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Enola Gay-For-Pay posted:Is there anything that could be done with the fighter to improve their narrative strength without implementing Battlemaster maneuvers or something similar? I like the idea of a simple class without huge ability or spell lists to sort through that would be a bit easier on new players who didn't want to dive into that kind of thing. I was thinking of picking out and modifying some of the Battlemaster abilities and giving them out at set levels, and in particular adding a couple of Hercules style "You can do impossible things" moves at mid-higher levels. Narrative strength doesn't seem to come from the combat pillar, IMO. Killing guys by doing damage is as easy for them as everyone else, as long as they can get to the correct range to use their attacks and status/control effects don't shut them down. A big weakness of martials is reliance on the physical attributes, so Int/Wis/Cha end up being dump stats, on top of their only average skill picks. The Str-based skills don't carry much narrative weight, they're much more "save resources by making this check", on top of that. Dex skills can have some weight and spotlight time. But it's the mental skills that really shine in most cases. So MAD is a problem, and not having enough skill picks to offset the lack of spellcasting is a problem. If you made Barbarian, Rogue, Paladin, Ranger, and Monk into gestalt Fighters, they still wouldn't really be overpowered. And gave them all the Rogue's extra skill picks. And gave them some Legendary Resistance (like boss monsters have). Give them advantage on passive checks (i.e. +5). Give them two background features. Just make them more protagonist-y without actually increasing their damage output, and the spotlight time will shift.
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Dec 26, 2018 23:35
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Whenever the Fighter makes an attack, they always hit and deal damage. Whenever their attack roll is high enough for a hit, they hit again and deal damage. if you want, replace "the Fighter" with "any martial class"
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Dec 27, 2018 01:14
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Are Warlocks martials?
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Dec 27, 2018 01:38
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More. Dudes. It's like casting a magic spell. The material component is a bunch of soldiers, the somatic component is pointing, and the verbal component is "Guards! Seize them!" or later on, "Captain Timms, if anyone tries to escape, burn the whole place to the ground". As a 9th level Martial Maneuver, you can just say the local equivalent of "Carthago delenda est" and yeah.
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Dec 27, 2018 01:54
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Nehru the Damaja posted:Yeah, I feel like there's a pretty universal agreement among DMs though to the effect of "gently caress it, you get a Haversack or a Bag of Holding. I don't want to have to track this poo poo." And for some reason, this doesn't hurt Muscles Malone's feelings the way removing traps makes your Resident Thieves Tools Expert feel unwanted. I know this discussion is already over, but traps should be narrative set pieces rather than gotchas. The fun comes from the party discussing what they are going to do about them. For example, in a dungeon i made that was based on the four elements, each element had a corridor to the section that was based on that element that had a trap. For the earth one, the door slammed closed and the room started filling with sand. I left a rod in the room that the players were meant to use as a lever arm, but they didn't think to use it. Instead after trying to push it open one of them said maybe they should try pulling and i let that work because it was funny. Next they did the fire path which was covered in coals. It wasn't really a trap because i hadn't thought it through but they were immediately suspicious of it and ended up using a bag of holding to transport all the sand from the earth room to cover the coals. They felt smart even though there wasn't a trap. They ended up fighting a fire elemental in that wing which left a permanent wall of fire everywhere he moved because of the coals in the room though. For the wind wing there was a pit they had to get across, but the real trap was the poison gas coming from the mouths of the statues i described either side of the pit. After asking for constitution rolls for seemingly no reason a couple of times they figured it out and blocked the mouths. For the water one i described the paths as winding like a river with spikes on the walls and blue mosaic on the ground to make it look water like. When they got to the end they opened the door and water gushed out and they got swept down into the spikes at the first bend and took damage. They were mad at themselves for not figuring it out before activating it. Traps are another thing in DnD where the part that actually utilises the rules in the books isn't actually any fun, the fun part is the time your party spends deciding what to do with the information they have. You can have "fake traps" which don't really have a solution because your players don't know that and still have the fun experience of discussing what to do to get past it. Just don't let them know that you're doing that, or at least mix them in with real traps so they don't know which are which else the illusion drops. CJ fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Dec 27, 2018 |
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Dec 27, 2018 02:18
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CJ posted:I know this discussion is already over, but traps should be narrative set pieces rather than gotchas. The fun comes from the party discussing what they are going to do about them. My concept is that traps should be like minefields - they're easy to spot, and easy to go around, but going around them means you're being channeled in a direction that The Enemy wants you to go down, and while it's possible to disarm it, it costs a lot of effort. So it's like, traps shouldn't be difficult to detect/spot at all, but they're always in the way of something you want, whether it's more treasure, or a shortcut past some difficult fights, or a new wing of the dungeon altogether. If you try to disarm it and you fail, you don't set it off, but it also means the trap is still there, and you have no choice but to either "tank" the effect or not go down that way.
