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

[Underman]

What it comes down to, is that they all enforce a playstyle on the DM, however.

D&D Next is going there anyway, like with balancing wizards vs fighters re: the 15 min adventuring day article. Also, I disagree it's enforcing anything on the DM in such black and white terms, or at least moreseo than what was "enforced" on DMs in past editions (wandering monsters and other paradigms).

I mean, why give the magic items to the one person in your party who is extremely weak without them when you could give them to the Wizard, who is designed to be much stronger without items and make him even stronger?

Doesn't make sense to me. A wizard will use a sword maybe once per encounter if at all. A warrior would use that sword at least every single round. The total damage dished out by a sword fighter will far exceed anything the wizard can do with it. So the net benefit to the party is to give the best sword to the fighter.

That makes metagame as well as in-game sense -- in fact it makes more visceral sense in-game to the characters who are putting their lives on the line.

Perhaps if one is immersed in characters who are reckless and silly and selfish and independent, then ya, they might not think of the party's net benefit (but even in that extreme case, the fighter can go up to the wizard and punch the crap out of the wizard and take his sword).

IME, we play characters who function more as a SEAL team, and despite the odd squabbling, know it's better to give the best sword to the fighter. Always. Period.

 

[Pickles JG]

One of the things I hated most about AD&D, & presumably 2e though I never played it, was how my fighter was defined by the magic items the DM & the rest of the party were gracious enough to allow him to have.

 

[nogray]

The reading is a bit vague on how the illusion is accomplished exactly in a rational way that would work in D&D let's say. Not to mention the old crone who is really Old Age and all the other parts of that contest. Útgarða-Loki's illusions are very dreamy in the way that a person or thing can be two things at once (or one thing and then another) and nothing like the way we rationalize illusions in D&D. The power level of wizards would be highly controversial if epic spells could mythically summon Old Age, disguise it in god-proof illusions, and have it wrestle a major god into defeat.

With all the same caveats from before (reading the myths was a long time ago and whatnot), I took the crone to be old age in the same basic sense that (pulling from several mythologies) Thor is thunder, Ares is war, Shu is air/the sky, Mystra is magic, or Pelor is the sun. That is to say, it was "just" a wrestling contest between two deities or deity-level people, with no illusions required for that part.

Besides, in the Norse myths, it's not like it's that hard to fool Thor. He may be a D&D greater god, but the myths put him on a much more approachable and fallible level than even modern comics do. In fact, one of the companions of Thor and Loki in that adventure, if I recall correctly, was a normal man. That normal man participated in a race with Hugi (thought); though he did lose, it was a close matter.

It's fun to talk about all these myths. I hope it's not too off-topic with the rest of the thread.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I agree - but if one person can look at it and see "mythic", and another look at it and see "mundane + satisfactory explanation for mythic capabilities", that's probably a good thing.

Yes. I'm riffing off your response rather than responding to anything in particular.

The explanation is most definitely a good things in many contexts, especially when you are actually playing the game (with possible exception here for certain DM tasks). It's more ambiguous during development and presentation of the game, and often bad during design (though somewhat necessary even there). In the analysis that precedes design, the illusion that it is anything but mythic is almost universally bad.

I don't think anyone comes down harder on "illusionism" than I do, but despite my extreme dislike of "illusionism" I see a very valid, positive role for illusion itself. It's the almost fetish-like cult that grows around illusion that I think of as "illusionism"--and mostly negative.

So the illusion that a mundane character has a satisfactory explanation for mythic capabilities--during play--is highly useful and necessary. We can see it most clearly with an absurb example. Let's give the fighter the ability to teleport freely, anytime, anywhere, at-will, with no explanation whatsoever? No one is buying that. And even if you tone it down so that it isn't overpowered, still no one is buying that. Take that toned down power and give it a rationalization--magic item, fey blood, some kind of fighter/mage backing, etc., suddenly it's fine for some people. Come up with enough options, practically no one will object, and most of the objections will be mild and/or purely based upon taste--"Well, I still don't like it for flavor, but I don't see any real problem with it for those that like it." Some people have that reaction to magic missile, after all.

