Fighters vs. Spellcasters (a case for fighters.)

[pemerton]

If we need both other approaches and different mechanics to achieve the desired playstyle, I suggest it is not the playstyle intended by the authors of the specific game.

<snip>

Again, if one must change the rules, then one is no longer playing the same game, but building a different one. If I consider the wizard overpowered, so I change the spell progression and many of the spell descriptions, and alter the saving throw rules, that may better balance the wizard, but I am not still playing the same game. It is no longer a discussion of the balance of 3.5, but the balance of a different, modified game.

In that case, [MENTION=17106]Ahnehnois[/MENTION] is not defending 3.5 in this thread, as he plays a version which incorporates custom classes, Unearthed Arcana variants, Trailblazer variants, and probably other bits and pieces that I haven't fully understood because 3.5 is not my game.

But here's an alternative perspective (on which [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] could probably shed more light): ban wizards and instead allow only Warmages, Duskblades and those other specialist casters from later supplements. Replace fighters with the ToB classes. (And do something about clerics - maybe replace them with faavoured souls? - as I said, 3.5 is not my game.)

A group who plays that game is playing 3.5, I would have thought (certainly as much as [MENTION=17106]Ahnehnois[/MENTION] is). And they have changed the mechanics (mostly by exclusion of certain options) in order to achieve balance, and (from what I hear) probably won't need the same heavy helping of GM force as you and others are advocating in order to make their game work.

As this is a thread about 3.5, please identify the mechanics of 3.5 which provide this direct impact on the game world’s fictional content.

The rules for damaging objects would be one example: a player can declare (say) that his/her PC smashes the vase with his/her mace, and at that point is entitled to roll a d20 to hit, and then (if s/he hits) a damage die. The outcomes of these rolls will change the gameworld's fictional content.

Another example would be the Transmute Rock to Mud spell. If (i) the PC wizard has memorised this spell, and (ii) the GM describes the PC (say) walking through a rocky valley, then the player is entitled to declare "I cast my Transmute Rock to Mud spell on a boulder, turning it into mud". This declaration leads to a change in the gameworld's fictional content: there is now mud where before there was a boulder.

A third example is not mechanical in the narrow sense, but part of the free-form resolution aspect of 3E: a player whose equipment list for his/her PC includes (say) a glass bottle is entitled to declare "I take the bottle from my backpack and throw it to the ground, smashing it." This declaration leads to a change in the gameworld's fictional content: the backpack is now lighter and there is now broken glass on the ground.

I do not think that the view expressed by [MENTION=17106]Ahnehnois[/MENTION], namely, that each of these is simply a request to the GM to permit the relevant change in fictional content, is the mainstream way of playing 3E.

A fourth example is more borderline, but I think a lot of tables would play it in a way which allows the player to change the content of the shared fiction: namely, upon satisfying the requirements a player takes the Leadership feat for his/her PC, and narrates the effect of taking that feat in terms of an NPC turning up and seeking to study/adventure under the PC's guidance and tutelage. I imagine that a lot of tables would handle familiars and animal companions in a similar fashion.

You consistently refer to how mechanics work in other games. The mechanics of other games has no relevance to the balance between classes in D&D

The mechanics of other games have a lot of relevance for (i) giving clear examples of what is possible in an RPG, and (ii) helping clarify the analysis of D&D mechanics that occupy the same functional and/or fictional space.

Here is an example:

Seems to me 3e has some pretty good abstract rules. If we want to simply apply the rules that the purchase prices are what equipment sells for, loot can be sold for half its price and the size of the settlement determines the value of both goods for sale and wealth for purchase

Unless I've badly misunderstood, this is not an action resolution rule at all: it is a piece of GM advice in the DMG, with the GM expressly expected to mediate between this default picture of the D&D world, and the players' desires for their PCs.

Traveller's buying and selling rules include action resolution rules that the players can invoke. Maybe there are similar rules in some 3E supplement (eg Matical Medieval Society might have some) but there aren't any in the PHB.

To me, if selling the loot is merely a procedural matter, we don’t play it out. By choosing to play it out, at least in my view, the GM undertakes to make the challenge of selling loot a point “where the action is” in itself.

