D&D General Compelling and Differentiated Gameplay For Spellcasters and Martial Classes

[Campbell]

@Undrave

I think to have compelling martial combat regardless of rationing it is immensely helpful to have status effects that have a worthwhile impact but are not completely debilitating. It needs to be more than just trading hit points. Then you can have other things that key off those statuses. Basically you need to setup big moves. Another option is to have more potent attacks that inflict conditions on the user so a really big attack might leave you fatigued or lower your defenses or have special requirements.

Your second design reminds me a lot of the combat system in Exalted Third Edition which was inspired by Final Fantasy Dissidia. You have two types of attacks - withering attacks and decisive attacks. Withering attacks represent breaking down your opponents defenses and are more like glancing blows or getting them out of position. They lower your opponents Initiative and raise your Initiative. Things like armor, weapon damage, and the like matter for withering attacks. Decisive attacks represent those telling blows where you are overextending yourself. These attacks are the only ones that do lethal damage. This is based on your current Initiative. However if successful your Initiative resets to base which can make it easy to send you into Initiative Crash which is like bad. It's pretty much tailor made for Shonen anime fights.

 

[Undrave]

@Undrave

I think to have compelling martial combat regardless of rationing it is immensely helpful to have status effects that have a worthwhile impact but are not completely debilitating. It needs to be more than just trading hit points. Then you can have other things that key off those statuses. Basically you need to setup big moves. Another option is to have more potent attacks that inflict conditions on the user so a really big attack might leave you fatigued or lower your defenses or have special requirements.

Your second design reminds me a lot of the combat system in Exalted Third Edition which was inspired by Final Fantasy Dissidia. You have two types of attacks - withering attacks and decisive attacks. Withering attacks represent breaking down your opponents defenses and are more like glancing blows or getting them out of position. They lower your opponents Initiative and raise your Initiative. Things like armor, weapon damage, and the like matter for withering attacks. Decisive attacks represent those telling blows where you are overextending yourself. These attacks are the only ones that do lethal damage. This is based on your current Initiative. However if successful your Initiative resets to base which can make it easy to send you into Initiative Crash which is like bad. It's pretty much tailor made for Shonen anime fights.

I agree that a collection of minor status effect is essential to make interesting martial moves.

Stuff like Slow, Weaken, Distract, forced movement, Prone, ongoing damage, and then some. Personally, I miss the simple "Save End" mechanic of 4e where you just roll 10 and above and that's just your timing. No need to count down turns, just wonder "Does this character have a condition that can be ended by a save?".

I also miss the Bloodied condition, it was a neat bit of fluff/crunch interaction that could have a ton of stuff hanged on it. Like how Dragons would automatically recharge an reuse their Breath weapon when bloodied. That sort of thing.

Of course, for my idea #1 you don't need to make the buff simply boosting the damage, that was only in the context of the game I was thinking about. The conditional buffs could be more potent effects or something as simple as a follow up attack on a different target. A variety of buffs make the choice more interesting.

 

[Don Durito]

I think losing the 4E combat engine was a big loss.

I think it was very solid and there's a lot that could be done with it - even if you completely reworked class design.

 

[Undrave]

I think losing the 4E combat engine was big loss.

I think it was very solid and there's a lot that could be done with it - even if you completely reworked class design.

I agree... but people who can use the term "Theatre of the Mind" seriously were complaining about all these FILTHY MINIS in their DnD >.>

Positioning was important so controlling movement thus became important.

 

[Don Durito]

I feel like we ended up with the worst of both worlds.

There are systems designed to work well with TOTM such as 13th Age or the new 2d20 Conan game.

 

[MichaelSomething]

This thread does not have the Fifth Edition tag. I wish there was a Design tag so I could clarify what I was looking for.

My intent was to discuss from a design perspective how we could have martial classes that require the same amount of skill and coordination to play as spell casters while still feeling thematically like martial classes. How do we make fighters mechanically engaging while retaining a play environment where most the things they do are at will and spell casters still have daily spell slots, hopefully with individual memorization?

Basically I want to remove the tension between playing a fighter because I like them thematically and playing a psychic warrior or cleric in Third Edition or playing a paladin or cleric in Fifth Edition because they provide the mechanical engagement and challenge I am looking for. Fourth Edition lacked this problem, but fighters did not feel like fighters to me after awhile. So far it looks like Pathfinder Second Edition has solved this problem in one particular way, but I am interested in other possible solutions.

How about turning the Fighter's turn into a game of Yahtzee?

 

[pemerton]

At a certain point, what do you expect? You have a few basic options if 5E doesn't suit your needs. Implement house rules, possibly grabbing some from from Dmsguild. Play a different game or edition. Wait for a UA article and participate in the survey and give feedback. Accept that no game can be for everyone.

The rules are what they are. They aren't going to change because a subset of people dislike it. They definitely aren't going to change just because you post to a message board.

When someone comes up with some concrete rules rather than general complaints, I'll be happy to provide feedback.

I gave some suggestions a long time back, but there's no consensus on what the issue even is.

The thread isn't a thread about how WotC should rewrite 5e or publish 6th ed. It's a thread about how martial PCs might be designed and played in the context of a D&D-like game. And I really think it's very clear what @Campbell's issue is - you can tell both from what he has said in his posts, and what posts he has "liked" that have been made in response.

