What would a fighter versatile out of combat look like?

[Nagol]

Yeah, I can get you not wanting player actions affecting the world in D&D. Let me ask a question about this example...



Is there anything that would make something like this more palatable to you? Or is it wholy anthemic to your sense of gaming when playing D&D?

Frankly, I have fewer quibbles with mythic than player affecting world.

My concern for the Rogue Get In Anywhere power is unintended consequence/complete removal of obstacle type. It's nature is similar to a more focused version of Dimension Door/Teleport which have too few counters in the game as-is.

As a player, I am much less comfortable with the Just the Tool for the Job ability and other such things that force the player to engage in world-building.

 

[Quickleaf]

Frankly, I have fewer quibbles with mythic than player affecting world.

My concern for the Rogue Get In Anywhere power is unintended consequence/complete removal of obstacle type. It's nature is similar to a more focused version of Dimension Door/Teleport which have too few counters in the game as-is.

As a player, I am much less comfortable with the Just the Tool for the Job ability and other such things that force the player to engage in world-building.

To be clear, would you like to see Dimension Door / Teleport go away? I mean, do you have the same problem with those spells in that they remove obstacles? I'm not clear what you mean by "unintended consequence" either.... is it that part of the fun of play is the unintended consequences that result from player actions, and that abilities like Dimension Door / Teleport negate that possibility?

I tend to agree. For example, you'll notice the writeup I did of Scry in responding to [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] introduced several potential complications into the spell: needing a given name, needing something connected to the target as a component, the possibility of getting incomplete info, and needing to interpret the raw data. All potential sources for unintended consequences and further obstacles to crop up. I would say Dimension Door, Teleport, and any hypothetical Get In Anywhere rogue talent need to follow the same design guideline.

 

[Nagol]

To be clear, would you like to see Dimension Door / Teleport go away? I mean, do you have the same problem with those spells in that they remove obstacles? I'm not clear what you mean by "unintended consequence" either.... is it that part of the fun of play is the unintended consequences that result from player actions, and that abilities like Dimension Door / Teleport negate that possibility?

I tend to agree. For example, you'll notice the writeup I did of Scry in responding to [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] introduced several potential complications into the spell: needing a given name, needing something connected to the target as a component, the possibility of getting incomplete info, and needing to interpret the raw data. All potential sources for unintended consequences and further obstacles to crop up. I would say Dimension Door, Teleport, and any hypothetical Get In Anywhere rogue talent need to follow the same design guideline.

Do I want DD and Teleport to go away? No. They are high-level conveniences that are very well-suited for facilitating high-level play, making the PCs feel powerful, and acting as tools the players can use to bypass world challenges like overland travel encounters. I would like to see consistent in-world counters. I think 4e did such with the teleport circle ritual though I think maybe they restricted it a bit too much.

Teleport has the restrictions of a stable surface for arrival and requiring line of sight or good working knowledge at least. DD can't go into other planes. Both are shut down by Dimension Lock or Dimensional Anchor.

None of these counters should stop a mundane mythical ability analogue.

The Get in Anywhere ability allows the PC to get in anywhere. The unintended consequence for a scenario designer is that the impenetrable vault isn't, the Magnificent Mansion isn't secure, etc. There may be (and certainly should be) some restrictions on the ability. The designer has to take the ability into account in addition to counter for the magical equivalents for those areas that should be generally impenetrable either for gamey adventure reasons or for world consistency reasons as well as develop situations where the ability is actually useful and appropriate.

From empirical evidence, scenario designers often struggle to deal with a single source of such ability with straightforward counters let alone multiple sources with differing counters and rationales.

 

[Quickleaf]

Do I want DD and Teleport to go away? No. They are high-level conveniences that are very well-suited for facilitating high-level play, making the PCs feel powerful, and acting as tools the players can use to bypass world challenges like overland travel encounters. I would like to see consistent in-world counters. I think 4e did such with the teleport circle ritual though I think maybe they restricted it a bit too much.

Teleport has the restrictions of a stable surface for arrival and requiring line of sight or good working knowledge at least. DD can't go into other planes. Both are shut down by Dimension Lock or Dimensional Anchor.

None of these counters should stop a mundane mythical ability analogue.

The Get in Anywhere ability allows the PC to get in anywhere. The unintended consequence for a scenario designer is that the impenetrable vault isn't, the Magnificent Mansion isn't secure, etc. There may be (and certainly should be) some restrictions on the ability. The designer has to take the ability into account in addition to counter for the magical equivalents for those areas that should be generally impenetrable either for gamey adventure reasons or for world consistency reasons as well as develop situations where the ability is actually useful and appropriate.

From empirical evidence, scenario designers often struggle to deal with a single source of such ability with straightforward counters let alone multiple sources with differing counters and rationales.

I see, yeah absolutely there would be restrictions on the hypothetical ability (despite the grandiose name). But consider, does Dimension Door or Teleport ruin a (well designed) adventure about cracking into an impenetrable vault? I would argue "no it doesn't", and apply the same logic to a hypothetical rogue ability.

