D&D 5E What are the Roles now?

[Neonchameleon]

I may not be the world's greatest expert on 4e, but I don't see anything in 4e's class design that facilitates plot-level deception, preparation, and trickery like the cited Odysseus regularly engaged in. Maybe one could argue that the skill challenge mechanic do, but I've seen more of that kind of behavior in older edition (AD&D) play than in either 3e or 4e and skill challenges aren't part of 4e class design. (I consider the question of why such behavior is, IME, abandoned for those editions to be open and personally confusing.)

I do think that 4e's system supported a much more "gonzo" style of fantasy "X's and O's" tactical play (which, I think is hardly controversial). However, I don't see that any class in 4e would have in its class design a Divert River power for playing Hercules. Whereas in a Dungeon World (or similar narrative-centered) game, such a thing would be trivial, and likely wouldn't even risk unbalancing the game.

Here Divert River is precisely the sort of thing a power shouldn't do. "Lift Heavy Stuff", yes. "Shatter Rock", yes. But a Divert River Power makes the same mistake as a lot of Gygaxo-Vancian spells and a number of 4e powers in replacing clever thinking with a pre-packaged solution.

And 3.X discouraged improvisation through both the magic system (with broken save DCs and far, far too much versatility) and a skill system that enforced incompetence outside your chosen field meaning that off the wall tricks were unlikely to be successful. 4e discouraged them with bad skill challenge guidelines and, more importantly, making the PCs strong enough to take their opposition on head-on and keep going while deprecating the effects of attrition about as much as the ability to craft or readily buy Wands of Cure Light Wounds did for 3.X (add the attrition back by restricting extended rests, and you get much much more clever play to avoid combat).

 

[BryonD]

So, you're saying that you have no problem believing that Rocky fights Apollo Creed on Monday wins that fight, goes to bed, without any medical attention, and fights Clubber Lang on Friday, wins that fight, goes to bed, again with no medical attention, and fights Ivan Drago on Tuesday, and wins that fight too. And that's perfectly acceptable to you?

Funny thing is, you insist on playing silly buggers with you examples. The 10th level wizard can only EVER take 2 days to heal, 1 with assistance. The 10th level rogue is lkely in the same boat as well. But, again, there's no believability issues here.

You examples are pointless. I've been playing for decades and thew combination of "believability", narrative continuity, and fun work great.

Of COURSE you find 4 days acceptable. It fits nicely with 3e and contradicts 4e. Convenient that.

What a closed-minded statement this is.
Does it perhaps occur to you that you have ti backwards? My standard for acceptable comes first. I like it when games comply with my standard and don't like it when they don't.

Then again, since "3 or 4" is apparently how you define "several", I think I've shown quite nicely where you are arguing from.

Yep. I'm arguing from my taste and preference. I'm sorry that ti bothers you that my preference controls my choices more than your preference.

 

[BryonD]

No, I have no problems with you doing it whatever way you want. You want 4 day healing? Fantastic. My beef is in the claims that 4e can't do what you want. Good grief, it takes all of one sentence to change 4e healing rates to 3e. "You gain no HP from a short rest but you regain X healing surges (where X is the rate of healing you want)". And the game works perfectly fine in doing so. You've claimed in this thread an others that 4e plays a great game of 4e but cannot do 3e. That's simply not true.

You can house rule 4E. But, as we have discussed many times before (how many times must I type that?) 4E required vast changes throughout to come anywhere being as good as other game systems that worked great "as-is". It makes no sense to try to turn 4E into a complete package that would make my top 10 list of choices.

And, 4E can't make a great 3E game for people who like 3E as their game of choice. Or, at a minimum, it does a very poor showing of it.

Now, obviously if you are a 4E fan who was playing 3E in a manner that would later be recognized as consistent with 4E, then CLEARLY 4E can do THAT kind of 3E game. But I think anyone giving honest consideration would see that this makes no difference to the conversation

 

[BryonD]

And what you fail to acknowledge is that for many others 4e does a vastly superior job of that.

I GREATLY beg to differ.
I have repeatedly stated that 4E is the holy grail of a certain game style that many clearly prefer.

I have gone out of my way on numerous occasions to clearly acknowledge this.

