Flying Fighters and Other Stories of Dependence, Independence and Interdependence

[Underman]

A barbarian wanders the lands, slaying all who oppose him, conquering all obstacles. He is self-sufficient. He needs no one. He is independent.

One fateful day, a shadow assassin stings him with a poison dart. As the poison inevitably heads towards his still beating heart, he hurries for help and collapses at the door of a medicine man's hut. His fate is now dependent on another.

Fast forward to a brush with a flying dragon raining fire from the skies. Nobody is compelling him to destroy the dragon, so he's still fully self-reliant; he can flee, or hide and wait it out, dependent on no one for survival.

If he chooses to kill the wyrm, he may need to quest for dragon-slaying arrows or a potion of flying (dependent on equipment) or he may need to climb a tree and leap to the dragon's back but only if the terrain is advantageous that way (dependent on the environment) or he may seek out the dragon's lair and kill it on his own terms (dependent on good timing and clever tactics).

He may also seek out his wizard friend to help slay the dragon. The barbarian on his own may find it rather difficult to kill the dragon under all but certain circumstances. The wizard on his own may find it rather difficult (or swingy/unpredictable/dangerous) to try to kill the dragon at all. Together, however, they can kill the dragon under most circumstances. That interdependency may swing quite often depending on the situation. They also have rather different skill sets that synergise together. For example, the wizard can teleport into a dungeon alone, and be killed almost immediately. The barbarian is robust enough to wade through much of the dungeon on his own wits and grit, but it takes him a week of running to get to the dungeon. Together, the barbarian and wizard can teleport to the dungeon and kill and take everyone's stuff. The barbarian can bash doors that get in their way but not thru force walls. The wizard can't bash doors but can dispel force walls. And so forth.

Thus the barbarian and the wizard are interdependent. Change the scope again and they may be completely independent of each other. Should they face something as epic as a titan or something as specialized as a sailing contest, then even together, they are dependent on the deus ex machina coming to their aid.

In another story altogether, the barbarian is always self-reliant, dependant on no one, needs no one for healing any wound he suffers, can jump 100 feet into the air to kill flying dragons, can run anywhere in the world within 24 hours, and can cut through force walls. If he joins with the wizard, they are not interdependent in the context that their skill sets overlap almost completely and can accomplish the same tasks in different ways with effectively the same result.

I believe that most (not all, but a significant majority of) traditional fantasy has a rich tradition of emphasizing interdependency, not independency. I believe the D&D genre has often does the same. Personally, I would like to see D&D Next mechanics that encourage the same -- not to the extent that classes are unbalanced or anything blasphemous like that, but to the extent that the differences between PCs are respected and complementary. I love the depth of synergy and interdependence. Independence is fine for solo adventures; otherwise it bores me.

In your ideal version of D&D Next, how interdependent or independent are your PCs? All the time or within certain scopes? Do you expect to make tactical decisions (if/when/where/how to face an encounter) to change their inter/dependency? How responsible is the DM for setting up scenarios that encourage or discourage interdependency?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Well, my main editions of D&D were 3E and 4E. And in 3E, I don't see such a big need the Wizard to need a Fighter or Barbarian to kill a Dragon.

But I also think the whole thing about Fighter's needing to fly to deal with Wizard is just a side topic that got a bit more attention then my real issues, at least.
Just as too much focus is spend to come up with excuess why a party can't do a 15 minute adventuring day, ignoring the situations where the 15 minute adventuring day is a story necessity or at least a reasonable strategy.
The real problem is that when a 15 minute adventuring day occurs, the casters have a clear advantage and will contribute more to the party's efforts than the non-casters, and that is simply because casters havce tons of daily limited resources and non-casters don't. Balance the types of resources available to both classes, and you avoid the problem.

 

[WarlockLord]

So what happens when you get a bunch of guys together and they say "Fighters are cool. Let's all be Fighters?"

And it's not just wizards. It's a large cross-section of high-level monsters such as dragons and outsiders.

If you want to say that PCs should need each other, that's fine...but then we go back to the "well, we need a healer. Someone's got to play a cleric." Or, for your example in the other thread:

"The sorrowsworn are just going to drop giant rocks on us, we need a wizard to cast fly."

 

[TwinBahamut]

Interdependency is indeed the ideal. That's why the 4E role system works so well and should be continued forward into the future. 4E was a great game for this kind of thing.

That said, a lot of the examples in the opening post are not quite what I'd call the ideal. Needing a leader is fine. Needing a cleric is not. Needing to scrounge up a way to deal with a powerful dragon is good. Having to rely on a wizard's fly spell is not. Particularly when "the wizard needs the barbarian" was simply not true at all for the editions of D&D where "scry, teleport, cast fly spells, and deal with wall of force" was the wizard's big thing. A wizard who can do all of that doesn't need anyone else unless he's being wasteful, and a party that needs a wizard to do everything for them is crippled and utterly dependent, not independent. I'd much rather see a party that needs to fly rely on a fighter's pegasus mount to carry them than a wizard's fly spell, anyways.

