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4 months ago ::
Feb 04, 2013 - 6:36AM
#41
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Date Joined:
Jun 21, 2012
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OK Garth, just for you - Based on that assumption that nobody will ever drop their guard unless there's some overriding reason or your opponent fakes you out, that means that attacks of opportunity that are triggered purely on the basis of moving from A to B are baseless. Either you get one 'cause you do something to get the better of your opponent or there's some other environmental factor that's hindering the mover in some way.
Now tell me exactly what your problem is now that I've taken the trouble to do your work for you.
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4 months ago ::
Feb 04, 2013 - 6:40AM
#42
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Date Joined:
Jan 15, 2009
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Moving within an enemies threat zone really can create an opportunity for them to attack yes you will try to avoid it and the damage isnt automatic right?
Yes the opportunity can be purely on the basis... opportunity is a chance.
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4 months ago ::
Feb 04, 2013 - 6:51AM
#43
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Date Joined:
Jun 21, 2012
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Moving within an enemies threat zone really can create an opportunity for them to attack yes you will try to avoid it and the damage isnt automatic right?
Yes the opportunity can be purely on the basis... opportunity is a chance.
Given the assumption that no opportunity will ever be given in a vacuum, there needs to be a reason more than "I move over there" to create such an opportunity. If you choose not to make that assumption then fair play, but I've made it pretty clear what I consider to be normal for a character and qualified my statements on this matter pretty carefully. If a character is going to move and there's nothing in their way, they've got no conditions or illness to speak of, and the opponent has no tricks up their sleeve to stop them then they're free to move as far as I'm concerned.
In the interest of keeping actions in role and the combat quick, I find this assumption is best practise.
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4 months ago ::
Feb 04, 2013 - 7:01AM
#44
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Date Joined:
Jan 15, 2009
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In the interest of keeping actions in role
I want the choice for the character to take more risk or less risk...and find that is vey much "in" character in fact I think it allows me to express the characters personality based on that.
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4 months ago ::
Feb 04, 2013 - 7:04AM
#45
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Date Joined:
Jan 15, 2009
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but I've made it pretty clear what I consider to be normal for a character
Perhaps I dont consider it "easy"
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4 months ago ::
Feb 04, 2013 - 7:06AM
#46
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If you ignore roles altogether, you start to move a whole ton and a half closer towards "my job is to reduce the enemy's hp to zero" as the only real point in combat.
The point of any combat is to stay alive and kill your opponents.
Ok, or maybe stun, or knock out, or capture... if you're not trying to kill him, but anyway... to defeat your opponents and stay alive.
Roles like "I'm gonna be the tank who forces enemies to hit me while someone else is dealing damage" are too artificial for an RPG. They may work fine for video-games but that's another type of game entirely.
If you want to protect another member of your group... a feat of courage it would be, to put yourself in danger to protect someone else. And not just doing what your supposed to do in your "role."
And if you want to do something like that, it should be using strategies that really would prevent an enemy from attacking that ally, not through an artificial rule that punishes an enemy for not attacking your instead.
Imagine yourself (real life here) in a bar fight. Someone wants to hit your weaker friend for some reason and you decide to get in the way and prevent that.
What would you do?
I'm pretty sure just standing in front of the bully who wants to punch your friend wouldn't make him ignore his real target and just hit you instead. But if you push your friend aside, hide him under a table, push the bully back or tackle him to the ground... then you might be preventing him from reaching and attacking your friend.
The "tank" role of modern video-games, as someone who goes ahead to take the damage and locks the enemies onto him, is too artificial for a game like D&D where you're using your imagination to experience what characters are doing as though you were actually there in the midst of the events.
These roles are fine for these other types of games, but an RPG encounter should simulate logical choices as people would actually make them.
It turns into "who is dealing the most damage - I attack that person" as a strategy.
Not really, that's just bad playing if you're using an external factor (like knowing the precise amount of damage everyone is dealing) to dictate your character's actions.
But context should dictate what characters are doing, who they are more likely to attack, and stuff like that.
That NPC might not know that the Mage deals more damage than the Fighter. But he might know that magic is a very dangerous thing to face, and if forced to fight a group with a Mage in it, he would likely choose to kill the Mage asap to avoid being struck by his magic.