 

[BryonD]

[MENTION=22779]I have no idea what you - BryonD - regard as the essence of a roleplaying game.

We have discussed, at length, the differences in your tastes vs. mine.
We have discussed the nature of the players as limited to the roles of their characters vs the players have the powers of an author. I find it rather ironic that you would take issue with my preference for roleplayign as "being the character" and not being able to change the environment in any way that the character would not be able to, and then turn around now and claim, on no evidence whatsoever, (no attempt even) to suggest that my game is somehow not immersive.

Ultimately this is just a strange and pointless ad hominem.

 

[SirAntoine]

I think it makes some sense to say BECMI provided more immersion, as Neonchameleon said, but it was always about immersion.

 

[Bluenose]

Looking at genre fiction, I wonder which came first - novels where magic trumps non-magic, or D&D? If you look back at golden age genre fiction, magic is actually pretty darn weak. Wizards don't blast away with fireballs. They get tied down with lengthy rituals which, if successful over enough time, allow the wizard to do fantastic things, but, the idea of the "adventuring wizard" is a D&Dism IMO. You don't see Harry Potteresque wizards until the late 70's early 80's in genre fiction. Things like David Eddings' Belgariad series or Wizard of Earthsea. Even Vance's wizards were nowhere near as powerful as a D&D caster.

There's a few earlier examples, such as Spencer's Faerie Queen, where mages can and do "adventure".

Standard outdoor visibility in 5E is 2 miles, 1 mile when it's raining. (DMG page 243.)

What?

What are you supposed to be able to see at two miles without binoculars or telescopes?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

What are you supposed to be able to see at two miles without binoculars or telescopes?

Anyone who's not trying to hide, as long as the terrain is flat. You probably won't see details but you'll know someone is there, and you'll probably know that it's human-shaped. I haven't run the numbers on how close they have to get for you to be able to recognize facial features but if you know you have enemies in the region you're probably not going to wait for them to get within shouting distance before taking some kind of combat-oriented action... which is what we're talking about in this thread, is it not?

 

[SirAntoine]

Anyone who's not trying to hide, as long as the terrain is flat. You probably won't see details but you'll know someone is there, and you'll probably know that it's human-shaped. I haven't run the numbers on how close they have to get for you to be able to recognize facial features but if you know you have enemies in the region you're probably not going to wait for them to get within shouting distance before taking some kind of combat-oriented action... which is what we're talking about in this thread, is it not?

I think you'd see dust clouds if they were big or on horseback, but their general shape and presence or numbers would have to wait for something more like 800-1,000 yards, at the closest. That assumes clear conditions. Most encounters outdoors, weighing all terrains and conditions for an average, will begin in between 50-250 yards. Let's say 150 yards, or 450'. That is still more than enough to give you time to prepare with only six-second rounds. In AD&D, everyone could move much farther each round, but even then you were assumed to have 1-2 rounds.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I think you'd see dust clouds if they were big or on horseback, but their general shape and presence or numbers would have to wait for something more like 800-1,000 yards, at the closest. That assumes clear conditions. Most encounters outdoors, weighing all terrains and conditions for an average, will begin in between 50-250 yards. Let's say 150 yards, or 450'. That is still more than enough to give you time to prepare with only six-second rounds. In AD&D, everyone could move much farther each round, but even then you were assumed to have 1-2 rounds.

Where do your numbers come from? If you do the math, you'll find that a human being at one mile distance will be slightly smaller than the 20/20 line of letters on the eye chart. That's the fourth-smallest line. (If he were 2.3 meters tall he'd be exactly as tall as one of those letters.) By the time he gets to 200 yards he's three times as big as the biggest 'E' on the chart. If you can't already resolve hostiles as humanoids at 200 yards there is something very wrong with your vision.

Does that mean you'll always recognize hostiles at 200 yards outdoors? Of course not. They might not be wearing uniforms; they could be in disguise as merchants; they could be hidden under logs; they could be camouflaged within the woods; they could be invisible Onis. But under standard circumstances, you'll see them way before then. The DMG's general guidelines of 1-2 miles are very sensible.

Any adventurer who doesn't pack a longbow/crossbow is just asking to become dogfood to whoever does.