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Xiahou Dun posted:You mean like in every edition before 3e? AD&D Fighters get awesome saves, but it takes quite a long time to get that ball rolling.
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Dec 19, 2018 15:51
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O entirely agree. Even 4e didn't go hard enough to really be good. I just was emphasizing that it basically used to just be the baseline assumption that fighters were rad swole dude who don't give a gently caress.
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Dec 19, 2018 15:56
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Mors Rattus posted:What genre is this exactly? Is D&D a genre now? I mean, yes? It is a very specific subgenre of Fantasy at this point. Do you honestly think it isn't? As many problems as D&D and Pathfinder have mechanically (lots absolutely) they are the big boys that people outside of the hobby can identify as role playing games. I personally much prefer Ars Magica for my Wizarding RPG, but you can't deny it delivers a very specific experience. I am not trying to got to bat for Pathfinder as an amazing game or anything here. Genre emulation is big for me in RPGs but if you only care about perfect balanced mechanics I can't say that is a bad thing either.
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Dec 19, 2018 16:03
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I don't care about perfect balance, that's for computer games where the math can be offloaded to a third party. I care about there being enough balance that one class doesn't overshadow all the rest and take the fun out of them.
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Dec 19, 2018 16:10
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So the bad balance rules are actually good because they are genre emulation. What genre are they emulating? The genre of games with bad balance rules.
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Dec 19, 2018 16:21
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Andrast posted:They can fall down and start crying in the maze no problem This is why I like Hurl Through Hell. "I'm going to remove you from combat and it's going to hurt the entire time." Jimbozig posted:So the bad balance rules are actually good because they are genre emulation. What genre are they emulating? The genre of games with bad balance rules. Of course. How will those jocks learn that they're actually dumb and wrong if we don't codify it?
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Dec 19, 2018 16:27
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Wizards that are powerful like they are in Pathfinder are probably better as Npcs you go to for help rather than guys you play as. 4th edition had the right idea balancing the magic you can use in combat with the other classes, while separation all other magic into something else that anyone can do with a feat. Wizards being godlike beings you go kill rather than guys you hang out with is definitely inline with Sword and Sorcery stuff.
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Dec 19, 2018 16:50
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If D&D draws inspiration from LOTR I guess it makes sense for fighters to be kind of poo poo.
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Dec 19, 2018 17:06
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D&D class imbalance arises from the way players in Gygax and Arneson's early campaigns had a bunch of PCs on the go at any one time. Linear Fighter/Quadratic Wizard isn't so much of a problem if everyone gets to be a wizard some of the time and takes a go at being a fighter some of the time. That's obviously no longer so hot now that the baseline assumptions of how a tabletop RPG campaign work have changed, but what hasn't changed is the assumption that people are going to be in a party. So how about a system where you get various bonuses based on who else is in the party with you and how high level they are, based on the assumption that the party trains together and buffs each other in downtime? So everyone's going into battle with, say, some charms that the wizard crafted for them or some prayers that the cleric taught them or some self-defence training that the fighter drilled them in, and none of it is so good that it's going to upstage anyone's niche but it also provides you with a handy advantage in your own niche. (For instance, the fighter's taught the wizard some self-defence training which helps the wizard avoid getting hit in combat but doesn't really make the wizard more capable of hitting things, whilst the wizard's drawn some runes on the fighter's sword which allows the fighter to draw on a bunch of magic capabilities in the fight.) "Linear Fighter, Quadratic Wizard" is only a problem if the fighter gets no benefit from being in a party with the wizard; if the system assumes that everyone in their party shares out their power to a certain extent because then they all individually are more competent thanks to the synergy, then it's much better.
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Dec 19, 2018 17:08
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Biomute posted:If D&D draws inspiration from LOTR I guess it makes sense for fighters to be kind of poo poo. Did you count the number of spells that Gandalf casts in LOTR?
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Dec 19, 2018 17:14
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I know 5e would have nerfed this to be based off of Reactions or Dex mod or something, but how did the Fighter’s “Sweep” ability against foes weaker than them (from AD&D 1e) not be one of the sacred cows they resurrected? (I know the answer is Mike Mearls.) D&D 4e posted:Rain of Steel Rain of Steel could have easily become a “once per long (or short) rest” ability.
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Dec 19, 2018 17:18
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homullus posted:Did you count the number of spells that Gandalf casts in LOTR?
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Dec 19, 2018 17:19
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BetterWeirdthanDead posted:(I know the answer is Mike Mearls.) Honestly I'm sort of amazed that the maneuver dice still exist, even if they were hypernerfed down from refreshing every combat to long rests. Kurieg fucked around with this message at 17:26 on Dec 19, 2018 |
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Dec 19, 2018 17:22
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If you are playing a game where you can be a wizard and it isn't Ars Magica you get what you deserve, frankly.
