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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Greenfield" data-source="post: 7559566" data-attributes="member: 6669384">Hmm.On the general theme of turn-based action v realism, reality is continuous motion, with no synchronization even implied.  But I don't know of any RPG system that can emulate that.  They're all turn based.The best way to emulate reality would be wit, let's call them micro-turns.  It takes one micro-turn to move five feet.  Spells have a casting time expressed in micro-turns.  It takes a micro-turn to draw an arrow, and another to fire it.  Drawing a light blade is a micro-turn.  A long sword takes two, a great sword or other two-handed weapon takes three. Pick how many micro-turns you have in a round, and see how it works.  Twelve would seem to match standard D&D, at least in terms of movement.  Increase the number, on a per-character basis, as they advance in levels.What you'll get is pretty much what you have now, but twelve times slower, and a hundred times more frustrating for the caster who has to sit on his hands for six times around the table because his spell takes that long to cast.  In theory this finer granularity will allow a more flexible use of time, and emulate the complexity of real world, non-synchronous action.  In practice people will take just as long on a micro-turn as they do now, and complain at how little they can accomplish.Right now D&D 3.5 has two micro-turns per round, with the limit that you can only cast a spell or attack once.  If we expressed that as saying that an attack action/sequence took four seconds and movement took two, it would enforce that within the proposed mechanics.  Movement could be tripled with a full round move, but other than that it ends up working the same.Withdrawal isn't bad the way it is.  I might limit the distance for a "partial withdrawal" to half normal, since in theory you're at least starting the move as backing away, ready to dodge or parry an attack.  As for the old Archer v Swordsman debate:  In 3.0 Archers were more powerful than melee fighters:  You could stack magic bows and magic ammunition.  Wouldn't be bad if the magic on a bow gave accuracy only and the magic on arrows gave damage only.  Right now there's almost no reason for magic arrows to exist:  I can spend a lot of money to get 50 magic arrows, good for 50 shots, or spend the same money to get a magic bow, good for an unlimited number of shots.In 3.5, things were better balanced.  Magic bow and magic arrows don't stack, and finding a magic bow not only with the abilities you like but also with your particular strength bonus is tough.Melee fighters add one stat, Strength, to their attack and damage rolls.  Archers need good numbers in two stats, Dexterity *and* Strength.  Dex lets them hit, and Strength (with the right weapon) adds to damage.Archer's only advantage is that they don't have to move up to an opponent, so they get full attack actions more often.  But the situation you described, the archer stepping back and unloading, doesn't have that advantage.  And if the melee fighter has any brains, the first thing he does is Sunder the bow.  You don't need the Improved Sunder feat to do that either:  Sunder attempts normally draw an Attack of Opportunity from the defender, unless the attacker has the feat.  But Bows (and other ranged weapons) don't get any Attacks of Opportunity.So melee character closes, and archer is unarmed, and potentially out a huge amount of wealth.  Also, they're now unarmed against a heavy hitter.Also, bows only Crit' on a natural 20.  Longswords have twice as many chances to crit', and Rapiers have three times as much.  Advantage clearly to the swordsman.On the balance per level thing:  As levels increase fighter types in general become less and less important.  Additionally, contests between Wizard types become "Rocket Tag":  Whoever shoots first wins.  A high level Wiz' can throw some damage spells that don't allow a Save, and/or do enough damage to drop a comparable character (with D4 per level of hit points) whether they Save or not.  Empowered Fireball, for example.Two 9th level Wiz types.  That's 9D4 of hit points, plus CON.  Average 33 hit points (Max the first level and roll 2.5 fr the rest, presuming a 12 or 13 CON.)  42 points if they have a 14 CON.Wizard throws a 9 D6 Fireball, averaging 31.5 of damage.  Empowered, add another 16.  That's 47.5, which is one dead WIZ, if he fails the throw.  If the caster has a Rod of Maximize, Lesser, the damage is 54, which is even more over the top.Rocket tag:  I win initiative, I win the battle.  The game balance is off at 9th, and gets even more off as the levels ascend.  Attempts to "fix" this in games like Pathfinder actually made it worse.  Everyone gets more Feats and more hit points, but the classes and spells still advance at the same rate.  That is, the higher level spells are still just as proportionally more powerful with levels.  To actually deal with the balance issue you need to either write less effective spells at high levels, or raise the spell levels for damage causing spells.  If Empowered Fireball isn't available for another level or two, the defender will have more hit points and a better chance of surviving long enough to return fire. And fighter types still get left behind, but not as much.D&D 3.0 and 3.5 weren't properly play tested at levels over ten, and Pathfinder's authors have acknowledged that they never play tested for game balance at all.One way I've found to keep fighter types relevant longer was to change iterative attack progression to BAB over four, instead of BAB over five.  They get their second attack a level earlier, and their third attack two levels earlier.  That tips their power curve upward slightly and lets them stay in the game a bit longer.Adding bonus feats for fighters might help, but they get 17 feats or so over 20 levels now.  And combat classes other than Fighter get left in the dirt even faster.Paladins get some neat magic, but not much and not very powerful stuff.  In a straight up fight the Fighter out classes him all the way.  Ranger the same.Rangers get some neat combat abilities with levels, and they do happen to match some of the available Fighter bonus feats.  That means that a Fighter could match most of the Ranger class abilities by dedicating the right feats to it.  What they can't match is the skills, the Favored Enemy and the Animal Companion.  Magic for the Ranger is minor, and comes late.  Two good Saves is nice as well, so Ranger is a viable alternative to Fighter.  Almost.Monks are a MAD class (Multi Attribute Dependent)  The key to being happy with a Monk is to realize and accept that, barring nuclear stats, you won't be able to fully realize all of the class potential.  You have to either select areas of strength, or be mediocre at everything.  So some Monks will exploit class features that are Strength dependent, others might specialize in Dex or Wisdom based class features.Looked at in a positive light, it means that no two Monks need have the same style.  Seen through an average player's eyes, they have to accept and choose where their Monk is going to suck.I've seen some who pushed Wisdom and Dex, so they were AC monsters.  Others pushed Strength and Con, so they could dish out and take heavy damage.  Other combinations give different advantages, but nobody's going to have it all.  Barring nuclear stats, that is.Back on topic though, I find the 3.*/Pathfinder editions to be my own favorites (D&D more than Pathfinder).  The skills systems allow for a good, comfortable granularity in areas of non-combat specialty that 4 and 5 are missing, and cross-classing and prestige classes give opportunities to fine tune their career development.  An important and often overlooked rule however is that Prestige classes are always at the DM's discretion.  A good DM will head off efforts to tweak out a combat god.</blockquote>

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