Of course, I get this all typed out Monday at midnight and ENWorld deep-sixes... Good thing I'm paranoid about posting here and copied this before sending!
Originally posted by KaeYoss:
I don't think every combat should be a fixed number of rounds, and changing the rules so it enforces such a thing would be unnecessarily complicated IMO.
I meant this more as a kind of "target area", rather than a hard and fast rule in an encounter that expends a "typical" amount of magic appropriate for that equivalent CR situation. I probably could have been more clear here. Obviously, how you approach an encounter and what classes your party has will play significantly on the final result. Obviously, CRs will naturally impact this number. With that in mind, it's not that difficult to gear the game appropriately. If you get rid of the one roll wonders (Save or Die/Nerfs), you're 75% of the way there already. The goal here is allow a certain level of flexibility in all levels of play, especially HL play where combat becomes increasingly brutal and short.
With a certain amount of breathing room, everyone has time to implement slightly more complex strategies (and you like tactics, right?
) and engage in more cinematic "thrust and parry" combat as I like to call it (and the tide of battle can acutally
shift in an encounter). It gives players the opportunity to try different and more risky (read: crazy player tactics) things in an encounter, and real cinematic stuff that HL characters *should* have a chance to do in combat. Crazy moves that won't be immediately rewarded with a swift death because they didn't follow "the forumla".
The random element should indeed remain important in fights between enemies of equal power, but we should not forget strategy. This should be at least as important as the random element. And again the change isn't worth it if it makes the game to complicated.
Obviously strategy, luck, finding the target's weaknesses will always be important, it's not something that you can just... take away from the game. It's why the target number of rounds is a range of values, but perhaps it should be a little broader.
I don't like that at all. It sounds like AD&D. The rules should be the same from 1 to 20. Also, con is con. You should get something out of it on every level (you get your Int bonus to skills every level, after all)
I know exactly what you're thinking and yes, it does seem like serious overkill at first glance. If someone had suggested this to me a year and a half ago,
I'd have told him to get lost!
However... after having it explained to me and from what we've learned about HL play over the last year we've go a better grip now on some of the keys to play balance at these levels. AD&D actually had
the right idea here. At least, they were going in the right direction. The thing to remember is that *any* disparity which continues to increase over levels will eventually become a problem. A 5 cent difference over 30 levels gives you a lot of change you don't want. Balance-wise, it is very desirable to find a range of values that is just wide enough to create distiction between the classes, but
narrow enough that you can challenge the entire party without adversely endangering the weakest character or boring the most powerful.
It's a pretty fine line actually. By removing Con bonuses after 10th level, you can much more accurately estimate a party's strength at higher levels, and this becomes
key to HL encounter balance later on, especially as you're getting towards 20th level and beyond. A 2 pt adjustment/difference in Con at 20th level means a 20 point swing in HPs. 4 pt difference? 40 HPs. 6 pt difference? 60 HPs... and that's
just from Con bonuses. That's too much, especially when you factor in the differences between the classes HDs and range of Con's you can expect at these levels.
Balance-wise, you eventually get to a point where you've reached a desirable range in HPs between the characters, and you'll want to
maintain that difference so that you can avoid high disparity problems. That's why, at some point, all HP accrual should be even across the board. I know it's bizzare to think along these terms, I did too, but I certainly understand it now.
I think that this was one of the best changes in 3e and should stay in any case. Now there is a difference between a dumb apprentice trying to charm you and the master enchanter using the same spell. And the stats affect your saving bonuses, too, after all.
While
philosphically that may seem like a good idea, in HL play it becomes a very serious balance problem. The thing is, the heavy spellcasters (wiz/sor/cle/dru) tend to increase their single primary spellcasting stats (which modify their DC saves) far quicker than anyone else can increase their 3 saving throw stats to compensate (and who often have *other* stats to focus on). What you end up with at high levels are characters who find it
increasingly difficult making their weak saves, even with good save-buffing magic items. And these are the levels where it becomes increasingly
crucial to make your save. Again, this is where disparities between the classes take their toll - in this case stat and save differences.
