Unearthed Arcana Light, Dark, Underdark - November's Unearthed Arcana

Interesting stuff.

 

[Kithas]

My real only issue with tunnel fighter is that it kills design space by being unlimited. If released as it currently is it would severely limit the kinds and power level of reactions that count as opportunity attacks. Now they've already set a small precedent with Polearm master that they can and have added to the basic type of opportunity attack(I think they shouldn't have but that's me). That means they wanted that design space open. This fighting style effectively closes it again, because any time they look to make a new AoO option they have to evaluate it with the question; "What about tunnel fighter and using it 20 times in one turn?" There isn't much that is okay with that parameter that I would also be excited to use as a player.

 

[Serpine]

My real only issue with tunnel fighter is that it kills design space by being unlimited. If released as it currently is it would severely limit the kinds and power level of reactions that count as opportunity attacks.

So from solution perspective what approach would you find more viable for making this a functional fighting style?

1) Limit type of opportunity attacks TF can respond to (i.e. only those against targets in 5' that are attempting to leave your reach).

2) Limit number of opportunity attacks TF can respond to (i.e. dexterity bonus).

3) Environmental limitation (i.e. has to be done within a certain distance of a wall).

4) Something else.

5) Combination of the above.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

You must be new to D&D. I don't mean that as an insult. The way I described it was pretty much status quo for the first 25 years of D&D, and still is the way a whole lot of people play. It's the entire premise behind what's called "a living world"

I played a larp in 1995, and some rifts the end of that year and beginning of the next. It was summer vacation 1996 that I bought a boxset of D&D, and I actually ran it before playing it. I have also run a weekly game since 2000...

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Just a side note: Actual "terminal velocity" requires a fall of about 5 times that height and 15 seconds. D&D's 200 foot fall damage cap has never made much sense unless you assume fantasy settings have low gravity and very thick air (which I guess could explain something about dragons).

opps... that's a science fail on my part... I just meant 20d6 max

 

[Kithas]

So from solution perspective what approach would you find more viable for making this a functional fighting style?

1) Limit type of opportunity attacks TF can respond to (i.e. only those against targets in 5' that are attempting to leave your reach).

2) Limit number of opportunity attacks TF can respond to (i.e. dexterity bonus).

3) Environmental limitation (i.e. has to be done within a certain distance of a wall).

4) Something else.

5) Combination of the above.

Personally I wouldn't have made polearm master's reaction be an opportunity attack, it ties it too closely with a core mechanic and makes it hard to balance things...

That said as it stands any of your options except the terrain(too limiting and hokey) I would be ok with. Limiting it to say 2-3 opp attacks instead of one is still incredibly powerful but not nearly as limiting. You could tie it to your dex/str/con score, your prof bonus, basically anything but unlimited (below 6~) and Im happy.

 

[Sacrosanct]

And a living world doesn't mean you let the players unwittingly roll into the end of the game. .

Yeah, it means exactly that. The world, and all it's inhabitants, go on doing whatever they would normally do, regardless of what level the PCs are or what they are doing unless it happens to directly impact that inhabitant. So when I create a game world and there's a dragon living in those mountains, it's there regardless if the PCs are level 1 or level 20 when they decide to go into its lair.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I played a larp in 1995, and some rifts the end of that year and beginning of the next. It was summer vacation 1996 that I bought a boxset of D&D, and I actually ran it before playing it. I have also run a weekly game since 2000...

Then either you didn't read the rules of the box set you bought, or you did read advice like that and didn't remember it. Either way, it was the norm to advise DMs to run a living world in AD&D, and to be impartial.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Then either you didn't read the rules of the box set you bought, or you did read advice like that and didn't remember it. Either way, it was the norm to advise DMs to run a living world in AD&D, and to be impartial.

I went back to find it, and since I used the adventure back not to long ago in 4e, I had one of the 3 books. It introduces the town of freedale, and the high wizard Neithrel. It has a level 1 adventure, then a level 2 adventure (not so well written in hindsight) and then a level of a dungeon populated by level 2 threats, and a 1 page right up on a level 2 of that dungeon with some level 2 threats and level 3 ones. then a blank page to make your own.

The advice it gives is the opposite of yours, it suggest I not even mention the 2nd adventure sight or show the overland map that has it until after the first adventure, then it goes on to suggest I run a random encounter before it too. SO the PCs have enough XP for the house on the haunted hill. Then it tells me when placing monsters in dungeons (like the one in the 3rd adventure) to set them up so tougher monsters are at lower floors so the PCs face easier to harder as they level up.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I went back to find it, and since I used the adventure back not to long ago in 4e, I had one of the 3 books. It introduces the town of freedale, and the high wizard Neithrel. It has a level 1 adventure, then a level 2 adventure (not so well written in hindsight) and then a level of a dungeon populated by level 2 threats, and a 1 page right up on a level 2 of that dungeon with some level 2 threats and level 3 ones. then a blank page to make your own.

The advice it gives is the opposite of yours, it suggest I not even mention the 2nd adventure sight or show the overland map that has it until after the first adventure, then it goes on to suggest I run a random encounter before it too. SO the PCs have enough XP for the house on the haunted hill. Then it tells me when placing monsters in dungeons (like the one in the 3rd adventure) to set them up so tougher monsters are at lower floors so the PCs face easier to harder as they level up.

That's for initial set up. However, if the players decide to go off script and go somewhere where there's a tougher monster right away, being impartial means that you don't suddenly change everything to cater to what they do. It means you run the adventure impartially. And I'm here to tell you, from 1e all the way up to 2e, from the DMG, to supplements (like Creative Campaigning) to articles, it was considered the norm to be an impartial DM. So if you never saw that and you played 2e, then you much have had a very limited exposure. I can't speak for advice for 3e or 4e because I don't play those versions. If those versions flipped this advice on its head and instead advised that the DM should always change encounters, regardless of what the PCs do, to be beatable by the PCs, then I'd consider that horrible advice. I said it before, and I'll say it again. To play a game where I know that I can beat every encounter I'd ever meet would make an incredibly boring game to me. Takes all the risk out of it. Takes all the unknowns out of it.

A victory handed to you is no victory at all.

BTW, what boxed set was it?

 

[Remathilis]

I went back to find it, and since I used the adventure back not to long ago in 4e, I had one of the 3 books. It introduces the town of freedale, and the high wizard Neithrel. It has a level 1 adventure, then a level 2 adventure (not so well written in hindsight) and then a level of a dungeon populated by level 2 threats, and a 1 page right up on a level 2 of that dungeon with some level 2 threats and level 3 ones. then a blank page to make your own.

The advice it gives is the opposite of yours, it suggest I not even mention the 2nd adventure sight or show the overland map that has it until after the first adventure, then it goes on to suggest I run a random encounter before it too. SO the PCs have enough XP for the house on the haunted hill. Then it tells me when placing monsters in dungeons (like the one in the 3rd adventure) to set them up so tougher monsters are at lower floors so the PCs face easier to harder as they level up.

I owned that. It was the First Quest 2e box set, and I can agree that it did assume expanding challenges matched PC advancement. I've always run more or less like that (with some unique deviations) because I opt for the PCs are the protagonists, not merely tourists.