D&D General What does the mundane high level fighter look like? [+]

[Sacrosanct]

Folks, if you want to debate minion rules somewhere else, knock yourself out. This is a + thread on how to build a high level mundane fighter, and proposing rules that help every other class with no special benefit to the fighter ain’t it. In fact, it makes the problem worse, because you’re giving the fighters combat ability to everyone else. Including cats and commoners and literally everything else.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

Folks, if you want to debate minion rules somewhere else, knock yourself out. This is a + thread on how to build a high level mundane fighter, and proposing rules that help every other class with no special benefit to the fighter ain’t it. In fact, it makes the problem worse, because you’re giving the fighters combat ability to everyone else. Including cats and commoners and literally everything else.

more importantly, it's going in circles and is just an eyesore.

 

[FrogReaver]

And minion rules reflect the world I’d like to see… where fighters can largely take on foes that were once significant in droves.

Sure. But there are some more uncommon downstream problems with the particular 4e minion implementation. Of course those problems can be trivially solved via houserules, like not having NPC's or low level PC's actually face the minion stat block - but that doesn't mean those downstream problems don't exist in practice and especially conceptually.

 

[pemerton]

So you admit that the combat rules are not suited for handling such an incredibly common scenario? Personally I'd consider that a rather serious flaw in the system.

I've repeatedly explained multiple ways that they handle such a scenario - the most obvious, I think, is by turning the NPCs into a player resource, analogous to a magic item in mechanical terms.

That really isn't the gist of the criticism and you know it. And both Oofta an I are familiar with the system and have used it. I admit that criticism of 4e tended to get a tad hyperbolic back in the day, but having experience with the system, I'd say most of the criticism was essentially correct, if perhaps somewhat exaggerated.

Well, seeing as we are moving to the stage of self-congratulation on our prescient criticisms, here's mine (from February 2011):

In this respect 4e resembles a game like The Dying Earth. I've never read the Vance stories, but feel that I could run a game of Dying Earth from the rulebook. It gives me the "vibe" and "meta-setting", plus tips on how to set up situations/scenarios that will exploit that vibe to produce a fun session.

My feeling is that 4e was written with the intention to be GMed in this sort of way. I say this because (i) it fits with the game's emphasis on the encounter - combat or non-combat as the basic unit of play; (ii) it fits with the obvious effort to create that default atmosphere, with the gods, race backgrounds and so on in the PHB and the little sidebars in the Power books; (iii) when you look at the original MM (with most of the campaign info located in skill check results), plus think about how skill challenges should play out (with the GM having to make calls about NPC responses, and other elements of the gameworld, on the fly in response to unpredictable player actions), and even look at the whole emphasis on "situations" rather than "world exploration" as the focus of play, the game seems intended to support "just in time" creation of world details, using "points of light" and the default atmosphere as a framework for doing this in; (iv) it fits with the absence of a developed setting.

Unfortunately, though, the rulebooks don't do much to support GMing this sort of game. A contrast is provided by The Dying Earth rulebook, which does offer tools to help the GM with this sort of situation-based preparation and play.

For 4e, this is really provided by Worlds and Monsters. Good art, interesting stories, and (most importantly for a GM) good discussions of the way in which those stories have been designed to help make an interesting game. Big chunks of this book should have been incorporated into the 4e DMG, in place of (what are in my view) unnecessary or overlong parts of it like the tedious discussion of giving adventure locations personality and the random dungeon generation. If they had been, that would have gone some way - though not all the way - to helping GMs run games in the sort of fashion that the rulebooks seem to intend.

<snip>

When 4e game out, I posted on these forums that WotC apparently agreed with Ron Edwards that a narrativist-oriented RPG focusing on situation and character-driven play would be more popular than a simulationist RPG focused on the players exploring the world and/or stories that the GM creates for them. Such a belief seems the only way to explain the presence, in 4e, of all the features I've mentioned above.

At the time I tended to assume that WotC weren't just speculating but actually knew- unlike Ron Edwards, for example, they have marketers and market researchers on their payroll. But it seems they may have got it wrong.

For someone like me, who wanted a game like the one they produced, it's turned out to be a lucky error. The tone of Essentials, though, plus the release of Nentir Vale, suggests that WotC might be pulling back, and trying to turn 4e into a more traditional RPG.

