D&D 5th Edition: 8th Revision and Counting [Archive] - Page 3

Zeful

2013-01-31, 06:50 PM

In Conan the Barbarian, there was never a need to explain any of this stuff in the first place, so it doesn't matter what your explanation was. You could apply any explanation you wanted, and it wouldn't change anything.

This is untrue. You could apply any explanation you wanted to any of these things, and it would not change anything. This stuff wasn't, to my knowledge, brought up in the Conan books because it wasn't important to understanding what was going on -- you could interpret it however you wanted, and the functional end result would be the same.No. You couldn't apply "any explanation you wanted" because in instances where no explanation is given it's generally because the explanation is obvious. Conan doesn't need to explain any this, because it shows how it works. Show, don't tell. Rule number one when writing anything. That they don't show Conan charging his chakra before making attacks means chakra can't exist. You can't just port in any explanation and have it mean the same thing, because part of the meaning is the lack of broader explanations.

This is why I hold umbrage with your entire point. It's ignoring specific tone and writing styles by saying they hold no meaning. Which is wrong. The same applies to games. The rules show you how things work, it then doesn't need to explain why the rules are as they are. When the rules explain one thing, and the explanation for them says another, people are not going to listen to the explanation, because it confuses the point.

If spell casting an mundane feats are mechanically identical, then you have a point. But even then, providing a wider base of options that share mechanics but are not the same is a good way to add depth to the system, thus your main point, "There is no meaning in the distinction," is blatantly false.

In D&D, it matters a lot more. In a game, you need a better understanding of how things work than you would in a book or a film, because those things inform your rules.Only if you want crappy rules. Because no, actually none of that is needed to inform your rules to any degree whatsoever outside of some stuff that occurs last in the development process, and is a taste issue. What's actually important to rulecraft is building around the expectations of the player base and how the rules inform those expectations.

However, I think that implementing, or at least considering, this, might lead to some better games. If nothing else, I'd be happier.No it won't, and I wouldn't. There your opinion is negated.

What?
If everything that isn't human only exists "because magic", then they should be detectable through magic, thus negating all stealth and intrigue adventures for non-humans outright. And they should also be dispellable, negating social and general combat depth by forcing both of those to only work when the GM isn't playing intelligently. Thus the only gameplay mode left that fits with your explanation is mindless "run through endless rooms kicking doors open" dungeoneering. Because anything else requires depth that your explanation actively undermines.

oxybe

2013-01-31, 06:54 PM

finn is also the only living human in a world that simply hasn't had humans since forever ago and all it's inhabitants have been grown from the post-apocalyptic nuclear fallout of the great mushroom war that destroyed part of the planet.

he's the anomaly in the world and we have no explanation as to why he's even there. Finn is probably one of the biggest mysteries in Ooo... being a human is his epithet: "finn the human". even then Word of God says he might be slightly mutated (http://www.buenothebear.com/faq.html): "Everything’s irradiated and mutated.. that’s why magic exists and Princess Bubblegum’s made out of gum and Finn has little dots for eyes.".

finn is capable of badass things, but he's hardly a normal, regular person by any means.

lesser_minion

2013-01-31, 07:21 PM

Zeful, if you think I'm wrong, so be it. I am not going to defend arguments that I didn't make. And while your opinion is noted, I'm not entering into what would just be a "yes it would, no it wouldn't" back-and-forth.

Anecronwashere

2013-01-31, 07:58 PM

I disagree with lesser_minion, explaining Everything with 'Magic' is a bad explanation.

It has some good points, but they can be done better without the bad stuff with a second explanation:
Reality is just Different.
Dragons can fly because they have wings. Who cares about the weight distribution.
Wizards manipulate the loopholes in reality with gestures, words and will doing things that really shouldn't be happening. Basically Hackers
Creatures with Su abilities have special parts of their body that evolved to take advantage of those loopholes, capable of performing feats similar to the wizards.

Cavelcade

2013-01-31, 08:10 PM

His point is pretty simple though:

Why have all those distinctions when you already have one overarching effect which can explain them all equally well, ie, magic?

Zeful

2013-01-31, 08:13 PM

His point is pretty simple though:

Why have all those distinctions when you already have one overarching effect which can explain them all equally well, ie, magic?

Because simplicity in explanation is not what is desired. And it does not explain them all equally well.

Kurald Galain

2013-01-31, 08:14 PM

Why have all those distinctions when you already have one overarching effect which can explain them all equally well, ie, magic?
Because many people don't like the idea that magic can do whatever we feel like at the time because it's, you know, magic. And no, this is not universally the definition of "magic"; indeed most fantasy books and roleplaying systems use a different definition.

Basically, the issue is that if your "effect" can explain everything equally well, then it doesn't actually explain anything; it's merely a handwave.

Jacob.Tyr

2013-01-31, 08:18 PM

I'm going ro jump on board with not needing to explain the fighter as magical... mostly because MAGIC gets a pass as is. Why can the mage cast fireballs? Cause magic. Why can the fighter lift a lot? Because he's a badass.

Seriously, a level 20 fighter is not some dude on the street. He's one in a million. He's the worlds strongest man medaling in fencing and swimming. He's the guy who makes a sniper shot from miles away by aiming nowhere near his target, hitting him in the eye. He is all of these things, the epitome of physical prowess. AND any level one fighter has the same potential as him. All of the crazy absurd things you hear about real humans doing, he can do. He just needs to get there. If he wasnt this way he'd be a warrior. He isn't a PC for nothing.

Just let him be a fantasy hero, and accept his heroics the same way you accept there being magic at all.

Stubbazubba

2013-01-31, 10:24 PM

Just let him be a fantasy hero, and accept his heroics the same way you accept there being magic at all.

Fantasy heroes cannot do what high-level wizards can do. They cannot travel through the multiverse, bind djinni, or side-step magical effects/harassment. Not without getting some form of explicit magic in their justification.

The problem is not on vertical progression; if the Fighter getting stronger, faster, and smarter was all that needed to happen, we wouldn't be having this conversation. It's the fact that magic bypasses a great many things or is a prerequisite to even participate in many adventures.

Either you neuter D&D into a much tighter band of power and face the ire of those who are fans of high level gonzo powers and adventures, or you force some magical element (explicitly magical weapon, divine bloodline, elemental force, cosmic spirit, whatever) onto fighters as they advance in level, provoking the wrath of those who thought Blade Magic was an insult. It's a lose-lose situation, and it only exists because of contradictory sacred cows.

HMS Invincible

2013-01-31, 10:32 PM

Nizaris

2013-01-31, 10:48 PM

Quick question: Can you string together maneuvers? If I do a lunge attack can I then trip when I hit? Can I trip and shove them back?

As long as you have the die to spend? Yeah. A fighter can do some nasty things if they're willing to give up a few d6 points of damage.

Jacob.Tyr

2013-01-31, 11:07 PM

Sounds like someone just combined fighter, rogue and barbarian into a single class. Btw, is that even a good idea?

Because he can fight with a melee and ranged weapon and is strong? That's too many things for the fighter to have?

oxybe

2013-01-31, 11:16 PM

Sounds like someone just combined fighter, rogue and barbarian into a single class. Btw, is that even a good idea?

thematically?

i dunno, what's the supposed theme of the fighter? the barbarian? the rogue? the fighter is a rather bland catch-all, the barbarian gets angry and tough and the rogue is... what is the rogue anyways? a light armored fighter? a "skill guy", whatever that is supposed to be?

if you ask me, the class identity of these are basically a mess. i don't see why we couldn't have a "guy who fights" class that is a quick thinking, tough & skilled swordsman. it's far better then what we currently have for 5th ed, IMO.

mechanically?

he's still going to end up being less then the wizard mechanically since the rogue's skill tricks end up being rather situational for the most part, and he's stuck with those few for all his career. the fighter maneuvers are mainly combat oriented.

the casters still end up having more versatility overall, IMO, and they can very much effectively end some combats in one action.

obryn

2013-02-01, 12:37 AM

l
The question is why is he tough/badass? If it's not magic, then what? Just because isn't acceptable - to me, allowing a person who trains enough to become essentially like Beowulf because of the magic in the setting is much more attractive than they can become Beowulf because they can become Beowulf and shut up, that's why.

Note, though, that it's still the person's training that allows them to do this. The background magic gives them the potential to do it - training is what gets them there. It's still 'being a badass' but it means you can stop with the illusion of realism altogether, because, when it comes down to it, it harms the came by causing people to inhibit meleers. You just have to realise that what's possibly by DnD people just isn't doable, and then go from there. Melee at level 20 like Beowulf, why not?
Are you suggesting that people listening to stories about Beowulf should think to themselves, "My yes, it's a good thing he was so magical!"

Yes, but they can also do things that are literally impossible - the STR discussion on this and the last page is an illustration of this. They're not just out of the normal for our world, they are impossible.
That's where my problem comes in. There's no reason a fantasy world should be work exactly like Earth and then use "magic" to fill any convenient gaps. Superhuman need not imply magical; that high-level Fighter is better than anyone who's ever lived on Earth.

D&D is not a physics simulator. It's a game in which elves and dwarves kill orcs and take their stuff. We don't worry about how wizards are casting spells, and it's silly imo to think we should worry how the swordy guys are doing their swording.

-O

Stubbazubba

2013-02-01, 12:50 AM

D&D is not a physics simulator. It's a game in which elves and dwarves kill orcs and take their stuff.
-O

It stops being that, and quickly, though, and certain classes can keep playing the new game, while other classes can't. See my above post.

Kadzar

2013-02-01, 01:27 AM

Anecronwashere

2013-02-01, 01:36 AM

Exactly. While it might be a good thing to delve into, in campaigns formed Around that idea, Based on it and such it is NOT a good explanation of every game in the system.

Zeful

2013-02-01, 01:54 AM

It's the fact that magic bypasses a great many things or is a prerequisite to even participate in many adventures.

Yeah, this is a problem I've been working on, breaking down core interactions in a hypothetical system and well. The problem is we're trying to transcribe myth, and well, our myths are biased.

Magic, in myth and fiction, almost always is about bypassing, avoiding or invalidating challenge, rather than meeting it head on and overcoming it. And the rare times it's used to meet challenges head on, it's "the only option", and is technically simple, just highly showy.

This creates incredible problems with building a game system around it, because unlike fiction where the chracter's lines of thoughts are fixed. Players can act in unpredictable ways and use their powers in manners that break the world or plot. It also results in issues where victory or defeat with these spells often falls to one variable, due to the inherently simple nature of magic in fiction. There's almost no way to balance these issues against the needs of the system in a way that keeps these viable, doesn't break the system, and violate the myths that built the systems. The only way to even attempt is to make every other form of action more useful than these spells that bypass the normal course of play.

But you can't just boost the power of all other options to compensate. As doing so would require boosting them to insane degrees that fosters blind power creep.

In trying to solve this myself, I decided that Dark Souls' Vancian casting system is the safest and fastest way to do things to meet those goals. As you can weight the long term effectiveness of a spell against it's short term power. Spells that would end up breaking the system can only be used two or three times in an adventuring day (which I'd approximate to be something like 30-40 rounds of combat inter-spaced through a 10 hour period in-game), while more rote spells could be used ten or more times in a day. Coupled with the restrictive number of slots for spells (10-12 at most), and their slow growth (for a class based system like D&D you'd at level 1 start with 3-4 base, gain maybe 1 for high attribute, and by max level would have 7-9 with maybe 3-4 from stats) you can push the design of the caster classes away from invalidating every encounter, to having them participate as equals most of the time, with the occasional one-shot victory, which so long as every class had a similar option, would be kind of fun really. Utility spells, due to combat spells having so many uses per preparation, would likely end up as the majority of spells memorized for an adventuring day, which as you point out opens up quite a bit of design space for adventures, some of which is just gone otherwise.

Another way to solve it would be to treat the process of spellcasting as a separate system from the knowledge of spellcasting, as well as breaking up power and control-- essentially turning all spellcasters into something approximating Naruto ninja without the martial skill or an ARPG character. This means each spell has different requirements, are invested in separately over a long period of time with mastery being the full costly investment, and that the process of casting is in game-terms long, reliant on the character's skill, and then is subject to the enemy's capability to respond to. This doesn't work with Linear rolls, as outright failure to preform would be more in line with a 0.005% chance (or more accurately a 1:216 chance, or a 3 on 3d6) than a 5% chance. There's just too much failure on a linear roll.

But this is based on my own musings on the subject, and considering some pretty basic concepts of game design I've managed to absorb here and there. I'm not even sure I'm even looking at the right places.

Stubbazubba

2013-02-01, 02:35 AM

In trying to solve this myself, I decided that Dark Souls' Vancian casting system is the safest and fastest way to do things to meet those goals. As you can weight the long term effectiveness of a spell against it's short term power. Spells that would end up breaking the system can only be used two or three times in an adventuring day (which I'd approximate to be something like 30-40 rounds of combat inter-spaced through a 10 hour period in-game), while more rote spells could be used ten or more times in a day. Coupled with the restrictive number of slots for spells (10-12 at most), and their slow growth (for a class based system like D&D you'd at level 1 start with 3-4 base, gain maybe 1 for high attribute, and by max level would have 7-9 with maybe 3-4 from stats) you can push the design of the caster classes away from invalidating every encounter, to having them participate as equals most of the time, with the occasional one-shot victory, which so long as every class had a similar option, would be kind of fun really. Utility spells, due to combat spells having so many uses per preparation, would likely end up as the majority of spells memorized for an adventuring day, which as you point out opens up quite a bit of design space for adventures, some of which is just gone otherwise.

I agree with your post, but how does this address the fact that mundanes simply don't have access to utility effects or abilities which break the system? If a wizard can fly, a mundane's high Jump ability is almost entirely obviated. If a wizard can teleport across continents, how does a mundane keep up? When the wizard can teleport straight to Hell to smack around the pit fiends causing issues, what is the mundane's answer? Always keep wizards as friends so you can access the content?

To understand the problem, we have to look at D&D as multiple games in a single, evolving narrative structure. "High-level play" requires certain abilities like interplanar transportation or the ability to breathe water or being immune to fire in the "travel to quest destination" sub-game, abilities he typically doesn't get. If the Fighter doesn't get any abilities to actually get to the fight, then he loses the "travel to quest destination" sub-game before he even starts, and he needs a spellcaster to play that part of the game for him, dragging him along. While feats of strength or stamina can be explained by "he's just that awesome!!!" popping into another dimension can't, unless you're playing a fairly comedic game.

You have to define what high-level obstacles are, then and only then should you design classes to access and overcome them, and then you realize that classes like Fighter and Barbarian are not up to the task. They must either prestige class out of their limits earlier, or be infused with magical trappings, given a multi-planar end-game. If your end-game is significantly more mundane, then a Wizard's high-level abilities are completely inappropriate, and he needs to be re-worked. Obstacles, opposition come first, then class design.

Zeful

2013-02-01, 03:06 AM

I agree with your post, but how does this address the fact that mundanes simply don't have access to utility effects or abilities which break the system? If a wizard can fly, a mundane's high Jump ability is almost entirely obviated. If a wizard can teleport across continents, how does a mundane keep up? When the wizard can teleport straight to Hell to smack around the pit fiends causing issues, what is the mundane's answer? Always keep wizards as friends so you can access the content?That's far more specific than what I was concerning myself with, but in order: Make two different fly spells, one suited for long range travel, but is too restrictive for use in combat. One useful in combat, but lacks free movement or has a flight ceiling; teleporting is fine in a cooperative environment, as long as the wizard is not universally capable; make the wizard's combat utility incomplete, and make it nearly impossible to fight certain kinds of enemies forcing him to rely on mundane characters for those fights; design pit fiends or other similar enemies such that one person trying to smack him around isn't mathematically likely to succeed.

To understand the problem, we have to look at D&D as multiple games in a single, evolving narrative structure. "High-level play" requires certain abilities like interplanar transportation or the ability to breathe water or being immune to fire in the "travel to quest destination" sub-game, abilities he typically doesn't get. If the Fighter doesn't get any abilities to actually get to the fight, then he loses the "travel to quest destination" sub-game before he even starts, and he needs a spellcaster to play that part of the game for him, dragging him along. While feats of strength or stamina can be explained by "he's just that awesome!!!" popping into another dimension can't, unless you're playing a fairly comedic game.That is only concerning with one set of possibilities. In my musings on the basis of play, I've found many, many possibilities that occur at each "scale" of play (what you are calling sub games) that would serve as the basis for quite a few classes and options in play. But you're right. I don't see it as a problem because I've acknowledged that in trying to solve the problem in the fashion that people will support, requires abandoning things that are impossible. And I think that a design that where some classes lack some options, but make up for it in other areas (and they should make up for it in other areas), is something that will at the least make the game fun to play (assuming it's not played "optimally", ripping the soul right out of the system).

You have to define what high-level obstacles are, then and only then should you design classes to access and overcome them, and then you realize that classes like Fighter and Barbarian are not up to the task. They must either prestige class out of their limits earlier, or be infused with magical trappings, given a multi-planar end-game. If your end-game is significantly more mundane, then a Wizard's high-level abilities are completely inappropriate, and he needs to be re-worked. Obstacles, opposition come first, then class design.Actually, while I agree that class design should come last, I don't think it should just be in regards to obstacles. It should be design the obstacles, then design the mundane and magical responses to those obstacles-- the mechanics that resolve the issue-- and then build the classes and opposition using those mechanics to build things that require an interaction of mechanics spread across multiple classes, such that loosing a single person at the wrong time is tense and game-changing event. Then optimize the system and math to make it impossible for one class, no matter how optimized, to overcome any of these challenges on their own.

And honestly, if Inter-planar travel or teleportation is such a problem, axe it from the player's capabilities in full, and just make it plot device. Magic can do whatever the author wills it to, so there's no reason to make it do everything if that's bad for the system.

Kurald Galain

2013-02-01, 04:24 AM

I think the problem that a lot of people have with the idea that non-magic people are actually using magic without knowing it rather than just being that good is that it's basically a reverse of the Magic Feather (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicFeather) effect (Warning: TV Tropes link. Instead of saying, "You didn't need magic to do, it turns out the ability was inside you all along," you're saying, "it turns out you aren't actually able to do cool things yourself, it was really just magic," which is frankly just depressing.
Precisely.

"High-level play" requires certain abilities like interplanar transportation or the ability to breathe water or being immune to fire in the "travel to quest destination" sub-game, abilities he typically doesn't get. If the Fighter doesn't get any abilities to actually get to the fight, then he loses the "travel to quest destination" sub-game before he even starts, and he needs a spellcaster to play that part of the game for him, dragging him along. While feats of strength or stamina can be explained by "he's just that awesome!!!" popping into another dimension can't, unless you're playing a fairly comedic game.
That's not a big deal in practice, because D&D is a team game. It is fine if only one member of the party can teleport or plane shift, he'll just bring the rest of the party along. I've never seen any martial players complain that it's the wizard that casts the transport spell, not them.

The rest is easy though. It's not hard to imagine a high-level fighter able to hold his breath for 20-30 minutes, which is enough for most water encounters, or tough enough to withstand searing flames. The wimpy wizard? Hah, that guy needs a protection spell. Doesn't mean the fighter needs one.

Tehnar

2013-02-01, 05:01 AM

I think we can safely classify "effects" that PC's can do into ones that are primarily used in combat, and ones that are primarily used out of combat.

To balance mundanes and magic users, "effects" of all classes in each category have to have roughly equal efficiency.

So while the high level wizard can teleport around after a lengthy ritual, the rogue should have access to plenty of information and goods from his thieves guild and the fighter commands armies (this is just giving a example).

I think 4e's system of rituals was on the right track (though it faltered in its execution). No one will really be worried that the wizard can teleport if it takes him a minute to cast the spell to get to a known location, and he can bring his friends along.

Cavelcade

2013-02-01, 05:59 AM

Because many people don't like the idea that magic can do whatever we feel like at the time because it's, you know, magic. And no, this is not universally the definition of "magic"; indeed most fantasy books and roleplaying systems use a different definition.

Basically, the issue is that if your "effect" can explain everything equally well, then it doesn't actually explain anything; it's merely a handwave.

It's not merely a handwave - it informs how the system will evolve and how classes can be defined. By thinking about the rules of magic in your system, you can then understand what things make sense within the system and how to keep it coherent, without having to just handwave it away. Which is what is done otherwise (he's a badass is the most annoying handwave I know). How people and creatures react and use the ambient magic will then explain how they can do things that are otherwise impossible - as well as the limits on them.

While in theory, Magic can do anything the author wants, the author should have a clear idea of what it can and can't do before they start writing. This is common to almost all good fantasy stories I know (actually, all that I can think of off the top of my head), and not having an idea of what magic can and can't do has been the bane of plenty of bad ones. Having a system in place means you can coherently work out what can and can't be done for every class without having to handwave it.

The reason I think this is good, again, is because it gets rid of this silly idea that we should limit ourselves to 'possible' actions - fighters and barbarians are already doing impossible things, so why are we stopping them doing more impossible things? Whoever said they shouldn't be able to do everything - absolutely, that would be boring and samey, too, but they should be able to do things that are as awesome and effective as the other classes. I can think of no reason why "he's just badass" is better for this, as then you still end up limiting yourself.

I think the problem that a lot of people have with the idea that non-magic people are actually using magic without knowing it rather than just being that good is that it's basically a reverse of the Magic Feather effect (Warning: TV Tropes link. Instead of saying, "You didn't need magic to do, it turns out the ability was inside you all along," you're saying, "it turns out you aren't actually able to do cool things yourself, it was really just magic," which is frankly just depressing.
.

Again, it's not that magic lets you do it - it's your own training and skills that get you there. It's that the magic means that the limits that would otherwise be put on your body are not, and so you can break those rules. For a meleer, this then won't be affected by an anti-magic-zone, because all of the effects have been ones they've been putting onto their own bodies, whereas a spellcaster is rendered useless, because they need the external magic to be able to be effective.

Anecronwashere

2013-02-01, 06:02 AM

So, what you are saying is this:
Physics are different. Fighters use the potential in the air to upgrade their physical form beyond their normal capabilities.
Spellcasters take that potential and form it into actual matter, channeling the ambient energy faster and more efficient than a Fighter but on-command not permanent

Cavelcade

2013-02-01, 06:14 AM

I suppose - the difference (or the potential, if you prefer) is some definition of magic, that imbues matter/the air/something else. What that definition is will depend on what the setting dictates.

It would need further thought, though. It's not a Grand Unified Theory of Heroics........................yet.

Anecronwashere

2013-02-01, 06:37 AM

See the main point of contention I think most of the people are saying is this:
It devalues the Fighter. You aren't badass, you are just a different kind of Wizard. Instead of walking over a mile of molten glass because you are a determinator, its cause you have magic feet.
And it means Dispel Magic is basically 'Delevel to 1, become a Human, no magic for you'

What you need to do is pitch a more detailed version that proves the differences between power sources.

eg. Potentia fills the multiverse, it is the primal source of all creation and to which all things return given time. All life uses this to some degree, to fuel their abilities or just to propagate another of it's kind.
The Gods collect the Potentia emitted by their worshippers, gifts to the gods given knowingly and unknowingly to be refined and redistributed to their Clerics, who use the Refined Potentia to perform miracles and divine blessings but unable to hold a full amount or to use it to it's full potential, limiting it.
Wizards absorb and channel Pure Potentia, spending an hour each day preparing their souls into forms to magnify and shape the Potentia, then opening the floodgates whenever they wish to cast, warping the pathways as it does the Potentia
Fighters do not consciously channel Potentia, instead letting it fill them, shaping them unconsciously but permanently. Expending itself to turn muscle hard as steel or quicken their step. Leaving no trace of it's presence but the desired effect it simply affects then disappears.

This way Detect Magic simply detects the ambient Potentia field (and thus an Antimagic Zone which would be a blank zone of 0 Potentia).
Another spell might detect the Refined Potentia of a Cleric with spells per day I guess (which is a neat way of explaining the Aura in 3.5 actually).
Since the Wizard doesn't store any spells or Potentia to detect (just create 1time pathways to cast a spell through) they wou;dn't show on a Detect Magic
Since the Fighter doesnt have any Potentia in his body, just being warped by it, commanding the force of nature to his whim, it is undetectable and undispellable

Cavelcade

2013-02-01, 06:48 AM

That is essentially what I tried to say in one of my earlier posts, and is the best way to view it I think, though you collected the various other bits of lore and connected them up. I think this will lead to a more cohesive design, without making everything the same or having to handwave away things as 'he's badass'.

