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13 months ago ::
May 29, 2012 - 9:02AM
#71
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Date Joined:
May 28, 2012
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"Exactly. To use a modern analogy if I have only an assault rifle or Squad Automatic Weapon, even a medium machinegun, it is pointless for me to target even a light armored vehicle except to try to kill an exposed crew member, it is a far better use of my resources to try to eliminate artillery crew members, officers, and regular infantry while the person with the antiarmor weapons does his thing. Right now the fighter is a light armored vehicle with a sniper rifle, I'd like him to get a AT-4 and a handgrenade added to his combat load out (Opportunity Attacks are a separate issue I want to see just put back in the game along with some guidance on improvisation that DM's are then free to modify, its to open for my tastes right now)."
That's a terrible analogy. Modern warfare and tactics aren't entirely applicable to medival conflict outside of the broadest scopes; specifically because of advances in technology and the layout of a battlefield. In an insurgency, best use of resources is completely different to best use in full on war or in peacekeeping; and the tactics being used change best use of resources as well. Also, a LAV would be more of a monster than a fighter; artillery has its own close defence guys you have to get through first, and multiple levels of leadership combined with battle procedure makes killing officers less effective as it once was.
In the fantasy (or even pre-firearms/early firearms historical battle) context; destroying the strongest point in the line was often critical to success. With that point gone, other units had to shift, then enemies dispostion on the battlefield became confused (unless a retreat was ordered, but that lead to other problems), and the assaulting force could push in and engage other units at an advantage. In this playtest, the fighter is that strongpoint in the line. In a frontal attack, killing the fighter is the key to victory. This is done knowing that casualties will be heavy, after all, it's a frontal assault against a strongpoint.
Now, if you want to go asymmetric with this, then your bugbears attack several points simultaneously, tying down the fighter in front with one or two adversaries while pushing the rest of their force (lead by the boss bugbear) on the flank and rear of the party; the fighter loses his support and is outnumbered, unable to safely disengage to fall back to assist his buddies; the clerics are out of the game, forced into warrior roles (so they aren't casting) and the wizard now depends on the rogue (if they weren't up with the fighter) to cover while they try to kick out as many spells as possible. In this scenario, the optimum time to do this would be shorly after the party had just come out of another encounter (ensuring spells have already been expended). In a flanking maneuver or ambush, locking down the fighter is key while you kill off everyone else, doing so prevents him from relieving any spell casters to use magic to heal up comrades or inflict more damage.
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13 months ago ::
May 29, 2012 - 9:11AM
#72
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Date Joined:
Apr 21, 2011
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So yeah, a ruthlessly efficient DM could just focus fire the casters and healer to death and then calmly kite the fighter to death, in fact he could effortlessly do this in any previous edition as well should he wish to.
Not in 4e.
i'm DMing wednesday encoutners right now and i have had, in the first session, many chances to FF the squishies (I have refrained from doing so) but if a DM really wants to he can throw everything at the squishies and go for a kill, ignoring the threat of OA's, even if he loses the encounter to do so, he still kills a player and starts to dissmantle the team.
Moderated by
ORC_Ragnar
on May 29, 2012 - 11:16AM
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13 months ago ::
May 29, 2012 - 9:34AM
#73
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Sorry late to the test/forum. Did anyone mention just using the 1e mechanics to stop people ignoring fighters? We always had the fighter 'hold' back monsters from the Magic-User etc.
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13 months ago ::
May 29, 2012 - 9:35AM
#74
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Date Joined:
Aug 22, 2007
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Page 3 of the Caves of Chaos; section Killer Encounters did a really good job of letting me know that if you bit off more than you could chew, then you were toast.
I still stand behind the fact that players wandering into a bad situation and a DM running that situation as appropriate does ≠ a bad DM.
For some us of old gamers, the Killer Encounter is what kept us always at the edge of our seats. Does this mean that I literally had to have my characters grovel at the feet of dragons? Yup. Did I promise a Death Knight that I would rob graves for bones to feed his army of undead? Yup. Did I enjoy making those compromises? Nope. But I did learn to hate that NPC and it made it all the more sweet when I finally got to take him out.
