D&D (2024) 4/26 Playtest: The Fighter

[W'rkncacnter]

Because heaven forbid the cleric is inconvenienced for once in the game.

oh yeah, because forcing a player to write up a new character by arbitrarily overruling the class features of another definitely isn't needlessly punishing. definitely not.

Its not really a house rule that the DM arbitrates how dying works.

uh...changing the rules on dying/decapitation/etc. is, in fact, a house rule. i don't even know how you could reasonably contest that. like, there's a reason decapitation effects or effects that remove other vital organs are both explicit and not common, and it is exactly for this reason that we are discussing right now.

Unless now barbarians can no longer cleave goblins in half, why couldn't an NPC do so?

because - most of the time - the NPCs ultimately don't need to care about the rules. the DM can bring back (or, conversely, keep dead) whatever NPC they want for whatever reason (though, of course, certain justifications will frustrate the players more then others). the players DO need to care about the rules, which means they CAN'T bring people back if the rules don't allow it.

in other words - the DM can (regardless of whether or not they should) cheat. the players can't (at least not in the vast majority of games). that's the difference.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

The Rogue just sneaked in from Pathfinder.

They were not really dead, just mostly dead.

 

[Asisreo]

oh yeah, because forcing a player to write up a new character by arbitrarily overruling the class features of another definitely isn't needlessly punishing. definitely not.

Again, I never said the paladin was a PC. So if we can't move on, assume the paladin was an NPC.

uh...changing the rules on dying/decapitation/etc. is, in fact, a house rule. i don't even know how you could reasonably contest that. like, there's a reason decapitation effects or effects that remove other vital organs are both explicit and not common, and it is exactly for this reason that we are discussing right now.

There are no explicit rules on decapitation or dismemberment upon death. But its absolutely something your group should talk about during Session 0 or just in general.

 

[Chaosmancer]

But we have the ability to bypass BPS resistance/immunity without having to make magic weapons. That's what I don't understand. If the bypass resistance and immunity part is such a big deal, we can just add that clause to the feature. But its just confusing that a nonmagical fighter with no magical powers generates magic weapons because he is really good with it.

And that isn't confusing to me at all. Like, legitimately, this concept of being supernaturally good at a skill makes perfect sense to me as someone who has studied various mythologies and traditions.

But, if you really need an explanation, then go back to the explanation about the two different types of magic in DnD. There is directed, formed magic that we typically call magic, then there is magical background radiation that allows for things like dragons and giants. But frankly.... to me this doesn't need a further explanation. It is just a level of skill that can be reached.

If the character outright dies like by taking damage that's more than their current hp+maximum, the DM can flavor that however they want.

Sure, and if that ever happens in a high level game, you are free to describe it however you want.

However, the most powerful single attack I could quickly find is the Tarrasque's Bite, which does 4d12+10. Maximum damage of 58, critical of 116. Even that, a maximum damage critical from a CR 30 monster would struggle to drop a high level character to negative max hp.

It just doesn't ever happen. And, again, you could just.... not describe it as a decapitation.

By making them features. Or feats. Or manuevers. Or by fixing the skill system.

So vague promises of something better. But that doesn't tell me anything. You want them to succeed automatically more. How would you do that? "Fixing skills" doesn't tell me anything.

That's a leap. Clearly there are spells that "just work" but there are a lot that don't and players don't like them because they're pretty much "too fair" to their enemies. Its okay to acknowledge some spells are broken and others aren't bad just because they're fair.

So what spells? I asked this before, and you listed a bunch of spells that you said don't "just work" and included in that the fact that anti-magic is a thing. So if not all spells "just work" because of anti-magic... what spells do just work?

And for being a spell that can fail, Fireball, Polymorph, hypnotic pattern, fly, all of these seem to be powerful options people like to take and people don't consider "too fair" to their enemies.

I think people aren't understanding my position.

I'm okay with mythical abilities and fantastical feats. I'm okay if the barbarian can rage and run through a mountain or if the rogue can react quicker than the speed of thought.

What I'm not okay with is pure nonsense portrayed as a perfectly logical consequence. Because while movies and comics don't have the characters questioning how exactly their nonsense works if the author doesn't want them to, players can ask as many questions as they want and when something completely ludicrous happens in a game, the game loses all seriousness to something impossible to suspend your disbelief on. Especially when its no longer in their favor.

What triggered my initial reply was the idea of a rogue stealing thoughts or memories because he's such a good thief. Okay, but then you tell them that the memories were stolen back and they instinctively go "How did they steal back their memories in the first place? Where was I storing them? Couldn't I have thrown them away?" And now you have to engage with antics.

So all your problems would be answered by saying that stolen memories take the form of a small pearl in the Rogue's hand? Like, that's all it would take to answer this "problem" of how to answer the Rogue's questions on what happened when someone stole them back.

Sure, we need mechanics to the ideas we are throwing around, but they aren't ludicrous things. They aren't nonsensical things. These aren't antics or looney tune's logic. Just like with the decapitation thing, you are forcing an issue to exist by forcing the description into a realm that you then declare is nonsensical. Just stop making it something nonsensical.

Peter Pan had his shado sewn to his feet by a small British Girl. Wendy wasn't some powerful sorcerer using arcane magics to bend reality, and no one goes around harumphing how Peter Pan is too nonsensical and ruins their suspension of disbelief. It just... works. It just makes sense within the context of the story.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Then the DM can also determine that the Rogue can't fix decapitation with a mere Medicine check.