That's fine. You enjoy a game that is significantly GM-driven - the GM gets to decide "where the action is". That is not "indie" style, which is based around the players deciding "where the action is" ie what matters and what doesn't, and the GM then following those hooks rather than the players following the GM's hooks.

There is no in-principle reason why D&D can't be played in this latter style. I played 1st ed AD&D in this style. If 3E cannot handle this sort of player driven style without radical revisions, that to me is a major weakness of 3E and certainly belies the claim I often hear that it is not a narrowly-focused game.

It implies that the greater the PC’s streetwise (since when is Streetwise a 3.5 skill, by the way) roll, the more likely it is that the wizard will be willing to purchase their loot.

<snip>

To me, these are actions that may help locate someone who might have both an interest and the finances to purchase the loot. It does not influence who that someone might be, where he might be found, or that it would be the wizard we have previously traded with.

<snip>

The mechanics indicate they are causing him to be present – a bonus to the roll causes his presence to be more likely.

If the character’s level of skill is determinative of whether there is snow, it seems to me that the rules indicate the PC’s skills do, in fact, influence whether it will snow.

On the minor point: I never asserted that Streetwise is a 3.5 skill. I suggested Gather Information as the 3.5 equivalent.

On the significant point: if you won't separate mechanical causation from ingame causation, then you of course there are a range of mechanical techniques that you will not be able to use. (Including rolling for random encounters, presumably - it's not as if some event occurs every 10 minutes in the gameworld that makes it likely that some orcs or rats will wander past at just that time. Presumably also including various oddities around damage and healng, given the well-known failure of hit point gain and loss to correspond to comparable physical changes in the body of the character who is being damaged or being healed.)

The point that I and [MENTION=27570]sheadunne[/MENTION] are making is that it is possible to separate mechanical causation from ingame causation, and that once this is done various resolution techniques become available that reduce the need for GM force.

D&D has always done this for combat resolution: the d20 roll "to hit" doesn't reflect only the attacking character's effort (presumably s/he is mostly going all out, given that s/he is fighting for his/her life). It reflects the entire situation, including how deftly the attacked character parries, and how lucky each is, and external factors too like slipping on loose gravel or having an arrow blown of course by a sudden gust. It would be a very non-standard way of playing D&D for a player to make an attack roll, be told by the GM that (once all modifiers have been applied) it hits the target's AC, but then to be told that nevertheless the attack fails to deal damage because the attacking PC slipped in mud and fell short, or to be told that a wind gust blew the arrow off course and so it misses its target.

Prior to 4e D&D has never resolved teleportation, or finding a purchaser for loot, in this fashion (and resolving them in this fashion in 4e is an option, but not the default as it is for combat), and has been at best ambiguous in how it handles social interaction, but there is no reason in principle why they cannot be handled in the same way, and with the same lack of need for GM force in adjudicating whether or not the PCs succeed in the actions which their players declare for them.

 

[Ahnehnois]

In that case, [MENTION=17106]Ahnehnois[/MENTION] is not defending 3.5 in this thread, as he plays a version which incorporates custom classes, Unearthed Arcana variants, Trailblazer variants, and probably other bits and pieces that I haven't fully understood because 3.5 is not my game.

But here's an alternative perspective (on which [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] could probably shed more light): ban wizards and instead allow only Warmages, Duskblades and those other specialist casters from later supplements. Replace fighters with the ToB classes. (And do something about clerics - maybe replace them with faavoured souls? - as I said, 3.5 is not my game.)

A group who plays that game is playing 3.5, I would have thought (certainly as much as [MENTION=17106]Ahnehnois[/MENTION] is). And they have changed the mechanics (mostly by exclusion of certain options) in order to achieve balance, and (from what I hear) probably won't need the same heavy helping of GM force as you and others are advocating in order to make their game work.

Well, I'd say that I'm still playing 3.5. People houserule everything (including, to my knowledge, 4e, if perhaps for different reasons). I did start with the RAW and gradually accumulate variants until I'm where I am now. I never experienced any meaningful balance issues of the sort we're talking about even with the core 3.0 rules as a beginner DM, nor at any of the intermediate periods between then and now.

