D&D 5E Fixing the Fighter

[Ahnehnois]

There are whole games based on this sort of parity. 4e is just one example.

It is, however, the only D&D example. And so far, 5e isn't going too far down that road.

There's no obvious problem with that approach to ensuring parity of mechanical effectiveness.

Actually there are a host of obvious problems. Again, if your only goal is to create parity of mechanical effectiveness (implicitly between macro-level character options like classes), then that goal is achieved. However, that is not inherently a goal of creating an rpg, and it certainly isn't the only possible goal.

As others have said, for those of us who use the rules as a window into the game world, and who play the game in order to immerse ourselves in that world, this approach destroys our ability to do that. The game experience created by the rules is separate from the reality in the game world. This is a nonstarter for a lot of people.

I don't follow this. If I'm playing a game of chess, and then have to head off and hand my position over to an onlooker to take up, they inherit my position - it doesn't follow from that that the chess pieces, their position on the board etc are anything but a player resource.

Chess isn't an rpg, so there is no metagame/in-game distinction to reference. However, if one were to pretend that all the pieces were actual characters, their movement abilities are clearly inherent properties of the pieces themselves rather than of the person playing them. A knight moves two spaces and then one in the perpendicular direction regardless of who is moving it or how well they do so.

Of course if you want to use chess is an example, it is a perfect example of why the "all classes must be equal" notion was never a requisite of game design or of achieving game balance to begin with, as the various pieces have different abilities, but chess is clearly a well-balanced game.

 

[Obryn]

For the reasons [MENTION=11821]Obryn[/MENTION] mentioned upthread, I would tend to be careful with this sort of situation in my game. But if it came up, I would narrate something appropriate (see [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s post above, for instance.) The easiest narration for the situation you describe is that the possessed PC steps back, his allies step forward to see what is wrong, and he then cuts them down.

This particular situation really shouldn't be that contentious, because the players rarely narrate that sort of detail of their PC's behaviour. So the GM stipulating it in response to the player of the possessed PC declaring Come and Get It shouldn't be contradicting any player's narration of his/her PC's behaviour.

[MENTION=7635]Remathilis[/MENTION] - a pretty good parallel is a feint in combat. Because D&D combat is so abstract, we don't get down to the, "He drops his left arm and it looks like his side is open; do you try and go for a killing blow?" level. So feinting is a matter of dice rolls of some sort - usually opposed skill rolls - in both 3e and 4e. If a feint is used against a PC successfully, they get tricked, no matter how much the player might not want it to work.

So [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s example is hardly unfair here; it's just an extension of stuff that's already agreed upon at the table. Just instead of a bonus to the enemy's attack roll or combat advantage or whatever, it's getting your character's position moved on the table.

-O

 

[TwoSix]

It is, however, the only D&D example. And so far, 5e isn't going too far down that road.

Well, that's the whole point, right? What is 5e/Next going to support? Will there be metagame and narrative elements present, or will it attempt to make all the rules a simulation?

I think that the broad base of D&D players is fairly conservative (not in the political sense), and prefers that the game as a whole be a process simulation. And I think that's the direction that 5e will go.

Fortunately for me, I have 4e, some heavily houseruled 3e/PF, and 13th Age to tide me over when I skip Next. And I'm confident that someone on the internet will eventually make the 4e/FATE/Burning Wheel mashup I had hoped 5e would approach.

 

[billd91]

Gotcha. I agree with all of that. I'm not sure how it addresses my post though. In 5e Action Resolution terms, what do you think should be the Attack Ability score and what should be the Saving Throw in each of those?

I think in most of those cases, you'd be looking at either Dexterity or Charisma being the better attack stat depending on which specific cases you are judging - is the fake primarily a case of legerdemain or of bogus projection of intent. And in most cases, a Wisdom-based defense would apply to see through the fake or otherwise perceive the true nature of the action. I doubt Strength would be particularly applicable to any of them.

The point I was trying to underline is that all of these cases contrast with something like Come and Get It which can cause targets to act well out of character.

 

[Remathilis]

It's metagame. The ingame narrative explanation - if it matters, which often it doesn't - can be narrated as appropriate.

Yes, it can be done more than once, but it isn't. That's the essence of metagame abilities. Here's an analogue: every successful hit could be a crit, but typically is not, because the required natural 20 (or whatever) is not rolled.

The problem is that magic doesn't work in the same metagame scenario. We can argue that spell slots are a metagame construction (balancing magic's utility by limiting its use) but its explained in game (originally with Vance's "implant magic" method, later with the "mostly cast the spell, finish it later" method). You can argue its unrealistic and poorly thought out (we can argue the merits and flaws of Vancian magic elsewhere) but within the context of the narrative (IE what the characters are thinking) their is an explanation on why its limited.

Fighter: "We're losing! Wizard, throw another fireball!"
Wizard: "I can't! I'm out of prepped magic! Why don't you do that awesome sweeping attack!"
Fighter: "I can't! I'm out of marital encounter powers for the combat!"
Wizard: "...What?!?"

Suppose the game, instead of die rolls, allowed players to declare their d20 rolls, but forbade repeating a number until all 20 had been used: the number of crits would still be limited, even though in principle they are possible on every attack. It's just that the mechanics would allow a player to choose when his/her PC crits. That's how a metagame mechanic works. Martial encounter and daily powers are metagame powers of this sort.

But ideas like this (and things like action points or things like Ace in the Hole) still are invisible to the narrative because it doesn't dictate the action of the fighter or his enemies or allies.

Why is that the moral of the story? There are plenty of rulesets that differentiate PCs and NPCs - for instance, in Over The Edge players get a penalty to attack rolls if they don't narrate an interesting action for their PCs, whereas the GM has no such rule applied to his/her narration of NPC attacks. And in the typical D&D game a PC cannot start as a super-wealthy noble.

