D&D 5E What are the Roles now?

[Hussar]

Something that never got answered about that paladin's mount thing was what difference does it make if it's a class feature or not? If a class feature allows me to add setting elements to the game, how is that not player authorship? Just because there's some tenuous link between the in-game narrative and what the player is adding? Really? Unless the horse is following our potential paladin around faithful, complete with challenge, the player is still the one creating setting elements.

To me, there's no difference here between saying that a normal door (as NeonC mentions, if it's a vault door there would likely be a problem) has a keyhole and saying that there's now a bespoke mount ready for me, please serve it up right now.

Actually, there is a difference. Because it's called out as a paladin's power, the DM very much expected to say yes and better have a damn good reason for saying no. I'd argue that tying it to a character power actually grants the player more authority over the game world than an ad hoc attempt to change the game world through negotiation.

 

[Imaro]

Something that never got answered about that paladin's mount thing was what difference does it make if it's a class feature or not? If a class feature allows me to add setting elements to the game, how is that not player authorship?

Well my thoughts on it are... what exactly is the player authoring here... I mean the rule books have created the actual setting element of the mount and it's relationship to the game... by allowing the paladin class into his game the DM, has acknowledged the mount as part of the setting (since paladins exist the mounts must exist)... and through awarding XP the DM has determined when the mount is available... the DM also sets up the challenges (if any) to attain the mount...so what does the player in this example have authority over? When he calls for the mount? Well yeah but that doesn't extend beyond his in-character influence. IMO, the player isn't actually authoring anything in your example.

 

[Aenghus]

This may be somewhat incoherent, just trying to address the topic.

The roles I am interested in the the context of RPGs are the roles that emerge from the mechanics. These have some sort of objective existence providing mechanics are being used to resolve game conflicts - totally freeform RPGs don't have these sorts of roles IMO and the more a campaign avoids use of mechanics the weaker mechanical roles are.

Most RPGs reward PC specialisation and mechanical roles naturally emerge from such specialisation. First the PC can attempt harder tasks. Secondly, Players like succeeding and RPG mechanics often have exaggerated failure chances for tasks, and so even PCs good at a particular task may fail during play( and may fail multiple times). Extra specialisation reduces the chance of this happening and helps reinforce the player's concept of the PC as being "good at X".

IMO class-based games tend to have stronger mechanical roles than skill based games. Class-based games generally feature niche protection and assign individuals classes strengths and weakness that are difficult to overcome. This results in immediate specialisation out of the gate and hence mechanical roles.

IMO the mechanical roles in a particular 5e game depend on a bunch of factors including how conflict resolution is conducted and how much PC specialisation is rewarded or discouraged.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Hang on. I said it was a pretty corner case, and it is. You need open ground, known opponents, clear weather and daytime (or low light vision at least) for this to occur. I don't know about you, but, that's generally not where encounters occur in my game. If there are any trees, buildings or even small rises and dips, heck, even long grass, and this won't work.

I mean, if you have 600 feet of open ground, why doesn't anyone have a mount? Your ten rounds of shooting means that the bad guys only have a move of 30. So, again, limited number of encounters. IOW, you need the following to be true:

1. One or both parties has to be recognised as hostile at a range of 600 feet. (you're not going to attack neutral targets are you?)
2. There must be clear vision. No inclement weather or night time. (again, limiting the number of encounters)
3. The parties must be limited to 30 foot speed. On horses, you'd get max 5 rounds - speed 60 for dash actions.
4. There cannot be any terrain limitations - a dungeon for example won't work, nor will any urban environment.

So, yeah, a long range archer duel is something I would expect to see maybe once per campaign, certainly less than once per level and I'd eat my shorts if it occurred once per session.

Most bad guys in the Monstrous Manual have a move of 30. Let's say they have a move of 60 though (mounted on horses)--does it really make a difference? It still makes sense to take those 5 free rounds of shooting if you've got them.

Let's go through your conditions:

#1 (must be recognized as hostile at long range): Not necessary, as outlined previously. Just send one guy forward to negotiate while covering him from long range.

#2 (no inclement weather): Weather is rarely an issue. Rain lowers visibility to 1 mile (per DMG). In order to lower visibility to less than 200 yards you'll need to be in a blizzard or something. Nighttime might be an issue but I'd have to think hard about the right rules for encounter distance at night--for now, no comment. However, daylight is not exactly an uncommon condition outdoors.

#3 (speed limit): You're nitpicking. 60' movement is uncommon in the MM (most things have 30', centaurs have 50', a few things have 60', and most of those are flying creatures). Besides, 5 free rounds of fire is still 5 free rounds. And if we're playing horse archers here, I can put my archers on horses too and have them Dash away from the attackers at that same 120' per round, thereby getting infinite rounds of long-range shooting. See: Controlling a Mount, PHB 198.

