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TorakFade posted:Maybe I'm the crazy one here but I try to role-play a character: "Do things that aren't written down" is something that literally everyone can do. There's nothing special there for the fighter, so people focus on actual, codified class abilities when talking about classes. And actual, codified class abilities are heavily weighted away from the fighter, to the point that the not-fighter's class abilities are often better at doing things that you'd expect from the fighter.
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Apr 5, 2016 20:58
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Generic Octopus posted:Your dm may allow it. Yup: quote:Similarly, when your half-orc barbarian uses a display of raw strength to intimidate an enemy, your DM might ask for a Strength (Intimidation) check, even though Intimidation is normally associated with Charisma.
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Apr 5, 2016 20:59
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The Crotch posted:Okay but here's the disconnect. Yeah I edited my post to say that my position is more suited to a Dungeon World game rather than D&D  I wonder why WotC or whoever is doing D&D these days didn't fix this, it's such an apparent problem that it's impossible to not notice it? Or did they just say "meh they'll adjust on their own by agreeing something with the DM" like I'm saying? What's the solution, besides "hope to have a good DM" or "not play a fighter"?
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Apr 5, 2016 21:02
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TorakFade posted:Maybe I'm the crazy one here but I try to role-play a character: And with your last bit you hit it directly on the head. Everything you stated in the beginning is not supported directly by D&D 5e. It would be great if it worked that way, but the rules actively discourage it.
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Apr 5, 2016 21:02
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The ideal solution is to give martial classes more OP poo poo. Make them better able to shrug off damage, make actually hitting with your fuckindamn weapon easier, give them a bladestorm ability to make mincemeat of crowds, allow them to specialize in parry/riposte, let me swing my sword like a baseball bat to send Magic Missiles back at the enemy, Ocarina of Time style, do a charging leap at a character to stun them, let me use my tats and bad attitude to intimidate people, etc, basically give martials magic powers that run on skill or brawn or sheer bloody mindedness rather than some poo poo from a book or studying or tree magic or whatever the gently caress. Also make higher level spells incur an initiative penalty, give martials better initiative so they can at least get into the fray first. But the real problem is they need to be able to do insanely cool poo poo to keep up with people energy blasting their way through combat.
Gay Horney fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Apr 5, 2016 |
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Apr 5, 2016 21:11
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the problem is people get their dicks in a twist if it feels like you're allowing someone to do something 'magical' and flavoring it as something mundane.
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Apr 5, 2016 21:13
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TorakFade posted:Maybe I'm the crazy one here but I try to role-play a character: Aside from what others have pointed out, the very nature of tabletop mechanics is that they define the possibility space of what you can and can't roleplay. If you were playing a freeform high fantasy or dungeon-punk RP? Knock yourself out! You can say things like "I dangle the criminal out a window and shout WHERE IS HE in a Batman voice until he squeals", and the only limitation is whether the other people in your group allow it. But if you're playing with a defined rules system like D&D 5e, that system is inherently telling you "based on the mechanical capabilities of your character, here are roleplaying actions that you can take without issue, here are roleplaying actions that you can take as long as chance rules in your favor, and here are roleplaying actions that you can't take unless you're deliberately failing, e.g. to create a dramatic setback". A good GM might say something like "Okay, you may not have high Charisma for this intimidation check, but I'll use the variant rule that lets you substitute in Strength instead. And you may still be outclassed on this check due to the party Bard's skill mastery features, but you're bringing something unique to the table so why don't I let both you guys roll and give each other bonuses as long as you good-cop-bad-cop the situation", but doing so is a combination of pressing up against the limits of the mechanical system and actively working outside the mechanical system. Any system can lead to a fun game experience as long as a sufficiently creative, clever, and empathetic GM fudges, replaces, or ignores rules at the junctures where they'd ruin something. But those aren't points in favor of the system. To put it another way, everyone else is trying to roleplay too, we're just encountering situations where our ability to roleplay in specific ways is predicated on the GM's willingness to step outside the rules as written.
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Apr 5, 2016 21:18
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Hey now, fighters can be magic as long as they aren't magic. Like Dragons.
