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3 months ago ::
Feb 21, 2013 - 2:13PM
#101
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An entire party of pacifict healers? How likely is that?
Wierd degenerate case...
That depends on the campaign they're in. They could definitely be a "Wierd degenerate case" in a standard campaign or a flat out dungeon crawl. However, in a more urban or intrigue oriented campaign where combat becomes far less of an issue I could see it happening.
Why Mechanics-Alignment Integration is Bad
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so why even play a fighter if you can play the paladin the exact same way behaviorally and get added power to boot. "Paladin" is about accepting better game-enhancing mechanics at the price of more rigid in game behavior.
Really? So it goes something like this?
Fighter: "I want to be a paladin."
NPC: "Really?"
Fighter: "Yes."
NPC: "Very well." Starts reading from a holy book while still in-character "Do you accept having to choose and stick to the lawful good alignment, eventhough neither of us actually knows that it exists or what it is?"
Fighter: "I do."
NPC: "Do you reject good game balance because you accidentally rolled a high Charisma?"
Fighter: "What?"
NPC: "I don't know what it means either."
Fighter: "Oh. Umm, ok I do."
NPC: "In the name of all that is metagamey and broken, accept these better game enhancing mechanics."
Fighter: "These what?"
NPC: "Just get out there and try to fulfill a million different people's notion of good while not violating and part of any of them."
So the system is designed such that every single hit needs to be described to avoid confusion? Here's a scenario. The players are nudists, everybody in the world are nudists, it's not weird, it's totally normal in this land. They are naked and they fight drakes taking damage throughout, but healing up with surges. Later they meet the guy who raised the drakes.
Part 1: I didn't describe any of the hits. What does he see?
Part 2: Lets say I described the drakes as biting the players, yet they healed up. What does he see?
D20 Modern Toon PC Race.
Mecha Pilot's Skill Challenge Emporium.
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3 months ago ::
Feb 21, 2013 - 8:13PM
#102
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This kind of dovetails with the system mastery question from the last q&a - IMO a "balanced" group should have some advantage in power/efficiency, but the system shouldn't be so slanted that a non-standard group is tough to design encounters for.
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3 months ago ::
Feb 21, 2013 - 8:27PM
#103
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Date Joined:
Jan 15, 2009
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This kind of dovetails with the system mastery question from the last q&a - IMO a "balanced" group should have some advantage in power/efficiency, but the system shouldn't be so slanted that a non-standard group is tough to design encounters for.
I will just feel happy if a healer doesnt feel obligatory..
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3 months ago ::
Feb 22, 2013 - 7:10AM
#104
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Date Joined:
Jun 22, 2008
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The closest analogy would be to have your campaign spend two-thirds of its time in a null magic zone and wondering why your wizard is unhappy.
Carl
I had a party spend 3 days in a null magic zone. All of them felt powerless and had to become extremely creative to solve the problems they faced. Roleplaying won out and they all had a great time.
It didn't take long before they were all quite ready for the next null magic area.
Success in roleplaying requires the right mindset. If your success depends on outshining other people with fancy stats, you missed the point.
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3 months ago ::
Feb 22, 2013 - 9:03AM
#105
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Date Joined:
Aug 18, 2007
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The closest analogy would be to have your campaign spend two-thirds of its time in a null magic zone and wondering why your wizard is unhappy.
Carl
I had a party spend 3 days in a null magic zone. All of them felt powerless and had to become extremely creative to solve the problems they faced. Roleplaying won out and they all had a great time.
It didn't take long before they were all quite ready for the next null magic area.
Success in roleplaying requires the right mindset. If your success depends on outshining other people with fancy stats, you missed the point.
That was the fun of Myth Drannor, there were entire magic less dungeons!
CAMRA preserves and protects real ale from the homogenization of modern beer production.
D&D Grognards are the CAMRA of D&D!
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3 months ago ::
Feb 22, 2013 - 11:16AM
#106
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Disagreed. Combat is roleplaying. Those four roles were artificially created. Anyone with actions can contribute to a fight in some way. Anyone who can cause damage can kill. Those four roles are not required.
damage is only usefull if it decreses the rounds a creature is in the fight. if a creature has 100hp, and a non-striker does 10 damage on hit, and a striker does 60 damage the non-striker is doing no good, the creature will die when the striker hits the target twice not before.
that is why damage below a certain amount is not worthwhile on most creatures, damage is worthless until the target is dead untill dead nothing was accomlished. so unless you decrease the rounds the creature has before he is down you did nothing whatsoever.
nor is it good for the game for PC A to want to focus on damage and do 10-20 damage while PC B is doing 30-40 while also doing other things.
EDIT: the 4 roles are not artificially construts, they are basic tatics, they WILL be done its just that if 5e acknowledges it they will be done well rather then have every class do nothing well (have no role) or do too many things well (doing 2 roles well at once)
Insulting someones grammar on a forum is like losing to someone in a drag race and saying they were cheating by having racing stripes.
Not only do the two things not relate to each other (the logic behind the person's position, and their grammar) but you sound like an idiot for saying it (and you should, because its really stupid )
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3 months ago ::
Feb 22, 2013 - 11:28AM
#107
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Date Joined:
May 27, 2012
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damage is only usefull if it decreses the rounds a creature is in the fight. if a creature has 100hp, and a non-striker does 10 damage on hit, and a striker does 60 damage the non-striker is doing no good, the creature will die when the striker hits the target twice not before.
