The Niche Protection Poll

[1of3]

But "divine magic" and "arcane magic" have no meaning by themselves. What does divine magic do? Maybe you have played the game for too long, so you don't notice. Think about it: "The Incarnate is best at Incarnate Meldshaping, the Totemist is best at Totemist Meldshaping. Other characters might do so, too." That's just as ridiculous a statement.

Things like spellcasting or meldshaping are only arbitrary class mechanis. Divine vs. arcane is even less, it's meaningless keywords. Such keywords might constitute a niche, but only in shutting them down. If you had a character specialising in unshaping enemies' Soulmelds that could constitute a niche. - If meldshapers made a significant portion in the campaign's villains gallery.

 

[Lanefan]

Random arcane spells were last seen in canon in 2E, I believe. You can use them in your game, but they don't really belong in an argument, at least one about recent editions.

Yet another unfortunate development of the later editions...sigh...

Sure this is a General D&D thread, but...

Truth be told, in the 3e game I played the arcane spells were still somewhat randomly assigned.

Side topic: is uncertain spell access (as in, what you find is random, and you can't always get what you want) another way in which 0e-1e-2e arcane casters were reined in a bit more than their 3e-pf-4e counterparts?

Lanefan

 

[Hussar]

But "divine magic" and "arcane magic" have no meaning by themselves. What does divine magic do? Maybe you have played the game for too long, so you don't notice. Think about it: "The Incarnate is best at Incarnate Meldshaping, the Totemist is best at Totemist Meldshaping. Other characters might do so, too." That's just as ridiculous a statement.

Things like spellcasting or meldshaping are only arbitrary class mechanis. Divine vs. arcane is even less, it's meaningless keywords. Such keywords might constitute a niche, but only in shutting them down. If you had a character specialising in unshaping enemies' Soulmelds that could constitute a niche. - If meldshapers made a significant portion in the campaign's villains gallery.

Why is it meaningless? A cursory reading of the rules tells me the difference. Divine magic comes from gods and arcane doesn't. The two branches have very different capabilities as well.

Now I'll cop to not knowing what meld shaping is, but I'm pretty darn sure that it isn't arcane or divine spells just from the name.

Why can't niche be defined by the game itself? Why must niche be defined by plain English?

 

[1of3]

Why is it meaningless? A cursory reading of the rules tells me the difference. Divine magic comes from gods and arcane doesn't. The two branches have very different capabilities as well.

Why can't niche be defined by the game itself? Why must niche be defined by plain English?

OK. Let's get a few steps back. What is this about? Niche Protection. What is niche protection? Niche Protection is an indirect form of Spotlight Management. What is Spotlight Management? Spotlight Management is the idea that each character should shine once in a while and how we can make sure of that.

There are several ways to manage spotlight. You can make NPCs, location and plot elements that are tied to a character's background or interests. You can hand out equipment earmarked for a character. Those are fairly direct methods.

Niche Protection makes the following further assumptions: The PCs go adventuring. During adventuring certain tasks and problem wills arise. These situations can be split into certain types of standard problems. These types are called niches. A character is said to "have a niche", when he or she is qualified to solve that type of problem and expected to so in usual circumstances. When a problem arises that fits a characters niche, the character therefore has spotlight. Therefore niche protection is a form of spotlight management, but less direct then the methods above.

"Divine magic" is not a niche, because characters cannot overcome divine magic. Closed doors, invisible enemies, negative energy effects those are things you can overcome. And you can specialize in overcoming them. So the problem is not that niches have to presented in "plain English", "negative energy effects" certainly would not qualify.

The niches you can specailize in are potentially indefinite. Whether they are useful in terms of securing spotlight, depends on the campaign. It doesn't matter if your character can do it unless there is the regular opportunity to say: "Oh, that again. Melissandra, they are all yours."

The fact that a character is a cleric can, of course, be used to spotlight him. There might be an old temple, filled with the magic of the gods. But that is not niche protection, but a fairly direct form of spotlight management.

 

[pemerton]

you've insisted on misinterpreting the line of thought.

<snip>

The point that you continuously missed was the fact that the way you were keeping the thief on par with the other casters was by having the thief CAST SPELLS.

Yes, but of course that's just obviously wrong. A wizard without items is equally useless.

It's not obviously wrong to me. It's an accurate summary of my concern with Use Magic Device as a way of keeping 3E/PF rogues on par with spell-using classes.

A wizard who uses wands or staves or scrolls is being a wizard, in the core sense of that archetype.

A thief who uses wands or staves or scrolls is pretending to be a wizard, or playing at it. If that sort of "playing" is the only way the thief can keep up, something has gone wrong in my view. In classic D&D the thief's ability to read scrolls was a sidelight, a nod to the Grey Mouser and a trick that the thief could pull out when need demanded. If it becomes the mainstay of the thief's power then from my point of view the thief is no longer playing as a thief, but as a faux-wizard.

That is not about niche protection (in respect of which I like [MENTION=48555]1of3[/MENTION]'s discussion). It's about preserving the feel of fictional archetypes.

Wizards hardly ever use wands.

Yet another way in which 3E/PF departs from its predecessors, then. In classic D&D wands are awesome for wizards, because they conserve spell slots. (And many wands are MU only, eg Wands of Conjuration, Fire, Frost, Illusion, Lightning, Paralysation, Polymorphing.)

