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Keldulas posted:Care to explain on that one? I never played 2E very much except for the Baldur's Gate and IWD series. Alright! So, you can look at it a couple of ways: Firstly, how do Fighters do if they had to fight the rest of the party? Thieves they obviously dunk on in a one-on-one fight. But what about Clerics and Mages? Surely, they'll just wizzard the fighter down to size, right? The thing there is that saving throws work very differently in 2e from in the following editions. They are decided almost purely by level and class, and unlike in 3e, where the attacker's roll is improved... it never is in 2e. So eventually Fighters, who have quite good saving throws in most categories besides, become largely immune to magic. Secondly, how do fighters compare against monstrous and NPC enemies? Much the same applies, really. They can have an absurd damage output much earlier than Mages and Clerics, and while monstrous enemies eventually develop the same saving throws as Fighters(not to mention often having magic resistance besides), they never develop a resistance to being cut in half(at most some of them eventually require +1 or +2 weapons to hit, but that's rarely a major obstacle). Thirdly, what makes mages weaker in 2e? Interrupted casts. In 3e, mages and other casters have a "concentration" check if someone tries to bury a two-handed sword in their head while they're casting Magic Missile. Pass that, and they still get to cast. This is not the case in 2e where ANY hit interrupts your spell and you don't even retain it as memorized, so mages are super reliant on having "linebacker" Fighters to keep goblins and whatever from gnawing on their kneecaps and disrupting their Fireballs. Lastly, we have the expansions to 2e, like Player's Option: Combat & Tactics. These expansions, sure, give some more spell options for mages and clerics, but for Fighters they A) add Mastery, High Mastery and Grand Mastery tiers to their combat specializations, which make them completely absurd blenders and B) they add the wrestling specialization. Now you might think it's just a jank-rear end early version of 3e's Monk, or that it's a goofy gimmick, but I assure you it isn't. Before they're even out of their single-digit levels, a wrestling-specialized Fighter can realistically hope to piledrive a dragon and kill it by choking it out with a headlock. As a combat style it instantly destroys any caster enemy you can land a hit on, rendering them neutralized(and quickly dead). The main thing that mages have which fighters do not is that they can hit a lot of enemies at once with, say, a Fireball, so while mages are, and remain, important for clearing out mobs of weaker enemies, Fighters are the MvP's against big single targets and mages and clerics would be doing their best if they buffed the Fighters rather than trying to hurl offensive spells. Now you might say this is just theorycrafting, but I've been running 2e AD&D pen and paper games for almost 20 years now and it remains consistent that Fighters are the strongest class in the party and absolutely whip rear end.
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May 17, 2022 10:37
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I just like that Fighters were the hard counter to wizards, as opposed to the hard counter to wizards being... wizards with more BS.
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May 17, 2022 12:47
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The real power of a wizard was always in their ability to just skip over the "is a game" part of the game and decide poo poo to be true because casting a spell made it so. Even low level spells like Protection from Evil can completely derail the challenge of even higher level encounters, leading to a game of brinksmanship between the DM and the wizard. The mobility options wizards get, from stealth to flight to teleportation, make a mockery of whatever map the DM drew. The breadth of scrying options means there's no secret that the DM can keep from a wizard that knows to ask the question. None of this really applies to a videogame, which for obvious reasons always focuses on the "mobile artillery" element of wizardry.
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May 17, 2022 15:14
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Tendales posted:The real power of a wizard was always in their ability to just skip over the "is a game" part of the game and decide poo poo to be true because casting a spell made it so. Even low level spells like Protection from Evil can completely derail the challenge of even higher level encounters, leading to a game of brinksmanship between the DM and the wizard. The mobility options wizards get, from stealth to flight to teleportation, make a mockery of whatever map the DM drew. The breadth of scrying options means there's no secret that the DM can keep from a wizard that knows to ask the question. I mean, that's the myth of wizards, anyway, which is easier to make reality in later editions, but in 2e AD&D if the GM did not want to deal with a flying wizard who could teleport to the moon while invisible, he would just not provide any scrolls or spellbooks containing those spells. Can't find 'em to scribe, can't memorize them to cast. Not to mention that most of those spells have considerable sanity checks. A flying mage, for instance, can't move at speed while casting spells, meaning that a pack of ravens could casually peck him to death. It's great for avoiding a single obstacle, but for fighting, he'll still want his linebacker, because it takes considerable distance to be at safe range from an enemy with a longbow, and if you're the only dot in the sky you aren't hiding anywhere. Teleporting also has a chance of straight up murdering you, especially if it's an area you're unfamiliar with, as you'll arrive "off target" on the vertical axis if you mis-roll, which could lead to instant death as you're entombed in the ground or somewhat delayed death as you plummet to the ground. Being invisible is handy but... most undead can see right through it, many animals can smell you, and anyone sufficiently intelligent gets a save to spot you, not to mention that you really only get off one action and then the invisibility is busted. Also not sure what's so busted about Protection From Evil, it just gives evil creatures a -2 to hit you and you instantly lose the protection if you attack them.
