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13 months ago ::
May 29, 2012 - 1:30PM
#41
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Why is this way of doing it (ie. "Just say you're defending the wizard then everything is fine") better than having rules for marking/opportunity-attacking monsters that try to bypass you for the wizard?
Just a quick correction: he didn't say it was better.
He's just answering from the content of the playtest we have in our hands right now: that's the way it's intended for this iteration, which we know from the context provided by the developer design and directions articles. The granularity of positional rules (including, by extension, "marking" and opportunity actions) is coming later in easily digestible rules modules.
In this "base model" ruleset, we're pretty firmly in "mind's eye" territory, in which elements like defending the wizard are handled by the collaborative fiction the players and DM are collectively engaged in.
When the OP says "there's nothing to prevent my monsters from just invalidating the player's cover" or "there's no cover in this module" it seems to me like maybe they aren't building an adequate fiction? I cannot imagine an actual battle where this would be the case. (I recommend you try to imagine it, though, because the scene ends up pretty funny.)
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13 months ago ::
May 29, 2012 - 1:33PM
#42
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Date Joined:
Apr 23, 2009
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The caves of chaos are full of 10 foot wide hallways. Put the fighter and battle cleric up front. The wizard and laser cleric can fire from the rear.
I personally find fights in 10' hallways where two melee form a wall and everyone else hides behind exceptionally boring. That is exactly how most of my 2E fights went. I think making it possible to have mobile dynamic fights in an open space with terrain for tactics is so much more fun. I would rather dis-incentivize this playstyle, rather than encourage it.
I hated the 4e concept of spreading out around the room. It is totally unrealistic. I had players complain that the very rules of 4e encouraged such behavior and I had to agree. That was another nail in the coffin of 4e for me.
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13 months ago ::
May 29, 2012 - 1:38PM
#43
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If there are rules for every single issue then why even have a DM? I think the main issue here, in my opinion, is that having so many rules takes away the imagination.
Not every DM is great at making rulings or house rules. Should a creative storyteller with solid acting skills, a good grasp of strategy and tactics, and a desire to run a game still be a bad DM because he can't come up with new combat rules every time a player wants to use a tactic other than a spell or basic attack? I hope not, unless the goal is to have as few DMs as possible.
"Imagination" to me means creatively describing the game world, filling it with interesting creatures, and coming up with clever ideas for characters and their actions. It doesn't mean deciding what ability scores connect to which combat tasks or how much can be done in one action.
Luckily for me, I strongly suspect that the playtest represents only the barest minimum of rules. I think we'll see rules soon enough for typical combat maneuvers and situations. If some people eventually tear those pages out of their rulebooks, I don't care.
Ed_Warlord, on what it takes to make a thread work: I think for it to be really constructive, everyone would have to be honest with each other, and with themselves. Quotation of the moment
Show
Areleth: How does this help the problems we have with Fighters? Do you think that every time I thought I was playing D&D what I was actually doing was slamming my head in a car door and that if you just explain how to play without doing that then I'll finally enjoy the game?
Quotation of ALL moments
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TD: That's why they put me on the front of every book. This is the dungeon, and I am the dragon.
A word of warning though: I'm totally not a level appropriate encounter.
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13 months ago ::
May 29, 2012 - 1:38PM
#44
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Date Joined:
Mar 14, 2009
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Well, you know, rules limit your imagination by having already adressed the problems you could resolve.
Don't you go speaking for me! Rules don't actually limit my imagination.
Not just me, either: it's a well-known fact that constraints are extremely conducive to the creative process.
Damned, missed my "make an obvious sarcasm as an attack against the rules are bad for you proponents" roll 
And I agree completely with you.
Remember Tunnel Seventeen !
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13 months ago ::
May 29, 2012 - 1:40PM
#45
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Damned, missed my "make an obvious sarcasm as an attack against the rules are bad for you proponents" roll
And I agree completely with you.
Actually, I think that was a nat 1 on my Insight check. :D
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13 months ago ::
May 29, 2012 - 1:42PM
#46
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Date Joined:
Jul 18, 2011
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Here is my three scent on combat.
Four combat with people teleporting and running all over the room seemed unrealistic and kind of dumb.
In real life and in games that try to be some what realistic(such as a game where I need to swing a sword or form a spear wall) people would form a defense of some kind. Namely something like too large gentle people that resemble turtles and have very large shields blocking off the main entry way.
Now is that boring? Not really. The DM and players to fill the bloody wall with details, plus as I being the DM know the map. I know if a few doors done the goblins have bodies that might try and sneak behind the wall and stab the wizards and other soft things in the spleen. That too me is not boring. My players know by now the danger of prolong fights and I am sure worry about 4 kobolds in the darkness lobbing flaming oil at the wizard. This is how Dungeons and dragons is played and has always been played in my house.
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13 months ago ::
May 29, 2012 - 1:45PM
#47
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Date Joined:
Nov 30, 2002
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I hated the 4e concept of spreading out around the room. It is totally unrealistic. I had players complain that the very rules of 4e encouraged such behavior and I had to agree. That was another nail in the coffin of 4e for me.
3e, with kill squads of 1st level enemy clerics reading sound burst from a scroll (no save vs the dmg no matter your level) pretty much firmed up the "never bunch up" mindset for the groups I play with. That, of course, held true as groups would face wizards/sorcerers/cleric enemies that would cast AE spells at them. So 4e didn't introduce anything new in that regard.
I found that, while running 4e, many of the players would be foolishly far apart. Much easier for a figher/paladin/etc to maintain agro control when the group is in a tighter formation.
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13 months ago ::
May 29, 2012 - 1:46PM
#48
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I dunno. If you have the ability to teleport (or otherwise benefit from substantial mobility) in combat, staying in one spot (and thereby depriving yourself of a massive advantage) seems pretty unrealistic to me.
Forming up a shield wall seems like a bad idea when even a squad of goblins likely has a member capable of summoning detonations from nothing.
What is "realistic" has to take into consideration the setting. Real world tactics obviously still apply in D&D, but they have to adapt to a world where the set of enemy capabilities is much, much different.
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13 months ago ::
May 29, 2012 - 2:47PM
#49
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Date Joined:
May 24, 2012
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It's almost like the poorly armored guy with a limited hit point pool should avoid putting himself in harm's way.
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13 months ago ::
May 29, 2012 - 3:44PM
#50
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Date Joined:
Aug 27, 2007
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It's almost like the poorly armored guy with a limited hit point pool should avoid putting himself in harm's way.
By which you mean, stay at the keep? The issue is the relative ease of dogpiling the wizard.
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