I think Ron Edwards is right when he says that authors of non-simulationsist RPGs mechanics are often afraid to explain, in plain language, how they intend their mechanics to be used. They fall back into the language of simulationist RPGs. And this makes the rulebooks for their games at least moderately incoherent. And in my view 4e has this problem. (Worlds and Monsters is an honourable exception, but its candidness about the way in which monsters and other game elements are intended, by the designers, to be used by a GM in running adventures is reflected in only one part of the core 4e rules that I can recall - namely, in the DMG's brief discussion of languages. EDIT TO THIS: of course the DMG makes it very clear how monsters are to be used in combat encounter design and resolution - but I'm talking about the use of game elements to create an FRPG experience - indeed, the fact that the DMG goes metagame only in relation to combat, but not in relation to GMing overall is part of the problem.)

When I look at the rules in a book like Hubris's Maelstrom Storytelling, or Robin Laws HeroQuest II - which are both sterling exceptions to Edwards' generalisation about non-simulationist game texts - and compare them to WotC's efforts, it makes me cry (well, not literally!). If only WotC had actually explained to readers of the rulebooks how the sort of game that the 4e mechanics support is played and GMed, maybe 4e would not have so easily fallen victim to the "dice rolling"/"minis game"/"WoW" critiques. Instead WotC left this as an exercise for the reader - and those who tried to play the game in the typical sort of way that 2nd ed AD&D or 3E was played had, I assume, a fairly mediocre experience, of rolling a few dice and making a few tactical decisions but not really experiencing the evocative power of gaming in a fantasy world.

But like I said upthread, and earlier in this post in response to BryonD, maybe the sort of game that 4e exemplifies is just not going to be popular in any event. In which case I fully agree with you that the problem for 4e's popularity is the setting issue, but precisely because this is (in my view) a symptom of deeper features of the mechanics which it turns out many RPGers seem not to want.

I can only assume that WotC thought that there were many players like my group, who want a crunchier/more tactical play experience than a game like HeroQuest is going to deliver (half of us are ex-Rolemaster, after all) but who also were looking for a much less simulationist approach to world design, scenario design, scene framing, and action resolution.

So it's not just that they agreed with Ron Edwards, but also that they thought that the players who would flock to a narrativist-leaning game would be drawn from the ranks of those who love Runequest, Rolemaster and collectable card games.

And OK, when I put it that way, it looks like a pretty implausible hypothesis from the start!

 

[pemerton]

most players associate mechanics to support their assumptions. They don’t just go “oh, a 1 hp ogre will kill a commoner anyway” because HP have been defined for them. It’s a measure of toughness. You’re assuming players will apply a narrative reason to override a stated mechanical reason and I don’t think that’s how most people work. We tend to rely on rules and definitions before assuming they don’t mean anything. That’s why they are there in the first place.

Folks, if you want to debate minion rules somewhere else, knock yourself out. This is a + thread on how to build a high level mundane fighter, and proposing rules that help every other class with no special benefit to the fighter ain’t it. In fact, it makes the problem worse, because you’re giving the fighters combat ability to everyone else. Including cats and commoners and literally everything else.

Well, as I've posted, a high level mundane fighter is comparable to Conan in toughness and fighting prowess. To achieve that in the context of D&D, you either need to have the fighter deal lots of hp damage, or you need a way for the fighter to bypass "ordinary" hp rules; and in both cases this needs to apply to multiple foes.

Minions are one mode of hp bypass. @Quickleaf's suggestion is another. @Minigiant suggested another.

There have also been suggested versions of how to step up the fighter's damage, though I can't recall who posted them (apologies to those people).

I think the best way to improve in fiction action economy is something like 4e-style Swarms, as these change the fiction while keeping the resolution methods constant. The Level Up squads don't seem to me to serve the same purpose, as they are just a straightforward hp and damage multiplier. The only fix they seem to make to fighter action economy is to soak up overflow damage.

 

[Minigiant]

Back on track.
Here;'s a Q.

If 5e's Tier 4 is the new Epic Tier, would 3.5e Epic Feats be appropriate for a high level fighter?

Armor Skin
Combat Archery
Devastating critical
Dire Charge
Etc
Etc

just with the 5e versions of them

 

[pemerton]

Back on track.
Here;'s a Q.

If 5e's Tier 4 is the new Epic Tier, would 3.5e Epic Feats be appropriate for a high level fighter?

Armor Skin
Combat Archery
Devastating critical
Dire Charge
Etc
Etc

just with the 5e versions of them

I just had a look at those feats. +1 AC, and no AoEs for shooting, look a bit lame to me.

Killing on a hit, and doing heaps of damage on a charge (which is the practical effect of Dire Charge) seem a bit more interesting. Really, thought, these are just ways of piling on more damage, but conditionally gated. In the 5e context these seem like they should take the form of stepping up fighting styles.