That said, if you're going to make it harder to die, you should also make it harder to come back when you do die. Again, this is some good game philosophy to adopt from Monte Cook.
If you nerf the spellcasters you'll have to give them something else to compensate for that: more spells per day and/or per round (maybe you get a different AB for physical combat and magical combat, and wizards get iterative spells - this MAB could also improve the spell DC somehow), or they will be much weaker than fighters and others who use weapons (they often are already).
Indeed. I think you make some good suggestions here as far as rebalancing is concerned. An increase in HPs to d6 for the wiz/sor and more AC improving options will also help. There are lots of ways to skin this cat...
But I do think save-or-die spells should stay in (but then again I don't think every combat should be a fixed length).
The problem with Save or Die spells is that they become the uberspells, the spells you do anything to make work (dispel protections, reduce save bonuses). They bypass the HP mechanic entirely which I'm personally not a fan of. Plus, while having your life hinging on a single roll can make for a dramatic encounter... you run into them more and more at high levels to point where you
routinely have to make that roll - and if it's rountine, you're going to fail. And fail routinely if it's your weak save. Both Andy Collins and Monte Cook also agree that SoD is problematic at high levels, so there might be something there...
I also don't like the ways you want to compensate the fighters: other classes can also have high Str and these magic Items (noone keeps a wizard from buying or using a magical weapon). Plus, your changes would mean that many would abandon the fighter classes at higher levels, for other classes offer the same combat abilities at that point and then some. A Fighter 20 should be a better warrior than a Fighter 10/Wizard 10.
The fighter though has the *total package* however. So long as you're able to maintain a meaningful difference in play (I think fighters should have d20 Modern-like talents and some desirable HL feat chains myself to compensate), you do not require the disparities we see now. Again, I had to have this explained carefully to me as well... Remember that the d20 is the primary random element - you do not require a whole lot of differences between the classes to create meaninful advantages for the characters where appropriate. We're just so used to seeing and using the large differences between the various characters we forget that even a 10 point difference between two characters of the same level is enormous. If the fighter required a 5 to hit a target and the wizard a 15... the 20 roll is still meaningful for both. In addition, the fighter shows he has a significant advantage in field of expertise (especially factored over the long-term). Mind you 10 points is just a figure I pulled out of the air, but it just goes to show...
Now to maintain the importance of the d20 roll at all levels, you need to have a range of differences between the classes (in all the important mechanics) which you should not be able to easily (but perhaps temporarily) exceed. I'd say... somewhere between 10 to 15 points maximum when dealing with equivalent level characters/challenges. Once you exceed it, you marginalize the importance of the d20 roll in the game and IMO, you start taking away something from the game. The challenge then becomes too easy for one character or too hard for another.
Another thing I really don't like, and not only because it makes the tables with the class skills to big. I do think these things don't necessarily improve with level, and thus should remain skills. You might increase the number of skill points everyone gets and make these skills class skills for more classes, but no class progression!
That's a fair argument. Personally, as an adventurer, I'm of the mind that you're naturally going to become more alert as you rise in levels, just as you naturally improve in your saving throws (which arguably rely on similar skills in many cases). These are what I consider to be "basic survival skills", just like wizards who continue to improve in melee combat even though they arguably do less and less of it as they get higher level. Is there a better way to model advancement here? Certainly. I personally think how skills are handled need to be re-worked some, but that could be a whole topic in itself.
It would be a part of making magic items less important, which would be OK I think (though I can live with the current situation, too).
I would like to see the game re-balanced for somewhat less magic item use as well, but... the way D&D is geared, I'm not sure that is something WotC would consider. More likely we'll something from Monte Cook along these lines...
Thanks for the thoughtful reply, I hope I was able to clarify some of what I wrote earlier. To be sure, I think there is certainly some "room to move" with the numbers, but I think
game philosophy-wise you need to move in this direction in order to have balanced play from Low right up through Epic Levels.
Cheers,
A'koss
