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I Mean, Warblades as much as said "We are fixed fighters" right around the time where they get fighter only bonus feats. So it's disappointing to see wizards toss the baby out with the bathwater again.
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Jun 1, 2016 16:45
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Lemon-Lime posted:I mean, you can be a mundane person who is also not mechanically gimped compared to other players' characters. The beacon from Masks is a good example of this. Literally, it's about being the non-supered person in a team of supers, but is as effective as any other playbook.
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Jun 1, 2016 17:58
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Kurieg posted:I Mean, Warblades as much as said "We are fixed fighters" right around the time where they get fighter only bonus feats. So it's disappointing to see wizards toss the baby out with the bathwater again. This is more in reference to Pathfinder/3.5, but the fact that I still see folks trying to make a "rebalanced Fighter" fix in spite of or without considering Tome of Battle's and Path of War's existence makes me quizzical. I suppose I get the whole "I don't want to learn a new subsystem in an overly-complicated game" justification. But when a class' power and versatility is tied to it being complicated a la Wizards, you can't really make such a class able to compete against Magi/Duskblades/Bards. and be simple and straightforward in its mechanics. That is, unless you give the Fighter some absurdly broad ability like "replicate the effects of any 4th level or lower damage-dealing spell." It's weird; I don't see constant cries for Fighter fixes for other Editions as much in most D&D communities, and I don't get why would-be fixers keep passing up what is very well the best option on the table at the moment (the Maneuver system).
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Jun 1, 2016 18:01
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I think a key ingredient in pulling that off is a firm line and understanding drawn between "this character possesses no overt supernatural/magical powers within the in-game universe", and not using that as any sort of justification or reflection of what the character is actually capable of with regards to the rules.Libertad! posted:This is more in reference to Pathfinder/3.5, but the fact that I still see folks trying to make a "rebalanced Fighter" fix in spite of or without considering Tome of Battle's and Path of War's existence makes me quizzical. I suppose I get the whole "I don't want to learn a new subsystem in an overly-complicated game" justification. But when a class' power and versatility is tied to it being complicated a la Wizards, you can't really make such a class able to compete against Magi/Duskblades/Bards. and be simple and straightforward in its mechanics. That is, unless you give the Fighter some absurdly broad ability like "replicate the effects of any 4th level or lower damage-dealing spell." FWIW I wouldn't/am not looking for a "fixed Fighter" in 3.5/PF anymore, exactly because ToB/PoW exist. 4th Edition Fighters are also cool and good. AD&D Fighters are also probably good enough if you give them the Weapon Specialization rules from 1e Unearthed Arcana (and baselined in AD&D 2e) BECMI Fighters are also probably good enough if you let them use the Weapon Mastery rules from the Master set/Rules Cyclopedia That really only leaves 5th Edition. gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 18:09 on Jun 1, 2016 |
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Jun 1, 2016 18:02
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Libertad! posted:This is more in reference to Pathfinder/3.5, but the fact that I still see folks trying to make a "rebalanced Fighter" fix in spite of or without considering Tome of Battle's and Path of War's existence makes me quizzical. I suppose I get the whole "I don't want to learn a new subsystem in an overly-complicated game" justification. But when a class' power and versatility is tied to it being complicated a la Wizards, you can't really make such a class able to compete against Magi/Duskblades/Bards. and be simple and straightforward in its mechanics. That is, unless you give the Fighter some absurdly broad ability like "replicate the effects of any 4th level or lower damage-dealing spell." Because a lot of people feel that anything that even remotely resembles the default spellcasting system has to be magic, and thus ToB/PoW aren't really fighter fixes because they use magic and blah blah blah.
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Jun 1, 2016 18:23
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To put it bluntly, most of the people trying to make a Fixed Fighter learned everything they know about game design from playing D20, and that's a very bad thing for several reasons. gradenko_2000 posted:I think a key ingredient in pulling that off is a firm line and understanding drawn between "this character possesses no overt supernatural/magical powers within the in-game universe", and not using that as any sort of justification or reflection of what the character is actually capable of with regards to the rules. D&D 3 design sense is "the rules are a physics engine" and half the rules are spells. You can't make a working non-spellcaster based on the assumption that everything that works consistently is a spell. It's pretty telling that the Fixed Fighter already exists--it's in Tome of Battle and D&D 4. But those aren't acceptable, because they get powers with defined effects. (I have to admit, Frank Trollman did a Fixed Fighter that is much better than most of the others I've seen.)
