"Mundanes" and what they need to "catch up"

[Segev]

Not an original idea by any stretch of the imagination, but certainly a topic that has yet to be resolved to even plurality satisfaction: How can one bring "mundane" classes (such as the iconic Tier 4-5 Fighter) up to Tier 2-3, while still being a "fighter" rather than some sort of magic gish character?

The answer may be that "you can't," depending on what your definition of "mundane" is. I tend to be relatively liberal with it, seeing fighters staying out of "being mages" more as a mechanics-of-implementation thing than as a "end results" thing.

But more to the point, I'd like to start by looking at this thread on what powers you "need" in D&D (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=187851) to try to examine what, precisely, a Fighter (and more generally any character) might need in order to remain relevant at high level.

This is the general list of things that thread recommends all characters should have some means of obtaining:

Flight
Mind Blank
Stun Negation/Daze Negation
Freedom of Movement
Fear Immunity
True Seeing/Special Senses
Miss Chance
Tactical Teleportation
Immunity to Death effects
Immunity to Energy drain
(Extradimensional) Storage
Dispel Magic/protection from Dispel Magic
Initiative

I will contend that not all of them need be part of every class, but deciding just how many are "okay" to leave as "you just have to rely on magic items to get it" is within the scope of this thread. Starting with the fighter, but with an eye towards expanding to other non-caster classes, what might we do to redesign them for high-level play that permits them to do enough of these things (or accomplish things along enough of these lines) to keep up?

I would like, in particular, to see it done such that achieving these things in whatever combinations means that not every non-caster is a case of "the clothes make the man." That is, the class itself should be relevant to how they achieve some of these techniques, and where possible, we should come up with some (Ex) mechanisms to give the non-caster a perk over the caster who does it by just casting a spell.

I'd also be interested to see if anybody thinks there is something missing from that list that is essential to be not-a-chump at high level.

As a kick-off sort of thought, I think Flight might have its goals met by either super-jumping capabilities or by a "throw weapon and force target to the ground" capacity. The latter wouldn't help with overcoming obstacles as well, but both would achieve the negation of the frustration of being reduced to standing helplessly on the ground while enemies rain death from above.

[Captnq]

You can't.

I'll tell you why.

Ever play Borderlands? I love borderlands. I play for hours and hours and I find crappy gun after crappy gun but eventually I find something cool. You know why it's cool? Because compared to hours of crappy guns, it's awesome.

d20 is like that.

I'm afraid for something to be awesome, there has to be a sea of crap. Crappy magic items. Crappy classes. Crappy races. As Syndrome once said, "Once everyone has super powers, nobody will be super." That's sort of the case here. Sorry. You can help ONE class. You can tweak a few things, but the moment you change too much, make everything seem the same. make everything bland and boring and dull, that is when it will be "balanced." and nobody will want to play.

Sorry. It's harsh. It sucks. It's the truth. And if you know me, I never pull any punches.

[Big Fau]

There's a handbook on Minmax that is dedicated to this topic already.

[Segev]

Actually, I find that to be flagrantly false. "Balance" need not mean "identical mechanics," which is the flaw that 4e fell into.

The solution I am attempting to puruse is to identify what things are the "bare minimums" that the current "sea of crap" does not live up to, and find ways to insert them.

Note how I said my goal is "Tier 2-3;" I am not going to even try to push fighters to Tier 1. Much as I'm a fan of theoretical balance, I am more a fan of interesting options, and if that means merely closing the gap to make mundanes play usefully (if not always "on par") with the spellcasters, so be it.

To that end, do you see anything that should be on that list of things self-sufficient high-end adventurers should be able to do, but isn't on that list?

[Segev]

There's a handbook on Minmax that is dedicated to this topic already.

Could you provide a link, please?

[Big Fau]

Could you provide a link, please?

Sure thing. (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=11381.0)

[Segev]

Thanks! Definitely of interest, but not quite what I'm going for in this thread.

This thread is meant to examine how one might re-build the classes, or what one might add to the classes, in order to allow them to be, as classes, "good enough" to stand in their own right rather than being so significantly under-powered that they simply cannot compete with "better-tier" classes several levels lower.

[johnbragg]

Not an original idea by any stretch of the imagination, but certainly a topic that has yet to be resolved to even plurality satisfaction: How can one bring "mundane" classes (such as the iconic Tier 4-5 Fighter) up to Tier 2-3, while still being a "fighter" rather than some sort of magic gish character?

I would just give up immediately on Tier 2. Tier 3 may be achievable, if the standard is


The answer may be that "you can't," depending on what your definition of "mundane" is. I tend to be relatively liberal with it, seeing fighters staying out of "being mages" more as a mechanics-of-implementation thing than as a "end results" thing.

I think Chuck Norris Physics is a valuable idea here. The Fighter is mundane, but in a magical world, a high-level *anything* has a gravitational force that changes the world around him. So yes, the 20th level Barbarian/Fighter with maxed Intimidate can stare at the locked door for a couple of rounds and it might open if he can make the DC 50 check for the target being non-sentient.

By the same token, a 20th level wizard probably CAN divide by zero.

Why? For the same reason a 1st level commoner can make a saving throw once in a while. For the same reason in previous editions high level monsters got to ignore "+N weapon to hit." "Magic" is the application of will to create effects in the outside world. Every sentient being in a magical world does it. Some sentient beings do it much more skillfully--casters. Some sentient beings have more "juice"--high level characters and high HD monsters.



This is the general list of things that thread recommends all characters should have some means of obtaining:

I'm going to go through and evaluate whether a classic Hero type like Hercules or Odysseus or Davey Crockett or Rambo or Captain America or Batman could have that ability without an audience groaning.

Flight--This is one of the toughest. Hulk-jumping isn't flight, Thor-throwing-his-hammer-and-hanging-on is dumb.

Mind Blank--Also tough, but not inconceivable. Hard to fluff without the character "taking a monk level" or two.

Stun Negation/Daze Negation--Easy. He's that tough. My list of 12 fighter feats has "Shake it Off", where the fighter can roll something to break most any status condition in the round after it starts.

Fear Immunity--He's that brave. Very doable.

Dispel Magic/protection from Dispel Magic
Yes, the fighter should be able to break a spell by thwacking it with a weapon. Protection from Dispel MAgic, maybe not as much.

The prince in Sleeping Beauty blocked dragon breath with his shield, and when he stabbed the evil dragon-queen in the heart it "dispelled" the polymorph. So there's precedent.

Initiative--Improved Initiative II with a BAB bonus to initiative? Why not?

Freedom of Movement--tougher, but a mechanism for adding levels to Strength checks would help a lot. Willpower --> Musclepower.

True Seeing/Special Senses--Not impossible, but I don't see exactly how without "taking monk levels."

Miss Chance
Tactical Teleportation
Immunity to Death effects
Immunity to Energy drain
(Extradimensional) Storage

These are harder to justify, except in terms of saving throw bonuses or whatever.


I'd also be interested to see if anybody thinks there is something missing from that list that is essential to be not-a-chump at high level.

I think you'd still have to knock off a lot of access to high-level spells.


As a kick-off sort of thought, I think Flight might have its goals met by either super-jumping capabilities or by a "throw weapon and force target to the ground" capacity. The latter wouldn't help with overcoming obstacles as well, but both would achieve the negation of the frustration of being reduced to standing helplessly on the ground while enemies rain death from above.

Flight is something that's hard to fluff a mundane doing. Even the Hulk has problems vs flying opponents. But they ain't so high-and-mighty if you're an archer with a feat to add 1/2 your BAB to damage somehow--especially if your arrow can "Dispel MAgic" instead of doing damage.

[Cheiromancer]

Is making magic items compatible with being a mundane? I'm picturing a smith whose swords go beyond masterwork into genuinely magical. A gadgeteer (like Batman) is usually considered mundane, so I'm thinking the answer might be yes. Although I would think that a mundane could only make items usable by mundanes: swords and shields and amulets, but not wands or scrolls.