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Dec 27, 2018 02:28
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gradenko_2000 posted:If you try to disarm it and you fail, you don't set it off, but it also means the trap is still there, and you have no choice but to either "tank" the effect or not go down that way. I think this is largely how it already works. Failing does not set the trap off, failing badly sets the trap off.
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Dec 27, 2018 02:55
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gradenko_2000 posted:My concept is that traps should be like minefields - they're easy to spot, and easy to go around, but going around them means you're being channeled in a direction that The Enemy wants you to go down, and while it's possible to disarm it, it costs a lot of effort. Eh, why are mine fields easy to spot? Because the first guy gets blown up or..? Also to the posters saying that the solution to make Martials more relevant.. the answer is to add more dudes. Ehhh. I'm personally not trying to role play a company of fighters. I also don't think the average fighter - the guy who sticks the sword in and twists it, spilling guts out onto the floor - is super relateable. I agree that the fighter needs to have more poo poo than *swing sword, does damage* but I don't know if these are the way. I like the herculean approach where you can do some superhero type poo poo. I also like the reputation you have as a bad rear end helping to influence social situations. Just my 2c.
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Dec 27, 2018 03:03
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This all mostly goes back to ability scores being a flawed mechanic. They will never not be a flawed mechanic no matter how many iterations of D&D we go through.
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Dec 27, 2018 03:10
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Ceros_X posted:Eh, why are mine fields easy to spot? Because the first guy gets blown up or..? think about it: even if you knew that the minefield was there, you either don't go there (and go to the place that the enemy wants you to go), or you spend the time trying to clear it out, which is slow enough to leave you exposed to fire at worst, or let's the enemy know you're going through it at best individual mines are hidden, but the fields themselves don't need to be, because the knowledge that they're there is what makes them work
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Dec 27, 2018 03:11
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Ceros_X posted:Eh, why are mine fields easy to spot? Because the first guy gets blown up or..? Minefields are usually area denial. They work best if the field (not each individual mine!) is obvious. And yeah by all means have a supernaturally or extranormally tough and cool Fighter. Absoutely do that. They can end up at demi-god level and be awesome. A bunch of people will object because (while dragons and wizards and elves get a free pass on being realistic) a guy with a sword can only ever do exactly what they imagine a guy with a sword could actually do in real life for real or they just can't enjoy themselves at all. Lots of dudes gets around that and it's not a new thing. MonsterEnvy posted:I think this is largely how it already works. Failing does not set the trap off, failing badly sets the trap off. It'd be great if that were the case. But there's nothing in the DMG or PHB that I can find that supports "Failing does not set the trap off, failing badly sets the trap off". There's no rule in the section about traps that states or implies this. Of the 8 sample traps in the DMG, 2 of them are magical and don't get a check to disarm them and 3 of the mechanical ones require no check to disarm, you can just kinda do it if you know the trap's there. Of the remaining 3 that can be disarmed by making a check, all of them say that a failed check triggers the trap and mention absolutely nothing about failing without setting the trap off. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 03:52 on Dec 27, 2018 |
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Dec 27, 2018 03:35
