My issue with your issue with 4E Swarms

[UserClone]

May I ask why people keep whining about weapon damage affecting insect swarms? You haven't seen any 4E insect swarms yet. If a level 12 Fighter can't hit a (Tiny, ~housecat-sized) Stirge or 2 with a sword swing, he probably would have died back at 2nd level when the Needlefang Drakes (also Tiny in size) proved likewise unhittable. Chances are, swarms of Fine creatures won't take much, if any, weapon damage from an arrow or flail. Truth is, we don't know yet. [/rant]

This is from the "stop saying 'internal consistency'" thread, but no one paid it any mind, as it was kind of o/t there.

[Rutee]

Given the general removal or vast lessening of effects that negate character types (Or at least, the reported removal of..), it's a pretty good guess that you can still swat at a huge group of flies with a sword. The real question is "Why shouldn't you?"

[UserClone]

It seems a natural thing to do, from my perspective; when a cloud of mosquitos descends upon me, I start swinging, after all. Open-hand, of course. I would never punch a mosquito. Or shoot an arrow at one. Seems to me that a simple houserule of "vs swarms of Fine creatures, Bludgeoning deals the normal 1/2 damage, slashing 1/4, and piercing is ineffective" would suffice to keep it realistic, if that's what you're into. *glares at self for ending clause on preposition*

[Jerthanis]

It seems a natural thing to do, from my perspective; when a cloud of mosquitos descends upon me, I start swinging, after all. Open-hand, of course. I would never punch a mosquito. Or shoot an arrow at one. Seems to me that a simple houserule of "vs swarms of Fine creatures, Bludgeoning deals the normal 1/2 damage, slashing 1/4, and piercing is ineffective" would suffice to keep it realistic, if that's what you're into. *glares at self for ending clause on preposition*

Actually, in the way you're using it here, "into" is not acting as a preposition, but as a particle. If, for example, the sentence still works when you transplant "into" to another part of the sentence, such as: "...would suffice to keep it realistic, if what you're into is that." (Which is legal, and expresses the same thing, though it sounds more awkward), then that means you didn't technically end your sentence in a preposition. The distinction between particles and prepositions is sometimes difficult, but you made no mistake here.

[Kurald Galain]

The real question is "Why shouldn't you?"

If you've seen the latest Indiana Jones movie, you should realize that the answer to that is "because you should RUN LIKE H*LL!!!!" :smallbiggrin:

[UserClone]

So no genuine challenges to or agreement with my actual point, then, as of yet? Rutee sort of did, in admitting that it was a guess.

[Kurald Galain]

So no genuine challenges to or agreement with my actual point, then, as of yet? Rutee sort of did, in admitting that it was a guess.

Oh. Well, in that case, no. Your argument essentially claims that (1) swarms of tinier creatures should be harder to hit, (2) swarms should be hittable by high-level characters but not necessarily by low-level ones, and (3) we don't know yet. However, we've read the actual "swarm" rules in a preview (thus contradicting your third point), and these rules contradict your first two points.

[UserClone]

Exception-based ruleset. Those three words to me indicate that until we see an insect swrm, we don't know the differences between an insect swarm and a needlefang drake swarm. It makes perfect sense to be able to swing a sword at a hissing horde of housecats (yay, alliteration) because they are, individually, tiny creatures. but we haven't seen any solid proof that you can shoot an arrow at a pile of bugs and somehow hurt that pile, beyond a couple of bugs, which should really be insignificant to the swarm as a whole.

[JaxGaret]

Ever heard of speculation?

[Worira]

Hideous hissing hordes, wholly hairy housecats, hating humans? Hemophiliacs huddle horrified!

[Rutee]

So no genuine challenges to or agreement with my actual point, then, as of yet? Rutee sort of did, in admitting that it was a guess.

That was a challenge.

"The city's planning on pulling out all the stop signs and replacing them with shrubbery"
"Think they'll get the one on First and Main?"

[martyboy74]

Hideous hissing hordes, wholly hairy housecats, hating humans? Hemophiliacs huddle horrified!

Hairy hideous hissing hordes wholly having human hating housecats? Hemophiliac households huddle horrified!

That work better?

[KillianHawkeye]

You know what? I really have no objection to a 1st level Fighter having the ability to damage a swarm of bees with a longsword. People who whine about realism should play a different RPG. This is D&D, and it uses D&D physics, not RL physics.

If allowing clubs and arrows to damage a swarm of mosquitoes makes the game more fun for melee types and doesn't take any fun away from the casters, then realism can go strait to Baator.

There, I said it! :smallmad:

[Talya]

You know what? I really have no objection to a 1st level Fighter having the ability to damage a swarm of bees with a longsword. People who whine about realism should play a different RPG. This is D&D, and it uses D&D physics, not RL physics.

If allowing clubs and arrows to damage a swarm of mosquitoes makes the game more fun for melee types and doesn't take any fun away from the casters, then realism can go strait to Baator.

There, I said it! :smallmad:

Instead, maybe you shouldn't use swarms, then.

[Rutee]

Instead, maybe you shouldn't use swarms, then.
No, I think Killian had it correct.

"Hey, let Swarms match the intent behind the rest of the rules, rather then being some slave to realism that the rest of the system doesn't care about".

[KillianHawkeye]

Thank you, Rutee. :smallwink:

[Talya]

No, I think Killian had it correct.

"Hey, let Swarms match the intent behind the rest of the rules, rather then being some slave to realism that the rest of the system doesn't care about".

Yes, but the intent is stupid. Swarms lose everything about them that makes them interesting as an opponent if they can be killed the same way everything else can.

[Rutee]

Yes, but the intent is stupid. Swarms lose everything about them that makes them interesting as an opponent if they can be killed the same way everything else can.

DnD's intent has always been, no. 1, to have an interesting game. News Flash: An enemy that half of your standard party can not feasibly act against is not interesting to fight. It's boring to fight. If that's what made them interesting to fight (It's not), then they don't need inclusion in the rules.

[Talya]

DnD's intent has always been, no. 1, to have an interesting game. News Flash: An enemy that half of your standard party can not feasibly act against is not interesting to fight. It's boring to fight. If that's what made them interesting to fight (It's not), then they don't need inclusion in the rules.

Swarms were never boring. They were terrifying, because you couldn't just smack away at them with your sword. We actually had a fighter pour lamp-oil on his sword and set in on fire so he could do fire damage to a swarm recently.

[KillianHawkeye]

The intent is "Let's make it possible for every monster to be defeated by any group of characters. Let's also make sure that every player has something effective they can do no matter what creatures they're fighting, so 4th Edition Fighters don't end up just like 3rd Edition Fighters."

If you want to call that stupid, that's your choice.

EDIT: The fact is, whether or not a swarm seems "interesting" (to you) has no bearing on the validity of my original statement. The new rules make the battle more fun for everyone. Case closed. (And personally, watching the caster kill the enemies while I stand around holding my sword like an idiot does not strike me as being "interesting".)

[Rutee]

Swarms were never boring. They were terrifying, because you couldn't just smack away at them with your sword. We actually had a fighter pour lamp-oil on his sword and set in on fire so he could do fire damage to a swarm recently.

Swarms were always boring, because you can't touch them if you can't cast. As a coward, I can see how a fictional construct can be scary, but they're only scary if you can actually act against them. There's no emotional response in "Welp, I can't do **** that's actually useful, lemme know when the fight's over." Well, maybe frustration. Frustration is not a good emotion for a game to engender though.

[KillianHawkeye]

I agree, if the intent of the creature is to be terrifying, then they should be immune to EVERYBODY'S attacks, not just the Fighter-types. Even if the character should be afraid in that situation, the player won't be, since he can see how the other characters are not impeded. But if nobody can hurt the thing, than all the players will get a little scared and maybe run away.

I can guarantee you that the party will not flee from a swarm if only half the party's attacks are useless, and thus the useless characters will feel frustrated about their uselessness, not terrified about their entire group's uselessness.

[Talya]

The intent is [i]"Let's make it possible for every monster to be defeated by any group of characters.



1) Nobody who is prepared and/or quick-witted was useless against a swarm (see example of fighter who set his sword on fire).

2) You don't need to make every monster defeated by any group of characters, that's poor game design. You make many types of monster's who require very different abilities to defeat. You then let the DM pick and choose which ones he's going to use. Since there are many different party compositions, different fights are going to be harder or easier depending on the abilities of your party. That's how it's supposed to be. That's why you don't roll your encounters on a random table.

[Rutee]

1) Nobody who is prepared and/or quick-witted was useless against a swarm (see example of fighter who set his sword on fire)
Whoohoo, 4 freaking d6 of damage a turn, /if/ I hit with all my iterative attacks! 14 average damage, bitch! Eat it!


2) You don't need to make every monster defeated by any group of characters, that's poor game design. You make many types of monster's who require very different abilities to defeat. You then let the DM pick and choose which ones he's going to use. Since there are many different party compositions, different fights are going to be harder or easier depending on the abilities of your party. That's how it's supposed to be. That's why you don't roll your encounters on a random table.
You mean like 3rd ed explicitly endorses?? That notwithstanding, you've managed to sidestep a critical point; It's /worse/ game design to have a standard type of party (The archetypal Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, Cleric) and then negate half of that party in any given encounter. I don't think any party composition should be able to handle anything, but as a general rule, 1 controller, 1 Leader, 1 Defender, 1 Striker should be able to drop most things. I can see breaking that with specific encounters; After all, there'll always be unknown unknowns. But an entire subsection of monsters?


At any rate, you're not defending Swarms as they are. You're attacking the idea that everyone should contribute. The only defense you had was 'terror', but I already pointed out that there's no terror in a foe that's only implacable to /you/.

[Kurald Galain]

2) You don't need to make every monster defeated by any group of characters, that's poor game design. You make many types of monster's who require very different abilities to defeat.

I fully agree with that. Part of the fun of the game is occasionally getting into a situation where the "normal" tricks don't work, and having to do something about that. Besides, it's really quite ok if the player characters sometimes have to run away from things.

Thus, the 4E way of handling swarms is actually more boring, because you can handle them the exact same way you're handling anything else - by hitting it until it breaks. It encourages Xykon strategy rather than Redcloak strategy. Of course, this depends on your group - if everybody wants to be at maximum efficiency in every single encounter (which appears to be what 4E aims for) then that by definition reduces possible variation between encounters. Cue flaming reaction in 3... 2... 1...

[Jack Zander]

At any rate, you're not defending Swarms as they are. You're attacking the idea that everyone should contribute. The only defense you had was 'terror', but I already pointed out that there's no terror in a foe that's only implacable to /you/.

She isn't saying not everyone should be able to contribute. She's just saying some roles should be more effective at certain things than others. Any prepared meleer will have some flasks of oil, acid, or some magic item that can deal damage to swarms (even a simple torch can hurt them). They definitely should not be sitting down and waiting for the caster to win the battle for them. Sure, the mage is better at handling swarms, but that doesn't mean (s)he's the only one who can contribute.

The roles are reversed when fighting constructs. Mages are rather ineffective against them, but that doesn't mean they sit out while the fighters shine. They should be buffing the fighters or at least casting defensive spells on themselves while they run for their lives (yes, barely escaping alive can be fun sometimes).



Rutee, I've gotten so used to arguing against you, that I'm going to reserve all future opinions until after you've stated yours. Then I'll take the other side.

[Aquillion]

The thing is, though, isn't 4th edition giving lots more abilities to fighter-types? A ToB class is usually going to have something to do when fighting a swarm, just like a wizard usually has some trick to pull when faced with a Golem. The reason 3rd edition swarms were so annoying for fighter-types is because fighter-types only had one trick up their sleeve... but 4th-edition fighter-types would be quite capable of helping against a 3rd-edition swarm in one way or another.

I think the 'cinematic effect' of swarms being immune to weapons can be fun, and it's nice to have different types of enemies to force players to diversify their abilities and tactics. The problem is that in 3rd edition, most melee classes can't diversify their abilities or tactics very much (yeah, sure, burning oil on your sword for 1d6 damage. But your class barely helps with that -- you've been reduced to pulling a tactic that a Warrior could manage just as well, and it doesn't seem likely that your contribution against a Hellwasp swarm is going to be particularly noticable compared to a caster.)

But 4th edition is supposed to fix that by giving everyone a mix of Warlock-style, ToB-style, and Caster-style abilities. I don't see why they needed to change the monsters, too... what's the point of having all those nice new abilities if they've taken out the varied monsters to use them on?

[Reel On, Love]

\
The roles are reversed when fighting constructs. Mages are rather ineffective against them, but that doesn't mean they sit out while the fighters shine. They should be buffing the fighters or at least casting defensive spells on themselves while they run for their lives (yes, barely escaping alive can be fun sometimes).


No they're not! Solid Fog. Illusions. Buffs like Haste. Instantaneous Conjurations (orbs vs. no CON score). Other SR: No spells.

[Talya]

No they're not! Solid Fog. Illusions. Buffs like Haste. Instantaneous Conjurations (orbs vs. no CON score). Other SR: No spells.

Solid Fog never wins a battle. It just delays it a couple rounds.

Most useful illusions (other than personal buffs like mirror image) allow SR.

He included buffs in his statement.

Orbs are awesome.

[Moak]

Orbs are awesome.

Orbs are the spells that made golem risible,expecially thanks to the change of the spell immunity from 3.0 to 3.5

"Hi,golem,you were my worst nightmere,now I Orb you and you puny HP out of existence...Fighter-type,you are even more screwed"

The only exception is the Golem from the Draconomicon,probably,because isn't stated that they are immune only to spells that allows RI...even if I fear that it was only a typo..

I've always loved swarms (expecially cranium rat ones),but they were build to crash out fighter types...that are already crashed and umiliated by fullcaster all the time...

As a DM you must calibrate a fight against a swarm veeeery veeery carefull....or you can see a group of 5 lvl 4 player be near destroyed by CR2 swarm..

[KillianHawkeye]

You don't need to make every monster defeated by any group of characters, that's poor game design. You make many types of monster's who require very different abilities to defeat.
That's your opinion. What if my players (for example) all wanted to play warrior classes. Like members of a theives' guild or a hardened group of mercenaries. Then I couldn't use that monster against them without deciding that they're probably going to lose.


You then let the DM pick and choose which ones he's going to use.
Unless I'm running an adventure that calls for a specific monster.


Since there are many different party compositions, different fights are going to be harder or easier depending on the abilities of your party. That's how it's supposed to be.
Why is that "how it's supposed to be"?


That's why you don't roll your encounters on a random table.
Then why do they gives us tables with numbers for random encounters? Isn't that what makes them random?

And for those who are arguing for the cinematic feel of swarms, let me just say that if I wanted it to be cinematic then I wouldn't let them roll initiative. I would "strongly suggest" that they instead do whatever I have planned for them to do rather than allowing them to use free will. And cackle maniacally.

Or maybe we should just agree to disagree.

[Aquillion]

Solid Fog never wins a battle. It just delays it a couple rounds.

Most useful illusions (other than personal buffs like mirror image) allow SR.

He included buffs in his statement.

Orbs are awesome.I think you meant golems specifically, not constructs in general (other constructs fail quite handily against disintegrate, say, since that works on objects. Having no con score isn't always a good thing.)

Even against golems, though, terrain-alteration is still perfectly effective. Disintegrate still helps here -- not targeted on the golem, but the ground beneath it. Most golems aren't so good at climbing, so you can often win the battle in one spell that way. With other battlefield alteration spells, a golem can be walled in just like anything else. Transmute Rock to Mud can be used on the area to trap them, or (for stone golems) on the golem itself to slow them. Summoned or called critters can attack it just fine. Solid Fog can win a battle if your team uses the time it buys to move into a better location (again, golems are wimps if you can get into a good location. They can't fly or teleport or anything special like that.) Tentacles work fine on smaller golems. Even a lowly grease or Web spell can help. And if you have to run away, magic offers countless options that are unlikely to fail.

The point is, a wizard can still use their class abilities to contribute effectively against a golem in many useful ways. They get tons of different spells, each of which is practically its own seperate ability... sure, constructs (and golems in particular) limit them somewhat, but they have lots of options that aren't mind-affecting and don't require SR. Those spells also happen to be some of the most generally-useful ones around... every wizard worth their salt is going to have things like Disintegrate, Web, and Grease under their hat. And that's ignoring all their buffs, which are a major part of casting and generally work irrespective of the enemy. Maybe (if they haven't specifically prepared for it) they won't be as overpowering against those golems as they are against everything else, but they should still have plenty of spells to use.

By comparison... what do non-ToB melee class abilities have to contribute against a swarm? The usual answer is to stand back and use (weak) items. That's failure. The abilities offered by a class shouldn't be totally useless against an entire category of opponents.

[Roderick_BR]

People are complaining that you can swat flies with hammers? :smallbiggrin:
I think both AD&D and 3.x had some swarm creatures, that you could deal damage with weapons. What's the difference?

[Rutee]

I fully agree with that. Part of the fun of the game is occasionally getting into a situation where the "normal" tricks don't work, and having to do something about that. Besides, it's really quite ok if the player characters sometimes have to run away from things.

I agree in spirit, but you're missing something critical in your comparison; The normal tricks work just fine for some characters. If you have a monster that /can not/ be defeated by normal means, that's one thing; That's actually pretty cool, if /nobody/ can directly hurt it. Swarms as written in 3.5 really only stop the normal means of some characters. No, it isn't okay just because Golems do it to a different one, and unliving creatures do it to another group (Mages and PRecision damage dealers, respectively). Encounter design that encourages 1 or 2 people to sit back and wait for the fight to be over is legitimately bad.

Incidentally, if you'd like to compare what a clever mage can do with a golem to what a fighter can do with a swarm, don't. The mage does in fact have other options. The fighter who can't hurt something with a weapon doesn't.

[Kurald Galain]

Incidentally, if you'd like to compare what a clever mage can do with a golem to what a fighter can do with a swarm, don't.
I wasn't. It is a well-known fact that casters have much more options in 3E than meleeers do, and yes, that is a problem. My point is that, regardless of system, there should be situations where the party is not at maximum efficiency. Although I'm sure there are groups that think otherwise, and indeed 4E is written for them (fully healing each night, no more memorization times, no long-lasting status effects, etc).

My other point is that if a player character relies on doing Trick X over and over again (regardless of whether that trick is chain tripping, or some particular spell, or whatever), that character deserves to occasionally end up in a situation where this trick doesn't work; this encourages variety and thinking up other solutions.

[Charity]

I wasn't. It is a well-known fact that casters have much more options in 3E than meleeers do, and yes, that is a problem. My point is that, regardless of system, there should be situations where the party is not at maximum efficiency. Although I'm sure there are groups that think otherwise, and indeed 4E is written for them (fully healing each night, no more memorization times, no long-lasting status effects, etc).
My other point is that if a player character relies on doing Trick X over and over again (regardless of whether that trick is chain tripping, or some particular spell, or whatever), that character deserves to occasionally end up in a situation where this trick doesn't work; this encourages variety and thinking up other solutions.

OK I do agree with the sentiment of giving players different challenges and testing their adaptability, and I'm not get into the debate surrounding your assertion "and indeed 4E is written for them (fully healing each night, no more memorization times" we both know we disagree here.

I am sure I've seen dieases for 4e, they have to be "long-lasting status effects" I imagine. I would also be suprised if there were not others though with poison doing HP damage the only loong term effect thats likely to have is death.

The problem I have with most long term effects is that they ruin low level characters and force them to retreat back to town, and high level characters simply cast a couple of cheap scrolls and get on with their day... they are I'm afraid either game stopping or irrelivant... seems like a weak mechanic to me.

[KillianHawkeye]

The usual answer is to stand back and use (weak) items. That's failure.

I agree and would like to add that when you're forced to resort to such measures, including the fighter who poured oil on his blade, you do not having something useful to contribute. You're just tricking yourself into thinking you have something useful to contribute.

[Rutee]

My other point is that if a player character relies on doing Trick X over and over again (regardless of whether that trick is chain tripping, or some particular spell, or whatever), that character deserves to occasionally end up in a situation where this trick doesn't work; this encourages variety and thinking up other solutions.

Right, this is the part I agree with. I'm just saying that Swarms, as they are now, are above and beyond "Your trick doesn't work", taking it to "You're useless". Same as no-anatomy creatures for the precision damage folks, really, except Swarms involve more people (Since they also include Precision Damage folks) and nullify core classes. Pretty much no monster should, by design, nullify a core class (In theory, no monster should ever nullify a class by design, but I'm making some allowance for the fact that DnD has splatbook spam, and it's not impossible that a class introduced somewhere has an achilles heel in a monster in another book.) A class having a weakness is fine (As 4e swarms are to physical damage types), because you're not reduced to "Everything you gained from levelling up is pointless here.", but an achilles heel (In the literal sense; Something that pretty much wins against you, always) isn't.

[Bender]

Aren't we missing the point of 4th edition encounter design here. There should be several monsters, and the swarms are there to spice up the encounter.
That's how I'm planning on using swarms in 3.5 anyway.