Because it would sure help a mundane character if they were not dependent on spellcasters to make the gear they needed. A class ability that waives the requirement for item creation feats and caster level - and maybe even the spell requirement - would thus be a great help in catching up.

[Telonius]

I think that subsystems are the way to go. Tome of Battle and (probably to a lesser extent) Magic of Incarnum give options that still feel "Fighter-y" but give a lot more versatility.

The ability to change up what you can do is a big plus. That is the big advantage that Tier 1 casters have, taken to the extreme: versatility. Being able to change up spells on a daily basis, customizing what you have prepared to the problem at hand? It's one of the things that separates Tier 1 from Tier 2. Because it's spells we're talking about, the end result is the possibility to break all of reality open several different ways before breakfast, but we can apply some of that to melee.

Both Incarnum and ToB do the melee equivalent of Wizard spell selection, by allowing characters to reallocate things (stances used and maneuvers readied, essentia allocation) on at least a daily basis, sometimes more often. It gives melee'ers a chance to do more than just one thing throughout their career. It's not a coincidence that the three ToB classes are all listed as Tier 3. Incarnum didn't make it to the official Tier list, but Incarnate and Totemist would probably occupy that place as well. (Soulborn was a decent idea, very poorly executed).

I do think that both subsystems are kind of pushing the boundaries of mundane versus gish. Some people are allergic to the hippie-dippie chakra stuff, and the higher-level maneuvers are edging up against magical abilities. But still, from a fluff perspective, both sources of power come from within the character, without being based on a magical bloodline like sorcerer, or being practically-magic powers like psionics. In my opinion, that's a subtle but important distinction.

[Psyren]

I think a distinction needs to be drawn between "magic" and "spells" when determining what high-level non-casters should have access to. In a magical world, it makes sense to me that even characters that rely on martial skill and training should begin to unconsciously tap into that underlying framework/weave/tapestry of power that blankets creation - gaining abilities that are beyond mundane without necessarily requiring wizard or even sorcerer instruction.

A spell is a specific magic effect distilled from that blanket. Spells exist, or can be created, that can duplicate just about any effect desired or imaginable. But that distillation places restrictions on them that other forms of magic don't have - needing to concentrate, needing components, being dispellable, and so on.

Magic on the other hand is raw, primal, and not necessarily subject to the same rules that discrete spells are. Many supernatural abilities are perfect examples of this - they don't require gestures, or babble, or esoteric objects and foci to work - they merely require will. And while many lack the precision or flexibility of spells, they still work.

In my vision of high-level play, I would expect a high-level or near-epic rogue to be able to do things like wrap shadows around himself, or sprint while stealthed without penalty, or attack from stealth and return to it easily. I would expect a high-level or near-epic barbarian to be able to batter through spell effects, stay alive through almost crippling injuries, knock spells back or away, to become so angry they change size, and hit every opponent within reach with one attack. Few to none of those abilities could be called "mundane," but they're also within the realm of possibility for a high-level martial as well.

[Urpriest]

One principle that I think is valid: if you expect a given class to rely on magic items for basic spell effects more than other classes, then it ought to be better at using magic items than other classes.

This, more than any thematic reason, is why Rogues get UMD.

It's also why I continue to advocate Artificer as a Tier 1 Fighter. Fighters, at least in low-OP games and high-magic fiction, are defined by their magic items. A Fighter is someone who has more interesting trinkets than most, and who is savvy enough to get the most out of them in a fight. Look at any sort of fiction where some characters have dramatic, life-changing magical powers and some don't, and you'll see the characters who don't tend to make much heavier use of magic items.

[Big Fau]

One principle that I think is valid: if you expect a given class to rely on magic items for basic spell effects more than other classes, then it ought to be better at using magic items than other classes.

This, more than any thematic reason, is why Rogues get UMD.

It's also why I continue to advocate Artificer as a Tier 1 Fighter. Fighters, at least in low-OP games and high-magic fiction, are defined by their magic items. A Fighter is someone who has more interesting trinkets than most, and who is savvy enough to get the most out of them in a fight. Look at any sort of fiction where some characters have dramatic, life-changing magical powers and some don't, and you'll see the characters who don't tend to make much heavier use of magic items.

I agree to a point: Spell Completion and Spell Trigger items are where I draw the line. Items such as that should not count as part of a build unless the class gets the ability to craft them as a feature (Warlocks and Artificers).

Even the Rogue can get by without those.

[NichG]

I want to divide your list up between a couple of categories.

Things needed to engage with the situation/opposition

Flight
True Seeing/Special Senses
Tactical Teleportation
Dispel Magic


Common high-level defenses

Mind Blank
Stun Negation/Daze Negation
Freedom of Movement
Fear Immunity
Miss Chance
Immunity to Death effects
Immunity to Energy drain
Protection from Dispel Magic
Initiative


Things that are very useful

(Extradimensional) Storage


My point is that these categories each require something different, and that controls how you can seek to provide it.

Things that are needed to engage with the enemy are those abilities that, if you don't have them, you might as well sit out the situation. A character absolutely needs some way of addressing all of these things without exception.

Common high level defenses aren't strictly necessary, but its one of those 'it sucks if you're the only guy who is still vulnerable to these things' situations. You could replace a lot of those with, e.g., Iron Heart Surge. Its not immunity, but it allows you to mitigate things to the point where they're not as crippling. Other mitigation factors could work here as well (trade ability damage to undo status conditions, etc).

'Things that are very useful' aren't strictly needed on a one-to-one basis, as long as the character has some particular set of them that other characters don't. These kind of allow the character to be different than 'a half-baked mundane version of the wizard'. I would say that every 'mundane' needs something in this category that the magical characters can't easily get, and that in some sense makes it the hardest to fulfill since magic can do more or less everything in D&D.

[Kennisiou]

A simple buff that has yet to be mentioned that is definitely a long way from all that's needed here: more skill points and a larger class skill list. For real, just about every t4-t5 class gets a lot better if you give them +2-+4 skill points and add some important general skills like spot, listen, hide, and/or move silently to their class skill list. A problem lots of mundane classes have is that they lack out of combat utility that casters have in spades, letting them have more skill points and more class skills is a nice minor fix to that problem.

[Morty]

My opinion is that in order to have mundane characters 'catch up' you need to re-work a lot of the game's assumptions, both with regards to magic and non-magic. As it is, magic and non-magic are two different games, with the interaction between them being often a one-way street.

[Forrestfire]

Miss Chance
Tactical Teleportation
Immunity to Death effects
Immunity to Energy drain
(Extradimensional) Storage


Possible ideas:

Miss Chance: Represented by having an extremely fluid stance, dodge chance, or just being too fast to accurately target.
Tactical Teleportation: Flash steps?
Immunity to Death effects: Too badass to stay down - "What, you thought that would kill me?"
Immunity to Energy drain: Possibly simply becoming as strong as the situation requires through sheer determination, a common trope in media about warriors.
(Extradimensional) Storage: I got nothing there.

[Kennisiou]

Possible ideas:
(Extradimensional) Storage: I got nothing there.

Who needs extradimensional storage? You're a fighter of myth! You can carry an entire marketplace worth of goods on your back! Give them a multiplier to carrying capacity or let them count their strength as higher for carrying or let them add their int or wis score to determine carrying capacity as well. Remember, lifting and carrying isn't just about raw strength, it's about smart usage of that strength.

Finding the right item, though... that may be hard under this storage method.

[Angelalex242]

Certain PrCs can transform Mundanes to QuasiMagical teir 3s.

My favorite build is probably Teir 3, even though it's a teir 5 base class.

Clr1/Pal6/Fist of Raz 10/Pal 9

(Taking advantage of the Fist's spell casting ability being applied to ANY divine class you have at least one level of.)