The DM could decide that Raise Dead doesn't work because the Dragon ate the Fighter's head and you need a whole body to cast Raise Dead too. That doesn't mean we expect that to happen, or consider that when taking the spell.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Because heaven forbid the cleric is inconvenienced for once in the game. Its not really a house rule that the DM arbitrates how dying works. Unless now barbarians can no longer cleave goblins in half, why couldn't an NPC do so?

Plus, the paladin example wasn't necessarily about a PC's death to begin with. It could be an NPC in which case I'm sure there's plenty of times NPC's at your tables have been killed in more complex manners than bleeding to death.

But doesn't this entirely upend your protest? If a cleric can't Raise Dead with magic on a decapitated body, then a rogue with super medical skills can't surgery to revive a decapitated body. Parity is kept and you don't have to worry about "looney tunes nonsense" by giving the Rogue that skill.

 

[Incenjucar]

There are so many non-magical things you can do with sleight of hand an impossible prediction abilities, like the stuff you see Sherlock Holmes doing in some of the newer movies. A fighter being able to find the exact place to hit a wall of force to split it open is just an extension of that.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Are you referring to cap versus the helicopter? Because that thing was large at best, and with a good athletics check for the grapple (or shove) could absolutely pull it in or make it prone.

20 strength can lift 600 lbs. Bear totem can lift 1,440 lbs. Cap's max strength is ~800 lbs by most sources, so we are in the ballpark, though not quite there unless your a barbarian.

The helicopter was a Airbus AS350, which is 10 x 35 ft. That is 14 squares, or 350 sq ft. A large creature maxes at 10x10, or 100 sq feet. The helicopter, by the rules of DnD is between Huge (15 x 15 or 225 sq ft) and Gargantuan (20x20 or 400 sq ft)

It also has a max take-off weight of 4,960 lbs. So, I guess by "most sources" Cap would fail. Also, according to the Official Marvel Database, Captain America can lift 1,200 lbs "with effort". So double 20 strength and closer to the Bear Totem.

Fighters dodge fireballs and lightning bolts all the time. Sure they take "hp damage", but hps aren't just meat points. You could argue that when Cap dodges these various attacks he is "taking HP damage" as well. And again champions at low hp just start healign them back up, so give them a bit of recovery time (say a minute) and they can take fireball after fireball. They can literally "do this all day".

Champions =/= all fighters. You might as well say that all fighters are psychic and have pet dragons, because there are subclasses for psychic fighters and sublcasses for dragon riding fighters.

And yes, one could argue that Cap takes damage. One could also argue that he doesn't, and he is doing something closer to Evasion.

Falling damage is capped (because there is a max speed you fall in air). Its 20d6, perfectly survivable for any high level martial.

And any high level mage too. It's only 70 damage.

Now in terms of durability, a high level Champion (from our new OneDnd) can take an arrow to the body every round FOREVER, and not die. They also have a 62% chance of waking up from unconsciousness while someone is literally standing there trying to beat them to death.

And the Battlemaster just dies. Champions =/= All Fighters.

 

[Asisreo]

And that isn't confusing to me at all. Like, legitimately, this concept of being supernaturally good at a skill makes perfect sense to me as someone who has studied various mythologies and traditions.

But, if you really need an explanation, then go back to the explanation about the two different types of magic in DnD. There is directed, formed magic that we typically call magic, then there is magical background radiation that allows for things like dragons and giants. But frankly.... to me this doesn't need a further explanation. It is just a level of skill that can be reached.

I'm fine with that but my impression is that people don't want magic to he involved in anything the fighter does at all. Maybe I'm wrong, but my experience when I say "We can make the fighter magical" there's all sorts of pushback.

So what spells? I asked this before, and you listed a bunch of spells that you said don't "just work" and included in that the fact that anti-magic is a thing. So if not all spells "just work" because of anti-magic... what spells do just work?

And for being a spell that can fail, Fireball, Polymorph, hypnotic pattern, fly, all of these seem to be powerful options people like to take and people don't consider "too fair" to their enemies.

That's what I said. They choose those spells because they're overly powerful and hardly punish the user. But if the standard of status-inflicting spells were like Eyebite, Or self-buffing spells like Haste, then playing casters would drive more challenge than choosing the perfect spell for the job and succeeding with hardly a struggle.

So all your problems would be answered by saying that stolen memories take the form of a small pearl in the Rogue's hand? Like, that's all it would take to answer this "problem" of how to answer the Rogue's questions on what happened when someone stole them back.

Sure, we need mechanics to the ideas we are throwing around, but they aren't ludicrous things. They aren't nonsensical things. These aren't antics or looney tune's logic. Just like with the decapitation thing, you are forcing an issue to exist by forcing the description into a realm that you then declare is nonsensical. Just stop making it something nonsensical.

Peter Pan had his shado sewn to his feet by a small British Girl. Wendy wasn't some powerful sorcerer using arcane magics to bend reality, and no one goes around harumphing how Peter Pan is too nonsensical and ruins their suspension of disbelief. It just... works. It just makes sense within the context of the story.

That's because it matches the more whimsical tone of Peter Pan. I mean, Peter Pan itself is a nonsensical story and fairly Kafka-esque so absurdities like tying shadows are consistent.

But not all stories can just have these absurdities and maintain its tone.

 

[Asisreo]

But doesn't this entirely upend your protest? If a cleric can't Raise Dead with magic on a decapitated body, then a rogue with super medical skills can't surgery to revive a decapitated body. Parity is kept and you don't have to worry about "looney tunes nonsense" by giving the Rogue that skill.

That would be true if Raise Dead was the only ressurection spell a Cleric has access to. But True Ressurection can replace limbs and organs or even a whole body. So no, that doesn't upend my pritest.