I would defend that the core 3.5 spellcasters are not particularly overpowered or game-breaking when compared to the non-magical characters, but not that any of the classes are well-designed when we look at them close to 15 years after their release.

 

[N'raac]

In that case, @Ahnehnois is not defending 3.5 in this thread, as he plays a version which incorporates custom classes, Unearthed Arcana variants, Trailblazer variants, and probably other bits and pieces that I haven't fully understood because 3.5 is not my game.

He has not indicated that any such variances are needed to balance spellcasters with fighters.

The rules for damaging objects would be one example: a player can declare (say) that his/her PC smashes the vase with his/her mace, and at that point is entitled to roll a d20 to hit, and then (if s/he hits) a damage die. The outcomes of these rolls will change the gameworld's fictional content.

Another example would be the Transmute Rock to Mud spell. If (i) the PC wizard has memorised this spell, and (ii) the GM describes the PC (say) walking through a rocky valley, then the player is entitled to declare "I cast my Transmute Rock to Mud spell on a boulder, turning it into mud". This declaration leads to a change in the gameworld's fictional content: there is now mud where before there was a boulder.

A third example is not mechanical in the narrow sense, but part of the free-form resolution aspect of 3E: a player whose equipment list for his/her PC includes (say) a glass bottle is entitled to declare "I take the bottle from my backpack and throw it to the ground, smashing it." This declaration leads to a change in the gameworld's fictional content: the backpack is now lighter and there is now broken glass on the ground.

Funny...these examples do not seem to suggest the wizard (or some other caster - now, you seem to suggest the problem is simply the spellcasters with broad spell selections) has the exclusive purview to impose his will on the game's fictional content.

I do not think that the view expressed by @Ahnehnois, namely, that each of these is simply a request to the GM to permit the relevant change in fictional content, is the mainstream way of playing 3E.

I doubt very much that Ahnehnois would deny a player the ability to take any of these actions. But I don't believe any of them fall into what most of us consider "changing the gameworld's fictional content". These hardly seem comparable with causing a wizard to spring into existence to purchase our loot, or to cause the snows not to block a mountain pass.

That's fine. You enjoy a game that is significantly GM-driven - the GM gets to decide "where the action is". That is not "indie" style, which is based around the players deciding "where the action is" ie what matters and what doesn't, and the GM then following those hooks rather than the players following the GM's hooks.

There is no in-principle reason why D&D can't be played in this latter style. I played 1st ed AD&D in this style. If 3E cannot handle this sort of player driven style without radical revisions, that to me is a major weakness of 3E and certainly belies the claim I often hear that it is not a narrowly-focused game.

This still seems a matter of degrees. The players can, for example, say "The wizard is not there to buy our loot? Very well, we'll move on. Let's head to the Palace and see if we can arrange an appointment with the Chamberlain." In so doing, they shift the location of the action to the Royal Court. It is only when they insist that no, the Wizard MUST be there, prepared to acquire our loot, that they lose their ability to direct the narrative. If they direct that we deal with the loot now, then they have directed that sale of the loot is, in fact, where the action is. The GM is determining the extent and nature of that action. That is, he is now framing a scene based on the express desire of the players to sell the loot, and setting challenges to their ability to achieve the desired result.

On the significant point: if you won't separate mechanical causation from ingame causation, then you of course there are a range of mechanical techniques that you will not be able to use. (Including rolling for random encounters, presumably - it's not as if some event occurs every 10 minutes in the gameworld that makes it likely that some orcs or rats will wander past at just that time. Presumably also including various oddities around damage and healng, given the well-known failure of hit point gain and loss to correspond to comparable physical changes in the body of the character who is being damaged or being healed.)

D&D has always done this for combat resolution: the d20 roll "to hit" doesn't reflect only the attacking character's effort (presumably s/he is mostly going all out, given that s/he is fighting for his/her life). It reflects the entire situation, including how deftly the attacked character parries, and how lucky each is, and external factors too like slipping on loose gravel or having an arrow blown of course by a sudden gust. It would be a very non-standard way of playing D&D for a player to make an attack roll, be told by the GM that (once all modifiers have been applied) it hits the target's AC, but then to be told that nevertheless the attack fails to deal damage because the attacking PC slipped in mud and fell short, or to be told that a wind gust blew the arrow off course and so it misses its target.