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May 17, 2022 15:29
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Didn't 3rd/3.5 add a lot of BS that made those spells more powerful than they were in AD&D? Just a quick glance at an AD&D wiki and the 3.5 SRD, Fly required you to be moving slowly to cast spells while flying, had an unknown duration, and when it ended you go straight into free fall. 3rd/3.5 (not sure when the changes were made) allows you to be moving full speed and cast, gives you a free featherfall period to... cast featherfall, and has a set duration that is known ahead of time. Not to mention the various feats that allowed you to make the spell better.
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May 17, 2022 15:52
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I was tempted to try this game, but the lack of character advancement is a very sad loss. Building a character is such a core part of the D&D experience.
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May 17, 2022 15:57
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JustJeff88 posted:I was tempted to try this game, but the lack of character advancement is a very sad loss. Building a character is such a core part of the D&D experience. It's especially weird in light of how more or less all the realms we have access to have a: "Hey, if you want to scrape off the canon rulers and insert your own PC's, here's an easy way to do it!" in the corebook. But then again Birthright is a very weird game and the next update will definitely feature some amount of jank.
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May 17, 2022 16:10
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Tendales posted:The real power of a wizard was always in their ability to just skip over the "is a game" part of the game and decide poo poo to be true because casting a spell made it so. Even low level spells like Protection from Evil can completely derail the challenge of even higher level encounters, leading to a game of brinksmanship between the DM and the wizard. The mobility options wizards get, from stealth to flight to teleportation, make a mockery of whatever map the DM drew. The breadth of scrying options means there's no secret that the DM can keep from a wizard that knows to ask the question. This is pretty much why any comparison between a fighter and a wizard depends on the fighter's ability to actually get the drop on said wizard, or a scenario in which the wizard cannot just go somewhere else, because otherwise, a high-level wizard can just choose not to participate, and teleport away (let's not forget the Teleport Without Error spell, which just requires to the Wizard to know one location outside of longbow range), and from there have complete control over the circumstances of any future encounter. Wizard vs. Fighter in 2e is the classic "Batman vs. Superman" argument, with pretty much the same outcome. If Superman can land a punch, he wins, but if Batman has time to prepare, that's not happening. They've got spells to improve their AC to -10 easily, Stoneskin to simply ignore attacks, Time Stop to cast a bunch of spells at once, can summon an army of helpers (even if they're weak, natural 20s always hit, so the more dice are being rolled, the more dangerous it gets), and they pack a ton of stuff that still deals significant damage on a successful save. Allowed to actually prepare for a fight, a wizard can easily wear the fighter down. And, if the fighter is anything other than an elf, the wizard can win by just waiting, since wizards have access to the fairly small number of ways to extend their own lifespan without deific intervention (granted, most of them are not exactly nice, but if these guys are that committed to killing each other, one assumes they're not great people). This isn't even counting what one can do with a carefully-worded Wish. The disparity isn't as great as it is in 3.x, and a fighter pretty much always wins if they can force the fight on their terms, but if they let the wizard get away, it's unlikely they'll get a second chance.
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May 17, 2022 16:18
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EclecticTastes posted:This is pretty much why any comparison between a fighter and a wizard depends on the fighter's ability to actually get the drop on said wizard, or a scenario in which the wizard cannot just go somewhere else, because otherwise, a high-level wizard can just choose not to participate, and teleport away (let's not forget the Teleport Without Error spell, which just requires to the Wizard to know one location outside of longbow range), and from there have complete control over the circumstances of any future encounter. Wizard vs. Fighter in 2e is the classic "Batman vs. Superman" argument, with pretty much the same outcome. If Superman can land a punch, he wins, but if Batman has time to prepare, that's not happening. I mean, also worth noting that if we're at levels where wizards have all these spells and advantages... the Fighter probably has a literal army to clear away summoned mooks, prepare fortifications, harass the wizard with longbow fire from dozens of directions to rapidly wear off his Stoneskin, maybe rig up a trebuchet and fire it... 