I totally agree with you about scenario writers struggling with consistent counters and rationales. Whereas you're thinking of Wizard Spell and Rogue Ability as 2 different vectors that need to be considered, I'm thinking of them as 1 vector: PC Infiltration Power. The scenario needs to account for the fact that one PC could get into the vault without their companions...so that condition should leave to further complications and challenges rather than: "ok, you're inside and you got the magic gem, slipping out the way you came is a breeze, and the adventure is over." If the scenario were that simple it probably just deserves the narrative space of a skill check or single encounter. And a spell or ability to bypass a skill check or an encounter makes sense.

These sorts of abilities should be game-changers, not game-enders.

 

[Nagol]

Game-changing abilities don't ruin a well-designed scenario; in fact a well-designed scenario forces the PCs to find situations to take advantage of those abilities in order to succeed -- which is the real problem with Fighters and other mundane types being dedicated combat specialists. The game changes around them and their ability to participate does not alter although the numbers they generate in combat get bigger.

And that brings me all the way around to bemoaning the lack of Fighter versatility!

 

[Derren]

And that brings me all the way around to bemoaning the lack of Fighter versatility!

To be fair, what kind of versatility do you expect from someone whos only defining quality is that he fights well?

 

[Nagol]

To be fair, what kind of versatility do you expect from someone whos only defining quality is that he fights well?

Which is why I think the most versatile Fighters I've DMed came from 1e.

The versatility came from things outside their class abilities -- some of which the player had strong control over (which henchman to hire? which faction to join?) and some from weak control (given these 6 found magic items, which is best for me?).

 

[Quickleaf]

Game-changing abilities don't ruin a well-designed scenario; in fact a well-designed scenario forces the PCs to find situations to take advantage of those abilities in order to succeed -- which is the real problem with Fighters and other mundane types being dedicated combat specialists. The game changes around them and their ability to participate does not alter although the numbers they generate in combat get bigger.

And that brings me all the way around to bemoaning the lack of Fighter versatility!

Hah! +1!

To be fair, what kind of versatility do you expect from someone whos only defining quality is that he fights well?

Oh geez, is this just a raz? I mean, did you read the extensive earlier posts by all the folks who've provided great examples of fighters from literature, myth, and their games doing great things outside of combat?

 

[pemerton]

Game-changing abilities don't ruin a well-designed scenario; in fact a well-designed scenario forces the PCs to find situations to take advantage of those abilities in order to succeed

If by "well-designed scenario" we mean "scenario designed to be challenging to D&D PCs having given suite of game-changing abilities", then it is practically tautologous that a well-designed scenario will take accoount of those abilities (and from memory this is the line that the 3E DMG runs).

If by "well-designed scenario" we mean "scenario that seems fit within the genre and promises to evoke the genre/thematic experience that high fantasy RPGers are looking for", then I am less persuaded that game-changing abilities can't ruin a well-designed scenario. For instance, negotiating with the god of death, or sneaking past him/her, to rescue a loved one who died before his/her time sounds like a reasonable scenario for high level fantasy PCs, but in a standard D&D game there is a risk that it degenerates into the PCs trying to bust through Hades teleport wards, which in play can tend not to be that epic.

I think some sort of balance is therefore required, between honouring the game's mechanical tradition and making room for genre/thematic appropriate scenarios. Personally I liked where 4e drew the balance, but I can see that D&Dnext is going back a bit more towards tradition. I don't have a strong sense if it goes as far in that direction as 3E did (which I personally find too far, and hence making good scenarios too hard to make work).

I see [MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION]'s suggestions about divination as another way to try and strike the balance. My practical concern about that is that it still rests on a mechanical technique that is not that popular among the trad D&D crowd: simple rolls for stuff that is ancilliary to scenario (opposed Streetwise check, opposed Arcana check) and then complex resolution for the core stuff (the divination example, or searching the village house-to-house). This idea of scoping up or down based not on ingame complexity but at-table significance is a fine approach to RPG mechanics, but I think would be hard to successfully introduce into D&D. (Eg 4e's solo-standard-minion-swarm rules can be seen as a version of it for combat design - scope the monster based on at-table significance rather than ingame complexity - but they are rather contentious.)

 

[Jester David]

In a system where class determines skill, a fighter centric skill might help. I remember this being proposed earlier, with a "Warfare" skill that allows fighters to evaluate troops, identify COs, build fortifications, judge the quality of weapons, and the like. This might overlap with warlordy things like inspiring troops, identifying tactics, planning mass battles, and the like.

This gets trickier in a system like D&D5 where skills are detached from most classes and associated with backgrounds, and you don't want every fighter to be a master of warfare. But if every wizard gets Spellcraft and every rogue gets Thievery it could still be a bonus.

Still, it's easier not to think "what can fighters do?" and more "what can this fighter do?", and fix the problem on a character level rather than a class level. If a player chooses to double down on combat skills and not take anything useful the rest of the time then that's their prerogative.