D&D 5E The Door, Player Expectations, and why 5e can't unify the fanbase.

[Underman]

Interesting. Because that really wasn't my reading. Mine was that there were people (e.g. @Lanefan or @Remathilis ) who seem unhappy with the very idea of a fighter being more than mundane.

Maybe, but if that's true, it's because you're a bad salesman, you aren't listening to the customer and selling to them what they need to hear (not you, but the general "you"). So if they're saying 'a fighter is like Batman' then give a reason for turning Batman into Superman, and not the reason you're thinking (ie., class balance) but the reason they're seeking (ie., alchemical drug injections, fey boon, semi-divine status, etc.). I'm not guaranteeting they will buy into everything you throw at them, but it's better than what's going on now. I'm practically bending backwards to explain what I need to suspend disbelief and instead get a lot of "that's not necessary in my game". Well it is necessary if you don't want a certain category of people to be unhappy, and you clearly don't want them to be unhappy else you wouldn't try so hard to convince them, right?

There are other people (e.g. me or @pmerton) who think that the fighter can not fulfil the fighter archetype if they remain merely mundane - instead they become messy red smears at high level.

Is that the only 2 options though? We've already covered so many options, starting at "limit the wizard so the fighter doesn't have to throw mountains" and then explored other territories from there.

 

[Remathilis]

Interesting. Because that really wasn't my reading. Mine was that there were people (e.g. [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] or [MENTION=7635]Remathilis[/MENTION]) who seem unhappy with the very idea of a fighter being more than mundane. There are other people (e.g. me or @pmerton) who think that the fighter can not fulfil the fighter archetype if they remain merely mundane - instead they become messy red smears at high level.

Just to be clear; I don't necessarily want fighters to be weak or unable to handle melee combat with dragons, demons, and giants. I just don't think they need to mimic spellcasters in wondrous endeavors. A mythic fighter is already strong, can take blows that would kill a lesser man, and fell great beasts. I just don't want them making strength checks to make new rivers.

Or to put it a different way: I don't mind if high-level fighters choke out the Nemean Lion or wrestling Cerebus, but I don't want him taking Atlas's job for the day...

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Just to be clear; I don't necessarily want fighters to be weak or unable to handle melee combat with dragons, demons, and giants. I just don't think they need to mimic spellcasters in wondrous endeavors. A mythic fighter is already strong, can take blows that would kill a lesser man, and fell great beasts. I just don't want them making strength checks to make new rivers.

Or to put it a different way: I don't mind if high-level fighters choke out the Nemean Lion or wrestling Cerebus, but I don't want him taking Atlas's job for the day...

The question I have is if it's actually enough to be balanced against a Wizard?
It probably depends on a lot of factors, even if we eliminate all the campaign-specific ones.

It could very well be enough. In 4E, a Wizard can cast Linked Portal, a Fighter cannot. UNless, of course, the Fighter learns to cast rituals, but let's say he doesn't and the rules even say he can't. Even then, the Wizard can still be balanced, because Linked Portal is very limited and it costs money and time to cast. Even with a more powerful version, say 3E's teleport, it could be fair, if it's not a cheap spell to cast. Teleport in 3E doesn't have any material cost but it could have one in Next. And that may make a significant difference, since now "novaing" some effects is not just something you fix by sleeping it off, you must earn money for these costly spells.
And you can go even a step further - if you don't want a campaign where high level characters must have 50,000 gp, you can describe each of these costly material components as special items. So in a a low-money campaign, a Wizard finds a Teleportation Stone that he can use to cast Teleport with. But he cannot go to the magic item shop nearby and exchange it against 5,000 gold pieces, since there aren't such shops, and even if there are - the best they could do is trade you in for another magic item of similar item. So the characters may have "expensive" items, but they could still be dirt poor, since there is no way to turn a teleportation stone or a raise dead salve into food. And in a campaign where you are okay with 5,000 gold pieces around, you can allow the wizard with teleport to spend that money to either buy (if your campaign also has magic itme shops) or create (if you prefer item creation rules).