Thus, you get a 20th level Paladin with 10th level clerical casting and supersmites.

I figure this is teir 3 due to being able to do half of what a cleric does.

[Emperor Tippy]

Fighter:
"What, you thought that worked?" (Ex): Once per day per fighter level a fighter can ignore an attack or effect. Doing this takes no action, can be done if flatfooted, surprised, or otherwise disabled, and can be done when its not your turn. If used against Death then the fighter is treated as if benefiting from True Resurrection. Gained at Fighter 3. A daily use of this ability can also be expended to ensure that the Fighter's next attack is a critical hit.

Barbarian:
"Juggernaut" (Ex): When in a rage a Barbarian's base land speed increases by 10 ft. per Barbarian level, he gains the ability to take an additional standard action every 3 barbarian levels (starting at level 3), he becomes immune to any magic with a CL lower than his Barbarian level that allows SR, he can keep acting as if perfectly healthy regardless of damage taken (even if he would otherwise be dead) or any conditions affecting him, any melee attack made by the Barbarian gets a bonus to damage equal to Barbarian level, and he gains a divine bonus to Strength and Dexterity equal to his Barbarian level.

I might do a bit more later, along with the Rogue.

[Urpriest]

Fighter:
"What, you thought that worked?" (Ex): Once per day per fighter level a fighter can ignore an attack or effect. Doing this takes no action, can be done if flatfooted, surprised, or otherwise disabled, and can be done when its not your turn. If used against Death then the fighter is treated as if benefiting from True Resurrection. Gained at Fighter 3. A daily use of this ability can also be expended to ensure that the Fighter's next attack is a critical hit.

I'd put the same restriction from the Barbarian, namely that this only applies to SR. Otherwise, lots and lots of Effect: entries would cause issues...the ability to "ignore" summoned creatures alone is problematic.

[Aasimar]

I think, if I were doing it, I'd make them like Terry Pratchett's Cohen the Barbarian.

The higher their level, the more they just sort of force the narrative along their way, they're very good at surviving, knowing how to not be there when an attack hits, etc.

I'd give them better saves, the ability to save against stuff not normally able to be saved against, to see stuff not normally able to be seen (or just, 'have a feeling' that it's there)

Spell resistance maybe.

[Jeff the Green]

I think you're going to need a form of pseudocasting to do it. ToB did it welll. I've been thinking about making a sort of skill monkey with a certain number of spells they can use as Ex abilities. So a high enough Disable Device check would function as Knock, Spot as True Seeing, Survival as Pass without trace. Really, once you're at the point where the casters can cast those spells, the mundane a should be badass enough to replicate their effects through training and willpower.

[Arbane]

I'm going to go through and evaluate whether a classic Hero type like Hercules or Odysseus or Davey Crockett or Rambo or Captain America or Batman could have that ability without an audience groaning.

Flight--This is one of the toughest. Hulk-jumping isn't flight, Thor-throwing-his-hammer-and-hanging-on is dumb.


How about throwing a spear, then jumping on it and steering it with your toes? I'm pretty sure Cú Chulainn or one of his contemporaries did that.



Mind Blank--Also tough, but not inconceivable. Hard to fluff without the character "taking a monk level" or two.


Pure strength of will!


True Seeing/Special Senses--Not impossible, but I don't see exactly how without "taking monk levels."


"Senses honed by years of danger!"

Why should monks have a monopoly on all the cool martial-arts stuff?

"Martial Art" doesn't mean Zen meditation, it means FIGHTING. Which class is supposed to be better at FIGHTING: The one with it in their name, or the Friar Tuck wannabes?



Flight is something that's hard to fluff a mundane doing. Even the Hulk has problems vs flying opponents.

Very few fliers are immune to a mid-air collision with a thrown truck.

[Psyren]

A vorpal sword removes the fighter's head - "What, you thought that worked?" (Decapitating me was merely a setback!)

[Angelalex242]

I wonder if it'd help to simply give mundanes more skills and feats.

Instead of having to pick skills, say, they simply get ALL their available class skills at max ranks. (And if you're the rogue, that's a metric crapton of skills at max ranks! Now you'll actually have use rope and climb when you need 'em...) Maybe Mundanes get a feat at every level instead of every 3, and fighters still get even more feats on top of that. They even get a free craft and profession skill a piece to represent their 'day job.'

[Arbane]

A vorpal sword removes the fighter's head - "What, you thought that worked?" (Decapitating me was merely a setback!)

The Green Knight? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Gawain_and_the_Green_Knight) (Of course, he survived it thanks to magic...)

[Talya]

Now, why would anyone need a source of Mind Blank, when everyone and their dog is supposedly immune to enchantment spells, and nobody actually casts them? :smalltongue:

[Forrestfire]

A vorpal sword removes the fighter's head - "What, you thought that worked?" (Decapitating me was merely a setback!)

"Since when were you under the impression that you were wielding a sword?" :smalltongue:

If you would die in one hit, you instead disarm them or something. Even if they are using natural weapons. Especially then.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

What mundanes would need to catch up to non-mundanes is... a radical change in the fundamental game mechanics.

The problem here is that you have a 'linear fighter, quadratic wizard' situation. Wizards not only get access to more abilities, but their abilities do different things in different ways. In effect, their abilities are more 'lateral'.

For example, a 5th level Wizard could cast Slow, which is a Will save or Nerf combat ability, a Stinking Cloud, which is a Fort save or Nerf ability, or Fly, which employs a movement mode that mundanes cannot hope to compete with.

Each of these abilities are powerful in their own way. Two of them are lockdowns, effectively ending a threat completely. This is a totally different dynamic than anything a melee character has (unless you count 'doing enough damage to kill it in one hit', and even then, only if he closes with it first). But Fly also gives them lateral movement and effective invincibility against melee attacks. This... is a game changer.

The Fighter hits things. Sure, he can get special ways to hit things, but... he's generally limited to needing an attack roll or at least a touch attack. Which means they have to get close enough to something to hit it. Rarely, they can include a skill check, like Intimidation + Never Outnumbered + Imperious Command, but even that doesn't really begin to compare.

Casters are both too powerful AND too flexible. And by that I mean that not only do they have a wide selection of powers to chose from, each of those choices are, individually, something which no Fighter has an adequate response to or for.

[johnbragg]

A vorpal sword removes the fighter's head - "What, you thought that worked?" (Decapitating me was merely a setback!)

I think "Shake it off" works better--the round after a disabling condition is imposed, the Fighter has a chance to break its hold. (d20 + levels in Mundane classes vs DC 15 + CL).

I wasn't thinking of it for big-time necromantic or petrification effects, but why not? Instead of the next round, roll it as soon as the condition applies.

[Lans]

A simple buff that has yet to be mentioned that is definitely a long way from all that's needed here: more skill points and a larger class skill list. For real, just about every t4-t5 class gets a lot better if you give them +2-+4 skill points and add some important general skills like spot, listen, hide, and/or move silently to their class skill list. A problem lots of mundane classes have is that they lack out of combat utility that casters have in spades, letting them have more skill points and more class skills is a nice minor fix to that problem.
For some T4s, and T5s you can up them a tier by just giving them more of what they get. Give the fighter more feats and skills, and proficiencies, give the monk more of there grab bag of abilities, give the swashbuckler more skills and dex to damage and they tend to up a tier.

[Morty]

What mundanes would need to catch up to non-mundanes is... a radical change in the fundamental game mechanics.

The problem here is that you have a 'linear fighter, quadratic wizard' situation. Wizards not only get access to more abilities, but their abilities do different things in different ways. In effect, their abilities are more 'lateral'.

For example, a 5th level Wizard could cast Slow, which is a Will save or Nerf combat ability, a Stinking Cloud, which is a Fort save or Nerf ability, or Fly, which employs a movement mode that mundanes cannot hope to compete with.