Anecronwashere

2013-02-01, 07:07 AM

It's all in the presentation.

lesser_minion

2013-02-01, 08:06 AM

See the main point of contention I think most of the people are saying is this:
It devalues the Fighter. You aren't badass, you are just a different kind of Wizard. Instead of walking over a mile of molten glass because you are a determinator, its cause you have magic feet.

That has two problems.

Firstly, 'badass' doesn't explain anything. A person does not have the intrinsic property 'badass' that lets them do badass things. It's the other way around -- a character is a badass because they do things that are badass.

Secondly, the basic property that makes an act badass is the perception that it's incredibly punishing, more so than we'd imagine ourselves being able to cope with were we actually in the character's shoes. The explanation -- or lack thereof -- has no bearing on whether or not an act is badass.

But how punishing a task is for a character is relative to that character's skills and capabilities (and other resources, such as allies) -- from which it follows that badass is as well.

This means that anything in a fantasy game can be badass, whether you're smashing the cap off of a mountain or stealing nuts from a chipmunk. But nothing written out on a character sheet as an explicit ability can be, because those things are not, in and of themselves, difficult or punishing for your character.

And it means Dispel Magic is basically 'Delevel to 1, become a Human, no magic for you'

I've already discussed this. The way it seems to work in D&D is that the trappings associated with magic by certain characters create weaknesses in the magic that they perform, which aren't shared by characters who don't work the same way. The root of all this is that magic is not just casting, after all.

The rules also provide for magical 'structures' that are naturally self-supporting even if they could never have arisen on their own.

Clawhound

2013-02-01, 09:24 AM

Fantasy heroes cannot do what high-level wizards can do. They cannot travel through the multiverse, bind djinni, or side-step magical effects/harassment. Not without getting some form of explicit magic in their justification.

Nine Princes in Amber. Corwin is essentially a fighter that can make a few magic objects and walk through the multiverse. There's an explanation for it, of course, and that's the point. He's walked the pattern and now he's bad-ass in a whole new way.

It doesn't matter how lame your explanation for bad-assness is. Once you have it, it opens up the rationale for fighters to do amazing things. If D&D were just a 1-10 game, that would be no issue. However, D&D goes far beyond that.

If nothing else: if casters can learn godlike spells, what godlike abilities should fighters develop? By what rationale? How can fighters be similarly amazing yet still act and feel like fighters?

Jacob.Tyr

2013-02-01, 11:20 AM

That has two problems.

Firstly, 'badass' doesn't explain anything. A person does not have the intrinsic property 'badass' that lets them do badass things. It's the other way around -- a character is a badass because they do things that are badass.

Secondly, the basic property that makes an act badass is the perception that it's incredibly punishing, more so than we'd imagine ourselves being able to cope with were we actually in the character's shoes. The explanation -- or lack thereof -- has no bearing on whether or not an act is badass.

But how punishing a task is for a character is relative to that character's skills and capabilities (and other resources, such as allies) -- from which it follows that badass is as well.

This means that anything in a fantasy game can be badass, whether you're smashing the cap off of a mountain or stealing nuts from a chipmunk. But nothing written out on a character sheet as an explicit ability can be, because those things are not, in and of themselves, difficult or punishing for your character.

Did you really just go into an argument over the definition and groundings for the word "badass"? This adds nothing to this discussion.

I'm not asking for the explanation to be, in writing, fighters can do X because they're badass. That does not need to be a class feature in the PHB. I'm asking for that to be all that we need to say on the matter. Why can a wizard cast spells? Because of magic. Why can the fighter jump onto the back of a dragon flying overhead? Because he's awesome. Because he gets to do badass things.

There are dozens of ways to fluff both magical and mundane abilities that are outside the scope of our world. Magic always gets a pass because it's magic, why can't the frickin fighter get a pass because he's the pinnacle of his races physical ability? Why does he have to have some convoluted magical universe framework manipulation/mutation explanation to be able to be?

I don't want my fighter to be using magic, I want him to be mundane. Hell, fluff it that way. He's so NON-magical he can draw power from the material plane. Lets make him the paragon mundane, an avatar of the material plane. Want him to teleport for some reason? Hell, the dude is so in touch with everything material that he can travel on that plane as if teleporting, at higher levels. Need him to cross into other dimensions? So in touch with the material plane he can find where other planes connect with it and cross through. His planeswalking will be limited to passing through the material every time, but hell that's a pretty light limitation.

This fluff can make him a spell resistant, teleporting, planes walking, super fast, super strong, mage killing, nation leading, immortal BAMF. That's right, he's not a badass, he's a BAMF. And that, that you can write into the fluff.

At the end of the day, we're arguing fluff. Yes, I want the fighter to hold his own. Yes, he needs to be on par with wizards. Does everything he needs in order to do that make sense here on earth? No. Does that mean it has to be magic? No, but it could be. Supernatural? Maybe.

If, in your game, you find it necessary to flesh out magical forces in order to explain high level fighters, fine. If, in mine, I want my fighter to be the pinnacle of what his race is capable of, bending the universe by non-magical means, let me. We need to stop putting the cart before the horse, so to speak, and make a fighter work before we figure out how that itself works.

lesser_minion

2013-02-01, 11:54 AM

Did you really just go into an argument over the definition and groundings for the word "badass"? This adds nothing to this discussion.

Somebody brought up the question of whether or not magic devalues 'badass'. So it does matter what the definition of the word is.

There are dozens of ways to fluff both magical and mundane abilities that are outside the scope of our world. Magic always gets a pass because it's magic, why can't the frickin fighter get a pass because he's the pinnacle of his races physical ability? Why does he have to have some convoluted magical universe framework manipulation/mutation explanation to be able to be?

You haven't said anything here that I haven't already addressed.

This fluff can make him a spell resistant, teleporting, planes walking, super fast, super strong, mage killing, nation leading, immortal BAMF. That's right, he's not a badass, he's a BAMF. And that, that you can write into the fluff.

Right. My problem here is that this seems equivalent to saying "I don't want the fighter to be magical, but I don't want that to actually mean anything".

At the end of the day, we're arguing fluff.

True, but I don't think that's a problem.

If, in your game, you find it necessary to flesh out magical forces in order to explain high level fighters, fine. If, in mine, I want my fighter to be the pinnacle of what his race is capable of, bending the universe by non-magical means, let me.

You're free to do whatever you want with the game around your own table. I never said otherwise.

However, this is isn't a discussion about how this all works at your table, it's a question of how this all works in the hypothetical setting that will inform the overall design of the game.

Jacob.Tyr

2013-02-01, 12:26 PM

You're free to do whatever you want with the game around your own table. I never said otherwise, and I resent your insinuation that I did.

However, this is isn't a discussion about how this all works at your table, it's a question of how this all works in the hypothetical setting that will inform the overall design of the game.

I apologize for any insinuation in regards to that. I've been doing some binge reading of the past few threads, and was frustrated at the cyclical debates and sacred cows that keep popping up in regards to fighters.

I will thank you for agreeing that fighters need to be able to do things on par with wizards, quite a bit of my frustration is based around so many comments about fighters being limited by our reality. You came up with a way to make that work for those who would otherwise cripple the viability of the fighter, and that is a step in the right direction.

However, I don't feel that there needs to be a hypothetical setting to design the game. In my opinion, the game should be designed for balance, not a setting. Settings, hypothetical or otherwise, can and should be written afterwards. Core books supply the rules for what can be done with magic and by whom, and I feel other classes should be given the same freedom. I've played in settings with drastic differences in how magic was viewed, fluff-wise, and I would prefer that we leave fluff for fighters up to the setting as well. At most perhaps a fluff chapter in the DMG, giving viable options to explain both magic and superhuman abilities, which could then be used as guidelines for setting design.

Edited for formatting.

navar100

2013-02-01, 02:43 PM

I really don't care that the wizard can teleport and plane shift. It does not bother me the slightest a fighter never could. What I want is that when the wizarrd is teleporting and plane shifting, the fighter gets to do something really cool of his own. What that is is to be determined, but it needs to be something to make you say "oooooh!" or "huzzah!", and darn straight it's not "magical".

Clawhound

2013-02-01, 03:27 PM

I think that everyone agrees on that basic sentiment. And that goes for rogues, barbarians, monks, and everyone else who doesn't throw a spell. Every class needs AWESOME.

Draz74

2013-02-01, 05:04 PM

Lupus753

2013-02-01, 06:05 PM

I really don't care that the wizard can teleport and plane shift. It does not bother me the slightest a fighter never could. What I want is that when the wizard is teleporting and plane shifting, the fighter gets to do something really cool of his own. What that is is to be determined, but it needs to be something to make you say "oooooh!" or "huzzah!", and darn straight it's not "magical".

I agree very strongly, but another matter is when these abilities are available. For example, a Monk being able to slow her fall isn't very impressive when the Wizard could do the same thing 19 levels ago. When the abilities aren't so easy to compare, their usefulness is harder to gauge, but I think it can still be done.

I used that example because, as a huge fan of Monks in nearly any RPG they appear in, I was really hoping they'd be at least decent in this edition. I've heard horror stories of how useless the 3rd edition Monk was and I was hoping that mistake won't be repeated. Unfortunately, even recent responses to the playtest have not given me much hope.

Con_Brio1993

2013-02-01, 06:29 PM

I think that everyone agrees on that basic sentiment. And that goes for rogues, barbarians, monks, and everyone else who doesn't throw a spell. Every class needs AWESOME.

It seems that the more non-magical classes you get the less awesome the Fighter can be.

The fighter is now locked out of hand to hand combat, and a raging adrenaline frenzy. By putting interesting features into other classes the fighter gets less.

Djinn_in_Tonic

2013-02-01, 06:56 PM

It seems that the more non-magical classes you get the less awesome the Fighter can be.

The fighter is now locked out of hand to hand combat, and a raging adrenaline frenzy. By putting interesting features into other classes the fighter gets less.

Because the Fighter (a whole class devoted to being a "guy who fights") is a generic class concept that is a sacred cow in a game that increasingly has narrower class concepts. Either all the non-magical classes that engage in physical combat should be folded into the Fighter class, or the Fighter should be removed in favor of more specific classes like Ranger, Swashbuckler, Rogue, Barbarian, Knight, Monk, and so forth. The design goals of "master of combat" in a game where MULTIPLE classes are supposed to excel at melee weapon combat (even if under certain circumstances, like the Rogue) leads to horribly conflicting design goals.

Anderlith

2013-02-01, 08:39 PM

The big question isn't what you do (killing stuff)
It's how you do it

A barbarian isn't a particularly well trained & conditioned soldier, he does damage by getting mad & he avoids damage by being light on his feet & by getting mad.

A ranger does more damage by being a speciesist & having a pet.

A paladin does it by divine blessing

A fighter does it by training. Honing his skill with a weapon to the point were no one can outmatch his blade. His skill in armor, his skill on the battlefield. The fighter has forgotten more about how to kill someone then the ranger, & barbarian ever learned. Combined.

The way WotC can make the fighter stand out, is to give him more options to use in combat than any other class, as well as giving him the most flat bonuses to hit. (Built in weapon focus would be nice) Then give him a role outside of combat. Knowledge of tactics & warfare lore, give him a Reputation that could stand in for certain Charisma checks with certain individuals or something, they really could open up the class if they stopped thing backwards instead of forwards.

Clawhound

2013-02-01, 09:30 PM

I'll throw out some fluff for fighter, and then you can stomp all over it.

"Fighters are more than someone who swings a sword. Fighters are heirs to the to the greatest warriors of all time. They've learned the techniques, tactics, and secrets required to thrive on the battlefield in a world filled with magic. They may not know magic, but they know how to protect themselves from it. They may not wield divine power, but they know which gods to sacrifice to in order to gain divine favor. They may not know how to bind demons, but they know the best ways to stab them. If there's any class that's ready to take on overwhelming odds, it's the fighter."

Anecronwashere

2013-02-01, 09:32 PM

I like that fluff, it encompasses a lot and embodies that of a badass without coming out and saying it.

Stubbazubba

2013-02-02, 03:55 AM

The big question isn't what you do (killing stuff)
It's how you do it

No, I think the question is "what do you do?" Because for a Wizard or most spellcasters, the answer is, "Everything." For everyone else it's "Combat, unless fighting Wizards." That has got to end, and that means re-tooling the fluff chassis the game runs on.

No more Fighters, and no more Wizards. Knights, Swashbucklers, Berserkers, Monks, Samurai, Gladiators, whatever else you want, but no more Fighters, who are defined as "what you thought was cool when you were 11." Please. Stop. We'll have Fire Mages and Druids, Necromancers, Warlocks, Clerics, Shadow Mages, Illusionists, and Storm Mages, but no more Wizards, who are defined as "Every power the over-whelming villains or Deus Ex Machina characters get in stories, I have." That concept fails the first sniff test for inclusion in a party-based game. Please. Stop. I know they're sacred cows, but simply having the fluff of Fighter and Wizard in the game is too big of a temptation to perpetuate bad things.

I'll throw out some fluff for fighter, and then you can stomp all over it.

"Fighters are more than someone who swings a sword. Fighters are heirs to the to the greatest warriors of all time. They've learned the techniques, tactics, and secrets required to thrive on the battlefield in a world filled with magic. They may not know magic, but they know how to protect themselves from it. They may not wield divine power, but they know which gods to sacrifice to in order to gain divine favor. They may not know how to bind demons, but they know the best ways to stab them. If there's any class that's ready to take on overwhelming odds, it's the fighter."

There's no distinguishing feature here. Any mundane could be this, a Barbarian, a Knight, a Samurai, a Ninja, a Warlord, anything. It's so generic it takes pains to tell you what it doesn't do more than what it does do. This is a limited concept who can stab, and only stab, so far, with no hint of how he might continue to be relevant once foes are not in melee, or not tangible, or immune to physical damage. There are games where this might work (though it's still only evokes an amorphous, theme-less, bland concept), but D&D is not one of them; D&D is too varied for this guy.

Yora

2013-02-02, 07:42 AM

Knights, Swashbucklers, Berserkers, Monks, Samurai, Gladiators, whatever else you want, but no more Fighters, who are defined as "what you thought was cool when you were 11." Please. Stop. We'll have Fire Mages and Druids, Necromancers, Warlocks, Clerics, Shadow Mages, Illusionists, and Storm Mages, but no more Wizards
Now that's something I couldn't be living wth. Even on release, I think 11 classes in 3rd Edition was already too much. 6 to 8 classes should really be everything a game needs. The more classes you have, the more you are forced to follow specific archetypes or even builds, while being less able to adjust and make things up as you go.
If there is a special feat ot class feature for something, the implication is that you can do that thing only if you have that feat or class level. And that's just poison for roleplaying games. If you have proficiency with bows, pick up a bow and shot arrows, and that should be a useful thing to do that works. If you need 6 levels in a special class and have to take 3 specific feats, that just does not work for a fun game with broad appeal. That only appeals to optimizers.

Morty

2013-02-02, 08:53 AM

Removing Fighters and Wizards from the game means that every way of fighting and every way of doing arcane magic is going to require a separate class. How many classes can you fit in the Player's Handbook? It's much better to have fewer classes with each of them supporting a wide range of concepts. I don't expect D&D Next to do it, of course, given what we've seen so far.

Yora

2013-02-02, 09:04 AM

It's WotC. They make their income by selling classes, races, feats, and spells. Character options are where the monney is and they are a public company. They don't make games to entertain people and make money to pay their own wages, they make games to make money for shareholders.

Morty

2013-02-02, 09:05 AM

Well, yes. Which is why I don't expect them to do it, but I do consider it the best way to handle a class-based system.

Clawhound

2013-02-02, 09:07 AM

I thought that I did differentiate. Well, I'll try again. As I see it, barbarians are about rage, rangers are about wilderness survival, paladins are about gods, and fighters are about the battlefield/civilization.

Fighters are about fighting, which is the basis of the warrior class in most civilizations. Barbarians, rangers, and rogues are combatants, but they are not part of the warrior class that rules kingdoms and empires. Let's try this fluff. This will help make Fighters more of a face class.

"A fighter's strength is admired by the common man. That strength makes him a hero in their eyes. Might makes right. He can use this strength to stand tall and negotiate with confidence, cow his enemies in fear, or or bluff his way through a difficult situation. Fighters often rise high in political circles and need these skills to shape kingdoms. Unlike most barbarians, rangers, and rogues, fighters are comfortable working in and with armies. The core of military strategy is built around their expertise."

Yora

2013-02-02, 09:21 AM

A fighter and a ranger of equal level in an empty town square should be an easy win for the fighter.
A fighter and a ranger of equal level chasing each other through a forest should be an easy win for the ranger.
A fighter and a barbarian of equal level should be a clear advantage for the fighter.
A fighter and a raging barbarian of equal level should be a clear advantage for the barbarian.

Wizards are a completely different problem. Their problem is that they are given spells that can replicate the special skills of all other classes and usually with a considerably higher chance of success. That they can do that only once or twice per day instead of all day long does not matter, since in an RPG, even the specialist characters probably would have to perform their special skills only two or three times per day. And then we have the scrolls, which effectively completely negate the drawback that utility spells that might never be used take up valuable spell slots.
The solution here is relatively simple on paper: Don't give wizards spells that do the same thing as the special abilities of other classes or if they do, considerably weaker than those classes.

And the problem with druids and clerics is, that they are good at everything except picking locks. They both need their combat abilities and spells cut down to a level, where even a cleric who buffs himself for combat is still not as good in combat as a fighter.

1337 b4k4

2013-02-02, 09:58 AM

The solution here is relatively simple on paper: Don't give wizards spells that do the same thing as the special abilities of other classes or if they do, considerably weaker than those classes.

No, I think this is a bad solution for the exact same reason that the 3.x fighter is so reviled. If your wizard's spells are consistently weaker than the abilities they replicate, then what you have is a class that sucks without magic, and with magic, still sucks more than any other class.

To me, the answer lies in the way D&D did it before 3.x. Wizards can do awesome things, but not often, not easily and not automatically. Wizards should go back to having to find their spells on adventures, they should go back to only being able to cast on their turn if they're going to cast, and they should go back to losing their spell (or at least risk losing) if they're hit or take damage during that casting. The problem isn't that magic can do anything, it's magic, it's supposed to be able to do anything (for certain values of anything). The problem is that over time we've gone from wizards as "fragile bookworms who wield great power but also are one and done combatants" to "Harry potter in a world of muggles".

Yes going back to that means that fighters and other martial classes go back somewhat to being bodyguards for the wizard, but I think that's a solvable problem by changing how its done. The idea of marking an enemy in 4e was good, but like a lot of 4e things I think the execution was lacking. But that idea can be preserved in 5e. 5e already (iirc) requires you to explicitly break melee combat if you're in it (and if it doesn't it should) but I think we can even go a step further. The fighter (and perhaps other mundane classes to a lesser degree) should be able to prevent opponents from breaking melee at all. So at 1st level, the fighter can prevent 1 opponent from breaking melee with him within 5 feet (and gets an aoo on top of it). At 3rd that goes up to 2 opponents, at 5th 3 opponents. At 7th, 9th and 11th that range extends to 10 feet for one target (so that by 11th, the fighter can prevent 3 targets at up to 10 feet from breaking melee (essentially, permanent threatening reach). After 11th level, simply add more opponents, so by level 20 your fighter gets to basically hold 8 opponents within 10 feet of him. Oh, and for the sake of abilities like cleave, each held enemy counts as adjecent. This way, rather than chasing enemies down and more or less being the body guard for the wizard, the fighter instead becomes the nucleus of battlefield chaos. He's literally in the middle of it all. This is of course off the top of my head, so it likely has bugs to be worked out, but I think it's how I would handle wizard/fighter dichotomy.

noparlpf

2013-02-02, 10:49 AM

I disagree. Wizards should do cool things, and as often, but fewer of them. Seriously restrict the number of spells a caster knows. It is impossible to come up with thousands of powerful combat maneuvers to match the thousands of spells which Wizards can eventually know all of. That's because magic is hugely versatile. However, it should be considered difficult to learn. Give casters fewer spells to cast, let them cast them all day if you really want to, but make them focus more. If that means 5e's Tier 1 is equivalent to 3.X's Tier 3, so be it, because you'll never get all the mundanes up to Tier 1.

Frozen_Feet

2013-02-02, 11:37 AM

This discussion makes me miss the days when Ranger and Palading were explicitly subclasses of the Fighter. :smalltongue:

Yora

2013-02-02, 11:45 AM

Morty

2013-02-02, 11:49 AM

If I were to divide the Fighter class somehow, I'd probably chop it up into three classes - a duelist/fencer type, a tough armored bruiser type and a versatile tactician type. It's similar to what ToB does and what the unfortunately dead d20r project tried to do.
Rangers and Paladins could be molded into those three fighty classes, or they could not. It really depends on what we want from them. As they are in 3.5, which is "Fighter, buth with some other stuff", they could. They'd need to have more unique concepts and mechanics to be their own classes. I think that a proper new edition of D&D requires seriously rethinking the class system and deciding what classes are needed. D&D Next decided to stick to iconic ones instead.

Yora

2013-02-02, 11:56 AM

4th Edition tried rethinking and we've seen how that turned out. People who want to keep playing D&D mostly don't want to play that.

But I don't see why having duelists, bruisers, and commanders would require separate classes. Maneuvers, feats, and equipment could easily do that. They just would have to be good maneuvers and feats.

Stubbazubba

2013-02-02, 11:59 AM

Yes going back to that means that fighters and other martial classes go back somewhat to being bodyguards for the wizard, but I think that's a solvable problem by changing how its done. The idea of marking an enemy in 4e was good, but like a lot of 4e things I think the execution was lacking. But that idea can be preserved in 5e. 5e already (iirc) requires you to explicitly break melee combat if you're in it (and if it doesn't it should) but I think we can even go a step further. The fighter (and perhaps other mundane classes to a lesser degree) should be able to prevent opponents from breaking melee at all. So at 1st level, the fighter can prevent 1 opponent from breaking melee with him within 5 feet (and gets an aoo on top of it). At 3rd that goes up to 2 opponents, at 5th 3 opponents. At 7th, 9th and 11th that range extends to 10 feet for one target (so that by 11th, the fighter can prevent 3 targets at up to 10 feet from breaking melee (essentially, permanent threatening reach). After 11th level, simply add more opponents, so by level 20 your fighter gets to basically hold 8 opponents within 10 feet of him. Oh, and for the sake of abilities like cleave, each held enemy counts as adjecent. This way, rather than chasing enemies down and more or less being the body guard for the wizard, the fighter instead becomes the nucleus of battlefield chaos. He's literally in the middle of it all. This is of course off the top of my head, so it likely has bugs to be worked out, but I think it's how I would handle wizard/fighter dichotomy.

An interesting solution. Why would enemies ever move in to melee, then? It seems like it would be in their best interest to kite the party to death if getting close means ceding all control to the Fighter.

Worse yet, if an enemy has that ability, how does the party respond? They could focus fire on him until that particular threat is dead, I suppose, which is the idea, I guess, to keep the focus on the "tank." Interesting.

@Clawhound: I fully support turning the Fighter into a Warlord.

The solution here is relatively simple on paper: Don't give wizards spells that do the same thing as the special abilities of other classes or if they do, considerably weaker than those classes.

You mean like a Bard? I don't think that's a satisfactory answer. Making Wizards the second-best at everything is a similar problem to them being the first-best at everything, just in reverse (and less irritating, maybe).

I agree that specialized classes and class feats for everything is not the optimal way of doing things, that would just be one way to fix the problem.

What I really think needs to happen is that Wizards need to be forced to specialize so they contribute a certain necessary tactical element in each sub-game, which may or may not overlap with others. The trick is, other classes need to have a similar choice of tactical elements in them.

My proposed method, which I've advocated before, is having thematically narrow, but mechanically broad classes that then force specialization within the class. Essentially it would be like PF, wherein you have a broad Class and a more specific Archetype, but the latter would be more influential on your build choices than in PF. A Ranger could be a TWF damage-dealing type, or a bow master who focuses on kiting and battlefield control, or a beast master who creates opportunities for others, etc. A Fighter can be a berserker (heavy damage, multiple targets in melee), a sword-and-board wall (stops enemies from moving, interrupts), or a warlord (buffs, debuffs). You would not have a separate Warlord or Barbarian class, then. This can keep class numbers down to 5-6, while allowing for flexible 'roles' regardless of your theme.