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Apr 5, 2016 21:18
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A 50S RAYGUN posted:the problem is people get their dicks in a twist if it feels like you're allowing someone to do something 'magical' and flavoring it as something mundane. I would love to hear that complaint paired with a reasonable solution for balancing sword-and-board man with a dude in robes casting Wish. This is an insanely stupid thing to get irritated about. You cant have gritty realism and complain about balance in the same breath.
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Apr 5, 2016 21:19
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Sharzak posted:a reasonable solution for balancing sword-and-board man with a dude in robes casting Wish don't let the dude in robes cast Wish done
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Apr 5, 2016 21:21
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TorakFade posted:Yeah I edited my post to say that my position is more suited to a Dungeon World game rather than D&D They had a significant portion of it 'fixed' in 4e. 5e threw a lot of that out the window, though. 4e wasn't perfect (far from it), but it did a much better job at keeping the various classes at roughly similar power and capability levels than 5e does. e: This is part of the reason why many are annoyed/exasperated with several of the shortcomings of 5e. Instead of iterating on and improving from the previous edition, it ignored a lot of the advances it made in exchange for a more regressive design similar to 3.x and Pathfinder.
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Apr 5, 2016 21:25
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Really Pants posted:don't let the dude in robes cast Wish Wish is dope. I like doing dope poo poo. Let everyone do equally dope poo poo at high level. It could work for some groups and some campaigns, but increasing the available selection of dope poo poo is much better than scaling back.
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Apr 5, 2016 21:27
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TorakFade posted:Yeah I edited my post to say that my position is more suited to a Dungeon World game rather than D&D There really isn't a solution outside of those options. They didn't fix it because they don't care, and neither do the vocal segment of D&D fans Next is meant to cater to.
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Apr 5, 2016 21:30
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i'm not speaking personally, i'm just rehashing what people have said. the 'solution' is that the sword and board man is just worse than the robes man. the people who make that complaint are universally okay with the unbalanced dynamic of the classes (and generally fall on the spellcasting side)
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Apr 5, 2016 21:32
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A 50S RAYGUN posted:i'm not speaking personally, i'm just rehashing what people have said. Kai Tave posted:There really isn't a solution outside of those options. They didn't fix it because they don't care, and neither do the vocal segment of D&D fans Next is meant to cater to. I just listed a whole bunch of solutions!!
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Apr 5, 2016 21:35
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Yeah, at a certain point you gotta just throw your hands up and admit defeat. Fighters are garbage because Next fans objectively wanted Fighters to be garbage; spellcasters are overpowered because Next fans objectively wanted spellcasters to be overpowered. Next is built specifically to ensure that spellcasters are better. It's literally in the PHB where they have a whole section on how you absolutely need spellcasters in your team. Sure there's ways to fix that imbalance, but then you're walking away from what Next is supposed to be, which is why you will never ever see anything official come out along those lines.
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Apr 5, 2016 21:39
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Sharzak posted:I just listed a whole bunch of solutions!! "Do a bunch of work patching the game yourself" is a solution of sorts, as is "play a different game," but they're admittedly not very helpful solutions for someone who wants to play Next but doesn't really want to have to also play the "which deficiencies am I going to have to spackle over this week?" minigame alongside it.
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Apr 5, 2016 21:55
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Mages in fantasy fiction are usually clearly superior to fighters, but a book or movie doesn't need balance. You will have great warriors like Aragorn or Gimli duking it out on the field against orcs, enemy armies or whatever and of course they're awesome and can kill dozens of orcs, but then comes Gandalf and loving toasts the whole enemy army in a single move, then proceeds to piledrive a Balrog down the Abyss and save the world and that's fine, because you're just watching, you're not playing second fiddle to the gray wizard. One thing that could kinda "balance" mages is that they are usually frail guys. Unless they're buffed with defensive spells and magic items, they should go down easily, all it takes is a sword through the gut and boom, no more mage; it might be difficult to get in melee range, but once you do they're toast. They need martials to protect them against physical threat. Meanwhile a fighter can usually take a sword to the gut, a mace to the skull and a fireball to the face and still be standing (bruised, blackened and bleeding of course, but still standing). They need the mages for extra damage, buffing and crazy magical effects. I don't recall if it actually works like that in D&D but my guess is no, one slip up where an orc manages to flank you doesn't usually mean instant death, understandably. But without the threat of instant death, someone who can do crazy magic poo poo easily becomes overpowered...
