Fighters vs. Spellcasters (a case for fighters.)

[Ahnehnois]

Well, the DM doesn't have characters, does he? He has NPCs he uses, but advancement of his NPCs isn't a goal of the DM that I'm aware of. (Especially since the DM has carte blanche to make NPCs in pretty much every RPG that I know.) The closest I'm aware of is that you and [MENTION=6681948]N'raac[/MENTION] and [MENTION=221]Wicht[/MENTION], among many others, espouse an "antagonist-driven" model where the DM invests his NPCs with agency, much as the players have agency with their PCs, and the DM runs their agendas and actions "behind-the-scenes" until the PCs cross paths with them.

If you're saying that the DM's mentality isn't necessarily equivalent to a player's when he's controlling NPCs, I'll agree. But it seems to be that there are two main ways to handle it. The one where the DM is invested in the NPCs and plays them like PCs, and the way where he uses them as setting elements to create the game experience he wants and is less specifically invested in them.

In both approaches, I think it's eminently justifiable to use the full might of the rules against the PCs. The PCs want to scry/teleport, have someone divine of their plan and teleport to them first. That's reasonable in either approach.

 

[D'karr]

In both approaches, I think it's eminently justifiable to use the full might of the rules against the PCs. The PCs want to scry/teleport, have someone divine of their plan and teleport to them first. That's reasonable in either approach.

In most games I've seen, experienced myself, or heard about the real problem is that the NPCs never really use the "full" rules in those situations. A DM never has to calculate material component costs to see if their NPC could actually cast any spell. The spell is just assumed to be there and all components are accounted for. Teleport for NPCs is actually Teleport without Error(Greater Teleport), since they never, ever, ever miss their mark.

It's silliness like this that has soured me on games where the DM insists on doing this kind of shenanigan. I totally agree, what's good for the goose should be good for the gander. But the gander always has a leg up when it's the DM doing it.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

The PCs want to scry/teleport, have someone divine of their plan and teleport to them first. That's reasonable in either approach.

Depending on the players that might not go over well. There are those who will get paranoid at the possibility of getting jumped like that and if the game isn't set up to be okay with that paranoia/horror or whatever kind of stuff then it could very well detract from a player's enjoyment of the game. Sure, it might enhance it for some, but it's probably best to get to know the players before doing something like that.

Just because it's rules legal to use it against the PCs doesn't mean it's actually a good idea to use it in play. True, the same could be said of things PCs themselves use, but the fact that playing the game is typically centered on investing in the PCs and having them do stuff against the DM's NPCs means that if the players and DM want to keep the characters going then the DM can't use all the rules the PCs can use because a tactic the PCs use might kill off the party. Defenses against certain offenses don't always come at the same level those offenses come at after all.

I suppose this does bring up the issue of if the characters can't at least somewhat defend against something they use, should the game allow them to have it in the first place?

 

[Ahnehnois]

In most games I've seen, experienced myself, or heard about the real problem is that the NPCs never really use the "full" rules in those situations. A DM never calculates material component costs to see if their NPC could actually cast that spell. The spell is just assumed to be there and all components are accounted for. Teleport for NPCs is actually Teleport without Error(Greater Teleport), since they never, ever, ever miss their mark.

It's silliness like this that has soured me on games where the DM insists on doing this kind of shenanigan. I totally agree, what's good for the goose should be good for the gander. But the gander always has a leg up when it's the DM doing it.

I can see that. DMing involves an enormous amount of restraint. It's obvious that the DM just saying "a mountain falls on you and you die. I win" is bad DMing, but more subtle self-oriented distortions of the rules can have a more insidious effect on gaming.

I don't know that there's an easy fix for that.

Again, I absolutely accept that power does corrupt, and I've seen an abundance of bad DMs in my time, as well as bad leaders in other areas of life. I still think it can be done well by someone with the right mentality and the right group around him.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Depending on the players that might not go over well. There are those who will get paranoid at the possibility of getting jumped like that and if the game isn't set up to be okay with that paranoia/horror or whatever kind of stuff then it could very well detract from a player's enjoyment of the game. Sure, it might enhance it for some, but it's probably best to get to know the players before doing something like that.

