Best Version of DnD?

[Doug Sundseth]

CthulhuDreams:
"BTW, I really hate the scripting on this forum"

Word.

I gave up and decided to just use regular quotes.

CthulhuDreams:
"Check DC is 10+HD, so DC 16. Taking 10 gives us 14 in your scenario, or average roll of 14.5. On balance of probabilities, fighter doesn't know the bear lives a cave. Yeah sure, he might make the roll, but probably won't. But he's tanked his combat ability to allocate his secondary ability score to int instead of con."

Identify a common plant or animal = DC10
Identify a monster's abilities and weaknesses = DC10+CR (not HD). "For common monsters, ..., the DC of this check equals 5 + the monster's CR." Black bear is CR3, so DC8 (if it's common). Try again.
How many pieces of "useful information" are there about a black bear? (I wouldn't necessarily include "lives in a cave" in that list.)

And I disagree that the character has "tanked his combat ability". There are many tools you can use with INT that help a fighter. Including knowing what monsters do.

CthulhuDreams:
"The PF tier list isn't materially different from the 3.5 Tier list. Cleric is still tier 1 and Lore warden is tier 4. I haven't seen any widely agreed tier list that suggests otherwise. You can obviously make an optimised fighter that can hang with sub optimal clerics, but it's as it always was. If someone takes that same level up optimization and applies it to an actually good class the game snaps horribly."

What page of the Core Rulebook is this tier list on?   

Clerics and Druids in PF are nowhere near as much a problem as they were in 3.5. And Fighters are much, much better.

BTW, there's a difference between a Loremaster and a Lore Warden, which is a fighter archetype.
 
CthulhuDreams:
"And yes I know this is an argument that's been hashed out before, and it always goes like this, roughly:"

You do straw man argumentation very well. I think I'll allow you and your strawman to conduct your own argument and pass it by. I will note that you've given up on the "Alexander the Great" strawman. Interesting.
 
Unruly:

"I don't think that anyone is arguing that the way D&D handles fighter skills isn't dumb, because I'm pretty sure I've seen everyone here say that they agree fighters should get more skill points. ...."

CthulhuDreams:
"Actually doug is arguing exactly that, but sure. Incidentally, the way the rule works in the game is that you get 'one additional useful fact' for every 5 you beat the DC by. So the fighter who just makes the DC knows one thing about the animal. If you want to know 10 things about the animal, you need to beat the DC by 45. This fits with the mechanic you are talking about, and I'm assuming that a fighter should only know 1-2 things of useful direct combat relevance. You're example of being able to ID everything would require very high scores (as some sort of sage character would have). 
 
"I basically assume a fighter should know everything I do. I play D&D on average once a month for 5 years for 4 hours. A fighter is going to have put his actual life on the line - not roleplayed it! It's a werewolf, I need silver weapons. It's a red dragon, I need cold attacks etc. Like, *I* know this stuff and I'm not a professional D&D player. If I joe average knows, professional adventurers who are risking their life should surely know!"

First, I've never said that I would design Fighter skills the way that Paizo or WotC did. Please be good enough not to make up my side of the discussion. If you want to adduce my comments as an argument, please quote them.

My actual point is that neither is fundamentally broken in a troupe-style game.

As to "a fighter should know everything I do...."? You have access to the rulebooks, which include the physical laws of the universe and everything in it (GM changes and additions excepted, of course). You have played many adventures with many characters (assumption, but one I'm willing to make). Whatever your opinion, my opinion is that a brand-new adventurer following the tropes of Bildungsroman fantasy will decidedly not know everything you have found out in five years of gaming.
 
CthulhuDreams:
"My definition of unplayable is 'able to beat encounters and monsters of equal CR<~40%.'
"My definition of balanced is 'able to beat encounters and monsters of equal CR ~50% of the time.' 
"My definition of overpowered is 'able to beat encounters and monsters of equal CR > ~60% of the time.' 
 
"I reckon this is pretty reasonable?"


A PC is assumed to be CR = Lvl-1. That would imply that the design is intended to set such a character equal to a monster of CR = Lvl-1 and thus that a PC of a typical class should beat a monster of CR = Lvl-1 about half the time. This will depend greatly on the specific abilities of the PC and those of the monster in question, of course.

Using that definition, I would expect a 4th Lvl fighter to beat a black bear rather more than 50% of the time. So fighters are either balanced or overpowered.

Using your definition, remember.
 
Me:
"Finally, you seem to be very invested not only in your opinion, but in everyone else agreeing with your "self-evidently correct" position. This is not the first time this sort of discussion has been held on the internet; most people likely to participate have already thought through the issues at some length. Please be good enough to accept that not everyone wants the same things from a game that you do and not everyone agrees with your assessments even when they share your goals. Combative responses are unlikely to constructively further this thread."
 
