A Rekindled Glimmer of Hope

[Baron Von Mandrick]

I suppose its a matter of campaign style preferences. In the old days, bypassing whole areas meant bypassing TREASURE which was the main source of XP. In a goals oriented sort of campaign where the mission is to stop the bad guy, then going straight to the end and achieving mission objectives is not only acceptable, its smart play.

I had never really thought of it this way before. I've played in what I thought were goals oriented campaigns, but it wasn't possible to just go straight to the top boss because we usually didn't know who that was.

It would unfold as the campaign progressed. We'd hear about a strange evil presence coming from somewhere causing the orcs or goblins(or other low level critters) to do something bad and require adventurers to handle it. Along that adventure we'd discover correspondence stating that some other (higher level) force was really behind it. So we'd need to plan to go after them. That may take several adventures to get those plans to work. Possibly the big boss could only be defeated after we found the hidden artifact magic item, that required more adventuring. This process went on until we had enough experience, and treasure along the way. Sometimes we'd meet different compelling NPC's who were being affected by a lesser bad guy working for the big boss that we'd want to help out along the way because we liked that NPC, etc.

It was always a goal to get to the bad guy, and was the motivation for most of the PC's to be on the adventure, but discovering just who the main bad guy was, and how to defeat that bad guy gathered enough treasure and experience to have fun and rise up in the levels.

PC's also had personal goals in addition to the campaign goals which sometimes were to get rich, run the thieve's guild, get a castle and become a noble, become a famous adventuring hero, etc. So those would fit in with the other campaign goals, but also could motivated treasure seeking adventures if needed.

 

[GM Dave]

Isn't that the opposite of how knights actually worked? The King simply granted the knight a manor (or just land), which was what was supposed to pay for the knight and his revenue's expenses.

Knight's fee - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And if it happened to be a poor manor (or poorly run), the knight would have to resort to other means of getting money for his expenses.

Not quite.

1> There are Bachelor Knights which were Knights without land. They depended fully on their respective lord for upkeep and provision of arms.

2> That wiki does refer to the Knight-Service which is the period of time the Knight owes their lord for the provision of land to upkeep and maintain their arms. The knight gets their weapons and the land for providing service to their lord (and being prepared to bring a set number of extra troops with the Knight).

3> If a Knight had something bad happen to say their warhorse (it got sick, grew old enough that it became winded) a Knight with just their land might not be able to afford to replace it. The same goes for a full suit of armour (which was often taken as part of ransom at the end of a battle).

Now, what you got from your Lord depended on your relationship and what they had available. You lose your armour in battle and you likely will get some old set of armour to replace it which is not nearly as nice.

-------------------

I used to run Pendragon and loved the knightly feel of the game.

Unfortunately, it is hard to run in a large group and not as many people are fans of just playing knights.

 

[I'm A Banana]

What if the players bypass content? Say you have an adventure made up of 12 encounters and the wizard has 3 encounter ending spells. The players are clever and avoid 9 of the encounters, leaving only 3. Doesn't that mean that the wizard wins every encounter?

Seems to me like in that case, the wizard may have won the few encounters they couldn't avoid, but party cleverness of various stripes won the other 9 (presumably without the wizard's help, if they only have 3 spells, and used none of them on avoiding those other encounters).

So, everyone contributed!

Perhaps, but have you ever seen a comic book or adventure story where it was actually possible to just go straight to the bad guy?

Tight plotting is part of the reason stories and games are very different. Tight plotting in stories helps you get to the action. Tight plotting in games is also called railroading, or linearity and is generally something to be minimized.

Does anyone else think Jeremy Crawford's quote indicates that the design team has moved away from siloing combat and non-combat abilities?

I think they've probably divided up non-combat into two other silos: Exploration and Interaction.

And then they've perhaps decided that those three things are all ways of tackling the adventure that they'd like to enable.

Sort of: if the question is, how do we get the macguffin, the answer in 4e is to fight stuff for it. The answer in 5e might be to fight, or it might be to sneak it out, or it might be to persuade the keeper to hand it over, and it'll be up to the players which one they choose.

. In AD&D, if you were a 1st level magic-user in a campaign that rarely ever hit 3rd level, the theoretical power you'd enjoy at 5th or 8th or 12th level didn't in any way 'balance' your 1-4 hit points or your randomly generated offensive spell being Affect Normal Fires instead of Sleep. In 3e, the fact that your fighter could perform just as well in the 8th combat of the day as the 1st didn't really matter when everyone was just nova'ing and retiring the Rope Trick to charge up.

"Over the course of the campaign" is probably too broad a balance spectrum.

"Over the course of an encounter" is probably too narrow.

Which is why "Over the course of a single session of play" (aka: The Adventure) is probably right on.

Balancing an RPG doesn't give you a 'samey' one-note game, it gives you a varied gaming experience, because the very nature of RPGs puts a lot of variables into the equation.

Giving up balance in the encounter doesn't mean you give up balance everywhere. It just means the scope is broader.

 

[Imaro]

Perhaps, but have you ever seen a comic book or adventure story where it was actually possible to just go straight to the bad guy?

Can't recall one off hand... I have however sat back with my friends and talked about the different ways that we could... and for some, D&D provides that chance. I think you're presuming the goal of every group when playing D&D is to create a "story" that apes popular fiction. When in fact I doubt that's true for all, may be even most groups.

