Narrative Space Options for non-spellcasters

[Neonchameleon]

Because while a few players may want to choose solely based on style of narrative options, I suspect for most players character choice is a multi-dimensional thing. Where it sits on the style of narrative options is one variable. The fluff, style, power source (the flavor of how it delivers its options - the flavor) also matters.

This. There are a lot of factors involved in what I want to play and flavour is a big part of them.

And apparently, spell powers and skills allow these people to feel this way? I think those players should just play a goddamn fighter/mage and be done with it. It's not as if fighters are actually excluded from a narrative lead, or interaction, outside combat. That's ridiculous.
Yeah, I think it really is a matter of playing more. "Interestingly" isn't the best way to say it. Get over the spell envy, and just do stuff. Ability to interact with the world is not a class ability, it is a measure of player / DM skill.
In my opinion. Play what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law...

D&D Next is still in the development stage, which is why I feel free to say exactly what I want and why it isn't doing some things for me.

And the historic D&D wizard has the ability to turn straight to the DM and say "No. It isn't happening." Such as when the DM says that the enemies are coming through that exit to the cave. A Wall of Stone means they aren't.

As for play what thou wilt being the whole of the law, this is what the whole argument is about. One of the things I want to play is a genuinely competent thief-acrobat. In D&D Next as it stands, tightrope walking is DC 25. I can't even play a thief who can match a real world circus performer on a tightrope - or even walk reliably on one in my back garden. A rogue therefore does not fulfil my criteria to work as an acrobat. If I want to tightrope walk reliably, I'm going to need the Levitation spell.

But my normal reason for wanting to play a rogue is wanting to play something like one of the classic Mission Impossible team. Something like the following ability (stolen from Spirit of the Century) would really help with the latex/alchemical masks and instant disguises.

[h=4]✪ Master of Disguise [Deceit][/h]Requires Clever Disguise and Mimicry.
The character can convincingly pass himself off as nearly anyone with a little time and preparation. To use this ability, the player pays a fate point and temporarily stops playing. His character is presumed to have donned a disguise and gone “off camera”. At any subsequent point during play the player may choose any nameless, filler character (a villain’s minion, a bellboy in the hotel, the cop who just pulled you over) in a scene and reveal that that character is actually the PC in disguise!

The character may remain in this state for as long as the player chooses, but if anyone is tipped off that he might be nearby, an investigator may spend a fate point and roll Investigate against the disguised character’s Deceit. If the investigator wins, his player (which may be the GM) gets to decide which filler character is actually the disguised PC (“Wait a minute – you’re the Emerald Emancipator!”).



In order to even approach such shenanigans in most versions of D&D I need actual explicit magic. Much as I like the rogue archetype, a rogue who can't reliably walk on tightropes (and I mean walk rather than full scale high wire acts involving skipping, dancing, handstands, and unicycles) and who can't play reliable disguisey shenanigans isn't fulfilling what I want to do as a rogue.

If "Play what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" then where is the objection to letting me have my trickster-rogues? The ones who are able to step in and say "What you've just seen wasn't actually what was going on". And it's for the rogues far more than the fighters that I need the metagame abilities - especially if I want the rogues to stand a chance keeping up with the casters.

I wish I still had that post. I broke out so much in there.

Honestly, I just don't see this here.

1e before 9th level...ok, maybe. After that, forget about it.

2e with specializing (which still lets you be a Generalist, Batman Wizard)...by level 5 you're a monster who "should", if you have a reasonable modicum of system mastery) be handling every conflict that arises and by level 9, dominating all theaters of conflict...without any threat of being spell-starved.

Just to put this into perspective, 1e soft-capped at level 9 and the game was intended to change at this point (indeed the highest level PC in Greyhawk was Sir Robilar at level 14). And in 2e the generalist wizard needs to explore for all their spells. One of the huge advantages a specialist wizard gets in 2e is a free spell each level. Also Save or Suck isn't that reliable.

 

[Alzrius]

I was referring to the point where some, not necessarily you, want fighters to have equal amount of out-of-combat narrative control as other classes.

Well, right away one problem I see here is that the other classes don't have equal amount of non-combat narrative options among them, anyway. So which one is the fighter equalling?