My group is going to run through another playtest tonight and see what we can see. Now that we understand that the Fighter doesn't have a lot of auto effects compared to the Wizard or the Clerics, we're going to see if we can't do the minimal amount possible to shore those up and see how he performs when his only concern isn't just how much damage he throws around.
that same section also tells you, the DM to be responsible for giving your players a heads up on not running headlong into certain death. go read it again.
also, you might want to tell you players to think about the team, and maybe consider showing the wizard what the ray of frost spell does. after that hint to your fighter that you can move attack and then move again.
it's pretty hard for the hob goblin to run away when he is perma frozen to the floor until the tank with the hold the line ability gets over him to stop him from moving further allowing for botht he fighter to dart in and out attacking without AO's and the wizard to unload MM or RoF incase he does get away
why fight the fighter? TEAMWORK
I am starting to really enjoy your imflamatory and combative comments, such as the first one that I have emphasized above. I can imagine that were you in my gaming group, this encounter would have brought you to tears over how unfair I was that I didn't give you character a way to escape certain death.
The rampant assumptions that you make about what I did and didn't do for my players is not only wrong, but totally not the point of this thread.
The second emphasized comment tells me that you have only selectively read what I have previously posted about my gaming group and how long they have been teaming up against my dungeons; which is also not the point of this thread.
And lastly, I will point out that Teamwork does not give any monster a reason to Fight the Fighter, it allows the Fighter to Fight the Monster. While the concepts are similar your "finite" opinion is still just a fallacious argument - one is not the same as the other. Slippery Slopes are not logical or causal.
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13 months ago ::
May 29, 2012 - 9:36AM
#75
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Date Joined:
Aug 22, 2007
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also, scenario
you are playing magic, and your opponent has a buch of tokens ont he field and one strong creature pumping them, you have removal of some sort, be it burn, exile, fight, maybe even a pumped up tragic slip.
maybe the card isn't pumping tokens, maybe you have a choice between a few 2/2 creatures and an 8/8 with trample
i guess you are going to kill the tokens because thats the blanket statement everyone is tossing around.
other scenario, you are playing diablo on hell. you run into the goblin shaman that spawns goblins, i guess you kill the weak goblins endlessly because you ALWAYS save the strongest for last right?
tactics shift, and blanket statements are bad.
and finally, any dumb beast is going to kill off the weak prey, but when confronted by an obvious threat it is going to defend itself. there is a difference between HUNTING and fighting, a predetor chooses it's prey, when it doesn't get the choice however it's going to kill the thing it knows can kill it, and leave alone the weaklings that do not pose a threat.
thats the way of a cornered beast.
This isn't a magic playtest, so how is any of this relevant?
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13 months ago ::
May 29, 2012 - 9:56AM
#76
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1.) Please stop trolling these boards. I'm tired of getting on the boards looking for and wanting to post legitimate feedback and seeing every thread hijacked "You're a stupid-head" and "You're a bad DM" or "This wouldn't be a problem in X edition so Next can...." Playing an intelligent monster intelligently is not metagaming. Playing a tactical monster tactically is not metagaming. Having to play an intelligent monster like an imbecile to allow the fighter to have fun IS metagaming forced into the system, however, and should not be necessary. Honest feedback is getting drowned in ridiculous squabbling. No one cares. Let us productively discuss feedback to the system we're given, please. Thank you.
2.) These are the sorts of problems the playtest is designed to find. Don't attack 2L's character or quality as a DM for finding a perfectly legitimate problem with the mechanics. The fighter's role is irrelevant to the discussion. If he isn't sticky or fast, he isn't doing damage. Period. He's not being a slayer. He's not being a defender. He's not being anything but a guy who can't catch up to the goblins slaughtering the spell-slinging wizard. A speed 25 fighter cannot catch and engage a speed 30 hobgoblin if it keeps moving. Either the fighter needs some sort of speed-boost in armor or he needs a mechanic to force things to engage him. Either way, something is missing because the rules do not stand up to this situation.
3.) Yuwain; both your analogies break down because you're misidentifying the squishy wizard. The wizard or perhaps cleric, not the fighter, would be the card applying buffs or pumping tokens. The wizard or cleric, not the fighter, is the goblin shaman raising mooks to take out your Diablo barbarian. You are right, however, in assuming that the best course of action is to run straight through the mooks and take out the guy sourcing them. Which is the entire point of this thread.
4.) Rashan; the difference was that in at least one other edition there was a mechanic to make ganging up on the fighter after killing off his buddies one-by-one more difficult, and to keep the fighter from being completely useless while it happened, and some of us still believe their should be a mechanic that does that.
