D&D 5E "But Wizards Can Fly, Teleport and Turn People Into Frogs!"

[pemerton]

He's within relatively reach, that doesn't mean he's actually in melee. That may have been true in 1e and 2e, but it's not the assumption at all in 3e and 4e.

Huh? I can't comment on 3E, but in 4e I would have thought that the very existence of CaGI it as a power establishes that the person within 10' is in melee.

why would I change the effect of the power in that particular way when I would prefer to change it so that the targeted archer or other enemy behaved in a manner more in line with his normal behavior?

I wasn't talking about changing the effect. I was envisaging, rather, that as the archer who is 10' away turns his/her/its back, the fighter grabs it (with hand, weapon, whatever is appropriate in the circumstance and given the fighter's own idiom) and pulls it towards him/her, inficting W+STR in the process.

Is the fighter really in a quantum position like an electron, or something?

The fighter is moving, yes. I referred to this a few posts upthread - at least when I play with turn-based combat resolution I envisage the action economy, and the grid representation of it, as an abstraction. The fighter isn't a 5' cube, and the fighter doesn't stop moving just because the token on the grid is being left in place.

 

[billd91]

Huh? I can't comment on 3E, but in 4e I would have thought that the very existence of CaGI it as a power establishes that the person within 10' is in melee.

I wasn't talking about changing the effect. I was envisaging, rather, that as the archer who is 10' away turns his/her/its back, the fighter grabs it (with hand, weapon, whatever is appropriate in the circumstance and given the fighter's own idiom) and pulls it towards him/her, inficting W+STR in the process.

The fighter is moving, yes. I referred to this a few posts upthread - at least when I play with turn-based combat resolution I envisage the action economy, and the grid representation of it, as an abstraction. The fighter isn't a 5' cube, and the fighter doesn't stop moving just because the token on the grid is being left in place.

Notice that by doing all of this you are changing the nature of the rules. Envisioning a fighter in motion throughout the round--plenty of us do that in earlier editions too because we recognize that the action economy is just an abstraction of a bunch of people doing things largely simultaneously within a six second window. However, if that fighter's and that archer's movements never bring them within 5 feet of each other for that time period (assuming the fighter isn't using a reach weapon), then grabbing the archer to pull him back or getting off any attack or even really considering them in melee as the rules understand them would still be a change in the rules. How is the fighter pulling the archer back if he's never in contact until after he pulls him back? That's a very strange causality that other versions of the taunt don't have to put up with.

 

[Neonchameleon]

And, on that vein, just how common are things like CaGI? People have mentioned this being the "tip of the iceburg" and just a convenient cover term for the problem. But, just how many powers are we talking about? Let's examine shall we?

...

Rogue: Zero. Not a single power qualifies. Rogues gain a fair number more pushing/sliding powers than rangers, but, all of them are the sort of thing you could do with feats in 3e. Hit the guy, make him stumble past you, that sort of thing. All easily explained.

One. There's a level 15 Rogue Daily (Bloody Path?) that forces the enemy to take opportunity attacks against the rogue.

Warlord: Own the Battlefield (Daily Level 22). Again, that's it.

Holy crap. We've really been pissing around about this for THREE FREAKING YEARS OVER THREE POWERS!! Are you KIDDING ME? I never really bothered going and checking.

Three freaking powers? Out of what, 200? 300? Somewhere in there. Three years or more people have been flogging this horse. Good grief.

I've actually made this challenge before. And yes, it is a trivial number of powers. And more to the point not only is the entire hullabaloo about a number of powers I can count on the fingers of one hand it's about abilities that are strictly and completely optional. If you don't want CAGI (the only such power at heroic tier) then there's a simple answer. You don't have to take it. Bingo. It isn't a problem. If it is a power a given character doesn't have who says they can do it at all? They certainly don't when under stress.

The entire CAGI issue revolves around "People might play a fighter with an ability that I don't personally like and because I personally have a dislike of something there is literally no reason for me to use that makes the whole game badwrongfun, never mind that half of these abilities are epic and the only heroic tier one is a single option out of a total of about four options for that level in the PHB (and another eight in other books)."

If you want to play a fighter without CAGI you can. Nothing is stopping you - indeed you merely are restricted to one of three possible encounter powers at level 7 (or taking one of the level 3 or level 1 encounter powers you didn't pick instead). The whole issue is people objecting to there being a possibility of other people playing characters they don't themselves like.

