The defender's masochism

[Skyscraper]

You're a Fighter. Let's say Sword-and-Shield. You have trained in the Guardian School. You know you're tougher than your allies, and better defended, and you can't bear to imagine standing there, at the end of the fight, cowering behind your shield while they're dead.


But, as I say, you're trained in the Guardian School, Mamorujutsu, a martial art that uses a blade to defend your allies.

You want the enemy dead, or at least not fighting anymore. So, you go up to one of them, a sneaky looking bugger with a rapier, and you "mark" him: you watch him, paying attention to his every movement.
The moment he takes his eyes off you, BAM! you strike at his exposed flank.
He turns back to you, and you clash swords. He's learnt his lesson now, he never turns away from you.

You're not worried about your own safety, you'll be fine. You've got your armour, your sword, your shield. You can take a few hits.

But William the Wizard? He's a good guy, really, his spells really help in a fight, you love him to bits. Without him, you'd eventually be over-run by sheer numbers.
But he's a nerd, with a book, wearing robes. If this bugger got to him he'd only last a few seconds.

So you stand here, and you guard him while he prepares his spells, and blasts through the enemies.

Interesting explanation.

 

[Skyscraper]

And arguably, then, anyone should be able to do this, but defenders would do it far better.

That was one of my initial comments.

 

[Skyscraper]

Here are a few thoughts after having read through all posts that were made since yesterday.

First off, thank you to everyone for participating in this discussion. The different viewpoints are enlightening, in addition to being made in a very civil manner. Great discussion!

Also, sorry for being close to spamming my replies, I'd often give XP instead but have to spread them.

This being said...

I feel that the "bodyguard" aspect of the fighter woudl be better embodied by skills that would allow him to interpose himself between his opponent and his ally. Among the different suggestions I've seen in this thread, those I prefer would be something like an ability that allows the fighter to shift as an immediate interrupt, perhaps somehow even blocking a target destination square of the opponent. Limits to how much the fighter can do this during a round (perhaps up to its movement, e.g. 5 or 6 squares out of turn) woudl prevent abuse.

This would complicate moving around the fighter much more and is likely to lead to more opportunity attacks by the fighter, which is pretty much what we want in the end.

This would also allow the fighter to follow his opponent if he retreats, which is a fun mechanic IMO (a bit like the avengers) and makes the fighter a tough combattant.

Any thoughts?

 

[Harlekin]

Certainly all my opinions with 4e are limited by lack of personal experience.

However, another point that you made also tends to go unspoken and unacknowledged:If you're talking about building a consensus 5e, it becomes rather important to consider that many if not most 4e players played 3e for years as their game of choice, but most 3e/PF stalwarts rejected 4e either before or after trying it.

To wit, most 4e players have played a game where fighters did not have defender powers and been pretty happy with that game; it's hard to justify changing these kinds of things.

So you are saying we should listen to the people who don't know what they are talking about because they ever only played one style while ignoring the people that can actually make informed comparisons? Doesn't that sound backwards?

 

[Savage Wombat]

Maybe it's just the HP system acting up again.

In the real world, yes, some fighters would interpose themselves to protect others. But they weren't really trying to get wounded on someone else's behalf, were they? They were relying on their better armor and hoping their skills would save the day.

In D&D, with the HP abstraction and the grinding damage, the defender allows himself not only to be attacked, but to actually take wounds. Even getting beaten bloody, taking comfort in the knowledge that he takes a beating better than Dave Lizewski. Because that's his job in D&D.

Maybe it wouldn't seem so masochistic if you imagine all those wounds being the dazzling way you turn aside the enemy blades with your superior weapons skill, breaking the onslaught that would surely overrun the rest of the party.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

That was one of my initial comments.

This would complicate moving around the fighter much more and is likely to lead to more opportunity attacks by the fighter, which is pretty much what we want in the end.

I think one of the reasons that they made marking in 4E as limited as it is, was because of the serious pushback that got on the scope and complexity of 3E Attacks of Opportunity. Remember that hoopla? It didn't help any that the initial text on 3E AoO was a bit spread out, repeated apparently inconsistently in places, and lacking the full rationale of what it was modeling. Those of that got the gist of the idea upfront (often because of roots in other systems) typically had no problem with it, but plenty of other people screamed bloody murder. How much would marking be more readily accepted if the rationale had been made explicit instead of implied?

And none of that is taking into account rounding off corner cases and other simplifications for ease of play (with AoO, OA, or marking).

Which is just to show that on these kind of questions for a new twist to the mechanics, they are darned if they do, darned if they don't.

 

[Harlekin]

Honestly, Defenders are a somewhat hacked solution to a bigger problem in turn-based combat games. In a real fight, if you try to move around a bodyguard, they move with you. You can't run a wide arc around a guard to get to your target because the bodyguard will move to intercept you, push the client out of the way, and keep himself between you. (And this is what we're talking about, right? Because bodyguarding and aggressive fighting are very different things.)

You can't really model this in a turn-based, gridded combat without messing around with multiple turn sequences in game. Defender mechanics are trying to square a circle. It only looks elegant if you take it out of context.

I favor giving some characters the ability to interrupt enemy movement or attacks. Let characters make a Move to Intercept, or a Defend Ally action out-of sequence. It's actually more flexible while requiring fewer tracking mechanics, and lets a character who wants to bodyguard or cut off advances to feel like a mobile warrior.

This is pretty close. You need a marking mechanic because of the abstraction of turn-based rules with pretty long turns. In reality, all combatants go at the same time. However, talking about bodyguarding is a red herring. You can have a single fighter trying to protect multiple friends by making it difficult to reach them (Think of defending in soccer) or by being more in the face of the enemy than the scrawny little rogue (Happens in Basketball). If you had a combat system that resolved actions by the half-second, the fighter can do that without needing a marking mechanic. However, that adds a host of other challenges and makes combats really weird. So marking is a simpler (although a little more abstract).

 

[Alan Shutko]

You know, it is hard to agree with you when you are advocating giving up a set of abilities that made the Fighter effective and fun in order to revert back to the list of abilities he had when he was weak and boring.

That's your opinion. I have played fighters from 1e through 4e, and found the 4e fighter to be the least fun. Mostly because the fighter was shoehorned into the defender role, which I don't find fun.

 

[Harlekin]

In the real world, yes, some fighters would interpose themselves to protect others. But they weren't really trying to get wounded on someone else's behalf, were they? They were relying on their better armor and hoping their skills would save the day.

In D&D, with the HP abstraction and the grinding damage, the defender allows himself not only to be attacked, but to actually take wounds. Even getting beaten bloody, taking comfort in the knowledge that he takes a beating better than Dave Lizewski. Because that's his job in D&D.

Maybe it wouldn't seem so masochistic if you imagine all those wounds being the dazzling way you turn aside the enemy blades with your superior weapons skill, breaking the onslaught that would surely overrun the rest of the party.

This is pretty much it. A fighter interposes himself because he would rather be the target of the attack because he assumes if he is attacked he is less likely to be wounded than the other guy. And if he is wounded, the wound is less likely to be severe.

I would call that courage, rather than masochism.

 

[Harlekin]

That's your opinion. I have played fighters from 1e through 4e, and found the 4e fighter to be the least fun. Mostly because the fighter was shoehorned into the defender role, which I don't find fun.

Among people playing 4th, TwinBahamut's take is the majority position, look at any poll for the favorite 4th edition class.

For people like you, they introduced the Slayer. Would you be happy if the fighter could be either striker or defender?