With that in mind, I don't see a problem in a class being useless against a certain monster. The DM probably put another monster in the same encounter anyway.

If a swarm is all you're fighting, I'm undecided about which side I'm on... But I do like them more as a little extra to another encounter.

[Hallavast]

You're just tricking yourself into thinking you have something useful to contribute.

Well, if it works then the fact that you're "useless" really doesn't matter to you, now does it?

And if you can't do enough damage to matter with mundane explosives (like alchemist fires or barrels of black powder or whatever), then that's a fundamental design flaw by itself.

The optimal choice would be to make swarms non-choppable while giving fighters (rogues are fine w/ their UMDs and all) a viable alternative like blowing stuff up.

So the problem is not about swarms being non-sword compatable. It's about not having adequate incindiary alternatives for non arcane/divine powersource users. Said explosive devices should do less damage than a good sword swing or striker spell, but enough to keep things like swarms and oozes under wraps.

[Talya]

By comparison... what do non-ToB melee class abilities have to contribute against a swarm? The usual answer is to stand back and use (weak) items. That's failure. The abilities offered by a class shouldn't be totally useless against an entire category of opponents.

And what non-TOB classes are in 4th edition anyway?

Answer: None. ALL classes are designed like TOB classes. You'd lose nothing by forcing them to rely on other tricks to attack the swarm.

[Prophaniti]

I, too, raise my voice with those on the side of old swarm rules. Logic and rea-verisimili-ism aside, I agree that having monsters and opponents that the normal tactics don't work against can only liven up your game. Unless your feeling particularly lazy as a DM or player and just want to hit things. Honestly, I've been there. The rest of the time, though, it's fun to be challenged and to have to think of unusual and clever ways to handle a situation, which can include unusual and clever ways of barely escaping with your lives.

The new swarms (if indeed that is how it's going to be) seem indicitive of the entire editions shift to gaming that requires less creative or critical thought. This can be good in small amounts. Speaking as a DM, it's nice when I don't have to put a lot of effort into designing encounters and can focus on story. As a player, though, I find it makes me bored very quickly to have every encounter solved by whacking things with my sword. Don't get me wrong, I like whacking things with my sword. I need a change of pace once in a while, though, a situation where only quick thinking (and sometimes just a bit of luck) gets me out alive.

[Temp.]

The optimal choice would be to make swarms non-choppable while giving fighters (rogues are fine w/ their UMDs and all) a viable alternative like blowing stuff up.This is what I would have liked to see as well. It's also probably going to be something I houserule in if I ever run 4th edition.

[Rutee]

Well, if it works then the fact that you're "useless" really doesn't matter to you, now does it?
Good Design shouldn't strive for the deception of usefulness, but actual usefulness.


The optimal choice would be to make swarms non-choppable while giving fighters (rogues are fine w/ their UMDs and all) a viable alternative like blowing stuff up
If you can make blowing stuff up interesting (I'm not saying this as if it's /difficult/.. it's freaking explosives for crying out loud :smallbiggrin:), accessible to the Fighter without any enormous changes (Bows are useless unless you're specced for them, f'rex), then yes, this is perfectly acceptable.


And what non-TOB classes are in 4th edition anyway?

Answer: None. ALL classes are designed like TOB classes. You'd lose nothing by forcing them to rely on other tricks to attack the swarm.
What other tricks? If you made 4e swarms immune to physical damage, then Fighters would [/b]still[/b] be boned in 4e, /because they do physical damage/. Even if they're designed like ToB, that doesn't mean they suddenly deal energy damage or what have you.

And Swarms as 4e puts them? They're closer to what you claim to want. Your normal tricks don't work that well. They don't stop functioning completely, but you do in fact have to change tactics.

[Scintillatus]

As we have learned from Giacomo's failed attempt at a Monk build, any argument of "hey, the fighter/rogue/ranger/warlord/paladin can just use items!" is totally and utterly worthless.

Everyone can use items. Everyone can get this "super effectiveness" against swarms. Once again, it comes down to "I want to have more fun than other people." "No. I want to have fun too." "HOW DARE YOU WIZARDS OF THE COAST, HOW DARE YOU"

[Rutee]

Well, no. Giacomo's monk differs from having Fighters have auxiliary weapons in the form of explosives or what have you. The largest difference is that Giacomo's monk relies on consumables in /every single fight ever/. Having auxiliary weapons is "Against some enemies, I use these things". It's also not an attempt to say "I'm better", but to say "I can still contribute, just not as much as normal."

[Prophaniti]

The game design being good or bad doesn't necessarily have anything to do with whether a person is useful or feels useful ('cause apparently we can't go hurting their feelings) in a given situation. IRL: if a civilian computer technician working for the army finds himself in an ambush firefight, he's not going to be terribly useful. It's still going to make an interesting story or an interesting encounter if it was done in a modern rpg. More so because of his inability to use his best skills. The challenge and interest comes from the difficulty. He is forced to carefully examine the situation to find unorthadox solutions, or at least attempt them. Sure, he might just sit in the corner and cower. Some people can't handle the stress of such situations. But maybe he's extraordinary. Maybe he'll rise to the challenge and find a way to save the day. That's the fun of it.

If your fighter drops his sword and bawls every time a swarm or ooze shows up, that's not a problem with the system. It's a problem with the character (maybe your roleplaying him as a person who has difficulty in situations where hitting things with his sword doesn't work, in which case kudos for staying in character) or you just don't want to put the effort into finding another solution.

[Scintillatus]

I have no idea why you're arguing with someone who's supporting your point, but hey~

I don't think the argument becomes any less absurd when the focus is narrowed. Actively reducing one class's effectiveness against one enemy - say, Rogues versus Undead, Mages and Rogues versus Golems, whatever - is a bad idea. It means one class shines more than the others, it makes the other classes bored and frustrated, like you said.

Arguing "hey, you could just use items!" is silly. Giving fighters random "you explode this" powers is also silly. There should be a way to make the monster type a unique threat without relying on immunity or reduction; a simple way would be just giving them a higher-than-average armour class, to represent them buzzing about; that way damage isn't reduced, one class might be SOMEWHAT more effective, but you're not entirely worthless or uninterested in participating.

Also, I stand by my point. People who want more screen-time for their character-type of choice ARE just trying to deny others fun while hoarding it for themselves. There are far too many people arguing that wizards should be powerful "because". WotC are going the right way by eliminating immunities.

Edit: How exactly is "this monster is immune to all physical damage, throw stuff at it" an incredibly fascinating puzzle and character challenge? Seriously, explain this to me.

[Rutee]

If your fighter drops his sword and bawls every time a swarm or ooze shows up, that's not a problem with the system. It's a problem with the character (maybe your roleplaying him as a person who has difficulty in situations where hitting things with his sword doesn't work, in which case kudos for staying in character) or you just don't want to put the effort into finding another solution.

Well done. You've managed to combine a near ad hominem with empty words. How, pray tell, should a Fighter contribute against a Swarm or an ooze? "I don't want to put the effort in"? Really? Put up or shut up. What do you do when no tactic you can execute is useful?

FYI: I've never seen a character break down. I've seen players get bored though. Again; "Lemme know when the fight's over"


The game design being good or bad doesn't necessarily have anything to do with whether a person is useful or feels useful
Er, yes. Yes as a matter of fact it does. Good game design means that the default assumption in monster design should be that everyone should be capable of contributing. Individual characters may or may not be useful in given situations (It would be difficult to design a monster that makes wizards feel useful after blowing all their spells/charged items, for instance), but when you design the monster, you shouldn't by default shut characters out.


Arguing "hey, you could just use items!" is silly.
WEll, not entirely. Consumables are there to be consumed, to an extent. It's not just narrowing the focus of item use, but the frequency, that makes "You could use items" a selectively useful tactic. It's not like Bombs are useless in Shooters, after all; You just can't rely on them being around every 2 seconds. That said, I do agree with the rest.

[Prophaniti]

Did you mean me arguing, or Rutee? I wasn't really arguing with anyone in particular, just voicing my opinion.

I wasn't speaking specifically of swarms either. No, they're not 'incredibly fascinating' puzzles or challenges. They're the low end of what I'm talking about, requiring only a little thought or some planning to deal with. Other examples would be enemy archers on a ledge out of jumping range added to an otherwise unremarkable encounter.

Pretty much anything that breaks the monotony of 'Hit them until they're dead' (which IMO includes 'use this matial manuever then this one until they're dead', for those who would tout ToB at me), and makes me actually think about my next action. I'm just saying that things like that have always enhanced my games, both as a player and a DM. I like being challenged.

[Scintillatus]

I meant Rutee.

I'd argue that you can do that without any single class being limited in their offensive capabilities, and that 4e will do it even better than 3e did. With the ability to control how your enemies move, and with stunts being encouraged rather than ignored, there's a lot more room for chandelier-swinging, pit-kicking, and other assorted goodness.

Making stuff immune or giving it DR doesn't enhance an encounter, good DMing does, and this isn't a discussion about good DMing, really.

[Prophaniti]

Well done. You've managed to combine a near ad hominem with empty words. How, pray tell, should a Fighter contribute against a Swarm or an ooze? "I don't want to put the effort in"? Really? Put up or shut up. What do you do when no tactic you can execute is useful?:smallconfused: I'm confused. You're saying what i was saying... When I play fighters and we fight swarms or oozes I do find things to do. Are they as effective as tossing fireballs around? Of course not. Do I feel bad about it, or bored because I'm not one-shotting everything in sight? No. I don't need to be slaughtering everything I come across or do be doing as much damage as another character to have fun at this game.

Er, yes. Yes as a matter of fact it does. Good game design means that the default assumption in monster design should be that everyone should be capable of contributing. Individual characters may or may not be useful in given situations (It would be difficult to design a monster that makes wizards feel useful after blowing all their spells/charged items, for instance), but when you design the monster, you shouldn't by default shut characters out.You seem to have that strange attitude of politically-correct inclusion, ie make sure everyone feels they're contributing, that I simply do not understand. I put it to the individual players to find ways to make themselves useful in situations, I don't hand it to them, and I don't want it handed to me. That said, I don't, as DM, deliberately handicap a class beyond putting them in situations where normal tactics won't cut it.

Monsters with DR or SR make sense in most cases and add a bit of variety to encounters. This is my opinion, and the opinion of the people I play with. You are certainly entitled to disagree, but I don't see the logic in your argument, aside from the 'we don't want players to feel bad when they have to think of something besides hitting it with their big stick.' I'm not saying that's an invalid argument, there's nothing wrong with it if that's the kind of people you play with. I just don't agree.

@Scintillatus: I've seen nothing to indicate that 4E will be any more or less 'stunt friendly' than any other edition of D&D. Chandellier swinging and banister sliding has always depended on the skill of the DM and the inventivness of the player.

[Jayabalard]

That's your opinion. What if my players (for example) all wanted to play warrior classes. Like members of a theives' guild or a hardened group of mercenaries. Then I couldn't use that monster against them without deciding that they're probably going to lose.Correct; I don't see a problem with that. If you're not smart enough to design encounters around the strengths and weaknesses of your party then you should find someone who is actually competent to DM for your group.


Unless I'm running an adventure that calls for a specific monster.I can't see how you're being stopped from swapping the monster out for something else...


Why is that "how it's supposed to be"?Because D&D is a game where characters have different power levels, either through different class or race choices, different levels, different levels of optimization, etc. It is assumed that

the DM is intelligent enough to figure out how to properly challenge their specific party
the DM is willing to put enough time into the game to make the game fun for everyone.



Then why do they gives us tables with numbers for random encounters? Isn't that what makes them random?They know that some DM's are lazier than others.

[Rutee]

:smallconfused: I'm confused. You're saying what i was saying...
You may wish to doublecheck. You've been saying "It's okay for people to suck because it makes the game interesting". I've been saying the opposite.


When I play fighters and we fight swarms or oozes I do find things to do.
...Such as?


Are they as effective as tossing fireballs around? Of course not. Do I feel bad about it, or bored because I'm not one-shotting everything in sight? No. I don't need to be slaughtering everything I come across or do be doing as much damage as another character to have fun at this game.
Backhanded flaming is so passe. Who said anything about having to utterly demolish (Or even win?) every fight?


You seem to have that strange attitude of politically-correct inclusion, ie make sure everyone feels they're contributing, that I simply do not understand. I put it to the individual players to find ways to make themselves useful in situations, I don't hand it to them, and I don't want it handed to me. That said, I don't, as DM, deliberately handicap a class beyond putting them in situations where normal tactics won't cut it.
You keep squawking "Find a way, find a way!" Are you going to actually say something at some point, or are you going to keep up with the thinly veiled insults? 'cause i can go ahead and put you on ignore if your only recourse in discourse is to discredit the opposition by invoking cheap emotional responses against things like utter powergamers.


Monsters with DR or SR make sense in most cases and add a bit of variety to encounters. This is my opinion, and the opinion of the people I play with.
DR != Immunity.


You are certainly entitled to disagree, but I don't see the logic in your argument, aside from the 'we don't want players to feel bad when they have to think of something besides hitting it with their big stick.'
You really love the backhanded personal attacks, don't you?

[Talya]

Correct; I don't see a problem with that. If you're not smart enough to design encounters around the strengths and weaknesses of your party then you should find someone who is actually competent to DM for your group.

I can't see how you're being stopped from swapping the monster out for something else...

Because D&D is a game where characters have different power levels, either through different class or race choices, different levels, different levels of optimization, etc. It is assumed that

the DM is intelligent enough to figure out how to properly challenge their specific party
the DM is willing to put enough time into the game to make the game fun for everyone.


They know that some DM's are lazier than others.


I like you.

[Scintillatus]

Because he agrees with you or because he's insulting everyone who doesn't agree with him?

I am getting extraordinarily tired of this.

[Prophaniti]

You keep squawking "Find a way, find a way!" Are you going to actually say something at some point, or are you going to keep up with the thinly veiled insults? 'cause i can go ahead and put you on ignore if your only recourse in discourse is to discredit the opposition by invoking cheap emotional responses against things like utter powergamers.

You really love the backhanded personal attacks, don't you?

Ok, you seem to be deriving direct personal insult where none is intended. I apologize if I come off as insulting, it is not intentional or desired. The point I'm trying to make is simply this: Situations where a character's normal modus operandi is not an effective approach do not adversely effect gameplay unless one of two things happens:

a)DM did not designe the encounter properly and didn't provided a route of success, or at least escape (note this does not mean he has to tell you it's there, merely that he provided one) OR

b)the player immediately, on finding the monster is resistant/immune to his main form of damage, throws up his hands and says 'let me know when the wizard is done killing it.'

Let's use the example of Bob the Duelist. Bob is a renowned duelist, an artist with a fencing foil or dagger. He can dispatch brigands or orcs with carefully placed thrusts, then dodge their falling corpse and never get a drop of blood on him. Bob suddenly finds himself (for whatever reason) attacked by some zombies and skeletons. Game rules aside for a moment, a rapier would certainly not be the weapon I would choose to fight something like that. Would you?

Now, let's say you're playing Bob. What do you do? Throw your hands up and rant about how the undead's resistance to your main form of attack ruins the game? Or do you look around for something to use as a club? Or some way to lure them into an improvised trap (like cutting the rope that's holding the big pile of logs together up the hill from you)?

You want more specific examples, I'd have to have a more specific situation. The idea here is improvisation and the ability to deal with changing circumstances. Again, all I'm saying is having those monsters with DR, SR or immunities merely allows the DM to more directly force the party to improvise, rather than having to concoct elaborate situations. Not that those aren't fun to do sometimes, but as Jayabalard points out some of us DMs are lazier than others.

[Talya]

Because he agrees with you or because he's insulting everyone who doesn't agree with him?

I am getting extraordinarily tired of this.

Because he understands the job of the DM.

[Hallavast]

Good Design shouldn't strive for the deception of usefulness, but actual usefulness.


The deception is rather irrelavent. good design should strive to help players have fun with the game. If deception is a bi-product, that's incidental...

[KillianHawkeye]

Okay, agree to disagree it is, then. Farewell.

[Rutee]

Ok, you seem to be deriving direct personal insult where none is intended.
I might just be misinterpreting my own words here, but I'm pretty sure I said your insults were anything but direct.

Regardless, cute phrases like "I don't care that I'm not always useful, but then I don't mind not instant-winning every encounter" are a great way to insult your opponent through mischaracterization, due to the way most forums operate. It lets you insult your opponent without outright insulting them. It's like saying "I have a life", except less blindingly obvious. And you kept on doing it, seems like, so hey, buh-bye.


The deception is rather irrelavent. good design should strive to help players have fun with the game. If deception is a bi-product, that's incidental...
Welp. You come back to the part where if you base things on a deception (And a deception that doesn't care about the rules in the first place, since the 'argument' is that you can invent off the wall tactics that the rules don't give a whit about), you're more likely to keep people from having fun because they'll figure out what's actually going on.

[Prophaniti]

Well, seriously I apologize. Looking back at some of my posts I see what you're saying Rutee. I think it's just the mood I'm in today, it's got me tending to be snide and overly sarcastic. I'll watch it more closely.

Out of curiosity, though, any counters to what I said, rather than how rudely I was saying it?

[Hallavast]

Welp. You come back to the part where if you base things on a deception (And a deception that doesn't care about the rules in the first place, since the 'argument' is that you can invent off the wall tactics that the rules don't give a whit about), you're more likely to keep people from having fun because they'll figure out what's actually going on.

What? Je ne comprende pas... A player that has fun by believing she is contributing to the fight has accomplished the imperative. Thus, any "flaws" in the design of this type of encounter are moot for that player. The only way they'll find out is if another player abandons all semblance of tact and tells them that they're not contributing to the fight.

But the more I think about it, the "off the wall tactics" that fighter types can use are not all that ineffective. You're still contributing something; even if it's throwing an alchemist's fire, swinging a torch, or just standing between the swarm and the spellcasters so that they deal damage to you instead of Baron Von Squish.

And as far as swarms go in particular, I haven't encountered any that were higher than CR 4 or so (unless they were some kind of giant centipede swarm or something - in which case one should be able to chop them up conventionally anyway). So that 1-2d6 fire damage isn't that bad. It isn't great by any means, but you're still contributing. You still have much more to do than "sit down and wait for the wizard to kill it" (btw, how will the Batman kill it, exactly? Any "self respecting wizard" wouldn't have prepared a direct damage spell anyway, remember?).

[Prophaniti]

Time Stop and Wish. That seems to end up being the answer on all the batman wizard threads. I've never seen a more egregious example of something that's purely a thought excercise being taken so seriously. I've yet to play with or hear about first or second-hand such a horribly broken wizard. I don't take Batman Wizards and their advocates any more seriously than I do Pun-pun.

[Reel On, Love]

(btw, how will the Batman kill it, exactly? Any "self respecting wizard" wouldn't have prepared a direct damage spell anyway, remember?).

He'll use Stone Shape or Wall of Stone to trap it inside a stone. The swarm can't do anything about it.

[Crow]

Time Stop and Wish. That seems to end up being the answer on all the batman wizard threads. I've never seen a more egregious example of something that's purely a thought excercise being taken so seriously. I've yet to play with or hear about first or second-hand such a horribly broken wizard. I don't take Batman Wizards and their advocates any more seriously than I do Pun-pun.

Ditto.

...and you forgot about Celerity and Foresight.

[Hallavast]

So anyway... could someone maybe link the relavent preview so those of us who are arguing from theory as of now may take a gander at the actual rule, please and thanks?

[Thrawn183]

Prophaniti, I think the problem occurs when you hit higher CR swarms. Swarms CR 4 or below have low enough HP that lighting your sword on fire or swinging a torch at them is actually a viable plan.

On the other hand, look at the CR 8 Hellwasp swarm. What does the fighter do against a swarm with 93 HP? Throw a lantern for a d6 of damage? A torch for a d3?

If a fighter goes up against DR he can try to power attack through it (DR rarely ever goes over 15, so its not all that hard), it just makes him less effective. If a melee fighter goes up against archers, they can easily pull out a bow and return fire. He/she won't be as effective usual, but they'll still be able to contribute meaningfully.

And what does the rogue do while going up against a Hellwasp swarm? Literally half of the iconic 4 are pretty much powerless.

Running away? It can fly at 40 ft. per round. It's certainly possible through magical means, but mundane?

And if all this doesn't convince you, then realize that it also has 10 fire resistance making most of the suggested solutions completely mute. If one of these things gets on the wizard and nauseates him/her, what does the rest of the party do? (I'd really like to know, because I'd add it to the repretoire of pretty much every non-caster class I play from now on.)

[Hallavast]

Prophaniti, I think the problem occurs when you hit higher CR swarms. Swarms CR 4 or below have low enough HP that lighting your sword on fire or swinging a torch at them is actually a viable plan.