This is a world away from the problems with 3.X casters. A 3.X divine caster has the ability to cast anything on their spell list. Which means that if they aren't picking the most broken spells they can this is an in character choice (and not trying to find the best wizard spells is also an in character choice). Every wizard has the ability to walk around with a twinked out Save or Suck loadout if there's anything resembling a scroll mart - and druids don't even need that. (Yes, you can ban transmutation and conjuration but there are plenty of SoS and SoD in other schools).

There is a vast difference between complaining about abilities every member of a class by default has, and strictly optional abilities for members of a class. If you are complaining that there exist a tiny number of optional abilities, in what way is this something other than finding the fun other people have to be badwrongfun?

 

[Guest 85555]

This is why the best understanding I can come up with is in terms of certain understanding about distribution of participant authority over the actions of various characters. Hostility to CaGI strikes me as very 2nd ed AD&D. (@Bedrockgames, if my memory is correct, has in the past identified that as his favourite edition of D&D.)

2E is my favorite (though I think a lot of the 2E GM advice is terrible), but lots of its critics prefer 3E or 1E. What I find frustrating is you attribute our dislike to an issue we haven't even raised. Is there a ifferencet in hpwhat kind of control characters can have over narrative in 4E versus previous editions? Yes. Is this a potential issue for me? Yes. Why is that an issue for me? Becauseit breaks my immersion. If you want to hear our opinions, i am open to exploring this, but if you are going to dictate them to us, and dismiss other reasons we provide, we are going to keep butting heads on this issue.

This strikes me as in the general ballpark of "fighters can't have nice things". It certainly has nothing to do with stance, that I can see.

ok. Well to me that isn't what it is at all. Its simpy about keeping mundane powers believable.

Whereas (i) CaGI is clearly not just "swinging a sword" - it is about the expression of personal skill and presence. and (ii) I find it eminently believable.

i dont dispute this. It just feels like too much control to me for something like presence. It feels to me like magic. And on top of that it pulls me out, because you are literally controlling nother character, not simply infuencing them. And just to be super clear here, because you seem to think I am saying something more: i dont think anyone has to agree with my assesment, it is a totally subjective reaction to the system. I am imply describing how I feel about the mechanic. I understdand some people will find it 100% believableand immersive.

And here we see it again.

CaGI is not comparable to a magical effect, except insofar as - much like a sword stab - it can achieve a result that can also be achieved by magic (eg inflict wounds spells). CaGI is not supernatural. It is not a reskinned spell. It is the non-magical ability of a powerful and experienced warrior, though presence and technique, to impose his/her will on the situation.

if it doesn't strike you as that, then that's fine. My first reaction to it, is it feels like a spell because it allows me to move another piece on the board and I have trouble imagining that is the product of a taunt, feint or presence. But I don't think my opinion is the only one with merit.

By describing CaGI it as "comparable to a magical effect", or "supernatural", or "a reskinned spell", you are not communicating your inability to believe that a warrior could impose his/her will in the way that I have described. What you are doing is misdescribing the way that 4e is actually played by those who play it. You are implying that 4e players don't care about the mundane/magical divide, or about verisimilitude, instead of recognising that, for instance, people might play a game in which metagame resources and magic have no correlation. Or in which 7th level fighters are as awesome as AD&D dragons.

I am not saying anything about how you or others use the mechanic. I am talking about my experience with it and my own sense of what presence ought to be able to achieve mechanically. I do think presence can have n impact, i just find the particilars of how it is expressed here immersion breaking to me. And again, i am not saying anything about your desire for verisimilitude or your opinion on the mundane/magic divide, i am saying 4E doesn't jive with my sense of verisimilitude and that, for me, it muddies the mundane/magic divide. I can absolutely accept others might not have these issues with it.

 

[pemerton]

Notice that by doing all of this you are changing the nature of the rules.

<snip>

grabbing the archer to pull him back or getting off any attack or even really considering them in melee as the rules understand them would still be a change in the rules. How is the fighter pulling the archer back if he's never in contact until after he pulls him back?

Just out of curiosity, where are the rules which state that the fighter is never in contact with a person who is pulled by CaGI?

I note that, in 4e at least, any character can pick up an item in an adjacent square. That means that the hand of the archer and the hand of the fighter might touch, on the line between two squares, if each were picking up an object at the far side of an adjacent square. To me that implies not that the fighter and archer can't come into contact, but rather that they can.

 

[billd91]

Just out of curiosity, where are the rules which state that the fighter is never in contact with a person who is pulled by CaGI?

I note that, in 4e at least, any character can pick up an item in an adjacent square. That means that the hand of the archer and the hand of the fighter might touch, on the line between two squares, if each were picking up an object at the far side of an adjacent square. To me that implies not that the fighter and archer can't come into contact, but rather that they can.