 

[Minigiant]

The best way to do interdependency is to determine what features are desired and have many ways to do it while at the same time not letting every character able to do them all easily.

For example: long term flight

Learn the Overland Fight spell
Craft a magical flight item
Rear and train a flying mount

Some characters can do one of the above, other characters can't. But thoses who can, sacrifice their ability to do something else.

 

[Tuft]

Played in a 3E and a 4E campaign In parallell.

In the 3E campaign I played a buffing support sorcerer together with a swashbuckler, a druid and a ranger. Support was freely given and accepted, and the characters felt nicely interdepentent, with nobody domineering over the others, all the way up to 20+.

In the 4E campaign I played a bard along with a swordmage, a fighter, and a rogue (even the rogue!). The players were fiercely independent and my bard felt completely superfluous. The players were good optimizers and all noted that it was easier to optimize defense over damage in 4E. They preferred to trigger their surges themselves through magic items rather than accept healing, and the rogue even prefered to use powers to gain combat advantage rather than the ignominy of accepting flanking from my character. I hardly gave out any healing at all through the last Epic part of the campaign. The fighter totally domineered, both defensively and in damage dealt (I ran statistics in excel to keep track).

Anecdotal evidence, sure, but just showing that your mileage may vary, depending on the players involved.

 

[FireLance]

I like PCs to be independent in the sense that individually, they can do anything (though not necessarily in the same way).

I like PCs to be interdependent in the sense that when they work together, they can do everything better.

 

[Tony Vargas]

So what happens when you get a bunch of guys together and they say "Fighters are cool. Let's all be Fighters?"

If you want to say that PCs should need each other, that's fine...but then we go back to the "well, we need a healer. Someone's got to play a cleric."

If a Source (or class, and in some eds, the Fighter is alone in representing the martial source, anyway) can cover each role, so that all players can play similar archetypes - all weapon-wielding martial characters; all wielders of arcane power; all servants of the gods; whatever - then you can have inter dependency within the party, and still have each player able to play about what they want. The all-"Fighter" party can have healing if the Warlord is available.

5e seems determined to put roles back behind the curtain, but, if they do deliver on Themes and class variations that let a given class cover several roles, having parties with a common source or related archetypes that are still interdependent might be possible, given sufficient system mastery and coordination among the players.

 

[Elf Witch]

One of the issues I have run in with players is that a lot of them want to be John McClain or Conan which leads to a problem those characters for the most part are the star they may have side kicks but they are the lone wolf who beats the odds.

In DnD since it is a team game where everyone wants to be the star this can be a major issue. I remember one player who does not play any longer getting upset over the fact he could not be great with magic, great with a sword and have a ton of knowledge skills.

When I explained that he could multiclass he was still not happy because in his eyes his character would never be as good as a straight fighter or a straight wizard. I then said ok while you are being so good at all these things what are the rest of the players supposed to be doing.

The way DnD has chosen to handle that issue is to try and give each a niche. The issue then comes in with some people feeling that some characters are better more powerful then others. Then they want to fix it usually by either making one class less powerful or making another class more powerful.

Of course one of the major issue that we can't agree that A the issue is a bad as some say it is B how to fix it even if we agree and C some of it can't be fixed.

A lot of this rests on the DM shoulders he needs to make encounters that include his entire party, Some rests on the players to make an effort to make everyone play at the table fun and some rest of the designers to try make as balanced game as possible.

Another issue is what do you do if you don't have a niche covered. This is a big one if the party wants to play all fighters then you are lacking, skill monkeys, healing and magic. One solution people have which I admit I detest is make all class the same with the same abilities.

What a lot of DMs do is provide what the party needs with items or party NPCs.

Another way is to provide options and advice on how to run a game of all fighters or all wizards or whatever.

 

[Hussar]

I think there is a good point being made here.

How is the wizard, in the OP dependent on the barbarian? After all, the only thing the barbarian brings to the table is the ability to deal damage. That's it. Nothing more. Well, there are a thousand different ways for a wizard to deal damage and still be able to cast long term travel spells.

At lower levels, sure, the wizard needs the barbarian. But, isn't that the basic point behind the way casters were "balanced"? Weak at low levels, super strong at high levels? Well, if you are super strong, that means you're no longer in need of anyone else.

But, at no point is the barbarian not dependent on the wizard.

So, at some points in the game, you have dependence, but, at other points, you don't. It's those other points that are being objected to.