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Apr 5, 2016 21:56
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TorakFade posted:then comes Gandalf and loving toasts the whole enemy army in a single move this never happens
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Apr 5, 2016 21:58
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you are never going to make a fighter as generally useful as a spellcaster due to the natures of the classes, and most attempts to do so just feel like you're giving the fighter reskinned magic. my fighter is not at good at stuff as the person who can shape the realities of the universe. that's 'okay'. you're not going to make a fighter feel on par with a wizard because of the inherent narrative limitations of the game. what am i going to do with a sword that is as good as wish? how many attacks do you think is enough in a round to make it feel like i'm on par with a spellcaster? if you think the issues with spellcasters vs non-spellcasters are just 'this class does more damage' then you're missing out on the serious dearth of utility a fighter is always going to believably have in comparison to a spellcaster.
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Apr 5, 2016 22:03
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A 50S RAYGUN posted:you are never going to make a fighter as generally useful as a spellcaster due to the natures of the classes, and most attempts to do so just feel like you're giving the fighter reskinned magic. my fighter is not at good at stuff as the person who can shape the realities of the universe. that's 'okay'. Why can spellcasters shape the realities of the universe? Why do they get wish?
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Apr 5, 2016 22:09
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Just spitballing here, but with Vancian spellcasting, can't you balance out martial classes by making spells precious enough that you only trot them out when you really need them? Like, let a fighter or rogue keep on trucking encounter after encounter, but make the wizard decide if he really wants to use that Fireball right now. You can nuke the poo poo out of the BBEG, but that requires you to have some spells left after slogging through the dungeon, and you wouldn't have made it there without some muscle to protect the casters from the gnolls and bugbears. Dunno if 5e RAW makes martial classes hardy enough for that kind of approach though.
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Apr 5, 2016 22:18
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A 50S RAYGUN posted:you are never going to make a fighter as generally useful as a spellcaster due to the natures of the classes, and most attempts to do so just feel like you're giving the fighter reskinned magic. my fighter is not at good at stuff as the person who can shape the realities of the universe. that's 'okay'. Why do Wizards get Wish? Other than that it's an artificial rule made up in a game. And why are you pretending the Fighter is the same level as the caster?
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Apr 5, 2016 22:19
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404notfound posted:Just spitballing here, but with Vancian spellcasting, can't you balance out martial classes by making spells precious enough that you only trot them out when you really need them? Like, let a fighter or rogue keep on trucking encounter after encounter, but make the wizard decide if he really wants to use that Fireball right now. You can nuke the poo poo out of the BBEG, but that requires you to have some spells left after slogging through the dungeon, and you wouldn't have made it there without some muscle to protect the casters from the gnolls and bugbears. The main problem with that is either you plan days so they can consistently nuke things or for a bunch of encounters, the Wizard just sits there twiddling his thumbs.
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Apr 5, 2016 22:20
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because that's generally how magic works? i don't know. i didn't make the spell lists, but none of the spells make me think 'why can magic do this?' i do think that magic in d&d can do too much, but narratively it's difficult to feel comfortable restraining it because it's, you know, magic.
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Apr 5, 2016 22:21
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ProfessorCirno posted:Yeah, at a certain point you gotta just throw your hands up and admit defeat. Fighters are garbage because Next fans objectively wanted Fighters to be garbage; spellcasters are overpowered because Next fans objectively wanted spellcasters to be overpowered. Next is built specifically to ensure that spellcasters are better. It's literally in the PHB where they have a whole section on how you absolutely need spellcasters in your team. Fighters are garbage because Next's designers wanted them to be garbage and actively worked from day 0 to drive away anyone who thought otherwise until they were left with only the people who agreed with them.
