Fighters vs. Spellcasters (a case for fighters.)

[N'raac]

I was thinking something more along the lines of this: "In this world, the king refusing the accept visitors is strange, since kings need to see visitors. So something strange is going on."

I think that information is helpful - to the game; I think there could be enough confusion over the idea of getting an audience with the king, and how it works, to warrant handing out this information. In my mind it's similar to saying, "Okay, you didn't address him as 'My Liege', which is a big deal in this world, since they're big on manners - it keeps them from killing each other over matters of honour. Do you want to add that in?" Or even, "Men aren't normally allowed to talk at court; their wives represent them. Unmarried men are generally forbidden from court." You know, setting stuff the PCs would know that the players might not. (A stranger from a strange land might not know this, though...)

Like you, I want the players to make decisions, I just want to make sure they have enough information to be able to do so. Since this is a strange situation that the PCs would pick up on, I don't want the players to confuse it with a run-of-the-mill elitist king who doesn't hold court.

How would you handle this situation if the players assumed it was typical behaviour for kings in this world?

Most good questions can only be answered "It depends". These are good questions. Any setting info the PC would logically have should be provided. Appropriate honorifics should be assumed – that’s knowledge the PC has. I’m not judging the player’s speech, but his PC’s skills at speechmaking.

The matriarchal society you suggest has two possible results. If the PC’s are native, they know this and that info should be passed on. If they are not, this may come as a surprise to them. Maybe that’s why the Chamberlain refuses them admittance and, as they don’t know this local custom, they need to find out. As you note, a stranger from a strange land is quite different from a native. However, Knowledge: Nobility might well let you know about this odd custom in a foreign land.

If the players are clearly making an unfounded assumption their characters would not, then I’d fill them in.

So, would you let the player try to get off the top of the Empire State Building by just jumping and using a tumble check to land with no damage? To try and cross boiling lava using swimming? To try and make gunpowder and a gun assembly line using alchemy and craft? To play a Ferengi starship captain in a game that everyone agreed was going to be set in something approaching real medieval England? To try and convert the Pope to atheism using diplomacy? I mean, those are all the PC controlling his player too, right?

If the answer to even one of them is no you wouldn't let them meaningfully try, then is it now just a question of where the line is drawn?

Exactly – it is a matter of degree, not an absolute.

I'm talking about what you call a Schroedinger's NPC. A game element that may or may not exist.

In my approach, it's clear that said character exists or does not exist at the DM's pleasure and behaves as the DM decides. It's clear that the player has no authority to dictate anything outside of his own character's decision-making.

Once you deviate from that, it's unclear how much the player can dictate. If a player wants to accomplish a particular goal, who decides the circumstances around that goal? I can't tell.

This is unquestionably a major question of differing playstyles.

Sure. That's the beauty of d20. You can hack it to do all kinds of things.

But if you do that, you're responsible for the consequences. In reference to what was once the topic of this thread, if you give spellcasters the ability to dictate these kinds of terms, and don't give it to the rest of the characters, it may some problems.

Exactly. It is not the rules’ fault if the ripple effect from my rules hack are not to my liking. It is my fault for not considering the full implications of my change.

Not sure if that's a Diplomacy check, but yeah, if he makes the DC (which will most probably be veeery high).

Why are you uncertain if that is a Diplomacy check? The PC wants to persuade the Pope to take an action. And I note you are setting the DC “veeery high” – to me this implies “high enough that it ain’t gonna happen”. How is that any different from looking at the PC’s, noting the best Diplomacy modifier is +23 and setting the DC for persuading the Chamberlain at 57?

I don’t see a ton of fundamental difference between “he dismisses you” and “go ahead and roll and then he will dismiss you”. Either way, your diplomacy check cannot succeed.

To counter, the Diplomacy skill has very specific uses and the rules place very specific restrictions on its use. Our point is that using these restraints is not representative of arbitrary or capricious DM force anymore than not allowing Swim to be used in a desert is. The absurd is merely being used to illustrate that point. Players may not always be privy to all the factors that would or would not make Diplomacy a viable option in any particular scene, nor, some of us think, should they.