Adding to that it may be evident that the "powerful Mage" looks rather weak and ill-armored, easy to take down fast if he can get to the Mage at once, thus avoinding the dreaded curses and spells.
Again with the bar-fight simulation.
If you were attacked by two bullies, one bulky big... the other skinny but who is pulling a knife from his backpack... (and supposing for some reason that you had to fight them and not do the sensible thing which is run away)... would you waste yourself trying to overcome the big guy when the other one might stick a knife in your back?
Or would you try to take down the skinny dude with the knife, who presents perhaps greater danger but who you know you can maybe take down faster, thus being on more favorable odds, one-on-one against the big guy?
Just the same, a pack of wolves attacking the group would not make any such distinction. They would simply rush at their prey, maybe choosing random targets, maybe attacking whoever is nearer.
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4 months ago ::
Feb 04, 2013 - 7:14AM
#47
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Date Joined:
Jan 15, 2009
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Just the same, a pack of wolves attacking the group would not make any such distinction. They would simply rush at their prey, maybe choosing random targets, maybe attacking whoever is nearer.
Wolves and predators in general usually analyse the prey to pick what seems the weakest.. the old and the small or weak being high on the list.. the FANTASY wolf who actually attacks people acts like you describe (so all is good right) = Man I am so glad tolkein made up Wargs.
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4 months ago ::
Feb 04, 2013 - 7:39AM
#48
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Yeah, well, I'm not an wolf expert. And I appreciate the info.
The point remains the same in this case. So the wolves would attack the one who looks weaker, and not the bulky, armored one standing ahead of the party just because he has the "role of a tank."
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4 months ago ::
Feb 04, 2013 - 9:50AM
#49
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Date Joined:
Oct 26, 2004
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However they would also seek to maneuver around such a large obstacle. HAve you never watched nature documentaries? Predators do these sorts of analyses all the time.
Avoid gaurdian or if not possible distract it while the rest of the pack sweeps around and takes out a squishie or two.
They don't rush past the biggest bulls to get at the calves, the big guys would happily take the OPPORTUNITY to gore the heck out of the predators. Rushing around the combat space heedless of the enemy gets you attacked, it seems fairly obvious to anyone whose been in a scrap or two, or even just watched.
The opportunity attack also accomplishes everything these slow-down and engae systems do without adding abunch of extra wordage or conditionals.
So both from a sim point and a game design point the OA makes sense.
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4 months ago ::
Feb 04, 2013 - 10:37AM
#50
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...
Couldn't disagree more. Using the your player's surroundings and descriptions of environments to your tactical advantage is in no way a metagame at all. Quite the opposite; you're being told things in role, you're making interpretations of that information in role and you're acting in role when you take advantage of it.
Moving on the basis of whether you trigger an attack of opportunity is almost by definition not in role, based on information that is not in front of your character and is not described to your character in role.
Whether you're bogged down has a lot to do with the specific terrain in question and whatever's around your character, but actually that's exactly how fighting works if you've got one team vs another team unless you're fighting in some kind of boxing ring.
I have no problem at all with character abilities that enable movement or bypass terrain, but their use should be motivated by the environment getting in your character's way, not some construct that dictates an attack of opportunity because you move in a certain way.
The introduction of mechanics to affect the behavior of your players happens in both case. Placement of obstacles or taking attacks while not defending yourself is neither exclusively in or exclusively out of role. The player is either making his decisions based on in role reason or he is not. Moving for cover or charging passed a enemy with weapons drawn are in role decisions. Looking down on a map to locate a chock point their character couldn't possibly be seen from their characters perspective or weighing the likelihood they will get hit by a AoO based on what the player believes the enemies has for a +hit is out of role. Your simply trying to put what you like into a good light, while putting what you don't like in a bad light when they are basically the same.
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Imagine a world where the first-time D&D player rolls stats, picks a race, picks a class, picks an alignment, and buys gear to create a character. Imagine if an experienced player, maybe the person helping our theoretical player learn the ropes, could also make a character by rolling ability scores and picking a race, class, feat, skills, class features, spells or powers, and so on. Those two players used different paths to build characters, but the system design allows them to play at the same table. -Mearl
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