Remathilis
Legend
This could turn into a bash-thread REALLY QUICKLY. I ask everyone to remain civil so that we can hava a good discussion.
My friend allowed a knight into his campaign. At the time, he had five players: a wizard, a rogue, a bard, and a mystic (spont casting cleric). It was a classic, 5 person balanced team.
The group went against a vrock (~ around appropriate CR) guarding a tome. Combat went something like this.
1.) Knight used Knights challenge on Vrock; fails will save. Vrock goes to attack knight.
2.) Knight soaks vrock full attack and spores, attacks vrock back with power attack and deals average damage.
3.) Rogue gets into flank; sneak attacks abound.
4.) Wizard stays a comfortable distance and zaps the thing with orbs, magic missiles, etc.
5.) The mystic hangs behind the knight, healing each round. She uses Reach Spell to keep out of vrocks AoOs.
6.) Bard hangs back, singing and casting buffs (haste).
5 rounds. 1 dead vrock. One extremely PO'ed DM.
What's sad is with some terminology changes, I could've described ANY fantasy MMORPG. Tank, Nuker, Healer, Buffer, Second Damage. Everquest, Final Fantasy XI, D&D Online, Warcraft. Its a common tactical method; someone pulls the monster, the tank "holds" the monster, the second damage sneak/back attacks, the mages stay back healing/nuking/buffing. The monster doesn't have much of a chance but to get lucky and crit/kill the tank, but with the healer healing every round (holding her action to heal if the tank goes too low), he's got a low chance of that working. The DM was bored to tears, and next game, the knight was a fighter, reach spell was gone, and the DM is seriously considering banning the Orb of X spells (No SR, touch attack, no save).
There was alot of discussion afterwards about how "MMORPG" the fight felt. The DM felt he had no real chance of influencing the fight, and despised how the Knights Challenge turned a difficult fight into a five-round annoyance. He also despised how the mages just pelted it to death, the mystic could heal without hassle, and the rogue was dumping buckets of d6s per round.
However, looking at what most of WotC has been designing, and you see this seems to be what WotC would like the game to go towards. Everything from the Warlock class (infinite damage spell) to Telling Blow (free sneak attack) have reduced combat not to a war-game as most think but to an MMORPG.
First off; did we screw up somewhere, or is knights challenge against a single foe instant death for the foe?
Secondly; short of banning everything the DM already banned (and probably more), is there a way to avoid the scenario above from happening all the time?
Lastly; are we alone in assuming the game is drifting this way, or did we have a bad experience? Anyone else have similar experiences?
All relevant comments are welcomed.
My friend allowed a knight into his campaign. At the time, he had five players: a wizard, a rogue, a bard, and a mystic (spont casting cleric). It was a classic, 5 person balanced team.
The group went against a vrock (~ around appropriate CR) guarding a tome. Combat went something like this.
1.) Knight used Knights challenge on Vrock; fails will save. Vrock goes to attack knight.
2.) Knight soaks vrock full attack and spores, attacks vrock back with power attack and deals average damage.
3.) Rogue gets into flank; sneak attacks abound.
4.) Wizard stays a comfortable distance and zaps the thing with orbs, magic missiles, etc.
5.) The mystic hangs behind the knight, healing each round. She uses Reach Spell to keep out of vrocks AoOs.
6.) Bard hangs back, singing and casting buffs (haste).
5 rounds. 1 dead vrock. One extremely PO'ed DM.
What's sad is with some terminology changes, I could've described ANY fantasy MMORPG. Tank, Nuker, Healer, Buffer, Second Damage. Everquest, Final Fantasy XI, D&D Online, Warcraft. Its a common tactical method; someone pulls the monster, the tank "holds" the monster, the second damage sneak/back attacks, the mages stay back healing/nuking/buffing. The monster doesn't have much of a chance but to get lucky and crit/kill the tank, but with the healer healing every round (holding her action to heal if the tank goes too low), he's got a low chance of that working. The DM was bored to tears, and next game, the knight was a fighter, reach spell was gone, and the DM is seriously considering banning the Orb of X spells (No SR, touch attack, no save).
There was alot of discussion afterwards about how "MMORPG" the fight felt. The DM felt he had no real chance of influencing the fight, and despised how the Knights Challenge turned a difficult fight into a five-round annoyance. He also despised how the mages just pelted it to death, the mystic could heal without hassle, and the rogue was dumping buckets of d6s per round.
However, looking at what most of WotC has been designing, and you see this seems to be what WotC would like the game to go towards. Everything from the Warlock class (infinite damage spell) to Telling Blow (free sneak attack) have reduced combat not to a war-game as most think but to an MMORPG.
First off; did we screw up somewhere, or is knights challenge against a single foe instant death for the foe?
Secondly; short of banning everything the DM already banned (and probably more), is there a way to avoid the scenario above from happening all the time?
Lastly; are we alone in assuming the game is drifting this way, or did we have a bad experience? Anyone else have similar experiences?
All relevant comments are welcomed.