Fighters vs. Spellcasters (a case for fighters.)

[Hussar]

Not a whole slew of tricks. One trick; "Carefully arbitrate", unless we include ensuring that all the rules are followed, including inconvenient ones, as a trick.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...s-(a-case-for-fighters-)/page87#ixzz2hEGp6Bel

That's a bit of a sidestep though. "Carefully arbitrate" is pretty vague and covers a whole lot of the game. Since we're talking about the DM "carefully arbitrating" virtually every aspect of the game, that's one heck of a single trick.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Nothing in 3E suggests that the GM is going to need a whole slew of tricks to maintain the balance between mid-to-high level casters and fighters. Nor are players told anything about this.

If you want to say that it's deferred to the non-core books to sell more books, that's fine. But there are several sources that extensively and specifically address this topic. Refer to the Complete Arcane section on "problem spells", for example.

But the books don't tell me, as GM, what I'm expected to do with Rule 0. It's all left as an exercise for the reader. (Which is a reiteration of what [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] said upthread about the lack of clarity for new players in 3E/PF.)

Which they shouldn't. They're just rules.

The rules of chess don't tell you whether it's a good idea to move a pawn or a knight first. You have to figure that out. The rules of football don't tell you whether it's a good idea to run a dive play every time or call a flea flicker. Each team develops a philosophy of how to use the rules. The rules of D&D don't tell you which character you should target in a fight or how to go about it. Again, figuring that out is part of playing the game, and there will be some individual variability in answers.

It's no real surprise that 3E doesn't have this text: WotC wants to sell books, and doesn't particularly care whether or not those who buy them are buying a game that will suit them.

That seems oddly pejorative. I'd say they do obviously want to sell books, but have every interest in satisfying as many people as possible to do so. Thus, they created a game with certain default style assumptions (that matched 2e in most cases), but was more generic and open-ended, and could more easily be hacked to do other things. To anyone who's played prior versions of D&D, it's clear how to play and how to DM. To any new person, it's easy to make up a style as you go, which may or may not be in concordance with the default expectations.

That way, pretty much everybody who's not already deeply invested into a strongly different type of game has an in.

Interestingly, 4e tried to be more clear about the playstyle expectations that will make it work and was condemned for being too narrow!

Well, it did try to be clear about them, but it also changed them, and is less generic and less open to other styles. Meaning that one has to get on board with these changes, or not. Whereas a 2e-3e player can just do a straight conversion of his character, and his DM can learn some new terminology, and they can keep right on playing the same campaign.

And if your take on it is right, 4e basically tells anyone who is DMing another version as intended that they're doing it wrong and they need to shut up and let the players dictate them certain parts of the game that were never previously in question. So yes, as a DM I see that as being pretty narrow, and pretty unwelcome.

I don't quite know on what principled basis you are condemnatory of Schroedinger's NPC but happy with Schroedinger's teleport wards

I don't know where that came from. The Schroedinger's NPC idea comes from the uncertainty of who is responsible for determining characteristics of the NPC; e.g. if the player declares that an NPC exists or has certain characteristics and it is not clear whether he or the DM determines these things.

If it's clearly the DM's responsibility, his personal uncertainty is irrelevant and is not what is being described by that term. Practically speaking, the players don't necessarily know how or why their action did or did not work on a metagame level, and that's fine.

The point is that any statement the DM makes or one that a player makes and he endorses are facts within the game world, and anything that he does not explicitly approve is not. There is no ambiguity there.

Instead of discussing with the player whether or not the framing of his/her PC's action confilcts with the genre expectations for the game, and helping the player work out an alternative framing (both HeroQuest revised and the BW Adventure Burner have nices discussions of this) prior to then proceeding to resolution and finding out what happens to the shared fiction, the GM is fiating a failure of the declared action resolution, thereby unilaterally determining the content of the fiction.

In other words, instead of having a discussion with the player about metagame considerations his character has no comprehension of, and which do not bear any direct influence on the resolution, the DM simply adjudicates the literal and nonliteral consequences of the rules. In other words, he does exactly what he is supposed to do.

In my view, and in my personal play experience, the contrast is pretty stark.

Yep, the difference between DMing and whatever role your "indie" philosophy posits is pretty large.

