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

[Ahnehnois]

How would you have modified Bo9S to suit your playstyle? I'm curious at to where your objections arise (and I'm not judging you for having them, I'm honestly curious!)
Was it that the maneuvers mimicked Vancian progression? Was it the fact that they recharged? Was it the more grossly supernatural ones, like the Desert Fire school? Is it the maneuver concept in general?

I have trouble seeing an objection to a fighter class gaining an ability like punishing strike, as opposed to Power Attack. They feel too similar to me for it to be a problem.

Pretty much all of the above. Recharge is absolutely out unless we're talking about something that I can see as fatigue (i.e. that it is centralized and affects your character's ability to function in general). The supernatural ones can be at issue depending on how they're done. I like hexblades and monks well enough because their supernatural abilities are clearly designated and because they are clearly justified in the game world.

But even more fundamentally, Power Attack isn't okay. The presentation of fairly basic abilities as being properties of the character, something that one has to select in advance, increases bookkeeping and complexity and more importantly raises the question of why an untrained character can't attempt the maneuver. Trailblazer patches the idea by introducing a partial power attack available to everyone (analogous to fighting defensively as being the untrained Combat Expertise). I'm okay with tactical feats that allow you to combine things in more time-effective ways, but I'm not on board with (nonmagical) abilities that require you to have a (feat/power/maneuver) in order to even attempt a basic task. I can't justify saying no to the character who says "I want to swing extra hard and deal more damage" (whether it's triple or double is immaterial).

How would I use Bo9S? Honestly, I don't know that I could get any meaningful use out of it. It's one of the few 3.5 books that I don't own (but did check out in the days when there were still bookstores).

 

[TwoSix]

Pretty much all of the above. Recharge is absolutely out unless we're talking about something that I can see as fatigue (i.e. that it is centralized and affects your character's ability to function in general). The supernatural ones can be at issue depending on how they're done. I like hexblades and monks well enough because their supernatural abilities are clearly designated and because they are clearly justified in the game world.

But even more fundamentally, Power Attack isn't okay. The presentation of fairly basic abilities as being properties of the character, something that one has to select in advance, increases bookkeeping and complexity and more importantly raises the question of why an untrained character can't attempt the maneuver. Trailblazer patches the idea by introducing a partial power attack available to everyone (analogous to fighting defensively as being the untrained Combat Expertise). I'm okay with tactical feats that allow you to combine things in more time-effective ways, but I'm not on board with (nonmagical) abilities that require you to have a (feat/power/maneuver) in order to even attempt a basic task. I can't justify saying no to the character who says "I want to swing extra hard and deal more damage" (whether it's triple or double is immaterial).

How would I use Bo9S? Honestly, I don't know that I could get any meaningful use out of it. It's one of the few 3.5 books that I don't own (but did check out in the days when there were still bookstores).

So you'd prefer a system that allows anyone to attempt a non-supernatural ability, but with a corresponding penalty?
Say a table of "-4 to hit, do double damage; -8 to hit, do triple damage", etc? (Please don't judge the math, I'm spitballing concepts, I have no idea if this makes sense from a math perspective).

And then characters could take feats/gain class abilities that mitigate some/all of those penalties? Or maybe change them from full-round actions to standard actions? Higher-level abilities would mitigate even more penalties or give bonuses?

Would this make sense?

 

[Ahnehnois]

So you'd prefer a system that allows anyone to attempt a non-supernatural ability, but with a corresponding penalty?
Say a table of "-4 to hit, do double damage; -8 to hit, do triple damage", etc? (Please don't judge the math, I'm spitballing concepts, I have no idea if this makes sense from a math perspective).

And then characters could take feats/gain class abilities that mitigate some/all of those penalties? Or maybe change them from full-round actions to standard actions? Higher-level abilities would mitigate even more penalties or give bonuses?

Would this make sense?

That's one approach. Mitigating penalties is one way. Another difference between, say, Combat Expertise the feat and fighting defensively is that the exchange rate is better and the max bonus is higher. But there's a basic mechanic already there that isn't part of a class.

In essence, yes. That makes sense.

 

[billd91]

I think I can answer that, at least for some folk, with an attempt to add light without heat, here.

If the fighter (effectively) gets to choose when s/he gets a crit, that is potentially "immersion breaking" because they can be seen as getting control over something the character does not "really" have control over. Now, from what I know about medieval fighting I'm not at all sure the situation is anything like as simplistic as that, but I can see how a fairly natural world model could look at things that way.

The issue then becomes one of what a person's world model will admit as "believable control" by an acting character.

