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

[JohnSnow]

You don't need to base it on actual granular skills, though.

In Shadowdark, characters get advantage on anything they might reasonably be able to do, based their background, class or ancestry. Those three axes provide plenty of differentiation among fighters and no one needs to be worrying about how many points they put in Climb and if they can afford to put any points into Heraldry.

I have mixed feelings about Kelsey’s decision to use advantage to reflect skill bonuses in Shadowdark. Because while I appreciate the elegance of it, it takes away the reason I loved Advantage/Disadvantage in 5e in the first place, which is that one can do away with tons of fiddly “circumstance modifiers” and just factor decide “Should this check occur with Advantage or Disadvantage, or just be rolled straight?”

Kelsey hints at, but doesn’t fully develop, another layer of granularity when she talks about “Setting DCs” (p. 107): “When determining the difficulty of a task, take the creature into account. Finding the trail in a sunny field would be an easy task for a forest elf with tracking skills, but it would be a hard task for a sun-dazzled cave troll.”

A pretty basic and robust skill system (à la tags in Daggerheart or Legends in the Mist) could be developed from this, but doesn’t currently exist.

D&D has had backgrounds since at least the 1E DMG but never really leveraged them well until 5E. Something like the Shadowdark system could have been implemented long ago without adding significant complexity to the game -- certainly less than non-weapon proficiencies and later skills added.

100% agreed.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think here I did a poor job of explaining myself. I'm not opposed to tracking resources (hit points, rations, arrows, etc.).

And I think it's fine to use obstacles to drain those resources, such as hit points. I just want that to happen in the context of players getting to make actual decisions. Not just "this is the part where I've decided you are going to roll some dice, and if you fail your resources are drained".

That's fair, but I have to note that there's still some situations that are always kind of about that, not just climbing. They may well be things you avoid, but if you're going through the Haunted Woods to the Ancient Tower, and encounter barghests, the combat isn't necessarily the consequence of decisions. Individual options within the combat may be, but I'm not convinced you can't construct a climbing challenge to do that too (trading off speed versus risk for example).

What I don't like is using metagame resources (spell slots, maneuver dice, barbarian rages, etc.) to limit the use of cool abilities. Not because I don't want to have to track the resources, but because the tactical decision, the tradeoff...the "game"...becomes guessing whether you should use it now, in this fight, or whether you are better off trying to win the fight without it in order to save it for an unknown (but guessable) future fight. D&D is a game of trying to get through all the "interim" combats without using your best spell slots, your Ki points, your maneuver dice, your 1x/day nova ability, etc., so that you can spend that stuff on the boss.

Yeah, you see that to some extent in a lot of games (a modern game where you have limited ammunition for example, and have to decide whether you want to use one of your 2-pack rockets now or save for later), but D&D has always leaned into it because of how spell-slots work, and its gotten even more pronounced across time.

And I just don't think that's a fun/interesting game to play. I want to use my cool stuff in all the fights, so I want the tradeoffs to be about the present, not the future. (Which is why I tend to play Fighters or Rogues.)

Does that make sense?

Yeah. Though how do you feel about what 4e called "encounter" powers, that can be used multiple times a day, but only once (or some other limited number of times) within a given situation?

 

[Bill Zebub]

That's fair, but I have to note that there's still some situations that are always kind of about that, not just climbing. They may well be things you avoid, but if you're going through the Haunted Woods to the Ancient Tower, and encounter barghests, the combat isn't necessarily the consequence of decisions. Individual options within the combat may be...

Which is exactly what I'm advocating for: the individual options within the combat being player decisions/trade-offs.

but I'm not convinced you can't construct a climbing challenge to do that too (trading off speed versus risk for example).

Yes that is precisely how I handle skill challenges: construct trade-offs. But those are always situational and improvised. Trading speed vs. risk isn't a general purpose climbing mechanic, because in lots of situations there's no time pressure. Which I guess is really a roundabout way of getting to my rule of thumb: that characters will tend to succeed at regular tasks unless there is some kind of complicating factor. If I can't think of a good, interesting trade-off that is a hard decision, I try to avoid dice rolling.

So I guess what I'm saying is: yes, I do use some form of "skills" (even if it's just attribute based), but they tend to be like a single decision-point in a combat. I still don't see a general way to make them like combat overall, with formal rules that govern the whole shebang, but more Dungeon World-like, where the player wants to do something and the GM says, "Ok, I'll make you a deal..."

Yeah, you see that to some extent in a lot of games (a modern game where you have limited ammunition for example, and have to decide whether you want to use one of your 2-pack rockets now or save for later), but D&D has always leaned into it because of how spell-slots work, and its gotten even more pronounced across time.

Yup, and I hate that.

Yeah. Though how do you feel about what 4e called "encounter" powers, that can be used multiple times a day, but only once (or some other limited number of times) within a given situation?

