[Very Long] Combat as Sport vs. Combat as War: a Key Difference in D&D Play Styles...

[StarFyre]

NOTE: in rock to mud, it states that you can only go as far as chest deep (I assume a new equilibrium is set at that point), so unless some other special situation, not sure you can drown people in it.

Sanjay

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Personally, I feel that paying for the ability has the benefit of knowing you can do it all the time; rely on it as a tactic or a tool. Someone else may be able to do it using terrain and a clever plan, but they cannot count on the terrain and/or situation allowing it to be possible all the time. I believe -if the game is built in a way that provides for a consistent game world- there usually won't be a problem.


I do understand where you are coming from though. It's one of the issues I have with page 42 in the DMG. I think it's great that there is a way to allow a player to try something which isn't hard set in the rules. However, because 4th Edition (in my opinion) is based on the idea of powers, feats, items, and all manner of other things being character resources, there's a tight line to walk in allowing someone to do something, but not allowing it to be so good that it makes a power obsolete.

Consistency is an issue also. I've said elsewhere that one of the things which jars me out of the game is the inconsistent ways in which monsters interact with the math of 4th Edition's game world versus how the PCs interact with it. I'm perfectly 100% fine with monsters and PCs being built differently. However, it's a bit anticlimactic when I slap dimensional shackles on a monster, and it has virtually zero chance of escaping.

Likewise, it's a little strange when the monsters struggle to do things like break through doors or jump over chasms while the PCs are simultaneously breezing right through the same challenges. It only gets worse at the higher levels when (personally I do) asking how some of the most feared creatures in the land are defeated by not being able to do something simple like climb out of a pit or jump high enough to hit a flying PC. Meanwhile, I once had a halfling character who was capable to make a standing jump from the ground and leap high enough to land on a dragon and kill it with a rake.

Yes - a rake; I was challenging myself to see how far I could push my boundaries* as a PC and still be stronger than the monsters. Also, I seemed to roll insanely well while wielding the rake as an improvised weapon. It's still a joke among the group to this day.

(*It's not normally my preferred style of play, but it seemed to bother my brain less -at the time- to engage the system in this way than it did if I held as tightly onto concepts of character and verisimilitude as I normally like to. I'm currently at a place where I'm more at piece with the system, but -at the time- I struggled to reconcile my ideals with what I felt the ideals the system was founded upon were.)

I'm puzzled by where people find these 'wimp monsters' that I hear about all the time, lol. Looking at the skill bonuses of typical monsters my observation is that they are normally about average for their levels, sometimes a bit high, sometimes a bit low. They certainly almost never hit the level of what a character CAN get in one or two skills, but you don't always get to use your best skills.

Your average monster has a better init bonus than a PC of equal level and on average its other bonuses will be pretty close to the same. They certainly shouldn't have many problems. Typically what you'll see is just that there's a super expert PC who's the only one that tries something, where the monsters are all fairly similar in most encounters. So you have a monster using its +4 STR bonus and some PC with a +10 being compared, yet that same PC has +2 in a bunch of other skills that the monster is also +4 at.

Anyway, a number of posts have been pointing out to me that IMHO one of the purposes of the game is to give the players a platform to show off some. Monsters are threats and adversaries, but there's always been a strong convention that it is the PCs that really get to be clever and develop tricks and whatnot. This is why most CaW has never struck me as terribly clever. Opponents rarely get to operate on anything close to the same level that the PCs do. Monsters mostly seem to wander around or follow some basic script. They'll react, but rare indeed is the day when the bad guys bring the war to the PCs.

Frankly it better be that way, the DM has infinite resources. There are no such things as fair fights. If you win it is ALWAYS because the DM let you win. That may be out of a sense of fun or fairness or any number of motives, but all types of play are built around an illusion. I appreciate a game system that doesn't try to pretend differently.

PCs are the heroes, they'll always be the ones INTENDED to pull off the cool stuff, it is just the nature of the beast. If a DM can't challenge his players it isn't for lack of ways to do that, but due to a lack of willingness to do it.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

NOTE: in rock to mud, it states that you can only go as far as chest deep (I assume a new equilibrium is set at that point), so unless some other special situation, not sure you can drown people in it.

Sanjay

Yeah, drowning people in it is at best a poor choice, lol. Much better to do things like blow out support walls with it, bridges, ceilings, etc.

Honestly, your 4th and 5th level spell lists are rife with very easy to employ spells though. Walls of stone, iron, and ice are all trivially easy to use for insta-ganks for instance. Stone Shape is pretty scary too. Back in the day I had a LONG list of routine tricks that would obviate direct attacks with magic and thus bypassing resistance and saves. Lots of ways to 'amplify' other plans too. Personally I never thought most of that kind of thing was exceptionally clever. Maybe the FIRST time you did it. The real problem is after a while it becomes rather routine.

 

[Argyle King]

Frankly it better be that way, the DM has infinite resources. There are no such things as fair fights. If you win it is ALWAYS because the DM let you win. That may be out of a sense of fun or fairness or any number of motives, but all types of play are built around an illusion. I appreciate a game system that doesn't try to pretend differently.

PCs are the heroes, they'll always be the ones INTENDED to pull off the cool stuff, it is just the nature of the beast. If a DM can't challenge his players it isn't for lack of ways to do that, but due to a lack of willingness to do it.

The DM might have infinite resources, but that does not mean the enemy (NPCs, monsters, etc) has infinite resources.

I can't speak on behalf of others, but I typically don't run games in a manner where monsters and the rest of the world are static.