#4 (not indoors): Of course! You don't use outdoor tactics when you're in somebody's living room. Indoors, you rely on things like melee kiting and Web spells.

 

[Sadras]

Thanks for the reply.

You are not allowed to change any details that have been established either explicitly or implicitly. You are however allowed to build on them with things you think would fit rather than subvert.

Ok, but what if the DM leaves out a detail and would like to veto the player's authorial entry. I mean he is fallible so would you allow for that?

In a street scene? Probably. In the middle of a clean room? Certainly not - it changes the nature of the room.

At a crime scene on the street where a dog was suddenly introduced they are then able to utilise Speak to Animals to circumvent the entire investigation and the adventure?

Describe the NPC. Not on one who took pride in their appearance. Someone wearing old rags? Probably.

Sure, but between the scale of rags and riches there are plenty in between. It allows one to cast Mend on the clothes to obtain a positive reaction adjustment from the NPC. Sure nothing special in the great scheme of things, but the player authorial control leaves something like this to be broken unless the DM keeps describing everyone who takes pride in their appearance.
Silly example sure, but personally I prefer to remove such possible exploitation.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Long-range archery duals can be quite common, but I think the melees, too, have enough time for cooperative tactics initiated with the help of a strategic advisor which take at least one round to set up. The typical combat lasts at least five rounds, no?

It really depends. The original assertion that brought us onto this tangent as a statement that combats in 5E are short. I pointed out that combats are short only when they're straightforward/easy. If you're an 8th level party of four, fighting six Slaads indoors, you can totally win that fight--but it is likely to take more than five rounds just because there are so many bad guys to hammer through.

In my experience, most 5E encounters rated less than double-Deadly finish in fewer than four rounds. A five-round combat is an outlier.

 

[BryonD]

I was thinking of someone else and you're right. My sincere apologies.

Thanks

And we've also talked in the past about having to ask the DM whether there is a rock on the ground or how your character knows a given organisation and what contacts they have, as opposed to them knowing and being able to call the people they actually know is anti-immersive. And to give the characters you are immersed in the knowledge of the gameworld they should have, outside games which whisk the PC out of their element, you absolutely need the player to be able to write what the character would know in the otherwise undefined spaces of the game world.

Games without player authorship of setting details are to me vastly less immersive than good games with player authorship. No GM I have ever played with has the ability to fully represent the rich tapestry of a world. It's just too vast. And none can anticipate enough to define all NPC relationships. And playing 20 questions to find a relevant object where you'd expect to find one is even more of an immersion killer than stopping to spend ten minutes to argue a rule.

I think you are conflating two things.
I have certainly been in conversations about whether a player could declare a rock present and agreed that this was an example. However, I also (then and now) point out that this is a pretty extreme example. It is almost always obvious when a handy rock would be around. There is a difference between restricting a player to things their character can do and being a really stupid micro-manager of absurd things.

As to player input on who they know in a given organization, I would not accept this as a valid example. If a player suggested that they knew a particular individual, then I may or may not allow it depending on a vast range of factors. But for the more general point of knowing people in an organization, it comes down to a character concept that would already be established. And if it fits the established concept, I'm strongly inclined to say "yes". I probably won't let them know the guard at the door, for example (unless the background fit knowing the serving staff very well) but assuming that an appropriate character knows a name he could drop would be likely. This is a much more soft narrative construct unlike the prior conversations I've engaged which were very specific to defining the physical world.

I'll add that I've also frequently stated that one of the things I love best about RPGs, and DMing, is the random unexpected impacts of players. That constant input of the unexpected is what makes a story that I seed into something completely different and a truly awesome thing.

As to immersion, I think you are describing story immersion and I am describing character immersion. If you as a player have powers that your character can not have then it is defacto true that you are not immersed in "being that character". You may be immersed in the story and contributing to that story, but it is still different. I have no complaint about your preference. May your next game be better than any before it. But it is still different.

To say always is a retcon. D&D was intended to be a game. Immersion was a largely unexpected consequence.

I don't accept this as truth. It is beyond obvious that RPGs came from wargaming completely lacking in character immersion. But reading about the history makes it clear to me that this concept changed overnight with the evolution of Chainmail to D&D.

That said, even if I concede for the sake of argument that every founding designer unanimously and unequivocally agrees with you, when I started playing 35 years ago it was intended to be about immersion and a game was a fully expected bonus.

 

[Hussar]

It really depends. The original assertion that brought us onto this tangent as a statement that combats in 5E are short. I pointed out that combats are short only when they're straightforward/easy. If you're an 8th level party of four, fighting six Slaads indoors, you can totally win that fight--but it is likely to take more than five rounds just because there are so many bad guys to hammer through.

In my experience, most 5E encounters rated less than double-Deadly finish in fewer than four rounds. A five-round combat is an outlier.

I'm not sure about the deadliness rating, but, I agree with the idea that most combats seem to be less than 5 rounds.