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May 17, 2022 17:03
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Voting stay pure and refrain as well. I played this game continuously as a kid when it came out, probably never really understanding what I was doing. Fun fact: all the sound-effects from the army battles are lifted directly from Impressions' sound library and were all used for the battles in the original DOS game, Lords of the Realm. Second, the back of the Birthright box (which I have, complete), shows screenshots from an obvious beta version of the game and nothing in them appears in the actual, released version. If you look closely, the Skeletons unit in the screen shot are simply named 'C_SKL' and the battles show monster units that simply don't exist in the game at all. Third, when using 'Contest' on a foreign holding, commit your spending, then let the AI counter. Cancel the action, then commit your spending again. The AI won't counter a second time. Also, Pikeman do jack-poo poo against Calvary and are completely useless. Not sure if the same is true for the P&P version. You're much better off kiting Calvary with Irregulars
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May 17, 2022 17:07
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PurpleXVI posted:I mean, also worth noting that if we're at levels where wizards have all these spells and advantages... the Fighter probably has a literal army to clear away summoned mooks, prepare fortifications, harass the wizard with longbow fire from dozens of directions to rapidly wear off his Stoneskin, maybe rig up a trebuchet and fire it... If we're getting into those kinds of rules, high-level wizards will have a number of apprentices who are themselves fairly powerful spellcasters and various golems that low-level henchmen can't even damage. But given that both of those things require significant investments and a certain amount of DM approval to establish solid numbers on, it felt simpler to just assume the fighter and wizard had just themselves.
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May 17, 2022 17:21
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quote:And, if the fighter is anything other than an elf, the wizard can win by just waiting, since wizards have access to the fairly small number of ways to extend their own lifespan without deific intervention (granted, most of them are not exactly nice, but if these guys are that committed to killing each other, one assumes they're not great people). I dunno, if the Fighter has you scared enough that your strategy is "Hide until they die", then I'm pretty sure the Fighter has won at that point. Remember the original point that kicked this off was: quote:The real power of a wizard was always in their ability to just skip over the "is a game" part of the game and decide poo poo to be true because casting a spell made it so. Even low level spells like Protection from Evil can completely derail the challenge of even higher level encounters, leading to a game of brinksmanship between the DM and the wizard. The mobility options wizards get, from stealth to flight to teleportation, make a mockery of whatever map the DM drew. The breadth of scrying options means there's no secret that the DM can keep from a wizard that knows to ask the question. Which... many of those were either not as powerful in AD&D, or is being greatly overstated. And keep in mind that in AD&D, Fighters got a small army of soldiers and a keep as a class feature starting at level 9. And absolutely worst case scenario, the Fighter could just have his Wizard friend set up shop in the keep and pay for room and board for him, because I'm not the one trying to argue that Wizards can solo everything, just that Fighters were the counter to Wizards in a fight rather than just Wizard Supremacy.
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May 17, 2022 17:27
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Tendales posted:The real power of a wizard was always in their ability to just skip over the "is a game" part of the game and decide poo poo to be true because casting a spell made it so. Even low level spells like Protection from Evil can completely derail the challenge of even higher level encounters, leading to a game of brinksmanship between the DM and the wizard. The mobility options wizards get, from stealth to flight to teleportation, make a mockery of whatever map the DM drew. The breadth of scrying options means there's no secret that the DM can keep from a wizard that knows to ask the question. About that...
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May 17, 2022 17:54
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EclecticTastes posted:If we're getting into those kinds of rules, high-level wizards will have a number of apprentices who are themselves fairly powerful spellcasters and various golems that low-level henchmen can't even damage. But given that both of those things require significant investments and a certain amount of DM approval to establish solid numbers on, it felt simpler to just assume the fighter and wizard had just themselves. Haaaaaaang on, aren't the spells a Wizard has access to in a game also up to DM approval and involve signifigant investment? Why do Wizard supporters get to assume they have access to every spell in the game and the regents for said spells, but a Fighter doesn't get access to their standing army? No wonder Wizards reign supreme if everyone else is expected to fight at a handicap.
