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One thing I hate about the Sorcerer
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<blockquote data-quote="Remathilis" data-source="post: 9324041" data-attributes="member: 7635"><p>The issue I always get stuck on in this debate is the how and why. Let's take one of your examples. </p><p></p><p>A fighter's skin becomes like iron after countless battles. It's thematic and appropriate. I mean, what are hit points if not the same concept. Additionally, most martial characters have some way to resist attacks or lessen blows (Monk AC/step of the wind, barbarian rage, rogue uncanny dodge). So let's say it is mechanically and thematically appropriate to give fighters some defensive options. </p><p></p><p>The question now is how and why.</p><p></p><p>The easy way is to look at rogues and use their answer. Agility, awareness and luck turn lethal blows to less lethal ones. However, it's limited to one attack per round and uses your reaction, which is less useful to fighters who want to make OAs. We have established what the mundane answer is, and if that's good enough, then we are done.</p><p></p><p>However, that doesn't evoke "skin like iron" in the more literal sense. Dodging a blade and having it crash against your skin doing no damage aren't exactly the same. So let's look at it barbarian who get resistance to b/p/s damage in rage. It's tied to a finite resource, but let's be honest, it might as well read "while in combat" especially in the upcoming 24 version. But rage is in that nebulous gray area between mundane and supernatural. Lots of people get angry, few people get controllably angry and bend swords with their solar plexus. I've always viewed rage as a supernatural effect more than a mundane one, and perhaps a little of 4e making barbarian a primal character influenced that. So we set the other boundary: effectively damage resistant at will, but with a supernatural effect explaining it. </p><p></p><p>So now we come to the choice: what best represents a fighter's iron skin. Do we stick with a mundane answer that has lots of caveats and prid pro quos, or a more broader supernatural answer. And then we answer the final question: why? </p><p></p><p>If we opt for the limited mundane answer, you can't get away with training as your reason, but if you want a supernatural effect, you need a supernatural reason. If he absorbed ambient magic from killing 1000 foes, that's still supernatural and not mundane. If he draws on some form of internal (ki/spirit/psionic) or external (arcane/divine/primal) source, it's still supernatural. And we have effectively pushed martial/training as far as you can go before you bleed into supernatural anyway. So it comes back to the choice: mundane and limited, supernatural and powerful. You can't get both without significantly limiting magic somehow.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Remathilis, post: 9324041, member: 7635"] The issue I always get stuck on in this debate is the how and why. Let's take one of your examples. A fighter's skin becomes like iron after countless battles. It's thematic and appropriate. I mean, what are hit points if not the same concept. Additionally, most martial characters have some way to resist attacks or lessen blows (Monk AC/step of the wind, barbarian rage, rogue uncanny dodge). So let's say it is mechanically and thematically appropriate to give fighters some defensive options. The question now is how and why. The easy way is to look at rogues and use their answer. Agility, awareness and luck turn lethal blows to less lethal ones. However, it's limited to one attack per round and uses your reaction, which is less useful to fighters who want to make OAs. We have established what the mundane answer is, and if that's good enough, then we are done. However, that doesn't evoke "skin like iron" in the more literal sense. Dodging a blade and having it crash against your skin doing no damage aren't exactly the same. So let's look at it barbarian who get resistance to b/p/s damage in rage. It's tied to a finite resource, but let's be honest, it might as well read "while in combat" especially in the upcoming 24 version. But rage is in that nebulous gray area between mundane and supernatural. Lots of people get angry, few people get controllably angry and bend swords with their solar plexus. I've always viewed rage as a supernatural effect more than a mundane one, and perhaps a little of 4e making barbarian a primal character influenced that. So we set the other boundary: effectively damage resistant at will, but with a supernatural effect explaining it. So now we come to the choice: what best represents a fighter's iron skin. Do we stick with a mundane answer that has lots of caveats and prid pro quos, or a more broader supernatural answer. And then we answer the final question: why? If we opt for the limited mundane answer, you can't get away with training as your reason, but if you want a supernatural effect, you need a supernatural reason. If he absorbed ambient magic from killing 1000 foes, that's still supernatural and not mundane. If he draws on some form of internal (ki/spirit/psionic) or external (arcane/divine/primal) source, it's still supernatural. And we have effectively pushed martial/training as far as you can go before you bleed into supernatural anyway. So it comes back to the choice: mundane and limited, supernatural and powerful. You can't get both without significantly limiting magic somehow. [/QUOTE]
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