Rule of Three 3/6

[Minigiant]

Parity?

So D&D classes are now NFL teams?
Fighters are the Patriots (unstoppable short pass/melee attack)?
Rogues are the Giants (surprise touchdown/sneak attack)?
Paladins are the Broncos (defense, divine intervention, and charisma)?

Just tell me which classes are the Redskins, Cowboys, and Eagles... so I know which pages to burn.


Well It seems that the player will have to manually make their characters complex.

Fighters by default are bags of HP, encased in AC, and a high attack bonus.
Players can then increase HP, increase Attack, grab immunities/resistances, remove penalties to attacks, or grab 4E style attacks.


Wizards by default are a handful of HP and a handful of spell slots. Then player have spell choice and trading of slots to deal with.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

I think that one of the rambling commentators on that article had a point: martial characters only manage their hitpoints if they don't have encounter/daily powers.

I still say that such characters deserve some encounter powers, or some point-based stamina resource (CRPGs love this, like they love mana), though I still struggle to rationalise daily stuff for them.

 

[Kingreaper]

A general note.
Am i the only one who thinks that more complexity will eventually lead to more power?

It will. Which is why the baseline power level for the simple classes/subclasses needs to be higher.
Well, one of the reasons

 

[DEFCON 1]

Me, I wonder how he can go from talking about "verisimilitude needs" in answer 1 to fighters "managing a pool of self-healing resources" in answer 3.

Presumably those 'self-healing resources' also includes healing potions. So even without Second Winds in the game, the non-healers will have ways to heal themselves (as they always have.)

 

[GM Dave]

I think 'self healing' is too binary and a gamey way to look.

Healing works for some classes like Paladins have 'lay on hands' and other divine classes have healing.

A fighter should have tricks for damage avoidance. This could be parries, using armour better to cushion a blow (Barbarian damage reduction), side steps, or other things (Jedi in Saga system had quite few in their lightsaber styles and TK techniques).

Fighters could also go the 'other way' and go 'all in' with punishing attacks. They get hit but get to counter attack on the attacker. Ending a fight faster and earlier is as good as 'healing'. Yet, it feels more like a fighter.

The objective is to have a fighter last X rounds of combat a day. How that is achieved can be through a variety of game techniques other than straight healing.

 

[Sunseeker]

I think 'self healing' is too binary and a gamey way to look.

Healing works for some classes like Paladins have 'lay on hands' and other divine classes have healing.

A fighter should have tricks for damage avoidance. This could be parries, using armour better to cushion a blow (Barbarian damage reduction), side steps, or other things (Jedi in Saga system had quite few in their lightsaber styles and TK techniques).

Fighters could also go the 'other way' and go 'all in' with punishing attacks. They get hit but get to counter attack on the attacker. Ending a fight faster and earlier is as good as 'healing'. Yet, it feels more like a fighter.

The objective is to have a fighter last X rounds of combat a day. How that is achieved can be through a variety of game techniques other than straight healing.

I agree to all of this, but I feel that all these options for fighter survival, martial healing, dodge or parry, or flat out beating the other guy's face in first should all have their place within the design of a fighter. I'm not saying a player needs to have all of these, but simply that a player could choose any one of these styles(perhaps as feats, powers, ect..) and run with it.

As I see it, we'd end up with 3 basic fighter trees.
Self-healing: Probably lower attack bonus, lower dex, heavier armor, sword & board kinda guy.
Avoidance: High dex, lighter armor, better attack bonus, lower damage, lighter weapons, possibly two-weapon defense and mobility sorta guy.
The Hulk: High str, high dex, lighter armor, big weapon, multiple heavy-hitting attacks, possibly high-crit too.

Honestly I think this presents a really good basic conception for diversity among fighters, and I tell ya, if you put a book in front of me that gave me these three basic paths for my fighter, I'd be down.

 

[dkyle]

I think 'self healing' is too binary and a gamey way to look.

Healing works for some classes like Paladins have 'lay on hands' and other divine classes have healing.