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Jun 1, 2016 19:07
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Just make wizards roll for their spells.
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Jun 1, 2016 19:10
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Halloween Jack posted:D&D 3 design sense is "the rules are a physics engine" and half the rules are spells. You can't make a working non-spellcaster based on the assumption that everything that works consistently is a spell. It's pretty telling that the Fixed Fighter already exists--it's in Tome of Battle and D&D 4. But those aren't acceptable, because they get powers with defined effects. (I have to admit, Frank Trollman did a Fixed Fighter that is much better than most of the others I've seen.) "Anything with defined, fixed effects is a spell" is baked into D&D 3e (and 5e) to an impressive extent. It's something I didn't notice at first in the Monster Manuals until someone on SA pointed it out: so many monster abilities are "spell-like abilities" that just gives them the ability to cast certain spells at-will. That's true to such a degree that I'm pretty sure the only reason a red dragon's fire breath isn't just a spell-like ability that works like the fireball spell is because previous editions codified breath weapons pretty heavily as something special. Incidentally, that's a good part of the reason why, whenever I run a campaign using D&D or a derived system, I throw out the book's standard Sorcerer class lore and treat them like Final Fantasy Blue Mages instead. So many monsters have spell-like abilities--maybe a Sorcerer is just someone who, instead of being born with magic, learns to mimic how monsters do magic, which is why the Sorcerer doesn't have to prepare their spells. Serf posted:Just make wizards roll for their spells. I mean, that's the 4e and 13th Age approach, right? Any spell that isn't a buff or magic missile has an attack roll, and even magic missile went back and forth on that in 4e. It makes sense. If magic is so hard, you can fail to cast it, right? Harrow fucked around with this message at 19:14 on Jun 1, 2016 |
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Jun 1, 2016 19:12
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Harrow posted:I mean, that's the 4e and 13th Age approach, right? Any spell that isn't a buff or magic missile has an attack roll quote:and even magic missile went back and forth on that in 4e.  I remember in Encounters someone playing a wizard after the magic missile change, and he couldn't get over what a boring spell it was. Especially compared to everything else he had access to.
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Jun 1, 2016 19:20
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Harrow posted:"Anything with defined, fixed effects is a spell" is baked into D&D 3e (and 5e) to an impressive extent. It's something I didn't notice at first in the Monster Manuals until someone on SA pointed it out: so many monster abilities are "spell-like abilities" that just gives them the ability to cast certain spells at-will. quote:That's true to such a degree that I'm pretty sure the only reason a red dragon's fire breath isn't just a spell-like ability that works like the fireball spell is because previous editions codified breath weapons pretty heavily as something special. Evil Mastermind posted:[magic missile] only went from "roll to hit" to "autohit" because people bitched that MAGIC MISSILE IS SUPPOSED TO BE AUTOHIT HOW DARE YOU CHANGE THAT!
