D&D 5E What are the Roles now?

[Hussar]

I am not really seeing whether you use that canon. What I mean is if you want to author what the deity does and cares about, wouldn't a home-made deity be better? If you entered another campaign and wanted to author something for the Raven Queen that went against the canon, are you saying you would want the DM to let you override the canon?

There really is very little canon. It's just not fleshed out in 4e.

But in the larger context, given the choice between allowing a player to create new interpretations or following published canon, I'll now go with the player every time.

 

[pemerton]

Baleful Polymorph ends, because it ends. That's the fantasy physics of it.

<snip>

This blurb from the 5E PHB reinforces my gaming experience (ever since BECMI and AD&D) that spell effects (including duration) are set and predictable (in-character and out-of-character) and something I've internalized for a long time. So why disagree in general with the fair claim that Baleful Polymorph ends because it ends?

4e doesn't have any definition of a spell comparable to the one you state for 5e.

The closest analogue to 4e durations in 5e are spells like Hold Person, which end if the target makes a saving throw. Suppose that the target does make a saving throw, and is a cleric. A cleric gets a proficiency bonus on WIS saving throws. What does it actually mean, in the fiction, to be proficient in WIS saving throws? If a player narrated that proficiency as divine beneficence (which strikes me as consistent with the AD&D tradition, where Gygax describes clerical saving throws in terms of "an island of faith"), would that be objectionable?

If it is not objectionable - and I don't see how it is - then when the player rolls a successful save, and the spell ends on that character, we have an instance of divine intervention ending an effect. That would be roughly the same as what happened in my 4e game.

 

[pemerton]

if you want to author what the deity does and cares about, wouldn't a home-made deity be better?

I don't see why, at least as far as the sort of authorship I'm talking about is concerned.

You can read all the canon of the Raven Queen that you want - it won't tell you whether or not, on this particular occasion of one of her paladins being released from a magical effect, that it was her intervention that saved him.

Likewise, however much of that canon you read, it won't tell whether, on this occasion, it is more important that the paladin save the Baron from the catoblepas (because he is not yet fated to die) or instead to defeat the cultists of Orcus (who is the Raven Queen's principal cosmic enemy).

The authorship I was describing upthread isn't about rewriting canon, it's about deciding, on the nitty-gritty level of the actual play of the game, what the desires and actions of the god are.

 

[Rejuvenator]

Suppose that the target does make a saving throw, and is a cleric. A cleric gets a proficiency bonus on WIS saving throws. What does it actually mean, in the fiction, to be proficient in WIS saving throws? If a player narrated that proficiency as divine beneficence (which strikes me as consistent with the AD&D tradition, where Gygax describes clerical saving throws in terms of "an island of faith"), would that be objectionable?

Surely not, but that's quite a different beast than the case of the Raven Queen intervention. Just for starters, there are no mechanics implying that the spell ended due to any circumstantial fictional positioning. ie., the paladin didn't expend, say, a use of Channel Divinity, or make a Will save, to end the Baleful Polymorph. Whereas this cleric's Wis save provides exactly that (=a 'hook' for that sort of fictional positioning). The paladin player's authorship would override a default (and common) assumption that I (and many people) have about the game setting, as I mentioned. The fluff in your example authored for a Wis save does not override any default assumption that I have about the game setting. The Wis check also doesn't ask me as a player to "take sides" on whether it's conjecture or objective truth, thus allow for both narratives to exist concurrently (until somehow proven otherwise but if so, wouldn't have any major ramifications if it did). So totally different.

 

[Manbearcat]

Surely not, but that's quite a different beast than the case of the Raven Queen intervention. Just for starters, there are no mechanics implying that the spell ended due to any circumstantial fictional positioning. ie., the paladin didn't expend, say, a use of Channel Divinity, or make a Will save, to end the Baleful Polymorph. Whereas this cleric's Wis save provides exactly that (=a 'hook' for that sort of fictional positioning). The paladin player's authorship would override a default (and common) assumption that I (and many people) have about the game setting, as I mentioned. The fluff in your example authored for a Wis save does not override any default assumption that I have about the game setting. The Wis check also doesn't ask me as a player to "take sides" on whether it's conjecture or objective truth, thus allow for both narratives to exist concurrently (until somehow proven otherwise but if so, wouldn't have any major ramifications if it did). So totally different.