True. Again, I quoted a DMG passage on trust a while back. To play D&D, you have to trust that even though the DM can totally screw you, he'll choose to do something that is enjoyable and engaging for you.

I think that's part of the reason why D&D's power curve is what it is, the zero to hero mentality. Most new groups will start at level 1, and at that point, wizards and spellcasters in general are pretty pitiful, and characters in general have minimal capabilities. This gives the DM and players time to build trust before the game-breaking abilities come into play.

Just because it's rules legal to use it against the PCs doesn't mean it's actually a good idea to use it in play.

True, that's why we have such a powerful referee. A good DM generally does things that are both rules legal and a good idea, and it takes some time to learn what that is.

I suppose this does bring up the issue of if the characters can't at least somewhat defend against something they use, should the game allow them to have it in the first place?

Well, that's the nature of war, isn't it? The best defense is a good offense.

 

[Aenghus]

All NPCs have an innate advantage in that they are run by the DM who know how his gameworld works, and won't have them make mistakes unless he/she does so deliberately, unlike players, who have imperfect information on how the world works. In gamestyles where PC actions can be modified or vetoed by DM fiat, NPCs may never suffer from such problems if they act with the DM's perfect insight into the workings of the gameworld.

Also, the DM has unlimited NPCs at his disposal, whereas in most games the players have one PC each, less if they are dead or incapacitated.

Barring highly antagonistic styles like pawn-based wargame style play, IMO NPCs are better off being assigned personalities with strengths and flaws, such as intelligence, stupidity, low cunning, a quick temper, tunnel vision, prejudices, stubborness etc.

Learning to compartmentalise so that NPCs don't work with perfect teamwork, make mistakes and and avoid unerring insight into the PC's plans as they have been revealed to the DM takes practice and effort (rare supergenius telepathic villians may have such abilities, the vast majority shouldn't). Failing to do so can damage communication lines between DM and players,as the players stop providing information as to their plans and goals that can be used against them. I've seen newish DMs make inadvertent mistakes in this area without realising it.

And l've seen too many Sledge Hammer DMs (catch phrase: "Trust me, I know what I'm doing". The catch: They don't) to give unlimited trust to DMs nowadays. There's an initial period of grace, but trust must be earned (in both directions).

 

[pemerton]

All of those spells, and spells in general, will of course do things better than simple applications of nonmagical skill. That's the whole paradigm; in exchange for being weak and frail, casters get to be special on occasion.

This may be one point of difference in play experience. My experience, playing both D&D with Vancian casting and Rolemaster with spell point casting, is that at a certain point (somewhere around 7th or so level) the casters no longer get to "be special on occasion". They have a whole lot of special, which among other things gives them a good deal of influence over when they go off and rest for another occasion.

Of course, this phenomenon (not as something that occurs at every table, but as a recognised topic of debate) is well known.

Another well known phenomenon, which when it is experienced tends to reduce the disparity between "sometimes special" caster and "always on" fighters, is hit point attrition: fighters run out of hp and depend upon the miracle-worker healers to get them back.

If I try to think about a combat encounter which would tend to avoid these phenomena, the first thing I think of is a fight with a modest number of noticably lower-level opponents: the fighters can handle them without facing much risk, and they're too weak to be worth busting out the spells for.

I think these sorts of encounters were part of classic D&D play. I tend not to like them, simply because they are "filler" rather than dramatic. And as I think I've already indicated, I prefer a game with higher stakes and more dramatic pressure. I prefer that the difference between caster and fighter be one of means, and of particular capability (the fighter is stronger, the wizard better at setting fire to things without matches), then of overall scope and effectiveness.

Risk aversion is a very effective balancing tool.