CthulhuDreams:
"As does everyone else (See Auld Grump laying into 4E at every opportunity). The crux though is could you be making *better* decisions with more analytical information about the game."

Everyone else? You've adduced one interlocutor, and it's pretty clear to me that he has not been "laying into 4E at every opportunity". Hyperbole not supported by the available evidence.
 
CthulhuDreams:
"I submit yes, most people would be better off trying something different than 3.5/PF."

I've tried many games other than 3.5/PF. (I left D&D in 1979 for quite a long time and played quite a few different games afterward.) "trying something different" is not the same thing as "switching to something different", of course. If you mean the latter, you'll have to make a more reasoned case.

Every rules set is a compromise. PF has the advantage that it's widely known and easy to find players. And the problems that do exist (and there are quite a few, IMO) are mostly known at this point and workarounds are already agreed upon. Would I prefer to play a different game? Maybe, but it's not clear that the different game that I would prefer is the same as the different game that the other players would prefer. Compromise, remember.

Currently that means I'm playing PF regularly, because the balance of advantages and disadvantages favors it in my group.

CthulhuDreams:
"You've moved on for example - I assume you have a reason for that."

I have? I'll have to let my PF GM know before Friday, then. I'm sure it will be a surprise.

[BlazingTornado]

If you guys are having issues with quotes and breaking them up, there's a lightswitch on the upper left of the selection that turns it back into visible BBCode and allows you to fix up the quotes the way you want em.
The only downside is that mode lacks an auto-linebreak.

[Unruly]

 

Again, that assumes that a DM will run the monsters directly as written. Rule Zero is that a DM is allowed to alter anything as he/she sees fit. If I remember right, there was even a mention somewhere in one of the books, either the DMG or the MM, that mentioned how the monsters presented were to be considered an average example, and that they shouldn't be taken to represent everything.

 

 

I don't think rule zero is useful in these discussions - I mean, I could 'rule zero' my pathfinder game into dungeon world and then just play dungeon world. Look, no problems with class balance!

 

But new DMs (the sort who are asking 'whats the best version of D&D' don't usefully know how to do that. They are going to be leaning heavily on the text and the adventures they are given etc to know how to run the game. They are not going to know that, for example, you need to massively patch up fighters and nerf wizards to get game balance.

 

Well, Rule Zero is RAW, and you're arguing that modifying stuff isn't RAW when Rule Zero says otherwise. It's a printed rule, and so it holds just as much weight as any other printed rule when it comes to discussing the merits of the rules.

 

 

 

As for complaining that building a fighter with high Int means you make it unplayable you must have a different definition of unplayable than I do. Just because you can't build a character to be perfect doesn't mean it's useless. Yea, a fighter with a high Int may be less effective in a fight than one who just dumped all his points into Str and Con, but it's still going to do better swinging a sword than a wizard will. Also, if I remember right, D&D tends to assume an average ability score of about 12 for PCs. In fact, 5th edition's rules for building with points give you just enough points to put two skills at 13 and the rest at 12. I'm pretty sure I remember reading in either the 1e or 2e AD&D PHB that 13 was considered a good score. So for later editions to consider it the average just shows how much more powerful in general the players have become.

 

It would depend on what edition of D&D we're talking about. Since I'm currently playing 5e, let's do that. Surprisingly, it was pretty easy to do something up that I think fits the bill pretty well. Variant Human Battle Master Fighter with the Skilled feat, an above-average Intelligence and Charisma, low Con(he died of illness at 30), and the Noble background. Spend your class proficiencies on Insight and Athletics, gain Persuasion and History from the background, and then take Perception, Nature, and either Religion or Survival for the Skilled feat.

 

I don't give the argument that 'well, he's still better at swinging a sword than a wizard' much weight. My primary concern is that's a bad metric to assess the wizard by. The wizard is a spellcaster, and it not being good at non-spell related things isn't a bug, it's a feature. You should be assessing against the fighters ability to contribute in encounters. As you correctly point out, the fighter has tanked his ability to contribute in encounters which means the DM is going to need to do tons of work to redo all the game's combat math and encounter workday - which leads to re-writing all the classes. Which is bad

 

Your 5E design is interesting, but the problem is that character is very unlikely to survive levels 1-3 because of the low Con score and his int/charisma is basically entirely dead weight. The game basically makes fighters have a high con if you start from level 1 because of the risks of dying from a random hit. For example, our hypothetical alexander gets instantly one shot by a charging centaur about 30-40% of the time at level 2 (a CR2 encounter). 

 

I suspect you'd be better off making him an Oath of Vengeance paladin/sorcerer and refluffing extensively in 5E. The paladin's save bonus aura becomes Alexander's leadership skills etc. Now he has an organically high charisma score and it contributes to his martial exploits and the like.

