D&D General When Was it Decided Fighters Should Suck at Everything but Combat?

[Scribe]

I disagree. Fighters get to choose what they're good at just like everybody else.

OK.

 

[Micah Sweet]

OK.

You do realize there was more to that message?

 

[Scribe]

You do realize there was more to that message?

Yes, but given thats the premise, and I'm not engaging with the rest because its missing the point of the thread, and the thrust of what I've been discussing, I'm done.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I think you're vastly overoptimistic in how often one can avoid that sort of thing. And rolling against an attribute is a poor man's skill substitute (since it can show aptitude but not training). If what you need is at the top of a mountain, no roleplaying it through will allow you to avoid needing to make whatever number of climbing rolls the GM decides (and that construct tells you there's a problem too, since that's probably not a decision that should need to be pulled out of thin air).

Well, it's not "optimism". It's the way I play and it seems to work.

As for "training" I think Shadowdark's system works really well
Player: "Hey, my background is miner, so I think I should get to roll with advantage."
GM: "Sounds good."

I get that some people enjoy finer granularity, but I would argue that is scratching an itch that has little impact on the game itself. For a skill that is maybe used occasionally (swimming, climbing, etc.) the pattern of successes or failures will owe more to RNG than to some granular modifiers.

In other words, if two players wrote down all their success or failures at one of these skills, over multiple sessions, the probability that the one with more successes was actually the one with lower skill is higher than many people would assume.

My point is, you could just narrate the offense you're trying, have the GM narrate the defense the opponent is doing, and then resolve the attack based on that. I've seen that approach in other contexts, and its no more arbitrary than trying to narrate a climbing attemp.

I'll give you that some things being all-or-nothing and combat being multiple checks creates some odd dynamics here, but that's the reason I used climbing and swimming as examples; those aren't usually all or nothing either except in the most simple cases, analogous to the killing-the-rat-with-your-sword situations.

But what would you actually be narrating here? In combat it could be "I try to flank the orc" "I jump on the table" "I focus more on defense than offense" "I use my XYZ power" "I drink a potion" "I pretend to drop my guard" "I heal my companion" "I drop my shield and go two-handed" "I scream my tribe's battle cry!" Etc. etc. etc.

What are the climbing equivalents? I generally try to avoid giving any IRL details about myself, or to make appeals to authority, but here I'll add that I'm an extremely experienced rock climber...and not that wussy sport/gym climbing nonsense, but day-long multi-pitch lead climbing at altitude, sometimes unroped, on both rock and ice...and I have absolutely zero idea about how I would turn climbing into a mini-game meaningful sub-system within an RPG.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Says who? We roll each attack, in some editions we avoid potential combat.

Says who? The numbers, and the expectation that you won't go through characters like cordwood. Even if you avoid combat when possible, if you're going to try and tell me most groups could avoid all combat in D&D at any point in its history, I'll say the overwhelming evidence was that wasn't true.

"Expect" and "are sure of" are not identical sets. Even 1st Level OD&D PCs expected they could go through a couple bottom-end humanoids, but it wasn't a certainty and that's why the combat system was engaged.

This isnt a 5e thread.

And I'm not talking about 5e, since I've never played it.

If you want a game as granular in every activity as Combat has traditionally been? Sure, roll every hand hold, every time you set your rope on a hook, every knot tie.

"Every activity" and "ones that have potential risk and cost that can involve making decisions mid-process" aren't identical sets, either.

Thats....not how I would ever play but sure. There is a reason combat is broken out so much into its own thing, and near everything else isnt.

And my opinion is "can't be arsed" is a big part of it, and "not interesting to a lot of people" is another. And then people wonder why the part of the game that has solid systemic support is the part that gets emphasized so much.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Sure, but are any of them implementing systems for checks that are even close to Combat?

Depends how long you expect combat to go. There are D&D adjacents where you might roll 3-5 rolls in a given combat. There are absolutely games that do that many rolls for other events to determine progress.

Again there is an expectation, traditionally reinforced, in Combat being the crunch part of the game, but I just find it hard to believe having the whole game at that level would be of benefit.

Again, "the whole game" and "other elements that create siginficant risk of injury and/or resource loss" aren't the same. I chose the 2-4 skills I mentioned for a reason, and it wasn't just because they were physical skills.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Right, but we are going off the rails here.

You can of course add whatever complexity you like, but the question at hand is, does the game improve if climbing, has the same level of granularity and crunch, as Combat?

For some, perhaps. I would argue they are a rounding error minority, but sure.

"When was it decided Fighters suck...at Climbing."

With the introduction of Skills. With the introduction of granularity into a system that frankly didnt need it.

Its not a question of introducing "granularity" though; it was a question of introducing a resolution system for them at all. The granularity question is a sideshow.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Depends how long you expect combat to go. There are D&D adjacents where you might roll 3-5 rolls in a given combat. There are absolutely games that do that many rolls for other events to determine progress.

I want to...again...point out the difference between rolls that result from a decision, an actual choice, versus because they are required by the rules.

In one case, that 3rd roll might be to see if you can escape combat, because you are doing badly enough that you realize you should run. Or it might be a spell cast. Or an attempt to disarm your opponent. Or made with advantage because you flanked the enemy. Whatever it is, it is because you took in information from the changing combat situation and made a choice.