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Apr 5, 2016 22:22
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If you make Fighters play by one set of fantasy narrative conventions and Wizards get to play by a different set then yes, you're never going to alchemically synthesize any sort of balance out of that. This is the crux of peoples' dissatisfaction, that "inherent narrative limitations" only apply to an arbitrary subset of options to create the illusion of a core of gritty realism where no such thing actually exists.
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Apr 5, 2016 22:24
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404notfound posted:Just spitballing here, but with Vancian spellcasting, can't you balance out martial classes by making spells precious enough that you only trot them out when you really need them? Like, let a fighter or rogue keep on trucking encounter after encounter, but make the wizard decide if he really wants to use that Fireball right now. You can nuke the poo poo out of the BBEG, but that requires you to have some spells left after slogging through the dungeon, and you wouldn't have made it there without some muscle to protect the casters from the gnolls and bugbears. Which is another way that casters have control the narrative. If they blow their big spells early, it only makes sense to stop. To do otherwise means you're probably one run of bad luck of the dice away from a wipe.
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Apr 5, 2016 22:27
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Kai Tave posted:If you make Fighters play by one set of fantasy narrative conventions and Wizards get to play by a different set then yes, you're never going to alchemically synthesize any sort of balance out of that. This is the crux of peoples' dissatisfaction, that "inherent narrative limitations" only apply to an arbitrary subset of options to create the illusion of a core of gritty realism where no such thing actually exists. there's no 'two sets of conventions'. fighters exist in a world with magic, i should not have to explain to you why in the universe of dungeons and dragons someone who uses magic can do more stuff than a dude who swings a sword hard. if you're asking why, out of the narrative world of the game, we have to accept the fact that fighters do less than spellcasters, i don't have an answer for you, because there isn't one. fighters sucking and being boring is entirely based on gameplay elements reflecting the narrative that 'magic is better than swinging swords'.
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Apr 5, 2016 22:35
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A 50S RAYGUN posted:there's no 'two sets of conventions'. fighters exist in a world with magic, i should not have to explain to you why in the universe of dungeons and dragons someone who uses magic can do more stuff than a dude who swings a sword hard. if you're asking why, out of the narrative world of the game, we have to accept the fact that fighters do less than spellcasters, i don't have an answer for you, because there isn't one. fighters sucking and being boring is entirely based on gameplay elements reflecting the narrative that 'magic is better than swinging swords'. This hasn't always been true in D&D.
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Apr 5, 2016 22:38
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A 50S RAYGUN posted:there's no 'two sets of conventions'. fighters exist in a world with magic, i should not have to explain to you why in the universe of dungeons and dragons someone who uses magic can do more stuff than a dude who swings a sword hard. if you're asking why, out of the narrative world of the game, we have to accept the fact that fighters do less than spellcasters, i don't have an answer for you, because there isn't one. fighters sucking and being boring is entirely based on gameplay elements reflecting the narrative that 'magic is better than swinging swords'. Well that's a bad and lovely narrative then if you're making a game where you present both martial and magical characters to people and pretend that they're supposed to be on equal footing. Also it's not actually very hard to give magic rules and restrictions and limitations that go beyond D&D's traditional "whatever we want I guess," I would in fact venture that more works of fantasy fiction and fantasy games do so than arbitrarily deciding that spellcasters should be better simply because magic. Like, games and works of fiction also exist where wizards are all-powerful demigods but they generally focus on wizards first and foremost (Are Magica or Mage for example) then some sort of Traditional D&D Mixed Party setup.
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Apr 5, 2016 22:42
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Kibner posted:This hasn't always been true in D&D. For instance, Gandalf casts a bare hand full of spells better than a little light cantrip. A D&D wizard is waaaay better at bending reality on demand than him (at least, as far as we're shown in the books/movies).
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Apr 5, 2016 22:47
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i never said it was good, or has always been that way. i'm just saying it's pretty clear fighters are bad because they were intended to be bad.