 

I don't remember Alexander the Great being able to cast spells or call down divine wrath. You asked me to build Alexander the Great, so I did just that. Just because you consider a fighter with a handful less HP than the other guy "useless" doesn't mean that he actually is.

 

Here's the Alexander the Great that I suggested, using the Standard Array, which is the equivalent of a 27 point buy, with the stats laid out like I said to, taken up to Level 3 so he's able to actually be a Battle Master. HP calculated using fixed values(6+Con for fighter) as mentioned in the PHB. -

 

 

 

Variant Human, Fighter(Battle Master) 3, Noble background

Str 14, Dex 10, Con 8, Int 16, Wis 12, Cha 14.

Proficiency +2

HP: 19(3d10-3), AC: 19(Chainmail 16, Shield +2, Fighting Style +1)

Attacks: Spear +4, 1d6+2(P)   Light Crossbow +2 1d8(P) Range 80/320ft

Defense Fighting Style

Combat Superiority(d8) 4/SR

Maneuvers: Distracting Strike, Maneuvering Strike, Rally.

Skills: Acrobatics +0, Animal Handling +3, Arcana +3, Athletics +4, Deception +2, History +5, Insight +3, Intimidation +2, Investigation +3, Medicine +1, Nature +5, Perception +3, Performance +2, Persuasion +4, Religion +5, Sleight of Hand +0, Stealth +0, Survival +1.

Passive Perception: 13

Feats: Skilled

Second Wind 1d10+3 1/SR

Action Surge 1/SR

Languages: Common and 2 others.

Tools: Proficient with one gaming set and one artisan's tools.

 

 

 

Looks perfectly playable and functional to me. Heck, now that I've done it I'm thinking I'll bring him in to my weekly game as part of the party rotation we're doing. Hit level 4 and I could take either Durable(Con +1, negates the negative Con modifier when resting by making your minimum regained HP per HD 2) or Tough(Add HP equal to double your level on taking, +2 HP per level for every level after) to try to negate the low Con, or I could just take Mounted Combatant to stick with the Alexander theme because he was a cavalryman, not infantry.

 

My definition of unplayable is 'able to beat encounters and monsters of equal CR<~40%.'

My definition of balanced is 'able to beat encounters and monsters of equal CR ~50% of the time.' 

My definition of overpowered is 'able to beat encounters and monsters of equal CR > ~60% of the time.' 

 

I reckon this is pretty reasonable?

Actually, no, it's not reasonable at all. You know why? You seem to be of the belief that CR is the same as player level. It's not, and as far as I'm aware never has been. CR makes the assumption of a party of 4 characters. A CR 2 monster is balanced against a party of 4 level 2 characters with average stats(read: Standard Array or Point Buy) with the assumption that the whole party can defeat it about 70% of the time while working together. To say that a single level 2 character should be able to defeat a CR 2 encounter on their own in order to be considered balanced means you have a very different idea of balance than what the game itself does.

 

I couldn't find what 3.5 says, since it's not on the SRD and I don't have the books on hand right now, but here's what PF says about CR for things that don't have natural HD, aka every PC that doesn't have an ECL adjustment -

 

Creatures whose Hit Dice are solely a factor of their class levels and not a feature of their race, such as all of the PC races detailed in Races, are factored into combats a little differently than normal monsters or monsters with class levels. A creature that possesses class levels, but does not have any racial Hit Dice, is factored in as a creature with a CR equal to its class levels –1. A creature that only possesses non-player class levels (such as a warrior or adept) is factored in as a creature with a CR equal to its class levels –2. If this reduction would reduce a creature's CR to below 1, its CR drops one step on the following progression for each step below 1 this reduction would make: 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/6, 1/8.

So you're wanting a PC who would considered CR 1(level 2 with a player class and no natural HD) if they were an enemy to be able to win a fight with a CR 2 monster 50% of the time. See the problem?

 

While 5e doesn't balance encounters by CR and balances by XP thresholds instead, it still works out to be largely the same formula. Since we're talking a level 2 PC, those XP thresholds for a single character, which are actually laid out as such in the DMG, are Easy at 50xp, Medium at 100xp, Hard at 150xp, and Deadly at 200xp. Then there are modifiers based on how many monsters are in an encounter, which also get used to adjust for when either you have a party of less than 3 or more than 6. In the example of a single monster versus a single character, you would add an extra half of the monster's XP value to the encounter for the sake of determining encounter difficulty. For reference, a Deadly encounter is described as, and I quote, "...could be lethal for one or more player characters. Survival often requires good tactics and quick thinking, and the party risks defeat."