In contrast, what grows out of illusionism is somehow that the rationalization itself is self-justifying. For example, this guy has fey blood. The fey teleport. Ergo, this guy teleports. That's even fine as a starting place. But then it turns out that when some say, "The fey teleport," what they mean is that, "The fey teleport in particular ways, and with particular power," because that's the way it's always been, because of particular literary preferences, or other such. And then it turns out that when you go to put limits on the power, you can't put simple ones, because you are working around the rationalization.

At that point, the illusion is driving the mechanics, instead of being something that, we hope, is expressed by the mechanics. The designers have bought into their own illusion instead of crafting the illusion. You can't be a great magician and at the same time be fooled by your own tricks.

I think it is Dausuul who is fond of saying that flavor and crunch are useless concepts, that the two are inseparable and thus attempts to separate them do damage to the game elements. If I understand the idea correctly, then I disagree. However, the illusion and mechanics do need to be considered from the very beginning of development. So if that is what Dausuul means, I'm buying his newsletter. I merely think that keeping them both conceptually separate in the head of the author, but practically merged in the presentation, is the best way for the end user to experience them as satisfactorily whole in the end.

Ideally, then, you'd have design notes elsewhere to help the DM, because when the DM starts changing things around, he has become a bit of an analyst/designer, and thus it becomes useful for him to see the separate concepts.

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=54877]Crazy Jerome[/MENTION], good post.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I put together on RPG.net what I think it will take to balance mundane fighters with mid-high level wizards.

Fighters: The fighter is the master of combat and the rogue the master of stealthy combat. They gain the following abilities:

Decapitation. Any time a fighter or rogue hits their target by 10 or more or scores a critical hit, they decapitate the enemy, stab them through the heart, knock their head off, or otherwise maim them. Any enemy not specifically marked as "Resilient" is instantly reduced to 0hp (regenerating monsters may regenerate from this damage). Any resilient enemy takes damage as normal. Fighters and rogues both count as resilient when not flat footed.

OODA Loop: Whenever a fighter or rogue has an initiative score of 20 or higher they gain an extra turn at each initiative count that is a multiple 20 lower than theirs, including on the surprise round. In addition rogues gain twice their level as a modifier to initiative and fighters gain the extra round every 15 initiative points at level 5. 10 initiative points at level 10 and 5 intiative points at level 15. Rogues in a surprise round gain extra turns like fighters.

You can't stop me: Fighters gain Evasion and Superior Mettle. Rogues gain Improved Evasion and Mettle. In addition both have three good saves, and can reroll their saves every turn against any mind effecting spell, spell with a non-instantaneous duration, or spell that could be cancelled by Freedom of Movement.

Lethal killer: Double the BAB of fighters and rogues. Iteratives therefore appear much faster and are taken at full BAB for all classes.

Cutting the Spells: Any defensive spell on a target damaged by a fighter or rogue must make a check, caster level vs BAB of the fighter or rogue or be dispelled

 

[Lanefan]

Doesn't make sense to me. A wizard will use a sword maybe once per encounter if at all. A warrior would use that sword at least every single round. The total damage dished out by a sword fighter will far exceed anything the wizard can do with it. So the net benefit to the party is to give the best sword to the fighter.

Never mind that if the wizard does try using the sword chances are high she isn't proficient with it and is thus probably about as dangerous to her allies as to the enemy.

Perhaps if one is immersed in characters who are reckless and silly and selfish and independent, then ya, they might not think of the party's net benefit (but even in that extreme case, the fighter can go up to the wizard and punch the crap out of the wizard and take his sword).

In the past, I have been that fighter.

Man it felt good!

Lanefan

 

[Zustiur]

Wow. Now that (Neonchameleon's post) is a demonstration of being mundane and powerful at the same time. I'm not certain how balanced it is but that doesn't really matter - it would have to be used in play to check the balance. Its no good is just guessing.
This is exactly there kind of mythic
I can get behind. It's a natural and logical extension of what both classes already do.