This doesn't address non-combat, though. That's something that needs to be thought out more, as in "what does non-combat look like or do?" before I think we can really work out PC mechanics for them.

Frozen_Feet

2013-02-02, 12:01 PM

I disagree. "Quick Fighter", "Tough Fighter" and "Smart Fighter" are merely fighting styles - and should be available to the basic Fighter in the same manner spell schools are/were available to Wizards!

That was one of the biggest problems with 3.x Ed - a Fighter was, by default, supposed to get one, maybe two fighting styles. Where as the Wizard? His default was to get all magic styles!

So instead of splitting the Fighter into bazillion different classes based on fighting style, the default should be that the fighter gets all of the styles - with specialist specializing in some narrower field while neglecting others. Just like Wizards do/used to do with Evocation, Illusion, Necromancy and the lot. :smalltongue:

Morty

2013-02-02, 12:13 PM

4th Edition tried rethinking and we've seen how that turned out. People who want to keep playing D&D mostly don't want to play that.

That's because they didn't rethink the classes properly and enough.

But I don't see why having duelists, bruisers, and commanders would require separate classes. Maneuvers, feats, and equipment could easily do that. They just would have to be good maneuvers and feats.

I disagree. "Quick Fighter", "Tough Fighter" and "Smart Fighter" are merely fighting styles - and should be available to the basic Fighter in the same manner spell schools are/were available to Wizards!

That was one of the biggest problems with 3.x Ed - a Fighter was, by default, supposed to get one, maybe two fighting styles. Where as the Wizard? His default was to get all magic styles!

So instead of splitting the Fighter into bazillion different classes based on fighting style, the default should be that the fighter gets all of the styles - with specialist specializing in some narrower field while neglecting others. Just like Wizards do/used to do with Evocation, Illusion, Necromancy and the lot. :smalltongue:

I said if I were to split the Fighter class. I think that one fighting class should be enough.

Stray

2013-02-02, 12:51 PM

You mean like a Bard? I don't think that's a satisfactory answer. Making Wizards the second-best at everything is a similar problem to them being the first-best at everything, just in reverse (and less irritating, maybe).

But they would still have their unique abilities like casting fireball, teleportation or anything that can be achieved only through magic. They would be second best only at things that other classes specialize in. So that Knock is always inferior to rogue using lockpick, but exists as a backup if rouge is not available for some reason. It seems to be better solution than wizards having better solution to the problem of locked doors than rogues because magic is awesome and everyone else is here to act as a meatshield while mister pointy hat solves everything.

Clawhound

2013-02-02, 06:20 PM

Flickerdart

2013-02-03, 03:58 AM

Making spells fewer and more difficult to cast is an okay idea, but it doesn't feel like the right idea to me. When someone picks a wizard as their character class, they expect to cast spells. If they only have one spell per day (like the 2e 1st level wizard) then they only get to play the character they want to play once per day, and the rest of the time they are stuck with a character they don't want to play.

A lot of 3.5's classes had this problem. The paladin could heal! ...but only a little bit every day. He could make powerful attacks against evil foes! ...but only once per day and a couple more times per day later on. He could have an awesome steed! ...but only for a few hours. He could banish afflictions! ...but only a few times a week. The rest of the time, he was a crappier fighter with better saving throws.

Ah, you say, but then the paladin should save his abilities for when he really needs them! Then you're just faced with hoarding. The paladin is afraid to use his abilities, and ends up never using them at all, which means he's a crappier fighter all the time.

The choice should never be "do I use my unique ability or not". The choice should always be "which one of my unique abilities is most appropriate for this situation". A fighter should actually be able to switch between distinct and fully differentiated fighting styles based on what he's trying to do. A paladin should be able to fight differently depending on if he's fighting an irredeemable paragon of evil, a good man who has gone too far, or just some guy. And they should be able to do these things whenever it's necessary for them to do those things, not when the check box on their daily use says they can.

The only way that daily uses could work well is if a) they got significant numbers and b) battles lasted long enough that you can actually decide "ok what we're doing is not working so let's try something else" rather than "ok I took my turn what do you mean half the party is dead by the time initiative came back around to me".

A very good example of limited resource use is the Banner Saga (it's computerized, but the devs tested the combat system as a board game). Each character has a regular attack (a melee attack for melee guys and a ranged attack for archers) and then also a special ability depending on their class which costs Willpower to use (and you only get so much every match). Because of the way damage is done in the game (you need to chip off enemy armour before you can do a lot of damage to their health, and it's a lot harder to pump Armour Break than Strength) there's opportunities to weigh the importance of spending Willpower on your special ability or making a regular attack. The special ability is never strictly better than an attack. For instance, the Skystriker, can create a short-lived trap, and if a unit steps into it, it gets hit with an arrow for normal damage and its turn ends. But the enemy might not step on the arrow, in which case your turn and also the Willpower was wasted. Being able to judge when to use an ability, which iunit's ability to use, and when to attack is the key to being good at Banner Saga, but you got enough uses of the specials and granular enough pacing that you could afford to recognize that you were falling behind and react appropriately.

There's two ways we can translate something like that to D&D. One is the direct way, where every turn takes less time and has less impact, so that the player with, say, a defensive aura, can put it up in time for everyone to change their tactics to take advantage of the aura. If the game goes too quickly, by the time the turn rolls around to the player with the defensive aura, everyone already died and there's no one left to save. Basically, everyone has something that's always useful that they fall back on, and build their strategy around the ability that was activated by their team this turn.

The other way is giving everyone every kind of ability, at various magnitudes. So if the enemies turn out to breathe clouds of acid, you don't need to wait for the wizard's turn to save the day, because the fighter, whose turn it is now, can do some kind of Warning Cry ability that immediately lets his allies move away from the clouds. It might not be as good as the wizard's ability to use in this case (Gust of Wind, to turn the clouds back on the enemies), but it's something he can do instead of "I PA for max". By the time it's the wizard's turn, the party has been flanked, and the fighter's Warning Cry would come in handy to reposition everyone, but it's not his turn. Instead, the wizard casts Transposition to switch placed with the bard, who is a little better equipped for melee.

In fact, that seems like a good idea in general - spellcasters get more abilities that are more narrow in scope of application, and mundanes get fewer abilities but they are more generally applicable. So instead of a bunch of different combat maneuvers that only really help against other melee humanoids (cough3.5cough), the, for instance, ranger might have some kind of Fleet Foot stance that allows him to cross difficult terrain freely. It's always useful, even when the ranger has to run across water, but the wizard might have a Flash Freeze spell that turns water to ice, and thus lets the whole party cross a much wider area. Flash Freeze won't do you good when you're trying to get through a jungle, though. The trick here would be not giving the wizard such a selection of spells that he has exactly the right one for every situation, but also not to make him have a wasted slot that does nothing - for instance, Flash Freeze might have an alternative mode that deals ice damage to a creature and then reduces its movement speed (kind of like a built-in reserve feat). It's still useful, but doesn't synergize with the situation as well as the ranger's ability. In this jungle encounter, the wizard is well-advised to coordinate his actions around the ranger's situational advantage (such as putting spells on the ranger that the ranger can then release into the enemy's face).

Obviously, this setup (where everyone has some kind of thing they're good at and the options of the other characters are flexible enough that they can form their tactics around whichever party members' abilities are most useful at the time) is an ideal, and is difficult to actually reach (because it's difficult to balance abilities that have no numeric values and operate in different environments) but that's what playtesting is for.

MukkTB

2013-02-03, 05:35 AM

I've played a some games with very few classes. I mean the generic mage/fighter/rogue stuff. I don't much care for them. I'd rather have more specific classes, or just some classless resource system where I can buy whatever skills and abilities I want.

Yora

2013-02-03, 07:18 AM

It seems to be better solution than wizards having better solution to the problem of locked doors than rogues because magic is awesome and everyone else is here to act as a meatshield while mister pointy hat solves everything.
Not really, there are spells for better meat shields. :smalltongue:

MukkTB

2013-02-03, 11:28 AM

Summon Monster X
As a bonus nobody cares what happens to monster X.

FatR

2013-02-04, 08:06 AM

It seems that the more non-magical classes you get the less awesome the Fighter can be.

That is the unavoidable consequence of the Fighter's existence. "A guy who, uh, fights" is an irreedemably terrible class concept for a game where every single PC is supposed to be good at fighting by default. It can never ever work. Either other classes are balanced with the Fighter in combat, and then the Fighter sucks because they also can do something else besides fighting. Or the Fighter is is the best in combat, in which case you have a broken class, because combat is the main mechanical focus in the game and more important than everything else. In both cases, you'll have some players feeling overshadowed and unable to contribure in some situations. Its potential conceptual space of "everything who ever specialized in physical fighting in reality or fiction ever did" is too frighteningly broad, and prevents you from making more fighting classes, so it inevitably gets restricted to "what a subset of vanilla action heroes that don't fit in every other class did". Etc, etc.

The Fighter really should be removed from DnD.

Yora

2013-02-04, 08:32 AM

Let's all just play wizards!

Even if you call it a knight, soldier, warrior, or whatever, there still remains the issue that lots of people want to play a character with weapons and armor. How about going back to AD&D and making it the default that not everyone is good at fighting?
I am thinking more and more I should make a 5th Ed. inspired d20 game.

Morty

2013-02-04, 09:55 AM

Doug Lampert

2013-02-04, 12:31 PM

Each time a spellcaster gets a new spell, they get a substantially different ability.

In comparison, fighters (and most other melee) merely get more variations of the same ability.

The reduction in the number of available spell slots helps, but you are still left with that conundrum.

Class substituting spells simply need to get pulled. The designers will always be tempted to put more into the game if you start with substitution spells. At least if you have a ban on them, the ban will last for a few years, which is where most of the core game publishing happens.

Try the following rules for spells:

1) No spell is EVER self only. If you can let yourself do it with magic, you can do it to buff the fighter.

2) No spell or magic item EVER overwrites or replaces an ability, they ALL add a set bonus or penalty instead. Polymorph a weak wizard into a hydra and you get a weak hydra, polymorph a strong fighter and you get a strong hydra. One of these things is a better use of the spell than the other.

3) No spell EVER duplicates a skill or ability check, they give a bonus to the skill or ability check instead. Knock doesn't open a lock, it gives a +10 to the skill check for X minutes, should I cast this on the Rogue or the Wizard?

Clawhound

2013-02-04, 12:35 PM

What could we replace Fighter with?

Officer
Soldier (infantry)
Soldier (archer)
Soldier (cavalry)
Champion

The Fighter pretty much breaks apart into army regulars (those who fight for a living and know how to participate in an army.) They are equipped not to be individuals, but to work together with units bearing the same equipment.

Officers are pretty much warlords. Soldiers would enhance a party by being good at fighting WITH other people. Champions are experts at single combat. They would get MORE dangerous when peeled away from the party.

The advantage of breaking the fighter apart is that you get far better flavor. The disadvantage is that you need to design a bunch of similar classes. These might work better as default builds under the fighter.

Note that I ignore fighting style. Style doesn't differentiate well enough in an RPG. Conceptually, your role is more important that your weapon.

noparlpf

2013-02-04, 01:24 PM

navar100

2013-02-04, 01:44 PM

The fact that combat is the focus of D&D is indeed a problem for the Fighter, ironic as it may seem. In a game where not everyone is expected to be able to contribute to combat, fighting with weapons is one of several skillsets. In D&D, everyone fights, one way or another.
I don't think it's an unsurmountable problem that merits the removal of the Fighter class, but it is a problem.

People like to say replace the literal word "warblade" for the literal word "fighter" for those players who need to play a "fighter". The same can be done in 5E. Have a warrior concept, something distinct from the other warrior concepts of paladin and barbarian, and call it "fighter".

The literal word "fighter" is not the problem. Define a set of combat techniques for a class and call it "fighter". It's another way of saying give the Fighter nice things. Don't remove "fighter" because it's generic. Keep "fighter" and not have it be generic.

There's really no difference, but it'll placate the players who really need to have "fighter" on their character sheet.

Morty

2013-02-04, 01:54 PM

People like to say replace the literal word "warblade" for the literal word "fighter" for those players who need to play a "fighter". The same can be done in 5E. Have a warrior concept, something distinct from the other warrior concepts of paladin and barbarian, and call it "fighter".

The literal word "fighter" is not the problem. Define a set of combat techniques for a class and call it "fighter". It's another way of saying give the Fighter nice things. Don't remove "fighter" because it's generic. Keep "fighter" and not have it be generic.

There's really no difference, but it'll placate the players who really need to have "fighter" on their character sheet.

None of this has any relation to what I said, you know.

Flickerdart

2013-02-04, 01:56 PM

Try the following rules for spells:

1) No spell is EVER self only. If you can let yourself do it with magic, you can do it to buff the fighter.

2) No spell or magic item EVER overwrites or replaces an ability, they ALL add a set bonus or penalty instead. Polymorph a weak wizard into a hydra and you get a weak hydra, polymorph a strong fighter and you get a strong hydra. One of these things is a better use of the spell than the other.

3) No spell EVER duplicates a skill or ability check, they give a bonus to the skill or ability check instead. Knock doesn't open a lock, it gives a +10 to the skill check for X minutes, should I cast this on the Rogue or the Wizard?
These are good points, but I will note that making the fighter into a hydra is not really necessary if the fighter is already one-shotting everything in melee range (which isn't hard). Turning a weak wizard into a competent combatant is a better use of the spell than turning the strong fighter into a super-competent combatant. A better example might be a form that grants flight - the wizard can use flight to keep out of harm, but the fighter can use it to bring the fight to the enemy and put more dudes into his kill range than he could otherwise.

Officer
Soldier (infantry)
Soldier (archer)
Soldier (cavalry)
Champion

Cavalry spec in a game about 5ft corridors is the worst possible idea.

AcerbicOrb

2013-02-04, 01:59 PM

Oracle_Hunter

2013-02-04, 02:10 PM

Flickerdart, while the game is partially about 5 foot corridors most settings are more open now, and a good DM would be smarter than to use lots of dungeons when one of the players if clearly best on horseback.
It's not a question of "smart" -- it's hard to run a game about traps and treasures if you're constantly in the open.

This is a variant of The Decker Problem -- the Rider is happy whenever they're out in the open but the Thief is not (no doors to pick, traps to locate). When they're in a Dungeon the Thief is happy but the Rider is not.

As a rule, it is bad game design to create an entire class that only functions in a specific situation and then not at all. Doubly so if there is a second class that is useless in the specialist's domain but excellent in his weakest point.

Flickerdart

2013-02-04, 02:27 PM

Flickerdart, while the game is partially about 5 foot corridors most settings are more open now, and a good DM would be smarter than to use lots of dungeons when one of the players if clearly best on horseback.
Making a class with the full knowledge that it will make the DM's job more difficult for no reason and expecting them to just deal with it is awful design.

Morty

2013-02-04, 03:19 PM

Old-school dungeon crawls aren't the only places an adventurer might visit that make using a mount hard or impossible. Mounted combat definetly has a place in D&D, but it's too situational to base a class on.

obryn

2013-02-04, 03:45 PM

Cavalry spec in a game about 5ft corridors is the worst possible idea.
I think you can have a cavalry concept without having them actually be mounted. In 4e terms, for light cavalry think "skirmishers" - fast-moving combatants able to engage and disengage with enemies, moving towards positions of the best advantage.

-O

noparlpf

2013-02-04, 03:48 PM

I think you can have a cavalry concept without having them actually be mounted. In 4e terms, for light cavalry think "skirmishers" - fast-moving combatants able to engage and disengage with enemies, moving towards positions of the best advantage.

-O

Then don't call it anything like "cavalry", which literally means "dude on a horse".

Kurald Galain

2013-02-04, 03:56 PM

I think you can have a cavalry concept without having them actually be mounted.
No, because if they're not mounted, they're not cavalry any more. That's what cavalry means.

noparlpf

2013-02-04, 03:58 PM

No, because if they're not mounted, they're not cavalry any more. That's what cavalry means.

And if we're being really strict, we can't call a griffin-mounted warrior cavalry either, because it's not a dude on a horse. The concept should be broadened to "mounted warrior".

"Skirmisher" is then a vastly different thing.

Doug Lampert

2013-02-04, 03:59 PM

Cavalry spec in a game about 5ft corridors is the worst possible idea.

Small creatures on riding dogs for the win.

My very first 3.0 character was a Gnome Paladin on a special mount dog for the very reason that I wanted to be able to charge in 5' corridors. If the other characters can walk there, I can ride there. Nor were stairs or anything similar a problem.

Oracle_Hunter

2013-02-04, 04:03 PM

Small creatures on riding dogs for the win.

My very first 3.0 character was a Gnome Paladin on a special mount dog for the very reason that I wanted to be able to charge in 5' corridors. If the other characters can walk there, I can ride there. Nor were stairs or anything similar a problem.
While I approve of the concept of making "midget mounted warrior" a class for the lulz, I'm not sure that it is the sort of thing worth spending time making.

Of course, it would give the 5e "devs" something to do while they wait for The Internet to give them ideas :smalltongue:

Also: Pixies on Badgers! Sprites on Monkeys! :smallbiggrin:

Stray

2013-02-04, 04:05 PM

Flickerdart, while the game is partially about 5 foot corridors most settings are more open now, and a good DM would be smarter than to use lots of dungeons when one of the players if clearly best on horseback.

One player may be the best on horseback, but everyone else in the party would be out of their element. Unless mounted combat is large part of the core game and every class has some access to it. But developing a large segment of rules only for one class to show off and every time it is not used this class suffers, seems like a bad idea. It's warping the whole campaign just to fit one players character choice, and I already dislike monk for trying to force wuxia into tolkienesque fantasy ( A minor rant: For some reason bare fisted martial artist in pyjamas is supposed to be as respectable warrior as a guy wrapped in full plate and armed with a greatsword. If I were invited to play in a setting based on Chinese myths, I would not insist on playing chainmail clad dwarf with big axe and Scottish accent.).

The fighter could use some narrower definition than "any fighting style you want" and simply focus on some armour and weapon mastery. Fighter is the best at using his or her equipment because he or she does not have to choose between training the combat skills and getting other class features (so that other warrior classes are not Fighter+some extra tricks, but Fighter with less training and practice, because they were working on some extra tricks).
The duelist/swashbuckler/dashing-swordsman/fast-nimble-warrior-that-dodges-a-lot archetype should be covered by a different class entirely, no point in forcing fighter to fit too many stereotypes. "A guy like Borormir or Gimli" is quite different from "a guy like Captain Sparrow", and in my opinion the former is more natural description of a fighter.

Clawhound

2013-02-04, 04:25 PM

I agree. There are many variants of the fleet-footed combatant. Focusing on being a dude with heavy armor makes sense.

I don't think it is too wise to focus on fighting styles. More importantly:

How does the fighter support the party in combat different from other fighters?
How what social advantages does the fighter bring to the party?
What skills does the fighter bring to the party?
What knowledge does the fighter bring to the party?

Those questions are fundamental. Answer them well and you get a distinct class.

obryn

2013-02-04, 04:30 PM

Then don't call it anything like "cavalry", which literally means "dude on a horse".

No, because if they're not mounted, they're not cavalry any more. That's what cavalry means.
I don't really have much of a stake in it. :smallsmile: I'm just saying that if you're brainstorming "roles," then you can take the basic concept of cavalry's goals (which for light cavalry is basically "fast skirmishing") and make something to fit it. Hopefully sans horse. Calling it cavalry is confusing after that, but I didn't get the impression his post was anything more than brainstorming.

(And this is D&D! Centaurs aren't mounted, but they're cavalry!)

-O

noparlpf

2013-02-04, 04:32 PM

(And this is D&D! Centaurs aren't mounted, but they're cavalry!)

-O

(That's still a dude on a horse, they're just magically squished together into one organism.)

obryn

2013-02-04, 05:03 PM

(That's still a dude on a horse, they're just magically squished together into one organism.)
Wemics. Driders. Griffons. Unicorns. Awakened horses.

Really, D&D has so many "intelligent things with animal parts" that could function as "cavalry" it seems silly to focus on the mounted and/or horse bit instead of their job function. But ah ... yeah, /derail.

-O

The LOBster

2013-02-04, 06:30 PM

I think that everyone agrees on that basic sentiment. And that goes for rogues, barbarians, monks, and everyone else who doesn't throw a spell. Every class needs AWESOME.

Exactly. Whether their power comes from ki (Monks), primal spirits (Druids and maaaaaybe Rangers and Barbarians), divine powers (Paladins and Clerics), music (Bards), magic (Wizards) or Charles Atlas Superpowers (Fighters and Rogues), every class should be good (but not broken) at high levels of play, with a specific niche. I suggest that Wizards would be nukers who can use spells to defend themselves for one round and can cast spells of lower than their level as at-will cantrips; Barbarians should be bruisers who get supernatural strength, agility and endurance from Primal Rages; Bards should be buffers/debuffers who are quick with a rapier if they need to go into a skirmish; Fighters should be all-purpose weapon masters who can mark/challenge an opponent like in 4e and has some ToB-esque "martial maneuvers"; the Rogue should be a stealthy skillmonkey with all sorts of tricks - including insta-traps; Rangers should be able to use limited Primal magic and snipe enemies from afar, then go in for the kill with twin weapons; Druids should be able to alter the landscape to make it more favorable to their allies and Wildshape for combat; Paladins should be defensive powerhouses who serve as back-up healers and have all sorts of Divine attacks; Clerics should be the best healers who also aren't half-bad at Lasering things and hitting stuff with Simple Weapons; and Monks should be the most mobile class, gaining incredible attacks through ki focus and being able to attack while performing Move actions - like a flying kick - and eventually use Ki attacks.

Grundy

2013-02-04, 07:53 PM

The LOBster

2013-02-04, 08:27 PM

Anderlith

2013-02-04, 08:37 PM

Two things that can be added to fighter with out "changing what the "fighter" is to D&D"

Reputiation. Some kind of social mechanic that they can use

More combat options than any other class

TuggyNE

2013-02-04, 09:00 PM

theNater

2013-02-04, 10:40 PM

Cavalry spec in a game about 5ft corridors is the worst possible idea.
Let's make it work anyway.

Start with a medium-sized mount. Give it a game-mechanical effect along the lines of "will not enter 10ft or narrower corridors". There may need to be some rules for dragging these mounts into such corridors for verisimilitude, but it should be sufficiently disadvantageous to effectively prevent adventuring while doing so.

Then we make the Cavalry class with the abilities "may ride these mounts", "can convince own mount to willingly enter any corridor in which it can fit", "has maximum hit points slightly more than half the maximum hit points of other fighters of its own level", and "grants mount the same maximum hit points". Add a few rules for how being mounted is awesome and what happens when one or the other is down and you're good.

And now we've got a mounted character good to go into dungeons, without making it so everyone will be mounted in dungeons or preventing others from being mounted outside(on less awesome mounts, of course).

noparlpf

2013-02-04, 10:46 PM

navar100

2013-02-04, 11:17 PM

Let's make it work anyway.

Start with a medium-sized mount. Give it a game-mechanical effect along the lines of "will not enter 10ft or narrower corridors". There may need to be some rules for dragging these mounts into such corridors for verisimilitude, but it should be sufficiently disadvantageous to effectively prevent adventuring while doing so.

Then we make the Cavalry class with the abilities "may ride these mounts", "can convince own mount to willingly enter any corridor in which it can fit", "has maximum hit points slightly more than half the maximum hit points of other fighters of its own level", and "grants mount the same maximum hit points". Add a few rules for how being mounted is awesome and what happens when one or the other is down and you're good.

And now we've got a mounted character good to go into dungeons, without making it so everyone will be mounted in dungeons or preventing others from being mounted outside(on less awesome mounts, of course).

How is a horse supposed to climb down ladders, go into the sewers, or walk a rope bridge across a chasm? If mounted riding is but a small portion of a class's abilities it's not a major problem not to be able to use it for awhile, though still an annoyance and potentially unfun should the campaign require that happens a lot. When it's the entire point of the class you become nothing more than a glorified commoner with superior BAB and hit points.