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I think that an old-fashioned attitude to traps can work well if it's strongly implied that it's a dangerous area rife with them and/or the DM introduces them gradually to put the PCs on their guard. Example: Years and years ago in a 2nd edition game that lasted years, we did a long FR campaign where we the players were in the vanguard to reclaim the lost city of Myth Drannor/Cormanthor. Interestingly, there eventually was a cannon FR arc where an elven army did reclaim the city, but I digress. For those of you not familiar with it, MD/C was a great elven city that was the first of its kind to "integrate" and allow in other races, but eventually fell and whose ruins were overrun by devils, demons and other nasty things. We had the 2nd edition boxed set and there was a passage, which I saw after the campaign ended, in it which flat-out said "If your players are here, pull no punches. Random encounters are frequent and, if you roll one, don't skip it if the PCs are knackered. This city is overrun with endless enemies who will not stop, period." This, for us, was a grim, balls-to-the-wall slog where every resource was precious, time was tracked very tightly and we were vastly outnumbered with no real means to escape. Needless to say, the campaign (or story arc, if you prefer) was very combat-heavy for a group that tended to play balanced games that weren't bloodbaths and were used to having limited but meaningful battles; this was the opposite. We were constantly swarmed by disposable but effectively infinite devils, many of whom were casters, and every minute, hit point, spell and consumable was precious and accounted for. It was a total departure from what we were used to: constant fighting against nameless but cruel enemies, an eternally tense atmosphere where every die roll had us holding our breath and no rest while on enemy soil. We found tons of loot, but we had to burn through almost every charge, potion and scroll trying to stay alive. In addition, there were a lot of traps, many of which were magical, and not only did they hurt us but dealing with them was like classic D&D where taking the time to disarm or dispel a trap meant that enemies were closing in on us. To reinforce the idea of oodles of traps and create time-related tension, the DM had us stumble into a few minor but increasingly deadly traps very early. We weren't prepared for that and it taught us that we had to keep in mind for obvious enemies as well as hidden ones. Just as an example, at the very start we had someone step on a hidden polearm in high grass that popped up like a rake hitting Sideshow Bob, except it had an axe head on it. The character was a fighter with oodles of HP and only took six damage or so, and at first we thought that it was meant as comic relief; we were wrong. A bit later, the rogue picks an easy lock on a tower door, opens it and finds that the keystones in the door arch were rigged to fall and he takes 11, maybe 14 damage; not trivial, but not lethal. We start to be more attentive until, later after numerous draining fights, one of the casters sets off a magical rune trap while searching a dusty room and takes 20-some damage, which is serious for a low-hp character. Now we start getting paranoid about traps and being more deliberate, but that came back to haunt us also. We get into a big open-air fight with a bunch of devils and kill most of them. The few remaining devils flee but we are seriously beat up and we retreat towards a ruin. As much as we want to run, we're now scared about traps and have our casters and thieves looking for traps on and around the entryways, which takes time. We get inside and find a stair going underground that we want to take to avoid flying devils, but we're still trap-shy and spend time looking for any traps. Meanwhile, the escaped devils have gone of and found friends and come back after us because we haven't fled underground yet. I realise that this is a very old-school approach to D&D as well as a verbose explanation, but I think that it was a good example of an adventure with tons of traps that works because our fears ramped up realistically and we understood the stakes. I maintain that it's good campaign design for those reasons. That said, I absolutely agree that it would be phenomenally churlish and the DM or writer would be a right dickhead to have an adventure that's focused on direct combat or exploration or NPC interaction and then suddenly say to a character "Save fortitude DC ##... you failed? You die because someone put a Finger of Death trap on a random doorknob - should have been more careful and checked for traps!"
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Dec 27, 2018 03:49
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AlphaDog posted:Minefields are usually area denial. They work best if the field (not each individual mine!) is obvious. The fighter that's so good that he kills the greatest warrior of a nation in a single stroke (a la Achilles at the beginning of Troy) is cool. "Any creature the Fighter hits and damages with HP less than the Fighter's current HP must make a Con save DC X or have its HP reduced to 0." Maybe it needs to be half for balance reasons, but bypassing HP abstraction is something casters get to do, giving it to martials is good too.