I mention only Teleport here, but it could also apply to other spells. Maybe Disintegrate requires a costly component, and has an instant death effect. But there is a same level spell that has no cost that only deals good damage. The latter is more balanced against the fighter, the former less so.

It will also be a concious group decision what kind of spells the wizard gets his components for once it cuts into the party profits, and this may overall give all players a stronger feel that a particular spell was a group effort. And in addition, there isn't really a benefit to play a spellcaster only campaign in a campaign where 15 minute adventuring days are likely, since the party couldn't even afford all the "nova" and "show-stealing" spells for 4-5 characters.

 

[pemerton]

I mean folks who currently only play 4ed. used to play 3ed (and maybe even earlier editions) before 4ed was introduced.

This isn't true in my case. I didn't use to play 3E (I did use to play AD&D, back when it was still the current edition). Some members of my group played 3E games. One member had never played D&D (I introduced him to fantasy RPGing with Rolemaster) until our 4e game started.

For me, 4e was the system that led me back to GMing D&D after nearly 20 years of running something else.

Perhaps I'm an outlier, though.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Maybe, but if that's true, it's because you're a bad salesman, you aren't listening to the customer and selling to them what they need to hear (not you, but the general "you"). So if they're saying 'a fighter is like Batman' then give a reason for turning Batman into Superman, and not the reason you're thinking (ie., class balance) but the reason they're seeking (ie., alchemical drug injections, fey boon, semi-divine status, etc.). I'm not guaranteeting they will buy into everything you throw at them, but it's better than what's going on now. I'm practically bending backwards to explain what I need to suspend disbelief and instead get a lot of "that's not necessary in my game". Well it is necessary if you don't want a certain category of people to be unhappy, and you clearly don't want them to be unhappy else you wouldn't try so hard to convince them, right?

We've been here several pages back. I forget who it was (it may even have been me) who proposed that fighters got to pick from at least half a dozen different forms of empowerment from the ambient magic that means giants don't collapse under their own weight to being born a demigod to spells cast on them.

But from what I can tell you are the only person left arguing for what you are - many options have been given in this thread. Instead Remathilis is arguing explicitely for a cap on the power of the fighter below.

Just to be clear; I don't necessarily want fighters to be weak or unable to handle melee combat with dragons, demons, and giants. I just don't think they need to mimic spellcasters in wondrous endeavors. A mythic fighter is already strong, can take blows that would kill a lesser man, and fell great beasts. I just don't want them making strength checks to make new rivers.

Or to put it a different way: I don't mind if high-level fighters choke out the Nemean Lion or wrestling Cerebus, but I don't want him taking Atlas's job for the day...

Then I have a question for you. What is the fighter meant to do when the Tarrasque comes calling? Or Ogremoch? Take the day off? Get swallowed with a single gulp?

And this is the problem. There will always be a bigger monster. People don't seem to want to cap spells - and bigger, scarier monsters are cool. But you seem to think that the epic fighter should be impossible?

 

[Fifth Element]

I would love to see a new game. Not a frankensteined mix of every previous edition.

I think there's a big difference between a Frankenstein edition - grafting parts from various older editions together and hoping they work together - and designing a new edition from the ground up, with said design being informed by stuff from various older editions.

 

[Fifth Element]

Because the fighter used to be landbound all this life and suddenly takes off 1 x day for no reason that nobody wants to give me to help me buy into it?

Sorry, but this aspect of it has been discussed extensively earlier in the thread. Many suggestions have been provided, so claiming now that no one's tried to help seems disingenuous.

 

[Minigiant]

I don't need to jump 200' chasms.

But who is okay with my fighter jumping 50' up?

He can't slice off the dragon's head. It's too tall. Poor guy can't reach. I can't look at him flail around anymore. Its so sad and pathetic.

 

[Underman]

Sorry, but this aspect of it has been discussed extensively earlier in the thread. Many suggestions have been provided, so claiming now that no one's tried to help seems disingenuous.

