New Legends and Lore: Live Together, Die Alone

[Jhaelen]

For D&D I prefer pcs to have a clearly defined role (and ideally a secondary role in which she's somewhat proficient to get the party over periods when the primary pc is out of order or simply not present). Mary-Sues have no place in my idea of a good D&D game.

What this should not lead to, though, is that in a given situation only one character gets to play while the rest watches and gets bored. I.e. everyone must be ableto contribute.

 

[I'm A Banana]

But the requirement for me is twofold a) player choice b) the "or". I'm not particularly fond of "generalists" in DnD. The idea of a group of players each great at one thing, kinda good at everything else, or worse, pretty good at everything doesn't appeal to me at all.

Sure. But to use an analogy, every character rolls damage. This has been true since 1e. This ability to roll damage didn't necessarily make a character the ideal damage-dealer, and doesn't mean that dealing MORE damage is a problem.

I don't see that changing in a "flattened role" game. Just because we give a Fighter Sneak Attack for a round or two (when she's not defending or healing or..) doesn't mean she's dishing out as much damage over the course of a combat as the rogue. It just means if no one wants to play an optimized striker, the party is still capable of meeting the sort of "minimum requirements" for spike damage that the game assumes.

Similarly, just because we give a rogue an occasional Healing Word analogue doesn't mean that the rest of a cleric's healing and buffing juices go to waste. It just means that if no one wants to play a cleric, the party is still capable of meeting the minimum requirements for healing that the game assumes.

So a party without a cleric (or other leader) won't "miss" them, but a party with a cleric will certainly notice the presence of one -- they know how hard it is to keep everyone healed, and how much easier it is now!

I strongly believe parties should be made up of interdependent characters, an interdependency based the need for a variety of skills and not simply a need for greater numbers.

There's a balancing act here. If you make rogues useless against undead, then the DM can never run an undead campaign with a rogue in it. If you require a ranger to be able to make it through the wilderness, then a DM can never run a wilderness adventure without a ranger in it.

So it makes sense that rogues can fight undead and that fighters can blaze a trail through the wilderness with some sort of minimum competency. This is 4e's "everyone can do everything" philosophy, and, personally, I think it's a good one. I think it needs to just be extended that last bit into roles, so that we don't HAVE to make someone play the Defender, if no one is interested in it.

Of course, you don't want sameness. In my mind, that's where things like "Fighters and Rogues use at-wills, Wizards use Dailies, Psionics use Power Points, Druids are good in the Wilderness, and Bards are good in the Town, and not everyone is very good at Combat" and the like comes in. You change the power structure and the challenge balance so that there is a dramatic difference between playing a Bard and playing a Rogue in terms of how you approach the adventure. If the adventure is "There is a monster-filled dungeon with a MacGuffin in it," then the Rogue might sneak past the mosnters, while the Bard might talk with them. And in either case, the Fighter and the Druid can both do a little something, even if it's not their true niches.

That's a bit broad and unspecific, but it gives you an idea of the kinds of differences a class can bring to the table, without making only Bards capable of Diplomacy (forex).

Not classes ... characters. Characters are defined equally by what they can and cannot do. The "can" defines their contribution to the group, and the "cannot" defines why they even put up with the group to begin with.

True enough, but you have to be careful about the line between "cannot" and "would prefer not to."

Every character has HP, so every character can take a hit. The game wouldn't be very fun if Wizards died at one hit, and Fighters could take 20. At the same time, Wizards have significantly less HP than fighters. So while wizards CAN take a hit, and might choose to do so for a round or two if they're the toughest wizard in a party of wizards, they would prefer not to, especially when a fighter is around.

Exclusivity is not the greatest design, since it always forces someone's hand. SOMEONE has to play the cleric if the cleric is the only healer. SOMEONE has to play the fighter if the fighter is the only defender. The DM can't use undead regularly if the party doesn't contain the one class that can deal with undead effectively (cleric?), or does contain the one class that cannot deal with undead effectively (rogue?).

Personally, I want to be able to give every player and every DM the option to do whatever strikes them as fun without mandating that they do any particular thing. This requires a broad balanced base that anyone can do, but it doesn't require sameness.

