Narrative Space Options for non-spellcasters

[Ahnehnois]

This one seems pretty obvious: wall of thorns on the surprised PCs, then spells that damage an area (wall of fire, swarms) and let them burn. The blink dog rogue presents a challenge, but you could probably turn into a bear and grapple him to death (even though he'll escape it'll take him a standard action to do it, and you can just grab him again).

Trying to grapple a creature that can teleport without spending an action would have been rather pointless, except in that it would have exposed the druid to being sneak attacked with the rogue's light weapons. I didn't have wall of thorns handy, but even if I had, I doubt it would have contained them for very long, and the monk had high AC and DR/magic that would have rendered the damage irrelevant for him anyway, and monk and ranger had high Str. Also, all of them had ref saves and evasion, and several of them had other resistances, making area damage a pretty pointless exercise. I did try an area damage force spell, but it didn't do enough. I also tried flying and shooting down from above, which didn't work because of the blink dog, and then transformed into a tendriculos, which has regeneration that I thought would help, until the monk and his bludgeoning attacks bypassed that and completely wasted him in one round.

I didn't have much time (in character) to think about this one, but challenging 10th level characters that are mostly martial and have little magic is hard, even if you use magic to do it.

 

[LostSoul]

Trying to grapple a creature that can teleport without spending an action would have been rather pointless, except in that it would have exposed the druid to being sneak attacked with the rogue's light weapons.

I didn't realize that he could do it as a free action once per round and still act. Still, though, on his own he'd be in tough, even blinking. A huge air elemental could track him down and would be immune to his sneak attacks.

I didn't have wall of thorns handy, but even if I had, I doubt it would have contained them for very long, and the monk had high AC and DR/magic that would have rendered the damage irrelevant for him anyway, and monk and ranger had high Str.

Wall of Thorns is pretty bad-ass. The damage it deals doesn't really matter: they probably can't move, as it's a full round action to make a DC 25 strength check to move 5'. That's what you want to do - keep them pinned in while your swarms (or whatever) eat them alive. A wind wall will keep their ranged attacks from getting through, if necessary.

 

[Manbearcat]

Summon a horde of Air Elementals and Whirlwind them to terminal velocity height and drop them repeatedly until they die from HP ablation or massive damage DC failure.

Pre-fight Stoneskin and Windwall > Natural Spell > Fly up > Wall of Stone them into an inescapable shooting gallery and Murderous Mist, Swarm and Produce Flame them to death.

Summon a non-stop army or Nature Allies with Wands and your own spell slots. Save spell slots for Stoneskin, Regeneration, Magic Fang, Barkskin etc (and the other big buff spells), take the right assemblage of Wild Shape Feats and augmenting magic items and then just clean them up with your animal companion after your army has nom-nommed them.

Spike Stones a giant AoE (eleven 20 ft squares) worth of area for the next 11 hours and watch them kill themselves as they try to move through it...and if they don't kill themselves by standing still, then just fly behind a Wind Wall and pew-pew them to death.

Maybe a few Reached Poisons on the same target to bypass Evasion to lower their HPs dramatically or outright kill them (4d10 Con).

Tree Stride/fly for getaway if you need to and repeat tomorrow while they're licking their wounds. And the next day if need be.

 

[Manbearcat]

I still think that the Background Traits need to be where we look to for inspiration for how 5e might assemble director stance and author stance narrative authority. They read as insurance; in some ways similar to BW's Instincts.

Look at Salt of the Earth. If you're a Commoner, you can expect to invoke this Trait to find a place to hide, rest, recuperate. What's more, you can expect to be shielded from the law or pursuit.

Look at Spy's Contact. Its basically a Divination ability that just works. How it works could be up to you.

Same thing with Bounty Hunter and Bounty Board. There will be a listing of criminals needed to be detained. You will secure the warrant or legal authority to carry out your effort. Your reputation gives you contacts in the town watch or guard. Very similar to writing your own quests in 4e.

Having multiple resources such as these to deploy, that are assured to manifest within the shared imaginary space, are pretty much what is needed to endow a Martial character with non-combat conflict resolution and Transition Scene legitimacy.