How do you figure when I was just having that conversation with pemerton the last page or two, and also with YOU just yesterday. The constant comparisons to giants and therefore fighters can do anything (with no accompanying explanation, I believe one phrase was "not needed")? Suggestions may have been provided, but not embraced, at least not in the way that my suspension of disbelief was requested for analysis.

Edit: I didn't claim that nobody tried to help; Mustrum_Ridcully has been a star at solution-based posts, but he's not the one countering my preferences

 

[Crazy Jerome]

No one has even mentioned the real problem with Fighters as Batman? If we do that, and have Batman and Paladins in the same game, think of how turbo-charged the alignment arguments will get.

I do think there is a nuance to the Fighter as Batman that depends upon what you mean when you say going "toe to toe with a dragon"--and necessarily tying into how you view hit points.

For me, even with a more explicitly mythic character, I view the mythic in that case as going toe to toe, but the dragon never gets a clean shot. You can't parry a claw that large (realistically), but there is enough D&D strength in this fighter that he dodges a little, knocks the claw slightly out of line, and then it glances off of his shield. That's still a "hit" in hit point terms, but the claw is not wrapped around the fighter. If an 10 year old, slight girl can parry a foil wielded by a grown male--and they can with the proper leverage, then I don't see why an 16+ Str high level D&D fighter can't partially parry a claw. The mythic part is in the speed and reflexes needed to pull that kind of thing off consistently.

Obviously, this doesn't work if you view hit points as "meat." And it's got a few holes for some of the other conceptions of mythic.

 

[fenriswolf456]

This isn't true in my case. I didn't use to play 3E (I did use to play AD&D, back when it was still the current edition). Some members of my group played 3E games. One member had never played D&D (I introduced him to fantasy RPGing with Rolemaster) until our 4e game started.

For me, 4e was the system that led me back to GMing D&D after nearly 20 years of running something else.

Perhaps I'm an outlier, though.

Doubtful ... I too never played 3E, though I DMed the heck out of AD&D. Partly it was the breakup of my group, partly not taken in by 3E's shinyness. It just never grabbed me, despite a couple of attempts to play and get into it.

With my current 4E groups, I think only 2 or 3 come from playing 3E, the other 5 or so are either newcomers or 'old school' players. One of my players runs Encounters, and half the players there are teens or even preteens.

It's too early to tell now, but I'm pretty certain we'll at least give 5E a try when it is finally released, unless future playtests really turn some of us off the idea. But I don't believe there's going to be any auto-buy in by 4thers just because some came from a previous edition. The game has to prove interesting and fun enough for people to make the switch, especially if it's going to go the route of having to be a large investment.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

On the wizard memory thing, I've also had a small instance of memory loss, though not as dramatic as pemerton's. Mine was a car wreck that initially knocked out about 30 hours of memory, but gradually shrunk down to about 6 hours that never came back. It's just a hole where everyone around me said that I was conscious for most of it, talking and cracking jokes, but it is all gone.

This didn't really change my view of wizard memorization in D&D, though other things have. I initially and for a long time time took it, having read and enjoyed Vance, as very much the imposing of an alien presence in the mind, as pemerton mentioned. But research since about study habits have discovered more about how memory works.

One of the reason "cramming" can work for a test but not retain knowledge is that you need repetition over time, and in different environments to readily retain and recall things. For example, they have discovered that some people recall things by (subconsciously) associating the memory with colors--such that a book you read in a well-lighted room with green walls is going to be more readily referenced in your head in similar conditions. If you deliberately study something in different environments, the effect seems to get magnified--and then you finally reach a point where you've "got it" no matter what.

So I kind of viewed spells as something so difficult to handle that you are pretty much stuck "cramming" to get it to work in any kind of reasonable timeframe. In this conception, theoretically a wizard could study fireball for a decade or so, in all kinds of environments and dangers, and finally cast it on demand--but who has that kind of time? (If you say "elves," I'm gonna smack you! )

I've moved more towards a mix of that "cramming" option with the former, as I think the "cramming of alien knowledge" into your brain manages to explain the various spell levels and Vancian "forget" adequately enough, while also allowing some room for minor at-will effects and other such exceptions.