What harm are these rules and play approaches doing to the players of these games?

I'm not asking for perfect duality. However, everyone here has answered my question well. CAGI would work on PCs. The PCs would be forced to explain why they rushed their friend (now enemy) and get hit rather than use a spell, shoot an arrow, throw a tanglefoot bag, or just stand there downfounded. Just like I must when the bloodied NPC wizard trying to escape instead turns and rushes the fighter because he used his metagame card.

We can meet in the middle. Obryn has mentioned the idea of fighter's being able to blind, stun, or slow a foe with a strike. That's fine, it can be done as a metagame addition to the normal attack. It could be via spending Expertise Dice, augments a crit, by building ki points that can be expended. I'm just not a fan of martial powers that represent specific techniques or tactics being only usable once per day or every five minutes.

 

[JamesonCourage]

The Pathfinder Bard is the best support class in the game and does its job amazingly well so I don't get where Pathfinder supposedly "hurt" the class. I can tell you that most people on the Paizo website don't agree with the poster so I'm not sure why you say "most" people agree.

I said "a lot" and not "most", and it's because of the duration of the songs. But I didn't say my take on it, because I don't play 3.5 anymore, and I've never played Pathfinder (and probably won't). I get that you like it. That's cool. But I wasn't attacking it. As always, play what you like

 

[Remathilis]

An alternative is to change the mechanics of martial powers so that a character can always choose to use a lower-level encounter power in place of a higher-level encounter power, and a lower-level daily power in place of a higher level daily power (so, in an encounter, a 5th-level fighter could use each of his class encounter powers once, or his 1st-level encounter power twice, and in a day, he could use both of his class daily powers once or his 1st-level daily power twice). There could also be a similar trade-off between daily powers and encounter powers. This flexibility could even be the hallmark of the martial classes.

I argued that back in 2008. Once upon a time, wizards could memorize the same spell more than once and sorcerers knew a small selection of spells they could spam until they're out of spell slots. Even the Bo9S classes refreshed during combat or shortly after. A fighter built around a fatigue pool full of attacks which he could mix and match as he wants until he's out of points (and then he's limited to at-will/basics) would have gone a long way to alleviating my problems with ADEU martials.

 

[Manbearcat]

I doubt Strength would be particularly applicable to any of them.

I do agree that Dexterity (coordination) would definitely be involved here. I also definitely agree that bogus projection of intent would be involved here.

However, a few questions remain for me:

1) Bogus projection of intent on an intimate, drawn-out social scale (a card game, a parlay, a duplicitous action like a double cross, maintaining the veneer of an undercover agent, etc) should definitely fall under the purview of Charisma. There are micro, sensory cues that are being manipulated (facial expressions, extremely subtle postures, mood subterfuge, voice inflection/cadence/tone) and are either empathically read or obtusely ignored/undiscovered. That is definitely Charisma. But what of the instantaneous, non-intimate interchange on the athletic field where people are moving at high speeds, information is conveyed/parsed/processed and decisions are made in micro-seconds (at an unconscious level). Are these athletic interchanges in the same vein as the former; Charisma vs Will? Flick of the Wrist in 3.x was modeled off of Thievery (and therefore Dexterity, hand-speed, coordination in legerdemain etc). I always found that considerably better. One of my PCs had that feat but didn't take combat feint (normal feint was unusable as it was an action economy nightmare).

2) The term "suddeness" is used to describe athletic explosiveness (burst); The ability to leap explosively multiple times, stop and cut on a dime and switch field at full speed and get back to full speed immediately, the quick release of a football/shot (rather than an elongated motion which telegraphs), the ability to get to top speed from a standstill almost immediately. If we could have the granularity, these things would best be modeled by a combination of Strength and Dexterity. However, if we have to use just one (as we tend to have to do in D&D), which ability score would you choose? Should that choice interact with the above scenarios at all?

 

[Argyle King]

The Pathfinder Bard is the best support class in the game and does its job amazingly well so I don't get where Pathfinder supposedly "hurt" the class. I can tell you that most people on the Paizo website don't agree with the poster so I'm not sure why you say "most" people agree.

Personally, I find the PF version of the bard to be not quite as good as the 3.5 version. I belief this because of some changes which are minor (and probably not even noticed by many people,) but some of those minor changes are things I notice the most when playing the class. In a game where the other classes were changed in a way which made those other classes better, it is more noticeable when one class was made less better.

I'm sure that are people who disagree with me. It wouldn't surprise me at all to find that there are. I can only speak for myself.

 

[Obryn]

The problem is that magic doesn't work in the same metagame scenario. We can argue that spell slots are a metagame construction (balancing magic's utility by limiting its use) but its explained in game (originally with Vance's "implant magic" method, later with the "mostly cast the spell, finish it later" method). You can argue its unrealistic and poorly thought out (we can argue the merits and flaws of Vancian magic elsewhere) but within the context of the narrative (IE what the characters are thinking) their is an explanation on why its limited.

Fighter: "We're losing! Wizard, throw another fireball!"
Wizard: "I can't! I'm out of prepped magic! Why don't you do that awesome sweeping attack!"
Fighter: "I can't! I'm out of marital encounter powers for the combat!"
Wizard: "...What?!?"

Well, you can flip this around just as easily.

Wizard: "I am trying, but the arcane forces are resisting my grasp! My conduits to the Elemental Planes are frayed!" (In other words, make the in-game spell slots a primarily metagame mechanic like the Fighter's powers.)

Fighter: "I am trying, but these guys are on to my tricks!" or "I'm doing my best, but I'm wearing down!"

In other words - if you pick a ridiculous explanation, it shouldn't be a surprise that it will sound ridiculous.

-O