Complex fighter pitfalls

[pemerton]

[MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION], once again our outlooks and experiences coincide!

As to the question of design intent, I think design intent was broader than what you describe, but encompassed it. I think this was made clear by some designer comments around the time of release, plus the discussion in Worlds & Monsters.
[MENTION=6668292]JamesonCourage[/MENTION], I endorsed [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION]'s remark upthread, and you called me out for it. So I might equally say, if you didn't want to discuss narrativism in the Forge sense - ie "story now", which is what I at least read Tony as talking about - then why respond to me? Presumably the answer in both cases is that we had something we wanted to say. In my case, my agreement with Tony was no more nor less than what I said - that his comment, about the greater capacity of 4e compared to earlier versions of D&D to reliably deliver player-driven heroic fantasy story without the need to disregard or fiat the mechanics, was accurate (at least in my experience).

 

[JamesonCourage]

[MENTION=6668292]JamesonCourage[/MENTION], I endorsed [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION]'s remark upthread, and you called me out for it.

So I might equally say, if you didn't want to discuss narrativism in the Forge sense - ie "story now", which is what I at least read Tony as talking about - then why respond to me?

I called you out for encouraging his disparaging of a different play style, when he described a style he didn't enjoy as "a world in which such a story might, possibly happen, once in a very great while (but probably never to my character)." I said that I thought that description was misleading and condescending, went on to express why I thought it was (it wasn't true in my experience), and said I was "sorry to see that you've encouraged it, pemerton."

I didn't call out your preferences on narrative gaming, your thoughts on Forge-style narrative play with 4e, or the like. I then went on to discuss player control over an "interesting" story with Tony (where he neatly cleared up my first disagreement with him), and then you popped in again during my talk with Tony on player control to talk about Forge-style narrativist play in Post 115, where you quoted once from my original disagreement with Tony, and once from my reply to Tony, not to you. The bulk of my reply in Post 118 was in response to your reply to my post to Tony. You proceeded to reply to post 118 in Post 136, where you only quoted from the bulk of my reply.

So, the order went:
1) Tony's original post.
2) Me replying to Tony, and calling you out.
3) Tony replying to me.
4) Me replying to Tony.
5) You replying to my (2 -no Forge discussion), and to my (4 -where you introduced a Forge discussion).
6) I replied to your (5), on the topic of (2) and (4).
7) You replied to my (6) about the subject of (2 -no Forge discussion) only, which was my reply to Tony. It only referenced by reply about (2 -no Forge discussion), which wasn't talking about the Forge. It didn't involve your (4 -where you introduced a Forge discussion), which did reference the Forge.
(8) I'm guessing that in (7), you were commenting on the topic of (2) and (4), where I was only replying to the topic of (2). We were apparently talking past one another, and I tried saying that in my last post.

As I said in Post 139, "So... okay, you're talking about that. I'm not. I'd rather not try continue a discussion on a topic when the other person isn't engaging it (and I assume you feel the same way)." I feel the same way now about it, really.

Presumably the answer in both cases is that we had something we wanted to say. In my case, my agreement with Tony was no more nor less than what I said - that his comment, about the greater capacity of 4e compared to earlier versions of D&D to reliably deliver player-driven heroic fantasy story without the need to disregard or fiat the mechanics, was accurate (at least in my experience).

That's not what he said when I called you out on it (and all you said was "this is an excellent line!" in reply to his comment "a world in which such a story might, possibly happen, once in a very great while [but probably never to my character]" to describe a style he didn't care for). Then, later (in one of the posts I linked), you jumped back into the conversation with me and Tony, and began talking about Forge-narrativist play, when I wasn't, and the conversation drifted back anyways.

I'm not trying to take your experiences away, or invalidate them, or say what you're saying isn't true. I'm saying I'm not participating in this part of the debate, and so I won't reply if you bring it back up with me again. I'll gladly do it some other time, but a Forge-focused sidetrack doesn't appeal to me on this topic, when I felt I made some headway earlier, and probably won't on your topic. I like productive conversation, and I don't feel like I can be productive on this front (in this thread, at least). If you wish to reply to this, you can, and you'll have the last word on it. As always, play what you like

 

[Vikingkingq]

So, how about that complex fighter, eh?

 

[Tony Vargas]

So, how about that complex fighter, eh?

It needs to be designed by Tim Taylor: More POWER!! OOH!OOH!OOH!

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

It needs to be designed by Tim Taylor: More POWER!! OOH!OOH!OOH!

D&D 4E - The Tim Taylor Edition? More POWERs!

I always liked Tool Time.

 

[Pickles JG]

This has drifted far away from the simple vs complex issue & has dragged in a lot of other ones the game has pretty much always had.