 

A ghast in 5e is a CR2(450xp). It has an average HP pool of 36, AC 13, a +5 to hit, and averages 10 damage per attack while forcing a save vs. paralysis. Oh, and if you're within 5 feet of it it forces you to save vs. poison every turn too. Poison in 5e forces its victim to have disadvantage on attacks and ability checks until they're cured, meaning for every roll you're forced to roll twice and take the lowest result. I don't know many level 2 PCs that could claim to be able to do the same. Pitting your average level 2 PC against that solo is practically suicide because that encounter, following the rules for encounter building, is actually rated at being a 675xp encounter, or more than 3x what the DMG considers to be a deadly encounter for a single level 2 PC. But you've said yourself that if a character of any class doesn't have a 50/50 chance of beating that solo it's unplayable in you're eyes. So you're saying is that you think a level 2 character should be able to do what would still be considered deadly for a 4th level character. It doesn't fall out of being a deadly encounter for a solo PC until 5th level, when it drops smack into the zone between Medium and Hard.

 

So yea, I think you've got some unrealistic expectations for what a class should be able to do.

 

EDIT: Doug touched on a lot of what I was saying while I was working on this, but I'm at work so it took me like 2 hours of finding a few minutes every so often to work on what I was posting.

 

As for the scripting here, it's standard BBCode. Just about every major forum setup uses it in the exact same way. The only thing is that they have a WYSIWYG editor enabled by default, but you can turn that off with a click of a button like BT said. Though CthulhuDreams, it would be nice if when you're quoting and you're removing names from the quotes, don't jumble stuff up between multiple people. Keep each person's quotes grouped together until the next named quote comes up. It makes it much easier to know who you're responding to.

Edited February 27, 2017 by Unruly

[VitM]

 

My definition of unplayable is 'able to beat encounters and monsters of equal CR<~40%.'

My definition of balanced is 'able to beat encounters and monsters of equal CR ~50% of the time.' 

My definition of overpowered is 'able to beat encounters and monsters of equal CR > ~60% of the time.' 

 

I reckon this is pretty reasonable?

Actually, no, it's not reasonable at all. You know why? You seem to be of the belief that CR is the same as player level. It's not, and as far as I'm aware never has been. CR makes the assumption of a party of 4 characters. A CR 2 monster is balanced against a party of 4 level 2 characters with average stats(read: Standard Array or Point Buy) with the assumption that the whole party can defeat it about 70% of the time while working together. To say that a single level 2 character should be able to defeat a CR 2 encounter on their own in order to be considered balanced means you have a very different idea of balance than what the game itself does.

 

I couldn't find what 3.5 says, since it's not on the SRD and I don't have the books on hand right now, but here's what PF says about CR for things that don't have natural HD, aka every PC that doesn't have an ECL adjustment -

 

 

I just had to comment on this.  A party of 4 should only be able to beat a single monster with a CR equal to their level 70% of the time?!?    No.  An encounter with a single monster of CR = average party level is supposed to be virtually guaranteed curb-stomp.  You should be able to virtually sleepwalk through that encounter.  You are "supposed" to have 4 of those encounters per day, and ~13 of them between level ups.  If you only have a 70% success rate, iterative probability kills off almost everyone before they get to second level.  You're playing a rogue-like at that point; and I personally prefer computers to run those.

 

An encounter of APL + 4 (which you get by putting 4 CR = APL creatures together) is supposed to be "dangerous" because it's intended to be a 50% win chance for the PCs.  So, yes, a single character should be able to face off against a creature of CR = PC level and prevail about 50% of the time without outside help.  If your character can't do that, your character is a detriment to the team.  Whether that's a result of bad build or bad class is open for debate, but also irrelevant.

[Doug Sundseth]

If you guys are having issues with quotes and breaking them up, there's a lightswitch on the upper left of the selection that turns it back into visible BBCode and allows you to fix up the quotes the way you want em.

The only downside is that mode lacks an auto-linebreak.

 

Yeah, I can usually get that to work, but it failed miserably here. Each subsequent quoted section ended up as a sub-quote even when the end-quotes matched correctly.

 

ETA: I even pulled the text into Notepad to strip any hidden formatting, which had no effect at all. I suspect there was an unmatched formatting tag of some sort that I couldn't find, but I eventually gave up trying to make the post look pretty.

Edited February 27, 2017 by Doug Sundseth

[Loim]

This month's LL game went well. Once we finally got the new player introduced to the group, and they were done being belligerent with another NPC that was there to help them. It helps that he was a more powerful than them Gnome Necromancer who put the most verbal on his pratt with one magic missle via wand. They eventually made their way to the ruined temple and started slogging their way through. I've had to compensate a few times for the fact that this group has -5 finesse about anything. Kicking doors and yelling is their SOP. They managed to kill all the Orcs they've encountered thus far while not dying themselves. One guy got really close to bleeding out before they finally remembered he was bleeding out and stabilized him. 

 

The new character picked a Gnome Fighter/Illusionist, which I thought was a fun choice, though thus far he's spent the balance of most of the combat unconscious through repeated poor choices :). 

