That makes a combat system, not a setting. 4E took this approach, and the characters are wonderfully uniform in combat, but the focus on the rules and the design of the character classes was always combat. So take your example as what 5E combat can maybe be, but not the setting.
Balance and Uniformity (an essay)
- Thread starter malkav666
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That makes a combat system, not a setting. 4E took this approach, and the characters are wonderfully uniform in combat, but the focus on the rules and the design of the character classes was always combat. So take your example as what 5E combat can maybe be, but not the setting.
Mustrum_Ridcully
Legend
The Knight has different stances he assumes and give bonuses to his basic attacks. Basic attacks are also his primary attack form.
He also has a special encounter power that allows him to have a hit deal more damage. He has no Daily Attack powers (but still Utility Powers) and instead gets several passive benefits over the levels. He doesn'T mark, but instead has a "Defender Aura" (I think the name is a little unfortunate, as Aura implies some kind of magic, I think) that gives adjacent enemies -2 to attacks against his allies (and doesn't work on marked targets, IIRC).
The Thief has certain "movement tricks" that help him getting combat advantages. He also makes basic attacks only (but he can use Dexterity instead of Strength for "Rogue Weapons"). He has also Backstab as encounter power which gives him a bonus to attack and damage on an attack, and of course still sneak attack. Also still Utility Powers, no dailies.
I suppose one could remove the encounter powers as well and replace them with some static benefit it one really wanted, and still keep the balance mostly intact. But having these powers still retains some of the tactical use of resources.
Li Shenron
Legend
That's me.
You know what... I appreciate the D&D designers trying to balance the game, and I certainly hate to see the occasional blatant mistake. But ultimately the only class balance I truly care for in practice, it's measured in how much the players like playing every class type. Yes, I know how much this sounds naive, and it probably is. But anything that is just not happening before my eyes doesn't matter. And I have never seen a lack of fighter-types or rogue-types characters in our games due to the supposed superiority of the casters.
DonTadow
First Post
I am in no way advocating "only worry about the combat". 4e's problem to me was that they ignored out of combat stuff.
An RPG is a system of programs. Combat is a program that must be balanced in terms of everyone being able to contribute adequately.
I believe the same holds true outside of combat. It's why I support the skill challenge method. If you want to eliminate dump stats, make checks where everyone must be involved
Crazy Jerome
First Post
Sure, you could do something similar for the fighter--assuming that the fighter has some analog to 4E powers and/or 3E barbarian rage, that are special things he can only do so often in the fiction and the mechanics. Though part of the point of such a mechanic is to encourage the characters to act in the niche they are intended for. So, if for example, you want the fighter to be the guy that just keeps on an even keel all day long, then you'd avoid such a mechanic for him, or use a different one.
But as I said before, I don't think my example is a particularly good one other than for explaining what I had in mind. It's just too crude and obviously tied to "make the wizard act this way" to work well. There is a reason why you don't see negative feedback loops done (at least on purpose) in games very often, and the difficulty of making them I think is the main reason why.
As far as interaction with other characters by the wizard mechanic itself, you could use several means there. I chose group fiat--i.e. consciously change the range and threshold if the wizard is not performing the way you want. But for groups that didn't mind it, you could make this more mechanical than fiat if you wanted. And that kind of solution might work across classes.
For example, let's say that you want average fights to last about 5 rounds. That's enough time to be interesting, for buffs to matter, to try things. It's not over in 2 with save or die, or dragging out to 10 in mop up. So you build in a effectiveness adjustment mechanic (similar to the previous wizard example) that is based strictly on the number of rounds. Every fight, you start at -5 levels effectiveness. Each round, you go up by 1.
That means, among other things, that you can have save and die kind of effects, because they are much more likely to get results when the fight is dragging out than when it starts. But it is more likely to get to the middle ground so the wizard can use those "finishers" because everyone else is a bit hampered early too. Since when to "pull the trigger" is on the players, it can still be interesting. Of course, a big objection to such a system is that now you've built in a way that all the characters can be mechanically different but dynamically balanced--at the cost of forcing your fights into the same pattern. (Which brings up another one of my pet bugaboos--there has to be fixed structure somewhere, to support differences. Pick your poison; there is no free lunch.)
A lot of games try to do this halfway by mixing up a bunch of elements. 4E, for example, uses several means to make sure you don't have 2 round fights, but doesn't really do anything on the long fight end. (The group can use some sense with their daily powers and handle that side, especially if the DM isn't picking max encounters all the time. But this is not the mechanics pushing you that way, but simply common sense and experience with games.)
Whereas, Iron Heroes, if I understand the mechanic correctly, goes the other way with its "tokens" which are accumulated by small actions, and then enable bigger actions. It biases the fight towards a small, small, small, BOOM! sequence. If the DM and players time the BOOM! part right, they'll get something very similar to what I proposed.
The only direct feedback loops I know of are by reputation--"The River" in Weapons of the Gods (maybe?) and merit/flaw systems where you only get benefits from the flaws when they directly affect you. Those are both narrative techniques.
Interesting idea.
You could also design self-balancing feedback in the context of an encounter.
Suppose the wizard's best spells are always debuffs (or continuous damage) and that his damage spells do less (but different things) than the martial types can do with their weapons. It would be easy to justify why you can only cast one spell/target (or /area) in an encounter even in a Vancian system. For example, magical effects eat each other, so that the weaker effect is consumed. (Add a chart for random interactions!)
Now the wizard could try casting his most powerful spells until one succeeded. Then he'd be inclined to cast only the small stuff unless the big one ran out.
Same for clerics, whose most powerful effects would be buffs (or conditional debuffs vs. undead or infernals), after which he'd join the melee with less skill than fighters.
Regarding melee types, something similar could probably be constructed. The rogue's sneak attack could easily "decay", e.g. if you 1) don't let flanking enable sneak attack, 2) add feinting that becomes less likely as the opponents learn your tricks. It would have to be tied to successes, of course.
Not sure anything like this is needed, but it's interesting as an intellectual exercise.
Could someone please xp Crazy Jerome for me?
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