On the other hand, look at the CR 8 Hellwasp swarm. What does the fighter do against a swarm with 93 HP? Throw a lantern for a d6 of damage? A torch for a d3?

If a fighter goes up against DR he can try to power attack through it (DR rarely ever goes over 15, so its not all that hard), it just makes him less effective. If a melee fighter goes up against archers, they can easily pull out a bow and return fire. He/she won't be as effective usual, but they'll still be able to contribute meaningfully.

And what does the rogue do while going up against a Hellwasp swarm? Literally half of the iconic 4 are pretty much powerless.

Running away? It can fly at 40 ft. per round. It's certainly possible through magical means, but mundane?

And if all this doesn't convince you, then realize that it also has 10 fire resistance making most of the suggested solutions completely mute. If one of these things gets on the wizard and nauseates him/her, what does the rest of the party do? (I'd really like to know, because I'd add it to the repretoire of pretty much every non-caster class I play from now on.)

How big are hellwasps? If they are tiny or bigger individually, then there's no reason for swords to not deal damage. If they somehow have that much hp without being big, then you have a unique problem for the fighter (the rogue can UMD). Circlets of blasting come to mind in particular. Otherwise, the game needs bigger explosives.

At level 8 the characters have access to magical resources as well as mundane. These should be considered as well.

[Rutee]

What? Je ne comprende pas... A player that has fun by believing she is contributing to the fight has accomplished the imperative. Thus, any "flaws" in the design of this type of encounter are moot for that player. The only way they'll find out is if another player abandons all semblance of tact and tells them that they're not contributing to the fight.
Or if they figure it out for themselves. You play a dangerous game when you rely on deception to create the fun, because if at any point the player both figures it out, and chooses to care, things get ugly. Why rely on it at all?


But the more I think about it, the "off the wall tactics" that fighter types can use are not all that ineffective. You're still contributing something; even if it's throwing an alchemist's fire, swinging a torch, or just standing between the swarm and the spellcasters so that they deal damage to you instead of Baron Von Squish.
Well, no. You're really not contributing anything of use. Sorry, but a d3 of fire damage? Alchemist's Fire is what, a d6? You can't even meaningfully stop the Swarm.


And as far as swarms go in particular, I haven't encountered any that were higher than CR 4 or so (unless they were some kind of giant centipede swarm or something - in which case one should be able to chop them up conventionally anyway). So that 1-2d6 fire damage isn't that bad. It isn't great by any means, but you're still contributing. You still have much more to do than "sit down and wait for the wizard to kill it" (btw, how will the Batman kill it, exactly? Any "self respecting wizard" wouldn't have prepared a direct damage spell anyway, remember?).

Who mentioned Batman here anyway? But no, I actually have never seen a CR 1-4 swarm, since my introduction to them was the Epic Handbook. And when you hit Epic, there's pretty much no excuse for the characters to be ineffective, ever.

[Prophaniti]

A reply to Thrawn's Question
Well, strictly speaking, I've long since gone beyond swarms as the topic of my posts. But, hey, a specifically outlined challenge has been issued, let's see if I can rise up to meet it.

Ok, the first thing to discuss is, of course, planning. The savvy fighter knows that his favorite greatsword may not be the best option against some foes (ie, my example of Bob the Duelist). Personally, I've always envisaged the fighter as the kind of person to be festooned with as many weapons as he can comfortably carry... and then a few more. Generally I would not consider this metagaming for two reasons. One, what fighter in his right mind would choose a rapier if he knew he was facing skeletons? Two, every fighter knows that eventually, usually at the worst possible moment, he will lose or break his favorite sword. What then shall he use to visit bloody carnage on his foes? The rogue, too, would likely carry at least a small mace as a fallback from his Spleen-Seeking Daggers of Disembowelment.

This does not even apply solely to the melee party members either. Maybe you're playing a mage who loves Fire Magic (cliche? maybe, but fun). He has Energy Substitution [Fire] and knows every spell with the fire descriptor he possibly could at this point. But look out. We're fighting Fire Elementals. Now he'll have to poke away with the three cold spells he happened to memorize this morning, and hope he remembered to pack his Wand of Ice Orb.

Which brings us to the application of 'expendable' items, both mundane and magical. No, this should not be relied upon as a character's sole means of combat. But D&D by RAW seems to be a fairly high-magic world, and the smart fighter knows that investing some of his hard-earned cash in a Ring of Fireballs or some Vambraces of Lightning (or, for the more pragmatic, some Gauntlets of Ogre Strength to assist in carrying the defunct wizard and a pair of Boots of the Coward which allow him to use Expedious Retreat for up to 5 minutes a day) may end up being a better choice than adding another +1 enhancement to his Greatsword.

Both of these are things a careful planner does before he ever finds himself in such a situation.

The second topic here is the DM. Why is the party facing this swarm? Did it just come up on a random encounter table? If this is the case, and all the party's contingency planning falls short... Well, when you roll your encounters, sometimes you get **** on.

Is it a deliberate act by the DM? Did he put them in the dungeon, knowing that you would encounter them at roughly this point and this power level? If this is the case, (and the DMs not just being vindictive and trying his level best to kill you) then the DM should provide an out. A means of solving or escaping the situation just in case it should prove too much for the party. Remember, the DMs job is to adjudicate the party's adventure, not actually to kill them. Generally speaking, a party should only die either from bad luck or egregiously stupid actions on their part.

This 'out' does not have to be obvious, but generally shouldn't be too obscure either. Maybe the High Priest three rooms back had an amulet on him shaped like a Hellwasp. Maybe the swarm is under a geas to guard this room and the amulet is the ward to allow passage. Eventually, someone in the party will (hopefully) put two and two together and suggest pulling it out. At which point the Ah Ha!s will ensue, followed by some of the party cursing the DM for the cheeky bastard he is.

The simple point I keep coming back to is that the move away from monsters with specific immunities or resistances, IMO, takes a great deal of potential away from encounters. Potential for both narrative or dramatic tension, as well as potential for clever thinking and interesting solutions that the group will remember a lot longer than that swarm that the fighter killed with his sword. The moments when the party figures out a puzzle I laid for them are quite satisfying as a DM, and monsters that can't be beaten by the standard tactics of the party are a great help in getting my group to think outside the box.

That's all I'm saying, really.

PS, thanks for the great thought excercise. I really enjoyed writing that.:smallsmile:

[Hallavast]

Or if they figure it out for themselves. You play a dangerous game when you rely on deception to create the fun, because if at any point the player both figures it out, and chooses to care, things get ugly. Why rely on it at all? This is getting kinda preachy. You're right. If a character realizes she's not optimized for the fight and throws a fit, then you're gonna have a bad time. I don't really see why someone who is already having fun would have such an epiphany on their own, but maybe it's happened to you before? :smallconfused:



Well, no. You're really not contributing anything of use. Sorry, but a d3 of fire damage? Alchemist's Fire is what, a d6? You can't even meaningfully stop the Swarm. You can stop the swarm if they swarm you instead of the mage. And 1d6 fire is adequate at level 1-3. 4 is a stretch. You can also throw 2 if you take TWF. Not all players are worried about being important in every single fight. As a first level bard in my last campaign I was good for about one fight, then was reduced to taking pot shots with a crossbow. Not the epitome of asskickery. But in town I was a smash with teh ladies and got to work my mojo enough that I was more than valuable to the party. It was satisfying even though I didn't rock hard every fight. For the record though, when we ran into an insect swarm, my alchemist fires and oil did just fine.




Who mentioned Batman here anyway? But no, I actually have never seen a CR 1-4 swarm, since my introduction to them was the Epic Handbook. And when you hit Epic, there's pretty much no excuse for the characters to be ineffective, ever.

Sorry. I have a chip on my shoulder against the batman wizard revolution. It has been stated that any PC wizard that isn't batman is a mutant abberation not worthy of existence... or something like that...

If the swarm is epic, hopefully it consists of creatures large enough to hit with a sword. Otherwise, epic fighters have access to a considerable amount of offensive magic via magic items. Also, they can even take 3 martial maneuvers as feats by that level.

[Jack Zander]

Level 1 characters vs a swarm:

Wizard casts burning hands (yeah right, but we'll go with it.)
1d4 times 1.5 damage
Average 3.75 damage

Fighter stabs swarm with his torch.
1d3 damage
Average 1.5 damage

Level 3 characters vs a swarm:

Wizard casts Gust of Wind (again, how many wizards prepare evocations?)
3d6 damage
Average 10.5 damage

Fighter throws alchemist's fire.
1d6 times 1.5 damage
Average 5.25 damage

Level 5 characters vs a swarm:

Wizard casts fireball (...)
5d6 times 1.5 damage
Average 26.25 damage

Fighter breaths fire from his Elixir of Fire Breathing
4d6 damage
Average 14 damage


I wouldn't consider the fighter ineffective. Sure, he's only dealing half of what the wizard can deal, but the wizard can probably only deal those listed damages once or twice and the fighter can still contribute meaningfully.

Just because the wizard does it better doesn't mean everyone else can't do anything at all.

[Reel On, Love]

Elixir of Fire Breathing?

*Seriously*?

You'd spend 1,100 gp out of 9000, at level 5, on that thing?

No wai.

[tyckspoon]

And if all this doesn't convince you, then realize that it also has 10 fire resistance making most of the suggested solutions completely mute. If one of these things gets on the wizard and nauseates him/her, what does the rest of the party do? (I'd really like to know, because I'd add it to the repretoire of pretty much every non-caster class I play from now on.)

A feather token (fan) or Wind Fan, if you have a little more cash to move around. You can get a Strong (Feather Token) or Severe (Wind Fan) wind, which will move a flying swarm and a ground-based swarm, respectively. At the very least you can prevent the swarm from chasing you while you move out of it.

[Jack Zander]

Elixir of Fire Breathing?

*Seriously*?

Hey, if you're going to assume your wizard has All-The-Right-Spells(TM) then I'm going to assume the fighter is just as prepared.

Besides, what's wrong with an elixir of fire breathing? I've bought them many times before.

Feather Tokens (fan) are cheaper and almost as effective, if you like that example better.

Also, any fighter who has a bludgeoning weapon can deal have damage to a swarm that's not made up of diminutive or smaller creatures. Power attack away.

[Hallavast]

Elixir of Fire Breathing?

*Seriously*?

You'd spend 1,100 gp out of 9000, at level 5, on that thing?

No wai.

lol. Fine. Replace with "Fighter takes TWF and throws 2 alchy fires"

Costs 50gp. A 5th lvl dwarf will spend twice that on booze in less than a week.

[Jack Zander]

lol. Fine. Replace with "Fighter takes TWF and throws 2 alchy fires"

Costs 50gp. A 5th lvl dwarf will spend twice that on booze in less than a week.

10.5 damage instead of 15. And still meaningful against a CR 4 swarm (31 hp for centipedes).

[Rutee]

lol. Fine. Replace with "Fighter takes TWF and throws 2 alchy fires"

Costs 50gp. A 5th lvl dwarf will spend twice that on booze in less than a week.

I'm pretty sure TWF only allows the use of two /melee/ weapons.

[Jack Zander]

I'm pretty sure TWF only allows the use of two /melee/ weapons.

I'm pretty sure it doesn't. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/specialAttacks.htm#twoWeaponFighting)

And you can throw three of them with Rapid Shot and Quick Draw, but not every fighter will have all of these feats of course.

[tyckspoon]

A lot of the normal wizard mainstays work on swarms too, incidentally. Glitterdust is not (mind-affecting), despite being a will save; enjoy blinding those low-Wisdom creatures with bad Will progressions. Web works excellently. Even if the swarm makes the save, the only way it'll be going anywhere is by rolling well on untrained Escape Artist checks (Swarms do tend to have good Dex scores, at least.) And Gust of Wind will do some damage and, more interestingly, shove the swarm up to 60 feet away if you retained access to Evocation.

[Jack Zander]

A lot of the normal wizard mainstays work on swarms too, incidentally. Glitterdust is not (mind-affecting), despite being a will save; enjoy blinding those low-Wisdom creatures with bad Will progressions. Web works excellently. Even if the swarm makes the save, the only way it'll be going anywhere is by rolling well on untrained Escape Artist checks (Swarms do tend to have good Dex scores, at least.) And Gust of Wind will do some damage and, more interestingly, shove the swarm up to 60 feet away if you retained access to Evocation.

Okay, but how are you going to kill it? Most swarms don't move fast enough that you can't run away from them already, so slowing them down like that doesn't really do anything at all.

[Hallavast]

Okay, but how are you going to kill it? Most swarms don't move fast enough that you can't run away from them already, so slowing them down like that doesn't really do anything at all.

Fireball? Stinking cloud and then do a little tapdance on them?

[Jack Zander]

Fireball? Stinking cloud and then do a little tapdance on them?

So now you get to have all the wizard mainstays and evocations too?

Keep batman wizards to theoretical discussions please. The wizard is going to blow only 1 of their highest level spells at the swarm, unless the party is having serious trouble against it.

Oh, and I'd like to see you cast stinking cloud on the swarm, then enter the cloud to do your tapdance.

[The Necroswanso]

Rutee, a problem with your argument is you seem to be practically saying, "This is my opinion, it is truth. Ignoring it makes you ignorant and you're playing wrong." It's subtle, most likely unintentional, but that's seriously what's being radiated. So, I wouldn't be quick to jumping on someone for an un-intended backhanded insult. Calm down, it's a game.


Regardless: A game should be fun. There will always be a way to contribute, it won't always be the same way you always do. But simply doing the same thing over and over again, gets boring sometimes. If you're a fighter only carrying one type of weapon (by choice) you have set your self up to be useless at certain situations. Much like a Necromancer who has dropped Trans and Evok, is going to find themselves useless at certain situations. It's simple design. Nobody will be useful for everything.
It is the job of the DM to tailor games so that everyone has a chance to shine equally. Everything else, is up to the players.

I once played a rogue. I was tasked with taking out a swrm that was immune to piercing. Okay, I had my club, immune to criticals and sneak attack too? Jesus! So, after pacing a moment, I dumped my last flask of lantern oil on it, stuck my torch in it, and directed my attention to the minotaurs. It was a simple problem, that solved itself through my intervention.
If you don't tailor yourself to be ready for everything, it's not always your fault, and the DM should then find ways to avoid you playing Halo until the next four combats are over. (Last sentence is spoken from experience. Rust monster + mundane equipment=me guarding door)

[Reinboom]

I have decided:
I like neither 3E's rendition nor this rendition.

I prefer 4E's, but the 'preference' here is the same as preferring to have your right hand sawed off (4E) versus your loved one being crushed to death in a gory method you are forced to watch (3E).

Immunity and nigh-immunity to so many things really made 3E's swarms a heap of boring in most situations of where I would otherwise love to put a 'swarm of rats/bats/cats/gnats' in my game, but did not since I would otherwise be houseruling a new set of swarm stats in order to make it 'fair' to my players. I don't like mechanics to limit a situation in such a way when it could of obviously been better done. It's like making a cake for someone, then filling it with poison (and informing them of such). Sure, they could make their own cake, but why tease them with a perfectly screwed up cake?!

Then comes my issue with 4E's swarms. "Oh here's a cake, but, it's really just tofu shaped like a cake. Now everyone can eat it."

The complete opposite of how I want my swarms.


P.S.
Putting oil on Object A to ward of Swarm B by igniting I do not consider very creative, or at least, uniquely creative. Since, it's so.. so.. common.

[The Necroswanso]

P.S.
Putting oil on Object A to ward of Swarm B by igniting I do not consider very creative, or at least, uniquely creative. Since, it's so.. so.. common.

Sometimes the common solution is the only one available.

[MartinHarper]

How big are hellwasps? If they are tiny or bigger individually, then there's no reason for swords to not deal damage.

Hellwasps are diminutive. See here:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/swarm.htm


standing between the swarm and the spellcasters so that they deal damage to you instead of Baron Von Squish.

I'm not sure how you're meant to stand between a swarm and a spellcaster when (from 4e rules) "A swarm can enter or move through an enemy’s space; this movement does not provoke opportunity attacks."

[Jack Zander]

But unless the swarm somehow knows the caster is a bigger threat to them than the fighter, why would they go after the creature who is farther away?

[Reel On, Love]

But unless the swarm somehow knows the caster is a bigger threat to them than the fighter, why would they go after the creature who is farther away?

Because the creature farther away is hurting it with exploding balls of fire. I make it a point to strip the flesh from the bones of people who do that to me, and I'm not even a swarm.

Plus the Hellwasp Swarm has INT 6, which is like a slightly dumber than average half-orc. It's smart enough to know "squish wizard".

[Bender]

Who mentioned Batman here anyway? But no, I actually have never seen a CR 1-4 swarm, since my introduction to them was the Epic Handbook. And when you hit Epic, there's pretty much no excuse for the characters to be ineffective, ever.
Take a look at the MM: 6 swarms, 5 of which are CR 1-4. You shouldn't use your experience of epic swarms (honestly, I've never actually seen an epic swarm :smallwink:) to judge general swarm design.

I agree with the opinion that at those low levels, fighters are as likely to contribute as wizards, since the wizard has no access to fireball, he might already have used web today and glitterdust isn't all that helpful, since swarms ignore miss chance. (it's harder for the swarm to find you, but if you just run away, it can't even reach you)

Besides, the fighter can lift a table or break out a door and use it to generate wind/swat bugs against the wall or light it on fire to do more damage than a small torch. :smallcool:

The hellwasp swarm or other high level swarms are maybe more tricky, but it's up to the DM to judge whether it would make a fun encounter, maybe in combination with another monster for the fighter to deal with.

Since there are clearly people that enjoy swarms, I don't see how their design is that bad.


Because the creature farther away is hurting it with exploding balls of fire. I make it a point to strip the flesh from the bones of people who do that to me, and I'm not even a swarm.

Plus the Hellwasp Swarm has INT 6, which is like a slightly dumber than average half-orc. It's smart enough to know "squish wizard".
wow, so 17% of all the core swarms might be able to figure this out :smalleek:. And with in 6 it's still no guarantee

PS (caution, mild sarcasm ahead :smallwink:): let's ban flying monsters, some fighter forgot to buy a bow.

disclaimer: this post is for the sake of the argument. There is no personal attack or insult included. Any sarcasm included is for fun and my way of making jokes and lightening the discussion.

[Hallavast]

Because the creature farther away is hurting it with exploding balls of fire. I make it a point to strip the flesh from the bones of people who do that to me, and I'm not even a swarm.
The average bee swarm will not make this distinction as it may not be able to determine the source of the explosion.



Plus the Hellwasp Swarm has INT 6, which is like a slightly dumber than average half-orc. It's smart enough to know "squish wizard".

Hellwasps are a little different, aren't they? They are CR 8, and so I don't mind if one of the suggested tactics doesn't work against this one example of a creature which I've never seen before that is outside the CR range I suggested. Again, by lvl 8 fighters can get magic. Hellwasps sound like a nightmare in their own right.


So now you get to have all the wizard mainstays and evocations too?

Keep batman wizards to theoretical discussions please. The wizard is going to blow only 1 of their highest level spells at the swarm, unless the party is having serious trouble against it.

My comment had/has little bearing on the discussion. I made it out of bitter jest. Feel free to ignore it.



Oh, and I'd like to see you cast stinking cloud on the swarm, then enter the cloud to do your tapdance.
Well naturally I'd wait for the cloud to disperse and then go squish them... :smallconfused: But it's moot because I was mistaken in believing the cloud rendered the subjects unconscious; which it no longer does.

[Kompera]

You know what? I really have no objection to a 1st level Fighter having the ability to damage a swarm of bees with a longsword. People who whine about realism should play a different RPG. This is D&D, and it uses D&D physics, not RL physics.

If allowing clubs and arrows to damage a swarm of mosquitoes makes the game more fun for melee types and doesn't take any fun away from the casters, then realism can go strait to Baator.

There, I said it! :smallmad:
I have no objection, either. In fact, I endorse it completely. And I don't even feel that it violates realism, at least not the realism of heroic fantasy.

The fighter takes her Longsword in hand, and swings it through the swarm. Many insects are injured by the rush of wind as the blade passes them by, or are knocked into each other and into the ground, where they lay stunned. Some become confused and fly aimlessly away. Fewer insects now remain to threaten our heroine.

I recall a Red Sonja comic book from my youth where she did just that. And I don't recall angry letters to the editor decrying the fact that Sonja shouldn't have been able to damage a swarm with a sword.

Seriously, more than half of the mechanics arguments on this forum can be resolved by applying a little imagination to the situation, and less literal interpretation. Of course a sword isn't used to swat a fly. But that doesn't mean that it can't be used to disrupt a swarm of flies.

[Hallavast]

I have no objection, either. In fact, I endorse it completely. And I don't even feel that it violates realism, at least not the realism of heroic fantasy.

The fighter takes her Longsword in hand, and swings it through the swarm. Many insects are injured by the rush of wind as the blade passes them by, or are knocked into each other and into the ground, where they lay stunned. Some become confused and fly aimlessly away. Fewer insects now remain to threaten our heroine.