 

[Herschel]

Yes. I didn't read the whole thread, so I'm not sure if I'm alone in being appalled rather than excited by the blithe return to what we might call "serial balance." Rather than have reasonable balance, you have a theoretical 'eventually you'll have your time in the sun' approach. In AD&D, if you were a 1st level magic-user in a campaign that rarely ever hit 3rd level, the theoretical power you'd enjoy at 5th or 8th or 12th level didn't in any way 'balance' your 1-4 hit points or your randomly generated offensive spell being Affect Normal Fires instead of Sleep. In 3e, the fact that your fighter could perform just as well in the 8th combat of the day as the 1st didn't really matter when everyone was just nova'ing and retiring the Rope Trick to charge up.

Characters shining more at one moment than another isn't something you need to design into the game. It's inevitable. Sometimes a player will be on the ball or have hot dice or have just the right combo for the circumstance and he'll have a moment of awesome. There's no need to hamstring everyone else, or hamstring each class in some (or most) broad circumstances to 'balance' them being overwhelmingly good in a given one. Balancing an RPG doesn't give you a 'samey' one-note game, it gives you a varied gaming experience, because the very nature of RPGs puts a lot of variables into the equation.

*THWACK* Home run! Too bad I already XP'd you today.

 

[Bluenose]

Not quite.

1> There are Bachelor Knights which were Knights without land. They depended fully on their respective lord for upkeep and provision of arms.

2> That wiki does refer to the Knight-Service which is the period of time the Knight owes their lord for the provision of land to upkeep and maintain their arms. The knight gets their weapons and the land for providing service to their lord (and being prepared to bring a set number of extra troops with the Knight).

3> If a Knight had something bad happen to say their warhorse (it got sick, grew old enough that it became winded) a Knight with just their land might not be able to afford to replace it. The same goes for a full suit of armour (which was often taken as part of ransom at the end of a battle).

Now, what you got from your Lord depended on your relationship and what they had available. You lose your armour in battle and you likely will get some old set of armour to replace it which is not nearly as nice.

-------------------

I used to run Pendragon and loved the knightly feel of the game.

Unfortunately, it is hard to run in a large group and not as many people are fans of just playing knights.

There were also knights who were granted, instead of land, the income from - all sorts of things, such as fees paid to a mill for using it, tolls paid at a bridge, port fees, income from a mine, revenues from the poaching fines at a forest. And they were expected to provide their gear from that.

As for replacement warhorses, there were all sorts of arrangements depending on the country involved, but high officials of the King's court were often involved. Mostly there were arrangements so that horses lost or injured on campaign would be replaced from a pool of horses from the King's stables, while a knight losing one in other circumstances would often have to perform extra feudal service to have it replaced. Unless they were an excellent jouster, when they might be able to win one on the tournament circuit.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I don't really get the sentiment that "if I can't use magic, my wizard isn't being a wizard" or "if my rogue can't be stealthy and backstabby, then I'm not getting to play a rogue." Honestly, the memories that have stuck with me over the years are those moments when someone did something cool that wasn't his or her character's shtick.

Speaking personally... my real issue with it as far as wizards are concerned is the thought of running out of magic and then doing something else functionally equivalent to magic (usually combat related) in its place. Which to me seems completely pointless. For example, the idea that the wizard fires magic missiles until he runs out, and then proceeds to throw darts instead. Or the wizard casts burning hands, runs out, and then follows it up by throwing flaming vials of oil. At that point, I just keep wondering why I'm playing a wizard if I only do a couple spells first... then change over to non-spells whose results are for the most part the same as the spells I was casting previously. Why not just keep casting those spells? Why is setting someone on fire with flaming oil better than setting them on fire with another burning hands spell?

And the idea that casting magic missile more often makes it then seem "mundane" just makes no sense to me... considering how often I'd be casting magic missile anyways. Over the course of my adventuring career... there's no functional difference to me in terms of how "special" magic missile seems if I'm casting that spell 300 times rather than 600. After all.. I've still cast the same exact spell 300 times. At that point, being "mundane" doesn't even begin to cover it.

 

[ren1999]

Suddenly I'm liking what Mearls is saying.

Sure a Wizard can take out all the foes with a burst spell.

But a fighter should be able to attack additional adjacent foes in span of a standard action as well.

If a Wizard can learn an awesomely lethal spell, the fighter should be able to learn a similarly lethal feat.

Make the cleric lethal in a different way. He can use armor, so perhaps he can just focus on 1 foe and really do a lot of prayer damage. Or command that foe to fight for the party.

Make the rogue lethal in his own way. Perhaps he uses dishonorable feats where the fighter would never wander.

 

[DMKastmaria]

Make the rogue lethal in his own way. Perhaps he uses dishonorable feats where the fighter would never wander.

No, too much of a restraint. There are Always Fighters who are willing to fight as dirty as they need to, to win. Pretty much, the one's who are still alive.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Why is setting someone on fire with flaming oil better than setting them on fire with another burning hands spell?

Because flaming oil isn't magic. It's not special, significant, physics-breaking manipulation of the laws of the multiverse. Anyone can toss a vial of flaming oil. There doesn't need to be a magic spell -- a willful and difficult violation of the principles by which the world normally works by an elite, brilliant individual who trained for years -- that replicates something that can be done with flaming oil. You already have flaming oil.

If magic is to be significant and remarkable to the PC's, it can't be something that is done constantly, easily, or flippantly, even by those experts in it.

And the idea that casting magic missile more often makes it then seem "mundane" just makes no sense to me... considering how often I'd be casting magic missile anyways. Over the course of my adventuring career... there's no functional difference to me in terms of how "special" magic missile seems if I'm casting that spell 300 times rather than 600.

If you can only do something three times per day, that is much rarer and more precious than doing something every round. Humans are loss-averse: spending a limited resource has a more tremendous psychological cost than spamming something you never really loose. That psychological fear of loss gives the wizard a particular flavor that is valuable for those who enjoy playing that style.