I'm uncertain how familiar you are with 4e and its design. From a few of your prior posts, it appears that you're at least passingly familiar. You seem to be asserting that "at the end of its next turn (etc)" must be gameworld-driven causal logic (process-sim) rather than an outcome-based, metagame construct meant to specifically interface with the D&D action economy generally and 4e's combat engine specifically...and then have the table abstract the fictional positioning as they wish afterward. The spatial and temporal concerns aren't meant to translate 1:1 from mechanics to the gameworld. My guess is you likewise have an issue with forced movement, encounter powers, martial dailies, and possibly magically benign staffs looted from goblins that just used it to shoot lightning at you?

Assuming you understand the saving throw mechanic in 4e (save ends meaning roll a d20 at the end of your turn and on a 10+ the effect ends), would you feel that post-hoc narrative justification of a successful saving throw against a hostile effect as divine intervention (as the Paladin in [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s group did) is legitimate?

This is, of course, assuming that it doesn't make a mockery of the fiction established prior to the event or turn on its head.

 

[Rejuvenator]

You seem to be asserting that "at the end of its next turn (etc)" must be gameworld-driven causal logic (process-sim) rather than an outcome-based, metagame construct meant to specifically interface with the D&D action economy generally and 4e's combat engine specifically...and then have the table abstract the fictional positioning as they wish afterward.
<snip>
Assuming you understand the saving throw mechanic in 4e (save ends meaning roll a d20 at the end of your turn and on a 10+ the effect ends), would you feel that post-hoc narrative justification of a successful saving throw against a hostile effect as divine intervention (as the Paladin in @pemerton's group did) is legitimate?

Note the emphases. This is the second time a reply to my subjective experience seems to nudge towards some supposed claim about objective or general statement about 4E and immersion. I had no intention or motive to extrapolate to general claims about other people's 4E game, and I don't wish to be nudged in that direction. My opinion is irrelevant to your 4e game, so my response would seem tangential. This isn't a 4e thread either.

 

[Manbearcat]

Note the emphases. This is the second time a reply to my subjective experience seems to nudge towards some supposed claim about objective or general statement about 4E and immersion. I had no intention or motive to extrapolate to general claims about other people's 4E game, and I don't wish to be nudged in that direction. My opinion is irrelevant to your 4e game, so my response would seem tangential. This isn't a 4e thread either.

You failed to emphasize seemed as I was trying to clarify your position to further conversation.

I was asking for your take on the game's mechanics (it certainly seemed that you had a take that "at the end of your next turn meant something empirically testable in the game world") and the attendant fiction. I mostly wanted to clarify that to see if your position changed if (save ends) was introduced into the equation. But you didn't respond to that. Which, unfortunately, was the only thing that I was interested in getting a response about. The rest of it was just to clarify and lead into the question.

I'd still be interested in hearing your answer if you're so inclined. If not, you can just ignore this.

 

[Rejuvenator]

You failed to emphasize seemed as I was trying to clarify your position to further conversation.

Well, I didn't emphasize "seemed" because it's hard to dispute what seems to be true to you. (If you wrote that I seem to be angry, I'm better off responding "I'm not angry", instead of arguing "I don't seem to be angry".)

I was asking for your take on the game's mechanics (it certainly seemed that you had a take that "at the end of your next turn meant something empirically testable in the game world") and the attendant fiction.

Everyone's different. Some people's take is that jumping up off a cliff and surviving with enough hit points is empirically testable via the characters. I don't do that personally. The spell ending at the end of the turn is an "arbitrary space" that would annoy me and result in narrative that I find somewhat ridiculous in the case of being a frog. The paladin's "filling in the blank" is admirable in principle but the execution would make it worse for my immersion as I tried to clarify those previous couple of times.

I mostly wanted to clarify that to see if your position changed if (save ends) was introduced into the equation. But you didn't respond to that. Which, unfortunately, was the only thing that I was interested in getting a response about. The rest of it was just to clarify and lead into the question.

I'd still be interested in hearing your answer if you're so inclined. If not, you can just ignore this.

I didn't respond because I didn't (and still don't) know where it was going and I'm overly wary of pointless arguments. But OK, yes, if there was a Save ends instead of "ends at the end of the NPC's next turn", then I would find the experience somewhat more palatable.

 

[Janx]

fighter
thief
cleric
wizard


The original roles still apply.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

fighting-man
cleric
magic-user


The original roles still apply.

Fixed it for you...