 

[pemerton]

the AC (read: armor type) adjustments for bows are quite favorable if you use them.

Agreed, although two-handed sword is better again. As you noted, how beneficial these adjustments are depends on the sorts of opponents that the GM is using.

But that again puts us in the frame of valuing specialization above all else. If we, for the moment, stipulate that the fighter's ranged ability is significantly inferior to their melee ability (I'm going to disagree later, but for the moment we can stipulate it), but that ranged ability is still better than anyone else's ranged ability (and often as good or better than anyone else's melee ability), then it has value and meaning.

<snip>

On the whole, melee does slight more damage than, say, arrows. By the same token, there's a greater chance of receiving damage as well!

<snip>

Yeah, but pemerton, you're stacking the deck here. You're saying that if a fighter specializes in melee, he's much better at melee than ranged. Well, yes, sure. But if we're throwing in UA options here, then surely we can go ahead and give a fighter a STR longbow and specialization in that, as well. And/or have him throw that second highest stat into DEX rather than CON.

In UA a fighter can only specialise in one weapon (an OA samurai has the special ability of being able to specialise in both sword (katana) and bow (daikyu)). So a choice will have to be made between melee and bow - and bow specialisation certainly makes a fighter's archery competitive with the melee alternative: looked at through a 4e lens, the UA bow specialist is a precursor to the archer ranger.

I also agree that CON could be sacrificed for DEX in PC building, to opt for a fighter character who is more balanced between melee and ranged combat, but that is feasible in 4e also: build a STR/DEX ranger who alternates between melee and ranged combat depending on circumstances. My feeling is that both builds are somewhat boutique, and probably more likely to be attempted by experienced than beginning players.

The lower hit points and surges of the 4e ranger (compared to a fighter) roughly mirror the lesser hit points of the CON-sacrificing AD&D fighter. The mirroring is only rough, or rather somewhat fun-house like, because the difference between the two 4e PCs will most likely be proportionately greater than that between the two AD&D PCs, at least once surges are factored in. But the flip-side of this is that in 4e the melee-specialised character will use more of those hit points and surges to endure melee, whereas in AD&D I think AC is more important in that respect. (AC gaps across builds really tend to be rather narrow in 4e.)

Moving from the melee-to-missile comparison, to the missile-across-classes/builds comparison, I agree that the AD&D fighter is a strong ranged combatant in AD&D compared to other (non-wizardly) options, although at low levels in dungeon (ie typically close range) environments a dart-throwing thief can be competitive: 3 *1d3 damage averages 6, which is less than the 7 of a bow, but more likely to have a DEX bonus to hit. (The weapon vs armour adjustments for darts tend to be poor at the chain-and-heavier end of the table, though.)

But this is equally true in 4e: only two classes in the 4e PHB have proficiency in military ranged weapons (ie bows): the fighter and the ranger. (The warlord and paladin have to make do with crossbows or thrown hammers and spears.) A fighter in 4e, just like a fighter in AD&D, can take advantage of long range to plink away with a reasonable chance to hit and do some damage - and the fighter in my 4e game, at low levels, carried a long bow for just this purpose.

At paragon tier and above, unless DEX is being pumped, the bow proficiency becomes less and less relevant as the stat and magic-item gap opens up (although inherent bonuses will correct for some of this). But that in itself somewhat correlates to AD&D, where magic item gaps also open up, and mid-to-high level fighters get increased rates of melee attack which open up the damage gap between the two modes.

I know you weren't making a point about 4e, or at least not directly, in your reply. But it was in the context of a comparison to 4e that I made my original remark about AD&D fighter's missile capability, and despite your cogent posts I still incline to the view I started with: a typical AD&D fighter, favouring STR and CON, is notably better at melee than missile, especially post-UA; and that while it is possible to build a bow-oriented fighter, or a mixed-mode fighter, these possibilities also exist in 4e (but under the "ranger" rather than the "fighter" umbrella).

I agree with your earlier post that 4e builds in a relatively high degree of specialisation as a default, but when it comes to mixed melee/ranged combat I think that the STR/DEX ranger is a perfectly viable option for straddling those two modes. The overall play experience shouldn't be radically different from playing a mixed modes AD&D fighter (except to the extent that 4e, in general, is different) with one exception: the mixed mode ranger won't be very sticky in melee. But for a mixed mode character, who is likely to want to play as a skirmisher rather than a "tank", that is probably a net benefit.

 

[pemerton]

Rain lowers visibility to 1 mile (per DMG).

How heavy is the rain? And how flat is the terrain? And how heavy the cloud cover (and hence dim the lighting)?

I live and work in a heavily built-up area, so the horizon is mostly buildings. But there are some long, straight streets that I travel on fairly regularly. In heavy rain it can be hard to clearly make out cars - large, moving objects that often have headlights on - at 100 metres distance. Seeing a person at the distance of a mile strikes me as optimistic in those sorts of conditions.