I think somebody mentioned playing a card that made a wall climb "not a problem" being equal to a climb spell, for example. So I just used your post as a launch-board for wondering "If you *do* make the fighter equal in *all* sorts of narrative options, how can you afford to make him as good at fighting as the name implies?"

The issue that I have here is that, if you've made all classes have equal narrative options in all other narrative situations (which is already a very difficult task to do), then giving them unequal narrative combat options is going to result in a lack of narrative balance - why not play a fighter if they're as good as everyone else in all other narrative contexts, and better than everyone else in a fight?

Or, if you, still in a theoretical non-existing system, make him superior at combat narrative, what narrative should he be inferior in?

I find this to be a much more interesting question, as it depends on what other narratives are available (or at least likely to come up with some degree of regularity) and how you balance breadth of choice across multiple narratives with breadth of choice in one (e.g. at what point, if any, does mastery of one narrative justify a lack of options in another, or all others?).

Note that I am asking how things *ought* to be, *not* how they currently are in various D&D incarnations...

I hesitate to get into "ought's," simply because that's purely a matter of personal opinion. What's good to me will be unpalatable to someone else.

This depends on what game you want to play, or rather on how much mud and grit you want in your game.

Hence why there's no consensus.

Since wizards that fly have always been a part of DnD, the DnD tradition is to have rather little mud - at least past level 5 or so. DnD is fantastic fantasy rather than gritty fantasy and should be balanced around that assumption. Nothing prevents a plug-in module or out-branching game to be more gritty, but that is not how DnD has been. Even "F*ing Fantasy Vietnam" has choppers and agent orange equivalents.

It's not necessarily that the game needs to be more gritty, per se. Rather, if you want to balance the fighter's overall narrative options by giving them a large degree of narrative options in combat, then other classes need to have less options in that particular area, otherwise the fighter is giving up narrative options is a hefty price that's earning them comparatively less than those other classes.

Now, that will impact those that want a high degree of narrative combat options for their spellcasters, true, but I'm not sure how that can be avoided if you subscribe the above paradigm.

 

[Ahnehnois]

[Various limitations and circumstantial factors affecting teleport usage/constant rest and recharging]

All legitimate points.

Why don't NPC's use similar tactics?

That's always a big question. Anything the PCs can do, some NPC can do better.

The importance of these rules also depends on the availability of puchased magic. Item creation makes it cheaper at the cost of xp and feats, but 3e commoditized magic to a significant degree, so item availability is pretty easy in many games.

I know it is in mine. My PCs are typically drowning in items and generally are able to do commerce effectively when they are in an appropriate area. I suppose that is an additional disincentive to create one's own items.

The advantage of teammates is pretty significant. That solo wizard doesn't have a fighter and a rogue running interference for him, so he needs to devote a good portion of spell selection to keeping away from the enemy and allow him to cast his spells. Really, what arcane caster solo needs any 4th level spells other than Dimension Door? Why dont we see a party of four clerics, or four wizards? Because, I suggest, the other classes also bring benefits to the table, and the team.

Or why doesn't your favorite football team field eleven quarterbacks?

Yeah, teamwork is pretty important.

 

[Umbran]

I agree with most of your reasoning, but not with that the warlord has much in the way of narrative control - all warlord abilities are combat abilities.

I didn't say the Warlord did fit the bill. I said there's an argument that it does. Most importantly - the Warlord gets Diplomacy and Intimidation skills. That means members of the class can be pretty strong players in Social scenes, which is a dramatic increase in the narrative space available over the fighter.

 

[Alzrius]

I didn't say the Warlord did fit the bill. I said there's an argument that it does. Most importantly - the Warlord gets Diplomacy and Intimidation skills. That means members of the class can be pretty strong players in Social scenes, which is a dramatic increase in the narrative space available over the fighter.

But the fighter also gets Intimidate (in 3.X), and can take Diplomacy, albeit as a cross-class skill. So the increase isn't really very dramatic at all.

 

[Ahnehnois]

And the historic D&D wizard has the ability to turn straight to the DM and say "No. It isn't happening." Such as when the DM says that the enemies are coming through that exit to the cave. A Wall of Stone means they aren't.

Wizards get some power, but they can never tell the DM that something just isn't happening.