[Jokemeister]

 

You're using real world soldiers to compare but the comparison falls down once you start looking at why real world soldiers have the info they have.  One thing that isn't widely acknowledged is that the armed forces are extremely good at knowledge management (no surprise when you consider that, for them, knowledge management is literally a matter of life or death).  They have intelligence sources who are out gathering info and collating that into useful intel. 

 

A trained soldier in a city/village (or wherever they are from) doesn't have a database to pull up info from.  All he has is the occasional travelling bard (or maybe a traveling mercenary) to tell him about fantastical creatures they might have encountered.  And at that point, the trained soldier not only has to remember that info but then consider whether the source of that info was exaggerating (and we all know soldiers never exaggerate about their accomplishments when discussing it over an ale right?).  

 

 

PCs have the option to gather information about their foes as well. They can talk to people in the area, do research about what they've heard of, and there is likely to be someone in the group that they can ask, especially if they do the research first. (Which is to say that I largely agree.)

 

 

Agree.  My point is that they're not going to know that unless they do that additional research in the area where those monsters are common.  The fighter isn't going to magically know it just because he is a professional soldier.

 

So, yes, a single character should be able to face off against a creature of CR = PC level and prevail about 50% of the time without outside help.  If your character can't do that, your character is a detriment to the team.  Whether that's a result of bad build or bad class is open for debate, but also irrelevant.

 

 

Not sure I agree with the bolded part.  Games like D&D are built around the concept of the party.  It wouldn't surprise me to see a PC build, designed to support the party, end up not being great in solo combat and losing that one on one fight.

[CthulhuDreams]

 

If you guys are having issues with quotes and breaking them up, there's a lightswitch on the upper left of the selection that turns it back into visible BBCode and allows you to fix up the quotes the way you want em.

The only downside is that mode lacks an auto-linebreak.

 

Yeah, I can usually get that to work, but it failed miserably here. Each subsequent quoted section ended up as a sub-quote even when the end-quotes matched correctly.

 

ETA: I even pulled the text into Notepad to strip any hidden formatting, which had no effect at all. I suspect there was an unmatched formatting tag of some sort that I couldn't find, but I eventually gave up trying to make the post look pretty.

 

 

 

There is a limit on the number of quote blocks you can have in a post - which is what I was hitting.

 

A ghast in 5e is a CR2(450xp). It has an average HP pool of 36, AC 13, a +5 to hit, and averages 10 damage per attack while forcing a save vs. paralysis. Oh, and if you're within 5 feet of it it forces you to save vs. poison every turn too. Poison in 5e forces its victim to have disadvantage on attacks and ability checks until they're cured, meaning for every roll you're forced to roll twice and take the lowest result. I don't know many level 2 PCs that could claim to be able to do the same. Pitting your average level 2 PC against that solo is practically suicide because that encounter, following the rules for encounter building, is actually rated at being a 675xp encounter, or more than 3x what the DMG considers to be a deadly encounter for a single level 2 PC. But you've said yourself that if a character of any class doesn't have a 50/50 chance of beating that solo it's unplayable in you're eyes. So you're saying is that you think a level 2 character should be able to do what would still be considered deadly for a 4th level character. It doesn't fall out of being a deadly encounter for a solo PC until 5th level, when it drops smack into the zone between Medium and Hard.

 

So yea, I think you've got some unrealistic expectations for what a class should be able to do.

 

 

This is a critical source of confusion. The 3.5 CR rules are different from the PF rules which are different from the 5e rules. For the purpose of clarity, I was using the 3.5 rules. 

 

In 3.5 a Level 4 wizard is a CR 4 challenge, and as the CR rules are fully transitive a Level 4 fighter should win a 1v1 a level 4 wizard 50% of the time. Which is obviously not true. You'll need to rebenchmark for different systems. 

 

The comment about tier lists not being in the core rules is funny. Sure! But the actual rules are, and it's super clear that, for example, a level 17 wizard can cast wish and a level 17 warrior has literally nothing that approaches that level of capability. 

 

Re: Alexander the great - the sample Alexander has 19 HP at level 3. A CR2 Centaur does 21 damage on a charge. Is that a playable HP count for a front line warrior? 

Edited February 28, 2017 by CthulhuDreams

[CthulhuDreams]

 

 

You're using real world soldiers to compare but the comparison falls down once you start looking at why real world soldiers have the info they have.  One thing that isn't widely acknowledged is that the armed forces are extremely good at knowledge management (no surprise when you consider that, for them, knowledge management is literally a matter of life or death).  They have intelligence sources who are out gathering info and collating that into useful intel. 

 

A trained soldier in a city/village (or wherever they are from) doesn't have a database to pull up info from.  All he has is the occasional travelling bard (or maybe a traveling mercenary) to tell him about fantastical creatures they might have encountered.  And at that point, the trained soldier not only has to remember that info but then consider whether the source of that info was exaggerating (and we all know soldiers never exaggerate about their accomplishments when discussing it over an ale right?).  

