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Would this fix Champion?
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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6994568" data-attributes="member: 996"><p>Obviously, if there is one of the other sub-classes that appeals, and it's available in the campaign, as a player, you just play that. By the same token, if there's an improved champion available in the campaign, and, as a player, you despise it, you wouldn't play it.</p><p></p><p>From the DM PoV, there are certain sorts of players and play styles that make the comparative desirability of the various player options (like sub-classes) very important. So a DM might power up or nerf one sub-class or feat or spell or other player option or another, to keep them all close enough to equally-desireable that they remain real choices to those sorts of players, playing in those sorts of styles. </p><p></p><p>It's a matter of keeping choices available, in that sense. </p><p></p><p></p><p>The Eldritch Knight looks hurt....I know that primordial D&D established that magic tended to work n/day, and non-magical things tended (not quite always) to work 'all the time' (not really, because context matters). It's long been summed up, 'the magic user can only cast that spell once, the fighter can swing his sword all day.' It's never really been true, though. The fighter can swing his sword all day (for lack of any rules for fatigue), but it accomplishes nothing if there's no enemy w/in his melee reach, and he's not gauranteed to hit. Spells had an arbitrary 1/day mechanic, but when the player invoked that mechanic, they always happened. Originally, the rationalization of that mechanic was memorization (nicked from a Jack Vance science-fiction classic), it changed to preparation (not sure where that came from, but it was a lot like the rationale of the Delay modifier in Fantasy Hero), and now it's completely-undefined/abstracted 'slots.' Slots might be anything. Oddly quantum-stepped units of fatigue or mana. Mystical factors like heavenly configurations, local ethyric vibrations, relative metaphysical karma balances, space in the caster's aura, etc... It boils down to the caster can do certain magics, sometimes, and sometimes he can't, and it depends on player-management of an abstract game resource with no solid justification in the fiction that could be rationalized any number of ways depending on how you care to think of magic.</p><p></p><p>That's not really very different from CS dice. The BM can do certain maneuvers, some of the time, if he has a CS die handy. What does that represent? Could be fungible/uniform units of determination, heroic effort, or fatigue. Could be tactical factors like 'conditioning' or surprising an opponent, or gaining 'momentum' or 'the upper hand' momentarily. Could be other things I'm not up on, but that fans or practitioners of martial arts could go on at contentious length about. Ultimately that'd be at least as arcane to armchair nerds as hypothetical or traditional laws of magic. It boils down the BM can do certain sometimes, and sometimes he can't, and it depends on player-management of an abstract game resource with no solid justification in the fiction that could be rationalized any number of ways depending on how you care to think of medieval combat.</p><p></p><p>So, yeah, in that sense, you've got your BM & EK both using abstract resource management mechanics to more interestingly and playably model complex, highly variable aspects of action in the heroic fantasy genre. 'Casting spells' works as shorthand for that only because, for most of D&D history, that kind of interesting/playable resource-management was exclusive to magic. </p><p></p><p>That's an interesting take. I could see that working very well as a magic system, too (in a way, not that different from casting a lower-level spell in a higher level slot - if all spells had a cantrip basis, and were just powered up by expending slots on them, for instance).</p><p></p><p>I guess that'd be 'spellcasters using maneuvers.' <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 6994568, member: 996"] Obviously, if there is one of the other sub-classes that appeals, and it's available in the campaign, as a player, you just play that. By the same token, if there's an improved champion available in the campaign, and, as a player, you despise it, you wouldn't play it. From the DM PoV, there are certain sorts of players and play styles that make the comparative desirability of the various player options (like sub-classes) very important. So a DM might power up or nerf one sub-class or feat or spell or other player option or another, to keep them all close enough to equally-desireable that they remain real choices to those sorts of players, playing in those sorts of styles. It's a matter of keeping choices available, in that sense. The Eldritch Knight looks hurt....I know that primordial D&D established that magic tended to work n/day, and non-magical things tended (not quite always) to work 'all the time' (not really, because context matters). It's long been summed up, 'the magic user can only cast that spell once, the fighter can swing his sword all day.' It's never really been true, though. The fighter can swing his sword all day (for lack of any rules for fatigue), but it accomplishes nothing if there's no enemy w/in his melee reach, and he's not gauranteed to hit. Spells had an arbitrary 1/day mechanic, but when the player invoked that mechanic, they always happened. Originally, the rationalization of that mechanic was memorization (nicked from a Jack Vance science-fiction classic), it changed to preparation (not sure where that came from, but it was a lot like the rationale of the Delay modifier in Fantasy Hero), and now it's completely-undefined/abstracted 'slots.' Slots might be anything. Oddly quantum-stepped units of fatigue or mana. Mystical factors like heavenly configurations, local ethyric vibrations, relative metaphysical karma balances, space in the caster's aura, etc... It boils down to the caster can do certain magics, sometimes, and sometimes he can't, and it depends on player-management of an abstract game resource with no solid justification in the fiction that could be rationalized any number of ways depending on how you care to think of magic. That's not really very different from CS dice. The BM can do certain maneuvers, some of the time, if he has a CS die handy. What does that represent? Could be fungible/uniform units of determination, heroic effort, or fatigue. Could be tactical factors like 'conditioning' or surprising an opponent, or gaining 'momentum' or 'the upper hand' momentarily. Could be other things I'm not up on, but that fans or practitioners of martial arts could go on at contentious length about. Ultimately that'd be at least as arcane to armchair nerds as hypothetical or traditional laws of magic. It boils down the BM can do certain sometimes, and sometimes he can't, and it depends on player-management of an abstract game resource with no solid justification in the fiction that could be rationalized any number of ways depending on how you care to think of medieval combat. So, yeah, in that sense, you've got your BM & EK both using abstract resource management mechanics to more interestingly and playably model complex, highly variable aspects of action in the heroic fantasy genre. 'Casting spells' works as shorthand for that only because, for most of D&D history, that kind of interesting/playable resource-management was exclusive to magic. That's an interesting take. I could see that working very well as a magic system, too (in a way, not that different from casting a lower-level spell in a higher level slot - if all spells had a cantrip basis, and were just powered up by expending slots on them, for instance). I guess that'd be 'spellcasters using maneuvers.' ;) [/QUOTE]
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