Depends on what's meant by "healing". Is any time HP increases "healing"? Or does healing just mean actual removal of physical wounds? Since the HP system doesn't differentiate between HP "damage" being actual wounds, or simply fatigue, loss of morale, and simple luck, increases in HP don't necessarily mean actual healing. Everything but actual wounds makes plenty of sense for a Fighter to shake off, or a Warlord to "shout away".

If a decrease in HP isn't always actual physical injury (and the game gets patently ridiculous if it is), then increases in HP shouldn't be treated as always being removal of actual injury.

If there's a desire to have non-magical HP recovery be limited, then I think there's a real need to represent actual damage. One simple scheme could be that at half, quarter, and zero HP, a character takes a Wound (if they don't already have a Wound from that tier, so maximum of three of them). Each Wound would be -1 to attacks and skills (enough to make it seem like "real" damage, but not enough for a strong "death spiral"). Zero HP and less would still be "unconscious and dying". HP could be recovered with both magical and non-magical means, but raising HP would not inherently remove Wounds. Only magical healing could remove Wounds, at least within the time-frame of combat. Abilities might trigger of being "Wounded", like with "Bloodied" in 4E, or even on having a certain number of Wounds.

 

[Dausuul]

Depends on what's meant by "healing". Is any time HP increases "healing"? Or does healing just mean actual removal of physical wounds? Since the HP system doesn't differentiate between HP "damage" being actual wounds, or simply fatigue, loss of morale, and simple luck, increases in HP don't necessarily mean actual healing. Everything but actual wounds makes plenty of sense for a Fighter to shake off, or a Warlord to "shout away".

As far as I'm concerned, it's healing if:

a) the game calls it "healing," or
b) it can take a PC who is dying due to being attacked a lot*, and make that PC better.

[SIZE=-2]*Some might call this state of affairs "mortally wounded," but I won't make the mistake of using such excessively concrete and specific terms to describe a character who has merely had swords swung at her over and over and is now on the verge of becoming non-living as a result.
[/SIZE]

 

[dkyle]

As far as I'm concerned, it's healing if:

a) the game calls it "healing,"

If "damage" is shorthand for "loss of HP", and doesn't necessarily mean "receiving physical wounds", then why shouldn't "healing" be shorthand for "gain of HP", and not necessarily mean "removing physical wounds"?

What word should be used for recovering the component of HP that is not actual wounding? Why is it sufficient to have one word for the loss of HP (covering both wounds, and other factors), but we need two (or more) for the gain of HP? If we get a Warlord in 5E that can "restore" partymates' HP, but not "heal" them, is that OK?

b) it can take a PC who is dying due to being attacked a lot*, and make that PC better.

I can see the issue with the PC being good-as-new from being shouted at, but being able to get up and act again makes plenty of sense to me. Someone hearing the inspiring call of their allies as they flit in and out of consciousness on the ground, and being rallied by it, is highly evocative. The only issue is that getting dropped to zero is a pretty clear indication that at least some actual wounding occurred, which can be hard to justify being simply removed. But being able to, through grit and force of will, overcome that wounding, and acting again, perhaps at a limited capacity? I don't see why magic should be required for that.

What did you think of my Wounds suggestion? If 5E had something like that, and Warlords could heal HP, but not Wounds, whereas Clerics could heal Wounds (and HP) with magic, would that fit your expectations for verisimilitude? What if Warlords had "mind over matter" style abilities that enabled partymates to ignore Wound penalties for a period of time?

 

[BobTheNob]

As far as I'm concerned, it's healing if:

a) the game calls it "healing," or
b) it can take a PC who is dying due to being attacked a lot*, and make that PC better.

[SIZE=-2]*Some might call this state of affairs "mortally wounded," but I won't make the mistake of using such excessively concrete and specific terms to describe a character who has merely had swords swung at her over and over and is now on the verge of becoming non-living as a result.
[/SIZE]

I kinda liked in LOTRO that they didnt have "hits" or "hit points", they had morale, and you went down when it ran out. It was kinda cool because everything made sense when you did this (especially for a setting like middle earth where hope and faith were so potent).

It isnt a perfect approach, but it sure resolves that "how can a shout heal me?" question.