 

[Dausuul]

Sure. But to use an analogy, every character rolls damage. This has been true since 1e.

Whoa! Stop right there. This is an assumption that I would strongly challenge. In 3E, one of the most powerful builds around was the Batman wizard, whose philosophy was, "If you need something damaged, tell the fighter to go hit it. If it's tough to hit, buff the fighter first." With aggressive use of debuffs, support magic, and battlefield control, the wizard could be a devastating combatant without ever knocking off a hit point.

When 4E came out, one of the things that very soon started to grate on me was the fact that no matter what class I chose, nearly all of its combat powers were of the form "Deal damage, possibly with a small side effect." It really got to me that I couldn't make a character who specialized in tactical, non-damaging powers. As I mentioned above, playing a cleric bores me because their abilities all boil down to transmute small number to big number. Characters who do nothing but transmute big number to small number are just as dull to me. Happily, 4E has begun to branch out since then.

I do agree with the idea that everyone should have a minimum adventuring competence, such that a party of any composition can function effectively without somebody saying, "I guess I better play the X" (cleric, fighter, etc.). But that doesn't mean every class needs to be able to do things like heal or tank. I like the idea that a party of wizards and rogues will take an approach which doesn't rely on putting one guy out front to soak up hits and another guy behind to pump healing into the first guy.

To me, the acid test of "minimum adventuring competence" is this: Imagine a party consisting of nothing but this class. Can that party get through a typical adventure? If yes, then the class is sufficiently competent, whether or not it can do X, Y, or Z.

 

[I'm A Banana]

This is an assumption that I would strongly challenge. In 3E, one of the most powerful builds around was the Batman wizard, whose philosophy was, "If you need something damaged, tell the fighter to go hit it. If it's tough to hit, buff the fighter first." With aggressive use of debuffs, support magic, and battlefield control, the wizard could be a devastating combatant without ever knocking off a hit point.

One niche CharOps build in 3e doesn't negate the general idea of "everyone contributes to success."

When 4E came out, one of the things that very soon started to grate on me was the fact that no matter what class I chose, nearly all of its combat powers were of the form "Deal damage, possibly with a small side effect." It really got to me that I couldn't make a character who specialized in tactical, non-damaging powers.

That IS annoying, but what causes it is actually a bit of a multi-headed hydra, not just the idea that everyone contributes (though that plays a role). The rigors of the powers structure, the mandate that everything be a combat power, the mechanical sameness of the ADEU mechanics, making the encounter more important than the adventure, infatuation with conditions, etc., etc.

It's a problem, but it's one clever design can avoid, even if everyone essentially contributes to the adventure.

I'm also not entirely sure I grok your character concept idea of a "tactical, non-damaging specialist" who doesn't buff or debuff (therefore basically raising and lowering some number). Even walls and stunlocks boil down to "how much damage did the enemy party do this round?" ultimately. If there's 5 goblins dealing an average of 5 hp of damage each on each round, making one unable to attack is basically the same as making one miss (by buffing AC) or healing 5 hp, functionally.

So I apologize if I'm not quite addressing your central issue here.

I do agree with the idea that everyone should have a minimum adventuring competence, such that a party of any composition can function effectively without somebody saying, "I guess I better play the X" (cleric, fighter, etc.). But that doesn't mean every class needs to be able to do things like heal or tank. I like the idea that a party of wizards and rogues will take an approach which doesn't rely on putting one guy out front to soak up hits and another guy behind to pump healing into the first guy.

In my mind, a lot of this particular issue is bigger than 4e can currently talk about, because 4e is currently married to a class and adventure design that highlights and makes frequent use of minis combat.

When you get away from minis combat, and you get away from the specific encounter, and you broaden your field of view to the entire adventure, you get a different sort of "class balance" than you do when you're looking at combat alone. You find that the bard who charmed the tavern wench who told you about the white dragon's weakness to fire is just as important as the rogue who snuck past the traps in the tomb of the old king to abscond with his Flametounge Sword, and they both contribute about as much as the fighter who can handle the 30 frost giants working with the white dragon. And if the party is only bards and rogues, then they sneak past the giants, or they convince the giants to ally with them against the dragon.