 

[Starfox]

Yeah, background is the place to go for contacts - which can be very useful narrative tools.

 

[pemerton]

The more we talk about this, the more I feel the term "narrative space" is misleading, and the more I lean into the "three pillars" model - Combat, Exploration, Social. What we call narrative abilities are abilities that fall under the last two pillars.

No, Starfox, no!

I like your "narrative space" formulation much better than a "3 pillars" formulation - even though, as I posted upthread, I want to break narrative space into a "plot determined by action resolution mechanics" component and a "scene framing determined by scene framing guidelines/mechanics" component.

The problem with focusing it on the "three pillars" is that you don't have the tools to properly analyse the following two conrasting options: the ranger has mechanics for tracking, navigating, etc - ie engaging an exploration challenge - whereas the wizard has mechanics for scrying in on the missing whatsits and then teleporting to where they are - ie bypassing an exploration challenge and reframing it as a "pick up the whatsits" scene.

Or in the social sphere: there is a big difference between a Burning Wheel Duel of Wits, or a 4e skill challenge run per the DMG guidlines, which require the players to engage the situation by declaring action, making rolls and having the GM adjudicate the unflding situation; compared to a Charm Spell or the most literal reading of a 3E Diplomacy roll, which doesn't engage the challenge but simply reframes it as one containing a friend rather than a potentially hostile independent personality.

Suppose that the player of a fighter had a "scene reframing" power of some sort such that, in any non-combat situation, s/he could change it into a combat one (eg it might be a taunt power, that turns non-hostile NPCs hostile; or a "challenge the spirits" power, so that in an exploration situation the nature spirits can be forced to duel with the PC, and if the PC wins they will lead the party where the PCs want to go). In this case, it wouldn't matter that the fighter's action resolution abilities were confined to combat, because the player would never have to engage any other sort of situation.

A further element that I didn't mention upthread but that [MENTION=27570]sheadunne[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] have both flagged is "content introduction": ie who has the authority to introduce new content/backstory into the game. Giving players of martial PCs this sort of power (eg the player of a rogue can simply "declare" old friends and contacts in a city which is, from the point of view of actual play events, a new city - d20 Conan permits this sort of thing with Fate Points) can be one way of trying to balance spellcasters scene reframing power.

If you turn the discussion into a 3 pillars discussion you lose what I think are these key analytical distinctions for understanding how the game unfolds.

I still think that the Background Traits need to be where we look to for inspiration for how 5e might assemble director stance and author stance narrative authority.

I agree with this. They're the most interesting part to date of D&Dnext design, in my view.

 

[pemerton]

in 3.5 math, most saving throws are made.

<snip>

if anything I've modified the rules to encourage that, as spell points and standard spell DCs (i.e. all spells are one DC instead of lower-level spells being garbage) make it easier.

My understanding of 3E maths is that making saving throws is quite hard.

Eg at 1st level a fighter's Will save might be +1 at best, I would have thought (WIS of 12 or 13) whereas the DC against a Charm Person spell would be 10+1 (for level) +3 or 4 (for a 16 or 18 INT) = 14 or 15. So around a 1/3 chance to save. And the DC will scale more quickly than the save bonus.

If you are making save DCs of low level spells higher in your game, I'm surprised that you don't find casters stronger than you do.

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, then teleport home until tomorrow no deadline, no "the hostages die at Noon", no "the stars will be right for the ritual in two days".

No. It assumes that sometimes the players (and their PCs) can control the pace. The more that "sometimes" trends towards "often", the stronger this use of Teleport becomes.

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.

London to Prague is less than 650 miles, from London to Warsaw less than 900. That covers your basic pseudo-European campaign.

The distance from London to Moscow is less than 1600 miles, from Hong Kong to Tokyo is less than 1800 miles - so I can do these jumps in two hops, or from a base half-way between the two locations can adventure in either. That covers a more far-ranging pseudo-European campaign, or a pseudo-East Asian one.

I'm not saying that it's impossible that distance should matter, but 900 miles is a long way within the context of a fantasy pseudo-mediaeval setting.