I recall a Red Sonja comic book from my youth where she did just that. And I don't recall angry letters to the editor decrying the fact that Sonja shouldn't have been able to damage a swarm with a sword.

Seriously, more than half of the mechanics arguments on this forum can be resolved by applying a little imagination to the situation, and less literal interpretation. Of course a sword isn't used to swat a fly. But that doesn't mean that it can't be used to disrupt a swarm of flies.

Yeah. And I've seen Sean Connery nonchalantly step out of a car going 60mph and walk down an alley like it was nothing without any explanation as to why he can deny physics. If you want to defy realism willy nilly without any reasons then that's fine you can go do your own thing. I won't be joining you.

Suspension of realism should be done as exceptions (like magic) rather than as rules. If the players can't take normal laws of our physical world for granted, then it leaves them feeling helpless and confused about what is supposed to make sense. Since I have no desire to play a game where every single rule of physics is written down and codified in an effort to allieviate that confusion, I'll stick to realism as a general rule that is only contradicted for a good reason.

[Rutee]

Yeah. And I've seen Sean Connery nonchalantly step out of a car going 60mph and walk down an alley like it was nothing without any explanation as to why he can deny physics. If you want to defy realism willy nilly without any reasons then that's fine you can go do your own thing. I won't be joining you.
Because he's Sean freaking Connery. He's awesome. What more do you need?


Suspension of realism should be done as exceptions (like magic) rather than as rules. If the players can't take normal laws of our physical world for granted, then it leaves them feeling helpless and confused about what is supposed to make sense. Since I have no desire to play a game where every single rule of physics is written down and codified in an effort to allieviate that confusion, I'll stick to realism as a general rule that is only contradicted for a good reason.

Nothing in his explanation broke the laws of physics, actually. It violated realism a bit, but it didn't break the laws of physics.

At least, not more then things like Ogres do (And believe me, they do)

[Thrawn183]

Sorry about taking so long to reply, I went to sleep after my last post.

Lemme give you 2 examples of situational encounters:
1) An ogre tribe is holed up in some caves and the PC's have to recover some artifact that they have stolen (the macguffin). I'll say the PC's are all 7th level. This means that they walk all over your standard ogre from the SRD (CR 3) and are nicely challenged by the champions of the ogre tribe, the Ogre barbarains (CR 7), also listed in the SRD. While sneaking about, the rogue (Jim Stabbity-death) overhears a few ogres talking about how important it is to always be wearing their protective amulets that the chieftan started passing out (If the DM is nice he might add in, "after a making a recent acquisition").

The party valiantly battles its way through the tunnels to the treasure room only to find it guarded by a hulking Iron Golem (CR 13). Now I know there are ways to circumvent golems, such as taking advantage of there inability to see invisible creatures for example, but for purposes of shortness I'm going to ignore them for now (they're really just another example of why casters are awesome.) I like this particular design because the iron golem might as well be invincible to the party. Even if the party has adamantine weapons the Iron Golem would almost certainly wipe the floor with them. However, the cleric (Jack Preachity-death) and his high wisdom score realize that the Iron Golem is probably programmed to attack anything not wearing a protective amulet and the party is capable of simply walking right past the golem and taking the macguffin. The iron golem is probably not as fast as the party allowing them to run away if they don't figure it out, and has a pretty easy way of getting past it. I think this is a pretty reasonable encounter. The enemy is essentially invulnerable, but not "Rar, I am invincibleorz and will now eat your face!"

2) The fighter (John Smackity-death) has had a long-standing beef with the local kobold tribe (of DOOM). I'll say they have lots npc's with class levels to explain why the level 7 party would bother with them, basically treat them the same as the ogres in the first example. Now, to set the stage for this one, the party wizard (Joan Super-death) is a necromancer that has been secretly engaging in foul experiments that warped some of the local animals/vermin. In particular, a local honey bee nest was warped into a Hellwasp [bee] swarm.

The local kobold tribe raises honey bees to use both for food (honey) and defense (traps). They, of course are, able to get the Hellwasp (bee) swarm defend their sparkling treasures... Okay I'm getting bored, long-story-short: the party can bypass the swarm by slathering themselves in the honey they see strategically positioned near the swarm after seeing lots of kobolds bathing after leaving the [place where treasures are stored] and seeing a few spears and such being really sticky. The swarm won't chase them more than a couple hundred feet from their nest, allowing the party to run away if need be.
------------------------------------------------
What I'm trying to say is that I have no problem with enemies that are virtually invincible as long as it doesn't completely screw over the party. My problem with higher level 3e swarms is that they aren't completely invincible (TM) to the entire party, mostly just melee'rs. I have no problem with encounters where you have to find interesting ways of getting around your enemies. I actually find them quite enjoyable. The problem is when only certain party members are getting relegated to virtual uselessness.

So I think the 4e swarms are a step in the right direction. Maybe melee should do somewhat reduced damage against them to reflect that swords aren't particularly effective at killing huge numbers of little critters, but the old 3e way just stunk. Anyways, I think it won't be too difficult to houserule some stuff to figure out where that nice point of balance is for your particular group.

PS. I tried to maintain versimilitude in my encounter design. I think I'm going to give myself a cookie.

[Hallavast]

What I'm trying to say is that I have no problem with enemies that are virtually invincible as long as it doesn't completely screw over the party. My problem with higher level 3e swarms is that they aren't completely invincible (TM) to the entire party, mostly just melee'rs. I have no problem with encounters where you have to find interesting ways of getting around your enemies. I actually find them quite enjoyable. The problem is when only certain party members are getting relegated to virtual uselessness.


Nice story. High level swarms aren't invincible to 3e melee'rs. They simply can not be melee'd by melee'rs (unless they are big enough).

[Rutee]

Nice story. High level swarms aren't invincible to 3e melee'rs. They simply can not be melee'd by melee'rs (unless they are big enough).

"They're not invincible to meleers, they're just totally immune to their class features and everything they can reasonably do"

[Indon]

Thus, the 4E way of handling swarms is actually more boring, because you can handle them the exact same way you're handling anything else - by hitting it until it breaks. It encourages Xykon strategy rather than Redcloak strategy.

Yeah, but I would say this isn't the fault of the swarm rules - rather, the swarm rules are just a symptom of a much larger design intent.

Fixing the swarm rules to be interesting won't save the game. It'll just introduce an oddity, and have no significant impact on most games.

As such, I think the swarm rules should stay just as they are, in keeping with the 4'th edition design intent. Leave 4'th edition at doing what it's built to do, and don't try and make it do what it's not built to do.

That said, I will laugh my ass off every time I pull something off that blatantly violates the game's immersion. Can swarms be grappled?


PS (caution, mild sarcasm ahead :smallwink:): let's ban flying monsters, some fighter forgot to buy a bow.

What makes you think there'll be any flying monsters in 4'th edition? Flight is, after all, one of the larger balance problems of 3.5.

[Thrawn183]

Nice story. High level swarms aren't invincible to 3e melee'rs. They simply can not be melee'd by melee'rs (unless they are big enough).

I'm almost sorry I don't play a giamonk... nah, nvm I'm quite happy playing the fighter who relies on his own skill rather than some scrolls and potions he has to pay the wizards to make him.

[Hallavast]

"They're not invincible to meleers, they're just totally immune to their class features and everything they can reasonably do"

Is it unreasonable for a fighter to use magic items?

Are a necklace of fireballs, circlet of blasting, helm of brilliance, eversmoking bottles, potion of fire breath, pipes of the sewers, and qual's fan tokens all too unreasonable to use against swarms?

[Indon]

Are a necklace of fireballs, circlet of blasting, helm of brilliance, eversmoking bottles, potion of fire breath, pipes of the sewers, and qual's fan tokens all too unreasonable to use against swarms?

I don't see how a Scorching Ray should be able to kill a swarm, just like I don't see how an arrow should be able to kill a swarm.

Fire damage can come in piercing form, too. (and bludgeoning and slashing, come to think of it: Bludgeoning fire damage would be the mainstay Fireball, while Flame Blade provides an example of fire slashing damage)

[Rutee]

Is it unreasonable for a fighter to use magic items?

Are a necklace of fireballs, circlet of blasting, helm of brilliance, eversmoking bottles, potion of fire breath, pipes of the sewers, and qual's fan tokens all too unreasonable to use against swarms?

Eversmoking bottles are crap, the first three items are imitating magi (If I wanted to play mage, /wouldn't I have made a mage/?), Pipes of the Sewers are reliant on the swarm being vermin, as well as the Fighter /actually being a performer/. The Feather Tokens are the only good option you have, and I don't see how "I fan it every turn" is somehow less boring then "I attack it every turn"

[SamTheCleric]

You know how if you poke a stick at a big clump of ants... some of them scatter, others attack the stick?

Maybe that's what the Arrow is doing... its causing some of the swarm to scatter... and thus HP damage (which isn't damage in this case, just the weakening of the swarm)

[Indon]

(If I wanted to play mage, /wouldn't I have made a mage/?),

What, is my Elven Wizard never allowed to use his Longbow, because if he wanted to emulate a Ranger, wouldn't he have made a Ranger?

[Hallavast]

Eversmoking bottles are crap, the first three items are imitating magi (If I wanted to play mage, /wouldn't I have made a mage/?), Pipes of the Sewers are reliant on the swarm being vermin, as well as the Fighter /actually being a performer/. The Feather Tokens are the only good option you have, and I don't see how "I fan it every turn" is somehow less boring then "I attack it every turn"

The bolded argument is a load of crap. Fighters are more than welcome to use these items. Using them doesn't make you a mage. It makes you more veratile. You complain about not being able to hurt a monster and then turn up your nose at items that let you hurt those kinds of monsters? :smallconfused:

Eversmoaking bottles prevent bugs from swarming you. Bugs don't like smoke. That's one of those little tricks I picked up from my experiences in reality!...

I've made a fighter w/perform as a skill (actually it was a ranger). I picked it up for roleplaying reasons (I also put a decent score in intelligence <gasp>). I wasn't great at performing, and I never actually used the skill in combat or anything, but by the time I would have been able to afford the pipes in WBL i could have made a DC: 15 check fairly often.

And if the fan lets you control the swarm you are contributing just as much as the wizard.

If a character just sits there and whines about not being able to use their sword/bow/board with a nail in it, then he's not a very well played character.

[Aquillion]

A more relevent objection: If you're being reduced to using magical items that have nothing to do with your class abilities or any class skills, you are now just as useful as a commoner. Congratulations. A commoner with a feather token could contribute just as much as you.

[Jack Zander]

A more relevent objection: If you're being reduced to using magical items that have nothing to do with your class abilities or any class skills, you are now just as useful as a commoner. Congratulations. A commoner with a feather token could contribute just as much as you.

So you're saying that swarms are in fact just as easy for everyone to face then?

I guess there was nothing wrong with them in the first place. Thanks 4th edition for fixing yet another thing that wasn't broken.

[Hallavast]

A more relevent objection: If you're being reduced to using magical items that have nothing to do with your class abilities or any class skills, you are now just as useful as a commoner. Congratulations. A commoner with a feather token could contribute just as much as you.

But this thread isn't a discussion about how effective the fighter class is. It's a discussion as to whether the special qualities of swarms make them fun to fight against or not. As long as you have a viable option (like the aforementioned items) you should have enough to do to have fun for the duration of your encounter with the swarm.

But besides magical assistance from items, there are also desert wind maneuvers in the ToB. Fighters can take up to three of these maneuvers as feats. The AoE fire damage common in many such maneuvers will deal with the swarm handily.

[Bender]

"They're not invincible to meleers, they're just totally immune to their class features and everything they can reasonably do"

So swatting them with a burning door/tablecloth isn't reasonable? (despite the DM dependency on how much damage it does)
It sure isn't magical

[Rutee]

The bolded argument is a load of crap. Fighters are more than welcome to use these items. Using them doesn't make you a mage. It makes you more veratile. You complain about not being able to hurt a monster and then turn up your nose at items that let you hurt those kinds of monsters? :smallconfused:
Yeah, I do. The Fighter can use that crap, sure, but it still comes down to pretending to be a magus. The dynamite/incendiary was one thing. Mimicking spellcasting though?



Eversmoaking bottles prevent bugs from swarming you. Bugs don't like smoke. That's one of those little tricks I picked up from my experiences in reality!...

And destroy the LoS of the rest of hte party. That was why I said "They're crap", not because they wouldn't work at deterring the creatures.


I've made a fighter w/perform as a skill (actually it was a ranger). I picked it up for roleplaying reasons (I also put a decent score in intelligence <gasp>). I wasn't great at performing, and I never actually used the skill in combat or anything, but by the time I would have been able to afford the pipes in WBL i could have made a DC: 15 check fairly often.

That's just super and all, but do you really think every Fighter does?


If a character just sits there and whines about not being able to use their sword/bow/board with a nail in it, then he's not a very well played character.

Why is it assumed that a bored player means the character whines?

[Indon]

A more relevent objection: If you're being reduced to using magical items that have nothing to do with your class abilities or any class skills, you are now just as useful as a commoner. Congratulations. A commoner with a feather token could contribute just as much as you.

And this is an awesome argument against populating your D&D games solely with swarm-type mobs.

[Talya]

See, I wouldn't bother using a swarm with these new rules. I'd use 500 individual insects with a hit point each, to get the flavor of the old rules.

"I swing at the swarm!"
"You hit. Excellent. You kill one bug. 499 to go."
"But I have cleave."
"Oh, so you do. Roll again? Hit...you kill another bug. 498 to go. Next."
"I cast burning hands."
"Oh, that hits these squares, each containing...okay. You kill 350 bugs. 148 to go. Next."

Only problem is, while they'd do non-lethal, but they'd take down the party in a single turn. Hmm.

[SamTheCleric]

A flyswatter into a hive of bees will probably kill a few bees... though it will make them all angry at you.*

How is a flyswatter any different than say... a quarterstaff? The broadside of an axe? You'll get some bug-goo on your weapon... and earn the ire of the bugs in question...

*Do not attempt this in your own time. Or, if you do, do not say it was my idea.

[Hallavast]

A flyswatter into a hive of bees will probably kill a few bees... though it will make them all angry at you.*

How is a flyswatter any different than say... a quarterstaff? The broadside of an axe? You'll get some bug-goo on your weapon... and earn the ire of the bugs in question...

*Do not attempt this in your own time. Or, if you do, do not say it was my idea.

A flyswatter is only marginally effective in mid air. But you do have a point. If you kill 3 or 4 bees per swing you should be able to bring down the swarm in about 150 swings. :smalltongue:

[Indon]

See, I wouldn't bother using a swarm with these new rules.

How about this:

-Create minion version of swarm.
-Halve damage and xp of minion swarm.
-Double numbers of minion swarms.
-Allow minion swarms to all stack on the same location.
-Have them all move as a single entity.

Now, instead of a single thing with HP, you have 8 creatures that can each take 1 hit each, are hard to hit (for instance, they take no damage on a miss), and hitting them with a single physical attack will only weaken them (by killing 1/8'th of the total swarm).

BAM! Swarm and minion mechanics, together at last! Now we can fuse like 4 threads into this one.

[SamTheCleric]

A flyswatter is only marginally effective in mid air. But you do have a point. If you kill 3 or 4 bees per swing you should be able to bring down the swarm in about 150 swings. :smalltongue:

So they shouldnt be completely immune to weapon damage... just highly resistant...

And Indon, I like that idea... 8 hits with a melee weapon to take down a sample swarm.

[Hallavast]

Yeah, I do. The Fighter can use that crap, sure, but it still comes down to pretending to be a magus. The dynamite/incendiary was one thing. Mimicking spellcasting though?

Yeah. It's just fine. I don't understand this personal hang-up you have about it. Why even put items like that in the game then, Rutee? Are you going to make fun of the fighter that uses a circlet of blasting? Hurt his feelings maybe? Well at least he has contributed to the fight and found a way to make a difference. It's like having the right tool for the job. It's a rewarding feeling to know that the magical items your DM puts in the treasure rooms you loot actually have a use and are not just useless crap to sell to vendors like you would have us believe.




And destroy the LoS of the rest of hte party. That was why I said "They're crap", not because they wouldn't work at deterring the creatures. You're nitpicking.




That's just super and all, but do you really think every Fighter does?
Maybe every fighter should at least consider picking up something useful against these kinds of creatures considering it's one of the problems he might come across in his profession. Maybe not the perform skill in particular, but ANY ONE of the multiple alternatives given above would be much better than simply despairing about his impotence.



Why is it assumed that a bored player means the character whines?

You are the one who brought up a character sitting down and waiting for the wizard to kill it. That's pouting, which is just as bad.


So they shouldnt be completely immune to weapon damage... just highly resistant... Yeah. Like maybe give them a damage cap of 1 or 2 per weapon swing. I like that idea better than "half weapon damage".

[Inyssius Tor]

I love you guys. I really do. Four long, angry pages, one hundred and fifteen nineteen posts, and one of them--just one--pays even the slightest bit of attention to the original poster's point. And even that one was a scornful dismissal, along the lines of "we know u r wrong. Fail.".

Don't you guys already have a big angry thread for this argument (in this case "verisimilitude", with a touch of "every class should not be always useful")? Can you not contain your boundless rage for your enemies' opinions to a single thread? Or five?

What he's saying--putting the entire "verisimilitude/universal-usefulness" argument aside for a moment--is this:

We have seen two swarms. They each contained creatures roughly the size of housecats. The basic rules for swarms are designed to be wide enough to encompass both Fine swarms and Tiny swarms. Given this, it would be ridiculous to give every Swarm-type monster traits that only make sense when applied to Fine swarms, right?
{quoters: split my post here with some pointless snark; say, just the word "No." It'll enlarge your e-penis tremendously and derail my train of thought; then, we can have a big two-page mincing-duel.}
For example, imagine this totally false anecdote: in edition X, the Outsider type only contained what we would now call evil outsiders, like demons and devils. Logically enough, they all had DR 5/good and their natural weapons were evil-aligned, and this was included in the Outsider type itself. But when the Yth edition previews came out, the Outsider type no longer had these things. Of course, the fans were enraged. What the hell were they doing to outsiders? This seemed so stupid! But when more information came out, the fans learned about the existence of good outsiders. Some fans thought about it for a moment, and decided that maybe giving the Astral Deva evil-aligned natural weapons would be pretty stupid. And then, when the Monster Manual came out, they saw that, hey, the evil outsiders still did have evil DR and evil natural weapons, because that makes sense, right? And that, of course, rendered a dozen long threads'-worth of bile totally meaningless.

-IT.

[Jack Zander]

I love you guys. I really do. Four long, angry pages, one hundred and fifteen nineteen posts, and one of them--just one--pays even the slightest bit of attention to the original poster's point. And even that one was a scornful dismissal, along the lines of "we know u r wrong. Fail.".

Don't you guys already have a big angry thread for this argument (in this case "verisimilitude", with a touch of "every class should not be always useful")? Can you not contain your boundless rage for your enemies' opinions to a single thread? Or five?

What he's saying--putting the entire "verisimilitude/universal-usefulness" argument aside for a moment--is this:

We have seen two swarms. They each contained creatures roughly the size of housecats. The basic rules for swarms are designed to be wide enough to encompass both Fine swarms and Tiny swarms. Given this, it would be ridiculous to give every Swarm-type monster traits that only make sense when applied to Fine swarms, right?
{quoters: split my post here with some pointless snark; say, just the word "No." It'll enlarge your e-penis tremendously and derail my train of thought; then, we can have a big two-page mincing-duel.}
For example, imagine this totally false anecdote: in edition X, the Outsider type only contained what we would now call evil outsiders, like demons and devils. Logically enough, they all had DR 5/good and their natural weapons were evil-aligned, and this was included in the Outsider type itself. But when the Yth edition previews came out, the Outsider type no longer had these things. Of course, the fans were enraged. What the hell were they doing to outsiders? This seemed so stupid! But when more information came out, the fans learned about the existence of good outsiders. Some fans thought about it for a moment, and decided that maybe giving the Astral Deva evil-aligned natural weapons would be pretty stupid. And then, when the Monster Manual came out, they saw that, hey, the evil outsiders still did have evil DR and evil natural weapons, because that makes sense, right? And that, of course, rendered a dozen long threads'-worth of bile totally meaningless.

-IT.

So you're saying that maybe they are merging mob rules with swarm rules and will go with a case-by-case basis of what swords do to them?

That's fine. That's what I would have expected. That's what they did in 3rd Edition (barring the merge of the two types). But The Holy Defenders of 4th Edition are claiming something otherwise, which is making me think bad things about the game.

[Inyssius Tor]

The Holy Defenders of 4th Edition, regrettably, sometimes feel they have to fight every single point anyone ever makes that could possibly be construed as negative. I think it comes from overexposure to particularly rabid Haters, who feel they have to savagely attack every possible or semi-probable feature of 4th edition regardless of context (either within 4E or in comparison to other RPGs) or rationale. We Defenders really ought to limit our warriors to sixty-post terms of duty, don't you think? Fighting out here on the Line really wears people down, but fills 'em back up with so much bitterness they can hardly tell the difference.