That was Pathfinder's mistake with Cavalier. A player in my group learned the hard way the only things he could do for most of the game was challenge someone and give the party a teamwork feat benefit. We actually had to cross a rope bridge across a chasm. The DM was forced to make up an NPC druid Deus Ex Machina who just happened to come along to offer assistance with a DMium spell to get the mount across. Just saying the Cavalier can get his mount into such impossible places by fiat strains credulity. The paladin at least need only summon his mount when appropriate. He could already be in the dungeon where he fights some monsters in a 100' by 100' room.

Zeful

2013-02-04, 11:28 PM

I have advocated this in the past, and it still sounds good, along with more spells/day, and less spells known.

Except giving more spells/day is an ever increasing return. As it gives them more and more power through versatility than reducing spell choice lowers it and protects the players from making poor choices. Vancian systems work best when you have a few slots against a wealth of spell choices; it helps portray this air of incredible knowledge to the player, as well as let you, the DM mix things up by challenging the player's perceptions of the dungeon ahead and creating problems that could have been solved with a spell, but the wizard chose to prepare for different problems. This is probably the biggest way to provide parity between spellcasters and more mundane characters, and get rid of the expectation of the wizard as the omni-competent badass (which while fun to aspire too is just too difficult to balance in a game like this).

The only problem is of course that it prevents casters from really helping in combat with their spells, as their smaller number of spell slots prevents them from being involved in combat and have a decent number of out of combat spells. Which is a separate issue entirely really as you could just say "not a bug" and have it be a valid design decision.

noparlpf

2013-02-04, 11:39 PM

Except giving more spells/day is an ever increasing return. As it gives them more and more power through versatility than reducing spell choice lowers and protects the players from making poor choices. Vancian systems work best when you have a few slots against a wealth of spell choices; it helps portray this air of incredible knowledge to the player, as well as let you, the DM mix things up by challenging the player's perceptions of the dungeon ahead and creating problems that could have been solved with a spell, but the wizard chose to prepare for different problems. This is probably the biggest way to provide parity between spellcasters and more mundane characters, and get rid of the expectation of the wizard as the omni-competent badass (which while fun to aspire too is just too difficult to balance in a game like this).

The only problem is of course that it prevents casters from really helping in combat with their spells, as their smaller number of spell slots prevents them from being involved in combat and have a decent number of out of combat spells. Which is a separate issue entirely really as you could just say "not a bug" and have it be a valid design decision.

Nobody wants to play something that's only useful six times a day and otherwise is just a scrawny smart guy. Go more for the 3.X Warlock instead, mechanically. Or just, loads of spells/mana per day, and a variety of available spells, but just a few spells known.

Grod_The_Giant

2013-02-04, 11:52 PM

Except giving more spells/day is an ever increasing return. As it gives them more and more power through versatility than reducing spell choice lowers and protects the players from making poor choices.

I disagree with the first part and am not sure I understand the second. If you have a spell that will end an encounter in one shot, it doesn't really matter if you can cast it twice or twenty times-- it's still unbalanced when you do, and-- in my experience, at least-- if you're not specifically playing a dungeon crawl, multi-encounter days are rare. (Talking time, travel time, story time...) On the other hand, it does matter if you can cast a balanced spell once per encounter or five times per encounter-- one way leaves you feeling pathetic for most of the fight, while the other lets you contribute the whole time. The fewer spells you grant per day, the more incentive you create to only choose the optimal ones.

theNater

2013-02-04, 11:58 PM

Except a medium-sized character's mount will be large.
Unless, of course, that medium-sized character has a class ability which allows them to use a specific kind of medium-sized mount.

How is a horse supposed to climb down ladders, go into the sewers, or walk a rope bridge across a chasm?
The same way an unconscious fighter gets past all those obstacles. Surely I'm not the only one who's had to drag 300 pounds of plate-armored half-orc out of some godforsaken hole in the ground after our healing ran out.:smallwink:

Though I note you say horse. I specifically didn't say horse in my original description, because I could understand if there were a desire to use some non-horse creature as the mount choice here; maybe something made up just for this.

ArcturusV

2013-02-05, 12:02 AM

Spider Mounts. It's cooler, and a lot of the obstacles can be overcome with wall walking and spidersilk spinning. :smallbiggrin:

noparlpf

2013-02-05, 12:06 AM

Unless, of course, that medium-sized character has a class ability which allows them to use a specific kind of medium-sized mount.

Yeah, riding something your own size doesn't work so well. It's nothing to do with the skill of the rider, it's that the mount isn't big enough.

Spider Mounts. It's cooler, and a lot of the obstacles can be overcome with wall walking and spidersilk spinning. :smallbiggrin:

*shudders*
I don't mind spiders at all, as long as they're over there. When they get on me/in my bed I can't stand them.

Zeful

2013-02-05, 12:55 AM

Nobody wants to play something that's only useful six times a day and otherwise is just a scrawny smart guy. Go more for the 3.X Warlock instead, mechanically. Or just, loads of spells/mana per day, and a variety of available spells, but just a few spells known.
In a vancian system, it is a perfectly valid argument to say "if you managed your resources poorly for the day, that's on you", regardless of how well informed the players were about the day ahead.

Also I pointed out that as a separate issue to my point. I acknowledge that point of view, while keeping my opinion on it separate.

I disagree with the first part and am not sure I understand the second. If you have a spell that will end an encounter in one shot, it doesn't really matter if you can cast it twice or twenty times-- it's still unbalanced when you do, and-- in my experience, at least-- if you're not specifically playing a dungeon crawl, multi-encounter days are rare. (Talking time, travel time, story time...) On the other hand, it does matter if you can cast a balanced spell once per encounter or five times per encounter-- one way leaves you feeling pathetic for most of the fight, while the other lets you contribute the whole time. The fewer spells you grant per day, the more incentive you create to only choose the optimal ones.

The second part, "protecting [the player] from poor choices" is an argument of versatility and opportunity costs. If you have over 36 spell slots, pick a spell that's too niche, and you don't use it; how much have you actually lost preparing that spell? less than 1/36 your daily capacity, or in layman's terms, nothing of value. This is my argument against D&D's vancian system and anything approximating it. Preparing one poor spell, or even several, does not meaningfully impact a caster's power, which is of course, one of the other problems with 3.5. A caster can cover nearly every base, resulting in a character that is omni-competent. This is bad design in an age where games are picked apart for "the optimum way to play" because... how do you provide a challenge for the omni-competent character that doesn't require the character to be omni-competent?

The answer is you can't, not without being called out as "pigeon-holing" the caster by people like noparlpf, who decided to claim my argument was about unreasonable reductions to caster power, when both previous arguments of mine-- in this thread no less-- have been about reducing caster versatility in the small scale while still leaving them their grand versatility on the larger scales. In the terms of a week, I see no problem with a caster being theoretically capable solving of every challenge that came up that week, as long as in play-- during those moments-- he still has to make meaningful choices that prevent him from actually solving every problem.

In the vancian system as you give casters more spell slots, require that you cut down their versatility much more sharply to prevent them from being incapable of making meaningful choices, and after a certain point, there won't be any choices to make. The system isn't set up for that.

Part of what makes a good game, tabletop, TCG, video, whatever. Is the opportunity for choices to mean things. Which when you give the players excessive resources that can solve every problem, you lose that, because you remove the choices the players make and they can take one of everything. Spell point or MP systems aren't any different really, as they push all the decision to the large scale of choosing powers rather than using powers, resulting in the same problems with the same spells. It's a math problem, and when a game system is reduced to a math problem in the eyes of it's players, it causes a lot of problems with expectations, as evidenced with this entire discussion.

Anderlith

2013-02-05, 12:56 AM

Shadowrun's approach to magic has been adopted in several games, maybe WotC could experiment with it?

theNater

2013-02-05, 01:01 AM

Yeah, riding something your own size doesn't work so well. It's nothing to do with the skill of the rider, it's that the mount isn't big enough.
Medium isn't a size, it's a size category. The 3.5 SRD has a chart indicating that medium creatures are anything 4-8 feet long and weighing anywhere from 60-500 lbs. 6 feet is a reasonable height for a rider, and assuming the rider is going for lithe rather than bulky, they're unlikely to break 200 lbs. Isn't it possible that an 8' long, 450 lb. creature could serve as a mount?

Zeful

2013-02-05, 01:02 AM

Shadowrun's approach requires the cost of being able to cast magic at all be taken away from the character's other capacities. It also uses the same system for every action, which just works better with multiple dice rather than a single one.

It's not something that can be just dropped into the existing system. I point this out when describing Shadowrun's magic system and labeling it as from "Naruto".

Djinn_in_Tonic

2013-02-05, 02:23 AM

Medium isn't a size, it's a size category. The 3.5 SRD has a chart indicating that medium creatures are anything 4-8 feet long and weighing anywhere from 60-500 lbs. 6 feet is a reasonable height for a rider, and assuming the rider is going for lithe rather than bulky, they're unlikely to break 200 lbs. Isn't it possible that an 8' long, 450 lb. creature could serve as a mount?

I don't remember the exact location of the ruling, but only creatures of at least one size greater than you can be des effectively as mounts. Further, in (I believe) the Arms & Equipment guide, it states that humanoid monsters and monsters with unusually small body are proportionally to their space (spiders are a listed example) must be TWO size categories larger than you to be effective mounts.

Kurald Galain

2013-02-05, 03:50 AM

Stubbazubba

2013-02-05, 05:28 AM

Medium isn't a size, it's a size category. The 3.5 SRD has a chart indicating that medium creatures are anything 4-8 feet long and weighing anywhere from 60-500 lbs. 6 feet is a reasonable height for a rider, and assuming the rider is going for lithe rather than bulky, they're unlikely to break 200 lbs. Isn't it possible that an 8' long, 450 lb. creature could serve as a mount?

For a few moments? Sure. For more than about 15-20 minutes? Not without becoming real exercise for the mount. Carrying something that big in proportion to you is not OK. A 450 lb. creature carrying a 200 lb. rider is like a 180 lb. person carrying 80 lbs., i.e., no charging is happening, and there's not a lot of control. Yes, some people do hike with that much weight, but they're focused on hiking, not combat or other dangers, and its straining. For reference, a horse typically weighs between a half ton to a ton, depending on breed, or in other words about 10x as much as the human they're carrying. That's why they carry us around for hours on end with little effort; you're like a backpack to them.

Anecronwashere

2013-02-05, 06:01 AM

Maybe it should be based on carrying capacity?
In order to qualify as a Mount the rider and their equipment and carried items must be within a Light Load for the mount AND be either double in height or double in length to carry. Some exceptions may apply for specific creatures

Clawhound

2013-02-05, 06:38 AM

Mounts have far more problems than carrying capacity. Sea travel? Problem. Needs healing? Problem. Convenient meat shield? Problem. Cavalry is really a secondary role that should be cheap because it's so niche.

Fighters should just be proficient in every mount and fighting from that mount. That's not free. The mount will cause as many problems as it solves.

TuggyNE

2013-02-05, 07:08 AM

So, I was just wondering: how many playtest packets have we gone through so far? I think it's fewer than the number of threads here....

Yora

2013-02-05, 07:20 AM

I think I kept all of them to compare differences, which would be 8. However, twice it was only very minor changes, so actually more like six different versions.

Kurald Galain

2013-02-05, 07:29 AM

So, I was just wondering: how many playtest packets have we gone through so far? I think it's fewer than the number of threads here....

About seven, I believe.

noparlpf

2013-02-05, 08:01 AM

In a vancian system, it is a perfectly valid argument to say "if you managed your resources poorly for the day, that's on you", regardless of how well informed the players were about the day ahead.

Also I pointed out that as a separate issue to my point. I acknowledge that point of view, while keeping my opinion on it separate.

Well, it's probably more that I'm not a fan of Vancian magic in an RPG.

Medium isn't a size, it's a size category. The 3.5 SRD has a chart indicating that medium creatures are anything 4-8 feet long and weighing anywhere from 60-500 lbs. 6 feet is a reasonable height for a rider, and assuming the rider is going for lithe rather than bulky, they're unlikely to break 200 lbs. Isn't it possible that an 8' long, 450 lb. creature could serve as a mount?

Not very well. You ever try carrying half your weight all day, and into combat?

theNater

2013-02-05, 08:06 AM

I don't remember the exact location of the ruling, but only creatures of at least one size greater than you can be des effectively as mounts. Further, in (I believe) the Arms & Equipment guide, it states that humanoid monsters and monsters with unusually small body are proportionally to their space (spiders are a listed example) must be TWO size categories larger than you to be effective mounts.
Yes, that is a 3.5 rule. No, it does not have to be a 5.0 rule.

For a few moments? Sure. For more than about 15-20 minutes? Not without becoming real exercise for the mount. Carrying something that big in proportion to you is not OK. A 450 lb. creature carrying a 200 lb. rider is like a 180 lb. person carrying 80 lbs., i.e., no charging is happening, and there's not a lot of control. Yes, some people do hike with that much weight, but they're focused on hiking, not combat or other dangers, and its straining. For reference, a horse typically weighs between a half ton to a ton, depending on breed, or in other words about 10x as much as the human they're carrying. That's why they carry us around for hours on end with little effort; you're like a backpack to them.

Not very well. You ever try carrying half your weight all day, and into combat?
Which is one of the advantages of making up a new fictional creature for the mount. Give it either unusual strength for its size or, if that causes too many problems, unusual carrying capacity for its strength.

Alternately, we can claim that the class feature allowing for this riding is the result of some special technique that makes the rider easier to carry. So long as this ability is tailored to riding this kind of mount, it shouldn't affect any other part of the game.

Sea travel? Problem.
Why is that a problem? Assuming the mount will willingly go into any space in which it can fit, as long as there's food on the ship and it can get some exercise on deck occasionally, I don't see the issue.

Needs healing? Problem. Convenient meat shield? Problem.
You'll note that in my suggestion, the mount and rider together have a little more health than any other fighter of the rider's level. The idea was that between them they'd use up one fighter's worth of healing and provide one fighter's worth of meat shielding. The extra bit of health is an advantage intended to offset the disadvantage of losing some amount of effectiveness before running completely out of health(i.e. when one of them drops, but not both).

noparlpf

2013-02-05, 08:15 AM

Which is one of the advantages of making up a new fictional creature for the mount. Give it either unusual strength for its size or, if that causes too many problems, unusual carrying capacity for its strength.

Alternately, we can claim that the class feature allowing for this riding is the result of some special technique that makes the rider easier to carry. So long as this ability is tailored to riding this kind of mount, it shouldn't affect any other part of the game.

The Neohorse: It's like a horse, but smaller, and stronger, just so that we can force an idea that doesn't really work well into the game.

The Mountie: Level 1 class feature: Antigravity. You can magically reduce your weight by up to 90% so just about ANYTHING can carry you.
(There's really no "technique" short of this that could make carrying you easier.)

Kurald Galain

2013-02-05, 08:15 AM

Maybe it should be based on carrying capacity?
Funnily, in 4E most mounts have such a low carrying capacity that they are encumbered when carrying most humanoid riders, thus causing them to be slowed pretty much all the time :smallbiggrin:

lesser_minion

2013-02-05, 08:21 AM

We had a lot of these threads before the packets started being released, to discuss what should be done.

As for magic, two copper pieces: I think a Vancian magic system should probably be based on about 10 - 30 spells known (depending on level), four to six spells memorised, and up to three favoured spells that can be cast more easily.

Spells can be memorised very quickly, but every caster has to adhere to a mana point system in addition to their own mechanics.

noparlpf

2013-02-05, 08:27 AM

As for magic, two copper pieces: I think a Vancian magic system should probably be based on about 10 - 30 spells known (depending on level), four to six spells memorised, and up to three favoured spells that can be cast more easily.

Spells can be memorised very quickly, but every caster has to adhere to a mana point system in addition to their own mechanics.

Doesn't that just sound overly complicated? It's better than the standard Vancian we're using, but even so, that's too much.

lesser_minion

2013-02-05, 09:00 AM

Doesn't that just sound overly complicated? It's better than the standard Vancian we're using, but even so, that's too much.

It only took a few short sentences to explain, so I wouldn't expect so.

And it's just a simple, intuitive, and easy-to-handle limiting factor built on top of spell points (which are themselves simple, intuitive, and easy to handle).

theNater

2013-02-05, 09:18 AM

The Neohorse: It's like a horse, but smaller, and stronger, just so that we can force an idea that doesn't really work well into the game.
You have the entire world of fantasy monsters to start from, and this is what you come up with? ArcturusV mentioned giant spiders earlier; they already break the laws of physics, so tweaking them to take a rider isn't crossing some new line. A dragonoid creature might make for a good mount, with the added potential of becoming able to fly at very high levels, were that desirable. Final Fantasy has its giant yellow chickens, the Neverending Story had that dude with the racing snail, WoW has raptors that don't take up much more space than the trolls riding them.

You don't have to like the idea, but you don't have to straw man it either.

The Mountie: Level 1 class feature: Antigravity. You can magically reduce your weight by up to 90% so just about ANYTHING can carry you.
(There's really no "technique" short of this that could make carrying you easier.)
Not one that works in our universe, no. However, fantasy worlds are rife with secret ancient knowledge that permits feats which are quite impossible in ours. Fighters are usually restricted to weapon attacks for that("with this special strike, you can pierce the dragon's scales" kind of things), but there's no reason they have to be.

Also note that trying to make fighters able to function in our universe is one of the roots of the "fighters can't have nice things" movement. I would highly recommend providing reasons above and beyond that if you wish to convince many of the posters on this board.

Talakeal

2013-02-05, 12:52 PM

All this talk about suitable mounts reminds me of my current game.

The party sorcerer insisted on riding her cohort, a fighter (both humans) at all times because there were no RAW penalties for carrying someone around if they were less than a light load for you.

Eventually I got so tired of arguing about it that I just let her polymoprh the fighter into a centaur, which was, amazingly, both less silly and caused less rules arguments.

Anderlith

2013-02-05, 01:03 PM

When I said it could be a little more like Shadowrun, I meant that there should be a lot less spells, & that casting any spell should have somekind of cost (more than a handful of leaves from your Spell Component Pouch that goes untracked)
If it isn't going to have a cost like that, then they need to dust of Spell Components & actually make them a resource.
They could also say that every Wizard (not sorcerer or any other caster) must signify a focus item that takes up a body slot or can be held in their hands as a channel for magic. Wizards are not like sorcerers who can channel magic within themselves. So every Wizard must need a wand or staff or gauntlet or amulet to cast magic. They could find new ones & attune to them if they lose theirs or just want a different one

Zeful

2013-02-05, 01:42 PM

Well, it's probably more that I'm not a fan of Vancian magic in an RPG.

It's not like other systems are somehow "better" for a tabletop game, videogame RPGs are an entirely different beast altogether. An MP system maintains all the problems I've talked about in my posts, including an efficiency equation for "optimum" spells. In fact, I'd argue that a MP system is more likely to be worse than 3.5's Vancian system in protecting the player from his poor decisions, and keeping him from actually acting creatively with his powers at the low end, and creating omnicompetent characters at the high end. Both of which are things I consider problems in a tabletop game in the internet age.

Anecronwashere

2013-02-05, 01:43 PM

Maybe have an upgrade later about "The magic was inside you the whole time" and discarding the focus/magic feather?

PairO'Dice Lost

2013-02-05, 01:56 PM

Serious question for Anderlith, lesser_minion, and others talking about 5e spellcasting: Why is the first inclination when suggesting a fix to always propose something non-D&D-traditional instead of tweaking Vancian? We already have a relatively more balanced version of Vancian casting that worked out fairly well before WotC got their hands on it (AD&D had longer memorization times, costs and drawbacks to individual spells, limited spells known, and other balancing factors) and that we could easily go back to, particularly considering 5e is the "please the old-schoolers" edition.

Yet it seems that for every person pointing out that Vancian isn't inherently problematic, it's its 3e incarnation specifically that's problematic, there's someone else wanting to turn D&D wizards into Gandalf or Harry Potter with their required foci, or into Harry Dresden or Rand al'Thor with mental focus/mental drain, or implement spell points, or implement casting checks and spell fizzling, or make them more warlock-y, or something else. On top of that, people tend to claim that Vancian doesn't make sense for classes other than the wizard and want to change spontaneous and divine casters, and then when they propose their fix they also change the wizard for whom the Vancian system works fine. And all this despite the fact that the problems with mana-based, check-based, and other forms of casting are already well-known (see Zeful's last post, for instance) and switching systems just trades one set of problems for a different set of (often worse) problems.

Yes, I realize many people hate Vancian as the default casting system. I don't like it either...in Shadowrun, or GURPS, or Ars Magica, but I like it in D&D and think it's a good fit for the system and shapes the feel of the game, just like I think open-ended casting works well for Ars Magica and drain-based casting for Shadowrun and not the reverse. I like having a system that's not the same ol' boring points or skill checks from other games, and in fact I like how D&D tends to have multiple magic systems in each edition because it's much more kitchen sink fantasy than generic fantasy; if I have a hankering to play a non-Vancian caster, the psion, binder, incarnate, and others are there for me.

So for an edition whose specific stated purpose is to combine the different editions, all of which except the latest had Vancian casting in one form or another, why insist on replacing Vancian instead of adding their favorite option in as an alternate magic system? I'm not just picking on the two people I mentioned, I've seen the same suggestions in many 5e threads on this and other forums and figured I'd ask here.

Zeful

2013-02-05, 02:19 PM

I have to assume that it's because Vancian casting isn't seen as arcane or mystical enough (using the actual definition for arcane, it's really an awesome word). But I have to disagree, to me the Vancian system is very arcane and mystical, it's just not immediately intuitive from an in-universe perspective, which is exactly why I prefer it. It's a taste thing.

Talakeal

2013-02-05, 03:13 PM

Zeful

2013-02-05, 03:34 PM

I have to agree. The vancian system sucks, but it just wouldn't be dungeons and dragons without it. IMO the psionics system in 3.5 is far superior mechanically and logically, but it just lacks that iconic feel.

Not really, it has pretty much the same problems as the vancian system, with only the advantage of a better designed scaling system and stronger limits on what powers can do. Calling it "far superior" is a misnomer.

Talakeal

2013-02-05, 03:44 PM

Not really, it has pretty much the same problems as the vancian system, with only the advantage of a better designed scaling system and stronger limits on what powers can do. Calling it "far superior" is a misnomer.

Not really sure how it is a misnomer, although I agree it is a bit of an overstatement. The powers are better defined, don't have silly components or memorization rules, scale better, and have a flexible power point system rather than a head scratching slot system. It isn't perfect, but IMO it is a significant improvement.

Zeful

2013-02-05, 03:51 PM

Not really sure how it is a misnomer, although I agree it is a bit of an overstatement. The powers are better defined, don't have silly components or memorization rules, scale better, and have a flexible power point system rather than a head scratching slot system. It isn't perfect, but IMO it is a significant improvement.

It also soothes bad choices by making every spell mean less, isn't built in a fashion to minimize the "Save-or-else" power economy system, and still possesses many of the abilities that invalidate other classes and archetypes.

Taking the system as a whole, 3.5's psionic system is at best a step in the right direction from it's Vancian system, not some great innovation that is better in any, or even most respects.

Dienekes

2013-02-05, 04:40 PM

It also soothes bad choices by making every spell mean less, isn't built in a fashion to minimize the "Save-or-else" power economy system, and still possesses many of the abilities that invalidate other classes and archetypes.

Taking the system as a whole, 3.5's psionic system is at best a step in the right direction from it's Vancian system, not some great innovation that is better in any, or even most respects.

Don't all your flaws have more to do than with the spells rather than the system they're in?

Jacob.Tyr

2013-02-05, 04:59 PM

Don't all your flaws have more to do than with the spells rather than the system they're in?

I tend to take the stance that the issue is the spells available. Right now the 5e spell list doesn't seem so bad to me, and I think it can stay Vancian all on it's own. I don't even think the fighters are so bad. Hell, the whole idea of fighters not having anything to do outside of combat is gone with the backgrounds system.

Issues I have with 5E:
Limited customization(Will be most likely fixed with splat books)
Uniform progression in damage dice (I think this could be varied more and be a lot funner)

I look forward to seeing where the system is a few months after it comes out and once it gets some splat.

Zeful

2013-02-05, 05:13 PM

Don't all your flaws have more to do than with the spells rather than the system they're in?