"You must succeed on three consecutive Swim checks" has none of that.

If you are thinking of an example with greater richness, I would love to hear it. And I don't mean that sarcastically: I have a deep interest in how to apply the 'game theory' of combat to other aspects of the game. I've just never seen a satisfying example of it.

 

[Thomas Shey]

As for "training" I think Shadowdark's system works really well
Player: "Hey, my background is miner, so I think I should get to roll with advantage."
GM: "Sounds good."

I've expressed my feeling about backgrounds as a substitute for skills, so I shan't belabor it. But even backgrounds are adding something OD&D didn't have for the job. Making that sort of thing matter did not intrinsically make fighters worse; the specific handling of it did.

I get that some people enjoy finer granularity, but I would argue that is scratching an itch that has little impact on the game itself. For a skill that is maybe used occasionally (swimming, climbing, etc.) the pattern of successes or failures will owe more to RNG than to some granular modifiers.

I'd say that entirely depends on how big a difference there is between skilled and unskilled here. I also think "occasionally" is doing some heavy lifting there.

In other words, if two players wrote down all their success or failures at one of these skills, over multiple sessions, the probability that the one with more successes was actually the one with lower skill is higher than many people would assume.

D20's being what they are, that's certainly true, but it still doesn't mean there's no potential difference, just that it needs to be fairly large to be visible.

But what would you actually be narrating here? In combat it could be "I try to flank the orc" "I jump on the table" "I focus more on defense than offense" "I use my XYZ power" "I drink a potion" "I pretend to drop my guard" "I heal my companion" "I drop my shield and go two-handed" "I scream my tribe's battle cry!" Etc. etc. etc.

I could go through examples but they'd be long. There's a lot more to melee combat in particular than you're suggesting there; trying feints, aiming for weak spots, attempting to knock weapons out of line, binding shields--its just that D&D buries most of that in the mixture of the attack bonus and the die roll. But that's a choice, its entirely possible to do it otherwise. The reasons for that with physical activities are largely arbitrary; if you can determine success in a climbing attempt by how someone says they're doing it, you can do it that way with combat too, using their combat skill as just a reference. I know that because I've done so (its not my preferred way to play, but the two situations are still not fundamentally different).

What are the climbing equivalents? I generally try to avoid giving any IRL details about myself, or to make appeals to authority, but here I'll add that I'm an extremely experienced rock climber...and not that wussy sport/gym climbing nonsense, but day-long multi-pitch lead climbing at altitude, sometimes unroped, on both rock and ice...and I have absolutely zero idea about how I would turn climbing into a mini-game meaningful sub-system within an RPG.

I'd politely suggest that's because you haven't chosen to sit down and think about it. I could provide a rough and ready one with some thought just from having watched rock climbers, so I'm sure you could do better, just as I did better with the combat example (because I'm both an experienced fencer and martial artist, though woefully rusty these days).

 

[Bill Zebub]

I could go through examples but they'd be long. There's a lot more to melee combat in particular than you're suggesting there; trying feints, aiming for weak spots, attempting to knock weapons out of line, binding shields--its just that D&D buries most of that in the mixture of the attack bonus and the die roll. But that's a choice, its entirely possible to do it otherwise. The reasons for that with physical activities are largely arbitrary; if you can determine success in a climbing attempt by how someone says they're doing it, you can do it that way with combat too, using their combat skill as just a reference. I know that because I've done so (its not my preferred way to play, but the two situations are still not fundamentally different).

I'm confused. Yes, there's all sorts of feinting and parrying and such in real sword fighting, but that's not part of D&D. All that stuff is abstracted away in the game. The decisions you actually make are the ones I described: choosing which square to stand in, choosing which target to attack, weighing the trade-off between provoking an opportunity attack and moving yourself to a better position, choosing which spell to cast, etc.

I'd politely suggest that's because you haven't chosen to sit down and think about it. I could provide a rough and ready one with some thought just from having watched rock climbers, so I'm sure you could do better, just as I did better with the combat example (because I'm both an experienced fencer and martial artist, though woefully rusty these days).

Well, you'd be wrong. I've thought about it a LOT. (Also, I'd love to hear your thinking on these topics, but I find conjectures about my own to be unnecessary.)

I could offer lots of examples that are somewhat analogous to the feinting/parrying/etc. examples in combat, but...again...that's not what is modeled by most RPGs (at least in D&D derived RPGs, which is the forum we're in).

We could lay out...or create random tables for, or even write software to automatically generate...climbing "routes" that required genuine decision points. An example of a decision point could be the choice between grabbing an easy hold that looks like it might be loose, or dynoing past it for the ledge, but risk missing. Or between a friction move requiring finesse or a brute force one-handed pull-up. Or a resource decision: do I put in a piton now, or save it for later when I might need it more?

But all of those are still an individual making decisions, and the cliff is not responding to those decisions. It would still miss what makes combat engaging in RPGs: a team of people all contributing to the group effort, opponents making their own decisions, all those dice rolls smoothing out the curve to mitigate lucky and unlucky rolls, and the situation evolving turn-by-turn because of those decisions and their outcomes.

So, sure, it could be a clever mini-game within the game, but more like a board game and not like an RPG.