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Dec 19, 2018 17:27
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Warthur posted:"Linear Fighter, Quadratic Wizard" is only a problem if the fighter gets no benefit from being in a party with the wizard; if the system assumes that everyone in their party shares out their power to a certain extent because then they all individually are more competent thanks to the synergy, then it's much better. I'm a big fan of having all my character's in-fiction combat prowess depend entirely on charitable donations and hand-me-downs from the casters.
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Dec 19, 2018 17:54
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Lemon-Lime posted:I'm a big fan of having all my character's in-fiction combat prowess depend entirely on charitable donations and hand-me-downs from the casters. With only a few exceptions TTRPGs have specifically been party-based games since their inception. 1 solo character vs. 1 monster is always at a disadvantage compared to 4 PCs against 4 monsters, because the 4 PCs can cover for each others' weaknesses. What's wrong with a system that leans into that and shifts it from Linear Fighter/Quadratic Wizard to Linear Fighter + Quadratic synergistic support effects/Quadratic wizard + Linear synergistic support effects?
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Dec 19, 2018 18:03
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Warthur posted:"Linear Fighter, Quadratic Wizard" is only a problem if the fighter gets no benefit from being in a party with the wizard; if the system assumes that everyone in their party shares out their power to a certain extent because then they all individually are more competent thanks to the synergy, then it's much better. First, the gap in power is so great that the fighter makes no meaningful contribution after a certain point - it's not that the fighter no longer benefits from having the wizard around, it's that the wizard no longer really benefits from having the fighter around. This results in the fighter basically just being the wizard's minion - they handle some kind of unimportant make work while the wizard goes and does everything that actually matters. Second, the wizard routinely gets spells and abilities that not only duplicate what other classes do, they often do it better. A properly built wizard can accomplish everything you'd want a thief/rogue around for, with a higher chance of success and often just straight up more effectively (see: knock vs lock picking), while doing other wizard things besides. In many editions of D&D, by late or even mid game, the wizard essentially hogs all of the narrative and mechanical agency. Other classes, and especially fighters, really only get to do something if the wizard decides not to do it themselves, or if the DM specifically designs the adventure to create places for other classes to contribute. 3.x gets a lot of attention for this because it's essentially inevitable once you get to mid-levels, and can happen even without major character optimization (in fact, it can happen purely by accident) at low levels. It happened in 2e as well but usually not until mid levels without optimization, though high levels also tended toward inevitability. Also in 2e it was the thief rather than the fighter that suffered most - the differences in combat rules kept fighters relevant early on, and late game the gap was smaller since the fighter was supposed to get a castle. At least, in most campaigns - if you dropped follower stuff and did modules primarily, then it was all wizards and clerics.
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Dec 19, 2018 18:16
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Defining it Linear Fighter / Quadratic Wizard actually has a major baked-in problem. It implies that the problem is one between classes and their imbalanced power, but the actual problem is between designers and the imbalanced agency or narrative control they give players. That is, you're just going to have less input as a player in the game unless you have spells. It's not an issue of combat effectiveness, skills, or niche protection. It's one group of players having to roll, specifically build, or count on a benevolent other in order to have as much voice as another group of players. Consider if rogues could just narrate that "before anyone reacts, I..." or "without anyone noticing, I..." without being challenged. Or if fighters could straight-up kill any non-fighter, in much the same way fighting men in the real world do. But here's where the same imagination "muscles" that allow magic fail. "You can't kill someone with one sword blow, that's unrealistic!" "The thief just disappeared? My verisimilitude!" Despite real life sword people and stage illusionists doing these things for hundreds of years, Nerds insist that Fantasy Nerds should be the loudest (or only) voice at the table. And that's a designer-player problem, not a class balance issue.
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Dec 19, 2018 18:25
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Warthur posted:It's not "charitable donations", it's getting the power in the hands of those most effectively able to use it. Sounds like MOBA "Carry" characters a bit, which require Support especially in the early game to shine. You could probably make a pretty cool RPG around that kind of dynamic, but D&D is not and never was that game. Wizards who get to cast "win the fight" several times a day don't need to buff the Fighter anymore. Wizards who can summon their own extra Fighters don't need to buff the Fighter anymore. When spell slots are limited, and you have some great non-buff options, and the Fighter can be one failed save away from being negated, it's smart to not buff the Fighter. I would 100% love to see a game where the Wizard is just this buffing force-multiplier of per-hit bonus damage and protection auras or whatever, and the Fighter types somehow make extra good use of them.