Exactly. [As a note, I can’t seem to xp many people participating in this thread…sorry about that!]

A caster can change his options over night. A fighter can't.

A fighter can switch from sword to bow in mid-battle. The wizard cannot change his spells that quickly. By that comparison, the fighter is more versatile, but only within a much more limited range.

 

[Wicht]

However, the default playstyle of the game is to have a few encounters per day, not to spend an entire week conducting running battles with an enemy horde.

Our game table tends to manage about 8-10 encounters per adventuring day on average, would be my guess. I am not sure there is a real default here.

I would be very much interested in testing this out. Care to have a gentlemanly duel?

Depends on the parameters. In most single-fight tests, I do think wizards will shine a little brighter. In an actual adventuring day, it evens out. I would be more interested in a test that pitted a party against a true set of CR appropriate dungeon encounters than a duel in which you have 1 wizard and I have one fighter.

 

[Dandu]

Our game table tends to manage about 8-10 encounters per adventuring day on average, would be my guess. I am not sure there is a real default here.

Allow me to rephrase; most adventure modules published by WotC that I have seen assume a few encounters per day.

Depends on the parameters. In most single-fight tests, I do think wizards will shine a little brighter. In an actual adventuring day, it evens out. I would be more interested in a test that pitted a party against a true set of CR appropriate dungeon encounters than a duel in which you have 1 wizard and I have one fighter.

I would gladly participate in such a test. Would you like to DM it? I'm sure we could find willing volunteers to fill out the rest of the party roles. I rather enjoyed my stint in the Tomb of Horrors, which, if you read the story earlier, was a game in which the primary arcane spellcaster was much more useful than the fighter.

 

[Jacob Marley]

However, seeing as a lot of people obviously have the time and energy for this sort of discussion, may I suggest that we set up an actual game to test things out?

Isn't the test the hundreds of thousands of campaigns, modules, and scenarios that have been played over the past 13+ years? I mean, seriously, at this point what will one more test accomplish? It seems clear enough to me that different people have (1) different perceptions on what roles casters and non-casters play in a campaign, (2) different valuations on individual spells, skills, feats, and class abilities, and (3) different tolerance levels for what imbalance may exist.

 

[Dandu]

Yes, but I like playing Dungeons & Dragons.

 

[TwoSix]

The topic has clearly changed yet again. Are we simply going for "longest thread" here? What is the record?

Long. Very long. These went well over a thousand posts.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...Fly-Teleport-and-Turn-People-Into-Frogs!-quot

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...Balance-Problem-Handled-in-Fantasy-Literature

 

[TwoSix]

I would be very much interested in testing this out. Care to have a gentlemanly duel?

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=299060

 

[Wicht]

Allow me to rephrase; most adventure modules published by WotC that I have seen assume a few encounters per day.

Really? I hadn't noticed that, though after the first 3e set of adventures, I didn't buy a lot more from WotC.

I would gladly participate in such a test. Would you like to DM it? I'm sure we could find willing volunteers to fill out the rest of the party roles. I rather enjoyed my stint in the Tomb of Horrors, which, if you read the story earlier, was a game in which the primary arcane spellcaster was much more useful than the fighter.

I wouldn't mind, though I won't have the time to do so this week. After today, my week is going to be very, very full.

 

[Ahnehnois]

That's what negotiation is for. Plus, the ability to manipulate the scene is often mediated by character resources.

Player resources, not character resources. Characters can't manipulate scenes.

Again, that's basically abdicating any sense of the player being in the perspective of the character, which changes the nature of the game.

And, in coming full circle, many people's problem with 3.X is that spellcasters are granted those abilities by RAW, and must be remediated by either Rule 0 or focused non-neutral scene framing.

Which is false. They're not granted those abilities in the RAW. A spellcaster who wants to charm someone has no more authority to dictate his target's existence or his circumstances or his response than a rogue trying to diplomatically talk to the same target. And so on and so forth.