 

[Manbearcat]

It is my firm belief that every RPG gameworld has elements that may or may not exist.

For instance, the PCs are in a generic tavern. There is a brawl. One of the players ask "Are their potted plants on a windowsill for me to throw?" Or "Are there coins on the counter for me to steal?" Or "Do the tables have nails and screws of wood or of metal - if metal, I want to pull one out to pick the lock to the backroom while everyone else is brawling?" These questions have to be answered. In Burning Wheel these are sometimes answered by a skill check (for instance, Furniture-Making Wise: "Everyone knows that tables in these parts have metal rather than wooden fittings because the local furniture makers aren't very skilld), and otherwise by GM fiat (which can include a random roll). In D&D the default is GM fiat (which could include a random roll).

It is standard practice in D&D, too, to determine the presence of an NPC via random roll (eg Does this village have an apothecary? Roll for it). At least, that was the classic approach - I don't have a good handle on how 3E expects these sorts of questions to be answered if they come up in play. (Contrast BW, which answers these questions primarily via the Circles skill that I described upthread.)

The idea of "Shcroedinger's NPC", as it has been labelled, is that the GM fills in the details of the NPC's personality - or, if the PCs are trying to locate an NPC of the relevant sort then perhaps even the details of his/her existence - not in advance of pla,y nor via mere fiat or random roll in the course of play, but rather in the course of play in response to action resolution attempts by the players. I quoted Paul Czege on this upthread. I have linked upthread to the Kas example from my own game. Here is another example, involving the PCs at a dinner party with a Baron and his family and advisors. The Baron's personality was not determined by me in advance accept in the broadest of outlines - he cares for his niece, trusts his advisor and is proud of his family. (All pretty stock-standard stuff.) The details emerged in play

For instance, at one point - in response to some player's check giving effect to what their PC was doing in the fiction, I had the Baron reply "I am a man of action!" The player of the fighter then took the opportunity to reply to this by emphasising that he, too, was a man (well, dwarf) of action - and thereby got to make an Athletics check (one of his better skills) to establish it as true in the fiction that the Baron did recognise the dwarf as a like-minded, action-oriented individual. That's an example of how authoring the details during rather than in advance of play creates scope for the players to push things one way or another, and for the GM to push back against the players, with the resulting changes in fictional position of the PCs closing some options down but opening other options up.

A secondary effect, but for me also quite desirable, of this sort of play is that it discourages excessive time spent on planning and preparation, and encourages players to achieve their goals by engaging and shaping the scenes that are framed. So more of playtime is spent actually resolving things than planning how to resolve things. I think this is one significant difference between Gygaxian and "indie" play. (Not the only one, obviously.)

The various "Shrodinger's <complication or asset as NPC, geographical element, et al>" is extremely instructive to the playstyle differences here. Consider the below:

We have a low resolution setting and broad descriptor skills with abstract conflict resolution by way of framing the PCs directly into the conflict with stakes clearly dilenated. Then it is time to declare intent > deploy resources > mechanically resolve > change the fictional positioning with consideration for genre logic and the generation of complications, assets, etc based on prior fictional positioning and resolution > start over and repeat, dramatically paced with respect to the framework's current disposition, until the rules framework condition for win:loss has ocurred. Then you frame that.

What is key here in creating this dynamic:

1 - Admitting that setting/scene elements are fundamentally not high resolution. They are on a "low resolution continuum" but they really never resolve themselves out of that until the various, granular scene elements emerge in play (via player/GM exchange and action resolution). So it is inevitable and natural for "Schrodinger Scene Elements" to be emergent consequences of play.

2 - Framing of fictional positioning and resolution of action via the consideration of stakes + intent of action (which inherently is derived, in the macro, from the stakes).

3 - Broad (or sometimes open) descriptor skills/open-ended deployable resources/actions being mapped to the fictional positioning of stakes + intent.

So you have abstraction upon abstraction upon abstraction. Couple that with primacy of genre consideration (rather than process consideration) for the evolution of the narrative, post action resolution, and you have a very different table experience/dynamic than you do for the contrast of *:

1 - The expectation/affirmation that scene/setting elements are of such extremely high resolution that they are all established pre-play; eg nothing emerges from play during the exchanges at the table.