My only concern at this stage is the extra turns being able to make a fighter do a 200m sprint in 6 seconds. This is a minor concern because it would be easy to limit.


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[Dannyalcatraz]

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[Neonchameleon]

Wow. Now that is a demonstration of being mundane and powerful at the same time. I'm not certain how balanced it is but that doesn't really matter - it would have to be used in play to check the balance. Its no good is just guessing.
This is exactly there kind of mythic I can get behind. It's a natural and logical extension of what both classes already do.

Thanks. And honestly the balance used here is pillar balance rather than mathematical balance. It's openly accepting that the fighter's main area of expertise is combat - and if the fighter is low on the other two pillars he must be sky high on the one. Mathematical balance is ... minor as a consideration if there are vast areas the fighter can't do that much in. It's the same sort of idea as Weapon Spec for the AD&D fighter. He owned combat to make up for being weak elsewhere.

My only concern at this stage is the extra turns being able to make a fighter do a 200m sprint in 6 seconds. This is a minor concern because it would be easy to limit.

Hmm... Top sprinters can run 100m in 10s. Say 60m in 6s - or 180ft in a round. That's six separate move actions worth of movement - take the full round run action away from the fighter and before level 10 they need an initiative of 46 to go significantly faster than this. So they need an initiative modifier of +26 at a minimum. Not happening without magical support.

At level 14 they only need +31 initiative to break the human land speed record. But that's still in Batman territory. As far as I can tell the best mundane initiative modifier possible in core rules in 3.X for a human involves a starting dex of 18 (+4), a further +2 from putting all your start points into dex (at L16), and a +4 feat bonus. +10 - making an unaugmented +31 to initiative mathematically impossible. Now you can break the limits with e.g. Enhancement bonusses, but that's magical augmentation (and a good reason the fighter gets the swords and bonus items - he simply gets more use out of them ).

Possibly you need a tweak at level 15 saying you may not double move when your bonus rounds hit this point. I wouldn't bother personally.

Reported

Why? He seemed to be reasonably on topic? (I didn't see the pics).

 

[Zustiur]

Hmm... Top sprinters can run 100m in 10s. Say 60m in 6s - or 180ft in a round. That's six separate move actions worth of movement - take the full round run action away from the fighter and before level 10 they need an initiative of 46 to go significantly faster than this. So they need an initiative modifier of +26 at a minimum. Not happening without magical support.

At level 14 they only need +31 initiative to break the human land speed record. But that's still in Batman territory. As far as I can tell the best mundane initiative modifier possible in core rules in 3.X for a human involves a starting dex of 18 (+4), a further +2 from putting all your start points into dex (at L16), and a +4 feat bonus. +10 - making an unaugmented +31 to initiative mathematically impossible. Now you can break the limits with e.g. Enhancement bonusses, but that's magical augmentation (and a good reason the fighter gets the swords and bonus items - he simply gets more use out of them ).

Possibly you need a tweak at level 15 saying you may not double move when your bonus rounds hit this point. I wouldn't bother personally.

I may have got my mental arithmetic wrong whilst replying during my lunch break. Let's see...
30ft speed. x4 for run. 120ft in 6 seconds = 20ft in 1 second = 200 ft in 10 seconds. 200ft = 60m. That's clearly fine.
2 'turns' in one 'round' = 400 ft or 120m in 6 seconds.
Yeah, too fast for something you can do at level 1. However, I have no grave concerns with it. As I hinted, and you gave an example; it's very easy to set a limiter on this to prevent it going crazy. Preventing the 'run' action does the trick. I was thinking more along the lines of 'you get extra turns, but your total movement for the round is still limited to your speed. Therefore you might get to shift/take a 5' step multiple times and thus move safely through a dragon's threatening reach, but not outrun top athletes.