[Jack Zander]

The Holy Defenders of 4th Edition, regrettably, sometimes feel they have to fight every single point anyone ever makes that could possibly be construed as negative. I think it comes from overexposure to particularly rabid Haters, who feel they have to savagely attack every possible or semi-probable feature of 4th edition regardless of context (either within 4E or in comparison to other RPGs) or rationale. We Defenders really ought to limit our warriors to sixty-post terms of duty, don't you think?

Yeah, that seems right.

There are some *ahemEEahem* who will attack every single thing they can about 4th Edition.
There are some *ahemRuteeahem* who will defend anything WotC publishes.
Most of use are in between.

I'm pretty close to an all-out hater, but there are some things I can agree with. (Streamlined rules are good. Minions sound more fun than facing lower-level monsters, but I'm still a situationist and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.)

[Rutee]

Yeah. It's just fine. I don't understand this personal hang-up you have about it. Why even put items like that in the game then, Rutee? Are you going to make fun of the fighter that uses a circlet of blasting? Hurt his feelings maybe? Well at least he has contributed to the fight and found a way to make a difference. It's like having the right tool for the job. It's a rewarding feeling to know that the magical items your DM puts in the treasure rooms you loot actually have a use and are not just useless crap to sell to vendors like you would have us believe.
They're situationally useful. You could argue "It's just one monster, it's one situation". I would argue that every monster of that type is always going to be the same, and isn't 'one situation'. And it still requires the Fighter to have picked up something situationally useful.



You're nitpicking.
You're destroying the ability of the party to act against the encounter.

q[uote] Maybe every fighter should at least consider picking up something useful against these kinds of creatures considering it's one of the problems he might come across in his profession. Maybe not the perform skill in particular, but ANY ONE of the multiple alternatives given above would be much better than simply despairing about his impotence.[/quote]
Maybe Swarms should be written to allow the Fighter to be a Fighter, nto be a Commoner with more HP.




You are the one who brought up a character sitting down and waiting for the wizard to kill it. That's pouting, which is just as bad.
I said a player. Seriously, it's right there in black and white. Or black and beige as the case may be. And if that's 'pouting' then sure, fine, whatever. We're talking about a monster who as written, nullifies the class features of half the party (Though I'll grant a Rogue could UMD and pretend to be a mage for a bit. At least "Jack of All Trades" is in their job description, and one of their expectations)


Yeah. Like maybe give them a damage cap of 1 or 2 per weapon swing. I like that idea better than "half weapon damage".
Yeah, you seem to like making people suck.


I love you guys. I really do. Four long, angry pages, one hundred and fifteen nineteen posts, and one of them--just one--pays even the slightest bit of attention to the original poster's point. And even that one was a scornful dismissal, along the lines of "we know u r wrong. Fail.".

Excuse me? I pointed out that it would be in keeping with the design philosophy they seem to be acting on. Good God man, try not to conflate every post together.

[Indon]

We Defenders really ought to limit our warriors to sixty-post terms of duty, don't you think? Fighting out here on the Line really wears people down, but fills 'em back up with so much bitterness they can hardly tell the difference.

You think that's bad, just wait until people start to get tired and you have to do consecutive 365-post tours with barely one off-topic R&R between!

Not to mention the Post-traumatic Carpel Tunnel.

[Talya]

They're situationally useful. You could argue "It's just one monster, it's one situation". I would argue that every monster of that type is always going to be the same, and isn't 'one situation'. And it still requires the Fighter to have picked up something situationally useful.

Swarms are a relatively uncommon monster type. And it really doesn't matter. Are you going to argue that swords should be equally effective against Incorporeal monsters for the same reason?




You're destroying the ability of the party to act against the encounter.

No, you're destroying the ability to act acainst the encounter the way they normally do. Variety is that much of a problem to you?



Maybe Swarms should be written to allow the Fighter to be a Fighter, nto be a Commoner with more HP.

So every monster in the game should be defeatable by a single tactic? Very fun.

[Bender]

A flyswatter is only marginally effective in mid air. But you do have a point. If you kill 3 or 4 bees per swing you should be able to bring down the swarm in about 150 swings. :smalltongue:

Depends on the size of your flyswatter. A strength 18 fighter sure can swing large area objects, which apart from from hitting more than 4 bees move enough air to disperse part of the swarm.

[Dan_Hemmens]

Swarms are a relatively uncommon monster type. And it really doesn't matter. Are you going to argue that swords should be equally effective against Incorporeal monsters for the same reason?

To play Devil's advocate for a moment, why not? Why exactly should an incorporeal opponent be invulnerable to a sword but vulnerable to a magic missile, other than the fact that the missile has the "magic" tag attached to it?


No, you're destroying the ability to act acainst the encounter the way they normally do. Variety is that much of a problem to you?

Okay, I'll bite.

Yes, variety is a problem for me, or at least, it is when the "variety" includes "things which I find boring and frustrating" alongside "things I do not find boring and frustrating".


So every monster in the game should be defeatable by a single tactic? Very fun.

Yes, I think so. Certainly a deal more fun than finding that you can't do anything to an encounter because it's totally outside your remit to deal with it.

If you're presenting a game where somebody is expected to play "guy with a sword" then you damn well have a duty to make "guy with a sword" as interesting and variable a role as "guy who can throw fireballs and stuff".

Also, what is the "single tactic" you're talking about? Use weapons? Use the resources available to me?

[UserClone]

I love you guys. I really do.

What he's saying is this:

We have seen two swarms. They each contained creatures roughly the size of housecats. The basic rules for swarms are designed to be wide enough to encompass both Fine swarms and Tiny swarms. Given this, it would be ridiculous to give every Swarm-type monster traits that only make sense when applied to Fine swarms, right?
{quoters: split my post here with some pointless snark; say, just the word "No." It'll enlarge your e-penis tremendously and derail my train of thought; then, we can have a big two-page mincing-duel.} And that, of course, rendered a dozen long threads'-worth of bile totally meaningless.

-IT.

YAY!!!!!
Did you ever knoooow that yooou're my Heeeerrooooo? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz_m92XLzhA)

[Talya]

To play Devil's advocate for a moment, why not? Why exactly should an incorporeal opponent be invulnerable to a sword but vulnerable to a magic missile, other than the fact that the missile has the "magic" tag attached to it?

Since "incorporeal" was a trait added for the purpose of making things immune to most physical attacks, the question you're asking is "Why exactly should an opponent immune to most physical attacks be invulnerable to a sword, but vulnerable to a magic missile, other than the fact that the missile is not a physical attack?"

You don't fight every creature the same way.





Yes, variety is a problem for me, or at least, it is when the "variety" includes "things which I find boring and frustrating" alongside "things I do not find boring and frustrating".

What's frustrating and boring about using the resources available to you rather than simply hitting that Everquest 'autoattack' button every time you see an enemy?


Yes, I think so. Certainly a deal more fun than finding that you can't do anything to an encounter because it's totally outside your remit to deal with it.

And that encounter doesn't exist in 3.5 if you are remotely prepared or can think outside the box. You have ways of dealing with it. It's not always "Swing your sword!"



If you're presenting a game where somebody is expected to play "guy with a sword" then you damn well have a duty to make "guy with a sword" as interesting and variable a role as "guy who can throw fireballs and stuff".

Suuuure. Let's apply that to social interactions and puzzles, too. You should be able to just swing your sword to solve them all, right?



Also, what is the "single tactic" you're talking about? Use weapons? Use the resources available to me?

I believe the single tactic we are discussing is "Attack with sword." Using the resources available to you is what everyone else is suggesting...

[Hallavast]

To play Devil's advocate for a moment, why not? Why exactly should an incorporeal opponent be invulnerable to a sword but vulnerable to a magic missile, other than the fact that the missile has the "magic" tag attached to it?

Because a magic missile isn't just any kind of magic. It's force magic. It exists for the expressed purpose of being a catch-all type of energy that will affect anything. A sword is just a physical sword. Incorporality was designed in part to make regular swords not work as good.



Yes, variety is a problem for me, or at least, it is when the "variety" includes "things which I find boring and frustrating" alongside "things I do not find boring and frustrating". How is using a necklace of fireballs any more frustrating than using a sword?




Yes, I think so. Certainly a deal more fun than finding that you can't do anything to an encounter because it's totally outside your remit to deal with it. I've spent a good chunk of the last page explaining that a fighter is far from useless here. Relative usefullness is irrelavent here. The fact remains that you are either controlling or damaging the swarm with the aforementioned items or maneuvers or incindiaries.



If you're presenting a game where somebody is expected to play "guy with a sword" then you damn well have a duty to make "guy with a sword" as interesting and variable a role as "guy who can throw fireballs and stuff". Is it so horrible for you if "guy with a sword" resorts to using a magic item once in a while? It's not like you're fighting swarms every single time. This one special instance requires you to move outside your comfort zone. It's not terrible. It's not boring.

But it's not even uncomfortable if you go the desert wind maneuvers route...

[Dan_Hemmens]

Since "incorporeal" was a trait added for the purpose of making things immune to most physical attacks, the question you're asking is "Why exactly should an opponent immune to most physical attacks be invulnerable to a sword, but vulnerable to a magic missile, other than the fact that the missile is not a physical attack?"

Actually, the question I'm asking is significantly higher-level. It's "why would you put, in a game, a trait which is designed to make things immune to physical attacks, thereby negating any character who *makes* physical attacks. Furthermore, why is a bolt of energy not classified as 'physical'".


You don't fight every creature the same way.

Why not?


What's frustrating and boring about using the resources available to you rather than simply hitting that Everquest 'autoattack' button every time you see an enemy?

It's frustrating and boring to say "oh, I could beat this easily if I had [tool X] looks like I don't have [tool X]".


And that encounter doesn't exist in 3.5 if you are remotely prepared or can think outside the box. You have ways of dealing with it. It's not always "Swing your sword!"

You say "think outside the box" I say "jump through hoops". I don't see the "fun" in an encounter that is specifically designed to penalize me for my character concept.


Suuuure. Let's apply that to social interactions and puzzles, too. You should be able to just swing your sword to solve them all, right?

Yup, that's the way I like it. Just like the diplomatic characters should be able to talk their way out of fights.

Also, I can never resist an opportunity to do the old it worked for Alexander the Great (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordian_Knot) joke.


I believe the single tactic we are discussing is "Attack with sword." Using the resources available to you is what everyone else is suggesting...

A standard D&D fighter only *has* his sword. That's the schtick a D&D fighter gets, and it should be every *bit* as flexible as a Rogue's skills or a Wizard's spells.

[Hallavast]

You say "think outside the box" I say "jump through hoops". I don't see the "fun" in an encounter that is specifically designed to penalize me for my character concept.
As a DM, I refuse to cater to a "character concept" that consists of " I swing my sword every single booping time no matter what we fight and refuse to use alternatives. Then I bitch when this doesn't work". If that's elitism then I concede. I am an elitist.



A standard D&D fighter only *has* his sword. That's the schtick a D&D fighter gets, and it should be every *bit* as flexible as a Rogue's skills or a Wizard's spells.

Then what the F*ck are all those goddamn magical items in the DMG supposed to be for? How about a fighter with ToB maneuvers? How DARE those bastard designers give me options besides my sword! What were they thinking?!

[Dan_Hemmens]

Because a magic missile isn't just any kind of magic. It's force magic. It exists for the expressed purpose of being a catch-all type of energy that will affect anything. A sword is just a physical sword. Incorporality was designed in part to make regular swords not work as good.

But why did it need to do that? Were swords somehow broken? Is there anything that a regular sword will hurt but a magic missile won't (Golems not being the right answer here, since their DR basically negates a regular sword).


How is using a necklace of fireballs any more frustrating than using a sword?

I'm going to echo Rutee on this one. If I wanted to throw fireballs, I'd play a mage.


I've spent a good chunk of the last page explaining that a fighter is far from useless here. Relative usefullness is irrelavent here. The fact remains that you are either controlling or damaging the swarm with the aforementioned items or maneuvers or incindiaries.

You spent a good chunk of the last page explaining that fighters were far from useless because they could activate items that anybody could activate, thereby allowing them to cast spells. That isn't a fighter being useful, that's a fighter *not being a fighter*.


Is it so horrible for you if "guy with a sword" resorts to using a magic item once in a while? It's not like you're fighting swarms every single time. This one special instance requires you to move outside your comfort zone. It's not terrible. It's not boring.

It's not about my "comfort zone", it's about an encounter specifically designed to make my character useless for the sake of it.

[Dan_Hemmens]

As a DM, I refuse to cater to a "character concept" that consists of " I swing my sword every single booping time no matter what we fight and refuse to use alternatives. Then I bitch when this doesn't work". If that's elitism then I concede. I am an elitist.

It's not elitist, it's just gamist. Not all of us are so heavily invested in OOC strategic challenges.


Then what the F*ck are all those goddamn magical items in the DMG supposed to be for? How about a fighter with ToB maneuvers? How DARE those bastard designers give me options besides my sword! What were they thinking?!

A fighter with ToB maneuvers isn't a fighter, he's a ToB class. The magic items in the DMG are there because D&D wouldn't be D&D without stacks of faintly ludicrous treasure.

[Rutee]

As a DM, I refuse to cater to a "character concept" that consists of " I swing my sword every single booping time no matter what we fight and refuse to use alternatives. Then I bitch when this doesn't work". If that's elitism then I concede. I am an elitist.
Stop putting words in people's mouths. My character concept is "Guy with sword". If I wanted to be magic item reliant, I would probably be playing an Artificer.




Then what the F*ck are all those goddamn magical items in the DMG supposed to be for? How about a fighter with ToB maneuvers? How DARE those bastard designers give me options besides my sword! What were they thinking?!

The magic items are frankly traps. If I had to say they had a use? It's the same use as the Bombs found in various Shooter games. They're meant to be backup options where useful, not to be your mainstay in a given fight. As to maneuvers? A fine, fine suggestion when playing a Swordsage. Not so much when playing other things, /especially/ given that not everybody has ToB.

[Talya]

Actually, the question I'm asking is significantly higher-level. It's "why would you put, in a game, a trait which is designed to make things immune to physical attacks, thereby negating any character who *makes* physical attacks.

Because this isn't a game of "hack everything to death mindlessly." This is a complex RPG with actual strategic elements.


Furthermore, why is a bolt of energy not classified as 'physical'".

Because energy is not physical? Regardless, energy doesn't generally work well on incorporeal types either.




Why not?

Because this isn't a game of "hack everything to death mindlessly." This is a complex RPG with actual strategic elements.


It's frustrating and boring to say "oh, I could beat this easily if I had [tool X] looks like I don't have [tool X]".

If a person doesn't have a tool who can help in most of such situations, they're just a tool themselves who doesn't deserve to be useful in this situation, because they refuse to actually use their brain.



You say "think outside the box" I say "jump through hoops". I don't see the "fun" in an encounter that is specifically designed to penalize me for my character concept.

(1) If your character concept is to be an unintelligent, unoriginal, utterly uncreative thug, then you're rather limiting yourself to begin with. Don't blame the game system. If you're a blunt instrument, you're not supposed to be useful in every situation. Note that most melee characters, including third edition fighters, barbarians, and other pure bashing types, still have hundreds of ways to be useful in every possible situation. Think of a guy who min-maxes a big dumb ugly brute...expect them to be useless in more situations, and outlandishly effective in others. The guy who chooses to build a more balanced character might rarely be uneffective, but never dominate play either. That's just logic.

(2) You are beginning to illustrate the mentality that went into creating 4e that so many people hate: let's make everything generic, remove all elements of variety or strategy, and have everyone just phone in their performance.


Yup, that's the way I like it. Just like the diplomatic characters should be able to talk their way out of fights.

Sorry, you don't get to have it that way. Not every tactic should, or will, work in every situation.


A standard D&D fighter only *has* his sword.

Is that the way 4e is going? Because it's never been that way in any previous edition of D&D.

[Hallavast]

Stop putting words in people's mouths. My character concept is "Guy with sword". If I wanted to be magic item reliant, I would probably be playing an Artificer.
Are you an artificer if you use magic items? The fighter in question would not be "magic item reliant" save for this one fight if he doesn't have maneuvers (and taking ToB maneuvers as feats -which it says explicitly that you can do- doesn't make you any less of a fighter).




The magic items are frankly traps. If I had to say they had a use? It's the same use as the Bombs found in various Shooter games. They're meant to be backup options where useful, not to be your mainstay in a given fight. It'd say this is a pretty damn useful situation for them. Do you expect to be able to shoot around walls in FPS games? Or do you switch tactics when your opponent is around the corner. It's okay to use a magic item here and there. It won't hurt you.



As to maneuvers? A fine, fine suggestion when playing a Swordsage. Not so much when playing other things, /especially/ given that not everybody has ToB. So... only swordsages can use maneuvers? Fighters can take maneuvers as fighter bonus feats. If you don't have ToB, then take a look at the magic item list for some alternatives.

[Dan_Hemmens]

Because this isn't a game of "hack everything to death mindlessly." This is a complex RPG with actual strategic elements.

So:

Killing things with a sword == Mindless.
Killing Things With Magic == Strategy.

Glad we've got that cleared up.



Because energy is not physical? Regardless, energy doesn't generally work well on incorporeal types either.

But "Force" does. Apparently. Convenient that.


Because this isn't a game of "hack everything to death mindlessly." This is a complex RPG with actual strategic elements.

So you're saying it's not a game of "hack everything to death mindlessly", it's a game of "hack everything to death using a variety of different and arbitrary tools?"


Because if a person doesn't have a tool who can do the job, they're just a tool themselves who doesn't deserve to be useful in this situation, because they refuse to actually use their brain.

I have far, far better things to do with my brain than compile a checklist of potentially encountered enemies versus appropriate armaments.


(1) If your character concept is unintelligent, unoriginal, utterly uncreative thug, then you're rather limiting yourself to begin with. Don't blame the game system. If you're a blunt instrument, you're not supposed to be useful in every situation. Note that most melee characters, including third edition fighters, barbarians, and other pure bashing types, still have hundreds of ways to be useful in every possible situation.

So essentially you're saying I deserve to be bored, because my character concept wasn't "tactically minded obsessive-compulsive who always keeps at least three varieties of weapon handy and incidentally seems to be at least partially aware that he's a fictional character in a roleplaying game"?


(2) You are beginning to illustrate the mentality that went into creating 4e that so many people hate: let's make everything generic, remove all elements of variety or strategy, and have everyone just phone in their performance.

I can see how providing everybody with a wide range of abilities, all roughly balanced against one another, each with distinct and specific tactical and strategic applications can be seen as "removing all elements of variety or strategy". After all, if your character has a wide range of abilities, you lose the *variety* of having situations in which you are useless.



Sorry, you don't get to have it that way. Not every tactic should, or will, work in every situation.

Except for "use magic" which will.


Is that the way 4e is going? Because it's never been that way in any previous edition of D&D.

So what else does a Fighter have in 3.5?

[Rutee]

Because this isn't a game of "hack everything to death mindlessly." This is a complex RPG with actual strategic elements.
Actually, it's an RPG with tactical elements. Strategy is the overarching plan on the macro scale, tactics are the implementation of this plan on the micro. Very few RPGs are /strategic/ in nature.


Because energy is not physical? Regardless, energy doesn't generally work well on incorporeal types either.
Since you're being obtuse, "Why does force magic affect it then? It's just kinetic energy, which is going to be transfered by a sword"


Because this isn't a game of "hack everything to death mindlessly." This is a complex RPG with actual strategic elements.
It's a Tac-sim then, I'll grant you that. Why would you then forcibly remove an entire set of tactics?


Because if a person doesn't have a tool who can do the job, they're just a tool themselves who doesn't deserve to be useful in this situation, because they refuse to actually use their brain.
In one of the threads where you challenged Batman, you used your Sorcerer as an example. Your Sorcerer wasn't optimized, for concept reasons, and that was okay. But it was a very good reason not to optimize, yes?

Isn't it conceivable that other people won't optimize for thematic reasons? Or even practical ones? "I /could/ have picked up this magical item on the off chance I found a use, but wouldn't a more generally useful item be better?"



(1) If your character concept is unintelligent, unoriginal, utterly uncreative thug, then you're rather limiting yourself to begin with. Don't blame the game system. If you're a blunt instrument, you're not supposed to be useful in every situation. Note that most melee characters, including third edition fighters, barbarians, and other pure bashing types, still have hundreds of ways to be useful in every possible situation.
If the game is going to put forth "Blunt Instrument" as a viable concept (Barbarians), then why should it be less useful then other characters? Also, don't lie to us.