The spells aren't all that separate from the system they exist in, especially when concerning issues of optimization, which is where a majority of all of a system's flaws will begin to show themselves. All elements of a game's design influence the other elements, to think otherwise is silly.

If you have a spell that has a 50% chance to end an encounter, and another spell of equal cost that does 10% of the enemies' total health, which spell is more efficient? This is what I mean by "the Save-or-else power economy". In D&D, spells that outright end or invalidate challenges are, on average cheaper than ones where you don't ignore certain systems. Yes it's an issue with spell design, but the error is compounded by a bad system. And my point is more about designing spells to fit the system, which means some systems should not have certain types of spells.

In the Vancian system, if a player has one spell prepared that has a 50% chance of success and fails, there are no do-overs. The spell is gone and the player has to react to the new situation, or have prepared multiple copies, restricting his daily capabilities to do this, and you-- the player-- are choosing power at a chance against reliability and variety. But in the power point system, that choice is gone, and if you fail the first time, it's still more effective to continue the risky path than it is to change tactics, which results in the encounter revolving around the character with the encounter-ending ability and elevating that character. After all what are the chances of the first spell failing nine times in a row, necessitating the tenth cast, where it actually costs the same as the second spell to end the encounter?

Yes this isn't accounting for other players, but it still highlights the problem with systems and the powers for them. In a power point system, spells that win the encounter on a failed save-- if they exist at all-- have to be far more expensive than other spells in a point for point comparison if you even want to pretend that the caster isn't the center of the party in combat.

The system influences which spells should exist and how much they cost, so the spells themselves are still important to the design process of the system.

Synovia

2013-02-05, 05:34 PM

I disagree with the first part and am not sure I understand the second. If you have a spell that will end an encounter in one shot, it doesn't really matter if you can cast it twice or twenty time.

It isn't about how many times you can cast the encounter-ending spells, its how many different encounter-ending spells you can cast.

A low level character may have a single casting of glitterdust, which means he can trivialize an encounter with invisible enemies, but if you run into a bunch of guys with blindfighting, its useless

A higher level character will not only have more powerful spells, but he'll have spells to trivialize significantly more types of encounters. He'll have Black Tentacles to end encounters with weak grapplers. He'll have flight to trivialize encounters with groundborne enemies. He'll have windwall to trivialize ranged attackers.

With less spell slots, you have to chose which situations you're going to protect yourself against, you can't just take all of them.

Icewraith

2013-02-05, 05:35 PM

Regarding cavalry, wouldn't it be best to just give the character a fighting style that also works when his mount's not available?

You'd lose the advantages of actually having the mount (in 3.5 it's the attack bonus, damage when charging, mount moves for you), but if you have feats, maneuvers, or other abilities that either did different things when mounted or granted a mounted and non-mounted ability, you'd solve most of the crippling "I don't have my mount my character is useless" syndrome.

For example, a mobility-based benefit might combine ride-by attack and grant an extra 5-foot step every round when dismounted. You don't have the same movement ability you did on the mount since you use your own move action, but you can sidestep an annoying obstacle and then charge, and get your move action back in situations where you only need to move 10 feet. All of a sudden you've got useful options in 5ft corridor-land.

Basically you'd get somewhat similar, but not exactly the same, abilities so thet there's a clear distinction in how the character plays mounted and not. After all, while these guys train for mounted combat they still train for combat in general, including getting dismounted. If you replace the "cavalry" concept with "knight" you eliminate the "sucks without a mount" bit almost entirely (IMO).

noparlpf

2013-02-05, 05:44 PM

It only took a few short sentences to explain, so I wouldn't expect so.

And it's just a simple, intuitive, and easy-to-handle limiting factor built on top of spell points (which are themselves simple, intuitive, and easy to handle).

It's just that much extra bookkeeping, which is what I meant.

You have the entire world of fantasy monsters to start from, and this is what you come up with? ArcturusV mentioned giant spiders earlier; they already break the laws of physics, so tweaking them to take a rider isn't crossing some new line. A dragonoid creature might make for a good mount, with the added potential of becoming able to fly at very high levels, were that desirable. Final Fantasy has its giant yellow chickens, the Neverending Story had that dude with the racing snail, WoW has raptors that don't take up much more space than the trolls riding them.

You don't have to like the idea, but you don't have to straw man it either.

Not one that works in our universe, no. However, fantasy worlds are rife with secret ancient knowledge that permits feats which are quite impossible in ours. Fighters are usually restricted to weapon attacks for that("with this special strike, you can pierce the dragon's scales" kind of things), but there's no reason they have to be.

Also note that trying to make fighters able to function in our universe is one of the roots of the "fighters can't have nice things" movement. I would highly recommend providing reasons above and beyond that if you wish to convince many of the posters on this board.

All I can picture is kiddie-cartoon oversized baddies riding mounts half their size. It just looks silly. It's not that it strains credulity to have a small, strong thing to ride, it just looks silly in my head.

Serious question for Anderlith, lesser_minion, and others talking about 5e spellcasting: Why is the first inclination when suggesting a fix to always propose something non-D&D-traditional instead of tweaking Vancian? We already have a relatively more balanced version of Vancian casting that worked out fairly well before WotC got their hands on it (AD&D had longer memorization times, costs and drawbacks to individual spells, limited spells known, and other balancing factors) and that we could easily go back to, particularly considering 5e is the "please the old-schoolers" edition.

*&c.*

Personally, I've just never really like Vancian-style magic in fiction. It feels weird to me that you spend time studying something, and then just forget it the moment you actually use it. I just grew up on different kinds of magic, I guess.

Morty

2013-02-05, 05:48 PM

I like Vancian casting, myself. I think that it makes the magic feel serious and makes each spell count. But I'm not sure if it fits the style of play D&D is supposed to support.

PairO'Dice Lost

2013-02-05, 05:55 PM

Personally, I've just never really like Vancian-style magic in fiction. It feels weird to me that you spend time studying something, and then just forget it the moment you actually use it. I just grew up on different kinds of magic, I guess.

Remember that while it's called "memorizing" or "preparing" a spell, you're not studying a spell, learning how to cast it, and then forgetting it later, but rather pre-casting the spell and holding it in your mind so you can release it later. This was clearer in AD&D, where each spell had a casting time of 10 minutes or so per spell level per spell to prepare and it would take high-level wizards upwards of a full day to go through all the casting time required to prepare all their spells, rather than 3e's one-hour-and-done preparation time.

noparlpf

2013-02-05, 06:01 PM

Zeful

2013-02-05, 06:11 PM

Depending on who fluffs it, yeah. It still feels weird to me to pre-cast a spell. It feels like cheating. (So do scrolls, potions, &c.)

Okay:

You draw in magical energies (or for spontanious casters, organize the magical energies in themselves), arranging them into patterns corresponding with spells, allowing them to cast them, but in doing so exhausting the pattern.

Anderlith

2013-02-05, 06:16 PM

@ Pair O' Dice
Firstly I want to say most of my problem is with spell design but,
Magic should always come at a price, & the Vancian model is too ridged
What bothers me most about the Vancian spellcasting is that there is a fire spell at ever tier doing something only moderately different. Any spell that has "Lesser" or "Greater" or "Limited" in there title, the order of magnitude should be mine to control. Give me ONE fire spell that does as much damage as I want to pump magic into it (Instead of learning a new spell that is just a bigger version of an old one, I just raise this spell to be more powerful) Then allow me to shape it in the traditional shapes (line, cone, etc.) You can remove a lot of system clutter with just that.

Now Metamagic could help accomplish this a lot better than it does so far.

Another thing I don't like is that I am a wizard trained to be able wield great power, I'm limited to using only so many spells per day for no in game reason. I'm not tired after I cast, I'm not drawing from some kind of pool, where are these "slots" coming from? It's just messy & unexplained.

Imagine a guy with a rifle with 10 rounds a pistol with 7 & 4 grenades. but he's not allowed to reload & he can't carry more ammo. It's just weird, why can't he drop a few grenades & carry an extra clip of .556?

I'm not saying that spells should be unlimited & I really don't like the At-Will/Encounter/Daily style either.

But if we unboxed them, made them a bit more customizable with metamagic & give them a mechanical cost that actually means something

Anderlith

2013-02-05, 06:26 PM

Remember that while it's called "memorizing" or "preparing" a spell, you're not studying a spell, learning how to cast it, and then forgetting it later, but rather pre-casting the spell and holding it in your mind so you can release it later. This was clearer in AD&D, where each spell had a casting time of 10 minutes or so per spell level per spell to prepare and it would take high-level wizards upwards of a full day to go through all the casting time required to prepare all their spells, rather than 3e's one-hour-and-done preparation time.

That's something else they could do. Stop with the pre-casting. You can't just put a summoning ritual on hold, the energies build & they need to be contained inside a capacitor until released, or cast before they reach an uncontrollable level. Not to mention you would need an insulating element to keep you separate from the energies so as not to suffer backlash.

The way they explain pre casting, imagine a wizard in the morning "Hocus pocus abra..." Walking for a while, talking with people, fishing in a stream, shooting the breeze, taking a nap, then walking up to a goblin & whispering "kadabra" & causing the goblin to explode.

That's hard to believe. That is pushing suspense of disbelief way to far.

Zeful

2013-02-05, 06:36 PM

Another thing I don't like is that I am a wizard trained to be able wield great power, I'm limited to using only so many spells per day for no in game reason. I'm not tired after I cast, I'm not drawing from some kind of pool, where are these "slots" coming from? It's just messy & unexplained.

Imagine a guy with a rifle with 10 rounds a pistol with 7 & 4 grenades. but he's not allowed to reload & he can't carry more ammo. It's just weird, why can't he drop a few grenades & carry an extra clip of .556?Except if it's unexplained, all analogies, by default, are invalid. So it's nothing like your gun example. And what is wrong with "nobody knows, it's just how it is" as an explanation?

But if we unboxed them, made them a bit more customizable with metamagic & give them a mechanical cost that actually means something
As long as we remove all ways to mitigate and avoid those costs, yeah that would be fine. That means no Blessed Book, no Pearls of Power, nothing that bypasses or mitigates the cost. Because one of the problems with designing a tabletop game in the internet age is forums like this one, where people constantly search for the optimum way to do things, which is where almost all systems break-down is. So that means we have to build a game from the top down; determine what the exact limits are mechanically, and then quantify what they are worth across all levels. This results in a game with very little leeway in the language, because if there is leeway, people have been shown to abuse it.

Anderlith

2013-02-05, 06:48 PM

Except if it's unexplained, all analogies, by default, are invalid. So it's nothing like your gun example. And what is wrong with "nobody knows, it's just how it is" as an explanation?
Because as a rule, an undeniable fact, anything that exists can be explained. If magic exists, then it has rules & can be explained. If not, you cannot reliably cast fireballs.

As long as we remove all ways to mitigate and avoid those costs, yeah that would be fine. That means no Blessed Book, no Pearls of Power, nothing that bypasses or mitigates the cost. Because one of the problems with designing a tabletop game in the internet age is forums like this one, where people constantly search for the optimum way to do things, which is where almost all systems break-down is. So that means we have to build a game from the top down; determine what the exact limits are mechanically, and then quantify what they are worth across all levels. This results in a game with very little leeway in the language, because if there is leeway, people have been shown to abuse it.

My analogies stand.

You have x amount of level 3 spells, x amount of level 2 spell, & x amount of level 1 spells. You can do nothing to alter this number

Djinn_in_Tonic

2013-02-05, 06:55 PM

Because as a rule, an undeniable fact, anything that exists can be explained. If magic exists, then it has rules & can be explained. If not, you cannot reliably cast fireballs.

By not having strict explanatory rules, however, D&D is able to simulate a much wider range of magic. A slight abstraction from a purely rational system allows it to be utilized for more varieties of magic than if it only works in X specific way.

You have x amount of level 3 spells, x amount of level 2 spell, & x amount of level 1 spells. You can do nothing to alter this number

As above: it's a Vancian-based gaming abstraction that allows for options and decision points (you have many spells available for many purposes) without making you incredibly powerful (since you can't use your most powerful spells in ALL situations, or you'll run out).

D&D is very gamist, and only a bit simulationist. I don't see the abstraction f Vancian magic as a huge deal, even if I'm not personally a fan of the exact mechanics of it.

PairO'Dice Lost

2013-02-05, 06:59 PM

What bothers me most about the Vancian spellcasting is that there is a fire spell at ever tier doing something only moderately different. Any spell that has "Lesser" or "Greater" or "Limited" in there title, the order of magnitude should be mine to control. Give me ONE fire spell that does as much damage as I want to pump magic into it (Instead of learning a new spell that is just a bigger version of an old one, I just raise this spell to be more powerful) Then allow me to shape it in the traditional shapes (line, cone, etc.) You can remove a lot of system clutter with just that.

Actually, I'd prefer to see spells be less flexible by default. My go-to example is AD&D fireball vs. AD&D lightning bolt: in 3e they're just generic "do Xd6 damage of type Y in area Z" spells, but in AD&D lightning bolts bounce while fireballs expand, which gives them both extra tactical uses and makes the choice between them more than just one of choosing a damage type. I don't want to see a generic energy ball spell that can take on whatever energy type you require at the time, or a line of orb of X spells that are the same except for their secondary status effect. Spells that are exactly the same except for damage types and areas are indeed system clutter, but the way to fix that is to make them more distinct, not to make them even more generic.

As for summon monster # or lesser/normal/greater planar binding or the like, that's not a facet of Vancian casting, that's a spell design decision. Having a single planar binding spell that can be prepared in any slot of level 5 or higher and lets you bind a creature with HD up to [spell slot] * 3/2, or a single cure wounds spell that can be prepared in any slot and heals [spell slot]*1d8 + CL HP or similar is just as Vancian as the current setup.

Magic should always come at a price
[...]
Another thing I don't like is that I am a wizard trained to be able wield great power, I'm limited to using only so many spells per day for no in game reason. I'm not tired after I cast, I'm not drawing from some kind of pool, where are these "slots" coming from? It's just messy & unexplained.

The main Vancian price is time. Again, it used to take 10 minutes per spell level per spell to prepare spells, so loading up on spells meant choosing what spells you'd use on an adventure before retreating to a safe place to re-prepare; you couldn't hole up in a rope trick and get everything back like you can in 3e. Getting back to that paradigm doesn't completely fix the 15-minute workday problem, but it certainly helps.

The in-game reason, then, is that it literally takes you half an hour to cast a fireball spell, but since that's completely impractical in a combat situation wizards have developed a way to let them spend 29 minutes casting it and then hold it in their minds so they can cast that last minute in combat to complete the spell. Your soldier can carry all the ammo he wants, but good luck getting more grenades in the middle of combat if it takes him a few hours to make a new one from scratch once he's thrown the ones he has. He can scrounge up some more ammo for his pistol every 10 minutes or so (prepare another magic missile) if he can't spend the time to make a grenade (fireball).

The 8-hour resting limit makes the analogy break down a bit, but again that's not a strictly necessary component of a Vancian system; you could make slots re-usable as long as people could spare the preparation time and reduce the number of slots to compensate, which is kind of what WotC did with the "encounter spells take 5 minutes to prepare" thing except they once again condensed the preparation time to one total time instead of having individual spells take their own preparation time.

give them a mechanical cost that actually means something

Why do we need a mechanical cost that "actually means something" beyond running out of resources? Point-based systems don't have any extra mechanical cost either, yet those are a popular suggestion to replace Vancian.

That's something else they could do. Stop with the pre-casting. You can't just put a summoning ritual on hold, the energies build & they need to be contained inside a capacitor until released,

They have that capacitor. It's called a spell slot. That's why you can only prepare a certain number of spells at once. You'll note there are plenty of spells with a casting time of longer than 1 standard action--like, say, lesser planar binding. Pre-casting spells by preparing ritual ingredients and such is seen with lots of wizards, from Gandalf in the Hobbit to witches with their potion-making and charm-crafting to Harry Dresden in Dresden Files with several others in between.

Grod_The_Giant

2013-02-05, 07:00 PM

Because one of the problems with designing a tabletop game in the internet age is forums like this one, where people constantly search for the optimum way to do things, which is where almost all systems break-down is. So that means we have to build a game from the top down; determine what the exact limits are mechanically, and then quantify what they are worth across all levels. This results in a game with very little leeway in the language, because if there is leeway, people have been shown to abuse it.
I disagree. I mean, yes, there are people who will play hideously overpowered builds in a real game, and yes, the internet does make it easy for them to congregate and perfect said builds, but they're a minority. Gaming forums probably do mean that it's a bad idea to build a game with deliberately inferior and superior choices to reward system mastery, but I submit that as a poor design philosophy to begin with.

And I'd submit that it's better to have a game with a deliberate amount of leeway and a written-in expectation for the GM to wing it than to try and cover everything in exhaustive detail. In the latter case, you wind up with sourcebooks bloated with legalese, groups who feel discouraged from doing anything not covered by the rules (and you won't cover everything), groups who feel they must follow the rules in all cases, and you still have broken combinations-- total optimization is all about RAW over RAI, and the development technique you're talking about is entirely focused on RAW at any cost.

Kurald Galain

2013-02-05, 07:12 PM

The main Vancian price is time. Again, it used to take 10 minutes per spell level per spell to prepare spells, so loading up on spells meant choosing what spells you'd use on an adventure before retreating to a safe place to re-prepare; you couldn't hole up in a rope trick and get everything back like you can in 3e.

Funny, isn't it, how 2E solves many of the common issues with 3E?

oxybe

2013-02-05, 07:25 PM

making the problem occur less frequently is not solving the problem. at best you're treating symptoms with the larger issue being "magic wins the game" only this time it does so every other day.

the trick wasn't planning out your spell loadout carefully, but making sure that you adventured or stuff occurred on those "other days" and planning out your "recovery days".

2nd was hardly as balanced or well designed as the greybeards try to make it seem. once you figured out the hoops to jump through you'd get many of the same issues in 3rd ed.

Anderlith

2013-02-05, 07:44 PM

Actually, I'd prefer to see spells be less flexible by default. My go-to example is AD&D fireball vs. AD&D lightning bolt: in 3e they're just generic "do Xd6 damage of type Y in area Z" spells, but in AD&D lightning bolts bounce while fireballs expand, which gives them both extra tactical uses and makes the choice between them more than just one of choosing a damage type. I don't want to see a generic energy ball spell that can take on whatever energy type you require at the time, or a line of orb of X spells that are the same except for their secondary status effect. Spells that are exactly the same except for damage types and areas are indeed system clutter, but the way to fix that is to make them more distinct, not to make them even more generic.

As for summon monster # or lesser/normal/greater planar binding or the like, that's not a facet of Vancian casting, that's a spell design decision. Having a single planar binding spell that can be prepared in any slot of level 5 or higher and lets you bind a creature with HD up to [spell slot] * 3/2, or a single cure wounds spell that can be prepared in any slot and heals [spell slot]*1d8 + CL HP or similar is just as Vancian as the current setup.

The main Vancian price is time. Again, it used to take 10 minutes per spell level per spell to prepare spells, so loading up on spells meant choosing what spells you'd use on an adventure before retreating to a safe place to re-prepare; you couldn't hole up in a rope trick and get everything back like you can in 3e. Getting back to that paradigm doesn't completely fix the 15-minute workday problem, but it certainly helps.

The in-game reason, then, is that it literally takes you half an hour to cast a fireball spell, but since that's completely impractical in a combat situation wizards have developed a way to let them spend 29 minutes casting it and then hold it in their minds so they can cast that last minute in combat to complete the spell. Your soldier can carry all the ammo he wants, but good luck getting more grenades in the middle of combat if it takes him a few hours to make a new one from scratch once he's thrown the ones he has. He can scrounge up some more ammo for his pistol every 10 minutes or so (prepare another magic missile) if he can't spend the time to make a grenade (fireball).

The 8-hour resting limit makes the analogy break down a bit, but again that's not a strictly necessary component of a Vancian system; you could make slots re-usable as long as people could spare the preparation time and reduce the number of slots to compensate, which is kind of what WotC did with the "encounter spells take 5 minutes to prepare" thing except they once again condensed the preparation time to one total time instead of having individual spells take their own preparation time.

Why do we need a mechanical cost that "actually means something" beyond running out of resources? Point-based systems don't have any extra mechanical cost either, yet those are a popular suggestion to replace Vancian.

They have that capacitor. It's called a spell slot. That's why you can only prepare a certain number of spells at once. You'll note there are plenty of spells with a casting time of longer than 1 standard action--like, say, lesser planar binding. Pre-casting spells by preparing ritual ingredients and such is seen with lots of wizards, from Gandalf in the Hobbit to witches with their potion-making and charm-crafting to Harry Dresden in Dresden Files with several others in between.

2nd edition Vancian is actually decent, but it was a different time & had less sourcebooks. 5th edition is modern & is going to have tons & tons of material forced into it. Just like 3.5, it will grow too powerful. I fwe had 2nd edition Vancian I could support it, but we won't. Therefore we need something new.

If we really want to continue with a spell slot system, I agree with what someone else said before. Dark Souls sorcery. You get x amount castings for a each spell & each slot. If you pick Magic Missile You get 10 of them, if you pick Tenser's Floating Disk you get one or two

navar100

2013-02-05, 07:48 PM

So for an edition whose specific stated purpose is to combine the different editions, all of which except the latest had Vancian casting in one form or another, why insist on replacing Vancian instead of adding their favorite option in as an alternate magic system? I'm not just picking on the two people I mentioned, I've seen the same suggestions in many 5e threads on this and other forums and figured I'd ask here.

Because some people hate 3E spellcasting with a passion and want to punish spellcasters for it. It's zero-sum to them. If spellcasting in general is so good, then non-spellcasters must suck by default. Therefore, in order for non-spellcasters not to feel so bad, spellcasters must be frustrated with tortuous play for the audacity of casting a spell. The concept of letting spellcasters be awesome while at the same time non-spellcasters are also awesome in their own way doesn't click.

Clarification: Purposely edited out people you addressed to stress I'm speaking colloquially with "some people" and not specifically those addressed persons.

Zeful

2013-02-05, 08:40 PM

I disagree. I mean, yes, there are people who will play hideously overpowered builds in a real game, and yes, the internet does make it easy for them to congregate and perfect said builds, but they're a minority. Gaming forums probably do mean that it's a bad idea to build a game with deliberately inferior and superior choices to reward system mastery, but I submit that as a poor design philosophy to begin with.

And I'd submit that it's better to have a game with a deliberate amount of leeway and a written-in expectation for the GM to wing it than to try and cover everything in exhaustive detail.Except as shown with this forum and others, if you don't agree with the common perception, you are wrong. So the existence of the internet makes that problematic, as you will have the annoying and loud internet majority yelling at you for not agreeing with them. Or tell the player whining that you didn't agree with him to break your game out of petty revenge fantasies.

Unless the books in the future all say that whining over interpretations allows the DM to drop a bolder on your character "so shut up and deal", crap like that will happen and it spoils the fun of playing. I have no desire to play with books like all of the dragon books-- or even the rules compendium for that matter-- if it results in a player whining that I don't hold his interpretation of the rules despite having my reasons that he won't bother listening to or remembering.

In the latter case, you wind up with sourcebooks bloated with legalese, groups who feel discouraged from doing anything not covered by the rules (and you won't cover everything), groups who feel they must follow the rules in all cases, and you still have broken combinations-- total optimization is all about RAW over RAI, and the development technique you're talking about is entirely focused on RAW at any cost.That's not true. What I'm talking about is dropping a segment in the DMG that outlines the basic math used to build the game (and I've shown in my posts in these threads that it would in fact be simple math) and any interpretations of any rules that could be used to violate this math, outside of some rules like circumstance bonuses, is the incorrect interpretation. All it requires is building a framework that splat authors could use to prevent power creep, and then telling the players that. But then I hold no respect for the optimizing culture of D&D, so having a rules source that directly tells the player "this is wrong" and pisses all over that culture is something I do not mind or find objectionable in the slightest.

Grod_The_Giant

2013-02-05, 08:58 PM

Except as shown with this forum and others, if you don't agree with the common perception, you are wrong. So the existence of the internet makes that problematic, as you will have the annoying and loud internet majority yelling at you for not agreeing with them. Or tell the player whining that you didn't agree with him to break your game out of petty revenge fantasies.