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May 17, 2022 19:16
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Randalor posted:Haaaaaaang on, aren't the spells a Wizard has access to in a game also up to DM approval and involve signifigant investment? Why do Wizard supporters get to assume they have access to every spell in the game and the regents for said spells, but a Fighter doesn't get access to their standing army? No wonder Wizards reign supreme if everyone else is expected to fight at a handicap. By that logic, wizards are the weakest class because they're just frail old dudes with sticks, because they don't have any spells without approval. But, for the sake of argument, if you take the spells a wizard could obtain by leveling up, as well as scrolls of a value roughly equal to that of a fighter's magical weapon and armor (we'll assume they both have appropriate rings, amulets, belts, etc.), then the wizard would have all the tools they'd need. If you want to bring up "what if the DM arbitrarily bans X", then the DM could in theory also just ban all weapons and armor and now the fighter's got just his bare hands and an AC of probably 4 to 6. Randalor posted:I dunno, if the Fighter has you scared enough that your strategy is "Hide until they die", then I'm pretty sure the Fighter has won at that point. That sort of depends on your definition of "hide" when a wizard can go literally anywhere in the multiverse while an unassisted fighter is unlikely to get much further than a couple thousand miles from his hometown. I'm not saying wizards always win (they usually lose if they're within the fighter's attack range), just that it's not as cut and dry as "fighters dunk on everything in 2e". EDIT: Actually, to add a bit, this is why the fighter does so well in most "in a vacuum" 1-on-1 class matchups, is because the fighter doesn't require any sort of prep time or special circumstances, he just swings his weapon and he's fully online. A thief can win against a fighter if he starts off hidden and thus gets the backstab. A Cleric can win if they can apply all their buffs. Kinda makes sense, since the fighter is denying the other guy the chance to use any of their class features, while his own features are always-on. EclecticTastes fucked around with this message at 20:13 on May 17, 2022 |
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May 17, 2022 20:00
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EclecticTastes posted:By that logic, wizards are the weakest class because they're just frail old dudes with sticks, because they don't have any spells without approval. I'd say there's a pretty big gap between "the wizard has access to the entire potential spellbook" and "the Fighter might have a +1 sword." EclecticTastes posted:EDIT: Actually, to add a bit, this is why the fighter does so well in most "in a vacuum" 1-on-1 class matchups, is because the fighter doesn't require any sort of prep time or special circumstances, he just swings his weapon and he's fully online. A thief can win against a fighter if he starts off hidden and thus gets the backstab. A Cleric can win if they can apply all their buffs. Kinda makes sense, since the fighter is denying the other guy the chance to use any of their class features, while his own features are always-on. And also no, the Thief does not. Because the Thief does, at best, something like 3x or 4x the power of a single one of his attacks... which will in general just really piss the Fighter off shortly before he pounds the thief into the dirt. Meanwhile a Cleric might be able to bless himself up to parity at a few points in their evolution, but for the most part there just aren't enough stackable Cleric buffs to make up the difference. I'd also say it's a bit disingenious to say that a Fighter does not benefit from prep time. He'll know what he's going up against and may have tools of his own that he wants to bring on line, or to wait for the ideal moment to attack when his enemy doesn't have their full resources available. If he's bringing along his own henchmen or even his army if he's of Lord level, then he'll definitely benefit from some tactics better than "alright, gang, bunch up and rush him!"
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May 17, 2022 20:23
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EclecticTastes posted:By that logic, wizards are the weakest class because they're just frail old dudes with sticks, because they don't have any spells without approval. But, for the sake of argument, if you take the spells a wizard could obtain by leveling up, as well as scrolls of a value roughly equal to that of a fighter's magical weapon and armor (we'll assume they both have appropriate rings, amulets, belts, etc.), then the wizard would have all the tools they'd need. If you want to bring up "what if the DM arbitrarily bans X", then the DM could in theory also just ban all weapons and armor and now the fighter's got just his bare hands and an AC of probably 4 to 6. I'm honestly not sure what you're even arguing about at this point anymore. The closest anyone said that Fighters dunk on everything is when I said Fighters were the hard counter to Wizards in AD&D, which was made in reference to their high saves and high HP letting them get close enough to stop a wizard. I don't think anyone even mentioned magical items except an offhand comment from Purple about +1 and +2 weapons not really being an issue at higher levels. So far, your argument has been that "In a fight against a Wizard and a Fighter in AD&D, the Wizard wins if they get every spell in the game and the Fighter doesn't get all of their class features." Which... okay, yeah, sure, and when I point out that the reason that Fighters don't get their standing army can also apply to the Wizard not getting every spell in the game, you say the Wizard is the weakest class then when... all I'm asking is that if you're going to compare the classes, actually compare them instead of putting not only your thumb, but also a particularly dense piece of dense lead onto the side of the Wizard.
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May 17, 2022 20:32
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Obviously, the solution here is to be a Fighter/Mage vis being an Elf or some such. For whatever it’s worth, this fairly silly debate here is illustrating the fact that the class balance seems fairly good honestly? Like, the fact that wizards have so many inconveniences and vulnerabilities makes up for the fact that they get theoretical access to the Teleport bullshit and such. So the Fighter gets linear scaling to their combat ability while the Wizard lacks that but gets to be a giant bag of tricks. Seems sensible to me. 3E just swings to straight caster supremacy by giving them proper stat scaling and adding quality of life to spellcasting. Which kind of shows to me just how delicate the balance was in the first place, even if it feels silly that casters don’t inherently have any stat scaling on their spellcasting.