 

[Ahnehnois]

A thief who uses wands or staves or scrolls is pretending to be a wizard, or playing at it.

Only in the sense that the concept of the class was built around doing that. Rogues are versatile. Rogues improvise. Rogues dip into other niches. It's pretty much the definition of what a rogue is.

If that sort of "playing" is the only way the thief can keep up, something has gone wrong in my view.

But of course it isn't. As I've noted elsewhere, UMD is precisely what it's meant to be: a niche ability that becomes useful in specific situations, not the rogue's most common action. Typically, simply being able to roll trained checks in 8+ useful skills and damage the heck out of people when they're not looking is better than whatever a wizard's repertoire of memorized spells is in a given day.

That is not about niche protection (in respect of which I like [MENTION=48555]1of3[/MENTION]'s discussion). It's about preserving the feel of fictional archetypes.

An odd objection, given how the notions of a "striker" and a "martial power source" blatantly defy the feel of the original thief archetype. What archetype is worth preserving? I would think the improviser/jack of all trades is entirely worthwhile.

Yet another way in which 3E/PF departs from its predecessors, then. In classic D&D wands are awesome for wizards, because they conserve spell slots. (And many wands are MU only, eg Wands of Conjuration, Fire, Frost, Illusion, Lightning, Paralysation, Polymorphing.)

That is an odd phenomenon. This feature of 3.X magic items are an epiphenomenon of the increased importance of caster level and the item pricing formulas. Wands and scrolls are almost always at the minimum caster level, and are quite expensive (and even more so if one tries to get one at a higher CL). Their usefulness quickly becomes compromised as they are unable to penetrate any competitive SR, saves against item DCs almost automatically succeed, and range, duration, and damage, are all low.

Wands are only useful for spells for which level-based variables are not of high importance, and for which repeated castings over a short period of time are likely to be worthwhile. Cure Light Wounds meets these criteria, and a few other spells are on the fringe of that level of utility, most of them cleric spells.

I do think it would be a positive move to have wands and other spell completion/trigger magic items reflect the power of the wielder, and thus become more useful for powerful spellcasters (rather than less useful).

In general, it's better to have the wizard buy a scroll, learn a spell, rest, and memorize it when needed. In the absence of that, there is a loss of efficiency as the party must either pay an NPC, or take the middle road and get a rogue to use a magic item. The ability to select useful spells without spending a lot of money is what makes the wizard function, but on the whole, there aren't many spells that are that important.

 

[pemerton]

Only in the sense that the concept of the class was built around doing that.

I don't agree with this. Even within the context of 3E/PF, I suspect that it was an emergent rather than an intended feature. It is certainly not part of the concept of the rogue or thief as such.

An odd objection, given how the notions of a "striker" and a "martial power source" blatantly defy the feel of the original thief archetype.

In what way? Look at discussions of the thief in early gaming magazines (in my own case, I'm thinking of White Dwarf c 1980). The thief as commando - striking hard from stealth - was one of the major ways known to play a thief. Gygax has an example of just this on p 105 of his PHB. And that is how thieves typically played in my classic D&D days, when it came to combat.

 

[Ahnehnois]

In what way? ... The thief as commando - striking hard from stealth

Striking hard from stealth; not striking hard during an active battle when you're already been seen. Even the addition of flanking to sneak attack (one which I've backtracked on to an extent for my own games), as opposed to pure old school backstab which requires the target to be unaware of you, could be seen as a departure from that ideal. Let alone some of the various 4e thief powers and the increasingly broad definition of combat advantage.

The notion of a striker is a combat role, while the old school thief really didn't have role past the first round of combat. Even that commando's goal is to circumvent a battle, not fight one. In fact, that notion of strategic play is something that has been lost from the old school feel, to an extent.

The notion of a power source also contradicts the idea of improvisation. The thief/rogue is the perfect example of someone whose favored actions should be determined more at the table than at character creation; static, preselected powers don't make sense in that context.

 

[Starfox]

Of the four old classes (magic user, fighter, thief, cleric) only the fighter and magic user really have niches of their own, as they are at the extremes of the martial/magic spectrum.

The cleric was always a hybrid between a caster and a warrior. Allowed armor and some weapons, mediocre attacks but pretty good defenses. By excluding "real" casters from healing, an artificial niche was created for the cleric, but healer is not really a hero job.

The rogue was a hybrid between warrior and something else that no-one else even got close, and that is the quick-witted hero of most heroic tales. This is a role that fits pretty badly in the tactical/resource management game that was important in old DnD and which I still feel is a part of old school. The classic hero of literature bypasses such concerns by wit and skill - he doesn't need to manage resources because he doesn't spend any. But he is not really a team player and his best adventures are solo. In a world of the other three classes, he fails as he doesn't have the room and lassitude to use the kinds of solutions he ought to be best at. "Rogue" situations really don't come up much in typical team play. Thus the rogue has become a trapfinder, commando, and magic item user. These are not really his roles, they are replacements to make up for that there is not room for true rogue adventures in team play.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Thus the rogue has become a trapfinder, commando, and magic item user. These are not really his roles, they are replacements to make up for that there is not room for true rogue adventures in team play.

I haven't found that to be the case at all. Rogues work perfectly fine with or without those things.