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Jun 1, 2016 19:32
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Magic missile a real super boring spell, but it has to stick around (and even crop up in games that otherwise throw out a lot of the D&D spell list, like Beyond the Wall) because of how iconic it is. I guess that's why it's gotta be autohit, too. I don't really mind that as a unique feature of the spell, but y'know, it's still just never going to be very exciting. Anyway, yeah, roll to cast really should've stuck around into 5e. Magic is hard and requires study and skill, so it should be possible to gently caress up a spell for reasons other than "I decided to wear armor for some reason and don't have one of the various class abilities that lets me ignore that for my spells." Halloween Jack posted:Even then, it's not always like that--to steal an example Cirno once used, wish doesn't let you grant wishes like a genie. It's the other way around. Ah, yep, that's the example I was looking for. It's the most illustrative example I can imagine of how backwards monster ability and spell design is. I've seen this explained to me like this: "Spells are basically just codified magical abilities that are consolidated in one place as a reference. Why should we have to re-explain how a wish works if it's no different when a wizard casts the spell or when a genie grants a wish?" And I guess I understand that explanation, but doing it that way just sucks all the actual magic out of creatures like genies. And why isn't it any different when a genie does it? Granting wishes is inherent to the creature's nature. Why is it just casting a wizard spell, with all the same limitations and wording and everything? To 5e's credit, it at least does make a genie's ability to grant wishes separate from being a spell-like ability, and it seems to have stepped back that practice overall, at least glancing over the Monster Manual. Harrow fucked around with this message at 19:41 on Jun 1, 2016 |
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Jun 1, 2016 19:33
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How much damage does a Fighter even do on a miss in 5e? I mean, it obviously can't be full damage (which as I understand isn't that spectacular anyway), so why raise a fuss about it?
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Jun 1, 2016 19:44
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Well, at least in the wish's case the genie has the advantage of not having to pony up any of the components, so at least it has that going for it.
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Jun 1, 2016 19:45
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Kwyndig posted:How much damage does a Fighter even do on a miss in 5e? I mean, it obviously can't be full damage (which as I understand isn't that spectacular anyway), so why raise a fuss about it? Back in the playtest, it was their Strength modifier. Now, it's nothing.
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Jun 1, 2016 19:48
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You're telling me people got so upset over chip damage that they nerfed it out of existence? Wow, I am really glad I never followed any of the 5e saga in any depth.
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Jun 1, 2016 19:50
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senrath posted:Well, at least in the wish's case the genie has the advantage of not having to pony up any of the components, so at least it has that going for it. Kwyndig posted:How much damage does a Fighter even do on a miss in 5e? I mean, it obviously can't be full damage (which as I understand isn't that spectacular anyway), so why raise a fuss about it?
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Jun 1, 2016 19:57
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I try not to get too annoyed at D&D these days, but it's hard when it's still seen as the "default" roleplaying game and there are still so many people whose first RPG is going to be D&D, which then colors their expectations for what roleplaying is. The day I realized that "rules as physics" wasn't the only way to play was a good day.
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Jun 1, 2016 20:00
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I mean, to me the issue is even deeper. The D&D setting is fundamentally flawed for use as a game, because it is a fantasy setting in which only some of the characters get to be fantasy characters, while others don't. OK, you can have a magic sword, but someone else made it. Your role as a non-magical person in this fantasy setting is to be non-fantastic. The fantasy happens to you, or, at best, you can take advantage of fantastic elements that someone else provided, but under no circumstances do you get to create fantasy. The kitchen sink approach to setting and mechanics for D&D means that once any edition has enough supplements, pretty much anything you can imagine, a wizard (or whatever) can do it, one way or another. There may be attempts at rules to constrain power so it's not too broken (but they always fail), but what remains basically unconstrained is the player's ability to explore the full extent of their imaginations within the game. Unless you're a mundane character class, in which case maybe your imagination can be explored if someone else can forge a trinket you can carry around to give you access to it, but you're just a user, not a creator. Yuck.
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Jun 1, 2016 20:10
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Leperflesh posted:I mean, to me the issue is even deeper. The D&D setting is fundamentally flawed for use as a game, because it is a fantasy setting in which only some of the characters get to be fantasy characters, while others don't. OK, you can have a magic sword, but someone else made it. Your role as a non-magical person in this fantasy setting is to be non-fantastic. The fantasy happens to you, or, at best, you can take advantage of fantastic elements that someone else provided, but under no circumstances do you get to create fantasy. My personal experience is that it was only with 3e that the player base started adopting the rather science-fictional mindset that the rules are a physics engine and the D&D universe operates exactly like ours, with "magic" as the phlebotinum particle that allows things to be fantastical.
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Jun 1, 2016 20:26
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Leperflesh posted:I mean, to me the issue is even deeper. The D&D setting is fundamentally flawed for use as a game, because it is a fantasy setting in which only some of the characters get to be fantasy characters, while others don't. It worked just fine in 4E, though.