Each of these abilities are powerful in their own way. Two of them are lockdowns, effectively ending a threat completely. This is a totally different dynamic than anything a melee character has (unless you count 'doing enough damage to kill it in one hit', and even then, only if he closes with it first). But Fly also gives them lateral movement and effective invincibility against melee attacks. This... is a game changer.

The Fighter hits things. Sure, he can get special ways to hit things, but... he's generally limited to needing an attack roll or at least a touch attack. Which means they have to get close enough to something to hit it. Rarely, they can include a skill check, like Intimidation + Never Outnumbered + Imperious Command, but even that doesn't really begin to compare.

Casters are both too powerful AND too flexible. And by that I mean that not only do they have a wide selection of powers to chose from, each of those choices are, individually, something which no Fighter has an adequate response to or for.

I agree. Giving spell-less classes abilities to ignore spells are treating the symptoms, and not the underlying problem - it also reinforces the rocket tag nature of higher-powered D&D combat. Of course, treating the underlying problem is a lot of work, so sometimes it's better to just patch things up.

[johnbragg]

What mundanes would need to catch up to non-mundanes is... a radical change in the fundamental game mechanics.

True. But I think a 3.5-based system of Tier 3's and 4's, with at least semi-recognizable fighters, mages, clerics and thieves is possible. (and their bard and barbarian and swordsage and crusader friends, possibly also their dread necromancer and beguiler buddies)


The problem here is that you have a 'linear fighter, quadratic wizard' situation. Wizards not only get access to more abilities, but their abilities do different things in different ways. In effect, their abilities are more 'lateral'.

Hmmm. My quick-fix Wizard is an Int-based Sorcerer who loses his high level daily spells, using those spell slots for metamagic and for more more more low level spells, and using those spells-known spots for more low-level spells and at-will first level spells. Even more lateral abilities.


The Fighter hits things. Sure, he can get special ways to hit things, but... he's generally limited to needing an attack roll or at least a touch attack. Which means they have to get close enough to something to hit it.

Well, there's also ranged attacks.

Maybe a stackable or scalable feat for archers to ignore DR?

But I also think we should explore alternate, but still fighter-ish, things to do in combat. The 4e "shifting" rules gave me the idea to let beatsticks use their attack to bluff an enemy into a specific spot. (Very primitive BFC). There's also plenty of fictional precedent for great fighters to block magic (or at least blasters or dragon breath) with a weapon (Star Wars) or a shield (Sleeping Beauty). Or just break the effect on themselves through an act of will, signified in the movie by a facial closeup of a constipated grimace while CGI dances around the screen.

Yes, I know, that only covers combat. But that seems to be wrapped up in being a fighter. Skills and perks can let him climb the Cliffs of Insanity or punch a hole in them, but flying over them or melting them just doesn't fit. But in a realized campaign world (Oberoni fallacy, I know), maybe there's a mechanic for mid- to high-level fighters to have Renown, boosting their Diplomacy checks and such. (This isn't just some tongue-tied doofus with Cha of 8 talking, this is the hero who cleaned out the Caves of Chaos. Hear him out. Stir suspicion and jealousy of spellcasters into the mix as well.)


Casters are both too powerful AND too flexible. And by that I mean that not only do they have a wide selection of powers to chose from, each of those choices are, individually, something which no Fighter has an adequate response to or for.

Well, allowing fighters to try to dispel magic with a successful attack would change that equation a tiny bit.


I agree. Giving spell-less classes abilities to ignore spells are treating the symptoms, and not the underlying problem - it also reinforces the rocket tag nature of higher-powered D&D combat.

??? Ignoring spells would (possibly should) apply mostly to save-or-die/save-or-lose spells, which should reduce the amount of rocket tag. Maybe this is a reason that "Shake it off" or "You thought that would work?" shouldn't apply to ability damage or negative levels?


Of course, treating the underlying problem is a lot of work, so sometimes it's better to just patch things up

I agree.

[Stux]

If I were to rebuild the class-system from the ground up, I would start by making all classes explicitly magical in some way. Mundanes are no longer a thing. You have casters and non-casters in a sense, but no one is truly mundane.

My reasoning is thus: The world of D&D is a world of magic. Magical energies surround and effect everything, even if this is not normally apparent to the vast majority of people that live in this world. The PCs in a campaign are in some way different to the normal population, and the main factor that denotes this difference is their ability, consciously or otherwise, to tap in to, control, manipulate, or channel these magical energies.

This could take the form of anything from drawing the energy together to create a ball of magical fire you can hurl at enemies, channeling magical energies in to your muscles to leap great distances, or perceiving ripples in the magical energy around you that effectively lets you see through material objects, and so much more besides.

The Fighter in this world uses magic (probably without thinking of it as such) to perform incredible feats of strength and agility, which as they level up become more and more extraordinary (in the literal sense, not the ability type sense, obviously :smalltongue: ). They may have a pool of magic energy points to use towards these effects, or it could maybe work like martial maneuvers, or heck even like sorcerer/vancian casting if you wanted (though you do still probably want those that learn academically how to control magic to feel different to those who tap in to it naturally).

With this explicit in the very design of the characters you can now give non-casters abilities that rival conventional magic in power and scope, as long as they are thematic with the way in which the character taps in to the magical energies, and it will all feel consistent.

Obviously this would be a hideous amount of work to implement, but it is something I am seriously considering working on, if only as a personal experiment.

[Phelix-Mu]

Some good ideas already. I will put a more thorough assessment in later, but for now, a few thoughts.

1.) Try to avoid pseudo-casting for everyone. Some people just like a simple class with at will abilities that requires exactly zero record-keeping (or practically so). Even maneuvers are a bit of paperwork, and they still leave a whole lot of functionality to be desired.

2.) Riffing off number 1, try to accept that some things won't be as cool as the spell version. Freedom of movement is borked; we don't need a precise analog for mundanes. Simple ability to auto-succeed grapple checks (or practically so) would suffice, along with Str checks (with nifty bonuses) to avoid ACP penalties and such while underwater. Likewise, the simple ability to jump ridiculous distances will work for flight; at will access to flying creatures, but not quite as useful as being able to fly to the moon (not that that is useful). Fighters don't need encounter avoidance; wizards dodge fights, fighters and such should just crush their enemies (or scare them off via intimidation, or inspire them to become minions, or challenge them to drinking contests...or crush them).

3.) Some things will still need items. I don't see a way to make extradimensional storage work. But, let's see about ways to make it fair. I think a fighter should be able to store a signature weapon or summon it from a distance. Kind of like a hammerspace for their weapon. Rogues don't much have this problem. Maybe it would be easier to just allow them to use anything as a deadly weapon. Yeah, that sounds good.

4.) Some of it should be class abilities, but some of it should be modular and adaptable to any mundane class. This way you would keep the highly-fluffable nature of the mundane classes, while allowing a degree of customization.

5.) Floating feats. I've been toying with this for a while, but mundanes should be better at adapting themselves to current needs; wizards bend space and time, but a mundane's skills lie largely within their own abilities/self-perfection/guts and determination. While feats are a poor substitute for spells, they can be quite useful, and allowing some of them to be reset each day or after some meditation would go a long way toward making mundanes more versatile.

[Stux]

1.) Try to avoid pseudo-casting for everyone. Some people just like a simple class with at will abilities that requires exactly zero record-keeping (or practically so). Even maneuvers are a bit of paperwork, and they still leave a whole lot of functionality to be desired.

Very true. This is why I would lean towards the point system personally. You have one number to keep track of, and thats it. Some of the abilities probably would be at will anyway.

I don't really like the maneuver system because it feel kind of messy, and straight up casting ability but refluffed just seems a bit lame as a solution. And as you say, some people do indeed pick classes with simplicity very much in mind.