2 - Framing of fictional positioning and resolution of action via process simulation + strategic, procedural play that depends on, and invokes, the granular, high resolution, pre-play established scene/setting elements of 1.

3 - Tarrow descriptor, process-simulation derived skills/deployable resources, task resolution tightly constrained by causal logic.

I'm going to sblock the idol chase scene below as it contains various "Schrodinger" elements to it and conveys the above nicely, I think.

[sblock]Quick Background: One of the main portions of the game was something of a riff on the Moses story. One of the primary characters was laid onto a river on a bed of strewn leaves as an infant by her mother. She floated down-river for an undetermined amount of time (it ways days and days, the child was almost dead by the time she was found). The elven child was raised by a frontier human settlement and it was clear early on that she had preternatural affinity with nature. A druid circle heard of her, traveled far and away to the frontier town and claimed her. The child was always haunted by the desperately forlorn and loving visage of her mother's face as she laid her on that river; the only memory she has of her. It drove her toward the relentless investigation of who her people were, what happened to them and why her mother "abandoned" her. Long story short. Finally tracked down mother's village. Snake-men empire demands tribute of a few children from each of the neighboring settlements. Her mother's settlement was cursed with "The Wasting" due to her insubordination. They perished. Another settlement had the exact same occurrence and they are now cursed with "The Wasting". The village Shaman needs the idol from the temple to perform a ritual to undo the curse. Insert PCs. Later, they will ultimately lead all of the settlements out of the thrall of the snake-men empire in a great OMGEXODUS.

The entirety of the session (as best as I recall it):

** GM (me), B (Bladesinger), D (Druid), R (Rogue) **

GM: <Transition Scene Exposition> You've traveled through the forest via ancient elven trails and have emptied out into the badlands of the snake-mens' domain. The wind-swept moor is bereft of life and greenery. From your position on high, you are greeted with a chorus of eerie howls as you behold a collage of broken crags, jutting plateaus, and schizophrenic ravines that portray a dizzying array of a dead landscape. There are no roads, no trails, no markers. You know the direction of the temple and that it sits on the only oasis in the territory.

B: Before we left camp I was debriefed by the local trail-warden as to the defining feature best used to pinpoint the location of the temple from the forest trail's mouth. I point out the crest of 3rd mountain on the horizon. I want to keep that in our foreground and intermittently track an object that lines up with the trail's zenith so it is in our background. That should roughly lead us there. I'm going to use Tracker's Eye and Peerless Exploration Martial Practices * (cost 2 healing surges + component costs) to ensure it and to try to keep us free of any hazards (enemies and geographical).

D: I'll call the spirits of the land to mask our travel. We move like Timber Wolves amidst the snow-capped peaks; Uses Traveler's Camouflage.

< We resolve Tracker's Eye and Traveler's Camouflage. That coupled with Peerless Exploration 100 % ensures that they do not want a wilderness exploration scene; they do not encounter any hazards or enemies along the way. I also decide that due to these efforts, if related, I'll give them a + 2 to the first Perception or Nature check in the upcoming chase Skill Challenge. >

GM: After hours of merciless travel fraught with switchbacks and perilous drop-offs, you locate patch of worn tundra that appears to have been traveled. It cuts a path through the deadly terrain and leads you to your quarry. It is night and the gloom is cut only by smoldering torches that flank either side of a ramp that juts skyward toward a sacrificial altar from a stone portico; the stonework is emblazoned with the snake-mens' dark God. How are you guys going to approach this?

Players: R is going to tie his horse off in a copse of trees not far from the temple, sneak in, locate, pilfer and escape with the idol. B and D are going to remain on horseback several hundred feet away from the temple to intercept any returning forces that may pose a problem for R's egress from the temple.

GM: B & D; your circumnavigation of the territory reveals no sentries nor any signs of snake-men. However, the beady eyes of a seemingly endless pack of hyenas dot the horizon in all directions. Their howls cut the night now and again. They are a cowardly lot and the moment you would waste a trot in their direction, they would scurry off. R; you've navigated the small temple at the top of the ramp where a second portico led you to the altar proper. One priest stood alone and with deadly, silent precision, you ended his life, dislodged the idol from its stanchion, avoided the sentries and made haste to exit. As you leave, the chilling sound of chirping, growling hyenas cuts the air...coupled with the defensive sound of your horse neighing and rearing in defense. You emerge; a pack of hyenas are working to take down your tethered horse! And making an awful racket while at it!

