Melodrama, Minds and Muscles?

[kibbitz]

Just a quick question for GMs and players, since I'm wondering what's it like in games these days.

For GMs :
How often do you guys allow your players (if ever) to flex their muscles on low level mooks and easy challenges? Like having Fighters Whirlwind Attack their way through hordes of low level mooks, Wizards/Sorcerors toasting said hordes, etc? Wondering if you guys think it's fun to let your players exercise their powers in such ways occasionally and whether you guys think it's actually cool to do so.

For Players :
What would you consider something cool you'd wish to be able to do now and then in your game (and why)? I haven't played in ages, so forgive the poor examples: -

Defeating an opponent of equal or greater stature in a titanic battle, preferably in a duel

Solving a particular puzzling mystery, courtesy of your GM

Mowing down hordes of mooks

 

[hong]

Just a quick question for GMs and players, since I'm wondering what's it like in games these days.

For GMs :
How often do you guys allow your players (if ever) to flex their muscles on low level mooks and easy challenges?

All the time. IMC, in the last few sessions the 8th level party has been cutting their way through hordes of orcs and other mooks. I think their tally is now up to around 250-300, in four sessions. But then I've never had an aversion to epic violence in my game.

Mind you, I also mix in the hordes of mooks with a few tougher encounters. In fact, the archer in the group has just lost an arm to an advanced chaos beast (it was the only way to keep its transformation ability from turning her into a puddle). Having only mook hordes is boring, but having only super-tough encounters is also boring. Variety is the key, IMO.

Edit: Now I think of it, I really could use some mass combat rules.

 

[R.T.]

Here's some of my "coolest" moments (the moments the whole party participated in and often still talk about years later):

1. Slashing straight through a horde of hobgoblins. In in-game time, we destroyed about two dozen of them in only 15 seconds (we were about 3rd level then). Being able to do this every once in a while is great fun. Two nights ago, we had a similar situation with a hordebreaker mowing through orc ranks (BTW, those orcs were besieging Red Larch, and they only got strong enough to do so because we killed those hobgoblins (their main competitors in the area) so long ago )

2. Narrowly killing a troll singlehandedly as a 3rd-level character (back in AD&D 2nd Ed with a berserking Priest of Tempus).

3. Two nights ago, when my recently created 2nd-level halfling rogue/sorcerer killed a giant with one single arrow (after my team members had hacked away at it for several rounds and I was losing time casting spells like shield and true strike )

Yeah, I think a bit of power-play now and then is fun. You get to hack away at weak enemies, and your DM doesn't have to worry about the XP afterwards. A nice classic, of course, is the bare-knuckled bar fight. Always good for a few laughs.

 

[dave_o]

Hong, check this out.

http://www.farlandcampaign.homestead.com/battle.html

It's a way rad set of mass combat rules that I use. It's got some feats specific to the rules, too, but I don't use them.

It even comes with a nice, free program to do all the calculations for you.

 

[Delemental]

I kind of wish our group would have something like this happen. The GM who ran the majority of our games until recently had a bad case of "evil kung-fu master syndrome" - his major bad guys were almost always loners. Unfortunately, no matter how big and bad you are, getting ganged up on by 6-7 well-armed and clever PCs makes for very anti-climatic encounters. We even asked our GM directly to include more multiple-foe combats, with little success.

Our current GM is better at having multiple foes. Unfortunately, one of the players has created a character designed for killing multiple opponents (Frenzied Berserker with Great Cleave and Power Attack), which means that he frequently wades into the middle of the mob and goes into puree mode. Though this tactic is easily overcome, I think the GM fears that an encounter designed to challenge this character would annihilate the rest of us (the group currently has no cleric, BTW).

Though I mostly game for roleplaying and character development, I admit to enjoying a good fight. I define a good fight as one that takes everything you have to win it. Either because the enemy is so numerous that they seem endless, or because the enemy is as clever and well-prepared as you are, or slightly more so. I rarely find satisfaction in the aforementioned 'BBEG vs the party' encounters.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Kewl... I get to answer both parts!

Just a quick question for GMs and players, since I'm wondering what's it like in games these days.

For GMs :
How often do you guys allow your players (if ever) to flex their muscles on low level mooks and easy challenges? Like having Fighters Whirlwind Attack their way through hordes of low level mooks, Wizards/Sorcerors toasting said hordes, etc? Wondering if you guys think it's fun to let your players exercise their powers in such ways occasionally and whether you guys think it's actually cool to do so.

More so for combat-types than spell casters. For casters, I much prefer setting up games that are more geared towards problem solving. Of course, I don't use Clerics, so cast-and-hack types don't occur often.

For Players :
What would you consider something cool you'd wish to be able to do now and then in your game (and why)? I haven't played in ages, so forgive the poor examples: -

Defeating an opponent of equal or greater stature in a titanic battle, preferably in a duel

Solving a particular puzzling mystery, courtesy of your GM

Mowing down hordes of mooks

In the Oathbound game I play in, my character is one of divided purpose. All around, he's a veteran soldier (several Fighter levels). However, his upbringing is that of a healer and herbalist (using Bastion's A&A rules and a level of Sorcerer). In addition, over time, he's found himself quite skilled as a blade-for-hire (GR's Assassin class). So, as a Player, I much prefer the first two, as they most fit my character type and the RP he's geared for, while the last is still welcome since this is part of his primary "trade" as a wondering soldier.

