D&D General Chris just said why I hate wizard/fighter dynamic

[Nefermandias]

I find the guaranteed nature of the effects matter because of how much they contrast with skills in terms of flat D20 rolls.

I see this in player planning, and in the kinds of plans players instinctively don't make in comparison to other games like Savage Worlds where the dice have more of a bell curve and there are ways to mitigate failure with metacurrency.

In D&D a plan that involves multiple steps involving skills rolls is a bad plan, "I'm going to climb the wall, sneak across the courtyard, knock out one of the cultists, steal their robes and then infiltrate the inner sanctum during the cult leaders sermon" is not a good plan if the DM is going to ask you to roll for each of those things. It's bad to the extent that players will probably not put it forward in those terms, so it's easy to miss the issues.*

"I'm going to spider climb up the wall, cast disguise self so I look like a cultist and walk into the inner sanctum (and then Misty Step out if things look dicy)" is a workable plan. You're guaranteed to at least the do the necessary thing to get to next stage. At some point you may need to roll a skill, but the less rolls the less possible points of failure, the more workable the plan.

Magic, in terms, of spells, and magic items have always been the main problem solving devices of D&D. If the players have access to these they'll come up with something. If they're relying on skills...well you'd better be prepared for a lot of failing forwards.


*There are ways to mitigate this of course, by either rolling once for the entire plan (pretty unsatisfying if you fail though) using some kind of skill challenge (not present in 5e).

The best way to mitigate those multiple rolls and chance of failure is to provide an adequate and detailed action declaration. The more specific you are with your actions, the easier it is for the DM to adjucate the outcome without having to resort to random chance.

 

[Mordhau]

The best way to mitigate those multiple chance of failure is to provide an adequate and detailed action declaration. The more specific you are with your actions, the easier it is for the DM to adjucate the outcome without having to resort to random chance.

Yes. The skill system always works better when you don't use it.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

My point is the original rangers would be 100% into bulldozing the forest to get rid of the monsters. Original rangers were Man first Man Second then maybe Nature.

That's why an elf couldn't be a ranger back in the day. Their reverence to nature held them back.

Gonna need a citation for that.

Because the OG Ranger was based on Aragorn, and I’ve never seen anything in any writeup for rangers in any edition that suggests anything remotely like that.

 

[Guest 7034872]

Gonna need a citation for that.

Because the OG Ranger was based on Aragorn, and I’ve never seen anything in any writeup for rangers in any edition that suggests anything remotely like that.

Your point here becomes especially poignant when we reflect on the origins of the Dúnedain vis-à-vis elves.

 

[Mordhau]

I think there's always been an element in the ranger of the caught between two worlds character. The hero who defends civilisation from the wild, because he is in part of the wild. You see elements of this in the Witcher character who is in part monster himself, and whose sympathies are often with the monsters.

But this aspect doesn't really come from Aragorn, it comes from Westerns and other frontier tales.

 

[Jaeger]

In combat, the gap is (IMO) mostly closed, at least in terms of effectiveness and power level. The casters still dramatically out option the martials (especially fighters) in the other 2 tiers, and I'd love to see some improvement. But I just can't see saying no progress has been made or issues addressed.

We will disagree then.

Where you see progress/addressing issues; I see half measures that fail to go to the root of the problem.

IMHO: Half measures = Still broken...

After several editions: Still Broken = They like it that way...

As always: YMMV.

the game continues to be popular not despite the fundamentally broken nature of it's magic but because of it.

I disagree here thoroughly.

As the few instances in other countries where D&D is not the #1 RPG have show: There is nothing inherently special about D&D's system in any edition.

Being First, and Good Enough, are far more important criteria for sustained popularity as long as you are following through with continued service to your customers.

(The lack of follow through is what allowed some homegrown RPG's to displace early translations of D&D, and take the mantle of "First" and "Good Enough". And their follow-through is what has allowed them to keep ahead of it.)

Yeah, the "effect guaranteed" style of magic in D&D has been set in stone for nearly 50 years, and it is not going away. You could not realistically change magic that fundamentally and slap the name D&D on the cover. ... But any official game called D&D is going to keep how magic works more or less the same.

I agree, for better or worse they are locked into certain sacred cows.

I find the guaranteed nature of the effects matter because of how much they contrast with skills in terms of flat D20 rolls.

I see this in player planning, and in the kinds of plans players instinctively don't make in comparison to other games like Savage Worlds where the dice have more of a bell curve and there are ways to mitigate failure with metacurrency.