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Jun 1, 2016 20:44
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Lemon-Lime posted:It worked just fine in 4E, though. 4e gave everyone fantastical ways to interact with the world, even if they weren't magical ways of interacting with the world.
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Jun 1, 2016 20:49
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Exactly, and it also limited the magic guys so that their magic wasn't just a blank check. But most importantly, 4E divorced the mechanics of powers from their fluff descriptions, so you absolutely could build a "fighter guy" capable of fantastical, supernatural achievements and feats. Not just a super-really-good but mundane fighter whose goodness is mostly down to being draped in the magic other people made. If you wanted to declare that all of your "melee attacks" were actually your fighter casting magic bolts of steel from his supernatural muscles, you can, and there's nothing in the game that would invalidate that. Plus you could just go ahead and take magic powers. And by the time you were well into your paragon path, you probably were capable of supernatural things, just by default. Part of the reason this worked is that 4E actually had multiclassing that didn't have to result in a character who was either terrible at doing both the things his classes did, or, a cheesefest of handpicked overpowered abilities resulting in a stupidly broken build. 4E also didn't define the character's role in the party by their power source: you don't have to be a nonmagical melee guy to be the party tank, nor do you have to be a wizard in order to be the party's controller. Probably the best example is the leader role, which can be filled by a supernatural powered cleric, or a nonsupernatural powered warlord. Or maybe your warlord does have magic? You can. It's OK and fine. The version didn't necessarily get everything right, of course, but at least the designers seemed to understand that in this fantasy setting, every character should have access to fantastical elements as part of their character concept, if that's what the player wanted. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Jun 1, 2016 |
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Jun 1, 2016 20:58
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Ugh, now you're reminding me of how people flipped out that the 4e fighter could only be a tank because it says he's a Defender right there, and if it says it in the book then that's the only truth!
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Jun 1, 2016 21:02
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The Fighter power Come and Get It was one of the most controversial things about 4e, because it forced enemies to attack the fighter, no rolling involved. It was controversial enough that they rewrote it.
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Jun 1, 2016 21:04
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Leperflesh posted:But most importantly, 4E divorced the mechanics of powers from their fluff descriptions, so you absolutely could build a "fighter guy" capable of fantastical, supernatural achievements and feats. Not just a super-really-good but mundane fighter whose goodness is mostly down to being draped in the magic other people made. If you wanted to declare that all of your "melee attacks" were actually your fighter casting magic bolts of steel from his supernatural muscles, you can, and there's nothing in the game that would invalidate that. Plus you could just go ahead and take magic powers. And by the time you were well into your paragon path, you probably were capable of supernatural things, just by default.
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Jun 1, 2016 21:05
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Johnny wakes up on a day like any other. A typical midwestern boy of ten, he goes to play D&D with his older brother like he does every week, but this time the rules seem different. Now it is a game with several complex fighting styles, where study and practice let you get consistent effects from your physical prowess just like real life, and where magic users can only do damage and only if they roll well. "What," asks Johnny's brother, "you expected the arcane and obscure forces of magic to be as reliable as hitting a dude with a big piece of metal? Go back to preschool if you want to play magical tea party." Welcome to... The Twilight Realms Jimbozig fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Jun 1, 2016 |
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Jun 1, 2016 21:13
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Halloween Jack posted:Yes, but the issue is that the treatment of spells, under this design framework, is that they go beyond "the rules are the physics engine of the world, and only spells violate physics" to the point that spells are physics. D&D is just a step short of saying that fly doesn't allow wizards to fly like birds--rather, birds can cast fly on themselves at will. Wizard: "Zounds, what forsooth is that rodent with Fly as a Spell-Like-Ability yonder?" Ranger: *making DC 5 Bird Lore* "its- a bird. They do that." Wizard: "How witchee these rural creatures be!"
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Jun 1, 2016 21:35
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Gerund posted:Wizard: "Zounds, what forsooth is that rodent with Fly as a Spell-Like-Ability yonder?" I always did want to run a game where some game mechanics are understood and talked about in-world, like classes being actual guilds that expect certain things of their members. I'd hope this conversation would happen in such a game.