Why don't NPC's use similar tactics? Dont they have the same access to divination magic that PC casters use to render investigation irrelevant, the same scrying spells to "study carefully" the location the PC's use as their safe haven and the same teleportation magics to bring in their own ambush team when the PC's are resting? Why don't their enemies use similar tactics to go nova, flee untracably and return at their leisure?

I the last campaign that featured PCs doing this, the PCs lived in the Imperial palace, working as servitors/advisors to the Great Kingdom. That is a hard safe haven to ambush!

More generally, I think introducing game elements that depend for a fictionally-established/mediated balance of terror to ensure their playability is not a recipe for stable design. You don't need to tweak the parameters of the fiction very much for the balance to break down (as when the PCs live in the Imperial Palace).

We progress slower with one encounter per day than with three or four.

It may be that, within the fiction, the PCs progress slower. But in my experience players care about the rate of progression in the real world, not in the fiction.

 

[Starfox]

Suppose that the player of a fighter had a "scene reframing" power of some sort such that, in any non-combat situation, s/he could change it into a combat one (eg it might be a taunt power, that turns non-hostile NPCs hostile; or a "challenge the spirits" power, so that in an exploration situation the nature spirits can be forced to duel with the PC, and if the PC wins they will lead the party where the PCs want to go). In this case, it wouldn't matter that the fighter's action resolution abilities were confined to combat, because the player would never have to engage any other sort of situation.

It's 1 am here now, too late for a serious reply, but I can say this... Fighters DO have that power -it is called "fist to the face" and trumps almost any other scene-framing power (such as Diplomacy or Charm), turning what could have been a social encounter into a combat encounter. Of course, using this in the king's hall might have side effects. I had this happen in a 4E skill challenge to get a door open - there was basically 2 ways to proceed, bash the door open or talk those inside into opening it. One player started talking, another player started bashing... Not quite compatible tactics.

 

[Balesir]

Suppose that the player of a fighter had a "scene reframing" power of some sort such that, in any non-combat situation, s/he could change it into a combat one (eg it might be a taunt power, that turns non-hostile NPCs hostile; or a "challenge the spirits" power, so that in an exploration situation the nature spirits can be forced to duel with the PC, and if the PC wins they will lead the party where the PCs want to go). In this case, it wouldn't matter that the fighter's action resolution abilities were confined to combat, because the player would never have to engage any other sort of situation.

To be fair, I have seen this in play - we called it "the twang of diplomacy"

(The 'twang' was made by a bowstring being loosed...)

 

[Ahnehnois]

My understanding of 3E maths is that making saving throws is quite hard.
...
If you are making save DCs of low level spells higher in your game, I'm surprised that you don't find casters stronger than you do.

I suppose your understanding of the "spine" math as it were, is correct. However, this does not account for the fact that it is much easier to get saving throw bonuses than DC bonuses. Cloaks of Resistance are perhaps the single most prevalent "Christmas Tree effect" item, and are very cheap. Ability boosters are also ubiquitous (which, to be fair, balances out). Feats taken to improve saves are also more common and more effective than DC-based feats.

At 1st level, before the magic bonuses come into play, I'm inclined to agree that saves are hard. But they very quickly become easy, and casters at 1st level can't do that much. At higher levels, good saves tend to be made on base save + ability + resistance alone, while characters tend to spend a lot of resources boosting their weaker ones.

In my current three-PC 10th level party, for example, the lowest save value is a monstrous character (who has lost several HD to level adjustment) rogue with a will save bonus of +10. A 10th level caster's best spell DC is 15 + ability modifier + feats. With some effort, he might be able to break through. However, the next lowest bonus is +12, and the highest is +20, not counting a few situational bonuses as well. IMC, there's also action points shifting math in the defender's direction, but even without those, a decent on-level caster trying to beat a saving throw is going to fail pretty often. And those failures tend to be pretty costly.

If I left the default 10 + spell level + ability mod DC in place, a 1st level spell would almost never have any effect (if it required a save). I look at standardizing the DC's as serving a similar function to the TB iterative attack rules, which remove the lower iterative attacks that never hit competitive targets at high levels.