B & D: We gallop toward that direction.

GM: <Metagame - "Escape With the Idol" Hard complexity 3 Skill challenge 8:3. Of note; subsequent uses of the same skill by the same player in a skill challenge is used at - 2 and then - 5.)

R: I run over there, brandishing my rapier in a threatening manner, attempting to ward the feral beasts off my horse: <Intimidate to ward off the pack - Failure>

GM: Their exposed ribs betray the obvious fact that these wild canines get little food out here in the badlands. They're desperate and the pack is unmoved by your display. Two of them tear into the rear flanks of your horse, opening up red gashes. Your horse bucks them off. Worse than that, the snake-men have been alerted and the front portico is awash with sounds of alarm. Soon enough, it begins "crawling" with movement.

B: I waste no time. I know I'm well out of range but I call upon my faith to Correlon (help me in my time of need), my life-force and my battled-tested skill to extract the high arcana necessary to extend my spell. I want to use a Daily spell here; I spend a healing surge to extend the range of Arcane Gate so R and his horse can jump through to us: <+ 2 to the Arcana DC for extended range - Success and I give them 2 Successes toward the challenge due to the expenditure of the daily and the HS>

D: I'm doing much the same (spend an HS to extend the range) but I'm just gong to use my at-will Grasping Tide to have the earth awaken beneath the paws of the hyena pack, grabbing them and allowing the horse to pull free: <+ 2 to the Nature DC for extended range - Success>

GM: As the clatter of at the snake-temple erupts, you see several abomination sentinels emerge and head in your direction, tridents and spears leading. Behind them are cavalry mounted on giant monitor lizards. A flash of light explodes in front of you as a familiar rune-frame portal bursts into being. In the same moment and upheaval of earth sends the swarming pack this way and that. You and your horse have a moment's opening.

R: I step on the head of the closest hyena, vault over the rest of the pack onto the horse, cut the tethering line in one smooth motion and we sprint to the arcane gate - <Acrobatics - Success> I meet up with my companions and quickly show them the satchel housing the idol and nod at them. We gallop off with haste as the snake-men pour out of the temple after us.

B: I dismiss the Arcane Gate, of course.

GM: Of course. BS. As R pointed out, the snake-men are pouring out of the temple after you. They know these badlands intimately while you only know it from your trip in. Its a dark night and clouds drift across the moon. Your elven eyes reveal much but there is uneven ground everywhere. A fall now and a lame horse could spell disaster.

B: I guided us in. I'm confident I can guide us out. The trail-warden told me the arrangement of stars in the night's sky which I can use to navigate us roughly back to the forest trail. I hone in on them while keeping my presence of mind focused on the hazardous terrain before me. <Perception - Success> With confidence we head onward, wary of pitfalls, and putting increasing distance between ourselves and our pursuit.

GM: When you can no longer see their torches behind you, your senses focus in on the labored breathing and well lathered coats of your horses. You didn't realize it but you've been running for an hour or more. More than that, R's horse is showing signs of slowing, the wicked gashes on his hindquarters looking gnarly in the moonlight.

D: I slow our collective pace to a halt. I hand out herbs to the men to steep in the horse's water to steel their will for awhile longer. Then I retrieve my mortar and pestle and create an unguent to apply to R's horse. <Heal as augment for Endurance for Horses - Success>

GM: As the horses are resting and nearing being able to set off again, the torchlight of your pursuit ambles over a rise, coming into line-of-sight. Although, they lack the speed of your horses, you doubt the great lizards that carry the snake-men ever tire. They're closing. Fast.

R: Given the keenness of their eyes and their ability to track out here, I'm sure they know exactly where we are. That's good. Lets help them even more. I want their angle of pursuit to be perfect...I light a tender-twig to work as a flare. I reach into my pack and pull out my "camouflaged anti-cavalry caltrop net". I unroll it, lay it out several paces in front of the tender-twig and put as much sand on it as can be. I smile and say to my friends: "That should slow them down a bit." <Thievery - A Tool for Everything Background Power - Success> When we're a ways off we hear the sounds of my handiwork and exchange a celebratory smirk.