Believable control does, I think, have a certain important in the viewpoint of critics of the AEDU structure. If the fighter has control over when he does a special maneuver that's more effective in some way than his more common attacks, why does he then lose control over when he can do it? What's a credible explanation for that? For some things, I can buy into the fatigue explanation, but then why can I do this other similarly once/day maneuver? Ultimately, a little rejiggering of the way dailies work can provide a more believable context by putting them in the same fatigue pool and making the dailies otherwise interchangeable.

I would, however, really work to divorce Hussar's issue with 3x weapon crits and 3[W] damage powers. He's conflating two things that aren't the same issue at all. The crit in 3e represents the lucky blow/shot that anybody could get and is matched by 4e's somewhat simplified crit system. Neither are under the player's or PC's direct control although in both systems, the PC could take measures to improve their performance with that kind of luck. The 3[W] power really does reflect something directly under the PC's/player's control and is more akin to special maneuvers that a 3e PC might have via a feat. Apples and oranges, really.

Older editions of D&D are a slightly odd fish, in this respect, in that fighters, thieves and other "mundane" types are given little control - or, put another way, little in the way of "power moves" that are not governed by chance (e.g. critical rolls, fumble rolls) as regards their timing and availability - but spellcasters are given full and complete control over the timing of their own "power moves".

I think there's a lot less difference here in the mundane's moves and the spellcasters' power moves. What I think we really have is the mundanes, fighter types mostly, have relatively consistent and steady output. They hit, they do damage, on a fairly consistent rate. Spellcasters, in older editions in particular, have a higher rate of failed actions (particularly at higher levels with the better saves of more powerful targets), but produce bigger spikes of output when they succeed. Factored together, they tend to balance reasonably well.

 

[TwoSix]

That's one approach. Mitigating penalties is one way. Another difference between, say, Combat Expertise the feat and fighting defensively is that the exchange rate is better and the max bonus is higher. But there's a basic mechanic already there that isn't part of a class.

In essence, yes. That makes sense.

Would skills follow a similar model, or should they be more freeform? I'm thinking something like Skill Tricks from Complete Scoundrel, as something a skill-oriented character could gain? Or should all Skill Trick like abilities be attemptable, but difficult, with difficulty mitigated by spending character resources like class abilities or feats?

 

[Ahnehnois]

Would skills follow a similar model, or should they be more freeform? I'm thinking something like Skill Tricks from Complete Scoundrel, as something a skill-oriented character could gain? Or should all Skill Trick like abilities be attemptable, but difficult, with difficulty mitigated by spending character resources like class abilities or feats?

I'm not a fan of skill tricks. So yes, they follow the same model. You can try a basic task, but feats or other character abilities might make it easier or less costly to do that task, or more time-efficient.

So (using a modern-setting example that comes to me off-hand) a character might be able to try a surgery using the Heal skill but the DC is at +10 over the already difficult baseline unless he has the Surgery feat. In D&D, anyone can try to track, but a ranger is the only one that can realistically catch the tough to find signs.

 

[timASW]

Lessee, btw, I'll bite. If we find more than 4 problem spells in this level alone, will you concede the point Ahn?

Problematic spells:

Black Tentacles - very powerful spell, signficantly more powerful than most other offensive spells of the level.
Solid Fog - very, very effective crowd control spell - all targets limited to 5 feet per round movement, no save, no SR. 20 foot radius means you've locked down a target for 4 rounds.
Scry - game changing spell.
Charm Monster - Save or Die, effectively.
Animate Dead - largely unlimited source of meat shields. Yay, I don't need the fighter anymore. As I recall, skeletal hydras are a fav here.
Polymorph - ok, obvious issues here.

And, dude, I'm not really a min/maxer here. This is pretty basic stuff. That's just 4th level. Let's not forget that most of the stuff that's really over the top is lower level. Because that's the stuff you can easily whack onto a scroll and it changes the game so much.

How's that for problematic?

I dont consider a single one of those spells over-powerful. Polymorph even as written isnt particularly bad. Certainly not nearly as bad as its made out to be online. In my experience its actually such a sub optimal choice that almost no one ever takes it. A spell being GOOD is the not the same as being OVERPOWERED. Spells are supposed to be good. .

 

[TwoSix]

I'm not a fan of skill tricks. So yes, they follow the same model. You can try a basic task, but feats or other character abilities might make it easier or less costly to do that task, or more time-efficient.

So (using a modern-setting example that comes to me off-hand) a character might be able to try a surgery using the Heal skill but the DC is at +10 over the already difficult baseline unless he has the Surgery feat. In D&D, anyone can try to track, but a ranger is the only one that can realistically catch the tough to find signs.

Ok, let me take a stab at a more far-reaching model.

