D&D 5E Merlin and Arthur or Batman and zatana

[Fanaelialae]

I don’t say the fighter is fine for everybody, I say the DM can assign a DC according to the general rule: « adapt the game to your need ». Considering millions of players and multiple play style, the balance you ask and wait for many years may never happen even if hundred of posters ask for it from here.

It might not. Of course, given the revision, it also might. I don't necessarily think it will, but I hold out hope that the revision will improve the fighter. I don't expect that the fighter will be 100% the wizard's equal in every respect, but I do genuinely hope that the designers narrow the gap between the two.

You're referring to table balance, but I (and I think most of us in this thread) are discussing class balance. Table balance will vary from table to table, but (barring house rules that modify the class design) class balance will remain fairly consistent across tables. I get what you're saying, but it's not what I'm talking about. If you have good class balance, then you don't need to use table balance to narrow the gap. That's why class balance is important and distinct from table balance.

 

[Krachek]

It might not. Of course, given the revision, it also might. I don't necessarily think it will, but I hold out hope that the revision will improve the fighter. I don't expect that the fighter will be 100% the wizard's equal in every respect, but I do genuinely hope that the designers narrow the gap between the two.

You're referring to table balance, but I (and I think most of us in this thread) are discussing class balance. Table balance will vary from table to table, but (barring house rules that modify the class design) class balance will remain fairly consistent across tables. I get what you're saying, but it's not what I'm talking about. If you have good class balance, then you don't need to use table balance to narrow the gap. That's why class balance is important and distinct from table balance.

DnD is sold more and more as a social and entertainment experience.
The game attract more different type of people, that we can’t qualify as gamers.
Can the game offer classes for people who don’t want to manage options and even want the responsibility to have narrative or strategic impact?

in that sense I would keep fighter as it is, including the champion! but I would add the Warlord, a more strategic class, with options, choice, impact on various level of play.
A magical blaster can be nice too, the complexity of a fighter champion, but with magical damage!

We can seek to make classes offer the same challenge and gaming experience, what was done perfectly in 4ed.
But if the game attract more diverse people around the table we can seek to make classes tools for more natural role in a team work. we can be inspired by various research on this.

 

[Fanaelialae]

DnD is sold more and more as a social and entertainment experience.
The game attract more different type of people, that we can’t qualify as gamers.
Can the game offer classes for people who don’t want to manage options and even want the responsibility to have narrative or strategic impact?

in that sense I would keep fighter as it is, including the champion! but I would add the Warlord, a more strategic class, with options, choice, impact on various level of play.

Sure. Personally, I would improve the fighter while introducing a new simple class like the 4e Slayer (which was a fighter that just focused on dealing big damage and not much else). But that's a relatively unimportant distinction.

Heck, I think that a basic class for all of the big 4 archetypes (warrior, rogue, priest, and mage) would be a good idea. If someone doesn't "want to manage options or having responsibility to have narrative or strategic impact" why can't they play a magic user? I'm sure there are folks out there who would like to heal or chuck fireballs without having to understand the somewhat confusing D&D spellcasting system.

I think that not everyone who wants to play the martial fantasy wants to play a character with few choices and little impact. Not everyone who wants to play a spellcaster wants a complicated class with high impact. Unfortunately, the solution in many editions has been to force players who want a simple character to play a martial, while those who want more options are driven by the design to play spellcasters. Which, when you think about it, isn't a very elegant solution at all.

 

[Garthanos]

4e rituals were quite discrete in terms of both their requirements and effects.

Perhaps there are exceptions I mean what does a ward against getting dirty do exactly LOL?
OK the core of a particular ritual might pretty well defined, but what those effects could be? and design parameters limiting its nature is pretty open, and changing them can be world defining. It is not like combat spells where the kinds of triggers and conditions and explicit effects are narrowed down by other systemic elements. Want a ritual to only work at day break on the summer solstice go ahead... make my day. Want it to ahem create an affliction which causes your adversary at court to be constantly affected by dirt and grime every time they turn around... LOL it seems within bounds.

Just because one could extend them beyond the listed effect with DM fiat, doesn't change that fact.

i probably just like it because of what it says about skills more than what it says about rituals (yes you are probably right). I think that since it actually recommends such modification as a possible application of skill (which itself always has some dm input) this makes your arcana skill an implicit metamagic. It is another example of 4e skills allowed to be very powerful

At a certain point, any open ended RPG like D&D is going to require some fiat. You can't possibly handle everything anyone could possibly think of with bespoke rules (such a hypothetical rulebook would make the Encyclopedia Britannica look like a terse note by comparison).

People use that as a reason/excuse for skills having very few clues about what they can accomplish...

 

[Garthanos]

I think that not everyone who wants to play the martial fantasy wants to play a character with few choices and little impact.

Or even abilities that effectively stall at level 3, but that seems to be what we are offered.

 

[Chaosmancer]

If the DM allow the fighter to slice boulder, he set a DC.
And even more, the angry fighter want to cross a Wall of force, why not set a DC to allow that.

Fanaelialae pointed out one issue already, but there is a second. Rules text doesn't allow for the Wall of Force exploit. Wall of Force is a spell, and spells do what they say. It is immune to damage, it cannot be crossed, and it cannot be moved. There is no "set the DC" because the rules say that they simply cannot do it.

But, more to the point, the class design can't improve if the entire solution is to have DMs set personal table rules that allow for these things. It essentially means that the martial characters are entirely inconsistent table to table, some will set a DC 20 to slice stone, others will say it is impossible for a steel sword to cut stone, and so they will just say the warrior ruins their weapon in the attempt. I don't want to just slice boulders, I want the class designed in such a way that at higher levels, at a minim by levels 13 and higher, the martials stop being "just people" and become something more.