I don't find these comparable. The character's combat skill directly influences whether he is able to deal with the slippery mud, or the wind conditions. If he were more skilled (higher BAB), he would have compensated and still hit with that roll (assuming no "automiss 1"). However, no amount of extra skill at tracking and wilderness lore is going to stop the snow blocking off a mountain pass, and no level of local knowledge will cause a willing buyer for our loot to materialize, so success at these tasks should not, in my view, be a function of the character's skill. Similarly, the PC's skills do not influence the likelihood of a random encounter as they travel and - oh look - the probability of such occurrences is typically set at a flat likelihood based on time travelling, or distance travelled, or some other function, but not a roll influenced by the PC's skills, as their skills do not influence whether rats scurry by, or the orcs chose to stay in their village today.

I suppose we could envision a game where things just "fall into place" more reliably for higher level characters, but even then this would reasonably be a function of the character's level, not of his specific skills.

That would not prevent a system where the GM does not decide these events, but instead they are randomly rolled. However, this would require some means of objectively setting the probability that this specific pass is blocked at this specific time of year - how would these odds be set, if not by a GM based on the parameters established within the game world?

 

[Ahnehnois]

He has not indicated that any such variances are needed to balance spellcasters with fighters.

Indeed, and when you look at 3.5 variants and revisions, they do all sorts of things with balance.

PF's classes are largely about twenty-level viability and lack of dead levels. There are numerous new abilities for your fighters, but also a new set of powers for wizards, clerics, sorcerers, etc. UA posits several alternative magic systems that, in general, significantly increase the amount of magic available to the big spellcasters.

Other variants, say vp/wp from UA or combat reactions from TB are somewhat indirectly more favorable towards the martial classes.

Similarly, my own houserules range from things that significantly increase the power of a typical spellcaster (say, making all spell DCs the same) to decreasing it (splitting ability score dependencies).

The overall conclusion to both my own hackwork and the broader market of 3.X revisionism is that many diverse changes are worthwhile, but most of them go to things that are broader than this thread topic. For example, the need to engage all six ability scores, or to avoid dead levels and provide an incentive not to dip around, or to create more nuanced modeling of combat actions. Balance between any two classes (or categories of classes) is trivial by comparison, which is why different variants toss that balance around so liberally.

 

[pemerton]

these examples do not seem to suggest the wizard (or some other caster - now, you seem to suggest the problem is simply the spellcasters with broad spell selections) has the exclusive purview to impose his will on the game's fictional content.

I don't think anyone has said that the wizard has such abilities within his/her exclusive purview. It's just that the wizard has a far greater and more reliable range of such abilities: for instance, compare Transmute Rock to Mud with the mundane equivalent (hammers, chisels, water and time); or Teleport to the mundane equivalent (walking); or Scryng to the mundane equivalent (walking then looking).

The character's combat skill directly influences whether he is able to deal with the slippery mud, or the wind conditions.

Does it also influence whether or not the enemy makes a bad move, or leaves a careless opening? (And if the answer to this is "yes", than Come and Get It suddenly doesn't look very radical.)

These hardly seem comparable with causing a wizard to spring into existence to purchase our loot, or to cause the snows not to block a mountain pass.

<snip>

no amount of extra skill at tracking and wilderness lore is going to stop the snow blocking off a mountain pass

Minor point: isn't what counts as "snow blocking off a mountain pass" in part relative to skill (at moving through or around snow, fighting an alternative trail, etc) and endurance?

Main point: the player's Streetwise or Gather Information or Dipomacy or whatever check is not causing a wizard to spring into existence. In [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s example the existence of the wizard in the town had been established by the GM as part of the overall backstory. The player's roll is resolving the immediate question - is the wizard at home and inclined to buy? This difference between backstory and immediate situation is fairly important to some (not all) playstyles.

I suppose we could envision a game where things just "fall into place" more reliably for higher level characters, but even then this would reasonably be a function of the character's level, not of his specific skills.

That would not prevent a system where the GM does not decide these events, but instead they are randomly rolled. However, this would require some means of objectively setting the probability that this specific pass is blocked at this specific time of year - how would these odds be set, if not by a GM based on the parameters established within the game world?