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May 17, 2022 20:37
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While it's been a good long while since I played 2e, I will note that while Wizards are, rightly, generally viewed as powerhouses in the system (and Clerics don't get nearly enough attention, especially once 'specialty priests' become a thing so you get the Cleric of Azura, who can cast wizard spells instead of/in addition to their clerical spells while also getting the benefit of the Cleric HP dice and equipment options), high-level Fighters whip rear end in 2e, specifically because of their saving throws. The amount of things that they get a 90% chance to flat ignore is hilarious, and that's without getting into the jank of the Player's Option rules. Having said that, no one remembers them as being awesome because where the fighter shines is the one-on-one combat... which is usually entirely absent from a lot of games, because the thing about one-on-one combat is that while one or two players is involved in it, the rest of the table just kinda mills around trying not to be bored. It's a situation where the rules as written make high-level Fighters ridiculously good, but only in ways that most parties will never really notice because they're too busy trying to clear out the 7,394 gnolls from this fortress, and that's the scenario where the Wizard shines brightest.
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May 17, 2022 20:39
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I was going to keep going with counterpoints about how wizards have "making magic items" as a class feature or whatever but, I'm gonna skip all that because it involves a lot of conjecture regarding rules interpretations and exact numbers. Instead, the outcome of fighter vs. wizard actually just comes down to whether or not the wizard has time to cast Invisibility. Because Imprisonment doesn't allow a save in 2e. Or for something more lethal, Sphere of Ultimate Destruction is a no-save instant death for any target that isn't aware it's about to happen (such as if the caster is invisible). Or the wizard could go invisible, run off for some supplies to cast Estate Transference, and send the fighter and his army (and his entire keep, in fact) to one of the less hospitable outer planes forever. And those aren't the only options. So that's how it goes. If the fighter can strike first, he wins, and if not, he's almost guaranteed to lose because some spells just end your character outright the moment they're cast. Which, I would say is a solid balance. Fighters can just dive in and, as noted, whip rear end left and right. Wizards need time to prepare. This is why, generally speaking, fighters and wizards are on the same team, rather than fighting. I just wanted to point out that Purple's assertion that fighters were the best class is more complicated than just automatically winning.
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May 17, 2022 21:29
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PurpleXVI posted:
In addition to the expected protection from evil, the spell makes extraplanar creatures, regardless of alignment, unable to physically contact you at all. The big thing is that spellcasters don't make fighters redundant in base 2e the way later D&D editions do. Tendales fucked around with this message at 21:43 on May 17, 2022 |
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May 17, 2022 21:39
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EclecticTastes posted:I was going to keep going with counterpoints about how wizards have "making magic items" as a class feature or whatever but, I'm gonna skip all that because it involves a lot of conjecture regarding rules interpretations and exact numbers. I'll point out again that they actually don't have this in 2e AD&D. Most mages might make one, at most two, permanent magic items during their entire lifetime, because making magic items potentially causes permanent stat loss for the caster and involves major questing for components. Imprisonment has no save but is touch-range and requires a verbal component. So unless the Fighter is deaf or restrained, he'll be aware someone is yelling out spell syllables right next to him and be able to take some sort of precautions. I've never heard of "Sphere of Ultimate Destruction" before and as far as I can tell it only exists in 3.x edition, and even there it still seems to allow for some sort of save? Estate Transference is a very noisy spell that it takes over an hour and a half to cast and which also requires planting a rare magic item(thus unlikely to be handwaved in the same way as swan feathers and bat guano) at the center of the area of effect. He also has to spend time surrounding the entire area-of-effect with elemental focus items. All of this is the sort of thing that he's likely to be spotted doing. Not exactly sneaky in any way. Oh and he gets brought along when he casts the spell, so he better have a fast way out. And of course, Fighters don't "automatically win" every encounter, but they are by far the most powerful class in 2nd edition AD&D. Tendales posted:In addition to the expected protection from evil, the spell makes extraplanar creatures, regardless of alignment, unable to physically contact you at all. I mean, fair, but there are plenty of non-extraplanar things that might try to eat your face. Also most of the extraplanar creatures you really have to worry about tend to have breath weapons, spells or spell-like abilities that allow them to ruin your day without physical contact.
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May 17, 2022 21:41
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EclecticTastes posted:Instead, the outcome of fighter vs. wizard actually just comes down to whether or not the wizard has time to cast Invisibility. Because Imprisonment doesn't allow a save in 2e. Or for something more lethal, Sphere of Ultimate Destruction is a no-save instant death for any target that isn't aware it's about to happen (such as if the caster is invisible). Or the wizard could go invisible, run off for some supplies to cast Estate Transference, and send the fighter and his army (and his entire keep, in fact) to one of the less hospitable outer planes forever. And those aren't the only options. So that's how it goes. If the fighter can strike first, he wins, and if not, he's almost guaranteed to lose because some spells just end your character outright the moment they're cast. First of all, Invisibility is not a "I can do what I want with impunity" spell. Imprisonment still requires a verbal component to be said (which, y'know, gives a decent idea of where you are) and still requires you to touch the Fighter. Second, as Purple pointed out, Transfer Estate takes a surprisingly long time to cast and requires a lot of setup to cast it. It's almost as if it's not meant as an offensive spell or something. Why are you so determined to "prove" Purple wrong because he thinks Fighter is a strong class in AD&D?