I skipped 4e, but I understand the AEDU concept (if I got those letters right) and it's exactly what I don't like. It feels very video-gamey to me. It's possible to find an in-fiction interpretation ("No...no...I only Cleaved once during the fight simply because there was only one good opportunity, it had nothing to do with a metagame restriction!") but it's a kind of gamism I don't like. At least in my RPGs. If an ability must be limited artificially I'd rather have it on a recharge die, which is easier to fluff as opportunity. IMO.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Which is exactly what I'm advocating for: the individual options within the combat being player decisions/trade-offs.



Yes that is precisely how I handle skill challenges: construct trade-offs. But those are always situational and improvised. Trading speed vs. risk isn't a general purpose climbing mechanic, because in lots of situations there's no time pressure. Which I guess is really a roundabout way of getting to my rule of thumb: that characters will tend to succeed at regular tasks unless there is some kind of complicating factor. If I can't think of a good, interesting trade-off that is a hard decision, I try to avoid dice rolling.

So I guess what I'm saying is: yes, I do use some form of "skills" (even if it's just attribute based), but they tend to be like a single decision-point in a combat. I still don't see a general way to make them like combat overall, with formal rules that govern the whole shebang, but more Dungeon World-like, where the player wants to do something and the GM says, "Ok, I'll make you a deal..."



Yup, and I hate that.



I skipped 4e, but I understand the AEDU concept (if I got those letters right) and it's exactly what I don't like. It feels very video-gamey to me. It's possible find an in-fiction interpretation ("No...no...I only Cleaved once during the fight simply because there was only one good opportunity, it had nothing to do with a metagame restriction!") but it's a kind of gamism I don't like. At least in my RPGs. If an ability must be limited artificially I'd rather have it on a recharge die, which is easier to fluff as opportunity. IMO.

Or you could increase the difficulty of a maneuver if you try to use it multiple times in the same situation, to represent one's opponents getting wise to your style.

 

[JohnSnow]

There's three things in WotC D&D that work against re-rolling initiative, two of which can be fixed with trivial ease.

The first is that the die size - d20 - is far too big. D6 is fine, and has the side benefit that as we all have loads of them the players can leave their initiative dice on the table in front of them once rolled, so we can all see them. Easy fix.

The second is that there's modifiers to the initiative roll, Dexterity bonus being the most common. Scrap it all. Other than extremely rare instances, what you roll is what you get. Easy fix.

The third is that there's so many effects that end or take place "on your turn" based on the assumption that your next turn will occur exactly one round after this one. To fix this we have to go to an actual fixed-time duration setup, where the effect has a 1-round duration thus if it kicks in on a 5 this round it ends on 5 next round regardless of when anyone's turn happens. Not-quite-as-easy fix.

I use d6 initiative in my games, rerolled each round. Further, if you've got multiple actions within a round (e.g. two attacks) they each get their own separate initative, meaning you might attack once on a 6 and once on a 2 in a two-attack round.

Then, I go around the table asking for sixes, and we resolve all those; then fives, and so on down to ones. If you kill your foe on your initiative (let's say it was a 4) and your foe also had a 4, it gets its attack in as it dies because it's all simultaneous. There's corner cases and exceptions, of course, but the basics are, well, pretty basic.

What I sometimes find is that what at first might be single-roll resolution can quickly get more granular if-when things go wrong.

For example, take a simple climbing roll. You succeed, you make it to the top. But if you fail, now we're probably rolling more dice to see what happens next: roll to see how far you got before things went wrong, maybe a saving throw to grab a root or some other protrusion before or during your fall, a saving throw or dexterity check to see if you landed the least bit gracefully (if the fall isn't too far), if you grab something then a roll to see how far you dropped, then another roll to see if you make it the rest of the way to the top (or back to the bottom, if so desired), and so forth.

It's all a bit ad-hoc, though, based on the situation at the time.

I’m not going to respond point by point, but I have been generally thinking of something similar to this for a while, possibly with the added complexity of something like speed factors, not to the granularity of 1e, but in the “Immediate actions go first, then some system for things that take movement (or otherwise eat up time).” Initiative boils down to an instant: you might get the jump on the goblin archer, but if you’re trying to run across the field to hit him with a sword before he puts an arrow in you, it won’t work.

It’s tied into a houserule I’m tinkering with to make initiative “side-based” (d6, high side acts first) but staggered. What do I mean by “staggered?” PC(s), monster they attack, PC(s), monster, and so on.

Basically, if two or more on either side tag-team someone, the initiative winning side goes first, then we resolve their opponent’s turn, then move to the next group.

That sparked the questions: “Shouldn’t archers who are ready get to shoot before people can move? How long should spells take to cast, etc.” And that’s why the houserule is still in development.

Side note on your d6 thing is you could get big dice that could be seen from across the table. I might think about having people roll a d6, but using a large d12 to represent your turn - if I add my speed idea to it (“You want to run over to that goblin? Okay, moving across the room takes 3 segments, so increase your die by 3 and we’ll resolve your attack then. Next person.”)

Clearly still a work in progress.