[quote](2) You are beginning to illustrate the mentality that went into creating 4e that so many people hate: let's make everything generic, remove all elements of variety or strategy, and have everyone just phone in their performance.
If "Strategy" to you means "Picking up every situationally useful item just on the offchance you use them", then put up or shut up. I wanna see your builds, particularly with magic items. Right now. I wanna see how much you practice what you preach.


Sorry, you don't get to have it that way. Not every tactic should, or will, work in every situation.
"Because this is a complex tactical RPG", right? Welp, since you're using words wrong, let's get this out of the way now.

When you create your character, some measure of strategy is brought to mind, by sheer virtue of your character class selection. With a fighter or barbarian, you clearly intend for your strategy to involve hitting things, because that's all the classes are good at. Which is fine.

You have been arguing that characters should have to change tactics, or the implementation on a micro scale. Frankly, I agree with you, on a theoretical level. However! traits like "Incorporeal" and 3rd ed's swarm rules force a change in strategy, not tactics. Among other problems, strategy generally can't be altered significantly in a short period of time; A lot of time and preparation goes into it (In DnD, this is reflected in class levels, feats, magic item selection, etc.) Further, DnD for melee, without the ToB, does not support several classes changing tactics very well, because tactics (For melee) are so closely tied to Strategy.



Is that the way 4e is going? Because it's never been that way in any previous edition of D&D.

Fighter Class Features: Good Fort Save, Full BAB, Bonus Feats /restricted to weapon tricks/. Fighters are restricted from pursuing other strategies (Which for melee are closely tied to tactics) due to their class setup.



Are you an artificer if you use magic items? The fighter in question would not be "magic item reliant" save for this one fight if he doesn't have maneuvers (and taking ToB maneuvers as feats -which it says explicitly that you can do- doesn't make you any less of a fighter).
No, but I don't think you intended to be reliant on magic items to solve problems if you weren't an Artificer. And ToB Maneuvers require a specific book. The ones that are useful on a Swarm are the ones that actually do legitimately have the "Well I don't /want/ my fighter to be magical" complaint.


It'd say this is a pretty damn useful situation for them. Do you expect to be able to shoot around walls in FPS games? Or do you switch tactics when your opponent is around the corner. It's okay to use a magic item here and there. It won't hurt you.

I'd say it's comparable to relying on bombs in a boss fight (Incidentally, I refer to games like Gradius or Touhou, not FPS). You really aren't supposed to need your bombs to get through the entire fight.

Actually it's more like getting through the main level with Bombs. You'renot supposed to spam Bombs by any stretch of the imagination; One of them is supposed to be sufficient for any particular stretch of time. If you have to force your way through a stage by relying on bombs, /you have failed/.


So... only swordsages can use maneuvers? Fighters can take maneuvers as fighter bonus feats. If you don't have ToB, then take a look at the magic item list for some alternatives.
Only Swordsages get Desert Wind. And I wanna see your build too, if you keep saying "Pick up the situationally useful magic item, so you can rely on it in a fight."

[Prophaniti]

Stop putting words in people's mouths. My character concept is "Guy with sword". If I wanted to be magic item reliant, I would probably be playing an Artificer.
The magic items are frankly traps. If I had to say they had a use? It's the same use as the Bombs found in various Shooter games. They're meant to be backup options where useful, not to be your mainstay in a given fight. As to maneuvers? A fine, fine suggestion when playing a Swordsage. Not so much when playing other things, /especially/ given that not everybody has ToB.

But that's exactly what we're saying. Magic items (and other expendables) are backups. When do you use a backup? When your usual methods are ineffective. That's what they're for. A fighter who uses a magic item when he discovers his sword is useless against this foe is NOT 'magic item reliant'. He's resourceful and smart. If your character concept is "guy with sword", awesome. Don't let anyone take that away from you. Just be prepared to be a (more or less, depending) deadweight when the time for sword-swinging is past, and don't complain that every single encounter and situation can't be solved by said sword-swinging. There are other people in the party, with other character concepts, and they want to have fun too.

Also, "guy with sword" isn't really a character concept, IMO. At least not a full one. A begining maybe, certainly could be a central part of your character, but there's a lot more to it.

EDIT:
Actually, it's an RPG with tactical elements. Strategy is the overarching plan on the macro scale, tactics are the implementation of this plan on the micro. Very few RPGs are /strategic/ in nature. C'mon, now you're just being nitpicky.

Also, it should be pointed out that no one, I think, is saying you should be prepared for every possible situation or foe. The idea here is simply to take a few simple steps to prepare for most, or at least the most likely foes. You know, sometimes your just not going to be ready for something. For me, that's part of the fun, is to see if I can find a way out of seemingly no-win scenarios. If I can't... oh, well, there's always next time (and next character, if things really went south). If that style of play does not suit you, or ruins your enjoyment of the game, just be sure to inform your DM. A good one will design his encounters with that in mind so you can play the game the way you want to.

[Hallavast]

So:

Killing things with a sword == Mindless.
Killing Things With Magic == Strategy.

Glad we've got that cleared up.

Let's say what she meant to say. Adapting and changing tactics depending on what you fight = Strategy.

It's like in football, If you run a standard 4-3 cover 2 defense every time, you're going to lose the game. Any amount of bitching about how your cover 2 doesn't work against 4 wide recievers will not help you.




I have far, far better things to do with my brain than compile a checklist of potentially encountered enemies versus appropriate armaments. Your character, however, does not.




So essentially you're saying I deserve to be bored, because my character concept wasn't "tactically minded obsessive-compulsive who always keeps at least three varieties of weapon handy and incidentally seems to be at least partially aware that he's a fictional character in a roleplaying game"?
Your fighter fights monsters for a living. Would it not make sense to be prepared to fight a variety of different monsters? Especially since his life depends, in part, on how well he can prepare against them?


So what else does a Fighter have in 3.5? Wits, magic items, maneuvers, Ghostbusters proton pack, explosives, armor, perhaps her favorite brand of wine, a ten foot pole, torches, 50ft rope ... the list goes on...

[Talya]

So:

Killing things with a sword == Mindless.
Killing Things With Magic == Strategy.

Glad we've got that cleared up.

Killing things by swinging a sword the exact same way every time == mindless, yes.
Killing thigns with magic == mindless if you only ever use the same couple spells, yes.



But "Force" does. Apparently. Convenient that.

Yes, it is. If you're a wizard, hope you memorized a force spell, or have some other options.



So you're saying it's not a game of "hack everything to death mindlessly", it's a game of "hack everything to death using a variety of different and arbitrary tools?"

If killing it is your goal, then yes. Use the best tool for the job. That tool should not always be the same thing.


I have far, far better things to do with my brain than compile a checklist of potentially encountered enemies versus appropriate armaments.

Then don't complain when you run into a situation you're ill equipped for. You don't dumb the game down to the lowest common denominator.


So essentially you're saying I deserve to be bored, because my character concept wasn't "tactically minded obsessive-compulsive who always keeps at least three varieties of weapon handy and incidentally seems to be at least partially aware that he's a fictional character in a roleplaying game"?

If your character concept is extremely one-dimensional, then yes, expect to be bored much of the time. That's what people get for min-maxing a single purpose-thug in a game with limitless purposes.


I can see how providing everybody with a wide range of abilities, all roughly balanced against one another, each with distinct and specific tactical and strategic applications

That's what I'm advocating. 3.5 does this relatively well in the end, with a few exceptions. However, that's the opposite of providing your fighter with one ability, and making it work well in every possible situation, which is what you are advocating, and is...


"removing all elements of variety or strategy".



After all, if your character has a wide range of abilities, you lose the *variety* of having situations in which you are useless.

This is exactly what I am advocating. "I swing my sword" in every situation is not a wide range of abilities. It may be your favorite and most commonly used ones, but you have other abilities that you will need to use from time to time. You're saying you don't want to have to do that.



Except for "use magic" which will.

Maybe in "Batman's" game. LogicNinja would get humbled pretty quickly in most.


So what else does a Fighter have in 3.5?

3 maneuvers per encounter.
1 stance.
A wide range of feats that can provide tactical options in nearly any situation.
A nearly limitless supply of equipment options that can provide more tactical options in nearly any situation (without cheesing UMD.)

These can allow you to:
-change the type of damage you're dealing to something more appropriate to the encounter
-break the DR of the target you are facing
-assist party members in doing what they are doing
-improve the defenses of other party members who are in trouble
-gain great mobility to attack from a more favored position
-restrict the mobility of the enemy
-circumvent (and therefore defeat) the encounter entirely by doing something unexpected


...and the pure fighter is among the weakest of the melee classes if you don't multiclass, and even he can be useful in any situation. (I generally believe the fighter class only exists to add flexibility to other classes by multiclassing.)

[Dan_Hemmens]

Let's say what she meant to say. Adapting and changing tactics depending on what you fight = Strategy.

No, adapting and changing tactics depending on what you fight = tactics, sort of by definition.


It's like in football, If you run a standard 4-3 cover 2 defense every time, you're going to lose the game. Any amount of bitching about how your cover 2 doesn't work against 4 wide recievers will not help you.

It's like football in which it is considered legitimate for the opposing team to show up to the match with guns and shoot my team. It's not a failure in my tactics, it's a failure of a system which allows the opposition to completely negate *any* set of tactics I could employ that fall within the rules as I understand them.


Your character, however, does not.

Great! Well he can work all that stuff out for me then.

Oh wait.


Your fighter fights monsters for a living. Would it not make sense to be prepared to fight a variety of different monsters? Especially since his life depends, in part, on how well he can prepare against them?

*Your* fighter fights monsters for a living. Mine is a member of a city militia who got drafted into this whole "save the world" thing because of circumstances. Or he's a knight who fights the tourney circuit. Or he's a mercenary for hire in the hundred petty wars of his home kingdom. Or he's a an archer, or a fencer, or a poet who grew up in a tough part of town.

What he is never is an "adventurer" who goes into "dungeons" expecting to face "encounters".


Wits, magic items, maneuvers, Ghostbusters proton pack, explosives, armor, perhaps her favorite brand of wine, a ten foot pole, torches, 50ft rope ... the list goes on...

You might as well add "party of more useful characters" and "ever present possibility of multiclassing to Wizard" to that list because none of those things actually come from the fighter, they're just crap he might happen to be carrying.

[Reel On, Love]

That's what I'm advocating. 3.5 does this relatively well in the end, with a few exceptions. However, that's the opposite of providing your fighter with one ability, and making it work well in every possible situation, which is what you are advocating, and is...

No, he's advocating providing the fighter with a whole bunch of different abilities. He's saying the fighter should be as versatile as anyone else.


Maybe in "Batman's" game. LogicNinja would get humbled pretty quickly in most.
Yeah, I bet the guy only ever played in one group with a lax DM. It's not like he could've written the guide based on lots of play experience, right? With various groups, modules, etc?
Maybe he's never even actually PLAYED a wizard! And neither has anyone else who uses the same general approach!
Or maybe 99% of DMs are doing it wrong and only you know the One True Way.

While suggesting that the DM should have a wizard prepare spells, then take his spell list, look at it, and then do his level best to pick only enemies who are immune to as much of it as possible might make you feel smug, it's not a very good DMing approach, nor is it viable most of the time. If the party are removing humanoid bandits, they're gonna be fighting humanoid bandits.

[Talya]

No, adapting and changing tactics depending on what you fight = tactics, sort of by definition.

Stop nitpicking. Rutee too. In the vernacular, strategy and tactics are the same thing.



It's like football in which it is considered legitimate for the opposing team to show up to the match with guns and shoot my team. It's not a failure in my tactics, it's a failure of a system which allows the opposition to completely negate *any* set of tactics I could employ that fall within the rules as I understand them.

This is complete garbage. The enemy is following the same rules you are. You are not at a disadvantage.




Great! Well he can work all that stuff out for me then.

Oh wait.

You are arguing that the game should play itself because you don't feel like actually playing it.





What he is never is an "adventurer" who goes into "dungeons" expecting to face "encounters".

That'd change pretty fast after his first encounter.


You might as well add "party of more useful characters" and "ever present possibility of multiclassing to Wizard" to that list because none of those things actually come from the fighter, they're just crap he might happen to be carrying.

Every class has to do something that someone else does better from time to time. Even the wizard. This isn't a big boring hardship. There are times when your main class ability won't work. Suck it up and do something else. That's not boring, that's not jumping through hoops. That's playing the game. If you don't like it, go play WoW. Tabletop RPGs are BETTER than WoW because they let you choose to try anything you damn well please. You aren't limited to some strict scheme of balancing.

[FoE]

The Holy Defenders of 4th Edition, regrettably, sometimes feel they have to fight every single point anyone ever makes that could possibly be construed as negative. I think it comes from overexposure to particularly rabid Haters, who feel they have to savagely attack every possible or semi-probable feature of 4th edition regardless of context (either within 4E or in comparison to other RPGs) or rationale. We Defenders really ought to limit our warriors to sixty-post terms of duty, don't you think? Fighting out here on the Line really wears people down, but fills 'em back up with so much bitterness they can hardly tell the difference.

Quoted for truth, man. It's like they say in TV Tropes: (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HeWhoFightsMonsters)

"He who fights monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

[Dan_Hemmens]

Stop nitpicking. Rutee too. In the vernacular, strategy and tactics are the same thing.

In the vernacular "role-playing" has strong sexual connotations. The reason for the nitpick is that there's an important difference between Strategy and Tactics. As Rutee points out, the *strategy* in D&D is mostly in character creation, it's not something you can readily adapt to.


This is complete garbage. The enemy is following the same rules you are. You are not at a disadvantage.

Yes I am, and no he isn't. I cannot arbitrarily declare my character to be immune to the attacks of the enemy, or insist that the DM redesign an encounter in order to better suit my character.


You are arguing that the game should play itself because you don't feel like actually playing it.

I am arguing that, for me, "playing the game" and "compiling shopping lists" are two very different things.


That'd change pretty fast after his first encounter.

No, it wouldn't. Unless you're suggesting that he would suddenly become aware that he was a fictional character in a game with strategic elements where his survival would regularly depend on his ability to second guess which ludicrous item he would need to defeat which arbitrary challenge.


Every class has to do something that someone else does better from time to time. Even the wizard. This isn't a big boring hardship. There are times when your main class ability won't work. Suck it up and do something else. That's not boring, that's not jumping through hoops. That's playing the game. If you don't like it, go play WoW. Tabletop RPGs are BETTER than WoW because they let you choose to try anything you damn well please. You aren't limited to some strict scheme of balancing.

When my main class ability won't work, I ask myself "why is my character here"? If the answer is not "because he has a compelling in-character reason for being here, such that merely being present at these events is all he requires and furthermore I, out of character, am finding the GM's descriptions and storyline entirely compelling" I get bored. If I spend enough time being bored, I quit the game.

[Talya]

No, he's advocating providing the fighter with a whole bunch of different abilities. He's saying the fighter should be as versatile as anyone else.

No, he's not. He's arguing that the fighter should be able to just swing his sword at every possible scenario and win, like 4e is allowing them to do with swarms.

Providing the fighter whith a whole bunch of different abilities is what 3.5 did. Can't hit the swarm? Yes you can. Switch to a different weapon. Use an item. Use one of the maneuvers you were smart and took with the martial study feat. Or heck, light your weapon on fire!


blah blah blah logicninja is god and wizards are supreme beings blah blah blah

You do know, the tiny bunch of very loud people on the internet posting in forums like these make up a ridiculously small percentage of the people who actually play D&D, right? Most groups don't have these problems with the wizard. This is a phenomena peculiar to this particular bunch of people who seem to have very inflexible opinions and little actual experience outside their sphere.

[Prophaniti]

As fun as it is to link to tvtropes whenever possible, strictly speaking that's a Nietze quote, not a tvtropes quote. A tvtropes quote would be something the site itself says, and there are some good ones.

Also, Yay, Talya! It's good to see someone else who enjoys a challenging game, and situations where you may actually have to use Plan B (or better still, make up a new plan), rather than the same old stuff.

EDIT:
Yes I am, and no he isn't. I cannot arbitrarily declare my character to be immune to the attacks of the enemy, or insist that the DM redesign an encounter in order to better suit my character.

Um, yes you are playing by the same rules. You cannot declare yourself immune to certain forms of damage because you are not a swarm, in exactly the same way you can't declare you are immune to fire because your not a fire elemental, or even a salamander. Unless you have a really liberal DM who likes unusual characters... Swarms have these special rules because fighting a swarm is different than fighting anything else.

[Aquillion]

As fun as it is to link to tvtropes whenever possible, strictly speaking that's a Nietze quote, not a tvtropes quote. A tvtropes quote would be something the site itself says, and there are some good ones.I think it was a joke.

[Rutee]

Stop nitpicking. Rutee too. In the vernacular, strategy and tactics are the same thing.
If you want to use the word wrong, fine, but don't get on our case when it impedes communication.

And you read my post. Wonderful. Builds. Nao. You're going to look down on us for, and this is a gem,


Because if a person doesn't have a tool who can do the job, they're just a tool themselves who doesn't deserve to be useful in this situation, because they refuse to actually use their brain.

I wanna see how you "Use your brain", so you can teach us sluggards. Which I doubt you did, by your own definition, given that this exact same problem came up for you when you were playing your Sorcerer, fighting a dragon, and couldn't dispel his buffs because you never took the opportunity to learn Dispel Magic

[Dan_Hemmens]

No, he's not. He's arguing that the fighter should be able to just swing his sword at every possible scenario and win, like 4e is allowing them to do with swarms.

No, I'm arguing that in a game with a strong strategic or tactical element swinging a sword should never be a matter of "just".


Providing the fighter whith a whole bunch of different abilities is what 3.5 did. Can't hit the swarm? Yes you can. Switch to a different weapon. Use an item. Use one of the maneuvers you were smart and took with the martial study feat. Or heck, light your weapon on fire!

Tome of Battle is a comparatively obscure supplement which not everybody uses. Furthermore not everybody *wants* to use ToB maneuvers because not everybody wants that flavour for their character.

[Dan_Hemmens]

Quoted for truth, man. It's like they say in TV Tropes: (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HeWhoFightsMonsters)

"He who fights monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

Speaking personally, the reason I defend all the changes made in D&D 4th Edition is that 90% of them are really really old ideas which have been used in practically every game I have ever played and have worked.

[Scintillatus]

Good luck not using Tome Of Battle-style maneuvers in 4e, buddy. :smallwink:

[Talya]

If you want to use the word wrong, fine, but don't get on our case when it impedes communication.

And you read my post. Wonderful. Builds. Nao. You're going to look down on us for, and this is a gem,


People here have already posted many suggestions. For swarms, even with core SRD equipment there are lots of ways for a fighter to be useful - [i]you just don't like them.

Alchemist's Fire
Elemental damage on a weapon (mundane or magical)
Martial Manuvers that do elemental damage.
Necklace of Fireballs

I mean really, if you don't have one of those things by the time you're encountering swarms you can't damage with a blunt stick, why not? I mean, at very low levels, the elemental damage of a weapon you set on fire by pouring oil on it, is going to do almost as much damage to the swarm as burning hands is.

If the DM really wants to get you, she's going to, regardless of what you pick, but on just a random encounter, any given fighter can be at least somewhat useful 99% of the time.


this exact same problem came up for you when you were playing your Sorcerer, fighting a dragon, and couldn't dispel his buffs because you never took the opportunity to learn Dispel Magic

And yet I still did my part with the tools that I had. (If I had known he was buffed beforehand, I could have used one of the many scrolls I had in my possession to try to debuff him even then. I just was completely unaware that the abjuration the dragon had cast long before we entered the room even existed, so I had no reason to try them. I figured there were some feats or special advancement this dragon had taken that had somehow made his touch AC high. Which is actually good, because it rather ruins the game if you as a player are familiar every possible scenario the DM might throw at you.

[Reel On, Love]

No, he's not. He's arguing that the fighter should be able to just swing his sword at every possible scenario and win, like 4e is allowing them to do with swarms.
4e is giving the fighter lots of different powers that allow him to respond to the challenge tactically.


Providing the fighter whith a whole bunch of different abilities is what 3.5 did. Can't hit the swarm? Yes you can. Switch to a different weapon. Use an item. Use one of the maneuvers you were smart and took with the martial study feat. Or heck, light your weapon on fire!
Because, you know, every fighter has Martial Study, and every fighter with Martial Study takes it for a maneuver that will occasionally by useful against a specific kind of enemy, rather than consistently good.
Weapon on fire = like 1d6.
Item = like what? Every fighter is supposed to buy a wind fan or elixir of fire breathing? That's ridiculous



You do know, the tiny bunch of very loud people on the internet posting in forums like these make up a ridiculously small percentage of the people who actually play D&D, right? Most groups don't have these problems with the wizard. This is a phenomena peculiar to this particular bunch of people who seem to have very inflexible opinions and little actual experience outside their sphere.
I had no idea you went and surveyed "most groups".

Groups that don't have these problems with the wizard generally don't because their wizard players don't play that way. The CharOp boards have been advocating general buff, debuff, battlefield control, save-or-suck strategy for pretty much ever, and you can bet they play in games.