There are many solutions. I didn't really mean to pick holes in your design. I still suspect that the decapitation rule might prove to be too powerful, but I'd have to see it in context with contemporary (edition and level) wizards going nova.

Again; toning it down would be easy. The important thing is that you showed a way of increasing power without breaking the 'mundane' concept. I'd XP you for this if I could.

Edit: Argh, I couldn't find the word I was looking for in that last sentence. I meant 'without departing from the archetype'

 

[Neonchameleon]

Edit: Argh, I couldn't find the word I was looking for in that last sentence. I meant 'without departing from the archetype'

Thanks.

The thing we run into here and that I've been aluding to throughout but haven't put clearly enough is that we have two separate archetypes hiding under the name "fighter".

The first is the mundane warrior who is just that good. I've been arguing throughout that that is better represented by the rogue archetype - at least after Sneak Attack was created - and in 4e the thief can fit almost perfectly. It's that "just that good" I was trying for with my approach.

The second is the "Tough, leads from the front, tank" type - and this type to me much better matches the mechanics and intended roles of D&D - especially the way hit points scale. (And yes, roles and teamwork were right there from the start). Hercules was pretty clearly a fighter as was Beowulf and there is no other class I can think of in D&D to represent them. (Not even Barbarian matches this so well - rages are ... distinctive).

At low levels the two are almost interchangeable. But the tank type fails at high level unless they really are supernaturally tough (the way hit points indicate). The "Just that good" fails unless you really go out of your way to make them that good, which IME would be almost new to D&D (with the 'almost' being covered by the 4e thief).

Separate the two and you will have two much happier groups I think.

 

[Lanefan]

Reported

Why haven't they promoted you to moderator yet?

Lanefan

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

D&D Next is going there anyway, like with balancing wizards vs fighters re: the 15 min adventuring day article. Also, I disagree it's enforcing anything on the DM in such black and white terms, or at least moreseo than what was "enforced" on DMs in past editions (wandering monsters and other paradigms).

It does. There are all sorts of plots that you simply can't run if someone HAS to have a patron blacksmith for every fighter. And I disagree with what they are doing to balance the 15MAD as well since it also limits the plots you can run.

Doesn't make sense to me. A wizard will use a sword maybe once per encounter if at all. A warrior would use that sword at least every single round. The total damage dished out by a sword fighter will far exceed anything the wizard can do with it. So the net benefit to the party is to give the best sword to the fighter.

That's true. What I was talking about is if you could take the sword and sell it to the store for a ring that adds 10 extra damage to all of the Wizard's spells. Now, does the party want to give that sword to the Fighter in order to make him just barely as good as the Wizard or do they want to sell it and give the Wizard more power? Especially if that 10 points of damage make the difference between killing all the enemies in one round before they can retaliate with only 1 spell used. If the Wizard kills them off before they can fight back...then it doesn't matter how bad the Fighter is...because he isn't needed.

Also, what if the magic item is neutral to the class that use it? Boots that allow someone to fly are handy for any class. Sure, the Wizard can cast a spell to allow him to fly, but what if you give him the boots so he can prepare more offensive spells and therefore dominate encounters even more often?

IME, we play characters who function more as a SEAL team, and despite the odd squabbling, know it's better to give the best sword to the fighter. Always. Period.

That's true. However, as I said, it's not about giving the sword to the fighter. We think of ourselves like a SEAL team as well. We'd give the best sword to the guy who was good at it. But if there are 2 people on our team who are expert marksman and the guy who is good at swords isn't certified in guns and barely knows how to fire, and we have a budget that allows us to either buy a sword for him or a long ranged, high powered rifle for one of the marksman....well, we'll spend our money on the gun. And likely recommend to the guy who is an expert at swords that he should hide behind us and wait for the people with the guns to take care of the problem.

