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1 year ago ::
Dec 20, 2011 - 2:56PM
#71
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Date Joined:
Jun 17, 2002
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So, basically like the oversized weapons rules.
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1 year ago ::
Dec 20, 2011 - 3:05PM
#72
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The heroes of myth and of fiction are never so limited.
Yes, never.
There is actually a rather large difference between the heroes of classical mythology and those of medieval and renaissance mythology. Often, recall too that the amazing superhuman feats of classical heroes were often explained via magic or divine elements. Hercules was a demi-god, after all -- Sir Gareth, on the other hand, was a mere human. Their capabilities are quite discernable.
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1 year ago ::
Dec 20, 2011 - 3:21PM
#73
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Date Joined:
Jun 15, 2004
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there are two zealous sides that say all the way sim or all the way not sim, and most people actually fall somewhere in between, but most vocal people fall into camp a or b.
I believe the vast majority of players can still agree that faster is better. I don't believe making something 'realistic' (i.e. believable) has to entail extra crunch. Indeed, a massive battle between armies could be resolved with a coin flip, and the results could be plenty believable. If anything, spending time to calculate crunch actually hinders my suspension of disbelief.
However, a lot of other D&D rules hinder suspension of disbelief without speeding up the game.
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1 year ago ::
Dec 20, 2011 - 3:31PM
#74
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Date Joined:
Jun 19, 2005
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There is actually a rather large difference between the heroes of classical mythology and those of medieval and renaissance mythology. Often, recall too that the amazing superhuman feats of classical heroes were often explained via magic or divine elements. Hercules was a demi-god, after all -- Sir Gareth, on the other hand, was a mere human. Their capabilities are quite discernable.
Yet in a vanilla DnD game you can be a martial demigod that fights medusas, minotaurs and hydras. Seems like classic mythology is precisely something that is being simulated in DnD.
Besides, we can look to germanic and celtic tales (i.e. not classical) heroes to see martial characters ripping arms off of monsters and chopping the tops off of mountains. "Martial" heroes performing superhuman acts is the bread and butter of the hero stories DnD draws from, even if there are some stories where the martials are nerfed. Of course, in many renaisance stories of arthur and other knights, spell casters are severly gimped compared to thier DnD counterparts, so drawing a comparison to the level of martial "realism" there needs to be put in context.
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1 year ago ::
Dec 20, 2011 - 3:37PM
#75
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Date Joined:
Nov 13, 2011
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Or how 2nd edition AD&D actually uses Hercules as an example of a Fighter...
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1 year ago ::
Dec 20, 2011 - 3:38PM
#76
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Date Joined:
Jun 27, 2004
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Their capabilities are quite discernable.
As are the tiers-of-play, not-so-coincidentally.
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1 year ago ::
Dec 20, 2011 - 3:43PM
#77
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I'd be a lot more swayed by all these comments against realism if most of them didn't amount to "I want my fighter to kick butt!" The problem being, if you divorce martial classes from reality, they're just as magical as wizards. Yes, the power says "martial" but when its making Newton cry and the Mythbusters wince, it's not really "martial". Just like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon when they're using their "martial" training to dance across water and balance on stalks of bamboo, it's not real and breaks credibility.
The solution isn't to divorce martial classes from reality and the remotely plausible, and instead to add limits to other forms of magic, so the martial classes can do something they can't.
Then there's realism and monsters. Which ussually comes across as "oh noes, my uber-specilized one-trick-pony build has to be 100% effective all the time!"
Things like tripping oozes, fascinating mindless creatures, burning fire elementals, and dominating plants. It's not going to break the game if things like the gelatinous cube have the trait "Ooze: immune to the dominate and prone conditions".
That dash of extra complexity is what seperates a role-playing game from a board game or super-simple video game.
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1 year ago ::
Dec 20, 2011 - 4:16PM
#78
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Date Joined:
Jun 19, 2005
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The problem being, if you divorce martial classes from reality, they're just as magical as wizards. Yes, the power says "martial" but when its making Newton cry and the Mythbusters wince, it's not really "martial". Just like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon when they're using their "martial" training to dance across water and balance on stalks of bamboo, it's not real and breaks credibility
I'd say it isn't a "problem" to all the people who actually enjoyed CTHD though. Likewise for all the cultures throughout history that have enjoyed telling myths of superpowered martial heroes and epic fighters that have abilities beyond what a normal person can do. It isn't a matter of credibility, its a matter of genre and cultural context
The solution isn't to divorce martial classes from reality and the remotely plausible, and instead to add limits to other forms of magic, so the martial classes can do something they can't.
I can't imagine how many people would rage if they ever tried to reduce spellcasting down to what a "realistic" fighter could do to a degree that the classes are actually balanced against each other.
That dash of extra complexity is what seperates a role-playing game from a board game or super-simple video game.
I don't follow. I've seen rpgs simpler than board games and video games far, far more complex than rpgs. An rpg doesn't require a load of complexity to be special
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1 year ago ::
Dec 20, 2011 - 4:21PM
#79
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I'd be a lot more swayed by all these comments against realism if most of them didn't amount to "I want my fighter to kick butt!" The problem being, if you divorce martial classes from reality, they're just as magical as wizards. Yes, the power says "martial" but when its making Newton cry and the Mythbusters wince, it's not really "martial". Just like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon when they're using their "martial" training to dance across water and balance on stalks of bamboo, it's not real and breaks credibility.
The solution isn't to divorce martial classes from reality and the remotely plausible, and instead to add limits to other forms of magic, so the martial classes can do something they can't.
Then there's realism and monsters. Which ussually comes across as "oh noes, my uber-specilized one-trick-pony build has to be 100% effective all the time!"
Things like tripping oozes, fascinating mindless creatures, burning fire elementals, and dominating plants. It's not going to break the game if things like the gelatinous cube have the trait "Ooze: immune to the dominate and prone conditions".
That dash of extra complexity is what seperates a role-playing game from a board game or super-simple video game.
If you want martial classes to be moored in reality, you have to limit the power of magic to the same degree. If you want super-powered magic, the guy with the sword needs to be similiarly super-powered.
...whatever
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1 year ago ::
Dec 20, 2011 - 4:38PM
#80
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Date Joined:
Nov 13, 2011
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so you take offense that the fighter can trip an ooze because it's not "real", yet not take offense at the ooze itself which itself is a pretty unrealistic entity?
so your problem seems to be that you simply don't want fighters martial types to measure up against the fantastic monsters they're face simply because what they weild isn't "magic"? even though every description of "martial" i've read really only pertains to art of war and has no connotations to magic or the lack thereof?
martial characters are called as such because they are trained in the art of kicking your butt and handing the remains to their next of kin. potentially so they can swear to avenge the death at a later date. one could easily call your traditional adventuring D&D wizard a martial character since they tend to know a lot of "your face, feel it melt" type of combat spells, as well as a cleric's "i will beat you up with my conviction. also a flanged mace."
generally speaking though for most people the word "martial" is mostly associated with someone trained in the use of weapons, hand-to-hand combat, wrestling or whatnot. which fits the 4th ed martial characters to a tee. the scope of what they can do, however, fits nicely with the stories and challenges they are up against.
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