[Urpriest]

1.) Try to avoid pseudo-casting for everyone. Some people just like a simple class with at will abilities that requires exactly zero record-keeping (or practically so). Even maneuvers are a bit of paperwork, and they still leave a whole lot of functionality to be desired.

I don't know if this is actually true. I think that many people have trouble with the existing systems and find the choices and record-keeping they pose unintuitive/time-consuming/unpleasant. However, I think that this is an artifact of the existing systems, and that provided a system had resource-management and usage choices that matched well with these players' intuition even they would appreciate a "pseudo-casting" class more than an at-will-based one.

[Aasimar]

I think, even as unpopular as it is, spellcasting needs a major major nerf for any of this to have any impact what so ever.

Spell lists need to be shortened, spells removed or their level raised. Spell casters need both their versatility and the power of their individual choices gutted.

But doing this is incredibly hard without turning it into 4e (which I doubt anyone wants)

[Lord_Gareth]

But doing this is incredibly hard without turning it into 4e (which I doubt anyone wants)

Legend pulled it off admirably ^_^

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Legend pulled it off admirably ^_^

Yea, but they did it, as I mentioned previously, by making changes to some core mechanics.

First off, they started taking a nerf-bat to the actual conditions themselves. As 3.5 stands, most of the conditions are 'save or lose'. If you are hit by it, don't expect to be able to contribute meaningfully until it is removed or wears off. Conditionals like Nauseated, Frightened, Panicked, Cowering... these are pretty much 'game over'.

Legend took a severe nerf bat and laid in to all of the conditions, particularly to the fear effects. Then they built in ways to mitigate or ignore many of them, either through feats or class abilities. You can still build a character which focuses on battlefield control and applying penalties and status effects, but it is no longer an unbeatable archetype.

The next thing they changed completely are movement modes and sensory modes. These two things have always been the fetters on melee classes, because arcane classes could pretty much negate them as a threat using them. Greater Invisibility + Flight, and most fighters are screwed.

In Legend, however, Flight is easily obtainable by any character. Heck, there's a feat that lets you gain flight, if you don't already get it from one of several tracks. There's another couple of feats that let you teleport as your mode of movement. Now, melee CAN close with arcane.

There are also now other modes of vision which can help find enemies, making invisibility less of a win condition. Ghostwise Sight can be had at character creation, and even Tremorsense can be obtained on nearly any character without too much difficulty. Stealthing is possible, but it isn't nearly as overpowering as it was in 3.5.

The differences between 3.5 and Legend are legion... however I think I've made the point that to create a balanced game, basic core mechanics needed to be changed.

[NichG]

Okay, this isn't really a new spin on it, but its at least some kind of spin on it. Make alchemy and 'technological' things in general be in the domain of the mundanes. Sort of like how essence works in Shadowrun, casters need to abstain from things that alter their core self, whereas the mundanes in the adventuring business can take alchemical concoctions that permanently transform them, get alchemical implants, etc.

Its not 'mundane' in the sense of 'caveman' anymore, but you can have a guy with a sword who beats up people. He's just been hopped up on alchemical concoctions that let him fill his bones and body spaces with a lighter-than-air gas so he can jump 100 feet in the air and land without a scratch.

This is more about taste than mechanics. if 'mundane' can include 'mythic hero' for you, then you already have the tools to close the divide. This suggestion is aimed more at people who are bothered by e.g. the fighter drinking oceans because 'mythic hero', so as to give them another way to have 'mundane' characters who can still do interesting things.

[OldTrees1]

I don't know if this is actually true. I think that many people have trouble with the existing systems and find the choices and record-keeping they pose unintuitive/time-consuming/unpleasant. However, I think that this is an artifact of the existing systems, and that provided a system had resource-management and usage choices that matched well with these players' intuition even they would appreciate a "pseudo-casting" class more than an at-will-based one.

Despite fully understanding and enjoying the various limited use abilities systems, I still am drawn toward the simple at will abilities systems. I have DM'd for several players that favor at will abilities even more than I. So yes, there do exist some players that just like a simple build with at will abilities.



I do think that a rehaul of feats along with Floating feats would go a long way towards increasing the versatility of the mundanes within the mundane sphere. I do not know if this would be suitable for all things that need catching up.

[Urpriest]

Despite fully understanding and enjoying the various limited use abilities systems, I still am drawn toward the simple at will abilities systems. I have DM'd for several players that favor at will abilities even more than I. So yes, there do exist some players that just like a simple build with at will abilities.


I was careful to specify not just understanding, but intuition, as the issue. It is my hypothesis that the distasteful aspect of resource-management is largely the extra cognitive load of resource-tracking and the problem of choice. If you had a set of abilities that matched your intuitions, in a way that made complete sense which abilities you would want to use when, and why any given limit on their use exists, I think that even a quite complicated limited-use system would feel like the at-will systems you prefer.

After all, even at-will systems use resource management in the form of actions. The only reason that action-based management isn't distasteful to anyone is because of how intuitive it is to choose what to spend actions on.

[Doorhandle]

Flight is something that's hard to fluff a mundane doing. Even the Hulk has problems vs flying opponents. But they ain't so high-and-mighty if you're an archer with a feat to add 1/2 your BAB to damage somehow--especially if your arrow can "Dispel MAgic" instead of doing damage.

A solution to this would be to have more ways to kick a flyer down to ground level.

Like being to pull a dragon to the ground by jumping and holding on, or by binding it's wings/making called shots to them.

Possibly evening crumping things to make a pile of rubble upwards towards it.

Also, I remember looking at a Spiderman videogame, where he would use his webs to attack to flying enemies and etheir pull himself towards them or vice versa. While spidey isn't really mundane as such(template?), it's not impossible to see it happening with a grappling hook.

[SciChronic]

just pushing up mundanes one is only one side of this argument, you have to push the high tier non-mundanes down.

in my campaigns i remove all tier 1-2 classes entirely. because the tier 1 and 2 classes and spell/power lists that are just too large and cover too much. tier 3 and below casters have more specialized spell lists which puts them closer to mundanes.

after than it comes down to proper dips. and item choice.

that being said, the amount of items mundanes need probably require some kind of WBL increase for them.

[Epsilon Rose]

I'd like to point to Tome of Prowess as an extant solution that solves a lot of what people are talking about. It's a homebrew book that drastically alters the skill system. The new skills are much more useful than the old ones and include things like secondary saves against effects (that can also slow there progress if you can't beet them outright), balance letting you surf on batista bolts and rays, disguise letting you transform yourself at higher levels, and so on. To counter balance this, characters don't get bonus skills for high interest and a lot of the skill spells got axed.

On the direct combat side of things, it is my understanding that Tome of Battle works very well, so you might want to start with that, but I also like the idea of mundane classes jacking themselves up with situation specific potions (that only they can use), implants, and gadgets that cause spell failure in the hands of a mage.

[OldTrees1]

I was careful to specify not just understanding, but intuition, as the issue. It is my hypothesis that the distasteful aspect of resource-management is largely the extra cognitive load of resource-tracking and the problem of choice. If you had a set of abilities that matched your intuitions, in a way that made complete sense which abilities you would want to use when, and why any given limit on their use exists, I think that even a quite complicated limited-use system would feel like the at-will systems you prefer.

After all, even at-will systems use resource management in the form of actions. The only reason that action-based management isn't distasteful to anyone is because of how intuitive it is to choose what to spend actions on.

I agree that a more intuitive limited use system is a solution when the distaste is a result of unintuitive resource tracking.

However I was giving a counter example where despite the limited use system being intuitive, the players still preferred at-will abilities.

One of the reasons some people dislike limited use abilities is that Humans have a tendency to hoard limited resources "just in case". In games this can lead to unused resources. Rather then fight against this tendency, some just prefer to have weaker but at-will resources instead.

I do not think it is fair to compare limited use abilities with mutually exclusive at-will abilities (action management/choice). Actions do not run out. Limited use abilities do run out if used.