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May 17, 2022 21:59
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PurpleXVI posted:Imprisonment has no save but is touch-range and requires a verbal component. So unless the Fighter is deaf or restrained, he'll be aware someone is yelling out spell syllables right next to him and be able to take some sort of precautions. I've never heard of "Sphere of Ultimate Destruction" before and as far as I can tell it only exists in 3.x edition, and even there it still seems to allow for some sort of save? Player's Option: Spells and Magic, from 1996. It includes a lot of expanded magic rules, and Sphere of Ultimate Destruction is one of the spells introduced in the book. At 20th level, the range is a cool hundred feet, and even if the verbal components are heard, doesn't mean the fighter knows a floating orb of nothingness is about to pop into existence on top of him. That spell, in particular, is pretty much a guaranteed win for the wizard if he's given the chance to cast it. As for Imprisonment, the wizard doesn't need to cast it while the fighter is awake. Once he's invisible, he's free to Teleport Without Error somewhere safe for a bit and come back at his convenience with whatever stealth spells active he feels like. The fighter can prepare, but as he only has access to mundane means of detection, the wizard could more or less come and go as he pleases. I actually forgot that Plane Shift was Cleric-only in 2e and how rough casting times were back then (an attack roll isn't required for Imprisonment, but the fighter could probably hit the wizard mid-casting), so I'll grant you the other two spells as being nonviable, but Sphere of Ultimate Destruction kinda lives up to the name in 2e. Randalor posted:Why are you so determined to "prove" Purple wrong because he thinks Fighter is a strong class in AD&D? The only thing I'm trying to "prove" is that wizards can beat fighters in 2e. As to why, I enjoy digging up mechanics and rules and hashing them out to prove meaningless points in a low-stakes environment. I haven't been able to go to a FLGS or tabletop games convention in the last couple years for obvious reasons, so it's nice to be able to argue about dumb grog poo poo somewhere.
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May 17, 2022 22:15
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EclecticTastes posted:
I dunno, for someone who claims to like digging up mechanics and rules, you sure did seem to be going out of your way to ignore any that favored the fighter or weakened the wizard (see: Casting times, V/S/M components, spell availability). Hell, I'm pretty sure there's an optional rule that Coup De Grace is an automatic kill in one of the books, so you could just wait until the Fighter is asleep and slit their throat that way if you wanted to argue that any class can be beaten which... once again... yeah? No one is saying otherwise?
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May 17, 2022 22:26
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EclecticTastes posted:Player's Option: Spells and Magic, from 1996. It includes a lot of expanded magic rules, and Sphere of Ultimate Destruction is one of the spells introduced in the book. At 20th level, the range is a cool hundred feet, and even if the verbal components are heard, doesn't mean the fighter knows a floating orb of nothingness is about to pop into existence on top of him. That spell, in particular, is pretty much a guaranteed win for the wizard if he's given the chance to cast it. Verbal components, targeted victims get a save vs death if they have any reason to believe they're in danger as per the spell text, and it has a casting time of 9 which gives a Fighter a hell of a great chance to beat the mage at initiative or to get the gently caress out of dodge if the wizard is casting from maximum range, and I think "run away" is not an unreasonable reaction to knowing that an invisible wizard is casting a spell. Oh and if the Fighter is 10th-level or greater(he is) and has 13 or greater Int(which he may well have), he gets a save to glare right through the caster's invisibility. Oh and I'm perfectly aware of Player's Option. If we're rolling with Player's Option, of course, there's every chance the Fighter has the ability that gives him two points of MR per level, putting him further along the path of someone completely immune to spells. Nothing ignores MR. EclecticTastes posted:As for Imprisonment, the wizard doesn't need to cast it while the fighter is awake. Once he's invisible, he's free to Teleport Without Error somewhere safe for a bit and come back at his convenience with whatever stealth spells active he feels like. The fighter can prepare, but as he only has access to mundane means of detection, the wizard could more or less come and go as he pleases. Since we're apparently assuming 20th-level characters, a 20th-level Fighter is extremely likely to be a rich lord of some sort with bodyguards, who then hear chanting inside of their king's bedroom and charge in, swinging swords around, waking him up to dodge aside if nothing else. Secondly, after casting Teleport Without Error, the mage is paralyzed for a full round after arrival, and only three spells are explicitly called out as not disabling Invisibility on casting in the spell text(so that makes it a pretty fair assumption that all other spells do). So the wizard arrives, fully visible, and will have to cast a noisy spell to turn invisible again.