When you say "we could envision" and "that would require", what parameters are you working within?

For instance, I can certainly envision a game in which things "fall into place" more reliably for high level PCs: namely, D&D. In the version of D&D I play (4e) this is a function both of level and of specific skills. A skill is first and foremost a player resource: for instance, having a high Diplomacy skill (which is in part a function of level) means "When I declare Diplomatic actions for my PC, things are more likely to go right."

And an alternative both to GM decision and to randomly rolling is for the player to decide (eg as part of the resolution of a successful skill roll). For instance, here is the Burning Wheel text for the Weather Sense ability (Gold edition, p 353):

Unless the GM plays with strict house weather rules - I don't - the Weather Sense in essence gives the player the ability to dictate the weather. Why else would a player pick this trait unless he were concerned about having the right weather for something or other? Anyway, I say let him predict it based on the Perception obstacles below - and let his predictions come true.​

This text recognises both the "objective random roll approach" and the "indie" approach, and advocates for the indie approach: if the player's check succeeds, s/he gets to stipulate what the weather is in the fiction; if s/he fails then of course the weather is different from what s/he wanted. Notice that both in the rules paragraph and in my paragraph it is the player, not the PC, who is dictating the weather. For a character to dictate the weather would require some sort of weather summoning magic.

There is no reason why the Survival skill in 3E (and Knowledge skills, and other similar skills) couldn't be handled this way in 3E. That would be one way of giving players of martial PCs (eg rangers, barbarians) the same sort of influence over the narration of the weather as the players of spellcaster PCs.

 

[Hussar]

I've been told over and over again how 3e can do anything. How it's such a great system because it's so versatile.

If your interpretation of 3e cannot approximate two of the best known fantasy settings then I really don't want anything to do with your game.

Even by the book RAW 3e posits PC classes as about 1% of the total population. Only one NPC class casts spells and it's much more rare than the others.

3e is a good enough system that it certainly can do lower magic settings and, since it defaults to Greyhawk, it bloody well should. PC's can find spells and magic items because they are PC's. There is nothing inherent in the system which defaults to N'Raac's interpretation.

 

[N'raac]

I don't think anyone has said that the wizard has such abilities within his/her exclusive purview. It's just that the wizard has a far greater and more reliable range of such abilities: for instance, compare Transmute Rock to Mud with the mundane equivalent (hammers, chisels, water and time); or Teleport to the mundane equivalent (walking); or Scryng to the mundane equivalent (walking then looking).

There is a clear hangup about spellcasters being overpowered (although your recent posts seem to restrict this to a much smaller subset of spellcasters). That seems to go beyond "making it happen faster without needing help or equipment". Your comments seem much more in line with the theory that the wizard has certain advantages in some areas (different areas than other PC's), which does not imply the balance concerns otherwise expressed.

Does it also influence whether or not the enemy makes a bad move, or leaves a careless opening? (And if the answer to this is "yes", than Come and Get It suddenly doesn't look very radical.)

I'll leave aside the 4e ability since I am not familiar with 4e (although my quick look suggests this does far more than cause the enemy to make a bad move leaving him at a momentary disadvantage). It does seem reasonable that a skilled combatant will feint and maneuver in an effort to cause his opponent to place themselves at a disadvantageous position (a feint for a head shot, say, causing the opponent to raise his shield, so its not blocking the actual intended attack on his legs). That contributes to the fact that the highly skilled warrior is more likely to strike a blow past the defenses of the target. What D&D largely lacks is the opposite, a skilled fighter being more skilled at avoiding those blunders, as AC does not rise with combat skill. Special skill at aviing being hit comes from some feats instead, but to a more limited extent.

Minor point: isn't what counts as "snow blocking off a mountain pass" in part relative to skill (at moving through or around snow, fighting an alternative trail, etc) and endurance?

I would suggest the snow increases the DC of getting through the mountains, which may restrict those with any chance of success to those with higher, perhaps even epic, skill levels. The likelihood the pass is snowed under is not affected by the PC's survival skill.