Ah yes, the Quidditch rule - the Snitch ruins everything.
Personally, as a systems designer, I prefer to solve that problem by reducing the benefit of specialization. If our design-base enemy has 100hp, then a focused striker-type can deal 35 damage and the generalist can deal 25; the striker still kills things faster (in three rounds, compared to the four it takes for the generalist), but it remains a valid strategy for both to attack sometimes (depending on what else is going on).
The metagame is not the game.
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3 months ago ::
Feb 22, 2013 - 11:31AM
#108
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damage is only usefull if it decreses the rounds a creature is in the fight. if a creature has 100hp, and a non-striker does 10 damage on hit, and a striker does 60 damage the non-striker is doing no good, the creature will die when the striker hits the target twice not before.
Ah yes, the Quidditch rule - the Snitch ruins everything.
Personally, as a systems designer, I prefer to solve that problem by reducing the benefit of specialization. If our design-base enemy has 100hp, then a focused striker-type can deal 35 damage and the generalist can deal 25; the striker still kills things faster (in three rounds, compared to the four it takes for the generalist), but it remains a valid strategy for both to attack sometimes (depending on what else is going on).
in general I agree, there needs to be careful monitoering of how much damage is done by strikers and non stikers. as well as giving non strikers other things on hit, status effects healing ect.
but in order to do this the Dev's need to keep a carefull eye on the math, something they dont seam to be doing.
Insulting someones grammar on a forum is like losing to someone in a drag race and saying they were cheating by having racing stripes.
Not only do the two things not relate to each other (the logic behind the person's position, and their grammar) but you sound like an idiot for saying it (and you should, because its really stupid )
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3 months ago ::
Feb 22, 2013 - 12:05PM
#109
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Date Joined:
Jun 22, 2008
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Disagreed. Combat is roleplaying. Those four roles were artificially created. Anyone with actions can contribute to a fight in some way. Anyone who can cause damage can kill. Those four roles are not required.
damage is only usefull if it decreses the rounds a creature is in the fight. if a creature has 100hp, and a non-striker does 10 damage on hit, and a striker does 60 damage the non-striker is doing no good, the creature will die when the striker hits the target twice not before.
that is why damage below a certain amount is not worthwhile on most creatures, damage is worthless until the target is dead untill dead nothing was accomlished. so unless you decrease the rounds the creature has before he is down you did nothing whatsoever.
nor is it good for the game for PC A to want to focus on damage and do 10-20 damage while PC B is doing 30-40 while also doing other things.
EDIT: the 4 roles are not artificially construts, they are basic tatics, they WILL be done its just that if 5e acknowledges it they will be done well rather then have every class do nothing well (have no role) or do too many things well (doing 2 roles well at once)
Even in your blatantly lopsided scenario, if you have 1 striker and 4 non-strikers, you can kill a creature in a round.
Let's also say that the 4 non-strikers are also non-controllers, non-leaders, and non-defenders.
One is a pure sneak. He sneaks around and gathers intelligence and occasionally completes goals while completely avoiding combat.
Another is a purely utility wizard. He teleports the group, opens portals, locates and identifies magic items, creatures, pathways, etc.
Another is a pure social character. He convinces friends and enemies to assist the party.
Another is a skills expert. He maxes out on sklls and provides these as needed.
In most cases, the party roleplays to avoid combat but when needed the striker carries the load with the other 4 contributing minor damage to finish off the enemy.
It does not need to be assumed that every person needs to be a leader, striker, controller, or defender. Roleplaying can fill a much broader selection of ideas. I only presented a few. If you limit yourself to 4 roles, you have limited the scope of your imagination.
These 4 roles certainly aren't essential. Any one can be missing. Sometimes a character doesn't fit in any of them exactly. Are they useless now?
If a player imagines a character concept that would be fun and exciting for him/her to roleplay, what does it matter how it contributes in your combat tactics exercise. Maybe they don't want their adventure to be an exercise in combat tactics. They just want to roleplay a story with an interesting plot and fun interplay between PCs and NPCs. Combat tactics might be low on their list in importance to having fun.
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3 months ago ::
Feb 22, 2013 - 12:18PM
#110
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Date Joined:
May 27, 2012
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If a player imagines a character concept that would be fun and exciting for him/her to roleplay, what does it matter how it contributes in your combat tactics exercise?
From a game design standpoint, it really helps if you can make certain assumptions about how the game will be played, and one of those assumptions (for D&D, at least) has always been that combat will come up, though its prevalence will vary from table to table.
Still, it's one thing that the designers know (or at least, they can safely assume, even if that assumption turns out incorrect for some groups), which means they can design the game to take that assumption into account. One of the other traditional assumptions is that sometimes you want one character to shine, and sometimes you want everyone to shine together. Since they have so few assumptions to work with, it is efficient for them to decide that combat is the place where everyone shines together, and then the various non-combat aspects can each be places where individuals shine.
Thus, it makes sense from a design standpoint to guarantee that everyone can contribute in combat; if they leave open an option to not contribute in combat, then they need to label that clearly so that you know what you're getting yourself into. Granted, pegging everyone into a specified combat role is not strictly necessary, as long as everyone has something to do in combat.
The metagame is not the game.
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