Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 7521923" data-attributes="member: 6696971">I have some posts I need to respond to, but I don’t have the time to do so right this second. But let me address this one right quick in the way I’ve done so in the past:1) The “HP aren’t meat” issue and the “singular attacks correlate to ‘openings’ rather than attacks in the fiction” (or what is happening in the fiction when a single sword swing takes place in 1 minute, 10 seconds, even 6 seconds) is extremely relevant. Now much more HP and much more attacks obviously means “much more heroism”, but these are meta character aspects that serve as inputs to fiction rather than outputs. They don’t correlate 1:1 with events happening in D&D land.2) The problem with lack of martial/caster parity at the endgame isn’t in the combat arena. It’s out of combat where the lack of parity issues arise and they arise due to multiple factors:A)  the physics of the archetypal combat aspect don’t remotely comport with what should emerge out of combat. If the continuity of a martial hero means they’re able to go from reliably slaying an orc > a giant > an elder air elemental > an Ancient Red Wyrm, then the ability to deploy and absorb unfathomal amounts of kinetic energy (for earth humans) has to manifest in some kind of reasonable proportion to that scaling.The out of combat physics don’t match up. Our greatest earth athletes couldn’t dream of being able to catch an Elder Air Elemental with a blow or evade the same’s blow or withstand the impossibly potent energy from the swipe of a 20 ton+ predator.Something is happening in D&D combat physics that is jarringly “switched-off” out of combat.B) Endgame play means (i) less but higher stakes combat and (ii) the spellcasters potent, broad, and proliferate arsenal will be able to both obviate obstacles (which could be combat) or completely dictate the terms of engagement if it comes to that.This is due to task resolution (rather than conflict resolution) systems being EXTREMELY vulnerable to “win condition” cards/resources. Games that feature conflict resolution (4e, Strike, Blades, Fate, Dogs, Cortex+, et al) don’t suffer from these “win condition” trump card resources.C) Again, we go back to the fact that spellcasters don’t have to deal with the task resolution procedures (and jarringly so within the fiction). This is an enormous advantage. Couple that with the facts that who knows what the fiction of accomplishing the pinnacle of DCs should be (my DC 30 thread from awhile back was pretty clear that it wasn’t going to be the kinds of things that make sense with (A) above) and that Fighters can’t reach them of their own volition (an 11ish on your archetypal shtick means not with anything nearing 65% success rate) and you get what you get.</blockquote>

Verification