GM: Despite R's trap's success, the chase carries on for many hours. Your horses fatigue while their lizard mounts do not yield. Hours pile on and while you are nearing the last leg of your trek through the badlands, your pursuit gains. They are now within artillery range and as dawn breaks, their aim becomes more true. Javelins whir by your heads, the crackle of lightning sizzles next to your ears, startling your exhausting horses. The ground gives way in great chunks, switches back, rises and falls; death from a neck-breaking fall is everywhere.

B: I work in earnest to keep my horse steady despite it all. I curse the Goddess of Night for taking away the stars as I am now blind in guiding my companions. I hope my horse knows the way better than I. I hold tight, steering him free of any hazards and any incoming enemy fire. I look for natural signs of the trail that brought us into this harsh place...and hope. <Nature as Ride + animal handling + looking for the natural terrain signs. He elects to use his + 2 here from * - Failure >

GM: Your horse moves sluggishly and its natural sense of the way appears askew due to its state. You see none of the scant trail-signs that you marked in your mind on the way in. Everything looks the same. Over the next rise your worst fears are realized in the shape of a deep gorge. Your horses in their best state could leap across the chasm...but they are tired. Doubling back may be the only way out. But your pursuit closes in on you. <We are now down to next success or failure dictates the outcome of the Skill Challenge>

D: This place looks familiar from stories I was told in my youth. Many thousands of years ago, wildmen once roamed here and used hot springs for winter baths. A story told of a barbarian king who won this territory when the ground opened up and swallowed his enemies. As our enemies close in for the kill and my friends dismount their horses to prepare to fight, I consult the earth spirits and the annals of my mind for a means of earth-borne egress. < History - Failure>

GM: Were the stories right? Perhaps yes. Perhaps no. Regardless, "earth-borne egress is what you get." As the gathered force of the snake-men surrounds you, the earth yaws wildly beneath your feat. Screams from man and beast alike fill the air. The smell of dank, dusty death fills your nostrils for a moment and the splash of freezing water sends you to unconsciousness.

<Skill Challenge to escape with the idol lost. Complication ensues. Sinkhole manifests. Good guys loose 2 HSes apiece.

The PCs rouse themselves (they were only unconscious for a few minutes) at the same time as the living remnants of the snake-men (and their lizard mounts) pursuit does the same. They’re in a large chamber, hip-deep in water and bones of various creatures, blood and offal everywhere. Battle (L + 2) ensues and they slay the remnant force. When all is still, the R realizes the satchel with the idol is gone. They investigate the chamber, looking frantically for the idol. They take note that one of their horses (all of them dead from the fall) appear to have been butchered with gaping wounds where its flanks and haunches once were. They get out of the water and find a pool of fresh blood leading off down a narrow, claustrophobic chamber. Where the blood is most pooled, they find the torn satchel that housed the idol…but the idol is gone!

“Get the idol back!” Skill challenge ensues. This is basically riffed 100 % off of the movie "The Descent" with "mole-men" (Humanoid Lurkers that are fast, stealthy, wall-crawling, have blind-sight and use claws and fangs). It gets quite dangerous as their 2 failures result in short ambush encounters with wall crawling Lurkers that just attack them with surprise and the initial round of combat and then escape via wall-crawling and ducking into tunnels; just enough to cause them to lose a few surges. 1 of those failures is an Athletics check during a climb that turned pretty precarious with wall-crawling enemies. It ends with their success in the Skill Challenge as they get the drop on their enemies (Boss level - L + 5 and with a dearth of surges - combat in a large chamber where a nest of the creatures is located), slay them, retrieve the idol and use a natural chimney from that chamber to reach the surface and the edge of the forest.

Transition scene through forest via trail where color, role-playing and player planning is sorted out > Climax at village with Ritual freeing them from the Wasting curse.

Transition scene through badlands with color and planning including some resource deployment to ensure the transition scene and position them for success in future scenes > Non-combat resolution that is immediately relevant to the players' goals > Complications including combat and non-combat resolution that is born from and immediately relevant to players' goals > Transition Scene > Climax. That was one session. A "mini-adventure".[/sblock]


If you take "The Gorge" complication and "The Sinkhole" complication, you can easily map them to Dugeon World's (full on narrative D&D rather than the gamist/narrativist hybrid of 4e) conflict resolution archetecture (I will do so below).