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May 17, 2022 22:37
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EclecticTastes posted:As for Imprisonment, the wizard doesn't need to cast it while the fighter is awake. Okay, once we're going to these conditions, this argument is beyond meaningless. May as well say the thief is the most powerful class because they can't fail to have "memorized" their Hide In Shadows and Move Silently percentages which are going to be exceptionally high at this level as well, so therefore they are always best prepared to slip in and murder anyone and everyone else asleep.
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May 17, 2022 22:37
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Also the classes aren't meant to fight each other, they are meant to go together and fight a red dragon and 1d4 slaads, PvP balance is a lie. (But I agree, in 2e, martial classes are incredibly powerful and basically always relevant so long as they remembered to pack a bow of some sort.)
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May 17, 2022 23:07
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I think we've reached the point in the argument where the discussion has moved far out of sight of "actual events that might happen in an 'average' TTRPG came," much less "things that have any relevance whatsoever to the Birthright video game" Don't get me wrong, it's a fun discussion in an intellectual exercise kinda way, but it's kinda like stopping halfway through a Let's Read of Crisis on Infinite Earths to argue about who Batman could or couldn't beat up
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May 17, 2022 23:08
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:Don't get me wrong, it's a fun discussion in an intellectual exercise kinda way, but it's kinda like stopping halfway through a Let's Read of Crisis on Infinite Earths to argue about who Batman could or couldn't beat up I hope this wasn't the halfway mark for the LP. This is more like having an argument after finishing the first issue (I hope) (and the answer is "Everyone because Batman had to always win by law, and against Superman its always a draw due to external forces (heart attacks count as external in this case)")
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May 17, 2022 23:16
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SIGSEGV posted:Also the classes aren't meant to fight each other, they are meant to go together and fight a red dragon and 1d4 slaads, PvP balance is a lie. Eh, in 2e they still ran with the idea that NPCs needed to use the same rules as PCs, including class levels, because verisimilitude.
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May 17, 2022 23:24
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:I think we've reached the point in the argument where the discussion has moved far out of sight of "actual events that might happen in an 'average' TTRPG came," much less "things that have any relevance whatsoever to the Birthright video game" Ugh, fine. I was just about to get into stuff involving Time Stop and Wall of Stone, too.... (though I was referring to Improved Invisibility earlier so spellcasting wouldn't break it, sorry for not being precise on that one)
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May 17, 2022 23:26
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Honestly my takeaway from this is less anything mechanical and more of "how in the hell did anyone actually play this game" than anything else. Behold, a rambling mess of feelings about it! Speaking as a filthy casual who's only experienced 5e (and 3e by proxy-ish through Pathfinder) seeing all this talk of hierlings with PC-level abilities (and character sheets mind) and armies and whatnot has made me go "okay, so the GM would need to roll for every one of those guys, so PCs would have like a fourth of the turns." And while I get the appeal of simulating a mass battle if you're doing it constantly enough (which is the point, especially in 2e from my understanding) it seems like it would get incredibly grating very quickly. Same with...well, the tabletop version of Birthright, because while I can get the gist of what's going on thanks to the UI and all that jazz I feel like trying to play it in the pre-Internet age would make an average GM go mad from having to keep track of so many numbers and so on. Besides, how the gently caress can you handle "well Dave decided to contest my holding, so I'mma gonna go and personally torch his temple" or whatever nonsense even the least creative PCs could come up with without succumbing to "you cant because the rules say so?" In any other game that would track, in a game as free-spirited and improvisational as D&D that's not exactly gonna be a popular move. Relatedly, and this time as someone who's been partly familiar with Birthright before this LP, I'm always surprised that there hasn't been a modern revival of this game or at least its core concept (that I'm aware of and would also have to be good). I know Pathfinder Kingmaker kinda does it but it's more of an afterthought compared to the actual RPG elements. Creating a turn-based strategy game like this where on occasion you could just go out and murderhobo a goblin camp or something sounds like it'd be stupidly fun in a less janky engine, and the ruleset is just begging for it to be made into a proper multiplayer game. Dr. Snark fucked around with this message at 23:39 on May 17, 2022 |
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May 17, 2022 23:30
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Dr. Snark posted:Relatedly, and this time as someone who's been partly familiar with Birthright before this LP, I'm always surprised that there hasn't been a modern revival of this game or at least its core concept (that I'm aware of and would also have to be good). I know Pathfinder Kingmaker kinda does it but it's more of an afterthought compared to the actual RPG elements. Creating a turn-based strategy game like this where on occasion you could just go out and murderhobo a goblin camp or something sounds like it'd be stupidly fun in a less janky engine, and the ruleset is just begging for it to be made into a proper multiplayer game. While there are no WotC-published revivals of the property, there have been conversions of Birthright for every edition from 3.0 to 5, and Wizards recognizes the group responsible as the setting's official fansite (Here's a link). There's a few different variants on a 5e conversion and I'm not sure any of them get it quite right, but it seems like between them, one could definitely synthesize a solid 5e Birthright campaign.
