A Rekindled Glimmer of Hope

[Dausuul]

umm, no. Debuffing somebody is different than rendering them blind, dazed, stunned, unconscious, paralyzed, etc.

After the evil wizard and/or cleric and their allies toss around dispel magics at the PCs, and the PCs toss them back at the bad guys, it usually takes 2, 3, or 4 rounds for the bad guys to be out of buffs and now vulnerable to most spells (unless the bad guy has an anti-magic shell up) instead of nearly invulnerable to most spells.

Oh--you mean literally de-buffing, as in, removing existing buffs, rather than applying the negative equivalent of a buff (a common meaning for "debuff"). My mistake.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Debuffing somebody is different than rendering them blind, dazed, stunned, unconscious, paralyzed, etc.

Dausuul's examples - "blind, dazed, slowed, and fatigued and then slap on 4 or 5 negative levels" - are definitely debuffs in the usual sense of the term.

Debuffs are effects that may negatively impact a player character or a non-player character in some way other than reducing their hit points. Some examples of debuffs are:

• Reduce the movement speed of the target.
• Reduce the attack speed of the target.
• Decrease the resistance of the target to various elements or forms of attack.
• Reduce the stats of the target.
• Cripple target's perception.
• Lower target's physical defense.
• Drain target's health.

There are countless other debuffs, which all depend on the game played. Though, all share the same concept; to make a certain target less powerful in one or more aspects.

- Status effect

 

[Balesir]

After the evil wizard and/or cleric and their allies toss around dispel magics at the PCs, and the PCs toss them back at the bad guys, it usually takes 2, 3, or 4 rounds for the bad guys to be out of buffs and now vulnerable to most spells (unless the bad guy has an anti-magic shell up) instead of nearly invulnerable to most spells.

You're really not making the case, here; now it turns out the bad guys, to be effective, have to be an "evil wizard and/or cleric"? In other words, it's about "our spellcasters (and their sidekicks) against your spellcasters (and their sidekicks)".

Let's just stick to a simple, plain "mythical monster guarding some treasure" encounter. The sort that is supposed to be the basic, bread-and-butter dungeon-bashing staple of Dungeons and Dragons? How much "debuffing" does one of those need before it's vulnerable to, say, Evards Black Tentacles followed by a few good heavy hitter spells?

And about "a good DM designs to suit his players' characters"; what about sandbox games? Do all the challenges in the area have to just "happen" to be suitable to challenge this specific group? Why is that? Have some sort of "nemesis" group gone through the area and cleaned out all the encounters that would be a walkover? At least that would make some sort of sense as a world model, I suppose. Makes about half the Monster Manual a bit of a waste, though

 

[Doug McCrae]

Huh. Your spellcasters had to kill the bad guys themselves to feel useful? How odd.

I think there's a tendency to overvalue the usefulness of damage, and undervalue both buffs and debuffs. Just as you say, once a foe has been rendered blind, weakened, and slowed, removing their hit points is a pretty simple affair.

Though, if this is real, one can take advantage of it to make the players of characters that can only deal damage feel more useful.

 

[pemerton]

Let us hope there are lots of doorways that need to be blocked against a horde of weak attackers in D&DN.

I've been saying just this on several threads now.

The same thing goes for comments about rogues passing guarded gates by poisoning the guards' lunches rather than fighting them. Is this really going to be a regular part of D&Dnext, when it's never been a regular part of typical D&D hitherto?

And to be clear: I think it's completely feasible to design an RPG in which poisoning the lunches of the guards is just as viable (mechanically, and in the real world play environment at the table) as fighting them, and in which blocking doorways against hordes is as common as sleeping those hordes. But I don't think it's feasible to do this using traditional D&D mechanics.

With my current style, I think I need to be able to make a minority of encounters resistant to being easily pwned by a single character.

<snip>

I'm not sure if this style is at all compatible with Kamikaze Midget's adventure-based design.
<snip>

The above isn't really a D&D style, with its many Save-or-Dies and Save-or-Loses. Maybe there are no planned BBEGs in D&D, only guys like Obmi.

Agreed. I don't entirely understand adventure-based design, but to the extent that I do understand it I don't think I like it.

Scene/situation/encounter based design has taken a while to emerge as a coherent approach to RPGing. But now that it has emerged, it turns out to be one of the most reliable and effective ways for generating non-railroading, player-driven, protagonistic, exciting RPG play. The key to this is that the scene/situation/encounter is not an arbitrary locus of action. The resolution of individual scenes - the pacing of them, the open-endedness of them when the players go in - is central to the emergence of plot/story out of play.