 

[kibbitz]

Thanks for the response, guys. Sometimes after reading the threads around the boards, it almost feels like every encounter run these days requires a heavy dose of tactics and whatnot. Not that I don't agree with the use of brains, but with this being a high fantasy RPG, I'd think there'd be a little more mook-mowing just for fun and all that.

hong:
Yikes! So what's the archer going to do, assuming (s)he hasn't found a way to get past that loss of limb already?

R.T.:
Sadly, I was young at that time and I've no encounters with literature with bar brawls then, so I've never had one

Delemental:
Well, when it comes to good fights, I'd like to allow some muscle-flexing with lots of personal duels too (but then again, I'm kinda partial to those superhero comics where they take out tons of mooks). I generally don't like many PCs on one BBEG situations, and when I used them, it was kinda like, well, the National Guard vs Godzilla I share your notion of a good fight, though I always leave those fights for the final battle.

BTW, proper evil kungfu masters always have flunkies and henchmen, and usually fight out a duel with no more than two heroes at a time From all the shows, comics and stories I grew up with, they usually get slaughtered once the whole party shows up, unless it's anime (but then again, a lot of anime has Godzilla syndrome, so no biggie)

Bendris Noulg:
Well, for casters, I used to like spell duels, but 3E would probably require a small amount of tweaking for the counterspelling and whatnot, I think. Maybe we were young back then, no one was really fond of puzzle-solving.

Your character sounds interesting, makes me wonder if you're suffering huge XP penalties though

Edit:
Now after reading that thread about the Wizard spell nerf stuff and some of the combat examples, I'm starting to be freaked out on the tactics bit The feats and gear I can still see somewhat, the bits like casting Endurance to up Constitution to up HP temporarily.... whoah! I feel so horribly out-dated

 

[The_Gneech]

I tried to set up a mook-mowing session last time I ran ... a party of 6th to 8th level toughies, so I put them in a hut in the woods being assaulted on all sides by about forty out-of-the-box orc warriors (armed with scimitars instead of axes, no less), combined with a handful of rock-tossing trolls that were trying to smash the hut, and a few other assorted baddies ... with one archer assassin type sniping from the woods.

Keep in mind, the group's ranger is an archery specialist and has orcs as his favored enemy.

So here's what I was figuring on: the ranger, using rapid shot, takes down 2-3 orcs per turn, while the wizard uses her fire and acid magic on the trolls. Sounds like great "blast 'em to bits!" fun, right?

No such luck. The ranger, for reasons I have not been able to comprehend yet, completely ignores the orcs and starts shooting (mundane arrows) at the trolls ... meaning the wizard has to start blowing her spells on the orcs, who are scattered around such that her fireballs and the like only catch five at the most.

In short order, the trolls' rocks smash the hut and they charge in, so what does the ranger do? He pulls out his sword and engages them in melee! Meanwhile, the wizard has used up all her big bangs and is running away from the various monsters chasing her.

Eventually, they managed to win, by using a grease spell to slide one troll into the hut's fire (as in, it was three a.m., I wanted the combat over, I was ready to let anything work!), and meleeing the other one 'til it collapsed, and tossing it unconscious onto the burning mass of the other one.

(There was a fighter and a monk/cleric involved as well, but they were generally taken up fighting the supplemental baddies most of the time. The primary action was the ranger and the wizard.)

Occasionally, I am surprised by the players' brilliance -- but sometimes, I find myself scratching my head and wondering what they're thinking. "Guys! This was a GIVEAWAY!"

-The Gneech

 

[kibbitz]

I tried to set up a mook-mowing session last time I ran ... a party of 6th to 8th level toughies, so I put them in a hut in the woods being assaulted on all sides by about forty out-of-the-box orc warriors (armed with scimitars instead of axes, no less), combined with a handful of rock-tossing trolls that were trying to smash the hut, and a few other assorted baddies ... with one archer assassin type sniping from the woods.

---snip---

Occasionally, I am surprised by the players' brilliance -- but sometimes, I find myself scratching my head and wondering what they're thinking. "Guys! This was a GIVEAWAY!"

-The Gneech

Heehee, love that Grease bit Oh well, things usually don't go as planned usually, heh. Did you ever talk to the players with the Ranger and Wizard to get some insight?

 

[EricNoah]

I've found the opposite to be true -- my guys don't seem to enjoy battling the little guys. These are the fights where it takes more time to roll initiative than it does to actually play out the battle. As a compromise, if we get into a situation like that again we're going to skip rolling initiative and just have a "default order" based on initiative bonuses for stuff like that. But overall my group seems to enjoy a nice mix of a big bad guy, some interesting allies, and some odd terrain.