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Apr 5, 2016 22:48
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A 50S RAYGUN posted:i never said it was good, or has always been that way. i'm just saying it's pretty clear fighters are bad because they were intended to be bad. Well okay, then I guess we've been in agreement this whole time.
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Apr 5, 2016 22:49
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A barbarian player in a high-level 5e campaign I was part of got a vorpal greatsword at one point. He was super stoked about the fact that he could straight up decapitate anything smaller than a boss fight when he rolled a natural 20, and had tons of fun with it. My immediate thought was that the effect would've made a fantastic class feature for a class that is already all about really big critical hits. Instead, there was nothing special about the player character, it was just the loot that the character had. The 5e devs can clearly design good features for martial characters, they just put them all into magical items and spells instead for some reason.
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Apr 5, 2016 23:03
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Vanguard Warden posted:A barbarian player in a high-level 5e campaign I was part of got a vorpal greatsword at one point. He was super stoked about the fact that he could straight up decapitate anything smaller than a boss fight when he rolled a natural 20, and had tons of fun with it. My immediate thought was that the effect would've made a fantastic class feature for a class that is already all about really big critical hits. Instead, there was nothing special about the player character, it was just the loot that the character had. Eh, I can count the number of big whammy crits I've ever gotten playing D&D on one hand, and a few of those were basically wasted on pointless enemies, I have exactly one actually cool "this one clutch time I rolled a crit" story. Effects which only trigger on certain die rolls are too swingy to really be good class features imo unless they also come with some sort of on-a-miss effect or you can combo them with some sort of "pay a point to make your next attack autocrit" thing.
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Apr 5, 2016 23:14
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Vanguard Warden posted:A barbarian player in a high-level 5e campaign I was part of got a vorpal greatsword at one point. He was super stoked about the fact that he could straight up decapitate anything smaller than a boss fight when he rolled a natural 20, and had tons of fun with it. My immediate thought was that the effect would've made a fantastic class feature for a class that is already all about really big critical hits. Instead, there was nothing special about the player character, it was just the loot that the character had. Fighters etc to gain this ability at 13th level: Mortal Stroke (once per long rest): You target the enemies vitals. When you use this ability, the target makes a constitution save. If it fails, it takes 7d8+30 damage, or half on a successful save. If you kill a creature with this ability, a vital organ has been destroyed (eg, the heart has been ruined or the head cut off) and the creature can't be raised or resurrected.
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Apr 5, 2016 23:16
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Creating a character and saying "I won't use any of these mechanical options" is always a self-handicap. The severity of this handicap depends upon how good those options are, and how many of them you're artificially restricting yourself not to use. Ultimately, however, there is no possible way you can make your character stronger by limiting the options you could take - at best, you can break even. For some players, it's somehow still a surprise that characters built with the restriction "Won't use anything that's 'magic'" are less effective than characters who didn't throw out 70% of the rulebook.
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Apr 5, 2016 23:20
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unless i'm missing your point - and i might be - it's a little different, because fighters don't choose to not use magic, they can't. you can argue that by choosing a fighter you're also 'choosing' not to use magic, but that's kind of missing the point. that's the crux of the issue - classes that are mechanically prohibited from using, like you said, 70 percent of the rules, that don't really receive anything close to approaching what they're 'giving up.
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Apr 5, 2016 23:24
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D&D is inherently going to have at least a small problem with this stuff because it starts with the view that magic can do anythign since its magic. I mean, you could work with that, but D&D doesn't. D&D makes it worse by dividing classes into spellcasters and other, where "other" can't do magic at all. D&D makes it worse by restricting what non-spellcasters can do to "realistic stuff" rather than heroic fantasy stuff. D&D makes it worse by publishing handwringy screeds about Magic and Magic not being the same because obviously a Wizard does Magic but a dragon's breath is also obviously Magic but wizards can't do dragon breath so there's two kinds of Magic but don't worry because Magic can still do anything because it's clear even to the stupidest observer that a dragons breath is very obviously Magic but also very obviously not the Magic that Dispel Magic works on.
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Apr 5, 2016 23:51
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