I play in games, myself. I play wizards in games. Successfully. But then, I guess that's my various DMs' fault for not making every other opponent a flying golem with high touch AC but low actual AC, no DR, and weak melee capabilities.

Your insistence that "LogicNinja [and by extension people who play wizards of the same style] would get humbled pretty quickly in a real game" is tiresome to those of us who do play in real games and have wizards that don't auto-win everything, no (nobody is claiming wizards in actual games, rather than built to be unkillable hermits, are Invulnerable Unstoppable Gods of Win, just that they are consistently the most important party member with tools that work against almost anything), but are consistently MVPs (the rest of the time it's the cleric or something like that). You keep espousing this ridiculous idea that if a wizard is contributing more than the fighter, the DM is incompetent, rather than, you know, the game actually working that way when the wizard player is good at what he does.

[Rutee]

Good luck not using Tome Of Battle-style maneuvers in 4e, buddy. :smallwink:

The problem isn't ToB Style maneuvers, dear. The problem here is context (And to an extent, I expect, ignorance. I dunno if Dan Hemmens read through it, because it /is/ a splatbook).

We're talking about Swarms. The only maneuvers I can think of that effect Swarms are Desert Wind Maneuvers. You know how everybody knee-jerk complains "I don't want to use ToB, because I don't want to be magical!!!!oneoneonetwo" (Notwithstanding that Crusader is basically Paladin but well made)? Well, that's usually a stupid complaint, given Warblades. In this case though? It actually is a problem, because Desert Wind actually is magical. At least, the ones that are useful here.

Further, if you check the rest of his argument, he's all for adding tactical options to the Fighter (AKA Maneuvers).

[Prophaniti]

I wanna see how you "Use your brain", so you can teach us sluggards. Which I doubt you did, by your own definition, given that this exact same problem came up for you when you were playing your Sorcerer, fighting a dragon, and couldn't dispel his buffs because you never took the opportunity to learn Dispel Magic
This is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. The Sorcerer forgot to take Dispel Magic and can't debuff the dragon, who is now much more challenging than he would otherwise have been. In what way is this indicitive of a flaw in the system? How is the fighters unwillingness to use anything but his sword a flaw in the system?

[Reel On, Love]

This is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. The Sorcerer forgot to take Dispel Magic and can't debuff the dragon, who is now much more challenging than he would otherwise have been. In what way is this indicitive of a flaw in the system?

It's not. It's inidcative of a flaw--or at least, hypocrisy--in Talia's "if your character isn't prepared for everything you're stupid and incompetent and just want a win button" argument.

[FoE]

As fun as it is to link to tvtropes whenever possible, strictly speaking that's a Nietze quote, not a tvtropes quote. A tvtropes quote would be something the site itself says, and there are some good ones.


I think it was a joke.

Quoted for truth, man. It's like they say on TV Tropes: (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CompletelyMissingThePoint)

"Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog: you understand it better, but the frog dies in the process."

[Prophaniti]

But this is what Rutee and everyone else were saying before. The situation with the fighter and the swarm was apparently a glaring flaw in the game system, so why isn't the situation with the Sorcerer and the dragon? It's the same scenario, just with different combatants.

EDIT:
Quoted for truth, man. It's like they say on TV Tropes: (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DontExplainTheJoke)

"Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog: you understand it better, but the frog dies in the process."The joke was not missed. I was simply pointing out that the quote was not 'what they say on tvtropes', it was a quote from someone else that is also quoted on tvtropes. Pretty nitpicky myself sometimes, I know.

[Rutee]

People here have already posted many suggestions. For swarms, even with core SRD equipment there are lots of ways for a fighter to be useful
I'm not saying they don't exist. I'm saying I want proof, right ****ing nao, that you personally actually buy them on the off chance that they will be useful. /You/ are the one who levelled the claim that if you're not prepared with the right tools, you're brain dead. So you know, I want you to put up or shut up, because that was the most ****ing arrogant statement in the entire thread, and you have chosen to condescend for that thought process.


And yet I still did my part with the tools that I had. (If I had known he was buffed beforehand, I could have used one of the many scrolls I had in my possession to try to debuff him even then. I just was completely unaware that the abjuration the dragon had cast long before we entered the room even existed, so I had no reason to try them. I figured there were some feats or special advancement this dragon had taken that had somehow made his touch AC high. Which is actually good, because it rather ruins the game if you as a player are familiar every possible scenario the DM might throw at you.

You didn't take your spellcraft check, you didn't didn't know Dispel Magic (This scroll business is a new claim). You didn't have the tools you needed. By /your/ definition (certainly not mine, because I don't choose to condescend to people for this kinda crap), you don't use your brain and are a tool who deserved to suck.

[Aquillion]

How did we get back to melee vs. magic users again? Do we really have to have this discussion another time?

Fighters are underpowered. They are also mechanically dull. The fact that a player can certainly have fun and invent things while playing a mechanically dull class doesn't change the fact that there's a problem in the mechanics (after all, we all know that certain other classes (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=80968) have fighters beat there anyway. Why play a fighter and not an Aristocrat? Aristocrats can use order their valet to use an eversmoking bottle, too, and they have a cooler RP fluff built-in.)

The fact is, even wizards has admitted it. They've said outright and specifically that 4th edition is intended to fix the problem, and it's kinda hard to miss how the power level for casters has been drastically scaled down while most other classes have been converted to a ToB-themed feel.

I don't know why they felt they needed to do that and change swarms, though. I think they're trying to make any reasonable class / ability combination in a party reasonable, to make the game more accessible and easy to run... they feel that every party shouldn't have to have a way of killing swarms or trolls, say.

Now, a lot of people have said how a smart DM can adjust the challenge to their party, and that's certainly true. But I suspect that WotC is also trying to reduce the need for that... and I think it's a good thing. They want D&D to be much more 'pick-up-and-play'.

One good way to look at it: Try not to look at it as D&D. Instead, look at it as if it were a totally new game. As soon as I did that, it looked completely awesome. I sort of wish they could've released 4th edition under a new name and not discontinued 3rd... there is a difference between this change and the one from 2nd to 3rd, I think there's no questioning that the underlying philosophy of the system has changed dramatically.

But viewed on its own, without picking apart every individual change to see how they 'dumbed it down' (because, let's be honest, they changed everything aside from a few names), 4th edition looks like it stands on its own as a good game in its own right.

We'll have to wait until its really out to be sure, certainly, but everything I've heard has been good. What's wrong with having RPG lite? Less statistics to worry about is a good thing; it means more time for, you know, actual gaming and roleplaying. Less class imbalance and better multiclassing means (in theory) players don't have to worry about effectiveness as much. Overall, it sounds like 4th edition will lend itself better to just grabbing and playing something fun in, without the DM constantly having to throw patches and carefully-crafted encounters to keep everything running smoothly.

3rd edition swarms were not unusable or game-breaking, obviously, since we've been playing 3rd edition happily for years. But 4th edition swarms are easier, in every respect, and ultimately I think that that's a good thing. How is the game served by being difficult to play?

[Prophaniti]

How is the game served by making it easier? If you don't like challenges when you play, it is quite simple for a DM in any system to whip up adventure sure to never strain your cognitive or physical limits, either in-character or in person.

Others of us do like to be challenged, and enjoy the element of difficulty, sometimes even the frustration, cause by enemies that require a different approach to kill. Even Trolls can be fun for a party that has little magic with them. It adds a gravity to the situation, a sense of urgency and reality that, yes, if you don't burn the corpses they'll get back up and keep coming.

I see no gain whatsoever with the change to the swarm rules, merely a decision that seems to be based on the idea that when we're playing D&D, we don't want to think too much.

[Dan_Hemmens]

How did we get back to melee vs. magic users again? Do we really have to have this discussion another time?

Sorry, my fault, I only meant to highlight the fact that there are - apparently - a number of elements in the game designed to give a "tactical challenge" by making sword-swinging useless, and comparatively few (Golems are about the only ones I can think of) designed to offer the same challenge by making spell-casting useless.


I don't know why they felt they needed to do that and change swarms, though. I think they're trying to make any reasonable class / ability combination in a party reasonable, to make the game more accessible and easy to run... they feel that every party shouldn't have to have a way of killing swarms or trolls, say.

That and, as others have pointed out, the swarm rules seem to apply to things at *least* housecat sized, so it's not actually like it's totally immersion breaking for a sword to be non-useless against them.

I think part of the problem is that people assume that an "attack" in combat always literally represents standing stock still and swinging your weapon at your target exactly once. A fighter, faced with a swarm of insects, could just jump up and down on the buggers.

[Reel On, Love]

How is the game served by making it easier? If you don't like challenges when you play, it is quite simple for a DM in any system to whip up adventure sure to never strain your cognitive or physical limits, either in-character or in person.
Easier to play, not easier to defeat the monsters. A game should be easy to play because I want to spend my energy on the game, not on dealing with ruleset tangles.


I see no gain whatsoever with the change to the swarm rules, merely a decision that seems to be based on the idea that when we're playing D&D, we don't want to think too much.
When I'm playing D&D, I want to roleplay ("roleplaying..."), and I want to kill things and take their stuff ("...game"). I'm okay with the rules providing challenges. The rules shouldn't BE a challenge.

[Talya]

4e is giving the fighter lots of different powers that allow him to respond to the challenge tactically.

Which you don't need...because every opponent is equally vulnerable to just swinging your sword?


Because, you know, every fighter has Martial Study,

If you're using TOB in your game, and for some bizarro reason as a melee character haven't actually taken at least a level or two in a TOB class, then damn right you should have martial study.


and every fighter with Martial Study takes it for a maneuver that will occasionally by useful against a specific kind of enemy, rather than consistently good.

You do have three of them, and I wasn't saying every fighter would always have access to all of those things, but yes, you should have access to some of them.


Weapon on fire = like 1d6.

Which at the level you'd have it as a last resort matches up favorably or at least a significant fraction of whatever spells your wizard is using. And at least it is something.


Item = like what? Every fighter is supposed to buy a wind fan or elixir of fire breathing? That's ridiculous

Ignoring that for most swarms, merely switching to a blunt weapon will at least let you do some damage, and ignoring all the options outside of SRD (merely because I can't link them):

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicWeapons.htm#flaming
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicWeapons.htm#flamingBurst
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicWeapons.htm#frost
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicWeapons.htm#icyBurst
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicWeapons.htm#shock
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicWeapons.htm#shockingBurst
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicWeapons.htm#thundering
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/rings.htm#spellStoringMinor
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/rings.htm#spellStoring
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/rings.htm#spellStoringMajor
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/rods.htm#thunderandLightning
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#beadofForce
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#brazierofCommandingFireElemental s
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#circletofBlastingMinor
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#circletofBlastingMajor
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#decanterofEndlessWater
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#elementalGem
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#elixirofFireBreath
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#eversmokingBottle
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#helmofBrilliance
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#hornofBlasting
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#hornofBlastingGreater
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#necklaceofFireballs
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#orbofStorms
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#windFan

I probably missed a bunch there. I mean, so many of those have dozens of situations they'd be useful in. Damn right a fighter should collect some (and his primary weapon should contain more than one elemental damage type if he can). Yes, he's primarily going to fight in melee, but you need other option at times, And that's a good thing.


Groups that don't have these problems with the wizard generally don't because their wizard players don't play that way. The CharOp boards have been advocating general buff, debuff, battlefield control, save-or-suck strategy for pretty much ever, and you can bet they play in games.

Nothing wrong with that. It doesn't mean you are going to dominate the play.


I play in games, myself. I play wizards in games. Successfully.
And you should be able to play them successfully. It's the DM's fault if nobody can play anything else just as successfully.

[Reel On, Love]

I think part of the problem is that people assume that an "attack" in combat always literally represents standing stock still and swinging your weapon at your target exactly once. A fighter, faced with a swarm of insects, could just jump up and down on the buggers.

Roll the dwarf at'em. It'll do damage like dropping a big object; the dwarf takes 1/10th of that in Dignity damage.

[Dan_Hemmens]

I see no gain whatsoever with the change to the swarm rules, merely a decision that seems to be based on the idea that when we're playing D&D, we don't want to think too much.

Thinking <> Book Keeping.

I would absolutely *love* to have an encounter which I had to overcome by quick thinking, improvisation and genuine creativity, but that's *not* what things like the swarm rules reward.

All the swarm rules reward is the tedious busywork of making sure that you always have a couple of flasks of alchemist's fire in your pack (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=984). Quite simply that isn't why I play roleplaying games. I don't want to have to pack an iron sword for demons and a silver sword for devils, fire for trolls and something that does sonic damage because nothing's immune to sonic. I want to play a (whisper it) character with goals and ideals other than just "always being prepared" like some High Fantasy boy scout.

[Prophaniti]

Sorry, my fault, I only meant to highlight the fact that there are - apparently - a number of elements in the game designed to give a "tactical challenge" by making sword-swinging useless, and comparatively few (Golems are about the only ones I can think of) designed to offer the same challenge by making spell-casting useless.? There's a ton of creatures out there with SR, and of course foes that can counterspell whatever the magic user tries to do.

That and, as others have pointed out, the swarm rules seem to apply to things at *least* housecat sized, so it's not actually like it's totally immersion breaking for a sword to be non-useless against them.

I think part of the problem is that people assume that an "attack" in combat always literally represents standing stock still and swinging your weapon at your target exactly once. A fighter, faced with a swarm of insects, could just jump up and down on the buggers.I recall slashing damage as being reduced, not rendered useless. Jumping up and down on an insect swarm is, indeed, something I would let a fighter to. And it would be bludgeoning damage, more effective still. I would even likely allow a fighter to claim he's waving his greatsword throught them flat-first, like a giant narrow flyswatter, in which case he would do bludgeoning, albeit at a slight penalty to hit. See? Improvising is fun! And he didn't even need magic items!

EDIT:
Easier to play, not easier to defeat the monsters. A game should be easy to play because I want to spend my energy on the game, not on dealing with ruleset tangles. When I'm playing D&D, I want to roleplay ("roleplaying..."), and I want to kill things and take their stuff ("...game"). I'm okay with the rules providing challenges. The rules shouldn't BE a challenge.The rules for grappling are a challenge. The rules for Diplomacy are a tangle, if only because of how horribly broken they are. Swarms and other monsters being resistant or immune to certain forms of attack is not a challenging or tangled rule. It is, in fact, exactly what you're after, a situation that challenges the party from an in-game perspective.

[Aquillion]

How is the game served by making it easier? If you don't like challenges when you play, it is quite simple for a DM in any system to whip up adventure sure to never strain your cognitive or physical limits, either in-character or in person.

Others of us do like to be challenged, and enjoy the element of difficulty, sometimes even the frustration, cause by enemies that require a different approach to kill. Even Trolls can be fun for a party that has little magic with them. It adds a gravity to the situation, a sense of urgency and reality that, yes, if you don't burn the corpses they'll get back up and keep coming.

I see no gain whatsoever with the change to the swarm rules, merely a decision that seems to be based on the idea that when we're playing D&D, we don't want to think too much.I didn't mean "easy" as in "easy for your characters". I meant "easy" as in "easy for the players and the DM". Sure, there are ways to deal with swarms -- if you've read all the books from cover-to-cover and memorized every single line, or your DM has been DMing for years and is experienced at gauging the difficulty of encounters. But those aren't the people who need the rules the most; if your players and DM are that good and are willing to put that much work into the game, you can just invent your own swarms on the fly and it'll probably be fine.

But some people like being able to just pick up and play, without having to memorize every single threat they need to prepare for in advance, and without the DM having to constantly worry about balance with one hand while trying to tell a story with the other. From what we've seen so far, 4th edition will be much much easier for a DM. Feel that a swarm of hellwasps would be thematically appropriate at this point in your adventure? As long as they meet the CR or whatever, throw them at the party, with no need to carefully examine their character sheets and determine if they can handle it! If you want to make things harder, throw higher CRs at the players, or more encounters; but you don't have to worry that much about balance beyond the basic guidelines, because the game is supposed to be well-designed enough to not require the constant DM tinkering 3rd edition needs. 3rd edition monsters like trolls and hellwasps make DMing harder, there's no denying it, since you can't just rely on CR or anything like that.

If the DM doesn't have to worry about balancing things like swarms or trolls, they can focus much more on their story and setting. I think that that's a good thing.

Now, will it actually work that way? We'll see. But I like the idea of a system I can just show a bunch of new players and have them leap into without worrying about detailed metagame analysis of game balance. I like the idea of a system where the only requirement for being a good DM is being a good storyteller and skimming the books. I like the idea of a system where the DM can just mix-and-match encounters on the fly without having to constantly worry about causing an accidental TPK because, whoops, the party didn't have fire or acid damage.

I want a system made to be played, with everything in it built around the principal of having the game run smoothly and quickly. I think that 4th edition is built with that idea in mind, much moreso than any previous iteration.

[Dan_Hemmens]

? There's a ton of creatures out there with SR, and of course foes that can counterspell whatever the magic user tries to do.

SR can be worked around, and you can use magic indirectly. There's still way more stuff in the game that explicitly *requires* magic than explicitly *prohibits* it.


I recall slashing damage as being reduced, not rendered useless. Jumping up and down on an insect swarm is, indeed, something I would let a fighter to. And it would be bludgeoning damage, more effective still. I would even likely allow a fighter to claim he's waving his greatsword throught them flat-first, like a giant narrow flyswatter, in which case he would do bludgeoning, albeit at a slight penalty to hit. See? Improvising is fun! And he didn't even need magic items!

Ah, you see I'd just let the guy attack with his Greatsword and then assume that while the mechanics say it's a Greatsword attack, he's actually getting in there and jumping on the damned things because, well, there's no "jumping on the things" rules anyway.

[UserClone]

Oh well, I got two actual responses, anyway...:smalleek:

*Sulks* Meh.:smallannoyed:

[Prophaniti]

If the fighter decided to jump up and down on them he certainly could not make a roll as though he was attacking with his greatsword. There are a lot of things that wouldn't apply to a 'jump on them' attack that would to a greatsword, not least his weapon feats and the sword's enchantments. It's because of situations like this that you even have a DM. The rules can't cover every possible action in every possible situation. That would quickly become impossible to work with and find what you need. It's the DM's job to come up with things to do in such a scenario, prefferably keeping it as close to similar situations as he can, to keep it simple. An attack roll, with damage based off his size and weight (ie, falling objects) would seem the most appropriate to me, but other things would certainly work.

[Hallavast]

Ah, you see I'd just let the guy attack with his Greatsword and then assume that while the mechanics say it's a Greatsword attack, he's actually getting in there and jumping on the damned things because, well, there's no "jumping on the things" rules anyway.

Hehe... So would he deal less damage if he was holding a dagger?

[Scintillatus]

stuff

Sigh. Please stop knee-jerking in my direction, you know I'm poking fun at the "I don't like the flavour and wouldn't use them" comment.

[Kompera]

Is it unreasonable for a fighter to use magic items?

Are a necklace of fireballs, circlet of blasting, helm of brilliance, eversmoking bottles, potion of fire breath, pipes of the sewers, and qual's fan tokens all too unreasonable to use against swarms?

So let me get this straight.
You have an issue with the realism of swinging a sword through a swarm of insects and having the wind of the passage stun some insects, knock some together where they fall to the ground and lay stunned, and confusing some so they fly away aimlessly. You know, just like a person might wave their arm through a swam of gnats on a playground and disperse them, as I have done many times as a child. (And I wasn't given a license to kill as a child, nor does anything in my description have anything to do with jumping unharmed from a car moving at 60mph, although that's a nice strawman.) But you have no realism issues with breaking out a pile of esoteric magic items to accomplish the same objective?

I think you need to describe your understanding of realism before you indulge yourself in a conversation on the subject.

[Prophaniti]

You can't fault someone's view of realism for them using magic in a game. Magic is specifically there to bypass the otherwise impossible or improbable. If watching a movie set in a D&D world (a good one, I mean, not past attempts) it is perfectly ok to take issue with Implausible Fencing Powers (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ImplausibleFencingPowers) while having no problem whatsoever with the wizard flying about and shooting fireballs from his fingertips. The first strains Willing Suspension of Disbelief (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief) (because it seems impossible and no excuse is offered) while the second has already been accepted as the Way Things Are (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicAIsMagicA). Hooray for more tvtropes links!

[Hallavast]

So let me get this straight.
You have an issue with the realism of swinging a sword through a swarm of insects and having the wind of the passage stun some insects, knock some together where they fall to the ground and lay stunned, and confusing some so they fly away aimlessly. You know, just like a person might wave their arm through a swam of gnats on a playground and disperse them, as I have done many times as a child. (And I wasn't given a license to kill as a child, nor does anything in my description have anything to do with jumping unharmed from a car moving at 60mph, although that's a nice strawman.) But you have no realism issues with breaking out a pile of esoteric magic items to accomplish the same objective?