Main point: the player's Streetwise or Gather Information or Dipomacy or whatever check is not causing a wizard to spring into existence. In @Hussar's example the existence of the wizard in the town had been established by the GM as part of the overall backstory. The player's roll is resolving the immediate question - is the wizard at home and inclined to buy? This difference between backstory and immediate situation is fairly important to some (not all) playstyles.

And, again, I do not believe any amount of character skill can cause the Wizard to not be out of town after all. It might enable the character to locate him, communicate with him and persuade him to return earlier than he otherwise would have. It will not cause the wizard to be home instead of away.

When you say "we could envision" and "that would require", what parameters are you working within?

None in particular. I can simply buy the logic, in a given game milieu, that high level encompasses favour by the Gods, random chance or the blind mad god Azathoth which makes things the character cannot directly influence more likely to fall the way the character would like. That would not sit well if the player wants a game where characters succeed or fail entirely on their own merits, rather than by chance or the Gods favouring them, but it would be a perfectly valid approach to a game structure. But the odds of the mountain pass being snowed in when the character would prefer it not be would then be influenced by level (or this luck/favour mechanic, however implemented) and not by his own skills at tracking or wilderness survival. The city slicker rogue who is favoured by the gods would be more likely to have the snow fall late this year. The less favoured tracker may have to deal with the snow, but may have the skill to do so.

For instance, I can certainly envision a game in which things "fall into place" more reliably for high level PCs: namely, D&D. In the version of D&D I play (4e) this is a function both of level and of specific skills. A skill is first and foremost a player resource: for instance, having a high Diplomacy skill (which is in part a function of level) means "When I declare Diplomatic actions for my PC, things are more likely to go right."

There are two different issues here. The character with a high skill is more likely to succeed on his own merits. But he must be able to bring that skill to bear. For one who is "favoured by fortune", it is more likely the King is in the Palace, and less likely he is indisposed to receive visitors at all. The persuasive Diplomacy character is more likely to persuade the Chamberlain that he does indeed have legitimate and urgent business mandating an immediate audience with the King (but that cannot overcome the King's absence from the Royal Court). The fortune-favoured character may not be persuasive, but fortune is more likely to smile upon him, meaning the King is in close proximity, and perhaps chooses that moment to emerge from his chambers for some reason, granting the character an opportunity to quickly make his case and attract His Majesty's attention.

And an alternative both to GM decision and to randomly rolling is for the player to decide (eg as part of the resolution of a successful skill roll). For instance, here is the Burning Wheel text for the Weather Sense ability (Gold edition, p 353):

Unless the GM plays with strict house weather rules - I don't - the Weather Sense in essence gives the player the ability to dictate the weather. Why else would a player pick this trait unless he were concerned about having the right weather for something or other? Anyway, I say let him predict it based on the Perception obstacles below - and let his predictions come true.​

This text recognises both the "objective random roll approach" and the "indie" approach, and advocates for the indie approach: if the player's check succeeds, s/he gets to stipulate what the weather is in the fiction; if s/he fails then of course the weather is different from what s/he wanted. Notice that both in the rules paragraph and in my paragraph it is the player, not the PC, who is dictating the weather. For a character to dictate the weather would require some sort of weather summoning magic.

This, to me, is not "weather sense". It is "the weather favours your character". A character with weather sense would not decide whether the day of the upcoming battle will be overcast or clear, but would have that information (randomly determined) in advance, able to take advantage of it ("If we come out of the east at daybreak, the sun will be in their eyes - it will be a clear day" or "They will not expect us to attack from the west, but the clouds will mean we are not staring into the sun, so we can surprise them by doing so without placing ourselves at a disadvantage"). A character who is just lucky about the weather (or can manipulate it - either could be simulated with the "Dictate Weather" skill Burning Wheel seems to substitute for the "Predict Weather " skill suggested by the nomenclature) would instead trust to luck (or manipulation) to ensure the desired cloud cover, using his skill to make the desired tactic more effective.

It also feels "off" to me that my character ALWAYS succeeds in predicting the weather he desires, failing only if the weather will be other than what he desires. Or perhaps "Sense Weather" is 100% accurate in BW, with the roll determining only whether I get the weather I want. How do we determine the weather when my roll fails? Does my character know what the weather will actually be (which still allows him to use this weather to best effect), or does he miss his prediction, or just not know what the weather will be like?

