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

[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.