 

[Minigiant]

I just had a look at those feats. +1 AC, and no AoEs for shooting, look a bit lame to me.

Killing on a hit, and doing heaps of damage on a charge (which is the practical effect of Dire Charge) seem a bit more interesting. Really, thought, these are just ways of piling on more damage, but conditionally gated. In the 5e context these seem like they should take the form of stepping up fighting styles.

They would have to be adjusted for 5e

Armor Skin would be +1 AC in armor or AC equal to Constitution Score when unarmored.

Devastating Critical would a Save or Die on crit.

 

[Oofta]

This is obviously not how 4e D&D stat blocks are meant to be used. The DMG advice on encounter building is very clear. For anyone familiar with D&D, the way the Monster Manual stat blocks represent the "story" of D&D - that first level PCs can be threatened by Goblins, whereas higher level PCs are comparably threatened only by Ogres or Giants - is also very clear.

I feel you are reporting something about your play of 4e here, rather than 4e as such.

I can tell you that I GMed hundreds of hours of 4e D&D, and the world logic was phenomenal. If you're curious as to why I say that, you can review any of my many actual play posts.

Well, I prepped a lot of 4e stat blocks, and I and those I played with enjoyed the game and accepted it for what it was. You are the one who seem to have that problem.

But then your game also apparently includes Ogres (and 1st level PCs?) who die from slipping on banana peels, so it is already so far away from any of my D&D experiences that I can't really form a mental picture of what your game is like.

First, I ran thousands of hours of 4E myself. I ran my homebrew campaign to level 30 and played in the LFR scenarios that went to 30. I ran for multiple groups and had multiple DMs.

And ... edit to get rid of a bunch of stuff because this is a + thread.

Bottom line for me is that minions didn't work for me because the person or creature attacking the minion didn't change the fact that the minion only had 1 HP. A commoner with a sling and a rock (or a slip and fall that cause 1 point of damage) could take out a minion just as easily as a 10th level fighter. Yes, I ran scenarios where that became an issue because I'm not going to change a minion into a "real" monster based on who is attacking.

With 5E, we can still have low level monsters attack high level PCs and we just use the mob rules to make combat run faster.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

But you’d add more steps on the other side in order to maintain some sense of mechanical consistency.

What steps?

Who’s running the house cat? Who calls for an attack roll? Why wouldn’t the GM just say “the cat doesn’t get an attack”?

It’s a stupid example that won’t come up.

It's not really. Cat literally is one of the familiar options, so such being present in a battle alongside the characters is not unlikely at all. And it is just an example of any situation where there are allies of different power present. I don't know about you, but at least in my game that is pretty common.

And I just don't want to handwave and GM fiat such interactions. I am actually a bit surprised how this argument has gone this time. I would have assumed that you and other people who are usually worried about overtly relying on GM rulings and want system to matter would appreciate such things being handled via mechanics.

You’re mistaking hit points for the things they represent.

Hit points are not diegetic. The characters are aware of diegetic things. They are not aware of hit points. They may be aware of what hit points represent, but they’re not aware of hit points themselves.

Sure.

So if we accept that hit points are representative… then what’s the issue? In the case of minions, the one hit point represents the fact that accomplished heroes are able to dispatch them with one hit.

In this case, the ogre is weak compared to the heroes, but not weak compared to the commoners. Crazy.

The representation is confused. You're double representing the same thing, except sometimes not, as not everything gets minionised. Characters already get an ability to do more damage at higher levels, which makes them better at killing monsters whose hit points remains static and represent their resilience.

And minion rules reflect the world I’d like to see… where fighters can largely take on foes that were once significant in droves.

Nothing in your quote immediately above doesn’t apply to the minion rules.

You seem to be confusing representing narrative and representing the world.

It depends on what you want the rules to accomplish. If you want fighters to be able to mow through mooks, then it’s great design. It’s simple to handle at the table, requires no effort on players’ parts, and requires no additional prep.

If you want a fighter that struggles to quickly put down low level threats even at higher levels, then 5e’s hit point bloat and damage scale are what you want.

5e fighters will kill low level threats pretty effectively. But to me objective stats are way easier to use. Things are what they are, regardless of the situation. No need to juggle several different rerpresentations of the same thing.

They don’t. You only think they do because you’re ignoring what folks are telling you.

It literally is what happens by RAW. Only counter people have is to not actually use the rules.

No, my point was that it does reflect such a difference.

So you disagree with @pemerton who said they agreed with you? I remain super confused. It seems to me you guys aren't even yourself sure what these rules are meant to represent...