I think you need to describe your understanding of realism before you indulge yourself in a conversation on the subject.

See Behind the Curtain: How Real is Your fantasy on page 136 of the DMG or pick up How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy by Orson Scott Card for an in-depth discussion about making rules and sticking to them as a fiction writer. If you want an even easier reference, go back and read my post about physics and what players expect a fantasy setting to be.

In short, rules concerning contradictions in realism like magic are ok as long as they are not arbitrary and contrived. They must also be consistent. Being able to kill bees with 3 or 4 swings of a longsword deliberately contradicts the identical real-life model for a weak metagame reason. Casting a fireball from a necklace is internally consistent with the idea of arcane magic and energies. Also, there is no real life model for casting a fireball spell. You can't cast a fireball just because it makes the game run smoother. You cast a fireball because your character has access to arcane energies that allow him to do such. It's perfectly logical.

There's a difference between breaking the rules of combustion based on well-explained and codified mystical forces; and simply getting a 4th wish out of a ring of three wishes just so you don't have to worry about losing the fight.

[MartinHarper]

Off-topic, but I'm suddenly unclear on the difference between force damage and bludgeoning damage. I mean, if someone whacks me with a mace, isn't she applying large amounts of force to my face?


The party can bypass the swarm by slathering themselves in the honey they see strategically positioned near the swarm.

If I was trying to bypass a swarm of necromantically altered bees, slathering myself in honey wouldn't be my first choice. Everyone's realism is different, I guess.


Which you don't need...because every opponent is equally vulnerable to just swinging your sword?

"just swinging my sword" is a melee attack against AC. It does half damage against swarms. Additionally, some monsters are low-AC, while other monsters are high-AC. So, no. In fourth edition, different opponents are vulnerable to different attacks.

[Kompera]

You can't fault someone's view of realism for them using magic in a game. Magic is specifically there to bypass the otherwise impossible or improbable. If watching a movie set in a D&D world (a good one, I mean, not past attempts) it is perfectly ok to take issue with Implausible Fencing Powers (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ImplausibleFencingPowers) while having no problem whatsoever with the wizard flying about and shooting fireballs from his fingertips. The first strains Willing Suspension of Disbelief (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief) (because it seems impossible and no excuse is offered) while the second has already been accepted as the Way Things Are (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicAIsMagicA). Hooray for more tvtropes links!
We'll have to agree to disagree. I find nothing improbable about superhuman feats being performed by mere mortals as opposed to being limited to wizards and their ilk. It is the cornerstone of heroic fantasy, the same heroic fantasy this game was based upon. And I'm not finding fault with the use of magic in the game. I'm finding fault with the limited mindset which limits the ability to perform superhuman feats, weather magical or physical, to Magic. When Conan snaps a strong mans neck with his bare hands, this is not attributed to magic, Conan is simply Really Strong(tm). And yet somehow in D&D, a game of imagination, many seem to think that any feat by a physically based class which is above what could be achieved by someone in the world we live in somehow violates verisimilitude. A very limiting mindset indeed, for a player of a game of fantasy.

I will also reiterate that disrupting a swarm with a weapon hardly strains the suspension of disbelief. It is also a very reasonable response from a martial character with martial type resources at their disposal. Again, very much like those characters in many sources of heroic fantasy.


A flyswatter is only marginally effective in mid air. But you do have a point. If you kill 3 or 4 bees per swing you should be able to bring down the swarm in about 150 swings. :smalltongue:
Hit Points are an abstraction. You are looking at the situation too literally and without enough imagination. Each insect does not have to be killed individually. Each insect does not even have stats of its own, it's only the swarm as a whole which has reached an aggregate size worthy of giving it game stats. You don't need to represent that the players need to kill every single insect to win the encounter. It's enough to imagine that the swarm is disrupted to the point where it no longer is a threat to the players. And swinging a weapon through the swarm can easily be imagined to be effective in facilitating this disruption, without any suspension of disbelief being required.


Are a necklace of fireballs, circlet of blasting, helm of brilliance, eversmoking bottles, potion of fire breath, pipes of the sewers, and qual's fan tokens all too unreasonable to use against swarms?
Not too unreasonable. If you have them. I've been playing D&D for a good many years. 20+. I've never had a character with any of those items. And I've played every class extensively. I do tend to play in lower fantasy settings, but not without magic items. In 3.5 the mantra seems to be that WBL allows (or should allow) a player to trade in items for items at any reasonably sized city. This will tend to see situational items traded in for more generally useful items. Is the Fighter going to be happy with a +1 sword and a circlet of blasting? Or would he rather have a +2 sword or some magic armor to go along with the +1 sword? Smart money is on the Fighter building an equipment set which, you know, makes him a better Fighter.


See Behind the Curtain: How Real is Your fantasy on page 136 of the DMG or pick up How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy by Orson Scott Card for an in-depth discussion about making rules and sticking to them as a fiction writer. If you want an even easier reference, go back and read my post about physics and what players expect a fantasy setting to be.
I know what you're referring to. But none of that has anything to do with separating physical and magical feats and calling one reasonable and the other unreasonable.
What Card (and other authors on the same subject) discusses is internal consistency. Building a set of rules for you setting and adhering to it. Not arbitrarily declaring that magical feats are 'realistic' and physical feats 'break verisimilitude'.
I used Conan in an earlier example. I'll use another Howard setting for this one. Barsoom. A series of books, with an internally consistent set of rules. John Cater can bound great distances, and is enormously strong compared to even large carnivores with as the great white apes of Barsoom. He can kill red (normal humanoids) and green men (9+' tall 4 armed tusked humanoids) with a single punch, and can grapple a White Ape to death. He is a superlative swordsman, and a crack shot with a pistol and rifle.
Oh noes! That kind of superhuman feat should be limited to magic or it's just too unreal to bear!!
No. The reasons for this are all spelled out by the author, and remain consistent (or at least reasonably so) throughout the series. John Carter can be killed by a sword or a bullet, rendered unconscious by a lack of oxygen, &cet. He is not Superman, although as the protagonist he does enjoy a lot of luck in dodging those bullets and overcoming being rendered unconscious.

So citing these sources does not make your point. It makes mine. As long as the rules are applied consistently, there is no reason to limit the performance of superhuman feats to those with magical aptitude.

[Prophaniti]

@MartinHelper: Force Damage does not refer literally to physical force. It refers to metaphysical force, or pure magical energy if that makes more sense. Magical energy that, instead of being used to create fire or cold or acid is instead applied directly to the target. Seeing as magic doesn't really exist it's a difficult thing to explain or demonstrate, hope I helped a little.

Also, different ACs merely indicates how hard it is to land a solid blow on an opponent, not how effective a solid blow would be at actually hurting them.

@Kompera: Perhaps we will have to agree to disagree. I like my fantasy 'real' in most things. I even preffer low-magic, gritty settings most of the time. Though high-magic or Conan-esque fantasy can be fun, I like my worlds to operate the same as this one in most respects, magic being the little-understood and hard-to-control exception. I prefer my sword-wielding types not to do things that are blatantly impossible, or even improbable, without good reason, magical aid, or at least a lot of luck.

The thing I like about D&D is that both types of fantasy can be played using the same basic ruleset. Hopefully 4E will still allow me my gritty, realistic and dangerous (for the PCs) campaigns.

[Sholos]

Is it unreasonable for a fighter to use magic items?

Are a necklace of fireballs, circlet of blasting, helm of brilliance, eversmoking bottles, potion of fire breath, pipes of the sewers, and qual's fan tokens all too unreasonable to use against swarms?

Necklace of Fireballs Type I - 1650 gp
Minor Circlet of Blasting - 6480 gp
Helm of Brilliance - 125000 gp
Eversmoking Bottle - 5400 gp
Potion of Fire Breath - 1100 gp
Pipes of the Sewers - 1150 gp (plus the ability to make a DC 15 Perform check reliably)
Quaal's Fan Token - 200 gp

Any AoE spell available to casters 1-4 levl - Free

Realizing that none of the above items can reasonably be expected to be owned by a 1-4 fighter (at least, not more than any one of them) and that the Fan Token (the only one easy to get ahold of) is completely worthless on land thus making the argument "Fighters can just use items!" worthless - Priceless

[Prophaniti]

At levels 1-4 the fighter would, of course, use mundane items rather than magical in most cases. Alchemist's Fire, vials of acid, improvised weapons made from handy furniture, (and not just talking about things to use against swarms) nets, ropes, grappling hooks... all these things are incredibly useful in many situations.

[Hallavast]

At levels 1-4 the fighter would, of course, use mundane items rather than magical in most cases. Alchemist's Fire, vials of acid, improvised weapons made from handy furniture, (and not just talking about things to use against swarms) nets, ropes, grappling hooks... all these things are incredibly useful in many situations.

Thank you for explaining this... again... I don't see much point in continuing. I've presented my case, and it works as far as I'm concerned. If people want to sit there and nitpick about these options being too expensive or too obscure or too boring or that they make fighters useless or whatever I no longer care. I can't make ya'll see the fun if you're deadset against it. In my humble opinion any of the alternatives I've presented are viable to at least some fighters. The only kind of player that refuses to consider ANY of these options seems to either have some kind of sword fetish, is too proud a fighter to use alternative tactics, or arbitrarily refuses to use ToB maneuvers.

Using anything besides alchemist fires should be unnecessary though, considering the generally low level of swarms. In the case of hellwasps and diminutive epic swarms I don't know. If people don't want to use the alternatives given to them for whatever reason, then they choose to lose.

When it comes down to it, however, I realize that I don't even care about swarm rules one way or the other. I'm done with this thread. I hope someone gained some kind of useful insight from this frenzied fiasco of frustration.

[EvilElitest]

And when you hit Epic, there's pretty much no excuse for the characters to be ineffective, ever.
what are you talking about? Other epic monsters, stupid players, nasty situations, ect. players can still players
from
EE

[Kompera]

Thank you for explaining this... again... I don't see much point in continuing. I've presented my case, and it works as far as I'm concerned. If people want to sit there and nitpick about these options being too expensive or too obscure or too boring or that they make fighters useless or whatever I no longer care. I can't make ya'll see the fun if you're deadset against it. In my humble opinion any of the alternatives I've presented are viable to at least some fighters. The only kind of player that refuses to consider ANY of these options seems to either have some kind of sword fetish, is too proud a fighter to use alternative tactics, or arbitrarily refuses to use ToB maneuvers.

I don't even typically run melee types, although I am in the campaign I'm currently running in, if only because I missed the first session where everyone created their characters and on the second session I realized that the only role left was some kind of front line melee. So I have no "sword fetish", but I do side with those who say that it is:

1) Unreasonable to assume that every melee type has access to specific types of magic needed to overcome swarms. This can be too easily extrapolated into "every melee type has access to specific types of magic needed to overcome <challenge of the moment>", which should not be the case. The role of melee is to melee. If too many encounters reduce them to looking for improvised solutions which are not nearly as effective (swinging a piece of furniture, or a torch, for example, as opposed to swinging your +1 sword which you are skilled with), then it's just like a campaign where the GM throws too many magic-proof encounters at the players. The Wizards have no fun in the second case, the Fighters have no fun in the first.

2) Not unreasonable to assume that melee strikes can harm, disperse, disrupt, or otherwise remove the threat of a swarm, since HP are an abstraction and a sword flat swung through a swarm of bees (or whatever) will in fact tend to disperse them.

3) The "fun" you seem to be trying to make people see is your version of how Fighters (or melee types) should be played. With the aforementioned access to esoteric magical devices used to overcome specific threats, and being limited (lest Physics gets mad!) to merely mundane physical feats while being expected in a group setting to contribute as much as the Wizards and Clerics. That "fun" is not everyone's "fun", and so it's nearly pointless to use that as a basis for your position.

And an additional point would be that ToB is a 3.x source, and the discussion is about swarms in 4e.

[Sholos]

Additionally, even the magic-proof encounters are rarely such, and the wizard doesn't have to switch off of using magic to bypass/defeat said encounter. I think that's the biggest thing that annoys me; that wizards are rarely, if ever, reduced to the point of uselessness via their spells whereas fighter-types frequently have their effectiveness reduced.

[Helgraf]

Additionally, even the magic-proof encounters are rarely such, and the wizard doesn't have to switch off of using magic to bypass/defeat said encounter. I think that's the biggest thing that annoys me; that wizards are rarely, if ever, reduced to the point of uselessness via their spells whereas fighter-types frequently have their effectiveness reduced.

Quoted for mother loving truth, amen!

[Jack Zander]

To everyone who thinks you can disperse a swarm through swatting at it: Have you actually ever tried this? No, if you have, you'd know that it doesn't work. You swat through them, and they disperse, then reform in seconds. And none of the insects are injured or stunned on the ground.

I've tried many times to disrupt a swarm when I was a wee lad. I sat there for 10-15 minutes trying to get a group of gnats to at least move. I jumped up and down and flailed my arms and did everything I could, and when I tired myself out, there they were again, reformed. I looked all over for tell-tale signs that I had killed at least one of them, but no, they were simply too light to be hurt by my flailing.

Also, try stomping all over a bunch of ants. The really, really tiny ones that don't take half-damage from bludgeoning. You can't kill them that way. You have to sit there and scrape your shoe against the ground to even kill a few. And your stomping will not disperse them either. They will regroup and continue on their merry way (or attack you if it's their nest you're stomping on).

[FoE]

I'll tiredly note once again (though it doesn't seem to be getting through) that both of the examples of swarms we have seen were made up of small creatures about the size of a cat. It makes perfect sense for a melee attacker to slice apart stirges and drakes of that size. But until we see more examples of swarms consisting of insects — if any — this argument is fairly moot. :smallsigh:

[Rutee]

I'll have it for you tommorrow or so.

[Kompera]

To everyone who thinks you can disperse a swarm through swatting at it: Have you actually ever tried this? No, if you have, you'd know that it doesn't work. You swat through them, and they disperse, then reform in seconds. And none of the insects are injured or stunned on the ground.

I've tried many times to disrupt a swarm when I was a wee lad. I sat there for 10-15 minutes trying to get a group of gnats to at least move. I jumped up and down and flailed my arms and did everything I could, and when I tired myself out, there they were again, reformed. I looked all over for tell-tale signs that I had killed at least one of them, but no, they were simply too light to be hurt by my flailing.
You must have missed my earlier post where I said that I had done just that: Dispersed a swarm of gnats as a child in a playground (my elementary school yard, where gnats were all too common in the summer months), by waving my arm through them. Many times.

So to your opening thesis: Yes, I have tried it and it did work. Many times.

Perhaps you did not take Feat: Disperse Swarm? :smalltongue:

More on-topic, this is a fantasy game. It is not impossible to conceive of the Fighter overcoming the challenge of a swarm using the flat of a sword, not from actually killing all of the insects but from dispersing, confusing, stunning, etc the elements of the swarm until it is no longer able to offer up a threat. To call that option impossible is to limit the character and their enjoyment of the game for arbitrary reasons.

[Jack Zander]

You must have missed my earlier post where I said that I had done just that: Dispersed a swarm of gnats as a child in a playground (my elementary school yard, where gnats were all too common in the summer months), by waving my arm through them. Many times.

So to your opening thesis: Yes, I have tried it and it did work. Many times.

Perhaps you did not take Feat: Disperse Swarm? :smalltongue:

More on-topic, this is a fantasy game. It is not impossible to conceive of the Fighter overcoming the challenge of a swarm using the flat of a sword, not from actually killing all of the insects but from dispersing, confusing, stunning, etc the elements of the swarm until it is no longer able to offer up a threat. To call that option impossible is to limit the character and their enjoyment of the game for arbitrary reasons.

I'm hard-pressed to believe you actually dispersed the swarm. Maybe they moved away for convenience, but to actually have broken up from the swat of your hand isn't happening.

We'll see what 4th edition does with smaller swarms when it's released. I'm sure that no matter what WotC's decision is, you'll back it up 100%.

[Reel On, Love]

We'll see what 4th edition does with smaller swarms when it's released. I'm sure that no matter what WotC's decision is, you'll back it up 100%.

I get it! You're saying he's a mindless fanboy! I see what you did there! You're so subtle.


DON'T DO THAT

[Kompera]

I'm hard-pressed to believe you actually dispersed the swarm. Maybe they moved away for convenience, but to actually have broken up from the swat of your hand isn't happening.
I'm hard pressed to believe that you failed so utterly as a child. Perhaps you were asmatic and tired too easily?

So there we are: You call me a liar and I call you a weakling. Glad we got that out of the way.

[Jack Zander]

I'm hard pressed to believe that you failed so utterly as a child. Perhaps you were asmatic and tired too easily?

So there we are: You call me a liar and I call you a weakling. Glad we got that out of the way.

I never called you a liar. I just said that it's improbable that you actually dispersed them. Rather, they probably just flew away after regrouping.

And yes, I am asmatic and quite the weakling, thank you.

[Jack Zander]

I get it! You're saying he's a mindless fanboy! I see what you did there! You're so subtle.

I'm pretty sure I wasn't being subtle at all. Not even trying to be.

[Corolinth]

When real player ingenuity is discarded as being useless because it "only does 1d6 fire damage," the problem does not lie with the system.

[Rutee]

When real player ingenuity is discarded as being useless because it "only does 1d6 fire damage," the problem does not lie with the system.

The system provides a hard limit on what the player's ingenuity can accomplish. If you're only allowed to deal 1d6 with an ingenious idea, the system has a problem.

[Indon]

If you want to use the word wrong, fine, but don't get on our case when it impedes communication.

Well, if you want to promote communication, then what you're looking for is the operations level of warfare (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operational_warfare), not tactics or strategy.

As an example using something not contested in the thread:

Strategy: A player wants his 4'th edition meleer to be able to hit things at range. So he buys a bow (This is actually debatably operations level), and grabs a Ranger power to make it more effective.
Operations: When the melee character sees something he wants to shoot, he pulls out his bow.
Tactics: The melee character uses the ranger power.

Operations function to support strategy, just as tactics are the result of operations and strategy.

As a general rule, if you're taking an action to change your tactical options, but not using a character build option such as a feat, you're performing operationally within the context of 4'th edition.

That said, as I noted earlier, I agree with you, Rutee. 4'th edition is not designed to be strategically or operationally interesting, therefore, the rules should not be changed to promote strategic or operational options. To do so would just be half-assed.

If the game turns out to be snoozetastic as a result of neglecting large portions of how conflict is executed (well, insofar as you can neglect it - as my example shows, 4'th edition can't eliminate all strategic and operational functions no matter how hard they may try), well, people just won't play it.

[SamTheCleric]

Just FYI... from the Spider Swarm...


Resist half damage from melee and ranged attacks; Vulnerable 10
against close and area attacks

... so they do take half damage from all melee and ranged. That's something.

[Prophaniti]

hmmm... that is something. I like it. Also, don't know much about 4E rules yet, what's a 'close' attack?

[SamTheCleric]

Think "nova" from diablo... a radius centered on yourself.

Fireburst from the SpC is a good example.

[Prophaniti]

Ok... isn't that just an area attack with you at the center? why the different label?

[Jack Zander]

Just FYI... from the Spider Swarm...



... so they do take half damage from all melee and ranged. That's something.


You jerk! You just ended an entire 7 pages worth of arguing!

I'm curious to see what Rutee and Kompera (as well as a few others ) have to say on this. Should swarms still take full damage from attacks?

[Khanderas]

You jerk! You just ended an entire 7 pages worth of arguing!

I'm curious to see what Rutee and Kompera (as well as a few others ) have to say on this. Should swarms still take full damage from attacks?
I think that it was established in the first topic about swarms here that they do take half damage from melee and ranged attacks.
The question is... should it even have that much ?
Instead of shooting one arrow, you shoot two, and the room full of bees just flops up and dies ? (or fine "disperses", almost equally not what I want)

We can't have the players to back out of the room, that would not be "heroic".
We can't let the fighters / rangers not be able to solve something without "hit / shoot it until solved".
We can't let the players need anything but their mace of crushing when they go adventuring (well a mace and a portable hole).


There, now we are back on track arguing.

[Scintillatus]

I don't have an issue with resistance, I have an issue with IMMUNITY. I am quite content with the current swarm setup.

[Jack Zander]

I don't have an issue with resistance, I have an issue with IMMUNITY. I am quite content with the current swarm setup.

You need to clarify what counts as "current" now.

[Kompera]

You jerk! You just ended an entire 7 pages worth of arguing!

I'm curious to see what Rutee and Kompera (as well as a few others ) have to say on this. Should swarms still take full damage from attacks?
Swarms should take damage as the rules state they take damage.

I did not ever argue that the rules should not be followed, I just offered up an alternative imagination of how a swarm could take damage from a weapon, damage in D&D being an abstract concept, in contrast to those whose imaginations prevented them from seeing that there could indeed be a way to describe it within the context of a heroic fantasy RPG without having to cry out "No wai! Swords can't hurt bees! Suspension of disbelief is so broken!"