They better not have to spend feats just to have the narrative control that the other classes get for free. That is the return of the feat tax.
Heh, imagine the uproar if the only way casters got spells is with feats.
4e D&D is not a "Tabletop MMO." It is not Massively Multiplayer, and is usually not played Online. Come up with better descriptions of your complaints, cuz this one means jack ****.
a stronger emphasis on improvisation with a character that's given no tools to help the improv, means instead of "power spamming" we get a "one button wonder" spam where while you can improvise but your character has little tools to help him do so and little incentive beyond "maybe the GM will throw me a bone".
Of course we could always transition to a more harsh and thus realistic kind of damage system, but then you end up with a game where no sane character will actually do anything bold or interesting. The smart ones will stand behind walls of NPC henchmen and hirelings. The rest will just bleed out at low level...
Actually from things I have read that actually WAS a playstyle that was favored in early campaigns (Greyhawk)
Gygax apparently was in love with it. Never was terribly popular in circles I played in. Not that the early levels were not fairly deadly, but I think we generally steered pretty clear of the constant death treadmill. I remember players using hirelings to some extent, but I always made it moderately time-consuming and not all that cheap to hire them. I think that was pretty much the end result if you used the AD&D 'NPC hiring' system. Still, even in Basic you got past that after 3rd level or so, when it was unlikely a single attack would kill you outright, and AD&D has the negative hit points optional rule that most of us used.
Yes, I CAN make a fighter that has a defender theme or whatever, but he'll also sacrifice a large percentage of his damage to get that.
He'd lose only his damage on a miss, cleave, and 1.5 average weapon damage (1d10 from a warhammer vs. 2d6 from the Greataxe).
I'm not going to crunch the numbers, but that loss of miss damage is roughly .5 that damage (so 1.5 for the playtest fighter DPR, plus the cleave damage, which is another 1.5 DPR IIRC and the 1.5 weapon damage). That's actually a very considerable loss, 3.75 DPR IIRC. That's roughly 1/3 of his damage output, and most of his 'minion' killing capacity. Certainly in 4e terms that would be considered a major loss of effectiveness and worth roughly 3 feats. Of course what is gained is not bad, but the cleric already HAS defender AND pretty close to the same constant DPR plus spells, which can give him both a higher peak DPR AND many other things. I wouldn't really consider it much of a contest. In fact you'd almost certainly have a stronger party by replacing the fighter with a second dwarf cleric of Moradin. The 5e fighter isn't terrible, but then neither was the 1e or 2e fighter at the levels we've seen. In fact IMHO the 5e balance looks very close to AD&D right now, with the main difference being PCs start out a tad more durable. While it is an open question where that will go at higher levels the fact that the fighter's options are so limited and the casters generally seem to be fairly well endowed doesn't particularly lead me to believe anything will change. While I'm fine with people being able to just buy a game that lets them go back and play 1e like it was 1980 that certainly isn't going to interest a lot of us. The thing is, even adding a bunch of combat options to the fighter isn't going to make a LOT of difference by itself. There are a number of dimensions to this and the fighter's design is only one of them. It is going to take a BIG module at this point to make it work.
..."window.parent.tinyMCE.get('post_content').onLoad.dispatch();" contenteditable="true" />I guess the real problem here that you guys dont seem to groke is that the designers already tried a game where everyone gets powers and it turns out that not everyone likes having boring set powers that you spam fight after fight (which of course must last long enough for you to completely spam all your powers).
A stronger emphasis on improvisation is infinitely better then the same old boring power spam of old.
Well, here's where I'm coming from. I ran AD&D games for 20 years. I RARELY EVER saw anyone's fighter doing anything that wasn't either on their sheet or some item they had. So, 99% of what fighters were doing in AD&D IME was actually SPAMMING 'BASIC ATTACK', coupled with moving to a tactically advantageous position or in response to some other exigency. Now and then you'd have a fighter charge, throw some thrown weapon, shoot a bow, or maybe now and then undertake some other really obvious move like shoving someone into a pit or whatever. I hear all about this nirvana of rampant improvisation that supposedly existed. Given the sheer amount that I've played, the number of people and games that I've run and played I don't think this is simply random chance. I play with generally some pretty creative people too, so it isn't like they lacked the imagination to do it either.
IM considerable E what actually spurs creative play is having combats that are tied into the PCs goals and interests, dynamic environments, well imagined and colorful opponents, etc. No amount of having or not having clever lists of powers and such will make squat difference if you have boring square rooms full of orcs that leap mindlessly to attack as soon a door is bashed on room #127 of the upper east side of level 1. The problem I fear Dear Horatio is not in the stars, but in ourselves. Make good adventures and give the players a lot of options for how to tackle their problems (or no options except a rock and a hard place and some materials) and I don't care how bare-bones or elaborate you make the system you'll see plenty of creative play. Whether it is 'improvisation' by whatever definition or not actually doesn't matter to me. The point is to get the player's thinking creatively and frankly powers have very little to do with that.