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13 months ago ::
May 29, 2012 - 9:56AM
#77
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Date Joined:
Apr 21, 2011
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Page 3 of the Caves of Chaos; section Killer Encounters did a really good job of letting me know that if you bit off more than you could chew, then you were toast.
I still stand behind the fact that players wandering into a bad situation and a DM running that situation as appropriate does ≠ a bad DM.
For some us of old gamers, the Killer Encounter is what kept us always at the edge of our seats. Does this mean that I literally had to have my characters grovel at the feet of dragons? Yup. Did I promise a Death Knight that I would rob graves for bones to feed his army of undead? Yup. Did I enjoy making those compromises? Nope. But I did learn to hate that NPC and it made it all the more sweet when I finally got to take him out.
My group is going to run through another playtest tonight and see what we can see. Now that we understand that the Fighter doesn't have a lot of auto effects compared to the Wizard or the Clerics, we're going to see if we can't do the minimal amount possible to shore those up and see how he performs when his only concern isn't just how much damage he throws around.
that same section also tells you, the DM to be responsible for giving your players a heads up on not running headlong into certain death. go read it again.
also, you might want to tell you players to think about the team, and maybe consider showing the wizard what the ray of frost spell does. after that hint to your fighter that you can move attack and then move again.
it's pretty hard for the hob goblin to run away when he is perma frozen to the floor until the tank with the hold the line ability gets over him to stop him from moving further allowing for botht he fighter to dart in and out attacking without AO's and the wizard to unload MM or RoF incase he does get away
why fight the fighter? TEAMWORK
I am starting to really enjoy your imflamatory and combative comments, such as the first one that I have emphasized above. I can imagine that were you in my gaming group, this encounter would have brought you to tears over how unfair I was that I didn't give you character a way to escape certain death.
The rampant assumptions that you make about what I did and didn't do for my players is not only wrong, but totally not the point of this thread.
The second emphasized comment tells me that you have only selectively read what I have previously posted about my gaming group and how long they have been teaming up against my dungeons; which is also not the point of this thread.
And lastly, I will point out that Teamwork does not give any monster a reason to Fight the Fighter, it allows the Fighter to Fight the Monster. While the concepts are similar your "finite" opinion is still just a fallacious argument - one is not the same as the other. Slippery Slopes are not logical or causal.
my responce has been clear, there is no reason to fight the fighter because the fighter is not the defender, anybody should be able to see that
it does not matter however, you are asking the fighter to do something it is not designed to do, and then complaining about it.
you have been told what the fighter is for and how to make it work, yet you refuse that argument because...... i havn't figured that out yet actually, why do you refuse to use the fighter for what it's for?
finally, you are seeing imagined slights in my language because you are on the defencive. i told you to read it again because it is clear you either did not, or did not understand it. if you had read it properly, you wouldn't have used it to justify the way you DM.
stop getting touchy, and respond to the argument, lets keep this professional.
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13 months ago ::
May 29, 2012 - 9:59AM
#78
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Date Joined:
Apr 21, 2011
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@759mages
and yet you very conviently missed my scenario with the 2/2 creatures and the 8/8.
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13 months ago ::
May 29, 2012 - 10:00AM
#79
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Date Joined:
Aug 22, 2007
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I haven't played magic since it's first edition so I can't speak to what your point was or wasn't.
I have played Diablo on hell, and when faced with a choice of inifinite minions or a dead shaman you kill the shaman.
Once again, I don't understand why you keep using a dumb beast as an example because there was no dumb beast in my playtest, so I'll say again the point is irrelevant to the OP.
All the rest of your argument is conjecture an your opinion and has nothing that you can support by fact, and con only be supported by more of you hypothetical scenarios. I don't like to argue conjecture because opinions by their very nature can't be argued. While opinions can be based on facts they are not themselves facts and therefore can usually not be proven or disproven, only supported or discredited.
As for hiding, I don't understand the nature of this comment.
I would ask politely that you answer the question of "Why fight the Fighter?". Despite all of the digital ink that you have put into this thread you still can't provide a real, true answer. You've shown a lot of us ways to make a party work together but no way that a Fighter can singlehandedly draw a monster away from killing other players, or a real reason why a monster above 3 INT, which is D&D standard for beasts, would raise his sword and fight the fighter first.
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13 months ago ::
May 29, 2012 - 10:08AM
#80
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Date Joined:
Aug 22, 2007
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Then what is he supposed to do?
Once again, if the Fighter isn't the Best in Combat, or the Best in Battle, what is his role, what is his purpose? Why Fight the Fighter?
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