[Epsilon Rose]

One of the reasons some people dislike limited use abilities is that Humans have a tendency to hoard limited resources "just in case". In games this can lead to unused resources. Rather then fight against this tendency, some just prefer to have weaker but at-will resources instead.

I definitely fall into this camp, especially when the limited use abilities are very discrete and there's no real way to recover them early in a pinch.

[Urpriest]

I agree that a more intuitive limited use system is a solution when the distaste is a result of unintuitive resource tracking.

However I was giving a counter example where despite the limited use system being intuitive, the players still preferred at-will abilities.

One of the reasons some people dislike limited use abilities is that Humans have a tendency to hoard limited resources "just in case". In games this can lead to unused resources. Rather then fight against this tendency, some just prefer to have weaker but at-will resources instead.

I do not think it is fair to compare limited use abilities with mutually exclusive at-will abilities (action management/choice). Actions do not run out. Limited use abilities do run out if used.

Actions do run out, though. If you spend your standard action and your move action and your swift action, you have no actions left that turn (barring free and the like). Sure you get them back at the next turn, but that's no different from getting them back at the next day, it's just a timeframe.

The difference is that you know, any given turn, that you should spend as much of that resource as you can. But that's not really so different. If each combat lasts three rounds, you just need three per-encounter abilities before you are spending one every round. If you're dealing with per-day abilities, the threshold is twelve.

In either case, the difficult choice is knowing that you ought to expend a resource at a given time, and how powerful of a resource to expend. And I agree that that ends up being an annoying choice. But I don't think it would be annoying if it were intuitive, which is what I'm going for here.

If you had an intuitive resource system, it would be obvious when you need to spend what. You'd hear your DM's description of the monster, and you'd think either "oh that sounds tough, better expend one of my higher tier abilities" or "oh that sounds like I can take care of it with a lower tier ability". I think that if that choice was something that made sense and came naturally the same way that "I will spend my standard action attacking the guy who's almost dead, and not the other guy" is unintuitive and natural, then most peoples' difficulty with resource-limited systems would vanish.

This is why I think people complain much less about 4e's dailies than about 3.5 spell slots ("realism" concerns aside). In 4e, your dailies are either things that you try to use one of in each fight, near the beginning (Barbarian Rages, Wizard control powers) or things you pile on in the last, most climactic fight of the day (most Striker dailies, many Leader dailies). It's much more intuitive when to use them, so more people are comfortable with them and fewer feel the need for at-will based options.

[NichG]

There's two main 'inconveniences' of resource tracking. One is literally the book-keeping. If I have a complex set of resources that are consumed over an extended period, I have to have some way of keeping track of which ones have been consumed and which ones have not. This means a lot of going back to the character sheet and checking boxes/erasing checkmarks/modifying fields on the spreadsheet/etc. While for a few things this isn't onerous, if there's too much, or especially if the set of things I have to track is being shuffled in some significant manner (like Crusader maneuvers) then it can be very distracting from play.

The second, unrelated issue is that of the planning time horizon. Basically, this comes down to 'how far ahead do you want to have to try to predict the day?'. Many people very much dislike any form of planning, and would like to be able to simply react instinctually to a situation. Other people are going to be comfortable with, say, planning resource usage over the course of a fight, but not comfortable trying to guess what sort of fights they might have later that day (especially problematic in situations where this is highly variable).

'Actions' are a bad example of the way in which resource management can be onerous in that they both have a very short time horizon (basically you use em as you get em, and its almost always a bad idea to try to 'save' them) and that there's no physical book-keeping associated with them.

[Epsilon Rose]

I'd also like to point out that 3 3-round encounters per day isn't necessarily a good or safe assumption to make. It feels a bit to gamist and there are GMs who will blithely ignore it. For example, I have an 'encounter' planned in a game I'm running that, depending on how it's counted, will stomp on one of those two assumptions. I don't think the encounter itself will be to hard, but if someone think they can spend 1/3 of their non-recoverable resources on each group of monsters they fight, they're going to be in trouble before they get to the end.

[OldTrees1]

Actions do run out, though. If you spend your standard action and your move action and your swift action, you have no actions left that turn (barring free and the like). Sure you get them back at the next turn, but that's no different from getting them back at the next day, it's just a timeframe.

You give turns more reality than I do. This causes different, yet valid, perspectives. A warrior does not become incapable of movement just because they used 2 move actions in a turn. It just means that their third movement is after those first 2 movements. The game merely rotates through players in 6 sec intervals.

However a half dragon does become incapable of breathing fire if it has used all its uses for the day.

What is the difference? Opportunity and Ability.
At-will abilities: Characters are able to do the ability whenever the opportunity is granted by the game.
Limited abilities: Characters may not be able to do the ability (expended) when the game gives them an opportunity.
(Characters are unable to use either when there is no opportunity)

So how does this explain why the 3 1/encounter powers (ABC) in a 3 round combat can be distasteful compared to 3 at-will powers (abc)?
The first combatant can use any encounter power to start with but that ability in unavailable on turns 2 and 3 despite having the time needed to enact the ability. The second combatant (at-wills) would never run into this problem.

Now you said that an intuitive system would clue players into when to use their limited abilities. However this misses the point that the limited uses of any particular ability could be distasteful to some. Bob wants to decide on the fly how many rounds he will use a breath weapon in. Assuming a 3 round combat, that could be anywhere from 0 to 3 times. Now if Bob had a 3/encounter breath weapon then it is indistinguishable from an at-will breath weapon (assuming all combats are 3 rounds long). So the only case to make the breath a limited ability in this example is if the uses available are less than the number of opportunities. If the uses are reduced to 1 or 2/encounter then Bob will run into encounters where he wanted 3 breath attacks but on the 3rd turn he has a time but no uses of his breath weapon left. Sure Bob might have other encounter powers (orb of fire?) leftover but Bob wanted to breathe fire again, not merely use fire.

Summary of bottom section:
If you can't run out of uses despite having time available, then it is indistinguishable from an at-will ability and should use at-will ability mechanics.
If you can run out of uses despite having time available, then people that dislike that, will dislike that.

[Morty]

A solution to this would be to have more ways to kick a flyer down to ground level.

Like being to pull a dragon to the ground by jumping and holding on, or by binding it's wings/making called shots to them.

Possibly evening crumping things to make a pile of rubble upwards towards it.

Also, I remember looking at a Spiderman videogame, where he would use his webs to attack to flying enemies and etheir pull himself towards them or vice versa. While spidey isn't really mundane as such(template?), it's not impossible to see it happening with a grappling hook.

Another solution would be to make magical flight less cheap and easy.

[Urpriest]

There's two main 'inconveniences' of resource tracking. One is literally the book-keeping. If I have a complex set of resources that are consumed over an extended period, I have to have some way of keeping track of which ones have been consumed and which ones have not. This means a lot of going back to the character sheet and checking boxes/erasing checkmarks/modifying fields on the spreadsheet/etc. While for a few things this isn't onerous, if there's too much, or especially if the set of things I have to track is being shuffled in some significant manner (like Crusader maneuvers) then it can be very distracting from play.

The second, unrelated issue is that of the planning time horizon. Basically, this comes down to 'how far ahead do you want to have to try to predict the day?'. Many people very much dislike any form of planning, and would like to be able to simply react instinctually to a situation. Other people are going to be comfortable with, say, planning resource usage over the course of a fight, but not comfortable trying to guess what sort of fights they might have later that day (especially problematic in situations where this is highly variable).

'Actions' are a bad example of the way in which resource management can be onerous in that they both have a very short time horizon (basically you use em as you get em, and its almost always a bad idea to try to 'save' them) and that there's no physical book-keeping associated with them.

I agree, but keep in mind this is a matter of degree. A complex set of resources does not necessarily require complex tracking (with maneuver cards for non-Crusader types being a straightforward example). Similarly, long planning horizons can be mitigated by making the actual planning choices more obviously tied to existing in-game information.