Consider the below for the Gorge with the same fictional positioning, the same stakes, the same intent of player action:

Roll + Wisdom. On 10 + you find the hidden trail and pick one from below. On 7-9, the pursuit has not caught you but pick two. On 6- the GM will tell you what happens and Mark XP.

- You evade the oncoming artillery fire, but a stray arrow tears the satchel with the idol free from the Rogue and it bounds off into a crevass.
- You make note of large, fresh, monstrous tracks on the undespoiled layer of sand on the terrain around you
- Over the next rise your worst fears are realized in the shape of a deep gorge with a river running through it.
- Your horses are tired, nearing exhaustion.

The Gorge resolution could easily have been a 7 - 9 roll with the player choosing the last two options as complications. After that, the Sinkhole (the final resolution of the Skill Challenge with the "loss condition" being met) would clearly be a case of the player rolling 6 -, Marking XP, and the GM "telling you what happens" by using the stakes, the player declared intent/action deployed, and the fiction as it had evolved to that point to generate an immediate, calamitous complication for the players.

This is very different play experience/table dynamic than * above.

 

[Wicht]

[MENTION=6701124]Cadence[/MENTION] asked upthread about "mere colour".

Here is a possible example of "mere colour" - the fighter's ability to hit things really hard with a sword and kill them.

For those who enjoy this experience, I can see at least two possibilities: either they enjoy mere colour (I think this must be at least a part of immersionist play); or at their table these features of the fighter are more than just mere colour, but contribute to fictional positioning. I think in Gyagx's play the latter was probably true - look at REH's Conan, for instance, for ideas about how this sort of fictional position could be leveraged by an active player. However, the list of constraints on th 3E/PF fighter than [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] broke out 10 or so posts upthread suggests that this might be less so in that system, just because more options have become mechanically defined and hence sheer fictional positioning has less to contribute to action resolution. This may be part of why, at some tables at least, the 3E fighter is felt to be particularly lacklustre.

If you don't enjoy the color of the setting, you probably are in the wrong genre of gaming. Perhaps some of this has to do with current fiction trends. In days of yore, the swordsman was considered the ideal of the martial hero and the wizards were the ideal of villainous miscreants. Times have changed (in part thanks to DnD) and now people read about flashier heroes who win through arcane means, rather than wit and brawn. So maybe its just my age starting to show.

As for Manbearcat's post, I have already disagreed with the premise of it, and posted about it, so I will let that prior post speak for itself.

 

[Ahnehnois]

That's a bit of a sidestep though. "Carefully arbitrate" is pretty vague and covers a whole lot of the game. Since we're talking about the DM "carefully arbitrating" virtually every aspect of the game, that's one heck of a single trick.

No wonder my head hurts so much after I DM a session.

 

[Dwimmerlied]

That's a bit of a sidestep though. "Carefully arbitrate" is pretty vague and covers a whole lot of the game. Since we're talking about the DM "carefully arbitrating" virtually every aspect of the game, that's one heck of a single trick.

I don't think its a sidestep; its my response to the caricature of rule 0 as this complex array when its actually the opposite. Carefully arbitrate means we don't need an overly-intricate model, and instead just decide on a case-by-case basis.

 

[Wicht]

But if you use fighter builds where you are playing with an 8 intelligence, then yeah, your fighter is not going to be very good at skills.

Also, while I am thinking about it, putting on my designer's hat for just a moment, for games that want fighters with more skill points, but don't want to break the rules, there is a simple fix. Swap out the fighter's heavy armor proficiency for 2 more skill points. And you are done.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Swap out the fighter's heavy armor proficiency for 2 more skill points. And you are done.

Sounds like a Thug to me. Don't forget to add more class skills.

 

[TwoSix]

No wonder my head hurts so much after I DM a session.

I always felt worn out after a session, until I started running my PF game like my 4e game. Outside of the Bestiary, I just let the players tell me what happens, and I tell them what the NPCs do. It's very liberating.

 

[Dwimmerlied]

I'm going to sblock the idol chase scene below as it contains various "Schrodinger" elements to it and conveys the above nicely, I think.

Hmmm. Shrodinger's sblock? I dunno about clicking that button...