There is no reason why the Survival skill in 3E (and Knowledge skills, and other similar skills) couldn't be handled this way in 3E. That would be one way of giving players of martial PCs (eg rangers, barbarians) the same sort of influence over the narration of the weather as the players of spellcaster PCs.

To me, that is not a "survival skill", but a "persuade the nature spirits" skill. It is not governed by the character's own knowledge and skill at woodcraft, but by some ability to actually influence the weather itself. This would certainly be workable, but it is a different skill or ability which adds a quasi-supernatural element, not just personal skill. We also get the question of which abilities trump. The Ranger has used his Survival skill to "predict" the weather he wants. An opposing Druid has cast a Weather Control spell to impose the desired weather for his side of the battle. Who wins? With the Ranger relying on mundane prediction, I have to give the nod to the Druid, who has overridden the natural weather than the Ranger correctly predicted. But if the Ranger is persuading the nature spirits, now we have a challenge to the Druid's domination of the weather.

Similarly, if the Ranger and Barbarian have opposing desires for the weather, who gets the weather they want? Does the other know what that weather will be, or did he predict incorrectly?

Sure, we could play the game in this manner. For me, however, it breaks the suspension of disbelief that a character who is said to "predict" the weather can actually dictate it. Give me the choice of an ability that predicts the weather, as it naturally occurs, and one which influences the weather to my desired outcome, and be clear that they are different abilities. One might be a PC skill, and the other an authorial power granted to the player. Perhaps I, the player, can select the weather, but my character can't even predict it - he's just happy he lucked out and the weather favoured his success.

I've been told over and over again how 3e can do anything. How it's such a great system because it's so versatile.

I think it can do a lot of things. I don't think it can do all of them at the same time, and I think there are a lot of things it is poor at doing. Generally, I find more specific systems are better at their specific target areas, but less suited to broader application. I think 3e is a narrower application of the more versatile d20 system, which I understand does a very good job with the low magic sword & sorcery sub-genre in the Conan RPG. But that RPG does not, if I am correct in my understanding, feature flashy combat mages blasting their foes with fireballs and lightning bolts. Those spells are not appropriate to that setting or subgenre, so they are not present. I believe part of the tradeoff is that, here, magic is much more rare. Characters aren't laden with a dozen magical items, enchanted swords are not purchased wholesale, and the workings of magic are much less widely known. Here, I would expect a Charm Person spell to be one which can be cast surreptitiously, influencing the Chamberlain without the need for hand gestures and forceful speaking of arcane phrases. But it might also have to be cast over a period of days, and require some token to link to the Chamberlain (such as a hair, or a personal belonging).

Can we simulate Middle Earth, Hyperborea or the Forgotten Realms? Sure. But we cannot simulate all three at the same time - they are very different settings, with very different campaign assumptions. How much trouble would Sauron give Elminster? Would Conan need to sneak across Mordor surreptitiously to destroy the One Ring? How would Conan's munane forces fare against the Red Wizards of Thay? Different setting assumptions create a different game with a different feel.

If your interpretation of 3e cannot approximate two of the best known fantasy settings then I really don't want anything to do with your game.

I think it can simulate any of them. I also think they are very different settings, and I would not expect a great story where Conan, Gandalf and Khelben "Blackstaff" Arunson work together to come off consistent with the character of all three characters, and the tone of all three settings, intact. It could work juxtaposing each character against an unfamiliar backdrop in a multi-worlds structure, but dropping Middle Earth and Hyperborea into the Realms and expecting all three to co-exist seems extremely unlikely.

Even by the book RAW 3e posits PC classes as about 1% of the total population. Only one NPC class casts spells and it's much more rare than the others.

1% is a lot. If 1% of our population had the casting abilities of a L1 Adept, how different would our world be? Now assume, say, 1/5 of those adepts are L2 or higher, 1/5 of those L3 or higher, and so on? How different would it have been 100, or 500, years ago, as we roll back modern technology? What percentage of the population needs to own a firearm before we have airport and similar security, and arm peace officers similarly?