Likewise, if we find a bullet proof vest that is equally useful for everyone in our team, we'll likely give it to the guy with the gun since he'll be a primary target for the enemy. Likewise with the nightvision goggles. Sure, we could give a really nice sword, the vest, and the goggles to the Fighter and have him be useful some of the time(like when he's sneaking around in the dark)...but it is much better tactically to sell the sword for a better gun, give the vest and the goggles to the "Wizard" and perhaps lay off the Fighter, since he isn't earning his wage.

Giving better equipment isn't the answer to balancing the fighter. Equipment is useful for everyone and any group that finds useful equipment likely will give it to the person who can make the most use out of it...which in 90% of the cases will be the Wizard, not the Fighter. In the rare cases where the item is ONLY useful for the Fighter, then it's more efficient to sell it off for items that benefit the Wizard.

 

[pemerton]

Giving better equipment isn't the answer to balancing the fighter. Equipment is useful for everyone and any group that finds useful equipment likely will give it to the person who can make the most use out of it...which in 90% of the cases will be the Wizard, not the Fighter. In the rare cases where the item is ONLY useful for the Fighter, then it's more efficient to sell it off for items that benefit the Wizard.

If equipment is going to be the balancing point for the fighter, then it is crucial that it not be tradeable in the way you talk about here. It has to be more like Captain America's shield, or Batman's utility belt, in a points-buy game: namely, something which is part of the fighter's build, not a generic reward for successful play which is accrued by the whole group.

That would be a big change for D&D: 4e has a few things like this (Executioner Assassins' poison-making, Koblod slingers' gluepots adn the like), and I have seen those aspects criticised by those who don't like 4e's approach to metagame mechanics in PC build and action resolution.

 

[Underman]

If equipment is going to be the balancing point for the fighter, then it is crucial that it not be tradeable in the way you talk about here.

The 15MAD is not being addressed mechanically to be a balancing point for the fighter, and is instead left to the DM and encounter design. Presumably, it's possible to do the same with magic items. So not that equipment is the primary balancing mechanism for fighters, but that it could help tip the scales of balance, in the same way that D&D Next and 15MAD could tip the scales of balance to some (yet unestablished) extent.

It has to be more like Captain America's shield, or Batman's utility belt, in a points-buy game: namely, something which is part of the fighter's build, not a generic reward for successful play which is accrued by the whole group.

That would be a big change for D&D: 4e has a few things like this (Executioner Assassins' poison-making, Koblod slingers' gluepots adn the like), and I have seen those aspects criticised by those who don't like 4e's approach to metagame mechanics in PC build and action resolution.

Ya, I always wondered why only Captain America got the only vibranium shield on the planet. It is only a plot device that nobody more powerful than Captain America ever semi-permanently or permanently stole his shield away from him. That's tolerable in the comics, but if I was roleplaying a superhero game, I think the question would come up at least as often as Majoru Oakheart's pragmatic selling/trading of weapons.

Instead of effectively fortune-telling that the fighter will always have their equivalent of a vibranium shield, I'd like to see a robust possibily multi-pronged solution that works over 2+ playstyles.

From the top of my head, no magic item shops to sell/trade magic items. D&D always discouraged this in the rulebooks; well how about finally making it happen in a non-mythic setting? (In a mythic setting, the fighter is already presumably counterbalanced by mythic abiltiies).

Adjust the economics so that it's generally not justifiable or practical to trade in magic weapons relative to net benefit of the fighter using the weapon and thus the whole party's survival.

Incorporate the new combat superiority rules to magic weapons and armor, such that all but the most assinine group would consider to trade in a magic weapon/armor. This is a controversial and outrageous idea to some, I know, but if a magic weapon gives a fighter an extra die in combat superiority and/or access to a new combat superiority slot, that's a lot of better than just a +1 to attacks. I would further opine that groups that would still insist on stealing a weapon away from a fighter to bereft them of an extra die and/slot of combat superiority in order to find a magic shop and trade in the weapon and that this is acceptable to the players and the characters in the story, and this is really a problem and not just theoretical rhetoric, then that gaming group could instead use the rule that nobody can take away Captain America's Shield and trade it for billions of dollars and buy nukes instead.