There are a class of abilities that match up to what we call real-world abilities. This would primarily be the Combat and Skills section for 3e, but might apply to anything that fell under an ability check in earlier editions. These abilities are accessible to everyone, from the lowliest peasant to an archmage, because they leverage the reality of a world like our own (I don't know of a D&D game that doesn't start from the base of a world with the same physics as our own, although I'm sure they exist.)
While most of these combat and skill abilities would be quite difficult to impossible as a baseline, training and class abilities would make these achievable and eventually routine. These sort of abilities would be the hallmark of non-spellcasting (mundane) classes.
Likewise, there are class of abilities that extend completely outside the sphere of natural abilities. Shooting a ball of fire, or summoning angels. These are supernatural abilities, and I think it's agreed that only spellcasting classes should gain access to these abilities via class features in a D&D genre game.

But, there are abilities that straddle the line between real-world abilities and obviously supernatural ones. Call them preternatural abilities.

Everyone can run. Some people can run really fast. And a few people can run so fast they catch up to you before you see them.

Everyone can try to hide. Some people are really sneaky. Some people are so stealthy you can look right at them and still not notice them.

I think one of the many distinctions between the two camps is where we feel those preternatural abilities should slot into the system. Some people (the "fighter as Hercules" camp) feels that in a fantasy world, it's no stretch to assume that preternatural abilities are simply a higher tier of difficulty from mundane abilities. Thus, as nonspellcasters level, they can jump onto a dragon's back from the ground, or hide in plain sight, or make enemies attack them by their very presence, or be so commanding they can force people back from the brink of death. The preternatural IS natural, by the very definition of the world and genre.
For others (the "fighter as adventurous town guard" camp), the preternatural is restricted from those who can only access the mundane. A fighter can fight. Eventually he can fight very well, be able to kill twenty orcs without help because of his awesome swordplay and innate toughness. He's a hero, but not a magical hero. What he can do is simply be the paragon of everything we can do here on our own Earth.

Ultimately, I think this is a preference for different genres of D&D, and how they approach magic. Is the magic external to the character? They might know magic (like a wizard) or be granted magic (like a cleric), but they aren't, in of themselves, magic.
The other school favors magic that is intrinsic or transformational. The character is or becomes the source of magic. It's closer to a superhero line of thought (where the character is defined by his unusual ability) than to S&S tropes. I think Epic Destinies, for 4e in particular, emphasize the focus on intrinsic magic.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

So you're saying that organized play and PbP are the problems. If they enforce the rules in such a way and have problems, blame the format, not the game. Also, even Mearls made it very clear in the initial 5e announcement that home games are the core of D&D and would be the focus going forward. Organized play and online venues are secondary concerns.

Yeah, that's fine for Next, and I notice there is some token effort to tone down spellcasters a bit. I'm sure that's just a coincidence though. The fact is, organized play WAS one of the things they had in mind when they designed 3.0. I guess they screwed up!

Yes. I can also see that some people have problems with overpowered fighting classes and need them to be toned down. Others have various other issues with the game.

Overpowered fighting classes? Are you talking about 4e fighters? They're not particularly overpowered by any measure. In the context of the rest of the game - which is the only meaningful yardstick you can use for determining if something is "overpowered" in a rules context - they certainly aren't.

If by overpowered you mean, having cool tricks, then we're back to the old Muggles Can't Have Nice Things argument at worst, and Muggles Can Only Have Nice Things If Those Options Come In A Later Splat That I Can Ignore And Point To As 'Bad' at best.

For you.

The rules work for you so long as you do not put pressure on them.

The rules have worked acceptably for *tens of thousands of people*, for years. Acceptably enough that when they were replaced, a separate company was able to pick it up and make successful business of it. So, how about we drop the implications that somehow the thing is objectively fundamentally flawed, and admit that we all play differently, and what works for someone else may not be the best for you?

I know this wasn't directed at me, but thank you for the reminder of why I first stopped posting in the Next section of ENWorld, and eventually stopped posting in the discussion forums altogether.

I felt that moving all the D&D forums together with PF was a monumental error, and my attempts to rejoin the discussions here really bear out the reasons. I've clicked on 3 threads that were of interest to me in my attempt. Two of them were clearly labelled with the 4e tag. Both those discussions were derailed by threadcrapping for dozens of pages by certain posters spoiling for an argument. This one, at least there is the excuse that we're all advocating for having our POV represented in Next, but the other two - there's no excuse.

 

[Bluenose]

I'm not a fan of skill tricks. So yes, they follow the same model. You can try a basic task, but feats or other character abilities might make it easier or less costly to do that task, or more time-efficient.

So (using a modern-setting example that comes to me off-hand) a character might be able to try a surgery using the Heal skill but the DC is at +10 over the already difficult baseline unless he has the Surgery feat. In D&D, anyone can try to track, but a ranger is the only one that can realistically catch the tough to find signs.

How about the manoeuvres in Next? How many of those are acceptable as Fighter Only to you?