In D&D a plan that involves multiple steps involving skills rolls is a bad plan, "I'm going to climb the wall, sneak across the courtyard, knock out one of the cultists, steal their robes and then infiltrate the inner sanctum during the cult leaders sermon" is not a good plan if the DM is going to ask you to roll for each of those things. It's bad to the extent that players will probably not put it forward in those terms, so it's easy to miss the issues.*

"I'm going to spider climb up the wall, cast disguise self so I look like a cultist and walk into the inner sanctum (and then Misty Step out if things look dicy)" is a workable plan. You're guaranteed to at least the do the necessary thing to get to next stage. At some point you may need to roll a skill, but the less rolls the less possible points of failure, the more workable the plan.

Magic, in terms, of spells, and magic items have always been the main problem solving devices of D&D. If the players have access to these they'll come up with something. If they're relying on skills...well you'd better be prepared for a lot of failing forwards.

Holy cow this. Yes. Yes. yes.

This: "if the DM is going to ask you to roll for each of those things."

Is key here. How GM's like to adjudicate things can vary a lot from table to table.

Which can lead to wildly different play experiences playing the same rules set.

D&D's meta currency has always been its hit point bloat.

Skill based RPG's do things differently: because using your skills has to be a good plan for the RPG to work!

That D&D hasn't adopted those same solutions for it's skill system is why we get flat out goofy artifacts like 'passive perception' that no other skill based RPG's do...

 

[Mordhau]

I disagree here thoroughly.

As the few instances in other countries where D&D is not the #1 RPG have show: There is nothing inherently special about D&D's system in any edition.

Being First, and Good Enough, are far more important criteria for sustained popularity as long as you are following through with continued service to your customers.

(The lack of follow through is what allowed some homegrown RPG's to displace early translations of D&D, and take the mantle of "First" and "Good Enough". And their follow-through is what has allowed them to keep ahead of it.)


I agree, for better or worse they are locked into certain sacred cows.

I'm not saying the magic system alone explains D&Ds popularity. But it's not solely a sacred cow either. The lack of the specific play experience that D&D magic provides is one of the key reasons I've seen players find games that cover the same basic ground unsatisfying. Not all players (players that only play martial characters don't much care), but many.

I've also found it to be one of the reasons players want to go back to D&D after playing other systems which work so much better in so many ways.

 

[Faolyn]

My point is the original rangers would be 100% into bulldozing the forest to get rid of the monsters. Original rangers were Man first Man Second then maybe Nature.

That's why an elf couldn't be a ranger back in the day. Their reverence to nature held them back.

That's certainly not my read on rangers from 1e or 2e. Plus they could be both rangers and druids as of Dragon #96, where Gygax decided to re-examine level limits and the like. "Elves, half-elves, and halflings being more nature-oriented than the other demi-human races deserve admission to the druid sub-class. [...] Elves are no longer prohibited from entering the ranger sub-class, in keeping with the same reasoning that now opens the druid subclass to that race. For consistency, half-elven rangers are also given more potential." (Edit: as @DND_Reborn noted, these changes became official in Unearthed Arcana)

I'm slightly surprised Gygax went with level limits for non-humans instead of an XP penalty. Like say that nonhumans earn only half or three-quarters as much XP as a human does. Oh well--thank goodness that sort of nonsense is long over with.

 

[Mordhau]

In terms of damage, I think Fighters are at least equal to casters now.

In terms of effectiveness? I think that's questionable. It requires me as GM to not take advantage of the Fighter's many weaknesses. They are largely single target damage, so they are in trouble if have to face a group of enemies of double the number but half the strength. Unlike casters, they don't have area of effect, or control spells like walls. A more melee focused Fighter is immediately at a disadvantage if they can't get into melee.

Basically they have few real options for tactically responding to the combat situation so the more complex that situation is, the less effective they are.

 

[Faolyn]

Gonna need a citation for that.

Because the OG Ranger was based on Aragorn, and I’ve never seen anything in any writeup for rangers in any edition that suggests anything remotely like that.

I just checked--neither the 1e or 2e ranger write-ups specifically say that rangers are defenders of the wilderness (just that they're good at woodcraft), so I suppose that claiming they're anti-wilderness makes some sense in the light of nature-loving elves originally not being allowed in the class if you also hadn't read Tolkien or otherwise knew about Aragorn. I mean, I hadn't read any Tolkien when I started gaming, but I started with 2e, not 1e or earlier.