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Dec 19, 2018 18:27
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Comrade Gorbash posted:This is a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of what's going on. There are two issues with what's routinely going on in D&D. Contextually, I thought it was entirely clear from my post that that was what I was talking about, but obviously not. My bad for not communicating well, here's the clarification.
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Dec 19, 2018 18:27
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Sage Genesis posted:Sounds like MOBA "Carry" characters a bit, which require Support especially in the early game to shine. You could probably make a pretty cool RPG around that kind of dynamic, but D&D is not and never was that game. What can I do to help my posts be clearer, folks? I want to be understood.
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Dec 19, 2018 18:30
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homullus posted:Did you count the number of spells that Gandalf casts in LOTR? In D&D class terms, Gandalf's a Paladin. Even gets a magic horse.
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Dec 19, 2018 18:33
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Warthur posted:It's not "charitable donations", it's getting the power in the hands of those most effectively able to use it. In 3.5 casting bulls strength on the fighter was usually a bad idea because that's a 2nd level spell slot that could be used elsewhere and by the time it lasts long enough to extend between combats you almost assuredly have a magic item that replaces the effect. The only "buff Spell" that wizards get that is worth casting is Haste because the effect is hard to replicate unless you're a monk. Comrade Gorbash posted:In many editions of D&D, by late or even mid game, the wizard essentially hogs all of the narrative and mechanical agency. Other classes, and especially fighters, really only get to do something if the wizard decides not to do it themselves, or if the DM specifically designs the adventure to create places for other classes to contribute. The highlight of my 5e career was because the Divination wizard had rolled a 20 on his soothsaying dice pool for the day and allowed my paladin to get a godsmite in on the final boss (Before the final boss bodied me to the ground in one round because monsters get iterative attacks far before players do). And the only reason he did that is because I was mathematically the most optimized to do damage and literally none of his spells used attack rolls because Wizards.
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Dec 19, 2018 18:33
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Kurieg posted:In 3.5 casting bulls strength on the fighter was usually a bad idea because that's a 2nd level spell slot that could be used elsewhere and by the time it lasts long enough to extend between combats you almost assuredly have a magic item that replaces the effect. The only "buff Spell" that wizards get that is worth casting is Haste because the effect is hard to replicate unless you're a monk. 4E was one way of doing it but relied on every player at the table engaging with the tactical skirmish aspect of the game to a similar extent (or being willing to be effectively told what to do during their term by more tactically-minded participants). I'm thinking of stuff like "If there's an X level wizard in your party your fighter gets Y", so you automatically get some synergy effects regardless of whether the wizard player's actually on the ball this evening or not.
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Dec 19, 2018 18:39
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Warthur posted:Which is why I'm speculating about a system which is built around the idea of synergy from the ground up. IKRPG had that but if you hate tactical skirmishing then that's definitely not the system for you.
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Dec 19, 2018 18:41
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Warthur posted:Which is why I'm speculating about a system which is built around the idea of synergy from the ground up. Better still, "if you have both a fighter and a wizard, the fighter gets X and the wizard gets Y." It is assumed all along that they are the same level.
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Dec 19, 2018 18:41
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homullus posted:Better still, "if you have both a fighter and a wizard, the fighter gets X and the wizard gets Y." It is assumed all along that they are the same level.
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Dec 19, 2018 18:44
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Warthur posted:What can I do to help my posts be clearer, folks? I want to be understood. 2. A conversation fork from "here is a specific problem with a specific thing" to "it's not a problem in a general case" is rarely an appropriate one to make at all. It's confusing and also dismissive. If a specific discussion prompts thoughts about the general case, start a new discussion and make it clear you're doing so, don't make it a response to the other conversation as if you're making a counter-argument.
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Dec 19, 2018 18:58
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Comrade Gorbash posted:1. If the conversation is about another subject, make a clear statement at the beginning of your response that you're changing the subject. When there's ten posts in one context and one in another, then the context of the conversation is inevitably the one in the ten posts. Also the context clues in your posts is not as clear as you think it is (this is both specifically true in this case and true of forum posts in general). "So how about a system where you get various bonuses based on who else is in the party with you and how high level they are, based on the assumption that the party trains together and buffs each other in downtime?" would seem to hit both of those points, it's a shame I didn't put it in my po- oh, wait, hang on, it's there. Great, good to know problem's not with me.
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Dec 19, 2018 19:02
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Warthur posted:"So how about a system where you get various bonuses based on who else is in the party with you and how high level they are, based on the assumption that the party trains together and buffs each other in downtime?" would seem to hit both of those points, it's a shame I didn't put it in my po- oh, wait, hang on, it's there. Great, good to know problem's not with me. The problem is that you prefaced that immediately with "In X Version of D&D everyone gets to be a wizard some of the time and a fighter some of the time" so it came off as "so what's wrong with this version where the wizards are buffing the fighters" and not "Why don't we come up with a new system?"