If he can come into contact enough to drag him to an adjacent square, why not just smack him where he stands? Why go through the charade of moving him closer when he's already close enough to hit?

 

[TwoSix]

If he can come into contact enough to drag him to an adjacent square, why not just smack him where he stands? Why go through the charade of moving him closer when he's already close enough to hit?

Because you want him to end up next to you?

I think you're missing the point of "narrating an effect". You're SUPPOSED to be creative, adapt it to the situation, and not explain it the same way twice.

 

[TwoSix]

But I'm personally quite happy to defend 4e on the terrain of CaGI. Because I'm sick of post after post, year after year, that asserts or implies that the game is inimical to serious roleplaying because it has this sort of stuff in it.

I've got nothing against traditional RPGs - compared to some people on these boards, probably including you!, I'm a pretty traditional RPGer. And if people have conservative tastes in RPGing, fine - let them play what they want.

I just get sick of them saying that because my preferred fantasy RPG has got metagame abilities, uses karma rather than fortune resolution for fighters imposition of will (pre-errata, at least), involves stances other than actor stance, etc, then it must (to paraphrase Justin Alexandar) really be a tactical skirmish game linked by more-or-less meaningless freeform roleplaying.

Absolutely. CaGI is a pure positive from the standpoint of logically defending 4e. It's a demonstration of some of the new concepts that made 4e play so differently from its predecessors. And for people who don't like that concept, it's modular and negligibly easy to remove from the game? What's not to love? A concept like healing surges is harder to defend simply because of how much more difficult it is to remove (albeit certainly not impossible).

And there's no reason to stop defending 4e. It's already kaput from a publishing standpoint, so there's no need to defend it in a desire to support extending its commercial base. What we need to do is defend the concepts that were embodied within 4e, so that whatever form D&D AfterNEXT takes, it will have a reason to move back in 4e's direction. If NEXT fails, the first thought in everyone's mind should be that it wasn't 4e enough to support 4e's large, loyal fanbase.

 

[Guest 85555]

And there's no reason to stop defending 4e. It's already kaput from a publishing standpoint, so there's no need to defend it in a desire to support extending its commercial base. What we need to do is defend the concepts that were embodied within 4e, so that whatever form D&D AfterNEXT takes, it will have a reason to move back in 4e's direction. If NEXT fails, the first thought in everyone's mind should be that it wasn't 4e enough to support 4e's large, loyal fanbase.

I think you are half right here. I predict Next will fail, in that it will not recapture the ground WOTC has lost to other games like Pathfinder in the last few years. But I don't think failure will mean it does less well well than 4E, rather it will do about the same, possibly a little less well. To me, what is going on is the community is fiercely split. 4E really highlighted the divide in preferences.

I do think there is also a worse case scenario where they lose the 4E players and ail to regain lapsed players. In that instant, they will be longing for the loyal 4E fanbase again. But I have to ask, if this happened, how willing would you be to go back to wotc after they dropped 4E so quickly? I know for me, part of my hesitation to seriously consider Next is I don't trust WOTC to support an edition long term (and I also think they just are not as intune with what I want anymore). I imagine many 4E fans will feel the same if Next bombs and they return to fourth edition.

I still think it is possible they get around this if they are smart about how they do the modularilty. But the feelings are so strong, and players are speaking such different languages, I dont think it is going to be possible to get all the groups to agree on a single ideal set of rules. That just isn't going to happen.

 

[Nagol]

Absolutely. CaGI is a pure positive from the standpoint of logically defending 4e. It's a demonstration of some of the new concepts that made 4e play so differently from its predecessors. And for people who don't like that concept, it's modular and negligibly easy to remove from the game? What's not to love? A concept like healing surges is harder to defend simply because of how much more difficult it is to remove (albeit certainly not impossible).

And there's no reason to stop defending 4e. It's already kaput from a publishing standpoint, so there's no need to defend it in a desire to support extending its commercial base. What we need to do is defend the concepts that were embodied within 4e, so that whatever form D&D AfterNEXT takes, it will have a reason to move back in 4e's direction. If NEXT fails, the first thought in everyone's mind should be that it wasn't 4e enough to support 4e's large, loyal fanbase.

It is a demonstration of new design paradigm and as such, if you don't like the effect on the game you view the rest of the game suspiciously. Particularly when you find other isolated examples spread through the rules. This means the developers feel this type of design is fair game and a player can and should expect it to pop up in further cases: monster powers, adventures, etc.

Now it does seem the designer have backed away from that design with the clarification/rule adjustment in the Rule Compedium, but by that time I had dumped my books and am unlikely to develop a renewed interest in the game.