In any case, the idea that a fighter in 4e will spam powers to any significant degree I find very odd. A level one fighter has a theme power, 2 at-will powers, an encounter power, and a daily power. He's also got charge, grapple, bullrush, and all of page 42, and may well have a racial power as well, not to mention at least one AP most of the time. It is pretty unusual for a straight up fight to go more than 6 rounds in my experience. If said character is using the most minimal resources (encounter, at-will, and theme/racial power and no AP) he's still got at least 4 rounds of those 6 covered with no reason to repeat himself. Given that he's also moving etc and repetitiveness is hardly a concern. It only gets better from there, and we're not even considering the rest of the dynamics of the encounter. In point of fact when you're interacting with GOOD terrain and probably aiming for some goal or invoking some motives more subtle than "gank them all" that's plenty IME. The PCs will use their powers in interesting ways, and they'll VERY often (like pretty much at least once an encounter) find some reason to use them creatively or just entirely improvise. The powers actually help fuel this in my game anyway.
I just have no interest in going back to where the fighter has nothing except "I can attack twice this round" to base anything interesting on. I can MAKE things happen, but it is not helping. Especially when whatever the fighter wants to do except hack is into some sort of unknown uncharted rules territory where DMs are wont to rule against you and it is better to just play it safe and let the casters come up with something clever since they're bursting with ways to do that. I'll be happy to see some things like streamlined combat and various other things happen in 5e, but there's definitely got to be more too it than a fighter with nothing but basic weapon attacks.
..."window.parent.tinyMCE.get('post_content').onLoad.dispatch();" contenteditable="true" />I guess the real problem here that you guys dont seem to groke is that the designers already tried a game where everyone gets powers and it turns out that not everyone likes having boring set powers that you spam fight after fight (which of course must last long enough for you to completely spam all your powers).
A stronger emphasis on improvisation is infinitely better then the same old boring power spam of old.
Well, here's where I'm coming from. I ran AD&D games for 20 years. I RARELY EVER saw anyone's fighter doing anything that wasn't either on their sheet or some item they had. So, 99% of what fighters were doing in AD&D IME was actually SPAMMING 'BASIC ATTACK', coupled with moving to a tactically advantageous position or in response to some other exigency. Now and then you'd have a fighter charge, throw some thrown weapon, shoot a bow, or maybe now and then undertake some other really obvious move like shoving someone into a pit or whatever. I hear all about this nirvana of rampant improvisation that supposedly existed. Given the sheer amount that I've played, the number of people and games that I've run and played I don't think this is simply random chance. I play with generally some pretty creative people too, so it isn't like they lacked the imagination to do it either.
IM considerable E what actually spurs creative play is having combats that are tied into the PCs goals and interests, dynamic environments, well imagined and colorful opponents, etc. No amount of having or not having clever lists of powers and such will make squat difference if you have boring square rooms full of orcs that leap mindlessly to attack as soon a door is bashed on room #127 of the upper east side of level 1. The problem I fear Dear Horatio is not in the stars, but in ourselves. Make good adventures and give the players a lot of options for how to tackle their problems (or no options except a rock and a hard place and some materials) and I don't care how bare-bones or elaborate you make the system you'll see plenty of creative play. Whether it is 'improvisation' by whatever definition or not actually doesn't matter to me. The point is to get the player's thinking creatively and frankly powers have very little to do with that.
In any case, the idea that a fighter in 4e will spam powers to any significant degree I find very odd. A level one fighter has a theme power, 2 at-will powers, an encounter power, and a daily power. He's also got charge, grapple, bullrush, and all of page 42, and may well have a racial power as well, not to mention at least one AP most of the time. It is pretty unusual for a straight up fight to go more than 6 rounds in my experience. If said character is using the most minimal resources (encounter, at-will, and theme/racial power and no AP) he's still got at least 4 rounds of those 6 covered with no reason to repeat himself. Given that he's also moving etc and repetitiveness is hardly a concern. It only gets better from there, and we're not even considering the rest of the dynamics of the encounter. In point of fact when you're interacting with GOOD terrain and probably aiming for some goal or invoking some motives more subtle than "gank them all" that's plenty IME. The PCs will use their powers in interesting ways, and they'll VERY often (like pretty much at least once an encounter) find some reason to use them creatively or just entirely improvise. The powers actually help fuel this in my game anyway.