Not in my experience. I find it tends to proudce turtling and a reluctance on the part of players to hurl their PCs into the ingame situation. And together with this comes an emphasis on recon and prep (transition scenes of various sorst) - the PCs become like special agents, where success or failure is determined not in the field but in the warroom beforehand, and if anything interesting or unexpected happens in the field then something has already gone wrong. Whereas I prefer that the focus of play at the table be on the actual situations in which the PCs are engaged in conflict (action scenes), and that the decisions made there be the ones that count.

In other words, the players are apparently allowed to go "hard" and play their characters in a way that makes sense to them...but the DM isn't?

Well, the DM doesn't have characters, does he? He has NPCs he uses, but advancement of his NPCs isn't a goal of the DM that I'm aware of.

I've read more than one DnD book describe NPC's as the DM's characters, so I am not sure why anyone would think it was otherwise in a traditional D&D game. It is pretty normal for DMs to invest the NPCs, especially named NPCs, with full agency.

I would define "playing a character" to mean that one has an investment in the character's development, and that the character has goals beyond "be played at this session". While an NPC may have goals, the DM doesn't have investment in their advancement, since the DM can advance them at whim.

AThe character might have goals but that is different than being invested in the character, which is I think, actually a poor thing for a DM to do.

It seems to me there are at least two matters being discussed here.

One is about "investing in" a character. In my preferred approach to play the GM absolutely does not do this. So while it makes sense to talk about deprotagonising the players, it wouldn't make sense to talk about deprotagonising the GM. The function of the GM's play of protagonists is to put pressure on the players via their PCs; but the players are not trying to put pressure on the GM! They are trying to pursue their characters' agendas.

The other, which I think was Ahnehnois's issue, is about the GM drawing on the rules. I agree that the GM needs to draw on the game's mechanical resources to put pressure on the players, but the dynamic is different. The GM - at least in my style of play - is not deploying the action resolution rules to realise his/her goals in play. The GM, in framing a conflict, has already mostly got his/her NPCs where s/he wants them. At that point the action resolution rules become relevant for adjudicating the confict with the PCs.

This means that spells such as Transmute Rock to Mud, or Teleport, or Stone Shape, or various divinations, are far less significant on the GM's side. The GM doesn't need to deploy spells to give his/her NPCs access to backstory, or to locations. S/he can just use his/her authority over backstory and sceneframing.

So for the GM effects like TRtM or Charm or Invis are powerful action resolution tools - Charm/Dominate will hit the players' action economy pretty hard; and Invis is strong for lurking. But if an NPC uses fly or invis to flee the scene, that might thwart the players (depending on what the PCs' goals are) but doesn't otherwise change the dynamic of GM-putting-pressure-on-players.

I still think you are misframing the argument and mischaracterizing those who do not see wizards as a problem.

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If the wizard is caught charming the chamberlain there should also be consequences. This is not punishing the player.

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Its not holding back wizards and more than having the castle guards show up to arrest the fighter for murdering the innkeeper is "holding back" the fighter. But all of this is playstyle related, it has nothing to do with whether the spell would work or not as written

<snip>

to keep accusing others of playing "Calvinball," simply because you would do it differently, is rather meanspirited on your part, slightly slanderous, its getting old, and its especially grating because it fails to acknowledge that nobody is actually arguing the DM should just change the rules to suit his own tyrannical whimsy or preset story-line.

I used the word "Calvinball" to explicitly draw the link to [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s posts upthread. If you want to give me a preferred canonical characterisatin I'm happy to use it. I offered a lengthier description in some of my own posts upthread - "secret backstory drawn upon by the GM to change the PCs' fictional positioning in ways that (i) affect action resolution that (ii) are unknown to the players" - but no one replied to those elements of my posts.

As for the issue of "punishing the player", my concern is what I've articulated upthread: that the player tries to engage the scene using his/he PC's schtick, and comes unstuck not because of some overt aspect of the conflict that speaks to the reason the PCs are there, but because of some unknown, non-thematically driven element of backstory that is a procedura rather than a dramatic obstacle.