Unless the books in the future all say that whining over interpretations allows the DM to drop a bolder on your character "so shut up and deal", crap like that will happen and it spoils the fun of playing. I have no desire to play with books like all of the dragon books-- or even the rules compendium for that matter-- if it results in a player whining that I don't hold his interpretation of the rules despite having my reasons that he won't bother listening to or remembering.
Immature players will be a problem with any system. I see no reason to design around them.

That's not true. What I'm talking about is dropping a segment in the DMG that outlines the basic math used to build the game (and I've shown in my posts in these threads that it would in fact be simple math) and any interpretations of any rules that could be used to violate this math, outside of some rules like circumstance bonuses, is the incorrect interpretation. All it requires is building a framework that splat authors could use to prevent power creep, and then telling the players that. But then I hold no respect for the optimizing culture of D&D, so having a rules source that directly tells the player "this is wrong" and pisses all over that culture is something I do not mind or find objectionable in the slightest.
OK, that's a good idea. Heck, I'd even support something like the power level limits in M&M, where your numbers are flat-out not allowed to go above a certain point.

Synovia

2013-02-05, 09:30 PM

Funny, isn't it, how 2E solves many of the common issues with 3E?

It doesn't solve anything at all, because in 99% of D&D situations, time is not a real resource.

Especially when we're talking about wizards who can hide in intradimensional spaces indefinitely.

Flickerdart

2013-02-05, 09:32 PM

OK, that's a good idea. Heck, I'd even support something like the power level limits in M&M, where your numbers are flat-out not allowed to go above a certain point.
Numbers don't win battles. Options win battles.

Draz74

2013-02-05, 09:39 PM

Synovia

2013-02-05, 09:40 PM

Numbers don't win battles. Options win battles.

Right, but until you standardize the numbers, you have no idea of what a particular option is worth.

It doesn't matter if class A has 10 options and class B has 5, if all 5 of class B's options are better than any of Class As.

Then again, that situation is a whole lot better than what we have now, where Class FC has more options than any other class, and their options are better than the other classes options.

Zeful

2013-02-05, 09:46 PM

Numbers don't win battles. Options win battles.

Defining the numbers lets us do things like value feats more accurately, creating more choices in the system, and allowing more options that are more equal.

When you are building a system, numbers are orders of magnitude more important than options. In play that doesn't necessarily hold, but it's a good thing we are talking about game design rather than the play environment, aren't we?

Djinn_in_Tonic

2013-02-05, 09:46 PM

It doesn't matter if class A has 10 options and class B has 5, if all 5 of class B's options are better than any of Class As.

This is only true if Class B's options are both better AND cover as many eventualities. Otherwise having more approaches to a situation typically has more use than raw power: this is why even fighter builds that can reliably one-shot opponents are easily crushed by wizards. Raw power STILL doesn't make up for more options.

Synovia

2013-02-05, 10:05 PM

This is only true if Class B's options are both better AND cover as many eventualities. Otherwise having more approaches to a situation typically has more use than raw power: this is why even fighter builds that can reliably one-shot opponents are easily crushed by wizards. Raw power STILL doesn't make up for more options.

Do you really think fighters have more raw power than wizards?

Wizards have more options, but they're also more powerful than fighters. The reason that wizards win is that fighters are powerless to stop the things that wizards can do routinely. Thats a power issue, not an options issue.

Djinn_in_Tonic

2013-02-05, 10:14 PM

Do you really think fighters have more raw power than wizards?

Not at all. It is still a valid example: being able to deal an infinite amout of damage is still easily beaten WITHOUT such powerful combos by characters with more avenues of approach to the situation. THAT was my point. The Wizard doesn't even have to combo out to deal with a Fighter's maximum level of optimization, because he has the options to invalidate the fighter's approach completely.

Wizards have more options, but they're also more powerful than fighters. The reason that wizards win is that fighters are powerless to stop the things that wizards can do routinely. Thats a power issue, not an options issue.

See, I would argue that the Fighter doesn't have the options needed to stop the things a wizard can do. It is a power issue, but it is PRIMARILY an option issue. Hence why even a min-maxed Fighter capable of one-shotting the Tarrasque doesn't begin to approach Tier 2.

Durazno

2013-02-05, 10:19 PM

The way they explain pre casting, imagine a wizard in the morning "Hocus pocus abra..." Walking for a while, talking with people, fishing in a stream, shooting the breeze, taking a nap, then walking up to a goblin & whispering "kadabra" & causing the goblin to explode.

I just want to say that even though it was written with the opposite intention, this description actually makes me like Vancian spellcasting a lot more.

I'm not trying to crap on your rhetorical skills, Anderlith. Our suspensions of disbelief are just in different places, and I find the scenario you concocted to be a lot of fun.

Perhaps influenced by Wheel of Time, I always pictured the spells as distinct shapes hovering invisibly around the Wizard, with the incantations and motions serving to complete them.

Synovia

2013-02-05, 10:28 PM

Not at all. It is still a valid example: being able to deal an infinite amout of damage is still easily beaten WITHOUT such powerful combos by characters with more avenues of approach to the situation. THAT was my point. The Wizard doesn't even have to combo out to deal with a Fighter's maximum level of optimization, because he has the options to invalidate the fighter's approach completely.

See, I would argue that the Fighter doesn't have the options needed to stop the things a wizard can do. It is a power issue, but it is PRIMARILY an option issue. Hence why even a min-maxed Fighter capable of one-shotting the Tarrasque doesn't begin to approach Tier 2.

Power isn't just numbers.

Djinn_in_Tonic

2013-02-05, 10:37 PM

Power isn't just numbers.

I wasn't saying it was. I was agreeing with the earlier poster that power is largely connected to options and thus to versatility.

theNater

2013-02-05, 10:44 PM

All I can picture is kiddie-cartoon oversized baddies riding mounts half their size. It just looks silly. It's not that it strains credulity to have a small, strong thing to ride, it just looks silly in my head.
And that's fine. Whether looking ridiculous to some people is reason to leave a thing out depends on how many people think it looks ridiculous and how seriously we want our game to be taken. It's definitely something to examine with regards to this idea.

I think we might be able to get away with some lampshading fluff, though. Something along the lines of "The dwarves were the first to tame these mounts, and are still the only ones to use them in large numbers today. It turns out that the mounts are strong enough to carry other medium humanoids, however, most humanoids are embarrassed by the image it presents, especially when there are perfectly good horses around for normal use." This indicates that having large-end medium creatures riding them is not standard for the game world, and that anyone who wants to make it happen is a fair target for mockery.

Jacob.Tyr

2013-02-05, 11:17 PM

I feel like a lot of the current conversation isn't relating very much at all to the current playtest packet... everyone keeps bringing up options in 3.5 as proving that x is broken, y is underpowered, no one would ever do z.

We should set up some forum tournaments and run fights with playtest characters, do some 3v3, 1v1, levels 1/5/10/15 and see where things actually fall... because I'm not seeing the horrible opportunity for abuse in the 5e packet that was in 3.x yet keeps being brought up.

I'm going to run a few of those tomorrow, myself, as well. I'll post some logs after tomorrow. I'll assume 27 point buy, no magic items, and see how things pan out.

huttj509

2013-02-05, 11:57 PM

I just want to say that even though it was written with the opposite intention, this description actually makes me like Vancian spellcasting a lot more.

I'm not trying to crap on your rhetorical skills, Anderlith. Our suspensions of disbelief are just in different places, and I find the scenario you concocted to be a lot of fun.

Perhaps influenced by Wheel of Time, I always pictured the spells as distinct shapes hovering invisibly around the Wizard, with the incantations and motions serving to complete them.

I'm not sure how they're described as working in Vance's works, but the idea of almoist completing spells to hold on to for later is exactly how things work in Zelazny's Amber series. Pretty good books.

The idea there is that the spell's not just the words and gestures. The spell is a pattern made of magical energies, which is almost completed when preparing. The words and gestures are then the trigger to complete it. So preparing the spells takes a while, but is well worth it to have the abilities right there when you need them that day (can't hold the energies indefinitely, they dissipate).

It has the added benefit in that series where if you don't have the spell prepared, you can still cast it, you just need to do it 'longhand,' so to speak, which involves making sure you won't be interrupted for a while.

PairO'Dice Lost

2013-02-06, 02:10 AM

It doesn't solve anything at all, because in 99% of D&D situations, time is not a real resource.

Especially when we're talking about wizards who can hide in intradimensional spaces indefinitely.

...except of course 2e wizards couldn't hide in extradimensional spaces indefinitely, and I mentioned bringing back 2e spell drawbacks as well. As Kurald noted, most of the problems of 3e Vancian can be fixed with 2e Vancian.

This works flavor-wise. But the downside is that you end up with tons and tons of pages of spell descriptions in your rulebooks.

Which I guess would be ok if spellcasters just faced pretty scanty options in Core, and then WotC published Spell Compendiums every year or two. But personally, I'd prefer a more flexible magic system that involves fewer tomes of details to look up. Which leads to my support of switching away from Vancian as the main system.

Assuming WotC is still holding to their initial promises (slim chance, I know) they're going to get off the spells-and-feats-and-powers treadmill and publish lots of modules (as in Unearthed Arcana, not as in adventures) instead and make their money off things like Stronghold Builder's Guide, Tome of Magic, and such, so in theory spell explosion won't be as much of a problem as in 3e and 4e.

But even assuming they go with the spell explosion, quite frankly I'd rather see a Spell Compendium with 100 new spells instead of 30 new spells and 70 variations on existing spells.

See above. This "5 minutes total" abstraction, like you say, reduces the fluff-sense of Vancian casting. But at least my group doesn't have to sit and wait while I say, "OK, next I'll memorize another Hold Person. That's 12 minutes, so now it's 2:14 pm. OK, has anything crazy happened? Any sign of random encounters? No? OK, well, then, I might have time to squeeze in another preparation ... hmmm, what next? I'm kinda running low on Mirror Images. Maybe I'll memorize another one of those next. That's 9 minutes to prepare, so ... hmmm ... I guess it's 2:23 pm now ..."

And if you somehow streamline away this time-bookkeeping process, you've essentially removed the "cost" (time) of this Vancian system. Meh mrrr.

If you're playing 4e and had to rest 8 hours for a short rest and 24 hours for a long rest, would that change the way the game played? Ideally it would, as your enemies and the world around you reacted to your actions in that increased time. If your DM is the type to just let you rest peacefully with the world paused, without interruptions or reinforcements or anything like that, then increased prep time won't impact you at all, which is why it's not the only change that would be made in reverting to an AD&D Vancian system.

Anecronwashere

2013-02-06, 04:27 AM

See above. This "5 minutes total" abstraction, like you say, reduces the fluff-sense of Vancian casting. But at least my group doesn't have to sit and wait while I say, "OK, next I'll memorize another Hold Person. That's 12 minutes, so now it's 2:14 pm. OK, has anything crazy happened? Any sign of random encounters? No? OK, well, then, I might have time to squeeze in another preparation ... hmmm, what next? I'm kinda running low on Mirror Images. Maybe I'll memorize another one of those next. That's 9 minutes to prepare, so ... hmmm ... I guess it's 2:23 pm now ..."

And if you somehow streamline away this time-bookkeeping process, you've essentially removed the "cost" (time) of this Vancian system. Meh mrrr.

Alternatively you can say "Alright here is my spell list. Here is the time it takes to prepare every spell. *PC does math! Gasp!* Does anything happen in 2 hours 15 minutes? No? Ok off we go"
You know, as opposed to
"Alright here is my spell list. Does anything happen in the hour it takes to prep my spells? No? Ok off we go"

The only added thing is that you change spells/day into max spells readied and if you are in a hurry you might skimp, choosing the shorter prep times or not readying up to your maximum

lesser_minion

2013-02-06, 05:22 AM

Why is the first inclination when suggesting a fix to always propose something non-D&D-traditional instead of tweaking Vancian?

Note that my suggestion was a tweaked version of Vancian magic.

In any event, I think that the only way to do Vancian magic is to retain the basic concepts but depart from what D&D has done with the idea in the past.

Every edition of D&D except for 4e -- where Vancian magic simply wasn't a thing -- used a Vancian magic system that starts out overly-restrictive, and ends up being mostly irrelevant except for the hassle it causes. That's not a good track record, and I only support including Vancian magic at all this time around because I really do believe that the concept is good.

If nothing else, it isn't bland and generic the way spell points are.

Because some people hate 3E spellcasting with a passion and want to punish spellcasters for it. It's zero-sum to them. If spellcasting in general is so good, then non-spellcasters must suck by default. Therefore, in order for non-spellcasters not to feel so bad, spellcasters must be frustrated with tortuous play for the audacity of casting a spell. The concept of letting spellcasters be awesome while at the same time non-spellcasters are also awesome in their own way doesn't click.

Not a chance. The common thread to every refinement of and alternative to Vancian magic proposed so far has been the effort to eliminate "torturous play".

Anecronwashere

2013-02-06, 06:05 AM

Why not, instead of having X lvl1 slots, Y lvl2 OR having X spell points cast spontaneously we combine the two?

A lvl1 spell costs 1SP used when the spell is prepared.
A lvl2 spell costs 3SP used when the spell is prepared.

Spell Points are recovered when the spell is cast, freeing the points to be reprepared if given time and access to a spellbook.

Fluff1: Wizards of old used to spend hours each day incanting ancient rites, their magic decidedly non-combat due to the time taken to cast even a single ball of fire. Until someone discovered how to hold a spell 99% completed within their bodies. Their souls pulsing with magic yet to be unleashed.
Thus, given preparation they can almost cast an array of deadly or utility spells from their spellbooks, brimming over with magical energy unleashed with the final word and gesture of the spell (or just the last thought in the case of Stilled, Silent spells). The number of spells held in check only by the integrity of their minds and their souls, only so much magic being capable of being held at any one time setting a limit of both power and number of spells that expands with practice and study

Fluff2: Every wizard knows that magic is everpresent, it shimmers in the air around them linking the Planes and the Gods to the Material and the Clerics. It fills the flickering candle mounted on the wall and surges through the veins of every living creature. Just existing there.
The only place the magic does not enter is that of the Soul, a place filled with Life and Creation that magic can fill no void...Except one created through meditation and knowledge from the specially trained Wizard.
They channel pathways through their very souls to twist and warp the Magical field, but keeping the walls around the channels intact so as not to set off their magic too soon.
When the time is right they focus (generally using a word or gesture to help focus the mind into manipulating the soul) and allow the magic to flood through their souls, filling the artificially-created void before flowing back out to perform a specific effect
But in doing so warps the gaps too, the Life energy filling the channels back up, incapable of repeating the feat without remaking the spell

(can be refluffed however you want I guess)

lesser_minion

2013-02-06, 06:11 AM

I imagine that a hybrid system would entail having both a daily and a per-encounter limit to spells, as was proposed a few threads back.

As an aside, a game should not be written with a purpose that is incompatible with making the best game possible. The stated purpose of 5e boils down to "sacrifice anything and everything for the sake of the brand."

Since that's not a legitimate purpose, I see no reason to bear it in mind when making suggestions.

Clawhound

2013-02-06, 09:31 AM

We will always have a fundamental conflict between what spellcaster players WANT and what is actually GOOD for the system. Any sane company eventually gives its customers what they want, which is why magic drifts so powerful.

There's also a love-affair with magic among the writers. Somebody can always invent a new kind of magic. Who can invent a new type of melee? Everyone respects melee and are justifiably cautious about changing it, but no so with magic. Playing with magic is cool. That difference in attention will always bring more options to the spellcasters.

Synovia

2013-02-06, 10:56 AM

If you're playing 4e and had to rest 8 hours for a short rest and 24 hours for a long rest, would that change the way the game played? Ideally it would, as your enemies and the world around you reacted to your actions in that increased time. If your DM is the type to just let you rest peacefully with the world paused, without interruptions or reinforcements or anything like that, then increased prep time won't impact you at all, which is why it's not the only change that would be made in reverting to an AD&D Vancian system.

I just can't agree with this at all.

If you're going to have adventure days all the time where the wizard has only 1/3 of his spell slots filled because he couldn't rest, the wizard player is going to feel cheated. So most DMs are just going to handwave away the time requirements.

You'd be much better off just lopping off half of the wizard's spell slots.

We should work on balancing the characters within the limits of both starting an adventuring day fully loaded, and both ending fully spent. We shouldn't be balancing on the assumption that the only thing that keeps the wizard in check is that he only had 6 hours to prep spells yesterday.

We already have rules like spell components and such that should somewhat keep the wizard in check, but nobody uses them because they suck. We need rules people will actually use.

Flickerdart

2013-02-06, 11:30 AM

Seerow

2013-02-06, 11:40 AM

Because melee doesn't want nice things?

Try reading the WotC forums. People get actively vitriolic if you mention giving their fighters nice things.

Synovia

2013-02-06, 12:02 PM

We will always have a fundamental conflict between what spellcaster players WANT and what is actually GOOD for the system. Any sane company eventually gives its customers what they want, which is why magic drifts so powerful.

I'm not sure I so much a agree with this. A lot of very good products (games and otherwise) are ruined by companies giving their customers what they think they want.

Your customers are not game designers, and they often do not understand the implications of the things they want.

I play alot of video games, and I've been involved in a lot of beta testing. I see an awful lot of games where they have a fundamentally good system going that needs some tweaks, and when they hand it out to beta testers, they get a million "It would be cool if...s". The company then begins implementing these ifs, and in the end, you end up with a system that isn't nearly as elegant, doesn't play as well, and just isn't nearly as good.

Something can be a really cool idea, and just be no good for that system. Wish is a really cool spell, but its just not a spell that is good for the system of D&D, etc.

Zeful

2013-02-06, 12:23 PM

Try reading the WotC forums. People get actively vitriolic if you mention giving their fighters nice things.

It happens on this forum quite a bit as well. People often say that something like Two-weapon fighting be hard is desirable because it was hard for them and they're in SCA. Or that casters should be better in every way because nerdiness.

noparlpf

2013-02-06, 12:26 PM

It happens on this forum quite a bit as well. People often say that something like Two-weapon fighting be hard is desirable because it was hard for them and they're in SCA. Or that casters should be better in every way because nerdiness.

Dunno, I found two-weapon fighting preferable. Though losing the strength bonus of a two-handed weapon matters less in a simulation where a touch counts as a hit for safety purposes. (Darn schools and their insistence we be safe while on campus.)

Thialfi

2013-02-06, 12:39 PM

Doug Lampert

2013-02-06, 12:55 PM

I'm not sure how they're described as working in Vance's works, but the idea of almoist completing spells to hold on to for later is exactly how things work in Zelazny's Amber series. Pretty good books.

It's also how it works in Niven's "The Magic Goes Away" universe.

Which is a very "hard science" type of magic with rules and limited resources.

The Warlock has a sorcerer's wheel prepared in advance so he just needs to say one activating word to activate it. And this is STILL how it's cast in combat even when in one story someone figures out how to do it without the physical wheel to hold the precast pattern. A couple of gestures and a word to activate a spell that took hours to prepare.

That's how combat spells WORK.

Combat spells need to either be this way, or the wizard has to be able to cast combat usable spells WITHOUT pre-preparation in a short enough time to be combat useful, which implies that magic is quick and easy and repeatable as often as you like till your mojo runs out. Which has its own problems.

navar100

2013-02-06, 12:57 PM

My group has always and probably will always play our 1e/2e game, but I don't know why they wouldn't bring back the thing that truly wrecked the power curve for wizards when it was removed in 3e.

In 1e/2e a wizard that is struck in combat before his spell goes off, loses that spell and gets to do nothing that round.

By the way, we have played dozens and dozens of wizard and cleric characters and no one has ever even thought to question why they need rest and study to get their spells back. It's accepted as part of the game balance and it makes sense to us that a wizard would need time to consult his spell book and a cleric would have to pray to be granted powers.

2E wizards had spellcasting times. If a wizard was damaged during that casting, the spell is lost. If they were damaged before they even started on their initiative, they didn't lose the spell since there is no spell to be lost. That rarely happens in 3E because most spells are standard actions. The spell is casted and goes off on the wizard's turn. Same thing with full round action spells. Opponents needed to readied an action to attack when the wizard started to casting to interrupt. Only 1 full round or more spells could be interrupted, but there aren't that many. To bring spell interruption back in 5E you need to bring back spellcasting times. However, you have to retain a concentration check to keep the spell because wizard players will rightly complain they're hardly ever getting their spells off because they keep getting attacked.

However, I'm not so certain spell interruption is even necessary. A warrior doesn't get interrupted when he swings his weapon to attack. It becomes unfair to clerics and druids are often close to if not in threatened areas a lot more than wizards. Generally it's still just not fun not getting to do what you are supposed to be doing just because you are trying to do it.

Grod_The_Giant

2013-02-06, 12:58 PM

We should work on balancing the characters within the limits of both starting an adventuring day fully loaded, and both ending fully spent. We shouldn't be balancing on the assumption that the only thing that keeps the wizard in check is that he only had 6 hours to prep spells yesterday.

Personally, I really dislike systems where balance is built around an "x encounters per y time" expectation. It forces you to choose between having a balanced number of encounters or telling the story you want. And let's be honest here-- I can't remember the last time I had a game with more than 2 encounters in a given "day."

Synovia

2013-02-06, 12:59 PM

By the way, we have played dozens and dozens of wizard and cleric characters and no one has ever even thought to question why they need rest and study to get their spells back. It's accepted as part of the game balance and it makes sense to us that a wizard would need time to consult his spell book and a cleric would have to pray to be granted powers.

The question is, how often do you put your spellcasters in situations where they don't have enough time to get their spells slots back? How often is he in situations where he has to say, I can spend 3 hours studying, anything past that and there are negative consequences.

If the Wizard/Cleric isn't regularly being put in situations with time constraints, than the time taken to recharge his spells isn't a resource.

I mean, really, if we want to get into resource management, a Fighter's main resource is HP. A Wizard/Cleric's is spells slot. Why does it take a Wizard/Cleric an hour in 3.5 to get all his resources back, while it takes a fighter with 14 CON over a week to get his back.

Personally, I really dislike systems where balance is built around an "x encounters per y time" expectation. It forces you to choose between having a balanced number of encounters or telling the story you want. And let's be honest here-- I can't remember the last time I had a game with more than 2 encounters in a given "day."

As do I. But if we're going to do it that way, we need to stop giving spellcasters spell slots based on a full day of adventuring. We need to give PCs resources based on a single encounter (or a smaller number of encounters), which is much closer to what 4E was doing.

Thialfi

2013-02-06, 01:29 PM

The question is, how often do you put your spellcasters in situations where they don't have enough time to get their spells slots back? How often is he in situations where he has to say, I can spend 3 hours studying, anything past that and there are negative consequences.

If the Wizard/Cleric isn't regularly being put in situations with time constraints, than the time taken to recharge his spells isn't a resource.

I mean, really, if we want to get into resource management, a Fighter's main resource is HP. A Wizard/Cleric's is spells slot. Why does it take a Wizard/Cleric an hour in 3.5 to get all his resources back, while it takes a fighter with 14 CON over a week to get his back.

As do I. But if we're going to do it that way, we need to stop giving spellcasters spell slots based on a full day of adventuring. We need to give PCs resources based on a single encounter (or a smaller number of encounters), which is much closer to what 4E was doing.

You are giving me flashbacks to playing a wizard character and a cleric character through Dragonlance. Good God, we went through the whole adventure series and the number of times we got our full complement of spells back could be counted on one hand.

Once an adventure starts it's rare that the DM gives us that much time to rest. Our opponents are usually too smart to let that happen.

Grundy

2013-02-06, 01:32 PM

What I'd like to see is a sort of modified vancian casting. Earlier I said fewer known, more slots, and I'll retract that.
How about lots of spells known, but learn spells on a tree, like feat progressions. If you want a 3rd level evocation, you first need the 1&2. That way you can play a specialist or a generalist, or something in between, and there's a spell for all levels.
Then give fewer spell slots- and have those go up slowly. Start with 3, and by level 20 have 6 or 7.
Additionally, give 2 or more at-will spells, equivalent in damage or utility to a mundane characters 2nd best attack, or a maxed-out skill, or a nice feat. That way they've always got a magic thing to do, without stealing the show. Have the at wills scale, but the dailies don't, so if you want to specialize, you have to invest resources. If you want to generalize, you're not as good as the specialist.
You'd still have to re-write individual spells, of course.