 

[Remathilis]

We've been here several pages back. I forget who it was (it may even have been me) who proposed that fighters got to pick from at least half a dozen different forms of empowerment from the ambient magic that means giants don't collapse under their own weight to being born a demigod to spells cast on them.

But from what I can tell you are the only person left arguing for what you are - many options have been given in this thread. Instead Remathilis is arguing explicitely for a cap on the power of the fighter below.

Then I have a question for you. What is the fighter meant to do when the Tarrasque comes calling? Or Ogremoch? Take the day off? Get swallowed with a single gulp?

And this is the problem. There will always be a bigger monster. People don't seem to want to cap spells - and bigger, scarier monsters are cool. But you seem to think that the epic fighter should be impossible?

Do what they did when our group fought it in 2nd edition. Find high ground, use magic items, and deal stupid amounts of damage while the wizard preps the wish spell and the cleric kept the HP engine going. (It was the thieves who stayed home).

Why do you need to have to leap around like a jackrabbit at a moon-landing to fight the Tarrasque? Its a terestiral creature, it stands on the ground too.

I haven't asked this question because I didn't feel it relevant, but are these fighters supposed to jump oceans and cleave mountains naked? Because for all my years of D&D I've never seen a very high level fighter that didn't have a dozen magical items to give him flight, super strength, insane AC, etc. Yeah, fighters need their toys. Because they're not wizards, they need items to use magic. I DON'T WANT FIGHTERS DOING MAGICAL THINGS WITHOUT MAGIC!

 

[TwoSix]

I DON'T WANT FIGHTERS DOING MAGICAL THINGS WITHOUT MAGIC!

I do. Now what? Fix it, WotC.

 

[billd91]

I do. Now what? Fix it, WotC.

They already are trying to do so by making the game modular (funny, back in the 3e days, that was called using the game as a toolkit). Of course, whether or not this is actually possible, we don't know yet. It's not very helpful that people are saying the project is doomed from the start, particularly since we're the ones who will, collectively, make that determination with our purchasing dollars and playing time.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Do what they did when our group fought it in 2nd edition. Find high ground, use magic items, and deal stupid amounts of damage while the wizard preps the wish spell and the cleric kept the HP engine going. (It was the thieves who stayed home).

Why do you need to have to leap around like a jackrabbit at a moon-landing to fight the Tarrasque? Its a terestiral creature, it stands on the ground too.

I haven't asked this question because I didn't feel it relevant, but are these fighters supposed to jump oceans and cleave mountains naked? Because for all my years of D&D I've never seen a very high level fighter that didn't have a dozen magical items to give him flight, super strength, insane AC, etc. Yeah, fighters need their toys. Because they're not wizards, they need items to use magic. I DON'T WANT FIGHTERS DOING MAGICAL THINGS WITHOUT MAGIC!

Can you promise me that a fighter will get this magical items that give him these abilities?

And can't the Wizard get the same items, so the Wizard still has the advantage?

 

[billd91]

Can you promise me that a fighter will get this magical items that give him these abilities?

And can't the Wizard get the same items, so the Wizard still has the advantage?

At one point, the game was designed to make this a likely occurrence. The 1e and 2e DMG magic item randomized tables were skewed away from permanent wizard-friendly magic items. Potions, scrolls, weapons, and armor were favored to appear. Potions could help anybody and thus weren't really worth a lot of control. Scrolls were one-shots or used to improve spell books, so they didn't have a constant or consistent impact either. But weapons and armor being much more common that bracers of armor, staves, and wands would and did. It helped that the 1e DMG makes this idea explicit - magic item placement should generally favor equipment-based classes. Magic item creation was also a real pain in the ass, discouraging it in general.

3e, in an effort to make magic item creation more of an aspect of the game and probably in response years of player feedback, made magic item creation easy for players to manage. But doing so, however, any distinction favoring the equipment-based classes was lost. The requirement that the item creator was a caster also made it easy for wizards to get what they wanted when they wanted it. Magic item creation, as I see it, may have been one of the biggest and most troublesome genies 3e let out of the bottle.