Examples to illustrate the contrast: Charming or Dominating the chamberlain doesn't work because he is really a starspawn in disguise, whose warped mind reflects mind-affecting effects back on the caster. That's probably pretty awesome, as the stakes for the players in engagine with the chamberlain and the king are suddenly raised to a whole new level, involving strange alien entities trying to subvert the government of the kingdom.

Whereas Charming or Dominating the chamberlain doesn't work because the king's guards come out an arrest the PC for impropoer magic-use. A procedural obstacle that doesn't drive the drama forwar. (The replacement lizardman guard turning up unexpectedly is another example like this.)

What counts as dramatic vs merely procedural is of course context relative. If the encounter with the chamberlain is a dramatic last-ditch attempt to reach the king, and the players know of the risk of being detected but choose to run that risk, then being caught out and arrested would raise the dramatic stakes. But in those circumstances, if I was participating in the game either as player or GM I would expect the issue of discovery to be resolved according to the action resolution mechanics and not simply by GM fiat or extrapolation. This is exactly the sort of situation where "say yes or roll the dice" comes into play - at the moment of crunch the dice get rolled.

You acknowledge 3.5 and PF does not seem to work for you and you do not like the basic playstyle the game was meant for.

As [MENTION=205]TwoSix[/MENTION] said, what "basic playstyle the game was meant for" is part of what is up for grabs. For instance, some people say that 3E/PF is designed for a heavily GM-driven style of play, and that it is meant to be played the same as AD&D and B/X. But when I played AD&D I didn't play it as heavily GM-driven. And upthread I've set out my interpretation of some of the key DMG passages, a being concerned with GM authority over situation, backstory and adjudication of fictional positioning, rather than over outcomes as such.

So, for me, if it's true that 3E/PF does require heavy GM-driving to work, then it is not supporting the same playstyle as classic D&D.

I am not sure what your goal is at this point.

In the post you replied to, I was responding to Ahnehnois's suggestion that the main cause of fighter/caster balance issues is charop exploits to get infinite wishes.

I think these charop exploits are basically irrelevant to understanding why some groups have fighter/caster issues.

 

[pemerton]

I quoted a DMG passage on trust a while back. To play D&D, you have to trust that even though the DM can totally screw you, he'll choose to do something that is enjoyable and engaging for you.

I still think "trust" is a red herring too, as it doesn't actually tell us what the GM is expected to do.

There is a big difference, for instance, between trusting a GM to take the game towards interesting outcomes ("storytelling") and trusting the GM to frame thematically engaging scenes ("indie"), and between either of them and trusting the GM to adjudicate the rules fairly, come what may ("wargaming").

 

[Ahnehnois]

This may be one point of difference in play experience. My experience, playing both D&D with Vancian casting and Rolemaster with spell point casting, is that at a certain point (somewhere around 7th or so level) the casters no longer get to "be special on occasion". They have a whole lot of special, which among other things gives them a good deal of influence over when they go off and rest for another occasion.

To some extent this is true. However, in practice, there are still some considerations. They usually can only cast a few of their highest level spell. And at those levels, their special things are pretty special, but they start failing more, because that's when SR and dispelling and such come into play.

Do I think casters get too many spell slots and recover them too easily? Yes. Do I think it typically breaks the game? No. Would I change it and give them fewer resources if I rewrote the game? Yes.

Another well known phenomenon, which when it is experienced tends to reduce the disparity between "sometimes special" caster and "always on" fighters, is hit point attrition: fighters run out of hp and depend upon the miracle-worker healers to get them back.

In practice, I find that this describes barbarians better than fighters. In D&D, defense is largely about items, and a heavily armored fighter with the best save boosters and ability enhancers that money can buy often doesn't take that much damage.

This is also a strictly combat perspective. By analogy, divinations answer one question while Knowledge checks keep going. Charm charms one guy while Diplo keeps going (and isn't illegal mind control). Invisibility runs out, but Hide and Move Silently are a way of life.

