Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="N'raac" data-source="post: 6153029" data-attributes="member: 6681948">First off, teleport is neither immediate nor unstoppable.  More on that below.  Second, it doesn't seem like we are discussing which characters have narrative control so much as we are discussing the probabity of success in exercising such narrative control.  If we accept, for the moment, that the ability of the wizard to Teleport the party away, then what mechanic do you propose to add in order to provide similar narrative control to a non-spellcaster (or spellcasters lacking access to the teleport spell)?OK, first you must win initiative to teleport before battle is joined.  Then, to whisk the party to safety, they must all be connected by physical contact.  Were you walking through the dungen all holding hands in case of just such an event (and if both your hands are used in that manner, what are you using for somatic components?), or will you need to establish physical contact?  "Great, the wizard just vanished again!  Why do we even bring him along?"The Orcs might reasonably choose to grapple unarmored, lightly armed adventurers.  PC's recognize them immediately as arcance casters - why don't orcs?  And what prevents their spell component pouch being Sundered, by the way?  Or they may just want to ensure they are in close proximity so they get one or more AoO's that might disrupt the spell.  What?  You take a 5' step away from the orc?  Can you still establish the Touch needed to bring targets along with you?If the orcs also have spellcasters, Dispel Magic is an instant counterspell, and Silence is amazingly effective at preventing verbal components.  Simple Darkness makes it tough to establish that "touch chain", and  even harder to know it has been established (and can you target people you can't see?).I think we're still a long way away from "contrived", despite that rather extensive list.Those 3 or 30 orcs will often be met with disbelief when the party had to walk through that area to get to this room and suddenly there is a contrived group of orcs that came from nowhere.The characters are 7th level and you consier three orcs to be "framed as deadly combat"?  If the Fighter says "Three orcs?  I'll close my eyes and fight left handed so there will be at least a tiny bit of challenge", does that mean he now has that elusive "narative control"?  He's reframed the deadly combat into a humerous scene about a  bunch of incompetent Orc warriors biting off far more than they can hope to chew!Are you?  I think a 7th level anyone will make short work of the three orcs.  In fact, the Wizard's Polymorph only gets one of them, so there's every chance someone else can deal with the orcs quicker.Addressed above.  The three orcs are pretty dangerous, however, if the wizard is alone and casts Polymorph.  Now the two Orcs remaining can grapple him.I don't recall concentration checks in 1e/2e - your spell was disrupted if you were hurt while casting it, IIRC.We won a battle the other day when a charcter Grappled our tiny opponent.  I guess he must have had way more narrative control than I thought, since he clearly won without reducing the other side's hp to 0.  And the spell still has to deal with resolution mechanics.  The wizard has to roll initiative, and his spell can be disrupted.  However, like the grapple, his spell has different mechanics from swinging a sword. In this case, though, it was the fighter, so apparently he has the narrative control to cut the scene short as well.  Let's look at this from another angle, though.  You seem set against the Wizard winning the battle immediately, however if his spell fails, he doesn't have the option of casting it again for the next three rounds, and four more times in the next room.  The fighter can swing that sword all day long.  Different mechanics for action resolution does not mean some are not action resolution.   By this logic, I see narrative control for the Fighter being "Never Outnumbered", either a feat or a skill trick which allowed him to intimidate a group.  He's reframed the brave, eadly orcs into cringing, fearful orcs. Three orcs in one full round action (or one attack action with Great Cleave) also ends the fight immediately after it starts (if the fighter beat the wizard's initiative, anyway).</blockquote>

Verification