As an aside, I have found the comments fascinating and I appreciate everyone taking the time to explain their position rather than shouting across each other.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I have mixed feelings about Kelsey’s decision to use advantage to reflect skill bonuses in Shadowdark. Because while I appreciate the elegance of it, it takes away the reason I loved Advantage/Disadvantage in 5e in the first place, which is that one can do away with tons of fiddly “circumstance modifiers” and just factor decide “Should this check occur with Advantage or Disadvantage, or just be rolled straight?”

Kelsey hints at, but doesn’t fully develop, another layer of granularity when she talks about “Setting DCs” (p. 107): “When determining the difficulty of a task, take the creature into account. Finding the trail in a sunny field would be an easy task for a forest elf with tracking skills, but it would be a hard task for a sun-dazzled cave troll.”

A pretty basic and robust skill system (à la tags in Daggerheart or Legends in the Mist) could be developed from this, but doesn’t currently exist.

I use the difficulty DCs (handily listed inside the front cover of the book) but I admit to not using it as a character-specific dial. I'll try it in my next session. You're right that it seems like an easy way to add a touch more granularity without diving into the deep end of such things.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Which is exactly what I'm advocating for: the individual options within the combat being player decisions/trade-offs.

I'll again suggest that barring spells and class abilities, D&D has never much been good at this. Its probably better now than in the OD&D days, but that's damning with faint praise. Even games in the D&D sphere I'm more fond of (PF2e and Shadow of the Weird Wizard for example) aren't providing much in the base combat system to give you more than you were getting a half century ago: choice of target and maybe weapon.

Yes that is precisely how I handle skill challenges: construct trade-offs. But those are always situational and improvised. Trading speed vs. risk isn't a general purpose climbing mechanic, because in lots of situations there's no time pressure. Which I guess is really a roundabout way of getting to my rule of thumb: that characters will tend to succeed at regular tasks unless there is some kind of complicating factor. If I can't think of a good, interesting trade-off that is a hard decision, I try to avoid dice rolling.

I'm not sold they have to be situational, and they absolutely don't have to be improvised. You could provide a list of optional things you can do that cause other penalties, and most of them would be generic within a given skill. In some cases they might be irrelevant (if you've got all the time in the world you may not care about faster speed, but then, if you're fighting an ooze you don't care about weapon binding or disarming, either). If none of them are relevant than you don't have much in the way of anything but a generic resolution going on (maybe watching for potential causes of injury), but that's mostly true when fighting that ooze, too. Its pretty much a truism that with simple opponents, even if a system with a lot of combat nuance, there's not a lot of consideration required.

Now it may well be you consider such combat boring and wouldn't normally present them either, and that's fine (I kind of agree they aren't very interesting), but the system can at least still support them while having more options in more complex situations.

So I guess what I'm saying is: yes, I do use some form of "skills" (even if it's just attribute based), but they tend to be like a single decision-point in a combat. I still don't see a general way to make them like combat overall, with formal rules that govern the whole shebang, but more Dungeon World-like, where the player wants to do something and the GM says, "Ok, I'll make you a deal..."

Its less like generically doing than than using Clocks, and having options when the options are relevant. And, again, you don't need to do it with every skill (or more accurately, every task since you may be working with something like Athletics which actually covers a lot of different only mildly related skills); there's probably no point in very all-or-nothing situations (jumping comes to mind here). Again, I've used the four cases I have for a reason.

Yup, and I hate that.

Well, there's a reason in my younger, somewhat snarkier days I characterized the D&D magic system as "having all the charm of a man with a bag of varied hand grenades." It was clearly set up the way it is because its straightforward, but its not a coincidence you don't see much like that out of the D&D sphere.

I skipped 4e, but I understand the AEDU concept (if I got those letters right) and it's exactly what I don't like. It feels very video-gamey to me. It's possible to find an in-fiction interpretation ("No...no...I only Cleaved once during the fight simply because there was only one good opportunity, it had nothing to do with a metagame restriction!") but it's a kind of gamism I don't like. At least in my RPGs. If an ability must be limited artificially I'd rather have it on a recharge die, which is easier to fluff as opportunity. IMO.

It absolutely is very gamey, but it does have the virtue it discourages power-hoarding outside dailies (at-wills are obviously a non-concern, and encounter powers you might as well use because they'll be available later again anyway).

(The AGE system from Green Ronin has something pretty similar to what you're talking about in some ways; its a 3D6 resolution system, and if any of the dice throw doubles, you've gotten an opportunity to choose one of a number of different options up to the value of the Stunt Die in the 3D6. Some people love it and some it bothers the heck out of).

 

[Thomas Shey]

Or you could increase the difficulty of a maneuver if you try to use it multiple times in the same situation, to represent one's opponents getting wise to your style.

In practice that's just a more drawn out way to produce an encounter power, since at some point the benefit drops below the risk since you'll start missing too much.

 

[Micah Sweet]

In practice that's just a more drawn out way to produce an encounter power, since at some point the benefit drops below the risk since you'll start missing too much.

Yeah, I have no problem with that. The appeal to me is that it's more verisimilitudinous.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah, I have no problem with that. The appeal to me is that it's more verisimilitudinous.

That's fine, but in practice it still means with someone with a decent understanding of probability its functionally equivelent to "X times per encounter".