Assuming the OP wanted a solution compatible with D&D seemed reasonable - the thread is in the D&D section the OP lists his complaints about D&D and asks for ways it can be modified to suit him better.

I went through a number of suggestions - analyzed everyone and came to the conclusion that what was being produced was so far removed from D&D that I wouldn't call it D&D.

If the OP liked the solutions he's free to implement any of them - though he never really commented on ANY of them. I never told him don't try them if he likes the idea. But I also think it's worth talking about whether solutions proposed for the individual would be good for me and even whether they would be good for the game as a whole. Why is that such a touchy issue?

What is frustrating is having attempts to discuss design possibilities met with responses about what the market reception might be. Or has been. The thread isn't a thread about commercial RPG publishing. It's a thread about possible design spaces in a D&D-ish context.

So the answer is either "play something other than D&D," or "tweet at Mike Mearls until 6th edition solves the problem." Got it.

Orrrr...

Come to a website devoted to discussing nerdy TTRPGing stuff and have a (hopefully interesting and provocative) conversation with other nerds about it?

Far-fetched, I know.

So much @Manbearcat's reply!

This thread does not have the Fifth Edition tag.

<snip>

Personally I am not wedded to any particular version of Dungeons and Dragons. In the last year I have played Dungeon World, Fifth Edition, Moldvay B/X, and Pathfinder Second Edition. I am going to continue playing all of these. I probably will not run Fifth Edition. I do not default to Fifth Edition when discussing Dungeons and Dragons. As far as I am concerned there is no standard bearer. All those games I mentioned are just as much Dungeons and Dragons as any other.

And so much this too.

 

[pemerton]

Then there's the hard part.

Making at-wills that are, by definition, less potent, varied, and impactful as dailies /as engaging/.

Good luck with that.

One of the big tensions between at-will and daily classes is that the At-Will classes will tend to shine most in the fights that are least consequential.

If the Daily classes manage their resources right than they should be more powerful in the big fights that really matter, because that's what they're hoarding their resources for.

It may be possible to balance this a bit - by actually having At-will classes get stronger (at least in some senses) the more combats they face before a rest. Maybe think of it a rising confidence or something ("I've been in five fights today and come through all of them - nothing can touch me!")

I think Tony Vargas is too pessimistic. I think a variant of Don Durito's suggestion, which @Campbell alluded to upthread but hasn't seen much development, is to link the consequential at-will abilities to fictional positioning. A modest example of this is the 4e paladin's Valiant Strike: the more enemies that surround you, the bigger your bonus to hit.

It would be work to build on this idea to develop a richer set of at-wills linked to various sorts of situations, but it could make for an interesting set of options.

Another Super Sentai (and affiliated Monster of the Week genre) concept I had, this time for a RPG, was to focus on the idea that your Big Finisher Move is powerful, but extremelly inaccurate and leaves you open to retaliation

Rolemaster has something like a version of this: if you shift most or all your OB to offence and win initiative then you can attack with a big bonus and/or crit shift with the goal of finishing off your opponent; but if it fails then you've got no OB in parry and hence are liable to be hosed by the retaliatory attacks.

In our last RM campaign (10 years ago now) one of the PCs was a warrior who specialised in winning initiative and cutting down all his foes with these big attacks before they could retaliate. That PC was played by the group's optimiser (who actually specialises in optimisation mathematics and is a financial analyst in his day job) - he had graphs plotted for various common scenarios that showed him the optimisation peak for allocation of OB across initiative, defence and attack to help him make his decisions during play.

 

[Don Durito]

I think Tony Vargas is too pessimistic. I think a variant of Don Durito's suggestion, which @Campbell alluded to upthread but hasn't seen much development, is to link the consequential at-will abilities to fictional positioning. A modest example of this is the 4e paladin's Valiant Strike: the more enemies that surround you, the bigger your bonus to hit.

It would be work to build on this idea to develop a richer set of at-wills linked to various sorts of situations, but it could make for an interesting set of options.

Iron Heroes is a good place to look for some ideas along these lines.

Abilities were powered by tokens and classes gained tokens for doing particular things related to their class/role.

So Berserkers got rage tokens whenever they got hit, and they got additional tokens if one of their companions went down.

I could easily see a Defender type ability where you get a token of some sort for each enemy that is next to you at the end of your turn.

 

[pemerton]

Iron Heroes is a good place to look for some ideas along these lines.

Abilities were powered by tokens and classes gained tokens for doing particular things related to their class/role.

So Berserkers got rage tokens whenever they got hit, and they got additional tokens if one of their companions went down.

I could easily see a Defender type ability where you get a token of some sort for each enemy that is next to you at the end of your turn.

Do you think there's a way to do it where the relationship between fictional position and availability of the at-will isn't mediated by tokens or similar? Not that I personally have anything against token, but I'm not sure they are a good fit for @Campbell's feels like a fighter requirement.

A quite different example I think of that links fictional position to capability is Prince Valiant, where morale bonuses apply when a character is acting out of love, or loyalty, or faith, and morale penalties apply when a character is cowed, or guilty, etc. But I don't think this is suitable for what Campbell wants because it isn't a good fit for a challenge-oriented game. It depends on the players playing their PCs sincerely from the character perspective, and reaching consensus with the GM about what the appropriate morale modifier should be.