If you were go back to a more 1e-esque style of class balance, you wouldn't give everyone healing and defending and striking and controlling powers. You'd just give everyone some way of getting past all the threats in the adventure -- there'd be SOME way to get the knowledge, some way past the traps, some way to thwart the giants, and some way to kill the dragon, without requiring any one particular method to work (maybe allowing either combat, or exploration, or social interaction to be the method that works, opening a tripartate adventure roles system).

The 4e method as it is necessarily focuses on combat. To move the focus from that is to dramatically shift the nature of what balance means to the game.

I'd love to do that, though.

 

[prosfilaes]

One niche CharOps build in 3e doesn't negate the general idea of "everyone contributes to success."

But you said everyone does HP damage. Batman doesn't. Many cleric builds don't.

I'm also not entirely sure I grok your character concept idea of a "tactical, non-damaging specialist" who doesn't buff or debuff (therefore basically raising and lowering some number). Even walls and stunlocks boil down to "how much damage did the enemy party do this round?" ultimately. If there's 5 goblins dealing an average of 5 hp of damage each on each round, making one unable to attack is basically the same as making one miss (by buffing AC) or healing 5 hp, functionally.

Sure, you can boil it down into that, but tactically it's much more interesting. A Bless is a simple spell; cast it, your whole party is improved, in a way that doesn't clearly show your impact. A Wall of Force is more complex; you have to find a place to cast it, and frequently it's not the most natural spell, and you see the impact of your spell clearly.

 

[I'm A Banana]

But you said everyone does HP damage. Batman doesn't. Many cleric builds don't.

Batman punches people unconscious on a regular basis, and certain niche cleric builds STILL have a melee basic attack, even if damage isn't what they rely on.

It certainly isn't that every class HAS to do damage, it simply is that every character is capable of it (to various degrees).

The point that may have been missed was that just because everyone can make damage rolls doesn't mean that there's not a role for the striker (counter to EW's point that by flattening the roles, you make the game classless).

Sure, you can boil it down into that, but tactically it's much more interesting. A Bless is a simple spell; cast it, your whole party is improved, in a way that doesn't clearly show your impact. A Wall of Force is more complex; you have to find a place to cast it, and frequently it's not the most natural spell, and you see the impact of your spell clearly.

That kind of complexity can be lots of fun for the right players, but in terms of party function, you're still essentially saying "I'm going to play defense this round and lower enemy damage." It feels different, and that's kind of the point: Just because everyone can "lower enemy damage" somehow doesn't mean they all need to do it in the same way or with the same capacity, leaving plenty of room for classes to distinguish themselves.

Heck, there's still room for a wall-based/movement-affecting/action-inhibiting controller-style defensive character in such a system, or a "pacifist cleric" style healing character in such a system. Just because you're capable of also being a Striker for the round (perhaps with compounded punishment mechanics that heavily damage an enemy for performing their actions) doesn't mean you ever will need to be, especially since the rest of the party can do it just fine.

 

[Dausuul]

That kind of complexity can be lots of fun for the right players, but in terms of party function, you're still essentially saying "I'm going to play defense this round and lower enemy damage." It feels different, and that's kind of the point: Just because everyone can "lower enemy damage" somehow doesn't mean they all need to do it in the same way or with the same capacity, leaving plenty of room for classes to distinguish themselves.

Heck, there's still room for a wall-based/movement-affecting/action-inhibiting controller-style defensive character in such a system, or a "pacifist cleric" style healing character in such a system. Just because you're capable of also being a Striker for the round (perhaps with compounded punishment mechanics that heavily damage an enemy for performing their actions) doesn't mean you ever will need to be, especially since the rest of the party can do it just fine.

I think we're on the same side of this discussion. I just wanted to make the point that there's a real danger of boiling things down too far. In the drive to make sure every class has minimum adventuring competence, it's easy to forget that there are many ways to accomplish a given goal. You can defeat monsters without dealing damage, you can buff allies without touching the numbers on their character sheets, and you can keep the enemy off your friends without being a tank. 4E shows how one can lose track of this (although in fairness to WotC, there were other reasons to do things the way they did, initially at least).