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Dec 27, 2018 04:38
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You really can't win with Fighters. Fighters started out as the class that you had to take if you didn't roll high enough to be a paladin or a ranger, classes that were basically Fighter++. Sure, they got a bunch of stuff to kill dudes harder, but even if we rolled a bunch of maneuvers out a la spells that fighters could take to kill things (Tome of Battle, 4e) there's still the problem that you need something for the class to do out of combat. Now, you can point to various mythological heroes like Beowulf, Achilles, and Gilgamesh, but those guys aren't really D&D fighters because those guys are kings and lords with education and political powers (also divine blood in some cases as well). You either need to: -Drop the fighter, replace it with a Lord class, and give him a bunch of abilities around being rich and inspiring people in addition to his combat abilities (the result of long, arduous training). These guys all have swords and plate armor anyway, those aren't cheap and the sword is a badge of office as well as a weapon. -Say gently caress it and give the fighter magic abilities as he levels up. This will piss off the people who want to be like, totally mundane all the time and don't want to use nerdy magic garbage. -Similarly to 2, tell people they're not allowed to just be fighters after level 5 or so and make them become Death Knights or Demigods. People get very angry when this is suggested. -Kill the rogue class and give his stuff to the fighter. Tell people if they want to be a knight that they can just not take stealth skills and put it in heraldry and diplomacy instead. There is no possible way to balance "a man with a sword and no other useful skills" against "a man who can stop time". There just isn't. That character concept is not going to be useful at all when the opposition consists of flying dragons who can strafe you with fire breath. The fighter needs to be given some kind of usefulness outside of this (archery skills, actual non-combat usefulness).
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Dec 27, 2018 05:59
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Personally I don't really mind Fighters having a rather narrow niche of "is really good at killing poo poo" as long as the game is largely about killing poo poo, though I also acknowledge that lots of people don't engage with D&D in that way.
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Dec 27, 2018 06:05
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:There is no possible way to balance "a man with a sword and no other useful skills" against "a man who can stop time". There just isn't. That character concept is not going to be useful at all when the opposition consists of flying dragons who can strafe you with fire breath. The fighter needs to be given some kind of usefulness outside of this (archery skills, actual non-combat usefulness). Yes, there is. You just give him per-day abilities as powerful as spells are. They don't have to be as weird or variegated as spells are - they just have to be as potent. All these ideas for fighters as, basically, a pet class would make for a perfectly okay archetype or build or whatever you want to call it, but that shouldn't be what all fighters do because if I play one all the way through I want to end up as good with a sword as a level 20 wizard is with a wand.
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Dec 27, 2018 07:16
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Ferrinus posted:Yes, there is. You just give him per-day abilities as powerful as spells are. They don't have to be as weird or variegated as spells are - they just have to be as potent. Although I agree in theory I'm having trouble imagining what the sword guy is doing that's as powerful as (eg) Meteor Swarm without being weird. I can see abilities that let a martial themed character wreak that much havoc that quickly, for sure. I can't see them falling into "one guy with a sword does it and it doesn't count as weird" territory.
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Dec 27, 2018 07:44
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AlphaDog posted:Although I agree in theory I'm having trouble imagining what the sword guy is doing that's as powerful as (eg) Meteor Swarm without being weird. Well, Foresight, Invulnerability, Meteor Swarm (this would deal weapon rather than fire damage and involve you zooming into or shooting at an area like a Dynasty Warriors character), Power Word Kill, Psychic Scream ("killed" targets surrender rather than explode), Time Stop, and Weird could all just be 9th level fighter/rogue/whatever exploits with minimal to no changes.