PairO'Dice Lost

2013-02-06, 01:45 PM

I just can't agree with this at all.

If you're going to have adventure days all the time where the wizard has only 1/3 of his spell slots filled because he couldn't rest, the wizard player is going to feel cheated. So most DMs are just going to handwave away the time requirements.
[...]
The question is, how often do you put your spellcasters in situations where they don't have enough time to get their spells slots back? How often is he in situations where he has to say, I can spend 3 hours studying, anything past that and there are negative consequences.

So what you're saying here is you're never under time constraints in your adventures, your DM always puts the world on hold while you regroup and regain spells? You've never stopped to rest and found out afterwards that while you were resting your enemies got reinforcements, the major villain got away, traps have been laid for you, or anything else?

Two points on the time requirement: First, as I said before, the time cost of Vancian assumes that the DM actually has time pass in the world while time passes, and the same is true of other magic systems' costs: drain-based magic (cast a spell, take penalties until you're rested) only has a cost if the GM sends threats against you while you're drained and/or there are things you can't accomplished while drained that you need to accomplish, skill-based magic (the spell fizzles if you fail the roll, retries are unlimited) only has a cost if it's important that you get your spell off right now instead of four rolls from now, and so forth.

Heck, a lot of people hate taking crafting feats in 3e because they rarely have the downtime for it, yet the claim here is that by mid levels the wizard can routinely take a day off every other day to spend 8 hours preparing spells. Which is it?

Second, if you're blowing through all your spells and then spending a full day regaining them every single time, you're probably Doing It Wrong. The purpose of the increased casting time is to limit novas (AD&D casters generally rationed their spells over an adventure because of the longer recovery times and fewer spells available instead of doing the 15-minute workday unless they were very sure they'd be able to reprepare) and to limit the wizard's flexibility (it was harder to find a threat, retreat, spend a day preparing spells tailored to the situation, and go back in, you had to prepare well the first time).

We already have rules like spell components and such that should somewhat keep the wizard in check, but nobody uses them because they suck. We need rules people will actually use.

If you're referring to expensive components, yes, people should be using them and there's a problem if they aren't; if you're referring to inexpensive components, they're not really a balance factor because they are literally jokes.

Synovia

2013-02-06, 03:23 PM

Oracle_Hunter

2013-02-06, 03:29 PM

So what you're saying here is you're never under time constraints in your adventures, your DM always puts the world on hold while you regroup and regain spells? You've never stopped to rest and found out afterwards that while you were resting your enemies got reinforcements, the major villain got away, traps have been laid for you, or anything else?
Time to trot out the standard "constant time pressure is poor DMing" points:

(1) Constant Time Pressure Penalizes Innocent Mistakes and Setbacks
Lots of stuff can go wrong on any but the most railroad of adventures: PCs can take wrong turns, fail critical checks, or simply pick up on a red herring and run with it. If every event is under Time Pressure in order to prevent the Wizards from nova-ing then your Players will soon get dispirited when every other virgin is sacrificed and dungeon abandoned before they even get there.

And, of course, if you decide to use Illusionism so that there is only Time Pressure when the Players do something you don't like well... is that really a good way to run a game?

(2) Constant Time Pressure Strains Credulity
OK, maybe the princess is going to be sacrificed in three days but is there any reason that a particular dungeon must be looted right now? While Time Pressure works in many cases a campaign devoted to one such situation after another begins to feel forced. "A week after you narrowly saved the princess from being sacrificed you receive a bounty that you must track down Richard Dastardly in exactly seven days."

You can be more artful than this, of course, but soon it will begin to feel like riding a train: "the plot is concluded in a week whether you want to or not."

(3) "Additional Reinforcements" Simply Causes Players To Go Slower
One of the common responses by Time Pressure DMs is to permit the baddies to get extra forces or prepare extra traps if the PCs break off in the middle of an adventure. This is, sadly, counterproductive, as the party -- expecting a tougher fight -- will take even more breaks so that they can face the increased risk. Instead of encouraging the party to Nova less, you now have made them Nova more.
Those are three common reasons why "Good DMing Fixes Everything" doesn't apply in this case. "Renewable Resources" throw up unique concerns in Game Design and it is far better to make a game with these concerns in mind rather than relying on DM intervention to fix it post hoc.

PairO'Dice Lost

2013-02-06, 04:05 PM

Time to trot out the standard "constant time pressure is poor DMing" points:

I wasn't talking about constantly putting time pressure on the party, I'm well aware that artificial time pressure is a crutch for poor pacing. I was responding to a claim that DMs rarely put time pressure on the party. If you can retreat and regroup with no mechanical or plot penalties whatsoever then all of the additional measures people suggest for non-Vancian systems (backlash, drain, longer casting times for noncombat spells, etc.) are basically useless, while if you are under time pressure longer prep times and those other measures can actually serve their purpose.

Having a mystic theurge in the party in 3e isn't as good as having two lower-level casters in the party because of the action economy; you can only cast so many spells per round, and being able to take out an enemy right now is much better than being able to take it out three rounds from now because in those intervening rounds it can still act and cause trouble. Similarly, if a given party decides to clear out a dungeon at a leisurely pace with no external time pressure, it still matters whether that "leisurely pace" is a day, two days, a week, or something else.

And of course I never claimed that adding longer prep times would fix Vancian casting by itself, I proposed it as one of several changes to get us back to the AD&D model and people only responded to that one suggestion.

Oracle_Hunter

2013-02-06, 04:15 PM

I wasn't talking about constantly putting time pressure on the party, I'm well aware that artificial time pressure is a crutch for poor pacing. I was responding to a claim that DMs rarely put time pressure on the party. If you can retreat and regroup with no mechanical or plot penalties whatsoever then all of the additional measures people suggest for non-Vancian systems (backlash, drain, longer casting times for noncombat spells, etc.) are basically useless, while if you are under time pressure longer prep times and those other measures can actually serve their purpose.
So... DM behavior varies from table to table but the fact of the matter is that Renewable Resources issues cannot reliably be solved via Time Pressure.

If you have a permanent problem, an occasional solution isn't a good fix.

Now, there are plenty of non-Vancian Systems that have Renewable Resources which have meaningful limits regardless of Time Pressure. Here are a few off-hand:

- Resource can only be used x times per level [renews outside of time]

- Resource can only be renewed by physically visiting a distant location [distance is more taxing to pass than time]

- Resource can only be renewed via consumption of material [stuff is harder to get than time]

There may be (are!) various objections that can be raised for each of these examples in play but that hardly means that Time is the only way to limit Renewable Resources.

Icewraith

2013-02-06, 04:27 PM

Has anyone ever used the recharge magic variant in UA? It looked like an interesting solution to the long/short caster day issue, but I never got a chance to see how it works out in practice.

PairO'Dice Lost

2013-02-06, 04:28 PM

So... DM behavior varies from table to table but the fact of the matter is that Renewable Resources issues cannot reliably be solved via Time Pressure.

If you have a permanent problem, an occasional solution isn't a good fix.

Which is why, again, I'm not suggesting increased time pressure as the solution to 3e Vancian's problems, I'm suggesting it as one component of a solution and attempting to rebut people's claims that time is not a meaningful resource in D&D.

MukkTB

2013-02-06, 05:03 PM

Time pressure is a good part of a challenge. Its not a band-aid for a borked resource system though.

Clawhound

2013-02-06, 05:05 PM

Time opposes Time.

Here's my pitch:

Each day of adventuring is somehow a penalty to researching a new spell or maintaining your caster level. (I have no idea how this would work, by the way.) So, the longer that a caster dallies getting all his spells back, the harder it is to cast spells, or even research them to get new ones. The longer and harder the adventure, the weaker a caster becomes. Thus, taking huge amounts of time messes up your casters.

Conveniently, this reinforces the tendency of these classes to lock themselves away and have somebody else do the hard work.

Oracle_Hunter

2013-02-06, 05:06 PM

Which is why, again, I'm not suggesting increased time pressure as the solution to 3e Vancian's problems, I'm suggesting it as one component of a solution and attempting to rebut people's claims that time is not a meaningful resource in D&D.
No, I wouldn't even back it as one component of a solution for the reasons I've stated above.

Here's my take on the whole thing
The basic problem with Renewable Resources is twofold:
- Power vs. Usage
- When to Renew
Power vs. Usage is an intense problem in WotC games because they believe (rightly) that a power than can be used less often must be made more powerful to make up for the lack of availability. Unfortunately WotC is really bad at making this balance work: they generally make at-will powers too weak and Daily powers too strong (with some notable exceptions).

This failure is compounded by the second issue, When to Renew in that WotC makes recharging too easy for the strength of the powers they give. As a rule you want to make Renewal easy enough that Players don't hoard powers when they should be using them (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TooAwesomeToUse) but not so easy that Players use all of their powers all the time, ignoring the "Power vs. Usage" calculation made above.
Now, if you want a D&D game with Renewable Resources that did it right, I would point you to 4th Edition. Here's what they did right:
- Gave everyone Renewable Resources (and roughly the same amount of them) so that "Power vs. Usage" would be easier to balance.
- Put caps on Power Durations to limit power stacking (which can destroy Power vs. Usage)

4th Edition did a lot wrong here too (e.g. Magic Item Dailies were underpowered; Barbarians *needed* to use a Daily per Encounter or they sucked; late-game characters had so many Encounter Powers they never used At-Wills) but it's a good place to start. IMHO you're not going to be able to make a game where the "at will" guy and the "daily" guy contribute equally to the game -- it is simply too hard to design powers that are interesting and balanced with such a huge usage disparity. Likewise, "Daily Only" Casters encourage Five Minute Work Days since nobody wants to play the guy who can't use his Class Features (i.e. spells) and will encourage everyone to wait for him to be functional again.

So, if I were going to design a 5e Vancian Caster I'd go with this:
- At-Will spells that are Cantrips and simple attack spells. Wizards wouldn't consider these "real magic" but rather basic tricks that anyone who knows something about Magic should be able to do.

- Daily spells that are Real Deal Magic but are limited in slots and chosen lie Sorcerer Spells (e.g. you pick them as you level and can swap them out then). All Spells would scale, but certain "advanced effects" would not be available until later levels.
I could tweak this around some more -- I'd like Encounter Spells, but that's hardly Vancian -- but that's the basic outline. No more Batman Wizards and no more Crossbow Wizards.

But that's only part of the equation. If you're going to have *any* Daily Users you'll want to make sure everyone else has limited resource abilities. I strongly advocate Encounter Powers for Martial Types along with a wide variety of At-Will Combat Maneuvers. You could do a lot with Martial Encounter Powers -- give Fighters Stances (i.e. effects that last for the Encounter), Rangers Attacks, Thieves Interrupts, Barbarians Rages and so on. This will not leave Casters out in the lurch, mind you, as I would like to give them ranged battlefield-control At-Wills which help them contribute to the fight without necessarily doing damage or burning a Daily.
So that's my take. Unfortunately WotC isn't going to make anything like that system because they are studiously ignoring 4e when it comes to designing 5e -- to their detriment IMHO.

lesser_minion

2013-02-06, 05:08 PM

(2) Constant Time Pressure Strains Credulity
OK, maybe the princess is going to be sacrificed in three days but is there any reason that a particular dungeon must be looted right now? While Time Pressure works in many cases a campaign devoted to one such situation after another begins to feel forced. "A week after you narrowly saved the princess from being sacrificed you receive a bounty that you must track down Richard Dastardly in exactly seven days."

You can be more artful than this, of course, but soon it will begin to feel like riding a train: "the plot is concluded in a week whether you want to or not."

Don't murder-hoboes already strain credulity?

There is generally going to be a reason why the players can't do anything egregious with the fifteen minute workday.

The PCs' patrons and fences almost certainly expect them to get stuff done rather than faffing around or sitting on their asses, and a lot of dungeon delving would actually be illegal in-universe -- which means that even if it is just a dungeon sitting there waiting for you to loot it, actually pulling off a raid without coming to the attention of the authorities might be harder.

I'm not saying that the "the DM can fix it" is a good solution to daily resources, but some things might be easier than you make them out to be.

Oracle_Hunter

2013-02-06, 05:15 PM

There is generally going to be a reason why the players can't do anything egregious with the fifteen minute workday.
Only if the DM puts it there explicitly.

Adventurers are not always (or even usually!) "on the clock" and it is very hard to find a compelling reason why every tomb needs to be looted today instead of tomorrow -- particularly if doing so will put the PCs in unnecessary danger.

I'm not saying you can't do it, but even friendly Players will start grumbling the third time a prospector-with-a-map has hired a second party to race the PCs to retrieve the lost treasure :smalltongue:

lesser_minion

2013-02-06, 05:53 PM

Adventurers are not always (or even usually!) "on the clock" and it is very hard to find a compelling reason why every tomb needs to be looted today instead of tomorrow -- particularly if doing so will put the PCs in unnecessary danger.

Well, assuming that the DM isn't using the "murderhobo" cliché (most do, admittedly), a lot of dungeon delving would probably be illegal, or at least mired in reams of bureaucracy and some "treasure trove" law that makes you turn a massive chunk of your proceeds over to the crown.

Circumventing the law -- as long as it's being enforced -- is going to introduce complications, and a lot of those are going to be far worse for the kind of character who leaves a job half-done and tries to go back to it later.

If you're illegally raiding a known dungeon, you're probably going to have to contend with patrols, alarms, and scrying. Some of these are periodic obstacles, some can't be countered on a long-term basis, and some of these can't be countered with total certainty.

Flickerdart

2013-02-06, 06:04 PM

An adventuring day should never be measured in time, because that's stupid. If the PCs only needed 10 minutes to find and complete the single CR+4 encounter (to use 3.5 terms), then they're done their "quota" that the CR rules expect of them. If they only meet CR+0 encounters, they need to clear four, but they might meet each one five minutes after the other, and still finish them all in 10 minutes. If there aren't that many encounters at the location, they're done sooner. If there are more encounters than that at the location, it's the DM's job to come up with a way of letting the PCs recuperate after their daily quota instead of going "haha the princess dies in 1 hour now go through ten of these CR+4 encounters without resting or you lose."

Zeful

2013-02-06, 06:06 PM

Has anyone ever used the recharge magic variant in UA? It looked like an interesting solution to the long/short caster day issue, but I never got a chance to see how it works out in practice.
It's a terrible system, that makes spellcasters in 3.5 even better as most the "I win" spells tend to have recharges measured in rounds.

PairO'Dice Lost

2013-02-06, 06:17 PM

- Daily spells that are Real Deal Magic but are limited in slots and chosen lie Sorcerer Spells (e.g. you pick them as you level and can swap them out then). All Spells would scale, but certain "advanced effects" would not be available until later levels.

Removing Vancian spell prep would certainly solve Vancian preparation problems, but once again that's answering the question of "How do we make Vancian casting work better?" with "We don't, we use the similar system XYZ instead."

The sorcerer is not Vancian in the sense that is commonly used, where spells are prepared individually and you can cast a spell exactly as many times as you prepare it, and it's not the kind of Vancian casting that people were complaining was removed in 4e; if people were happy with all casters being sorcerers (or shadowcasters, since that's what AEDU casters most resemble, as neither can prepare multiple copies of the same spell), we wouldn't have seen a lot of complaints about 4e removing Vancian casting and a lot of attempts to port it into 4e.

Adventurers are not always (or even usually!) "on the clock" and it is very hard to find a compelling reason why every tomb needs to be looted today instead of tomorrow -- particularly if doing so will put the PCs in unnecessary danger.

When was the last time your party was able to clear out a dungeon purely by having the rogue waltz through it taking 20 on every Search check for every trap and secret door while the other party members carried all the loot? Any dungeon interesting enough to play through is going to involve time having some impact on things--a dungeon with no more than one group of guardians, no incidental inhabitants, no resetting traps, and nothing else that can impede you recovering all of your renewable resources at will can simply be handled by tallying up the time spent and rewards earned and moving on.

Kurald Galain

2013-02-06, 07:02 PM

2E wizards had spellcasting times. If a wizard was damaged during that casting, the spell is lost. If they were damaged before they even started on their initiative, they didn't lose the spell since there is no spell to be lost. That rarely happens in 3E because most spells are standard actions.
Sure, but that's easy enough to fix. There's no reason why 5E needs to use the exact same action/initiative system that 3E uses.

There is generally going to be a reason why the players can't do anything egregious with the fifteen minute workday.
In my experience, decent roleplaying covers it. If you play with anyone that's not a munchkin, players will generally agree that their characters don't want to sit still for 23-and-a-half hours per day.

I've found artificial time limits in every single LFR module I've played in both 3E and 4E, or artificial reasons why the party can't sleep even if the adventure takes more than 24 hours, but I've never seen it at all in any home campaign. It's just one of those things that forums keep repeating ad nauseam but that really isn't that big of a deal in actual gameplay.

Draz74

2013-02-06, 08:52 PM

Alternatively you can say "Alright here is my spell list. Here is the time it takes to prepare every spell. *PC does math! Gasp!* Does anything happen in 2 hours 15 minutes? No? Ok off we go"
You know, as opposed to
"Alright here is my spell list. Does anything happen in the hour it takes to prep my spells? No? Ok off we go"
That's exactly the sort of thing I had in mind when I said, "If you somehow streamline this process away, you've negated the very point of making this 'fix' to Vancian magic." Which you quoted in your post, so you should have read it.

To clarify, there are two problems with the solution you propose:

What happens if you do get interrupted during that 2 hours and 15 minutes? How do you adjudicate which spells you had time to prepare, and which spells you didn't? You pretty much go back and do the spell-by-spell time-tracking thing I was talking about before. Only now, the caster has a metagame advantage of knowing that he will be interrupted, which may change his piorities about which spells to prioritize. :smallyuk:
Even if the DM does just say "ok, yeah, nothing happens during that 2 hours 15 minutes," then why are we bothering with the math -- easy though it may be -- when it's functionally identical to having a rule that just says "you can re-prepare all of your spells with [insert amount of time] of study"? By taking away the significance of having to prepare spells one-by-one, you've basically gotten rid of the idea that each spell in a proper Vancian system "costs" time.

If the Wizard/Cleric isn't regularly being put in situations with time constraints, than the time taken to recharge his spells isn't a resource.
Thanks for backing me up on that. :smallcool:

Personally, I really dislike systems where balance is built around an "x encounters per y time" expectation. It forces you to choose between having a balanced number of encounters or telling the story you want. And let's be honest here-- I can't remember the last time I had a game with more than 2 encounters in a given "day."
Yeah. This is why I would like to see the system move away from most "daily" resources in general. Which is one of the reasons I favor replacing the Vancian magic system (at least in its traditional form(s)).

As do I. But if we're going to do it that way, we need to stop giving spellcasters spell slots based on a full day of adventuring. We need to give PCs resources based on a single encounter (or a smaller number of encounters), which is much closer to what 4E was doing.
Personally, although I'm not a 4e affiliate, that isn't the part of it that bothered me.

Anecronwashere

2013-02-06, 09:12 PM

For time-critical things the shorter prep time from not having a full loadout would be a cost-benefit thing
"Do I prepare an extra Finger of Death or do I go onto the cruise early and set an ambush rather than bursting in on them"

And simply tell the player to either make a list of what order they prep in or go higher spell levels -> lower spell levels if they get ambushed during preptime

And you wouldn't go spell-by-spell tracking, this would happen:
"Ok so I prepare these spells in 2 hours, 15 minutes."
"Nope, sorry after 1 hour a goblin squad happens upon your camp."
"Drat, in that case I only prepare...all my level4 spells and 2 lvl3s, which are both Fireball as they are the first on my list."
"Ok let's set up the map"

Flickerdart

2013-02-06, 09:47 PM

And you wouldn't go spell-by-spell tracking, this would happen:
"Ok so I prepare these spells in 2 hours, 15 minutes."
"Nope, sorry after 1 hour a goblin squad happens upon your camp."
"Drat, in that case I only prepare...all my level4 spells and 2 lvl3s, which are both Fireball as they are the first on my list."
"Ok let's set up the map"
Ok, and then what, the player sits right back down and prepares the rest of the spells?

Anecronwashere

2013-02-06, 09:54 PM

Unless the goblins have to report in, thus drawing attention to their area when they fail.

Otherwise yes, back to prepping the rest of the spells

Kerrin

2013-02-06, 10:11 PM

Vancian generally operates on some number of spells known and some number of prepared spells per per level (plus some other bits, granted).

One gaming group I played in added a third thing ... based on caster level, the character can cast some number of those prepared spells per day where that number was lower than the number prepared. The number also had a cap so 20th level casters couldn't jam out a zillion more 1st level spells than a 15th level caster.

I thought this was interesting at the time.

1337 b4k4

2013-02-06, 10:58 PM

I really like the way M20 handled magic. Wizards and Clerics get HP the same as every other class, but casting spells costs an amount of HP equal to 1+2*spell level, so a level 0 spell cost 1 HP; a level 1, 3 hp; level 2, 5 HP and so on. At each level above 0, a user can select one "signature" spell which costs 1 HP less to use. HP lost to casting can not be magically healed.

Basically in M20, the only "daily" resource for any class is HP, fighters spend it fighting and wizards spend it wizarding. I actually think given the expanded natural healing that people want, that it could actually fit quite nicely into 5e as a magic system. Of course, in M20, you're only unconscious at 0HP, you still have to eat through your STR to die (no CON in M20).

This system also provides for an interesting bit of fluff and house rule for magic. Since magic is clearly drawn from life energy, theoretically a magic user could draw power from external sources as well. In game it means that a magic user could perform some ritual to bind a living creature and use that creature as a source of life energy. Naturally this is generally only performed by evil magic users and abusing living beings in such a way is frowned upon to say the least, but it also enables such literary tropes as the spell that needs a council of mages to cast.

navar100

2013-02-06, 11:03 PM

Lupus753

2013-02-06, 11:05 PM

When I played video games with Vancian magic (Suikoden, mostly), I never used magic for random encounters and only saved it for bosses. Granted, tabletops can't replicate the MP system, but I think it gets my point across.

Then again, I'm really bad at hoarding things that are of very limited quantity. But I would still guess this happens a lot.

Zeful

2013-02-06, 11:28 PM

Grod_The_Giant

2013-02-06, 11:35 PM

Honestly, I'm more willing to put that up to people thinking that "spellcaster" automatically means solving everything with spells. A mindset that should not be held as a universal standard, but rather a system-to-system thing.

So, did the book say you were expected to use force powers all the time? Because if it didn't then-- surprise, surprise-- you weren't expected to use force powers all the time, and in doing so you suffered a greater penalty, the system works as intended.
Spellcasters expecting to be able to solve all problems with magic is an issue, yes. But spellcasters expecting to be able to, you know, cast spells is not. And the system should not penalize you for using your class features.

Zeful

2013-02-06, 11:45 PM

Spellcasters expecting to be able to solve all problems with magic is an issue, yes. But spellcasters expecting to be able to, you know, cast spells is not. And the system should not penalize you for using your class features.

Associating a cost is not penalizing the player for using their class feature, it's a balance mechanism to prevent that class feature from taking over the game. You want to use it less as a result of it being costly creating elements of risk and reward, and deepening the game experience as a result. You could argue that the costs were too extreme in Star Wars' case. I don't know, didn't play it.

But the logic in calling a cost a penalty in a manner that implies all costs are penalties requires me to respond thusly:

If a game designer is not allowed to associate costs to moderate player behavior, then he is required to cut all problematic subsystems until the desired player behavior is achieved. This means, for D&D, Clerics are healbots, Wizards are blasters, and all effects that would result in other subsystems being invalidated are to be removed, in full, with no expectation of being added for the system's lifespan.

Synovia

2013-02-06, 11:47 PM

Stubbazubba

2013-02-06, 11:48 PM

1337 b4k4

2013-02-06, 11:49 PM

Played that with pre-Saga Star Wars where to use the Force meant to lose hit points. It sucked. You were killing yourself doing what you're supposed to be doing in addition to the bad guys killing you by attacking you. You die faster. This is punishing the player for the audacity of playing a spellcaster.

And I've played plenty of M20 games and it doesn't suck. The trick is in 2 parts:

a) That traditionally wizards have had less HP than any other class, and have had limited spell availability

b) When you beef up the wizard's HP to be on par with the other classes, this system simulates wizards having that traditionally lower HP without having the risk of your wizard dying in round 1 from a house cat.