 

 

PCs have the option to gather information about their foes as well. They can talk to people in the area, do research about what they've heard of, and there is likely to be someone in the group that they can ask, especially if they do the research first. (Which is to say that I largely agree.)

 

 

Agree.  My point is that they're not going to know that unless they do that additional research in the area where those monsters are common.  The fighter isn't going to magically know it just because he is a professional soldier.

 

So, yes, a single character should be able to face off against a creature of CR = PC level and prevail about 50% of the time without outside help.  If your character can't do that, your character is a detriment to the team.  Whether that's a result of bad build or bad class is open for debate, but also irrelevant.

 

 

Not sure I agree with the bolded part.  Games like D&D are built around the concept of the party.  It wouldn't surprise me to see a PC build, designed to support the party, end up not being great in solo combat and losing that one on one fight.

 

 

I'd put it subtly differently - they need to be a contributor against a gauntlet of challenges. So for example (in 3.5 terms) we might have:

 

A) A number (4) of centaur archers (CR7)

B) A corridor of magical traps (CR7)

C) A pair of trolls in a closet! (CR7)

D) Climbing a 3000 foot icy cliff in a blizzard (CR7)

E) Fighting a ~35 skeletons  (CR7)

 

In some encounters a character should be very good, some encounters they will do very poorly, and some encounters will be balanced. Overall, you'd expect the success rate to be 50/50.Then, when a party does it, they'll overall be able to deal well the challenges, with characters that are particularly strong in some circumstances cover for characters that are weak in other circumstances. 

 

So you can see our warrior is going to struggle mighty with B whereas the wizard (dispel magic) cleric (Find traps - though not really disarm traps) and rogue (core compentency in finding and disabling traps, though the disable device rules are Questionable ) can all deal with that challenge. 

 

Overall, you'd hope that they land at 50/50 and then in play other people cover. I'd suggest if play those encounters out though a level 7 fighter is going to have an extremely arduous time (lacking range attacks for A, lacking any way to deal with B, lacking a way to tank through the immense damage that trolls will crank out in melee combat in D or disable the trolls, though maybe the right trip build will be able to deal with it). 

 

You'd think D would be a clear cut success. But take Alexander the great's statline from the above post. He's probably going to fall and die as his climb modifier at level 7 would be... 10 ranks + 2 stats vs a DC of 20 (Pitons DC 15 + Ice for +5 DC). Use rope isn't a class skill so he won't have a synergy bonus. So he falls and dies if he rolls a 1, 2 or 3. He passes an average of 75% of his climb checks, moving a 1/4 speed he needs to pass 200 climb checks roughly. 

 

So he falls off 99.99%+ of the time and probably dies. The wizard casts fly and away he goes, which makes the story of the Sogdian rock rather unfortunate. 

 

Edit: I forgot armor, but let's assume the Fighter takes it off for the climb. 

Edited February 28, 2017 by CthulhuDreams

[BlazingTornado]

You'd think D would be a clear cut success. But take Alexander the great's statline from the above post. He's probably going to fall and die as his climb modifier at level 7 would be... 10 ranks + 2 stats vs a DC of 20 (Pitons DC 15 + Ice for +5 DC). Use rope isn't a class skill so he won't have a synergy bonus. So he falls and dies if he rolls a 1, 2 or 3. He passes an average of 75% of his climb checks, moving a 1/4 speed he needs to pass 200 climb checks roughly.

Yeah but the Alexander statline is for a 5th Editiion build, where it's just a basic Strength (Athletics) check to climb.

[Sylverthorne]

You're making a lot of assumptions about people's fighter builds.

You're also making a lot of assumptions about play-styles, and quite frankly, it's getting old. I see - I think - what you're getting at, but the fact is, that isn't going to be the case for every group.

 

When a group runs together, they are - especially in any game I run - intended to work as a team. By level seven, I expect them to be fully capable of working their way through that collection of threats without too much trouble. That includes the fighter.

Centaur archers? The group should have ranged capability. The fighter's primary weapon might not be the bow, but he should be competent enough, with the rest of the group, to force the centaurs into cover. That lets the group move up. That assumes the group's magic users don't pull caster nonsense out of their sleeves. A bunch of celestial dire lions is going to ruin any pack of archer's day.

Corridor of traps? Rogue's turn to shine; ideally, he has help from the casters, but trap management is part of why she's there.

Trolls in a closet? ... I fear to ask. But, y'know, fire and acid removes the main advantage, and if it takes a couple of rounds for a group that hasn't dealt with trolls before to cotton on, well. Life is pain.

I know of no party that willingly climbs /anything/ in a blizzard. The wizard pops up a safe place to wait it out, the group waits it out and /then/ deals with the cliff; probably with caster nonsense in reserve.