And, if it's needed, Rule 0 is the RAW.

Now, if you go the other way, and you go outside the RAW (even in a subtle way) and give players powers not enumerated in the rules, or set up scenarios that screw over the fighters or cater to the spellcasters then all bets are off, including with regards to your notions of balance. Of course, you can do that if you want, you just can't blame the rules for what happens next if you don't like it.

Which is to say predetermined counter-measures, or focused enemy attention based on the presence of the spell effect, not necessarily the effects.

Both of which are neutral and RAW tactics.

And remember, in enshrining an objective campaign world as the ideal, it's not trivial to determine where those countermeasures are coming from. You can't just put them in ex post facto.

Sure you can. If a player decides to teleport in somewhere and the DM doesn't think that place should be reachable by magic, he's free to say no now and make up a reason later. Given the existence of countermeasures (there are some), it's fine to make them up on the spot without preparation. Does that require that the DM make a reasonable call as to what is and is not attainable? Sure. But that's how this game works.

Not saying it's not doable, but it often requires your world to be reshaped around D&D spell assumptions. I mean, just as an example, how do you stop a mid-level druid from destroying towns with Control Winds? Is it tacit social contract, Rule 0 as to the spell effects, or an in-game countermeasure?

I think the mutually assured destruction theory and the there's always someone more powerful than you theory work just fine. In the modern world, we have the technological capacity to destroy all of civilization with a relatively modest amount of effort. This hasn't happened, for essentially those reasons: the big powers know they can't use weapons beyond a certain level of destructiveness without risking reprisal, and they work very hard to keep those weapons out of the hands of rogue actors who don't care about those consequences. It seems to be working.

And in D&D, you have tangible deities who have real power, as well as epic NPCs, dragons, mystical forces, and so on. While deus ex machina is a term generally used to describe undesirable plot devices, in D&D, it can be seen as a very tangible thing. And again, there are entire books full of deity stats. It's well within the RAW and RAI to assume that level of peacekeeping power exists and is regularly exercised.

It's also well within the RAW and RAI to assume that less omnipotent but still important NPCs understand that magic exists and take countermeasures to prevent it from being used abusively.

Now, do those always work, or can the PCs come up with a plan to achieve their goals? That's where the action is.

 

[ImperatorK]

If you think casters are better than fighters, feel free to continue to do that. But we've already all mostly agreed its a game-style problem, not a problem with the mechanics.

My (and a lot of other people's) playstyle isn't supported by the game. That's a problem with the mechanics.

Exactly. It is not the rules’ fault if the ripple effect from my rules hack are not to my liking. It is my fault for not considering the full implications of my change.

Except when there's no rules hacking going on.

Why are you uncertain if that is a Diplomacy check? The PC wants to persuade the Pope to take an action.

Diplomacy is about changing attitude. Making the Pope Helpful does not convince him he's an atheist. That would be more a use for Bluff. you are trying to convince him of something that's not true.

And I note you are setting the DC “veeery high” – to me this implies “high enough that it ain’t gonna happen”.

Convincing the Pope that he's an atheist? Of course it's going to be very hard. Short of (if not) an Epic check.

How is that any different from looking at the PC’s, noting the best Diplomacy modifier is +23 and setting the DC for persuading the Chamberlain at 57?

Maybe you do that. I don't. I set the DCs at appropriate and reasonable numbers. Convincing the chamberlain to let them see the king would be a DC from 15 (Friendly) to 30 (Helpful) if assumed he's Indifferent. If he's Unfriendly then it's 25-40. As per the rules.

I don’t see a ton of fundamental difference between “he dismisses you” and “go ahead and roll and then he will dismiss you”. Either way, your diplomacy check cannot succeed.

Because there's isn't any. Good thing that's not how I do things or what I'm advocating.

A fighter can switch from sword to bow in mid-battle. The wizard cannot change his spells that quickly. By that comparison, the fighter is more versatile, but only within a much more limited range.

Try "almost insignificant range".