Simple Vs Complex
I like characters with a suite of baked in cool things to do. These need not be superman powerful they can just be small breaks in the rules. As a dwarf fighter in 4e I loved second wind in the middle of a fight for free. I loved soaking up more damage than anyone else & I like having an influence even when I miss, by marking & by positioning (as an aside I do not enjoy 4e strikers much as they tend to live or die by doing lots of damage & need to hit to do so, most of the other roles can have an influence even if they are not chewing through HP).
These do not require herculean abilities they are much more McClane level but they
were at least partly active. My favourite power Come & Get it is at the very least cinematic if not mind controlling but it's fun to use
As well as options in combat I like to build my character so that it feels mine. Even if I build a character that always does the same couple of attack routines if these are distinctively mine then I am happier than I was in 1e where felt fighters were created by the DM being characterised by whatever magic items they were lucky enough to find. This is a separate complaxity issue for the game.

Demigodly vs The Infinite Flexibility of Magic

The power level debate thoroughly muddied the complexity issue. WOTC could easily create a simple superpowerful fighter. Earlier editions did this at high level as fighters could take inhuman amounts of damage & fight things far bigger than they have any right to attract the attention of. Simple powerlevel is not the issue here , for me it is clearly templated options. However this raises the other issue D&D has had in that the quality of the game changes with level really dramatically from the fresh of the farm level 1guys to the dimension changing high level ones.

If you want a gritty D&D game then you are limited to about 5th level before things start getting very odd. 4e could have been designed to go from low heroic to high heroic rather than to its epic high level play as the progression is much flatter & easier to keep even flatter.
Earlier editions just require rebuilding to stay in any normal fantasy style after midd levels especially if they are supposed to be coexisting with those low level characters.

I have not seen any comment from the 5e team as to what level the game is going to be pitched at & whether it is intended that it stay more closely at that level or if it will have its usual spectacular power gain.

 

[Vikingkingq]

This has drifted far away from the simple vs complex issue & has dragged in a lot of other ones the game has pretty much always had.

Simple Vs Complex
I like characters with a suite of baked in cool things to do. These need not be superman powerful they can just be small breaks in the rules.

These do not require herculean abilities they are much more McClane level but they
were at least partly active. My favourite power Come & Get it is at the very least cinematic if not mind controlling but it's fun to use

Ah good, back on topic.

Active different abilities are key. It's having defined and diverse things to do that makes combat exciting for me - it's one of the reasons why 7th Sea's combat system is so much fun, in that you have a suite of things besides Attack that you can always use.

Demigodly vs The Infinite Flexibility of Magic

The power level debate thoroughly muddied the complexity issue. WOTC could easily create a simple superpowerful fighter. Earlier editions did this at high level as fighters could take inhuman amounts of damage & fight things far bigger than they have any right to attract the attention of.

I agree that the two subjects are separate, but they do impinge on each other, in the sense that having more options for dealing with new situations gives you an ability to deal with high-powered threats and challenges without increasing numbers to the point where some threats cease to exist.

 

[NotAYakk]

So, let's play with creating a D&D.next simple fighter that scales to complex. I like proofs of concept.

HP: Con+12 at level 1, +6 per level afterwards.
AC/ATK: Flat, or close enough as makes no difference.
Strength bonus: Flat, or close enough as makes no difference.
Tools: Unchanged after first level. Any upgrade in weapons/armor will be an additional balance module.

Simple fighter offensive goal: Deals a flat percentage of a fighter's HP per hit as you gain levels. At level 1, is significantly better at hitting things with weapons than other classes, to give them design space to have their own significant power boosts. Basic attacks are sufficient to generate this power.

So, the first proposal: at level 1, the fighter deals 2[W] damage with every hit. That is your fighter offensive feature, and maybe a +3 proficiency with all weapons.

Using a 1d12 weapon with a strength of 16-18, the fighter deals an average of 16-17 damage.

So the fighter deals 62% to 77% of his own HP in damage on a hit.

(I'll leave the multiple target option out of this for now).

At level 10, the fighter will have 76 to 80 HP, and deal 50 to 58 average damage. Subtract 3-4 strength bonus and we get 47 to 54. Divide by 6.5 and we get about 8[W] damage, or +7[W] over 9 levels.

That might be a bit steep. So we'll give the Fighter extra HP at level 1 somehow. Say, racial HD -- you start the game with a class HD and a racial HD, and HP from your race. Humans have a d8 racial HD (and +4 HP at level 1). The level 1 14 con fighter now has 30 HP at level 1, and the Fighter deals an average of 16-17 damage, or 53% to 57% of the fighter's HP.

The level 10 fighter now has 80 to 84 HP, which aligns with ~45 HP in damage, ~6[W] damage. Or +1[W] damage every 2 levels.

That works. Throw in some abilities on the other half of the levels (maybe the multi-attack option).

Defensively, we want the Fighter to be a better bag of HP than a cleric healing herself. The level 1 fighter in this thought experiment has 30 HP, and a 1d12 and 1d8 HD. A level 1 12 con human cleric has 24 HP, 2d8 HD, and 2 casts of cure light wounds for 2d8+6 HP total, or 48 HP/day.

