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1 year ago ::
Jan 22, 2012 - 12:14AM
#1
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Date Joined:
Jul 13, 2011
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I was just recalling (and posting about) a Star Wars 4E campaign I used to be a part of, where the combat droid and the ewok were three times more deadly with a blaster than the remaining 5 members of the party combined.
Yet, nobody had a problem with this at all. We didn't all feel required to participate in every fight, and when we did we didn't feel shown up because we were good at other things the awesome combat characters were not. Yes, we watched while they killed everything, but the Noble dude used his influence to get us out of trouble and the engineer rigged up bombs and hacked robots and slept with all the NPCs and the pilot flew the ship and everybody had a lot of fun.
4E had the goal of "Everyone is on equal footing when it comes to combat" and I'm wondering if that's really necessary. Combat can be a secondary or tertiary focus for a class, can't it? Do you think there can be room in the design space for characters who focus on out of combat abilities instead of just fighting?
I'd have made this a poll but I don't know how.
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1 year ago ::
Jan 22, 2012 - 12:16AM
#2
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Date Joined:
Dec 25, 2009
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As long as combat is the primary vehicle of PC growth, then yes, all PCs need to be good at combat.
The difference between madness and genius is determined only by degrees of success.
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1 year ago ::
Jan 22, 2012 - 12:19AM
#3
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Date Joined:
May 17, 2009
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I don't think everyone needs to be good at combat, per se, but in D&D, any edition, combat is one of the few things you can be sure will happen in the vast majority of games. Players need to all be good at the activities that comprise the vast majority of games played in that system.
Seriously, though, you should check out the PbP Haven. You might also like Real Adventures, IF you're cool. | Knights of W.T.F.- Silver Spur Winner | |
4enclave, a place where 4e fans can talk 4e in peace.
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1 year ago ::
Jan 22, 2012 - 12:29AM
#4
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Date Joined:
Dec 27, 2008
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Players need to all be good at the activities that comprise the vast majority of games played in that system.
One thing I hope to get from 5e is options for faster combat. If combat is quicker then it is less crucial that everybody be good at it, because there will be more time to devote to other things.
However, if PCs are less effective at combat then there need to be guidelines for DMs to create battles for a party of, say, 3 combatants and 2 non-combatants (who will still end up contributing). That could get complicated.
Further no edition of DnD has been really good at non-combat. Some were better than 4e, but they put the options in the hands of spellcasters who were already pretty good at combat. If non-combat obstacles are to be a bigger part of the game, the mechanics for dealing with them should be more robust.
(Otherwise players who choose to build PCs who are not fully functional combatants need little to no mechanics anyway, so the devs might as well only bother to develop classes that are combat-focused.)
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1 year ago ::
Jan 22, 2012 - 12:38AM
#5
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Date Joined:
Jun 21, 2006
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I agree with the responses to the OP. I would also add that, if you were to have a D&D where combat was a secondary activity, you would want to make sure that everyone is useful out of combat. This is not such a critical thing since non-combat sessions do not rely so much in game mechanics. Still, it may suck if for most of the game half of the party gets to have cool tools to contribute, and the other half is looking at a blank sheet with no option other than improvising. D&D has been traditionally weak at balancing this aspect of the game, and even in 4E, you have classes like the fighter with basically zero mechanics that can be used outside of combat.
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1 year ago ::
Jan 22, 2012 - 12:39AM
#6
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Date Joined:
Jul 13, 2011
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I feel like lofgren might be right, where if combat moves quickly then it won't comprise the vast majority of the game. The Star Wars game I mentioned in the OP had maybe 30 to 45 minutes of fighting in a 3 or 4 hour session, meaning the rest of the time was spent walking or flying around and gambling or whatever.
ankiyavon makes a good point about the progression thing, however. without a return to the olden tymes of 1 gp = 1 xp, i don't have an idea off the top of my head as to a solution.
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1 year ago ::
Jan 22, 2012 - 12:52AM
#7
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It's not so much about everyone being good at combat, but about everyone being relevant. If the party members are so widely divergent in capability that one is a liability for the other in any given sphere of activity, then it encourages the party to split up all the time, and then they're not exactly a party, are they?
I'm reminded of my ShadowRun games. We had Riggers and Street Samurais and Deckers and whatnot, and it basically devolved into three+ seperate games. A whole lot of interactions with one player playing out his scene, and then the GM shifts attention over to another player with a "Meanwhile..." and so on, round-robin style. It was like combat, except each "round" is like 30 minutes long.
Essentials zigged, when I wanted to continue zagging.
Roll dice, not cars.
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1 year ago ::
Jan 22, 2012 - 1:18AM
#8
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Date Joined:
Sep 26, 2001
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Does everyone really need to be good at combat?
Yes. Unequivocally, yes. Everyone needs to be good out of combat, as well.
DMs need the flexibility to run combat-heavy or combat-light games. Having some characters that are combat monsters and others that are diplomancers ties the DM's hands, forcing him to run a meticulously bell-curved-average mix of combat & non-combat.
Love 4e? Concerned about its future? Join the Old Guard of 4e"You want The Tooth? You can't handle The Tooth!" - Dahlver-Nar. "If magic is unrestrained in the campaign, D&D quickly degenerates into a weird wizard show where players get bored quickly" - E. Gary Gygax
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1 year ago ::
Jan 22, 2012 - 1:27AM
#9
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Date Joined:
Jun 20, 2010
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I agree on the being relevant part.
A character that "hides and do nothing" in combat is not helpful to that party.
But so is a character that keeps quiet and only fights/act during combat.
Not every character needs to do damage in combat. There should be classes/options to make characters that can perform out of combat AND still focus on supporting others, buffing, debuffing...etc, when in combat.
The ideal of Leaders and Controllers works towards this ideal, but they are limited mainly to just combat only.
A "Leader-type" should be able to do more then that.
For example, a character that can make potions on the fly. He may be limited to just throwing, low damaging, flasks of acid in combat, but once a fight is over, he can patch the party back up, get rid of status effects and damaged stats...etc.
Out of combat, he can make potions that enhance his party's charisma, give them special abilities like Darkvision or scent, or even fly.
(Getting a little off track here.)
The point is not every character MUST be great or "balanced" for combat, but should still be able to do "something" during combat. ("something" can be as little as giving a better then normal assist to hit.)
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1 year ago ::
Jan 22, 2012 - 1:28AM
#10
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Yes. Combat is a good 60%+ of the core mechanics of D&D, and largely how characters tend to get XP. In this, it is a key focus point and every character should be at least average in its execution.
Now, if they add some new ways in 5e to expand upon non combat options for XP other than skill challenges and RP, then the need might drop a bit, but everyone loves going out and slaying Dragons at least once in their career. It's half of the reason many of us even came to the game after all.
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