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Dec 27, 2018 07:50
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Ferrinus posted:Meteor Swarm (this would deal weapon rather than fire damage and involve you zooming into or shooting at an area like a Dynasty Warriors character) You mean like:  or 
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Dec 27, 2018 07:58
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Ferrinus posted:Meteor Swarm (this would deal weapon rather than fire damage and involve you zooming into or shooting at an area like a Dynasty Warriors character), Yeah that would be cool and fun and I would like something like that to be in the game. But we have very different ideas about what's weird for one sword guy to accomplish in 6 seconds. To me that's superhero type stuff, which I think is totally fine when another option is "wizard", but not what I had in mind when you were saying "not weird". Guess I misread what you meant by that. E: we're on the same page I think? What you're describing could co-exist with the guy who brings a small army. I definitely agree on the "just as powerful and useful" thing. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 08:04 on Dec 27, 2018 |
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Dec 27, 2018 07:59
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Toshimo posted:You mean like: Yes, but, obviously, for 40d6 damage. AlphaDog posted:Yeah that would be cool and fun and I would like something like that to be in the game. That's definitely one you'd be most likely to season to taste, like if you do it with a melee weapon the range shrinks dramatically but the damage spikes or or the enemy's debuffed or something.
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Dec 27, 2018 08:05
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AlphaDog posted:Although I agree in theory I'm having trouble imagining what the sword guy is doing that's as powerful as (eg) Meteor Swarm without being weird. But people will start talking about Weeaboo Fightan Magic. Toplowtech fucked around with this message at 08:08 on Dec 27, 2018 |
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Dec 27, 2018 08:06
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Toplowtech posted:Just give the fighter a STAND and your "meteor swarm" is just a ORA-ORA-ORA rush. What do these things mean
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Dec 27, 2018 08:07
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Glory to Italia!
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ILL Machina posted:What do these things mean https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzHE5q1NGa4
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Dec 27, 2018 08:10
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Toplowtech posted:Just give the fighter a STAND and your "meteor swarm" is just a ORA-ORA-ORA rush. Also stop time and other bullshit powers. That's why you just let fighters, themselves, do those things, because at high levels fighters are very strong and fast. Although, of course, such mighty exploits are taxing on the physical and mental reserves and can't be executed at will.
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Dec 27, 2018 08:11
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The Fighter waltzes through the area of a Meteor Swarm attacking each enemy in the area a number of times as they do to get comparable damage as a Meteor Swarm over a similar area?TheGreatEvilKing posted:Now, you can point to various mythological heroes like Beowulf, Achilles, and Gilgamesh, but those guys aren't really D&D fighters because those guys are kings and lords with education and political powers (also divine blood in some cases as well). You either need to: Why are those heroes not D&D Fighters? If you say it is because of divine blood, or other gifts beyond the norm. Then what about Wizards and other magic users? In the same stories where these legendary warriors come from pretty much all serious spellcasters have divine/demonic blood or some other gift that sets them above the norm. And D&D doesn't have any trouble giving spellcasters these abilities beyond the norm. Heck D&D Wizards put most magic users from myth, legend, and the suggested reading list to outright shame. Gandalf was basically an angel, and had low level Druidic magic at best. Merlin generally didn't pull off the kind of stuff D&D Wizards can do, and he was part demon and possibly aged backwards. The problem is there is a double standard where Magic Users get to do the things legendary spellcasters could do, and so much more, and Martial characters get to be maybe a little better than the average soldier of an earlier time period. And probably not even that. Multiple versions of D&D have nonmagical characters with the highest possible stat incapable of performing tasks that real people in the real world can do.
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Dec 27, 2018 08:11
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Ryuujin posted:The problem is there is a double standard where Magic Users get to do the things legendary spellcasters could do, and so much more, and Martial characters get to be maybe a little better than the average soldier of an earlier time period. And probably not even that. Multiple versions of D&D have nonmagical characters with the highest possible stat incapable of performing tasks that real people in the real world can do. *It's what i mean by this, if you are asking.
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Dec 27, 2018 08:36
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In a universe of wizards and divine powers and the like I dont think its hard to simply attribute a fighter's abilties to things like "luck, aka plot armour" and just being "superhuman through training/super reflexes". Also allows you to work more non combat abilities in as well. Pulling something out of my rear end.. if you want information from an NPC then the NPC just cant help themselves but reveal criticial information ala a James Bond villain. Or something like that.. hell you could create an entire "Jack Burton" subclass that relies on just pure luck, irritating your enemy and some muscles.