I just have no interest in going back to where the fighter has nothing except "I can attack twice this round" to base anything interesting on. I can MAKE things happen, but it is not helping. Especially when whatever the fighter wants to do except hack is into some sort of unknown uncharted rules territory where DMs are wont to rule against you and it is better to just play it safe and let the casters come up with something clever since they're bursting with ways to do that. I'll be happy to see some things like streamlined combat and various other things happen in 5e, but there's definitely got to be more too it than a fighter with nothing but basic weapon attacks.
Well said. People keep saying it is to protect against the DM. it isn't so much that, specifically. It is to protect against caster bias. That, and the fact that it is nice having a large number of nice abilities to flesh out your character.
..."window.parent.tinyMCE.get('post_content').onLoad.dispatch();" contenteditable="true" />Well said. People keep saying it is to protect against the DM. it isn't so much that, specifically. It is to protect against caster bias. That, and the fact that it is nice having a large number of nice abilities to flesh out your character.
Yeah, beyond that too if you look at the 4e fighter as an example you can (Essentials aside) still make a very simple fighter. You can take Reaping Strike and say Cleave for at-wills, something like Covering Attack for an encounter power, and Brute Strike for your daily. This is pretty much your basic "hit it hard and don't bother with nonsense" fighter of yore. There's a LITTLE more resource management there, but you can just pick straight up static bonus feats. You can do this pretty much right up the levels, Crushing Blow at 3rd, Dizzying Blow at 5th, Reckless Strike at 7th, Victorious Surge at 9th, Anvil of Doom at 13th, etc. You'd probably be just as well off at that point to build a slayer, but honestly even PHB1 4e can do a pretty reasonable version of the beatstick.
I guess the real problem here that you guys dont seem to groke is that the designers already tried a game where everyone gets powers and it turns out that not everyone likes having boring set powers that you spam fight after fight (which of course must last long enough for you to completely spam all your powers).
A stronger emphasis on improvisation is infinitely better then the same old boring power spam of old.
And you're ignoring the very large 4e playerbase that prefers exciting powers over the same damn "Make something up!" excuses of old.
4e apparently proved that D&D cannot stand on one half of the playerbase alone. So if you get your way and run all the 4e influence out of this game then you're going to end up with a failure of a game. A game you'll enjoy, but a failure nonetheless.
You cannot demand that 4e players play the same damn game they've already rejected. That is stupid. All we're asking for is the option to play the way we want. That's hardly unreasonable.
People keep calling on improvisation as this great thing that automatically makes fighter interesting and awesome but without providing any details as to how. Improvisation and improvised actions can certainly add a lot to a game. They give players options not normally available to them and can allow for creative role play during combat. Despite this there are often significant hurdles that must be overcome in order for improvisation to work.
1. Guidelines: without them improvisation can vary wildly in effectiveness. It is hard for a DM to abjudicate rules for tripping, hamstringing, taunting, swinging from chandeliers, and throwing sand in a foes eyes. Without well thought out guidelines, improvised maneuvers tend to be either drastically over powered or utterly worthless. Some systems get around this by making improvised actions a special action type the rules fully cover and using simplified conditions for the effect. Savage worlds for instance has "tricks" and "tests of wills" which allow players to perform improvised actions that are both meaningful and balanced.
2. Agency: it tends to be far more believable for an improvised action to work with magic than for it to work in a mundane manner. A wizard who casts grease on a precariously positioned boulder will almost surely start an avalanche. A ranger who wants to do the same trick by disclosing a support pebble with his bow will have to make an attack roll at a big penalty. Mundane characters are limited by reality so the improvised actions they perform are often less powerful and have less of an effect on the story.
3. Effectiveness: this one is the hardest to quantify, but in my experience improvised actions are generally not worth the effort. If you give up your attack to trip the ogre you may have to hit with an attack, then best the ogre in a strength test. Assuming 50% chance of success for each roll, you are looking at a 25% chance of knocking the ogre prone. What does this do for your party, well it gives the other melee characters advantage but gives the ranged ones disadvantage. The fighter usually would have just been better off attacking. In my experience, there are limited situations where pure damage is not better than "I hit it".
4. It gets old: if you do manage to find an action that is better than a plain attack you will use it. For Example your DM says you take -2 damage but stun your foe if you hit them with the hilt, you will always hit them with the hilt. Same with the old sand in the eye trick. There is a reason warriors do not go into battle with bags of sand. If your DM allows at will blinding though you will see the SoP for many groups to have someone relegated sand duty. Additionally, having to constantly come up with interesting ways to "hit them with a stick" gets old. Sometimes it is nice to have options to fall back on.
Although I only have 3 years of DMing under my belt, my experience is the same: simple classes (Knight, Slayer, Hunter) will still not improvise even though I actively push and encourage it. In fact, I insisted one of my Dark Sun players -- a ranger -- to improvise a jump-sliding kick maneuver to cause a Gith to fall off an obsidian pillar. Less immediately obvious options will always be less immediately obvious options, and no matter how you flavor a basic attack, it will always be a basic attack, regardless of edition.