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Dec 19, 2018 19:08
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Warthur posted:"So how about a system where you get various bonuses based on who else is in the party with you and how high level they are, based on the assumption that the party trains together and buffs each other in downtime?" would seem to hit both of those points, it's a shame I didn't put it in my po- oh, wait, hang on, it's there. Great, good to know problem's not with me. Dude. If no one got what you were going for, you weren't clear. loving stop.
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Dec 19, 2018 19:12
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Kurieg posted:The problem is that you prefaced that immediately with "In X Version of D&D everyone gets to be a wizard some of the time and a fighter some of the time" so it came off as "so what's wrong with this version where the wizards are buffing the fighters" and not "Why don't we come up with a new system?" Well the structure of my argument was pretty much "this is why D&D evolved that way/this is why it's now a problem/this is how you could design a system which had a similar structure but avoided the problem". I'm not sure how you read it as "what's wrong with this version where the wizards are buffing the fighters" when I never said that in 5E or whatever that is what the wizards are doing, I specifically introduced the idea that I was speculating about a potential new system. I'm going to give up and move on I think, sometimes communicating with people just isn't possible.
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Dec 19, 2018 19:14
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Warthur posted:Argh argh argh and again people are assuming I am talking about D&D as is, rather than speculating about a system which might exist. I just checked my earlier post and I even said "So how about a system where you get various bonuses based on who else is in the party with you and how high level they are, based on the assumption that the party trains together and buffs each other in downtime?", which contextually makes it clear I am talking about speculative systems which could be designed rather than systems as they currently stand. I didn't quote you but I did misunderstand your goal, because at least for me growing up with 2nd Ed, when we're in the context of D&D and somebody says "how about a system that X", they mean "how about we houserule a subsystem inside of the broader D&D game that X", not "how about we play not-D&D".
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Dec 19, 2018 19:15
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Alhireth-Hotep posted:I didn't quote you but I did misunderstand your goal, because at least for me growing up with 2nd Ed, when we're in the context of D&D and somebody says "how about a system that X", they mean "how about we houserule a subsystem inside of the broader D&D game that X", not "how about we play not-D&D". (I guess you could do it as a subsystem, except the whole 4E saga pretty much revealed that if you take D&D outside a certain comfort zone you'll just get a schismed and unhappy fanbase making the environment toxic for everyone. Which sort of makes sense, you wouldn't expect the oldest game with the most extensive body of tradition associated with it to be especially amenable to experimentation.)
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Dec 19, 2018 19:30
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What are you and your ball doing here I thought you were going home.
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Dec 19, 2018 19:33
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Xiahou Dun posted:What are you and your ball doing here I thought you were going home. I love this. Also, moths posted:Defining it Linear Fighter / Quadratic Wizard actually has a major baked-in problem. This is genius and should be burned into every discussion of game design ever. I am, however, enjoying "D&D should require everyone to have nine characters" as an argument. At least, so far, that's Warthur's most consistent position.
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Dec 19, 2018 19:47
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moths posted:Defining it Linear Fighter / Quadratic Wizard actually has a major baked-in problem. Though merely fixing both problems still isn't enough - it's easy to make a quadratic fighter with massive narrative influence, but if all they do is "I attack", then combat is still boring for that guy. 4e obviously handled this as well. The style of game very much influences how big a deal these are, relative to each other. In a game with the goal of deep, interesting grid combat, it's really important for everyone to have interesting and effective combat powers. In a game whose goal is heroic storytelling, the narrative control angle is much more important and all characters should have great influence over that.
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Dec 19, 2018 20:16
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:4e addressed both of them separately, turning up the Comcast effectiveness of martials while turning down the narrative control of mages. Well yeah, when you have Bandwidth Throttle as a level 1 encounter power you don't really need anything else.
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Dec 19, 2018 20:22
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Warthur posted:"So how about a system where you get various bonuses based on who else is in the party with you and how high level they are, based on the assumption that the party trains together and buffs each other in downtime?" would seem to hit both of those points, it's a shame I didn't put it in my po- oh, wait, hang on, it's there. Great, good to know problem's not with me. Also "what if a system was designed for this?" is not nearly the brainwave you think it is, there are in fact a whole bunch of systems that designed to do exactly that, starting with Ars Magica, and they work pretty well, so the answer to your entire premise is simply "yes." Comrade Gorbash fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Dec 19, 2018 |
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Dec 19, 2018 20:23
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moths posted:Defining it Linear Fighter / Quadratic Wizard actually has a major baked-in problem. Who are you? You should be designing games, whoever you are.
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