If I try to think about a combat encounter which would tend to avoid these phenomena, the first thing I think of is a fight with a modest number of noticably lower-level opponents: the fighters can handle them without facing much risk, and they're too weak to be worth busting out the spells for.

I think these sorts of encounters were part of classic D&D play. I tend not to like them, simply because they are "filler" rather than dramatic. And as I think I've already indicated, I prefer a game with higher stakes and more dramatic pressure. I prefer that the difference between caster and fighter be one of means, and of particular capability (the fighter is stronger, the wizard better at setting fire to things without matches), then of overall scope and effectiveness.

Typically, I run battles that would be well off the EL charts, and I find that fighters remain useful because there are fewer countermeasures for a sword than for a spell, and because of within-battle attrition of useful spells slots.

Not in my experience. I find it tends to proudce turtling and a reluctance on the part of players to hurl their PCs into the ingame situation. And together with this comes an emphasis on recon and prep (transition scenes of various sorst) - the PCs become like special agents, where success or failure is determined not in the field but in the warroom beforehand, and if anything interesting or unexpected happens in the field then something has already gone wrong. Whereas I prefer that the focus of play at the table be on the actual situations in which the PCs are engaged in conflict (action scenes), and that the decisions made there be the ones that count.

I do rather like advance planning and tactics to matter, and turtling is bad. I would describe turtling as a pitfall, but not a necessity. Again, it's all about trust.

 

[Hussar]

What is an "elfgame style?"




But the chamberlain example was not an example of being "arbitrary" or "changing the rules." So the term is inapplicable in any event.

But, it was precisely arbitrary and changing the rules. Go back and read the example. The PC's want to see the King, so they talk to the Chamberlain to get an audience. The DM arbitrarily sets the DC so high that they cannot succeed. When that gets questioned, suddenly all these after the fact justifications get brought out (The king hates dwarves and you have a dwarf in the party, etc). IOW, you guys keep changing the situation to try to justify the use of DM force.

Stick to the original situation. Nothing special going on. No special circumstances. Nothing in the background. Just what the situation says - the PC's want an audience with the king and talk to the chamberlain to do so. Ahn would not even allow the Players to make a diplomacy check on their own. They have to wait until they have sufficiently persuaded Ahn to allow the check. N'raac introduced having the chamberlain go insane and stick his fingers in his ears to prevent the diplomacy check. Does anyone actually think that's good DMing advice? Really?

Any use of a spell to is automatically subjected to either the most restrictive interpretation possible under the rules, or, barring that, manipulating the game world (using charm gets you killed by random bar maids) to punish the players.

So...

"Calvinball" is a derogatory term meant to imply that some people wants to just change the rules as they go along so that they always win. Firstly, nobody is arguing for this, so the term is being misused. Secondly, it is meant to be insulting, so people should stop using the term if they wish to be constructive. Insulting someone and then saying that you are just being "metaphorical" is rather juvenile.

Can you honestly not see why this looks like Calvinball? In Ahn's example of the angry fighter, you changed the scene so that the fighter is suddenly hundreds of feet away or there are 13 people in the way as a justification for not allowing player actions. But, none of those were true in the example, so, what's the point of bringing them up if it's not Calvinball?

But this begs the question that the DM changed things merely because the spellcaster was doing something the DM didn't like. It ignores the more plausible explanation that the DM was adjucating in fairness as a valid reaction in-game to the player's choice. Again it is an accusation made in bad faith, assuming bad motives on the part of the DM. And its still meant to be somewhat insulting.

Weren't you one of those calling us incompetent for not using GM force to solve all our problems? I might be misremembering, but, I know more than a few on your side of the fence has basically said that the reason we have the problems is that we're just not good enough DM's.

Well, considering we're talking about ways to limit caster power, it's not really a stretch to think that these changes are being done as a means of limiting caster power. That's precisely the way they were being presented.