Yes, an M20 wizard isn't quite as powerful and all magical as a 3.x wizard, but we all seem to agree the 3.x wizard was over powered anyway. To me it's no more penalizing the wizard than the fact than in 3.x you only get a d4 for your HP.

This is fine if a 5-minute rest renews your resources, so everything is Encounter-based. But when it's daily, it leads to the 15-minute workday, period. There's really no way around that. Players will not, under any circumstances, voluntarily go on with less than a comfortable amount of resources.

I hate to say it, but then those players will die. A lot. As they are consumed by monsters and other resource sinks which will not sleep while the players do. The fact of the matter is, D&D is a game about exploration, not about perfectly balance battles where everyone is perfectly comfortable all the time at the start of every fight. Risk taking, pushing forward without the resources you need or want is part of the game. Yes, artificial time constraints are bad DMing, but so is allowing your players to take 15 minute work days.

Stubbazubba

2013-02-06, 11:55 PM

Synovia

2013-02-06, 11:58 PM

TuggyNE

2013-02-06, 11:58 PM

Associating a cost is not penalizing the player for using their class feature, it's a balance mechanism to prevent that class feature from taking over the game. You want to use it less as a result of it being costly creating elements of risk and reward, and deepening the game experience as a result. You could argue that the costs were too extreme in Star Wars' case. I don't know, didn't play it.

Personally, I'd prefer using a different cost from HP per se (for example, require significant martial or magical exertions to expend from a pool of stamina); the idea that everything your class does automatically damages you is disconcerting, to say the least, but the idea that you're merely tired out is far more acceptable.

Zeful

2013-02-07, 12:00 AM

If resource renewal is solely in the hands of the players, it will be used exactly after the encounter in which they feel unprepared for the toughest thing they think is reasonably coming next. No matter what the refresh cycle is, if players can trigger it independent of anything else, there's no reason not to renew as soon as their combat effectiveness is notably decreased, but not yet spent, the only exception being a strict time constraint which, as has been shown, is only acceptable for a small fraction of scenarios, and is otherwise gimmicky, heavy-handed and frustrating for everyone.

This is fine if a 5-minute rest renews your resources, so everything is Encounter-based. But when it's daily, it leads to the 15-minute workday, period. There's really no way around that. Players will not, under any circumstances, voluntarily go on with less than a comfortable amount of resources. Daily resources are the real problem here.

The initial draft of 4e did not include daily powers; everything was at-will, encounter, etc. When the guy who designed that was removed from the project and Mike Mearls and co. took over, they added dailies back in and messed up the pacing of things all over again.

To address it, you can change one of two things; the player-activated aspect, or the daily aspect. A non-player-activated trigger would be like accomplishing quest goals or abandoning a quest, or being in the heat of battle or dropping a foe, etc. A non-daily trigger would obviously be an encounter power or using a limited pool of refreshes (similar to Healing Surges) per adventure (or per extended rest, as in a week or more, so it's well out of the tactical decision range).

Player-activated daily resource renewal is, unfortunately, a sacred cow, and is closely tied to the unspoken fluff that is never actually printed anymore.

The daily system is the only way to make certain iconic magical powers work without shattering the immersion of a swords and sorcery setting that D&D ostensibly is. Moving over to a encounter based system pretty much means removing all "Save-or-Else" spells, as well as teleport, ploymorph, and many of the spells that would otherwise invalidate encounters entirely. Or removing all non-spellcasting classes and making it a big game of chess. Both of course require ditching a lot of the swords and sorcery trappings the system was based on but are possible. I wouldn't want to play either of them because they both sound terribly dull and monotonous.

Besides you can train the players to not play the 5-minute work day by moving the encounters forward and force them to interact with the enemies when they would be resting, and then when they complain about it, point out exactly why this is their fault. It only requires capping one expectation with the statement, "If you do stupid things, you should expect to be punished for them," at the beginning of the game.

Personally, I'd prefer using a different cost from HP per se (for example, require significant martial or magical exertions to expend from a pool of stamina); the idea that everything your class does automatically damages you is disconcerting, to say the least, but the idea that you're merely tired out is far more acceptable.

And that's fine. It's not my point. Claiming a cost-- any cost-- as a penalty requires, in my eyes, proof that the costs were excessive in a scale that prevented the player from using their abilities at all lest they risk putting them so out there as a target it was better to not use them in every situation. Not a statement of, "I don't like this," which is how the complaint read.

Stubbazubba

2013-02-07, 12:09 AM

I hate to say it, but then those players will die. A lot. As they are consumed by monsters and other resource sinks which will not sleep while the players do. The fact of the matter is, D&D is a game about exploration, not about perfectly balance battles where everyone is perfectly comfortable all the time at the start of every fight. Risk taking, pushing forward without the resources you need or want is part of the game.

So what you're saying here is that there's a precisely optimal speed for the players to proceed through the dungeon, and if they move faster the opposition should overcome them, and if they move slower the opposition should rally and overcome them? Or at best only moving slowly is penalized, you can move as fast as you want. So basically you're saying all time constraints are non-artificial? If not, please explain how you imagine this to go, because that's what I'm getting from this explanation.

Yes, artificial time constraints are bad DMing, but so is allowing your players to take 15 minute work days.

Structuring your rules so that this conversation even happens is bad game design, which is where 5e still is. There shouldn't have to be a struggle between the player's inclinations and the intended flow of the game.

Stubbazubba

2013-02-07, 12:25 AM

The daily system is the only way to make certain iconic magical powers work without shattering the immersion of a swords and sorcery setting that D&D ostensibly is. Moving over to a encounter based system pretty much means removing all "Save-or-Else" spells, as well as teleport, ploymorph, and many of the spells that would otherwise invalidate encounters entirely. Or removing all non-spellcasting classes and making it a big game of chess. Both of course require ditching a lot of the swords and sorcery trappings the system was based on but are possible. I wouldn't want to play either of them because they both sound terribly dull and monotonous.

You're going to have to qualify this. Why does moving to an Encounter-based paradigm prevent you from having limited use Save-or-Else spells that are only likely to work when the target has been significantly damaged already, thus keeping the effects while focusing the combat engine on each single encounter? Why does Polymorph have to go, besides the fact that it lets casters replace other classes, which should be addressed no matter what?

Besides you can train the players to not play the 5-minute work day by moving the encounters forward and force them to interact with the enemies when they would be resting, and then when they complain about it, point out exactly why this is their fault. It only requires capping one expectation with the statement, "If you do stupid things, you should expect to be punished for them," at the beginning of the game.

Your definition of "stupid" and your players' will vary greatly when you are omnipotent about what's coming later and they are not, and when you start insulting players for not guessing what's in your head is when I start recommending they leave your game.

But why on earth would you print a game which puts the optimal decision for PCs in the opposite direction of actually playing the game in the first place? Yes, you can "train" players to do anything, no matter how counter-intuitive, but that doesn't mean fixing the system isn't better. Remember, we're still in the design phase, so lets focus on what the design should do and be, and leave blaming users for later.

Tactical trade-offs are all well and good, in fact they're the critical element to the game, but strategic planning often just ends in giving up when you've already taken too many casualties, not plowing on through hoping for a miracle. It's unreasonable to think that forcing people to keep on playing when they know they don't have the firepower to make it will not make them learn anything except to avoid you as a DM in the future. Fix the rules, don't blame the players for how bad they are.

Dienekes

2013-02-07, 12:36 AM

Synovia

2013-02-07, 01:09 AM

Personally, I'd prefer using a different cost from HP per se (for example, require significant martial or magical exertions to expend from a pool of stamina); the idea that everything your class does automatically damages you is disconcerting, to say the least, but the idea that you're merely tired out is far more acceptable.

HIT POINTS ARE NOT DAMAGE.

Hit points are an amalgamation of damage, stamina, and focus.

Ashdate

2013-02-07, 01:09 AM

Synovia

2013-02-07, 01:13 AM

Part of the problem with "daily" powers (and I'm including 3.5 spellcasting here) is that they're confined to a structured time-frame. If they were "adventure" powers that only refreshed at the "end of an adventure", they'd be less problematic. Other systems do this already; I really think D&D should too.

This is why I kind of like magic point systems.

The flexibility allows you to have a "Daily" type spell basically blow your entire encounter budget.

IE, yeah, you can polymorph this encounter, but you just blew through all your MP, and if **** hits the fan, you've got nothing left to do except keep being a Girallion or whatever.

Stubbazubba

2013-02-07, 01:28 AM

This is why I kind of like magic point systems.

The flexibility allows you to have a "Daily" type spell basically blow your entire encounter budget.

IE, yeah, you can polymorph this encounter, but you just blew through all your MP, and if **** hits the fan, you've got nothing left to do except keep being a Girallion or whatever.

How is that at all different form just having a Daily spell or 1 high-level spell slot? I mean, I guess it has the added possibility of using so many low-level spells that you then can't use your nova spell at all...no wait, that's probably not a benefit. I just don't see the appeal here.

TuggyNE

2013-02-07, 01:32 AM

HIT POINTS ARE NOT DAMAGE.

Hit points are an amalgamation of damage, stamina, and focus.

Some of us have begun to realize over the years that this somehow doesn't quite work for us; that HP abstractions leak and produce bizarre results too often and too obviously; that our suspension of disbelief is strained excessively when attempting to combine too many dissimilar things under the umbrella of "hit points".

Given the amount of precise and nuanced simulation D&D has managed over the years, asking for HP to be broken out into its notional constituents is not unreasonable. Unfortunately, of course, "D&D 5acred Cow Edition" isn't going to do this. :smallsigh:

Synovia

2013-02-07, 01:54 AM

How is that at all different form just having a Daily spell or 1 high-level spell slot? I mean, I guess it has the added possibility of using so many low-level spells that you then can't use your nova spell at all...no wait, that's probably not a benefit. I just don't see the appeal here.
The benefit is that you have to choose between using your Nova spell and using your other spells.

Think of it like having a ton of dynamite to help deal with an incoming army. Do you use all of it at once to assure that you get rid of a single strategic target, or do you spread it out and get rid of a lot of smaller targets?

It forces you to make a meaningful choice, which is always a good thing.

that HP abstractions leak and produce bizarre results too often and too obviously; that our suspension of disbelief is strained excessively when attempting to combine too many dissimilar things under the umbrella of "hit points".

I've never seen an actual reasonable argument presented for this. It almost always boils down to "I don't like the word".

How about if we call it "Gusto" or "Stamina" or "Moxy" or just plain "Resource". When you run out, you're not necessarily dead, or even wounded, but you're no longer an effective combatant.

jamewatson

2013-02-07, 01:55 AM

So, game design philosophy discussion time.

"You're not supposed to care about what happens to first-level PCs."

Agree, or disagree?

Flickerdart

2013-02-07, 02:30 AM

Assuming that people are supposed to do something is the first step on the road to bad design. You can assume people are likely to do something, and then design with that in mind. Indeed, it is very likely that people will not care about 1st level PCs, or even play 1st level PCs (over my ten-odd years of gaming I've only played two campaigns that started at level 1).

The important question to ask is, what makes a level 1 character different from a level 5, or 10, or 20 character on the scale of caring? Some people might say investment in the character - a level 5 character has a history behind them. But if you recall the previous paragraph, a level 5 character is exactly as likely as a level 1 character to have absolutely no attachment, and just be freshly rolled up for a campaign.

The question becomes "are people likely to care about newly created characters?" This is still a tricky one to answer, and I may not be the best person to answer it (since I care the most about a character while building it) but it's a lot more useful to ask, and guides design in a better way, mostly because roleplaying benefits such as NPC contacts accrue at about the same rate. A level 1 character that made it to level 2 stands at about the same place as a level 5 character making it to level 6 in terms of social commitments and thus player engagement with that character, so players are likely to have a similar amount of attachment. Indeed, in a slow-moving campaign, a character might not even hit their first score of loot before they've become entrenched in a social web. In such a scenario, players would be very invested in these characters, and hate to see them die as easily as a newly minted chump.

One way to solve this would be encouraging a system of non-monetary rewards. Characters might have their WBL for straight-up numbers, but being able to knock on the door of Joey Quick-Fingers and ask him to sneak the players out of the dungeon if they get captured by the BBEG is something you can only get from RP (which corresponds to player investment) and not from level (which doesn't).

Stubbazubba

2013-02-07, 02:38 AM

The benefit is that you have to choose between using your Nova spell and using your other spells.

Think of it like having a ton of dynamite to help deal with an incoming army. Do you use all of it at once to assure that you get rid of a single strategic target, or do you spread it out and get rid of a lot of smaller targets?

It forces you to make a meaningful choice, which is always a good thing.

Resource management is good, but it doesn't help the problem of resource renewal, which is what we were talking about. As soon as you've spent enough MP that you can't shoot any of your big guns next encounter, and you really get the feeling you'll need to, you will stop and rest until you get enough MP back. If, that is, your MP is regenerated based on a rest like that.

@jamewatson: The answer will depend on the context, but I'll say mostly disagree. If the role-playing game is nominally about piloting a single avatar through a series of challenges, increasing in mechanical and narrative complexity, why would you do anything but that for first level? If the fate of 1st-level characters is ignored, e.g. they're fragile (I assume), then you either 1) play 1st-level just to survive, or 2) play multiple first-level characters, and keep going with whichever one lives long enough to level up. Neither of these actually prepares you for the rest of the game and don't contribute to it in any meaningful sense.

However, if you're playing Old School, and the point is to largely to survive through dungeon after dungeon, then rolling up many characters until you have one good enough to live is kind of what you're doing the rest of the game anyway, just less chance of death there.

So it depends on what the purpose of your RPG is, but I'd say most modern gamers want to be involved in a story, and they want it to start on the first session of play, not earn the right to one by wasting more hours running some arbitrary gauntlet. Make of that what you will; I for one think I earned the right to participate in a story (whether sandbox, episodic, or largely pre-planned, depending on group) when I bought the core books, made time for the game, found or organized a group to play with, and lovingly made a character.

TuggyNE

2013-02-07, 02:50 AM

I've never seen an actual reasonable argument presented for this. It almost always boils down to "I don't like the word".

How about if we call it "Gusto" or "Stamina" or "Moxy" or just plain "Resource". When you run out, you're not necessarily dead, or even wounded, but you're no longer an effective combatant.

Those words don't, in general, carry any particular connotation of "damage"; it's reasonable enough to block sword thrusts or lion claws with stamina, sure, but lava baths rather less so.

In other words, you need a way to track actual physical damage, as well as blows that you weather successfully.

However, I do support using Stamina/whatever as the primary pool for "progressive defense against dropping dead"; my vague ideas for a system include that, and relegate HP to more of UA's "wound points" idea.

TL/DR: Segregate morale, physical stamina, and physical durability, rather than leaving them as a single ill-defined "HP" pool.

Flickerdart

2013-02-07, 02:54 AM

"Resource" is an awful term, and reminds me of a spoof MtG article that involved [INTERPLAY AVOIDANCE TECHNIQUE A] and [INTERPLAY AVOIDANCE TECHNIQUE B] rather than Flying and I think Fear? "Stamina" also brings a different image to mind than the term Hit Points, which has acquired quite a number of gaming-specific connotations. You are hit, and then you lose points. When you are out of points, you die. When you are out of stamina, you're just tired, and losing fights due to tiredness belongs in Pokemon and not D&D.

Kurald Galain

2013-02-07, 03:16 AM

HIT POINTS ARE NOT DAMAGE.

Hit points are an amalgamation of damage, stamina, and focus.

Well, actually, hit points are damage. Sure, there's this tiny paragraph in the rulebooks that says they might not be, but in practice, hit points act exactly like damage in 1E through 3E (though notably not in 4E) except for the fact that at higher levels you get more of them than would be reasonable for a human. Then again, you're a Hero by then, so that works out fine. There are a few corner cases where this doesn't work (most notably, slitting the throat of a sleeping man with a dagger) but those are a rare exception.

Stubbazubba

2013-02-07, 03:50 AM

How about Stress Points, then? It focuses on the negative aspect, but brings to mind more than just injury.

ArcturusV

2013-02-07, 03:57 AM

So, game design philosophy discussion time.

"You're not supposed to care about what happens to first-level PCs."

Agree, or disagree?

Disagree conditionally.

You should never care SO much about what happens to ANY PC that having that PC messed with (Crippled in some lasting fashion, dreams and goals crushed, or dead) causes you to basically go catatonic and quit the game, or throw a fit, etc.

But you should CARE about any PC. Even first level ones. First level is... fairly important to my standpoint in a way that is often glossed over. First level adventuring does more to define who you are, and how you are, than anything else really. Everything is new to your character. You're not really sure if you'll survive any given fight. There's no safety net. Reckless and daring actions may save the day or end your life in equal measures. A lot of how your first level goes tends to determine how people play?

Were they reckless, bold, and successful at level 1? This is probably going to carry over. If during first level adventures the PC was the sole survivor of several bad encounters they are probably grim, fatalistic, and approach later levels of the mindset that Death is a constant companion.

It makes things... interesting. It's something that gets lost when you view first level characters solely as "Throw aways" or first level as something best skipped over because it's pointless and you are little better than an NPC, etc. Just... you can usually tell someone who actually survived and RPed out level 1, and earned every last feat, skillpoint, and HP up to level 5, compared to someone who just started at level 5. And if you don't care about first level? Just see it as something to go through the motions of and forget about? You lose out on that richer characterization.

TuggyNE

2013-02-07, 05:06 AM

Well, actually, hit points are damage. Sure, there's this tiny paragraph in the rulebooks that says they might not be, but in practice, hit points act exactly like damage in 1E through 3E (though notably not in 4E) except for the fact that at higher levels you get more of them than would be reasonable for a human. Then again, you're a Hero by then, so that works out fine. There are a few corner cases where this doesn't work (most notably, slitting the throat of a sleeping man with a dagger) but those are a rare exception.

Thank you.

Mind you, I do like having HP that represent damage; I merely think that's all they should represent, and the other stuff like tiredness/morale/luck should be handled by, well, other concepts*! The exact ratio of HP to "whatever-else points" is presumably determined by how absurdly good a high-level barbarian should be at taking lava to the face, which is highly dependent on the game.

*3.5 has fatigue and exhaustion, fear/morale penalties/morale bonuses, and luck bonuses to armor and saving throws, not to mention sacred and profane bonuses. Why in the world does each of them also get its own little amorphously-sized chunk of HP? I find that sort of duplication of concept just about inexcusable.

Synovia

2013-02-07, 08:15 AM

TL/DR: Segregate morale, physical stamina, and physical durability, rather than leaving them as a single ill-defined "HP" pool.

Sounds like book keeping for the sake of book keeping to me.

HP as just damage doesn't work at all, unless HP never go up (or only go up marginally). As you get better at things, the human body doesn't gain the ability to live through more bloodloss. A stab to the neck isn't less fatal if your awesome. A mace to the face isn't less fatal for the captain of the guard than the common footsoldier.

Expanding HP simply can't represent actual damage. It has to represent the mitigation of damage.

1337 b4k4

2013-02-07, 08:17 AM

There is a significant difference between an active cost (as in you lose something) to a passive cost (as in you never get something), though. Mundanes in 3.5 get a lot of the latter, and some people never even notice. But things that make you lose a finite resource like HP is a much more significant cost, even if just psychologically.

Sure but its part of the point. You're not supposed to rely on the magic to get you out of everything, you're supposed to ration it like any other expendable resource.

the idea that everything your class does automatically damages you is disconcerting, to say the least, but the idea that you're merely tired out is far more acceptable.

Well, as I mentioned, in M20, you don't die at 0 HP, you die at 0 STR. 0 HP means you're unconscious.

So what you're saying here is that there's a precisely optimal speed for the players to proceed through the dungeon, and if they move faster the opposition should overcome them, and if they move slower the opposition should rally and overcome them? Or at best only moving slowly is penalized, you can move as fast as you want. So basically you're saying all time constraints are non-artificial? If not, please explain how you imagine this to go, because that's what I'm getting from this explanation.

Players have costs of living and resources. When they travel, they need food, they need torches and lanterns, they need arrows. In town they have rent to pay and depending on how much noise they make bringing things back to town they have taxes to pay. At higher levels they have stronghold upkeep. In dungeon they have wandering monster checks at set time intervals as well as monsters reacting to the things the players do. Assuming they're on a quest, there may or may not be additional time requirements (the BBEG's ritual sacrifice doesn't happen at a speed which allows the players to interrupt at exactly the right time no matter if they arrive today or 6 months from now). IOW, I play the game outlined in the (admittedly older) rule books, and the world my PCs play in was not made for them, it is a living breathing world (in so far as it can be) and it will move along with or without the PCs. I am constantly looking for ways to drain the PCs wealth, because the need for that wealth gives them a reason to keep on moving and to keep on questing. If PCs spend a day between every encounter because the wizard went nova, they will soon find themselves starving to death if they haven't already been consumed by wandering monsters.

There shouldn't have to be a struggle between the player's inclinations and the intended flow of the game.

Oh this bunk and you know it. My players may be inclined to run in guns blazing, but the fact that if they do so will mean a quick and painful death in Traveller doesn't make traveller a bad game design. My players might be inclined to murder every NPC they meet, but them suffering penalties doesn't mean it's bad game design either. In fact, a constant struggle between what would be smartest and what would be most effective is actually (to my mind) good game design, because it means you're having to make choices constantly. If there was always one "right" answer for how to do things, the game would be rather boring.

But why on earth would you print a game which puts the optimal decision for PCs in the opposite direction of actually playing the game in the first place?

If the optimal decision has painful drawbacks, then perhaps it isn't optimal and maybe that's the point?

Kurald Galain

2013-02-07, 08:26 AM

Sounds like book keeping for the sake of book keeping to me.

No, not really. For example, you can model morale as bonuses to-hit that you gain when a bard is cheering you up (or as a penalty when you're subjected to a fear or despair effect). In fact, that's what D&D already does. It makes little sense to model morale as both attack/defense modifiers and part of your "hit points".

TuggyNE

2013-02-07, 09:25 AM

HP as just damage doesn't work at all, unless HP never go up (or only go up marginally). As you get better at things, the human body doesn't gain the ability to live through more bloodloss. A stab to the neck isn't less fatal if your awesome. A mace to the face isn't less fatal for the captain of the guard than the common footsoldier.

Expanding HP simply can't represent actual damage. It has to represent the mitigation of damage.

What do you know, the system I linked earlier is going to scale HP very slowly... I wonder why? :smallamused: (Stamina scales quite rapidly, so it should be fairly easy to block most blows, but if you really do get solidly hit, you're not gonna like it.)

Grod_The_Giant

2013-02-07, 09:59 AM

All this arguing about 15 minute adventuring days is missing a key point-- it's bad design to force GMs to have a certain number of encounters per day. And that's what daily powers do. It works out alright for a dungeon crawl, but what if I'm having a session of political intrigue and want to break it up with a single fight? I have to either accept that my players are going to blow through it, make it higher level and turn it into rocket tag, or add even more fights to a plot that doesn't call for them.

In the last two years of weekly DMing, I think I've had maybe one session where there were more than two fights in an in-game day.

obryn

2013-02-07, 10:05 AM

Well, actually, hit points are damage. Sure, there's this tiny paragraph in the rulebooks that says they might not be, but in practice, hit points act exactly like damage in 1E through 3E (though notably not in 4E) except for the fact that at higher levels you get more of them than would be reasonable for a human. Then again, you're a Hero by then, so that works out fine. There are a few corner cases where this doesn't work (most notably, slitting the throat of a sleeping man with a dagger) but those are a rare exception.
You can't just skip by the "higher levels" bit - and that's not the only way in which they have never acted like actual damage.

I think it's clear that hit points in D&D have no definition other than "a number that represents how close you are to unconsciousness/death" and that defining them as anything other than an abstract game mechanic runs into contradictions from one side or another.

They can't be straight damage because (1) they increase unrealistically with level, (2) you suffer no ill effects from their loss until they hit 0, which is very unlike physical injury, and (3) people should really die pretty easily when shot with a crossbow. They can't be straight morale/luck/stamina because (1) riders such as poison imply injury for them to work, (2) morale can't kill you, and (3) why would healing magic help?

Staring too deeply into the hit point hole is staring into the D&D void.

As far as I'm concerned, hit points do a very good job at making D&D gameplay work, regardless of what they represent.

-O