Skeletons? Cleric's time to shine. Everybody else breaks out the blunt instruments and goes to town.

 

I know of no version of D&D that is intended as a solo show. It's a cooperative game. If you can't learn to cooperate and use teamwork, you probably shouldn't be playing group-based RPGs.

[CthulhuDreams]

 

You'd think D would be a clear cut success. But take Alexander the great's statline from the above post. He's probably going to fall and die as his climb modifier at level 7 would be... 10 ranks + 2 stats vs a DC of 20 (Pitons DC 15 + Ice for +5 DC). Use rope isn't a class skill so he won't have a synergy bonus. So he falls and dies if he rolls a 1, 2 or 3. He passes an average of 75% of his climb checks, moving a 1/4 speed he needs to pass 200 climb checks roughly.

Yeah but the Alexander statline is for a 5th Editiion build, where it's just a basic Strength (Athletics) check to climb.

 

 

Yeah, but even if you build a similar concept in 3.5 you end up with the same problem. Let's use the elite array and go:

 

Strength: 15 +1 from the level 4 stat increase (+3 modifer)

Dex: 10

Con: 13

Int: 14

Wis: 8 

Cha: 12

 

Now he only falls and dies on a roll of one, but his chance of dying is... 99%. (The real lesson here is the climb rules are not very good: if he has strength 18 and is level 7 he's fine, but if he was level 6 he'd die every time. The wizard also got flight 2 levels ago so why are we making the fighter roll dice to climb things even?)

 

You're making a lot of assumptions about people's fighter builds.

You're also making a lot of assumptions about play-styles, and quite frankly, it's getting old. I see - I think - what you're getting at, but the fact is, that isn't going to be the case for every group.

 

When a group runs together, they are - especially in any game I run - intended to work as a team. By level seven, I expect them to be fully capable of working their way through that collection of threats without too much trouble. That includes the fighter.

Centaur archers? The group should have ranged capability. The fighter's primary weapon might not be the bow, but he should be competent enough, with the rest of the group, to force the centaurs into cover. That lets the group move up. That assumes the group's magic users don't pull caster nonsense out of their sleeves. A bunch of celestial dire lions is going to ruin any pack of archer's day.

Corridor of traps? Rogue's turn to shine; ideally, he has help from the casters, but trap management is part of why she's there.

Trolls in a closet? ... I fear to ask. But, y'know, fire and acid removes the main advantage, and if it takes a couple of rounds for a group that hasn't dealt with trolls before to cotton on, well. Life is pain.

I know of no party that willingly climbs /anything/ in a blizzard. The wizard pops up a safe place to wait it out, the group waits it out and /then/ deals with the cliff; probably with caster nonsense in reserve.

Skeletons? Cleric's time to shine. Everybody else breaks out the blunt instruments and goes to town.

 

I know of no version of D&D that is intended as a solo show. It's a cooperative game. If you can't learn to cooperate and use teamwork, you probably shouldn't be playing group-based RPGs.

 

Right - as I said, I'm not expecting someone to succeed in every encounter. You'd expect that the class would be particularly good in some situations, and particularly bad in other situations. It's actually a huge problem if someone is a key player in every situation because of how spotlight sharing works in games.

 

In an RPG you want to craft situations so each character has a chance of shine, and you want to share that spotlight time relatively equally, and you want to do that within the context of an adventure you're running - this is like, DM level advice so I'm sure you know what I mean. Similarly, teamwork happens when someone is bad at something, then you pull your other guys through. For example, in my 4E game I'm running, the party had to help the sorcerer through quicksand because she's bad a climbing. That was a chance for the cleric (who has high strength and athletics) to do something cool. But I don't want to do that very often, because the sorcerer doesn't feel great in that situation. (Conversely the Sorcerer blew up a mechanical bear chasing them through a maze, so she got some spotlight time in that encounter)

 

So going back to our gauntlet of challenges, I'm expecting that:

 

1) Sometimes each class will be exceptionally 'good' at that challenge. This creates spotlight time for that character and that's great and important to give that player unique moments to shine. You don't want to many of these otherwise the other characters will feel nerf/bad compared to the spotlight hog. 

2) Somtimes each class will be exceptionally 'bad' at that challenge. This creates a spotlight opportunity for someone else. HOWEVER it is critical not to have to many of these because otherwise that player will feel bad/under-powered because they don't get to contribute. 

3) Most of the time the character will be 50/50 because they are a contributor, but not carrying the party through that situation. 

 

So, let's go back to your example and see how the party shares spotlight in those scenerios. I'm just using your descriptions of resolution because I don't want to make assumptions about play styles -

 

a) Casters and ranged characters win, our hypothetical spear armed fighter is fairly nerf unless the centaurs decide to close the range. 