Essentially, it's easier to make an at-will based system that is intuitive because of these effects, but these effects are mitigable.


I'd also like to point out that 3 3-round encounters per day isn't necessarily a good or safe assumption to make. It feels a bit to gamist and there are GMs who will blithely ignore it. For example, I have an 'encounter' planned in a game I'm running that, depending on how it's counted, will stomp on one of those two assumptions. I don't think the encounter itself will be to hard, but if someone think they can spend 1/3 of their non-recoverable resources on each group of monsters they fight, they're going to be in trouble before they get to the end.

If the game is going to be designed to support different encounter structures, then the resource management system needs to be flexible enough to cover it. This is why, for example, I'm a big fan of the idea that 4e "daily" abilities should actually be "story" abilities, coming up at a particular place in an arc or series of encounters rather than in something narratively constrained like a day. So in your case (I'm assuming one long, marathon encounter), you'd need a system to support it that spreads interesting choices across that timeframe so that at no point are the characters just doing the same thing every round (because that's boring for anybody, at-will fans or no, if it goes on long enough), while still keeping choices restricted and meaningful for shorter fights. Perhaps an in-fight recharge mechanic, for example.


You give turns more reality than I do. This causes different, yet valid, perspectives. A warrior does not become incapable of movement just because they used 2 move actions in a turn. It just means that their third movement is after those first 2 movements. The game merely rotates through players in 6 sec intervals.

However a half dragon does become incapable of breathing fire if it has used all its uses for the day.

What is the difference? Opportunity and Ability.
At-will abilities: Characters are able to do the ability whenever the opportunity is granted by the game.
Limited abilities: Characters may not be able to do the ability (expended) when the game gives them an opportunity.
(Characters are unable to use either when there is no opportunity)

So how does this explain why the 3 1/encounter powers (ABC) in a 3 round combat can be distasteful compared to 3 at-will powers (abc)?
The first combatant can use any encounter power to start with but that ability in unavailable on turns 2 and 3 despite having the time needed to enact the ability. The second combatant (at-wills) would never run into this problem.

Now you said that an intuitive system would clue players into when to use their limited abilities. However this misses the point that the limited uses of any particular ability could be distasteful to some. Bob wants to decide on the fly how many rounds he will use a breath weapon in. Assuming a 3 round combat, that could be anywhere from 0 to 3 times. Now if Bob had a 3/encounter breath weapon then it is indistinguishable from an at-will breath weapon (assuming all combats are 3 rounds long). So the only case to make the breath a limited ability in this example is if the uses available are less than the number of opportunities. If the uses are reduced to 1 or 2/encounter then Bob will run into encounters where he wanted 3 breath attacks but on the 3rd turn he has a time but no uses of his breath weapon left. Sure Bob might have other encounter powers (orb of fire?) leftover but Bob wanted to breathe fire again, not merely use fire.

Summary of bottom section:
If you can't run out of uses despite having time available, then it is indistinguishable from an at-will ability and should use at-will ability mechanics.
If you can run out of uses despite having time available, then people that dislike that, will dislike that.

A Warrior can still move, they just move after other people. But what they can't do anymore (and the only thing they should care about), is move before those other people. Actions are in many ways a much more constraining resource system than any daily one, because you only get a few opportunities to act before your opponents do, and actions before your opponents are much more powerful than actions after your opponents.

Let's talk a bit about your Bob example. Ideally, if his resource system is well-balanced, Bob wouldn't typically feel the need to use the breath weapon more times in an encounter than he had uses. In a typical encounter, Bob would have call for an encounter's worth of abilities. Now occasionally Bob will still make bad choices, and use up his breath weapon before it is most needed. But Steve the Warrior has the same problem, in that he might use his Standard Action on the wrong target, giving up his chance to act before and neutralize some enemy, now unable to prevent what that enemy is about to do. I don't see why one would be more distasteful than the other.

[Phelix-Mu]

Just to clarify, by "at will" I was more referring to existing mundane skill sets, not the "at will/virtually so" abilities that come from the warlock/binder/DFA types. Fighters can kill enemies "at will;" they don't run out of bullets like the wizard will (though wizards have about a bazillion workarounds to resource limitation, not to mention simple encounter avoidance).

Thus, to add utility to the mundanes, I wouldn't be thinking of a subsystem like invocations, I would just be adding utility to skills (you jump your Jump roll x 5 in feet, whenever you want...maybe not quite that, you get the idea), adding weapon tricks (like a better system for feinting in combat), adding in some basic stuff that was suggested as needed. But without an x/day series of boxes to check off.

Not that I am opposed to x uses/y time systems, but there is a fine line between supernatural coolness x uses/y time and pseudo-casting (i.e., why didn't you just gish if that's what you wanted). I'd rather avoid the matter altogether, and keep the limited stuff to individual class abilities, not a whole subsystem.

Otherwise we're not talking about making fighters better, we're just talking about making a new class to cover the fighter role.

I do love this discussion. I will also say that I agree that tier 1 spell lists need to be limited to somewhat less than the thousands of existing options. The existing lists are literally a level of power and versatility that is impossible to replicate, which is highly problematic. No one can optimize like a caster, because they have the biggest arsenal at their fingertips.

[OldTrees1]

A Warrior can still move, they just move after other people. But what they can't do anymore (and the only thing they should care about), is move before those other people. Actions are in many ways a much more constraining resource system than any daily one, because you only get a few opportunities to act before your opponents do, and actions before your opponents are much more powerful than actions after your opponents.

Let's talk a bit about your Bob example. Ideally, if his resource system is well-balanced, Bob wouldn't typically feel the need to use the breath weapon more times in an encounter than he had uses. In a typical encounter, Bob would have call for an encounter's worth of abilities. Now occasionally Bob will still make bad choices, and use up his breath weapon before it is most needed. But Steve the Warrior has the same problem, in that he might use his Standard Action on the wrong target, giving up his chance to act before and neutralize some enemy, now unable to prevent what that enemy is about to do. I don't see why one would be more distasteful than the other.

Bob wouldn't typically feel the need to use the breath weapon more times in an encounter than he had uses.

True but we are talking about wants not needs. Bob might(will) eventually have an encounter where he wants to Breathe more than his uses per encounter. While he has plenty of abilities remaining to satisfy his combat needs, he cannot do what he wants to do.

I don't see why one would be more distasteful than the other.

By framing actions as a limited resource spent per turn you do make them sound more distasteful than if they were framed as a time keeping mechanic showing the sequence of events. When viewed as resources per turn then the players will run out of actions. When viewed as a time keeping mechanic players will run into situations where enemy actions resolve before their actions but they never run out of actions. So yes they can be equally distasteful* to some people using one framing of actions. However using the other framing, actions become less distasteful because they are no longer a use/time but rather are a measurement of time.

(*Although limited uses are not distasteful to everyone obviously)

[Urpriest]

Bob wouldn't typically feel the need to use the breath weapon more times in an encounter than he had uses.

True but we are talking about wants not needs. Bob might(will) eventually have an encounter where he wants to Breathe more than his uses per encounter. While he has plenty of abilities remaining to satisfy his combat needs, he cannot do what he wants to do.

I don't see why one would be more distasteful than the other.

By framing actions as a limited resource spent per turn you do make them sound more distasteful than if they were framed as a time keeping mechanic showing the sequence of events. When viewed as resources per turn then the players will run out of actions. When viewed as a time keeping mechanic players will run into situations where enemy actions resolve before their actions but they never run out of actions. So yes they can be equally distasteful* to some people using one framing of actions. However using the other framing, actions become less distasteful because they are no longer a use/time but rather are a measurement of time.

(*Although limited uses are not distasteful to everyone obviously)

Think about it like so: an at-will ability is restricted, but those restrictions are natural because they correspond to something intuitive, a measurement of time. That's why that framing is better-received than the other.