PF has leveled the playing field a little in the sense that non-casters can now craft magic items with the investment in an extra feat and a bunch of skill ranks. Now, that fighter/armorer can make his own stuff. But the ease of making items is still there in general.

If 5e really is moving back to the 1e model of magic items distribution being under the DM's authority, as long as the guidelines are clear and the implications of denying decent equipment to the fighters or giving too much gear to the wizards are laid out, I think we can be more confident in a better balance between equipment-based and less equipment-based classes.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

This reminds me of something -I seem to remember the devs tinkering with some kind of stamina system. I am not sure that it will make it in as core or if it's a module or just a random thought, though.*snip*

There is more where that came from, if anyone is interested:

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

At one point, the game was designed to make this a likely occurrence. The 1e and 2e DMG magic item randomized tables were skewed away from permanent wizard-friendly magic items. Potions, scrolls, weapons, and armor were favored to appear. Potions could help anybody and thus weren't really worth a lot of control. Scrolls were one-shots or used to improve spell books, so they didn't have a constant or consistent impact either. But weapons and armor being much more common that bracers of armor, staves, and wands would and did. It helped that the 1e DMG makes this idea explicit - magic item placement should generally favor equipment-based classes. Magic item creation was also a real pain in the ass, discouraging it in general.

3e, in an effort to make magic item creation more of an aspect of the game and probably in response years of player feedback, made magic item creation easy for players to manage. But doing so, however, any distinction favoring the equipment-based classes was lost. The requirement that the item creator was a caster also made it easy for wizards to get what they wanted when they wanted it. Magic item creation, as I see it, may have been one of the biggest and most troublesome genies 3e let out of the bottle.

PF has leveled the playing field a little in the sense that non-casters can now craft magic items with the investment in an extra feat and a bunch of skill ranks. Now, that fighter/armorer can make his own stuff. But the ease of making items is still there in general.

If 5e really is moving back to the 1e model of magic items distribution being under the DM's authority, as long as the guidelines are clear and the implications of denying decent equipment to the fighters or giving too much gear to the wizards are laid out, I think we can be more confident in a better balance between equipment-based and less equipment-based classes.

I wonder if all this happened by accident - that it worked out mostly in OD&D and AD&D and that it broke apart around 3E, or whether I give the OD&D/AD&D to little credit and they knew what they were doing and later designers didn't know that...

I still prefer the 4E edition approach to something that relies on mostly random item distribution. It just seems... more robust or more elegant, I don't know.

 

[Underman]

There is more where that came from, if anyone is interested:

Awesome, hope you get good feedback.

If 5e really is moving back to the 1e model of magic items distribution being under the DM's authority, as long as the guidelines are clear and the implications of denying decent equipment to the fighters or giving too much gear to the wizards are laid out, I think we can be more confident in a better balance between equipment-based and less equipment-based classes.

Why isn't there a fantasy trope that high level fighters learn to craft magic weapons and armor on their own?

Batman commissions his own gear, Spiderman invented his own webshooters, etc. -- I kinda roll my eyes at these one-man shows, but why not a fantasy warrior who is making a living out of adventuring, earns a ton of disposable income, and want to improve his chances of survival out there? It makes sense in a modern rational kind of way.

Failing that, the fighter can have a patron arcane weaponsmith -- like the way Bond has Q or Thor has the dwarves that made Mjölnir.

Failing that, the fighter is sorta like Indiana Jones or Lara Croft, specifically looking for treasure troves containing (or villians wielding) legendary weapons and armor, and these "side quests" are built into the adventure cooperatively with the DM.

Failing that, the fighter's destiny is to find magic weapons and armor which is all part of a bigger plan/fate towards some unknown destiny, and gets narrativist "points" towards including such items in the adventure.

Mythic fighters wouldn't need to rely on magic trinkets, but why don't mundane fighters reliant on magic items/armor take control of their own fate, instead of passively hoping for magic gear?

(This is assuming that the magic item economy supports this, but in my experience, D&D genre is flooded with magic items, even while the rules protest otherwise)