The fighter only has 41 HP/day he can contribute.

First fix: fighters start with 3 HD, and gain 2 HD each level afterwards (but not double HP). So the fighter now has 54 HP per day at level 1, more than the cleric.

The next problem is burst tanking. The cleric has 24+15 = 39 HP they can consume in a given fight by self-healing, while the Fighter has only 30.

A simple solution to this is to allow the Fighter to use their HD. A fighter can spend an action to gain temporary HP by rolling a HD. As the fighter gains levels, the fighter can roll more than one HD as an action in this manner (say, 1 HD for every 2 or 3 fighter levels -- have it scale at roughly the same rate as a cleric's healing spells scale).

The fighter now starts with ~36 HP, and can burn actions to reach up to the full 54 HP in a single fight (but that cripples the fighter offensively).

Now we have a simple fighter that scales with level. So long as cleric healing doesn't grow quadratically, the Fighter can actually outtank a cleric (which hasn't been possible for a few versions of D&D).

Throw in some kind of multiple attack option (say, a fighter can split their attack into same-[W]-count attacks on multiple targets), make sure that the Fighter's high HP is an effective barrier to save-or-die and save-or-suck abilities, and this character is "good to go" all the way to level 20. (or do things like allow the Fighter to sacrifice a HD for a reroll on a save)

The bonus [W] mentioned above would be a per-turn resource, not a per-attack resource (so multiple attack abilities wouldn't make the Fighter into a instant-death machine).

Now, add some complexity and flexibility without adding power.

Allow the fighter to sacrifice [W]s to do mighty feats of arms on an attack. Prone, disarm, flurries of blows, knock off balance, armor piercing strikes, parry, trap, entangle, fake weakness, cripple limb, drive back, lure forward, blind, intimidate/fear, pin, knock out of the air, coordinate assault, etc. Maybe make a mighty feat of arms halve the number of bonus [W] you use, but grant a DC increase for each [W] sacrificed. Some of them might do different things based on the target's HP, or even target's HP as a fraction of your max HP or multiple of your Fighter Level. Have a bunch of such attacks, and throw in that using a trick that the opponent has seen you do grants the opponent advantage on the save. Fighters would gain these mighty feats of arms "automatically" as they leveled from their own training, and/or could learn additional such feats from instructors, mystical training scrolls, or the like (depending on sub-genre).

Or, if you'd rather use the contest system and not give the fighter special abilities, we just grant the Fighter a bonus on the contest equal to the number of bonus [W] sacrificed in the attack.

The next level of complexity might add attack combos, or weapon vs armor type tables, or hero points, a parry/block/riposte subsystem, weapon specialization, or a myriad of other choices.

...

Now, I'm not happy I had to inflate the HP of a level 1 Fighter up to 30 to make the above work. But as a proof of concept, it isn't half bad I don't think.

We have a simple fighter who auto-scales, and isn't made obsolete by cleric healing, thief damage, monster HP inflation, or wizard attack spells. And a system that would give the Fighter a set of abilities similar to 4e Fighters as "riders" on their standard attack (where the fighter gives up damage to cripple the target).

He's ridiculously tough, deals ridiculous damage, and isn't magical (just supernaturally damaging and tough at high levels).

At low levels, the Fighter is just ridiculously tough. So if you want a gritty game, limiting the game to levels 1-3 would result in a level 3 fighter being able to take on a half-dozen human or hobgoblin guards at once (I did a quick simulation, and a bunch of 14 HP guardsmen could beat the simple fighter if there where 6 of them, and lost by a hair if there was only 5). That is well within the realm of swords and sorcery.

The above fighter, at level X, has roughly the strength of X men. Which lines up with OD&D power scales.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Throw in some kind of multiple attack option (say, a fighter can split their attack into same-[W]-count attacks on multiple targets...

This would be a good modification to the playtest rules thus far, all by itself. Giving the fighter an extra die or two, then letting him choose to split those or not, makes him a lot more effective at taking down weaker or injured opponents, but gives him a decision to make. Unlike multiple attacks direct, it can be more readily flavored as a choice made up front. (The tendency of fighters in 3E to want to see the results of one attack before making the next was a big part of the speed bump with them.)

Let the fighter declare a split of dice and mod however he wants, at least one die per opponent selected. So the playtest fighter can allocate his 2d6 among one or two opponents, and then split the +7 damage likewise. Call a split, then roll attacks.

As dice are added at higher levels, it won't be near the scary thing one would expect, because the opponents will be stronger, and the fighter will only split when it makes sense (or needs to gamble against injured foes). You could add a die every other level, or even every third level, and supplement with some straight plusses to damage.

 

[Vikingkingq]

Well the Rule of Three has shed some light on the matter.

We now know that weapon styles are themes and therefore outside the Fighter class, which means the TBD Fighter class mechanism is going to be something else. And there's not much left.