As for the wimp monsters? I really don't know what to say other than to express what I've already expressed elsewhere, and that is that the experiences I've had as a player more-often-than-not lead to the monsters being crushed. To such an extent that I would sometimes be jarred out of being able to believe in the fiction established by the game and game world, and would instead start challenging myself by doing things such as fighting with a rake.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The DM might have infinite resources, but that does not mean the enemy (NPCs, monsters, etc) has infinite resources.

I can't speak on behalf of others, but I typically don't run games in a manner where monsters and the rest of the world are static.

As for the wimp monsters? I really don't know what to say other than to express what I've already expressed elsewhere, and that is that the experiences I've had as a player more-often-than-not lead to the monsters being crushed. To such an extent that I would sometimes be jarred out of being able to believe in the fiction established by the game and game world, and would instead start challenging myself by doing things such as fighting with a rake.

Eh, but truthfully, how often are the bad guys coming after the good guys and using CaW tactics to do it? There's a big fat convention there. Once in a great while a DM will do it, but you really cannot run a game where the bad guys wait until the good guys are sleeping or in the john or whatever and take them. It gets old fast.

Again, I have no idea what your DM was doing with monsters. I find it fairly trivial to challenge PCs. I've got any arbitrary resources I need to have in order to do that. The very concept that the DM cannot challenge the players is IMHO ridiculous. In fact this is the very essence of the reason that CaW can't work against the PCs except in a very restricted and limited way. The DM cannot lose.

 

[Hassassin]

Eh, but truthfully, how often are the bad guys coming after the good guys and using CaW tactics to do it? There's a big fat convention there. Once in a great while a DM will do it, but you really cannot run a game where the bad guys wait until the good guys are sleeping or in the john or whatever and take them. It gets old fast.

Every once in a while I use this. If an intelligent enemy knows the PCs are coming, they will need to look out for ambushes. Sometimes there will be an attack at night (either random encounter or not so random), so guard rotation is a must.

Unless the PCs have done something unbelievably stupid, I set these situations up so that they'll at least have a chance to flee, usually even win.

 

[Argyle King]

Eh, but truthfully, how often are the bad guys coming after the good guys and using CaW tactics to do it? There's a big fat convention there. Once in a great while a DM will do it, but you really cannot run a game where the bad guys wait until the good guys are sleeping or in the john or whatever and take them. It gets old fast.

Again, I have no idea what your DM was doing with monsters. I find it fairly trivial to challenge PCs. I've got any arbitrary resources I need to have in order to do that. The very concept that the DM cannot challenge the players is IMHO ridiculous. In fact this is the very essence of the reason that CaW can't work against the PCs except in a very restricted and limited way. The DM cannot lose.

I'd say that depends on where the PCs are in relation to their enemies as well as how determined the enemy is to track them down and how bitter the feud is. That's something which will vary depending upon the outlook and motivations of the enemy involved.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Every once in a while I use this. If an intelligent enemy knows the PCs are coming, they will need to look out for ambushes. Sometimes there will be an attack at night (either random encounter or not so random), so guard rotation is a must.

Unless the PCs have done something unbelievably stupid, I set these situations up so that they'll at least have a chance to flee, usually even win.

Right, and I've definitely done the same thing. It can be fun for the players once or twice, but they'll get fairly tired of it if an enemy mercilessly hounds them and uses the sort of tactics PCs are likely to use if the situation is reversed. Even with the PCs attacking NPCs/Monsters there's a limit. Supposing the situation is dynamic, the NPCs still aren't likely to be drawn in enough detail that we know where they go to do their daily functions or if they have cousins somewhere that we can kidnap, etc.

There's of course the other type of monsters using CaW, the "Tucker's Kobolds" scenario where the DM actually pull all the stops on the monsters and has them fight like their lives depended on it and not like they're an obstacle for the players to overcome. This is really a range though, in some sense all monsters defend themselves (most anyway). IME though going all-out is still a pretty limited thing.

If you do any of this stuff too much the problem is it focuses more and more light on the fact that the setting is never even close to a complete world. It is a stage on which certain acts can be played out. The less holds are barred the more the illusion will begin to fray.

Thus IMHO there's no real dichotomy between 'Cas' and 'CaW', there is only some ideal mix of elements that let the game proceed in an interesting and fun way. Exactly where the lines are drawn is really a matter of taste and playing style at any given table.

 

[Argyle King]

@Abdul

In the event the world is more fully sketched out -say running Ptolus or you're just somebody who enjoys world building and has a lot of free time due to insomnia- would you feel that method of play is more possible?

 

[Hassassin]

Right, and I've definitely done the same thing. It can be fun for the players once or twice, but they'll get fairly tired of it if an enemy mercilessly hounds them and uses the sort of tactics PCs are likely to use if the situation is reversed. Even with the PCs attacking NPCs/Monsters there's a limit. Supposing the situation is dynamic, the NPCs still aren't likely to be drawn in enough detail that we know where they go to do their daily functions or if they have cousins somewhere that we can kidnap, etc.

They'll only get mercilessly hounded if they do nothing about it - and my players are usually very quick to react. It's not like the enemy would just take it either.

Kidnapping relatives etc. has come into play (mostly when the party aren't exactly shining paragons of Good). If the players want their characters to find out about these things, I'll invent them.

Thus IMHO there's no real dichotomy between 'Cas' and 'CaW', there is only some ideal mix of elements that let the game proceed in an interesting and fun way. Exactly where the lines are drawn is really a matter of taste and playing style at any given table.

Any such model of categorizing people is much more black and white than the reality. Yet the fact is that we're on the 20th page and there have been some very strong comments in support of either CAS or CAW. I think it has some truth to it, maybe even more than some other models like GSN.