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May 18, 2022 00:06
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Mass battles are tricky because of the bookkeeping elements. I'm happy to discuss published methods, but the key to me is to use 'low-luck' rules unless the players are directly involved. Low-luck rules are a concept that were introduced in later iterations of the Axis & Allies board game. In this specific case, what each player would do is gain a point for the attack power of each unit in a battle: 1 for infantry, 2 for artillery, 3 for a tank, 4 for a bomber etc and add them up. For each full 6 points, there was one guaranteed hit. Any left over points, say 4, would be subject to a single d6 roll with another hit happening if the remainder or less is rolled. I admit that this might be a bit too deterministic, but I don't like chaotic dice rolls. People pretend that they enjoy highly unlikely outcomes to random rolls in the same way that they argue against replay in sport... until their team gets screwed by pure randomness/human error, then suddenly they change their tune. Everyone is okay with people getting screwed over untl they themselves are the victim. Point being is that luck should be minimized both to aid tracking results, but also to make the players' own actions be the most consequential. If due to the whim of fate the player's army is wiped out before the PCs can intervene, that's not fun. It's also not fun if the player army wins by a stroke of luck; both take away player agency, which is what games are all about. =========================== An another note, I'm still disappointed that this game doesn't allow character development, but it seems to be monty haul for magic items.
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May 18, 2022 00:24
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Tendales posted:Eh, in 2e they still ran with the idea that NPCs needed to use the same rules as PCs, including class levels, because verisimilitude. Running by the same rules for friends and foes is more of an artifact of the game's origin, an inherited artifact of when armor class and hitpoints were armor belts and compartments on battleships.
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May 18, 2022 00:32
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Dr. Snark posted:Honestly my takeaway from this is less anything mechanical and more of "how in the hell did anyone actually play this game" than anything else. Behold, a rambling mess of feelings about it! Birthright actually has an abstracted system for the mass battles. Oddly enough, I'm not actually sure if the Birthright videogame uses it, because it, uh. It doesn't tell you a loving thing. Everything is obfuscated. I'll get to show it off in the upcoming update. Also generally in D&D you weren't expected to be fighting a lot of elves and humans and other people with classes and thus "full" character sheets, generally you were meant to fight enemies out of the Monstrous Manual, where you largely only needed to note: Thac0, damage done per attack, Hit Dice and AC.
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May 18, 2022 00:37
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Dr. Snark posted:Relatedly, and this time as someone who's been partly familiar with Birthright before this LP, I'm always surprised that there hasn't been a modern revival of this game or at least its core concept (that I'm aware of and would also have to be good). I know Pathfinder Kingmaker kinda does it but it's more of an afterthought compared to the actual RPG elements. Creating a turn-based strategy game like this where on occasion you could just go out and murderhobo a goblin camp or something sounds like it'd be stupidly fun in a less janky engine, and the ruleset is just begging for it to be made into a proper multiplayer game. Videogame-wise, there really isn't much else like it. I guess that's a reason it's still interesting to play, enormous jank and all. The Mount & Blades have the same Bash Heads + Paint Maps combination if that's specifically what you're after. They're very different games from Birthright of course, in a different way from how Pathfinders Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous are also very different games from Birthright.
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May 18, 2022 00:39
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Dr. Snark posted:Speaking as a filthy casual who's only experienced 5e (and 3e by proxy-ish through Pathfinder) seeing all this talk of hierlings with PC-level abilities (and character sheets mind) and armies and whatnot has made me go "okay, so the GM would need to roll for every one of those guys, so PCs would have like a fourth of the turns." Generally allied buddies and such would get handed to players to help take some of that weight off the GM. The DMG suggested giving out partial character sheets for henchmen, but also to be willing to veto a player's choice of a NPC's action if the player is just blatantly abusing having that NPC buddy.
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May 18, 2022 02:05
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PurpleXVI posted:ahahahahahahahahah Late, but I meant Fighters as they are here; baseline, without any of the advanced stuff/splatbooks to give them options beyond being extremely durable beatsticks. I mean, they're good at it, but Birthright doesn't feature Gorgon Suplexing, and a dude who's really good at soaking damage is ultimately less broken in context than, say, a level 16 Wizard doing level 16 Wizard things. Also, at the levels we're generally dealing with here, spells with Saving Throws aren't completely useless yet. Just mostly useless. (Until you find good Rings of Protection)
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May 18, 2022 02:52
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