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Jun 1, 2016 21:42
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Harrow posted:I always did want to run a game where some game mechanics are understood and talked about in-world, like classes being actual guilds that expect certain things of their members. I'd hope this conversation would happen in such a game. I've always wanted to run a game where all game mechanics are understood and talked about in-world. The problem is finding a game where the rules don't just completely break if you do that.
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Jun 1, 2016 21:57
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You also probably want to avoid Order of the Stick style silliness, I expect. Some games are fairly straightforward as far as super-powers are concerned, at least. Vampires in Vampire talk about Disciplines, know what the powers are and know that you have to learn them in order from 1-5. (Although it's not like every vampire knows everything.) D&D 4 is an interesting mix. Spells have names. Monk martial arts techniques have names, but rogues probably don't talk about Sand in the eyes as if it was a proper name. For fighters, it's a mix--brash strike almost certainly isn't but Kirre's roar almost certainly is.
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Jun 1, 2016 22:08
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"And the characters understand the game mechanics!" is one of those things that sounds novel, except it's been done literally decades beforehand already and really doesn't work all that fun in play since instead of metagaming you wind up with metametagaming and it's sort of recursive and horrible.
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Jun 1, 2016 22:21
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Halloween Jack posted:You also probably want to avoid Order of the Stick style silliness, I expect. Yeah I'm not very good at intentional humor. Also I remember at one point in Masquerade a vampire scientist discovered the Blood Point and they had a whole sidebar about how this didn't mean you were allowed to just start using it in character/
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Jun 1, 2016 22:22
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Halloween Jack posted:
The worst is when this attitude infects other games: I had a GM for a Mutants and Masterminds game once that wouldn't let my Hawkeye-inspired archery dude take a perception ranged attack (Meaning no attack roll, it just did damage) with a justification of "He's just that accurate when he wants to be" because his powers were training-based, but admitted that if my concept had been "Arrow wizard" it'd have been just fine.
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Jun 1, 2016 23:47
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A lot of it boils down to frankly a dearth of creativity. It's why you saw a lot of people getting real mad at 4e for refluffing. It's because, when all was said in done, they couldn't wrap their heads around actually roleplaying things - the mechanics say This Is The Thing, so you have to do it exactly like that. People make jokes about games having an "Ultimate Book of Roleplaying" to teach you how to do it, but to be frank, plenty of people in this hobby could use it. It's why 3.x became so deeply tied to metagaming. "The GM has to follow these rules because otherwise I can't metagame" became a fuckin' thing. It was, again, one of the things people got so salty about regarding 4e - the GM can just MAKE UP rituals and the players can't learn them? How am I the player supposed to figure out how the world works if I don't have access to literally all the rules?!
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Jun 2, 2016 00:00
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I guess we're in the "Past" section of "TG As An Industry - Past, Present, Future".
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Jun 2, 2016 00:34
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Golden Bee posted:I guess we're in the "Past" section of "TG As An Industry - Past, Present, Future". We really aren't. Like, nerds having a lack of creativity is still a part of this hobby and is always going to be.
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Jun 2, 2016 00:45
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Serf posted:Just make wizards roll for their spells. This would break everything because spells are used to bypass all the terrible game mechanics.
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Jun 2, 2016 00:51
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There is nothing you can say about D&D in it's entire existence that cant be said about some game being sold today. Every edition of the game save 4th has a couple retroclones to it's name by this point.
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Jun 2, 2016 00:53
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Bar Crow posted:This would break everything because spells are used to bypass all the terrible game mechanics. "No spells, you are the terrible game mechanics."
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Jun 2, 2016 01:19
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I'm waiting eagerly for the future where there's a 4e retroclone movement and we get dozens of super-derivative attempts at recapturing the nostalgic "atmosphere" of 4th edition. I imagine they'll all include the worst of 4e's flaws while mostly failing to include its greatest aspects.
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Jun 2, 2016 01:20
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