B) Rogue shines with caster assistance

C) Everyone contributes but fire and acid attacks are key, which the casters have 'organically' and anyone can get via magic items

D) Casters again

E) Cleric

 

So, you can see per your example the fighter isn't making making a unique contribution to resolving the challenges! He gets little spotlight time, which is an unhealthy dynamic. You can also see the other problem - the party wizard is making a unique contribution to 4 of the 5 challenges....

 

I like to consider each character in relative isolation because then you can develop a frank assessment of how *that character* is contributing. You can do this in a team context as well if you want, but it adds a lot of noise to the analysis and significantly increases complexity. 

Edited February 28, 2017 by CthulhuDreams

[Sylverthorne]

So, CD, I have two problems with your example.

 

The first one is that you clearly have a bias against fighters. I don't think anything any of us have said that's challenged that has made it past your filter.

 

Two, what kind of fighter uses a spear when he has - stock! - a proficiency that includes the longbow?

 

I can build - /in 3.5e/ - a functional fighter, using a standard point-buy. That character will function, he will hold his specific fort and he'll probably be useful at range as well as in melee. I can also build, still using 3.5e, a functional group that /supports itself/. In any situation, for any situation, involved classes wholly irrelevant. But that is because I understand RPGs as a group effort. I play them as a group effort. As a player, and as a GM.

 

I'm getting the impression you either don't grasp that, or you're not actually absorbing anything anyone has said.

I've said what I have to say. Good day, sir.

[CthulhuDreams]

So, CD, I have two problems with your example.

 

The first one is that you clearly have a bias against fighters. I don't think anything any of us have said that's challenged that has made it past your filter.

 

Two, what kind of fighter uses a spear when he has - stock! - a proficiency that includes the longbow?

 

I can build - /in 3.5e/ - a functional fighter, using a standard point-buy. That character will function, he will hold his specific fort and he'll probably be useful at range as well as in melee. I can also build, still using 3.5e, a functional group that /supports itself/. In any situation, for any situation, involved classes wholly irrelevant. But that is because I understand RPGs as a group effort. I play them as a group effort. As a player, and as a GM.

 

I'm getting the impression you either don't grasp that, or you're not actually absorbing anything anyone has said.

I've said what I have to say. Good day, sir.

 

3.5 strongly encourages (I'd say forces) weapon specialization in fighters because of how feat trees work. you start out with flexibility in what weapons you use, but you lose that flexibility over time as you take more and more feats in feat chains and become increasingly specalised. This happens in 4E and 5E as well - 4E makes it impossible to change weapons after about level 2, and 5E makes you pick a fighting style out of the gate, and most people are going to pick up GWM early or similar. Feat support is bad for spears so I'd probably be better off taking a polearm and refluffing it as a spear, but for the purposes of discussion say I take Cleave and great cleave, and weapon focus and weapon specialization with my spear. Now I'm great combatant with my spear and can get a lot of good work done, but I've also sunk a lot of resources into my spear. Also, my spear is my best magic weapon.

 

Now, when I confront the centaur archers, I have to pull out my fallback weapon - my bow. Sure, I'm proficient in it but: 

 

A) It's probably not as magical as my spear

B) none of my feats work with it 

 

It's a very bad situation for the fighter player and character. I'm probably down at-least +2 to hit and +5 to damage, which drops my damage output by approximately 20%. The same problem happens when you go to fight the skeletons. OK I can switch out to my warhammer, but now none of my feats work. You've moved the spotlight off me because you've turned off my class features (rogue has the same problem in 3.5 when you go fight the skeletons). Flipside, if you built him as an archer from day one, he's going to be in serious trouble against the trolls. 

 

This is precisely what I was talking about when I said sometimes you create situations where someone under performs - fighting skeletons and archers is precisely a situation where my Spear warrior under-performs because my class features (bonus feats which I've invested in piercing melee weapons) don't work. Why is a fighter expected to carry around a golf bag of weapons anyway? A simple fix is to let the fighter exchange all his feats when he changes weapons but that's not how it works (plus probably requires 3-4 character sheets)

 

I actually am sometimes puzzled - have you actually played a fighter in a double digits level game? How can you actually freely switch weapons because of the magic items situation. The 'weapon swap' situation gets increasingly worse/ridiculous as the fighter ends up carting around a golf bag of weapons that you need to switch between, but it's not feasible under the WBL guidelines to actually HAVE enough sufficently enhanced magic weapons. I solved this by ruling that every fighter (well, martial types generally and monks) after level 7 got the effects of greater magic weapon applied to whatever they were holding as a free effect and their fists. Solves many, many problems with the game. 

Edited February 28, 2017 by CthulhuDreams

[Doug Sundseth]

I'm getting the impression you either don't grasp that, or you're not actually absorbing anything anyone has said.

I've said what I have to say. Good day, sir.

 

Yup. Same here. I've said what I intended to say in this part of the discussion. Further writing is unlikely to add anything substantive.