Adventure-based design seem to me to tend either towards railroading (in its AP variant) or towards Obmi-ness (in its sandboxy variant).

I have no problem with magic items being built in to the game's balance. I have no problem with them not being built in. I just want the game text to be honest about it.

Further to this point, I wonder if this is a universal desire, or if a significant number of rpgers, especially GMs, *want* the game text to be obscure?

Man, you're on fire!, but I can't XP you.

I think there is a type of desire for obscurity. It comes out in some of the "write flavoursome prose for adults" threads, too. I don't think it's about rationing expertise, though. It's about a conception of the rulebook as somehow being part of the play experience, the first step into immersion. A rulebook that is clear and metagame-y in its language breaks immersion, because it makes it transparent that the activity consists of real people sitting around a real table playing a game.

 

[pemerton]

Heck, even in combat, there are plenty of things that the player of a wizard or rogue can do if they can't cast a spell or perform a sneak attack. One just needs to get engaged in the fiction and try doing something that makes sense rather than being locked into the few options outlined on the character sheet.

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."

Doesn't it come down to the fact that those things I am doing by engaging the fiction I could do just as well with a 0-level NPC?

 

[Keldryn]

Doesn't it come down to the fact that those things I am doing by engaging the fiction I could do just as well with a 0-level NPC?

Yes, as a player you'll frequently come up with something creative that you could accomplish just as well if you were playing a 0-level NPC. In what way does this detract from your experience of the game?

There's more to being a wizard than casting spells, and there's more to being a rogue than picking locks and making sneak attacks. Just like there's more to being a fighter than hitting things with your sword. It's not something you're going to find under the "Class Abilities" heading or on the level advancement tables.

 

[pemerton]

Yes, as a player you'll frequently come up with something creative that you could accomplish just as well if you were playing a 0-level NPC. In what way does this detract from your experience of the game?

On it's own it doesn't have to detract. But in so far as its freeform rather than mechanically driven, it may not be appealing to everyone, and in some groups can take on a "mother may I" vibe. (It is possible to have RPGs based heavily around engaging the fiction, but still mediated mechanically rather than freeforming. But to the extent that D&D has used mechanical mediation for exploration and interaction, it's often been a bit ad hoc and underdeveloped.)

And in D&D, this is related to it being a class and role-based game of fantasy adventure.

Here is Gygax on character roles (DMG, p 86):

Consider the natural functions of ecah class of character . . . Clerics who refuse to help and heal or do not remain faithful to their deity, fighters who hang back from combat or attempt to steal, or fail to boldly lead, magic-users who seek to engage in mele or ignore magic items they could employ in crucial situations, thieves who boldly engage in frontal attacks or refrain from acquisition of an extra bit of treasure when the opportunity presents itself . . . are all examples of . . . POOR [play].​

And here is Gygax's PHB (pp 18):

The approach you wish to take to the game, how you believe you can most successfully meet the challenges which it oses, and which role you desire to play are dictated by character class (or multi-class). . . [Magic-users cannot expect to do well in hand-to-hand combat, but they have a great number of magic spells of offensive, defensive and informational nature. They use magic almost exclusively to solve problesm posed by the game. . . Thieves use cunning, nimbleness and stealth.​

Every time my MU is throwing darts, every time my thief/rogue is binding the wounds of the fallen or watching at the door for reinforcements, or for that matter throwing burning oil, I am not engaging the game in the way that the rulebooks have told me I can expect and am obliged to.

 

[ExploderWizard]

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?

We did this, in a session of 3e. The DM had a dungeon inside a steep-sided mountain. My character was a drider with a strength in the mid-20s. We figured out that I could climb up the side of the cliffs, carrying the rest of the party on my back, so we went straight to the final battle, admittedly missing out on some of the treasure.

Personally I don't much like to bypass content, as I see it as entertainment the GM has spent time on creating for the players. It's rather disrepectful, not much different than refusing to enter the dungeon at all. But a lot of groups seem to be cool with it, seeing the avoidance of worthless or 'trap' encounters, such as wandering monsters, as part of the challenge.

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.

 

[pemerton]

In the old days, bypassing whole areas meant bypassing TREASURE which was the main source of XP.

But unless it's the only treasure in the imaginary world, won't there be treasure to be found in the next bit of content that the PC's explore?