3e is a good enough system that it certainly can do lower magic settings and, since it defaults to Greyhawk, it bloody well should. PC's can find spells and magic items because they are PC's. There is nothing inherent in the system which defaults to N'Raac's interpretation.

Emphasis added. I agree with the other two points, but not that one. If we want a low magic setting, PC's become a part of that low magic setting. Spellbooks and magic weapons don't fall at their feet, any more than Conan had gear equivalent to a typical 5th level D&D character. The baseline assumption of the PHB is that there are enough arcane spellcasters out there that any Wizard can easily locate the spells of his choice, and there is a marketplace for the purchase and sale of magical items.

Take a 12th level group of characters, strip out the flashy magic (no wizards, clerics, etc.) and remove access to magic items, or perhaps allow each a single item, perhaps two, of modest power (say, a magic shortsword that glows in the presence of Orcs and a shirt of mail so light it may be worn under normal clothing). How will they do against a typical CR 12 encounter? That's Conan (with an adventuring party) or the Fellowship of the Ring sans Gandalf. The baseline assumptions are different, so we have a very different game, but one with the same basic game system.

Actually, if we want to mirror most fantasy literature, the combat system needs a lot more opportunity for a knockout (rather than a near death bleeding out) result. Characters (not mooks, significant characters) seem to be KO'd a lot more than killed in most fiction, but D&D characters seldom experience a state other than "combatant" or "bleeding out and needs a medic". For that matter, how frequent is magical healing, much less raising the dead, in most fantasy fiction? Many have commented on D&D becoming a genre unto itself, which is probably a fair assessment.

The d20 system can handle it. The basic 3.5 engine can handle it. But the assumptions, and thus the game itself, are very different from those implied by the setting incorporated in the 3.5 rules. We often forget that 3.5 is both a game system and a setting, wrapped together. We can use the same game system with a different setting to very much alter the game itself. But the D&D setting (its gods, spells and frequency of magic) is not Middle Earth or Hyperborea, despite a few elements inspired by each.

Pemerton's approach, to me, also can be effected by a change to the setting, and a more subtle one, that the world bends to the will of more powerful characters. Their actions and desires influence the world around them (whether they know it or not), so a character believing he is predicting the weather may actually be dictating it.

 

[sheadunne]

Pemerton's approach, to me, also can be effected by a change to the setting, and a more subtle one, that the world bends to the will of more powerful characters. Their actions and desires influence the world around them (whether they know it or not), so a character believing he is predicting the weather may actually be dictating it.

I think there is confusion here, at least from my reading. [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] is suggesting that there is no weather predetermined until the roll is made. Thus, when the character rolls his weather sense, why not have the player choose the weather? Clearly there was no forethought on the part of the DM to predetermine the weather, so why not give it to the player to decide, since he did invest resources into a skill (which the DM ignored in his planning) and succeeded on the roll. If he had failed on the roll, the DM would probably use the opposite intention (foul weather instead of sunny skies, etc) as the result of the roll. After all, the weather in most cases is irrelevant to the game, unless it is important to the story, in which case the DM would have it predetermined and the roll would simply indicate the predetermined weather. Shuffling the burden of minute, often unimportant details, onto the shoulders of the players can make the players feel that they have invested wisely in what is most assuredly a 1/1000 chance to actually gain any benefit from the resources of the weather sense skill (although the DM could make the skill an important part of the campaign if s/he so desired, but I have yet to see as a standard in any RPG I've played).

The overall point is that the DM's job is huge, especially when it comes to determining players' investment in resources (skills, feats, ability scores, spells, traits, what have you) and that when the opportunity presents itself (i.e. there is no predetermined result), why not shuffle it off to the players who have invested in the those abilities which the DM may not have paid enough attention to?

No, weather sense does not allow the character to decide the weather, but when the roll succeeds (for fails for the opposite) and no weather has been predetermined by the DM, why not let the player choose the result?

 

[Ahnehnois]

No, weather sense does not allow the character to decide the weather, but when the roll succeeds (for fails for the opposite) and no weather has been predetermined by the DM, why not let the player choose the result?

Because the character can't.

 

[ImperatorK]

Because the character can't.

The character isn't the one choosing, so that's irrelevant.