taking away some of the sense of wonder that otherwise arises from a game which has rules hidden from participants. It is in your interests, and theirs, to discourage possession of this book by players. If any of your participants do read herein, it is suggested that you assess them a heavy fee for consulting "sages" and other sources of information not normally attainable by the inhabitants of your milieu. If they express knowledge which could only be garnered by consulting these pages, a magic item or two can be taken as payment - insufficient, but perhaps it will tend to discourage such actions."

Heh.

So Gygax believed in 1) hidden rules, and 2) heavy handed DM arbitration against rules lawyers (though I suspect some of that latter was tongue in cheek).

 

[billd91]

Wow, that's pretty different from the 3.5 Diplomacy. Good thing to know the PF team was aware of Diplomancer abuse.

They also stripped out about a zillion synergy bonuses that tended to add to diplomacy checks.

 

[Hussar]

Maybe we can move on to a bigger question than "Your playstyle is wrong." vs "No, my playstyle is right!"?

It's pretty obvious that 3e works fine with a healthy dollop of DM force (or whatever term you want to use for [MENTION=221]Wicht[/MENTION] [MENTION=17106]Ahnehnois[/MENTION] et al's style of play). It's also fairly obvious that 3e does not respond well to RAW based player protagonist play (as espoused by [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]). Is it possible to play 3.X games in a manner that does support player protagonist play, without spellcasters breaking the game too easily?

I can't think of one overarching rule change that would support it. I have a strong belief that an E6 game would support it. I believe a Tier limited game would support it as well (using only Tier 3 classes, or only Tier 4 classes). Despite Ahnehnois's strenuous objections, I think using Tome of Battle for warrior types and thematic casters such as the Beguiler and Warmage would also work (and sounds quite fun to me!)

Yeah, that would be my solution as well. Eject the core casters (well Sorcerer can stay) and that largely resolves most of the issues.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Wow, that's pretty different from the 3.5 Diplomacy. Good thing to know the PF team was aware of Diplomancer abuse.

None of it contradicts 3.5 Diplomacy. But yes, it is good that they wrote in some new text to explicate it more, and I know from experience that player do try to abuse Diplomacy (and Bluff) and there definitely needed to be clearer limits.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Yeah, that would be my solution as well. Eject the core casters (well Sorcerer can stay) and that largely resolves most of the issues.

Alright, so, you ban wizards and clerics and druids, because you don't like them, I ban paladins because I don't like them, the next DM bans monks because he doesn't like them, and so on and so forth. Everyone's happy. The game's fine.

 

[Wicht]

Heh, that happens to me all the time in the PF game I'm running, because the rules are just different enough from 3.X that I can't quote them from memory, and I hate looking up rules at the table. "Actually, that's rolled vs the CMD" is a very common quote from my players to me.

Alas, I too find my memory does not retain the rules like it once did. There was a time I knew every line of the AD&D Monster Manual more or less by heart. But sadly, no more. I can't even remember the stats of monsters I created myself. But fortunately, my children are all teenagers, so I just ask them for rule clarifications when running and most of the time, they got it down, even to having memorized most of the three Pathfinder Bestiaries. Ah youthful minds.

 

[Hussar]

Um, yeah. Based on these posts, you would be well advised to learn the rules you're discussing before posting about them.

ninja'd by [MENTION=221]Wicht[/MENTION] but yes on that.

Well, I got my 3.5 PHB in hand, which is a much better resource than the SRD.

Except, you know, all of it. Some of it is in the skill description and some of it would require you to read the general rules for skills and checks, but it is all in black and white.

No. There is nothing in the rules that says that. If a player says "I use Diplomacy", that does not necessarily entitle him to a check, for any number of reasons enumerated above. The rules merely enumerate what happens when the player uses Diplomacy.

Actually, the rules pretty clearly state that you can pro-actively use the skill. It's right there, after "Check".

No. There's nothing that says the player knows what the time requirement is. If he wants to make a rushed check, he is still subject to the potential increase in time. Again, it's right there: "In some situations, this time requirement may greatly increase.".

And, we're back to DM Force and Hide the Rule. No thanks.

Additionally, reading the actual rules, the "In some situations" rule applies to standard checks. The rushed rule always applies.

/snip
Only if the DM allowed the characters to get close enough to make a check, decided that the king listened patiently to them for the requisite amount of time, and the DM chose not to apply any circumstance modifiers. And of course, if the DM established the existence of said king in the first place.

The DM "allowed" the characters to get close enough? Really? How is this not DM Force? Look, you run a DM heavy game. And that's perfectly fine. There's nothing, absolutely, nothing, wrong with that.

It's just not for me.