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Dec 27, 2018 09:10
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gradenko_2000 posted:Personally I don't really mind Fighters having a rather narrow niche of "is really good at killing poo poo" as long as the game is largely about killing poo poo, though I also acknowledge that lots of people don't engage with D&D in that way. This could work if you got rid of Barbarian, Paladin, Rogue and Ranger.
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Dec 27, 2018 10:02
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Personally I would fix the Fighter by giving them the same boost casters got when spell selection on a level up became a thing. Let Fighters select from an Archetype specific list of equipment as they level up. Include DM notes on making the Fighters Fantasy Q an organic part of the story. Give them archetypes like Relic Bearer and Commander. Relic Bearers choose an armor or weapon at different tiers, resulting in a spectrum between Godslayer Sword with Scrub Armor at one end and Technically magical sword but with Meteor Survival Armor at the other at high level. Out of combat they're skilled at communing with spirits and gods because they're used to speaking to the magical presences inside their equipment Commanders are skilled warriors and efficient leaders. In combat they gain access to a series of Soldiers who all have different specializations. Standard Bearers grant temp HP to an ally when you hit. Shield Sisters give their assigned party member a bonus to AC. Out of combat they're considered to have things like a Bag of Holding, The Mending Cantrip, and Sending as you accrue enough soldiers and servants to act as messengers, porters, etc.
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Dec 27, 2018 13:03
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So, basically, design good, interesting fighters. It seems so simple and yet
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Dec 27, 2018 13:12
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Give fighters an ability called Rallying Cry. I don't know what it would do but it should be called that.
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Dec 27, 2018 13:28
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You really have to examine how you want martials to interact with the game, and imagine them succeeding instantly at everything and balancing that against casters. (Unless you care about balance with monsters like I do in which case this won't work) For example, if a martial rolled a 20 and maximum damage dice every single hit and passed every single save, would he be overpowered compared to the rest of the party? Go from there I still believe that the real issue is the game becoming turn based was the real issue, because one of the major options fighters had was tactical movement and that was stripped away to make the game easier to run. That's why I think that having the abilities like mobile flourish or the skirmish thing apply to all martials would be an excellent buff without needing to completely rethink how 5e operates
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Dec 27, 2018 15:30
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Since Fighter chat seems to keep going https://twitter.com/ilovechrissia/status/1043013265519865861
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Dec 27, 2018 17:16
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thespaceinvader posted:So, basically, design good, interesting fighters. Yeah but specifically addressing the fact that Wizard Loot became free on level up for all casters while Martials expecting to run into a cool sword or gadget ever is "player entitlement"
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Dec 27, 2018 17:50
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Toshimo posted:You mean like: Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the Eldritch Knight gets these spells and that's dumb as hell.
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Dec 27, 2018 18:00
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Epi Lepi posted:Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the Eldritch Knight gets these spells and that's dumb as hell. Correct. They are 5th level spells and EK only gets level 4.
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Dec 27, 2018 18:04
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Steel Wind Strike is pretty terrible, though. Conjure Volley is a Ranger exclusive (that can be poached by 10th level Bards).
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Dec 27, 2018 18:05
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Epi Lepi posted:Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the Eldritch Knight gets these spells and that's dumb as hell. Air Cutting sword (+2 to hit, +2 damage, 1d8 slashing damage, 11 charges, regain 1d6 every dawn): 1 charge for the Burst cantrip 3 charge for some ranged slashing damage (3d8) on multiple enemies (3?) 7 charge for Steel Wind Strike Okay, it may need some balance for the damage.
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Dec 27, 2018 18:09
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"you flourish the weapon used in the casting" can be used as a preface for any spell effect that you want a martial class to be able to use unless of course the Fighter is casting Tektekbooken as a 9th level maneuver
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Dec 27, 2018 18:12
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