This example is very telling. A wall of stone only blocks travel in confined spaces without alternate routes. Those situations impose a lot of tactical limitations for all characters. It's the DM's choice in the first place to create such an environment and to have his NPCs using it. And it's a 5th level spell. An enemy that presents a challenge to a 9th or higher level character is probably going to be able to handle a stone wall fairly quickly. The wall is a nice option for stalling for a few minutes, maybe. And, it's entirely possible for nonmagical characters to cause a cave-in and achieve the same effect (my PCs have done that, actually). It might take a bit longer than 6 seconds, but then again, it doesn't cost a spell slot either.

 

[Umbran]

The thug variant, arguably the barbarian or any of the other martial classes

No, not really. The Thug, Barbarian, and Ranger are all light-armor, mobility types. The rogue is technically a martial class, but plays nothing like a traditional fighter. Paladins are religious warriors, specifically. They are all there to be *distinct from* the fighter, rather than to be *like* the fighter, you see. This is a part of the game design, and thus our basic problem.

As I noted - Wizards and clerics are designed to have a lot of flexibility in the class. Fighters are designed only with flexibility in what they do in combat. The Wizard can have fireballs or utility spells. The fighter effectively *only* has a stack of different fireballs. Why is that? We'd all be served if they allowed the fighter to give up some of that combat specialization and trade it in for other things. The sad thing is that this would be a perfect use of, say, 3e's feat system, but they didn't apply it in this way.

and number of fighter prestige classes

So, I have to wait until we're in a mid-level game to have narrative space? That's not a good solution at all.

 

[Umbran]

But the fighter also gets Intimidate (in 3.X), and can take Diplomacy, albeit as a cross-class skill. So the increase isn't really very dramatic at all.

When you only have two skill points from your class? And one of the key skills you'd want for social scenes is cross-class - so, you have a skill cap of half what others do, *and* it costs more? When none of your other abilities use the charisma you'd have to devote to use the skills properly?

Sorry, no, the difference is dramatic.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I hear this a lot. It carries a lot of implications that, to me, make it a less than perfect option. First, it assumes there is never any urgency to getting the job done and we can have a single encounter

No it doesn't. It assumes that spending 2 spells to ensure a good night's rest and we progress faster if we sleep in warm beds.

then teleport home until tomorrow no deadline, no "the hostages die at Noon"

A problem made easier by Teleport because we get a full powered ambush on the hostage takers, having bypassed their defences.

Second, it assumes that the enemy does nothing during our absence (related a bit to the first, but not deadline-centric). They don't take the hint that someone keeps coming in once a day and bolster their defenses, lay traps, gear up to go nova themselves, etc.

They need to prepare every place we've spent five minutes. This is a lot harder than attacking our campsite.

Third, this ties up two L5 spell slots (one for there and one for back again), so it's eating up a resource. At L9 a very significant resource, less so by L13 or so.

Indeed. L9 it's probably too much. L11 a specialist wizard gets three spells a level higher. L13 it's irrelevant.

The spell itself is not unlimited. Within 900+ miles, you should be able to have a location at least "studied carefully", but "very familiar/you feel at home" seems less likely, depending how wide ranging the game.

You feel at home in your home base. And somewhere you can see counts as studied carefully. Which is why you get the scry and fry combo.

Those numbers will come up sooner or later, especially when you Teleport twice a day.

Indeed they will. Which is why you carry a couple of scrolls of teleport.

How many in your party?

4

Why don't NPC's use similar tactics?

It depends. Most NPCs aren't spellcasters. Most spellcasters don't care about the PCs. And the tiny remainder? Should.

 

[Alzrius]

When you only have two skill points from your class? And one of the key skills you'd want for social scenes is cross-class - so, you have a skill cap of half what others do, *and* it costs more? When none of your other abilities use the charisma you'd have to devote to use the skills properly?

Sorry, no, the difference is dramatic.

If those are the criteria you're using - since the only differences you outlined in your previous post were that the fighter didn't have two particular skills, and the warlord did - then that's purely a matter of the skill systems used across editions, and is not that difficult to change (e.g. the difference in 3.X and Pathfinder).

In other words, that's not a narrative options issue so much as it is an issue of implementation of how skills work in the game.