A limited-use ability can exploit this same sort of thing. Instead of measuring time, a limited-use ability can be intuitive by corresponding to a measurement of plot.

The best explanation I can think of for this is again in terms of 4e daily abilities, and pegging them to a narrative structure. Ideally, you'd know when to use your daily because "it's the final boss battle", or more generally, "it's the climax of the story". You wouldn't feel inhibited by not being able to use your abilities more, because they are abilities that only make sense to use "when the time is right", which corresponds to roughly their usage limitations. They're just boss-battle abilities, not run of the mill abilities. I think as long as that is intuitive and doesn't feel like an artificial, external limitation, such a system could appeal to the at-will fans of the world.

[OldTrees1]

Think about it like so: an at-will ability is restricted, but those restrictions are natural because they correspond to something intuitive, a measurement of time. That's why that framing is better-received than the other.

A limited-use ability can exploit this same sort of thing. Instead of measuring time, a limited-use ability can be intuitive by corresponding to a measurement of plot.

The best explanation I can think of for this is again in terms of 4e daily abilities, and pegging them to a narrative structure. Ideally, you'd know when to use your daily because "it's the final boss battle", or more generally, "it's the climax of the story". You wouldn't feel inhibited by not being able to use your abilities more, because they are abilities that only make sense to use "when the time is right", which corresponds to roughly their usage limitations. They're just boss-battle abilities, not run of the mill abilities. I think as long as that is intuitive and doesn't feel like an artificial, external limitation, such a system could appeal to the at-will fans of the world.

Wait, the solution you have to some players disliking running out of an ability, is to describe it as they never have that ability unless the narrative climax grants them the ability? So despite the ability saying 1/day, it means 0/day unless in the boss battle?
I can see how some characters would respond well to that (Elan) but not all characters or players would like that. While it is more intuitive for limited abilities, it is also more distasteful to some players. (This is important. Intuition is about understanding, distaste is about tastes. Humans can understand things that they dislike.)

Sidenote: 4E's mechanics are well designed for characters like Elan and that style.

[Psyren]

Legend pulled it off admirably ^_^

Legend improved on 4e's design goal, but that very design goal is what puts it at odds with simulationist players. Many of the objections the Giant raised in SSDT apply to Legend just as much as they do to 4e.

[jaybird]

Flight: "By Crom!"
Mind Blank: "By Crom!"
Stun Negation/Daze Negation: "By Crom!"
Freedom of Movement: "By Crom!"
Fear Immunity: "By Crom!"
True Seeing/Special Senses: "By Crom!"
Miss Chance: "By Crom!"
Tactical Teleportation: "By Crom!"
Immunity to Death effects: "By Crom!"
Immunity to Energy drain: "By Crom!"
(Extradimensional) Storage: "By Crom!"
Dispel Magic/protection from Dispel Magic: "By Crom!"
Initiative: "By Crom!"

:smallbiggrin:

[NichG]

If you want 1/story powers to be measurements of the advancement of the plot timeline, then the way to do it - and this is a very narrativist model - would be to give them the cost of advancing the plot or alternately have them be limited 'on one side'.

For example, lets say you break your story up into various pieces - you have Opening, Investigation, Complication, Climax, and Denouement, for example.

A given power can only be used 'post-Investigation' or 'post-Complication' or whatever. So you can't use it at all until you hit that point in the story, after which you can use it as much as you want. This'd be a good model for all those shonen anime where the characters unlock new powers through conflict.

But anyhow, thats a very different sort of dynamic than D&D generally delivers, and it certainly doesn't answer those who have 'simulationist' problems with X/day abilities.

Anyhow, I do think having physical 'tokens' that indicate abilities, like maneuver cards for Crusaders, is the way to go for reducing book-keeping, so I think thats a fair answer to that design flaw.

The problem of the planning horizon isn't so easily bypassed though, I think. I feel that its hard, from the point of view of someone used to planning, to understand just how much some people hate 'thinking ahead'; in my case, I've met people like this, e.g. people who will play a strat game like Chess or Go and only play blitz because they don't want to have to think about their move or think 'what the responses might be'. I do think its important to have something in the system that is both competent at the game and also resonates with this style of play (the 'I'm just going to do stuff and see what happens' style).

[Epsilon Rose]

The problem of the planning horizon isn't so easily bypassed though, I think. I feel that its hard, from the point of view of someone used to planning, to understand just how much some people hate 'thinking ahead'; in my case, I've met people like this, e.g. people who will play a strat game like Chess or Go and only play blitz because they don't want to have to think about their move or think 'what the responses might be'. I do think its important to have something in the system that is both competent at the game and also resonates with this style of play (the 'I'm just going to do stuff and see what happens' style).
I think there's another important distinction to be made here. There are definitely players who are comfortable with planning ahead, but like to have a more concrete idea of what they're planning for.
It's one thing if you're planning to raid the local castle. You can do reconnaissance and get a general idea of the guard rotations, staff makeup and various defenses and then make a plan based on that information. This is similar to go or chess: you don't know exactly what your opponent is going to do, but you have a good idea of what tools they have at their disposal.
Conversely, if you're adventuring through the faywilds on your way to a lost dungeon, you don't really know what you're going to fight. You can guess that on the way you'll mostly be fighting fay and fay related creatures, but even that's not a sure thing.

The big difference between these two situations is that in the former it feels like you're making meaningful and informed decisions and in the later it feels like your guessing. Combat mirrors the first scenario, because you generally have a good idea of what your opponent is capable of (the brute in full-plate with a great axe probably isn't a wizard and since none of them have more than two eyes and they're not floating, they're probably not beholders). There might be surprises (the wizard is actually a shape-shifted dragon, the brute is a cleric of Krom, the castle secretly only employs T3+ classes as guards), but you're generally going to be able to do some sizing up of your opponents. Per day abilities generally don't fall into this pattern, unless your in a situation where you know what you're going to face, so it's a lot harder to know when you should use them.


If the game is going to be designed to support different encounter structures, then the resource management system needs to be flexible enough to cover it. This is why, for example, I'm a big fan of the idea that 4e "daily" abilities should actually be "story" abilities, coming up at a particular place in an arc or series of encounters rather than in something narratively constrained like a day. So in your case (I'm assuming one long, marathon encounter), you'd need a system to support it that spreads interesting choices across that timeframe so that at no point are the characters just doing the same thing every round (because that's boring for anybody, at-will fans or no, if it goes on long enough), while still keeping choices restricted and meaningful for shorter fights. Perhaps an in-fight recharge mechanic, for example.

That's a good point and it gives me an idea. For the encounter I'm designing, I mostly have a very large blank grid and I'll be letting the players draw and place cards to make a path as they play, with the goals of reuniting the party and getting to the center or exit. Originally I was going to make a random table for enemies they might encounter on each card, but now I think I might also make one for random effects, some of which might be beneficial (1-70%=nothing, 71-80%=wild magic, 81-90%=restore xdy mana, 91-95% restore xdy hp) not sure about the rest). I think this should work fairly well, since I've replaced vancien casting with a mana based system. Do you have any advice for effects or percentages?

[Psyren]

Flight: "By Crom!"
Mind Blank: "By Crom!"
Stun Negation/Daze Negation: "By Crom!"
Freedom of Movement: "By Crom!"
Fear Immunity: "By Crom!"
True Seeing/Special Senses: "By Crom!"
Miss Chance: "By Crom!"
Tactical Teleportation: "By Crom!"
Immunity to Death effects: "By Crom!"
Immunity to Energy drain: "By Crom!"
(Extradimensional) Storage: "By Crom!"
Dispel Magic/protection from Dispel Magic: "By Crom!"
Initiative: "By Crom!"

:smallbiggrin:

So, divine magic then? :smalltongue: