Why I'm not worried about Fighter "options"

[Tony Vargas]

Narrating is fine, and you can do it particularly well in effects-based systems that give you latitude to change what a given mechanic represents in the fiction. 4e's segregation of 'fluff' or flavor text from mechanics is an obvious example.

But, narrating the same mechanic in different ways only gets you so far. What ever the mechanic is, you can't just narrate it doing /more/ than it's able to accomplish. You can throw yourself on the mercy of the DM and hope that he lets you get away with something - and that he doesn't let someone else get away with so much that there's nothing left to do, but you still have just the one mechanic upon which to base your narration.

A variety of meaningful, viable options is necessary to make a character interesting on a mechanical level. You can punch up a mechanically optionless or even strictly inferior character with good narration and RP, but it doesn't make him a fully contributing party member.

You can also narrate the heck out of a balance, versatile character.

The OP's basic argument is "I'd rather have A than B" where A is a creative narration and B is balanced, engaging mechanics. The thing is we can have both. As a matter of fact, we have A, no matter what the system may try to do to take it away from us. It's a done deal. Players will always be able to RP and narrate their characters actions, just like DMs will always be able to change rules.

 

[Li Shenron]

Take two players, Amanda and Bob. Amanda likes complex decision points, whereas Bob just likes to poke stuff with sharp objects (though he occasionally likes to describe how he does so in flowery language). Both prefer, story-wise, to play characters who are swordfighters. Neither wants to be a sneaky rogue, a mystical cleric, or a spellcasting wizard.

Given the fighter as it exists in the current 5E playtest, Bob can poke stuff with sharp objects and describe it in flowery language to his heart's content.

Amanda's screwed.

That's just ludicrous... you can't judge 5e at a stage where we've seen 4 combat feats only, and we haven't seen neither the rules for non-damaging attack options nor the two announced combat modules.

It is only slightly more reasonable than saying "Given the current 5e playtest, Charlie who likes playing Druids is screwed"

 

[LostSoul]

I would argue, also, that in a case in which you include some variety with maneuvers, less is generally more.

I agree. I think you could do away with manoeuvres completely, but that would mean removing the dissociated mechanics that make up the attack + damage rolls. I don't think most people want that, even in a module.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

That's just ludicrous... you can't judge 5e at a stage where we've seen 4 combat feats only, and we haven't seen neither the rules for non-damaging attack options nor the two announced combat modules.

It is only slightly more reasonable than saying "Given the current 5e playtest, Charlie who likes playing Druids is screwed"

I don't think that is the theme thing.

We have an actual Fighter here. So we can consider which of the two Fighter-loving players it suits. And we've actually seen multiple "fighting" themes, the Cleric's Defendery thing and the Fighter's theme. So far, we can definitely say that we don't see much that would satisfy Amanda. It could be the next playtest theme comes comlete with Daily Martial Powers and a Fight Token generation system or whatever we want to come up with to create something for Amanda - but it's not there yet. And the fact that we notice this and bring it to attention now may lead to the Fight TOken/Daily Power system being part of the next playtest in the first place!

We don't have a Druid in the game, so we cannot really conclude anything about its abilities and its appeal to Druid fans yet.

 

[Grydan]

That's just ludicrous... you can't judge 5e at a stage where we've seen 4 combat feats only, and we haven't seen neither the rules for non-damaging attack options nor the two announced combat modules.

It is only slightly more reasonable than saying "Given the current 5e playtest, Charlie who likes playing Druids is screwed"

I repeat: as it exists in the playtest.

Look, if nobody looks at the playtest and says to WotC "Hey, we'd really like it if there was a little bit more to the fighter beyond a bonus to weapon damage and a few extra actions per day.", then they're not going to know that there's a demand for it.

I've passed no judgment on the system as a whole. I'm not spouting tales of doom and woe. I'm giving feedback, which last I checked, is the entire purpose of playtesting.

I'm saying that Amanda won't like the 5E playtest fighter, and Bob doesn't care about the difference between it and any random 4E sword wielding fighter you can hand him because as long as he rolls his dice and gets to describe in loving detail the way he sticks an imaginary piece of sharpened steel into somebody's guts, he's content.

And yes, for the moment, Charlie is screwed. However, Charlie's position is different than Amanda's: he's left wondering how they're going to design his class of choice. Amanda already knows that they've set up their first approach to her favourite class in a way that does not appeal.

Perhaps you are misreading how I'm using the word screwed. I'm not implying any permanence. The next iteration of the playtest document could provide a fighter that makes Amanda squeal with joy. I'd be quite surprised if it doesn't pick up at least a couple of class features by the next time we see it.

I say the fighter has a lack of class features, you point out we haven't seen a lot of feats yet. Feats are part of themes, not class.

Non-damaging attack options would have to be pretty spectacular for the fighter to opt to use them over his regular attack. It's the one area of the game as it currently exists where he has a mechanical advantage over anyone.

I'm as curious as the next tactically minded fellow as to what they'll come up with for the combat modules. But combat modules are a system-wide adjustment to combat. Unless they come up with one called "The one that gives fighters things to do, but doesn't give everyone else the exact same things", it won't address the central point which is that the fighter lacks things to do, what with everything that they can do being the stuff that everyone else does in addition to their class features.

Anyways, the post you quoted basically boils down to this: a complex and mechanically interesting fighter can do every last thing that a simple fighter can, and thus is entirely capable of satisfying the demand for a simple fighter. The reverse is not true.

 

[Vikingkingq]

I've never understood the argument that defined maneuvers are in any way a barrier either to creativity or to narrative. And to me, the best example of that is 7th Sea, where the defined maneuvers both offer enormous scope for creativity (through the use of raises, drama dice, and the free-form nature of knacks like Tagging) but also shape the narrative in profound ways. The combat system itself makes players start thinking like fencers - they learn that it's better to act after your opponent has committed to an attack, they learn the importance of weakening an opponent's defenses before committing to a strike, and so forth - which in turn does a huge part of constructing the narrative right there (a lunge countered by a double-parry riposte is a tiny story by itself).

 

[Melhaic]

I am not against some sort of mechanical framework for maneuvers and fighters doing cool stuff (sorry if I wasn't clear) as long as it plays nice with the theater of the mind. What I do have a problem with is when the maneuver system becomes the entire game. The basic combat system should be robust enough to execute, with a little nudging from the DM, anything the player can imagine without resorting to a ton of rigid, prepackaged special moves. That isn't roleplaying to me, it's wargaming/boardgaming.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

I am not against some sort of mechanical framework for spells and wizards doing cool stuff (sorry if I wasn't clear) as long as it plays nice with the theater of the mind. What I do have a problem with is when the spell system becomes the entire game. The basic magic system should be robust enough to execute, with a little nudging from the DM, anything the player can imagine without resorting to a ton of rigid, prepackaged spells. That isn't roleplaying to me, it's wargaming/boardgaming.

EDIT:

To expand, I'm not sure why the wizard, or the cleric, or the druid, or the bard having a large[-ish] list of things to do in-game and applying them intelligently and entertainingly is "roleplaying," but the fighter having the same thing is "wargaming / boardgaming."

Can the player of the fighter-type improvise and ask the DM whether or not he can accomplish an off-the-cuff maneuver? In most games, certainly - but the player of the cleric, the druid, the paladin, the ranger, the rogue, the barbarian, the spellsword, the ... can ask the same question, so that's not something unique to the fighter.

 

[Vikingkingq]

I am not against some sort of mechanical framework for maneuvers and fighters doing cool stuff (sorry if I wasn't clear) as long as it plays nice with the theater of the mind. What I do have a problem with is when the maneuver system becomes the entire game. The basic combat system should be robust enough to execute, with a little nudging from the DM, anything the player can imagine without resorting to a ton of rigid, prepackaged special moves. That isn't roleplaying to me, it's wargaming/boardgaming.

Patryn's point aside, this is a problematic stance. What metric does one use to tell whether the maneuver system has "become the entire game?" How does one reconcile the existence of a "mechanical framework for maneuvers" and (hopefully plural) "cool stuff" for fighters with opposition to having a ton of special maneuvers?

 

[LostSoul]

Patryn's point aside, this is a problematic stance. 1. What metric does one use to tell whether the maneuver system has "become the entire game?" 2. How does one reconcile the existence of a "mechanical framework for maneuvers" and (hopefully plural) "cool stuff" for fighters with opposition to having a ton of special maneuvers?

(I edited the quote to add numbers to the questions.)

1. I think it would be difficult, but I think you could look at the choices the players make and how those choices affect the rest of the game. Some choices are going to carry a lot of weight in the system, others - not so much. A hyperbolic example: Should I cast Wall of Force or Teleport? vs. Should my PC have red hair or black? The former choice ripples through the system in terms of HP, resources expended, XP, and loot; the latter doesn't do to the rest of the game. (Though it might, that's why it'd be difficult.)

If the choice of combat manoeuvre is the only or major choice that affects the game in that way, then I think you could say that it's become "the entire game." I'd probably frame that statement differently, but eh.

2. Special manoeuvres tend to - but not necessarily - end up divorced from the fictional actions of the characters. To use the original example, when the orc attacks high, you take advantage of the opening to strike at his hip. A framework could say something like "When you can take advantage of your opponent's opening, you get a +2 bonus to the to-hit and damage rolls." Special manoeuvres tend to act differently: "By taking this special manoeuvre, you can use it to take advantage of your opponent's opening. When you use it, add a +2 bonus to the to-hit and damage rolls." (Obviously it'd have to be a valid choice, that is, balanced against other special manoeuvres.)