I always consider powers as not only player resources and plot power, but also narrative shortcuts, allowing players to immerse themselves in the game without having to think too much. Does that mean I allow martial characters to use encounter or daily powers repeatedly? Not beyond their normal allocation, because 1. I say so 2. the rules say so 3. the situation won't always give them the opening needed for it
Still, I am not so strict as to not allow a story-based restoration of these abilities mid-combat, but as mentioned several times, there isn't much time to "spam" stuff given that most "standard" fights in 4E end by round 4 (which means you can easily go encounter 1 + at-will 2 + at-will 1 + at-will 2, ignoring theme-granted powers, racial encounter powers, etc. Where's the spamming there?). Seriously, 24 seconds would allow you to dish out cunning maneuvers that easily?
[ Granted, I believe there's at least one power -- a warlord's -- that lets characters regain their encounter powers, and then there's the epic feat that allows martial characters to recharge their powers on a crit I think... so there's that. ]
Frankly the only 4E fighter power that is spell-like would be Come and Get It, and even then it's more of an exploitation of a more easily-duped opponent than a mind-controlling spell, using STR vs. Will instead of STR vs. WIS to keep consistency within the rules on attacks (although I could certainly see a version of the power that would state "Effect: Make a Charisma (Bluff) check opposed by Wisdom (Insight) checks with each enemy within 3 squares of you. Each time you succeed, the enemy must move to a square adjacent to you as a free action. Once all opposed checks have been resolved, each enemy that is adjacent to you takes 1[W] damage." Rain of Steel is simply that moment of awesomeness that allows the fighter to take out hordes of enemies solo with them being unable to block or deflect attacks. Like D&D Next's Slayer feat, but much more restricted.
I wonder what "roleplaying", "games", "creativity", "fluff" and "mechanics" really mean to people who play D&D. I mean, for me...
Roleplaying: the ability to immerse yourself as your character Games: the rules and guidelines that allow those involved to have fun in whatever genre or theme the activity revolves around Creativity: the ability to express one's imagination Fluff: partly the product and source of creativity, the things that mechanics would emulate Mechanics: the rules that both keeps fluff in check and helps players enjoy their characters
Roleplaying doesn't need rules and you can even run TRPGs without any rules at all (even DDN proves that). But how many games have only roleplaying as a rule?
The difference between L5R and Oriental Adventures (2E) isn't setting. It's the rules. The difference between every edition isn't setting (because I'm pretty sure there are a dozen or so itinerations of Spelljammer, Dragonlance, Eberron and other settings both official and custom, regardless of edition). It's the rules.
In fact, the very thing we are arguing about in just about every thread here isn't in "roleplaying", or even "fluff". It's the rules.
Some like their rules light, and enjoy D&D Next's freedom to improvise (although personally I think it's rather ironic, given how even pre-3E D&D had a whole lot more rules than D&D Next, and people still had freedom to improvise... and even the supposedly-rules heavy 4E granting people freedom to improvise, so I fail to see the point, especially since one of the rebuttals regarding complaints of bad mechanics is "houserule it!", aside from "remove it!").
Some like their rules clear, and dislike D&D Next's supposedly-lazy design, forced roleplaying, lack of detailed and understandable rules text.
Personally, I like my rules because it lessens my need to spend time houseruling, re-houseruling, and lets me actually enjoy the games I run. I am not averse to houseruling of course, but the need to do so has rarely, if ever, appeared. And frankly, I see D&D Next's rulebooks as novels, not rulebooks, because they read nicely, but are archaic in rules, forcing more organization-oriented DMs to create their own tables and index cards, extracting every actual rules reference, then determining if those rules apply to their table or not.
EDIT: What does this have to do with the original topic? Simple: in D&D Next the fighter lacks rules, whereas the wizard and cleric have a LOT of rules already. Improvisation and roleplaying is forced, under threat of boredom and dismissive play. And if this is going to be what the fighter will look like -- Mr. RAARRGROVELGROVELGROVEL I KILL YOU!!! -- come release date, I'll be waiting for the Warblade and only offer the fighter to players who insist on "simplistic" play, thank you very much.
You are both rational and emotional. You value creation and discovery, and feel strongly about what you create. At best, you're innovative and intuitive. At worst, you're scattered and unpredictable.
If you're crossing the street and see a city bus barreling straight toward you with 'GIVE ME YOUR WALLET!' painted across its windshield, you probably won't be reaching for your wallet.
This is what I believe is the spirit of D&D 4E, and my deal breaker for D&D Next: equal opportunities, with distinct specializations, in areas where conflict happens the most often, without having to worry about heavy micromanagement or system mastery.