As another example, when I did my big rewrite of all the classes, I looked at the Champion's Remarkable athlete. It didn't feel very remarkable, so I added a fun little quirk, when they jump the number of feet they can jump increases by their Strength score. This means that a 20 strength fighter can leap 40 ft with a running start, or leap to the top of a thirty foot building. This is crazy right? No normal person can do this... well, they aren't a normal person. They can run and jump OVER a squad of enemies to get to the target in the back. It is remarkable. And they can actually go even further with a check, though I'd have to pull back up my numbers to figure out their max distance.

For the base class, I can't give flight, or teleportation and those powers don't make sense for all subclasses anyways, but if I am limited to only allowing them to interact in the physical world, then I need them to break physics, they need to be BEYOND what can be done.

 

[Chaosmancer]

DnD is sold more and more as a social and entertainment experience.
The game attract more different type of people, that we can’t qualify as gamers.
Can the game offer classes for people who don’t want to manage options and even want the responsibility to have narrative or strategic impact?

in that sense I would keep fighter as it is, including the champion! but I would add the Warlord, a more strategic class, with options, choice, impact on various level of play.
A magical blaster can be nice too, the complexity of a fighter champion, but with magical damage!

We can seek to make classes offer the same challenge and gaming experience, what was done perfectly in 4ed.
But if the game attract more diverse people around the table we can seek to make classes tools for more natural role in a team work. we can be inspired by various research on this.

I think you are confusing impact with complexity.

I recently started a game where I had altered the strength system for lifting and such. I told the player with the Goliath that, because of their strength score and their little giant ability, they were strong enough to rip a tree out of the ground and swing it. They can pick up a small car.

This isn't a complicated ability, there isn't a bunch of rules to it, but they instantly started utilizing that extreme strength. They wanted to show they were upset with a bar, so they ripped the door from the hinges. They wanted to intimidate someone, so they shattered a countertop "by accident". Sure, this doesn't apply to countering things like fly or detect thoughts, but it still gives them something the wizard just can't do right now.

You can interact with the exploration and social pillars in impactful ways WITHOUT making a complicated system. In fact, a simple system is far more powerful, because it has fewer limits.

 

[Haplo781]

Fanaelialae pointed out one issue already, but there is a second. Rules text doesn't allow for the Wall of Force exploit. Wall of Force is a spell, and spells do what they say. It is immune to damage, it cannot be crossed, and it cannot be moved. There is no "set the DC" because the rules say that they simply cannot do it.

But, more to the point, the class design can't improve if the entire solution is to have DMs set personal table rules that allow for these things. It essentially means that the martial characters are entirely inconsistent table to table, some will set a DC 20 to slice stone, others will say it is impossible for a steel sword to cut stone, and so they will just say the warrior ruins their weapon in the attempt. I don't want to just slice boulders, I want the class designed in such a way that at higher levels, at a minim by levels 13 and higher, the martials stop being "just people" and become something more.

As another example, when I did my big rewrite of all the classes, I looked at the Champion's Remarkable athlete. It didn't feel very remarkable, so I added a fun little quirk, when they jump the number of feet they can jump increases by their Strength score. This means that a 20 strength fighter can leap 40 ft with a running start, or leap to the top of a thirty foot building. This is crazy right? No normal person can do this... well, they aren't a normal person. They can run and jump OVER a squad of enemies to get to the target in the back. It is remarkable. And they can actually go even further with a check, though I'd have to pull back up my numbers to figure out their max distance.

For the base class, I can't give flight, or teleportation and those powers don't make sense for all subclasses anyways, but if I am limited to only allowing them to interact in the physical world, then I need them to break physics, they need to be BEYOND what can be done.

High level fighters should be essentially Golden Age Superman... "Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, impervious to anything less than a bursting shell against his skin."

 

[Krachek]

Fanaelialae pointed out one issue already, but there is a second. Rules text doesn't allow for the Wall of Force exploit. Wall of Force is a spell, and spells do what they say. It is immune to damage, it cannot be crossed, and it cannot be moved. There is no "set the DC" because the rules say that they simply cannot do it.

But, more to the point, the class design can't improve if the entire solution is to have DMs set personal table rules that allow for these things. It essentially means that the martial characters are entirely inconsistent table to table, some will set a DC 20 to slice stone, others will say it is impossible for a steel sword to cut stone, and so they will just say the warrior ruins their weapon in the attempt. I don't want to just slice boulders, I want the class designed in such a way that at higher levels, at a minim by levels 13 and higher, the martials stop being "just people" and become something more.

As another example, when I did my big rewrite of all the classes, I looked at the Champion's Remarkable athlete. It didn't feel very remarkable, so I added a fun little quirk, when they jump the number of feet they can jump increases by their Strength score. This means that a 20 strength fighter can leap 40 ft with a running start, or leap to the top of a thirty foot building. This is crazy right? No normal person can do this... well, they aren't a normal person. They can run and jump OVER a squad of enemies to get to the target in the back. It is remarkable. And they can actually go even further with a check, though I'd have to pull back up my numbers to figure out their max distance.

For the base class, I can't give flight, or teleportation and those powers don't make sense for all subclasses anyways, but if I am limited to only allowing them to interact in the physical world, then I need them to break physics, they need to be BEYOND what can be done.

So a smart DM don’t commit itself onto naming Wall of force unless force to!
The Angry fighter is facing an invisible barrier that don’t allow him to walk through.

 

[Chaosmancer]

So a smart DM don’t commit itself onto naming Wall of force unless force to!
The Angry fighter is facing an invisible barrier that don’t allow him to walk through.

This is literally just arguing "The DM can fiat it, so the rules don't have to be written to be better."

This isn't helpful advice, or a helpful direction for the game